Thank a pro-lifer today
In November of last year, Nicaragua outlawed all abortions, even those deemed medically necessary. The Nicaraguan abortion ban was celebrated in “pro-life” circles, and supported by the Catholic Church.
The law has also killed at least 82 women since its institution.
María de Jesús González was a practical woman. A very poor single mother, the 28-year-old’s home was a shack on a mountain near the town of Ocotal in Nicaragua. She made the best of it. The shack was spotless, the children scrubbed. She earned money by washing clothes in the river and making and selling tortillas.
That nowast quite enough to feed her four young children and her elderly mother, so every few months González caught a bus to Managua, the capital, and slaved for a week washing and ironing clothes. The pay was three times better, about £2.60 a day, and by staying with two aunts she cut her costs. She would return to her hamlet with a little nest-egg in her purse. She bought herself one treat – a pair of red shoes – but she would leave them with her family in Managua, as they were no good on the mountain trails she had to go up to get home.
During a visit to Managua in February she felt unwell and visited a hospital. The news was devastating. She was pregnant – and it was ectopic, meaning the foetus was growing outside the womb and not viable. The longer González remained pregnant, the greater the risk of rupture, haemorrhaging and death.
What González did next was – when you understand what life in Nicaragua is like these days – utterly rational. She walked out of the hospital, past the obstetrics and gynaecological ward, past the clinics and pharmacies lining the avenues, packed her bag, kissed her aunts goodbye, and caught a bus back to her village. She summoned two neighbouring women – traditional healers – and requested that they terminate the pregnancy in her shack. Without anaesthetic or proper instruments it was more akin to mutilation than surgery, but González insisted. The haemhorraging was intense, and the agony can only be imagined. It was in vain. Maria died. “We heard there was a lot of blood, a lot of pain,” says Esperanza Zeledon, 52, one of the Managua aunts.
González was not stupid and did not want to die. She knew her chance of surviving the butchery was small. But being a practical woman, she recognised it was her only chance, and took it. The story of why it was her only chance is an unfolding drama of religion, politics and power that has made Nicaragua a crucible in the global battle over abortion rights. This central American country has become the third country in the world, after Chile and El Salvador, to criminalise all abortions. It is a blanket ban. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or life- or health-threatening pregnancies.González was told at the hospital that any doctor who terminated her pregnancy would face two to three years in jail and she, for consenting, would face one to two years. “Nicaraguan doctors are now afraid of going to trial or jail and losing their licence,” says Leonel Arguello, president of the Nicaraguan Society of General Medicine. “Many are thinking that instead of taking the risk, it is better to let a woman die.”
Anti-choice groups, according to the article, are “euphoric.”
According to them, there is never a need for life-saving abortion. American anti-choice groups often make the same argument, and even the most “mainstream” organizations oppose health exceptions.
Human Rights Watch, in a recent report titled Over Their Dead Bodies, cited one woman who urgently needed medical help, but was left untreated at a public hospital for two days because the foetus was still alive and so a therapeutic abortion would be illegal. Eventually she expelled the foetus on her own. “By then she was already in septic shock and died five days later,” said the doctor.
Another woman, named Mariana, said she obtained a clandestine abortion because her pregnancy aggravated a permanent health condition. “I was very afraid. It was very traumatic not to be able to talk about it, because it is a crime. The abortion saved both me and the two children I already have.” The report said the potentially most harmful impact was that girls and women were afraid of seeking treatment for pregnancy-related complications, especially haemorrhaging, in case they were accused of having induced an abortion.
Doctors say they have been put in an impossible position. “We face extremely grave ethical conflicts, all because of politics,” says Carla Serrato, a gynaecologist from Nicaragua’s state-run Alemán Nicaragüense Hospital. Ligia Altamirano Gómez, an obstetrician, says they fear being overruled by the law. “We are pushed toward illegality.”
