Ectopic Pregnancy

[vern_humphrey]

yochumjy:

No, you are completely ignoring any conversation that you can’t answer. I have shown there IS a correlation between previous and future ectopic pregnancies. You have not shown that your opinion is valid by any outside source. Your fig leaf remark still doesn’t make any sense unless you have some data other than your personal opinion that the fallopian tube is always perfectly healthy and ectopic pregnacies are always random.

From:

advancedfertility.com/ectopic.htm

---

Risk factors for ectopic pregnancy
Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID)

Rate of ectopic pregnancy in women with previous known PID is increased 6-10 times higher than in women with no previous history of PID.

A published study of 745 women with one or more episodes of PID that attempted to conceive showed that 16% were infertile from tubal occlusion. Of those that conceived, 6.4% had ectopic pregnancies.

Pelvic inflammatory disease is usually caused by invasion of either gonorrhea or chlamydia from the cervix up to the uterus and tubes. The infection in these tissues causes an intense inflammatory response. Bacteria, white blood cells and other fluids (pus) fill the tubes as the body combats the infection. Eventually, the body wins and the bacteria are controlled and destroyed. However, during the healing process the delicate inner lining of the tubes (tubal mucosa) is permanently scarred. The end of the tube by the ovaries may become partially or completely blocked, and scar tissue often forms on the outside of the tubes and ovaries. All of these factors can impact ovarian or tubal function and the chances for conception in the future. If pelvic inflammatory disease is treated very early and aggressively with IV antibiotics, the tubal damage might be minimized, and fertility maintained.

---

Clearly, fertility can be maintained. There is no automatic requirement to remove the fallopian tube.

 

[Pug]

yochumjy:

Why the change of subject? If the child had died and left the tube, there will be no bursting of the tube. This is a different situation. And what are you talking about with the damaged uterus? Are you saying that the woman should just be able to have abortions at will because she has a damaged uterus and doesn’t desire to use NFP?

Huh, I think I misunderstood. It sounded to me like some folks were saying that even if you could remove the baby safely from the tube and put it in the womb and have it live, you still should remove the tube in order to prevent the possibility of there being another pregnancy in the tube, seeing as how if there was one pregnancy in the tube, then it is likely for there to be another in the tube. To me, this seems like mutilation, to remove the tube even though it is causing no harm where it is and can be safely left there, thus my comparison to a damaged uterus. But if that is not what anyone is saying, fine. I don’t understand why there is all the talk about increased risk of ectopics after a previous ectoptic if one isn’t talking about removing the tube to prevent them in the future, but fine.

I agree that if a tube is fully diseased and dangerous just by being there, you can remove the tube in order to save the mother from sepsis or bleeding to death or whatever effect actually kills in these cases. The child would be unfortunately removed as well.

I wish when people discussed ectopic pregnancy and how to resolve it in a Catholic way, that they would not go with the pat answer of “remove the diseased tube and have the unfortunate side effect of removing baby as well”. If it is not in the tube, then this reasoning doesn’t apply. What do you do in these other situations? What is the line of reasoning?

I have read in a variety of places that most Catholic moralists say you can only do the tube removal thing, and you cannot go with methotrexate or direct removal of the child from the tube or anyplace else. Here is just a small clip from a page that talks about it :

The majority of Catholic moralists, while rejecting MTX or a salpingostomy, regard a salpingectomy as different in kind and thus licit according to the principle of double effect.

And no, I’m not saying a woman with a damaged uterus can have abortions. Her only choice is abstenance if she need to avoid being pregnant.

 

[Pro-Life_Teen]

A child is playing with matches in his room. To get to his mother’s room, you have to go through his room first.

The boy drops one of the matches and the room quickly bursts into flames. Well, he can’t get out, he’s scared to death and he’s going to die. Plus everyone else will, because the house is burning up.

Now, some firefighters finally get into the house. They run into the boy’s room and find him unconcious infront of his mother’s door, a ceiling beam ontop of him.

He’s dying and he will die, so will the mother is you can’t get her out.

Here are two endings:

The firefighters move the beam carefully and slowly, taking the child out from under it. Unfortunatly the boy’s lungs have inhaled too much smoke and he dies. The firefighters then burst down the door and take the boy’s mother out. She recovers after a few weeks in the hospital.

