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

[Torie]

Er, the Catholic Church teaches that abortion to save a mother's life is moral. At least that is my recollection. So color me confused per the headline. Maybe I should read the article.

OK, here is a squib I found on the matter (which strikes me as close to a save the mother's life exception, but maybe not quite co-extensive (you kill the fetus first in the womb before aborting it or something):

"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."

I wonder if the nun can appeal this decision. If she can, she certainly should. After now reading the article, it does not appear the bishop followed the above stricture, because what he said is that it is not OK to perform medical treatments if the result will be to kill the fetus. And if the Church denies her appeal, that will generate a lot more news of course. It will be particularly exacerbating, because here the diagnosis was that the choice was either 1) kill the fetus and save the mother, or 2) not kill the fetus, and then a bit later both the mother and fetus would die, with near 100% probability. How that can be justified under any logical moral construct escapes me.

Perhaps Supersoulty might comment on this?  Chris?

[Torie]

Here is a bit more. A militant Catholic priest or ex priest on the Free Republic site (I know the man well, and he believes that anyone who performs an abortion should be executed, and even I think that someone who kills someone who performs an abortion should not be prosecuted, but I am not sure about the latter) has this to say:

"I wasn’t referring to guilt, but to the gravity of the sin. The gravity of the sin is the same in both cases.

You don’t seem to be familiar with the Principle of Double Effect.

It is NEVER permissible to perform/procure an abortion—for any reason whatsoever.

If a woman has a life-threatening illness, she may choose to undergo treatment for that illness, even if the treatment may have the side effect of killing an unborn child.

That is NOT an abortion.

Procuring an abortion is NEVER licit; it is always a crime; it is never permitted, not even to “save the life of the mother.”

So maybe the answer is that the mother can be treated short of an abortion with the side effect of killing the fetus (at which time I assume removing the dead fetus is OK), but if such treatment will not kill the fetus, and the only thing that will save her is an abortion, then both the fetus and the mother have to die, if that is the consequence of not having an abortion. Sometimes I just hate being a lawyer, to be honest, because I just can't help my mind spinning its tangled webs of analysis. It happens almost effortlessly these days. Maybe I need therapy.

[Torie]

    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?