Abortion And Ectopic Pregnancy

[The_Old_Medic]

The originator of this topic is 100% correct. In an ectopic pregnancy, there is zero chance that the baby will live. It will not even develop to anything close to the ability to survive, before dying.

It will also cause the Fallopian Tube to rupture, creating massive infection and endangering the life of the mother.

There is no sin in removing this non-viable child, to protect the life of the mother. It is a shame that this happens, but there is absolutely NO chance that the child could possibly live under those circumstances. I know, my wife had one, and almost died.

 

[Crumpy]

I just had an ectopic pregnancy that thankfully resolved itself without my needing surgery. These are the options my supposedly pro-life doctor gave me (keep in mind that I was not in immediate danger of bleeding out, unlike many women who present with ectopic pregnancy) :

1. Wait it out-- since I wasn’t in immediate danger, I had the option of resting and waiting to see if the miscarriage would progress naturally on its own, and my body would then heal itself. I had strict instructions to come to the ER immediately, should I have any symptoms of dangerous levels of internal bleeding.
2. Go ahead and do surgery to remove the tube (or part of it), to avoid putting your life in possible danger, sort of like a preemptive strike
3. Take the methotrexate

Of these three, in my case, the only moral choice was waiting it out. The second choice would only be morally acceptable if I was in immediate and certain danger of bleeding out without surgery (I wasn’t, praised be to Jesus). The third choice is never acceptable, for reasons already stated by other posters.

I had regular blood tests to make sure my blood count never dipped, and to test my pregnancy hormone levels to make sure I was really having a miscarriage (the doc wanted to be certain the baby hadn’t implanted on an organ outside my uterus and continued to grow, for instance).

So, contrary to what a lot of people may think, it is possible to avoid an abortion even the case of ectopic pregnancy. Intentional abortion is NEVER acceptable, a direct attack on the baby is NEVER acceptable. Also, I think I am correct in stating that by the time the surgery becomes necessary to save the mother, the tube itself has already ruptured (therefore causing the excessive bleeding), and this most always itself causes the death of the baby. If someone knows better, please correct me!

Hope this helps. :yup:

Letting an ectopic pregnancy procede and letting it kill the mother is like dropping a piano in the air high over somebody’s head, and saying that it was not wrong to drop the piano, even though the piano is going to strike somebody and certainly kill them.

People point out that the fifth commandment really says, thou shalt not murder, not thou shalt not kill.

I’m all for “splitting hairs” in ethical matters. An unattended ectopic pregnancy is likely going to kill the embryo and the mother. One of the truly urgent emergency ambulance calls I was on as an EMT was a young woman 3months pregnant with all the symptoms – sudden onset of abdominal pain in the middle of the night with bleeding and a BP of 60 / 0. There. Is everybody satisfied that that woman almost died? Oh, by the way, that put that woman’s life in my hands, to get her to an operating room as fast as we could. Which I did. (I had to risk my life to save hers.) Don’t be ridiculous.

 

[Rence]

Letting an ectopic pregnancy procede and letting it kill the mother is like dropping a piano in the air high over somebody’s head, and saying that it was not wrong to drop the piano, even though the piano is going to strike somebody and certainly kill them.

People point out that the fifth commandment really says, thou shalt not murder, not thou shalt not kill.

I’m all for “splitting hairs” in ethical matters. An unattended ectopic pregnancy is likely going to kill the embryo and the mother. One of the truly urgent emergency ambulance calls I was on as an EMT was a young woman 3months pregnant with all the symptoms – sudden onset of abdominal pain in the middle of the night with bleeding and a BP of 60 / 0. There. Is everybody satisfied that that woman almost died? Oh, by the way, that put that woman’s life in my hands, to get her to an operating room as fast as we could. Which I did. (I had to risk my life to save hers.) Don’t be ridiculous.

First of all, once a diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy is made, the Church allows treatment without waiting. A woman does not have to bleed out in order to be compliant with the Church’s rules. Waiting is a choice that individual women make. It’s also a choice to go ahead with treatment so that she doesn’t end up with infection and hemorrhage from the burst tube. So try not to take people’s individual feelings and choices as dogma. This is only reading into and between the lines of what’s already written by the Vatican to help us.

The Church teaches that in the case of ectopic pregnancy, it is permissible to remove the whole tube because the primary intervention is to treat the injured tube. The fact that there is an embryo in the tube is secondary. No action was taken against the embryo. All the action was being done on the woman.

The same applies in the case of uterine cancer. Once a diagnosis is made, treatment can begin because the treatment is primary to the diseased organ, and the intervention targets the diseased organ. So that woman can have her uterus removed, or begin medications for the cancer, even while pregnant. Some women wait until viability and then have a caesarean then treatment. You don’t have to. The Church does not require this. This is an individual choice that some women have made. Once diagnosed, you can begin treatment if your doctor says you need to and says it would be detrimental to your life to wait.

With methotrexate, the drug acts to flush out the embryo. The primary intervention or action is on the embryo itself. This is the reason why the Church forbids it. They teach that you must sacrifice the fallopian tube, and not take any action against the embryo.

I hope that explains it better. We know that the outcome is the same (embryo can’t survive in a tube, tube will rupture, woman will be in danger), and we know the intent is the same (remove the embryo to save the woman from bleeding out and dying), but The Church doesn’t allow direct action against the embryo/fetus itself in these cases. The action has to be on a diseased/injured/nonfunctioning organ, even though the result is the same.

 

[Crumpy]

I don’t know how such complex decision making is going to filter down to the people who need it.

It’s like a lot of the end of life issues, too. It’s just so complicated. Who’s got time for a 600-page book when life is at stake? Even a well-intentioned person is going to make mistakes under the time pressure involved. This is not so straightforward as a rule to not eat an apple in a garden.

The ethicists make it sound so easy. They’ve never been confronted with the issue at 35,000 feet in an airliner crossing an ocean. The decisions are never simple and never easy. And, throw in some screaming kids and old people. Lots of luck. Fr. Corapi better be on that plane.