This is key. And the Church says it doesn’t matter. Only the way the baby dies matters. Not that the baby would die no matter what.
Yes. I am Catholic and I cannot for the life of me wrap my mind around it.
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Sarcelle
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If there were no other way of saving both lives in this particular case the only licit way is to let both die.
This is in accordance with Catholic doctrine. Am I correct in assuming this? This question is to those that disagree with how the hospital handled the case.
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Sarcelle
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One thing I know for sure.
I don’t envy the doctor who will have to talk to the widower and the children.
I don’t envy the doctor who will have to talk to the widower and the children.
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Pattylt
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Actually, the hospital ethics committee allowed the abortion to save the mother. When it was reviewed, the Church said that decision was wrong and excommunicated the Nun that made the decision. The licit thing to do was let both die.
I think the initial decision was correct. Only the mother could be saved and that’s what they did. Allowing both to die would be horrific in my view.
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Sarcelle
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Mainline Protestants would also be in agreement with Judaism.
I don’t know about the Orthodox.
I don’t know about the Orthodox.
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Anesti33
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I would say that one difference to the St. Joseph’s case is that the starving mother has her own free choice. It’s her authority as a mother that should compel her to act in the best interest of her child. However, at St. Joseph’s, the mother was gravely ill and under the direct care and authority of medical professionals. Catholic medical professionals who recommended a course of action to her. (Although they probably obtained her informed consent for it.) Pretty sure that +Olmsted found for no latae sententiae excommunication of the mother; it was all on the staff and ethics board.Pattylt:
And where do you draw the line on such “self-defence” or “mother’s right to preserve her own life” reasoning?Anesti33:
I agree the baby is innocent. It’s the pregnancy of that baby that’s the cause. I’m antiabortion but not in this case. The mother has a right to decide to live or die in this situation and in this case, it’s self defense on the mothers part to choose to live. I’m comfortable with her choosing to live even though it requires the death of the child.
Imagine a wartime situation where food is incredibly scarce, and a mother cannot obtain enough to feed herself and her baby, so the very high likelihood is both will die. Is she then justified in saving her own life by starving the child to death?
If I may be so bold as to quibble with this: +Olmsted (no “a”) did not excommunicate a nun, he determined that a religious sister had excommunicated herself via latae sententiae. There’s a wide difference there, no ecclesiastical trial and no decree by the bishop needs to take place for an automatic excommunication, it happens by the very fact of the action itself. +Olmsted did not use his discretion to hand down a sentence, it was already imposed when McBride authorized the termination.
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MarkRome
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The Catholic position is the only position that consistently upholds the sanctity of human life, from conception until natural death.
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Anesti33
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How do the other Apostolic Churches measure up here?
No. The Catholic position is the only position that consistently upholds that direct killing is never allowed. If all life were sacred, they wouldn’t mandate under the pain of mortal sin that doctors stand by and allow one person to die in favor of “saving” someone who would die either way.
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MarkRome
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Correction, direct killing of an innocent person. That is murder and yes, it is never permitted.
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Anesti33
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There are many, many instances where the Church might allow or even require doctors to stand aside and allow a death to occur. This is not a direct killing, so the sanctity of life is upheld, but the Church recognizes that sometimes there is too dear a cost to preserving life by any means necessary.
For example, the Church has ethical directives about the application of ordinary and extraordinary treatment to save life.
Terri Schiavo’s life was saved because her treatment was quite ordinary - nourishment and hydration. The doctors were quite cruel to starve a woman to death without even a sliver of the Eucharist.
But there are times when extraordinary means of treatment must be withheld or discontinued. Perhaps the patient is under very great suffering, the monetary cost is high, the outcomes are poor, you name it. But extrordinary life-saving measures are not always indicated, according to the sanctity of life.
Sorry, but… No matter how you turn it, the cost that is too dear in this case is a baby already partly dead who ends up dead no matter what. And that life took precedence over the other life in the scenario that the Church claims has equal value. Is the cost of the mother’s life dear? No. At least, not dear enough. That mother mattered. Her life was sacred. But that doesn’t matter. Only that no direct killing occurred matters. There is no convincing me that this stance is endorsing the sanctity of all human life from conception until natural death. It values the sanctity of life of the baby, but not the mother. And it values avoiding direct killing above actual human life.
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MarkRome
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There is no such thing as “partly dead”. You either are dead or are alive.
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Anesti33
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You will be dead no matter what. The only variable is time frame, which no doctor, no man knows for sure. It is presumptuous of you to second-guess the lifespan of a healthy infant or a gravely ill mother.
