Alas, Abortion

[catharina]

Yes, yes everyone who disagrees with you is rejecting reality because your perspective is THE perspective.

In any event, if you could point out a problem with that course of action that’d be swell- since the fact that child is unlikely to survive, while highly unfortunate, does not mean that this does not constitute treating both patients.

This thread is refering to Catholic teaching.
It seems rather clear that you support some other teaching.

It’s not my invented perspective.
It’s the Catholic perspective.

One more time, why do you call yourself Catholic?

 

[tjm190]

This thread is refering to Catholic teaching.
It seems rather clear that you support some other teaching.

It’s not my invented perspective.
It’s the Catholic perspective.

One more time, why do you call yourself Catholic?

You’ve yet to point out a flaw with that course of action; again, the fact that the child would probably not have made it is unfortunate, but does not make it immoral, so unless I am missing something this would have been an acceptable course of action… You seem to think I am missing something, since you think it would have been immoral- what, pray tell, might that be?

And again, I’m not getting into how I choose to label myself in this thread, seeing as I’ve already done that on other threads in the past and nothing was achieved.

 

[mchale]

Not morally responsible, but is still causing me to fall.

So, all that is required to justify killing in your world is that the existence of a person poses an immediate threat to your life (not their actions, their mere existence).

Since the general line is ‘treat both patients’, would it have been acceptable to do the following- Surgically remove the child to treat the mother (for her, the only viable course of action was to end the pregnancy) and then do everything in your power to save the baby, even though success was highly unlikely?

Its funny, in later posts, you claim you are not a doctor, and therefore don’t know if there is any effective treatment for an ex-utero 11 week old child, but here you claim to know enough to be sure there is only one viable course for treating the mother (As far as I can tell, there have not been many actual details of the case released to the public so I am not sure even a doctor could authoritatively make that judgment based on what we know).

If a viable method of treating such a fetus were available, and offered a reasonable chance of allowing it to live, then no, there would be no objection to that line of treatment. However, no such treatment exists. Removing the fetus essentially is like turning off the oxygen for scuba diver 100 feet below the surface of the ocean.

Yes, the line between what is allowed seems very thin sometimes. But the point here is that the line is there. If we keep redefining the line, we can redefine it until the point where it has no meaning anymore (i.e., next thing you know, fetal stem cells, abortion for other lesser health issues, abortion for financial distress on the family all become acceptable).

–
Bill

 

[catharina]

So, all that is required to justify killing in your world is that the existence of a person poses an immediate threat to your life (not their actions, their mere existence).

Its funny, in later posts, you claim you are not a doctor, and therefore don’t know if there is any effective treatment for an ex-utero 11 week old child, but here you claim to know enough to be sure there is only one viable course for treating the mother (As far as I can tell, there have not been many actual details of the case released to the public so I am not sure even a doctor could authoritatively make that judgment based on what we know).

If a viable method of treating such a fetus were available, and offered a reasonable chance of allowing it to live, then no, there would be no objection to that line of treatment. However, no such treatment exists. Removing the fetus essentially is like turning off the oxygen for scuba diver 100 feet below the surface of the ocean.

Yes, the line between what is allowed seems very thin sometimes. But the point here is that the line is there. If we keep redefining the line, we can redefine it until the point where it has no meaning anymore (i.e., next thing you know, fetal stem cells, abortion for other lesser health issues, abortion for financial distress on the family all become acceptable).

–
Bill

Ditto.

 

[catharina]

You’ve yet to point out a flaw with that course of action; again, the fact that the child would probably not have made it is unfortunate, but does not make it immoral, so unless I am missing something this would have been an acceptable course of action… You seem to think I am missing something, since you think it would have been immoral- what, pray tell, might that be?

And again, I’m not getting into how I choose to label myself in this thread, seeing as I’ve already done that on other threads in the past and nothing was achieved.

The FLAW is an act of murder.
Remove baby, baby dies; no treatment available.

Whether you are driven by ignorance or arrogance,
consider yourself fully isolated by your embrace of untruth.

Good bye.

 

[mchale]

Yes, yes everyone who disagrees with you is rejecting reality because your perspective is THE perspective.

When it comes to Catholic Teaching on this issue, then yes, it is THE perspective.

In any event, if you could point out a problem with that course of action that’d be swell- since the fact that child is unlikely to survive, while highly unfortunate, does not mean that this does not constitute treating both patients.

