Poll: Rape and Abortion - The Catholic Viewpoint

To NYJ:

Seriously, I think it would depend on the child. Some girls at nine have a physically mature body. Some do not; just because the girl is menstruating at that age doesn't mean her body is ready to carry a baby. She still has a LOT of growing to do, and unless you can insure she will abide by a proper diet, you are risking her bone and teeth development.

Is she emotionally capable of caring for herself during a pregnancy?

A woman who is raped, whatever the age, needs immediate counseling. Can she survive the incredible, emotional upheaval of not only the pregnancy itself, but knowing it is the product of such a violation?

NYJ, in the perfect set of circumstances, a good marriage, a supportive husband, a caring family, a good doctor, pregnancy is stressful. If you add health problems to that, you complicate matters. If you add psychological problems to it, you magnify everything.

I watched a talk show where a woman had been raped and became pregnant. Her rapist was captured, convicted, and sentenced to prison. She gave the child up for adoption. When the child turned 18, she expressed an interest in contacting her birth mother. The birth mother considered it, until she found out the girl also wanted to contact the birth FATHER. The girl understood that she was the result of a rape, and that her father was in prison. But the birth mother was horribly traumatized by the IDEA that the girl wanted to contact the man who had assaulted her mother. The woman feared that somehow, the man would eventually be able to find her again, and she was completely paralyzed by the idea.

I'm not in a place to decide. All I can say is that the potential mother needs a great deal of counseling, prayer, and incredibly loving support.


Peace be with you,
~VOW

It would truly be horrible to be in that situation, but I think it comes down to the fact of an abortion being murder in any case.

Originally posted by nyj

If you were the parent in this situation, what would you choose?

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Good Heavens, can you think of a tougher question?  I can honestly say that I haven't the slightest clue what I would do as a parent in this situation.

Michelle

To Souljah:

I can't make the singular determination of "murder" when you are jeopardizing the emotional and physical health of a child. The nine-year-old body is simply not physically capable of carrying a healthy pregnancy to term. The risk of prematurity is horrendously increased the younger the mother's age.

The EMOTIONAL violation of a rape is beyond understanding, and asking someone to live every single moment reliving the violation while pregnant is something I don't want to be responsible for. Pardon my sexist reasoning, but this is one case where I don't think a man could really grasp the severity of the situation.

I've been pregnant twice; both times, the babies were very wanted. And it was ROUGH. I was under a great deal of emotional stress for the first pregnancy, and I was put on bed rest for the last month.


Peace be with you,
~VOW

To NYJ:

Don't EVER make a blanket statement that one-month prematurity is not a problem! You need to go check out some stats!

The complications of prematurity are far too many to list here, but one of the major ones is the development of the lungs. The tissues have not had enough time to develop fully, and the child does not get enough oxygen. The NICU can increase the percentage of oxygen to 100%, after that, the PRESSURE is increased, to try to get enough oxygen in the baby. Eventually it can reach a point where the pressure is so high, the baby's lungs rupture.

Preemies have a problem with bleeding, too. Everything can be progressing nicely, and then the baby can develop an intracranial bleed. After that, nothing can be done, and the child will most likely die. Should the child survive, there will be massive brain damage, resulting in retardation and/or cerebral palsy.

With each week of prematurity increases the risks to the baby. For each success story touted in the media, who knows how many parents are faced with heartbreak?

A co-worker lost a child about a year ago. She delivered premature twins, and the larger baby, who started out so well, died from an intracranial bleed.

The younger the mother, the greater the risks for pre-eclampsia, and full-blown toxemia. The blood pressure increases and increases, which can cause a stroke or death to the mother. The only guaranteed treatment is immediate delivery.

I delivered my son five weeks early. He was rushed to NICU from the delivery room because his lungs were full of fluid. If you are familiar with Apgar scores, he was only a "4" at birth. Since he weighed over eight pounds, it wasn't SIZE that affected him, it was DEVELOPMENT.

He also stayed orange for the first four months. He was subjected to countless tests for his liver development, and when the jaundice later resolved itself, it was simply attributed to his prematurity.

A baby belongs in the womb for nine months. Modern medicine has made great progress in the handling of prematurity, but it can no way even come close to the original plan of God.



Peace,
~VOW

VOW-

Perhaps I couldnt understand it fully, but I ask you, which do you KILL...the baby or the nine year old?

Shouldn't we leave it up to the Lord?

