Miscarriage or Abortion?

[Moneyball]

Hi everyone, I have gone through a moral dilemma that’s been bothering me for some time and was wondering if I could find some clarity.

At six weeks pregnant my wife went to the ER due to bleeding, after getting an ultrasound she was informed that no heartbeat was detected, and that she had an “abnormality” in her uterus. Furthermore they told her that she had a “cyst” (not embryo) without a sac or a pole. They sent her to another hospital to get better care.

When we met the OB-GYN at the other hospital, we were told that this “cyst” was at risk of attaching itself to the uterine scar left from past c-sections and if left alone could cause serious health risks to my wife. To address the risks the doctor really pushed for the use of methotrexate (explained to us as a drug that is designed to stop cells from multiplying) instead of getting a hysterectomy (my wife and I do very much want more children, so we wanted to avoid the hysterectomy if we could).

This of course raised red flags for my wife and I. My wife explained that if this drug is to act as an abortifacient that she and I would take issue with the prescription and that it would go against our religious faith. At that point it was clear that we needed to know what we were dealing with before we stunt the growth of any cells. So we asked the OB-GYN and she essentially said that there was no baby, that the tissue was growing as a tumor or parasite (I forget which of the two terms she used). Still skeptical, my wife asked if this growth were to be placed in an ideal environment with nutrition if it would ever develop into a child, the doctor replied without hesitation “no.”

After an awkward back and forth with the doctor, my wife and I felt reassured that this tissue was not identical to our child, and that taking the drug would ease the risks of the miscarriage. The doctor never once used the words “abortion” or “embryo.”

Two days after taking the drug, my wife and I went back to the hospital for another blood test and spoke to another doctor… we expressed the same initial concerns with this doctor and asserted that we were pro-life, he reassured us without hesitation that this wasn’t the taking of a life. That same day we saw a third doctor (another OB-GYN) and he too said that although there was initially a baby at conception, that something went wrong early in the development to cause the pregnancy to no longer be viable. The fourth and last doctor refered to what my wife went through as a “spontaneous miscarriage.”

Long story short, despite all of that I still look back at the whole ordeal and wonder if we did anything morally wrong. We know that pro-chiocers can sometimes distort language to strip the child from his/her humanity and can’t help but wonder if that’s what happened here. Of course I understand that none of you are in a position to give us any medical advice or anything like that, but I was wondering if anyone can help me with this guilt I’m feeling…

Please pray for us.

 

[CatholicRaven]

From what you’ve said here, it sounds to me like you did not commit any sin, and that there was no baby at that point. You made your choices based on the information you were given, and sought out clarification and more information (as well as 2nd/3rd/4th opinions) to be relatively certain you were not making an immoral choice, so if there had been an embryo, the sin would have fallen on those who would have lied to you. However, I don’t think they lied. Cysts often do not cause noticeable symptoms, and might only be discovered due to unrelated ultrasounds. And as I understand it, MT is sometimes used in place of a D&C, so I don’t think your wife’s doctor suggesting that course of action is suspicious, either.

However, it sounds like you and your wife may not really trust her doctor to be completely honest. Is that right? If this is a new doctor for her, it may simply be a matter of not knowing her very well yet… but if your wife has any misgivings about this doctor (or clinic or hospital), I strongly suggest she finds a regular doctor with whom she is comfortable and whom she trusts to be clear and honest with her (and preferably find this before she gets pregnant again), if at all possible. If you trust those treating you, it’s generally easier to make these kinds of decisions and have less feelings of guilt or anxiety about them later.

(ETA: I missed that you said she was sent to a different hospital, so the doctor there would have been entirely new to you both. Sorry about that!)

With all of that said, these are only my own opinions.

Please speak with your priest. He can help you deal with any unnecessary guilt, and to clarify what your responsibilities are/were.

I will pray for you.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

Hi everyone, I have gone through a moral dilemma that’s been bothering me for some time and was wondering if I could find some clarity.

At six weeks pregnant my wife went to the ER due to bleeding, after getting an ultrasound she was informed that no heartbeat was detected, and that she had an “abnormality” in her uterus. Furthermore they told her that she had a “cyst” (not embryo) without a sac or a pole. They sent her to another hospital to get better care.

