Would this be considered an abortion?

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Kyle2253

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I recently had someone raise a hypothetical situation that I did not know how to answer. The conversation was about if there are any cases where abortions should be allowed (I said that I firmly believe that abortion is never the answer). This is a summary of the situation that was brought up by the other individual:
A pregnant woman develops a medical condition as the result of her pregnancy that has a high likelihood of killing the child and possibly even the mother. In this scenario the woman is still early on in her pregnancy when the child would be unable to survive on its own (possibly due to lack of development). Doctors determine that the only way to ensure the mother’s survival is to induce labor, where there is a very high likelihood that the child will not survive (even if it’s just for a few minutes).
Would it be considered an abortion? What would be right thing to do in this situation?
I have many questions about this topic and situation that I would like some help with.
 
I can provide more info about the situation that was given if needed. It just seemed like a lot of information to put in the original post
 
There are definitely cases in which delivering the child and doing whatever you can for it (even if it is essentially medically impossible for it to live) is not the same as abortion, because the child’s death is not desired.

It’s the same reason why jumping on a grenade to save your buddies isn’t suicide. Your death is likely, perhaps virtually certain, but it’s not the goal. If you somehow miraculously survive, that’s an even bigger win, not a failure.
 
Usagi said:
It’s the same reason why jumping on a grenade to save your buddies isn’t suicide. Your death is likely, perhaps virtually certain, but it’s not the goal .
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No, not at all. It’s more like pushing your buddy onto the grenade to save your own life.
 
Kyle2253 said:
A pregnant woman develops a medical condition as the result of her pregnancy that has a high likelihood of killing the child and possibly even the mother. In this scenario the woman is still early on in her pregnancy when the child would be unable to survive on its own (possibly due to lack of development). Doctors determine that the only way to ensure the mother’s survival is to induce labor, where there is a very high likelihood that the child will not survive (even if it’s just for a few minutes).
Would it be considered an abortion? What would be right thing to do in this situation?
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The short answer is, if the child were viable enough to live on its own outside the womb, even with the assistance of an incubator or other means, it could be delivered in this fashion. Being born that early would be less than ideal, but it would be better than the child dying in the womb.

If the child were not viable enough to live outside the womb, I hate to say this, but it would indeed be an abortion. The doctors would just have to wait, and hope, and pray, that both mother and child could survive until the child is viable.
 
I don’t mean to contradict you, just trying to understand…
If a woman has cancer and requires medicine to treat it that has the undesired but likely effect of killing her fetus, that’s permitted because the desire isn’t to kill the fetus but treat the mother? As long as the intention isn’t to abort, doesn’t the church allow this? They call it double effect? Or am I way off? Thanks
 
Re reading the OPs scenario, my comment wouldn’t apply…it’s performing a direct abortion. If they are treating the mother without aborting the fetus but it’s known the fetus will die from the treatment, that’s a situation that’s allowed. Have I got it right? Thanks again!
 
Pattylt said:
I don’t mean to contradict you, just trying to understand…
If a woman has cancer and requires medicine to treat it that has the undesired but likely effect of killing her fetus, that’s permitted because the desire isn’t to kill the fetus but treat the mother? As long as the intention isn’t to abort, doesn’t the church allow this? They call it double effect? Or am I way off? Thanks
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This might be of interest to you. If you scroll down there is also a section on a pregnant mother having cancer.

 
Kyle2253 said:
A pregnant woman develops a medical condition as the result of her pregnancy that has a high likelihood of killing the child and possibly even the mother.
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In this case, the doctor has two patients, not one.

It is incumbent upon the doctor to do all he can for both patients.
Kyle2253 said:
Doctors determine that the only way to ensure the mother’s survival is to induce labor, where there is a very high likelihood that the child will not survive (even if it’s just for a few minutes).
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That’s the thing about made up scenarios, they never make any sense nor have any actual basis in reality.
Kyle2253 said:
Would it be considered an abortion?
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Yes. It is a direct attack on the child. It doesn’t meet the criteria under the principle of double effect.
Kyle2253 said:
What would be right thing to do in this situation?
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Treat both patients until the child can be safely delivered.
 
Pattylt said:
As long as the intention isn’t to abort, doesn’t the church allow this?
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The scenario presented here does not meet that criteria. There is no treatment of the mother, there is only the killing of the child.
 
The details really matter here, both because they will determine if this is an abortion and because they determine the morality of the act if it is not an abortion.
 
1ke said:
That’s the thing about made up scenarios, they never make any sense nor have any actual basis in reality.
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Yep

I honestly think pro-choice people invent these sorts of things just to push their own pro-abortion agenda. The majority of abortions do not occur because the mother’s life is in danger or even because of r*ape/incest. Most abortions are simply because the pregnancy is inconvenient to the woman and because of the “it’s my body and no one can tell me what to do with it” stance.