And no one is left unscathed:
At the other end of the country, in Bluefields, Inspector Martylee Ingram has the same, almost apologetic tone. She is discussing the harrowing case of an 11-year-old girl, Vera, who has been raped and is now 27 weeks pregnant. Asked if Vera should have the baby, she hesitates. The law says yes and her job is to enforce the law. The inspector shakes her head. “But me, as a woman and policewoman, I’d say no. I feel like she shouldn’t have it. It’s a baby having a baby. She might not survive.”
Pro-lifers love cute little babies. Until they’re born.
In the meantime, they continue to oppose tried-and-true methods of decreasing the abortion rate and they promote policies that make abortion more common. They also agitate for outlawing abortion, which only makes it more dangerous — it doesn’t impact the abortion rate at all.
In the ideal “pro-life” world, laws across the globe would look exactly like Nicaragua’s, contraception would be unavailable, and sexual health education wouldn’t go beyond, “Keep your knees together til you’re married.” And there is absolutely no question that a lot of women would die.
But I suppose our lives aren’t all that important in the whole “pro-life” scheme of things. And if we’re collateral damage in the Culture Wars, well, we shouldn’t have gotten so uppity as to think we had that silly right to life in the first place.
Nicaragua provides no answer to the debate about when, between conception and birth, life begins. But in the case of González it is clear when it ended: at 28 years.
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What a horrible thing to happen. And to think there are right-wingers in America who want these same laws here. Gives me the chills to think we may lose the Supreme Court’s protections of our rights.
It takes a lot to make me feel physically ill. Reading this article was almost more than I could stomach.
Sad, but true. It horrifies me, literally sickens me, to try and understand the thought process that leads to such a conclusion.
It’s so freaking shameful. Shameful, horrifying, and immoral.
It’s quite clear how little our lives are valued by the movement that calls itself “pro-life.”
i’m so glad you’re reporting on these issues, Jill. it’s of tantamount importance that women know the true agenda of “pro-lifers.”
Back alley abortions and the high death rate for women that have them in “prolife” countries was the reason I became pro-choice. Those stories are so heatbreaking that sometimes words are not enough to describe them.
The rationale that leads to not treating an ectopic pregnancy is just beyond my comprehension. An ectopic pregnancy is life-threatening to the woman and has zero chance of resulting in a baby. It is an out-and-out death for ideology.
Prolifers have nothing at all to do with life. They solely want to punish women for enjoying sex.
May I make a radical suggestion? Why don’t we all link this article to comments on anti-choice websites? Make those evil people confront the consequences of their position, then check their responses and publish them. If there is never a medical reason for abortion, what do they suggest about this case?
Part of the problem, as the article points out, is the confusion as to what the law actually outlaws. In Nicaragua, it is technically allowable to terminate an ectopic pregnancy — but doctors don’t know that, and so they send women (like the woman in this story) away.
And the Catholic response to eptopic pregnancy is interesting. Since they don’t believe in abortion or in terminating the life of a fertilized egg, removing the implanted egg from the fallopian tube isn’t allowable, since that directly kills the egg. However, removing the entire tube, or even more of the woman’s internal reproductive system, to “cure” the ectopic pregnancy is allowable because the intent isn’t to kill the egg, even though you know the egg is going to die. So according to conservative Catholic interpretations of pro-life ideology, women aren’t required to die for ectopic pregnancies — they’re just required to undergo major surgery and give up their future reproductive capacity.
I knew pro-life thingking was constrictive, harmful and fatal, but it really shook my faith in humanity. That even in pregnancies where there is pretty much a certainty that the mother will die, or even a very high chance of it, these people insist that we must carry the pregnancy to its likely conclusion- our deaths. And they call us murderers? What is closer to murder- denying life-saving treatment to a fully grown, living human in need, or stopping a bunch of cells from dividing any more?
I think the problem is that the Churches and law may not want to publicise the fact that ectopic pregnancies are technically allowed to be terminated. Otherwise, why would even the doctors not know? My guess is that on some level, they know that legalising one form of abortion makes people question all abortion and whether it is really murder- if you allow one bunch of cells to die, why not any pregancy? They allow ectipic pregnancy abortions, but keep it relatively quiet, but why? So that maybe less people question whether life begins at conception, perhaps.
