Is abortion ever necessary?
The next topic was generated in response to a recent article published in a pro-abortion religion magazine wherein the author claims that the conscientious objection, by some American physicians, to participate in abortions is somehow endangering the lives of women.
These latest attacks against pro-life health professionals seeking to follow their informed conscience are based entirely on false assumptions (premises). The first is the mistaken belief that there exist situations where a direct abortion is required to save a woman’s life or somehow preserve her health. An appendectomy, hysterectomy, or salpingectomy is often necessary to preserve the life or health of a woman. Sometimes an early delivery may be needed to save a pregnant woman’s life. For example, a pregnant woman with sepsis needs IV antibiotics and possibly an early delivery–even if the infant is too young to survive outside the womb. (Unfortunately, this baby would not be able to survive very long either in or outside the uterus.) One thing this woman certainly does not need is a direct abortion. For example, in my experience, I’ve treated several women in the unfortunate situation where she had an intra-uterine infection at a point during the pregnancy where her preborn child was too young to survive outside the womb. In these tragic settings, I’ve never hesitated to recommend induction of labor. Sadly, the child is unable to survive inside the uterus due to the infection, nor outside due to prematurity. Even though the child dies soon after delivery, he or she dies as a foreseen, yet secondary effect resulting from the unavoidable prematurity. He or she does not die as a direct result of my violent dismembering of the child’s body using surgical instruments. Students of ethics will recognize this as the principle of double effect. Another classic example used to illustrate this concept is that of uterine cancer (tubal pregnancy can easily be substituted here also). The pregnant woman with advanced uterine cancer will usually benefit from a complete hysterectomy as soon as possible. If this determination is made before 24 weeks of pregnancy, the baby would of course die as a similar secondary effect and this would be ethically permissible (i.e. it would not be a direct abortion). If on the other hand the child is beyond 24 weeks, the child’s life can be saved by delivery via cesarean immediately prior to the hysterectomy. As an obstetrician, my duty is to do everything in my power to preserve the life of both the mother and the child. Conditions (like advanced cancer) that seriously threaten a woman’s health also threaten her preborn child’s health. Therefore, its misleading to suggest we’d place higher value on one life over the other. Justice demands that we do everything possible to save them both. Imagine a firefighter being told he had to choose to save only the mother or her child from the burning house. I’m sure every firefighter alive today would do everything possible to save them both if at all possible.
I repeat: a direct abortion is never required to preserve the life or health of a woman. On the contrary, a direct abortion always threatens the life of the woman and seriously damages her health. Recall the continued talk by pro-abortionists of the multitudes of women dying from illegal abortions? (A deceptive tactic effectively used to force legalization of abortion in the U.S., and one that is no doubt being used today to try and force the same barbaric practice upon Ireland.) Declaring these procedures legal by judicial fiat does nothing to change the nature of the abortion procedure itself. This newer argument about abortion being necessary for a woman’s health is just another variant on the same illogical theme and ironically, it discredits the first argument.
First, it is argued women’s lives are endangered by abortions simply because they are illegal. Once legalized (as in the U.S. today), the next baseless claim is that women’s lives are endangered because some doctors refuse to perform these now legal abortions. In other words, we are supposed to believe that the mere legalization of abortion immediately transforms this violent procedure from one that kills women to one that women will die without! Furthermore, we are frequently challenged with absurd claims that refraining from direct abortions will result in “a woman bleeding out from a uterine rupture, or going into shock from sepsis following a miscarriage.” Such statements betray not only profound ignorance of obstetric medicine but also a reliance on dishonest fear mongering to push a militant pro-abortion dogma.
The second and more broadly dangerous error frequently made is based on a tragically misguided idea. I am speaking of the flawed logic which suggests evil actions may be done to bring about good. St. Paul rightly condemns such foolishness: “And why not do evil that good may come? — as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.”(Romans 3:8). Furthermore, St . Thomas Aquinas is quoted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this very principle: “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (par 1759 CCC). More succinctly stated, the end does not justify the means.
Ideas have consequences and bad ideas often have disastrously violent consequences. How soon we forget that the utilitarianism of Nazi ideology was used to justify the killing of innocent humans for the supposed good of the German economy and human race. Recall too how the errant communist ideology similarly justified the direct killing of millions more (under Stalin and Mao Zedong) in the name of an apparent necessity for the life and health of their supposed great society. No doubt, many Nazis shared the current pro-abortionists errors on both points when they claimed that killing Jews was somehow necessary for their life and health. Moreover, they share the same spiteful tone and rhetoric deriding any who would dare suggest that all humans have a human dignity and value that we should respect. Most despised of all were and are the courageous priests who taught the inviolability of all human life in defiance of the Nazis then and those priests who teach this truth in defiance of pro-abortionists today.
–Dr. Frank (Ob/Gyn)
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Movie tip: Demographic winter – the decline of the human family
2 Episodes
http://byutv.org/show/5e819b00-5e99-4bf4-931e-c154d3c2dc8d
Barack Obama and The Negro Project.
Abortion and Black Genocide.
Maafa 21: 13 episodes.
Human rights for the unborn.
