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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Irish abortion
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Crœsos, I don't think that my last but one post conflicts with the guidelines you quote at all. The sort of licit procedure I was talking about was removal of a piece of tube in which the embryo was lodged - and that seems to be covered by the directives you quote.
<snip>
I did say above, however, that I was not sure that the removal of an embryo was always outlawed even when it was not lodged in a tube. I can see better now, from the directives you quote, why some of such removals would be directly abortive and therefore illicit, and why others might not be. So I thank you for that.
It seems like a particularly dangerous way to maintain what is essentially a pretense or façade. Waiting for the fallopian tube to rupture just so you can claim double effect (as is the practice in El Salvador) seems like a lot of risk to place on women just to extract the Church's pound of flesh (or however much the section sliced out of the woman happens to weigh).
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Croesus, I think you misunderstand me. I don't see why, under the directives you have quoted, a removal cannot take place before any rupture.
Am I missing something? It's perfectly possible.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Croesus, I think you misunderstand me. I don't see why, under the directives you have quoted, a removal cannot take place before any rupture.
Am I missing something? It's perfectly possible.
We all know it's possible. It happens all the time in civilized nations. The question is whether the Catholic Church considers it morally permissible.
The Salvadoran government (and their Catholic advisors) have concluded that removing an embryo/fetus from the tube is a direct abortion, and that removing a section of an otherwise healthy tube containing an embryo/fetus is also a direct abortion. I believe their reasoning is that prior to the rupture the tube is healthy and there's no reason to remove it other than to remove the embryo/fetus, so the removal serves no purpose other than to terminate a pregnancy.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
The only effective treatment for pre-eclampsia or eclampsia is termination of the preganancy. When you start talking about a pregnant woman with high blood pressure, that's what you are talking about. If the pregnancy isn't terminated, the woman will likely die.
And, as far as I can see, that's okay with the Roman Catholic Church.
That's "okay" with Catholics? That's a pretty vile way to put it, when Catholics - no less than non-Catholics - can see and feel perfectly well the awfulness of such a situation. Do you think we don't?
For Catholics everything possible must be done for the mother that the circumstances allow except the deliberate and direct killing of the child in such a situation. The reason why the direct and deliberate killing of the child is not allowed is the same reason that (and I don't hear this said too often) the deliberate and direct killing of the mother would not be allowed, even if it saved the child's life: it would be a direct breach of the 5th Commandment. "We may not kill, but needs must strive officiously to keep alive" would just about sum it up.
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
To me, they're playing games when they say that you can terminate the pregnancy in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, because the embryo is being removed "incidentally," and the termination is not the intended result of the surgery, but something that just sort of happens as an unintended byproduct of the procedure, but you can't in the case of eclampsia, because the intent of the surgery is terminating the pregnancy.
This is serious and difficult and we take it at its full gravity - to be anything less than serious and rational and conscience-led on this would be truly criminal. We are deeply serious and sincere, I assure you. And yet you imply that we treat it as a game.
To me, it is not morally trivial that in the one case you perform an act that has as an entirely unintended, undesired and indirect effect of the death of the child, and in the other you deliberately kill the child because the direct aim is to terminate the pregnancy, not in directly treat the condition but in treating the termination as a deliberate means to an end.
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
That's stupid, as far as I'm concerned. In both cases, the intent is to save the mother's life; in both cases, the means of saving the mother's life is terminating the pregnancy, which is what is putting her life at risk. Separating one from the other is just playing word-games: word-games that result in women dying.
In both cases the desired end is the saving of the mother's life. But in one case one uses the deliberate and direct cutting off of the child's life as a means to that end, and in the other one doesn't. Deliberately ending a pregnancy as a direct means of saving a mother's life is to trade its life off to save here. The fact that the embryo will likely die anyway doesn not change that fcat. It's treating the embryo/fetus's life as a mere means to the end of the mother's. To take a life-saving measure for the mother which has as an indirect (not aimed at not directly concommitant) consequence the death of the child is to treat both as ends in themsleves. That is the moral distinction for Catholics.
You may not be convinced of the rightness of our moral reasoning and intuitions here - and I for one would not be condemnatory of that. But whatever else it is that Catholics are trying to achieve, Josephine, please believe me that it is not deliberately letting women die so as not to infringe the rules of our "word-game". It is a serious attempt to put proper weight on the life of both mother and child and to discern through reason the will of God, given our understanding of His laws as received through Tradition. That you would be prepared to suggest that we are choosing to sacrifice women's lives to our arbitrary word-games indicates to me an alarming eagerness to believe evil of Catholic teaching. Seriously - that is a very grave matter.
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
May God have mercy.
Amen. May He indeed. You could show some mercy too by not impugning our good will in this serious matter.
[ 26. November 2012, 20:23: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Croesus, I think you misunderstand me. I don't see why, under the directives you have quoted, a removal cannot take place before any rupture.
Am I missing something? It's perfectly possible.
We all know it's possible. It happens all the time in civilized nations.
Actually, I meant that my missing something was perfectly possible.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
To me, they're playing games when they say that you can terminate the pregnancy in the case of an ectopic pregnancy, because the embryo is being removed "incidentally," and the termination is not the intended result of the surgery, but something that just sort of happens as an unintended byproduct of the procedure, but you can't in the case of eclampsia, because the intent of the surgery is terminating the pregnancy.
This is serious and difficult and we take it at its full gravity - to be anything less than serious and rational and conscience-led on this would be truly criminal. We are deeply serious and sincere, I assure you. And yet you imply that we treat it as a game.
To me, it is not morally trivial that in the one case you perform an act that has as an entirely unintended, undesired and indirect effect of the death of the child, and in the other you deliberately kill the child because the direct aim is to terminate the pregnancy, not in directly treat the condition but in treating the termination as a deliberate means to an end.
I'm pretty sure this is what Josephine means by "playing games": indulging in the pretense that having a section of fallopian tube cut out is just something women do all the time for no particular reason of medical necessity. If a woman has an ectopic pregnancy but no other medical problem is there any reason to cut out part of the tube other than to end that pregnancy?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Actually I can think of a reason a woman might want a section of perfectly healthy fallopian tube cut out, but since tubal ligation is another Catholic no-no, I don't think it's particularly relevant to the current conversation.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
The only effective treatment for pre-eclampsia or eclampsia is termination of the preganancy. When you start talking about a pregnant woman with high blood pressure, that's what you are talking about. If the pregnancy isn't terminated, the woman will likely die.
