Num Excommunicated for Allowing Abortion to Save a Mother's Life.

[Јas]

    If one holds that the life of the fetus is sacred, the position of the bishop is perfectly rational. After all, it is not alright to kill someone who'll die anyway in order to save another person. With that said, I reject such notions & as such am deeply disappointed with the bishop's actions.

One thought that comes to mind about that, is that the fetus will automatically die when the mother dies, because the mother died. So it is not like killing some guy on a boat lost at sea who is clearly the one who will die first of starvation, like in an hour, because if he is not eaten now, the boat will sink because it can't carry the extra weight, like in 20 minutes.  In this abortion hypo, the death of one causes the death of the other. Does this make any moral difference as to whether it is moral or not to kill someone who will die anyway (and here we mean like in the immediate future, since we will all die anyway), in order to save another person?

May be of interest... R v. Dudley and Stephens [1884]