Garland said that while the law provides an exception in order to prevent the death of a pregnant woman, "it includes no exception for cases in which the abortion is necessary to prevent serious jeopardy to the woman's health."
I think there is both a genuine concern here and also a politically motivated move. On the one hand, there are reports that doctors are delaying carrying out an abortion up until the point that a woman's life is obviously and incontestably endangered even though it is obvious much earlier that this point is going to be reached. There is no reason to delay what is ultimately going to be necessary, making the woman run risks and suffer just to provide a blanket to protect doctors in court. Some women may risk dying or suffering irreparable harm over that, and it's not ultimately going to save the life of the child. It's pointless and either cruel or cowardly to push suffering onto the woman in order to protect the doctor's career.
On the other hand, creating a broad exception will end up excusing a number of cases that are fringe or vague cases. This is clearly part of the intent, given that the real desire is to have abortion legal (and paid for by taxpayers) in all cases whatsoever. This is on the same principle Richard the Lionheart cited in assigning Friar Tuck his bucks:
“I understand thee,” said the King, “and the Holy Clerk shall have a grant of vert and venison in my woods of Warncliffe. Mark, however, I will but assign thee three bucks every season; but if that do not prove an apology for thy slaying thirty, I am no Christian knight nor true king.”
Even so, I'm inclined to view this as an acceptable solution. Even if they manage the tenfold increase of 'medically necessary' abortions that the King expected from the Friar and his bucks, genuinely necessary cases are estimated at two percent. (This figure is hotly contested by activists on both sides, in and out of 'expert' NGOs; but it is somewhere between less than one percent and maybe three percent.) If you get to twenty percent, that still is a vast improvement over where we were before Dobbs, as the remaining eighty percent will be capable of being regulated according to democratically-enacted law.
Meanwhile an anti-abortion referendum in Kansas of all places went down in flames yesterday. Returning the issue to democracy means accepting democratic results, and abortion is always very popular once people have had it for a while -- even Ireland is not likely to go back to banning it. It's just so convenient to be able to make a daunting 20-year challenge, which entails heavy responsibility and permanent physical changes to your own body, go away like it never existed. There's no guarantee of success without a lot of moral work to convince people to accept the arguments against the practice. You can't skip the philosophy and go straight to force: that's now how democracy works.
7 comments:
1) "There are reports" (of problematic decisions)..........if EVER there was a phrase which is wholly suspect, especially when advanced by the Left, it is that one.
2) Whatever happened to C-sections? Viability these days occurs around 5 months' gestation. Remember, we are dealing with murder here, not a parking ticket.
As I’ve said here before, it’s definitely homicide; it’s not always murder. These are the best cases for an argument that it’s not murder, and sometimes that it’s not even wrong but morally indicated. C-section for viable cases ok, but lots of these happen early enough that waiting isn’t going to get you there; while sepsis is damaging and threatens death, and ectopic pregnancy can threaten rupture that would destroy fertility in the future. These cases are tragedies, not murders; and saving the one who can be saved with minimal harm to her seems right to me.
Ectopic pregnancy, especially one caught relatively late, is my first scenario for "why not C-section." It can be fatal when the miscarriage happens, even in that window before viability. I'm sure there are other examples, but that's the "hard cases make bad medicine" that I know the most about. (Not first hand, but former coworker second hand.)
LittleRed1
I will not dispute a bona fide "death of the mother" concern; neither does Thomas Aquinas.
But "health" of the mother........that's the abortionist's ticket.
The potential for abuse is acknowledged. But notice the risk also to future fertility from delay. The possibility of sexual reproduction between husband and wife is, per Aquinas, the principal good of sex (though not the only good in which God is interested). If the final disposition of the child is certain, acting early for preserving fertility is in accord with his account of right order.
Ectopics are covered under the principle of 'double effect.'
As to TA's primary good argument: yes....but Catholic moral theo does not assert a 'right' to childbearing, either.
I suppose that in the end, there will be murders (not merely homicides.) One cannot prevent crime through legislation.
Ectopics are covered under the principle of 'double effect.'
That's true, however, the question of whether the act is discriminate becomes of central importance. (It is proportionate, which is the other test.) The normal test for that is to ask the question: "If a miracle occurred and the harm was avoided while the good aimed at was achieved, would I still be happy with the outcome?" If the answer is yes, the act is discriminate (and thus permissible according to the discrimination test).
For many of these cases, that would hold. A mother who really wanted a baby and was distraught to discover it was ectopic would be delighted if, by miracle, the baby somehow survived. (Since the test is to assume an actual miracle, how plausible this survival is does not come into the question.) Those are among the tragic cases to which I refer, ones which are not plausibly murders even though they are homicides.
Post a Comment