Abortion question expanded

  • Thread starter Thread starter billcu1
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
B

billcu1

Guest
There might be a similar question there somewhere. But anyway. I was talking to one of the Diocese’s priests yesterday. I asked about abortion and the question of someone’s life at stake. He said, “You can’t do evil to achieve good.” I understand what he was saying. So what would one do, even if one was a doctor and facing a situation where one is going to die. Who do you choose? These situation not only occur not with an infant and mother, but two injured people. One is going to die. You must choose.
 
In the case of abortion while you are not allowed to directly kill the baby you are allowed to treat the mother - even if that treatment will indirectly result in the death of the baby. For example if the mother has uterine cancer and needs a hysterectomy it can be done, even though the baby will die. If the baby has implanted in the tube the tube can be removed, but the baby cannot be killed with chemicals.
40.png
What to say when pro-choice people ask what about the situation the mother is in danger? Moral Theology
Usually I hear people saying things like "What if the mother is in danger and the only way to save her is with abortion " something like that I know theese are extremely rare cases though,and if I were to say " She should give up her life for the life of the child " or something to that extend I would just be called a biggot
Click to expand...
 
The whole “decide who you are going to save, mother or baby” is a great plot device in novels and movies, but, it is fiction. Sometimes a mom must decide about a treatment such as chemo or another drug that would harm her unborn child, but, that is as close as we get to it in real actual life.
 
billcu1 said:
So what would one do, even if one was a doctor and facing a situation where one is going to die. Who do you choose?
Click to expand...
The doctor has an obligation to do all he can to save both. He cannot kill the baby (or the mother, but no one ever brings that up). But, if in the treatment of the mother, the baby dies or if it cannot be saved, that is no sin and not an abortion.
billcu1 said:
These situation not only occur not with an infant and mother, but two injured people. One is going to die. You must choose.
Click to expand...
Those triaging in war, battlefield, car wrecks, etc., don’t choose. They try to save everyone. They may prioritize people for order of treatment, since they can’t physically treat more than one at a time. They may evaluate and say there isn’t anything that can be done for a person whose injuries are too grave. That is just the natural dying process occurring.

What they can’t do is take out their gun and shoot one of them in favor of the other.
 
This sort of dilemma almost never happens. When it does, as people have said, the doctor is permitted to treat the mother even if the baby dies as a side effect.

If the mom of the baby is conscious and able to make her own health care decisions, sometimes the mom has chosen to forgo treatment and instead risk her life or even give up her life in order to save the baby.
 
That was sort of the situation I was looking for. The battlefield. Say a mother and her son of 10 are trapped because of an earthquake and rescued and there is not enough staff. Both have an equal chance of survival. What do you do? What if one has a better chance and they are treated and the other dies? Is that just a death. They haven’t been killed. At least directly Maybe I’m making this complicated.
 
Battle field injuries and natural disasters where staff is limited.
 
There’s a real situation where a doctor could be put in a quite guilty feeling situation. He treated the one he thought was more serious and then the other goes down hill fast and dies. Is that just death. One would wonder, “What if I made a different decision.” But is feeling guilty mean doing a wrong?
 
Last edited:
The doctor would do triage. He would try to save the person who in terms of injuries and overall physical condition was most likely to survive, or the one he could most easily treat with his limited resources.

Doctors do this all the time in disaster situations. The idea is to try to save as many people as possible, realizing that you will not be able to save them all with your limited resources.

The doctors don’t directly kill anyone, however. Letting nature take its course so a severely injured person expires of his injuries is permissible; injecting the dying person with a drug specifically to kill him is not.
 
Last edited:
Hi, Bill!

Here’s the problem… that “if” scenario has been proven/lived by Catholics in the far past and in the near past… women who were told that they could not bring a child to term because it would jeopardize their lives or as in the case of the woman who had a tumor in her brain and she opted to have her child instead of aborting.

These scenarios are always brought up as if 90% of pregnancies placed women in a death-life threat. Yes there are circumstances when this reality is in fact experienced. Yet, it is not the norm. Further, Faith is what carries the baby to term not doctors and science. According to doctors and science chemical and all sorts or contraceptive means, as well as abortions are the answer to every pregnancy (unless the woman is wealthy, famous, or politically connected)? … why? Because ‘we have the technology.’

