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Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comments from Maureen Richmond, a BSMH spokesperson.

A Catholic medical system with hospitals in several states will support physicians who perform abortions in exigent circumstances, a report from WFMJ claims.

Bon Secours Mercy Health is a nonprofit Catholic medical system based in Cincinnati, Ohio, with facilities in Ohio, Virginia, South Carolina, and Kentucky. On its website, BSMH claims “to uphold the sacredness of life” as one of its key values regarding human dignity.

A ‘child may never be killed on the pretext of saving the mother’s life.’

Despite this profession, BSMH will not sanction physicians who perform abortions that, in WFMJ’s phrasing, “are medically necessary to save the life of a mother.” A nebulous statement from Mercy Health seems to confirm that reporting:

Our health system, like many other national health systems, spans multiple states and adheres to the applicable laws in each where we operate. While the legislative environment is complex, our Mission compels us to provide compassionate care for all. In emergent patient care situations, when providers and medical teams prioritize patient care and follow hospital policies and medical standards of care in good faith, they can expect the support of Bon Secours Mercy Health [emphasis added]. We adhere to EMTALA requirements and support physician compliance with EMTALA. We also thank our clinicians and medical teams for their ongoing commitment to excellent and compassionate patient care.

A spokesperson likewise told WFMJ that Mercy Health “has supported our clinicians’ sound medical judgment and decision making since our inception.” Becker’s Hospital Review claimed that BSMH has never performed an “elective abortion” and will never do so in the future.

However, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does not recognize any sort of “medically necessary” exception to the church’s abortion ban. Instead, it describes “direct abortion,” or any abortion “willed either as an ends or a means,” as “gravely contrary to moral law” and “a moral evil.” Those who participate in procuring an abortion are excommunicated.

A “child may never be killed on the pretext of saving the mother’s life,” Rev. E. M. Robinson, O. P., wrote more than 30 years ago in an EWTN article about the topic.

CatholicVote claimed that, in providing abortions in some cases, BSMH is “betray[ing] Catholic principles.” It also reiterated that abortion “is never morally permissible” under Catholic teaching.

Maureen Richmond, vice president of external communications at Mercy Health, clarified to Blaze News that BSMH permits only “indirect abortions” that unfortunately occur as the result of “operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman.” Richmond emphasized that Mercy Health does “not and will not perform direct or elective abortions.”

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