Is abortion ever justifiable?

[ThomasT]

Recently I’ve found myself in arguments with Catholics over the justifiability of abortion in extreme circumstances. The Catholic view is that abortion is never justified, and so I brought up for discussion a hypothetical case, admittedly an unlikely one, of forced surrogacy combined with a threat to the surrogate’s life. The answer from the Catholics was the same: Abortion is murder.

Here’s the hypothetical:

A teenage girl is walking down the street minding her own business. Next thing she knows she’s being thrown into the back of a van, where an evil doctor impregnates her surgically with an embryo created by an egg from another (random) woman and the sperm of the doctor.

Then an alien being appears and tells the girl that she has two choices. She can take a pill that will kill the embryo, or she can decline to take the pill. If she takes the pill, the poison in the pill will kill the embryo but leave her unharmed, and she’ll be free to go. If she declines to take the pill, she’ll stay in a secret compound for nine months and finally die in horrible agony from massive hemorrhaging caused by the process of giving birth. The alien goes on to say that the child she gives birth to will survive (as usually happens in instances of maternal hemorrhaging) and live a normal healthy life.

The alien establishes in her mind the truth of what he’s telling her. Moreover we’ll say that what he’s telling her actually is true.

The key question raised by the hypothetical is of course whether embryos may be killed in self-defense. My own view is that embryos are like little children: In extreme cases (e.g., very young children carrying suicide bombs), those who bear no responsibility for their actions may sometimes be justifiably killed to save the lives of those they threaten (the Catholics don’t deny this as a general principle), and that the same principle that justifies the killing of young children justifies the killing of embryos (again, in highly unusual circumstances).

Please note that I’m not looking for an excuse to justify abortion. I am wondering, though, if the pro-life movement is now assigning more rights to the unborn than it is to the born. Abortion is an evil, but so is the notion that helplessness in one person should deprive another person of his right to self-defense.

 

[arapahoepark]

No.

 

[Parakaleo]

Lethal measures cannot be taken up in self-defense against someone putting your life at risk unintentionally because unintentional manslaughter is not punishable by death.

 

[ThomasT]

Lethal measures cannot be taken up in self-defense against someone putting your life at risk unintentionally because unintentional manslaughter is not punishable by death.

So if a little kid in Afghanistan is given a "gift" by a terrorist and told to take the gift to the American soldier at a checkpoint, and the soldier, who's accompanied by a bomb-sniffing dog that indicates the kid is carrying a bomb, tries to wave the kid away but isn't able to, the soldier has to let the kid run up to the checkpoint and be used as an instrument of force by terrorists who intend to detonate the bomb remotely?

This is not a Christian principle you're defending. The absence of malice on the part of an innocent instrument of force does not deprive us of our right to use force in self-defense against that instrument of force. Malice is not always necessary to justify deadly force against those who threaten us.

Another thing: You're confusing criminal penalties with actions undertaken in self-defense. If a sleep-walking man waving a gun around threatens to kill us but is disarmed before he can carry out his threats, he will (as you stated) not be subject to penalties for attempted murder. But if he can't be disarmed, those threatened by him have the right to use deadly force to protect themselves. His lack of conscious intent to murder makes no difference.

 

[Pergamum]

You can safely throw out hypotheticals involving aliens.

 

[ThomasT]

You can safely throw out hypotheticals involving aliens.

The alien per se isn't critical to the hypothetical. He's a stand-in for a set of given premises; we don't care what planet he came from or what he eats for breakfast or how he came to be involved in our abortion controversy. In philosophical ethics, a stand-in (often known as an "evil demon") is a commonly accepted contrivance. He functions as a means of highlighting inconsistencies in an argument. To refuse to engage with an argument because the argument calls into service a being that doesn't exist is essentially an abdication of the argument.

 

[ZackF]

In a double effect situation where a cancer patient undergoes chemo/radiation therapy that terminates the fetus is not immoral even to the sternest Catholics that I've ever known.

 

[Von]

Yup - don't worry about the alien - he's just a stand-in!

 

[earl40]

In a double effect situation where a cancer patient undergoes chemo/radiation therapy that terminates the fetus is not immoral even to the sternest Catholics that I've ever known.