When we met the OB-GYN at the other hospital, we were told that this “cyst” was at risk of attaching itself to the uterine scar left from past c-sections and if left alone could cause serious health risks to my wife. To address the risks the doctor really pushed for the use of methotrexate (explained to us as a drug that is designed to stop cells from multiplying) instead of getting a hysterectomy (my wife and I do very much want more children, so we wanted to avoid the hysterectomy if we could).

This of course raised red flags for my wife and I. My wife explained that if this drug is to act as an abortifacient that she and I would take issue with the prescription and that it would go against our religious faith. At that point it was clear that we needed to know what we were dealing with before we stunt the growth of any cells. So we asked the OB-GYN and she essentially said that there was no baby, that the tissue was growing as a tumor or parasite (I forget which of the two terms she used). Still skeptical, my wife asked if this growth were to be placed in an ideal environment with nutrition if it would ever develop into a child, the doctor replied without hesitation “no.”

After an awkward back and forth with the doctor, my wife and I felt reassured that this tissue was not identical to our child, and that taking the drug would ease the risks of the miscarriage. The doctor never once used the words “abortion” or “embryo.”

Two days after taking the drug, my wife and I went back to the hospital for another blood test and spoke to another doctor… we expressed the same initial concerns with this doctor and asserted that we were pro-life, he reassured us without hesitation that this wasn’t the taking of a life. That same day we saw a third doctor (another OB-GYN) and he too said that although there was initially a baby at conception, that something went wrong early in the development to cause the pregnancy to no longer be viable. The fourth and last doctor refered to what my wife went through as a “spontaneous miscarriage.”

Long story short, despite all of that I still look back at the whole ordeal and wonder if we did anything morally wrong. We know that pro-chiocers can sometimes distort language to strip the child from his/her humanity and can’t help but wonder if that’s what happened here. Of course I understand that none of you are in a position to give us any medical advice or anything like that, but I was wondering if anyone can help me with this guilt I’m feeling…

Please pray for us.

You need to let this go. You were told time and time again there was no viable baby. The science is incredibly clear here. Your wife was under competent medical care. And there was nothing to abort. Please think clearly here. Your job should be to reassure your wife.

 

[zea_maize]

It sounds like it could have been a partial molar pregnancy (more information here). If that is the case, there indeed was no baby to abort. Even if that is not the explanation, you were told numerous times that the pregnancy failed to develop. You committed no sin. Talk to your pastor about this if you have lingering issues, but the way you explained it here you have no moral issue.

 

[ConfusedLucy]

Just to add methotrexate isn’t just an abortificant, it’s also used for treating cancer.

 

[Catholic1954]

How much more reassurance from the medical community do you need to understand that you did not abort your baby? God took it to heaven before you went to the hospital. I am sorry for your loss, but the health of your wife plus your future ability to have more children was a priority and you made the right decision. You should think about making an appointment with your priest to discuss your concerns.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I’m sorry for your loss. Please don’t feel as if you did anything wrong.

 

[AdamP88]

How much more reassurance from the medical community do you need to understand that you did not abort your baby? God took it to heaven before you went to the hospital. I am sorry for your loss, but the health of your wife plus your future ability to have more children was a priority and you made the right decision. You should think about making an appointment with your priest to discuss your concerns.

I wouldn’t trust a doctor in this situation to be honest. Unless I knew for sure that they were pro-life. I’m sure some doctors would tell parents “there is no baby” even if there was.
I have a relative who was told “your baby won’t survive past the age of three. You’re better off to abort.” That child is now a healthy five-year-old.

In any case, there’s no sin on you, if you were lied to by someone in a position of trust, it’s on them.

 

[heidi_storage]

I wouldn’t trust a doctor in this situation to be honest. Unless I knew for sure that they were pro-life. I’m sure some doctors would tell parents “there is no baby” even if there was.
I have a relative who was told “your baby won’t survive past the age of three. You’re better off to abort.” That child is now a healthy five-year-old.

In any case, there’s no sin on you, if you were lied to by someone in a position of trust, it’s on them.

