Is this Chrisian love the woman?

[TAS2000]

I would compare it with saying: if we take the baby out in a body bag it is morally acceptable, but if we take the baby out alone, it is not morally acceptable

Removing the tube or removing the baby has exactly the same result. Therefor they are either both direct abotions or both direct treatments. IMO

Sadly, a lot of people feel this way, but look at what you are saying…the end result justifies any means.

It is the same as saying if someone is killed it is always murder, because the end result is someone died. So, by this logic, if you drop a paino out your window on accident and kill a passerby, then you are guilty of murder because he just as dead as if you taken a gun and aimed at him. OR if you look at it from the opposite side of the argument, there’d be nothing morally wrong with shooting a terminally ill patient to “spare him the suffering” than if you just let them die naturally. In both cases hopefully you can see the differnce between the means, even though the end result is still that someone died. It doesn’t matter morally that the baby would have died anyway…we are obligated NOT to directly hurry that process along, even if it means less suffering for another. It really isn’t legalism.

The real problem is that there isn’t a better medical alternative. Right now, unborn babies are considered disposable by medical science. IF there were a better medical treatment, then this wouldn’t even be an issue. But right now the only medical alternatives we have all result in the death of the child. If we could convince the doctors to find a way to preserve the child too, then this whole issue would go away.

 

[rayne89]

The tube bursting is what is deadly that is why it is morally acceptable to remove the tube -the unfortunate consequence is that the child dies but the purpose was not to end the childs life but to removed the problematic tube. A human embryo is not deadly. If we remove just the embryo than the purpose is to end the child’s life -that is a direct attack on the child. If we say removing only the child is ok to save the life of the mother we could use that excuse to end any number of other abortions.

Annibic you did not understand any of this so you are not culpable, you have not committed any sin. But you do know now so if heaven forbid you should have another eptopic pregnancy you must instruct the doctor to remove the portion of the problematic tube instead of just the child. They should be able to reattach the tubes and you would still have a reasonable chance of keeping your fertilty in the effected tube.

I am so sorry for the loss of your child. God Bless.

 

[TAS2000]

BTW- just because you lose a tube doesn’t mean you are doomed to childlessness. Losing one complete tube, but keeping the ovary, you will have a somewhat diminshed chance (my doctor said about 65-70%) for pregnancy. I always laugh when people say 50%. The ovary is still there, and still producing eggs, and the human body is amazing. My first pregnacy was ectopic, the tube burst, and I was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. They removed the tube and a small peice of my uterus. They said I was about an hour away from bleeding to death internally without ever knowing it. Scince then I have had 4 children, and just had a miscarriage about a month and a half ago. So loosing a tube is not the end of child bearing if God has other plans for you.

 

[dylanschrader]

To help clarify the issue, the Church recognizes that the direct killing of the innocent is always evil. We may never do evil so that good may result.

In terms of abortion, the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Fourth Edition state:

1. Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted. Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo. Catholic health care institutions are not to provide abortion services, even based upon the principle of material cooperation. In this context, Catholic health care institutions need to be concerned about the danger of scandal in any association with abortion providers.

1. In case of extrauterine pregnancy, no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.

However, these directives also state that:

Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child.

This is because of the principle of what is called “Double Effect.”

There is a difference between intending to kill a child in order to save the mother’s life and foreseeing (but not intending) that it will happen if action to save the mother’s life is taken.

For more information, you may want to read Evangelium Vitae among other things.

 

[duskyjewel]

I am sorry to word it this way, but this is just so STUPID! I honestly think this is a case of Catholic thought not keeping up with medical technology. It used to be that the only way to save a mother involved in an ectopic pregnancy was to remove the whole tube. There were no surgical techniques to repair it.

Now, we have microsurgery techniques that can save both the mother and her tube. They can repair a damaged tube, even sometimes one that has ruptured, to the point where it may be usable again.

Nothing we do is going to change the fate of the baby involved. The baby is going to die no matter what. This does not equate to a direct abortion, in my opinion. And since there have been no ex cathedra statements on the matter, I am free to hold that opinion. Abortion is the intentional killing of a child. Ending an ectopic pregnancy is medical treatment of a condition that WILL kill the baby and could kill the mother. Again, nothing we do can save the baby. But we can save the mother, and we can improve her future chances of conceiving by repairing her tube instead of just cutting it out.