Or

The firefighters see that the boy’s had too much smoke already. He’s going to die and they know it. It’ll take too long to move the beam, so one of the firefighters kills the child quickly. With no need to be careful, they move the beam quickly and take the mother out faster. She recovers quicker, since she didn’t have as much smoke as last time.

The end results are the same. The young boy’s died. But one situation was because they moved the beam and it took too long. One was directly killing him so they could break down the door.

Which do you pick?

 

[Benedictus]

Pug:

I have read in a variety of places that most Catholic moralists say you can only do the tube removal thing, and you cannot go with methotrexate or direct removal of the child from the tube or anyplace else. Here

Interesting article, but it really doesn’t say anything that hasn’t been said already in this thread. In fact, it practically admits that the author is spitting hairs over the difference between salpingectomy and salpingostomy (I would agree that the use of MTX is not morally licit).

The article makes a nod towards the 5% of ectopic pregnancies that occur outside the fallopian tube, but doesn’t really address them. Presumably, removing the embryo itself is acceptable in those cases. Why couldn’t the embryo be removed in the case of a tubal as well?

The article also seems to regard tubal pregnancies as “infections”. If removing the “infected” organ is okay, why cannot one remove the “infection” itself? The intent is not to kill the “infection”, but simply to remove it. One may accuse me of splitting hairs over that, but certainly that hair is coarser than the hair being split to allow salpingectomies.

 

[Benedictus]

Pro-Life_Teen:

Here are two endings:

The firefighters move the beam carefully and slowly, taking the child out from under it. Unfortunatly the boy’s lungs have inhaled too much smoke and he dies. The firefighters then burst down the door and take the boy’s mother out. She recovers after a few weeks in the hospital.

Or

The firefighters see that the boy’s had too much smoke already. He’s going to die and they know it. It’ll take too long to move the beam, so one of the firefighters kills the child quickly. With no need to be careful, they move the beam quickly and take the mother out faster. She recovers quicker, since she didn’t have as much smoke as last time.

An interesting, but false analogy. The intent of a salpingostomy is to remove the baby that is inadvertently killing his mother, not to kill the baby himself.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Benedictus:

An interesting, but false analogy. The intent of a salpingostomy is to remove the baby that is inadvertently killing his mother, not to kill the baby himself.

You are absolutely correct. Now, as I see it, there are two critical points here:

1. We are performing this surgery because of the ectopic pregnancy – not because the mother has a hangnail or athelete’s foot. We know, going in WHY we are going.
2. The salpingostomy is going to kill the baby – we know that, too.

Therefore it is a fig-leaf to pretend we are NOT going to kill the baby. We are not Thai fisherman who, forbidden by their Buddist beliefs to kill ANYTHING, only catch the fish to dry them out – as an act of mercy. If the fish choose to die, that’s the fishes’ choice!

The justification of our act is that we will save the mother if we provide appropriate medical treatment, and both mother and child will die if we do not. We cannot in such a case, withhold treatment from the mother and allow her and her child to die.

Proceding from that point, the proper, moral treatment is that which holds the least risk for the mother and offers her the greatest chance for normal pregnancies in the future.

 

[TAS2000]

It sounds to me as thought we have a stalemate in the argument. Those saying that it IS moral argue that directly removing or killing just the child is not an evil act because it was done to save the mother and the child would have died anyway. Those who say it is wrong argue that just killing the child is an evil act, and that choosing one life over another is wrong, regardless of the fact that death for at least one is immanent. I don’t think one group is going to be able to convince the other of their side. One side says we are splitting hairs over the definition of removing the tube the baby happens to be in, and removing the baby. The other side says they are splitting hairs over the definition of not intending to kill a child, but directly removing it resulting in its death. Neither seems willing to budge.

Before I quit this discussion, here is my last thought. Regardless of the circumstances, can you think of ANY situation where the Church approves and encourages one person to directly end the life of another? If there is any other alternative, though more inconvient or even hazzardous to us, the church encourages us to use it. War, death penalty, self defense: in all cases the church encourages us to use whatever means will not result in the death of another. Even if it may reluctantly agree that there is no other way in some cases. However, in this case, there is another way than to directly kill the baby. It costs the mother surgery, recovery time, and possibly impaired future fertility.