Dr Frank I want to thank you for writing this article and giving some rhetorical ammunition to use against these pro abortion monsters who always cite the health of the mother when one pins them down on the ethics of this procedure. The left who are overwhelmingly pro choice are indeed like the communists and National Socialist Party in their regard to not respecting the sanctity and liberty of individuals under the Constitution who are guaranteed the right to life and liberty by God to which no law or person can take away.
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Thank you, Dr. Frank, for this article. It is most helpful for everybody engaging in discussions with pro-abortion folks. I read the other blog posts too and wanted to thank you for your interesting blog. As I will marry in 2012 I am currently very interested in learning about NFP, pregnancy and so on from a catholic point of view. You offer excellent information here. Thank you, and God bless you and your family!
CM
I am currently in a position not described (or barely touched upon) above. In my case, the baby has a terminal diagnosis – multi-cystic dyplastic kidneys if I remember the exact diagnosis correctly. We are delivering early. The chances of the baby surviving for minutes to hours up to a day are identical no matter when delivery takes place because of the lack of lung development due to the lack of amniotic fluid.
Due to my history of necessary c-sections, one option that appealed to us was an early delivery. It would offer up the chance for me to try to deliver vaginally and have the opportunity to hold my baby immediately after delivery while it still had a few minutes of life instead of being flat out on an operating table. Unfortunately for us, I do not go into labor, even with chemical induction agents. So we are scheduling a c-section for closer to term.
That said, every single document I had to sign at the hospital was phrased in terms of “abortion”. “Early termination” showed up a couple of times. Never “early delivery”. This even though all the doctors, nurses, and administrators knew otherwise and acted otherwise. My insurance recognized “abortion” as “elective abortion” and did not cover it. We nearly had to pay the full price because our plan did not cover an “elective abortion” the only type of abortion available apparently. Fortunately the perinatologists and others working with us appealed to have it recoded as “early delivery attempt”.
Early delivery, even if it is before the baby can survive, is a much better alternative in so many ways. For me, it has helped me reconcile things mentally, emotionally and spiritually in a way that the “just get rid of it” attitude of abortion never could do.
Dear CLM,
I am so sorry to hear of your child’s diagnosis. I can only imagine how devastating this must be for you and your family. If your child has multi-cystic dysplastic kidney (MCDK), this is indeed a serious condition. The most important factor on the baby’s long term health is whether or not only one kidney is involved (the more common situation, although only seen in about 1 of 4,000 births), or whether both kidney’s are affected (seen in only in 1 of 10,000 births). If only one kidney is affected, your child’s other kidney is usually able to compensate with little risk of long term kidney disease.
I assume that your high risk ob doctor, the “perinatologist” or “maternal fetal medicine specialist”, has advised you that such an early delivery would be preferable. He or she probably also told you that there is a significant likelihood that you child has other problems such as a heart defect and might even have one of the know genetic syndromes. Typically, an amniocentesis is recommended to evaluate for such genetic problems known as “aneuploidy” that is diagnosed in up to 3-10 % of children with MCDK. All of these things are true. However, none of these potential problems are actually treated by an early delivery. As long as neither your health nor your child’s health is endangered by continuing the pregnancy until term, I do no see why an early delivery would be necessary. The scenarios I wrote about are ones where both the child and mother’s health are in imminent danger. Assuming the worst case scenario where your child has both kidneys affected by MCDK, he or she is indeed likely to have a significantly shortened life after birth. Whether this is hours, days, or years depends on the severity of the disease and we cannot be fully certain by mere ultrasound examinations before birth. Furthermore, the length of time the child may live after birth should have no bearing on how we treat that child in terms of provision of standard obstetric care. In the case of MCDK, there is nothing about a pre-term delivery that would improve the disease outcome. It seems that the only thing an early delivery would do is shorten the child’s life unnecessarily.
You spoke of how the medical terminology used in the paperwork at the hospital included the terms “abortion” and “early termination.” This is indeed the common medical language used to describe induced abortions, regardless of the situation. Replacing this language with the term “early delivery,” is a reasonable suggestion for those tragic situations where both child’s and mother’s life are in imminent danger as in the situation of severe intra-uterine infection. In such a situation, this would clarify that such an early delivery has no intent of ending the child’s life early. Recall, I spoke of a scenario when the child likely to die as quickly in the womb from the infection as outside the womb due to prematurity. Additionally, and this is the most important distinction, the mother’s life was in grave danger due to the intra-uterine infection. Therefore, the secondary effect and unavoidable outcome is the child’s demise.
In summary, I fully appreciate that the motivations for an “early termination” are quite different in your situation as compared to the woman trying to undo an inconvenient or so-called “unplanned” pregnancy. I grieve with you that your child has a terminal diagnosis. Remember, though that each of us have a terminal diagnosis. The only difference is that most of us don’t yet know our unique terminal diagnosis and when “approximately” it will take our earthly life. I hope you can find some appreciation and meaning in your child’s life a this time. All we really have is the present and both you and your pre-born child are alive right now. In my experience, the problem with prenatal “terminal diagnoses” is that we start to treat the situation as if the child were already dead! Only in this context does “early termination” seem more palatable. Sadly death will come for us all, some much sooner than others. But let us not err in making ourselves a god by arbitrarily deciding where and when anyone should die.
If you were my patient, I would not recommend a pre-term cesarean unless this becomes truly necessary to protect either your life or your child’s.
Very Respectfully,
Dr. Frank
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