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The child was experiencing hypoxia and already in the process of dying. That’s what I meant.
As I said earlier, this is biggest straw man argument I’ve ever heard in my life. If you really can’t see that one had a chance of continuing to live while the other had no chance of continuing to live, we need not discuss further. We agree to disagree.
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Anesti33
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I can see clearly that the mother had a chance, because she yet lives.
It is rather difficult for me to determine that about the baby, isn’t it now!
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MarkRome
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Is it wrong to kill an adult who is in the process of dying?
No, actually it isn’t. Really…it continues to perplex me that people cannot see this. An 11 week fetus CANNOT survive this scenario. It’s a rare scenario but it happened in this case.
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Anesti33
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For those of you who don’t move in medical/health care circles and don’t understand how hospitals work, let me fill you in on a few things.
Doctors speak in typically uncertain terms. Because of malpractice suits and insurance requirements, they seldom make a guarantee of anything: like they will not say “take this pill and you will be cured.” That would be highly unethical. Therefore they speak a language of percentages, of possible outcomes, of a prognosis and the different options for treatment. It’s a very fuzzy science, allopathy, and it’s based on a lot of research studies and medical journals and empirical analysis and it’s got a good dose of superstition and legends baked into it. Don’t let anyone tell you that it doesn’t.
So in an emergency situation, you’ve got doctors, nurses, and staff working on overdrive trying to solve the problem, and the problem is often death of a patient. Often they are poorly equipped or unprepared to negotiate the lives of two patients at a time, let alone when they are interlinked by placenta and umbilical cord.
Time is of the essence. Snap decisions are made. They are intelligent and well-informed, but often they are made on minimal evidence. A pregnant woman admitted to a hospital ER may not come with a full medical history and chart. If she’s incapacitated she can’t answer questions. Was the husband there to help? Who knows. Doctors work on low information, such as the meters and monitors they can bring to bear. They determined it was pulmonary hypertension. Okay.
Since medical science is largely pro-abortion, the journals and literature skew that way too. And so doctors, even doctors in a Catholic hospital, will tend to recommend abortion. Perhaps some recommended it more forcefully than McBride. Dunno. But the science is prejudiced, and perhaps might have colored their perception of the baby’s chances at life. I would say there’s a good chance at that. If the doctors inherently viewed the baby as less worthy than the mother then they were more likely to issue a poor prognosis for him.
And a “poor prognosis” is never “certain death”. Once again, that would be HIGHLY UNETHICAL and result in an immediate MALPRACTICE LAWSUIT because there is precedence for “wrongful life” suits. If you, sitting on the sidelines, no access to medical records, don’t even live in the same state, seem to think that you know more than trained and licensed hospital staff, well, then,
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Doctors speak in typically uncertain terms. Because of malpractice suits and insurance requirements, they seldom make a guarantee of anything: like they will not say “take this pill and you will be cured.” That would be highly unethical. Therefore they speak a language of percentages, of possible outcomes, of a prognosis and the different options for treatment. It’s a very fuzzy science, allopathy, and it’s based on a lot of research studies and medical journals and empirical analysis and it’s got a good dose of superstition and legends baked into it. Don’t let anyone tell you that it doesn’t.
So in an emergency situation, you’ve got doctors, nurses, and staff working on overdrive trying to solve the problem, and the problem is often death of a patient. Often they are poorly equipped or unprepared to negotiate the lives of two patients at a time, let alone when they are interlinked by placenta and umbilical cord.
Time is of the essence. Snap decisions are made. They are intelligent and well-informed, but often they are made on minimal evidence. A pregnant woman admitted to a hospital ER may not come with a full medical history and chart. If she’s incapacitated she can’t answer questions. Was the husband there to help? Who knows. Doctors work on low information, such as the meters and monitors they can bring to bear. They determined it was pulmonary hypertension. Okay.
Since medical science is largely pro-abortion, the journals and literature skew that way too. And so doctors, even doctors in a Catholic hospital, will tend to recommend abortion. Perhaps some recommended it more forcefully than McBride. Dunno. But the science is prejudiced, and perhaps might have colored their perception of the baby’s chances at life. I would say there’s a good chance at that. If the doctors inherently viewed the baby as less worthy than the mother then they were more likely to issue a poor prognosis for him.
And a “poor prognosis” is never “certain death”. Once again, that would be HIGHLY UNETHICAL and result in an immediate MALPRACTICE LAWSUIT because there is precedence for “wrongful life” suits. If you, sitting on the sidelines, no access to medical records, don’t even live in the same state, seem to think that you know more than trained and licensed hospital staff, well, then,
¯_(ツ)_/¯
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