Medically Neccessary Abortion?

[ghaybyers1]

This is really a “how do I answer this in a concise and Catholic way?” sort of question.

How does one explain that abortion is reprehensible when there is a chance the mother could die to give sustain and/or birth the child?

I suppose I just assume it’s reprehensible.

Anyone have any answers?

 

[LilyM]

This is really a “how do I answer this in a concise and Catholic way?” sort of question.

How does one explain that abortion is reprehensible when there is a chance the mother could die to give sustain and/or birth the child?

I suppose I just assume it’s reprehensible.

Anyone have any answers?

You are correct. A mother may not kill her child merely to save her own life (although abortion may, indirectly, be permitted if death of BOTH mother and child would inevitably result otherwise). We may kill another adult who threatens our life, but that adult CHOOSES to threaten our lives, whereas an unborn child has no say in the matter at all. Surely the most innocent deserve the most protection.

Why is the life of the unborn child automatically presumed by so many to be less valuable than that of the mother? In many ways a child’s life is MORE valuable than that of an adult. It will spend more years as a contributing member of society than an adult for one.

And often God’s instinct puts the supreme value of the child’s life into the human heart. Most normal mothers or fathers, for example, WOULD choose die so that their childen could live. Ask any parent, if someone shot at their child, they would dive in front of the child and take that bullet in a hearrbeat, even if it meant they themselves would die.

It’s interesting, as Christians we are supposed to be unafraid of death - as Our Lord said ‘be not afraid of those who can kill the body, rather be afraid of him who can kill both body and soul in Hell’. The moral here is clearly death rather than sin. Yet so many act as if they must preserve their own lives at absolutely any cost, even the cost of commiting the grave sin of destroying the innocent lives of others.

 

[C2K2]

I would answer this question with a question. "What is a medical condition, that can not be met with modern medical treatment, that creates this condition? "

From my understanding there are not any conditions where the mother would die if the child is carried to term. With C sections being common place and prenatal care being very good what “condition” is there that can only be cured by a direct abortion?

 

[TheDoctor]

This is really a “how do I answer this in a concise and Catholic way?” sort of question. How does one explain that abortion is reprehensible when there is a chance the mother could die to give sustain and/or birth the child?I suppose I just assume it’s reprehensible.Anyone have any answers?

Being male, and therefore never having faced this directly, permit me to answer as my wife would (praise God for sending her into my life):

Any mother would willingly lay down her life for that of her child. It makes no difference if the child is a toddler running in front of a bus or a fetus within the womb. Is this not the greatest act of love?

P.S. - C2K2, your view may be correct for women in the Western world, but healthcare and access to medicines and procedures in developing countries still make these situations not as rare as we would like to think.

 

[C2K2]

Being male, and therefore never having faced this directly, permit me to answer as my wife would (praise God for sending her into my life):

Any mother would willingly lay down her life for that of her child. It makes no difference if the child is a toddler running in front of a bus or a fetus within the womb. Is this not the greatest act of love?

P.S. - C2K2, your view may be correct for women in the Western world, but healthcare and access to medicines and procedures in developing countries still make these situations not as rare as we would like to think.

I just can not see how by just going in and killing the child would save a woman’s life when if needed you treat the illness in light of her pregnancy with the intention to do no direct harm to the child.

I.E. if she is far enough along that the baby would have a chance to live outside of the womb you give that child the chance even if it means early delivery and the child may not live outside the womb.

and when the child is in early development I don’t see how someone could perform an abortion and then treat the mother. I have a friend that while pregnant with her second child needed to have her apenix out. There was a very high chance that the operation would cause her to miscarry. She did have the surgery and he is alive and quite well. How would it be in her better interest to abort the baby and then take her apendix out??

I am just asking for a situation when it would be needed?? The mother’s health is always the argument used but I have not seen it defined in a real life situation.

