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What makes my blood boil, especially as a Catholic, is that this woman was excommunicated, but priests who sexually abuse children and their enablers are protected.

The Catholic Church never condones the taking of an innocent life. It’s that simple.

Mary says: The Catholic Church never condones the taking of an innocent life. It’s that simple.

True. The church’s position is well known:

Taking two innocent lives by inaction is condoned.
Making four children motherless orphans is condoned.
Ruining thousands of lives by sexual abuse is condoned.
But taking one life to save another is not acceptable.

Got it.

The Church’s position is complete opposition to abortion, sexual abuse, neglect, and any other evil that harms an innocent person. Unfortunately, those who make up the Church don’t always follow what the Church teaches, whether about sexual abuse or abortion.

In the case mentioned in the article, two lives were at stake. The mother (and the baby) had a 50-70% chance of life if both were further cared for. The baby had a 100% chance of death if aborted. Now the child is dead and no one seems to care about that. Why not try to save both rather than jumping the gun and killing one? Doctors should be in the business of saving lives, not killing.

Regarding sexual abuse, it’s a proven fact that the number of public school teachers who abuse children is far greater than the number of Catholic priests (or Protestant ministers) who do. These cases are hastily covered up and the teachers are transferred. If the public school system were treated with as much scorn as the Catholic Church is, we would no longer have a public school system.

Also, what’s with the dig about the bishop refusing Communion to an autistic child who could not swallow? It’s physically impossible to receive Communion if you are not capable of swallowing.

If you go under the assumptions that the Catholic Church does, that all life is equally valuable, you can’t claim that it’s better to kill one person to save a second. From the Catholic perspective, it would be the same as harvesting organs from terminal patients. The person in the next room’s going to die anyways, why not chop him up, and save some people?

It’s very difficult to take a stand on an issue and actually see it through to its logical conclusions, even if they’re unpopular. I have a great deal of respect for pro Choice people like, say, Peter Singer, who says, in effect, Yes, I’m pro Choice. I don’t believe the fetus is a person. I don’t believe that you become a person until you’re at least 6 months old, so yes, we should be able to kill 5 month old babies.

If you’re going to take a stand, you need to do it even when the results are unpopular.

Jenni, here’s the link. http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/full/94/10/523

Here’s the paragraph where I saw the numbers:
“In a recent overview4 the maternal mortality of primary pulmonary hypertension in pregnancy was said to be 30%, and it was as high as 56% in an earlier study5. Most of the deaths were in the third trimester, with the highest risk in the first 10 days postpartum. In view of the high maternal mortality, preconceptional counselling is of vital importance if feasible. In cases of unplanned pregnancy or diagnosis early in pregnancy, termination should be considered3. If pregnancy is to be continued, further management will require a multidisciplinary team.”

Medical professional here…you can’t make blanket statements about pulmonary hypertension, different degrees of severity, complicating factors. You would have to be a physician and be looking at this patient’s chart for a reasonable estimate of survival. My guess is that if this went through an ethics commmittee at a Catholic hospital and it was approved then the chance of maternal death was very high. Pulmonary HTN is in of itself very deadly.

I just want to make clear that I can’t even imagine being in the mother’s place and I hope for the best for her. I hope that I’m never faced with such a situation. But when a mother conceives a child she and the father become responsible for it. It’s an incredible responsibility and it often involves hard situations that require self-sacrifice, as I’m sure all mothers can attest to.

Also, I think that anyone who would allow themselves to die and orphan their existing children in order to be a martry is kind of an idiot. You can take that brand of “self sacrifice” in the name of “motherhood” and stick it where the sun don’t shine. That’s pure selfishness.

Oops, I meant to make a paragraph between “follow its teachings” and “And the point”.

Manjari, of the two possible tragedies, one involves someone (possibly) dying and the other involves someone (definitely) being killed. I think the second is the worse of the two tragedies. I don’t have a problem thinking for myself. I follow the teachings of the Catholic Church because they are reasonable to me. I believe I’ve given a better explanation of the reasons for what I believe than some others in these comments who either invoke another issue entirely or simply say “that’s stupid”.

I will admit that your tone is polite in your comments, Mary. That doesn’t mean your reasons are better. I use words like “stupid” to describe things that seem stupid to me. Obviously the doctors who evaluated this woman’s individual medical case have decided that there is a significant enough risk to her life that she should consider terminating. It’s a terrible thing, and I feel for her. I agree that all life is valuable, but I think that in this situation mother’s life weighs in more heavily that the fetus’s.

And if the teachings of the Catholic Church seem reasonable to you, there is no way we would ever be able to find any common ground.

I think it’s pretty messed up to not terminate a pregnancy that will most likely kill you if you already have kids. You’re taking their mother away for no reason.

I attend a Catholic Law School. Instead of thinking that my tuition helps fund the lifestyle of molesters, I prefer to think it pays for settlements to survivors of the abuse for therapy. it gets me through the day. And Mary, you keep saying maybe the death of one (the mother) or the definite death of another (the baby). Really it is the possible death of BOTH the mother and baby. Seriously, the fetus cannot live outside the womb yet, at least in this woman’s case.

LindaLou, I don’t consider myself morally superior to anybody. I’m simply expressing my views in all sympathy and with all due respect for the people involved, who I sincerely hope were doing what they believed to be best. That doesn’t change the fact, though, that I don’t believe what they did was right. I believe that all human life has equal value and that believing otherwise can lead to serious social problems. Believing that a person is lesser due to their mental or physical abilities, size, strength or race causes a view of humanity that measures the value of a person by what they can give you, by your own convenience rather than valuing them for what they ARE, their inherent human dignity.

