Legal problems that may arise if abortion is considered murder?

[kama3]

1. Ectopic pregnancies are extremely rare, and it’s a really bad idea to create law based on things that almost never happen.

Ectopic pregnancy occurs at a rate of 19.7 cases per 1,000 pregnancies in North America and is a leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester.

aafp.org/afp/2000/0215/p1080.html

Let me put that in perspective. There is ca. 4 million births and ca. 1 million abortions per year in the US, so about 5 million women get pregnant. Which means that each year there is about 100’000 of ectopic pregnancies.

50% of these result in a natural miscarriage, leaving the other 50% to continue. Let me remind you, that ectopic pregnancy which continues is not survivable. Thus, your pro-life legal regime would kill about 50’000 women each year (in the US).

Since US records about 2.5 million deaths per year, deaths due to ectopic pregnancy would be 2% of all deaths in the country.

1. What the Church teaches is that in the case of an illness where the removal of the baby is required…]

We all know that. Now, translate that into the language used in a criminal code.

A Catholic doctor cannot actually kill the baby directly - but if he cannot save both the mother and the child, then he must focus on saving the mother

This statement is self-contradictory.

 

[mab23]

Manslaughter, not murder. Two different legal concepts.

so if a women has a miscarriage thats manslaughter… HOLY MOLY - sounds a bit rough

great point Lemon&Lime

 

[kama3]

so if a women has a miscarriage thats manslaughter… HOLY MOLY - sounds a bit rough

Already done in Mexico. The law over there is very lax by pro-life standards though. For miscarriage, you only get 23 years in jail instead of life: rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2011/02/01/imprisoned-miscarriageyoung-woman-gets-years-losing-baby

 

[wynnejj]

aafp.org/afp/2000/0215/p1080.html

Let me put that in perspective. There is ca. 4 million births and ca. 1 million abortions per year in the US, so about 5 million women get pregnant. Which means that each year there is about 100’000 of ectopic pregnancies.

50% of these result in a natural miscarriage, leaving the other 50% to continue. Let me remind you, that ectopic pregnancy which continues is not survivable. Thus, your pro-life legal regime would kill about 50’000 women each year (in the US).

Per the article…
“The case-fatality rate has declined from 35.5 maternal deaths per 10,000 ectopic pregnancies in 1970 to only 3.8 maternal deaths per 10,000 ectopic pregnancies in 1989. Even though overall survival has increased, the risk of death associated with ectopic pregnancy remains higher among black and other non-white minority women.”

If 100,000 ectopic pregnancies per year, then if we returned to levels prior to Roe v Wade, that would amount to 355 fatalities per year.

Ah yes, but there has been an increase in ectopic pregnancies per year from 4.5 (1970) to 19.7 (1992) per 1,000 pregnancies. Why? What factors contribute to this increase? No kidding - anything that interferes with fallopian tube functions? Could that be as simple as ABC?

 

[wynnejj]

Here’s a discussion of ectopic pregnancies from pro-life physicians…

prolifephysicians.org/rarecases.htm

It is only ethical to remove the tubal pregnancy if spontaneous resolution does not occur after watchful waiting and if the physician is 100% certain that there are no twins. At this point, the embryo in the fallopian tube is likely to be dead and, even if not, the death is unavoidable and unintentional, and the procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother.

In conclusion, there are no occasions in which the intentional killing of the pre-born child is justified. Scientific fact and divine law are clear: life begins at conception, and there are no exceptions to the prohibition of intentionally killing an innocent human being. We must stand true to these foundational principles through every emotional appeal and in every tragic scenario if we are to have any principles at all for which to stand.

 

[wynnejj]

aafp.org/afp/2000/0215/p1080.html

Let me put that in perspective. There is ca. 4 million births and ca. 1 million abortions per year in the US, so about 5 million women get pregnant. Which means that each year there is about 100’000 of ectopic pregnancies.

50% of these result in a natural miscarriage, leaving the other 50% to continue. Let me remind you, that ectopic pregnancy which continues is not survivable. Thus, your pro-life legal regime would kill about 50’000 women each year (in the US).

Since US records about 2.5 million deaths per year, deaths due to ectopic pregnancy would be 2% of all deaths in the country.

