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2/20/2016 11:23 am  #21


Re: The Abortion issue.

Scott wrote:

Mattman wrote:

When I spoke of a medical need I wasn't talking about aborting for mere convenience. I was meaning if a woman has an infected cervix and her pregnancy can kill her it would be justifiable to scrape the embryo out- thus killing it.

But since the purpose of that operation isn't the bringing about of the death of the fetus, it isn't what at least the Catholic Church means by an "abortion." The details matter quite a lot*, so I can't give a universal answer that covers all such cases -- but in principle such operations are permissible, albeit tragic.

So again I'm wondering what it is you're finding logically incoherent.

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* In this instance, for example, it would matter whether there was some other way to cure the infection, whether it was necessary to remove the cervix itself to save the mother's life, whether the fetus could be in any assisted to survive outside the womb, etc. The point is that there's no blanket prohibition on medical operations that result in the death of the fetus as a not-directly-intended side effect.

Im having such a difficult time with this. It seems to me "abortion" is not as easily defined as I first thought. What if a Dr. Performs a suction abortion or d&c on a 7 week pregnant woman to save her life. He can just turn around and say"I was not purposely killing the unborn- I had to remove the baby by any means or the mom would die. The safest way I could remove it was by crushing it first!" Therefore a d&c may not be considered an "abortion"- depending on the situation, even though the act is the same- the babies body is ruined by instruments?

Im concerned here with the use of the phrase "purposeful killing" and the literal physical act. Intention/Action theory is incredibly complex. Take for example the craniotomy. It seems many people believe that when an infants skull is crushed,whatever the main reason for doing it, the fact that one purposefully crushes the skull means that they purposely kills the baby. So if a baby needs to be removed piecemeal while alive during pregnancy this seems similar. I personally do not find it unreasonable to"kill" a child in the womb if it is a real threat to the mother. Its horrible self defense/life boat like situation- but killing none the less. I think we need to be very careful about semantics. I think we should accept what it is whatever we call it.






 

 

2/20/2016 11:40 am  #22


Re: The Abortion issue.

Mattman wrote:

Im having such a difficult time with this.. . . I think we need to be very careful about semantics. I think we should accept what it is whatever we call it.

The difference between deliberate, directly intended killing and unintentionally bringing about death as a side effect is hardly "semantic." However hard it may be to tell them apart in practice (and that certainly can be very difficult!), they're obviously objectively distinct, and the difference is not only clear but pretty basic to Catholic moral theology (which would not agree with you that "the act is the same" in each case).

Using the word "kill" to cover both cases isn't careful; just the opposite, if it leads us to conflate them morally. In your example it might be the doctor performing the d&c who was conflating them, and we might have reason to suspect that some evasion or rationalization was going on.

Here's a good book that you may find helpful.

 

2/20/2016 11:57 am  #23


Re: The Abortion issue.

I also don't, of course, mean to imply that a proposed action is just automatically okay merely because it involves someone's death only as an indirect consequence.

CATHOLIC MORALIST: The deliberate taking of an innocent life is everywhere and always wrong.

DISSENTER: But what if someone, through no fault of his own, had a diseased liver, and the only way he could save his life was to kill someone else and take his liver?

CM: That would still be pretty obviously wrong.

D: You hateful bigot!

 

2/20/2016 11:59 am  #24


Re: The Abortion issue.

Scott wrote:

Mattman wrote:

Im having such a difficult time with this.. . . I think we need to be very careful about semantics. I think we should accept what it is whatever we call it.

The difference between deliberate, directly intended killing and unintentionally bringing about death as a side effect is hardly "semantic." However hard it may be to tell them apart in practice (and that certainly can be very difficult!), they're obviously objectively distinct, and the difference is not only clear but pretty basic to Catholic moral theology (which would not agree with you that "the act is the same" in each case).

Using the word "kill" to cover both cases isn't careful; just the opposite, if it leads us to conflate them morally. In your example it might be the doctor performing the d&c who was conflating them, and we might have reason to suspect that some evasion or rationalization was going on.

Here's a good book that you may find helpful.

 
Thanks for the link! You're right Scott, it's not just Semantics. And I agree that it's incredibly difficult. I actually find it to be almost impossible to figure out. Which is why I think in reality I would have to side with the abortion for the woman. (If there is a very likely chance that the act could be justifiable, and I would have to read to read to figure out if this was the case, I would just side with the woman because it is an issue of saving her life. ).

But if we can say that someone who crushes a babies skull because it is stuck dangerously in the mom, doesn't kill the baby. Do you think someone who aborts a baby could say that they didn't kill their baby they just removed it from their body.

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2/20/2016 12:03 pm  #25


Re: The Abortion issue.

Mattman wrote:

I don't understand why I can kill someone else via self defense but not an embryo who is threatening the life or sanity of a child.

Primarily because the embryo is innocent and the one you're defending yourself against isn't.

Moreover, you're not automatically justified in killing someone just because he's attacking you with murderous intent. If deadly force is the only way to stop him, then sure -- but even then you shouldn't directly intend/want/seek his death for its own sake.

 

2/20/2016 12:09 pm  #26


Re: The Abortion issue.

Mattman wrote:

But if we can say that someone who crushes a babies skull because it is stuck dangerously in the mom, doesn't kill the baby . . .

But of course he does "kill the baby" in the sense that he acts in a way that results in its death. That doesn't mean he does so deliberately and with the direct intent of bringing about that death.

That's the very distinction that I'm concerned not be elided: not all killing is deliberate, directly-intended killing.

Mattman wrote:

Do you think someone who aborts a baby could say that they didn't kill their baby they just removed it from their body.

No. (Well, they could say it, but they'd be wrong.) The question is whether such killing is justified, not whether it's killing at all.

