Can you tell the difference?
Posted on 11/20/2014 10:16:59 AM PST by wagglebee
The more disturbing problem is when the life of the mother truly lies in the balance. Whichever one would choose to save is at the expense of the other. THAT decision is far harder to take.
Fortunately, these cases are extremely rare and are usually ectopic pregnancies where the baby is not viable. Regardless, efforts to SAVE the mother's life are ethical even if the baby's life is risked as a result and these ARE NOT considered abortions. However, I am aware of few if any procedures in which it is necessary to intentionally kill a baby in the womb to save the mother.
The entire "life of the mother" argument may have been legitimate forty years ago, but advances in medicine have pretty much rendered them moot.
98 people will have a good sandwich and two will die.
But once you allow that kind of choice to be approved of then you have no moral authority to draw the line anywhere. You have just said it is ok to kill two out of one hundred for the greater good.
I’ve thought about this issue from a personal perspective. If I were raped, I can’t say that I would want to keep and raise the baby. Maybe I would...who knows. But there is no way I could murder the innocent life inside me.
Even if I decided I couldn’t manage raising the baby, nine months is not a long time to sacrifice, is it?
Abortion isn’t a solution to rape; it just piles on and makes the woman’s life that much more miserable.
Yes.
Agreed.
Bless you, Catherine.
A very sensible post. As twisted as today’s society has become, even giving a child of rape up for adoption sometimes fails to provide closure. People have been searching Facebook to deduce their biological mother and then suing the birth mother who thought she had a sealed adoption, insisting on being recognized by her and her legitimate children. Audacious rapists have been suing for visitation, custody and even child support. Rape jihadists intend to use the baby as an incursion weapon and demand that the child be raised muslim. Therefore I agree with you that a rape pregnancy is not always a clear-cut situation or decision. For that tiny minority of cases, a very early interruption of the implantation of a zygote may be an act of mercy.
Here is just such a case, in which the mother chose the life of her child and then died, leaving her other children motherless:
Heroic mother with rare condition died moments after giving birth to baby in C-section procedure
I have often pondered this dilemma, as a dear friend of mine would not be here had the priest not chosen the life of the child over the life of the mother when one of her great-grandmothers was struggling to give birth to one of her grandparents. The priest chose the baby, and the 5 older children were then motherless and with an alcoholic father. The baby was shuffled around to various relatives, never learning to read and starting work as a laborer at age 7. He, too, abused alcohol and had an unhappy marriage and unhappy children, one of whom was my friend's parent. All her siblings and first cousins of that family group have had serious health and relationship problems and divorces, and she has as well, in spite of being one of the few teetotalers in that group. Crap rolls downhill. She has made it a point to fence it off; but it has cost her dearly in therapies and abandonments, and the results are not yet in for her offspring. Should the priest have chosen differently? We will never know.
Thank you, my friend. God bless you, too.
Well...
The author is right, of course, but some other aspects need to be covered.
To be sure any abortion is killing of an innocent human life and is therefore objectively a crime, no matter what laws the government might pass. End of story.
These are the missing aspects:
1. The political compromise aspect. Let us imagine that a constitutional amendment criminalizing abortion is calculated to pass with the rape exception and not pass without it. Would you still vote for it, with the exception? I think I would. It will not eliminate abortion but reduce it to a fraction of a percent of what carnage we have now. After all we do support, and fervently, various palliatives today such as restrictive regulations of abortuaries.
2. The punitive aspect. Let us say abortion is legislated to be a crime. Now you have two unmothers guilty of abortion. One committed an abortion because pregnancy jeopardized her job promotion; the other because she was raped. Would you punish them the same? I think not; the experience of rape extenuates the murder she committed. Again, sentences today vary greatly depending on the callousness of the murder, so there is nothing new here.
Can you tell the difference?
[Albion Wilde:] I have often pondered this dilemma [...]
It is a dilemma, isn't it?
As far as intellectual honesty toward the law (US Constitution), the exception provides a conundrum: While in my person I hold strictly to the purpose and sanctity of life (one of the few things I can admit in absolute agreement with FRomans hereabouts), And in that, I can deeply understand the exception as wags has defined it - However, men of good character can disagree. And thereby, as a matter of law, the exception being necessary, the law itself cannot be served up carved in stone, as it were: The exception leaves the door open a hair's-breadth - And what will almost necessarily follow is the proverbial camel's nose under the tent.
