Abortion to Save the Mother

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davidneff

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Hello all,

I have always considered myself pro-life and anti-abortion. However, is abortion to save the mother’s life okay? Why or why not?
 
There is never actually a case where the fact that the baby is alive is harmful to the mother. If you have evidence against this, please show me. All the medical issues with pregnancies that I have seen or read about have all been about the location of the baby, the size of the baby, or the baby needing more nutrients than the mother can provide (usually her own fault). The two former, I believe, are the more common, especially in arguments.

If the baby is too large that the mother, due to some pre-condition or whatever, is put in danger, the baby is likely big enough already to live outside of the womb (albeit with medical assistance, as it would be premature), and does not require killing the baby. The earliest a child (as far as I know) has survived after having been prematurely born/removed was something like 22-23 weeks old (really early and tiny). The ‘safe-zone’ age is typically around 26 weeks, where doctors are pretty confident of the baby’s survival.

A commonly known problem with the baby’s location is if the child “implants” in one of the fallopian tubes rather than in the womb. In this case, killing the baby isn’t a viable option as you can also really harm the mother. It is much simpler and safer to remove the section of tube where the baby resides. However, the child can (and I believe often does) die during this process, but that is not the intent of the operation. It is not a direct attack on the child, but rather an attempt to treat the condition and the baby happens to be affected. Similarly, if the mother had cancer that required radiation treatments. It is highly likely that the baby could die due to the treatment, or at least severely harmed, but that isn’t the intent. The mother is being treated, and has the unfortunate side effect of harming, or even killing, the child.

So, as I said. There is never a case, to which I am aware, where the actual life of the child is harmful to the mother.
 
davidneff said:
Hello all,

I have always considered myself pro-life and anti-abortion. However, is abortion to save the mother’s life okay? Why or why not?
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It’s a confusing question. However, I see it this way: We have two separate lives here hanging in the balance-mother and baby. First priority is to save both. If that’s absolutely not possible, we have to decide which to save. It’s extremely selfish and ungodly to think that the baby is worth less than the mother and should therefore be terminated. Ask the mother: herself or her child? If she says “me,” you can see how selfish it is.
So NO, abortion is never okay.
 
Direct abortion is never permissible. Indirect abortion can be permissible to save the mother’s life.

This idea of a normal pregnancy being a mortal threat to the mother’s life is almost always false. The prolife Ronald Reagan was tricked into signing such an “abortion to save the mother” law in California shortly after he became Governor. It soon became obvious that pro-abort doctors were certifying thousands of normal pregnancies as risks to the mother.
 
An example would be my cousin; may she rest in peace.

She had breast cancer then metastatic cancer at early 20’s and was pregnant with baby number 2. She was given the option of chemo but the chemo would most likely harm thte baby enough to death. Her priest told her it was her decision regarding the chemo the Church would support her either way. She chose to forego chemo.

She died on the operating room table as they took her baby early by C section.

Let’s pray for anyone facing such a difficult choice; she hung on long enough to grow the baby close to term. She had another daughter who was 2 at the time and she struggled so much with the decision.

Very very sad choices indeed.
 
Acute renal failure is a good example. And there are other conditions where a woman continuing her pregnancy does pose a mortal danger.

The Church is against abortion, but is not against making difficult medical decisions where the outcome is not a certainty. A woman can choose for an emergency c-section at 22 weeks on with the intent that the baby will be given the best possible care and support.

I can think of quite a few interventions for premature babies that at the time were “Hail Marys”, that is relying on completely untested but theoretically sound medical interventions. Supersaturated oxygen solutions were developed by a Physicist, and a pediatric surgeon at the same University called this Physicist up and said “Hey, we want to try to fill this babies lungs with your stuff to keep them wet and get oxygen to his brain”.

You cant remove a child from the uterus and kill it. You can however, make the best informed medical decision at the time and choose to continue the pregnancy but accept that the mother may die, or to perform an emergency C-section and accept the child may die.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Direct abortion is never permissible. Indirect abortion can be permissible to save the mother’s life.
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I think the term “indirect abortion” can be confusing to non-medical people, to whom abortion generally means induced abortion. An “indirect abortion” is really another act which has the unfortunate and *unwanted *side effect of the baby’s death.
 
luthier93 said:
It’s a confusing question. However, I see it this way: We have two separate lives here hanging in the balance-mother and baby. First priority is to save both. If that’s absolutely not possible, we have to decide which to save. It’s extremely selfish and ungodly to think that the baby is worth less than the mother and should therefore be terminated. Ask the mother: herself or her child? If she says “me,” you can see how selfish it is.
So NO, abortion is never okay.
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I think in any other medical situation, the usual thing to do is if both (absolutely) cannot be saved, then the one who has the highest chance of living becomes the focus.
 