That still seems to be the more pro-life of the two choices, and I for one would feel absolutely no need to go to confession if this happened to me and I directly chose to have my tube repaired if possible. I am not doing anything to directly kill a baby, it is doomed from the start. And that would not be my fault. I would be sad and grieve, just like I did over my miscarriages, but I would not feel at fault.

 

[TAS2000]

Abortion is the intentional killing of a child. Ending an ectopic pregnancy is medical treatment of a condition that WILL kill the baby and could kill the mother

But this is exactly the crux of the matter. What is ending a pregnancy if it is not a direct abortion? Are all medical treatments equal?

Back to the IVF example. IVF is pro-life. (on the surface, let’s not muddy the issue with unused embryos) Yet we know IVF is wrong. There is no commandment to be pro-life or to multiply at all costs. There is a commandment not to murder. If you directly remove a child or kill it with drugs to end a pregnancy, you are murdering that child, even if it is to save the mother’s life. The fact that the child would have died anyway is irrelevant to the morality of the action. If the microsurgery could remove the baby and then implant it in the uterous, and repair the tube, then I’d yell hurray for medical tech. But just because medical tech has invented a better way to kill the baby, doesn’t make it morally good.

Suppose there was a child, 5 years old, who had a termnial disease. It would be a miracle if this child lived to be 6. The mother is very ill, and needs an organ transplant or she will die. The only match is her child. If you wait for the child to die naturally, it will be too late to help mother, and she will die too. But if you take the organ from the child, the child WILL die now. This is a medical treatment; the child will die anyway, but if we kill the child now and take her organ, the mother will recover and be fine. Would anyone say that it was morally ok in this case?

So why is it different if the child is only 4 weeks old, instead of 5 years old?

This is the essential teaching of the church, right is right, no matter what the age of the child, or the medical benefits to the mother, therefore we can not directly remove just the child. Removing a tube before it ruptures constitutes a medical treatment that also kills the child. Radiation therapy for cancer that also kills the child also counts as medical treatment. Directly removing the baby is not a medical treatment, but a direct abortion.

 

[duskyjewel]

Medical technology is not killing the baby. Unforseeable circumstances are killing the baby.

In your organ transplant example, first of all, terminally ill patients can’t donate organs. The organs have to be healthy for a transplant, so this makes no sense. But we have no guarantee, even with a “terminal” illness that the child is going to die. People recover from terminal illnesses, and we call them miracle cures.

In an ectopic pregnancy, the child WILL DIE. There is absolutely nothing we can do to prevent it. I agree, that if it could be implanted into the uterus, that would be the perfect solution. But we can’t do that yet. I just keep coming back to the point that absolutely nothing we do can prevent that child from dying. We are not killing that child.

 

[Joan_M]

I still think it stinks. Removing the tube or removing the baby has exactly the same result. Therefor they are either both direct abotions or both direct treatments. IMO

You are wrong. Removing the baby is a direct abortion. Removing the fallopian tube is not. Perhaps some day it will be possible to remove the baby from the tube and implant it in the womb, but that is not possible now.

I had an ectopic pregnancy. The fallopian tube was removed. It did nothing, absolutely nothing, to my fertility.

You have two fallopian tubes. Do not think that if one is removed your fertility is halved. It isn’t. Both ovaries remain in working condition. If an ova is released from the side where there is no fallopian tube, fear not - nature is great! The ova will find the other tube!

 

[duskyjewel]

You have two fallopian tubes. Do not think that if one is removed your fertility is halved. It isn’t. Both ovaries remain in working condition. If an ova is released from the side where there is no fallopian tube, fear not - nature is great! The ova will find the other tube!

On what do you base this? Everything I have ever seen shows that the egg comes out of the ovary and goes into the tube nearest that ovary. If it somehow “misses” it dies. Eggs are fragile things, they can’t survive just floating around inside your body cavity looking for a fallopian tube.

