mrs-annie-odair asked: Why be pro-life? I mean, do you know what hyperemesis gravidarum, pre-eclampsia, and ectopic pregnancies are? Do you know how physically hellish pregnancy can be for a woman? Do you know all of the different ways that pregnancy can cause mental and emotional distress to a woman? Do you know how emotionally scarring it can be to give a child up for adoption? Or do you just not care about any of that, which proves that your views on this issue are incredibly hateful?
I must admit I’ve seen your posts on other Tumblrs before, so I’m a bit cautious to engage. Nevertheless, I will address your questions because I believe others might be able to learn from it.
“Why be pro-life?”
Because all life has value, and all life begins at conception - at no other moment in a human being’s development can we say that life begins. At conception a unique human being comes into existence, there is no denying that – the child is human and is alive, thus it has rights.
do you know what hyperemesis gravidarum, pre-eclampsia, and ectopic pregnancies are?
Yes, in fact, I do. HG and pre-eclampsia can be treated properly without any major complications to the mother. Yes they suck, and can cause difficulties/suffering for the mother, but those reasons can’t be used to justify the termination of a child’s life. (Ectopic pregnancies are morally complicated, I’ll address that at the end)
Do you know how physically hellish pregnancy can be for a woman? Do you know all of the different ways that pregnancy can cause mental and emotional distress to a woman? Do you know how emotionally scarring it can be to give a child up for adoption?
All of these issues can be approached with great care for both the mother and the child. With the way you are asking these questions, however, it seems like what you are suggesting is that pregnancy is so horrific that no woman should ever go through it. How sad. My own mother went through her own “physically hellish” suffering so that I could be born, must I believe that she should have had the choice to terminate my life? What about your own mother?
The fact is that suffering is not meaningless. We suffer all the time for the things we care about, what we are passionate about. It breaks my heart that we live in a society where the demands of maternal suffering fail to be satisfied by a mother’s love.
“do you just not care about any of that, which proves that your views on this issue are incredibly hateful?”
Wow. That’s some underhanded bifurcation. With this statement, you are using the tactic of pitting being pro-life against caring for women. You can do both. They are not mutually exclusive. True pro-life views demand care for both the mother and her child.
I do care for mothers.
But that doesn’t mean I believe that the suffering they go through gives them the right to kill their child.
No, I believe in mothers.
I believe that they have the power to love greatly – with a love that trumps whatever suffering they face out of love for their child.
Just because a woman suffers through pregnancy doesn’t mean that the most loving thing to do is give them the easiest way out of their suffering. No, we can love women better. Women deserve better than abortion.
Ectopic Pregnancy
This is a special case and one that can’t sufficiently be answered in an ask box, but I’ll try and give a short reply (feel free to stop reading now).
For those who don’t know, ectopic pregnancy is when a fetus is implanted extra-uterus, outside of the uterus – it most commonly occurs in the fallopian tube, and so are often referred to as tubal pregnancies. This is a morally complicated issue. But just because it is complicated, doesn’t mean we deny either the value of the mother’s life or the child’s life. There exists a great deal of research and moral philosophical discussion out there – feel free to do your own research. This is my own humble opinion based on what I have read (the Church has not officially approved any procedures that I am aware of): based on the principle of double effect I believe in the moral licitness of full or partial salpingectomy under the condition of tubal rupture. Upon immediate danger to the mother, salpingectomy allows for the saving of the mother’s life, where the tubal rupture is the actual cause of the child’s death. Additionally, if technology would allow, although wary of its moral implications, I believe that artificial wombs would be a morally licit option as well – it would be similar to that of life support for a child who was born prematurely. Okay, that’s enough medical ethics for an ask box.
Sorry for filling your dash.
Actually, not really, we do it for the babies!
