When is it morally OK for a woman to get a hysterectomy?

[Anicette]

Our greatest cause for anxiety is that we live 20 mins away from a small hospital that isn’t really equipped to deal with emergencies like a uterine rupture. I’ve read medical statistics that if a child is not delivered with 17 minutes of a rupture that the infant mortality rate goes up to 60%, and if the baby survives, brain damage is a serious risk.

I don’t know the procedures in Canada, but I think it is highly possible that if a mother is at an high risk of uterine rupture and don’t have an enough specialized hospital near her, she would be hospitalized by another hospital in the end of pregnancy, just in case and the C section would be performed long before the due date…Or that a close monitoring would replace hospitalization. That is something that needed to discuss right now with your adequate providers if you are worry.

 

[ewohdrol]

This Trishie. I am so sorry to hear that happened to your mother. It’s stories like these people need to wake up to.

I get frustrated with the flippant medical remarks when it is doctors (not priests) who would actually witness the consequences and needless deaths. FHS if this can cause death, especially those who already have children, I’d argue it’s a responsibility to do something proactive about it.

A ruptured uterine can cause a massive hemorrhage and kill the mother and child.

 

[ewohdrol]

Even if the ovaries are left, there can be a huge drop in oestrogen which is essential to protect the heart, bone density etc. Women will also likely experience the usual menopausal symptoms. Of course women can take HRT but that comes with its own risks.

No. Simply not true.

Either way. Better than a haemorrage

 

[Trishie]

Thank you for your kind thoughts, @ewohdrol

One can only imagine what women endured in the centuries before modern knowledge and modern medical assistance.
At age 72 I required hysterectomy due to complete prolapse, which is hardly a question of being open to life or not, so advanced age is one answer to OP.

Recovering in hospital, I cried for my mother at whose time only radical surgery that took months to get over fully (she died in 1965) and for all the women throughout the ages who including those today living in extreme povert or and refugees who had or have no ,recourse to medical help in some of the miserable physical conditions women can suffer. (Men didn’t fare well either before modern medicine either.)

May God guide the OP and his wife
and all Catholics who face dilemmas.

 

[peony25]

It absolutely is true. Do you have any medical qualifications?

 

[ewohdrol]

I stand corrected and apologise. I have been through some harrowing problems in that department but didn’t realise this. But to answer your question: no I am not a medical practitioner.

I am on HRT to compensate for ovarian problems (I’m quite young). I’d still rather risk the side effects of HRT (which is low) than a clot or worse.

 

[peony25]

Thank you. I wasn’t trying to scaremonger about HRT (I am also taking it) but wanted to point out the serious side effects that can occur after a hysterectomy, and they can’t be easily solved by taking some magic pill. I hope you have improvement with your health issues.

I actually think you would struggle to find a surgeon here in the UK that would do a hysterectomy for the reasons given by the OP.

 

[F_Marturana]

I understand that ovaries are permitted to be removed to prevent potential cancer for those who are genetically predisposed for cancer.

I’m a bit confused on why a uterus couldn’t be removed to prevent possible organ failure.

 

[Anicette]

I actually think you would struggle to find a surgeon here in the UK that would do a hysterectomy for the reasons given by the OP.

I think (without being 100% sure) it would be the same in France. Many hysicians would prefered to prescribe highly effective contraceptives.

I understand that ovaries are permitted to be removed to prevent potential cancer for those who are genetically predisposed for cancer.

The question is quite young and only exists in some developped countries. As far as I know, the Church has not pronounced itself on the question of the removal of an organ that is healthy, but may get an illness in the future.

 

[Bree]

Thanks for sharing! I hope you an your husband are both well now.

You’re welcome , and yes, we are now both cancer free. I had, had another bout with cancer in 2017, but am cancer free now.

Thanks be to God

 

[Bree]

Moneyball, you sound a little OCD about your faith–or what people on these forums call “scrupulous.” This is a situation in which religious scruples could cause unnecessary bodily harm to your wife. What does SHE have to say about it? Do you feel you are permitted to make life-and-death decisions for your wife?

