Abortion: When does life really start?

Yidda wrote:

Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is nothing other than final impenitence which is refusing, up to and including the last moment of one's life, to repent from actual mortal sin.

Humanity has withdrawn himself from God who is the source of Life and Joy. Man is the one who choses evil for God, he is the one who build a civilization without God.

Yidda wrote:

Under the principle of the "double effect,"attending physicians must do everything in their power to save both the mother and the child. If the physicians decide that, in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, the mother's life can only be saved by the removal of the Fallopian tube (and with it, the unborn baby), or by removal of some other tissue essential for the preborn baby's life, the baby will of course die. But this would not be categorized as an abortion. This is all the difference between deliberate murder (abortion) and unintentional natural death.

Yidda wrote:
God is Good.

The Goodness of God is the basis for all morality.

All immorality is contrary to the very Nature of God. God has justice not merely as a quality, but as His very Nature. All that is unjust, all that is sin, is contrary to the very Nature of God. Morality is determined by the Goodness and Justice of the Divine Nature.

All immoral acts are in some way contrary to the Nature of God.
All moral acts are in harmony with the Nature of God.

Yidda wrote:if you are really familiar(on church stands) why don't you quote a dogma which exactly teaches what you said, and yes your statements are ad hominem. why do you seems to guess what really happens about that nun.

Yidda wrote:I said abortion must be refused . Everything that can be done, morally, should be done, to try to save both lives. But direct abortion is always immoral.

http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=134727&catid=250

A Catholic hospital approved and performed an abortion on a woman who doctors said would not survive if the pregnancy continued to term.

One thing most people seem to agree on is that McBride, in her role as a hospital administrator, did not approve a standard abortion. The circumstances at St. Joseph's involved a woman who was so seriously ill that continuing her pregnancy could have killed her.

Yidda wrote:Under the three fonts of morality:
1. the good intended end was to save the life of the mother. The intended means was direct abortion; the intention to use an intrinsically evil act to a good end is not a good intention.

2. the moral object is not the intended end of saving the mother's life,but the proximate end toward which the act itself is inherently directed. In this case, the moral object is the deprivation of life from an innocent prenatal; this is an evil moral object, making the inherent moral meaning of the act itself also evil. A good intention, and dire circumstances, cannot justify an intrinsically evil act.

3. the circumstance that the mother would die without the abortion cannot change the moral object, and so the act remains immoral.

Yidda wrote:Incorrect claims made about this case:

Claim: "experts say the bishop failed to appreciate the circumstances that led to Sister Margaret McBride's decision"

Reply: The Catechism of the Catholic Church: "It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murderand adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it." (CCC, n. 1756.)

Claim: "The theological debate centers on two key issues. One is the circumstances of the medical procedure and whether it should be considered a treatment for an illness or a procedure intended to end thelife of a fetus."

Reply: An abortion is direct when the chosen act is inherently ordered toward the death of the innocent prenatal. The circumstances cannot cause a direct abortion to be indirect. The intention cannot cause a direct abortion to be indirect. Intention and circumstances do not determine moral object.

"The second is whether McBride believed she was acting within the ethics of the Catholic Church, which puts emphasis on whether a person knowingly and willingly violates church law."

Her knowingly chosen act was objectively a mortal sin. An act need not be an actual mortal sin (done with full knowledge and full consent) in order to fall under the penalty of the Canon. As a nun and an administrator at a Catholic hospital, she very likely knew of the Canon Law excommunicating for completed direct abortion.

Claim: " McBride justified the procedure because the direct intent was to save the mother's life, not to end the pregnancy which, under Catholic teaching, is known as the principle of double effect."

Reply: The principle of double effect never justifies intrinsically evil acts, such as direct abortion. Intention cannot cause an intrinsically evil act to become moral. So a direct abortion done with the intent to save the life of the mother is still gravely immoral. Direct abortion is inherently ordered toward the killing of an innocent person, regardless of intention or circumstances. The act itself is inherently
directed at an evil end; it is not the intention that determines if the abortion is direct, but the very nature of the act itself.

Claim: "Under "double effect," the death of a fetus is allowable as a secondary effect of required surgery."

Reply: When the surgery directly kills the prenatal, the death of the prenatal is not a secondary effect; rather, it is the moral object. The surgery in this case was inherently aimed at killing the prenatal as a proximate end. The more distant intended end of saving the life of the mother is not the moral object.

Claim: "McBride's intention meant the procedure "wasn't an 'abortion' " in the sense the procedure is prohibited by Catholic moral teaching, despite the "foreseen, terrible and unwanted side effect of causing the baby's death.""

