A Most Catholic of Dramas
In 2009 an Arizona woman, pregnant with her fifth child and suffering from pulmonary hypertension (an often, but not always fatal complication), consulted with her doctor and the ethics committee member on call — a Catholic Sister of Mercy — and obtained an abortion at the St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center.
As the story has gone public, the reactions have been predictable across religious and political lines. Corrected by her bishop and currently reassigned in her duties, Sr. Margaret McBride, the administrator who participated in the undoubtedly difficult decision, has made no public statement on this issue. She is nevertheless being described as heroic by those who support the action, and denounced as suspicious by those who do not. Others are excoriating Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, of the Diocese of Phoenix. With the heinous sins committed by pederast priests the forever-glaring standard of church-wide failure, critics wonder how a sister could be so quickly excommunicated, when so many bad priests were not. They cry “double standard” and “misogyny,” and wonder how the church can claim to have any moral authority left.
Well, because sometimes innocent people are convicted in America does not mean the nation cannot defend her laws, carefully crafted over time. Just so, the church’s having taken too long to right her own wrongs does not mean she surrenders the truths she has gleaned through faith and reason, over time. Making false equivalences does not bring clarity to McBride’s decision.
Like secular law, Catholic doctrine makes distinctions; it looks at intentions, opportunities and outcomes, direct and indirect causes; it understands that all things are not equal. It is difficult to explain to a feelings-led society that Sr. McBride conferred the latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication upon herself, and fully controls whether she will remain ex-communicated, or not, as doubtless she herself could explain. It may be unpleasant for some to hear, but participating in or procuring a direct, illicit abortion (as opposed to a licit, indirect abortion, as explained here) entails excommunication, while sexual abuse — gravely and mortally sinful — does not.
“It is difficult to explain to a feelings-led society that Sr. McBride conferred the latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication upon herself”
Of course she did not. The concept itself is an ungodly–and impossible–creation of a church which in it own way is as sad and silly as are certain evangelicals with their baskets of snakes or the Mormons and their sacred underwear.
You have your opinion, and are free to have it. I’m free to laugh at it.
And it has nothing to do with feelings.
Rome has yet to answer Luther in full, and cannot.
The Mother Church has no need to answer Luther, or any other Protestant. In fact, like the parable of the Prodigal Son, Rome will welcome with open arms any of her wayward sons and daughters who wish to return to her loving arms.
Um, answer what exactly? Luther’s made-up Bible, and his claims of sola fide and sola scriptura (which, of course, is not itself in scriptura, so one must accept Luther as the authority on that)? The theses that he mailed, not nailed, and which were answered in full in the Counter-Reformation? Or would you be referring to his virulent and hateful anti-Semetism, which was answered by every Papal Bull on the subject that came before and after? Really, what on earth is there to know about Luther that I have not included? Luther did, indeed, point to some serious problems with a post-plague church; but one of the most serious was that the plague had so decimated the church that it allowed Luther any purchase in it in the first place.
The fundamental question is “when do we get our souls?”
If you don’t believe in God, or in a soul (more specifically a spiritual reality that is individualized and connected to/effected by/effecting your physical reality) then it’s a silly question.
If you believe in both, however, the fundamental question is “when do we get our souls?” Is it at the age of majority (18), or the age of traditional adulthood (13/14), or the age of acquired reason (7), or our first day of school, or when we speak our first word, or when we take our first step, or cry out as they weigh us for the first time, or as we breach the womb, or the day before we breach the womb, or the week before that, or the end of the second trimester, or the point of viability, or the week before that, or at conception, or, as a well-known and widely read (although read not widely enough) book has it, even before you were formed in the womb?
When do we get our souls from God? And when, exactly, do we feel comfortable asserting our authority over the souls created by God and gifted to others?
Answer that question for yourself–and there is really only one answer–, as the Church and the righteous who have always valued God’s creation of the human soul, and you’ll find your way. Put the culture of life at the center of your thinking, and you won’t need an Ethics Committee.
