I'm not sure that you understand "life of the mother" arguments by Catholics. I believe it was freeper Salvation who explains it best.
If there is a medical procedure needed by a mother to save her life, that procedure can be taken, and if it puts the life of the child in jeopardy, then that is a "life of the mother" exception. It is not, "I'm feeling suicidal if I don't get rid of this baby.", so therefore, I can abort the baby. In that 2nd instance there is a direct killing of the baby. In the first, the baby might die as part of a life-saving procedure.
The bottom line is the difference between direct killing and attempting to preserve all lives possible. I am, of course, in favor of any effort to save mother and child.
So, in every case, I am in favor of trying to save the life of the baby. You could almost call my position "pro-delivery". I'm in favor of delivering the child and not directly killing it. If it dies as a result of honest attempts to save it, then that is not an abortion actually. Abortion ALWAYS kills first with no other questions asked. Abortion dismembers, pierces skulls, sucks out brains, destroys with chemicals, etc. There is no effort whatsoever to save life.
“I'm not sure that you understand ‘life of the mother’ arguments by Catholics.”
My friend, I'm not sure YOU understand “life of the mother” as it pertains to Catholic moral theology and the question of abortion.
“If there is a medical procedure needed by a mother to save her life, that procedure can be taken, and if it puts the life of the child in jeopardy, then that is a ‘life of the mother’ exception.”
Not if that medical procedure is a direct, intentional abortion. An "abortion," as defined, is not necessarily dismembering or otherwise killing the unborn baby before delivery. An abortion is the premature delivery of a child, whether intended or unintended, who will die outside the womb. Here is wikipedia's first paragraph on the topic of abortion:
"Abortion is the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability.[note 1] An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced. The term abortion most commonly refers to the induced abortion of a human pregnancy."
I agree that when we speak about "abortion," we usually do mean to suggest that the end goal is the death of the baby. But in that most abortions take place well before "viability," whether the baby dies directly at the hands of the abortionist, or dies from an inability to survive outside the womb is considered a distinction without a difference to those who believe in "a woman's right to choose."
Nonetheless, intentional delivery before the child can survive is an induced abortion, whether one kills the child directly in the performance of the procedure, or waits for the child to die from an inability to survive after delivery. From the perspective of Catholic moral theology, there is no difference. Inducing premature delivery of an unborn child who is absolutely unable to survive outside the womb falls under the rubric of "abortion."
In fact, from a Catholic perspective (and in my own view, from a medical perspective), delivery a viable baby and killing him or her before or during delivery technically wouldn't be abortion, per se, but rather, just ordinary pre-meditated, garden-variety murder. The specific species of murder would be infanticide.
I'm not a doctor, and so I can't describe a particular situation that might give rise to a direct, intentional abortion that would be required to save a mother's life.
In fact, I've read that many pro-life physicians argue that such circumstances never arise. Then, someone will present such a case, and the pro-life physician will say something along the lines of, “Well, yeah, but in that particular case, maybe something else might have been done, and besides, even if an abortion was the only way to save the woman, that almost never happens.”
But let's say a woman is four months pregnant and continued pregnancy is, for some reason, no longer consistent with continued life for the woman. There is no treatment that will permit her to live and also not kill the baby. And, in fact, there is no treatment that will save her life and only indirectly kill the unborn child.
The only procedure that will save the mother's life is the immediate removal of the unborn child from the mother's womb.
How frequent are these circumstances? I've heard some folks say that they just don't exist. I've heard others describe particular circumstances wherein the dilemma is just so. I'm not competent to decide who is right and who is wrong. But, logic tells me that with seven billion folks in the world, it probably does rarely happen that a woman will die without removing her unborn child from her womb.
If the direct, intentional treatment for the woman is something that will have as a secondary effect the death of the child, it is generally accepted by most Catholic moral theologians to be morally permissible. Chemotherapy or radiation for cancer. The direct, intended effect, the thing that saves the woman, is the killing of cancer cells by the treatment. Removal of a diseased body part - say, an inflamed fallopian tube, or a cancerous uterus. The direct, intended effect, the thing that saves the woman, is the removal of a diseased body part. Most moralists are on board with these.
But if the direct, intentional “treatment” for the woman, the thing that actually saves the woman, is removing the baby from her womb to save her life, if that inevitably results in the death of the baby (which, at this time, removal of a baby of gestational age of 16 or 17 weeks would be), it is morally impermissible.
I once speculated that perhaps if the baby were not yet sufficiently matured to survive outside the womb, perhaps his or her death could be counted as a secondary, not-intended effect of the primary effect of saving the mother's life. If every effort were made to deliver the baby alive, and to try to help him or her survive outside the womb, even though such efforts would prove futile, perhaps this would be morally acceptable. However, I read some years back the answer to a “dubium” posed thusly to the Vatican, and the answer came back in the negative. If the “treatment” for the woman's survival is direct removal of the unborn child who is most assuredly unable to survive outside the womb, then the “treatment” for the woman is the direct, intentional killing of the child.
And thus, is impermissible.
Are you on board with this "purist" position? I am. Prohibition of abortion, even in these extremely rare circumstances, is my ultimate goal.
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