I suspect you’re right. Also, at least from this article it sounds like Nicaraguan law on ectopic pregnancies isn’t directly in line with Church teachings — that is, under the law you can just remove the pregnancy, whereas according to Church doctrine you have to remove the whole tube. The Church would consider that murder. It makes sense, then, that they wouldn’t publicize it, or would even actively scare doctors out of doing it.
Karen, I think this is an excellent idea. If you all list your “favorite” anti-choice blogs, I’ll make sure they get trackbacks to this post.
That’s just dumb. It’s intellectually dishonest. The standard first treatment for an ectopic these days is an abortion drug. That normally saves the woman’s life and her reproductive system (in some cases the treatment fails and surgical treatment is necessary). The Catholic treatment is extra-invasive and fertility-reducing for no sensical reason. No “unborn baby” is being saved.
Indeed. It’s ridiculous, it’s cruel, it’s bad medicine, and even calling it a “treatment” gives it more credit than it’s worth. But I couldn’t make it up if I tried, and it’s widely accepted/promoted by Catholic pro-life leaders.
I don’t know what the stance of Evangelical or other non-Catholic pro-lifers is. I would imagine that it’s similar, considering the whole “life begins at conception” thing, but I have yet to thoroughly research it.
This will sound a little radical. We need to find ways to facilitate safer abortions in communities where the procedure is illegal.
It reminds me of 7/11. Crack is illegal in the United States, but there is nothing keeping 7/11 from selling glass tubes and baking soda, even placing them next to each other in a store.
In the same spirit of needle exchange programs, there has to be a way to even slightly improve the safety of a back alley abortion (in the same way that mosquito nets go a long way to fight malaria). Thinking about a small way to improve the condition of this procedure in an illegal context could go a lot further towards saving lives.
Though abortion should only ever be performed in a fully sterile, medical context, it nonetheless exists outside of this ideal.
Jill Stanek is a favorite nutjob of mine.
http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2007/10/the_fence.html#more
Whenever I read stories like this I start to feel apathetic. It’s a different country afterall. And my votes here in my own country hardly matter so what will my voice mean for those in other countries?
But it’s important for us to think about what the practical things feminists can do to help stop this. Here are some ideas I had right now, off the cuff:
1. Set up a toll-free abortion information hotline with information about how to travel out of the country to get a legal and safe abortion elsewhere as well as other relevant info, like where to get birth control.
2. Help organize =and fund a guerrilla (under the radar) doctors without borders type of thing that provides safe and low cost abortions to women who need them.
3. Lean on target businesses that support the policy and export to the US. Use boycotts and letters. Show how they have blood on their hands.
4. Like what Eric above says, so maybe we can’t provide actual abortions, but maybe we can still provide antibiotics and literature about how best to do a safer back alley abortion. It’s not ideal, but it would probably save some lives.
Any other ideas?
Women on Waves is one fantastic organization that’s working to make sure women have access to abortion in countries where it’s illegal. They sail down coastlines and pick women up at scheduled stops, and perform abortions on the ship in international waters, where they aren’t subject to national law. It’s a tiny group (run, essentially, by one woman) and it doesn’t do a whole lot of good for women who live inland and aren’t able to get to the coast, but it’s a good start and a very creative idea.
http://www.womenonwaves.org/
Oh, that breaks my heart. But these stories must be told, over and over, as widely as possible. Because they point out the basic ignorance at the bottom of the anti-choice conception of women’s biology, and women as people.
Women’s reproductive organs are complex, which increases the number of things that can go wrong; and yet so many people still seem to think it’s “drop a coin in the slot, a baby pops out” or that a woman is a flowerpot. Growing another person (or just having the equipment for it) is a mighty burden, sometimes a dangerous one, but no one thinks it’s something worth understanding because women do it.
So the men who pass these laws, and the people that support them, always seem confused by the idea of pregnancy as something fearful, unwelcome, or dangerous. They don’t respect women’s ability to understand what their bodies are capable of, or not, or what the economic consequences of a child or a pregnancy would be. They don’t understand, and they don’t care. We are less than human to them.
