Eucharist and contraception

[Pup7]

Are you talking about yourself?
I’m a doctor you know.

No, I’m talking about your post, which we both know (which I think most of those here know) was in fact directed at me.

Like I said, I have no issues with proving who and what I am, because I can do it. I can give you a state, a license, a Facebook profile rife with photos, and a transcript (for some odd reason, I have an electronic copy sent to me via official email from the University). I’d even forward you an email from my military account so you’d know I’m that too (although there’s a picture of me publicly viewable on FB that shows me in uniform). Trying to call someone’s bluff and be veiled about being trite can sometimes backfire in the worst way on that person.

I’ve said all I’m going to say on that, and I’m moving on.

 

[ratio1]

You still don’t get my point. Never mind. Let’s move on to more important topics as you said.

Let’s not hijack this thread. Pm if you wish.

 

[Pup7]

Yes I was being mildly tongue in cheek in my expression - though it is fairly clear Pup7 has never had a serious conversation on the matter from a trained moral theologian nor undertaken serious private study of relevant Magisterial docs.

it is inconceivable that anyone could be coming out with the views she is confidently proposing as Church teaching on the matter if she had.

It’s actually not. People doubt all the time.

I’m delighted, however, that you’ve actually helped me make my point, right here.

PlanB cannot be supported (for use by Catholics who care) if the medication involved is known to prevent implantation of a fertilised egg and one believes fertilisation has likely taken place.

There’s your answer. (Nice attempt at a slag, though.)

It’s inconceivable that implantation occurs within the first hours of a rape, which is when it’s given in the ED - because conception and implantation takes up to 72 hours. Look it up - it doesn’t happen in a few hours. We can’t believe ANYTHING has taken place at that point, and it’s why it’s not given after that time, because it is too late and would be 100% ineffective.

So, friend, this what the three clergy I consulted - and not after Mass on the church lawn, which is why I brought up my education creds to hopefully impart that I’m a bit smarter than that - reminded me of when I asked.

Thank you for making my point for me. I hope you have a blessed day.

 

[Pup7]

That book says that for rape cases then a small risk of inhibiting implantation is acceptable.
How does that make sense?
So is the inhibiting implantation ok in some cases but not in other cases?

I’m going to publicly thank you for this.

Thank you.

 

[Pup7]

(Even if a zygote cannot go to full term we still cannot directly kill innocent life).

We have no way of knowing if an implanted zygote can mature or not. We’re not that good yet.

Embryo? Yes. Fetus? Yes. Zygote? Not so much.

 

[Pup7]

I believe PlanB is acceptable if it only involves sperm incapacitation or inhibits ovulation.
The issue seems to be that many health officials don’t care to do the tests needed to verify whether fertilisation has actually taken place.

Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Theological Analysis, Fifth Edition - Benedict M. Ashley, OP - Google Books

1. A pregnancy test is not effective in the first hours after implantation. Pregnancy tests measure HCG in the blood and urine. This doesn’t shoot up in an hour or so. This is why medically you have to wait five days after your missed period to be tested. False positives are very common with the over the counter tests. Very common.
2. Ultrasound won’t show much. A just fertilized egg is about 100 microns big - about the thickness of a human hair. You won’t see that on an ultrasound. That’s why artificial fertilization is done under a microscope. You can’t see it any other way.

It’s not that we won’t do it. We can’t. The woman is told it’s an option in an ED, and is told what it does and why it’s done. It’s called informed consent, and it’s the law. We can’t just give her something without full disclosure.

ETA I thought of something else. The burst follicle is sometimes visible on ultrasound on a woman’s ovary if ovulation has just happened. The problem is insurance companies aren’t going to pay for an ultrasound (which can cost as much as $600 to $1000) and an interpretation to see if a patient can or can’t by her own determination take Plan B. (Even TRICARE won’t pay for this, and you can get stuff through TRICARE you can’t get through most insurers.) Plus, time is wasted in the attempt to get advance authorization - you only have a 72 hour window. And most folks don’t have $600 lying around to spend on something like that. They will foot the $100 or so the facility charges for Plan B without batting an eye.

Really, there’s not much of a test to confirm ovulation on the fly in an emergency room, which is where most women present post-rape. Blaming it on us is more than misguided.

 

[Pup7]

I believe PlanB is acceptable if it only involves sperm incapacitation or inhibits ovulation.
The issue seems to be that many health officials don’t care to do the tests needed to verify whether fertilisation has actually taken place.

Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Theological Analysis, Fifth Edition - Benedict M. Ashley, OP - Google Books

I liked your post because it made my point for me, and showed that Church teaching indeed backs Plan B in some cases, as mentioned. Your second sentence is incorrect, but I"ll take the bad with the good. Thanks!