And such as this is what caused a somewhat broader line than what most in the Judeo-Christian sphere would intend. Contraception aside for the moment, I think that most conservative denominations are still quite close in the defense of the unborn when push comes to shove, but needfully accept the broader line even within the Life movement (that being rape, incest, true life of the mother, and true welfare of the child (evident malformation as an example)). In each of these, to some, a dilemma does truly exist, and in each case, I think most folks would rather leave such a terrible decision closer to the ground, though hopefully guided as much as possible by elders of faith and elders of family.
Yet quintessentially, the decision inevitably rests (or should rest) in the fact that life is given by YHWH and must be protected.
And also, such as this is merely telegraphed into the law by way of the moral dilemma which seems to exist above the law, as your poignant tale readily demonstrates. It is interesting in itself in that all of Man would declare that a noble woman would instinctively choose the life of her child - Indeed my own heart knows that such a woman demonstrates the elemental noble feminine act. Even the thought keens in my soul.
Yet, as you describe, what if the woman leaves children motherless? What then is the proper course? And if she leaves them critically upon a man unable or unwilling to meet the challenge? It isn't all that easy, is it?
Tough sledding...
I think the "life of the mother" aspect is probably the most complex and it is a matter which great minds have grappled with for centuries and I believe the only acceptable solution is one that closely parallels the "just war" principles first laid out by Saint Augustine and later expanded upon by Saint Thomas Aquinas.
In Summa Theologica Aquinas wrote:
Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take their species according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental.
Saving the life of a mother is MORALLY GOOD and nobody will disagree with that. IF an action is intended to save the mother's life and an UNINTENDED (even if it is unavoidable) consequence is the death of the baby, it can be permitted because the death of the baby isn't willed. However, IF a procedure exists that is just as likely to save the mother and the baby, then it is the ONLY morally acceptable procedure.
Thankfully, these cases are rare and typically the mother desires to save both herself and the baby or even just the baby.
However, when abortionists speak of life of the mother they actually mean desire of the mother because they believe that anything unwanted threatens her life.
As far as children known to have birth defects, God created each of us EXACTLY as He wanted. If He wills a person to be born, then they must be allowed to be born. It can be His will alone that is followed. To those who would say that we have medical technology that will keep babies alive who would have died a few decades ago, I say God knows this and He allowed these advances just as he allowed men to eradicate smallpox and a host of other conditions that shortened the lives of those in the past. If EVERY life isn't sacred, then none are.
Yet, as you describe, what if the woman leaves children motherless? What then is the proper course? And if she leaves them critically upon a man unable or unwilling to meet the challenge? It isn't all that easy, is it?
Go to any older cemetery (with tombstones prior to the early 20th century) and you will see a great many graves of women who died in their late teens or twenties. Almost without exception, these women died in childbirth, it was not unusual a century ago for a child to have never known their mother. We cannot second guess the courage and love of a woman who risks her own life for her child.
As far as rape and incest (and pregnancies from these are MUCH MORE RARE than the abortionists would have us believe), it can never be acceptable to kill these babies. There is simply no precedent in Judeo-Christian culture for killing children for a crime their father committed. The baby IS INNOCENT and nothing can change that. I fully accept that many women do not want a child who is a daily reminder of a brutal crime, but there are millions of families who will be happy to adopt this child. Then there are women (and I know some personally) who love their child and realize that they are the one blessing of an otherwise tragic incident. Again, God created ALL of us, even the children of rape.
Thank you for your thoughtful replies, in which we all seek to reduce the small gray area to 1% approaching zero.
You seem to be forgetting what is already in place and happening.
I am not suggesting the imposition of an imperfect system where none exists. I am suggesting that the imperfect system which I believe has realistic chance of adoption is infinitely better than what we have now, the unrestricted murder of innocents.
It is like the laws about not having an abortion after 24 weeks. It is a good law but it stops nothing because they say they are at 23 weeks and x days to get around it.
If you give ground they will find a way around it because their goal is more dead people. Once you give ground you can not then back up and say, "Oops, let's add more restrictions."
Doesn't work with kids, doesn't work with grown ups either.
Again, you fail to accept the situation for what it is. I am not “giving ground”, it was lost a long time ago. I am trying to win back a very large part of the ground that is most easily taken.
If for you it is all or nothing, I’m afraid it will be nothing for a long time, if not forever. Learn from your enemies who have played the “long game”, relentlessly pushing for a more Godless society, one incremental step at a time. We may get to a place you are comfortable with, but it will not happen quickly or completely in one step. Work to reverse the momentum of death, if necessary one step at a time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.