semantics are a poor argument.
Life is being supported. Whether mother or child.
And the point stands.
All arguments for removing that support appear to be arguments used by abortion advocates to support their evil.
That may be, but if that is true, then that is only the result of poor arguments being made by those suggesting that it is immoral to remove life support.
Please understand, I’m not arguing that the correct decision was made. I think legitimate arguments, that are in line with established Church teaching, can be made on both sides of the issue. Again, it’s sort of like the issue of embryo adoption. There are faithful theologians on both sides of the debate who are doing what theologians are SUPPOSED to do–namely, hash out the issues to arrive at a greater understanding of truth.
All I am merely suggesting is that the truth in this matter is by no means clear.
What we know is this:
- You can never actively do or will evil so that good may result from it. In other words, the ends do not justify the means. Regardless of how good the end you have in sight may be, you can’t actively will evil to bring it about
- But, you CAN tolerate a foreseen–BUT UNINTENDED–evil consequence, provided you have a iusta causa, a just cause, for doing so.
What needs to be debated is whether or not there existed a
iusta causa to remove life support from the mother, thus resulting in the foreseen, but unintended death of the child.
Again, this situation is NOT murder. No one actively killed the child, and presumably no one willed his/her death. We allow people to die all of the time. It happens on a regular basis in hospitals and nursing homes.
One of the problems with this case is that there really is no good analogical case to look at so as to come to a better understanding.
Ectopic pregnancies are quite different due to the fact that the mother is very much alive. The classic case of, “Two people are dying in a burning building and you can only save one. Have you killed the one you didn’t save?” does not work either as both the life of the mother and of the unborn baby are lost in this case.
Moreover, suppose the following example. You come upon a car accident and at very little cost to yourself, have an opportunity to stop, check on the injured, and call 911. You do not do so, and instead, keep driving. One of the occupants in the vehicle later dies from injuries sustained in the crash that, had emergency personnel been notified, would have been quite treatable. Are you responsible for the person’s death? Clearly, the answer is yes. There is no
iusta causa to justify driving past. But what if you’re taking your husband to the hospital as he himself is having a heart attack? Are you still culpable in the person’s death? No. Why? Because you have a
iusta causa for driving past. However, even this analogy falls short because it fails to illustrate exactly what needs to be debated–namely, is there, or is there not, a
iusta causa for tolerating the death of the child.
I think a reasonable case can be made that there is: psychological stress on the family, use of resources (financial, medicinal, hospital personnel) that are needed elsewhere, from a spiritual point of view, not allowing the woman’s soul to go to its place of rest. (Obviously, this last point is speculative. We don’t know when God brings the soul to Himself. But, we do know that even if the person is “only” brain dead, the Church permits the celebration of the Anointing of the Sick, and as we know, sacraments cannot be celebrated for the dead. So, it seems to me that the Church is at the very least erring on the side of caution that the individual is still alive.
It is, in all sincerity, one of the hardest cases I’ve ever encountered in my (relatively) short time studying and teaching morality.