The problem has been pointed out. The child doesn’t have a low chance, a tiny chance or even a very, very, very slight chance to survive. It has NO chance to survive. If that was in any way a viable option, do you think anyone who even claimed to be Catholic would have endorsed the abortion over the course you are suggesting?

–
Bill

 

[tjm190]

So, all that is required to justify killing in your world is that the existence of a person poses an immediate threat to your life (not their actions, their mere existence).

Not a threat, a threat is a potential to cause harm, but rather that their existence is actively causing my death.

Its funny, in later posts, you claim you are not a doctor, and therefore don’t know if there is any effective treatment for an ex-utero 11 week old child, but here you claim to know enough to be sure there is only one viable course for treating the mother (As far as I can tell, there have not been many actual details of the case released to the public so I am not sure even a doctor could authoritatively make that judgment based on what we know).

I read the story and I assume it’s accurate- that and a room full of Catholic ethicists headed by a nun doesn’t recommend and abortion lightly. And I know there is no effective treatment available- what I don’t know is what treatment of limited effectiveness would have been applied.

If a viable method of treating such a fetus were available, and offered a reasonable chance of allowing it to live, then no, there would be no objection to that line of treatment. However, no such treatment exists. Removing the fetus essentially is like turning off the oxygen for scuba diver 100 feet below the surface of the ocean.

Yes, the line between what is allowed seems very thin sometimes. But the point here is that the line is there. If we keep redefining the line, we can redefine it until the point where it has no meaning anymore (i.e., next thing you know, fetal stem cells, abortion for other lesser health issues, abortion for financial distress on the family all become acceptable).

–
Bill

I fail to see how the fact that the child probably would have died makes it an immoral action- this would not have been a direct abortion. The intent would not have been to kill the child, but rather to remove it from an environment where it was doing harm/being done harm. Everything possible would have been done to save the child, albeit it probably would have ended in failure.

 

[jmcrae]

Scientists, like doctors, are hardly endowed with godlike infallibility in their predictions of future outcomes.

They certainly are not.

It was nearly three years ago that my father was told that he was going to die “within weeks” - so he sold his house, gave all his stuff away, wrapped up his affairs, and moved into a seniors’ residence. He’s still sitting there in the seniors’ residence, bored half to tears, missing his house and his neighbors.

 

[mchale]

Not a threat, a threat is a potential to cause harm, but rather that their existence is actively causing my death.

Goodness you are pedantic. Lets make this clear, until you are actually Dead, they are an immediate threat to your life. You can’t actually know the outcome until well… you are dead.

I read the story and I assume it’s accurate- that and a room full of Catholic ethicists headed by a nun doesn’t recommend and abortion lightly. And I know there is no effective treatment available- what I don’t know is what treatment of limited effectiveness would have been applied.

Yes, we can always trust the news media to get it right… particularly in matters of the Church where they have never tried to sensationalize their stories!

In addition, it is sad but true, that many so called Catholic Institutions, including Hospitals and Universities have become less than fully faithful to the teachings of the Church. Clearly, if the ethics board went ahead with the idea of a direct abortion, they are failing in their jobs of being Catholic Ethicists.

Its simple really, Doctors often recommend overly aggressive treatments for a variety of reasons (Probably a big reason is fear of getting sued). More than one patient has been told that there only treatment option is X, and when they looked into the situation, they found that Y and Z were also possible options as well.

I fail to see how the fact that the child probably would have died makes it an immoral action- this would not have been a direct abortion. The intent would not have been to kill the child, but rather to remove it from an environment where it was doing harm/being done harm. Everything possible would have been done to save the child, albeit it probably would have ended in failure.

Sigh, not probably died… they would have died. It would have been a direct abortion because it was directly removing the fetus from the means to sustain it. Only miracle could have saved a child at that age, and you can’t rationalize an action as being legitimate based on the notion that a miracle might happen.

You have this habit of engaging in sophistry to defend the position. Your argument essentially is the same as turning off the air to a scuba diver and then claiming you didn’t kill them because you tried CPR on them later.

–
Bill

 

[tjm190]

Goodness you are pedantic. Lets make this clear, until you are actually Dead, they are an immediate threat to your life. You can’t actually know the outcome until well… you are dead.

Yes- earlier it seemed to have been implied that my logic could have justified a preemptive strike against anything capable of doing harm to the individual.

Yes, we can always trust the news media to get it right… particularly in matters of the Church where they have never tried to sensationalize their stories!

In addition, it is sad but true, that many so called Catholic Institutions, including Hospitals and Universities have become less than fully faithful to the teachings of the Church. Clearly, if the ethics board went ahead with the idea of a direct abortion, they are failing in their jobs of being Catholic Ethicists.