They also have a link to a site where women can order Mifepristone/Misoprostal to self-induce an abortion before the 9th week of pregnancy, and they give travel advice for women leaving their countries for abortions. It’s a pretty great organization if you’re ever looking for something to donate to…
I was as good as my word. My comment is under my other screen-name, Kitty, though. The frustrating thing about Vox Nova is that they ALMOST get it. They’re excellent on peace and social insurance issues and seem to really walk their talk. This list is the blogroll at Amy Wellborn’s site. It’s a comprehensive list of Catholic sites including a number of strikingly anti-choice ones. I’ll look around and see if I can find a similarly complete resource for Protestant antis.
Zoe, I just looked at the Stanek site. Jeez! (I originally called her a loon in this comment, but I don’t want to insult innocent avians.)
Any one of these will do.
Oh, yeah, about that… I propose Destiny as the core concept behind this crap. Destiny, or Essence (those two are twin concepts to me). Let me try to illustrate it.
What happens to you is the consequence of what you truly are. If something wrong happens to you, it’s because there’s something wrong with the very Essence of your being, it’s because you’re tainted. I wouldn’t be surprized if I found out that actually many so-called “prolife” don’t simply chose to ignore the fact that more women die out of illegal abortions than with legal ones, but actually aknowledge it fully and consider it a good thing. Because, you know, those dying were among those goddamn whores who don’t accept their Destiny and the True Intent of God and as such deserved to die, anyway. They were tainted, why should we care?
Maria Gonzales died? No problem with that, it was certainly God’s intent. After all, if she hadn’t tried an abortion, and prayed instead, she might have been granted a miraculous recovery. Stranger things have happened in the medical field, after all.
Thou shalt not interfer with Destiny, thou shalt not interfer with the proper result of someone’s Essence. Thou shalt rely on Providence. Obey!
(I’m feeling the urge to go and wash my hands after typing the previous illustratory crap – actually, I started by willing to pretend I was feeling that urge as a rhetorical way to underline the sarcastic intent of said crap, but now I’m going to really wash my hands, just for the sake of symbol – and, you know, my hands could be, like, tainted)
Now that I’m done with that, I’d like to digress on a point with my own voice. One point I find especially ironic is the strong correlation between being “prolife” and promoting capital punishment, or militarism, or absence of any gun control. Same roots.
Destiny. Essence. Providence.
That Stanek person is insane.
Normally my opinions regarding abortion issues are filled with phrases like “in certain circumstances”, “on the other hand”, etc. In this case, however, I definitely and clearly concur with Dr. Confused’s take on the issue. Very nicely stated.
So many different aspects of this topic sadden me….
Thanks for the lovely picture!
I like karen’s idea. This topic needs no discussion among the choir. The blinded need to see the light, or at least direct their anger elsewhere other than at women and children’s lives (and I mean children since children, like the one in the original post do suffer under the oppressive laws as well).
See, now, this is why I hate the Catholic church. It would be so much more emotionally honest if they just came right out and said “WE HATE WOMEN, AND THAT IS OUR OFFICIAL STANCE.”
If there truly is a hell, I hope a special lake of fire will be reserved for the Pope and all his woman-hating cronies ,the evil fetus-humpers who get off on women’s deaths, and the misogynist woman-killer law-makers too.
Schmorgluck, I see that thinking a lot. The whole “what happens to you is a result of what you are” concept, or I guess the “people get what they deserve” concept. If somebody is poor, it’s because they’re too lazy and stupid and selfish to make more money. If a woman gets pregnant, it’s what she deserves for–having sex?–getting raped?–just existing? It’s kind of like people who think a person gets cancer because they’re unhappy, or have wished it upon themselves.
I don’t know, I’m not describing it very well. You definitely hit on a common brand of reasoning for many people.
