Problem with the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion in cases of rape

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Polak said:
With rape we are essentially saying, a man committed a terrible act of violence against a woman and she must give birth to and raise the fruit of this act of violence and violation,
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I fixed it for you. She is not required to raise the child.
Of course it’s not ‘fair’ to the vicitim, but neither is it fair to the baby to be killed.
 
Polak said:
The child has come about, not because a woman planned it within the confines of a family, or even because she wasn’t being careful (and her carelessness doesn’t give her the right to end a life) but because somebody else violated her personal freedom. For me it’s almost impossible to understand from an earthly perspective. Actually sometimes I don’t think it is possible to understand for us humans.
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If abortion is wrong, the means of conception can’t make it ok.
 
Exactly. If abortion is the killing of a human being, then how the human being ‘got there’ is irrelevant.

That is why there is such a push to declare the child in the womb to not ‘be’ a human being’. Or to be ‘potential’. If there is no human being in the womb, then abortion is simply a procedure that can be for medical reasons and is morally ‘’neutral’ just as much as removing an appendix is. Unless the appendix is actually inflamed there is no reason to remove it (the ‘mother’s life in danger’ argument where the removal of what is causing the danger is a secondary result), but there are those who remove it so that it doesn’t cause trouble later on.

People would like abortion to be seen that way (witness the ‘blob of tissue’, ‘clump of cells’, ‘not really human’ arguments we constantly hear). . .but it isn’t. And no matter how many impassioned speeches we hear about ‘protecting the child from later abuse for being unwanted’, or “we would never had had Fleetwood Mac if abortion hadn’t been available’ or “no punishing a poor woman with a baby’, the child in the womb is a human being, and abortion is killing that human being.
 
You are leave out a very important part of your question. God

You make it sound as if God would leave a woman who is dying, a woman wh has been raped, or anyone who is going through the most unbelievable, unthinkable, worst physiologic and physical thing a person can go through to deal with everything on their own.

God’s love, forgiveness, mercy and grace is always there for the taking.

And yes at the time the horror is happening, at that specific moment all you feel is the pain, in that moment all your thinking is God why why why is this happening. He is still there with us, helping us.

So basically the problem is not with Church teaching but whether or not you are going to let God help you through the worst thing that can ever happen to you… and still love Him even when you believe He abandoned you.

Abortion is wrong, God is always there to easy your suffering if you let Him.
 
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@Polak

We can’t permit an innocent child to be executed for the sins of the father. If people look down on us for believing that and for wanting the child to be able to live, then we have to accept their disapproval as gracefully as we can.

Peace.
 
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Lea101 said:
Although I will pause to add here: I believe Catholicism allows the removal of a uterus even if the fetus is still living if it is done to save the mother’s life. Or chemo/other procedures tjan can kill the fetus.
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No, Catholicism does not allows the removal of the uterus with a foetus inside because carry him create a serious death thread for the mother. That would be hypocritical and a masked abortion with the addition of a sterilization procedure

That Catholicism accepts is a medical procedure for a very serious illness that can leave the woman infertile, not as a goal but as a second effect.

When the woman is pregnant, any treatment that may harm or kill the child indirectly may be allowable, but it should be only when we have no other choice to save the mother’s life, like for eg waiting after the birth.
So it may be acceptable to receive cancer treatement procedures even if the woman is pregnant if no other alternative can be made. It also may be acceptable to remoove the uterus of a pregnant mother if keeping him would immediately or highly probably kill the mother. The result will be the death of the foetus, or a premature child that may or may not breath and will likely die after, or a premature baby that will struggle because of his birth.
One exemple often presented is uterine cancer, but I may think that hemorragia that cannot be stopped may be another.

We should also note that the acceptability of this procedure largely depend on the medical level available. For eg, It gives hope that we know see some cancer specialists that explain that they now wait after birth for some treatment, as they see it can be successfull.

I wonder also if all this debate on radiotherapy and chemiotherapy on a pregnant mother is mostly a retheorical one for the majority of real life situation. I am aware of a step involving an abortion first. Undergoing to a treatment that will harm the child is certainely see as unaccetapble for many ethicists.
If someone know if somewhere we do otherwise?

In this debate we have to remember that women don’t die only on the birth. Postpartum too as well as pregnancy where serious complication can arise.
I don’t think a woman can be justified in Catholic perspective to have an abortion even if it highly likely that not having one will kill her during the pregnancy- and before the child will reach the viability stage.
(and here we have the debate where some people here argue over medical procedures allowed or not for ectopic pregnancies…)

On the other side, we have some saints that have prefered to scarifice her life that to kill their foetus or doing anything harmfull on him. Saint Gianna Beretta Molla.
Dying in childbirth is not something that will automatically reach you to Heaven. Women all of (non) faiths and state of soul die, for many reasons. And it’s understandable that a woman don’t want to become a saint.
 
annad347 said:
God is always there to easy your suffering if you let Him.
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In theory yes.

