The Church has agreed that in the case of ectopic pregnancy, the baby has no chance to be born alive in any case. The primary purpose of operating in the case of ectopic pregnancy is to save the mother’s life, and the death of the baby, although regretable, is a side effect, not the central aim of the operation.
That may sound a bit complicated, but I think it makes sense.
It’s basically different from the usual “life or health” of the mother excuses, which basically amount to abortion on demand.
That may sound a bit complicated, but I think it makes sense.
In this case, the woman was having a spontaneous miscarriage at 17 weeks, amniotic fluid was leaking (the leakage of the amniotic fluid over the course of many days, caused the septicemia BTW) and there was zero chance to save the baby. This woman suffered not only the physical pain of a miscarriage gone terribly, terribly wrong that lasted for several days that the doctor assured her and her husband would be quick and over in a few hours, but also the emotional pain of waiting for her baby to die, one that she and her husband really wanted, while her own life slowly slipped away all because the doctor would do nothing because he could still detect a fetal heartbeat.
What you say about ectopic pregnancy makes no sense. In an ectopic pregnancy, while you are correct in saying “the baby has no chance to be born alive in any case” the termination of the pregnancy by removal of the fetus from the fallopian tube is the surgery, not an unintended side effect, and up until the surgery/termination, the fetus still has a heartbeat.
This woman shouldn’t and needed not to have died even under the “rules” of the Catholic Church. What happened in this case was medical malpractice plain and simple, IMO.