As I understand it, the life of both mother and child would be lost if the pregnancy continued. Killing the child to save the life of the mother isn’t a choice between mother and child, since both would have died if the pregnancy continued.
I’m sure the mother of five loved her unborn baby and would have given her life to allow the child to live, but she didn’t have that choice. She could die, leaving her children motherless, and be buried with her dead child, or she could kill her unborn baby before the pregnancy killed them both.
This is an ethical dilemma that was thoughtfully answered by the mother, the father, and the staff at Mercy. I’m sure the family mourns their lost baby and wishes there were another solution. The Church needs to study this issue and craft a policy that accepts this increase in medical knowledge that allows such a terrible choice to take place. For millennia, both mother and child would be buried together, and there would be no ethical dilemma. Now we have the option of saving one, and we as loving Catholics should acknowledge and give comfort to this situation and to the families who choose to keep the mother alive instead of letting her die.
Bonnie…
Fr. Corapi gives an excellent talk on the how/why the Church has come to the conclusions it has drawn on the sanctity of life. You need to listen to him or at least read the pertinent sections of the Catechism before you (or I or anyone, for that matter) decide to tell the Church what it needs to do differently in this regard.
Doing evil in order to promote good isn’t good. It’s evil.
Bonnie:
You say “we” Catholics in your post?
Do you know of St. Gianna Beretta Molla?
In September 1961 towards the end of the second month of pregnancy, she was touched by suffering and the mystery of pain; she had developed a fibroma in her uterus. Before the required surgical operation, and conscious of the risk that her continued pregnancy brought, she pleaded with the surgeon to save the life of the child she was carrying, and entrusted herself to prayer and Providence. The life was saved, for which she thanked the Lord. She spent the seven months remaining until the birth of the child in incomparable strength of spirit and unrelenting dedication to her tasks as mother and doctor. She worried that the baby in her womb might be born in pain, and she asked God to prevent that.
A few days before the child was due, although trusting as always in Providence, she was ready to give her life in order to save that of her child: “If you must decided between me and the child, do not hesitate: choose the child – I insist on it. Save him”. On the morning of April 21, 1962, Gianna Emanuela was born. Despite all efforts and treatments to save both of them, on the morning of April 28, amid unspeakable pain and after repeated exclamations of “Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you», the mother died. She was 39 years old. Her funeral was an occasion of profound grief, faith and prayer.
Pls consider reading the whole story here. I hope and pray that you change your opinion.
http://our-lady-for-life.forumotion.com/saints-f2/gianna-beretta-molla-catholic-pro-life-saint-frgroeschel-speaks-with-her-son-t1178.htm
A uterine fibroid is hardly comprable to pulmonary hypertension. With good medical management at the worst she would have lost her uterus but with PH she has an even chance of loosing her life.
While I am against abortion in general, there is a self defence argument, too.
There is indeed a “double standard” in play here. However, that has always been the way with this particular church. They are not going to change anytime soon. Church, religion, man controlling what other men do..nothing more, nothing less..they make up new “God” rules all the time…
What a woman does with her body is between her and her God, not you and me,
The mother’s life was in danger, she comes before the unborn child. Enough said.
Why do you say that the life of the mother comes before the life of her unborn?
Just curious~
Ms. Elizabeth Scalia: let me tell you something just in case you do not know it..
The Catholic church and its heiarchy have a problem with abortion but as soon as kids are born they like to play with them on their laps and and teach them a lesson or two on sexuality at age 5! may 6! or all the way up to 16! the sooner you get hip to this the better you are off….
Since the excommunication of Galileo Galilei, being the subject of said practice has become a high honor and a badge of bravery.
If it is going to kill both of them, then you don’t have much of a choice. Kids die. It’s not a great or glorious thing, but it is reality. Just don’t pretend it is as casual as getting a tooth pulled, because for the family it is not. This was a child that was loved, wanted, and now it is dead. Don’t pretend it’s going to be sunshine and roses for the family.
“The mother’s life was in danger, she comes before the unborn child. Enough said.”
And God’s will be damned! We humans have figured it out!
