Protecting mothers life

[Anastasia13]

Is there ever a duty to protect a pregnant mother’s life in the face of God and nature taking their course in an ugly and unfortunate situation with a fetus/unborn child?

[BarbTherese]

I might be wrong, but abortion is legitimate to a Catholic woman when the pregnancy puts her life at real risk.  It is called, the double effect principle or something like that.  Double effect because abortion is a grave wrong, and the other effect is a good i.e. removing mother from danger.  The intention must be to remove mother from danger, not to kill the unborn.

@Sponsa Christiis a Canon Lawyer and highly informed on Catholic matters.

[tinytherese]

https://www.catholic.com/qa/whats-the-difference-between-direct-and-indirect-abortion

https://www.catholic.com/qa/ectopic-pregnancy-and-double-effect

For more information on the specific means of these proceedures, I recommend reading Life Issues, Medical Choices: Questions and Answers for Catholics by Janet E. Smith and Christopher Kaczor.

[little2add]

On 10/28/2023 at 4:51 PM, Anastasia13 said:

to protect a pregnant mother’s life

Exception: To Save the Life of the Mother

Author: Rev. E. M. Robinson, O. P.

ALL About Issues June-July 1991, p. 29

EXCEPTION: TO SAVE THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER by Rev. E. M. Robinson, O.P.; copyright 1991

"Never and in no case has the Church taught that the life of the child must be preferred to that of the mother. It is erroneous to put the question with this alternative: either the life of the child or that of the mother. No, neither the life of the mother nor that of the child can be subjected to direct suppression. In the one case as in the other, there can be but one obligation: to make every effort to save the lives of both, of the mother and the child." (Pope Pius XII, Allocution to the Association of Large Families, AAS (1951), XLIII, p. 855.)

RESTRICTIONS AGAINST abortion, both moral and legal, are written in such a way that sometimes a faulty reason is offered, or at least presumed, for the exception which entitles this article. In some instances the child is looked upon as an unjust aggressor. In other cases the child's right to life is considered to be inferior to the mother's right to life. A further problem arises in the assumption that there are medically warranted situations in which the mother's life can be saved only by a direct attack upon the child-to kill the child "in order to save the mother's life."

The only ethically justified understanding of this much-celebrated exception shows that it is not an exception at all! The classical example of an ectopic pregnancy or the example of the cancerous uterus, which allow the surgeon, ethically, to remove the woman's damaged reproductive organs in order to save her life, should not be used as examples of abortion, even though a baby's life is terminated in the progress.

It is true that early medical terminology speaks of natural miscarriage as abortion, but it does not refer to the above examples by the name of abortion. In the case of the uterus, the usual name hysterectomy would be used, and the pregnancy would be noted in the pathology report. Both medically and legally, for the purposes of discussion, abortion is a direct and fatal attack upon the life of an unborn offspring of human parentage.

It becomes necessary now to see why a medical procedure, such as the excision of a cancerous, pregnant uterus, is sometimes ethically permissible and should not be called an abortion.

What is involved here are two individuals, the mother and her child, having equal, inalienable rights to continue living. If it can be established that the mother's life demands the removal of the diseased uterus, she has a right to this necessary means of preserving her own life. The surgical removal is not a direct attack upon the child, either by intention or by the nature of the procedure. Therefore, it should not be called an abortion.

The ethical principle governing this, and similar cases, is a long-standing one called the principle of double-effect. It is explained in this way: an action which terminates in two effects, one good and one evil, may be undertaken if the action, by its nature, is not evil, and if the good end is primarily intended and the first to be executed, and if the good effect is at least equal to the evil effect, and if the action is necessary and is the least harmful means for attaining the good effect. The excision of the diseased uterus is immediately necessary and is the minimum that is required to save the life of the mother. The good and evil effects are equal in magnitude, since both mother and child, as human beings, have identical rights to life. In such instances there is said to be a conflict of rights, but not a denial of the rights of either party.

One faulty assumption which is sometimes intended by the so-called exception to the prohibition of abortion claims that the child is an unjust aggressor and to kill the child would be a matter of justifiable self- defense. There is no sense in which the child can be called unjust, since this is a moral concept and requires evil intention on the part of the actor. As for being an aggressor, the child is not responsible for being in the uterus and is not, either by his or her presence or activity, injuring the mother. In the previous case, for example, it is not because of the pregnancy that the uterus is being removed.

