Sensitive Subject: D&E in OR

bagladyrn-

i really :heartbeatappreciate your pointing the other side of the issue, also, and it is a quagmire from almost any direction you look.

may i also add that i see your side, and if ever i could support a termination it would be in cases like this. i have to answer to my conscience, and you to yours. speaking for myself alone, there would be very little abortion backlash if they were performed for only serious medical reasons. the "abortion as contraception" viewpoint is abhorent to most people i know, even those who i love who are pro-choice.

thank you again for being so clear and non-confrontational on this hot button issue, which touches at the core of the value of human life and the best way to support that ideal. a respectful salute from the other side of the fence...:bdyhdclp:

Blue Ridge - thanks for your reply.

This is never an easy topic to discuss, which I think makes it all the more important that people think through it and decide for themselves what they will do before being confronted with the situation. I really appreciate those here who are able to say "This is what I believe and why" without feeling they must convert others to their view.

Abortion is not a simple matter - nor should it ever be.

Remember that in the early weeks a baby that has a heart rate still may have zero chance of surviving because of their own abnormalities, or because of a procedure that was started offsite that was not finished. If the OP is completeing abortions that were already in progress the fetus had little chance of survival once the procedure started. That's what I understood the OP to be asking about.

kiwi--it was terminate, or the mom, the mother of three young children, would die from cardiac tamponade and untreatable (then, at least) pulmonary htn it's obscure, but in the long version of the canon. it was choice between one death or two deaths.

i'm not sure which principle you are referring to. if you mean the principle of double effect, it does not apply, since the actions dealt with under this principle are either morally good or morally neutral actions only, and -- as the catechism affirms -- direct abortion is neither morally good nor neutral but "morally evil". having in his encyclical "evangelium vitae" declared as doctrine that "direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being", pope john paul ii continues:

no circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit...

the circumstance of "grave peril" to the mother's "health and even life" is discussed in pius xi's encyclical letter "casti connubii" but he states that this could never be "a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent" (paragraph 64).

both documents acknowledge the tragedy of such a situation and the pain suffered by those intimately involved and those looking on, but pius xi warns against allowing ones feelings -- no matter how strong they are or how noble the motives may seem -- to cloud the distinction between right and wrong. a very pertinent thought for all of us as nurses.

Oops, can't edit anymore. I just wanted to say that I'm not meaning to draw the discussion out. I merely wish to clarify the Catholic position so that others know what Catholics hold to and why. This can be continued by PM if anyone wishes to.

i'd be happy to iscuss this..the quote is a little out of cotext, and i'd like to emphasize the difference between "murder" and saving mom and baby both form certain physical death. in no way i am supporting abortion...just pointing out that once in a very blue moon the church will allow the death of a baby in lieu of the death of baby and mom..