Sterilization of severely retarded woman to prevent involuntary pregnancy?

[Elias]

Not agreeing, just telling you what they’d say and think.

I mean, the same could be said about those that are fundemental in their secularism. Morality is not subjective but objective. As Catholics we know what is morally right because we have God there to guide us.

Of course you have no authority over this gal, hypothetical and all that. God forbid you ever have a daughter or sister in this situation.

Just remember, we cannot waiver for even a second on what is right. Even if we crack just a tiny bit, the devil will be able to stick his finger in it to make it bigger. (For example: If we allow the mentally impaired to be sterilized whos to say we shouldn’t allow them to be euthanized?)

 

[jeannetherese]

Then what is ?

Guys get raped too. Perhaps thinking about rape from the perspective of male vulnerability might help you to think about what might be a worst effect.
If we were talking about a boy, what would you think ought to be done? What is the worst thing that could happen? Should he be sterilized to ensure that no pregnancy occurs? Or given a male pill if such contraception becomes available?
What actions would you advise?

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Of course you have no authority over this gal, hypothetical and all that. God forbid you ever have a daughter or sister in this situation.

It’s not hypothetical. I have no sister and it is highly unlikely that I will ever have a daughter. Even if I were to fall into lifetime guaranteed wealth, my (“ex-”)wife were to die, and I were to remarry tomorrow, I would be at least 61 years old when my second child were born, and 79 when she graduated high school. Not going to happen.

Just remember, we cannot waiver for even a second on what is right. Even if we crack just a tiny bit, the devil will be able to stick his finger in it to make it bigger.

Quite agreed. The core of the original question was “may a woman be rendered sterile — put aside permanent or temporary to keep the argument as simple as possible — if she is in a situation where she might be involuntarily impregnated?”. The Congo nuns example, if true, seems to militate in favor of “reluctantly, yes”. It’s not wavering. It’s applying moral norms to a concrete situation.

Guys get raped too. Perhaps thinking about rape from the perspective of male vulnerability might help you to think about what might be a worst effect.

If we were talking about a boy, what would you think ought to be done? What is the worst thing that could happen? Should he be sterilized to ensure that no pregnancy occurs? Or given a male pill if such contraception becomes available?

What actions would you advise?

If you mean being violated by a woman and creating an unwanted pregnancy (or, perhaps it might be better to say, a pregnancy to which he did not agree), the same principle would apply. It is entirely possible that a mentally disabled man could be violated by a woman — in a manner of speaking, this happened in the film Forrest Gump (though Forrest was not severely disabled, was perfectly capable of knowing right from wrong, and was able to resist actions that would be sinful, imprudent, or dangerous — he was seduced in his sleep by a girlfriend who may have been trying to get pregnant by him, remember that he was very wealthy by this time from the success of his Bubba Gump shrimp company).

It doesn’t work quite the same way with men — you never hear of mentally disabled, virile young men being sought out by female predators, and men cannot get pregnant — but in theory, the same dilemma exists. Should such a man be vasectomized, or given a “male pill” (which doesn’t exist, but if it did), to prevent him from fathering children he wouldn’t wish to father if his mind worked normally?

 

[Elf01]

Then what is ?

An STD would imo be worse

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

Then what is ?

An STD would imo be worse

HIV or syphilis, perhaps. But are you suggesting that a curable disease such as gonorrhea or chlamydia, or even a non-life-threatening permanent affliction such as herpes, is “worse” than allowing an improvident pregnancy to occur?

I know we as Catholics defend every unborn child, and rightly so, but I have a real concern that it is going too far, to say in essence, “a child being conceived, no matter how tragic the circumstances of the conception, or how troublesome the situation will be for everyone concerned — including the child himself — is always a good thing, and we shouldn’t worry about the circumstances that follow the birth”.

I would say that, while the ideal situation is to keep a severely mentally disabled woman as far away from predatory men as possible, it might be a plan to follow the reasoning of the priest in the NCBC article, and see if the “Congo nuns” scenario would apply here (unless you want to allege that the priest who wrote the article is heterodox — does anyone want to go there? — I don’t). Is it even a probable moral-theological opinion?

People who live in slum projects, ghettos, colonias, and favelas, don’t have the luxury of choosing their living circumstances, or the people who live around them. Just a thought.

 

[tuffsmurf]

For some reason many posters on CAF seem to believe that most STDs are incurable (stating things like “STDs are forever”) or commonly cause infertility. In reality, most STDs are effectily treated with antibiotics and very rarely cause infertility.

Of course STDs are very unpleasant and a very good reason for abstinence before marriage (condoms are not very reliable), but I don’t think we’re doing anyone a favor by painting it as the end of the world. An unwanted pregnancy has much more far-reaching consequences, and it is not anti-life to state that (as long as we recognise every unborn child’s right to live and be taken care of).

 

[tuffsmurf]

With that being said I would also like to add that I think it is horrible to put a mentally retarded woman through an unnecessary medical procedure like this. She should be protected.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

An unwanted pregnancy has much more far-reaching consequences, and it is not anti-life to state that (as long as we recognise every unborn child’s right to live and be taken care of).

My thoughts exactly. Thank you for stating this.

