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magdelaine
Guest
Ryecroft, I feel for you. But you are better off confessing your sin than trying to convince the rest of us that what you did wasn’t one. Reconciliation is what the Church is for.
- Status
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ryecroft
Guest
I’m really glad that your mother had such a lucky experience and that you’re here to tell about it. Yes, I would DEFFINATELY NOT BE HERE if I had continued the pregnancy and my husband and I decided when we got married that if something happened and the choice ever came up, we could always try again for another child, but he could not ever get another me. I will always keep that promise as long as I’m able - and when I’m not, I know what he’ll do. The pregnancies I refer to took place when we were trying to deal with NFP and stuck to it like glue - Now, we are on ABC and hopefully will no longer have that problem. I would love to have been able to keep the children but they were not viable - transfusions wern’t taking and my kidney were being destroyed because they were being too taxed with the pregnancy. We hope to God that the Doctor will o.k. us to try again one day but now, I have been on ABC (except for the NFP times and some time prior to marriage to prepare for NFP) and that is due to loss of blood - we have spoken to a priest and we know we are covered by double effect because it is not primarily not to get pregnant but to keep me from bleeding beyond my means.
And to Maple Oak - I sure am glad that this forum has such an all knowing all seeing power such as yourself and that you have about as much compassionas a stick of wood and that you kn ow exactly what God wants done in every last situation - also as far as ensoulment goes (since I have to explain this to you apparently) What is supposed to differentiate us from any other animal? It is that there is a soul - if the soul is not present until a certain time then it shouln’t be considered murder because there is no soul in the fetus - that’s why that bit of knowledge was useful - when you kill an animal that’s pregnant you don’t commit murder -and you’ve made your point clear - to heck with the mother no matter what - if the fetus is to die in the womb - let the mother die - if the fetus will die along with the mother - let the mother die - like I said, I’m glad there are more compassionate priests out there -I’m glad every case is so black and white cut and dry for you - I can’t believe that God is that way if He’s a loving God which I believe. I do n’t know how much I even want to belong to a church if the Catholic church is completely full of Dogmatic zealots like you…wait it once was - that’s back when there were things like the inquisition - let me guess, you probably believe that any woman that aborts a child in order to live ought to be tourtued as punishment - like I said, I’ll respect your opinion when you’ve had to deal with this yourself - if I were a lesser person I would wish that on you - but I wouldn’t wish that choice on my enemy if I had one. As you seem to love to repeat yourself and have the last word, I’ll say no more towards you - regardless of what you say - you’ve made your point clear - only the fetus matters - the heck with the mother.
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stthomas
Guest
The Catholic Church teaches that all abortion is a mortal sin along with ABC if the Catholic has full knowledge of this teaching. Sounds like you do and you choose to do your will not God’s A lie is a lie, no matter how you try to justify it. Catholic’s dont have the option to pick and choose what Church teachings they want to obey. I am not being judgemental only stating the truth.
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stthomas
Guest
I am constantly amazed by the many ways we humans say to God that we know better than you. God and the Church (led by the Holy Spirit) did not establish his ways to punish us or make or lives difficult. His ways are the road we all most travel if we hope to know, love, and serve him. Saint Gianna Beretta Molla chose the life of her unborn child over her own. She sacrificed her life for the life of her daughter. Life choices are not always easy, but we have God to comfort us during our journey…
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ryecroft
Guest
Are you talking about our use of ABC that we went to a priest about to make sure we were in line with Double Effect?? - Hate to burst your bubble but we are in line with double effect as far as the birth control - you can even ask your priests on here. Read why I put that I have to take the ABC - not to prevent pregnancy but to keep me from having to get transfusions- I’ve been on it since I was 13 years old. This is a serious matter - so there is no lie with that - the fact that it prevents pregnancy is a secondary issue. So before you call me not doing God’s will with the ABC check yourself - as far as having to end a pregnancy, I wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t ended it - and that is what I’m trying to stand up for - those poor women out there who would rather live than try to continue with a pregnancy that would kill them both! Either way, the fetus was not going to live - I just didn’t see any reason to die as well. Believe what you will - I have no problems with God.