Could you let us know how you know God’s will better than anyone else? Please be specific.
False prophets and all, you know.
Your answers are contained in one (or more) of these places:
1. The Bible
2. Sacred Tradition
3. Magisterial Teaching
I encourage you to research…here’s a great resource:
http://www.fathercorapi.com/Word-of-God-Special-Edition-6-Talks-P278C35.aspx
Please check it out.
All written by man in man’s words in his attempt to control the world around him.
I would not believe this abortion was an easy choice for this woman or the Sister.
“All written by man in man’s words in his attempt to control the world around him”
Boo men. Anything originating from the minds of men is bad.
No one is saying that it was an easy decision. The question is whether or not is was wrong. If the slaughter of an innocent unborn baby doesn’t bother you, then you obviously don’t think it was wrong. If you believe the unborn baby had its own unique soul, then perhaps the abortion was wrong notwithstanding the fact that the Catholic Church is led by………men.
If you need further evidence on the Church’s stance on the sexes, equality of the sexes, et cetera, check out the Churh’s teachings on Marriage and Social Justice. It’s all there in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Don’t believe me…read it with your own two eyes.
The real crime is that this condition can be treated. It is not a death sentence as the Catholic-hating liberal-agenda media keep repeating. That this information is not being publicized is a crime by the liberal-agenda media. That doctors are not looking for this information, but only recommend the “easy solution,” is a second crime.
Ref. http://www.wisn.com/health/17994163/detail.html
Why hasn’t the AP picked up on this local article and broadcast it to save the lives of … WOMEN … whom they feministely claim to revere? Hypocrites and liars.
Because stories like these are never really about women, or even about “choice”–they’re about defending the ideology that a fetus is not a person, and can therefore be killed or experimented upon at will. Any admission otherwise is dangerous for them.
The Church condones doing evil to accomplish good every time it doesn’t directly condemn every act of war or self defense. Innocents die as the direct result of acts of war, acts of war considered morally licit by the Church, yet this is somehow alright.
The Church condones the evil of killing when we act in self defense in order to accomplish the good of saving ourselves and our loved ones.
Yet in this case, a woman and her child are sentenced to death by the Church because it is not alright to do evil to accomplish good. Why? Because the only good end here is the life of a married woman who is no longer a virgin, an “innocent”, and probably won’t be able to produce any more children for the celibate men of the Catholic Church.
This pregnancy was killing the woman and her unborn child in much the same way an ectopic pregnancy can potentially kill the mother and the unborn child, yet the Church allows removal of an ectopic pregnancy and not the removal of this pregnancy. Why? Because an ectopic pregnancy doesn’t usually preclude further pregnancies the way a serious case of pulmonary hypertension does.
I am not sure if you are anti catholic or just poor with logic.
Self defense: The moral premises on which justifiable self-defense is based are the fact that the possession of life includes the right to use the means necessary to protect one’s life, provided such means do not violate the rights of others.
Just war: Armed conflict between nations that is morally tolerated on certain conditions. These conditions, first stated by St. Augustine, have become classic in Catholic moral teaching. In order for a war to be just, it must be on the authority of the sovereign, the cause must be just, the belligerents must have a right intention, and the war must be waged by “proper means.” The “just cause” means that a nation’s rights are being violated by an actual or at least imminent attack; that other means of preventing aggression, e.g., diplomacy or embargo, have been tried and failed or would be useless; and that there is a proportion between the foreseen evils of conflict and the hoped for benefits of engaging in war.
Emphasis on “without violating the rights of others”.
An unborn child has no appeal. Cannot defend itself. Completely innocent.
The Catholic church has been faithful and remains faithful to life. Equating abortion to necessary violence in self defense or war is moral equivalence at it’s worst.
On second thought, you are anti Catholic.
A child living in a village about to be bombed has no recourse, no voice, no appeal, cannot defend itself, either. I guess, however, according to your Catholic Blue Book of the value of existing human life, said child has already been driven off the lot, so to speak, therefore isn’t _quite_ as innocent as an unborn child.