 

[SHEMP]

TAS2000:

It sounds to me as thought we have a stalemate in the argument. Those saying that it IS moral argue that directly removing or killing just the child is not an evil act because it was done to save the mother and the child would have died anyway. Those who say it is wrong argue that just killing the child is an evil act, and that choosing one life over another is wrong, regardless of the fact that death for at least one is immanent. I don’t think one group is going to be able to convince the other of their side. One side says we are splitting hairs over the definition of removing the tube the baby happens to be in, and removing the baby. The other side says they are splitting hairs over the definition of not intending to kill a child, but directly removing it resulting in its death. Neither seems willing to budge.

Before I quit this discussion, here is my last thought. Regardless of the circumstances, can you think of ANY situation where the Church approves and encourages one person to directly end the life of another? If there is any other alternative, though more inconvient or even hazzardous to us, the church encourages us to use it. War, death penalty, self defense: in all cases the church encourages us to use whatever means will not result in the death of another. Even if it may reluctantly agree that there is no other way in some cases. However, in this case, there is another way than to directly kill the baby. It costs the mother surgery, recovery time, and possibly impaired future fertility.

It is not that I am not willing to budge. I struggle with this issue. I am not saying that it is ok to kill the child directly. This would violate the principle of double effect and Church teaching. All I am saying is that removing the child and the tube seems to be problematic if the child can be removed alone with the same end accomplished. The intent then IS to stop the child from growing in the tube whether you remove the child alone or whether you remove the child and the tube.

Some have suggested that even though the logic is faulty that we need to have this faulty logic so that we don’t go down a slippery slope. I would argue that any faulty logic is already a slippery slope.

I think that either one waits until the tube is irreversibly damaged before you remove both the tube and the child or you violate the principle of double effect (whether you remove the child alone or whether you remove the child and the tube).

 

[Benedictus]

SHEMP:

I think that either one waits until the tube is irreversibly damaged before you remove both the tube and the child or you violate the principle of double effect (whether you remove the child alone or whether you remove the child and the tube).

And then there is the issue of the non-tubal ectopic pregnancy. In such a case, the woman is 99.99% certain to die. I seriously doubt that the right thing to do is to simply say to the woman, “Sorry, but you’re just going to have to die.”

If we can remove just the embryo in such a case, why cannot the embryo alone be remove in a tubal pregnancy?

 

[snoopy]

vern humphrey:

You are absolutely correct. Now, as I see it, there are two critical points here:

1. We are performing this surgery because of the ectopic pregnancy – not because the mother has a hangnail or athelete’s foot. We know, going in WHY we are going.
2. The salpingostomy is going to kill the baby – we know that, too.

Therefore it is a fig-leaf to pretend we are NOT going to kill the baby. We are not Thai fisherman who, forbidden by their Buddist beliefs to kill ANYTHING, only catch the fish to dry them out – as an act of mercy. If the fish choose to die, that’s the fishes’ choice!

The justification of our act is that we will save the mother if we provide appropriate medical treatment, and both mother and child will die if we do not. We cannot in such a case, withhold treatment from the mother and allow her and her child to die.

Proceding from that point, the proper, moral treatment is that which holds the least risk for the mother and offers her the greatest chance for normal pregnancies in the future.

Amen. Amen. Amen. I am just so frustrated that common sense doesn’t prevail to everyone. But I am grateful that this topic has been dealt with in this forum and forced people to really think about the morality of this problem one way or another. There are many many grey areas which all of us who are intelligent and thoughtful and want to do the right thing disagree about. Lively conversation helps people to form their consciences and to feel good about their moral decisions. Maybe someday we can have an answer directly from the pope on this one, and maybe better yet, technology can take care of it entirely by placing the embryo back where it is supposed to be and both mother and baby can live and won’t have to suffer.

 

[snoopy]

vern humphrey:

You are absolutely correct. Now, as I see it, there are two critical points here:

1. We are performing this surgery because of the ectopic pregnancy – not because the mother has a hangnail or athelete’s foot. We know, going in WHY we are going.
2. The salpingostomy is going to kill the baby – we know that, too.