Regarding the sex abuse scandals, they ARE horrifying. I can’t even imagine the suffering the victims have gone through from those that ought to have been in a position of trust. You’re also right that the scandal goes far up in the heirarchy of the Church, though I personally don’t believe that Benedict was at fault and I believe that he is acknowledging the problem and taking measures that will keep it from happening again. Even if he were involved, though, his behavior would not change the teachings of the Church which are and have always been against pedophilia. Here is an article that puts the abuse scandals in the context of abuse scandals in other groups. It’s not an attempt to excuse them by any means, because they are inexcusable. It does show that sex abuse is not exclusively a Catholic problem.
http://www.catholicleague.org/research/abuse_in_social_context.htm

That’s kind of an inflammatory statement.

Do you understand both the baby and the mother probably would’ve died if this amazing woman hadn’t allowed the abortion? The Catholic Church excommunicates a nun who saved a life, but decides to cover the butts of the priests who rape kids. Although I’m not Catholic myself, I have enormous respect for many individual Catholics, but not these kinds. Mary- as a woman, how can you possibly not see the awful sexism in this scenario? A male bishop excommunicates a female nun for saving a females life, yet male priests who sexually abuse children are not as harshly punished. I’m a young girl myslef. Let me just tell you, the kind of example and influence your type of Catholics have on kids my age is not at all positive. Saving one life is better than allowing two to die.

It’s never all right to kill a baby. And if you don’t believe that the fetus counts as a baby will you tell me why you believe that?

No one has argued an unborn child is expendable. I think the problem lies with the Catholic Church’s unwavering black and white stance on this issue, as well as many others. This case was not as simple as “You are killing a baby”. This was a complex, difficult case–a mother of children who are already born, and the medical odds of her survival were stacked against her. I understand what you are saying Mary, when you state that aborting is guaranteeing a death, but continuing the pregnancy wasn’t a risk she was willing to take, and I can’t blame her. I’m sure this isn’t a decision she came to lightly. The problem with the Catholic Church’s stance is that it does not allow for shades of gray, just like when they refuse condoms to people with AIDS in Africa. The church is out of touch with the real world, which is extremely complex and has many, many, many shades of gray. http://www.newsweek.com/id/235882/page/1

I agree with you, JBoogie, that this is a very difficult situation; but taking an innocent human life is a matter that SHOULD be treated as black and white. Neither the mother nor the baby is expendable, and everything should be done to help them both, short of killing.

Even the difficulty of the situation does not justify ending a life. Somehow, the loss of the mother’s life is seen as a tragedy (which it is); but the loss of the child’s life is seen as simply a matter of course. The tragedy of it is that the child has no say in whether or not his or her life will be ended. It is decided by someone else, based on their values and reasons (not that I am belittling the gravity of the reasons). The child’s life is seen as less important based on criteria such as size, age, mental capacity and degree of development. None of these criteria, taken alone or even together, render a life more or less important. A handicapped child has just as much importance and right to live as healthy child. A small person is as valued as a bigger person. A very young baby is not less important than an older one or an adult. Since every life has great value, it’s never right to weigh one innocent life against another, and it’s always wrong to kill.

In general, I agree with what you say, Baltimore Mom; but I don’t think that anything justifies taking the child’s life. I sincerely hope that Sr. McBride acted in good faith, and I agree that everything possible should have been done to help the mother, but taking an innocent life, by definition, is murder. It’s true that in this case there was probably no good outcome for the situation, but we don’t know what the alternative might have been since we don’t have 100% knowledge that this woman would have died. I believe one possible treatment in this case could be a lung transplant, or it may have been possible to wait 9-10 weeks until the baby could be delivered. From what I have read, pulmonary hypertension doesn’t automatically disappear as soon as the pregnancy is terminated so an abortion would not necessarily be a quick fix. It may have been the quickest and least risky option, at least for the mother, but it may not have been the only option. I’m mentioning these ideas, not because I am claiming medical knowledge, but because the discussion seems to be based on the 100% knowledge that the mother and the baby would die if the baby were not aborted. We don’t know what would have happened, however likely the outcome seems, but we do know that a child would die if the other option, abortion, was taken.

My life is NOT worth more than the life of an 11 week old unborn child anymore than my life is worth more than the life of my 11 month old daughter. There are no valid criteria by which you can weigh the value of one human life against another. Both the mother’s and the child’s lives have infinite worth and to speak of deliberately killing either one is shameful.

CommentsThank you for this piece, I have been blogging and arguing all week over this. It seems to me that it all comes down to women paying with their lives for sex while men (especially priests) get sheltered and kept safe in similarly sexually related situations.

What a shame in this day and age where women are still having backdoor abortions, and still will continue to do so. This woman, a Catholic reached out to those she trusted and believed in. This brave Nun who along with a medical team decided what was best for her health. Then a Bishop makes a medical call and excommunicates the Nun – please the male Catholic church dares excommunicate a Nun, a Nun like most women who do the brunt work, a Nun the strength of the church. Really who does this bishop think he is, and honestly would you want to use a hospital that rates your procedures on faith? He is not living in the NOW, and it is time that the church comes to life in the now.
And Mary what you believe in is fine, but you don’t have that right to force it on others. What and how you feel personally is fine, but really to judge any of these women. It’s like life in general we never really know how we are going to react until we are faced with the scenario, but we all hope that what ever happens we have a safe environment. I am so pleased that this team did their MEDICAL job and did everything possible to save her life. Religion and Politics have no place in Medicine period!

Comments I, too, am Catholic and have personally vowed not to take communion until Sister Margaret McBride, the nun who was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church in December, once again takes her communion. Probably the defenders of child rapists in Rome don’t care, but it’s important to me…