Abortion situation

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timeandeternity

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I am going to be running a pro-life group on this campus, and I am sure that I will have to field many tough questions from strongly biased students. I am prepared for many common questions, but am trying to make myself as prepared as possible.
I was speaking with a good friend of mine last semester whose mother had had an abortion when my friend was about 8-10 years old. Her mother had developed a strange allergy to semen, there were problems with the pregnancy, and she probably wouldn’t have lived even to give birth to the baby. In addition, her husband sexually abused my friend and her brother and was incredibly lazy and demanding, so, as you can imagine, the damage done to the children would have been horrific if the mother had died. As she saw it, the only way out was to have an abortion.
At the time, I had no idea what to say after hearing such a story–and I’m sure I’ll hear other stories like it this year. Does anyone have any advice as far as how to handle this kind of situation? I know that I will need to have compassion and sympathy, but also emphasize the fact that abortion is never acceptable because it takes the life of a human person. I’m just not sure how to go about doing this.
 
Wow, my prayers and sympathy are with your friend.

I can only think of one response to that and that is that no one knows for certain the outcome of a pregnancy and birth for both mother and child, so saying that abortion was the only way out would be pretty presumptive. You should read about St. Gianna Beretta Molla for some inspiration.
 
I can see where such a story would catch you off guard. It is a most unusual situation.

The key phrase in all of this is, “As she (the mother) saw it…”

If you look through the other fact you relate, it becomes apparent that the problem was not the pregnancy so much as it was the husband/father. The death of the Child did nothing to resolve the real problem…The Abortion would not stop an abuser from depositing semen in her even though she was allergic. The Abortion would not prevent the husband from abusing the existing children.

The one issue that provides any grounds for a reasonable discussion about taking the child pre-term, is when you say, “…there were problems with the pregnancy…” However since you (and I presume your friend) did not elaborate we really can’t address any specific options that might have been available to the mother.

So - We are left with the simple phrase, “As she saw it”, the only option was abortion.
Frankly it sounds to me like this woman was in such a poor physical and emotional state that she very likely unable to make a truly informed and reasonable decision. So I would offer sympathy to your friend in this regard.

Stepping back though and looking at the situation objectively the other option and the best option was to get away from the abuser. He is the cause of the problem(s) and getting away from him might have greatly increased her chances of carrying to term.
If the actual complications of the pregnancy were truly serious and life threatening, then all avenues should be pursued to hold on and give the child the best chance possible. If taking the child becomes the sole option, then they need to do all they can to save the child. If the child subsequently dies, then it died of “natural causes” and not because death of the child was the intended outcome.

Sorry if the above sounds jumbled…It’s early and I have a lot of thoughts bouncing around.

Peace
James
 
On a more general note…Ask the questioners to consider this one simple point…
“Abortion is a death sentence. What crime did the child commit that warrants death?”

Peace
James
 
timeandeternity said:
I am going to be running a pro-life group on this campus, and I am sure that I will have to field many tough questions from strongly biased students. I am prepared for many common questions, but am trying to make myself as prepared as possible.
I was speaking with a good friend of mine last semester whose mother had had an abortion when my friend was about 8-10 years old. Her mother had developed a strange allergy to semen, there were problems with the pregnancy, and she probably wouldn’t have lived even to give birth to the baby. In addition, her husband sexually abused my friend and her brother and was incredibly lazy and demanding, so, as you can imagine, the damage done to the children would have been horrific if the mother had died. As she saw it, the only way out was to have an abortion.
At the time, I had no idea what to say after hearing such a story–and I’m sure I’ll hear other stories like it this year. Does anyone have any advice as far as how to handle this kind of situation? I know that I will need to have compassion and sympathy, but also emphasize the fact that abortion is never acceptable because it takes the life of a human person. I’m just not sure how to go about doing this.
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The church allows for necessary medical treatments which will, as an unfortunate side effect, kill the child in the womb. For example, let’s say that a woman has an ectopic pregnancy. The fallopian tube is damaged where the fetus implanted and needs to be removed. The doctor removes the damaged part of the fallopian tube (morally neutral) with the unfortunate side effect that the baby fetus there dies as a result. By principle of double-effect, this is an acceptable action to take.

Another example is a heart condition which could cause lethal cardiac arrest if the mother tries to deliver the child. The medicine will most likely kill the child. The doctor offers to give the mother the medicine, or just to abort the child immediately. The abortion has the primary purpose of killing the child with the side effect of aiding the condition. Because the intended action is gravely disordered, this is an immoral action. The mother should choose to take the medicine to treat the condition, hoping that the child survives. If the child dies, labor can be induced or the body can be removed the abortive processes.

