If you happen to, though, what I think is that you should save the life that can be saved in cases where only one can be. It's not murder to save the one you can even if the one you can't is lost; that is a tragedy, which is what we call it when something terrible happens that is nobody's fault. (In Greek tragedy, you usually get there just because everyone was doing their duty instead of compromising it. Doing your duty is right, usually. Yet...)
I also think that concerns about what is popular shouldn't be the point. Winning elections shouldn't be the point. Doing what is right should be.
Asking somebody to die in spite of the fact that you could save them should only be done in the most extraordinary of circumstances: I think of the scene in The Rock in which the rebel Marines have to seal one of their own in with the VX gas to die. He was banging on the door to get out, but they didn't save him because of the peril that it would claim them all. Perhaps they could have saved him, but the risk was so great they refused.
There is no similar risk here. I can accept that a surgeon with religious convictions who believes his or her soul will be lost should be allowed to except themselves from all abortions; but were I a surgeon I think I would perform one under these circumstances, and simply pray for forgiveness if in God's judgment it was wrong. My understanding is that God will forgive you for anything if you ask, especially if it was done with a good will and for a good purpose such as saving an innocent life.
It may be, politics being what it is, they are asking for two loaves, so they can 'give in' and take only one from the negotiation. I don't know. I'm skeptical of anyone being hardcore on the no exceptions take, as even the Pope wouldn't tell you not to save a mother's life if it's truly at risk. Another possibility is they've had their hearts hardened by the left and it's willingness to abuse the letter of the law, knowing they'll abuse that clause as surely as the sun rises in the East.
ReplyDelete. I can accept that a surgeon with religious convictions who believes his or her soul will be lost should be allowed to except themselves from all abortions; but were I a surgeon I think I would perform one under these circumstances, and simply pray for forgiveness if in God's judgment it was wrong.
ReplyDeleteQuite equally, I would stand proudly in the courthouse supporting a surgeon with medical convictions who had performed what he sincerely and honestly believed to be a medically necessary and (mother's) life-saving abortion, even in defiance of local law and in the fear that he would lose his practice, his license, and his freedom. I would pray a jury would "nullify" the law when reaching their decision. That's why we have juries, and not lawyers, deciding such matters. And sometimes juries are wrong, and that's why we must, sometimes, make our prayers loud and public. (Matt. 6:5, notwithstanding).
And I would and will equally loudly scorn those practitioners who mewl in our mainstream media about how they, now, live in a state of fear and confusion unable to decide whether or not the mother's life is "endangered" as defined in current law, or if the techniques they might use fit within the confines of the law (rather than the recommendations of good medical practice. Suck it up! If Scopes can face a jury over teaching a class in defiance of law about human creation, you as an abortionist can face a jury to consider how your peers frame the limits of "medical necessity" and "life of the mother". As far as I can tell, the vast majority of procedures (done under the license given by Roe and Casey invoking the "life of the mother") were at such a late stage of pregnancy and for such suspect reasoning that the vast majority of voters would -- when considering a case only in theory -- have rejected the claim.
Grim correctly says abortion is "homicide". We empower juries to make rare exceptions to the laws forbidding homicide in cases where, for instance, a husband finds his wife in bed with another man; or even when particularly insulting words are uttered which supposedly incite a irrational, uncontrollably violent, response. Juries exist for such hard cases. We've neglected to allow our states' juries to consider abortion law, leaving too much of the dispute in the minds of lawyers alone. It's past time to change our process of discovering what the public actually wants.
My mind often strays back to a friend whose mother delayed treatment for ovarian cancer so that my friend could be born. The gamble paid off; her mom survived the cancer despite the delay in treatment.
ReplyDeleteMy friend then developed a life-threatening CVA at about the 30th week of her own first pregnancy. Her doctors yanked the baby by C-section, then successfully performed very, very tricky brain surgery to correct the CVA. Both mom and baby did fine. Thirty weeks is early but not that early.
In neither case was the mother willing to sacrifice the unborn baby in order to increase her own chances of survival. In my friend's mom's case, the ovarian cancer itself didn't threaten the fetus, only the treatment would have. In my friend's case, if the CVA had blown it would have killed her and been a grave risk to the fetus still in the womb. Nor was the brain surgery safe while the fetus was still in the womb. Early delivery at 30 weeks was at least no more risky for the fetus, and it was critical for mom's survival.
Neither of these cases, of course, presents the really hard choice, where the fetus must die if the mother is to live. That's more like the choice faced in a self-defense killing. When it's spur of the moment, live-or-die, we leave the choice to the defender and work it out via committee afterward, so to speak, whether that's a decision by the DA's office or by a jury. When there's time to deliberate, we bring in all kinds of committees, such as hospital ethics advisory boards or even legislatures. We should do this in any decision about what amounts to euthanasia, whether it's abortion or pulling the plug on a patient who we conclude can't recover. It's easier on us if all we're doing is withdrawing extraordinary mechanical measures.
I'm told that the strict view of treating an ectopic pregnancy is that we are justified only in removing a section of fallopian tube, which destroys future fertility but allows us to say we're only letting the embryo die naturally. The less strict view is that we remove the embryo from the fallopian tube, which is more directly killing it, but preserves fertility. That's a little too angels-on-pinheads to me, but at least it shows people struggling with the difference between overt murder and letting nature take its course.
"...overt murder..."
ReplyDeleteThere's a fine philosophical distinction here, too, which may strike you as more angels-on-pinheads but might really matter. It is homicide, obviously; but murder? Murder is the intentional killing of the innocent. Is the child who is currently engaged in a growth pattern that will necessarily kill his or her mother innocent?
In one way, yes: one can speak of innocence as a matter of the will, and they have not willed anything, therefore they must be innocent. But in another way, no; analogically, at least, they are guilty of a pattern of practice that will kill whether it was intentional or not.
If you stand on the first definition of innocence, there's no way out of calling it murder; but on the second, it is not murder strictly. It is a tragedy, and a homicide, but not a murder.