Your statement that 50% of EP if left untreated needs a citation. I see a Wikipedia EP article that states that 50% of EPs result in tubal abortions, but nothing that says the other 50% could expect to die without treatment.

The AAFP article that you cite:

EXPECTANT MANAGEMENT
To date, at least 14 studies have documented that 68 to 77 percent of ectopic pregnancies resolve without intervention.

To contrast with Africa, where there is high maternal deaths due to EP…

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12716313

As in industrialized countries, pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) associated with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) must be considered as the most important risk factor for EP in developing countries. In African developing countries, a majority of hospital-based studies have reported EP case fatality rates of around 1-3%, 10 times higher than that reported in industrialized countries.

If 10 times higher than reported in industrialized countries, and using the 100,000 EP USA figure that you mention, if we were Africa we would be 1,000 to 3,000 deaths but being industrialized we could expect about 100 to 300 deaths.

I can’t see how you can support your 50,000 doom & gloom prediction.

 

[Uriah_Betrayed]

1. Ectopic pregnancies are extremely rare, and it’s a really bad idea to create law based on things that almost never happen.

That doesn’t excuse that a law would have to be made to either state that it’s illegal to perform abortions on ectopic pregnancies or that those are allowed since the embryo has zero chance of survival. And remember that they will use abortion drugs for their ecotpic abortions, no non-Catholic doctor would surgically make a woman infertile just because the Catholic Church says that’s the only way they’re allowed to kill a human life.

1. What the Church teaches is that in the case of an illness where the removal of the baby is required for the survival of the mother, or where treating the mother will likely kill the baby, the Church allows the mother to make her choice. A Catholic doctor cannot actually kill the baby directly - but if he cannot save both the mother and the child, then he must focus on saving the mother. (If it is possible to save both, then he must not neglect to save the child.)

That isn’t satisfying for me. If someone burned down a building (Uterus) to kill the people inside (embryo) the authorities would still charge the person with the murder of the people inside the buildling. The Double Principle effect does not sound morally sound, but like I said the Church has to compromise when dealing with a world that allows human life to be born solely so that it can either be miscarried or kill its mother by attaching to the uterus.

The fact that even human life can be comparable to parasitism really drives a nail into my soul. Makes me consider Deism to be legitimate.

 

[wynnejj]

That doesn’t excuse that a law would have to be made to either state that it’s illegal to perform abortions on ectopic pregnancies or that those are allowed since the embryo has zero chance of survival. And remember that they will use abortion drugs for their ecotpic abortions, no non-Catholic doctor would surgically make a woman infertile just because the Catholic Church says that’s the only way they’re allowed to kill a human life.

(I take it that you are conceding that life-threatening EP pregnancies are rare.)

What are you saying?

1. That removal of the most probably dead baby by surgery necessarily means removing the uterus.
2. If not, that removal of most probably dead baby without removing uterus almost always renders a woman infertile.

That isn’t satisfying for me. If someone burned down a building (Uterus) to kill the people inside (embryo) the authorities would still charge the person with the murder of the people inside the building. The Double Principle effect does not sound morally sound, but like I said the Church has to compromise when dealing with a world that allows human life to be born solely so that it can either be miscarried or kill its mother by attaching to the uterus.

The fact that even human life can be comparable to parasitism really drives a nail into my soul. Makes me consider Deism to be legitimate.

Who compares human life to parasitism… Catholic Church? Huh?

It sounds as if you are saying in the case of surgery to remove the baby, that we know that said surgery will most likely kill the child to save the mother, and that this violates the Catholic principle of the ends never justifies the means. That the Catholic Church had to invent and accept the Double Principle effect as an unusual circumstances. That there are no prudential applications … for capital punishment … for just war … and the like. It sounds like you are arguing against triage by surgery, but arguing for triage by abortifacient.

So your conclusion is that God created the world with real world conumdrums and left us to our own devices to create man-made principles — well, not exactly principles but guidelines when seduced by the devil — to govern our behavior. Oh God! Who You Gonna Call?

Your example of fire fighters makes me wonder whether firefighters should circumscribe a burning forest with a fire line (to fight fire with fire) that contains a most probably already dead kid to save the life of a person who is alive being threatened by letting the fire rage uncontrolled.