But when you have bads things that happened with no solution and apparently nothing is going is relieve you and you feel as alone as an human, we may experience hardly that God is absent and just let the world turn and people to follow their own choices, how damaging they may be on others’s people.

He may help you with spiritual graces, but when someone is suffering on a human’s level, it may be perceived as not the answer need at this moment. That God is not enough if we need others humans’s love and earthly happiness. Maybe later when time or human’s help will make the situation less painfull…We will see how life may be beautiful and how gracious God is to have give us life.

Sainte Therese of Avila said that only God is enough.
Well, it may be that I lack faith, because in in suffering, it wasn’t my experience. Not that I stop to believe.

Yet, isn’t Jesus said on the Cross, My God, my God, why did you abandonned me?

Maybe there is no universal answer. Some people are stronger than some others and always go forward. Some are more spiritual than others.
 
Polak said:
Of course it isn’t for me to decide the Church’s teaching on what is and isn’t sinful and that’s why I said that as Catholic, I accept it, but it’s incredibly hard for me to understand how forcing a woman to keep and raise her rapists child is humane.
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Would your attitude be different if the rapist was her spouse?
 
Polak said:
Should people also fight so hard for the babies rights over the mother’s life, if she dies while having it and then the baby dies immediately afterwards too?
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Of course they should.
It seems to me that you are making an argument that the right to life is more appropriate for those who are going to live longer lives. Am I reading your argument correctly?
 
Polak said:
I think the example of a non-religious pregnant woman who has been told by her doctor that having her baby is almost certainly going to end her life, then being told she isn’t allowed to have an abortion by law, would to her and many other atheists, essentially be a forced death sentence. I know it’s been argued that death of the mother during pregnancy isn’t common, but it still happens and a law preventing abortion to prevent death of the mother, would be unfathomably unfair to those of no religion I would imagine.
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Should atheists get to kill people in order to extend their own lives?
I don’'t think so.
It seems to me that, in a sense, you are making an argument for social darwinism here where the strong get to eliminate the weak.
 
I can’t help wondering if carrying the baby to term and giving birth could somehow redeem the horrible experience a little bit. It could be a defiant rebuke of the evil the rapist perpetrated on the woman, for her to respond and say, in effect, “I will respond to the evil you did to me, not with more evil, but with a redemptive act of incredible sacrificial love. You sowed death, but I will give life.”

I also can’t help but to wonder if in truth the subsequent abortion only magnifies the pain and trauma of the original rape.
 
Anicette said:
In theory yes.
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It’s not a theory, God promised to always be there for you. I’m sorry you didn’t see/feel/hear Him when you needed Him the most. That doesn’t mean He wasn’t there for you.
Anicette said:
Yet, isn’t Jesus said on the Cross, My God, my God, why did you abandonned me?
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Yes Jesus did scream those words as He died in agonizing unimaginable pain on the cross… that doesn’t mean His Father did in fact abandon and forsaken Him, it just means as I said in the moment you might scream out to ‘ God, why, why is this happening to me ’ and feel nothing but the pain, it doesn’t mean God abandoned or left you. We are human, it’s hard to know someone is there for you when you need them the most, even people being rescued might fight off their rescuing thinking they are the one attacking them before realizing they are actually being saved.

Besides, it’s said Jesus was teaching us scripture even at the moment of His death by screaming those words He was fulfilling what was written in Psalms 22 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?… learned that today because of your post. Thanks

God is ALWAYS there for you, especially when you need Him the most. How can any Christian, Catholic or not believe God would abandon you when you need Him most?
 
Anicette said:
No, Catholicism does not allows the removal of the uterus with a foetus inside because carry him create a serious death thread for the mother. That would be hypocritical and a masked abortion with the addition of a sterilization procedure
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You say this…but then you go on to rephrase what I was talking about:
Anicette said:
When the woman is pregnant, any treatment that may harm or kill the child indirectly may be allowable, but it should be only when we have no other choice to save the mother’s life, like for eg waiting after the birth.
So it may be acceptable to receive cancer treatement procedures even if the woman is pregnant if no other alternative can be made
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VeryBlessed said:
can’t help wondering if carrying the baby to term and giving birth could somehow redeem the horrible experience a little bit. It could be a defiant rebuke of the evil the rapist perpetrated on the woman, for her to respond and say, in effect, “I will respond to the evil you did to me, not with more evil, but with a redemptive act of incredible sacrificial love. You sowed death, but I will give life.”

