What about situations where abortion may be medically necessary to save mother?

[jochoa]

Originally Posted by lemerjoe

I realize that the Church teaches that abortion is wrong no matter what situation but what about times when an abortion may be needed to save the mother? There are times when killing the baby will save the mother as opposed to both of them dying. Examples could be medical complications or a young child being raped and not being able to give birth safely. Would it not be better to save the mother instead of letting both die?

Please consider the following concepts:
In situations where abortion may be medically necessary to save the mother, the questions should become: Why is the mother afraid of dying? Does she know Jesus? Does she know about the Heavenly life to come? Does she know how to get there? Does she want to be there? If she doesn't know these, does she want to know them?

[jmc1966]

I find this topic very interesting. How many of you people are doctors? If you are not a doctor how can YOU with 100% certainty state there is never a time when the mother's life is in jeopardy.

I have been in the very difficult situation of being told by doctor after doctor that we consulted with across the United States that the child my wife was carrying had ZERO chance of survival and that her life was certainly in jeopardy if she continued to carry the child. We consulted with doctors around the country that specialized in being able to help a woman to deliver in a partial molar pregnancy. After reviewing her labs, ultrasounds etc they all came to the same conclusion, there was no hope for this child. We consulted with experts that did not know each other in 3 major cities. Could all of these experts been wrong, possibly but unlikely.

My wife is still troubled by the decision we made. I believe it was the best decision for us, to save her life. We already had 2 children and have had another since this time. I find it arrogant at best the way so many people post messages about this topic when they have no first hand experience.

[maryjk]

Originally Posted by jochoa

Please consider the following concepts:
In situations where abortion may be medically necessary to save the mother, the questions should become: Why is the mother afraid of dying? Does she know Jesus? Does she know about the Heavenly life to come? Does she know how to get there? Does she want to be there? If she doesn't know these, does she want to know them?

How about we save them both?

[jochoa]

Originally Posted by maryjk

How about we save them both?

Please consider the following questions:
How do you define a saved life?
How do we save them both?

[ThinkingSapien]

Originally Posted by ConstantineTG

There is NEVER any situation where an abortion would save a mother's life. The closest would be an ectopic pregnancy. But the rule is you are never allowed to attack the fetus directly. You may remove the tube to save the mother and the death of the fetus is an unfortunate effect of it.

From a moral standpoint what's the difference between performing a therapeutic abortion here and removing the tube? Either procedure has the same motivation behind it. With either procedure the fetus will die. And removing the tube can be more damaging to fertility.

[AdamPeter]

Originally Posted by ThinkingSapien

From a moral standpoint what's the difference between performing a therapeutic abortion here and removing the tube? Either procedure has the same motivation behind it. With either procedure the fetus will die. And removing the tube can be more damaging to fertility.

Firstly, there really is no such thing as a "therapeutic" abortion. The difference is in the motivation. An abortion by it's nature is a procedure with no other purpose but to destroy the life of an unborn child. A medical procedure that may be necessary to save the life of the mother can legitimately be carried out even if the child may die as an unfortunate side-effect.

The difference is that abortion directly attacks a life and the legitimate medical procedure does not.

Abortion is not ever necessary to save a mothers life as life-saving treatment will always be provided if the mother wishes it.

[ThinkingSapien]

Originally Posted by AdamPeter

Firstly, there really is no such thing as a "therapeutic" abortion.

Sure there is. I found out about the term after a friend had to have one (methotrexate injection, minimally invasive) because of an ectopic pregnancy. I've found the term in medical dictionaries since then. It's defined as an abortion that is performed because the pregnancy put's the mother's life at serious risk. (ectopic pregnancies being the leading cause of death in the first trimester[1][2]).

Originally Posted by AdamPeter

The difference is in the motivation. An abortion by it's nature is a procedure with no other purpose but to destroy the life of an unborn child.

I disagree. By definition abortion is termination of a pregnancy by definition. This definition includes miscarriages. So to separate miscarriages from the procedure performed by humans the term abortion is sometimes prefixed with "induced" or some other term.

Humans, capable of setting goals and choosing actions and tools to accomplish those goals, can assign other purposes to existing tools and procedures. One of the terms for this is "re-purposing." One example of re-purposing is the use of Viagra to treat pulmonary hypertension[3]. I have a knife that was designed to spread butter on bread. But I've successfully re-purposed it to drive screws. And a medication that saves a life can just as easily be used to terminate one. People are capable of imbuing tools and procedures with purpose through their intentions.

Originally Posted by AdamPeter

A medical procedure that may be necessary to save the life of the mother can legitimately be carried out even if the child may die as an unfortunate side-effect.

The difference is that abortion directly attacks a life and the legitimate medical procedure does not.

That sounds a little like the difference between shooting an arrow at a person vs shooting an arrow at the shirt that a person is wearing. In either case there is foreknowledge of the consequences of either set of action. Whether the fetus is removed or methotrexate is injected the development of the fetus will be halted and it will die.

Originally Posted by AdamPeter

Abortion is not ever necessary to save a mothers life as life-saving treatment will always be provided if the mother wishes it.

Sure it is. We could take cases where no abortion was performed and the mother dies of hemorrhaging in ectopic pregnancies as an example of where one was necessary to save the mother's life.

[1] - American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), 2000
[2] - Center for Disease Control, 2006
[3] - Harvard Health Publications, 2007

[AdamPeter]

Originally Posted by ThinkingSapien

Sure there is. I found out about the term after a friend had to have one (methotrexate injection, minimally invasive) because of an ectopic pregnancy. I've found the term in medical dictionaries since then. It's defined as an abortion that is performed because the pregnancy put's the mother's life at serious risk. (ectopic pregnancies being the leading cause of death in the first trimester[1][2]).



I disagree. By definition abortion is termination of a pregnancy by definition. This definition includes miscarriages. So to separate miscarriages from the procedure performed by humans the term abortion is sometimes prefixed with "induced" or some other term.

Humans, capable of setting goals and choosing actions and tools to accomplish those goals, can assign other purposes to existing tools and procedures. One of the terms for this is "re-purposing." One example of re-purposing is the use of Viagra to treat pulmonary hypertension[3]. I have a knife that was designed to spread butter on bread. But I've successfully re-purposed it to drive screws. And a medication that saves a life can just as easily be used to terminate one. People are capable of imbuing tools and procedures with purpose through their intentions.



That sounds a little like the difference between shooting an arrow at a person vs shooting an arrow at the shirt that a person is wearing. In either case there is foreknowledge of the consequences of either set of action. Whether the fetus is removed or methotrexate is injected the development of the fetus will be halted and it will die.




Sure it is. We could take cases where no abortion was performed and the mother dies of hemorrhaging in ectopic pregnancies as an example of where one was necessary to save the mother's life.

[1] - American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), 2000
[2] - Center for Disease Control, 2006
[3] - Harvard Health Publications, 2007

This is a brilliant example of subjective morality.

Taking your example of ectopic pregnancy - the reason this is not abortion is because you are not removing or destroying the foetus directly but removing a section of Fallopian tube to prevent hemorrhaging.

The principle is called Double Effect - Where there is an unnecessary side effect of a proper medical intervention.

This principle is often misused and misrepresented by the pro-choice lobby to mean abortion.

[Kenny Kamel]

I'm glad I remembered this thread in light of new information that has recently been released. Check the link in my sig line, abortion is NEVER medically necesary to save the life of a mother.