Who's this "they"? Doctors? The RC Church doesn't actually perform surgical procedures I think.
The RC Church does own hospitals, and does tell the doctors who work in them what to do. Was this your situation?
I don't think you heard me saying that things like what happened to you was "good medicine", so I hope your question --
That is good medicine? -- wasan't directed at me. I'd hope you did direct it at the doctors and hospital responsible for your health care. My answer would be "no". Their answer should have been measured in thousands of dollars, in compensation for negligent care.
I was merely citing RC Church rules.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01046b.htmAnd note that *I* don't spout nonsense like the "self-evolution" of embryos, which derive nourishment from placentas (no women to see there; move along).
... In the normal course of nature the living embryo carries on its work of, self-evolution within the maternal womb, deriving its nourishment from the placenta through the vital cord, till, on reaching maturity, it is by the contraction of the uterus issued to lead its separate life. Abortion is a fatal termination of this process. It may result from various causes, which may be classed under two heads, accidental and intentional.
Accidental causes may be of many different kinds. Sometimes the embryo, instead of developing in the uterus, remains in one of the ovaries, or gets lodged in one of the Fallopian tubes, or is precipitated into the abdomen, resulting, in any of these cases, in an ectopic, or extra-uterine gestation. This almost invariably brings on the death of the fetus, and is besides often fraught with serious danger to the mother. Even if an ectopic child should live to maturity, it cannot be born by the natural channel -- but, once it has become viable, it may be saved by a surgical operation. ...
Intentional abortions are distinguished by medical writers into two classes.
...
* The name of obstetrical abortion is given by physicians to such as is performed to save the life of the mother. Whether this practice is ever morally lawful we shall consider below.
... Ethics, then, and the Church agree in teaching that no action is lawful which directly destroys fetal life. It is also clear that extracting the living fetus before it is viable, is destroying its life as directly as it would be killing a grown man directly to plunge him into a medium in which he cannot live, and hold him there till he expires.
However, if medical treatment or surgical operation, necessary to save a mother's life, is applied to her organism (though the child's death would, or at least might, follow as a regretted but unavoidable consequence), it should not be maintained that the fetal life is thereby directly attacked. Moralists agree that we are not always prohibited from doing what is lawful in itself, though evil consequences may follow which we do not desire. The good effects of our acts are then directly intended, and the regretted evil consequences are reluctantly permitted to follow because we cannot avoid them. The evil thus permitted is said to be indirectly intended. It is not imputed to us provided four conditions are verified, namely:
* That we do not wish the evil effects, but make all reasonable efforts to avoid them;
* That the immediate effect be good in itself;
* That the evil is not made a means to obtain the good effect; for this would be to do evil that good might come of it -- a procedure never allowed;
* That the good effect be as important at least as the evil effect.
All four conditions may be verified in treating or operating on a woman with child. The death of the child is not intended, and every reasonable precaution is taken to save its life; the immediate effect intended, the mother's life, is good -- no harm is done to the child in order to save the mother -- the saving of the mother's life is in itself as good as the saving of the child's life.
My understanding of this is that the RC Church does not regard life-saving surgery on a woman with an ectopic pregnancy, to remove the embryo from her Fallopian tube, in the same way as other abortions. The embryo is removed to save her life, and the death of the embryo is the unintended evil consequence.
Angels on the points of pins ... and I'm not the one playing the tune they're dancing to.
My point was that the RC Church *never* condones abortion, whether the circumstances be rape, incest, or rape & incest.
If your doctors decided their treatment of you on the basis of RC dogma rather than your health, and endangered your life as a result, I hope you held them, and any hospital authorities under whose orders they were acting, accountable for it.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