 

[ghaybyers1]

This was (ahem, a few… ) decades ago, but my mother contracted meningitis and pneumonia while pregnant with me. It became a very serious health crisis for her. She was very bluntly asked when she would make the choice to abort- her answer, thank God, was “never”. I was lucky- this was a mere 9 weeks into her pregnancy. By the 14th, she was in the hospital, and I was born at 30 weeks. Medical professionals were able to nurture us as the Holy Spirit healed us!

I should say that this question is in relation to a conversation with my mother (non-religious). She believes that women should have the right to terminate a child’s life if it threatens their own… my only reply was that it wasn’t justifiable to murder one human being to save another. How do you explain the Truth to someone who doesn’t believe in it!?

 

[Melissa]

I likewise have never heard of a condition that required the death of the unborn other than ectopic pregnancy, and that’s only because we have no way of moving the pregnancy (using this term because I’m also trying to include the point of connection between mother/child as well as the baby himself) from its wrong location to the correct one (and there is the morally correct and a morally incorrect method of dealing with that particular tragic circumstance).

Otherwise, even inducing labor/performing a c-sec resulting in a premature infant is not the same as an abortion, even when the odds for baby’s life are low. With modern medicine, they are saving babies at amazingly low gestational ages (and with good overall outcomes in a majority of cases), and even before modern medicine there are people who knew someone who’d been born at 30 or fewer weeks and survived and did well enough to become a parent (in one case, I remember someone telling about her FIL as the preemie survivor).

So, I think the concise answer is to answer with the question: name the condition(s) under which the child must be directly killed rather than delivered.

 

[ghaybyers1]

So, I think the concise answer is to answer with the question: name the condition(s) under which the child must be directly killed rather than delivered.

So then, this is a question of objective morality based on situational issues?

 

[ComputerGeek25]

So then, this is a question of objective morality based on situational issues?

Look up “double effect.”

There are certain, more common instances, where there has to be a definate risk to both mother and child. For example ectopic pregnancies - where the egg impants in the falliopian tube. Obviously, impantation occured in the wrong place where life cannot be sustained and the mother will bleed to death if not treated. Current medical knowledge can’t save the baby if this occurs, so baby is allowed to die in this case.

 

[Starwynd]

To value one human life above another is ludicrous. The value of human lives should not be based on age or how much they can contribute to society. That’s just absolutely asinine. Period. If that’s the only basis for a person to live, that they are contributing to society, you might as well kill anyone who is handicapped and mentally retarded and the obese and those on welfare.

There are other kinds of medical complications and conditions that people are not aware of:

There is a thing called stillbirth, in which the child dies before being born while still in the womb as well:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stillbirth

Then, there is Ancephaly:

Anencephaly is a defect in the closure of the neural tube during fetal development. The neural tube is a narrow channel that folds and closes between the 3rd and 4th weeks of pregnancy to form the brain and spinal cord of the embryo. Anencephaly occurs when the “cephalic” or head end of the neural tube fails to close, resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp. Infants with this disorder are born without a forebrain (the front part of the brain) and a cerebrum (the thinking and coordinating part of the brain). The remaining brain tissue is often exposed–not covered by bone or skin. A baby born with anencephaly is usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain. Although some individuals with anencephaly may be born with a rudimentary brain stem, the lack of a functioning cerebrum permanently rules out the possibility of ever gaining consciousness. Reflex actions such as breathing and responses to sound or touch may occur.:

ninds.nih.gov/disorders/anencephaly/anencephaly.htm

Fetal Death:

wrongdiagnosis.com/f/fetal_death/intro.htm

Bleeding disorders during pregnancy:

cdc.gov/ncbddd/hbd/women.htm

And other health risks that endanger both the mothers and the fetus’s life.

And then there are miscarriages:

cdc.gov/search.do?action=search&queryText=miscarriages&image.x=16&image.y=14

But hey, the woman’s life is just not valuable enough to live. That’s just outrageous.

Yes, it should be her choice to live or not and to call her a criminal and any other deplorable name you want to call her is just asinine if she wants to live.

Nobody should have more right to life than another person. Everybody, every single human life is valuable.