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ryecroft
Guest
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marypar
Guest
I rarely post, but this response is so awesome and worth printing out - thank you Heath Bar.
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ryecroft
Guest
Heath Bar - Again, I say, I hope you never have to make that decision -
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Mark77
Guest
I am truly sorry to hear of your medical condition and you are in my prayers!
Despite the hardship, it is never acceptable to intentionally terminate a babies life (which science has proven beyond any doubt, begins at conception).
The mother’s life should always be valued and protected, while doing everything possible to save the baby too.
If the baby dies, despite the best efforts of the medical experts, then it is a horrible tragedy, but the mother should never be subjected to the decision of abortion and the inevitable life-long guilt of being forced, unnecessarily to choose between herself and her baby.
It is truly sad that the lies and distortions used by those who make billions of dollars from abortion to confuse innocent people, ends up causing those loving and innocent people to make “Choices” they would not normally make!
You keep talking about ensoulment and “opinions” of Theologians like Aquinas who had no scientific basis as we do today. (Aristotle actually taught that males were ensouled at 40 days and females at 80 days?)
That was never a Church teaching, simply an individuals opinion. The Church has never defined exactly when ensoulment occurs, but she has always taught that abortion is a grave evil.
Rather than anguish over our past, our Loving, Merciful God forgives us completely if we are truly sorry!
There is no need for debate or argument, no blame or finger pointing, we simply ask and we shall be forgiven!
There are many resources for post-abortive counseling and healing.
FYI the Catechism of the Catholic Church is very clear on this "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
"Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:
Despite the hardship, it is never acceptable to intentionally terminate a babies life (which science has proven beyond any doubt, begins at conception).
The mother’s life should always be valued and protected, while doing everything possible to save the baby too.
If the baby dies, despite the best efforts of the medical experts, then it is a horrible tragedy, but the mother should never be subjected to the decision of abortion and the inevitable life-long guilt of being forced, unnecessarily to choose between herself and her baby.
It is truly sad that the lies and distortions used by those who make billions of dollars from abortion to confuse innocent people, ends up causing those loving and innocent people to make “Choices” they would not normally make!
You keep talking about ensoulment and “opinions” of Theologians like Aquinas who had no scientific basis as we do today. (Aristotle actually taught that males were ensouled at 40 days and females at 80 days?)
That was never a Church teaching, simply an individuals opinion. The Church has never defined exactly when ensoulment occurs, but she has always taught that abortion is a grave evil.
Rather than anguish over our past, our Loving, Merciful God forgives us completely if we are truly sorry!
There is no need for debate or argument, no blame or finger pointing, we simply ask and we shall be forgiven!
There are many resources for post-abortive counseling and healing.
FYI the Catechism of the Catholic Church is very clear on this "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.
Code:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth" (CCC 2270)
Code:
You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.
God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes." (CCC 2271)Mary_Gail_36
New member
Well I did, am I allowed to comment? I was told to abort because the pregnancy would kill me. Did I abort? No. Did I die? Still here. I miscarried naturally.
Doctors make mistakes all the time. I found another doctor. A good doctor won’t look at a woman and say that she needs to abort to save her life. A good doctor would do all that is possible to save both. The church and God weren’t asking you to die. This is an age of possibly endless medical miracles! Some doctor somewhere should have been able to take both of you as patients. If your baby couldn’t survive then it was up to God.
It’s easier for a doctor to refer for abortion than to fix the problem. It’s easier for doctors to give out birth control pills than to figure out the cause of the problem.
Why not search for better doctors? omsoul.com has listings for these doctors.
I’m sorry that you felt that was your only decision. Really I am. Your doctor was wrong for suggesting it and for not telling you, “I don’t know how to handle this. I’ll help you find someone who can.”
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stthomas
Guest
I prefer to call a fetus a baby.