Therefore it is a fig-leaf to pretend we are NOT going to kill the baby. We are not Thai fisherman who, forbidden by their Buddist beliefs to kill ANYTHING, only catch the fish to dry them out – as an act of mercy. If the fish choose to die, that’s the fishes’ choice!

The justification of our act is that we will save the mother if we provide appropriate medical treatment, and both mother and child will die if we do not. We cannot in such a case, withhold treatment from the mother and allow her and her child to die.

Proceding from that point, the proper, moral treatment is that which holds the least risk for the mother and offers her the greatest chance for normal pregnancies in the future.

 

[vern_humphrey]

snoopy:

Amen. Amen. Amen. I am just so frustrated that common sense doesn’t prevail to everyone. But I am grateful that this topic has been dealt with in this forum and forced people to really think about the morality of this problem one way or another. There are many many grey areas which all of us who are intelligent and thoughtful and want to do the right thing disagree about. Lively conversation helps people to form their consciences and to feel good about their moral decisions. Maybe someday we can have an answer directly from the pope on this one, and maybe better yet, technology can take care of it entirely by placing the embryo back where it is supposed to be and both mother and baby can live and won’t have to suffer.

I don’t think His Holiness needs to address this topic. I think WE need to stop tap-dancing around issues like this and recognize that we cannot make an immoral act right by giving it a different name. Nor can we avoid our moral duty because we see a semantic issue that somehow makes saving life immoral.

 

[yochumjy]

vern humphrey:

From:

advancedfertility.com/ectopic.htm

---

Risk factors for ectopic pregnancy
Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID)

Clearly, fertility can be maintained. There is no automatic requirement to remove the fallopian tube.

I did read the whole article. Maybe I am understanding you wrong, but the article clearly states that PID is NOT the only reason for ectopic pregnancies. And your statement seems to be " if there is a possibility of not having another ectopic pregnancy we should do nothing and hope for the best" I completely disagree with you. There is up to a 20% chance of another ectopic pregnacy after the first. You continue to advocate that there is no problem with the tube when you have one ectopic pregnancy, and the data in your own link shows that to be blatently false. There is significant data that says there is something wrong with the system. You have hilighted that with your link nicely, thanks.

I feel I am being completely consistant, that the problem is not the child, it is the system in the mother. I still feel that just using a drug is playing russian roulette with a future child while aborting the present child.

 

[yochumjy]

vern humphrey:

You are absolutely correct. Now, as I see it, there are two critical points here:

1. We are performing this surgery because of the ectopic pregnancy – not because the mother has a hangnail or athelete’s foot. We know, going in WHY we are going.
2. The salpingostomy is going to kill the baby – we know that, too.

Therefore it is a fig-leaf to pretend we are NOT going to kill the baby. We are not Thai fisherman who, forbidden by their Buddist beliefs to kill ANYTHING, only catch the fish to dry them out – as an act of mercy. If the fish choose to die, that’s the fishes’ choice!

The justification of our act is that we will save the mother if we provide appropriate medical treatment, and both mother and child will die if we do not. We cannot in such a case, withhold treatment from the mother and allow her and her child to die.

Proceding from that point, the proper, moral treatment is that which holds the least risk for the mother and offers her the greatest chance for normal pregnancies in the future.

First, a future chance of fertility for the mother is not in the same moral level as life for either the mother or the child. If we are putting future children at an elevated risk, which we clearly are by your own article (thanks for that), that future risk for the unborn clearly outweighs fertility for the mother. Can we agree on that?

Second, I’m going to continue to say this. Just because your intent is to save the mother, does not mean that you can always do whatever you wish to the child. Actions and intent must be weighed together. The action of taking the drug to remove the child indicates that the intent of the drug is to cause abortion. This is completely different than your morphine story, since the morpine was given for pain. The action of removing the tube is to remove the part of the system that caused the baby’s life AND the mother’s life to be put in jeapardy. The baby was lodged in the tube, the baby did not belong there. There was a malfunction in or along the tube that caused the immenant danger to the mother.

Actions speak greater than words. The intent of removing only the baby is to kill the child to save the mother. The intent of removing the tube “SHOULD BE” to save the mother’s life by removing the part of her system that will cause her death due to a problem with that part of the system.

