I consulted my copy of William E. May's Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life, and May, as near as I could figure, agrees with the "pro-life nut". There is an incredible amount of medical jargon in there which is way over my head, plus opinions by numerous theologians both pro and con; I conclude that bioethical theologians are rather like economists: if you lay them end-to-end, they point all directions.
The 1971 edition of Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Facilities directed that use of a partial or total salpinectomy was morally licit if there is grave danger of fallopian-tube hemmorhage. Since that time, however, use of a drug called methotrexate has come into practice, and the 1994 edition of the same directives specify that no intervention is morally licit which results in a direct abortion.
Thereupon follows three pages of arguments from various theologians in May's book about what constitutes a "direct abortion". May himself concludes that the only morally legitimate way of dealing with an ectopic pregnancy is by "expectant therapy", which basically boils down to waiting for the tubal pregnancy to spontaneously abort and result in a miscarriage, "with no harm to the mother". How this is all to be accomplished without "harm to the mother" is something that May doesn't address.
Bottom line: if these guys can't agree among themselves what the proper course of action should be (and supposedly they're a heckuva lot smarter than you or me), then I seriously doubt if a woman who is faced with this decision is going to know what to do, either. How will God judge the woman? I believe compassionately and mercifully. She doesn't know what to do. The theologians can't agree what to do. The medical community is not in a position to know (from a moral standpoint) what to do.....
It's sort of like the guy whose car broke down in front of a "No Parking" sign; the wrecker driver wants to remove the car, but another sign says "No Towing". The guy who runs the store where the car is sitting wants the car owner fined for blocking his business site, the cop wants to ticket the guy for being parked in a no parking zone, and the wrecker driver wants to be paid for making the trip out from the garage to retrieve the car. The guy who owns the car finally says, "Tell you what: I'm gonna leave my wallet on the front seat and let you guys fight over it. Come over to the cafe and let me know what you decide when you're done."