In the present state of obstetrics there is no justification for a direct attack on the child's life as a means of saving the mother's. It is true that pregnancy may aggravate certain conditions of maternal ill-health and even be the cause of other physiological upsets in the mother. Yet, through adequate management by the obstetrician, especially in suitable health care facilities, the pregnancy need not be an unsurmountable obstacle to the mother's continued living and eventual survival. But, even if this were not so, the child may never be killed on the pretext of saving the mother's life. The human dignity of each individual does not permit that one human being may be sacrificed even to save the life of another.

In another faulty assumption, the child's right to life is said to be inferior to that of his or her mother's. From the viewpoint of existentialism, which seems to be the basis of this assumption, the greatest good is experience. The mother, experienced from many years of living, is "worth" more than the inexperienced child. But, even here, it is not the value of human rights which is being compared, but something extraneous to the right to life. Certainly, experience gained by living is something to be treasured, but it cannot be equated in value with the right to continue living!

The enactment of laws prohibiting abortion should be carefully formulated whenever the law provides the clause: "except in order to save the life of the mother." If abortion were understood in the sense stated above, there would be no need to use the exception clause. Moral and medical prudence would be sufficient, as it has been in past centuries, to guide the doctor in the performance of his duties. The pro-life people who do not accept the use of that clause could be heartened in their moral stance when the clause is used, if it clearly states that it includes only the so-called "indirect abortion," meaning, of course, cases similar to those considered above, which are conformable with the ethical principle of double-effect. These persons are correct in fearing that the clause, as stated in the title of this article, could be used to justify a direct attack upon the life of the child as a supposedly valid means of saving the mother's life. In this day of presumed "options," additional care must be taken to insure the complete and accurate legal recognition of each individual human being's right to life. In phrasing the prohibition against abortion, it would be wise to define abortion as the direct and willful killing of an unborn offspring of human parentage from the time of fertilization. To this should be added that the prohibition does not include necessary surgical procedure on the mother's body whose primary and direct purpose is to prevent her death.

[fides' Jack]

The time is coming when people will recognize the fallacy of such thinking - to kill the child in order to save the mother...  how sad....

The child is not assured of salvation, and will be impossible to baptize prior to an abortion procedure.  The mother can be assured of salvation, and only needs to be provided with sacraments.  

More than that, the fact women love themselves so much that they would give up their own child's life to save themselves speaks volumes about our society today.  "For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: Blessed are the barren and the wombs that have not borne and the paps that have not given smell of elderberries."  [Luke 23:29]  Sound familiar?

But even more than that, everyone on this site should be familiar with the science which states pretty clearly there is never a reason to perform an abortion to save the mother.  There are, very occasionally, cases in which it is clear the baby cannot survive (such as ectopic pregnancies), and it is necessary to perform a surgery on the mother which doesn't directly kill the baby but the baby does die as a result of it.  That's a different issue, and in any cases where it is possible, the baby should be baptized.

On 10/29/2023 at 6:08 PM, little2add said:

In the present state of obstetrics there is no justification for a direct attack on the child's life as a means of saving the mother's. It is true that pregnancy may aggravate certain conditions of maternal ill-health and even be the cause of other physiological upsets in the mother. Yet, through adequate management by the obstetrician, especially in suitable health care facilities, the pregnancy need not be an unsurmountable obstacle to the mother's continued living and eventual survival. But, even if this were not so, the child may never be killed on the pretext of saving the mother's life. The human dignity of each individual does not permit that one human being may be sacrificed even to save the life of another.

Exactly.

On 10/29/2023 at 4:48 AM, BarbTherese said:

I might be wrong, but abortion is legitimate to a Catholic woman when the pregnancy puts her life at real risk.

Yes, you are wrong.  Please see below, as this is a grave error.

On 10/29/2023 at 4:37 PM, tinytherese said:

https://www.catholic.com/qa/whats-the-difference-between-direct-and-indirect-abortion

https://www.catholic.com/qa/ectopic-pregnancy-and-double-effect

For more information on the specific means of these procedures, I recommend reading Life Issues, Medical Choices: Questions and Answers for Catholics by Janet E. Smith and Christopher Kaczor.