Its simple really, Doctors often recommend overly aggressive treatments for a variety of reasons (Probably a big reason is fear of getting sued). More than one patient has been told that there only treatment option is X, and when they looked into the situation, they found that Y and Z were also possible options as well.

Do you have any particular reason to doubt the story, the ethicists , or the docotrs, or are you just assuming they’ve got it wrong?

Sigh, not probably died… they would have died.

And you can guarantee that?

It would have been a direct abortion because it was directly removing the fetus from the means to sustain it. Only miracle could have saved a child at that age, and you can’t rationalize an action as being legitimate based on the notion that a miracle might happen.

It would have been removing the baby from a situation in which both the child and the mother were in peril.

You have this habit of engaging in sophistry to defend the position. Your argument essentially is the same as turning off the air to a scuba diver and then claiming you didn’t kill them because you tried CPR on them later.

–
Bill

Ah, unjustified comparisons are fun. if his air tank was full of monoxide, then turning it off would seem prudent even if the alternative gave him a slim chance of survival.
The objection raised earlier was that you can not intentionally kill someone to save someone else, even if the first someone was killing the second someone. I claim that this method would not have resulted in intentional killing, but rather an attempt at saving with a high risk of failure.

If you believe I am being deceptive somewhere, please point it out.

 

[mchale]

Yes- earlier it seemed to have been implied that my logic could have justified a preemptive strike against anything capable of doing harm to the individual.

I used the term immediate threat, which implies more than the capability of doing harm, but rather serious immediate risk of death (about as predictive as you can get since even pushing you off a cliff doesn’t make your death a certainty).

Do you have any particular reason to doubt the story, the ethicists , or the docotrs, or are you just assuming they’ve got it wrong?

Considering the fact that the new stories I have seen made it sound like the Bishop in the Diocese did the excommunication as opposed to simply informed the Sister that her action had automatically incurred an excommunication (Something the Sister should have known anyway if she was serving on an ethics board at a hospital), yes, I do have reason to doubt the veracity of the media with respect to this story.

And you can guarantee that? It would have been removing the baby from a situation in which both the child and the mother were in peril.

Barring God intervening in a miracle, yes, I can guarantee that the child would die given the current state of medical science. To the best of my knowledge, the earliest term infant to have been delivered and survived is just a day or two off 22 weeks.

Essentially it comes down to this. Do nothing, and the mother and child are both in extreme peril (lets say 90% chance of dieing before the child could be delivered safely). Remove the child from the mother’s womb and the child certainly dies. Further removal of that child was deliberate and not the unintended side effect of a separate treatment.

Ah, unjustified comparisons are fun. if his air tank was full of monoxide, then turning it off would seem prudent even if the alternative gave him a slim chance of survival.

Shall we go back to shooting airlines? You know full well that I intended regular life sustaining air to be in the tank.

My point was this. Removing essential life support from an otherwise healthy individual (Even if that individual is under great peril) is murder clear and simple. Thats true of the scuba diver and of the child in question. Unless an individual is acting as a moral agent in threatening the life of another person, one cannot justify killing them to save the other person.

The objection raised earlier was that you can not intentionally kill someone to save someone else, even if the first someone was killing the second someone. I claim that this method would not have resulted in intentional killing, but rather an attempt at saving with a high risk of failure.

If you believe I am being deceptive somewhere, please point it out.

Your being deceptive in that you are claiming the baby has any chance at all of surviving being removed from the mother at 11 weeks. Directly depriving a being of its means of life support is murder pure and simple.

–
Bill

 

[tjm190]

The FLAW is an act of murder.
Remove baby, baby dies; no treatment available.

Whether you are driven by ignorance or arrogance,
consider yourself fully isolated by your embrace of untruth.

Good bye.

No effective treatment does not mean no treatment.

 

[tjm190]

I used the term immediate threat, which implies more than the capability of doing harm, but rather serious immediate risk of death (about as predictive as you can get since even pushing you off a cliff doesn’t make your death a certainty).

Alright, works for me, apologies on my misunderstanding. Yes, if someone’s existence presents an immediate threat to another persons’s life and their own and the former person can not somehow be saved, I would consider the killing of the first person justified.

Considering the fact that the new stories I have seen made it sound like the Bishop in the Diocese did the excommunication as opposed to simply informed the Sister that her action had automatically incurred an excommunication (Something the Sister should have known anyway if she was serving on an ethics board at a hospital), yes, I do have reason to doubt the veracity of the media with respect to this story.