(I'll be busy elsewhere for a while but I'll check back later. In the meantime, I hope somebody else will jump back in, especially if anyone thinks I've said something incorrect. That's one of the reasons I thought the discussion would be better held on an open forum.)

 

2/20/2016 12:36 pm  #27


Re: The Abortion issue.

Mattman wrote:

I don't understand why I can kill someone else via self defense but not an embryo who is threatening the life or sanity of a child.

Because in the latter case the term 'threatening' is be used in an equivocal manner i.e the embryo isn't an aggressor in the sense of someone intending a violent action towards the mother. To give a rougfh parallel TB sufferers 'threaten' our lives/health but that 'threat' in no way implies that we are morally permitted to kill them.

(I'm curious though why specifically a child?)

As for the 'sanity' part if this were a valid reason for the killing of an innocent why cannot we extrapolate this to other circumstances. Consider for instance the narrator of E.A. Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' who is slowly driven made by the presence of the man he eventually murders - is such a man, in virtue of that other's 's negative effect on his psychological well-being, justified in killing him or even demanding that the medical profession do so for him?
 

Last edited by DanielCC (2/20/2016 12:37 pm)

 

2/20/2016 12:57 pm  #28


Re: The Abortion issue.

Scott wrote:

Primarily because the embryo is innocent and the one you're defending yourself against isn't.

Moreover, you're not automatically justified in killing someone just because he's attacking you with murderous intent. If deadly force is the only way to stop him, then sure -- but even then you shouldn't directly intend/want/seek his death for its own sake.

I definitely agree that the embryo is innocent but I don't see why that would make it wrong to kill it in this case. If a toddler was drugged and coming at me with a knife I think you should be able to kill it. It would be innocent. The threat to the mother comes from the embryo being in the womb. Once the embryo goes so does the threat. The two can't be separated. I don't understand why someone must have the intent to do you harm in order for you to defend your life-- especially when the persons existence itself is the threat. Embryos can only survive in the mothers womb. It is a threat to the mothers life, just by nature of what it is.

I certainly do not believe In a right to a dead fetus. But I do agree with her right to terminate a pregnancy so she can save herself- no matter what the means are. Is this what you agree with??
 

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2/20/2016 1:12 pm  #29


Re: The Abortion issue.

Mattman wrote:

Once the embryo goes so does the threat. The two can't be separated. I don't understand why someone must have the intent to do you harm in order for you to defend your life-- especially when the persons existence itself is the threat. Embryos can only survive in the mothers womb. It is a threat to the mothers life, just by nature of what it is.

I certainly do not believe In a right to a dead fetus. But I do agree with her right to terminate a pregnancy so she can save herself- no matter what the means are. Is this what you agree with??

You know, I'm coming from a Catholic background. I've usually shaved myself from Ethical debate because for the most part from what I've seen they seem to (although not necessarily) downplay how much intent is involved in an act, and how malicious intents harm the persons soul. Let me put it this way, Ethics is all about intent first, and then about the resulting consequences from it. For it is the intent(malicious) which harms the persons soul and the wellspring for all evil acts. It is for this reason, I would say that any Ethical theory which seems to think that intent can simply be stripped off and those where they easily conflate it with the act as such, is simply failing as a theory. It simply doesn't solve my experience of what morality is, and what it should be about, if we're going to talk of human beings or persons. Given this,

Mattman wrote:

I definitely agree that the embryo is innocent but I don't see why that would make it wrong to kill it in this case. If a toddler was drugged and coming at me with a knife I think you should be able to kill it. It would be innocent.

This seems to be a poor example, the toddler isn't capable of committing an act that is purely evil which necessarily involves the act of will, an understanding, and etc. There is simply no culpability as such on the one who does not even understand good from evil, heck this is beyond that, it simply fails because there's no way any act of the toddler could be considered to be evil, since he has yet to will anything, let alone evil.

 

2/20/2016 1:22 pm  #30


Re: The Abortion issue.

DanielCC wrote:

Mattman wrote:

I don't understand why I can kill someone else via self defense but not an embryo who is threatening the life or sanity of a child.

Because in the latter case the term 'threatening' is be used in an equivocal manner i.e the embryo isn't an aggressor in the sense of someone intending a violent action towards the mother. To give a rougfh parallel TB sufferers 'threaten' our lives/health but that 'threat' in no way implies that we are morally permitted to kill them.

(I'm curious though why specifically a child?)

As for the 'sanity' part if this were a valid reason for the killing of an innocent why cannot we extrapolate this to other circumstances. Consider for instance the narrator of E.A. Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart' who is slowly driven made by the presence of the man he eventually murders - is such a man, in virtue of that other's 's negative effect on his psychological well-being, justified in killing him or even demanding that the medical profession do so for him?
 

 
That's true it's not an aggressor. Maybe I should argue something like a life boat situation rather than self defense? If I'm in a lifeboat that is sinking and both of our lives our in danger because the other person is weighing the boat down (as is the case of mom and baby- if the mom dies so does the prevaiable baby), I think it's justifiable to throw you over.

(As far as why I used a child as an example, I've been thinking a lot about medical ethics regarding pregnant kids, so it just came out. But this applies to any mom. I'm not sure whether a child would have a specific right to abort just because she's a child, or where that would come from.)

As far as the tell tale heart analogy, I honestly don't recall the story. Was there any way the man could avoid the man who was driving him nuts? I mean I don't think I should be able to kill a movie star who I am in love with because in a sense they are making me mad. However, if i had a twin who was attached to my body that was constantly mentioning the word "blue" of no fault of his own, and every time I heard the word "blue" I had a psychotic break. He is going to need to stop saying that word asap. And if there is only one way to stop him I think many people may agree that killing him would be justifiable, as a last resort.

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