Correspondence On the veto of the partial-birth abortion bill
LINE, MARY-DOROTHY & McCOWN, BOB & MELE, CARMEN & Doyle, Brian
THE PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION BAN ACT (HR 1833) AS PASSED BY THE UNITED STATES SENATE ON DECEMBER 7, 1995 Sec. 1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited. (a) Any physician who, in or affecting...
...Not only was our son dying, but the complications of the pregnancy put my health in danger...
...Line's trust in her doctors' medical advice is understandable, her confidence in their moral advice seems misplaced...
...1833, a bill that would have banned certain types of late-term abortions [editorials, April 19 and May 3...
...The hydro-cephaly also made natural labor impossible, as our son's head at twenty-two weeks was already larger than that of a full-term baby...
...MARY-DOROTHY LINE Los Angeles, Calif...
...We must leave medical decisions to families and experts in the medical community...
...CARMEN MELE, O.P...
...This child might never have been possible if I had been forced by a cruel, ill-advised law to have a surgical procedure less appropriate and safe for my circumstances...
...So much is at stake here that it outweighs the suffering of an individual...
...The other medical procedure available to me was a hysterotomy...
...It took courage to veto this bill, and President Clinton did it not because he "chose to toe the line drawn by the abortion lobby," as one commentator has charged, but because he knew the truth when he heard it, from the real people who have lived it...
...By way of response, however, it is necessary to note at the outset that the issue at hand is not solely medical and that it is not only a private matter to be agreed upon by patient and doctor...
...It is not the place of government, the media, or our churches...
...It is always useful to have our editorial judgments challenged by a correspondent speaking from experience...
...Primary duties include liturgical and sacramental ministries, pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, and other shared responsibilities with the Director of Campus Ministry and staff...
...This scar tissue makes it hard, sometimes impossible, for the placenta to attach to the uterine wall, and often the placenta will push through the scar, causing the uterus to rupture...
...I believe God led me to the best medical procedure for me and for our son...
...The procedure is grossly misrepresented by the press, our elected officials, and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops...
...Refreshing review Just read Sara Maitland's review of Mary Gordon's The Shadow Man [May 17], and I write in admiration to say that an honest review is a damned good thing, and a bad review can sometimes be refreshingly good...
...Last April we learned that I was pregnant with our first child, and we were thrilled: Nineteen weeks into my pregnancy, an ultrasound indicated that our baby's head was too large and contained excessive fluid"a condition called hydrocephalus...
...too little time, topics too sensitive...
...As Mrs...
...A majority of Congress voted to ban the partial-birth abortion procedure (also called intact dilation and extraction), not because all members of that majority are opposed to abortion, but because the appearance of infanticide made manifest by this procedure forced our lawmakers to look at the reality and meaning of late-term abortions...
...Congratulations...
...Saints Stephen and Paul, learned males, paid with their lives for doing precisely that...
...The hydrocephalus progressed very quickly...
...Line...
...Commonweal's editorial opinion was tested by Mrs...
...Commonweal's two editorials were directed not at Mrs...
...brian doyle Portland, Ore...
...The medical procedure which helped us, intact dilation and evacuation (IDE), would have been banned by this legislation...
...The writer is editor of Portland Magazine...
...Standard obstetrical care in the case of hydrocephalus is and has been to wait until the onset of labor and at that point drain fluid from the head while the fetus is still within the uterus to allow vaginal delivery...
...He could not swallow and thus was not absorbing amniotic fluid...
...There is no evidence that they impair future pregnancies, or threaten the mother's health...
...doctors under its sway offer their pregnant patients more than medical advice...
...they give them moral permission to dismiss the infant's claims to care, comfort, and compassion...
...Further, imagine the reaction among even simple Jewish people, who had a horror of all rituals of the pagan cultures around them, but especially of those that employed priestesses (sometimes including ritual prostitution), if Jesus or one of the early church leaders were to call a woman to preside as priest at the celebration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood...
...I was one of those "weeping women" Commonweal speaks of so dismissively...
...In his authoritative text Homilectic, David Buttrick affirms my belief and offers some how-to-do-it guidelines...
...This procedure allowed me to become pregnant again"we are expecting another baby in September...
...We sympathize"as who would not"with the loss to her and her husband of their first child...
...But we were not to be one of those lucky families...
...Only doctors"people who have dedicated their lives to helping others" are qualified to determine which medical procedures should be used and in which circumstances...
...If an IDE had been legally unavailable to her doctors, she believes her health, her capacity to have another child, and perhaps her life might have been seriously threatened (the law, it should be noted, allows the procedure to save the life of a mother...