Here is one stern catholic who would say it is immoral.

 

[Von]

Here is one stern catholic who would say it is immoral.

You must be the alien then?

 

[Von]

When a woman is giving birth in a resource-constrained area/country (without poor or no surgery facilities) and the baby gets stuck, they sometimes perform what is termed a "destructive operation" to kill the baby in order to save the mom's life. This is an extreme situation, but it does happen. Unfortunately we live in a sin-cursed world where we have to make decisions and some things are not clear-cut. God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

 

[ThomasT]

Yup - don't worry about the alien - he's just a stand-in!

You’re fixated on the alien. Let’s make this less distracting for you. Here’s the same hypothetical without the alien (it’s longer this way; the alien was an aid to brevity, among other things).

A teenage girl in the Congo (we’ll call her Lucy) lives in a remote village. She’s an orphan; her mother died giving birth to her, and her father’s nowhere to be found. Every year her village gets visited by a team of doctors, and for as long as the girl can remember the doctors have been telling Lucy that she’s extremely susceptible to the same maternal hemorrhaging that killed her mother, and that as a C-section isn’t normally available in her village (this requires a real surgery team), she must avoid getting pregnant until she leaves the village and moves to an area with modern health care. The doctors tell her that if she does give birth in the village, her child will most likely survive but that she will certainly die. And she’ll die in horrible agony.

Not long after the latest visit from the doctors, the area around the village gets cut off from outside contact by an insurgency army. No one except the insurgents can leave or enter the area. One of the insurgents is an evil doctor who impregnates Lucy with an in-vitro fertilized embryo created by the egg from another (random) woman and the doctor’s sperm. The doctor then leaves the village and lets Lucy ponder her circumstances.

In the village there are midwives who can perform an abortion, but that’s the extent of their medical skills, at least as far as Lucy’s condition is concerned. Lucy holds off on even thinking about the abortion dilemma until she begins to see for herself, after a few weeks, that she really is pregnant. The weeks drag on and still she hesitates. Finally the midwives tell her that she’s got to make a decision soon. The insurgency army has dug in and won’t be going anywhere for a long time, and Lucy is fast reaching the point where an abortion may be beyond the capabilities of the midwives.

Lucy decides to have the abortion. Question: Has she committed murder, or did she act in justifiable self-defense? Please note: I'm not asking if Lucy's behavior was less than morally ideal, or if Lucy violated the principle of charity. The question is concerned only with the issue of justice.

 

[Pergamum]

To kill a baby with certainty to avoid a hypothetical possibility is a bad choice.

Another common hypothetical is the supposed need for an abortion in the case of an ectopic preganancy. But abortion is not needed to treat an ectopic pregnancy.

http://www.personhoodinitiative.com/ectopic-personhood.html

* ABC News: As of 2002, 40% of Ectopic Pregnancies are Not: In 2012 ABC News reported the findings from scientific research published in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology that, "roughly 40 percent of pregnancies diagnosed as ectopic are later revealed to be normal, intrauterine pregnancies".

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop answered the dilemma in this way: “Protection of the life of the mother as an excuse for an abortion is a smoke screen. In my thirty-six years in pediatric surgery I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother's life.”[2] [ /QUOTE]


In every case I can imagine, it is much better to bear with it and hope for the best. In the very least, if a mother dies valiantly trying to deliver a live baby she dies in a noble effort instead of killing her child to save her own.

 

[Pergamum]

When a woman is giving birth in a resource-constrained area/country (without poor or no surgery facilities) and the baby gets stuck, they sometimes perform what is termed a "destructive operation" to kill the baby in order to save the mom's life. This is an extreme situation, but it does happen. Unfortunately we live in a sin-cursed world where we have to make decisions and some things are not clear-cut. God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

False. Babies often die during hard deliveries and efforts are made to destroy and remove the already-dead baby. But killing the live baby is much different.

 

[Pergamum]

Stop buying the lie! Abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother.

 

[Pergamum]

Ectopic pregnancy: it is medically possible to relocate the fetus if the fallopian tube must be removed. In many cases it doesn't need to be or the Ectopic pregnancy is shown later to be normal.