Reply: Notice the wording used 'of causing the baby's death'. This particular act (the surgery) caused the death of the prenatal directly, so it was not a 'side effect', nor was the death 'unwanted'. The particular sugery was chosen in order to kill the prenatal; that was the end to which the act was inherently directed.

Claim: "The St. Joseph's case was more like cases of uterine cancer or ectopic pregnancies, in which Catholic theology approves removing the diseased organs even if a fetus resides inside them, the Rev. Kevin O'Rourke, a professor of bioethics at Loyola University-Chicago and consultant for Catholic hospitals, wrote in America, a Jesuit magazine."

Reply: In cases of uterine cancer, the surgery directly treats the disease. The uterus has cancer, and so the uterous is removed. In the McBride case, the surgery was directed at killing an innocent prenatal. So the two cases are not alike. It is appalling that a priest and a professor of bioethics could present such a falsehood as if it were Catholic teaching.

Claim: "But Gerard Nadal, a microbiologist who writes a blog, "Coming Home: Science in Service of the Pro-Life Movement," said that Catholic moral teaching never permits illicit means to reach a good end. "

Reply: His position is correct. The intrinsically evil act of direct abortion is never licit even as a means to a good end.

Claim: "He also argued that McBride's role in the case indicates she did not "procure" the abortion, as required for excommunication under church law. "

Reply: Pope John Paul II taught that not only the person who procures the direct abortion, but also all those who formally cooperate with the abortion, are excommunicated:

Pope John Paul II: "The excommunication affects all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached, and thus includes those accomplices without whose help the crime would not have been committed." (Evangelium Vitae, n. 62.)

Claim: "Church law, Orsy said, requires that the benefit of the doubt go to the accused. "The conclusion is compelling: to say the least, it is highly doubtful that Sr. Margaret acted out of malice aforethought, or that she actively procured an abortion," he wrote. "

Reply: Malice aforethought is a legal term in the secular court system, not in Canon Law. A person need not act with malice in order to fall under the penalty of Canon Law. Also, as noted above, she need not have actively procured the abortion herself; all necessary accmplices are also excommunicated.

vril wrote:

Let me re-construct your dogma.

".... the mother's life can only be saved by the removal of the fetus in the fallopian tube which will require the attending physician to remove the fallopian tube itself."

In this case, removal of the fetus is only possible by removing the fallopian tube. The fallopian tube is fine with itself until this fetus came along. And modern medicine has another way of removing the fetus in ectopic pregnancy, thru medication without removing the fallopian tube.

Both intentions are directed at removing the fetus to save the mother's life.

These are direct abortions by your definition. Therefore deliberate murder as you call it.

vril wrote:

You truly must have missed the Old testament.

read my post above korril! It seems I have answered your post repeatedly.

Yidda wrote:None of us have a completely correct understanding of God who is infinite.

The followers of Christ must carry their crosses in order to be like Him.

Yidda wrote:I know what the church teaches, my argument is based on the conception of Jesus. I think you cannot continue properly being irritated by those teachings.

Yidda wrote:really or the "cherry picking one" I said too , "I know what I say and the teachings of the church" when in your case you do not know the teachings and still have the guts to say I cherry pick. (it's actually ad hom) or you are only irritated by what I said on the real stand of Aquinas supported by magisterial documents.

Yidda wrote:The term soul implies that there is also a body.

"the intellectual soul is united by its very being to the body" (St Thomas, Summa Theologica, I, 76, 6)

The human being is a person from conception (zygote is the single cell stage of development), which includes his bodily and spiritual totality,i.e. his body and his soul.

Ateo wrote:Yidda, I have to beg to disagree with you. The same Thomas Aquinas was quoted as having believed in the concept of "delayed ensoulment". I quote Prof. Maguire, a Catholic theologian: http://www.sacredchoices.org/News_Tracker/moderate_RC_position_on_contraception_abortion.htm

"St. Thomas Aquinas, the most esteemed of medieval theologians, held this view. Thus the most traditional and stubbornly held position in Catholic Christianity is that early abortions are not murder."

Yidda wrote:The Saints are not infallible. We follow the teaching of the Church, which is not necessarily the same as the teaching of a Saint hundreds of years ago. Aquinas and others did not have sufficient knowledge about procreation and development in the womb in order to understand that the human person is created, body and soul, at conception.

Yidda wrote:plus your source came from - Religious' Coalition for Abortion Rights.June 1978 propaganda pamphlet entitled "ABORTION: Why Religious Organizations in the United States Want to Keep it Legal

The falsehoods quoted have been bandied about by devious pro-abortionists for the last century, and the time has come to lay them to rest once and for all. Most importantly, the Catholic Church has never "approved of" or "condoned" abortion in any part of its history.

I wonder why you used this kind of sources.

