Can abortion be justified as self-defense?

[chevalier]

No, it cannot be because the foetus is not an assailant and is not a lethal force. There are risks of death connected with bearing the child to term, but there is nothing like 100% chance of dying or living through it depending on the choice between giving birth and abortion.

Pro-choicers are making things up again.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Pug:

Okay, this thread is saying it is the Church teaching that you may directly remove a too small to live child from the abdominal wall in that particular case even though this removes its food, water, and oxygen directly by cutting the cord so it immediately dies. I did not know this. Is there a Church document about this exact question? Or is it more an application of principles, and so subject to error? Ah, or is this like siamese twins and separating them!?.

In the case of ectopic pregnancy, where the child is growing in the fallopian tube (or in other parts of the body) and there is NO chance of saving the child, it is permissible to remove the fallopian tube (and the child) in order to save the mother’s life.

The Principle of Intent is at work here – the aim is not to kill and discard an unwanted child, but to save a life, even while recognizing both mother and child cannot be saved.

The Principle of Alternative Outcome also applies here – if we take the alternative, we do not save the child, and the mother also dies.

Pug:

Then is it allowed to treat the fallopian tube kind without removing the tube? I ask because then the fertility might be kept, especially if it is the only working tube the mom has. I had been taught that it was not okay to remove the baby directly, and that it was only okay to remove the tube with the baby in it, so that it would be indirect killing only and not direct. Furthermore, I had been taught that it had to be because the fallopian tube was diseased that you removed it. Is this wrong as well?

Allowed is one thing, feasible is another. Medical science has not reached the point where we can save both mother and child because removal of the tube is the only way AT PRESENT. In a few years, it might be different.

We do NOT avoid abortion by removing the tube – the Chruch doesn’t hold with that kind of hair-splitting legalisms. We avoid committing abortion by not INTENDING to commit abortion, and by having no better alternative.

Pug:

What is the definition of a direct abortion that you mean? You do not mean directly removing the child from the mom while it is still too small and thus ending the pregnancy.

Vern, I don’t fully understand what’s going on with the other point, so from my end it seems best to drop it.

A direct abortion is made with the intent of killing and discarding the unwanted child, no matter HOW it is done. It is further an optional procedure – there is no threat to human life if it is NOT done.

 

[Pug]

Listener:

This is why I’ve always been a bit puzzled as to why abortion in the case of rape would not be considered by the Church as a form of killing in self defense. It seems to me that breaking into your uterus is more serious than breaking into your home.

Are you sure that you feel it is the child who has broken in? Maybe you could go with that the rapist, his body, and his swimmers are the invaders. Thus the woman would want to take a shower. The child will be the woman’s own genetic child, so maybe it wouldn’t make sense to her to see it as an intruder.

If someone breaks into your house and just sits down on the couch and eats a few potato chips, then it is not justifiable to kill them. It is not self-defense.

We do NOT avoid abortion by removing the tube – the Chruch doesn’t hold with that kind of hair-splitting legalisms. We avoid committing abortion by not INTENDING to commit abortion, and by having no better alternative.

Yeah, I get stuck in the older direct/indirect classical moralism compared to the other way that more analyses intent. I can’t quite always sort them out. This is one of those places it jumbles up for me.

 

[Listener]

jess7396:

Are you saying that a woman would be raped, become pregnant and then have the pregnancy progress to an immediately life-threatening condition? B/c without the immediate life threatening condition, the baby entering the uterus is nothing at all like a 5 year old shooting at you. It would be more like a 5 year old moving into your house.

Thank you for your response - I think you make a very good analogy here. It helps to clear up the fine points of defining something as self defense. I still can’t help but feel, though, that there is an element in some abortions that resembles self defense but probably doesn’t fully qualify. Let’s say that two women went into a clinic and had abortions. The first one is a married woman who doesn’t want to be inconvenienced and ruin her body. The second one is a single woman who has been raped. Let’s say that they both die in a car accident after leaving the abortion clinic. Before they die, they both repent. There is no way to prove this, but I still can’t help but feel that the woman who was raped would get a shorter time in purgatory than the other woman.

 

[Genesis315]

Listener:

Thank you for your response - I think you make a very good analogy here. It helps to clear up the fine points of defining something as self defense. I still can’t help but feel, though, that there is an element in some abortions that resembles self defense but probably doesn’t fully qualify. Let’s say that two women went into a clinic and had abortions. The first one is a married woman who doesn’t want to be inconvenienced and ruin her body. The second one is a single woman who has been raped. Let’s say that they both die in a car accident after leaving the abortion clinic. Before they die, they both repent. There is no way to prove this, but I still can’t help but feel that the woman who was raped would get a shorter time in purgatory than the other woman.

It’s a grave sin either way. There’s always a possibility for mitigating circumstances with regards to any sin. Early in the Church, abortion before a certain time usually received a lesser penance than a later term abortion (there’s another thread on this somewhere, early on it was thought ensoulment happened some weeks after conception). Both instances were mortal sins, but one was somewhat worse than the other.

At then end of the day though, a mortal sin is a mortal sin and only God can see into a heart and judge whether there were mitigating circumstances.

 

[vern_humphrey]

A child conceived through rape is as much a victim of that crime as the mother.

Rape is the only crime where the victim gets the death penalty.

 

[cove]

UKcatholicGuy:

please help! this situation/question concerning abortion was posed to me by someone last week, and it’s been bothering me ever since. i just don’t know how to respond. here it is:

the Catholic Church teaches that one can defend himself against an agressor with lethal force, if nesessary. in other words, if someone is threatening your life, you have the right to kill that person if that is indeed the ONLY thing that will keep you from being killed. In fact, Catechism #2264 quotes St. Thomas Aquinas, "Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s." Using this, the person asked me if abortion, in the case of a life-threatening situation to the mother, would be considered self-defense? He says if we have the right to place more worth on our own life than another’s, why is abortion wrong if the woman’s life is in danger? Isn’t she just defending herself against death?

Needless to say, this question is REALLY BOTHERING ME! I looked up CC #2264 and it does say what I quoted above. Personally, that quotes bothers me, but I don’t know what to make of it.

Can somebody help me refute this argument? Thank you, and God bless this wonderful community!

When I read your post all I can think of as the “agressor” is the Abortionist who is killing the defenseless child.

Ask this person how the child in the womb should defend themselves from the real “agressor”, the Abortionist.

btw–A woman’s life is never threatened by the child in her womb but the medical complications that can develop from “pregnancy”. Complications that can be medically treated. It is not the individual child who is the agressor but more the woman’s own body that can be seen as the “agressor”. The child in the womb was not put there through any willful action of their own. This persons reasoning makes one think that the child forced themselves into their own mothers womb with the intent kill her. When in fact she put it there herself. It makes no sense to label an innocent, defenseless child an “agressor”.

Pro-aborts will try to come up with all types of reasoning to justify killing the child in the womb.

 

[Sybael]

i dont think abortion can be justified as self defence because the baby does not know anything it is unable to purposely harm the mother therefore there is know real threat.so if there is no threat how can it be justified as self defence. I think abortion is wron no matter how you look at it. I think that if there is going to be something wrong either with the baby or its mother then the mother should still bring this baby into the world.if everybody had abortions thennone of us would even be here. I think using self defence as a reason for killing an innocent is just an excuse for not wanting a baby.and if you dont want a baby then why should you be having sex in the first place