Cancer: You can do chemo without killing the baby.

Chemo During Pregnancy Appears Safe for Mother and Child. A review of the experiences of more than 400 women who received chemotherapy to treat breast cancer while they were pregnant suggests that the treatment doesn't harm the baby. The study was published online on Aug. 16, 2012 by The Lancet Oncology.

Some women delay chemo until the baby is born and survive.

 

[ThomasT]

Stop buying the lie! Abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother.

Sure -- if you live in a country where modern medical care is available to all. But what if you don't? What if your village in Sub-Saharan Africa has an abortionist but no doctor to perform a C-section?

The real lie is that the world is extravagantly endowed with shiny modern hospitals, and that women need only avail themselves of the splendid services these institutions provide. Why have an abortion when you can simply check yourself into Cedars-Sinai?

This is a quote from a pro-life website; it acknowledges the need for C-sections to save the lives of mothers and happily reports that this procedure has made abortion unnecessary. How wonderful for women everywhere, including places like the Central African Republic.
-----------------------
Situations in which the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother are extremely rare. Late-term abortions are never medically necessary. Emergency C-sections are often the medically appropriate response to save both mother and child. Viability at this stage of the child’s development is generally very good, especially with advances in neonatal care. Babies who weigh just under a pound are surviving!
http://www.feministsforlife.org/what-about-the-life-of-the-mother/

 

[ZackF]

Stop buying the lie! Abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother.

I respectfully disagree.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

I do not think there is a single instance from Scripture that give us warrant to presume to know the providence of God, so discussing hypotheticals is a meaningless endeavor (Deut. 29:29). We should never do evil thinking good will come of it. This is an act of rebellion against the revealed will of God. Intervention intended to end the life of an unborn child is murder. It is not debatable. Bringing good out of evil remains the sole purview of God.

 

[ThomasT]

I do not think there is a single instance from Scripture that give us warrant to presume to know the providence of God, so discussing hypotheticals is a meaningless endeavor (Deut. 29:29). We should never do evil thinking good will come of it. This is an act of rebellion against the revealed will of God. Intervention intended to end the life of an unborn child is murder. It is not debatable. Bringing good out of evil remains the sole purview of God.

If it's always murder to kill the unborn intentionally then it must also always be murder to kill little children intentionally. And yet prohibiting the killing of little children would deprive people of the Middle East (and also our soldiers in the Middle East) of their right to protect themselves from the little children who are used as suicide bombers by terrorists. You can't categorically prohibit the killing of the unborn without explaining why children don't deserve the same protection.

Leaving war aside: Policemen have sometimes been forced to shoot little kids who were waving guns around. The kids had no malice but the policemen had to protect themselves. Our right to defend ourselves does not go away simply because the person threatening us is both helpless and free of malice.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

Thomas,

The discussion is related to unlawful killing, murder. This is what abortion is. Introducing unrelated category errors into the discussion serves no purpose save but to distract from its original intent.

 

[Von]

Sure -- if you live in a country where modern medical care is available to all.

I agree. Where I am staying there are some HOSPITALS that do not even have medical gloves. The packs used for stitching patients' wounds run out halfway through the night. There's not enough beds, so people sleep on the floor. I can go on and on.
Furthermore Pergamum,

• "...In my thirty-six years in pediatric surgery..." - seriously?! - a paediatric surgeon commenting on an obstetric issue?
• The article from ABC news is criticizing the doctors for giving a drug that eventually caused malformations in the baby, but the study they quote (and that you use in support of your argument) to prove that ectopics are misdiagnosed, actually ADVISES that the doctor should give this specific drug! - You and ABC can't have it both ways.
• The study in question does note that only 61.6% had ectopic pregnancies, but the REMAINING 38.4% had miscarriages! (not exactly a normal viable pregnancy...)

the pro-life movement is now assigning more rights to the unborn than it is to the born

I think you have your answer.

 

[Pergamum]

Von:

Are you medically trained enough yourself to discount the testimony of someone 36 years in medicine because the surgeon was not an ob-gyn?