 

[Listener]

Let’s say that abortion becomes not only illegal but defined as murder, be that in any country. I also want to clarify as by experience on CAF I have to - I am pro-life. I can ask questions and still be pro-life. Anyway…

It’s been mentioned before (I have mentioned it before too) but does the pro-life campaign have any answers to what would happen to pregnant women if it becomes illegal?

So let’s say you’re pregnant and an unborn baby has been defined by law to have the same rights as a born person (so that abortion is legally defined as murder). Does that mean that a pregnant mother can be fined and prosecuted for doing something which could harm the baby? Would the state end up policing her pregnancy? This maybe sounds a bit crazy, but think about the following things which are could harm a baby in the womb -

• Smoking
• Alcohol
• Drugs
• Obesity
• Reckless behaviour - e.g. going bungee-jumping or weight-lifting while pregnant.
• Eating certain foods/taking certain medication

So let’s say a woman had a miscarriage. Would that have to be investigated by the state to make sure it wasn’t an abortion? Could she be charged if she was found to have a history of alcoholism and had high levels of alcohol in her blood, for example?

Just wondering what people’s thoughts are regarding this, and whether there has been a lot of discussion about it on the pro-life scene.

Note: This is specifically asking about the effects of making abortion murder, assuming that this means an unborn baby has the same right to life all people have in that country. Abortion can be illegal without this happening, but a lot of pro-life people are campaigning for abortion to be classed as murder too.

I want to thank you for posting this. I, too, consider myself anti-abortion. However, I do get nervous when people want to declare “personhood” for every unborn child, including the fertilized egg.

In the same way that marriage has always been between a man and a woman, a child becomes a legal person when it is born, and he or she gets a birth certificate. If all unborn children are legal persons, would every unborn child get a birth certificate? Would that include miscarriages? Think of what the Feds are doing to people who are growing marijuana for medical use. In states where medical use of marijuana is legal, the Feds swoop down on people who supply it and make their lives miserable.

A law is a law. I fear that the Feds would be out to get women who had miscarriages.

I remember the old days when abortion was illegal. It was simply illegal, but I’m sure that they didn’t insist that the unborn child was a legal person.

The bottom line is that secular laws are different from moral laws. Secular laws need to be enforced. Whenever we vote for a secular law, we need to think about all of the possible unintended consequences.

 

[Uriah_Betrayed]

Your example of fire fighters makes me wonder whether firefighters should circumscribe a burning forest with a fire line (to fight fire with fire) that contains a most probably already dead kid to save the life of a person who is alive being threatened by letting the fire rage uncontrolled.

This example was about an arsonist, not a fire fighter.

What are you saying?

1. That removal of the most probably dead baby by surgery necessarily means removing the uterus.

1. If not, that removal of most probably dead baby without removing uterus almost always renders a woman infertile.

I’m saying that the Catholic method of just cutting around the fetus/embryo is first doing more harm than is necessary (breaking the Hippocratic Oath) and second is still just weakly going around the issue that Catholic doctors are killing these human lives that have been created for no purpose other than to harm their mother.

Who compares human life to parasitism… Catholic Church? Huh?

I said that God created a world where human life can essentially equal parasitism. I already gave the example. Now where is the justice that God demands we respect all human life and then at the same time makes human life that was either naturally killed weeks after conception (miscarriage), or worse makes human life that ends up becoming fatal to the mother if its allowed to develop (Ectopic pregnancies)

So your conclusion is that God created the world with real world conumdrums and left us to our own devices to create man-made principles — well, not exactly principles but guidelines when seduced by the devil — to govern our behavior. Oh God! Who You Gonna Call?

I’m saying that God created a world where the Catholic Church had to become hypocrites in their claim that all human life is sacred, the Church seems content to say that a mother is a more important life than a human life that forms into an ectopic pregnancy. Can we apply this to all cases? If someone had half their body trapped under a car and the weight was the only thing keeping them alive would it be moral to shoot the person and put them out of their misery? It seems to me that Double Principle is in itself possible of letting a slippery slope for euthanasia and abortion of fetuses with mental illnesses. Beyond this there is already moral emptiness of saying that when human life has no chance of survival it is no longer determined to be sacred and worth protecting.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

(I take it that you are conceding that life-threatening EP pregnancies are rare.)

What are you saying?

1. That removal of the most probably dead baby by surgery necessarily means removing the uterus.
2. If not, that removal of most probably dead baby without removing uterus almost always renders a woman infertile.