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rpp
Guest
Yes, I prefer the truth as well.
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stthomas
Guest
Amen rpp. Ryecroft makes no bones about it that she support Pro-choice, so she allows this sinful lie to direct her life. Pray that our Crucified Lord opens the floodgates of her heart.
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nodito
Guest
This difficulty with threads like this is that they get so emotional that anything that is written is taken as a direct affront to one poster or another. I hope that my post can avoid this, because I truly do not mean to insult or offend anyone, especially you, ryecroft, since this topic obviously strikes so close to home.
But you’ve asked how a loving God could force a woman to carry to term a pregnancy that poses a risk to her life. I thought I could contribute to the discussion by proposing a (rather far-fetched) analogy.
Suppose there was a mother with a rare heart defect, and she needed a new heart. This heart condition was exacerbated during her pregnancy sixteen years early, and now the heart is failing. The doctors do all the tests and determine that in order to save the woman’s life, she needs not only a heart transplant, but one from a family member who shares some of her DNA and her same body dimensions. Any other heart transplant will fail. The only person with a heart that meets these criteria is the woman’s teenage daughter.
The daughter cannot live without her heart, but the mother cannot live if the daughter’s heart is not transplanted, and in fact, it is because of the daughter that the mom is now struggling with this terrible medical condition. Every day that the daughter decides to keep her own heart poses a greater health risk to the mom, because without her heart, the mom will die. The daughter is going to die eventually anyway (in a car accident or from cancer or from old age), so the mom figures she can just take the heart without asking her daughter. After all, she and her husband can always make a new daughter, but they can never make a new mom.
Clearly, we’re not going to accept this mother’s logic. After all, the daughter is a person! She too has rights, and you can’t just take her heart if it’s going to kill her. Even if she were going to die tomorrow, it’s still not acceptable to kill her pre-emptively so that good may come of it.
The Church says there’s no difference in value between a fully-grown teenage daughter and a tiny little child living in the womb. Both have equal worth in God’s sight, and both are fully human. If it’s wrong to directly kill the teenager so the mom can live, it’s wrong to directly kill the fetus for the same reason. Moreover, each person is unique and irreplaceable. You can’t replace a daughter who dies in the womb any more than you can replace a daughter killed in a car accident on prom night.
Why would God allow a situation like this, a situation in which it seems that there are no good options? For the same reason, I suppose, that he allows any evil to take place in the world. We can’t always control who gets cancer, or diabetes, or develops life-threatening complications during pregnancy. All we can control is our response to these tragedies. There are a number of valid medical procedures that we can attempt to help us survive these illnesses, but directly killing another human being is not one of them.
But you’ve asked how a loving God could force a woman to carry to term a pregnancy that poses a risk to her life. I thought I could contribute to the discussion by proposing a (rather far-fetched) analogy.
Suppose there was a mother with a rare heart defect, and she needed a new heart. This heart condition was exacerbated during her pregnancy sixteen years early, and now the heart is failing. The doctors do all the tests and determine that in order to save the woman’s life, she needs not only a heart transplant, but one from a family member who shares some of her DNA and her same body dimensions. Any other heart transplant will fail. The only person with a heart that meets these criteria is the woman’s teenage daughter.
The daughter cannot live without her heart, but the mother cannot live if the daughter’s heart is not transplanted, and in fact, it is because of the daughter that the mom is now struggling with this terrible medical condition. Every day that the daughter decides to keep her own heart poses a greater health risk to the mom, because without her heart, the mom will die. The daughter is going to die eventually anyway (in a car accident or from cancer or from old age), so the mom figures she can just take the heart without asking her daughter. After all, she and her husband can always make a new daughter, but they can never make a new mom.
Clearly, we’re not going to accept this mother’s logic. After all, the daughter is a person! She too has rights, and you can’t just take her heart if it’s going to kill her. Even if she were going to die tomorrow, it’s still not acceptable to kill her pre-emptively so that good may come of it.