Even if a problem is intermittant, there is NO reason to leave it in the system, unless it is critical to the system. If you have a piece of code in a computer program that crashes your system, you can fix the underlying problem or if it is not critical you can remove it. If you can not find the underlying problem and if it is not critical you remove it, this is basic sense. Medical science has not found the way to really know how to solve the problem of the tube. They can guess, but they don’t know.

I can see that we don’t have a 100% chance that not removing the tube will result in a future ectopic pregnancy in that tube, but so what. We also know that we can not take the directly take the life of one innocent to save another innocent.

 

[yochumjy]

snoopy:

Amen. Amen. Amen. I am just so frustrated that common sense doesn’t prevail to everyone.

Funny enough, I believe both sides of this discussion are saying this.

snoopy:

But I am grateful that this topic has been dealt with in this forum and forced people to really think about the morality of this problem one way or another. There are many many grey areas which all of us who are intelligent and thoughtful and want to do the right thing disagree about. Lively conversation helps people to form their consciences and to feel good about their moral decisions.

I am also grateful that we have had a chance to bring out all of this in the open. It is a shame we can’t come to a concensus.

snoopy:

Maybe someday we can have an answer directly from the pope on this one, and maybe better yet, technology can take care of it entirely by placing the embryo back where it is supposed to be and both mother and baby can live and won’t have to suffer.

I agree with Vern that the Pope should not have to weigh in on every subset of every issue, although I would like to see some theological “heavyweights” add to the discussion. And as for saving children, I’m with you 100%.

 

[javelin]

Wow, what an interesting discussion. Much great thought went into everyone’s posts. After reading through the entire discussion, here is where I have arrived:

The only completely moral action one can take when faced with an ectopic pregnancy is attempting to move the child, intact, to a place where the pregnancy has at least a small chance of surviving. During the procedure, every attempt should be made to preserve the complete health and function of the child and mother.

Since it seems that the medical* function* of Methotrexate is to kill the developing child, it would not be licit (unless the child were already dead, but who can possibly make that call?!?).

However, if there were a different medication that served to separate the mother and child so that there could be an attempt to move the child to the uterus, I believe that medication would be morally licit. Actually, I think that would be a more moral option than surgery to remove the surrounding fallopian tube, baby and all, because it more closely fits the ideal situation whereby both mother and child are living and all otherwise healthy organs are intact.

Waiting until the “tube is so diseased that it must be removed” or any other inaction that postpones a decision until surgery is required seems like negligence to me, and could be considered needlessly putting the mother’s life at risk, which I would also think the Church views as morally illicit (for how could the Church say it is licit to needlessly put someone’s life at risk?).

The fact that the technology does not exist to make the ideal situation a reality does not mean that we should not make every effort to see it happen.

The real catch is that most doctors won’t even attempt to move the child. Ours wouldn’t when we were told that the pregnancy could be ectopic. We asked directly, and through tears.

So, the reality is that we are presented by the doctors who we entrust with our care several options, all of which are imperfect and vary in relative morality. We then make a choice based on our conscience and the advice of the doctors. Afterwards, we grieve the loss of the child and ask for forgiveness (sacramentally is best) if we unknowingly didn’t do all that we could have. God sees our hearts and will judge us based on the culpability we had that only He truly knows. Then we move on.

I still believe that there are many things in the case of an ectopic pregnancy that severely mitigate, if not eliminate, the culpability of the parent(s) in choosing how to save the mother’s life. I also believe there are very few cases where a person’s culpability would rise to the level of mortal sin.

The most culpable party may actually be the doctors who refuse to make the attempt to save the child’s life.

So I continue to trust in the grace of God through Jesus Christ and live in the hope of meeting our unborn child one day.

Peace to you all,
javelin

 

[snoopy]

yochumjy:

Even if a problem is intermittant, there is NO reason to leave it in the system, unless it is critical to the system. If you have a piece of code in a computer program that crashes your system, you can fix the underlying problem or if it is not critical you can remove it. If you can not find the underlying problem and if it is not critical you remove it, this is basic sense.

