As a health care provider working in a very active OB department in a Los Angeles County hospital, I received a CODE BLUE page on my call beeper. I rushed to the delivery room to find medical personnel performing CPR on a young woman which we were not able to save. She died there on the delivery room table.
The reason for her early departure from this Earth was later found to be Cardiomyopathy In other words, the muscles of her heart were too weak to pump blood after a lengthy labor and immediately after the baby was born, her heart stopped pumping blood and she went into cardiac failure.
Had she been able to survive this episode of cardiac failure with less congestive heart failure, her OB doctors would have wanted to provide for her a sterilization procedure so that she would be able to live a longer life to take care of her child. This young woman was not in a state of health that she would have survived another pregnancy. And at some time in the future, she would have needed a heart transplant.
Would a Catholic hospital allow for such a sterilization procedure to save this woman in the future? Would a Mormon leader who once told a woman with a dangerous blood clot in her abdomen to forego an abortion to save her life counseled this woman with myopathy to have an abortion to save her life?
It is apparent from this anecdote about a particular woman's medical condition that she needed contraceptives and/or sterilization. And it is also apparent that religion and a woman's health care needs do not mix.
Not to mention the abuse and poverty that women around the world suffer due to lack of necessary contraception to provide a better quality of life. The Catholic church's stance on reproductive health is long overdue for a change on this core belief. It is too cruel and it punishes instead of helping these women.
In a more frivolous theme, Viagra et al is paid for by insurers and indeed is necessary for a man's sex life. However, are all these men married? Rick Santorum and the church should look into this. Are these men intending to procreate with this drug? If not, perhaps they should be denied this access to pleasure for themselves and their partners. On the other hand, women would be denied pleasure if not having sex for procreation alone. This is a double standard that should not stand. I would like to see
Issa have a congressional hearing on Viagra to discuss this double standard.
I have had enough of the religious right and the Catholic church on their cruel and unfair stance on contraceptives. In the extreme, death and suffering occur due to their beliefs and joy disappears.