 

[otjm]

TAS2000 - you say that In short - there has been NO definitive, ex cathedra statement…isnt that the end of it then? Until the Mother Church definitively makes a decision based on this arent we just getting opinions? I know that different priests say different things to different people in different circumstances? Just curious.

Vester

There have been two ex cathedra statements by the Pope (who is the only one who can make it; it means "from the chair, that is, the Chair of Peter), and those were on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption.

The Church, however, can and does teach infallibly on issue of morals; and one of those issues has been the constant teaching of the Church on abortion.

The issue is not about abortion per se; it is about surgery and whether or not one surgical procedure constitutes an abortion.

The issue gets down to intent: what is the intent of the surgery? If it is to remove a diseased or defective organ (e.g. the Fallopian tube), that is permissible; and it is still permissible even though the consequences of the act results in the death of the baby. Another way of saying it is that the death of the baby is the unintended consequences of the act of taking out the tube.

However, if the intent of the surgery is to remove the baby and repair the tube; the intended act is the death of the baby.

That is the gist of the article which was noted above, and the essence of the question.

Note: this is not intended to presume that the intent of the mother was to have an abortion; the intent goes to her and the surgeon, and it appears she had no knowledge of the direct purpose of the surgery. It is also entirely possible that the doctor has no training in and understanding of the ethical differences of such surgical proceedures and may not have had specific intent to abort, but rather knoew that either way the baby was going to die, and saw an opportunity to heal the woman patient.

 

[GraceDK]

I think it is totally wrong that some of you speak to Anni, as though she was pro-abortion.
Let us stick to the point in question here.
I think that the two posts here by Anni, shows a sound minded individual, acting in accordance with her conscience and her logic reasoning. And I have to say I follow thios reasoning 100 percent.

the question that keeps desturbing me is this:
WHAT did the egg-leader do? what was so terrible that this poor eggleader did that it was not allowed to get a second chance of working, when the doctor made it clear that it can actually get healed.
Why remove something which can get healed?
The embryo here is at the wrong place in the body. Nobody claims that it is an intruder of some of the other absurdities that you throw at this poor woman. She is, as it appears totally pro life… also the life of her egg leader.
If we say that there is desease in a limp we will always try to operate on the limp, removing as little as possible, in order to maintain as much as possible. here there was no logical or moral reason to remove more than the embryo. the womans stomach was getting filled with blood… a fatal condition was approaching for the mother. today she is alive and well. And she still has her egg-leader intact in her… that i think is totally fair. it shows that it was not the eggleader but the misplaced embryo which caused the serious condition. that day the embryo had to be taken out… it could not be saved. You want to remove the body part that can be saved along side of it… for what reason in the world???
Anni… I hate being in opposition to a lot of good Catholics… but when something aint right, it just aint right. There is no way I could ever justify it in front of God if I had removed one of my organs or ordered others to do it for the sole purpose of … what?
I claim the freedom of conscience… having read every stance on this issue with a serious open mind I still find the logic alltogether missing.

Anni, Little Mother… God bless you. Love Jesus, Love Jesus…

 

[mapleoak]

I am sorry to word it this way, but this is just so STUPID! I honestly think this is a case of Catholic thought not keeping up with medical technology.

Catholic teaching does not depend on keeping up with technology. Technology must be ordered to be in line with Catholic teaching.

It used to be that the only way to save a mother involved in an ectopic pregnancy was to remove the whole tube. There were no surgical techniques to repair it.

Ectopic pregnancy, in and of itself, is not a pathological condition requiring treatment. In other words, ending the life of the unborn in ectopic pregnancy on the sole basis of its existence ectopically is killing in the name of PREVENTATIVE treatment. Not emergency treatment. Assuming the mother is going to die if the ectopic condition is not remedied by human intervention is presumptious.

Now, we have microsurgery techniques that can save both the mother and her tube. They can repair a damaged tube, even sometimes one that has ruptured, to the point where it may be usable again.

This is besides the point.

Nothing we do is going to change the fate of the baby involved. The baby is going to die no matter what.

If someone is going to die no matter what, it does not justify killing him.

This does not equate to a direct abortion, in my opinion. And since there have been no ex cathedra statements on the matter, I am free to hold that opinion.