I am wondering if this also can apply to a woman’s fertility. If a woman almost died giving birth to her last child, and her doctor told her not to have another child, can this be applied to all her reproductive organs? Her uterus is not critical to her system, so could it be removed because of an underlying problem that threatens her life? I’m not trying to be a smart-alec here, I am really trying to understand. In all honesty, in the situation I just described where the woman will probably die if she has another child, I can see your point and to remove the uterus would probably be the right thing to do. All I know is that I’m more confused than ever!!!. That is why I think the pope should give more direct instructions, or everyone will just have to go by their own consciences and hope they are doing the right thing.

 

[vern_humphrey]

yochumjy:

First, a future chance of fertility for the mother is not in the same moral level as life for either the mother or the child. If we are putting future children at an elevated risk, which we clearly are by your own article (thanks for that), that future risk for the unborn clearly outweighs fertility for the mother. Can we agree on that?

Are you saying that if a doctor determines a woman has an elevated chance of an ectopic pregnancy, she MUST be sterilized?

yochumjy:

Second, I’m going to continue to say this. Just because your intent is to save the mother, does not mean that you can always do whatever you wish to the child.

Look at it the other way around – just because you say your are removing a diseased fallopian tube doesn’t mean you aren’t killnig the child.

Pretending that you AREN’T doing what you ARE doing doesn’t make it moral.

yochumjy:

Actions and intent must be weighed together. The action of taking the drug to remove the child indicates that the intent of the drug is to cause abortion.

No. The intent is to save the mother’s life – and, if possible, to do it without intrusive surgery, which holds a risk to the mother’s life. If we are so concerned about risk as to sterilize a woman because she might have another ectopic pregnancy, we should apply the same risk avoidance criteria here – and take the least risky procedure.

yochumjy:

This is completely different than your morphine story, since the morpine was given for pain.

In the full reconition that it would hasten death. Drugs in this case are given to save the mother’s life in the full recognition that they will hasted the inevitable death of the baby.

yochumjy:

The action of removing the tube is to remove the part of the system that caused the baby’s life AND the mother’s life to be put in jeapardy. The baby was lodged in the tube, the baby did not belong there. There was a malfunction in or along the tube that caused the immenant danger to the mother.

The action of removing the tube kills the baby. You know it, I know it – everyone knows it.

The tube is being removed BECAUSE the baby is in there and for no other reason. Therefore the purpose is to remove (and kill) the baby.

yochumjy:

Actions speak greater than words. The intent of removing only the baby is to kill the child to save the mother.

Actions DO speak louder than words – killing the baby and putting the mother at unnecessary risk is an immoral action.

yochumjy:

The intent of removing the tube “SHOULD BE” to save the mother’s life by removing the part of her system that will cause her death due to a problem with that part of the system.

Removing the tube kills the baby – and everyone knows it. Do we say, “Well, the baby died! Am I surprised?”

yochumjy:

I can see that we don’t have a 100% chance that not removing the tube will result in a future ectopic pregnancy in that tube, but so what. We also know that we can not take the directly take the life of one innocent to save another innocent.

I can see that we don’t have a 100% chance the mother will survive unnecessary surgery. Nor do I see where the Church sanctions sterilization to prevent a possible future ectopic pregnancy.

 

[yochumjy]

snoopy:

yochumjy:

Even if a problem is intermittant, there is NO reason to leave it in the system, unless it is critical to the system. If you have a piece of code in a computer program that crashes your system, you can fix the underlying problem or if it is not critical you can remove it. If you can not find the underlying problem and if it is not critical you remove it, this is basic sense.

I am wondering if this also can apply to a woman’s fertility. If a woman almost died giving birth to her last child, and her doctor told her not to have another child, can this be applied to all her reproductive organs? Her uterus is not critical to her system, so could it be removed because of an underlying problem that threatens her life? I’m not trying to be a smart-alec here, I am really trying to understand. In all honesty, in the situation I just described where the woman will probably die if she has another child, I can see your point and to remove the uterus would probably be the right thing to do. All I know is that I’m more confused than ever!!!. That is why I think the pope should give more direct instructions, or everyone will just have to go by their own consciences and hope they are doing the right thing.

I think you may have found where MY analogy breaks down.

