The ex-sister.
Posted on 05/18/2010 9:52:44 AM PDT by topher
The article states that treatments such as chemotherapy are allowed to save the mother's life (but may result in the death of the unborn). However, an unborn cannot be directly killed, i.e., aborted "as a means of saving the mother's life".
This is the key point of the article: that a baby cannot be aborted directly, but that the Catholic Hospital can provide medical treatment (such as chemo) which will save the mother's life. This might indirectly end the unborn's life, but the point is to try to save one life.
What the bishop said was very wrong was to kill the baby with the hope that it will somehow help the mother's life (which may or may not help depending on the medical condition).
Hospital officials claimed that they were following the second directive by aborting the baby.
This is only true in a pig's eye.
An medical doctor further down in the article refutes the above statement saying that an unborn child at 11 weeks has minimal impact on the cardiovascular system of the mother...
This is Dr. Byne who refutes the cliams of the Catholic Hospital in Phoenix...
Good Job - Bishop Olmsted. This IS a big deal.
So many destructive (and un-Catholic things) are rationalized away by clergy and lay people with emotional, politically expedient, socially-safe - and specious arguments. Time to draw a line.
Sounds like the Jack Bauer approach. Refreshing.
Bravo to the bishop for doing his job! Would to God that all bishops were as faithful.
From a philosophical perspective, Natural Law, as a principle, is not concerned with secondary affects. It looks at an action in keeping with moral absolutes.
Some see this as a weakness of Natural Law, but whatever moral or ethical standard that you choose, you should be consistent.
I am very suspicious that the hospital didn’t offer any comparison as to the health risks to the mother in having an abortion procedure performed on her versus carrying the baby to term. There also was no explanation offered as to what health risk carrying the baby to term with respect to her heart condition whatsoever.
And let me add this: Those who wish to criticize the Catholic Church’s position that the baby’s life is preferred over the mother’s should bear in mind that this policy is long-standing.
If one does not wish to abide this policy, it is quite simple: LEAVE THE CHURCH or expect to be expelled. Don’t try to force the church to abide your lifestyle choices. Free association and all that.
She’s still a sister. She’s a sister who is an excommunicated Catholic, and needs to formally repent in the presence of Bishop Olmstead.
but in doing this, they totally disregarded the first directive--no abortions... so glad this is found to be unacceptable... can you imagine this slippery slope?
There really is no such policy.
The teaching is actually very simple: you can't deliberately intend to kill an innocent person, even to save the life of another. Babies are innocent people, therefore (etc.).
It is sometimes morally permissible to take some act intended to save the mother's life, even if that act inadvertently causes the child's death. It is never permissible to deliberately, intentionally kill the child (or the mother) for any reason.
What about an ectopic pregnancy?
You cannot directly kill the unborn.
But the unborn will grow and burst the fallopian tube, possibly killing both the mother and baby.
What can be done (which according to Father Peter West was approved by the Roman Catholic Church) was that the Fallopian tube is removed.
The baby dies a "form of a natural death". The baby does not continue to "theathen the life of the mother by growing.
Incidently, it was quite commonly known that a major cause of ecotopic pregnancy was because of a prior abortion -- the surgical "scraping" within the womb would do damage to the fallopian tubes/uterus.
If I ran into her on the street, how would I know she was a Roman Catholic nun?
If she wore a cross, then maybe I might think she might be a nun...
I meant to mention that in the previous post, and it was as a part of question/answer session on abortion/pro-life that he gave at St Michael's Catholic Church in Gaineville, Georgia...
Well done, good and faithful servant! Now, if we can get the bishops of Pelosi, Reid, Kerry and the Kennedy family to follow suit!
As Topher alluded to, it's called the principle of double effect. Basically it goes like this: you cannot do an intrinsically evil act to achieve a good end, but you can do an acceptable act in order to achieve that good, minimizing the chances of a bad side effect, but if that bad side effect happens, then it is acceptable.
In the case of an ectopic pregnancy, you are not aborting the baby, you are removing the inflamed and swollen fallopian tube that might burst, which would, in all likelihood kill both mother and baby if not removed. Unfortunately, there is a baby inside of that fallopian tube. Currently, technology does not exist that will allow that baby to survive the removal of the fallopian tube, but we can pray that medical science will find a way to allow that to happen in the future.
In other words, you are treating the mother and, with technology the way it is, the chances are extreme that the baby will not survive.
If medical science was funded in a true pro-life fashion, they would be working on a technique to allow the baby to somehow survive. But I doubt that medical science is even looking in that direction.
Why does he not excommunicate the “Devout Catholic” Politicians that approve of abortions?
Because he is not their bishop.
**************************
Exactly right. That's the problem.
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.