-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
We have previously discussed the case of Mrs. Savita Halappanavar, a pregnant woman in Ireland who died in agony when doctors refused to perform an abortion that could have saved her life. The Irish Catholic Bishops’ Office has issued a statement regarding Savita’s death. The statement provides no guidance that would help prevent a similar episode from occurring again.
Savita’s death has been a huge PR problem for the Catholic church and should lead a rational person to question those who claim to have the authority to determine morality for us all. A morality that cannot be sustained via rational thought should be discarded. This statement makes no attempt to rationally defend Catholic moral teaching.
The Bishops state that:
Where a seriously ill pregnant woman needs medical treatment which may put the life of her baby at risk, such treatments are ethically permissible provided every effort has been made to save the life of both the mother and her baby.
Note the use of the term “baby” to refer to a fetus. Conflating baby and fetus is a common psychological ploy to appeal to our emotional self rather than our rational self. Who do we want determining the best medical treatment, a medical professional, or a member of the Clan of the Red Beanie™?
In the real world, the choice often comes down to saving one life or the other. If an abortion is best medical treatment to save the woman’s life, the Bishops have an answer:
… abortion is the direct and intentional destruction of an unborn baby and is gravely immoral in all circumstances …
Apparently, it is not immoral to let the woman suffer an agonizing death that is easily preventable.
The Bishop’s statement also contradicts itself. On the one hand, the Bishops say that “such treatments are ethically permissible,” and on the other hand, abortions are “immoral in all circumstances.” An abortion, in Savita’s case, would have been a medical treatment that put the life of her fetus at extreme risk. Such a medical treatment cannot be both “ethically permissible” and “gravely immoral.”
The irrationality of Catholic morality is evidenced when a woman’s life is saved by an abortion. Often, she is then able to have other children that would never have existed without that abortion. A zero-tolerance of abortion alleviates the condition having to think.
H/T: PZ Myers, Dr. Jen Gunter.
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Let me get this right… We’re supposed to consider this author “rational” when he debates the tragic death of an Indian woman by referring to the “clan of the red beanie”? Maybe he should consider the impact of his hatred on his own ability to be rational. This article is full of falsehoods, including the statement that abortion would have saved this dear woman from sepsis. Carry on in your fruitless hatred or learn the FACTS.
So now the Catholic church is requiring all Vatican employees to carry a micro chip ID card. Just like the Saudis requirement for women!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/9717310/Vatican-introduces-new-security-measures-after-Vatileaks-scandal.html
Is there a correlation between pink beanies and pedophilia? We had a dog named Ophelia who came from the home of a former pedophile priest. She says that only the priest part is in the past tense. I dont know what Ophelia meant by that but she said that the house had a lot of prayer and a lot of kids.
Remember, the church WAS the government until very recently.
Just because we say it ain’t so don’t mean it don’t be so.
How sad is that????
Lawmakers are pressured by the religious to pass these laws. they cannot be divorced so easily.
The people are also pressured by the power of the ‘Church’
.
The church must be stripped of its power, when they use that power destructively…… First thing to do is ; Start Taxing the churches, as they’ve just started doing in Italy. If the church wants to have a say in the affairs of humans, let THEM pay their fair share…. of else keep your opinions to yourself!
Idiots.
It is irrelevant what any Church or any religious group has to say about the case of Mrs. Savita Halappanavar.
The only thing that matters here is the legislation governing what doctors may and may not do.
Doctors want to save lives not let sick people wither away . But when the law prevents them from clearly and unambiguously being able to do what they want to do they are rightly not going to risk prosecution, a jail sentence, loss of the right to practice and loss of livelihood and family.
You would not either if you were put in their precarious postition. If you take a punt and end up being prosecuted just watch as you are thrown to the wolves and left on your own to fight the system. Well. er …. no thanks it is not a casino.
The problem is not with the doctors and the health system or the churches or religious groups but with the law. The POLITICIANS – full stop- make the laws not the doctors or the churches or anyone else.
If the gutless politicians (you would not feed most of them) were to enact laws to clearly enable doctors to carry out procedures that would save the lives of people in the same or similar situation as Mrs. Savita Halappanavar then there would be no issue here.
As the problem lies fairly and squarely with the LAWMAKERS, that is what all the discussion should be all about here and nothing else.
Doctors need unambiguous laws under which to operate otherwise, as you would, they are forced to take a cautious line.
Get it now do you?
pete,
yep 😉
Idealist, it was not a conversion arising from a lot of research and reading, etc. It truly was – if you can believe in G-d then it seemed to follow, to me, you might as well believe in Jesus. Trying to find a good analogy; maybe – if you have cake in front of you and ice cream in the freezer you might as well go all the way and add the ice cream to the cake. (;
(I also found much more solace offered from the Church (although I was abused emotionally and verbally in my first church by the minister, and I was not the only one). Each time I was in the hospital for my (neuro)surgeries I asked to see a rabbi, because I was totally alone, my family having abandoned me years before (TMI but seems relevant). A rabbi never came but invariably a minister did. Even after I said I was jewish they would say that does not matter, I will come back to see you agai, and they did.
My experience with rabbis and sunday school (on Saturday morning of course) and a lack of connection to the religion, and the synagogu,e probably helped to move me forward; but there was no one Aha moment.
As for the debate, once I was confirmed, at age 16, meaning the end of Sunday School, absent the High Holy Days I had no relationship with either a synagogue or Judaism. (We used to have a christmas tree and my mother and I went to xmas eve candlelight services. I was the only one in the family who knew the prayer over the menorah lighting. Chanuhak was the lighting each night but Christmas Eve and Christmas were the real days of celebration.
My mother made sedar for Passover and we looked for the afikomen, did the questions, etc but the real fun was the coloring and finding of easter eggs, full easter baskets, and a nice ham dinner.
I always have told people we were the least jewish you could be and still be able to call yourself jewish.
Leejcaroll,
What a nice surprise you sent me. Welcome to the forum of the discussion hungry.
Your conversion was interesting. Do explain more.
Many explanations the the appearance of Jesus coming just then are offered for historical reasons, propheted, longed after under Roman dominance, etc.
We can call him the poster child offering a softer version of judaism and supposedly to win the war for jewry against its persecutors and a thousand years of peace followed by ?????.
But all of what stands in the NT can be doubted as to any basis in actual events or of originating in the mouth of Christ.
The Christians debate and debate just as the jews do at the Yeshiva, and other gatherings. And the Christian debate seems to get no closer to the spirit of humanity—-however we interpret that to be.
Why should a devil’s advocate such as you are named leave jewry? Are woman not permitted to debate? Just as they are formally denied by the skirt wearing priests of Catholicism.
My attitude to religious writings of all faiths is that if it is the word of God, then nothing need be added. If it is added to, then it is but the work of man. A shame that the jews lost the Mosaic tablets along the way from Sinai. The muslims have the haddith, etc and the jews have the Talmud, in all its many volumes. And the whole of the NT is but a construction by men. No more than that.
Now after all this babble, I must soon beddybye.
Looking forward to more from you, whenever…..!
Zarathistra, in the words of Foghorn Leghorn, “It’s a joke, son.”