...We never thought about abortion...
...Every (Continued on page 4) (Continued from page 2) medical expert told us it was safe and compassionate for both me and our Danny...
...The editors reply: Mary-Dorothy Line's experience is a tragic one...
...Whenever the law sanctions private killing, even for the most understandable reasons, the sanctity of all life is threatened...
...Clinton characterized alternatives to intact dilation and extraction in misleading terms: "They rip your body to shreds and you could never have another baby, even though the baby you were carrying couldn't live...
...Deadline for applications is June 30, 1996...
...Inquiries call (214) 987-0044, or send letter of application with resume and three letters of recommendation to: David Wengierski, Chairman of the Board, c/o Neuhoff Catholic Student Community Center, 3057 University Blvd., Dallas, TX 75205...
...Nor, according to our inquiries, is polyhydramnios a condition that would likely cause the uterus to rupture...
...Late-term abortions have nothing to do with choice...
...it calls for political and moral decision making as well as medical expertise...
...Nevertheless, a theologian recently protested: "But wait"Mary was a priest...
...I respect and trust my doctors and followed their advice...
...Daphne, Ala...
...Line may agree with Mr...
...The uterus is cut in half lengthwise, creating massive scar tissue...
...In a medical culture increasingly predicated on a utilitarian calculus (why waste the time or resources...
...Line's experience so poignantly reminds us, abortion is the taking of human life...
...This was our son...
...There are over 1,700 Catholic students at SMU with a new Catholic campus ministry facility...
...While Mrs...
...My cervix was dilated twice a day for three days...
...But a call to serve the People of God as priests includes a call to live the life and do the work demanded by the office, and this call simply could not be answered during Jesus' time by the Blessed Virgin, or by any woman, because of the social conditions prevailing, the hostility and danger a woman would be exposed to...
...b) (1) As used in this section, the term "partial-birth abortion'' means an abortion in which the person performing the abortion partially vaginally delivers a living fetus before killing the fetus and completing the delivery...
...this legislation would have mandated that we risk losing all hope of ever having children...
...Experience may be definitive in shaping the views of individuals and tragic circumstances may mitigate moral culpability...
...We did not "choose" an abortion, our baby was dying...
...We waited several weeks and consulted five specialists...
...She, a spouse of the Father at the very origin of the Incarnation, was ordained by him when he placed her at the foot of the cross, and she offered to him on that altar her son's life as a true and perfect sacrificial victim...
...I could have "let nature take its course/' as some have suggested, but I wouldn't do that for any serious medical condition...
...Or perhaps she failed to realize that she was receiving moral as well as medical advice...
...While Mrs...
...Clinton from offering a principled defense of his veto"an exemption he continues to employ...
...We lost our first child before we even had him...
...He grieved over our losses as deeply as anyone not part of our families ever has...
...The infant church would have been stifled by public rage...
...The philosopher Hans Jonas outlined the danger: "It is terrible to say...
...BOB MCCOWN, SJ...
...Novak's opening line" "What progressives these days are not doing is...
...Some cases of hydrocephalus are treatable and that is what we prayed for...
...In all this, we believe, doctors have no greater authority than the media, and considerably less authority than properly belongs to public servants elected to make our laws, and to those who are responsible for passing on our moral tradition: ethicists, theologians, religious bodies, and, yes, even (Continued on page 29) (Continued from page 4) bishops...
...She argues that she had no choice, either in the treatment of her son or in abortion procedures...
...This paragraph shall not apply to a partial-birth abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, illness, or injury: Provided, that no other medical procedure would suffice for that purpose...
...Caesarean sections [hystero-tomies], another method of delivery, are routinely"perhaps too routinely"performed on thousands of women every year...
...trying to offer contemporary reasons why Jesus did as he did in ordaining only males...
...They told us there was no hope and recommended we terminate the pregnancy...
...This problem, called polyhydramnios, would have continued to worsen and could have caused my uterus to rupture...
...our precious baby was dying...
...We need to make use of the institutions and processes that exist to reconcile contrary experiences and to hold out to all of us the standards and limits that make possible the common life of a nation or religious community...
...This legislation was wrong, and its authors have misled its supporters with the non-medical term "partial birth" and with talk of "scissors" and "sucking brains," language that does not appear in the bill...
...Compensation includes salary, housing at the new Catholic Campus Center, a household allowance, and both health and auto insurance...
...But individual experience and the prestige of specialists cannot speak the final word in shaping the laws of the land or the moral values of religious traditions...
