Abortion exceptions?

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Here is a moral dilema I would like advice on. If a mother is pregnant with a child who will surely die (that is never capable of living on it’s own outside the womb) and giving birth to this child will also kill the mother, is it OK, then to remove the child from the mother? Would it be a situation where she could wait until the last moment and then have it through cesarean? What if she shouldn’t wait because she could die and it was maybe in the 2nd trimester.
Is it OK to save the mother?
In another instance if the mother is surely to die if she gives birth regardless of the child, we must save the child, correct?
Thank you,
 
Hey LMT,

Please bear with me. There are are NEVER any circumstances which make abortion morally permissible. Abortion is the direct killing of an innocent human, which is always morally wrong. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy in which the child has implanted itself to the lining of the fallopian tubes, which will harm both the mother and itself) the section of the fallopian tubes containing the embryo may be removed, thus saving the mother’s life. Although it sounds like an abortion, it is a different procedure.
Think about how it morally wrong to commit suicide, but you’re serving in the military and someone drops a grenade around you and some friends, you can jump on the grenade because your are not intending to die, but to cover the grenade, your death is very likely, but not intended. The same with removing the child from the fallopian tubes in extreme cases.

I hope this helps.

Pax,

-Conall Cernach
 
LMT said:
Here is a moral dilema I would like advice on. If a mother is pregnant with a child who will surely die (that is never capable of living on it’s own outside the womb) and giving birth to this child will also kill the mother, is it OK, then to remove the child from the mother? Would it be a situation where she could wait until the last moment and then have it through cesarean? What if she shouldn’t wait because she could die and it was maybe in the 2nd trimester.
Is it OK to save the mother?
In another instance if the mother is surely to die if she gives birth regardless of the child, we must save the child, correct?
Thank you,
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This is a Catch-22 situation, with no good outcome. Both lives are of equal value. In this case it is up to the husband or other family of the mother and the doctor. It will be a hard but difficult situation. In real life this tough choice would probably be towards the mother assuming the child has problems to not survive outside the womb.
 
NewUlm1976_2000 said:
This is a Catch-22 situation, with no good outcome. Both lives are of equal value. In this case it is up to the husband or other family of the mother and the doctor. It will be a hard but difficult situation. In real life this tough choice would probably be towards the mother assuming the child has problems to not survive outside the womb.
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You should read William May’s Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human life. In there, May states mainly what I have stated.

Pax
 
Anyone with an ounce of logic would have the abortion this case. Someone is seriously suggesting that a grown woman die so that a disfigured child could live for a few minutes or maybe a day?
 
NewUlm1976_2000 said:
This is a Catch-22 situation, with no good outcome. Both lives are of equal value. In this case it is up to the husband or other family of the mother and the doctor. It will be a hard but difficult situation. In real life this tough choice would probably be towards the mother assuming the child has problems to not survive outside the womb.
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No, NewUlm1976_2000.
Your watered-down, “cafeteria Catholic” faith aside, what ConallCernach said is accurate about ectopic pregancy. In all of your posts, you seem to minimize what the Church has to say on the matter so that it gives you a “custom fit”.

The American Medical Association (AMA) he said over and over again that abortion is “never necessary” to save the life of the mother except in the case of ectopic pregnancy. That is why they do NOT consent to Partial Birth abortion.
 
LMT said:
Here is a moral dilema I would like advice on. If a mother is pregnant with a child who will surely die (that is never capable of living on it’s own outside the womb) and giving birth to this child will also kill the mother, is it OK, then to remove the child from the mother? Would it be a situation where she could wait until the last moment and then have it through cesarean? What if she shouldn’t wait because she could die and it was maybe in the 2nd trimester.
Is it OK to save the mother?
In another instance if the mother is surely to die if she gives birth regardless of the child, we must save the child, correct?
Thank you,
Click to expand...
I’m skeptical of claim that states the mother will “surely die.” There have been actual cases where the mother wase told this, they had their baby anyway…both mother and baby lived. 👍

If what you are describing is in reponse to ectopic pregnancy, there are morally licit and morally illicit means. We are bound to follow the morally licit means only.

See: Ectopic for Discussion: A Catholic Approach to Tubal Pregnancies

In short, one may not deliberately kill their young in order to improve their own chances of living.
 
Et_Cetera said:
Anyone with an ounce of logic would have the abortion this case. Someone is seriously suggesting that a grown woman die so that a disfigured child could live for a few minutes or maybe a day?
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I think that, first of all, such an instance is a complete red herring. I can’t even come up with a real-life situation that fits this description. Let’s keep ourselves grounded in reality.

Here is a real-life instance. A pregnant woman discovers she has a life-threatening illness. Must she wait until the child is born to treat it? No. This is the classic “double effect.” IF the intent is to treat the mother, thus saving her life, and NOT to harm or kill the fetus, then the treatment is moral, even if the baby were to die.

On the other hand, a direct abortion to “save the life of the mother” is never moral.

There have been several instances I know of where an ill mother has delayed treatment until the baby was born; I would think this happens more than we might think.

No one ever said that living a truly moral life was easy.
 
If someone put a gun to my head and said, either kill your own child and I’ll let you live, or don’t kill your child and I will kill both of you, I still wouldn’t kill my child. It’s intrinsically evil. We are called to be holy, not self-serving.
 