So, direct abortion is ALWAYS gravely disordered. Indirect abortion (where the baby dies as a side-effect) is allowable in cases where the mother’s life is truly threatened (but there must be proportionate cause. A 2% chance of complications does not give blanket approval to indirect abortions.
 
timeandeternity said:
At the time, I had no idea what to say after hearing such a story–and I’m sure I’ll hear other stories like it this year. Does anyone have any advice as far as how to handle this kind of situation? I know that I will need to have compassion and sympathy, but also emphasize the fact that abortion is never acceptable because it takes the life of a human person. I’m just not sure how to go about doing this.
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The action of the mother fails as an action of necessity. It is never necessary to do evil, and in fact, against basic morality to do evil that good may come of it.

All I can offer is that no man (whether infantile or not) deserves to be condemned to death by another man when he is innocent of personal wrong-doing. To terminate the life of such a man would be to act as Pontius Pilate did toward Jesus Christ which we know was absolutely unjust.

I think there are more fundamental issues (i.e., reservation of the marriage act to marriage, what the marriage act means, what a human being is, what a human being means, who is God, what is God, etc.) at the heart of the abortion issue that, unless they are addressed, will continue to plague a person even if she chooses not to have an abortion right now.

– Nicole
 
It’s a pretty sorry testament to the state of things in Western civilization that you have to assert your moral bona fides against people who pat themselves on the back for killing their babies.

Personally, my policy is never to engage with consequentialists. Their moral sensibilities are warped beyond measure; at best, you will walk away having not changed their minds, and at worst, they will have finagled you into some rhetorical trap from which you can’t extricate yourself, subjecting yourself and your movement to the scorn of your peers.
 
sw85 said:
It’s a pretty sorry testament to the state of things in Western civilization that you have to assert your moral bona fides against people who pat themselves on the back for killing their babies.

Personally, my policy is never to engage with consequentialists. Their moral sensibilities are warped beyond measure; at best, you will walk away having not changed their minds, and at worst, they will have finagled you into some rhetorical trap from which you can’t extricate yourself, subjecting yourself and your movement to the scorn of your peers.
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I’m in total agreement. There are so many fundamental issues that unless the individual fix in himself, he can’t hear your words…and, beyond that, he may even be receiving demonic assistance to confound your thinking (and those others listening) with his false doctrines/beliefs. It’s said by a few saints that Satan knows a lot more theology than we do, he merely uses it to deceive not to teach.

– Nicole
 
In my religion, abortion is permitted to save the life of the mother. I don’t know if this fits into your situation.
 
yablabo said:
I’m in total agreement. There are so many fundamental issues that unless the individual fix in himself, he can’t hear your words…and, beyond that, he may even be receiving demonic assistance to confound your thinking (and those others listening) with his false doctrines/beliefs. It’s said by a few saints that Satan knows a lot more theology than we do, he merely uses it to deceive not to teach.

– Nicole
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Haha its a fact that Satan knows all of the Truth better than anyone else on Earth. Since he is a fallen Angel he would have too. He didn’t fall because of a false perception that he had of the Truth. The Angels were shown the Truth and some decided they would not serve God and his plan.
 
timeandeternity said:
At the time, I had no idea what to say after hearing such a story–and I’m sure I’ll hear other stories like it this year. Does anyone have any advice as far as how to handle this kind of situation? I know that I will need to have compassion and sympathy, but also emphasize the fact that abortion is never acceptable because it takes the life of a human person. I’m just not sure how to go about doing this.
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Well, first, you express sympathy for the situation, “I am so sorry to hear a story like that, I cannot imagine being faced with such a terrible choice. That must have been incredibly hard for her.”

After that, remember that your job is not to pretend to be the Solomon of medical ethics. I think I would give a general description of the Church’s positions that could be in play in a situation like that (direct vs. indirect effects of treatment, that sort of thing), but specifically decline to render some sort of a judgment on the particular women in the questioner’s story…not because you aren’t acquainted with the general moral questions involved, but because you can’t know the specific case and even if you did it would not do anyone any good to go around pointing fingers.

It is your intention, rather, to educate people who might have to confront this kind of a situation in their own lives and hopefully to get them to a point where they would seek personal guidance and support if they were in such a position. You are not a doctor and you cannot speak to what the medical and social service options even are in such a case. What you can do is to encourage people who are in such a situation to seek guidance from those who understand the pastoral, ethical and the medical issues involved, especially since such people might have moral solutions that the person with the problem might not be aware of.

Keep the main thing the main thing. Do your job, and don’t apologize that you have no duty to give retroactive guidance on situations where you don’t have all the facts, let alone render ivory-tower judgements.

PS By the way, find out the contact information for the local organization for Rachel’s Vineyard retreats. Talk to them about what these are all about. That way, when you are confronted with painful abortion stories that people have in their past, you might possibly have the information that will get them relief from their suffering and some healing. In the case of your questioner, you could suggest that if the mother was still suffering from having gone through that extremely difficult experience, a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat might help her.
 
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