Lying about whether a potentially viable pregnancy exists or not would be a major breach of medical ethics. If multiple doctors said there was no baby, there was no baby.

 

[AdamP88]

Lying about whether a potentially viable pregnancy exists or not would be a major breach of medical ethics. If multiple doctors said there was no baby, there was no baby.

Pretty sure if a doctor would rip a baby apart, lying to a mother isn’t a stretch. I’m not saying they were lying in this instance, I’m saying that I would want to make 100% sure that the doctors were not “twisting” the facts.

 

[ArielRussu]

It sounds like your wife had a molar pregnancy. A molar pregnancy is when a noncancerous tumor develops in the uterus as a result of a nonviable pregnancy. It is the result of a genetic error during the fertilization process that leads to growth of abnormal tissue within the uterus. It’s not viable. It’s literally a mass of cells or cyst, not “cyst”, it’s not a fetus or even living. If your wife did have a molar pregnant, there was no abortion that occurred, not even a miscarriage because the mass of abnormal tumor cells of a molar pregnancy is not a living being. I’m sorry I hope you guys have better luck with your next pregnancy

 

[heidi_storage]

Pretty sure if a doctor would rip a baby apart, lying to a mother isn’t a stretch. I’m not saying they were lying in this instance, I’m saying that I would want to make 100% sure that the doctors were not “twisting” the facts.

Ripping babies apart isn’t a breach of official medical ethics, provided it’s done legally and at the request of the mother. A lie such as you describe would be. (Yes, I know, that’s insane.) The OP can rest easy–multiple doctors are not going to misrepresent the situation.

 

[AdamP88]

Ripping babies apart isn’t a breach of official medical ethics, provided it’s done legally and at the request of the mother. A lie such as you describe would be. (Yes, I know, that’s insane.) The OP can rest easy–multiple doctors are not going to misrepresent the situation.

I wouldn’t be so sure. Multiple doctors misrepresented my relatives situation to her. If her husband hadn’t been a doctor himself they might not have had all the facts they needed.

 

[ArielRussu]

I wouldn’t be so sure. Multiple doctors misrepresented my relatives situation to her. If her husband hadn’t been a doctor himself they might not have had all the facts they needed.

It sounds like this mans wife had a molar pregnancy, if that’s the case, there was no misrepresenting of anything because the pregnancy was never viable to begin with.

 

[Xantippe]

Pretty sure if a doctor would rip a baby apart, lying to a mother isn’t a stretch. I’m not saying they were lying in this instance, I’m saying that I would want to make 100% sure that the doctors were not “twisting” the facts.

Very few US doctors are willing to do abortions, so that shouldn’t be a concern.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12284519

washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/25/why-americas-abortion-clinics-are-rapidly-closing/?utm_term=.6cfc8b1b5b4d

 

[Moneyball]

From what you’ve said here, it sounds to me like you did not commit any sin, and that there was no baby at that point. You made your choices based on the information you were given, and sought out clarification and more information (as well as 2nd/3rd/4th opinions) to be relatively certain you were not making an immoral choice, so if there had been an embryo, the sin would have fallen on those who would have lied to you. However, I don’t think they lied. Cysts often do not cause noticeable symptoms, and might only be discovered due to unrelated ultrasounds. And as I understand it, MT is sometimes used in place of a D&C, so I don’t think your wife’s doctor suggesting that course of action is suspicious, either.

However, it sounds like you and your wife may not really trust her doctor to be completely honest. Is that right? If this is a new doctor for her, it may simply be a matter of not knowing her very well yet… but if your wife has any misgivings about this doctor (or clinic or hospital), I strongly suggest she finds a regular doctor with whom she is comfortable and whom she trusts to be clear and honest with her (and preferably find this before she gets pregnant again), if at all possible. If you trust those treating you, it’s generally easier to make these kinds of decisions and have less feelings of guilt or anxiety about them later.

(ETA: I missed that you said she was sent to a different hospital, so the doctor there would have been entirely new to you both. Sorry about that!)

With all of that said, these are only my own opinions.

Please speak with your priest. He can help you deal with any unnecessary guilt, and to clarify what your responsibilities are/were.

I will pray for you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I appreciate the support.

