Abortion hypothetical

[2WhomShallWeGo]

One further small note. We don't bulldoze buildings we think might have people inside. We don't kill bodies we think might have souls inside. Even if the church was somehow totally unclear on this specific issue. It is still covered by everything she has to say with regard to murder. Even if ensoulment where in question.

 

[WarriorAngel]

Some day. There are always amazing medical advances.




One hour wasn't a hard and fast rule. IIRC, Fr. Ripperger (professor of dogmatic and moral theology at the FSSP seminary in the US) said a person should be "dead" for at least three hours before organs can be harvested.

They harvest organs while the person is 'alive'.
A subject i really cannot get into - because it bothers me - being my nephew was 'harvested'.

Like I said, we don't really know how long the soul hangs around. What you did certainly can't hurt. I was just saying you can't baptize a miscarried child after they've been dead a week, since it's too late. Of course, it may turn out that unbaptized infants go to Heaven instead of Limbo, Limbo is logical but not dogmatic. You did what you could and that's what's important. I'm sure you will see your little one some day.

I posted the hymn for the feast of the Holy innocents on my facebook on that day. I love the image of the infant martyrs playing with their palms and crowns under the altar. Children are precious to God.

Thanks.

 

[Basil the Great]

The Church's age-old opposition to all abortions does make sense to me, even though it is extremely difficult to live by in the situation we have described herein. What bothers me most is that some pro-lifers insist that the mother's life can never be saved by aborting the child. While I am no doctor, I imagine that there must be a few rare circumstances in which the baby is literally killing the mother.

 

[Davidnic]

Re: fallopian tubes

Actually, we also covered this today in class - you cannot remove the tube unless the tube has already ruptured and is haemorrhaging. Removing the tube when everything is fine and dandy is considered a direct abortion.

If anyone wants the break down of double effect for these two scenarios, I can write them out later.

Actually if you could look over this: link

The link pretty much agrees with what I learned and I am interested to see how it compares to what you discussed today since some moral theologians have slightly different ways of looking at it.

If you don't want to break it all down here, feel free to send me a PM whenever you get the time.

I know the link pretty much agrees with what my professors said, but I am always interested as to how it gets presented in different moral theology classes.

 

[Antisock]

Or science if you chooses to do so

You don't get the very simple point. God can't be put in a box any more than He can be understood by you. He said to not murder. Just as simple.

 

[2WhomShallWeGo]

The Church's age-old opposition to all abortions does make sense to me, even though it is extremely difficult to live by in the situation we have described herein. What bothers me most is that some pro-lifers insist that the mother's life can never be saved by aborting the child. While I am no doctor, I imagine that there must be a few rare circumstances in which the baby is literally killing the mother.

Morally speaking that wouldn't matter unless you could establish it was intentional.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Re: fallopian tubes

Actually, we also covered this today in class - you cannot remove the tube unless the tube has already ruptured and is haemorrhaging. Removing the tube when everything is fine and dandy is considered a direct abortion.

If anyone wants the break down of double effect for these two scenarios, I can write them out later.

Right, because if everything is fine and dandy you can't be operating on it -- the same reason you can't get a boob job or sterilization -- the principle of conservation of being (bodily integrity). The only reason you would be cutting out a piece of healthy tube that contains the child is to kill it. Therecan be no pre-emptive strikes here.

Sounds like a good and orthodox professor. I wish they were all like that.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

They harvest organs while the person is 'alive'.
A subject i really cannot get into - because it bothers me - being my nephew was 'harvested'.

Yeah, heopened my eyes to that fact. I just signed my driver's license because I was just thinking that I donate blood, plasma and marrow, why not organs after I die? But Fr. Ripperger said if you do that, you can be complicit in your own murder. I haven't taken it off yet but I intend to when I renew my license this year for that reason. I don't want to seem cold-hearted but neither do I want to be a participant in a sin like that.

That was also where I learned the MMR (and others) vaccine is grown in aborted fetal tissue. Yet another reason not to vaccinate.

 

[Basil the Great]

Oh my, I guess we do learn something new almost every day. I have not heard that before re: how vaccines are grown.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

But, I'm still praying for some understanding on why the Church would demand it be such.

For the record, it's not the Church which "demand it be such", prohibition of abortion is not a Church law, it's part of the Natural Law which means that it comes from God and is knowable even without the Church, by the light of natural reason.

It's more science than dogma.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

Oh my, I guess we do learn something new almost every day. I have not heard that before re: how vaccines are grown.

Certain vaccines. Some brands are grown with animal cells, some with human cells. You have to actually ask to find out what brand you are being given.

News report of the Vatican's condemnation

Actual Vatican letter text

PDF of brands that use fetal cell lines

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

No killing the child is killing it delivering is delivering. That is pretty simple.

You cannot induce labor prior to the age of viability, that is an abortion.

 

[PilgrimToChrist]

I posted the hymn for the feast of the Holy innocents on my facebook on that day. I love the image of the infant martyrs playing with their palms and crowns under the altar. Children are precious to God.

I was on my Kindle at work earlier so I couldn't post this.

If any of you are unfamiliar with the Ambrosian hymn for the Fast of the Holy Innocents:

Salvete, flores Martyrum
Quos lucis ipso in limine
Christi insecutor sustulit
Ceu turbo nascentes rosas.

Vos prima Christi victima,
Grex immolatorum tener
Aram ante ipsam simplices
Palma et coronis luditis.

Gloria tibi, Domine,
Qui natus es de Virgine,
Cum Patre, et Sancto Spiritu,
In sepiterna saecula.

