Abortion Permitted

[VETTEMAN001]

My religion teacher told our class that there are two reasons that abortion is permitted in the Catholic Church. However I cannot seem to find these reasons again, or anything to support this. Are there reasons that the Church permits abortion, ie if the woman or child will die from birth, or any other reason. Thank you very much.

 

[LilyM]

There isn’t really any instance in which abortion is permitted per se.

One thing that is permitted is if a woman has an ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy implanted in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus, in which case BOTH mother AND child will 100% certainly die if it is allowed to progress) then the fallopian tube can be removed.

This does result in the death of the child in the fallopian tube. But since in this instance there is no alternative treatment that could possibly save mother or child, and (as I said) death of both is inevitable without removal of the fallopian tube, whereas death of the mother is avoided if it is removed, it is permitted in order to save the mother’s life.

 

[Dauphin]

My religion teacher told our class that there are two reasons that abortion is permitted in the Catholic Church. However I cannot seem to find these reasons again, or anything to support this. Are there reasons that the Church permits abortion, ie if the woman or child will die from birth, or any other reason. Thank you very much.

Direct abortion is not permitted under any cirumstances. You should inform your teacher immediately and ask her to correct her errors in front of the class. The next time she claims something that doesn’t seem right, demand evidence - some sort of clear documentation.

 

[BioCatholic]

There is such a HUGE misnomer when it comes to “permitted” abortion.

The term “abort” means to prematurely terminate. One CAN abort a pregnancy completely licitly, while allowing the child to live! It’s done all the time, and called either a C-section, or induction of labor.

Sometimes babies are prematurely delivered because of maternal renal failure, congestive heart failure ect. If the mother dies, they BOTH die. At least if you remove the baby, and stabilize the mother, with modern medicine there is a good chance a 6-9 month-term old premature infant will survive. If you don’t remove the baby from a sick/dying mother, then you stand to lose both.

I have personally transported pregnant women in renal failure from one hospital to another where the goal was to get her to a needed surgeon to remove the child, and then she is put on dialysis. I’d say 90% of the premature infants survived, and all but one mother survived. In all cases I mention, the pregnancy was aborted, NOT the child.

If you understand the correct terminology, then termination of the pregnancy itself is OK for medical reasons.

 

[Newbie2]

If you understand the correct terminology, then termination of the pregnancy itself is OK for medical reasons.

Yeah, but the two are pretty much inseparable, i.e. fetus and pregnancy, no?

I see what you’re saying and agree, but the key is “for medical reasons”, meaning that the intention is not to terminate the pregnancy/fetus, but to intervene for the life of the mother.