And, as far as I can see, that's okay with the Roman Catholic Church.
That's "okay" with Catholics? That's a pretty vile way to put it, when Catholics - no less than non-Catholics - can see and feel perfectly well the awfulness of such a situation. Do you think we don't?
Forgive me, Chesterbelloc, but I have to confess that I have come to think that many Catholics (and many others who follow Roman Catholic teaching in this regard) don't. It must be true that some do. But when I read pro-life articles and discussions, I don't see anything that looks like pain and grief, I don't hear anything that sounds like sorrow or fear, I don't feel any warmth of empathy or compassion. Instead, I hear people saying that it is never necessary to perform an abortion to save the life of the mother, that women claim that their life or health is in danger to justify an abortion that is done strictly for her convenience, because she is selfish, because she wants consequence-free sex, and we can't have that. I hear people say that maternal death just doesn't happen any more, now that we've got hospitals and antibiotics and all of that.
It's possible that I have missed the overwhelming and compassionate message of the Roman Catholic Church on this issue, having heard only from some lunatic fringe that doesn't correctly portray the RC position. If that's the case, I would be grateful if you'd send me to some sources where my impression could be corrected. Because, honestly, Chesterbelloc, I have always had a great deal of respect and affection for the RCC, but they are losing it.
quote:
For Catholics everything possible must be done for the mother that the circumstances allow except the deliberate and direct killing of the child in such a situation.
This is the problem. To preserve your own purity on the issue, you make distinctions that don't make a difference. Removing a living embryo with the "diseased" fallopian tube, at least some RC theologians are willing to call an "indirect" killing of a child. Terminating a pregnancy in the case of eclampsia is a "direct" killing of the child. But that, as I said before, is a word-game. The intent, in both cases, is to save the mother's life by terminating the pregnancy. Both terminations are deliberate. Both are intentional. Both use the same means to achieve the same ends. The only reason I can see to pretend otherwise is to preserve a moral fantasy.
And it is a moral fantasy that has real consequences. That makes the fantasy evil.
I think you want to have a world where you never have to choose between two evils, where there is always a good and right thing to choose. Unfortunately, that world doesn't exist. Since the Fall, we have been stuck in a world where sometimes there is no good and right thing to choose. Sometimes all of the choices available are evil. And when that happens, then with the fear of God, you can only choose the least evil that you can.
And that is a struggle. It's painful. It's horrible. But it's better to face it head-on than to pretend that the situation is other than what it is.
Whatever moral culpability you would have in terminating the ectopic pregnancy, you have the same culpability in terminating the pregnancy in the case of eclampsia. And whatever moral culpability you would have in not terminating the ectopic pregnancy and allowing the woman to die, you have the same culpability in not terminating the pregnancy in the case of eclampsia. In the one case, it is a sin of commission. In the other, it is a sin of omission. But in neither case are you innocent. In either case, if you were in charge of the medical decision, you would be choosing death for someone. The only honest thing to do is to face that, and accept it, and to do the best thing you can figure out to do in an evil circumstance, and then throw yourself on the mercy of God.
quote:
We are deeply serious and sincere, I assure you. And yet you imply that we treat it as a game.
I do indeed. I would like to think otherwise, believe me. I have had as a podvig, for many years, to avoid, not only bearing false witness against others, but to think well of them, and to take the most charitable possible interpretation of their words and actions. I started out believing that people in the pro-life movement generally chose their position entirely because of the value they placed on human life. I believed that for a very long time. I have only very reluctantly concluded otherwise. I have, on this board, asked people to persuade me that I am wrong. I would like to be wrong on this.
quote:
To me, it is not morally trivial that in the one case you perform an act that has as an entirely unintended, undesired and indirect effect of the death of the child, and in the other you deliberately kill the child because the direct aim is to terminate the pregnancy, not in directly treat the condition but in treating the termination as a deliberate means to an end.
Explain that, please, in words of no more than two syllables. Because apparently I'm too stupid to see the distinction. How is the death of an embryo on its removal from a fallopian tube "unintended, undesired and indirect," while the death of an embryo on its removal from the uterus intended, desired, and direct? How can an abortion be a licit treatment for ectopic pregnancy, but not for eclampsia? In both cases, the goal is NOT to terminate the pregancy, but to save the mother's life. It happens that, in both cases, the only means available to save the mother's life is to terminate the pregnancy.
I suppose some in the RCC are consistent -- in the countries where you can't terminate an ectopic pregnancy until the embryo has died, they are not playing games. That is at least consistent. They are willing, in all cases rather than in some cases, to kill women (by omission) in order not to kill embryos (by commission).
And if a RC woman wants to make that choice for herself, she has my admiration and my prayers. But for the RC to make that choice for other people is wrong.
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
That's stupid, as far as I'm concerned. In both cases, the intent is to save the mother's life; in both cases, the means of saving the mother's life is terminating the pregnancy, which is what is putting her life at risk. Separating one from the other is just playing word-games: word-games that result in women dying.
In both cases the desired end is the saving of the mother's life. But in one case one uses the deliberate and direct cutting off of the child's life as a means to that end, and in the other one doesn't. [/quote][/qb]
Again, talk to me like I'm a fifth grader. How is the removal of an embryo from a fallopian tube less deliberate than the removal of an embryo from a uterus? How is one less direct than the other? Because I'm not seeing a difference.
quote:
You may not be convinced of the rightness of our moral reasoning and intuitions here - and I for one would not be condemnatory of that. But whatever else it is that Catholics are trying to achieve, Josephine, please believe me that it is not deliberately letting women die so as not to infringe the rules of our "word-game". It is a serious attempt to put proper weight on the life of both mother and child and to discern through reason the will of God, given our understanding of His laws as received through Tradition. That you would be prepared to suggest that we are choosing to sacrifice women's lives to our arbitrary word-games indicates to me an alarming eagerness to believe evil of Catholic teaching. Seriously - that is a very grave matter.