While I’m uncertain as to whether such a case actually can occur in real life, I think that the extreme circumstances would at least lessen the culpability to a veniel sin. It is similar to a case in which there are Siamese twins, and unless one is removed to die neither will survive, or a case in which a person is dangling off of a balcony and someone else is hanging onto his ankle. The first person must shake off the second or he will lose his grip and they both will die.
 
Joejohn39 said:
While I’m uncertain as to whether such a case actually can occur in real life, I think that the extreme circumstances would at least lessen the culpability to a veniel sin. It is similar to a case in which there are Siamese twins, and unless one is removed to die neither will survive, or a case in which a person is dangling off of a balcony and someone else is hanging onto his ankle. The first person must shake off the second or he will lose his grip and they both will die.
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This is inaccurate. It is ALWAYS grave matter.
 
Joejohn39 said:
While I’m uncertain as to whether such a case actually can occur in real life, I think that the extreme circumstances would at least lessen the culpability to a veniel sin. It is similar to a case in which there are Siamese twins, and unless one is removed to die neither will survive, or a case in which a person is dangling off of a balcony and someone else is hanging onto his ankle. The first person must shake off the second or he will lose his grip and they both will die.
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You first example, the doctor does not intend to kill any of the twins, but instead it is a tolerated risk of death. The ethical principal of double effectapplies.

In your second example, it is morally evil to “shake of” the other person, and no circumstances will make it good. We may not do evil such that good results from it.
 
itsjustdave1988 said:
You first example, the doctor does not intend to kill any of the twins, but instead it is a tolerated risk of death.
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The effect is the same, and the doctor knows that the removed twin will die. If the parasitic twin is only a sapient head and a few organs and tissue masses draining nutrients from the host twin, it will not be able to survive on it’s own.
In your second example, it is morally evil to “shake of” the other person, and no circumstances will make it good. We may not do evil such that good results from it.
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Again I would say the culpability would be greatly mitigated in such a circumstance. Remember that the evil that would be done would occur regardless (the death of the person below). Therefore, it is not the same as an “ends-justified-means” situation like Ursula Le Guin Omelas, in which a utopian city is dependant on the suffering of a child. These kinds of logical conundrums are why I tend to be more of a consequentialist than a deontologist. While I agree God ordains moral law, this law isn’t arbitrary but based on the real good or bad that results from human choice.
 
ConallCernach said:
Abortion is the direct killing of an innocent human, which is always morally wrong. In the case of an ectopic pregnancy (a pregnancy in which the child has implanted itself to the lining of the fallopian tubes, which will harm both the mother and itself) the section of the fallopian tubes containing the embryo may be removed, thus saving the mother’s life. Although it sounds like an abortion, it is a different procedure.
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Just a question, cuz I’m inexperienced in this:

To me this sounds like just an easy way out of a moral canundrum.

Take a man lying in hospital with an air tube into his lungs.

The one case is like killing him by wrapping your hands around his throaght and suffocating him, and the other way is like killing him by wrapping your hands around the airpipe that feeds into his lungs and suffocating him.

In both instances you kill the person, the firt way is direct and the second way is indirect.

Killing is still killing. It’s still an abortion. Call it what it is…

But, just like killing someone is wrong, but killing someone in self defence is OK, this is the same…

But then, it seems like this is only the case for etopic pregnancies. Why not allow this in all cases where the mother will surely die?

Again, I’m not experienced here, but surely, etopic pregnancies are not the only case where the mother will die if she gives birth?

AC
 
LMT said:
Here is a moral dilema I would like advice on. If a mother is pregnant with a child who will surely die (that is never capable of living on it’s own outside the womb) and giving birth to this child will also kill the mother, is it OK, then to remove the child from the mother? Would it be a situation where she could wait until the last moment and then have it through cesarean? What if she shouldn’t wait because she could die and it was maybe in the 2nd trimester.
Is it OK to save the mother?
In another instance if the mother is surely to die if she gives birth regardless of the child, we must save the child, correct?
Thank you,
Click to expand...
The appropriate response is as follows:
  1. The mother carries the child until the threat to life becomes imminent (giving the child as much time as possible to develop).
  2. When the threat is imminent, labor is induced, or the baby is delivered by c-section.
  3. Every effort is made the save the baby. Today, even a four or five month premature aby has a chance at survival.
Direct killing of the baby is never needed or morally permitted.

God Bless
 
LMT said:
Here is a moral dilema I would like advice on. If a mother is pregnant with a child who will surely die
Click to expand...
How do you know it will surely die?
and giving birth to this child will also kill the mother,
Click to expand...
Name an example of giving birth to a live baby that would kill the mother. If giving birth to a live baby would kill the mother, so would giving birth to a dead baby.
 
My question is: could an extreme situation as the one described could actually exist in reality?

Look at it this way, either:
  1. the actual process of giving birth vaginally is what might kill the mother; solution - give her assistance to deliver (there are ways) or perform a c-section
or,
  1. the pregnancy is what is threatening the mother’s life, in which case the baby’s life is at risk as well since it depends on the mother; solution - take the pregnancy as far as it can safely go without risking the two lives unduly, then deliver the baby
I don’t see how either solution could be described as abortion unless there is intent to kill the baby.

Have I gone wrong anywhere in my reasoning?
 
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