Abortion if the fetus has no heart?

[JosephConsta]

Hi Father,
My cousin was once pregnant. When the she went through the check-up at the local hospital, the doctor told her that her baby had not a heart. She did the check-up again at other clinics and received the same result. After that, she did the abortion. My mom told me that it was fine for us to do abortion in this case because the baby was actually dead. Is my mom correct, father?

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Abortion is wrong because it kills an innocent human life. In the situation you describe the child is not alive and what is taking place is that the child’s unborn corpse is being manually removed from the mother’s womb. As long as we are medically sure that the child has died then these are very different moral actions.

CDF’s Instruction on Respect of Human Life in its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation

The corpses of human embryos and foetuses, whether they have been deliberately aborted or not, must be respected just as the remains of other human beings. In particular, they cannot be subjected to mutilation or to autopsies if their death has not yet been verified and without the consent of the parents or of the mother. Furthermore, the moral requirements must be safeguarded that there be no complicity in deliberate abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided.

If an unborn child is certain to have died then there is no moral obligation for the mother to continue to give some form of natural birth to a deceased child. The doctor(s) in consultation with the mother can determine the best course of action for the mother’s health and well being even if this includes manually removing the child from the mother’s womb.
While I don’t know what medical terminology would be used, I would hesitate to use the word “abortion” to describe what it taking place because there is not a live birth that is being prevented through the medical procedure.