so you agree they are morally equivalent - right some progress!
I think they both sound terrible. I think that is why Planned Parenthood says “removing the by products of conception”.
Since the Church teaches that abortion is always, always, always wrong, MapleOak is trying to reason through this. In order to commit a mortal sin, one must have intention. That is why the intention, motive, or goal of the treatment is so important. If one applies treatment to a woman to correct a dysfunction, the treatment can never have the GOAL of taking innocent human life.
As I have said before, I totally agree. In fact, I can’t understand how you come to believe I ever said different.
The person in the house has swallowed a time bomb to go off in a half hour. If we wait a half hour, the person and the house are blown to pieces. Are you saying it is okay to go and shoot the person (which in our hypothetical situation would diffuse the bomb as well) and thereby preserve the house? Why allow a person to die and have a house go with it when you can just kill the person instead and have a house left over? I don’t think I could justify that.
No, I have never said the pregnancy isn’t the focus of treatment. I have even stated several times what happens when ectopic pregnancy is treated. In fact, with current treatments available in practice today, it is not possible to treat without killing the embryo. The question then becomes should treatment be performed at all. Is “pro-death” allowing two to die of killing one to save another?
Treatment in both situations is done to stop the pathologic condition, which inevitably, if left untreated will cause death. Is that a satisfactory answer? I still maintain that just because it can be treated, doesn’t mean that it morally permissable to do so.
Nope! Many centuries worth of proper English usage and piles of literature are not to be outdone or made irrelevent from a TV show. (I don’t watch TV by the way, thanks anyway). It was toward the beginning of the 20th century, did people start to separate the two words as being distinct in meaning from each other based for the most part on misunderstanding. I really don’t care one way or the other about this, but since you brought it up.
Yes and I try to reason in all sincerity. I really don’t know why this had to get sidetracked so far in order to arrive back at the same point. You made the exact point I was trying to get across earlier. It can never have that for a goal, no matter how good the benefit or outcome will be.
Interestingly, I believe HIV cases are more prevalent where condoms are encouraged as opposed to encouraging abstinence.this is why there is an immense amount of self-deception going on
it is right to want to save a woman’s life in the case of ectopic pregnancy
if your paradigm says that is wrong, then the paradigm needs looking at, not the course of action
similarly for preventing HIV through the use of condoms
it will be interesting to see the justifications of people if for example, limited use of condoms is ever allowed by the Pope
Except in this case, the “house” is also a person. In such a case, one would be making a decision to sacrifice the life of one in preference for the other. I think what Jack is saying is that it makes most sense to save the one that will survive the best.
people thought the same about the clean needle exchange program too, but it turned out to be false. In the harm reduction model, the goal is to reduce or eliminate harming behaviors. Sometimes this process is very slow, and with baby steps. At least it can be hoped that a person will live long enough to change their mind, heart, and behavior.
Interesting way of looking at it. Yes the “house” would be symbolic of the mother in this case. The idea is performing what measures are necessary to aid the mother in recovery. If there were a way to not directly kill the fetus, there would be no problem. Currently there is no way to do this, at least not in currently employed medical practice technique. That is where the dilemna exists. How can one perform any procedure which will inevitably also be directly terminating the life of the fetus. It is a “deception” as Jack was saying, to say otherwise. One can try to justify that by removing a portion of the tube, the fetus (by unintended consequence) happens to die. But all this seems to be is a play in rhetoric. Left alone, both have a high likelihood of developing complications which can be fatal. Performing an operation however, takes one of the victims lives into ones own hands and ends it.
We have left out intention. It is never justified to intend to kill an innocent. Why is that important distinction dismissed?
Are those most likely to die because there is no immediate resource to help them to be intentionally killed?
I see that Jack has once more managed to hijack an abotion thread to talk about ectopic pregnancies. I wish people would quit falling for it. It allows him and other to duck the questions about the 99.999% of abortions that have nothng to do with this. One of the tactics of those are uncomfortable about discussing this abject evil is try and push the discussion to the fringes-ectopic preganancy and rape and incest cases. These represent a miniscule number of abortions.
What you say may be true but rest assured I have not fallen for those tactics.
If the mother is not in immediate danger of death, no action should even be considered that would result in the death of the unborn child. This is where death is caused as the result of a “preventative measure”, or relieving the situation so as to prevent possible future complications. As I had said early on, this would not be morally licit. Yes there is a very good possibility the ectopic pregnancy will resolve on it’s own, though I don’t have actual statistic numbers at hand, but will look into that.
Any action which would assuredly result in the death of the embryo is no different than choosing one life over another. Yes it may be a compassionate thing to do for the mother, but it is certainly not compassionate to the unborn child. Just because it is very small does not mean it is no less deserving. No action would be better than action in such a case. Choosing to accept God’s will is most certainly not murdering the mother or what has been called “pro-death” in this thread. In fact, accepting God’s Will may very well mean allowing one to die. It is much more noble to accept that premise than to reason that because we have the means to do so, we are obliged to use any and all means possible to save ones life if those means are in moral question. Extraordinary means (a term sometimes used when talking about life support issues) are not necessary. Extraordinary means in this case would be directly killing the embryo or performing a surgery which will definitively kill the embryo. In this situation, since there is direct murder involved, it is never licit. It may sound heartless, but sometimes sacrifice, especially on the mother’s part, may be a most sanctifying offering. One could choose to preserve their life at all costs. But if we consider the martyrs who gave their lives for God; all they had to do in most cases was to just reject God and they would have gotten to enjoy more of life.
If the embryo has definitevely died on its own and remains a complication, there is no remaining moral issue to worry about. Surgery may be performed as seen fit.
Jack It would seem that the ectopic pregancy you keep dwelling on is not a viable pregnancy–in the sense that a uterine pregancy is. Thats the fundamental difference which effects the ethics of the situation whether or not you want to acknowledge it.this is why there is an immense amount of self-deception going on
it is right to want to save a woman’s life in the case of ectopic pregnancy
if your paradigm says that is wrong, then the paradigm needs looking at, not the course of action
similarly for preventing HIV through the use of condoms
it will be interesting to see the justifications of people if for example, limited use of condoms is ever allowed by the Pope
Treating an ectopic pregnancy does not mean one may ever intend to destroy an innocent life whether it is deemed viable or not. The death of the baby in such a case is unintended and a consequence of the therapy, not directly willed.
At the age of 16, I was stupid, careless and scared. I had an abortion at my mothers urging.:crying: I was not given much information at the time, infact given NO information. Just that because the fetus could not possibly survive outside the womb, there was no moral issues. Talk about being lied to.
Many years later when I converted to a Strong belief in God and became Catholic, I spent many hours alone in my home just crying and begging God to forgive me. I know that He did, because I felt an instant peace come over me.
Now, I am 200% Pro-Live—Pro-Baby:thumbsup: Of all issues that face us as a society, be it war or taxes or what ever, This is the only issue that will send me into the streets protesting about, not that the other issues are not important because they are.
I wish that when I was 16, there was an internet and more importantly, Fr. Frank Pravones “Priests for Life” site to get information from. I wish I had been better informed and educated.