I guess it would depend in this case, if the uterus was going to be the ultimate death of the woman. If the uterus has cancer, then remove it. If it is just that the woman’s system has a problem, then removing the uterus would be to sterilyze her, which I don’t think would be the correct thing to do. I don’t actually think the uterus applies in the analogy above for the general case of not being able to carry to term due to say, blood preasure. That case, not being able to carry to term due to normal body systems, is a tough case, and one I don’t want to live through. I think if I did have to deal with that, I would just use NFP as conservatively as possible. I would much rather abstain for the life of my bride than have her do surgery that isn’t necessary.

 

[yochumjy]

vern humphrey:

Are you saying that if a doctor determines a woman has an elevated chance of an ectopic pregnancy, she MUST be sterilized?

We are not talking about unsubstantiated guesses here. We are talking about the fact that we HAVE an ectopic pregnancy. We there KNOW that there was a problem that occurred in the tubes. We also KNOW that the tube bursting will kill the mother. Therefore removal of the tube, which is what will kill the mother, has the SIDE EFFECT of partial sterilization (note she has another tube in most cases) and the death of the child.
vern humphrey:

Look at it the other way around – just because you say your are removing a diseased fallopian tube doesn’t mean you aren’t killnig the child.

Pretending that you AREN’T doing what you ARE doing doesn’t make it moral.

True, but the intent is to save the mother’s life. The church allows this. The church does NOT allow the direct abortion of the child, which, whether you like it or not, is what you are subscribing to.
vern humphrey:

No. The intent is to save the mother’s life – and, if possible, to do it without intrusive surgery, which holds a risk to the mother’s life. If we are so concerned about risk as to sterilize a woman because she might have another ectopic pregnancy, we should apply the same risk avoidance criteria here – and take the least risky procedure.

The surgery is not the moral issue here. And you continuously ignore that without surgery of any type you completely IGNORE ANY UNDERLYING CAUSE. Besides the fact the the non-surgery method is not covered under the principle of double effect because your action is to directly abort the baby and ignore any real underlying problems.
vern humphrey:

In the full reconition that it would hasten death. Drugs in this case are given to save the mother’s life in the full recognition that they will hasted the inevitable death of the baby.

Again, you ignore what the action of the drugs are, which is to remove the pain. The action of the drugs for an ectopic pregnancy is to remove the child, which is an abortion, which is evil in the eyes of the church and is never allowed.
vern humphrey:

The action of removing the tube kills the baby. You know it, I know it – everyone knows it.

The tube is being removed BECAUSE the baby is in there and for no other reason. Therefore the purpose is to remove (and kill) the baby.

You COULD look at it like that, but if you do then your intent is to kill the child and you may as well do that safely. The intent, to be allowed under the principle of double effect, as well as the action is to remove the problem (note the child isn’t the problem). The child ended up in the tube due to some problem, and subsequently the tube will rupture because the child implanted there. Note that the child was caused to implant in the wrong place by a different problem. The original problem (the child implanting in the wrong place) occurred in the tube.
vern humphrey:

Actions DO speak louder than words – killing the baby and putting the mother at unnecessary risk is an immoral action.

Removing the tube kills the baby – and everyone knows it. Do we say, “Well, the baby died! Am I surprised?”

I can see that we don’t have a 100% chance the mother will survive unnecessary surgery. Nor do I see where the Church sanctions sterilization to prevent a possible future ectopic pregnancy.

Your sarcasm detracts from this debate, as you so astutely noticed a few days ago. No one is surprised if the baby dies when removing the tube. And there is no 100% chance of anything in this life. Non-surgery might make it easier for the mother, but what is the action of the non-surgery drug? The action of the non-surgery drug is abortion. How does the non-surgery drug affect the original problem? The original problem is that something caused the child to implant in the fallopian tube. The non-surgery drug, therefore, does nothing to correct the original problem. Therefore, by taking the non-surgery drug, you can not apply the principle of double effect, since your action is not to correct the problem that endangers the woman’s life. Your action must be to deal with the original problem that causes the danger to the woman’s life.

We all know that removing the tube will kill the child, but non-surgical methods do NOTHING to correct/deal with the underlying issue: The underlying issue is that the child implanted in the tubes.