I am not eager to believe evil of RC teaching. I have been trying NOT to believe evil of the Church regarding this teaching for quite some time. But I have finally been pushed over the edge. I can no longer choose to believe contrary to the evidence that I see. If you want me to believe otherwise, please, please provide the evidence. I would like to know that I have wronged you, and your church, so that I can ask your forgiveness, and then take myself to Confession to ask God's forgiveness.
quote:
[QUOTE]May God have mercy.[QUOTE]Amen. May He indeed. You could show some mercy too by not impugning our good will in this serious matter.
Forgive me as far as you are able, Chesterbelloc, because I cannot find any way at this time to believe in the good will of your Church in this matter. I truly wish that I could.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Ok, I'm not doing too good a job here I see, and it's not for want of trying.
Part of it seems to be due to competing moral intuitions, some of it is down to a visceral antipathy to Catholic teaching (which I don't say is necessarily malicious, but might be to do with a lack of willingness to assume good will on both sides) and a lot is down my inability to make myself coherent or convincing without feeling exhausted by the effort. Further efforts in my current mood are likely to make the Catholic position less coherent or convincing rather than more.
In short, I'm done here for now.
[x-p'd with Josephine, whom I thank for her response.]
[ 26. November 2012, 21:09: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Further efforts in my current mood are likely to make the Catholic position less coherent or convincing rather than more.
In short, I'm done here for now.
[x-p'd with Josephine, whom I thank for her response.]
I understand, and you are welcome, and I was sincere in what I said -- I would like to be shown wrong, so when you feel able, if you would return with additional sources or arguments or information that would correct my misconceptions, I would be grateful.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
Comments from Ta-Nehisi Coates, if you're interested. His conclusion:
quote:
I would submit that if you believe abortion to be murder, you don't decide at all [when a woman is close enough to dying to give her an abortion]. ... Either abortion is murder, or it isn't. If you believe the former then Halappanavar's doctors were quite correct -- they refused to murder a baby to save its mother.
Walsh was lying in his refusal to admit that women actually do die during the work of pregnancy. But his position -- "without exceptions" -- strikes me as the honest one. The problem here isn't packaging. There is no way to honestly modify its import. Either you believe that women who have sex should run the risk of being remanded to potentially lethal labor, or you don't. No exceptions.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Josephine: quote:
Again, talk to me like I'm a fifth grader. How is the removal of an embryo from a fallopian tube less deliberate than the removal of an embryo from a uterus? How is one less direct than the other? Because I'm not seeing a difference.
Perhaps we are approaching this from the wrong angle. If you start from the premise that all abortion is wrong, but you are a compassionate person who wants to avoid inflicting unnecessary suffering on others, you might end up in a similar position to the RCC. In some ways it's similar to their position on marriage; they don't allow divorce at all, but if you can comply with something on this handy list of grounds for annulment you can pretend you never got married in the first place. So they are trying to bend the rules against abortion as far as possible without actually breaking them (because of the blanket ban on abortion). If your life-threatening pregnancy or your abusive marriage doesn't fit one of the conditions in the get-out clause, it's tough on you. But they are trying, within the constraints of their absolutist worldview.
Personally, I think it would be better to acknowledge that we live in an imperfect world. To rejoice that medical science has advanced to the point where we can save the mother in situations like this, and pray that one day we will be able to save her baby as well.
But I am not a Catholic.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Jane, I must thank you for this. I believe it is very close to explaining the reasoning and principles of the Catholic position. You understand that we feel we are working from absolute moral prohibitions - revealed, not of our own making - and are trying our best to apply them with both faithfulness and compassion. Seriously - that is precisely how we see things.
Since I'm still not sure I can say more without making it seem less rather than more convincing, I'll leave off here, with repeated thanks to you and to Josephine. Your good will is much appreciated.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Jane, I must thank you for this. I believe it is very close to explaining the reasoning and principles of the Catholic position. You understand that we feel we are working from absolute moral prohibitions - revealed, not of our own making - and are trying our best to apply them with both faithfulness and compassion.
The big problem is that the legal restrictions and criminal penalties that are frequently enacted from such a position are very much "of [y]our own making". To bring this back to the OP, why should a Hindu (or any other non-Catholic) be required, under penalty of law, to adhere to Catholic teaching?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Because that's the way democracy works?
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Because that's the way democracy works?
Some form of absolutist democracy, perhaps. The Athenian city-state is the closest example I can think of. Liberal democracies usually reserve a certain core of personal liberty. (Hence the name.)
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
Ireland is an "absolutist" democracy? I've never heard that criticism before.
At some point, you may just have to face up to the fact that some people fundamentally disagree with your ordering of moral goods.
You say abortion is a liberty issue? Some may agree with you and decide that any legislation against it violates the liberty a woman should have over the fate of her own body.
Some people might agree that it's a liberty issue and think that the most fundamental liberty is the right to exist and will want to defend the unborn on that basis.
Others may think that liberty is a basic good, but that certain exercises of liberty can result in choosing freely to do things that are wrong.
Some may think that liberty is important, but not important enough to justify the freedom of religious groups to discriminate on the grounds of conscience against gay couples and in favour of married (straight) couples for adoption.
There are other permutations. By all means, try to change people's minds. Everyone does. But these moral differences of conviction exist.
What Ireland decides is the law in Ireland is up to them. It's not up to me, or the Catholic Church, or you, or anyone else - no matter how wrong we may think they are in their choice. Maybe they will change the law soon. I don't know. I don't have to agree with them if they do, any more than you agree with the law as it stands.
Go ahead and preach your doctrine of liberal democracy to the Irish. But don't tell me that the Irish law is the result of the Church forcing her morality on an unwilling Irish people, because there is nothing stopping the Irish people telling the Church to feck off if they disagree with her. It's just that it they have to do it democratically. What alternaive would you suggest - a coup d'etat led by you?
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Ireland is an "absolutist" democracy? I've never heard that criticism before.
Not a criticism of the Irish republic, just your assertion that anything done by a democracy is automatically legitimate. Most democracies as constituted in the modern world (which includes Ireland) involve some theory of limited government.
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
You say abortion is a liberty issue? Some may agree with you and decide that any legislation against it violates the liberty a woman should have over the fate of her own body.
Some people might agree that it's a liberty issue and think that the most fundamental liberty is the right to exist and will want to defend the unborn on that basis.
Others may think that liberty is a basic good, but that certain exercises of liberty can result in choosing freely to do things that are wrong.
Some may think that liberty is important, but not important enough to justify the freedom of religious groups to discriminate on the grounds of conscience against gay couples and in favour of married (straight) couples for adoption.
