"Sister Margaret's Mercy"/Article in the Guardian
by Sophia Deboick
"... Recent church history has seen an increasing emphasis on the absolute prohibition of abortion. In 1886 Leo XIII explicitly prohibited it, even where the life of the woman concerned is threatened, and in 1930 Pius XI stated that "however much we may pity the mother whose health and even life is gravely imperilled in the performance of the duty allotted to her by nature, nevertheless what could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent?..."
"... Sister Margaret believed she was acting in accordance with Article 47 of the healthcare guidelines issued by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. This permits treatment which will result in abortion if it saves the mother's life. .."
"...Sister Margaret's case, and others like it, reveal that the Catholic Church's position on abortion is one of intractable impracticality, by which a hierarchy of male clerics bury their heads in the sand about the obvious moral problem of privileging an insentient foetus, incapable of sustaining life on its own, over the life of an adult woman with a social existence. While the discussion this week has been in the familiar terms of the right to self-determination versus the moral repugnance of "social abortion", it should be remembered that this strain of thought, one that is directly promoted by Rome and that has many devoted proponents all over the world, means that it is not only a woman's right to choose that is being threatened, but a woman's right to live..."
How can the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy claim to be pro-life when they are willing to sacrifice a mother's life in a situation where she faces death if an abortion is not performed? A mother has a right to live!Bridget Mary Meehan
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