 

[Allegra]

You can take your pick from severe emotional trauma, possible resulting in a lifetime of depression, self-esteem, anxiety, insomnia, trust and relationship issues. Lifelong and possibly deadly sexually transmitted disease. Physical trauma that can result in multiple permanent conditions. Whichever you categorize as “worst”, it ought to be clear that we have an obligation to protect the vulnerable from being raped, not simply sterilize her and declare the situation “okay, because she can’t get pregnant.”

 

[Greenfields]

Sterilization to prevent pregnancy is never moral.

The moral thing is to provide the lady with a safe environment, a place where she is protected from attacks of all kinds.

With all the likes on this post it is heartening to see how many people here know their faith

 

[jeannetherese]

Very well put.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

With that being said I would also like to add that I think it is horrible to put a mentally retarded woman through an unnecessary medical procedure like this. She should be protected.

Not necessarily advocating this, but tubal ligation is a fairly simple operation, able to be performed laproscopically. That said, cutting into the body cavity — even pinholes — is never anything to be taken blithely.

You can take your pick from severe emotional trauma, possible resulting in a lifetime of depression, self-esteem, anxiety, insomnia, trust and relationship issues. Lifelong and possibly deadly sexually transmitted disease. Physical trauma that can result in multiple permanent conditions. Whichever you categorize as “worst”, it ought to be clear that we have an obligation to protect the vulnerable from being raped, not simply sterilize her and declare the situation “okay, because she can’t get pregnant.”

Quite agreed. But let’s be clear here that the “rape” we’re referring to here, in the case of the mentally disabled woman, isn’t necessarily violent and life-threatening attack, but having her own ignorance and naiveté taken advantage of by a predator who would entice her. Or it could even be an incident with a male in her facility who is similarly afflicted. Keep the boys and the girls separate.

 

[Rau]

A couple is not required to, nor do they commit sin, to have relations and conceive a child even if they know for certainty that child will be miscarried or die at birth.

Even when the death is attributed to the actions they choose quite apart from marital relations - Eg. Taking an abortifacient drug? I’ll have to disagree with your source if that’s what it says.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

TheLittleLady:

A couple is not required to, nor do they commit sin, to have relations and conceive a child even if they know for certainty that child will be miscarried or die at birth.

Even when the death is attributed to the actions they choose quite apart from marital relations - Eg. Taking an abortifacient drug? I’ll have to disagree with your source if that’s what it says.

I don’t think that’s what Jone meant. I think he was referring to situations such as an incompetent cervix (where a child cannot be carried to term and a spontaneous abortion occurs) or to where the mother keeps having miscarriage after miscarriage. Some people would be okay with this — “at least we brought a child into being, even though it couldn’t live” (I don’t know anyone except orthodox Catholics who would think this way, and they would be following Jone’s reasoning) — but I wouldn’t be one of them. If this were my situation, I would choose to abstain first — I wouldn’t put a wife or a child through that — and I would implore my wife to cooperate in abstaining, and not to invoke the marital debt.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Direct abortion is always sinful.

Giving birth to a child with serious birth defects, even fatal defects, is not a sin. We extremely defected people are not lesser.

 

[TheLittleLady]

I would implore my wife to cooperate in abstaining, and not to invoke the marital debt.

That is the precise answer. On the other hand, would you deny your wife if she invoked the debt?

 

[HomeschoolDad]

HomeschoolDad:

I would implore my wife to cooperate in abstaining, and not to invoke the marital debt.

That is the precise answer. On the other hand, would you deny your wife if she invoked the debt?

Well, yes, I would.

The marital debt is not absolute. (And, as I have said here before, that term — “marital debt” — sounds absolutely horrible in English.) I would refuse to cause a child to be conceived who could only be foreseen to die, either in the womb or soon after birth. Keep in mind that if the child died in utero, it might not be possible to baptize before the soul left the body. I would be in peace of conscience about this, and if my wife wanted to take me in front of a priest about this, I’d tell him the same thing. If others want to live by what Jone said in his manual, that’s their choice. But I’d have no part of it.

As I said, it’s not absolute. No spouse in a hospital bed, or in grave physical or psychological distress, or even one whose spouse demands one more child regardless of the family’s precarious financial (or other) circumstances, is obliged to render brute, sensate, and I would say un-loving, marital congress to an unreasonably demanding spouse. The Quebec priests of the pre-Vatican II era got a very bad name for refusing to allow penitents with already-huge families to use NFP. What’s the difference?

And I’ve just got to say, any non-Catholic reading this would just be shaking their head right now.

 

[TheLittleLady]

If I dont remember to dig out my Jone tonight, PM me and remind me

 

[Peebo]

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1179/002436310803888745

 

[HomeschoolDad]

If I dont remember to dig out my Jone tonight, PM me and remind me

I mean no ill will in saying this, but I’ll leave it up to you to remember this.

I briefly skimmed over my copy of Jone just now. He spends several pages dealing with marital obligations, and just on the face of it, it looks like he contradicts himself here and there. It’s a very dense book, and Jone is not infallible, nor is he the magisterium of the Church. (He has a separate passage concerning a marital act I won’t describe here, and it is deeply troubling, many have pointed this out.)

All I can say, is that this whole thing — the marriage debt, and what will be the limits in one’s own marriage — is a conversation that needs to take place well in advance of the marriage. If a woman were to say “I want to keep conceiving children, even if I know they are going to be miscarried or die shortly after birth”, then she’d have to find someone else to marry, because I wouldn’t agree to that.