As you say, some life has more value than others, and the Catholic Church is the only entity which has the right to decide that value and has the right to measure one life’s measurable, weighted value against another’s.
In this case, the value of the life of the mother is deemed nil when compared to the value of the life of her non-viable child who cannot be carried to term or even long enough for the hope of some sort of life, so she must die regardless. Why? Because the Church said so. The hierarchy has spoken.
Women’s lives are cheap and expendable according to the Catholic Church.
I should know — I was Catholic for fifty years. I know too much, dear. I’ve lived, firsthand, the kind of value the Church puts on women’s lives and I finally stopped the self-destructive cycle of seeking worth and value through the Church.
Dropping bombs when you know full well little children will die or will be mutilated is as evil as abortion, IMO.
In this case, the abortion is the removal of a pregnancy that will kill mother and child. It is not murder any more than shooting an intruder is. In both cases, the death of another is not the intention, it is a secondary effect of an individual defending him or her self.
There’s an easy solution- you drop leaflets in advance of the bombing warning the civilians that a bombing raid is coming soon, so that they can leave. You also restrict your bombing to military targets. If the civilians fail to evacuate, it’s their own fault. If the enemy forces them to stay as human shields, the enemy is guilty of a war crime and any deaths that result are on their heads, not ours.
Oh, keep proving my point…really…you’re all doing it so very well.
Yes, they’re somehow less human, less innocent if you dropped leaflets letting them know in advance they had to pack up and leave because you were coming by to bomb them to death.
Then it’s all _their_ fault.
The things men will do to justify their killings, eh?
If men could get pregnant, and this was a man in the same position as this woman, the Pope would have flown in and performed the abortion himself.
Your alternative being to allow the factories, munitions stockpiles, military bases, what have you to continue standing, churning out the supplies and training being used to kill your troops? Yes, people who are given advance warning and choose not to heed it are responsible for placing themselves in danger. Bad government brings disaster onto a people; that is the nature of the beast- the people will always suffer from the folly of their government. If, having been given warning, they choose to stay in the line of fire, they do so at their own risk.
Like I said, keep talkin’…obviously anyone “other” is less valuable in YOUR eyes than you and those who think like you or look like you or live in the “right” section of the world or have the “right” color skin, or whatever.
Life is so cheap to you Catholics — life is a word you throw around, but the reality is your preferred form of life is life that hasn’t been born yet because that kind of life doesn’t talk back, think for itself, get messy, require you to sacrifice for or think about or put ahead of yourself an actual walking, talking human being who isn’t oh-so-perfect like you think you are.
Life is just so cheap for you people, and no life is cheaper than a woman’s life.
“Blessed are you when wicked tongues insult and hate you and utter every manner of evil accusation against you falsely for the sake of Righteousness, for great is your reward.” -Jesus
You are sadly misinformed if you think the Catholic Church categorically condemns any and all killing (e.g. in war or in self defense). It most certainly does not. What it condemns is “murder.” I know it’s fashionable these days to confuse the meanings of words to suit political purposes. And depending on where you were educated, you might not even realize there is a difference between the two words. But I assure you, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, “killing” and “murder” are NOT synonymous.
Yes, I know it is fashionable among a certain set of “Catholics” to twist words and meanings to suit the issue at hand.
This situation involved no murder. Every attempt possible within the parameters of that particular situation were made to avoid terminating the pregnancy. The pregnancy had to be terminated or the woman would die. The intent was not to murder the child, but to save the life of the woman.
A difficult episode in the life of mother and family is being used by Catholics, Protestant, pro life, pro choice etc. for proving that ‘I’m right’.
A dogmatic is a dogmatic irrespective of his affiliation. (Christian, Jew, Moslem, Liberal, Conservative etc. etc. )
Life is not a simple set of problems where one set of rule can provide you with all the answers. Catholic bible, protestant bible, koran, gita all are creation of men. They may provide a framework but each one of us has to make a choice for ourselves.
Don’t judge someone else by your own rules.
