Saint Mother

This is one I've been thinking about for a while now, the canonisation of Gianna Beretta Molla on the basis of putting her unborn child's life above her own. She had three children and was pregnant with her fourth when she was diagnosed with an illness which would have required the termination of that child to save her life.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3718475.stm

Now, while this is all very nice and heroic as a pro-life statement, what I find hard to reconcile within my own thoughts is that she already had three children who needed their mother. To refuse life saving treatment which would have allowed those three children to keep their mother (not remarkable or heroic, but far better for her family) seems to me to be an odd thing to be praised for.

Likewise there was that case a couple of years back of the woman who was being treated for infertility and became pregnant carrying a large number of foetuses. She was recommended to have some of them terminated to save the rest, but would not because she believed it was God's will and that somehow they'd all be alright. Of course, she lost all of them. For someone to say that they can't abort some foetuses to save the others, is almost the same as saying that if they had 8 children in peril and couldn't save all of them, that they wouldn't try to save any because it would involve choosing some over others.

It's as strange as that death that used to be heroic in Japan until very recently, death by overwork - allegedly benefits the company (yeah, burnt out people do such a good job) but of no benefit to the bereaved family.

Morally shaky, I know. So, what do you think?

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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny."

Well...

I'm pro-choice. If it was her choice to save her child's life ahead of her own, then good for her. It was a hard and painful decision for any mother to be forced to make. Thank God she was able to have the choice to make it. I often think of what I'd do if faced with the same delema. No, I won't share my conclusions here. It is too emotionally charged for me. But, I wish I could hug the woman just for what she went through.

That said, to be 'canonized' for her personal choice in the name of a political cause,'Pro-Life', is goofy. (As are most politically made decisions I find.) Especially when, as meridian so clearly pointed out, the so called 'pro-life' choice she made is debatable in the first place.

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"Spider sense....tingling."

Well, it wasn't my intention to criticise the woman for the choice she made - a very personal choice, and she's not the only woman in history to have taken that route - I'm just very uncomfortable with her being sainted for that personal choice which had a huge downside for her existing family, the only upside being for the baby which at least got to survive. The way this story's told, nobody connected to her except the baby gained at all. Only the pro-lifers get to gain by use of her name and story.

I recall a couple of years ago or so here in the UK the story of a woman who'd been trying for a child for years, eventually became pregnant, and then was diagnosed with cancer. She could have been treated but it would have involved having an abortion and she would have been made infertile by the treatment. Instead she chose to carry the baby (or was it twins?) to term with the hope that it might still be treatable then. In the end it wasn't treatable, but the child she so desperately wanted survived to be cared for by her husband out of the headlines. Her decision was hers to make, and to criticise would be tasteless. But nobody's going to make her a saint on the basis of that decision, and she probably wasn't catholic anyway. And she didn't leave any other motherless children behind.

But everything I'm saying revolves around the woman's prognosis anyway. If the doctor had said that if she had her baby aborted she might have a 25% chance of survival at best, rather than would definitely survive, it puts a different face on the situation. If you have a high chance of dying whatever you do, you're going to have to think about things differently than if doing one particular thing means you'll have 90% chance of surviving.

The thing with this canonisation is that nobody's saying whether she might have died anyway. They're just saying that she chose the baby's life over her own and the rest of her family's wellbeing and that makes her saint material, rather than an ordinary woman dealing with a horrible situation in the way she feels best.

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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny."

I have to wonder sometimes. A problem that occured while being born put both my mom and me into risk. So they had a C-section. End of problem. Of course, being in 1961, they might not have had that at that time.

I'm generally pro-life. I do believe, however, that medical circumstances can merit the use of abortion and the like. I have to wonder at her choice since she had three other children and, generally, if the mother has a high risk of death, so does the baby. There are cases where abortion makes sense. I have heard of a spinal disease (can't remember the name) that some unborn babies get that, if they are born, they live in excruciating pain for a few days and then die. I don't think I could do that to anyone, much less an infant.

Abortion is a tough issue. For me, it isn't black and white. There are some circumstances in which abortion might be necessary. For me, there are too many abortions because having a child would be inconvenient, especially when there are so many couples that I personally know who can't have children and want to adopt.

Sainthood? I'd have to question that. Leaving three children and a husband, when the possibility of the unborn fourth surviving is unknown seems a little extreme to me. But put in that situation myself, I don't know what I'd choose. Thankfully, with today's technology, it probably wouldn't be necessary. It's a large issue, though. One that would take a long time to look at before making a decision, if even then.

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What if there is a spoon?

It's such a tough decision. I think it's one of those things that you would like to think you would choose, but you never know for sure until you're in the situation. I hope I'm not.

But the all or nothing attitude is what really irritates me. My aunt is a diabetic. She got pregnant and found that, if neither she nor the baby had any chance of survival if she carried it to term. She had to abort. Some pro-life activists don't understand situations like that.

I don't think the decision should be taken from the mother either. It's the abuse of it through girls aborting because they don't want a baby that irritates me. I've had friends who have miscarried and wished that they could adopt a baby. Some of them have. But it hurts them to know that women are aborting just because they don't want the child. So I'm prejudiced, I guess, towards being pro-life. I just think in the case of convenience of not raising a child that there are other options. People just don't want to take them. However, it definitely shouldn't be outlawed. Slightly limited, perhaps, taking the fetus's life into account some more, but definitely not outlawed.

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What if there is a spoon?

I'll make a case for it being the establishment's decision, just to throw a monkey-wrench into things:

Battling a life-threatening illness and surviving when the child does not is hard enough, without the extra guilt of choosing her own life over another's.

My stand on the issue: if it's one life or the other, then it's a tough choice, and ethicists have battled over it for years. Greatest good for greatest number of people isn't all that easy in practice. It's too hard to quantify any of the terms. But do give the surviors the support they need to move on.

As a primary form of birth control, in a society and situation where there are other options available, abortion is wrong. However, having made such a decision, the woman should be given the support she needs to avoid the need for such a choice in the future, and given the counselling she needs to deal with the repurcussions. If it was the best choice she chould see at the time, then let her grieve and move on. If it was a sin, then let her do penance and be forgiven, and move on.

As for the saint issue?

No, choosing another's life over your own is not sufficient for sainthood. It's almost a slap in the face to the firefighters and others who risk their lives by choice.

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Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

- Viktor E. Frankl

I'd have to argue against you on that, Tengu. There is only one circumstance in which he rebukes his mother and family in the Bible. Furthermore, having an abortion or not has nothing to do with your Christianity. Is it a large principle of Roman Catholicism? Yes. But don't put us all on the same track. Jesus had some very radical sermons/ideas for his time. I wouldn't call them anti-family. Some *sound* anti-family at first. But when the original text is studied, other meanings surface. For example, Paul is often characterized as being anti-women because of a certain passage in one of his letters. When researchers took a closer look at the original Greek, however, they realized that he was quoting someone else in order to rebuke the theory.

Yes, guys often dump girls when they become pregnant because they think that will let them get out of financial responsibility. Girls will often have abortions in order to get the guy back/keep parents happy/ keep themselves happy.

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What if there is a spoon?