The basic problem with the above is that it involves rational analysis, something revealed absolute moral truths are impervious to. There may indeed be pragmatic grounds for any or all of the above arguments, but pragmatism is completely irrelevant to revealed truth.
Since the political theory implications of this are only tangentially related to the current topic and are well worth discussing in their own right, I've started a Purgatory thread on the subject of the limits of democracy in enforcing revelation.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Ireland is an "absolutist" democracy? I've never heard that criticism before.
Not a criticism of the Irish republic, just your assertion that anything done by a democracy is automatically legitimate.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) It shouldn't even need to be said that I made no such assertion. People can read here, you know.
But if your criticism was not aimed at the Irish govenment's restrictions on abortion (which is what we were actually refering to), can I take it that you accept that Ireland has the right to legislate this way for itself?
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Most democracies as constituted in the modern world (which includes Ireland) involve some theory of limited government.
But perhaps Ireland's current one doesn't accord with your theory of limited govenment. Why should it?
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
You say abortion is a liberty issue? Some may agree with you and decide that any legislation against it violates the liberty a woman should have over the fate of her own body.
Some people might agree that it's a liberty issue and think that the most fundamental liberty is the right to exist and will want to defend the unborn on that basis.
Others may think that liberty is a basic good, but that certain exercises of liberty can result in choosing freely to do things that are wrong.
Some may think that liberty is important, but not important enough to justify the freedom of religious groups to discriminate on the grounds of conscience against gay couples and in favour of married (straight) couples for adoption.
There may indeed be pragmatic grounds for any or all of the above arguments, but pragmatism is completely irrelevant to revealed truth.
I'm not even sure what that means. But since you admit that there could be pragmatic (rather "blindly irrational", presumably) grounds for making such decisions, what's your point? It seems to be that "proper respect for liberty accords with my understanding of it". Mine was that since people disagree about that, why should yours prevail over others'?
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Jane, I must thank you for this. I believe it is very close to explaining the reasoning and principles of the Catholic position. You understand that we feel we are working from absolute moral prohibitions - revealed, not of our own making - and are trying our best to apply them with both faithfulness and compassion.
The big problem is that the legal restrictions and criminal penalties that are frequently enacted from such a position are very much "of [y]our own making". To bring this back to the OP, why should a Hindu (or any other non-Catholic) be required, under penalty of law, to adhere to Catholic teaching?
Residents of the Irish Republic are obliged to adhere to that country's laws, not Catholic teaching. I believe the same applies where you live ie: you are obliged to follow the laws of the jurisdiction in which you reside.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
posted by Matt:
quote:
Residents of the Irish Republic are obliged to adhere to that country's laws, not Catholic teaching
While this is true, it must be remembered that the Catholic church in Ireland effectively ran everything, so most people (right into the 1990's) weren't too willing to bite the hand that fed them. I'm not saying this was a good situation - it plainly wasn't in light of recent events and revelations - but it was how it was.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Granted as an historic point, but given that the Irish Republic has for a few years now well-and-truly fallen out of love with the Catholic Church (to the mutual advantage of both I think), this is no longer a current issue IMO: what we are talking about now is the law of a sovereign democratic country.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
At some point, you may just have to face up to the fact that some people fundamentally disagree with your ordering of moral goods.
That is why I believe in liberal democracy with a strong bias towards protection for the weak and individual freedom.
You, however, seem to be implying that might makes right even where it leads to, as here, almost literal human sacrifice.
quote:
You say abortion is a liberty issue? Some may agree with you and decide that any legislation against it violates the liberty a woman should have over the fate of her own body.
I say abortion is a medical issue. I happen to find limb amputations squicky - but I certainly wouldn't try to ban them.
For a freedom issue, I say the right to hold religious services is a freedom issue. I say that the right to perform secular ceremonies like marriage is a freedom issue. I say the right to run schools is a freedom issue and one that needs to be weighed against the harmful indoctrination that will be done.
And I say that if you are not in favour of liberty and of good medical care, it is only by the generosity of others that it is extended to you.
quote:
Some may think that liberty is important, but not important enough to justify the freedom of religious groups to discriminate on the grounds of conscience against gay couples and in favour of married (straight) couples for adoption.
And others consider this claim disingenuous. Catholic Care (like the other adoption agencies) is significantly publically funded - an amount in excess of £20,000 per successful placement (which, admittedly, doesn't cover the full cost). If the Catholic Adoption Agencies wish to continue to get paid by the local authorities then they can play by the rules Local Authorities work under. Subcontractors do not get to ignore the rules the main body works under in an honest system.
If the Catholic Adoption Agencies wish to continue to be adoption agencies and not receive the lions' share of their funding from public bodies then they can turn into private adoption agencies, turn down the £20,000 per child, and continue to be adoption agencies - this time fully financed by charity rather than majority-financed by the state.
As far as I know, no "Catholic Adoption Agency" in Britain has ever seriously considered becoming other than a public adoption agency.
So cry me a river. Your adoption agencies want to take state money and not play by the rules that money is attached to. They aren't allowed to take money and not fulfil the obligations that come with it, and the donations are nothing like enough to make up the shortfall that would produce.
Or do you genuinely think that the state should not be able to say what the state spends the state's money on? And that this is unjust?
quote:
What Ireland decides is the law in Ireland is up to them. It's not up to me, or the Catholic Church, or you, or anyone else - no matter how wrong we may think they are in their choice.
Out of curiosity would you say the same about the rules the Catholic Church played under in the USSR or Maoist China? If not, why not?
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
Because that's the way democracy works?
Some form of absolutist democracy, perhaps. The Athenian city-state is the closest example I can think of. Liberal democracies usually reserve a certain core of personal liberty. (Hence the name.)
Although I completely agree with you on the general point, and almost always disagree with Chesterbelloc when he runs this line, I think that the Catholic position on abortion may genuinely be an exception to the rule.
The Catholic position is that an unborn child is a person, morally equivalent to, and deserving of the same protections as, any other person. That means, doesn't it, that they are contending that the unborn are part of the democratic community, whose rights should be counted, and their opponents are taking the contrary position that the unborn do not have that status.
That seems to me to be the sort of question that has to be answered collectively. It can't be a matter of individual conscience and freedom who gets to be part of the game - that question has to have a definitive answer. It sets the starting point for all subsequent consideration of rights and freedoms.