To Souljah:

My point is that you could very well end up killing BOTH the baby and the nine-year-old!

That's why I cannot make a blanket pronouncement. This is something you can't make a single statement and expect it to apply. Did you know that nine-year-olds can and do commit suicide?

Who is going to stay with that nine-year-old 24/7, to tell her she can't go rollerblading, or ride her bicycle with no hands on the handlebars, or tell her to eat all her vegetables and give up soda pop? Who is going to watch her to see if she suffers a convulsion?

This is a ROUGH question, with a tremendous amount of REALITY to consider.


Peace,
~VOW

To NYJ:

one month premature infant is no longer a problem for the medical field.

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Don't bet the rent on that!


Peace,
~VOW

To NYJ:

In the United States, there are 10,799 babies born each day, of which 1239 are born preterm; 817 babies are born daily weighing < 2500 g, 156 are born weighing < 1500 g, and 12 are born weighing < 454 g (1 pound). While preterm births are increasing as a whole, the group that is especially increasing is the very low birth weight group (VLBW), with weight < 1500 g. This group has a 70-fold increased rate of mortality in the first year of life.

Neonatologists have now pushed the envelope, saving some fetuses born at 22-23 weeks. According to Dr. King, female premature infants do better than males. For infants born at 24 weeks gestation, 50% of females survive whereas only 35% of males survive. African-American female infants do the best; white males have the worst survival. A recent abstract[21] from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) showed that survival for infants born weighing between 501 g and 1500 g has continued to improve: 84% of 4438 infants weighing 501 g to 1500 g at birth survived until discharge to home or a long-term care facility.

However, morbidity and major mortality remain high, 71%, in the smallest infants (< 600 g at birth).[22] Although the survival rate of premature infants is improving, the morbidity associated with premature birth can be lifelong. School performance has been shown to increase with increased birth weight. Unfortunately, according to the NICHD study, 97% of all VLBW infants and 99% of infants weighing < 1000 g at birth had weights that fell below the 10th percentile at 36 weeks' postmenstrual age. In addition, the financial cost of survival is great. The average lifetime cost of a preterm infant exceeds $500,000. Respiratory distress syndrome and prematurity are 2 of the 3 most expensive conditions in medicine. (Spinal cord injury is the third.)

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This is from www.medscape.com, a report from the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology meeting, 2002.


Peace,
~VOW

To NYJ:

I'm not advocating abortion in all cases of rape. I'm saying that unless you have walked in those shoes, you have no business making the decision for someone else.

Counseling, medical advice, prayer, and certainly guidance by the Church are all necessary. And IF the pregnancy is allowed to go to term, the nine-year-old mother certainly cannot be abandoned to "God's will." She will need to be placed in an incredibly supportive, protective, nurturing environment.

Are YOU personally going to provide that for her?


Peace,
~VOW

To NYJ:

Because a LOT of Right to Lifers' interest end in the courtroom.

A nine-year-old still needs active parenting for HERSELF. She certainly is not mature enough to be left overnight alone, and she certainly wouldn't be a primary caregiver for an infant. I doubt she'll be permitted to attend a regular elementary school. I mean, who's going to keep her from playing "keep-away" on the playground?

It takes perseverance and intelligence to handle the medical system, it takes even MORE to obtain adequate care from MedicAid. Kids are DYING from neglect and abuse in the present Children's Protective Services program, because the caseworkers are so overloaded. Who is going to watch out for this child?

If you've got a welfare family, headed by a single mother, who has other kids to care for, and then you add to her life a nine-year-old pregnant CHILD... give me an honest medical evaluation for the survival of both the child-parent and the child-fetus.

What are her chances of being placed in a caring foster home, where she will be attended to, nurtured, watched, and protected?

If she gives birth to a premature infant who ends up having developmental defects because of a PRE-TEEN mother, where will that infant go?

I'm NOT advocating eugenics. To be compared to Hitler is abominable, and I resent it.

I suggest you contact your local office of Children's Protective Services and sign up to be a foster parent.



Peace be with you,
~VOW

If your child was raped and was now pregnant, would you get her an abortion?

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Is the baby conceived by rape less human than a baby conceived in any other way?

It is the humanness of the baby that makes its life precious, and its abortion wrong, not the holiness of the parents or the circumstances of how it was conceived.

Making abortion of rape-conceived babies okay only serves to reinforce the idea that people are disposable if they are inconvenient.