Late-term abortions are never medically necessary, as in your bush-scenario of killing and decimating the stuck baby to pass it in hard labor.

The intention of any procedure should never be to end the life of the child. Even in ectopic pregnancies which rupture or must be removed, in many cases the pregnancy can progress until the baby is viable and only then be removed to be nursed as a preemie.

While he was United States Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop stated publicly that in his thirty-eight years as a pediatric surgeon, he was never aware of a single situation in which a freeborn child's life had to be taken in order to save the life of the mother. He said the use of this argument to justify abortion in general was a “smoke screen.”

Due to significant medical advances, the danger of pregnancy to the mother has declined considerably since 1967. Yet even at that time Dr. Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood acknowledged: [1]

Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia, and, if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save, life.
Just for the record, go ahead and re-read that quote again and pay close attention to the source.

To repeat, the person making the quote is Dr Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood.

So, yes, Faye Wattleton, the President of Planned Parenthood, says that abortion kills, and now, just for the record again, we have Dr. Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood acknowledging that it is an extremely rare case that abortion is necessary to save the mother's life (and he even goes so far as to say that abortion would be unlikely to prolong the mother's life even in these every extreme cases).

Dr. Landrum Shettles says that: [2]

Less than 1 percent of all abortions are performed to save the mother's life.

http://www.abortionfacts.com/facts/8

In a new Live Action project, former abortionist and practicing OB/GYN Anthony Levatino explains: “You never need late-term abortion to save a woman’s life. If necessary, you accomplish the delivery.” Preterm delivery involves inducing the delivery of the child before he has reached term. The procedure is performed for various reasons, including the cessation of extreme health risks to pregnant women.

This procedure in no circumstances requires the prior, direct killing of the preborn child. While the child may be too underdeveloped to survive outside the womb, his natural death would be the result of an ethical delivery which saved his mother’s life. Furthermore, the child’s death is by no means inevitable in these circumstances; hospital delivery offers preterm children the medical technologies that are used to sustain premature babies every day. Dr. Levatino explains: “Now, did every one of those children make it, because they were preterm? No. But they all had a chance. And most of them did make it.”

https://www.texasrighttolife.com/fo...ion-is-never-necessary-to-save-a-womans-life/

Five of Ireland's top gynaecologists, writing in 1992: “We affirm that there are no medical circumstances justifying direct abortion, that is, no circumstances in which the life of a mother may only be saved by directly terminating the life of her unborn child.” John Bonner, Eamon O'Dwyer, David Jenkins, Kieran O'Driscoll, Julia Vaughan, “Statement by Obstetricians,” The Irish Times, 1 April 1992. ______ Dr. Hymie Gordon, Director of Medical Genetics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, October 15, 1974: “In more than 25 years now of medical practice, I have come to learn that if a woman is healthy enough to become pregnant, she is healthy enough to complete the term - in spite of heart disease, liver disease, almost any disease. As far as I’m concerned, there are no medical indications for terminating a pregnancy.” Dr. Hymie Gordon, Director of Medical Genetics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, October 15, 1974

https://www.nrlc.org/archive/abortion/pba/HowOftenAbortionNecessarySaveMother.pdf

 

[Pergamum]

Dr. Levatino also has a law degree, and explains in the video how a law that contains an exception for the “health of the mother” is meaningless because “health” has been defined to include not only physical health, but mental, social and even economic “health”.

 

[Pergamum]

The very worst-case scenario I can think of is the Twin to Twin Transfusion Scenario where both twins share one placenta.