In a country like (for example) the USA, where it is clear that the unborn are not constitutional persons, then it would seem to follow that the usual principles of personal freedom apply. America has decided that foetuses aren't people, so America would be wrong to impose an absolute restriction on the rights of pregnant women to abortion. Roe v. Wade was correctly decided for that reason. Ireland, though, has a different constitution. Ireland appears to have decided that foetuses are people - therefore it would only be wrong under liberal democratic principles if Ireland failed to treat them consistently with that.
It seems to me that if the Irish are wrong to give constitutional rights to foetuses (or the Americans wrong not to), they are wrong at a more fundamental level than the principles of liberal democracy. They are wrong about where the lines are drawn for inclusion or exclusion.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
The Catholic position is that an unborn child is a person, morally equivalent to, and deserving of the same protections as, any other person. That means, doesn't it, that they are contending that the unborn are part of the democratic community, whose rights should be counted, and their opponents are taking the contrary position that the unborn do not have that status.
The Roman Catholic position is that in theory an unborn is a person - although to answer ChesterBelloc's latest in Purg, if I was unborn I wouldn't feel a damn thing either way.
But the Roman Catholic practical position is in almost all cases contrary to this approach. It opposes methods intended to prevent the unborn getting into trouble by opposing contraception. It opposes safeguards for the unborn, ranking the lives of the unborn as as unimportant as what you do with bits of rubber.
And most damningly of all, if the Roman Catholic Church is to be believed about the status of the unborn, the world's biggest killer is spontaneous abortion. If the Roman Catholic Church genuinely believed that then it would be pouring more effort into researching ways to prevent spontaneous early term abortions than it would to fight cancer. It is, after all, a bigger killer.
Find me those charities. Find me the Roman Catholics putting their money where their mouths are and supporting such research rather than merely trying to say that womens' bodies are worth less than the unborn who are, themselves, worth less than little pieces of rubber and that they can't be bothered to drop a single penny to research to save.
Once I see action consistent with the Roman Catholic Church treating the unborn as people rather than political banners I'll take it seriously.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And most damningly of all, if the Roman Catholic Church is to be believed about the status of the unborn, the world's biggest killer is spontaneous abortion. If the Roman Catholic Church genuinely believed that then it would be pouring more effort into researching ways to prevent spontaneous early term abortions than it would to fight cancer. It is, after all, a bigger killer.
Maybe they think it's okay when it's God doing the killing? Of course, that reasoning could apply equally to cancer . . .
On a related note, the Irish bishops have issued a statement on Ms. Halappanavar's death which is equal parts muddle and crocodile tears.
Blogger and OB/GYN Dr. Jen Gunter details why this statement is more likely to confuse than clarify.
quote:
The statement from the Irish Catholic Bishops is medically nonsensical, contradictory, and immoral and as it represents a group of men who have never practiced medicine opining on an aspect of medical care that they clearly can’t understand.
The only thing this statement clarifies is how Irish physicians could easily be confused by an Irish abortion law steeped in religion, and thus reinforces the claim that Catholicism contributed to Dr. Halappanavar’s death.
Read the rest for the specifics.
[ 28. November 2012, 15:12: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
to answer ChesterBelloc's latest in Purg, if I was unborn I wouldn't feel a damn thing either way.
Having an actual interest (i.e., good grounds for valuing - having a stake) in whether you live or die is not dependent on yet being capable of realisng the interets you have in it.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And most damningly of all, if the Roman Catholic Church is to be believed about the status of the unborn, the world's biggest killer is spontaneous abortion. If the Roman Catholic Church genuinely believed that then it would be pouring more effort into researching ways to prevent spontaneous early term abortions than it would to fight cancer. It is, after all, a bigger killer.
Maybe they think it's okay when it's God doing the killing? Of course, that reasoning could apply equally to cancer . . .
I'm expecting this to be another cause of ethical dissonance, but at least one relevant issue here is the moral distinction between killing and letting die. Not everyone buys that there is one, and no-one believes there is in all cases, but in some cases relevant to this issue, I think there is.
If you think that there is an absolute moral prohibition on the direct and deliberate killing of the innocent, you needn't think that there is an equivalent moral obligation to do all that one can to prevent the natural (by which I mean not caused directly by human agency) death of the innocent in all cases.
For example, it is wrong to care so little for cancer victims that one does not support in any way the research necessary to prevent that outcome when one easily could. But it is worse - very much worse - to shoot dead someone suffering from cancer because they are a burden to you in some way. It would also be worse to see someone approach a cancer sufferer with a gun and not try to prevent him from shooting them.
So supposing the Church is wrong not to support research into preventing early spontaneous abortion, insofar as that is the Church's responsibility (which we can argue about). It would be "wronger", given her teachings, for the Church not to speak out against people killing embryos/fetuses. Not only because deliberate murder is a more horrible sin that the neglect of further medical research into preventing future natural deaths - but also because it would be seriously wrong for the Church to give the impression, by keeping silence, that such deliberate killing is not deeply wrong. The Church has a duty to speak out when deeply sinful things occur - a duty towards both the victim and the pepetrator.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I'm expecting this to be another cause of ethical dissonance, but at least one relevant issue here is the moral distinction between killing and letting die. Not everyone buys that there is one, and no-one believes there is in all cases, but in some cases relevant to this issue, I think there is.
If you think that there is an absolute moral prohibition on the direct and deliberate killing of the innocent, you needn't think that there is an equivalent moral obligation to do all that one can to prevent the natural (by which I mean not caused directly by human agency) death of the innocent in all cases.
I think this goes a very long way to explaining the underlying thinking involved in Ms. Halappanavar's medical treament, or lack thereof. Taking any active steps to help her complete her miscarriage would be "the direct and deliberate killing of the innocent", which is considered "gravely immoral" (to borrow a phrase from the bishops' statement). Standing by and doing nothing as Ms. Halappanavar is slowly killed by an infection ("not caused directly by human agency") may also be wrong, but it's nowhere near as wrong as not waiting for the fetus to die on its own before doing anything to save the mother. That kind of death by neglect allows moralizers to keep their hands clean, at least in their own estimation.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Standing by and doing nothing as Ms. Halappanavar is slowly killed by an infection ("not caused directly by human agency") may also be wrong, but it's nowhere near as wrong as not waiting for the fetus to die on its own before doing anything to save the mother.
