Some days ago, Kate Blanchard, a friend of mine from our days in graduate school at Duke who is trained in theological ethics, wrote a piece for the Huffington Post entitled “My Two Abortions,” in which she related her experiences of an ectopic pregnancy and a fetus which (who?) died in utero to attack pro-lifers for their intransigence on life issues in light of the obviously ambiguous status of the fetus. The piece is all the sharper for her use of the claim that the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar resulted directly from the Catholic Church’s stance on life issues enshrined in Irish law: had Halappanavar been permitted an abortion, pro-abortion campaigners argue, she would have lived.
It is not at all clear that an abortion would have saved Halappanavar, as the facts are in serious dispute, and so it is upsetting to see Halappanavar’s death exploited this way. It is also disconcerting that my friend Kate misunderstands Catholic teaching in this area, and so I’m very grateful another friend of mine and Kate’s, also from Duke, Holly Taylor Coolman, has responded:
Surely the most important element of Kate’s essay, though, has to do with the death of Savita Halappanavar, and its implications. Here, especially, I want to note what seem to me to be two problems in the way Kate links her experiences to this case. First is that neither of the decisions Kate made—one that ended an ectopic pregnancy or one that induced labor after the fetus had already died—should be understood as opposed to pro-life Catholic teaching. In fact, neither should be understood as an abortion at all. Kate implies that she was very lucky to have lived in a country that allows abortions, but the fact of the matter is that she could have received exactly the same medical care in Ireland—or in any Catholic hospital here in the U.S.
Most importantly, there is simply no clear evidence that Halappanavar’s terrible death, either, had anything at all to do with Ireland’s restriction of abortion. Halappanavar was suffering from a condition called septicaemia, a condition that would not have been ameliorated by an abortion. Just a few days after her initial reporting of the story, the lead reporter herself allowed that “the fact that Savita had been refused a termination was a factor in her death has yet to be established.” Dr. Hema Divakar, president-elect of the Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India has taken a stronger position: “Even if the law permitted it, it is not as if her life would have been saved because of termination.” Dr. James Clair, microbiologist has offered an alternate explanation, suggesting that “the problem was an unforeseen… infection rather than an issue of obstetric mishandling.”
Catholic teaching not only allows for, but demands, medical intervention to save the life of an expectant mother. It is true that acting on a commitment to both mother and baby can, in a few cases, be complicated and difficult. It appears that in Halappanavar’s case, though, doctor may simply have been unable successfully to intervene. In any case, it is worth it to learn more before using this case to get traction in the pro-life / pro-choice debates.
The experiences that Kate describes in her essay were painful, on more level than one. I wish now, as I wished then, that she might somehow have been spared them altogether. She survived, though—and thrived. My own conviction continue to be that protecting and caring for all human life is the surest route to the same outcome for other mothers, and for their children.
December 5th, 2012 | 12:57 pm
Well, to be more precise, some ways of ending an ectopic pregnancy are “opposed to pro-life Catholic teaching”. From the article, it appears Blanchard had a fallopian tube and ovary removed. That’s allowed.
But removing the fetus while preserving the fallopian tube is not.
Again, some precision is called for. Investigations – plural – are ongoing, but the timeline as reported by the husband seems to indicate she contracted the septicaemia from being in dilated labor for over 48 hours. If her husband’s account is, in fact, accurate, then her death very probably was caused by the failure to terminate in a timely manner.
Perhaps his recollections are not accurate. But it’s a little early to just assume they are.
December 5th, 2012 | 1:20 pm
My soul trembles when I see a grown, well-educated woman (a Professor, no less) with no clue what Pro-Lifers believe and pursue. Her ignorance of Catholicism is no surprise, coming from a “well-educated” American. But to conflate her two tragic experiences of losing a baby (through no choice of her own) and the other 1.4 million abortions done every year in this country, is frightening. It evidences what was seen in our recent National election: To a large segment of our society some people (Pro-Lifers first among them) are not to be engaged and their beliefs not countenanced. They are to be marginalized without a thought of what they are saying. One need only to utilize his/her own emotional prejudices to make decisions. This is the way to persecution and bigotry.
December 5th, 2012 | 2:40 pm
First is that neither of the decisions Kate made—one that ended an ectopic pregnancy or one that induced labor after the fetus had already died—should be understood as opposed to pro-life Catholic teaching. In fact, neither should be understood as an abortion at all.
Intervention to end an ectopic pregnancy is considered an abortion by contemporary Catholic ethicists, albeit an indirect one, if the procedure is a salpingectomy—i.e., removal of the fallopian tube in which the embryo has implanted. If, however, the embryo itself is removed and the fallopian tube is not, that constitutes a direct abortion. Likewise, if a drug (methotrexate) is used to dislodge or kill the embryo, that is a direct abortion.
The question of what the Church teaches about ectopic pregnancy is an interesting one. Apparently the last official word came down in 1902, when the CDF was still the Holy Office:
Sometime in the 1930s, a Catholic ethicist named T. Lincoln Bouscaren came up with a rationale for intervening in an ectopic pregnancy. (Briefly, if you perform a salpingectomy, you’re not intentionally removing the embryo. You’re removing the damaged fallopian tube. The removal and death of the embryo is a foreseen but unintended effect.)
That reasoning has been very widely, but not universally, accepted among Catholic ethicists. To the best of my knowledge, nothing contradicting the 1902 Holy Office decree has come from the Vatican. So I wouldn’t say it is the official teaching of the Church that a salpingectomy is licit in the case of ectopic pregnancy. But given how these things work (as I understand them) Catholics are free to follow the consensus of Catholic ethicists, even though no high-level Vatican organization has evaluated and approved Bouscaren’s rationale.
I can’t help but wonder, however, if Bouscaren’s reasoning is compelling (I believe he had some doubts about it himself) or if the thought of putting women at risk so cruelly when intervention was so easy influenced ethicists to accept a weak argument.
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