[wagglebee]

The left can blather on about abortions performed to "save the life of the mother," although in this day and age, with all of the available technology, there isn't one instance of an abortion HAVING to be performed to save the life of the mother anyone can speak to us about;

The ONLY cases that occur with any frequency where the mother's life is at risk due to the baby are ectopic pregnancies; however, in nearly all of these pregnancies the baby is ALREADY DEAD when the condition is discovered.

The sad fact is that abortions are performed so people don't have to take responsibility for their actions.

Yes they are. An American child is murdered EVERY 24 SECONDS for "convenience."

[fleagle]

Excellent. You and Gandu have so far been the only two people to explain to me a condition that would pose a threat to the life of the mother. In all of the conversations I’ve had with pro-choice/abortion types, none have ever identified that condition.

[hocndoc]

Actually, it’s not true that the baby is usually dead when discovered in ectopics. It is true that they are almost certain to die and are a direct, imminent and life-threatening danger to their mothers. The problem is that they continue to grow or have already grown beyond the size of the fallopian tube.

Where the embryonic human is alive we use the doctrine of unintended consequences or “double effect” to determine the right thing to do.

It’s ethical to remove the diseased tube from the body without the intention to or directly causing the death of the baby. It’s not ethical to cause the death of the child with medicines (methotrexate or RU486) or by scooping the embryo out of the tube while alive, each of which directly causes the death of the child.

In one of those demonstration that the right thing to do is *actually* the right thing to do - women are more likely to have successful pregnancies in the future if the more ethical procedure to remove the diseased tube.

[Mrs. Don-o]

And removal of an actopic pregnancy has never, ever been considered abortion, legally or morally, at any time, in any political jurisdiction or even in any church that I am aware of.

The surgical procedure for this is not even considered an abortion procedure. It is simply the medically legitimate excising of a diseased and life-threatening section of an organ (a piece of the Fallopian tube) with the unintended side-effect that the baby cannot survive.

It is not an attack on the baby, and actually, if it were possible to re-implant the embryonic child at a different site (for instance, by somehow stimulating nidation at the fundus of the uterus) it would probably be morally obligatory to try to do so.

In any case, that's a technical option that seems to be beyond the scope of our medical arts --- for now. The intention must always be to try to save both mother and baby IF it is possible to do so.