And a very small section of the linked material:

Quote

Moral actions that produce two effects need to be evaluated under the Catholic understanding of the principle of double effect:

The action must be either morally good or neutral.

The bad effect must not be the means by which the good effect is achieved.

The intention must be the achieving of only the good effect; the bad effect can in no way be intended and must be avoided if possible.

The good effect must be at least equivalent in proportion to the bad effect.

Emphasis mine.  Abortion always breaks the 1st point, and therefore is always wrong.  Abortion is not an "effect", but an action in and of itself.  It is always a bad action.  And if it were an effect, it would then break the 2nd point.  And even if you somehow managed to escape that moral depravity, it would still break the 4th point - unless you consider the life of the baby to be less than the life of the mother (which is contrary to Catholic teaching).  So no, abortion is never allowable, even to save the life of the mother.

Edited October 31, 2023 by fides' Jack

[BarbTherese]

 

Quote

 

  On 10/29/2023 at 9:18 PM, BarbTherese said:

I might be wrong, but abortion is legitimate to a Catholic woman when the pregnancy puts her life at real risk.

 

Yes, you are wrong.  Please see below, as this is a grave error.

THANK YOU

On 10/30/2023 at 10:38 AM, little2add said:

Exception: To Save the Life of the Mother

Author: Rev. E. M. Robinson, O. P.

ALL About Issues June-July 1991, p. 29

EXCEPTION: TO SAVE THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER by Rev. E. M. Robinson, O.P.; copyright 1991

"Never and in no case has the Church taught that the life of the child must be preferred to that of the mother. It is erroneous to put the question with this alternative: either the life of the child or that of the mother. No, neither the life of the mother nor that of the child can be subjected to direct suppression. In the one case as in the other, there can be but one obligation: to make every effort to save the lives of both, of the mother and the child." (Pope Pius XII, Allocution to the Association of Large Families, AAS (1951), XLIII, p. 855.)

RESTRICTIONS AGAINST abortion, both moral and legal, are written in such a way that sometimes a faulty reason is offered, or at least presumed, for the exception which entitles this article. In some instances the child is looked upon as an unjust aggressor. In other cases the child's right to life is considered to be inferior to the mother's right to life. A further problem arises in the assumption that there are medically warranted situations in which the mother's life can be saved only by a direct attack upon the child-to kill the child "in order to save the mother's life."

The only ethically justified understanding of this much-celebrated exception shows that it is not an exception at all! The classical example of an ectopic pregnancy or the example of the cancerous uterus, which allow the surgeon, ethically, to remove the woman's damaged reproductive organs in order to save her life, should not be used as examples of abortion, even though a baby's life is terminated in the progress.

It is true that early medical terminology speaks of natural miscarriage as abortion, but it does not refer to the above examples by the name of abortion. In the case of the uterus, the usual name hysterectomy would be used, and the pregnancy would be noted in the pathology report. Both medically and legally, for the purposes of discussion, abortion is a direct and fatal attack upon the life of an unborn offspring of human parentage.

It becomes necessary now to see why a medical procedure, such as the excision of a cancerous, pregnant uterus, is sometimes ethically permissible and should not be called an abortion.

What is involved here are two individuals, the mother and her child, having equal, inalienable rights to continue living. If it can be established that the mother's life demands the removal of the diseased uterus, she has a right to this necessary means of preserving her own life. The surgical removal is not a direct attack upon the child, either by intention or by the nature of the procedure. Therefore, it should not be called an abortion.

The ethical principle governing this, and similar cases, is a long-standing one called the principle of double-effect. It is explained in this way: an action which terminates in two effects, one good and one evil, may be undertaken if the action, by its nature, is not evil, and if the good end is primarily intended and the first to be executed, and if the good effect is at least equal to the evil effect, and if the action is necessary and is the least harmful means for attaining the good effect. The excision of the diseased uterus is immediately necessary and is the minimum that is required to save the life of the mother. The good and evil effects are equal in magnitude, since both mother and child, as human beings, have identical rights to life. In such instances there is said to be a conflict of rights, but not a denial of the rights of either party.

One faulty assumption which is sometimes intended by the so-called exception to the prohibition of abortion claims that the child is an unjust aggressor and to kill the child would be a matter of justifiable self- defense. There is no sense in which the child can be called unjust, since this is a moral concept and requires evil intention on the part of the actor. As for being an aggressor, the child is not responsible for being in the uterus and is not, either by his or her presence or activity, injuring the mother. In the previous case, for example, it is not because of the pregnancy that the uterus is being removed.