Remember : When you reject/hate a person different from you, you are rejecting/hating a part of God’s creation, whatever GOD you might believe in.
Who is judging others by their own rules here? Only the critics! The rest of us recognize that the Sister is being judged by rules she placed herself under. Are we wrong to judge our own by our own rules?
To Jake: No! The fundamental question is, “When does life begin?” Because no murderer, IJn.3.15, has eternal life. And a murderer is one who takes innocent life. That is why abortion, always and ever, is murder. And those who are willing participants, like the nun here, cut themselves off from God, as murder is sin, and sin separates us from God, Isa.59.1-2, and deserves the death penalty, Rom.6.23. The RCC distinction between sexual sin and violent sin is of their making; and has no scriptural justification; in common with many of their other false doctrines. Scripture is clear that Jesus Christ saves those who obey Him, Heb.5.9 Myriad tomes have been written on that subject, but unselfish love for all is the guiding command, and one cannot love another while butchering him and throwing him in the garbage.
The taking of innocent life is NOT the equivalent of murder. There is such a thing as justifiable homicide–where you shoot someone you have a reasonable fear is trying to kill you–and homicide can be justifiable, even if afterwards it is demonstrated that the person killed was innocent.
Every woman, when faced with the decision between terminating a pregnancy, or to die (and to lose the pregnancy as well) ought to choose to continue to live. To do otherwise would be suicide, which is just as evil as murder. It is another example of justifiable homicide, where an innocent dies to save another innocent life.
Even so, it would be a difficult choice to make! I, for one, hope never to have to see my wife have to make such a choice.
To mythbuster. Yes, we are wrong to judge by any rules(commandments) other than those revealed to us by God. Jn.7.24 adjures us to “judge with right judgment”, and the only judgment which is always correct is that of Almighty God. Acts 5.29 points out that God’s commandments are to prevail over those of mere men.
It is strange to some of us that a certain liturgical organization would, at their liturgies, hold aloft the Gospel, say, “This is the Word of God”, and then regularly treat it contemptuously as they teach in contradiction to it!
I’m a retired obstetrician with a degree in philosophy who worked at a Catholic hospital, so this situation is of great interest to me, as I certainly have seen this kind of issue before.
First- SMC222- The reason why the Church will allow the removal of an ectopic pregnancy is that the ectopic pregnancy is usually detected through the symptoms of internal bleeding. In order to stop the bleeding, the fetus is inevitably killed, (although most of the time, there isn’t a fetus at all). But the intent (this is one of those intentions Ms. Scalia mentioned) isn’t to kill off the pregnancy, it’s to stop the hemorrhage and save the mother.
However, with pulmonary hypertension, the pregnancy itself is doing nothing abnormal at all. It’s not in the wrong place, it’s not diseased, it’s not directly causing a problem. The problem is that the mother’s circulation is severely abnormal. And (Dr. Zwike’s success in treating mild, late onset forms of the disease aside) it will kill her, and the baby too. The cure is terminating the pregnancy- the intent is to end the pregnancy itself. There are several other conditions that are similar, so this isn’t really that rare of an occurrence if one works at a tertiary-care hospital, or if one is a perinatologist, (which thankfully, I’m not).
Second- there are some practical issues here I don’t really understand. First I have to wonder if Sr. McBride really understood the situation here. Even if this was an emergency meeting of the ethics committee, there would still have been time to transfer the patient out of the care of this particular institution. Maternal PHTN does not go critical overnight and they are not an isolated, frontier hospital. But it would be very easy to convince Sr. McBride that the patient was going to die RIGHT NOW if they didn’t act. Which, from the Church’s viewpoint, doesn’t matter, but puts additional stress on the committee. Also, could the ethics committee have overruled her? And what happens to the doctors if they ignore her and/or the ethics committee? At the most, they’d have lost their privileges and most doctors would rather do that than have the mother die, whether it is do from their own consciences or (less likely) simple fear of a maternal death lawsuit.
It appears to me that in reality, Sr. McBride could have personally held her ground rather easily.
Dana-
Thanks very much for your medical explanation and lending your experience.