Esther wrote:The mother is dying of heart failure. The pregnancy is the direct
cause. Terminating the pregnancy is the only way to save her life.

What is the moral thing to do?

1. Terminate the pregnancy and save the mother's life.
abortion is just not a part
of modern medicine.

Esther wrote:2. Let both of them die to satisfy a dogma?
says who?

"She consented in the murder of an unborn child," says the Rev. John Ehrich, the medical ethics director for the Diocese of Phoenix. "There are some situations where the mother may in fact die along with her child. But — and this is the Catholic perspective — you can't do evil to bring about good. The end does not justify the means."

Esther wrote:interview from Dr. George Isajiw MD

...Actually it’s not. There is no such thing as an abortion to save the life
of the mother. As a matter of fact for a while.. several years.. I was very
interested in that question in my formative years and I would ask every
obstetrician and gynecologist that I met anywhere. And I said have you ever had
a case where you had to do something to kill the baby to save the life of the
mother. I have not come across one case, you know. People think of in the movie,
the story the Cardinal, where the woman was delivering the child and got
into complications and they crushed the baby’s head. And that is just not a part
of modern medicine. That is not necessary to be done.



Where the confusion arises is the so-called indirect abortion. Or those cases
where both mother and child are dying because of a situation, there are really
only three situations like this that I can think of and that’s ectopic
pregnancy, cancer of the uterus, and perhaps trauma, or an accidental traumatic
injury to the uterus. And if you don’t do anything then both mother and child
will die. Now if you treat the mother for whatever needs to be treated, the
uterus is bleeding, and you remove the uterus and the baby is still in there,
and you do nothing to kill the baby, that is if you had a means an artificial
incubator, some day we will have it, I’m sure, you could put that baby in there,
so in no way do you directly attack the life of the baby. But you can foresee
that that baby will lose its life, but it will lose its life anyhow but without
directly attacking. Those are the three instances, very rare, very rare, but
those are not abortions. If you look at the five ways that abortions are done,
which is the only purpose is to kill the child, none of these techniques are the
methods used in these operations. So there is no such thing as an abortion
necessary.



And you don’t need a law, you don’t need an exception because for ages that
treatment of ectopic pregnancy, once the mother starts bleeding or has
life-threatening complications, the treatment of cancer of the uterus, that has
been always permissible without …having to legalize abortion. So the answer is
simply no. There is no such thing as an abortion to save the life of the mother,
sometimes early delivery, sometimes it is so early that the baby has a great
risk of dying perhaps, but the baby is delivered, the baby is placed into
intensive care, is given all the possible support, and may or may make it, but
there is no such thing as an abortion to do that.

Yidda wrote:answer:

1. The procedure is not an abortion;if it is a procedure directed at removing for cure like for example a cancer, or a cancerous organ. And that the The death of the prenatal is in the consequences.

You must refuse the abortion. Everything that can be done, morally, should be done, to try to save both lives. But direct abortion is always immoral.

Yidda wrote:2. When did the church said that?(state the dogma please!)

Rev. John Ehrich, the medical ethics director for the Diocese of Phoenix: "There are some situations where the mother may in fact die along with her child. But — and this is the Catholic perspective — you can't do evil to bring about good. The end does not justify the means."

Yidda wrote:How sure are you that the Catholic position is really what god wanted?

You shall not kill an unborn child or murder a newborn infant.

The Didache ("The Lord's Instruction to the Gentiles through the Twelve Apostles"). II, 2, translated by J.A. Kleist, S.J., Ancient Christian Writers, Volume 6. Westminster, 1948, page 16.

You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not slay the child by abortion.
Barnabas (c. 70-138), Epistle, Volume II, page 19.

who do you think is on God's side now?

Esther wrote:2.The issue is not about legalizing abortion. It's about how the church
does not even recognize the difference between a necessary abortion and a
frivolous abortion.

No you are just being blind or hostile to what ever the church teach.

You can google many sites here on how the church deals with different cases.

for the complete article on my post click here:
http://www.priestsforlife.org/media/interviewisajiw.htm

Esther wrote:that's ad hominem too. State the dogma that says so!

"You must refuse the abortion. Everything that can be done, morally,
should be done, to try to save both lives. But direct abortion is always
immoral."

Esther wrote:Direct abortion is not a medical procedure as it was written in that article.

korrill wrote:
So, in other words, the catholic church would rather see
both mother and child die than perform an abortion.

korrill wrote:
What is the church's position when it is established that the pregnancy is what is killing the mother?

How sure are you that the Catholic position is really what god wanted?

Yidda wrote:"Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh His Soul detesteth: haughty eyes, a lying tongue,hands that shed innocent blood."Proverbs 6:16-17

"Keep far from a false charge, and do not slay the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked." Exodus 23:7