 

[Dugtrio1]

I think this topic is getting quite lengthy. Trying to define when pregnancy occurs is chasing loopholes. That really doesn’t matter. The question, is straightforward: every time you are with your partner, God is asking, “Are you willing to accept a child?” If the answer is “no” in the name of sexual freedom, then the Church teaches that is sinful, but we are asking whether saying “no” to limit family size in the name of responsible parenting is also sinful. The Church simply has not made that distinction yet.

It doesn’t matter when pregnancy begins because our intention is the same. Reaching for any contraceptive device, regardless of how it works, has declared our intention. The question is, and always will be, whether the Church will recognize a middle ground between total acceptance of every child being OK, and refusal of even one child constituting complete sexual immorality.

 

[Pup7]

Well if loyal Catholics ask you for Church teaching on the matter you are in fact not providing accurate information. If you find yourself in that situation you have a dire responsibility to accurately inform yourself.

A number of us here are observing you are well over the white line.
You seem unable to take that on board as a possibility because of your high regard for your medical training. I can only repeat that your Catholic moral training does not match your medical training.

There is nothing more to be said if you still disagree.
It may mean you are what is technically called “invincibly ignorant”.
As a Catholic I find your responses to these concerns of your Catholic peers disturbing.

Reread what you yourself wrote. I hope you’re okay with the aspersions you’re casting on my character and my faith. As a Catholic I find that pretty disturbing myself.

Know what I tell people? “The Church says X. Medical knowledge says Y. The decision is yours.” But the assumptions you draw are incredible.

You supplied your own rope on this one. There’s nothing wrong with my stance on Plan B. You yourself just said that.

I’d rethink that highlighted phrase if I were you.

 

[Dugtrio1]

Pup7, I think you are great for trying to bridge the gap between Church and medicine, but I worry that you are being called bad things.

Don’t let your heart be discouraged! It seems like Church and medicine come from opposite ends but I think intention is the universal language. It’s too bad that Catholics are so divided over these issues…

 

[Pup7]

Thanks.

Don’t worry, I’m not discouraged at all. People are free to think as they like. Usually when folks start drifting into character aspersions such as have been made here it’s because they’ve got nothing else left except what they view as a moral argument - which isn’t our place to make.

Prosecuting attorneys and the media tend to do that as well when they’ve exhausted everything else. But as I said, usually if you just let folks measure their own rope, they’ll knot their own noose with it.

 

[fredystairs]

Not in terms of direct Magisterial or USCCB statements but removal of the tube (with fertilised egg) is not intrinsically evil and usually considered moral. The problem is there is no other technique yet that can reliably save the zygote and the mother.

The principle of double effect is often used as the rationale for justifying such procedures (“indirect intention”). Personally I don’t think the PODE works in this case. It doesn’t matter. If the Church says its acceptable its acceptable even if we don’t have a good ethical rationale for it.

You are correct that the PODE would apply in the instance of a tubal pregnancy. In my moral theology class, I was taught that the principle of double-effect is used to evaluate the morality of a human act that has foreseeable good and bad effects. The act may be done under the following four conditions (and I apologize if you already know these):

1. The action in itself must be good, or at least morally indifferent. (An intrinsically evil action cannot be done to produce a good effect.)
2. The good effect must result immediately and directly from the action placed, not from the bad effect. (In causality, the good effect must precede or be immediate with the bad effect.)
3. Only the good effect must be intended. (One cannot intend the evil effect.)
4. There must be a proportionately grave reason for placing the act. (It is not licit to perform an action that has a large evil effect for a small good effect.)

My professor showed several clips from TV shows and movies that we were to evaluate as to the use of PODE. One was a clip from the movie “Crimson Tide”. In the scene we reviewed one of the compartments of the submarine was flooding, but there were men still trapped in that compartment. The person responsible for closing the hatch hesitated because of the men still in the compartment. However, to prevent the submarine from sinking, the hatch was closed. The men inside died. This example was presented as a correct use of the PODE.

1. The action, closing the hatch, was a morally neutral act.
2. The action saved the submarine and the remainder of the crew. The death of the men had no bearing on the saving of the submarine (more on that below).
   .3 Only the saving of the submarine was intended.
3. There was a proportional good, i.e. saving the submarine.

Continued

 

[fredystairs]

continued

During our discussion, our professor stated that the intention of the person performing the action (closing the hatch) can been seen more clearly by taking out the evil effect, i.e. the death of the sailors in the compartment. If the compartment had been empty, there would have been no hesitation on the part of the person closing the action. He would have closed the hatch without thinking twice.

in the case of the tubal pregnancy, the same logic applies.

