RE: Church excommunicates a girl for aborting her twins but lets her rapist go free
May 28, 2012 at 8:21 pm
(May 28, 2012 at 1:48 pm)Aiza Wrote: It's also worth noting as another "quibble", that Excommunication does not automatically send you to Hell any more than any other mortal sin does.
It doesn't? I thought it does. Wikipedia seems to confirm it: "Excommunication at the moment of death results in a person going to hell, the same result as dying in plain mortal sin, because of the necessity of the unity of the ecclesiastical body." Their source for that statement is a council that took place in Florence in 1442. Is that incorrect?
(May 28, 2012 at 1:48 pm)Aiza Wrote: And since there is no known medical condition which absolutely requires the direct killing of a fetus, it is also still a sin. (Indirect killing of a fetus can still occur, as in the removal of a diseased uterus--but that cannot be an intended effect, and of course the child should also be baptized upon removal; "I am going to remove this diseased uterus to save the mother" vs. "I am going to kill this fetus to save the mother").
To be honest, that strikes me as hair-splitting. You still get a dead fetus at the end of it. And the example you brought up, a hysterectomy, is one that even a layman (in medical terms) knows will result in the death of the fetus. It's one thing to say that undergoing a medical procedure that has a chance of leaving the fetus alive, even if the fetus doesn't come through, is not a sin -- that's sane and reasonable. But saying that a hysterectomy -- which kills the fetus -- is permissible, while a therapeutic abortion -- which kills the fetus -- is not, is ... well, mind-boggling, at least to me.
Maybe there is, as you said, "no known medical condition which absolutely requires the direct killing of a fetus [emphasis added]." But this is the real world, and especially in medicine, there are very few absolutes. Maybe one woman has an underlying medical condition that could be aggravated by a pregnancy, but she gets lucky and is able to carry the fetus safely to term. Another woman isn't so lucky and needs an abortion to save her life. The lucky woman gets off scot-free. The unlucky woman has two, maybe three choices: become a martyr, commit a mortal sin, or pray for a miracle and see how well that works out.
Honestly, the wording of that quote -- absolute, direct -- strikes me as the Catholic Church trying to hedge their bets. They hate abortion, but they don't want to be known for killing women, so they allow a loophole or two if you know how to find it. But all the same, if you happen to be the unlucky woman with the underlying medical condition -- or the raped 9-year-old who has the ill fortune to be carrying twins that she can't possibly deliver -- well, you'll get no sympathy from the Catholic Church if you dare to undergo a safe, effective procedure that will save your life.
(May 28, 2012 at 1:48 pm)Aiza Wrote: (and lets be straight here--the sin is assisting in the killing of a human being),
And there is where we are just going to have to agree to disagree, because while some people see an embryo, a blastocyst, a fetus or anything in between as a full human being ... others don't.
"But the gods plainly do exist," said a priest.
"It Is Not Evident," [said Dorfl].
A bolt of lightning lanced through the clouds and hit Dorfl's helmet. There was a sheet of flame and then a trickling noise. Dorfl's molten armor formed puddles around his white-hot feet.
"I Don't Call That Much Of An Argument," said Dorfl calmly, from somewhere in the clouds of smoke.
-- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
"It Is Not Evident," [said Dorfl].
A bolt of lightning lanced through the clouds and hit Dorfl's helmet. There was a sheet of flame and then a trickling noise. Dorfl's molten armor formed puddles around his white-hot feet.
"I Don't Call That Much Of An Argument," said Dorfl calmly, from somewhere in the clouds of smoke.
-- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