That's rather a lot of assumptions you're packing there. For example, that the hospital was giving no treatment to the mother whatsoever, and that the fetus although still alive was the cause of the infection. You seem to know more about what actually happened in this case than any of the reports I've read. Perhaps you should offer to assist the enquiry with its investigation.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Standing by and doing nothing as Ms. Halappanavar is slowly killed by an infection ("not caused directly by human agency") may also be wrong, but it's nowhere near as wrong as not waiting for the fetus to die on its own before doing anything to save the mother.
That's rather a lot of assumptions you're packing there. For example, that the hospital was giving no treatment to the mother whatsoever, and that the fetus although still alive was the cause of the infection.
Not that many assumptions at all. For instance, I've "assumed" that whatever treatment Ms. Halappanavar may have received, it did not include helping her complete her miscarriage. Of course, since this seems to be a universally agreed upon fact in all the media accounts I've read this seems a fairly safe assumption to make. Likewise, the fact that Ms. Halappanavar was dilated and leaking amniotic fluid seems to be uncontested in any media account I've come across. This indicates a high probability of uterine infection (and is one of the reasons miscarriages were so terrifying in the age before antibiotics). "At any gestational age, a patient with evidence of an intrauterine infection . . . is best cared for by an expeditious delivery" according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which I guess means that I'm also assuming human reproduction works the same in Ireland as in the U.S.
All of which is beside the main point. If you start from your position that doing nothing is the morally superior position, outcomes like this are an easily foreseeable result.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
If you start from your position that doing nothing is the morally superior position, outcomes like this are an easily foreseeable result.
Except that I don't start from that position. It's quite a stretch from what I've said to that, in fact. I'm getting a bit tired of this misrepresentation, to be honest.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
I'm expecting this to be another cause of ethical dissonance, but at least one relevant issue here is the moral distinction between killing and letting die. Not everyone buys that there is one, and no-one believes there is in all cases, but in some cases relevant to this issue, I think there is.
In short where the death would have happened anyway the Roman Catholic Church washes their hands of it and says that it should simply be allowed to happen. The Pontius Pilate aproach to ethics.
quote:
If you think that there is an absolute moral prohibition on the direct and deliberate killing of the innocent, you needn't think that there is an equivalent moral obligation to do all that one can to prevent the natural (by which I mean not caused directly by human agency) death of the innocent in all cases.
If you think there is a value in the lives of innocents then you ought to be trying to save them even more strongly than you try and save non-innocent adults.
Personally I consider brainless bundles of cells with human DNA to have about the moral value of hair follacles.
quote:
So supposing the Church is wrong not to support research into preventing early spontaneous abortion, insofar as that is the Church's responsibility (which we can argue about). It would be "wronger", given her teachings, for the Church not to speak out against people killing embryos/fetuses.
Mysteriously she does the one that allows her to sneer at the morality of others and not the one that would actually mean doing something to prevent this. She also does her best to oppose any gun control measures, so to speak, other than sticking up signs saying "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."
Also there are orders of magnitude more foetuses spontaneously aborted than given induced abortions. If it's a choice between trying to stop one gunman and putting the same effort into trying to stop an entire town drowning by flood, the Church chooses to wash its hands in the flood and do nothing about it.
quote:
Not only because deliberate murder is a more horrible sin that the neglect of further medical research into preventing future natural deaths - but also because it would be seriously wrong for the Church to give the impression, by keeping silence, that such deliberate killing is not deeply wrong.
Who is saying that the Roman Catholic Church should keep silent about abortion if it actually takes effective measures to stop abortion.
As it is, the Roman Catholic Church doesn't seem to oppose abortion in any credible way. It simply seems to be in favour of speaking out. Speaking out is the only goal it has for the lives of the innocents it supposedly gives a damn about.
If the Roman Catholic Church really cared about abortion and thought it was actually killing the unborn then it would be in favour of contraception as contraception is the best known preventer of abortion. If the Roman Catholic Church really cared about the deaths of the unborn it would be calling for massive medical research to prevent the unborn dying in numbers that make AIDS and Smallpox look trivial.
Instead the Roman Catholic Church opposes the best known way of preventing abortions, and doesn't do a damn thing about the routine deaths of the unborn. From this I conclude that it doesn't actually give a damn about the unborn (or it would call for massive medical research on spontaneous abortions) and its reason for opposing abortion is to have something to call a sin that the supposedly celibate priesthood won't need.
Its actions are not consistent with any other reading. All it does is the bare minimum to give its members the glow of self-righteousness while not actually caring about the problem.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
I'm sorry, Justinian - I'm not responding to that.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Bravo, Justinian. A brilliant summary.
And before the pro-life, pro-catholic banshees start to wail, consider another catholic cop-out: the RC attitude towards the use of condoms by HIV positive men, particularly in Africa. All the RC church has done is spread mis-information and bang on (again) about contraception being a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance.
The RC attitude to anything even remotely related to sex - be it contraception, conception, abortion, miscarriage, etc - is to bang on about sin and the value of "unborn life" while doing its best to make the lives of the born miserable and guilt-ridden.
Of course, there is one exception: the issue of paedophilia, sex crime and the "celibate" religious, on which issue the church only pronounces when forced into it by yet another scandal.
Given the RC obsession with preserving every zygote, I'm amazed they haven't started a world-wide crusade against masturbation. Come on, all sing "Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is good .."
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
quote:
I'm sorry, Justinian - I'm not responding to that.
Why not, CB?
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Personally I consider brainless bundles of cells with human DNA to have about the moral value of hair follacles.
It seems to me that statements like that probably cause a lot of people who are otherwise sympathetic to the issue of choice to continue to consider themselves pro-life.
The zygote may not yet be a human person in the fullest sense. It may not yet have the same moral value that its mother has. But there is a great deal of distance between "not yet a person" and a hair follicle. Destroying a zygote may not be murder, but destroying it needlessly makes at least some prochoice people deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable, at any rate. That's why I want to reduce the frequency of abortion through contraception, education, social welfare, and various other means. Those means are more expensive than abortions -- but those brainless bundles of cells are worth spending some money on.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I suppose it would be helpful to know what it is about the zygote that sets it apart in personhood from a tetranoma - presumably potential to develop life, though that might be up for dispute if it had a genetic abnormality incompatible with survival.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Personally I consider brainless bundles of cells with human DNA to have about the moral value of hair follacles.