The Church says there’s no difference in value between a fully-grown teenage daughter and a tiny little child living in the womb. Both have equal worth in God’s sight, and both are fully human. If it’s wrong to directly kill the teenager so the mom can live, it’s wrong to directly kill the fetus for the same reason. Moreover, each person is unique and irreplaceable. You can’t replace a daughter who dies in the womb any more than you can replace a daughter killed in a car accident on prom night.
Why would God allow a situation like this, a situation in which it seems that there are no good options? For the same reason, I suppose, that he allows any evil to take place in the world. We can’t always control who gets cancer, or diabetes, or develops life-threatening complications during pregnancy. All we can control is our response to these tragedies. There are a number of valid medical procedures that we can attempt to help us survive these illnesses, but directly killing another human being is not one of them.
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mapleoak
Guest
Thank you for your insight and analogy. It is much appreciated.
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Heath_Bar
Guest
Thank you, and I am truly sorry that you have had to. My wife has now passed the childbearing age. I will let you know, though, that when my wife was pregnant with my daughter, she did not have it easy at all. She had diabetes and high blood pressure, and spent probably two months in and out of the hospital. The rest of the time was spent on bedrest. The effects of yo-yo sugar levels caused her placenta to mature at six months and was causing it to break down, so our daughter was starving to death and would have been stillborn had we taken her to term. Her doctors did not know this was happening, we only found out through the intervention of a high-risk pregnancy doctor whom I happened to meet one day and explained the trouble. He agreed to look at her case, and when he did he recommended immediately taking my daughter out, even though she weighed less than three pounds. We didn’t get to take her home for over a month.
That was our second pregnancy. The first pregnancy, a few years earlier, was also difficult on her. I am ashamed to say that my first thought was abortion. I was young and not ready to be a Dad, and I was scared. If we would not have had the support of my parents, who encouraged me to do the right thing and marry her, then I would have made the wrong decision. As it turns out, when she was five months pregnant, my new wife fell down some steps to her apartment and miscarried. It would have been a girl. I shake and tremble with grief that I would have had another daughter, one I never got to meet. And, what’s worse is the fact that when I first heard about her, I wanted her dead!
During the second pregnancy, we had the exact conversation about “If it comes down to it, I’ll tell the doctor to save you, not the baby. We can always have another baby, but there can never be another you.” I remember that conversation with perfect clarity. And, back then, I would have stuck to that decision. I’ll own up to it. I would have elected at that point to save my wife. I was new to the Catholic church, and I did not care what their teaching was then, all I knew and care about was how if something happened to my wife it would effect me.
Looking back on it now, I see how wrong I was. Unfortunately, in your situation, you are prevented from being able to enjoy the benefit of hindsight. I am fortunate that I am. I remember after the C-section, my wife was recovering and actually could not see our daughter for three days because she got a fever and could not risk passing it on to our daughter, who was in intensive care. I, however, was blessed to see her within an hour after she was born. She was under a bright light, naked and crying. She had a full head of hair when she was born, but they had to shave it. Her arms were too tiny to stick an IV in, so they had to put the IV in one of the veins in her head. They had tried five times before they finally found one large enough to hold. So there she was, all alone, poked to high heaven, and squalling. I went to her, tears in my eyes, and said, “Hey, Lauralee. I’m your Daddy”. I stuck my pinky down to her (I was not allowed to pick her up yet), and her hand clasped my little finger. It was so small it couldn’t fit all the way around it. At the sound of my voice, she quit crying and her eyes met mine. And, so help me GOD, I knew at that moment that her life was more valuable than mine and my wife’s put together. I could see how wrong I was to ever say that I would sacrifice her for my wife. Does that me me cold and uncaring toward my wife? I don’t think so. My wife agrees. She would have died happily if it meant that Lauralee could live. Again, without being a parent, you cannot understand it, and so I can see why you feel the way that you do. I honestly do.
