No, the church has never authorized any chemical medication for ABORTION. But it has accepted that in an ectopic pregnancy it is acceptable to end the pregnancy to save the mother’s life.
This is not what the Church teaches. What the Church teaches is that *treating the mother’s condition *by removing the Fallopian tube, which does result in the side effect of the death of the baby, is acceptable on the principle of double effect: taking a morally acceptable action with a bad side effect for a proportionate reason.
This is clearer in the case of a hysterectomy in the case of cancer, because that can happen when the woman is not pregnant as well. So, consider two women with the exact same cancer, one of whom is pregnant. The doctors say that a complete hysterectomy is the only treatment for each. It is very clear in this case that the hysterectomy is the treatment, and that it is a moral action. And it is clear that the death of the baby is an unintended side effect.
The question wrt using methotrexate *has not been settled. *Either it falls under the principle of double effect as some ethicists suggest; or it does not. If the Church decides that it does not, then the Church will teach that using methotrexate in this way is a direct attack on the baby and this morally unacceptable.
So. What do you call “ending a pregnancy to save a mother’s life”? I call it aborting the fetus–and so would anyone else with even half of a working brain!
If one intends to “end a pregnancy,” which is not a term that makes any sense, when you tihink about it–if one *intends *to kill the baby, then it is an abortion, an intrinsically immoral act, objectively a mortal sin.
An act consists of several parts. There is the act itself. Is it immoral in and of itself? Or a morally neutral act could be rendered immoral by circumstances, like knowingly feeding peanuts to someone with an allergy. Or an act may be rendered immoral by one’s intention, which may not be something others will know, but God will know.
The intention in the case of performing a hysterectomy on the women above is to cure them. The death of the baby is not a feature or goal of the treatment; it is a side effect.
Now, (I apologize for the graphic nature of this example) imagine that a doctor thinks that using a needle to stab the baby would be a good treatment for ectopic pregnancy. *This would be totally immoral. *This would be a direct attack on the baby, an action which contains within itself the death of the baby.
Can you see the difference between this action and the very clear action of the hysterectomy? Can you see the difference between this act and the act of removing a Fallipian tube?
I am not going to argue with you. Basically, I think you believe–deep down inside–that the woman with the ectopic should simply accept her fate and lay down and die like a good little martyr.
This is a horrendous accusation. You seem to completely overlook the fact that there is a treatment which has been fully approve by the Church? It is not as if MaryJK is suggesting denying a moral treatment, there is no reason or basis for you to suggest that she would prefer that the mother die than be treated.
Good for you. If you are female and should have the misfortune of having such a thing occur to you-- I truly hope you follow your conscience and do just that!
But to say that it’s acceptable to eliminate a pregnancy using a scalpel but a sin if you use a ring forcep instead is the exact same logic–or NO LOGIC–as your idea that removing a tube to abort the ectopic prgnancy is somehow different than using methotrexate to do the exact same thing!
Her logic is completely sound and is offered by Catholic ethicists on one side of the current process of determination. The example you offer is not at all analogical. If the methotrxate “ends the pregnancy” by killing the baby, then it is immoral. It is only on the basis that he methotrexate only attacks the outer cells, the tropoblast, that an ethicist can suggest that the use of methotrexate falls under the same principle that removal of the Fallopian tube does.
HINT HERE: BOTH ways the goal is to get rid of the pregnancy that is in an incorrect place!
HINT HERE: Getting a job and robbing a bank BOTH ways of getting money! But I think not even you would think that both are equal morally.
You can candy coat it any way you want–but the goal in the removal of the tube is NOT to get rid of a woman’s tube! It never was! The loss of the pregnancy is NOT a secondary goal subsequent to the removal of the tube. Infact, it is exactly the other way around! The PRIMARY goal is to eliminate the pregnancy which had attached outside the uterus. The secondary effect is that in a salpingectomy–or surgical approach to the dilemna–the woman loses her tube as well as the baby! But make NO mistake–the goal–the PRIMARY goal–is ALWAYS to end the pregnancy! It has to be ended or the mother dies. Nobody has a tube removed just because it’s Thursday and they feel like it! They are removing the tube to get rid of the baby before it kills the mother–and that–is a FACT!
Maybe the way to show the difference is this: suppose someone made an artifical womb into which the baby could be placed after whatever action was taken. After the salpingectomy, the baby would still be alive, and could be placed into the artificial womb, right? And after the hysterectomy, the woman’s baby could be placed in the artificial womb, right? But in the case of the doctor directly using a needle to stab the baby, there would be no baby, not because the baby didn’t survive the operation, but because the baby was stabbed.