In the present state of obstetrics there is no justification for a direct attack on the child's life as a means of saving the mother's. It is true that pregnancy may aggravate certain conditions of maternal ill-health and even be the cause of other physiological upsets in the mother. Yet, through adequate management by the obstetrician, especially in suitable health care facilities, the pregnancy need not be an unsurmountable obstacle to the mother's continued living and eventual survival. But, even if this were not so, the child may never be killed on the pretext of saving the mother's life. The human dignity of each individual does not permit that one human being may be sacrificed even to save the life of another.

In another faulty assumption, the child's right to life is said to be inferior to that of his or her mother's. From the viewpoint of existentialism, which seems to be the basis of this assumption, the greatest good is experience. The mother, experienced from many years of living, is "worth" more than the inexperienced child. But, even here, it is not the value of human rights which is being compared, but something extraneous to the right to life. Certainly, experience gained by living is something to be treasured, but it cannot be equated in value with the right to continue living!

The enactment of laws prohibiting abortion should be carefully formulated whenever the law provides the clause: "except in order to save the life of the mother." If abortion were understood in the sense stated above, there would be no need to use the exception clause. Moral and medical prudence would be sufficient, as it has been in past centuries, to guide the doctor in the performance of his duties. The pro-life people who do not accept the use of that clause could be heartened in their moral stance when the clause is used, if it clearly states that it includes only the so-called "indirect abortion," meaning, of course, cases similar to those considered above, which are conformable with the ethical principle of double-effect. These persons are correct in fearing that the clause, as stated in the title of this article, could be used to justify a direct attack upon the life of the child as a supposedly valid means of saving the mother's life. In this day of presumed "options," additional care must be taken to insure the complete and accurate legal recognition of each individual human being's right to life. In phrasing the prohibition against abortion, it would be wise to define abortion as the direct and willful killing of an unborn offspring of human parentage from the time of fertilization. To this should be added that the prohibition does not include necessary surgical procedure on the mother's body whose primary and direct purpose is to prevent her death.

 

[fides' Jack]

On 11/1/2023 at 11:43 PM, BarbTherese said:

THANK YOU

I apologize if my words seemed too harsh.

[tinytherese]

On 10/31/2023 at 4:12 PM, fides' Jack said:

The time is coming when people will recognize the fallacy of such thinking - to kill the child in order to save the mother...  how sad....

The child is not assured of salvation, and will be impossible to baptize prior to an abortion procedure.  The mother can be assured of salvation, and only needs to be provided with sacraments.  

More than that, the fact women love themselves so much that they would give up their own child's life to save themselves speaks volumes about our society today.  "For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: Blessed are the barren and the wombs that have not borne and the paps that have not given smell of elderberries."  [Luke 23:29]  Sound familiar?

But even more than that, everyone on this site should be familiar with the science which states pretty clearly there is never a reason to perform an abortion to save the mother.  There are, very occasionally, cases in which it is clear the baby cannot survive (such as ectopic pregnancies), and it is necessary to perform a surgery on the mother which doesn't directly kill the baby but the baby does die as a result of it.  That's a different issue, and in any cases where it is possible, the baby should be baptized.

Exactly.

Yes, you are wrong.  Please see below, as this is a grave error.

And a very small section of the linked material:

Emphasis mine.  Abortion always breaks the 1st point, and therefore is always wrong.  Abortion is not an "effect", but an action in and of itself.  It is always a bad action.  And if it were an effect, it would then break the 2nd point.  And even if you somehow managed to escape that moral depravity, it would still break the 4th point - unless you consider the life of the baby to be less than the life of the mother (which is contrary to Catholic teaching).  So no, abortion is never allowable, even to save the life of the mother.

There are situations though, like ectopic pregnancies where both the mother and baby will die if no treatment is done. The treatment available does not intend to kill the baby, but the baby dies as an unavoidable result. Hence the term "indirect abortion". If the only two options that science can give in a situation is both dying or one surviving, which would you choose?