But even then there is hope:

Anthony Dardano, M.D. writes:

Twin to twin transfusion syndrome occurs when identical twins share the same placenta. This is the case in roughly 5-10% of identical twins. Since the twins share the same placenta, they share some of the circulation, which may result in the transfusion of blood from one twin into the other. This is a very complex syndrome and can very from very mild to quite severe where one twin is fluid overloaded and the other anemic and fluid depleated. Severity is determined by how much of the circulation is shared and at which stage of the pregnancy it starts to cause symptoms. While I won't get into all the signs (excessive amniotic fluid), symptoms, etc., I will say that there is treatment available for a lot of the cases. The simplest treatment is to do nothing. If the amniotic fluid development exceeds certain limits, it can be drawn off by ultrasound guided amniocentesis. Modern technology has made this procedure relatively safe compared to the "blind taps" we did years ago. In any event, many times this is all that's needed. The pregnancy can be monitored and earlier delivery via cesarean section can be life saving for both twins. Remember that after birth, when the cords are clamped, the syndrome is over and modern perinatal intensive care has done wonders in stabilizing these children. More exciting is the use of fetal surgery. With a fetoscope, one can actually enter the amniotic cavity, visualize the abnomal circulatory placental connections, and seal them using a laser beam. Of course, these procedures carry some risk of fetal loss, but since the primary intent is to save both children, the risk would be morally acceptable ( a good example of the Principle of Double Effect guiding our decisions). I must be emphatic however in stating that any therapy with the primary purpose of destroying one fetus to give the other a "better chance" is infanticide and absolutely prohibited under all circumstances. As I have said many times before, physicians frequently are more concerned with their liability in managing a case, than with doing what is morally right for the patient. Their recommendation to sacrifice one fetus for the sake of the other is an example of that mentality.

Anthony N. Dardano, M.D.

But docs often say that one twin MUST be aborted to save the life of the other. Below is a good example of how these twins are treated by most hospitals. Lots of misinformation....docs telling patients there is no hope and they MUST abort one twin or lose both. Below is an encouraging news story:

https://world.wng.org/2016/08/advertising_life

But they found out later the babies had twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), where the babies share a placenta and have an uneven blood flow. Their first doctor recommended either aborting both of the babies, or one, “Baby B.”

“I can’t imagine thinking about ending one kid’s life to save our other kid’s life,” says Celeste Fine, the mom in the ad.

“Reducing” multiple pregnancies, the medical euphemism for aborting one or more of the babies growing in the womb, is not unusual medical advice in New York City, especially when there is a medical risk to one of the babies. Aborting triplets is more common than twins, but in 2011 The New York Times found one major medical center in the city where “reduction” of twins made up 38 percent of multiple terminations.

The couple in the ad refused the initial medical advice and went to NewYork-Presbyterian for a second opinion. There, the doctors saved Baby B through “advanced laser surgery.” The mom describes the delivery in the ad.

“So Baby A comes out, and I heard the cutest gurgle, and Baby B came out a minute after,” she says, as the babies appear on screen, on her lap. “And then they were Elias and Mateen! Hey, boys.”

https://www.tttsfoundation.org/help_during_pregnancy/reflect.php

 

[Von]

Please explain to me the following statement:

Even in ectopic pregnancies which rupture or must be removed, in many cases the pregnancy can progress until the baby is viable and only then be removed to be nursed as a preemie.

 

[Pergamum]

Please explain to me the following statement:

"An ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy in which the child is growing in an area of the mother’s body other than the womb.

In most of these cases, the child is found to be growing in one of the mother’s fallopian tubes. Occasionally the child will grow in the mother’s abdominal cavity, and on very rare occasions he will begin to develop inside of one of her ovaries.

These pregnancies are generally assumed to be fatal unless an abortion is performed, and the explanation is given that it is better to save the mother by killing the unborn child than to do nothing and allow both of them to die. "

But, as I have given proof of, many ectopic pregnancies are misdiagnosed and are not ectopic, or at least not tubal. Or the precise location is not known (see the article linked below).

"The actual danger that an ectopic pregnancy poses to the mother is that of a tubal rupture or some other kind of hemorrhage which could cause the mother to lose a vital amount of blood." But this bleeding can be stopped. "In 2002, a worldwide study of 632 ruptured ectopic pregnancies treated with autotransfusion reported only a single instance of death. That’s a success rate of 99.84%. This study demonstrates that this non-abortive treatment is more successful than the preferred abortion method which has a success rate of just 99.6%." Better to let things progress naturally instead of intentionally end the life of the fetus. In some cases upon rupture the embryo has re-implanted in another location.