I’d be more concerned about abortions occurring because a dependent teenager will be disowned/kicked out of the house by her parents, or whose father would go after their boyfriend with a shotgun. Those poor young ladies are most vulnerable, in my opinion, because they may truly feel they have no other choice. Even giving the baby up for adoption doesn’t really work if your parents are going to kill your boyfriend because you are pregnant.
 
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What is described is an indirect abortion. The pregnancy is terminated to save the mother’s life, but it will be impossible for the fetus to survive outside the womb.

The Church opposes a “direct abortion,” where the fetus is destroyed before birth.

Such cases to save the mother’s life are rare, but they do happen and the Church has told a nun and the doctors who performed a direct abortion at St Joseph’s Hospital in Arizona, that they had excommunicated themselves.

Theologians got into a debate over this, especially where the doctors said that the mother’s situation was that inducing labor would’ve killed her and the 11 week old fetus. They couldn’t just sit by and watch the mother die, so they performed a “direct abortion.”

To me, the end result was the same one way or another.
 
Psalm30 said:
I’d be more concerned about abortions occurring because a dependent teenager will be disowned/kicked out of the house by her parents, or whose father would go after their boyfriend with a shotgun. Those poor young ladies are most vulnerable, in my opinion, because they may truly feel they have no other choice. Even giving the baby up for adoption doesn’t really work if your parents are going to kill your boyfriend because you are pregnant.
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When in the world would this ever happen? Maybe 75-100 years ago, in really “rednecky” parts of the US, or in certain contemporary world cultures where there is a concept of “honor killings” or that the woman “is ruined” because she is not a virgin. But otherwise? People just don’t do that.

In our modern society, whenever an unmarried woman falls pregnant, one of three things happens:
  • Everybody comes to terms with the situation, after initial recriminations, and resolves to welcome the child, whether the couple marries or not
  • The couple decides “okay, let’s go ahead and get married”, very often they have been “on the fence” about whether to marry or not, and the pregnancy is the catalyst that makes this happen
  • Or the mother quietly and discreetly gets an abortion, and sometimes it’s never even known by anyone except for the doctor and the parents of the dead child
I have known of all three scenarios.
 
Ike what is described is not a direct attack on the child. It does provide a sort of textbook hypothetical example of double effect. “only way for the mother to survive”

Unless I missed some detail.
 
There already is a condition that addresses this problem:

Entropic Pregnancy.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
When in the world would this ever happen? Maybe 75-100 years ago, in really “rednecky” parts of the US, or in certain contemporary world cultures where there is a concept of “honor killings” or that the woman “is ruined” because she is not a virgin.
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You just answered your own question.
HomeschoolDad said:
But otherwise? People just don’t do that.
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It’s certainly possible that they do. Or at least force their under-18 daughter to abort when the daughter doesn’t want to. In Abby Johnson’s book/movie unPlanned there was a scenario where a father brought his teen daughter in for an abortion even though she didn’t want one. So, unless Abby Johnson was making that up…

And that happened much more recently than 75-100 years ago.
HomeschoolDad said:
I have known of all three scenarios.
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Ok. There also are probably a lot of scenarios about which you don’t know.
 
Psalm30 said:
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HomeschoolDad:
When in the world would this ever happen? Maybe 75-100 years ago, in really “rednecky” parts of the US, or in certain contemporary world cultures where there is a concept of “honor killings” or that the woman “is ruined” because she is not a virgin.
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You just answered your own question.
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So it seems. Contemporary American culture, even among faithful orthodox Catholics, does not view the sexually active unmarried woman as “fallen” or “ruined”. Fornication is not the unforgivable sin, and it is far from the worst sin. It is pretty much axiomatic in modern American “dating” (to the extent it can be said that people actually “date” anymore) is that sex will happen no later than the third date, maybe the sixth date or beyond “if they have ‘good morals’”, or there is even the concept of the “hookup” — have sex before any real relationship develops, then see if you’re otherwise compatible. And sometimes people “hook up” just for its own sake.

I have to think that there are people who stay single for long periods, possibly even for life, because they are simply not willing to go along with the “sex by the third date” expectation. Indeed, it would be far better to remain single, than to commit even one mortal sin (and it would not be “just one”, there is an expectation of frequent sex once the relationship gets started). I would really like to see an “abstinence until marriage” dating website, and not just abstinence from intercourse, but abstinence from anything beyond chaste expressions of affection until the wedding night. I would like to think that there are people besides faithful Catholics who are willing to adhere to this standard.
 
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