So, I do not condemn you at all for the decision you made. You were in an extremely tough situation, and one that is difficult to understand. You have an extremely difficult cross to bear, and why God has given you this cross, I cannot say. The reality, though, is that He has. My heart breaks for anyone who cannot experience the joy of being a parent. As humans, it is beyond our understanding. However, we are not called to understand God. We are not capable of it. Willfully killing a child is against God’s plan. It is simply the Truth, and it is a difficult Truth, especially for those in your unfortunate situation, but it is still a Truth. We are human, we fail. We make the wrong decisions. I have made them myself a hundred times over, and so I cannot put myself above anybody. Can I see why you made the decision you made? Absolutely! Does that still make it justified, according to the teachings of the Church? No. I have nothing but sorrow and compassion for the difficulty of your decision, but we cannot justify it according to the Church. God bless you, and I pray that God will bless you and your husband’s marriage.
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Trader
Guest
There is a lot of confusion going on here about ensoulment and some of it is probalby deliberate on the part of pro-abortion politicians like our Speaker of the House.
In philosophy, every living creature has a soul. It is the priciple of life. Death would be defined as the moment the soul leaves the body. Your rose bush has a vegetative soul. Your Siamese cat has an animal soul. Aristotle was a philosopher, not a theologian blessed with the fullness of Revelation. His philosophy was intertwined with what we know today was a very primitive scientific knowledge. Augustine and Aquinas and many others have commented on that philosophy with about the same scientific knowledge as Aristotle. The human egg cell was not discovered until the 19th century, and DNA only around 1950. Today, the science is very clear that from conception a new creature exists that is not part of the mother’s body. It is unique and unrepeatable. At that point it clearly has the principle of life as Aristotle would understand it. This is a philosophical understanding of science, not theology.
We know from God’s revealed truth that every human being is a descendant of Adam and that every one of those descendants has an immortal soul. That immortal soul does not exist automatically because a sperm and egg cell fuse. It is a true miracle in every sense of the word. Almighty God personally intervenes in time to create a new individual being that is both physical and spiritual. Only God can do that. The physical body will eventually die, separate from the body, and later be reunited in the resurrection and live on forever in the joy of heaven or the pain of hell.
Contrary to what many believe, the Church has not made a definitive statement on when God creates that immortal soul. Maybe it will someday, and maybe it will remain an open question, like the theory of limbo. Most Christians, including me, think the logical time for the creation of the immortal soul is at conception. In liturgy we celebrate Chrismas exactly nine months after the Annunciation, and the Nativity of Mary exactly nine months after the Immaculate Conception. Still, God certainly has the freedom to do as He wills. Would He create an immortal soul for a defective zygote that He knows for sure will not survive beyond eight cells? Maybe. What happens when a young zygote splits into identical twins or triplets? A single immortal soul cannot split into parts.
The speculation over when an immortal soul is created is not the source of the Church’s teaching on abortion. A willed abortion is always gravely wrong and that teaching has been consistent from the first century. It is an offense against the digintiy of human beings in a way similar to contraception. It is contrary to natural law and is not just a tenet of any specific religion.
Unfortunately many people reject Church teaching on artificial contraception out of hand without thinking about how it is related to abortion. At whatever point God creates the immortal soul, abortion becomes murder. It is a sin so terrible that we are required to treat an unborn child as a full human being. At the earliest stage of life it is at least a potential human being. We do not have the option to deny protection to that life any more than some people used to justify slavery on their own theory that certain human beings did not have souls.
Ecclesiastical penalties for procuring an abortion have varied over time. Big deal–so have the penalties for many other sins, like contracting a marriage outside of church law. Those penalties have nothing to do with the wrongness of the act. They are a temporal response and vary according to needs of the Church for a particular time in the proclamation of God’s revealed truth. Currently, abortion carries an automatic excommunication, while most other murders do not. That penalty is a teaching tool, not a statement that other murders are anything less than grave evil. If there were no controversy over abortion, it probably would be treated as any other murder.