Because the Church has not pronouced something with an Ex-Cathedra statement, does not give licencse to the notion that anything goes, nor does the teaching authority of the Church rest on makeing Ex-Cathedra pronouncements.

Abortion is the intentional killing of a child. Ending an ectopic pregnancy is medical treatment of a condition that WILL kill the baby and could kill the mother.

And performing a procedure which WILL kill the baby is not justified by PREVENTATIVE treatment.

Again, nothing we do can save the baby.

Again, because someone is going to die, doesn’t mean you can just go ahead and kill them.

But we can save the mother, and we can improve her future chances of conceiving by repairing her tube instead of just cutting it out.

What period in time is this referring to? Does it mean repairing the tube after the ectopic condition no longer exists? Or are you referring to removal of the baby and sewing the tube back together as repair?

That still seems to be the more pro-life of the two choices, and I for one would feel absolutely no need to go to confession if this happened to me and I directly chose to have my tube repaired if possible.

Whether something is wrong or not does not depend on whether it feels wrong.

I am not doing anything to directly kill a baby, it is doomed from the start.

Doesn’t mean it is okay to kill it.

To the OP: There was a very in-depth discussion and debate on the topic of ectopic pregnancy and its treatment several months ago which I would recommend reading through for more information.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=153396

 

[GraceDK]

Dear MapleOak
I assume you are a man… that might not be correct.
I also assume the high possiblity that you are married and maybe you have been blessed with children. If so, I think you might have a good chance at understanding the following case story that will illustrate the problem a bit better.

Lets say your wife is 28 years old and her name is Catherine. You have always longed to have children but a condition in Catherines egg-leaders make this more difficult than for others. You have been trying to have a baby for 3 years when Catherine tells you she is pregnant. she has taken a positive pregnancy test and she did not have her period. Now you both rejoice and thank God. A week later you find your beloved Catherine on the bed with fever and a severe stomach ache. She tells you she is bleeding and that she has been doing so for a few days. You take her to the hospital where you are sent to the emergency room after a quick check-up. Catherine’s condition is deemed critical. On the way to the surgery room a doctor Stein, who carries the star of David around his neck, speaks gently to you. You are told that Catherine has inner bleedings due to an eggleader pregnancy, and there is need of immediate surgery. While Catherine is under surgery you look at her face and think about how much you love her and how sad you are that the two of you are never going hold the little one. You still believe God will give you a child someday. You keep your hands clutched around a picture of the Divine Mercy and asks Jesus to take care of Catherine. You thank Him that she is going to be alright… the doctor said so.
While you are still waiting the doctor comes out and he says: "You are blessed. Your wife is well. The operation was very succesfull. The nurse is stiching her up right now. luckily we only had to take out the embryo, but we managed to save the egg-leader which leaves you with a better change of having another child later on. Also the hormone balance of Catherines body is much better with two than with only one egg-leader. You can tell this to your wife when you go in to her …

What do you do now:

1. you think this is good news. You praise God for helping you through medical science.
2. you are not happy because you start asking youself: did I just consent to an abortion? But you let it be because you ask your self: “who did the abortion then: was it God or was it satan or was it Doctor Stein?”.
3. You tell youself: “I gotta follow Church teaching!”. So you run into the surgery room and tell the nurse: “Stop, don’t stich her up. Remove the egg-leader first…” You claim that this is the only moral choice, when the nurse asks you if you seriously want her to mutilate your wife.

This, as I understand it, is a case that fits on Anni’s situation. I maintain that destroing an organ which can be saved in this case is an action which cannot be excused. If it is Catholic teaching, I would go to a non-catholic hospital if I were in Anni’s shoes…

 

[GraceDK]

Tas2000.