I also can’t help but to wonder if in truth the subsequent abortion only magnifies the pain and trauma of the original rape
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For some women yes, for other women no.

I have been involved in social services and have seen clients who were rape victims before.

Like I mentioned before, rape victims exhibit various behaviours, like scrubbing themselves raw because they kept feeling his touch. In such a case, pregnancy would be extremely, extremely distressing even after adoption as physical signs of the pregnancy will still remain. We also know that abortions (not because of rape) can bring relief for women, so it’s not a stretch to assume that it would bring relief for the women who never saw the fetus as a life anyway. For the women who are leaning towards pro life, the abortion could bring about guilt.

In other cases, you’ll see them suffering from rather severe dissonance as they feel the trauma and disgust mentioned above at the pregnancy, its complications and stretchmarks etc, but at the same time they may feel guilt for giving the baby up for adoption due to a maternal bond.

You’ll also see people who choose to keep unwanted pregnancies and end up abusing their children or those who keep them and end up being amazing mothers to them.

Rape victims are also not necessarily single women, but married women in abusive marriages where the rapist would be raising the child and be strongly discouraged from giving the baby up for adoption since she’s already married and the father is her husband.

It’s very silly and dismissive for some to say that the pregnancy or abortion will be healing, because the truth is it can be…but it can also worsen things.

When it comes to keeping a child conceived during rape, the mom’s well-being is usually dependent on the woman’s access to mental health services and the support system around her that sees her beyond a vessel for the child.
 
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Lea101, thank you for your detailed answer. If you have been directly involved in providing support services for women in the situation, then thank you and God bless you for your work.

I can’t imagine the pain and horror these women go through. As you’ve stated it, abortion seems like the only reasonable answer in the real world. And yet, and yet, that answer only adds another great evil into an already horribly evil situation. There has got to be a better way than that. The injustice of murdering an innocent defenseless human being remains. Perhaps if our follow-up support services were very much better, this wouldn’t seem so much like the only answer.

Your answer grieves me but I thank you for it.
 
VeryBlessed said:
Lea101, thank you for your detailed answer. If you have been directly involved in providing support services for women in the situation, then thank you and God bless you for your work.
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That’s way too kind, I’m just a replaceable undergraduate dealing with the case notes lol!
VeryBlessed said:
As you’ve stated it, abortion seems like the only reasonable answer in the real world. And yet, and yet, that answer only adds another great evil into an already horribly evil situation
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Yep. I think there are Catholics who are not ready to admit that living according to Christian values can be a huge cross in certain areas like this, because there is an eagerness to sway people to the pro life side. Following God’s way does not mean things will work out and you’ll be happy and safe–sometimes the only reward/benefit you get is salvation at the very end, and that’s hard to see if you’re trying your best as a Catholic, let alone a non religious person! So I completely get the struggle here.

It’s hard to say that merely improving the system will help. It’s if like someone told you that in order to exit a really hot and uncomfortable room, you have to go Exit A by walking through fire (but it’s okay! We have amazing healthcare and eventually, you won’t have burns) or Exit B, where you can immediately leave to another room that you’re generally confident that has a lower temperature and you’d still be uncomfortable but not as bad as the room you’re in (although you won’t know for sure).

It’s a dumb and imperfect analogy but I would imagine this is what a woman in this situation would feel like. You’re right to say that improving services is a needed step, but the conversation regarding abortion and rape will still occur.
 
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It would be a fascinating sociological study, to take a look at women who decided to carry a baby that was a product of rape to term, and check their thoughts about their choice some 10 to 20 years later. Even if said study showed relief that they had chosen life, in today’s world, I don’t think it would convince anybody who is strongly pro-choice. But if the results were generally positive, it might help some women who are on the fence, to go the way of their conscience and choose for life, especially if the results of the study pointed to a sense of relief or happiness that they made the choice they did.

Regarding the heaviness of the cross, I absolutely agree. Often the greatest gifts are the costliest to give. Like the cross and eternal life…
 
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jeannetherese said:
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Polak:
Of course it isn’t for me to decide the Church’s teaching on what is and isn’t sinful and that’s why I said that as Catholic, I accept it, but it’s incredibly hard for me to understand how forcing a woman to keep and raise her rapists child is humane.
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Would your attitude be different if the rapist was her spouse?
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Hmm, bringing us to another moral dilemma: the responsibility of the child’s father regarding the upbringing and support of the child.

Should a rapist be eligible for custody of a child he fathered?

Should a rapist be on the hook for child support?
 
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