Quicksilver264 said:
Acute renal failure is a good example. And there are other conditions where a woman continuing her pregnancy does pose a mortal danger.

The Church is against abortion, but is not against making difficult medical decisions where the outcome is not a certainty. A woman can choose for an emergency c-section at 22 weeks on with the intent that the baby will be given the best possible care and support.

I can think of quite a few interventions for premature babies that at the time were “Hail Marys”, that is relying on completely untested but theoretically sound medical interventions. Supersaturated oxygen solutions were developed by a Physicist, and a pediatric surgeon at the same University called this Physicist up and said “Hey, we want to try to fill this babies lungs with your stuff to keep them wet and get oxygen to his brain”.

You cant remove a child from the uterus and kill it. You can however, make the best informed medical decision at the time and choose to continue the pregnancy but accept that the mother may die, or to perform an emergency C-section and accept the child may die.
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👍
 
davidneff said:
Hello all,

I have always considered myself pro-life and anti-abortion. However, is abortion to save the mother’s life okay? Why or why not?
Click to expand...
Scenario- A car drives off the road into a river and starts to sink. Inside the car are a mother and her child. A police officer arrives on the scene and tries to get them out of the car, but they are clinging to each other so much that he can’t get either out. He shoots one in the head and pulls the other one out of the car to safety.

Did he act morally? The answer to that question answers your question.
 
oldcatholicguy said:
Scenario- A car drives off the road into a river and starts to sink. Inside the car are a mother and her child. A police officer arrives on the scene and tries to get them out of the car, but they are clinging to each other so much that he can’t get either out. He shoots one in the head and pulls the other one out of the car to safety.

Did he act morally? The answer to that question answers your question.
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If a procedure resulting in the death of the unborn child is necessary to save the mother, and a choice is made to not do that procedure, someone is still being “shot in the head” to save the other.

While rare, scenarios that require such a choice to be made do happen. No matter which choice is made, it is a tragedy and results in a death. It is up to the individual in this situation to decide the best course of action. Perhaps we should offer compassion to anyone who has to go throuh this choice, rather than pretending there can only ever be one correct decision. I pray that I never have to go through this, and if I do, I won’t be judged harshly regardless of my choice.
 
Aviatrix said:
If a procedure resulting in the death of the unborn child is necessary to save the mother, and a choice is made to not do that procedure, someone is still being “shot in the head” to save the other.

While rare, scenarios that require such a choice to be made do happen. No matter which choice is made, it is a tragedy and results in a death. It is up to the individual in this situation to decide the best course of action. Perhaps we should offer compassion to anyone who has to go throuh this choice, rather than pretending there can only ever be one correct decision. I pray that I never have to go through this, and if I do, I won’t be judged harshly regardless of my choice.
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If said procedure was not undertaken by the doctors because they placed the life of the child at a higher value than the life of the mother than you are correct. Notice how my scenario does not indicate who the police officer shot. Any action undertaken to intentionally cause the death of one in order to save the other is immoral. Big difference between intentional and unintentional.

Intentional- Police officer shoots one of them in the head in order to save the other
Unintentional- Police officer physically separates the mother and child, gets one to safety, the other drowns prior to the police officer being able to save them.
 
Off the top of my head, the fairly recent case of a woman in Ireland who was denied an abortion, and subsequently died because of it. There are others.
 
_Abyssinia said:
Savita Halappanavar: Medical misadventure verdict in inquest

‘Highly likely’ Halappanavar would be alive if termination given, inquest told
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The Irish Times is correct, to a point. But there was a way that Halappavar could have lived without deliberately killing her child. That is, if the doctors had proper procedure clarified at the hospital, if proper sepsis management guidelines were enacted (how that happened in an Irish hospital, given their otherwise spotless record surprises me, but I’m going with the BBC), procedures could have been done that did not involve abortion but would have saved the life of Halappavar.
 
Think about the original question, “Abortion to Save the Mother”. Should a baby die to save its mother? No. Should a mother die to save her baby? If necessary.

So, no.
 
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