1. The act is a good act, i.e. removal of the diseased fallopian tube.
2. The good effect, the saving of the life of the mother, is not dependent upon the death of the baby.
3. Only the saving of the mother was intended. The death of the baby, while foreseen, was not intended.
4. There was a grave reason for performing the action (to save the life of the mother).

Again, the intention can seen by taking away the human factor, i.e. the death of the baby. If there was no baby involved and the fallopian tube was diseased would there be any hesitancy in its removal? I think not. Accordingly, while the death of the baby was foreseen, it was not intended. This would be a moral act.

Blessings.

 

[fredystairs]

I would like to offer the following from Donum Vitae

The Congregation recalls the teachings found in the “Declaration on Procured Abortion”: “From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a new life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. To this perpetual evidence … modern genetic science brings valuable confirmation. It has demonstrated that, from the first instant, the programme is fixed as to what this living being will be: a man, this individual-man with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization is begun the adventure of a human life, and each of its great capacities requires time … to find its place and to be in a position to act”. (25) This teaching remains valid and is further confirmed, if confirmation were needed, by recent findings of human biological science which recognize that in the zygote resulting from fertilization the biological identity of a new human individual is already constituted*. Certainly no experimental datum can be in itself sufficient to bring us to the recognition of a spiritual soul; nevertheless, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of this first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?
Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. (Donum Vitae I, 1) (emphasis added)
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...h_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

Here the Church is teaching that at the moment of conception, a new human person is created. At that instant, the woman who provided the egg and the man who provided the sperm have become parents. What is necessary at that point is for the new human person to be allowed to grow and develop. Within a few days after conception, the new human person must implant in the uterine wall of the mother to gain the nourishment needed for continued growth. Any drug or device that prevents this implantation has effectively killed that human person, since he/she cannot exist apart from the nourishment gained from the mother through the uterine wall.

Blessings

 

[ratio1]

The act is a good act, i.e. removal of the diseased fallopian tube.

I think Tatum ‘s point was that the Fallopian tube is not diseased. (I could be wrong in misrepresenting his viewpoint)
And hence the act that saves the mother is not removing the tube but removing the ectopic.

But I think there should be a way around this. Just haven’t got there yet.

 

[Tatum]

No, you were making up a story to bolster a point you were trying to make.

Well it seems you are the one inventing things about me now .
At least I was only being tongue in cheek/rhetorical re my “priests on the fly” expression.

But as I say, and indeed own, the point was Pup7 has never really made serious professional ethical enquiry into this matter with the necessary experts or Magisterial writings.

If she had she would never, as a committed Catholic, have come out with the statements she has.
Given her confidence and status as a self-stated health professional in this area she has an obligation to be better informed on things Catholic than she is.

We are all entitled to our own personal views here, Catholic or not so much.
But if we want to be heard as a committed Catholic professional allegedly espousing the views of the Church one must be open and submit to objective scrutiny.

A number of well educated Catholics here have done that and found Pup7 somewhat wanting.
Its not personal, its not emotional its just fact. And easily checked against Vatican statements.

We are all entitled to our own views and our own conscience in acts involving ourselves. When it comes to involving other persons and providing Catholic advice that is an entirely new level surely.

 

[Tatum]

Yes, myself and others are challenging your misinformed Catholic views and your inability to accept the possibility you are mistaken. That is what a Catholic forum is for.

We cannot help but notice you are no longer rebutting what is being politely but firmly argued and with Vatican sources.

 

[Tatum]

It isn’t called “abortion” - its an unintended and unavoidable consequence of treating the cancer.
The death of the foetus is not the means to the cure.

 

[Pup7]

Yes, myself and others are challenging your misinformed Catholic views and your inability to accept the possibility you are mistaken. That is what a Catholic forum is for.

We cannot help but notice you are no longer rebutting what is being politely but firmly argued and with Vatican sources.

My friend, you’re misreading me. I’ve rebutted you. I’ve made my stance known. Your cute remarks are pretty much meaningless. Some of us have, I don’t know, lives to live.

It must stink to realize you hanged yourself with your own post.

Now if you’d like to go reevaluate your knowledge of the Catholic teaching on marriage, go feel free to do so. I didn’t miss that in the other thread, and I definitely commented on it.

 

[Tatum]

Yes, there is ethical discourse about “risk” as well.
Something that is intrinsically evil can be considered indirectly intended (and possibly acceptable) if its likelihood is not a certainty.

What makes such a level of risk acceptable is a prudential judgement involving proportionality between the evil risked and the good sought.

Medics is not an exact science. So if there is reasonable moral certainty that fertilisation has no occurred the risk of non-implantation of a fertilised egg may be acceptable.

The point is that Pup7 was originally working from the principle, it seems, that directly intending to interfere with the implantation of a fertilised egg is not abortion and somehow makes use of such contraceptive medicine’s acceptable.