On Abortion To Save The Life Of The Mother

[Anastasia13]

I just came from this thread:

 

http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/126026-abortion-to-save-the-live-of-the-mother/#entry2525976

 

CatherineM said, "What doctors don't want to admit, even to themselves, is that there are no 100% or 0% in medicine."

 

"It is important to note that in most cases of ectopic pregnancies, all orthodox (Roman Catholic) theologians and philosophers I know, allow for the removal of the fallopian tube."

 

Someone is wrong here. Either their is a miniscule chance that the fetus would live, or there is a 100/0% chance thing that goes on.

 

This is the criteria of double effect:

 

 

This set of criteria states that an action having foreseen harmful effects practically inseparable from the good effect is justifiable if the following are true:

• the nature of the act is itself good, or at least morally neutral;
• the agent intends the good effect and not the bad either as a means to the good or as an end itself;
• the good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect and the agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm.^[2]

^Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect

 

When people talk about abortion to save the life of the mother, the only real criteria under discussion is: "the good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect and the agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm" with possible inclusion of the first point only because I do not understand how it would fit into agreeing or contradicting such a situation, but the intent of abortion to save the mother to save the mother, which is good.

[Nihil Obstat]

The moral object (the action itself) is the primary criterion. Considering the intent and circumstances comes after we have considered the moral object. A direct abortion is an intrinsically evil act, therefore intent and circumstances cannot justify it. Removal of the fallopian tube, for instance, is not a direct abortion, so the moral object changes from intrinsically evil to, I would guess, neutral, at which point intent and circumstance become more relevant.

 

Personally, I think that medicine will progress over the next few decades to the point that an embryo might be removed from a fallopian tube in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, and incubated to full term, and such a case would underline the difference we are dealing with here.

Edited December 21, 2012 by Nihil Obstat

[Theoketos]

All I know is that I have William May and Cardinal Ratzinger agreeing with me and I am too stupid to disagree with them. 

[Debra Little]

If anyone would like to read a very good book about this look for, "Abortion, A Rational Look At An Emotional Issue"

The author is R.C. Sproul.  This is a Christian book.