 

[Moneyball]

You need to let this go. You were told time and time again there was no viable baby. The science is incredibly clear here. Your wife was under competent medical care. And there was nothing to abort. Please think clearly here. Your job should be to reassure your wife.

I understand that my concerns to others may seem somewhat unreasonable and irrational, but upon reflection I don’t think it is. The OB-GYN we first spoke to refused to use terms like child/baby/human life to describe the life at conception. When we asked her exactly what had happened she explained (and I’m paraphrasing here): “at the beginning you might have had a life that was going to become a baby, but something in the development went wrong.” Now maybe she was just inarticulate, it was late in the day and she was working overtime, but whenever someone refuses to acknowledge that the life of a child starts at conception that concerns me greatly. Also, it wasn’t until we pressed her to give us a definitive answer that she used the term “baby”.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that in the case of say the morning after pill it does not technically (using current medical lingo) cause abortions, since an abortion can only occur after implantation… but of course from a Catholic perspective the morning after pill can cause abortions. So although it’s a bit reassuring that our doctors did not call this an abortion, it doesn’t rule out moral problems.

All this to say that our concerns with the doctors is not whether or not they lied to us, but rather if we’re using different language. After all, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard pro-choice medical professionals refer to and embryo as a “parasite.”

 

[Moneyball]

It sounds like it could have been a partial molar pregnancy (more information here). If that is the case, there indeed was no baby to abort. Even if that is not the explanation, you were told numerous times that the pregnancy failed to develop. You committed no sin. Talk to your pastor about this if you have lingering issues, but the way you explained it here you have no moral issue.

Thank you for the reply. Like you, my wife and I thought the same, but after further questioning the last OB-GYN told us that my wife’s case was not a molar pregnancy. He said that in a molar pregnancy something goes wrong during the fertilization stage and sometimes the placenta can also cause problems, but that in our case the child was properly conceived but that something went wrong early in our child’s development. Again, there was no heartbeat detected or even a sac, so I’m inclined to believe the child had past long before we even made it to the hospital… the only thing that confuses me is the “growing”, if it’s growing, it’s alive. Could it be that we had a non-viable, underdeveloped child that was still growing?

Of course my wife and I are not professionals in this field so we had to place our trust in the doctors, we had no other choice. We understand this, but I still can’t help myself and wonder.

 

[kptrs]

I understand that my concerns to others may seem somewhat unreasonable and irrational, but upon reflection I don’t think it is. The OB-GYN we first spoke to refused to use terms like child/baby/human life to describe the life at conception. When we asked her exactly what had happened she explained (and I’m paraphrasing here): “at the beginning you might have had a life that was going to become a baby, but something in the development went wrong.” Now maybe she was just inarticulate, it was late in the day and she was working overtime, but whenever someone refuses to acknowledge that the life of a child starts at conception that concerns me greatly. Also, it wasn’t until we pressed her to give us a definitive answer that she used the term “baby”.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that in the case of say the morning after pill it does not technically (using current medical lingo) cause abortions, since an abortion can only occur after implantation… but of course from a Catholic perspective the morning after pill can cause abortions. So although it’s a bit reassuring that our doctors did not call this an abortion, it doesn’t rule out moral problems.

All this to say that our concerns with the doctors is not whether or not they lied to us, but rather if we’re using different language. After all, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard pro-choice medical professionals refer to and embryo as a “parasite.”

I’m very sorry for what you experienced. :hug3:

I agree with everyone who said you have not sinned in this situation. If it’s still bothering you, though, I would contact the National Catholic Bioethics Center for reassurance. This is not something I would trust to anonymous strangers on the Internet. Prayers for you and your wife.

 

[AnastasiaRomano]

I’m sorry. Please don’t feel as if you did anything wrong. It sounds as if your wife had a partial or complete molar pregnancy. In a molar pregnancy, what develops is a non-cancerous tumor/cyst. It’s not a fetus, or a baby, or any other word – it’s a cyst. If the medical professionals are using the term cyst, a molar pregnancy is probably what they’re referring to.

Prayers for you and your wife as she recovers. Please be sure to seek appropriate follow-up care, too. Best wishes and prayers.