 

[ghaybyers1]

But hey, the woman’s life is just not valuable enough to live. That’s just outrageous.

Yes, it should be her choice to live or not and to call her a criminal and any other deplorable name you want to call her is just asinine if she wants to live.

Nobody should have more right to life than another person. Everybody, every single human life is valuable.

I’m not really sure where you stand on this then… you seem to lean both ways, so I’m just going to ask… is what you’re saying that “abortion is justifiable when both would die, because the woman’s life is valuable as well and should not be lost for a child that cannot sustain life” ?

 

[ghaybyers1]

Look up “double effect.”
.

I now have!

from st. mary’s collegiate institute:

"Applications of the double effect principle:
The principle of double effect has played a significant role in the discussion of many difficult normative questions. Its most prominent applications are in medical ethics, where it figures prominently in attempts to distinguish among permissible and impermissible procedures in a range of obstetrical cases. The Catholic magisterium has argued that the principle allows one to distinguish morally among cases where a pregnancy may need to be ended in order to preserve the life of the mother. The principle is alleged to allow the removal of a life-threatening cancerous uterus, even though this procedure will bring the death of a fetus, on the grounds that in this case the death of the fetus is not “directly” intended. The principle disallows cases, however, in which a craniotomy (the crushing of the fetus’s skull) is required to preserve a pregnant woman’s life, on the grounds that here a genuine evil, the death of the fetus, is “directly” intended. There there is significant disagreement, even among those philosophers who accept the principle, about the cogency of this application. Some philosophers and theologians, by emphasizing the fourth, “proportionality,” condition, argue that the greater value attaching to the pregnant woman’s life makes even craniotomy morally acceptable. Others fail to see a morally significant difference between the merely “foreseen” death of the fetus in the cancerous uterus case and the “directly” intended death in the craniotomy case.

(Source: Wm. David Solomon, “Double Effect,” The Encyclopedia of Ethics)
Lawrence C. Becker, editor "

Oddly enough, I found my definitive answer through researching double effect principle- thank you so much!
Now on to how to explain this to my mother…

 

[ComputerGeek25]

Oddly enough, I found my definitive answer through researching double effect principle- thank you so much!
Now on to how to explain this to my mother…

Happy to help

 

[Starwynd]

I’m not really sure where you stand on this then… you seem to lean both ways, so I’m just going to ask… is what you’re saying that “abortion is justifiable when both would die, because the woman’s life is valuable as well and should not be lost for a child that cannot sustain life” ?

I’m saying there are some medical reasons which would fully justify an abortion. Cannot sustain life is somewhat vague, because one could say that older children who contract aids and would die by eleven cannot sustain life and should be killed.

But, if the child is already going to be born dead or die very shortly afterwards, or have no consciousness, why should the woman have to sacrifice her life? I don’t understand why a woman’s life is not very meaningful in those circumstances.

And it’s not that I lean both ways, I’m neither pro-life nor pro-choice, as I haven’t decided. I have problems that I haven’t resolved yet that I see on both sides, such as the lack of valuing a woman’s life is repugnant to me. And yes, abortion is equally repugnant to me as well. All life is equally valuable, and one life should not be place more valuable than the other, especially with asinine reasons such as age difference or social status.

But I’m not going to talk about it anymore because of the hostility this generates, from both sides of the issue.

 

[ALLGIRLS]

It’s not about valuing one life over the other, it’s about, as Fr. Frank Pavone says “loving them both.” You don’t “let the mother die”, but you don’t directly kill the baby (via induced abortion), either. Say the mom has a heart attack, and needs immediate emergency open heart surgery, but the anesthesia used during the surgery and medication given after will most probably kill the baby. She can have the surgery, the baby will likely die, but that wasn’t the intent. Doctors cannot, however, perform an abortion first, just because “the baby will die anyway”. God is to decide if the baby survives or not, not the doctor.