@Ean_Fanaiochta

Please know I say this with no malice.
I wonder why you are on this forum. We are here asking advice on matters, to make sure we don’t do anything to cause harm to our “Soul”. You act as though the “body” is the final destination, and every possible thing should be done, to make the body live forever.
These bodies we have now eventually will fail… And we will all eventually move on to the next life. Moneyball and the rest of us know this. And we pray that we will be with the Father when that happens. So we worry what we do in this lifetime is against doctrine. So yes.
Maybe we do get a bit OCD about it. But what is so wrong about making sure your spouses Soul is not at risk? In my opinion… He is actually doing the most beautiful and wonderful thing a husband can do for his wife…
Trying to help make sure she goes to Heaven…

 

[Ean_Fanaiochta]

And, Bree, I reply without malice.
How would you respond to a Christian Scientist who refused treatment for a curable disease? Or a JW who refused a blood transfusion?
I believe you and others like you are seriously misinterpreting Church teaching.
Believing that our loving God wants a woman to risk death rather than have her damaged uterus removed is beyond the pale.
Believing that God wants a woman’s life to end–needlessly–and rob her children of their mom is, in my mind, blaspheming the character of our Lord.
I see nothing of Jesus in this seeming disregard of a woman’s life. Rather, I see the Pharisees he regularly condemned for the heavy yokes they put upon people.
Rejecting a physician’s assessment of your wife’s condition and asking for opinions from the most conservative of Catholics simply boggles the mind.
I am thankful that this legalism represents a small minority of the Catholic Church, at least in the United States.
As for why I am posting here, it took me awhile to realize what I’d gotten myself into. Also, I suspect I’ll be banned soon enough!
It doesn’t concern me, though, because I feel confident this legalistic, Pharisaical approach to the Faith is NOT of God.

 

[Bree]

I see nothing of Jesus in this seeming disregard of a woman’s life

I’m not saying if her life is in immediate danger that nothing should be done. Don’t get me wrong. That would just be cruel. But her life is not in immediate danger. Not does she have a disease of the uterus that can not be cured. She has a uterus that is weak… And could tear if she were to become pregnant again. There is a solution to that…
They can use her cycle to make sure they do not couple when she could become pregnant. If the situation changes, and her doctor says her uterus now has dysplasia, or precancerous cells and or lesions, then that would be a different story. That would be a disease. And removal would be best, to keep it from spreading.

But a hysterectomy is not a light surgery.
And once done that’s it… No turning back…
The emotional rollercoaster I went through when I had mine was horrible. Even though I knew I had to have it…
I no longer felt like a woman…
Don’t rush this woman into something that she and her husband might very well be able to work around

 

[Ean_Fanaiochta]

I am sorry that having the hysterectomy was so difficult for you, Bree.

Having had difficulties in having my children, I sympathize.

Two or three women who have posted on this thread mentioned using birth control when it would be dangerous for them to get pregnant. If someone’s cycle is irregular, that only makes sense.

If the woman is already pregnant, as the OP’s wife is, than why not take the doc’s word for it that she should not get pregnant again. I suspect the OB-GYN is more qualified to determine that than celibate theologians in their ivory towers. Or ivory cathedrals, rather.

 

[Rau]

Two or three women who have posted on this thread mentioned using birth control when it would be dangerous for them to get pregnant. If someone’s cycle is irregular, that only makes sense.

It makes perfect sense if one takes as a premise that using birth control is ok. If one holds to the view that contracepting is in itself morally evil, a different conclusion is reached.

 

[Guest1]

If the woman is already pregnant, as the OP’s wife is, than why not take the doc’s word for it that she should not get pregnant again. I suspect the OB-GYN is more qualified to determine that than celibate theologians in their ivory towers. Or ivory cathedrals, rather.

Which should a Catholic go to determine morals?
Believe what you will regarding hysterectomy or birth control, but Catholics shouldn’t disrespect God’s priests.

I leave my stance on moral issues to be what God’s Church teaches.

 

[Ean_Fanaiochta]

You mean, your interpretation of what the Church teaches.

It’s being disrespectful to point out that theologians are less qualified to make medical decisions than physicians?

 

[Guest1]

On Medical issues typically, No. Unless one a bad doctor.

But the whole “celibate theologians in their ivory towers. Or ivory cathedrals, rather.” Can be taken as disrespectful when reading text.

 

[Ean_Fanaiochta]

There is disagreement on this issue, obviously. Women are clearly being permitted to use birth control when getting pregnant would be dangerous to them.

Again, it’s a legalistic minority in the church who would have women die rather than prevent pregnancy from occurring. I’m sorry, but that does not sound Christ-like to me.

 

[Guest1]

You mean, your interpretation of what the Church teaches.

No. The Church does have official teachings does it not? Regarding birth control for example?

When there’s a troubling moral issue God did appoint priests in His Church that Catholics can ask questions to.