...more than two years, or both...
...In a cross-country debate with Senator Robert Dole on May 23, Mr...
...Sometimes the fetus dies, but the death is not directly intended...
...We were there out of love for our son, out of gratitude to the president, and out of a desire to protect other families like ours that will face similar tragedies...
...led me to these reflections: We have heard suggested that if Jesus wanted women to be priests, he would have first called his mother...
...The veto was right As practicing Catholics, my husband and I are deeply dismayed at the misrepresentations that appeared in Commonweal regarding the president's veto of H.R...
...The first woman priest I have come belatedly on Michael Novak's article in your issue of January 25 on "Authority, Priesthood, Women...
...Issues in the pulpit In his advice to pastoral ministers on the proclamation of church teaching [February 9], Richard Gaillardetz, a long-time friend, contends that controversial subjects should not be treated in homilies...
...Line's letter, but it is not changed...
...Line relies firmly on her doctors' advice and argues on behalf of other women in her circumstances that these decisions should be left in the hands of doctors...
...But since for many Catholics the homily offers their only access to what the church is saying in these areas, and that controversial matters are often treated superficially and/or antagonistically in the media and in public discussion, I would say that the homilist has a duty to address hard issues...
...This paragraph shall become effective one day after enactment...
...I thank God that President Clinton was brave enough to look past the rhetoric and recognize the real issue, women's health...
...As such it is never merely a private or personal act...
...In fact, other medical advice would have suggested a different course...
...If my baby died in utero, the resulting toxins could cause a hemorrhage and possibly require a hysterectomy...
...Clinton sat with us, listened to us, and treated us with tremendous compassion...
...For the first time since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, a legislative body took seriously Roe's stricture that late-term abortions could be subject to legal restrictions, and that beyond the point of viability the interests of the mother had to be balanced with those of the fetus...
...With no hope for our baby, my doctors recommended an IDE as the best procedure to protect my health...
...It would have been unthinkable for a woman to go out into that rigorously closed Jewish world, teaching publicly a radically new interpretation of the Scriptures, or debating with the Scribes and Pharisees...
...We mustn't let ourselves be governed by an ethics of compassion but only a sense of responsibility for the consequences arising from our attitude, from our readiness and willingness to consider making occasional use of the option of taking life...
...We ought not and must not let this be our starting point...
...The consequences of the human attitude toward the act of taking life, toward making the taking of life in intolerable situations a routinely available option"to put it quite bluntly, the progressive and cumulative habituation to the idea and the practice of taking life"are incalculable...
...It was a very advanced, textbook case of hydrocephalus and our baby would be stillborn...
...I disagree...
...Clinton's statement, she thinks political debate about late-term abortions is inappropriate and beside the point...
...a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not...
...For example, he exhorts "enormous diligence"in a word, homework," leading to in-depth understanding of all sides of the issue...
...On the fourth day, our son was extracted, a simple needle was used to remove excess fluid from his head"the same fluid that was killing him"to allow his head to pass undamaged through the birth canal...
...To be sure, there is not time for much detail, and the preacher should take care not to alienate members of the congregation...
...The emotional tenor of the veto ceremony served to obscure the purpose of the proposed new law and, more important, to exempt Mr...
...This is similar to a Caesarean, but is much more invasive and can adversely affect a woman's future fertility...
...Every one of them told us the same thing...
...We believed that God wouldn't give us a problem if we couldn't handle it...
...In preaching on Catholic teaching about the economy"certainly a sensitive issue in many parishes"I have found it constructive to invite response from the congregation after Mass, when there is more time and the faithful can air their own feelings...
...I was under general anesthesia during all parts of the procedure...
...This was God's will...
...It says a lot about the credibility of a magazine that it has the guts to be honest in calling a bad thing bad...
...but an ethics based on compassion alone is something very questionable...
...Though I am a registered Republican, my husband and I volunteered to be with President Clinton as he vetoed this bill...
...Line or the other women present for the veto in President Clinton's office, but rather at the veto itself (our first editorial, April 19) and at the president's chosen means of dramatizing his veto (our second editorial, May 3...
...San Jose, Costa Rica Campus Ministry THE CATHOLIC CAMPUS MINISTRY at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, seeks a Catholic priest as chaplain with collaborative leadership skills and, preferably, some experience with young adults...
...Congressional hearings on the partial-birth abortion ban indicate that the majority of such procedures are elective, and not representative of the situations described by Mrs...
...No scissors were used and no one sucked out our baby's brain...
Vol. 123 • June 1996 • No. 12
