 Jacob M. Appel, a leading American bioethicist, questioned "if women are safe in Catholic hospitals" following Olmsted's announcement.Appel wrote that, "Like many Catholic hospitals, St. Joseph's has long had two conflicting policies regarding maternal-fetal conflict on its books.One directive states that abortion is never permitted, even to save the life of the mother, while the other notes that "operations, treatments and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted...even if they will result in the death of the unborn child...Until this recent incident, pregnant women could safely assume that Catholic hospitals would follow both the law and widespread standards of medical ethics in allowing the second directive to trump the first.