That's different from a direct abortion, where both the mother and baby could have lived, but one is killed on purpose. The pro-choice crowd saying abortions for the health of the mother is vague. I've heard that it could even be stretched to saying that she'll have a headache if she doesn't abort. That's clearly murder.

 

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251941/ectopic-pregnancies-miscarriage-abortion-never-necessary-these-doctors-say

Ectopic pregnancies, miscarriage: Abortion ‘never necessary,’ these doctors say 

By Katie Yoder

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 3, 2022 / 04:00 am

Abortion — a procedure with the sole or primary intent and purpose of ending human life in the womb — is never medically necessary, according to medical experts.

Three doctors spoke with CNA about the necessity of abortion, or lack of it, following the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. Following that decision, several myths circulated its impact, including the claim that women will die without access to abortion in cases of ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and other dangerous situations.

In these situations, medical experts either call abortion irrelevant or emphasize that women can choose life-affirming alternatives. 

Abortion, they say, is “never necessary” while caring for both mother and baby. Understanding this begins with understanding what abortion is — and is not.

What is “abortion”?

Procedures used to perform abortion are not abortions in and of themselves. The definition of abortion includes intent and purpose.

Dr. Kathleen Raviele, an OB-GYN and the former president of the Catholic Medical Association, the largest association of Catholic individuals in health care, called abortion a “direct attack on an embryo or fetus by surgery or chemicals with the intention of ending the life of the baby.”

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a radiology specialist and a senior fellow with The Catholic Association, an organization dedicated to defending religious liberty, life, and the Church in the public square, also pointed to the importance of intent.

Abortion, she said, “colloquially means the purposeful ending of a human life.”

Dr. Donna Harrison, an OB-GYN and the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), cited the definition that she said is used by a majority of state laws. 

Abortion, or elective abortion, here, “is defined as any drug, device or procedure used to terminate a pregnancy for the primary purpose of ensuring the death of the human being in utero before, during, or in the process of separation of the mother and her embryo or fetus,” she said.  

Is abortion ever necessary to save a woman’s life?

Christie said that abortion, defined as the purposeful ending of a human life, is “never medically necessary.” 

“In certain circumstances, lifesaving treatment that involves the early interruption of a pregnancy may be indicated,” she said. “In this case, the intent is not to end the life of the baby but to save the mother, and this intent is manifest in the fact that a physician would make every effort to preserve the life of a preterm baby where possible.”

Likewise, Raviele stressed that an abortion “is never necessary to save the life of the mother.” And, she added, a large majority of abortions are “for convenience” rather than life-threatening situations.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, just 7% of women cited their physical health or the problems affecting the health of their unborn baby as their “most important reason” for an abortion in 2004. 

For her part, Harrison called attention to the difference between elective abortions — or abortions induced for no medical reason — and the separation of the mother and her unborn child to save the mother’s life.

“It's not semantics. It's human rights,” she said. “It's the difference between doctors making difficult decisions to save both patients if possible or at least to save one as compared to abortion providers taking it upon themselves to end the life of their most vulnerable patient for no medical reason.”

Do women need abortion for ectopic pregnancies?

Ectopic pregnancies occur when an embryo implants outside the uterus or womb, usually in one of the fallopian tubes. Once implanted, the embryo’s growth is likely to rupture the fallopian tube. 

Ectopic pregnancies are life-threatening for the mother and the baby’s chance of survival is highly unlikely. While relatively rare, the rate of ectopic pregnancies may be as high as 2% of all U.S. pregnancies, according to data available from the CDC. 

Raviele said that, by the time an ectopic pregnancy has been identified, the unborn baby is dead in 90% of the cases. In this situation, any of the three treatments currently available — salpingectomy, linear salpingostomy, or treatment with methotrexate — are allowed, she said. 

A 2014 article published by the Catholic Health Association of the United States describes these treatments.

A salpingectomy is a surgical procedure where a doctor partially or entirely removes the fallopian tube housing the embryo. With a salpingostomy, the doctor cuts into the fallopian tube and removes invasive trophoblastic cells and damaged tubal tissue, which, in the process, also removes the embryo. 

Methotrexate, a drug commonly used to treat cancer, prevents trophoblastic cells (cells that help with embryo implantation and make up a part of the placenta) from continuing to divide and stops the growth of the embryo.

If the unborn baby is alive, Raviele pointed to the option of a salpingectomy.

