What to say when this is used for a justifiable reason for abortion?

[classified01]

When a person asks if a situation ever arises when the mother has a low chance of surviving childbirth and the child even a lower risk. Would abortion be acceptable?

 

[Lochias]

I would say that each life deserves a chance. Sometimes, that chance is slim to none. It’s still a chance.

 

[JRKH]

When a person asks if a situation ever arises when the mother has a low chance of surviving childbirth and the child even a lower risk. Would abortion be acceptable?

No abortion is not acceptable. Abortion is the intentional killing of the pre-born child.

The correct answer is that the parents and their doctor(s) need to make the best decisions they can in order to give both the mother and the child the greatest chance of survival. Yes one or both may die…But also yes both may live…and, perhaps, in the process their could be greater knowledge gained to help other high risk situations in the future.

Peace
James

 

[Jeanne_S]

When a person asks if a situation ever arises when the mother has a low chance of surviving childbirth and the child even a lower risk. Would abortion be acceptable?

Nothing is impossible with God.There have been cases like the one you mention,that in fact both mother and baby survive,in spite of the odds.Abortion is always wrong.

 

[Ranp]

When a person asks if a situation ever arises when the mother has a low chance of surviving childbirth and the child even a lower risk. Would abortion be acceptable?

I would say that most mothers are willing to risk their lives in order to possibly save the lives of their babies. In light of all the heroic women throughout history who have fought and endure violence, who have jumped through fires and faced wild animals in order to save their children, it is really sad to think that today there are mothers not willing to take medical risks in order to save the lives of their babies.

Ran

 

[manualman]

I’m hard pressed to think of a shipwreck / life raft scenario where I’d toss my daughters overboard to save myself.

Mind you not all situations where an unborn child dies and the mother survives are abortion. Medical treatment (such as removal of a fallopian tube in an ectopic pregnancy or targeted chemo in the case of uterine cancer) is highly likely to kill the child as an unwanted side effect of saving the mother. This can be morally acceptable, especially if both are likely to die if nothing is done. But intentionally abort? No.

Analogies often help. It’s the difference between shutting a watertight bulkhead on a sinking ship even though your child is alive, but trapped under debris inside that compartment (morally acceptable, though wrenching) and choosing to murder your child if a terrorist says he will kill you both if you refuse. You just can’t do that, even if it costs you your life.

 

[jediliz]

When a person asks if a situation ever arises when the mother has a low chance of surviving childbirth and the child even a lower risk. Would abortion be acceptable?

I would ask what is the exact medical reason being given for an abortion…and do they truly think going through an evasive medical procedure that prematuraly opens the cervix and violently destroys the unborn child would really SAVE THE WOMAN"S LIFE if they think she won’t SURVIVE CHILDBIRTH?

The doctor has TWO patients in a pregnancy, not ONE. He or She should do everything they can to save BOTH LIVES.

 

[thedavidwilson]

The answer to your question is called the “double effect”
catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=177

*There are instances in which it is legitimate for an expectant mother to undergo certain medical or surgical procedures that will save her life, even if these procedures inevitably involve the death of her unborn child. In these cases it is not a question of intentionally aborting the child. They involve, rather, accepting the loss of the child as an unavoidable consequence of caring for the mother´s health.

The clearest and surest example is the ectopic pregnancy. As everyone knows, should the fetus become lodged in the oviduct or fallopian tube, its continued growth will result in the death of both child and mother. A normal and proper procedure in this case is the removal of the fallopian tube, from which the death of the unborn child inevitably follows. In this case the death of the child is not sought, nor is the mother´s life saved by the child´s dying.

This is not an abortion. Quite simply, the mother´s life is saved by the surgical removal of the oviduct, not by the death of her child. If this reasoning is too subtle for some American minds to follow, well, the available evidence suggests that just about any coherent thinking these days is too subtle for some American minds to follow.

A similar dilemma would arise in the case of an expectant mother diagnosed with uterine cancer. The death of the child obviously would result from the removal of the cancerous organ, but it is not the death of the child that is deliberately sought, nor is the mother´s life saved as a result of the child´s death. This is not an abortion in the sense used by moral theology; it is just a standard application of the ethical principle known as “double effect,” which is undoubtedly what the magazine in question, an Orthodox journal that takes its theology seriously, intended to say.

Unfortunately, however, given a chance to correct its earlier slip, the magazine compounded the difficulty by asserting that “the Church teaches that the mother must be saved.” No, strictly speaking, this is not true either; such a very tough medical decision is normally a matter of the mother´s choice, and I am familiar with no teaching of the Orthodox Church that would oblige a mother´s conscience to value her own life over her child´s. The mother´s life is not intrinsically of greater value than the child´s, and every mother known to me, if the choice were ineluctable, would value her child´s life above her own.

It is interesting to observe that the Roman Catholic Church recently honored with canonical beatification a woman who died in 1962 in consequence of choosing not to undergo the surgical procedure just mentioned. Even though she knew that it would result in her death, Gianna Molla carried her baby to term and then died a week later. Her little girl grew up and was on hand in St. Peter´s Square to see her mother raised to the dignity of the altar. *