A choice between your survival, and your unborn child's

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Matthew_J

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Consider the following situation:

A married woman in her third pregnancy has had two children die at birth. She is told that the only way for the pregnancy to have a chance of success for this pregnancy involves a process in which she would have an extremely low chance of survival. On top of this, the chances of survival for the child are only approximately 50%. I happen to know of such a case, and whilst I do not know or understand the details, it is a very real situation.

What should she do? And what would be the Catholic standpoint of such a situation?

I imagine most people (and assume that it is the Catholic standpoint) would say that they would do everything they could to maximise the chances of survival of their child. I originally thought so too. But it is all very well to say this outside of such a situation.

Added to my moral dilemma is the complication that my own existence is completely dependent on my mother’s choice *not *to go through with her previous pregnancy; the circumstances of which I have described.
 
Try searching the forums. This has been discussed over and over. You will get lots of information on the Church’s teaching as well as opinons from Catholics and non-Catholics. One click shopping. 😉
 
Matthew_J said:
Consider the following situation:

A married woman in her third pregnancy has had two children die at birth. She is told that the only way for the pregnancy to have a chance of success for this pregnancy involves a process in which she would have an extremely low chance of survival. On top of this, the chances of survival for the child are only approximately 50%. I happen to know of such a case, and whilst I do not know or understand the details, it is a very real situation.

What should she do? And what would be the Catholic standpoint of such a situation?

I imagine most people (and assume that it is the Catholic standpoint) would say that they would do everything they could to maximise the chances of survival of their child. I originally thought so too. But it is all very well to say this outside of such a situation.

Added to my moral dilemma is the complication that my own existence is completely dependent on my mother’s choice *not *to go through with her previous pregnancy; the circumstances of which I have described.
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The moral answer is to do the best for both mother & child. That’s the Catholic position. The Church doesn’t advocate one over the other in the mother/child situation. The Church wants both to survive and be treated equally.

My personal choice would be to seek out as many medical opinions as I could to find alternative routes for treating whatever condition is in place. My first choice would be to speak to the Pope Paul VI Institute about the issue & see if they’d had any success in dealing w/ a similar situation. In this day & age it should be very rare to literally have to choose between one or the other. Even if that’s the way it seems in times of an emergency, there are frequently other routes that just aren’t as commonly known that could be followed. That being said, sometimes that’s not available & the best route is to make sure both mother & child are equally cared for and neither is directly killed by a procedure to save the other. Again, that doesn’t always happen & some doctors aren’t likely to even offer that as a choice. Morally, though, that’s the only answer IMO.
 
My son was very early and I had a very bad condition which I developed quickly adding to it that i was on bedrest for about three months of my pregnancy. It could be risky for me to become pregnant again. If I were your friend I would go to a specialist and be constantly monitored. If there was a problem and getting serious I would have the baby delivered and given a chance.
 
Try searching the forums. This has been discussed over and over. You will get lots of information on the Church’s teaching as well as opinons from Catholics and non-Catholics. One click shopping.
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I was hoping to discuss the issue myself.
Direct abortion is never the moral answer.
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Even when the only alternative is suicide? Are you really so sure?
The moral answer is to do the best for both mother & child. That’s the Catholic position. The Church doesn’t advocate one over the other in the mother/child situation. The Church wants both to survive and be treated equally.
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My personal choice would be to seek out as many medical opinions as I could to find alternative routes for treating whatever condition is in place. My first choice would be to speak to the Pope Paul VI Institute about the issue & see if they’d had any success in dealing w/ a similar situation. In this day & age it should be very rare to literally have to choose between one or the other. Even if that’s the way it seems in times of an emergency, there are frequently other routes that just aren’t as commonly known that could be followed. That being said, sometimes that’s not available & the best route is to make sure both mother & child are equally cared for and neither is directly killed by a procedure to save the other. Again, that doesn’t always happen & some doctors aren’t likely to even offer that as a choice. Morally, though, that’s the only answer IMO.
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It was very late in her pregnancy that my mother was told of her choice. I.e. there was no time to explore alternatives beyond the expertise of the medical staff present. And those very staff were the ones who presented her with the choice. No alternative was possible, at least for this particular pregnancy.

Your “only” answer was not an avenue that could be taken. I was hoping for a moral answer to the exact situation I described.
 
Matthew_J said:
I was hoping to discuss the issue myself.

Even when the only alternative is suicide? Are you really so sure?

It was very late in her pregnancy that my mother was told of her choice. I.e. there was no time to explore alternatives beyond the expertise of the medical staff present. And those very staff were the ones who presented her with the choice. No alternative was possible, at least for this particular pregnancy.