My biggest beef w/ “late term abortions”, whether partial birth or hysterotomy or saline (all equally hideous, imo), is that these are usually done so late in the pregnancy (I believe the infamous George Tiller specializes in 3rd trimester abortions ) that there is no reason why the baby can’t just be delivered (via Csection, if labor and delivery would harm the mother) and treated like any other premie, if it’s truly a life or health (true, physical health) issue. You can “terminate a pregnancy” w/o killing the baby, it’s done everyday, it’s called “giving birth”. If the child can be saved, great, if not, it’s a tragedy, but God’s choice, not ours.
So, can anyone tell what conditions, so late in pregnancy, necessitates KILLING the baby, not just getting it out of the mother? If there are none, then there is absolutely no reason, including “life and health” for late term abortions to be legal. Just deliver the the baby.

In Christ,

Ellen

 

[sodak]

I would answer this question with a question. "What is a medical condition, that can not be met with modern medical treatment, that creates this condition? "

From my understanding there are not any conditions where the mother would die if the child is carried to term. With C sections being common place and prenatal care being very good what “condition” is there that can only be cured by a direct abortion?

Tubal pregnancy. There is no chance for survival for the mother OR the baby. The only choice is to abort the baby to save the mother, or else they both die.

This is the only instance that I know of, but it does occur.

 

[ALLGIRLS]

Tubal pregnancy. There is no chance for survival for the mother OR the baby. The only choice is to abort the baby to save the mother, or else they both die.

This is the only instance that I know of, but it does occur.

In that case the baby is not “aborted”. The infected tube is removed (to save the mother’s life), and the child dies, unintentially, as a result (because it’s too young to live outside the womb, and as a PP mentioned, it can’t be moved into the uterus). That’s not an abortion.

In Christ,

Ellen

 

[Seatuck]

Tubal pregnancy. There is no chance for survival for the mother OR the baby. The only choice is to abort the baby to save the mother, or else they both die.

This is the only instance that I know of, but it does occur.

Direct Abortion is never permitted.

In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, the lives of both the mother and child are placed at risk. The moral teachings of the Church call for medical treatment that respects the lives of both. Most recently, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reiterated these principles:
· In the case of extrauterine pregnancy, no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.[2]
· 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.[3]
On one hand, there can be no direct attack on the child (direct abortion) to save the life of the mother. On the other hand, the life of the mother is equally valuable and she must receive appropriate treatment. It might be that the only available remedy saves the life of the mother but, while not a direct abortion, brings about the unintended effect of the death of the child. Morally speaking, in saving the life of the mother, the Church accepts that the child might be lost.

cuf.org/Faithfacts/details_view.asp?ffID=57

 

[Melissa]

It should also be noted that in the case of death-in-utero, it is NOT an abortion to bring about the delivery of the dead person if the delivery does not follow naturally. Even if the procedure is the same (D&C, for example, in the case of “missed miscarriages” in the first trimester), it is not an abortion if the child is already dead before the procedure begins.

Anencephaly does not endanger the mother, and the child can be born alive (and baptized–and carrying to term is worthwhile for this reason alone). Worthwhile site on carrying to term

Saying that a person is going to die anyway, so just kill them is immoral. It is not wrong, however, in cases where the mother’s life is in danger to take every effort to save her (without her life, both die); what is wrong is to deliberately kill one to “save” another.

Originally Posted by Melissa
So, I think the concise answer is to answer with the question: name the condition(s) under which the child must be directly killed rather than delivered.

So then, this is a question of objective morality based on situational issues?

Not quite–more a matter of saying “your grand image sounds worthwhile, but it is not based on reality. The question is under what condition(s) must the child be directly killed rather than delivered or otherwise allowing natural events to unfold.” I posit that there are no such circumstances. (Remember there is a sharp distinction between knowing something will almost certainly happen and causing that event.)

 

[sodak]

Interesting. I’ve never heard of an embryo being referred to as an infection. Unfortunately, the resulting choice is: lose both, or lose the baby and save the mother. Not a nice situation either way. Call it what you will, but the baby is certainly aborted.

Perhaps someday medical science will progress to the point where the embryo can be re-implanted from the tube to the uterus, saving both. That would be great!