lifeisbeautiful:
Perhaps its because you are comparing removal of babies that have a chance of survival, for preservation of life (is that what you meant by children being removed on a regular basis?) with removing those that do not. The latter is not an indifferent act.
I still don’t understand how the
action of removing a child from the mother’s body (be it the uterus or the fallopian tube) becomes **
in itself ** morally wrong based on whether or not the child can survive once it is removed.
Here are the criteria to be satisfied:
A. The act must be good or indifferent in itself.
B. The good the agent intends must not be obtained by means of evil.
C. The evil effect must not be intended for itself but only permitted.
D. There must be a proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect to occur.
Here’s my logic:
- What is the danger to the mother? A rupture of the fallopian tube, left untreated, will likely lead to the death of the mother. Satisfies D.
- How can the rupture be prevented without killing the baby? It can’t with current medical technology. Thus, killing the baby must be permitted in order to prevent the dangerous rupture of the fallopian tube. Satisfies C.
- How can the rupture be prevented if killing the baby is permitted? i)surgical removal of the tube ii)surgical removal of the baby iii)application of methotrexate.
i) is not immoral because it has already been shown to be a proper application of the double effect.
iii) is not a proper application of the double effect because the
intended action of the methotrexate is to kill the baby, thereby preventing the baby’s growth from causing the tube to rupture. This seems to rule out B, not A. Administration of methotrexate
in itself is not evil (A), but the means by which the desired effect occurs (killing the baby) is intrinsically evil (B).
ii) is still in question. I have not studied theology, philosophy, or medicine. The act of removing the baby from the fallopian tube, where it is both a hazard to the mother and will inevitably die itself, is IMO at least morally indifferent if not morally good (A). I say morally good because advances in science may someday allow reimplantation, which would be good for both the mother and the baby. The purpose of removing the baby is to prevent the baby’s growth from causing the fallopian tube to rupture which poses a significant danger to the mother (C). The final distinction, then, is to keep asking how the action relates to the desired effect. If at any point one must answer something immoral, then B is not satisfied. If I keep asking how, the only thing I do to the baby is remove it from the tube where it will die anyway. The baby’s death is a tragic side effect of that removal, but as long as the baby dies as a result of the removal and I didn’t kill it in order to remove it, I can find no means of evil to dissatisfy criteria B.
I think some people may be confusing the direct
action with the direct
object. I will have to defer to someone who has studied theology on this, but I believe the emphasis is on the act itself, not the object upon which the action is inflicted. According to my understanding, therefore, (D) in a proportionally grave circumstance] that (C) requires an inevitable evil effect to be permitted], it is inconsequential whether the (A) morally good or indifferent act] is (B) without a means of evil] performed on the object against which the evil occurs (in case iii, the baby) or performed on another object (in case i, the fallopian tube).
I am very intrigued by this. Let me add that if I was faced with this very difficult decision, I would choose i since there is evidence to suggest that the tube itself somehow contributed to the ectopic pregnancy in the first place. If after my logic was approved by a qualified person, I could somehow be assured the tube was not the problem, I would naturally choose iii because it is the medically superior solution with no moral ramifications.
