Doctors in denial

[St_Francis]

The law is worded as I said. The reasoning behind this law was as follows:

(1) a malformed fetus can be legally aborted
(2) abortion law is untouchable for political reasons
(3) prenatal diagnosis is needed for determing if a fetus is malformed
(4) so let’s outlaw prenatal diagnosis!
(5) but that specific idea encountered opposition, so they pushed an “innocent” amendment to the criminal code which says “whoever causes miscarriage or disrupts health of the fetus is punishable by jail”. The idea was to scare doctors away from doing amniocentesis because it carries a risk of miscarriage or damaging the fetus.*

The woman in question was denied colonoscopy (read the suit) which is a completely unrelated procedure – because it carried a risk of miscarriage. All because of ideologically motivated legal trickery resulting in a bad law having unintended consequences. That’s the crux of the issue. …

…The situation here is that some people believe that it is right to deny a woman access to diagnostics, because it could possibly produce a miscarriage or possibly give a way to legal abortion – regardless of consequences to the woman. …

…Bad “pro-life” laws kill women. This isn’t pro-choice propaganda, this is a documented fact.

Yes, but good pro-life laws save babies.*

As has already been explained, the Catholic Church does not teach that pregnant wome *are to be denied all moral medical treatment that could, however remote the possibility, harm the fetus. That is why most pro-life advocates do not work for a denial of moral medical treatment to women.

You are presenting a strawman argument here: an inaccurate description of the pro-life point of view which you then argue against. Well, yeah, and so would we argue against it.

So what you need to do is to take it up with the Polish groups and the Polish lawmakers, because quite frankly this law is not an argument for the legalization of abortion.

 

[St_Francis]

This is a fallacious argument. You conveniently overlook the fact that the fetus under ca. 22 weeks cannot survive outside the mother’s body. Your heart transplant situation is: Is it acceptable to kill A to save B, if A would live otherwise? This is not comparable to a medically necessary abortion, because the situation there is: Is it acceptable to kill A to save B, if both A and B will die otherwise.*

Say that the donor is expected to die soon because of massive brain injuries. It still would not be moral to kill him so as to use his heart to save the woman.

You are looking only at the outcome and thinking that saving a life is the highest priority, whereas the highest priority is to keep people from killing other people, because deliberately killing innocent human beings is intrinsically wrong.

 

[St_Francis]

I am stilll how to handle rape and incest cases. Maybe in terms of rape, a woman could have the child and give the child up for adoption if she doesn’t want to raise the child. Incest? Still not sure about that.

Killing an unborn child is intrinsically wrong no matter what the circumstances of his or her conception.

It is particularly ironic that the actual perpetrator of the crime would not be subject to the death penalty, but that the other, innocent victim of the crime can be.

 

[LisaA]

Killing an unborn child is intrinsically wrong no matter what the circumstances of his or her conception.

It is particularly ironic that the actual perpetrator of the crime would not be subject to the death penalty, but that the other, innocent victim of the crime can be.

Good point! Also note that pro aborts claim that “law would require a women to carry a child against her will” Well not exactly since the law didn’t impregnate the woman, the rapist did that.

Aside from that reality, how many abortions are the result of rape or incest? The incidence of pregnancy resulting from rape is extremely low and if a result of incest, rather than having the criminal able to hide his criminal act with a quick abortion, providing healthcare and support to the victim and justice to the criminal is a better answer both for the child and society. To allow abortion at will due to these occasional anomolies is unsupportable. It’s playing “what if” with millions of babies’ lives.

Lisa A

 

[LittleSoldier]

A pro-lifer believes that once a genetically distinct and genetically human organism is formed, it becomes a new person. A single-cellular person that is, but a person nonetheless. (This definition runs into several problems, i.e. with cloning, but I will pass over that for now.)

A lot of people believe that being a person is associated with self-awareness (or, in religious terms, having a soul). We know from biology that self-awareness is associated with brain cortex, hence – until the fetus in question develops a sufficiently complex brain, it is inherently incapable of self-awareness (in religious terms, it cannot posses a soul).

Whoa! Are you equating self-awareness with a soul or are you saying a lot of people equate self-awareness with a soul? I see some problems with that. If I am under anaesthesia does my soul leave along with my self-awareness (I know I’m not self-aware when I’m having surgery). If someone is in a coma is her soul now missing, along with her self-awareness? Do we not have souls when we sleep?

What IS self-awareness anyway? That is a complex question and I doubt there is consensus on the definition. But it doesn’t matter in regards to the soul. Every human being has a soul whether self-aware or not.

Nobody knows for sure what sufficiently complex brain actually means, but it is obvious that humans in early development stages, having no brain at all, do not qualify.

I noticed that you used the term “humans” in this sentence. If these beings are humans they are persons. Every human is a person.

I apologize if this has already been covered. I haven’t read the whole thread yet but I read the posts immediately following your post and didn’t see anyone mention it.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Good point! Also note that pro aborts claim that “law would require a women to carry a child against her will” Well not exactly since the law didn’t impregnate the woman, the rapist did that.

Aside from that reality, how many abortions are the result of rape or incest? The incidence of pregnancy resulting from rape is extremely low and if a result of incest, rather than having the criminal able to hide his criminal act with a quick abortion, providing healthcare and support to the victim and justice to the criminal is a better answer both for the child and society. To allow abortion at will due to these occasional anomolies is unsupportable. It’s playing “what if” with millions of babies’ lives.

Lisa A

It seems strange to me that an innocent human being is murdered because her mother was raped. The child is given a death sentence but the rapist isn’t and he’s the guilty one! And now the mother is maimed twice: once because of the rape and second because of the death of her child. What I usually see missing in threads on abortion “rights” is any mention of the rapist and that troubles me.