A few weeks ago, I had some symptoms that led my doctor to suspect an ectopic pregnancy. Without missing a beat, my doctor outlined the treatment if this turned out to be the case (luckily, it wasn’t.) Reading this post makes me grateful for the choices I have. And extremely angry about the utter ignorance/stupidity that leads other women to not have these same choices.
It scares the crap out of me that two or more people can put their heads together and somehow conclude that NOT treating an ectopic pregnancy is somehow pro-life. The illogic and ignorance in that conclusion is just utterly astounding.
What Willa said. How dare that woman have an ectopic pregnancy?
Jill Stanek…yeah. She’s always been nutty, apparently, but that post I linked to just takes the cake.
What happens to you is the consequence of what you truly are. If something wrong happens to you, it’s because there’s something wrong with the very Essence of your being, it’s because you’re tainted.
This is what friends of mine, more knowledgeable about the inner workings of evangelical Protestant culture*, call “Health and Wealth Christianity.” (In its Christian form–this kind of thinking bridges all faith boundaries.) In HWC, you are sick/poor/oppressed not because sometimes horrible shit happens, but because you are a bad Christian. If you had prayed hard enough, or sinned less, you would not be in the situation you’re in.
One friend went to a church where the pastor literally said, “There are no poor Christians. There are no sick Christians.” It was all she could do not to walk out.
It’s horrifying, and it is *exactly* this mentality that supports anti-choice agendas.
*I have been a part of evangelical Protestant culture, and though I no longer ally myself with that sector, I still consider myself a Christian. My friends are liberal evangelicals, and the person who introduced me to this term is the daughter of two liberal evangelical pastors. It is possible to reconcile faith and choice policies, among other liberal ideas. Just wanted to throw that out there.
Jill, Women on Waves sounds like a fantastic organization. Thank you for sharing. It’s exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of.
Um…any reason my comment is stuck in the mod queue?
There is nothing pro-life of sending women to their death. The Guardian article is horrying.
Has this pastor ever glanced at the New Testament? Y’know, the one where Jesus ministers to the poor and sick?
Ugh. What an atrocity. It’s heartbreaking that stories like Maria’s seem to transcend time. 1950…2007, it’s all the same when discussing the neverending attack to own women’s bodies and lives. Enraging and depressing.
Women on Waves looks fantastic, thanks so much for the link, and yes, shall scrounge around and donate. How could I not?
Dropping Dr. Laura’s blog addy for sane spammage. That woman is such a lunatic.
Dr. Laura on “Choice”
and for shits and giggles… an update on the “wonderful” son she’s managed to raise. a link (courtesy of Americablog) It’s funny (or not) that I read John’s link to the story before I bounced over to the whacko’s site and saw how she pontificated on those poor wonderful lives who *might* have otherwise been aborted. Yeah. Her son’s a REAL winner. Tree..apple.
Because comments get stuck in the mod queue all the time, and stay there until one of us (zuzu, piny or I) logs in and clears them. We can’t attend to the blog 24/7, so sometimes they stay there for a while. It’s nothing personal, it just means that something in your post (usually a common spam word, or a word associated with someone we’ve moderated) set it off.
Jill–Okay. Sorry. I was just curious–wasn’t sure if I’d accidentally crossed a line somewhere or something.
Has this pastor ever glanced at the New Testament? Y’know, the one where Jesus ministers to the poor and sick?
Apparently not. Then again, look at the Christian Right in this country. I’m not sure *any* of them would recognize Jesus if he walked up and blessed them face-to-face. (I would say walked up and hit them in the face, except…it’s Jesus.) They’d probably call the cops on the crazy homeless dude.
Also, I echo the sentiments on Women on Waves–that’s a brilliant organization.
Well, one anti-choice blog gave a pretty lackluster response (see trackback above). I left a comment.
The catholic view seems bizarre to me. They’re worried about *intending* to destroy the egg–they don’t want anyone to ever *intend* to do that, even when the mother’s life is at stake. They bizarrely claim that one can intentionally, and with full understanding, perform a surgical procedure which will destroy the egg without thereby intending to destroy the egg. Their view gets *super* bizarre when it is claimed that, while one *can* perform that invasive surgery without the relevant intention, one *cannot* administer an abortion inducing drug without the intention. I suspect it is hard to do either thing without the relevant intention, and I doubt that whether one has the intention should be relevant in moral deliberation. But it is just bizarre to regard one of these acts, but not the other, as possible to perform without the relevant intention.