Who compares human life to parasitism… Catholic Church? Huh?

It sounds as if you are saying in the case of surgery to remove the baby, that we know that said surgery will most likely kill the child to save the mother, and that this violates the Catholic principle of the ends never justifies the means. That the Catholic Church had to invent and accept the Double Principle effect as an unusual circumstances. That there are no prudential applications … for capital punishment … for just war … and the like. It sounds like you are arguing against triage by surgery, but arguing for triage by abortifacient.

So your conclusion is that God created the world with real world conumdrums and left us to our own devices to create man-made principles — well, not exactly principles but guidelines when seduced by the devil — to govern our behavior. Oh God! Who You Gonna Call?

Your example of fire fighters makes me wonder whether firefighters should circumscribe a burning forest with a fire line (to fight fire with fire) that contains a most probably already dead kid to save the life of a person who is alive being threatened by letting the fire rage uncontrolled.

Sadly most people who resort to relativism or subjectivism often assume-and accuse-that they’re opponents MUST resort to absolutism when taking the law into account. That’s what Uriah is doing here.

Uriah seems to be ignoring Catholic teaching when it comes to moral decision making and forget that there are three criteria for it: the object chosen, the intent, and the circumstances. All three must be correct, not just one.

Truth is absolute, so is Love. The circumstances of the mother can always mitigate the punishment that may be handed out depending on her intent-possibly down to no state punishment at all. That can always be decided on a case-by-case basis by the presiding judge. Doctors that perform abortions are a different matter, again, because of intent and circumstances.

None of this lessens the evil of abortion, it instead addresses the justice, reconciliation, and healing necessary for those involved.

 

[The_GreyPilgrim]

I’m saying that the Catholic method of just cutting around the fetus/embryo is first doing more harm than is necessary (breaking the Hippocratic Oath) and second is still just weakly going around the issue that Catholic doctors are killing these human lives that have been created for no purpose other than to harm their mother.

More fallacious absolutism. You essentially argue that it is immoral to due surgery because to slice open a body “does unnecessary harm”. EP is a defect of the Fall, just like every other human illness, not a direct act of human will towards another person.

I said that God created a world where human life can essentially equal parasitism. I already gave the example.

I find it rare that someone refers to acts of love as “parasitism”. Parasites take what they want against the host’s will.

Now where is the justice that God demands we respect all human life and then at the same time makes human life that was either naturally killed weeks after conception (miscarriage), or worse makes human life that ends up becoming fatal to the mother if its allowed to develop (Ectopic pregnancies)

Again, those are the effects of the Fall and original sin, not God’s creation.

I’m saying that God created a world where the Catholic Church had to become hypocrites in their claim that all human life is sacred, the Church seems content to say that a mother is a more important life than a human life that forms into an ectopic pregnancy.

Wrong again by still assuming absolutism.

Can we apply this to all cases? If someone had half their body trapped under a car and the weight was the only thing keeping them alive would it be moral to shoot the person and put them out of their misery?

Yes, we can apply this to all cases and no it would not be moral because you are not God and you do not explicitly know the outcome if you lifted the car with first responders present to provide emergency care.

It seems to me that Double Principle is in itself possible of letting a slippery slope for euthanasia and abortion of fetuses with mental illnesses. Beyond this there is already moral emptiness of saying that when human life has no chance of survival it is no longer determined to be sacred and worth protecting.

No it is not! When you examine all options and KNOW that there is no other way and by doing nothing you risk the life of not just one person but two. There is no technolgy at present that doctors can take the fetus and re-plant it in its proper place, by leaving it in it will die and almost certainly kill the mother as well. And the intent here is the key, in EP nobody intended it, in abortions it is exactly the opposite. And that is where your argument fails.

The bottom line is Uriah, that you are still supposing absolutism and ignoring intent and circumstances. In a perfect world there wouldn’t be such things as EPs, or cancer, or any other such things. But we don’t live in a perfect world.

 

[jmcrae]

This statement is self-contradictory.

No, it isn’t. When you can only save one person, it doesn’t mean that you are actually murdering the second person - or that the second person isn’t “really” a person.