It seems to me that statements like that probably cause a lot of people who are otherwise sympathetic to the issue of choice to continue to consider themselves pro-life.
The zygote may not yet be a human person in the fullest sense. It may not yet have the same moral value that its mother has. But there is a great deal of distance between "not yet a person" and a hair follicle. Destroying a zygote may not be murder, but destroying it needlessly makes at least some prochoice people deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable, at any rate. That's why I want to reduce the frequency of abortion through contraception, education, social welfare, and various other means. Those means are more expensive than abortions -- but those brainless bundles of cells are worth spending some money on.
Honestly I don't normally go that far. My normal metaphor for abortion is limb amputation - it's squicky, it's messy, it's unpleasant, and it makes most people shudder to think about happening to them. It also isn't something anyone in their senses would want to ban - and gives the appropriate "Chewing your own leg off" spin to segue into "How do we prevent the limbs getting in the trap in the first place" (social justice, contraception).
On the other hand given quite how much of a dead horse abortion is round here the chances of actually converting people through polite argument are almost nil. Both barrels sometimes has its place.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Honestly I don't normally go that far. My normal metaphor for abortion is limb amputation
That seems like an effective metaphor to me.
quote:
On the other hand given quite how much of a dead horse abortion is round here the chances of actually converting people through polite argument are almost nil. Both barrels sometimes has its place.
I suppose. But people on the Ship have been known to be persuaded, over a long period of time, by reasonable arguments and evidence. Attacks with both barrels may be useful for establishing which side someone is on, but I doubt they are much use in encouraging someone to change sides, or even to think about which side they're on.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Josephine
Orthodox Belle
# 3899
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Perhaps we are approaching this from the wrong angle. If you start from the premise that all abortion is wrong, but you are a compassionate person who wants to avoid inflicting unnecessary suffering on others, you might end up in a similar position to the RCC. In some ways it's similar to their position on marriage; they don't allow divorce at all, but if you can comply with something on this handy list of grounds for annulment you can pretend you never got married in the first place. So they are trying to bend the rules against abortion as far as possible without actually breaking them (because of the blanket ban on abortion). If your life-threatening pregnancy or your abusive marriage doesn't fit one of the conditions in the get-out clause, it's tough on you. But they are trying, within the constraints of their absolutist worldview.
I thought I'd replied to this, Jane R. Thank you for posting it. I found it by far the most helpful thing anyone has said about the RC POV.
Of course, I think the RC reasoning on divorce is a sort of verbal game-playing, too. But you have at least provided me a way of understanding the game that may be less blame-worthy. I've been thinking about it since you posted, and will keep thinking about it. It's helpful.
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I've written a book! Catherine's Pascha: A celebration of Easter in the Orthodox Church. It's a lovely book for children. Take a look!
Posts: 10273 | From: Pacific Northwest, USA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Foxymoron
Shipmate
# 10343
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Likewise, the fact that Ms. Halappanavar was dilated and leaking amniotic fluid seems to be uncontested in any media account I've come across. This indicates a high probability of uterine infection (and is one of the reasons miscarriages were so terrifying in the age before antibiotics). "At any gestational age, a patient with evidence of an intrauterine infection . . . is best cared for by an expeditious delivery" according to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which I guess means that I'm also assuming human reproduction works the same in Ireland as in the U.S.
All of which is beside the main point. If you start from your position that doing nothing is the morally superior position, outcomes like this are an easily foreseeable result.
We really don't know enough about what went on with her treatment. It seems that prior to the induced miscarriage she wasn't given antibiotics at all, which all outsider medical opinion says is obligatory practice. That's what killed her, and catholic ethics has no problem with antibiotics.
As I've argued before, immediately aborting the baby on arrival would have undoubtedly saved her life. But would UK hospitals do that? Yes if the seriousness of the infection justified it, but not otherwise. Abortion carries its own risks, and from what I can gather the 'natural' miscarriage process is preferred unless such complications arise.
So we really need to know why this poor woman's serious infection wasn't correctly diagnosed on arrival and also why she wasn't given antibiotics immediately, as is standard practice. Until then there are no grounds for chalking this death up to the 'evil catholics'.
Posts: 72 | From: Surrey | Registered: Sep 2005
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Foxymoron
Shipmate
# 10343
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Blogger and OB/GYN Dr. Jen Gunter details why this statement is more likely to confuse than clarify.
quote:
The statement from the Irish Catholic Bishops is medically nonsensical, contradictory, and immoral and as it represents a group of men who have never practiced medicine opining on an aspect of medical care that they clearly can’t understand.
The only thing this statement clarifies is how Irish physicians could easily be confused by an Irish abortion law steeped in religion, and thus reinforces the claim that Catholicism contributed to Dr. Halappanavar’s death.
Read the rest for the specifics.
ISTM this is an opinion piece and little more. She has nothing to say on why the mother didn't receive antibiotics in good time, but takes the "old men in dresses telling women what to do with their bodies" line. Yet what the bishops say is neither contradictory nor medically nonsensical and makes perfect sense IF you believe that deliberately destroying an unborn child is murder. Everything stems from that. The writer doesn't share this belief, but rather than acknowledge this ethical disagreement as the root of the problem she harps on about stupidity and nonsense and heartless old men playing with women's lives.
Say what you like about catholic bishops (as many do) they are not *completely* stupid and their position is clearly informed by highly qualified medical experts, of which there are many on either side of the abortion debate.
Chesterbelloc made a sound point when he said that catholic authorities make every effort to work round these moral principles but cannot/will not break them.
Posts: 72 | From: Surrey | Registered: Sep 2005
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Personally I consider brainless bundles of cells with human DNA to have about the moral value of hair follacles.
It seems to me that statements like that probably cause a lot of people who are otherwise sympathetic to the issue of choice to continue to consider themselves pro-life.
The zygote may not yet be a human person in the fullest sense. It may not yet have the same moral value that its mother has. But there is a great deal of distance between "not yet a person" and a hair follicle. Destroying a zygote may not be murder, but destroying it needlessly makes at least some prochoice people deeply uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable, at any rate. That's why I want to reduce the frequency of abortion through contraception, education, social welfare, and various other means. Those means are more expensive than abortions -- but those brainless bundles of cells are worth spending some money on.