While not an ob-gyn, I can confidently the say the process of pregnancy does not involve an egg being laid in the womb chad. Personally I don’t agree with Alexham’s linked document. Unfortunately abortion discussions can tend to drift very easily, so in my correspondence, I will avoid the moral theology of what is and isn’t a direct abortion. Suffice it to say that one side views direct abortion as a licit option in particular circumstances, and others do not. My understanding is that Jill and the folks here are not attempting to claim that what’s occuring isn’t a direct abortion, so I don’t think I’m being unfair in describing the view.
Uh… what? Then what does the process of pregnancy involve? A stork?
Maybe I’m misreading you, though, and perhaps you meant “laid” as in “a bird lays an egg,” not as a synonym for “placed” or “situated.” But if that’s the case, then I have no idea what your point is.
I didn’t say you were being unfair, MZ, I said that the catholic view, which you presumably hold, seems bizarre.
I don’t know what you’re getting at about an egg being laid. Is your point that you’d prefer I say ‘embryo’ instead of ‘egg’?
Getting beyond this narrow debate, is it possible for us all to find some common ground on the abortion issue, knowing well that we are not going to persuade each other to change our minds on the underlying morality of abortion?
I took a stab at it here: http://vox-nova.com/2007/10/15/is-a-truce-possible-on-the-abortion-issue/
Karen: The reason we don’t “get it” is because we place equal value of the new human being with that of the mother. It is irrelevant if the new human does not look human. All human life, regardless of “looks” is sacred and dignified. It is so ironic to me that feminists are so passionate about abortion when abortion is used against female fetuses and responsible for the eradication of the female gender in major parts of the world! Where is your outrage? Social justice demands, NOT popularity, but rather true belief that every human being has equal rights REGARDLESS of whether some other human WANTS them or not. Our value is not based on someone else loving us. If that were the case, then Hitler would be justified, slavery would be allowed, and every other crappy evil in this world could be justified.
NOW, dealing with the issue of whether the Church believes women are somehow “lesser” value than their children. Absolutely absurd. And if you are going to disagree AT LEAST understand that the Church DOES indeed allow women to save their lives if they are in danger.
From Catholic News Service explaining the principle of double effect, which would be used in the case of a mother’s life versus her child’s.
“Following the principle of double effect, the church teaches it is morally acceptable to undergo treatment for a serious medical condition even if the therapy is potentially harmful, even lethal, to an unborn child.
The “bad effect” of harm or death occurring to the fetus is tolerated only as long as the aim of the medical intervention is to acquire the “good effect” of helping treat the patient.
For example, “It would be morally acceptable for a woman to ask to remove a cancerous womb” even if she were pregnant, explained Redemptorist Father Brian Johnstone, an Australian moral theologian at Rome’s Alphonsian Academy.
“If (the cancerous organ) is not removed, she will die and the fetus will die. The intention is not to kill the embryo, but to remove the cancer,” he said.”
The other point, which Morning’s Minion touches on, is what can we do so that we don’t have to pit women against their children in the day to day events of life (not talking about medical crises here)? Most women I know who have aborted did NOT feel like it was a choice they would choose if they had other choices available to them. So, a woman may feel like she cannot afford another child because she already has children at home. Well, since we don’t have decent affordable health care in this country for poor to middle-class people, and we don’t have affordable day care, and we don’t have affordable housing, our society all but forces women to abort.
Even if both lives are equally valued, I would argue that abortion is still permissible. After all, I don’t have the right to use your organs for my survival. I can’t demand that you give me a kidney or your blood or that you breathe for me. If I somehow physically attached myself to you without your consent, you would be justified in removing me. Our rights would still be equal.