Again, as I stated over at the Anchoress a few days ago, the reporting on this specific incident, and the discussion the last few decades on life-threatening pregnancies in general, has not been particularly helpful. What should be a fairly straightforward moral proposition has been so twisted and distorted as to leave far too many people confused.
Part of the confusion stems from the use of the term “abortion,” which apparently means different things to different people (and means different things as a technical medical term and as a moral term). So, let’s step away from that term for a moment and see if that does not clear some things up.
The moral question is this — Is it moral to intentionally and purposely kill innocent person number one in order to save the life of innocent person number two?
Or is that a false dillema? Might there be another answer?
OK, how about this then — May you morally engage in a high risk action with the intent and purpose to save the lives of both persons if there is a chance, or even a high degree of certainty, that such action might nevertheless be fatal to innocent person number one?
What about wartime? Isn’t there a “just war” exception to the injunction “thou shall not kill”? And what about self-defense against criminal aggressors?
Yes, it is true that one might licitly kill the enemy in a just war, and one might resort to the use of deadly force in self-defense in peacetime, and in such actions innocent civilians and innocent bystanders might be killed. But that does not mean that it is morally right to intentionally target civilian populations for the purpose of killing innocent noncombatants.
Innocent deaths as unintended “collateral damage” is one thing, purposeful killing of innocent civilians is something else entirely and can never be justified. To be sure, it is universally understood to be a war crime. Likewise, you might morally shoot an intruder square in the chest if he has broken into your home and your intent is to protect the life of yourself and your family. But if your intent is to kill the intruder, rather than to protect life, then such act is not self-defense, but is an immoral act of murder.
So, what about the life-threatening pregnancy? And what about the merely health-threatening pregnancy? Is it morally just and licit to engage in an intentional action with the purpose of killing the unborn when that might save the life of the mother or otherwise “improve” her health?
The objective moral answer to the question is NO. And that is what is meant by the term “abortion,” or “direct abortion” — the knowing, intentional and purposeful killing of innocent human life for whatever secondary reason.
So, we are just supposed to let the woman die then? If nothing is done then both will certainly die!
And here is where the strawman makes his appearance in the discussion. No one, including the Church, is saying “do nothing.”
Rather, it is morally just and licit to take actions to try to save the lives of both mother and child. It is immoral to do an act with the intent to kill the child, but it is moral to do an act with the intent to save and protect the lives of both even if there is a substantial risk and it is foreseeable that one of them will not survive the intervention.
That, of course, means using procedures that has the greatest likelihood of success at saving both and not resorting to procedures that are certain to kill, such as dismemberment of the unborn. It also means not resorting to any high-risk procedure at all unless and until it is reasonably certain that the mother’s life is, in fact, endangered. A doctor cannot say, “your health might be at risk in three months, so let’s terminate now,” because the danger is purely speculative at that point.
In short, in all things, we must choose life, not death. We cannot, as a matter of objective moral truth, engage in a deadly act with the specific intent to kill innocent persons, even if such persons might threaten others through no fault of their own, but we must instead endeavor to save and protect the lives of all innocent human life.
There is no such commandment as “Thou shall not kill,” not in the Old Testament and not in the New Testament. There is, however, a commandment that reads, “Thou shall not commit murder.”
You are a myth promoter, not a “myth buster.”
The term “murder” is a word from Anglo-American common law, and it is a term of art having a specific definition of “an unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.” That term, “murder,” being directly taken from Anglo-American common law, is only a few hundred years old. Neither the word “murder,” nor the term of art, existed over 3000 years ago when the Commandments were handed down.
Moreover, the word “murder,” although from Anglo-American common law, is derived from the Latin, “morte,” meaning “death.” Such that, even if one were to accept THE MYTH that the Commandment refers to “murder,” given it’s origin in “morte,” it still means “thou shall not cause death,” i.e. the same thing as “thou shall not kill.”
And besides, is there ANYONE who is going to seriously argue that while murder is a violation of the Commandment, it is not a violation of the Commandment to only commit manslaughter, which by definition is not murder? The very idea is absurd, as is this falsehood that some insist on promoting that the Commandment only refers to “murder.”