I am happy for you that you are so blessed in your life.
However I do see your logic as a retrospect logic, meaning you are at dry land so you can easily tell everyone else that God will surely bring them to shore too it if they let go and go for the dangeruos swim missing half of their life vest…
Inherent in this logic is a threat: If you obey this illogical rule God will reward you… If you don’t obey you will be punished and allthough you keep both your tubes (that is have both a life vest, wings and a boat) God will not grant you children because you had too little faith.
Excuse me if I overinterpret your words, but I know what that kind of talk like yours does to a less fortunate sister… it’s not charity.
Faith to me is NOT giving up organs because “God will surely provide…”
I don’t think we give God glory by not taking care of that which He has given us. If somebody asked me to cut off my arm in obedience to God, I would question what kind of God it is that wants my arm cut of… an arm that works just fine once it has had a small operation. I’d say: I think you misunderstand who God is… first of all He is a God of Love, second: He is a God who came with a new covenant… that means not living under a religious law system anymore which would secure your way into heaven provided you live in accordance with a lot of rules on every aspect of life…

I once heard about a woman who was an adult when the doctors discovered a kind of lump on her side. This turned out to be the remains of a twinsister that stopped developing in the beginning of her mothers pregnancy. (quite strange but it is true) Now… being in a modern society they operated the little dead child away. Was that wrong to you? maybe they should have taken the whole side with all the ribs… so it would not be called taking away the baby only.
Is this absurd? I think we can agree that it is… It helps to illustrate how absurd the whole discussion is.

…
To everyone:
You think Dr. Stein was immoral and are scandalised at doctors such as him? then we can all joyfully be scandalised at each other for I too am scandalised at the people in here who would be happier if Anni was now, for no reason whatsoever, a person with one tube instead of two.
Also. Please understand that a provoked abortion is a sin. A spontaneous abortion is not a sin. Can we please agree on that…

To Anni: Anni, keep up the good spirits… God directs the Church into ALL Truth.

 

[Socio_Momma]

To be clear the eggleader or fallopian tube is not a life. There is a difference. A fallopian tube is an organ, an organ that we can survive without. A human being is a life. The two are not comparable.

Spontaneous abortion is a miscarriage. An ectopic pregnancy is not considered a miscarriage unless the baby dies within the fallopian tube naturally (not with medication) then perhaps we could discuss it as a missed miscarriage (or incomplete spontaneous abortion). However, directly removing the embryo (baby) from the fallopian tube while alive or ending his/her life in order to try to keep the tube is directly aborting. One is considered spontaneous because a person did not cause it directly (natural death of embryo). The other is not spontaneous because a person did cause it directly (unnatural death of an embryo).

It is not mutlitation by any medical standard to remove the fallopian tube in an ectopic pregnancy. Mutliation would be taking a perfectly healthy organ and damaging it, in an ectopic pregnancy the organ (fallopian tube) is damaged (to various levels). It is a conservative medical treatment, one that is still highly favored as the ideal by many secular medical professionals because of the lowered complication rate. Removing it due to ectopic pregnancy does not violate any medical or Catholic teaching and/or ethics.

The removal of a dead baby as in the non-absorbed twin example is not the same as a living baby.

No one can go back and change what has already happened for the OP or any woman who may had already made a decision that falls into the “direct” category. Instead there can only be focus on healing and moving forward with Christ for her & others in similar situations.

For those who have not yet had to face this, hopefully they never will as it is a very painful cross to carry, but if they do perhaps they can have better knowledge & more formed understanding of the decisions that they could face.

 

[TAS2000]

GraceDK, obvious you totoally misunderstood my argument, and you also seem to think I am being uncharitable. The OP asked for clarification on church teaching and I tried to explain the church’s satnce. I also tried to re-assure her that through personnal experience, I know about the situation she faces and tried to re-assure her that it isn’t the final ending to her fertility that she fears. I’m sorry if you find that somehow unchartiable.

I also NEVER even implied she would be punsihed by God, and in fact stated that she was most assuredly NOT in mortal sin and that this was a complex, hard to grasp issue that shouldn’t let drive her from the church.

Your absolutely ridiculous situation is totally absurd. The church does not state that mutliating a mother for no reason, after the fact is in any way a good thing, and would assuredly say it was AGAINST church teaching. 2 wrongs don’t make a right. You clearly don’t understand the point. Removing certain organs is not the point. Doing the most damage possible is not the point. And if they could tell for SURE that the baby was dead BEFORE they removed it, then removing it and sparing the tube would be fine. Also, removing only the section of the tube with the baby in it and sewing the ends together would be fine. What is not fine is directly removing JUST the still LIVING child. It doesn’t matter that the child is doomed to die because of OUR lack of medical skill. What matters is that it is ALWAYS wrong to kill another innocent person, even to save the life of another.