Your “only” answer was not an avenue that could be taken. I was hoping for a moral answer to the exact situation I described.
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You mean no alternative but abortion late in a pregnancy? Why not deliver the child then and let them both live. If my son was born 3 months early and made it, a woman “very late” into a pregnancy can certainly have a cesarian or give birth and get her treatment while giving the child a chance to survive.
 
Gianna Beretta Molla 1922 - 1942 is a Saint today because she gave up her life so that her baby could be born.and she was already the mother of two children.

Antrim
 
Matthew_J said:
A married woman in her third pregnancy has had two children die at birth. She is told that the only way for the pregnancy to have a chance of success for this pregnancy involves a process in which she would have an extremely low chance of survival. On top of this, the chances of survival for the child are only approximately 50%. I happen to know of such a case, and whilst I do not know or understand the details, it is a very real situation.
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The fact that two have died at birth is not germane to how to handle this situation.

We need to know what the process is and more details about it to be able to really answer. How low really is the chance.

How far along is the child? Perhaps a C-section and neonatal care if sufficiently far along?

There are actually two moral courses of action possible the way I see it:
  1. If the process is a heroic medical procedure, the mother may opt to do nothing medically aside from normal prenatal care and let the pregnancy take it’s course. Thus letting “the chips fall as they may.” If it is likely that the child will die at birth, have some water nearby to baptize the child immediately upon birth. Also have a neonatal intensive care team standing by, and let them do their best to save the life of the child at birth.
  2. The mother may choose to have the process done in an attempt to save her child’s life PROVIDED that she is not intentionally killing herself to possibly save her child. If the chances of her survival are so low as to make the process akin to suicide (I.E. you have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of surviving), then I feel that option number one is the moral option.
My wife and I had a daughter with a hole in her heart and serious other medical issues which she carried to term. While she didn’t die at birth, she lived 13 days. She was baptized. We both can sleep at night with no regrets of how we handled the situation.

Could one who chose abortion really sleep at night? Really feel that they chose the best option?
 
Matthew_J said:
Even when the only alternative is suicide? Are you really so sure?
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Then all of the options were not considered. There are more then two options here, one that does not lead to suicide or abortion. See option number one in my post above.
 
LifeIsHard said:
You mean no alternative but abortion late in a pregnancy? Why not deliver the child then and let them both live. If my son was born 3 months early and made it, a woman “very late” into a pregnancy can certainly have a cesarian or give birth and get her treatment while giving the child a chance to survive.
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Exactly. My son was born 9 weeks early. Instead of having a late term abortion, have a preterm delivery.
 
One of the tangential but nevertheless very operative factors in medical advice is the **legal **issue. it is an issue that no one has brought up. It might be on one of the similar threads on this topic, but I have read most of the previous discussions, and don’t recall that being addressed.

The OP is talking about an extremely high-risk pregnancy. High-risk pregnancy, to doctors, means two things: risk to child and/or risk to mother. The failure of a doctor to inform fully as to possible and probable medical consequences will tend to result in a lawsuit of gigantic proportions, which, further, can end his or her practice. Along with that full information, it is expected that the doctor will advise the patient – provide an opinion as to the outcome most likely to ensure the mother’s safety. The patient & the family is not interested in just hearing: “You have a ___% of this happening and a ___% of that happening.” The next expected sentence is always, “Therefore, I advise you to _________.” And the advice is expected to lean toward the most cautious advice.

Good for Gianna Beretta Molla. I know all about her. However, in a way, understand that she did assent to a kind of passive suicide, as she understood the extremely high risk, but made a decision that, should it come to one life over another, she was willing to sacrifice her own. In this country, in the 21st century, I’ll bet that in a non-Catholic hospital, should a mother make an identical decision, the doctor either has a tape recorder handy, an army of lawyers standing there, or is making profuse notes for the file.

Gianna Beretta Molla preferred her unborn child’s life to her own. In this country, in this day, if a doctor believes with his advanced medical experience that a choice between two lives is indicated, he will advise for saving the mother’s. That doesn’t mean that the mother is obliged to accept the advice. But he is legally obliged to communicate likely outcomes, and in our litigious society, he is from a practical viewpoint obliged to suggest the better or best of several options.

Perhaps Catholic doctors, or doctors practicing in Catholic hospitals, feel perfectly safe performing legal high-wire acts, but I’ll tell you that other doctors do not.
 
Matthew_J said:
It was very late in her pregnancy that my mother was told of her choice. I.e. there was no time to explore alternatives beyond the expertise of the medical staff present. And those very staff were the ones who presented her with the choice. No alternative was possible, at least for this particular pregnancy.

Your “only” answer was not an avenue that could be taken. I was hoping for a moral answer to the exact situation I described.
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The moral answer is for the woman to have the child delivered via c-section, you state this is late in pregnancy, the child with proper care would have a chance to live.
 
