If a pregancy is going to cause harm the reason it is causing harm is often due to an issue with the woman’s reporductive system. Then you are removing a diseased organ. If the reason is due to something else as I stae below no doctor is going to just take out a uterus for sterilization only.
I think you will find few Catholics that say sex is only about procreation. It’s about two people joining together to deepen their relationship and form a family. It is not however to sole method of expressing love between a man and a woman, nor is it the most important all encompassing part of a relationship between a man and a woman. If a realtionship is not able to hold together without sex, then that relationship was not built on a solid foundation. If I knew that having sex again with my husband would have a strong chance of killing either him or me, I would rather give it up than lose one of us having him as my husband is too important and sex is not. Also I would not consider undergoing major surgery with major negative effects on my health and such simply for the ability to have sex.
Again there is no fool proof method of ABC, other than a hysterectomy, and not doctor worth going to is going to perform one without a valid medical reason, losing a uterus fundementally changes a woman’s hormones and the structure of her internally in that area. There are HUGE side effects, including drastically increased risks of certain cancers, heart issues, and having to permenantly be on hormone therapy. Not to mention many women report a complete lose of sex drive afterwards, which in your example would effectively defeat the purpose. It is a huge surgery and not undertaken lightly.
Let me reframe your example…Say the baby is born safely and is now a year old, and the mom contracts a rare disease and the only was to save her is to harvest a vital organ from the baby…one that the child can’t live without. Do you kill the child (who is to young to consent to sacrificng it’s life) to save the mother??? A life is a life…you can’t sacrifice one for another against their will. It is one thing to voluntarily sacrifice your life for another…it is totally different to take an innocent life to save another.
Sister Amy…it seems to me that you are seeking that perfect situation where you can force the Catholic Church to be OK with abortion. The problem is that situation doesn’t exist. You can keep going through hypothetical gymnastics to try and make the situation work, but you aren’t going to find it. Killing unborn children is a sin, and it is murder. As a pregnant mother I would be horrified at the suggestion that I should kill my child to save my own life, in fact my explicit instructions to my OBGYN, my husband and family are if you have to pick save the baby.