[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Here is the problem, as I see it:

Do Nothing: Mother and fetus die
Do Something: fetus dies

In doing nothing, you are aborting the baby and killing the mother. Is action the only way to abort? No. In this case, inaction would also result in an abortion, albeit, a spontaneous one. It is a passive abortion.
In doing something, you are only aborting the baby. This is an active abortion.

Is it better to have a passive abortion and lose another life or have an active abortion? Either way, there is an abortion.

Philosophical debate since forever. Do nothing 2 people die, pull a lever and you kill one to save the other, could you pull the lever and kill someone even if you know it saves another? What if you had to stab them? What if you just tell someone else to do it?

But the 'passive abortion' isn't an unnatural intrusion causing the death it's the death of the mother which causes the death of the fetus

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

I think in this case it would be considered better to have an passive abortion. It would have been lumped in with "He works in mysterious ways." since it would have been the result of natural causes, not a act of man.

Yeah basically that.

Originally Posted by AGDee

See, and I would consider this killing the mother. Is it not an act of man to withhold treatment intentionally when someone can be saved?

Actually, no. If my recollection of extraordinary measures and ethics is correct, for example, withholding a feeding tube is NOT wrong, pulling a feeding tube for someone in a coma is considered euthanasia and wrong. Per the Church that is. So letting life happen not wrong, intervening to cause harm, wrong.

Originally Posted by Psi U MC Vito

Not sure if it was stated, but was it positive that by aborting the fetus that the mother would be saved?

I believe it did save her actually. But my understanding is the condition was either caused or exacerbated by the pregnancy and it was the burden of the fetus that caused the problem.