Matthew,
I am interpreting this as your mother. I don’t know how old you are but medicine today has made great strides. If it is your mother who is feeling guilty… she should seek out her parish priest and make a confession. Remember God can forgive ANYTHING.
If you are feeling guilty because you are here and not your sibling, you have no guilt in this. It was not your decision. God still blessed your mother with you. Always remember that you are a blessing and a child of God. God loves you. Talk to your priest.
 
As a mothers we are called to do what is best for our children. If fulfilling this calling means putting your own life at risk for your child’s it is nowhere near suicidal. Wouldn’t any parent take a bullet for their child? Choosing your child’s life does not mean choosing death. It means your putting your trust in God’s hands, while doing the best you can to prevent the other. Remember even from tragedies come great things…your greatest rewards will be in heaven.
 
Elizabeth502 said:
One of the tangential but nevertheless very operative factors in medical advice is the **legal **issue. it is an issue that no one has brought up. It might be on one of the similar threads on this topic, but I have read most of the previous discussions, and don’t recall that being addressed.

The OP is talking about an extremely high-risk pregnancy. High-risk pregnancy, to doctors, means two things: risk to child and/or risk to mother. The failure of a doctor to inform fully as to possible and probable medical consequences will tend to result in a lawsuit of gigantic proportions, which, further, can end his or her practice. Along with that full information, it is expected that the doctor will advise the patient – provide an opinion as to the outcome most likely to ensure the mother’s safety. The patient & the family is not interested in just hearing: “You have a ___% of this happening and a ___% of that happening.” The next expected sentence is always, “Therefore, I advise you to _________.” And the advice is expected to lean toward the most cautious advice.

Good for Gianna Beretta Molla. I know all about her. However, in a way, understand that she did assent to a kind of passive suicide, as she understood the extremely high risk, but made a decision that, should it come to one life over another, she was willing to sacrifice her own. In this country, in the 21st century, I’ll bet that in a non-Catholic hospital, should a mother make an identical decision, the doctor either has a tape recorder handy, an army of lawyers standing there, or is making profuse notes for the file.

Gianna Beretta Molla preferred her unborn child’s life to her own. In this country, in this day, if a doctor believes with his advanced medical experience that a choice between two lives is indicated, he will advise for saving the mother’s. That doesn’t mean that the mother is obliged to accept the advice. But he is legally obliged to communicate likely outcomes, and in our litigious society, he is from a practical viewpoint obliged to suggest the better or best of several options.

Perhaps Catholic doctors, or doctors practicing in Catholic hospitals, feel perfectly safe performing legal high-wire acts, but I’ll tell you that other doctors do not.
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Dee123:
Gianna Goretti was chosen as a Saint in the Church so that other women/people could follow her example, i.e. to sacrifice one’s life for another. She did not choose a “passive suicide”…the Church does NOT commend suicide AT ALL…if you call this a “passive suicide” what do you call the death of Christ? Passive Suicide? He chose His death because He was following the will of His Father. I think you need to retake a look at your argument…abortion is NEVER the answer, even if the life of the mother is at risk…
And the doctor’s are perhaps looking at the past statistics of the mother’s previous births, but they really cannot predict the outcome of this pregnancy. They’re also probably not coming from a “life is sacred” mentality attitude…with enough prayer, the baby could be saved----if it is God’s will…

Remember, if the mother chooses an abortion, she’ll have to confess it–it’s a mortal sin, no matter the reason…
 
Matthew_J said:
Even when the only alternative is suicide? Are you really so sure?
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Suicide isn’t even really an alternative. Letting the chips fall where they may is not suicide. If it were then every cancer patient would be morally obligated to continue treatment past the point where it does anything but somewhat prolong life at great cost to the family & patient. Allowing nature to take its course is not suicide by any means morally speaking.
It was very late in her pregnancy that my mother was told of her choice. I.e. there was no time to explore alternatives beyond the expertise of the medical staff present. And those very staff were the ones who presented her with the choice. No alternative was possible, at least for this particular pregnancy.
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Your “only” answer was not an avenue that could be taken. I was hoping for a moral answer to the exact situation I described.
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Actually, my answer still stands - you just don’t want to agree w/ it. The best option is to work to save both mother & child. Its not an either-or situation & it shouldn’t ever be one.

As others have pointed out - if its very late in the pregnancy pre-term delivery whether by c-section or inducement is not out of the question. Chances of survival for both mother & child are very high especially when proper neonatal care is available for the child and proper post-operative/delivery care is available for the mother. While at 12 wks this wouldn’t necessarily be a viable option, at 34 wks its quite possible!
 
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