Sure — as long as they give up their fertility or undergo a more complicated and dangerous procedure. If the problem is the fetus or the embryo, Catholic doctrine does not allow the simple removal of that fetus or embryo. Ectopic pregnancy is the perfect example — the easiest way to end such a pregnancy while still preserving a woman’s fertility and being minimally invasive is to administer a drug that terminates the pregnancy. Catholic doctrine disallows that, and instead requires that the entire tube be removed.
What would Catholic doctrine suggest a woman do if childbirth is going to kill her, either during birth or soon afte? Let’s say she has weak kidneys. Her doctor tells her that giving birth will be more than her kidneys can take, and she’ll die within a few months of kidney failure if she goes through with the pregnancy. Terminating the pregnancy would preserve her life. What does the Church say she should do?
Jill, “as long as they give up their fertility or undergo a more complicated and dangerous procedure.”
Not necessarily. Now that more evidence shows that the surgery causes more problems for the mom in short term and more problems for her future pregnancies in the long term (ie future ectopic pregnancies) one can make a good moral argument for the drugs. Once again, intent is everything in these case specifics. The goal is to save the mother.
In the case where the mother’s kidneys might not withstand the pressure, I really don’t know, but I would have to consult a moral theologian. I am sure the principle of double effect kicks in again. The Church would say first and foremost make sure the mother’s life is protected and the baby’s life is protected, but clearly there are cases where there is a direct conflict between the two.
Radical Catholic Mom-
I’m not a moral theologian but I have done a bit of research on this issue, and as far as I can tell, intent is crucial. So if you intend to terminate the pregnancy, it’s not acceptable — even if it’s an ectopic pregnancy, and even if termination causes fewer problems than the surgery. Even if it’s to prevent a woman from dying during or after child birth.
What is acceptable is indirect abortion — i.e., removing the whole fallopian tube because the intent wasn’t to directly kill the egg, even though the action does. The principle is that you can’t do evil so that good will result, and abortion under any circumstances is evil. So even if it’ll save the woman’s life, you can’t do it, unless it’s a side effect of some other procedure. I find that perspective really, really troubling.
The whole concept of removing the fallopian tube instead giving drugs for a medical abortion is just evil. It’s saying that the intent to kill an embryo that will never grow up to be a baby is wrong, but intending to randomly mutilate a woman for no good reason if fine and dandy (seriously, if the intent in removing the fallopian tube isn’t to abort a non-viable pregnancy, then what could the intent be other than to mutilate her?). I just don’t understand the people who argue for it.
To Jill’s comment on moral theologians.
I find it medieval. Christian churches talk about being pro-life, but are fascinated with death. Many talk about how great the end of days are going to be. Christian think this woman will automatically go to heaven and be given eternal life. They’re force feeding their doctrine on poor women. There is nothing compassionate about this.
Double effect has always smacked of double talk to me, in regard to both abortion and aid in dying. I can see its legal uses, but as a moral stance it strikes me as cowardly. If there is a God, he knows what our intent is, and abdicating responsibility by hiding behind double effect won’t fool him. And if I needed to consult a third party every time I faced a moral dilemma in order to keep my own spiritual hands clean, I would definitely feel like a moral coward.
Did it ever cross your mind as well that for all of these religiously-motivated people who are anti-choice they fail to recognize that these aborted “souls” will go to Jesus?
Who are they to deny Christ?
Anyone who uses a religious argument against abortion has no case as to why it should be criminalized…as well as one who must “consult a theologian” when a medical doctor is needed to save a woman’s life – isn’t working with a full deck.
“Doctor – please go no further in saving this woman’s life or ending her pregnancy – a theologian must be consulted to see if the procedure is just” WHA???????
What about all the other eggs that will be destroyed if they let the mother die? Oh, wait, they don’t have sperm in them yet, silly me.
How do these people manage to convince so many that it’s about hatred of women? Seriously, how?
I just read that Vox trackback link, and I find it really interesting that those arguing pro-choice policies have female-gendered names, and those advocating anti-choice have clearly male-gendered names. Hmm…
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