Yep.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Foxymoron
Shipmate
# 10343
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Honestly I don't normally go that far. My normal metaphor for abortion is limb amputation
Surely a metaphor created to deliberately miss the point? A lump of flesh is removed from the body certainly, but no one dies.
Posts: 72 | From: Surrey | Registered: Sep 2005
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
I suppose. But people on the Ship have been known to be persuaded, over a long period of time, by reasonable arguments and evidence. Attacks with both barrels may be useful for establishing which side someone is on, but I doubt they are much use in encouraging someone to change sides, or even to think about which side they're on.
That depends on how someone makes their decision which side they are on. As far as I can tell, ChesterBelloc is on the pro-life side primarily because he is a Roman Catholic and pro-life approaches follow from that rather than are accessible independently (which is the approach to take first, I agree).
This means that in order to have a chance of reaching him, I need to blow up large chunks of Roman Catholic teaching - it is a contingent rather than independently reasoned belief in his mind.
The specific doctrine that needs to be blown up then have salt ploughed into the earth is the Doctrine of Double Effect - which is absolutely the Pontius Pilate doctrine of "I do this because this is what the rules say and I wash my hands of the consequences".
Different approaches have different places. And the soft approach has been tried.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Foxymoron: quote:
ISTM this is an opinion piece and little more.
So Catholic bishops with no medical qualifications are entitled to an opinion, but experienced ob/gyn specialists who disagree with you aren't? Interesting point of view.
Just for the record, on the UK mainland (which has different criteria for establishing whether a doctor is guilty of malpractice) a woman arriving in Maternity in those circumstances would probably be induced unless she herself asked the medical team to do everything possible to save the baby (and if she did and they thought her life was in danger they would try to talk her into having the induction anyway). If she was in severe pain and asking for an induction/termination she WOULD be given whatever treatment was necessary to save her life, even if the treatment could be labelled 'medical abortion'. It would be nice if you could acknowledge that. And perhaps afterwards you might consider taking a break; I calmed down long enough to think of an explanation of the Catholic position on abortion that Chesterbelloc was kind enough to thank me for, but your comments are making me angry again - almost as angry as Justinian.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Foxymoron:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Honestly I don't normally go that far. My normal metaphor for abortion is limb amputation
Surely a metaphor created to deliberately miss the point? A lump of flesh is removed from the body certainly, but no one dies.
But a large part of my point was that the so-called pro-life lobby don't act as if anyone dies either. If they were spending a significant amount of time on medical research about spontaneous abortion (the world's greatest killer in their eyes if someone dies in an abortion) I'd have more sympathy.
But they only seem to act against medically or surgically induced abortions rather than natural reasons, which is precisely why a procedure that's icky and in which no one dies is a good analogy.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Foxymoron
Shipmate
# 10343
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
[QB] Foxymoron: quote:
ISTM this is an opinion piece and little more.
So Catholic bishops with no medical qualifications are entitled to an opinion, but experienced ob/gyn specialists who disagree with you aren't? Interesting point of view.
Yet of course there are many experienced and qualified obstetricians and gynaecologists who would agree with me - this really isn't a tale of shiny modern medical science VS ignorant medieval myths, however much you would like it to be.
quote:
Just for the record, on the UK mainland (which has different criteria for establishing whether a doctor is guilty of malpractice) a woman arriving in Maternity in those circumstances would probably be induced unless she herself asked the medical team to do everything possible to save the baby (and if she did and they thought her life was in danger they would try to talk her into having the induction anyway).
It seems in this case though that the woman was misdiagnosed from the very beginning - she wasn't given antibiotics or anything for pain control. So we must assume the inadequate treatment she received was due to malpractice and not catholic dogma. Also as I understand it in Ireland such an induction is not forbidden as it only triggers the natural birth process anyway (even though the odds of a 17 week child surviving are negligible). Induction is not abortion: it is not the deliberate and direct killing of an unborn child.
quote:
If she was in severe pain and asking for an induction/termination she WOULD be given whatever treatment was necessary to save her life, even if the treatment could be labelled 'medical abortion'. It would be nice if you could acknowledge that.
We're all agreed that IF a direct medical abortion was the ONLY thing that would save a woman's life then it would not be available in an Irish hospital. I'm saying that it seems unlikely that the abortion ban is a factor which led to the mother's death in this particular case.
How often such an abort-or-die situation actually happens is open to question. The maternal mortality rate is significantly lower in Ireland than the UK, suggesting that it is very rare - and possibly never happens, if the pro-life medical experts (which they are, some of them eminently so) are correct in saying that there are always effective alternatives. Of course they may be ideologically driven, but you can say that about everyone.
quote:
And perhaps afterwards you might consider taking a break; I calmed down long enough to think of an explanation of the Catholic position on abortion that Chesterbelloc was kind enough to thank me for, but your comments are making me angry again - almost as angry as Justinian.
I'm not trying to stir things up for the hell of it! You seem very nice. But this is my opinion. You can't expect people to stop disagreeing with you just because it makes you cross.
And NO ONE is as angry as Justinian...
Posts: 72 | From: Surrey | Registered: Sep 2005
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fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
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Posted
I think this thread has come off the rails somewhere along the line in confusing pro-life and pro-choice, getting into the two separated camps, whereas the opening of the thread was specifically to do with the issue of the Savita case here in Ireland. That case has highlighted a need for legislation (which is now looking increasingly likely) to tidy up a ruling in the 'X case' that went to the High Court. It isn't actually a pro-life or pro-choice issue on abortion, as it won't get that far; at least, I don't think it will. It will be about legislation that gives the mother a right to life, and the right to save her own life in the event of complications in pregnancy, and also covering doctors and surgeons who will need to act on a mother's request. The statements from Bishop's here have been so wide of the mark that it's been laughable. They haven't understood the context of the possible future legislation, and they have little understanding of the risks they pose by trying to paint it as a pro-life vrs pro-choice affair. The are willfully ignoring the facts of what has happened and what will happen. This is about a state sanctioned death sentence, where a mother must accept that even if she and the child are 100% certain to die, the doctors still cannot act. This is not malpractice - it's about a messy law and subsequently unclear rulings in the High Court. It needs to be tidied up.
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'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
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