consistency?

[cellio]

For the last few days there has been a story in the news about a baby that was born with two heads (twins gone wrong). Or, more precisely, about the surgery that was being done to remove one of them. Some of the reported facts got me to wondering about something.

The second head had brain activity. (I understood it to be activity independent of the other brain.) The additional head had eyes, a mouth, and other features that moved and apparently reacted to environment. If the head remained it was certainly going to become a serious hardship for the child, both physically and mentally. It was not clear to me that its presence was directly life-threatening.

So, the doctors removed an entity that was developed enough to have a working brain and body parts, which was infringing on a host entity through no fault of its own, to preserve the health but not necessarily the life of said host.

Now, I have absolutely no problem with that decision. But I wonder how those who are anti-abortion see it. I did not hear of any protests outside the hospital, and I would be somewhat surprised if a significant number of anti-abortion folks actually objected to this surgery. You'd have to be pretty hard-hearted to object to this, I think.

But I wonder about the reasoning. What are the salient differences between this case and abortion that make the former acceptable and the latter not? Is it just that a suffering child tugs on the heart-strings more than a suffering adult? Or is there a real difference? The analogous abortion case would seem to be an unintended, risky pregnancy resulting in a fetus with a serious not-immediately-fatal defect, like Down's. While many anti-abortion people make exceptions for cases like that, many others do not. They're the ones I'm curious about.

Comments

despair

[cellio]

The concept of considering despair a sin is tied to the idea of someone having inappropriately defined the 'impossible'.

I didn't know that despair was a sin. Is this tied to the idea that despair is really lack of faith and lack of faith is a sin, or is something else going on?

Is all despair sinful, or only willful despair? That is, if someone has a diagnoed mental affliction that produces despair, is he sinning? Or only if he doesn't seek treatment?

Re: despair

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Well.... this is why even though technically despair is considered a sin no one in the church would actually tell the family of a suicide victim that that person had committed despair.

Despair is having decided there will never ever be any hope. That's... a big thing. Yes, a loss of faith. Someone saying "Hey, God... I don't care how ompnipitent you are... I _know_ this will all never get better. Ever."

But 'decided'. Can someone decide something if their own neurochemicals are completely screwed up?

Ok, here might be a good time to quote something from a book I mentioned in my lj "New Question Box: Catholic Life for the Nineties" (again, just as perspective on the Catholic church's view of 'mortal sin')

Q: Is it a mortal sin to use God's name in vain in a fit of anger?


A: The traditional three requirements for a mortal sin are still good ones:

1. Serious matter - that is, the action must be one which is compleely incompatible with a respect and love for God.

2. Sufficient reflection. One must realize when he is doing the action (or refuses to do it in a sin of omission) that if he does hat he is contemplating, he is deliberately rejecting God's love and friendship. In other words he must be fully aware that he is contemplating is a mortal sin.

3. Full consent of the will. Realizing all this he still deliberately wants to go ahead and do it anyway. Considering these requirements, it is difficult to see how the action as you describe it, could ever be a mortal sin.

Re: despair

[cellio]

Thanks!

I suppose there is a danger (theologically speaking) that one could interpret this to mean that no mortal sin is ever fully willful, because if the person really understood he would not proceed. I wonder how they get around that while still recognizing that someone with a chemical imbalance isn't completely in control of himself (a case they presumably want to interpret leniently).

Re: despair

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, Cellio, welcome to the ranks of Catholic theologians! ;)

Well, yes.... that concept of how far to shade that number 3 in general situations can be.... a source of controversy. (Up there with 'well, are you sure we couldn't select a Sovereign through a fencing tourney? ;)

However, in this day and age it would take someone quite lacking in both knowledge and empathy to hold that a person who is suffering an illness is willfully deciding to experience the symptoms.