“If the criteria are present that would indicate a live embryo is present … then removal of the tube with the embryo present in it is moral by the Principle of Double Effect,” Raviele said. “Your intention is to remove the damaged tube, not to kill the baby.”

A 2018 article co-written by Harrison explains this Principle of Double Effect, found in Catholic moral theology and often attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, who drew from Aristotle.

“In general, this principle asserts that an action directed toward a good end (e.g., a medical intervention designed to save the life of the mother) can be licitly conducted, even when this action has an unavoidable secondary effect that is not good (e.g., the death of the fetus),” Harrison wrote with Maureen L. Condic, an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the University of Utah school of medicine.

Three criteria must be met: The act itself must not be unethical; the intention must be to achieve the good effect and not the bad effect, and the good effect must outweigh or at least equal the bad effect in ethical gravity. 

The article adds that a “central requirement” of the principle is that the bad effect, or the baby’s death, cannot be how the good effect is achieved.

Harrison told CNA that the treatment for ectopic pregnancy has nothing to do with abortion, calling them “completely different procedures.” 

“While abortion aims to end the life of the fetus or embryo, treating an ectopic pregnancy requires removing the embryo through surgery (salpingostomy) or medication to save the mother's life, with the death of the preborn child being a tragic but inevitable side effect,” she said.

Do women need abortion for miscarriages?

Roughly 10-25% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to CDC estimates. Raviele said that a woman generally begins bleeding, indicating that she is going to miscarry, after her baby has already died. 

“If an ultrasound is done and detects a fetal demise but the patient is not bleeding, it is considered a missed ab,” she said, referring to a “missed abortion” where the baby is dead but remains inside of the mother. “If she does not pass the products of conception in a reasonable length of time, a D&C [dilation and curettage] may be necessary or she may be given misoprostol to facilitate contractions.”

While D&C or misoprostol can be used in abortions, they are not considered abortions in this case, because the baby is already dead.

Harrison added: “In a miscarriage, the baby has already died of natural causes, and the aim of any procedure to treat the miscarriage is to help the woman's body pass the baby and any other pregnancy tissue.” 

In contrast, with an elective abortion, “the baby is alive, and the goal of the procedure is to end its life,” she said.

Do women need abortion for other life-threatening situations?

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) says that women need abortion in certain cases to avoid death — or that certain complications or conditions “may be so severe that abortion is the only measure to preserve a woman’s health or save her life.”

In response, Raviele said that ACOG is “contributing to misinformation” and described what would happen in a life-threatening situation. 

“If the woman has a serious complication of pregnancy and has to be delivered, you would either induce labor (pre-eclampsia or a cardiac condition) or you would do an emergency cesarean section to save both the mother and the baby,” she said, emphasizing that babies can survive outside the womb as early as 22 weeks. 

“You never have to kill the baby to save the mother,” she concluded. “We try to save both.”

Here, Harrison said, “ACOG is conflating different old definitions of abortion to deliberately obscure the fact that an elective abortion is specifically designed to end the life of the human being in the womb for no medical reason.”

She repeatedly stressed that the separation of a mother and her unborn baby to save the mother’s life is not the same as an elective abortion. 

“Sometimes, women face life-threatening complications … in which the only way to save their lives is to separate them from their preborn children,” she said, providing the examples of ectopic pregnancy, severe preeclampsia, chorioamnionitis, and HELLP syndrome.

“In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, this involves removing the embryo from the woman's fallopian tube,” she said. “In the case of the other complications listed, it involves prematurely inducing labor or performing a C-section.

These “lifesaving procedures” are not abortions, she said, because “they do not have as their primary purpose to kill the preborn child in the process.”

“In fact, in many cases, the added goal of killing the child would prove counterproductive if the woman is facing a health emergency, as it takes up to several days to prep the mother's cervix for a late-term abortion, whereas a C-section can be completed in less than 30 minutes,” she added.

What does the Catholic Church say about abortion?

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is “never permitted,” according to the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). 

The U.S. bishops go on to define abortion as the “directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus,” or a baby who can survive outside the womb. 

A Catholic woman is allowed to undergo life-saving treatment — even if it means that her unborn baby will die indirectly as a result of that treatment, according to the directives. The intention and action, in that case, are to save the mother’s life. It is not to end her baby’s life through abortion.

“Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child,” the directives read.