Perhaps, after all the noisome judgments have died down, we may all find it in our hearts to forgive.
Of course, but you can’t be reconciled until you admit your error. You have to ask for forgiveness before it can be granted.
Abortion is execrable, a heinous crime. No debate here.
The problem is: killing in self-defense is not necessarily morally wrong.
If one’s life is at stake (one doesn’t need the “certainty” of death; afterall, not even a bullet to the head means certain death), it is morally licit to use violence, even lethal violence (provided it is not excessive, that is, way beyond what would reasonably be necessary to defend oneself under the circumstances), against the aggressor.
One might say, “sure, but the aggressor with the gun is guilty. A baby in the womb isn’t”. Well, the self-defense argument holds even if the aggressor is, say, a severely mentally handicapped person who has no moral responsibility over their actions. If one is being attacked by such a person, it is morally licit to use lethal force against them, even though the aggressor is not sinning and is not responsible for the situation; even though his soul is as innocent as that of a baby.
How is this different from the case in which an unborn baby threatens the mother’s life? Why is it then immoral to use reasonable violence? If there is a means by which the survival of the baby can be ensured or at least made more likely, then, of course, it must be used.
To say one “hopes for the best” sounds more like a naive optimism than Christian Hope. It doesn’t solve anything. It is “possible” the victim won’t die from the aggression; does it mean that he should, therefore, “hope for the best” and refrain from lethal self-defense which will probably save his life?
It is also not a question of the certainty or uncertainty of the deaths; it is also not about choosing between an “actual” or an “incomplete” person; we are not consequentialists, measuring people’s values or calculating “expected future utilities given probability of survival”. It is about the object of the action. And traditional Catholic morality doesn’t see a problem in using lethal violence against an aggressor, even if the aggressor is not morally responsible for his action. One will always lament that the aggressor will die (no-one desires it as an end), but that doesn’t mean lethal violence cannot be used against him.
I have not made up my mind on the issue. It is easy to slip from my argument above to completely unjustified killings. But, at the same time, it is hard to see what the morally relevant difference is between the two cases outlined above.
We need the doctrine of double-effect (already used to justify lethal self-defense and abortion in ectopic pregnancies); however, once its principles are looked close enough, they break down and everything is justified. How do we get out of this dilemma?
It would be enlightening to see what theologians thought of abortion to save the life of the mother before the 20th century. Perhaps the current enthusiasm with the “culture of life” (in itself a stupendously positive for the world, and a necessary counter-balance to the culture of death) has led to unnecessary exaggerations (as also with the death penalty, which before John Paul II had always been unquestionably and unanimously defended, and is now looked by some as a blatant sin against life).
You believe that a viable human being should sacrifice her life for an 11 week fetus that couldn’t survive 1 second outside her womb?? Totally disgusting . What ever church you belong to, do not tell me. Alll your bible thumping crap is what you put between you and humanity, real people, real feelings, real needs. Not some guy givin out the rules. Rules you have made up over the years as the feeling and political climate dictates.
This was not murder, it was not killing it was saving a viable human mother that had 4 other children to raise. This is not your decision to make, it is between this woman and God and the nun and God, not you!!
Hopefully she will see the error of her ways and leave this church. The nun too. I was raised going to catholic school…never met meaner nastier women in my life, the older the meaner. This Sister is the exception I suppose.
These women don’t need your forgiveness people. You are nobody
Carol — rather than spewing hate, you might have better spent your time actually reading, and seeking in good faith to understand, what Ms. Scalia and others have wrote. You have set up a strawman here, arguing against something that no one has advocated, and then, in your ignorance, attacking them for what they did not say.
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Plants treated with Deer Guard® and untreated plants were left at the site. Of course, scientific measurements were taken to determine the exact effectiveness of the product… but we think the photos tell the story the best!
The deer repellent remained effective throughout the 55 day test period… through inches of rain, summer sun, and intense browsing by hungry deer