Is Abortion Murder?

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ClemtheCatholic

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Where murder is the wilful killing of one human being by another. The technicality I am unsure about is whether pregnant mothers who go for abortions really will that their baby be destroyed. In many cases they simply will that their pregnancy be over, not that their child be killed. It’s like how the president wills that the terrorists be stopped, and not that the civilian passengers be killed, when he orders his jets to shoot down a hijacked airliner. The civilian passengers will still be killed, but it was unintended.

That being said… if these women don’t believe the foetus is really a child, then maybe they do want to destroy it after all. I also wonder if it’s worth distinguishing between the mother and the abortionist. Whilst the mother may in some cases not will the destruction of her child, it would seem that abortionists do actively seek to destroy the lives of foetuses. Most likely they see that as being part of their job description.

Any thoughts?
 
You may want to read the life of Dorothy Day who is being considered for canonization.

NARAL and other abortion rights groups push the idea that a woman’s “right to choose,” the euphemism for abortion empowers women. More often than not, the opposite is the case. Feminists for life cite lack of resources as the primary reason women seek abortions. They do not see other options.

Dorothy Day is a prime example of a woman who obtained an abortion in order to keep her boyfriend’s love. He left her anyway. After her daughter, Tamar, was born, she became a strong pro-life advocate.

Many of the strongest pro-life advocates are those who once worked for Planned Parenthood, who once performed abortions. They are the ones who bought the lie that life was not being destroyed, who turned the ultra-sound machine away so mothers could not see the image of the child.
 
Well, this is the case with certain forms of ectopic pregnancies, in which the tragic loss of the fetus occurs due to removal of the problem. It was unintended. But I do not think pregnancy alone is regarded as something negative to be “solved”
 
There is a reason I like some of the old vocabulary.
The 1956 Webster’s Dictionary has the word aborticide to describe the killing of the fetus within the womb. This is word is no longer in the dictionary, and what is generally meant by the lay person when the word abortion is used.

Medically, the term abortion is differentiated between intentional and natural. A miscarriage or stillborn child is a natural abortion. This can be devastating to a woman who reads the term on her medical record without knowing the difference in medical terms.

An ectopic pregnancy may be terminated in order to save the life of the mother. The loss of the child is the unintended result of a medical procedure. It is well understood that an ectopic pregnancy endangers both the life of mother and child. The child cannot live without the life of the mother.

The intentional abortion as terminating the pregnancy, other than saving the life of the mother, is what goes against natural law.

This is not simply a Catholic issue, as often portrayed in the media. Buddhists talk about how the life that is terminated in the womb affects future generations. A Muslim doctor friend of mine recently posted on line how abortions are a violation of the Hippocratic Oath that he had taken, to do no harm.
 
DebChris said:
There is a reason I like some of the old vocabulary.

An ectopic pregnancy may be terminated in order to save the life of the mother. The loss of the child is the unintended result of a medical procedure
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While we are on the topic of vocabulary, we need to distinguish between the removal of the tube, and the unintended but foreseen consequence of the death the embryo within the tube. An ectopic pregnancy may not be terminated-- i.e. a direct action taken against the embryo. That is why methotrexate may not be used.

The diseased tube may be removed. The embryo resides in the tube and there is currently no way to save the embryo. The removal of the tube is allowed under the principle of double effect.
 
Is abortion murder? Yes…

Look up a great near death experience about Gloria Polo. That should answer all your questions…
 
1ke said:
While we are on the topic of vocabulary, we need to distinguish between the removal of the tube, and the unintended but foreseen consequence of the death the embryo within the tube. An ectopic pregnancy may not be terminated-- i.e. a direct action taken against the embryo. That is why methotrexate may not be used.

The diseased tube may be removed. The embryo resides in the tube and there is currently no way to save the embryo. The removal of the tube is allowed under the principle of double effect.
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the topic of ectopic pregnancy still confuses me a bit.

yes, I understand that we are removing a diseased tube, but it’s the embryo that caused the tube to be diseased in the first place. the real intent is still to remove the embryo along with the tube.

or maybe I’m just missing something.
 
angell1 said:
the topic of ectopic pregnancy still confuses me a bit.

yes, I understand that we are removing a diseased tube, but it’s the embryo that caused the tube to be diseased in the first place. the real intent is still to remove the embryo along with the tube.

or maybe I’m just missing something.
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Not necessarily. Ectopic pregnancy is relatively “common,” but it’s not how pregnancy is supposed to work. An embryo will not typically implant in the fallopian tube, but travel through to implant in the uterus. Inflammation of the tube, scar tissue, the presence of an IUD can all be contributing factors to ectopic pregnancy. In these cases, there is, in fact, something wrong with the fallopian tube. It just took the ectopic pregnancy to discover it. 😦
 
Only direct abortion is murder, i.e., the intended killing of an innocent human being. Indirect abortion is not murder.
 
ClemtheCatholic said:
Any thoughts?
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I would slightly amend your definition of murder, which is the unjust killing of an innocent life.

But moreover, someone could commit murder and it could either be: (a) grave sin or (b) both grave sin and mortal sin. The first is objective, the second is both objective and subjective. But the conditions you introduce don’t speak to the sort of action being performed—whether it’s murder or something else—but rather potential factors that could undermine culpability, and thus eliminate (b) as a proper moral description of the act.
 
pensmama87 said:
Not necessarily. Ectopic pregnancy is relatively “common,” but it’s not how pregnancy is supposed to work. An embryo will not typically implant in the fallopian tube, but travel through to implant in the uterus. Inflammation of the tube, scar tissue, the presence of an IUD can all be contributing factors to ectopic pregnancy. In these cases, there is, in fact, something wrong with the fallopian tube. It just took the ectopic pregnancy to discover it. 😦
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thanks pensmama.

even though I studied sciences, I never really delved that far in that direction. and it was never explained that way.

it was never really shown that there was a problem with the fallopian tube, usually we were told that it was more of an issue with the embryo.

that does help clear it up

just a side note, for people who are wondering, it’s ano always necessary to remove the tube, many ectopic pregnancies can resolve themselves on their own through natural miscarriage
 
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