"The treatment of ectopics gets better and better all the time with advances in medicine making it possible now to transfer the pregnancy from the tube into the uterus. In reality, there have been many reports of successful ectopic pregnancies. Two obstetricians in New York, Dr.’s Hellman and Simon, published details on 316 ectopic pregnancies which resulted in live births between 1809 and 1935. [1] (Only half of these children survived their first week of life, but these births occurred long before the development of the first neonatal intensive care unit."

It has been discovered that a large percentage of ectopic pregnancies resolve on their own with the death of the child before he grows large enough to cause a rupture of the fallopian tube. In one study of 179 tubal pregnancies, it was found that 41.9% of all tubal pregnancies result in the death of the child at this stage.[30] This means that approximately 58% of the children continue to grow until they eventually rupture their mothers' fallopian tubes.

So if most die on their own, why intentionally kill it? Especially if the survival rate is so high for the mothers?

Dr. Clark demonstrated that the rupture itself does not cause the death of the child and that he will often subsequently implant on some other surface in the abdominal cavity and may live.

The solution should be to closely monitor the condition of both the child and the mother so that a c-section delivery could be initiated immediately if the condition of either patient begins to worsen.

ox News in Phoenix has this story of a woman who was diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy (one outside the uterus) at 20 weeks. She rejected surgery at that point because her baby couldn't have survived. He was born, healthy but premature, at 32 weeks.

http://www.fox10phoenix.com/dpp/news/offbeat/expecting-mom-carries-fetus-in-abdomen-5-23-2011

Here is an article about an ectopic pregnancy surviving:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2008476/The-mother-risked-ectopic-baby.html

Here is another article:
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/a...ectopic-baby-after-8-c-sections-this-couple-c

And here is another:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/sep/10/vikramdodd

And here are medical journals about tubal pregnancies being transplanted into the uterus:
http://www.ajog.org/article/0002-9378(90)90794-8/pdf

http://americanrtl.org/files/docs/Journal-Surg-Gyn-Obst-1917p578-579ectopic-transplant.pdf

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2602194/

The death of both the child and the mother is far from certain in these cases. When there is hope I think you must wait and see and not end that hope prematurely.

A number of things could happen if a doc diagnoses even a fallopian tube pregnancy. They could be wrong. It happens a lot. The baby may die on its own without you intentionally ending its life. You can use the principle of double-effect and remove the tube and say in your mind that it is not with the purpose of killing the baby (as some do). The tube could rupture and might re-implant. You might find out it wasn't actually in the tube but in the abdomen and you might be able to remove it once viable and keep it alive as a preemie. Death is not a foregone fate.

The OP asks, "IS abortion ever justifiable" and even in these most difficult of cases, I believe the answer is, "NO, abortion is never justified."

 

[Von]

Yes - FIRST WORLD, without the following:

• Preconceived ideas about medicine (ie: western medicine = bad, traditional medicine = just as good)
• Poor infrastructure
• No personal transport available, and public transport variable
• Nearest clinic (primary healthcare) not being easily accessible
• Long queue of equally ill people at nearest hospital with surgical facilities
• The only doctor on duty at this secondary medical facility is a junior doctor
• The senior doctors are often not available for various reasons
• etc, etc

I can go on and on - the IDEAL would be to spare the pregnancy, but this is not ALWAYS possible.
It sounds like you are more anti-abortion than pro-life.

 

[Pergamum]

If you have the medical technology to do an abortion "safely" then you have the medical technology to do many of things I have mentioned above.

So....abortions only for the poor people, then, huh?

If this is a true triage condition like on a battlefield where an absolute lack of meds are available you can justify a lot. But it isn't...all of these conditions progress over weeks to months.

I live in the bush, too, and we can get medical emergencies flown out over the course of a few hours to at least reasonable medical care.

Systems may fail and patients die due to poor care and poor infrastructure, but this is no justification of the morality of a practice.


A summary of my situation: My wife and I are RNs living amongst a remote tribe and treating the sick in our home and on our porch as a clinic. I was in the Army before that and we trained for field (bush) conditions. The only access here in my village in and out was by heli at first before we opened a water strip on our river and then a real airstrip.

 

[Von]

This is going nowhere.
I'm done.