Let’s take an analogy - suppose you are the only lifeguard on duty and two people are drowning. You only have time to save one of them. If you take a gun and shoot the second person, you are guilty of murder. But if you simply leave that person alone to fend for himself while saving the first person, then the second person’s death is an unavoidable accident.

In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, removing the enlarged portion of the fallopian tube will result in the death of the embryo, but the death of the embryo is not the intent of the operation - it is not a murder; it is simply the unfortunate circumstance that in saving the mother, the baby cannot be saved. (Both were going to die.)

 

[wynnejj]

I’m saying that the Catholic method of just cutting around the fetus/embryo is first doing more harm than is necessary (breaking the Hippocratic Oath) and second is still just weakly going around the issue that Catholic doctors are killing these human lives that have been created for no purpose other than to harm their mother.

The abortifacient technique directly kills the baby whether or not the problem would naturally resolve itself. The local cutting would be no more unnecessarily harmful than all the caesarean sections that many mothers receive. Even if there is a rupture, death of the mother rarely occurs.(***) This other stuff about sacrificing life of the baby for the mother is no more amoral than a submarine that is breached and a command decision has to be made to close off certain compartments containing people in order to save the rest of the crew. It is called damage control in submarines, and triage in emergency medical situations.

(***) ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001897/

Complications

The most common complication is rupture with internal bleeding that leads to shock. Death from rupture is rare.

(I’m pretty much done on the ectopic pregnancy issue.)

 

[Uriah_Betrayed]

No it is not! When you examine all options and KNOW that there is no other way and by doing nothing you risk the life of not just one person but two. There is no technolgy at present that doctors can take the fetus and re-plant it in its proper place, by leaving it in it will die and almost certainly kill the mother as well. And the intent here is the key, in EP nobody intended it, in abortions it is exactly the opposite. And that is where your argument fails.

The issue is, when I’ve seen the morality question placed here about “A train is traveling down a track with 10 people over it and you have a choice to flip the switch so it goes town a track with only one person on it” The majority of people state that the Catholic answer would be to not touch the lever and allow the unstoppable evil to take its course.

Does this mean that the real answer is to be utilitarian and flip the switch killing one to save ten?

 

[_Abyssinia]

I was just thinking about this the other day. Certainly outlawing abortion could bring about a slippery slope effect that wouldn’t be beneficial to the women in society

As a Catholic you should recognize the Church teaches that abortion should be outlawed, and that ultimately will benefit everybody in society; men, women and children.

 

[LemonAndLime]

I don’t think many people have answered the question.

My OP was asking for people’s opinions on the pro-life groups calling not only for abortion to be outlawed but also the pro-life movement have been consistantly describing abortion as murder and saying it should be defined as such. Thus this thread was asking whether those in the pro-life movement who advocate abortion as murder have thought about what might happen IF abortion does become defined as murder as well as being illegal.

 

[Armyvet007]

I don’t think many people have answered the question.

My OP was asking for people’s opinions on the pro-life groups calling not only for abortion to be outlawed but also the pro-life movement have been consistantly describing abortion as murder and saying it should be defined as such. Thus this thread was asking whether those in the pro-life movement who advocate abortion as murder have thought about what might happen IF abortion does become defined as murder as well as being illegal.

You need to refine your first post; unless you are implying that all those actions listed in your first post are done intentionally to kill the child. The death of the child is the **intentional **outcome of an abortion.

 

[Lujack]

I don’t think many people have answered the question.

My OP was asking for people’s opinions on the pro-life groups calling not only for abortion to be outlawed but also the pro-life movement have been consistantly describing abortion as murder and saying it should be defined as such. Thus this thread was asking whether those in the pro-life movement who advocate abortion as murder have thought about what might happen IF abortion does become defined as murder as well as being illegal.

I think perhaps what has happened is that the rhetoric of many pro-life advocates has engulfed their actual policy proposals.

Were abortion to be outlawed, it seems that it would be very unwise to do it by defining it as murder; there’d be a host of legal complications and implications that nobody would want to deal with. The procedure could simply be made illegal; it doesn’t need to be the crime of murder.

 

[wynnejj]

L&L …It seems to me that discussing the legal ramifications of “abortion is murder” in the case of ectopic pregnancy and how it would affect conventional medical practices is right on topic. Your OP begs details of legal ramifications of “abortion is murder” but, has objections how the conversation has gone … Why exactly?