Have you thought why it is that women suffer from so many cancers (more so than their male counterparts)–that women in the so called “third world” (till recently) have not suffered; how only in the “developed” world are mom’s killing their children because of “postpartum depression” while the most poor of moms in other parts of the world have been having children without any mental stress and without an epidemic of birthing-related deaths?

Abortion is the cruelest lie. It tells a woman that killing her babies in her womb and allowing man to used her as a s-bags is freedom and empowerment, that using abortion as a post-conception contraception is about exercising her right to be a woman, and that murdering her children in what should be the safest place in the world for them would not only release her from any obligations (as it is her “right” to kill them) but that it is a health measure that has no consequences at all.

…so how does two injured people play on the abortion issue?

Maran atha!

Angel
 
Bill, ever hear/see news where a young man drops dead for not good reason (not talking about contact sports–simply playing basketball at school)?

There are things that we cannot perceive as happening.

Abortion is not an accident or a natural catastrophe. However, in such situations the trained physician would have to prioritize… and without having the Knowledge of God, he/she could well make a determination based on the factors that are immediately present… so the person whose health seem more at risk could well recover or stabilize and the person who seemed most stable could have had suffered greater damage or could have had a preexisting condition unknown to the doctor at the sight (it is the reason why “preexisting conditions” are part of a person’s medical record–in the absence of which, as they say, all hell could break lose).

Maran atha!

Angel
 
It is easy to quote this and quote that and say you would do this and do that. But when it comes down to the hypothetical scenario becoming a real life event, you will not know how you will choose until the very last second. And nobody has any right to judge you except the one that sits on the throne. And I highly speculate he is not going to judge you on that one incident alone.
 
Last edited:
I am comparing different situations that can medically arise and options that could lead to death. I think the rate of male cancers too btw are downplayed much more than women. I could be wrong. But I have talked to nurses in oncology depts. and they tell me as many men come as women.

Anyway. There have been situations where the process of having a baby somehow goes awry and the birthing process can put the woman in a life death situation. IDk what you would do there. Women have died in childbirth not as much now as in the past thank God. Perhaps unknown cervical cancer cells puts the woman in a life/death situation. Women in that situation, childbirth can kill them. What if they find out too late? There are people who just don’t want to go to the Dr. In some countries they don’t always go to the OB/Gyn.
 
Last edited:
billcu1 said:
Anyway. There have been situations where the process of having a baby somehow goes awry and the birthing process can put the woman in a life death situation. IDk what you would do there. Women have died in childbirth not as much now as in the past thank God.
Click to expand...
If the woman’s spouse or other next of kin is present, and there is time, the doctor would go to them, tell them what happened, present the possible treatment options with possible consequences for mom and baby, and the next of kin would decide what to do and tell the doctor.

If it was a split second emergency and there was not time to go discuss it with the family in the waiting room, or there was no family, the doctor would make a decision based on who he thought he could best save, or if the mom had discussed with him beforehand or signed any document regarding what treatment she wanted/ didn’t want/ her wishes etc. then doc would try to follow that. It’s fairly common for people facing risky medical procedures to discuss this stuff with their doctors ahead of time or sign something, in order to protect the medical staff from a lawsuit later.

Edited to add, Have you actually had any experience dealing with medical personnel when you or your loved ones were having a risky operation or in a life-and-death situation? My dad was a Navy medical corpsman and both my mom and dad had several serious hospitalizations before they each died; this stuff you’re asking seems pretty ordinary to me, but I’m thinking it’s possible maybe other people have not had the exposure to it that I have had.
 
Last edited:
billcu1 said:
You must choose.
Click to expand...
Triage.

I was curious about the origin of the word. I had thought it meant three, as in sorting into three groups: those who will live even without treatment (or with delayed treatment), those who will die even if treated immediately, and those in between where the doctor’s efforts can make the biggest difference.

Merriam-Webster dictionary says it’s not tri as in three, but means sorting or determining, possibly related to try as in trial.

Not that you asked.
 
Last edited:
It’s pronounced TREE-age as in “Garage”. Not Try as in tricycle. IDK if it means “three” or not.
 
Last edited:
Not directly and in making decisions. Not yet anyway. I am seeing an oncologist in his capacity as a hematologist. I seem to be having anemic problems and I am trying to figure out that what and why. I see a lot of cancer patients come in.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top