Hopefully, abortion will some day be not just illegal, but unthinkable–in a category more like cannibalism, and all abortion clinics will close from lack of interest.
In philosophy, every living creature has a soul. It is the priciple of life. Death would be defined as the moment the soul leaves the body. Your rose bush has a vegetative soul. Your Siamese cat has an animal soul. Aristotle was a philosopher, not a theologian blessed with the fullness of Revelation. His philosophy was intertwined with what we know today was a very primitive scientific knowledge. Augustine and Aquinas and many others have commented on that philosophy with about the same scientific knowledge as Aristotle. The human egg cell was not discovered until the 19th century, and DNA only around 1950. Today, the science is very clear that from conception a new creature exists that is not part of the mother’s body. It is unique and unrepeatable. At that point it clearly has the principle of life as Aristotle would understand it. This is a philosophical understanding of science, not theology.
We know from God’s revealed truth that every human being is a descendant of Adam and that every one of those descendants has an immortal soul. That immortal soul does not exist automatically because a sperm and egg cell fuse. It is a true miracle in every sense of the word. Almighty God personally intervenes in time to create a new individual being that is both physical and spiritual. Only God can do that. The physical body will eventually die, separate from the body, and later be reunited in the resurrection and live on forever in the joy of heaven or the pain of hell.
Contrary to what many believe, the Church has not made a definitive statement on when God creates that immortal soul. Maybe it will someday, and maybe it will remain an open question, like the theory of limbo. Most Christians, including me, think the logical time for the creation of the immortal soul is at conception. In liturgy we celebrate Chrismas exactly nine months after the Annunciation, and the Nativity of Mary exactly nine months after the Immaculate Conception. Still, God certainly has the freedom to do as He wills. Would He create an immortal soul for a defective zygote that He knows for sure will not survive beyond eight cells? Maybe. What happens when a young zygote splits into identical twins or triplets? A single immortal soul cannot split into parts.
The speculation over when an immortal soul is created is not the source of the Church’s teaching on abortion. A willed abortion is always gravely wrong and that teaching has been consistent from the first century. It is an offense against the digintiy of human beings in a way similar to contraception. It is contrary to natural law and is not just a tenet of any specific religion.
Unfortunately many people reject Church teaching on artificial contraception out of hand without thinking about how it is related to abortion. At whatever point God creates the immortal soul, abortion becomes murder. It is a sin so terrible that we are required to treat an unborn child as a full human being. At the earliest stage of life it is at least a potential human being. We do not have the option to deny protection to that life any more than some people used to justify slavery on their own theory that certain human beings did not have souls.
Ecclesiastical penalties for procuring an abortion have varied over time. Big deal–so have the penalties for many other sins, like contracting a marriage outside of church law. Those penalties have nothing to do with the wrongness of the act. They are a temporal response and vary according to needs of the Church for a particular time in the proclamation of God’s revealed truth. Currently, abortion carries an automatic excommunication, while most other murders do not. That penalty is a teaching tool, not a statement that other murders are anything less than grave evil. If there were no controversy over abortion, it probably would be treated as any other murder.
Hopefully, abortion will some day be not just illegal, but unthinkable–in a category more like cannibalism, and all abortion clinics will close from lack of interest.
A
aggiecatholic05
Guest
agreed, that was wonderful, and plan to use it in my on going debates of medical ethics at school.Thank you for your insight and analogy. It is much appreciated.
K
kage_ar
Guest
Amen amen!
J
jkpreece
Guest
First of all, they can really only guess whether the child and mother both will survive… And the guess isn’t highly accurate.
Second:
It is excommunicable to have/help have an abortion of a child. It is excommunicable to have women as priests.
What Rome says goes. That is the ONLY way to be a Catholic.
“Rome has spoken, the issue is settled!”
Second:
It is excommunicable to have/help have an abortion of a child. It is excommunicable to have women as priests.
What Rome says goes. That is the ONLY way to be a Catholic.
“Rome has spoken, the issue is settled!”
- Status