Sadly, when you are hurting from a recent loss is not the best time to be learning the finer points of a difficult teaching. Being logical and explaining a hard teaching can seem immpersonal or uncharitable, but I assure you that is not my intent.

 

[kage_ar]

As a woman who has been through an ectopic pregnancy, if the woman in the above example is bleeding, the tube has ruptured and is damaged. BTDT, have the scars to prove it.

It seems the OP was not given a choice, and was not fully aware of the options and moral decisions. All the more reason we should teach our sons and daughters to learn what Holy Mother Church teaches before there is an emergency, and that we know to ask for the advice of a good and holy Priest when emergencies do arise.

 

[FCEGM]

GraceDK, obvious you totoally misunderstood my argument, and you also seem to think I am being uncharitable. The OP asked for clarification on church teaching and I tried to explain the church’s satnce. I also tried to re-assure her that through personnal experience, I know about the situation she faces and tried to re-assure her that it isn’t the final ending to her fertility that she fears. I’m sorry if you find that somehow unchartiable.

I also NEVER even implied she would be punsihed by God, and in fact stated that she was most assuredly NOT in mortal sin and that this was a complex, hard to grasp issue that shouldn’t let drive her from the church.

Your absolutely ridiculous situation is totally absurd. The church does not state that mutliating a mother for no reason, after the fact is in any way a good thing, and would assuredly say it was AGAINST church teaching. 2 wrongs don’t make a right. You clearly don’t understand the point. Removing certain organs is not the point. Doing the most damage possible is not the point. And if they could tell for SURE that the baby was dead BEFORE they removed it, then removing it and sparing the tube would be fine. Also, removing only the section of the tube with the baby in it and sewing the ends together would be fine. What is not fine is directly removing JUST the still LIVING child. It doesn’t matter that the child is doomed to die because of OUR lack of medical skill. What matters is that it is ALWAYS wrong to kill another innocent person, even to save the life of another.

Sadly, when you are hurting from a recent loss is not the best time to be learning the finer points of a difficult teaching. Being logical and explaining a hard teaching can seem immpersonal or uncharitable, but I assure you that is not my intent.

Very well said, TAS. Unfortunately, with the OP’s latest post it seems that she is dismissive of the Church’s teaching even though she - now - knows what it is.

 

[mapleoak]

GraceDK, you are basing your views of morality on feelings and emotion.

Socio_Momma:

It is not mutlitation by any medical standard to remove the fallopian tube in an ectopic pregnancy.

This is true so long as it is not done as a preventative measure (the baby MIGHT cause a rupture).

Mutliation would be taking a perfectly healthy organ and damaging it, in an ectopic pregnancy the organ (fallopian tube) is damaged (to various levels).

Imminent danger must be established though. In most cases of ectopic pregnancy, the baby dies and is expelled naturally. It is very rare that a woman is doomed to die just on grounds that there exists an ectopic preganancy in her fallopian tube. The tube may or may not be pathologic. To prematurely kill the baby or even to perform a procedure which would secondarily result in the premature death of the baby would be wrong when used as a preventative measure. Your post is excellent, however I think that this needed clarification.

 

[Annibc]

Hi again everybody,
Honestly I have read and tried to follow the reasonings of all your replies here. I realize that everyone means well. However I have to say that I agree with Grace and the others. You see, I don’t understand the difference between ending the babys life by removing it alone, or endning it when moving it WITH the tube. And since nobody has been able to explain this to me the teaching that the Tube HAS to go with the baby in order that it is not called an abortion, seems completely absurd and uncharitable. To the mom of four, congratulations with your luck. But in case your other f tube had been in the same state later but before you had any kids, I think you too would have started to wonder why all your hopes of becoming a mom should be given up because church teaching calls trying to save the (last) tube (so that It might later be repaired and work again) immoral!
As for the person who calls this surgery conservative. Congratulations if American surgeons know of better methods. I went to the best I could get in Germany. And when I returned to my home country Denmark and showed my own doctor the papers from the German hospital she was absolutely amazed with the skill, thoughroughness and high quality of the procedure.