The loose, poetic translation in my Breviary takes it as such:

All hail! ye infant martyr flowers
Cut off in life's first dawning hours,
As rosebuds snapt in tempest strife
When Herod sought your Savior's life

You, tender flock of Christ, we sing
First victims slain for Christ your King,
Beneath the altar's heavenly ray
With martyr palms and crowns ye play.

All honor, praise and glory be,
O Jesus, Virgin-born, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To Father, and to Paraclete.
Amen.

The bolded phrase ("Aram ante ipsam simplices / Palma et coronis luditis.") literally translates to "Altar before very simply / Palms and crowns play" or "Simply (or, innocently) before the very altar / with palms and crowns [ye] play".

 

[benedictaoo]

You cannot induce labor prior to the age of viability, that is an abortion.

When the mother is in eminent danger of death, it is licit over that of an abortion becuase of the intent.

 

[benedictaoo]

What about the other children she would have had if you had let the mother live? Are they just out of luck?

About as out of luck as any other child who ever lost a parent.

We act like no child ever lost a parent and lived to tell about it.

I'm not down paying it at all but this is what we call life.

Sometimes life throw us all curve balls and as Christians we know, no matter what happens, it's all in God's hands. We have to trust in His will.

Catholics know that mothers who die in child birth or in a situations like this (dieing for another) are Saints in heaven, so the mother can interceded for her children from heaven.

We call this faith.

Jesus said to us, and I am not understanding why so many Catholics in this thread and Christians in general are have trouble with this concept, but Jesus said, No greater love then this, to lay down ones life...

The bible also says, love covers a multitude of sin...

This is powerful stuff but it requires us to trust and believe, to have FAITH.

These type things are sad and tragic from our end of looking at it- and no one in his/her right mind would wish for this to happen, but with God, He works for the good for those who love Him.

He can bring good out of this for the children.

Also, if these scenarios doesn't teach us that this life is nothing but a valley of tears anyway... and that this is not our true home for any of us and what we should be concerned with is not saving this life so much but preserving ourselves for the life to come... IOW, we should not put all our eggs in this basket. This life sucks.

Jesus also said, what does it gain for you to gain the world but to lose your soul? And he who seeks to save their life, will lose it- those who give it up, will save it.

This was not to be just words we read on a page- we LIVE it day in and day out. Life is fallen and broken and it's suffering and problems and we won't get through it if we lack faith and trust in God's will and love for us.

 

[benedictaoo]

I imagine that there must be a few rare circumstances in which the baby is literally killing the mother.

So, the baby plotted and schemed to kill the mother?

You see, it's all in how we view things. How we look at a baby in the womb.

This is the entire problem, we look at the baby as if it is some unjust aggressor that broke in our house and is trying to kill us. Like it is evil and is the enemy or culprit.

No. The baby is just as much as a victim in this as the mother if not more so since he didn't ask to be conceived. It's not the baby's fault he is here in the womb- it's the parents of the child who brought it into existence and they need to take the FULL responsibility for this life-- if we are passing blame, that is.

We simply, can not place the life of the unborn as less valuable just becuase it is inside the womb and lacks full physical development.

This "survival of the fittest" mentality is whack.

What if we only had a limited amount of a vaccine to prevent an outbreak of a deadly virus... who do we choose to give it to? Do we deny the elderly becuase they are close to death anyways?

Who gets to play God and pick and choose life?

 

[JimR-OCDS]

2WhomShallWeGo

No killing the child is killing it delivering is delivering.

Delivering a healthy pre-viable fetus is killing it, no two ways around it.
A previable fetus can not survive induced labor and never outside the womb.

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

When the mother is in eminent danger of death, it is licit over that of an abortion becuase of the intent.

No it is not. Inducing labor on a healthy pre-viable fetus, regardless of the reasons, is an abortion in the eyes of the Church.


Sorry, no way around this and you know I've tried.


Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

benedictaoo

So, the baby plotted and schemed to kill the mother?

That's using simplistic rhetoric to explain a complex situation.

The fetus has no choice in what is causing the pregnancy complications anymore than the mother has.

However, the pregnancy is killing the mother and as long as the pregnancy continues, it will kill the mother.

You see, it's all in how we view things. How we look at a baby in the womb.

But while looking at the fetus in the womb we must also look at the mother.

This is the entire problem, we look at the baby as if it is some unjust aggressor that broke in our house and is trying to kill us. Like it is evil and is the enemy or culprit.

No one viewed it that way. When the mother showed up at the hospital, the doctors worked to save both. They didn't view the fetus as an agressor, but saw that the pregnancy was going to take the mother's life if they didn't terminate it.

We simply, can not place the life of the unborn as less valuable just becuase it is inside the womb and lacks full physical development.

But its beyond that, the fetus is not going to survive, because the mother is going to die. At this point, its either save one, or let both die. The Church's position, which I and many people have a problem with, is that we must let the mother die.

This "survival of the fittest" mentality is whack.

Actually its in the laws of nature.

Who gets to play God and pick and choose life?

God gives us the ability to reason in order to make choices that are difficult, but logically sound.

Jim

 

[benedictaoo]

Jim, what is simplistic rhetoric is saying the baby is literally killing the mother- No it is not!

Look, at the end of the day, you have a serious moral dilemma on your hands. You either believe the baby is equal in dignity as the mother or you don't.

You will not face up to it but you are saying that the mother's life has a greater value and dignity and a life in the womb is expendable.

The bottom line is this, it's just not Catholic, Jim. The Church for 2000 years never said we can place a value on anyones life as being more important then another ones.

It really does boil down to people thinking a baby in the womb is expendable becuase it's out of sight, out of mind. becuase they do not walk and talk- we think they are less valuable people when they are just people who have no say in anything.

it's sad and why abortion is so prevalent in the US and in Europe. People just think becuase they are in utero and developing, their life is less valuable than the mother's.