That seems more like a lack of knowledge of how the process works- again, doctors can be wrong, but assuming doctors are wrong simply because you don’t like the prognosis is a great way to loose your life.

Barring God intervening in a miracle, yes, I can guarantee that the child would die given the current state of medical science. To the best of my knowledge, the earliest term infant to have been delivered and survived is just a day or two off 22 weeks.

I would also guarantee that a six mile fall or railway spike through the brain would kill someone, but even those seeming certainties have been shown to lend themselves to exceptions.

Essentially it comes down to this. Do nothing, and the mother and child are both in extreme peril (lets say 90% chance of dieing before the child could be delivered safely). Remove the child from the mother’s womb and the child certainly dies. Further removal of that child was deliberate and not the unintended side effect of a separate treatment.

Certainly? Not to long ago we were all talking about how there is no certainty. The death of the child is an outcome that would be actively attempted to avoid, even knowing that a success would be unprecedented.

Shall we go back to shooting airlines? You know full well that I intended regular life sustaining air to be in the tank.

Then that would not accurately represent the situation. A scuba diver with air in his tank is happy scuba diver, not harming or being harmed by his air tank.

My point was this. Removing essential life support from an otherwise healthy individual (Even if that individual is under great peril) is murder clear and simple. Thats true of the scuba diver and of the child in question. Unless an individual is acting as a moral agent in threatening the life of another person, one cannot justify killing them to save the other person.

That which was sustaining the scuba diver/child was being harmed by them and vice-versa.

Your being deceptive in that you are claiming the baby has any chance at all of surviving being removed from the mother at 11 weeks. Directly depriving a being of its means of life support is murder pure and simple.

–
Bill

I am claiming it is possible- but again, if the doctors were attempting to save two lives with the understanding that one would almost certainly be lost, there is no act of murder.

 

[mchale]

That seems more like a lack of knowledge of how the process works- again, doctors can be wrong, but assuming doctors are wrong simply because you don’t like the prognosis is a great way to loose your life.

They are journalists, if they can’t tell the difference between incurring an automatic excommunication and a bishop specifically excommunicating someone, how are we suppose to trust them with something as complicated as medicine.

I would also guarantee that a six mile fall or railway spike through the brain would kill someone, but even those seeming certainties have been shown to lend themselves to exceptions.

When you find me the exception, we can revisit this question. As it is right now, the general consensus in the medical and scientific community says an infant born at 11 weeks will not live.

Certainly? Not to long ago we were all talking about how there is no certainty. The death of the child is an outcome that would be actively attempted to avoid, even knowing that a success would be unprecedented.

There is no certainty about predicting death in certain circumstances (like in the current case). I can assure you that some acts come with certainty. If I cut off someone’s head, they are going to die, likewise, if I take an infant out of the womb at 11 weeks, it will die. Now, its conceivable that in the future, they will be able to save people in those situations, but given the state of medical science right now, no, they can’t save them.

Then that would not accurately represent the situation. A scuba diver with air in his tank is happy scuba diver, not harming or being harmed by his air tank.

My point was, that the action is deliberately killing the scuba diver. You seemed to present a tank where the oxygen had been replaced by carbon monoxide – such a tank has no life sustaining properties. Therefore, turning off the tank has zero moral effect.

The comparison with the mother and child holds towards the moral guilt for the action. It was never intended to be a complete analogy.

That which was sustaining the scuba diver/child was being harmed by them and vice-versa.

The child is not necessarily being actively harmed by the mother. The child will die if the mother dies before the child reaches 22 weeks or so (and probably even then until the child reaches 26 weeks or so), but that doesn’t mean the child is actively being harmed at the time it was removed from the womb.

I am claiming it is possible- but again, if the doctors were attempting to save two lives with the understanding that one would almost certainly be lost, there is no act of murder.

Not almost certainly, definitely the child would be lost. Further, even if the chance is extremely remote, it doesn’t not make it murder. Ultimately what you are talking about could be considered reckless endangerment.

–
Bill

 

[tjm190]

Not almost certainly, definitely the child would be lost. Further, even if the chance is extremely remote, it doesn’t not make it murder. Ultimately what you are talking about could be considered reckless endangerment.

–
Bill

The discussion on whether or not it is certain seems to be irrelevant now that we’ve arrived at this little tidbit- we are not allowed to endanger the child for the sake of the mother? As in, we may not take action that makes the child worse off to make the mother better off? Or is this prohibition limited to things that make the child much worse off and the mother much better off?