Women's Right to Life

“If they become tired or even die, that does not matter. Let them die in childbirth – that is why they are there.”
Martin Luther (Von Ebelichen Leben 1522)

The above quote defines the Catholic Church’s and the “pro-life” movement’s view of women. In short they see women as a means to an end, rather than ends in themselves.

On May 16, 2004, Pope John Paul II, canonized Dr Gianna Beretta Molla, a pediatrician/gyn. who died in 1962, aged 39, a week after giving birth to her fourth child. Gianna was the tenth of 13 children and studied medicine and surgery at the University of Pavia. Upon completing her studies she opened a clinic at Mesero and specialised in treating pregnant women, babies and the poor. She married Pietro Molla in 1955 and bore three children in the next four years. When she became pregnant with her fourth child in 1961, she was diagnosed with womb cancer at the second month of pregnancy. Her doctor recommended that she have surgery to save her life which would have resulted in the termination of the pregnancy. Gianna refused. She would only agree to an operation only if did not endanger the fetus so she ended up having surgery to remove the tumour and nothing else done. She knew that her “choice” was likely to end her life and therefore living her three already born children without a mother. Although she suffered terrible abdominal pain, she refused pain relief as she believed it was not proper to appear before God without much suffering.

Gianna’s view on abortion was in line with Catholic Church doctrine:

“The doctor should not meddle. The right of the child to live is equal to the right of the mother’s life. The doctor cannot decide; it is a sin to kill in the womb.”

When she was approached by someone wanting an abortion, she refused and told them that this was a grave offence against God:

“If one were to consider how much Jesus suffered, one would not commit the smallest sin.”

Some people have rightly criticized the choice Gianna made because it suggests that the embryo/foetus has more value than the life of a woman – a big issue in the US where George W. Bush and the “pro life” Taliban are striving to ensure full rights to fertilized eggs, embryos and foetuses at the expense of women’s health and lives.

Let’s stop and ponder if Gianna’s choice was truly her own. Having been brought up as a strict Catholic and being actively involved with Catholic organisations, would have ensured that the doctrine of abortion and contraception as grave sins were firmly embedded in her mind and constantly reiterated with her closeness with the Catholic Church. The indoctrination must have been so strong that she was willing to leave orphaned her three children under the age of five, rather than disobey Catholic doctrine. Had Gianna not been a strict Catholic, would her choice have been different?

We must bear in mind that anyone with extreme religiosity such as Gianna’s would not dream of ever disobeying religious absolutes, that of course applies to all religions, not just Catholicism. E.g. the perpetrators of September 11 believed they were doing their god’s work when they flew the passenger planes into the twin towers – would they have taken the same action had it not been for religious indoctrination? I think not!

Let’s look at the vast differences between the feminist pro-choice view and the “pro-life” view:

PRO CHOICE:

Women faced with an unwanted pregnancy have two choices,
a) They can terminate the pregnancy.
b) Allow the pregnancy to continue, have the baby, keep it or place it up for adoption which is an acceptable option for some but not all women. Many people find the idea of forced pregnancy and forced abortion equally abhorrent – we only need to look at the situation of women in China and India where women are forced by their families to abort female foetuses. Therefore, whatever a woman’s decision is, her wishes are respected. Indeed, many women choose to continue unplanned pregnancies, I see nothing wrong with that choice, and I believe that they should be given all the support that they need.

PRO-LIFE:

Here a woman has no option but to continue the pregnancy regardless of the risks to health and life, financial difficulties, very young age, family problems or inability to care for more children. It makes no difference if the pregnancy resulted from rape/incest, or whether the woman is living in poverty with several children to look after. “Pro-lifers” also oppose birth control, sex education and emergency contraception, even for rape victims - click here and here for more info. They have total disregard for women’s lives as the following account clearly shows:

In 1984, Angela Carder was struck with lung cancer while pregnant. She was hospitalised and her doctor recommended radiation and chemotherapy. Angela made it clear that she wanted her health to come first. But the doctors at the hospital had given Angela only days to live and would not prescribe chemotherapy because they feared it would endanger the foetus. The foetus was twenty-six weeks and if they could prolong Angela's life for three more weeks - instead of trying to save it - the foetus would have a better chance. Instead of treating her cancer, they inserted a tube down her throat and pumped her with sedatives in order to delay her death. According to her mother, Angela thrashed and twisted on the bed trying to fend off the doctors but with the tube in her throat her battle was in vain.

The administration of the George Washington Hospital feared that they might be taken to court by anti-abortionists for failing to save the foetus. The administration proposed that a caesarean section be performed in order to save the foetus. The hospital's doctors opposed the surgery since it would probably kill Angela. Angela was unconscious from the sedatives and rather than waiting a few hours for the drugs to wear off so they could ask her permission, the hospital administration called in a judge.

During the hearing the foetus’s lawyer Barbara Mishkin said: "Well I suppose it will hasten her death but Angela is probably going to die in a few hours anyway. Her rights should be put aside."

The judge wanted to know how a caesarean would affect the health of the foetus but not how it would affect Angela. At the end he told the doctors to operate immediately.

The doctors delivered a girl; repeated efforts to inflate her lungs with a respirator were unsuccessful. Angela slipped into a coma and died two days later.

For pro-lifers the dividing cells  on the left have far more value than the woman on the right. The woman in the photo is Gerri Santoro, dead after a botched, illegal abortion. In 1964, at the time of her lonely death, Gerri was a mother of two and abortion was a criminal act. The photo first appeared in MS Magazine in April 1973.

The link below is for a case where a woman was forced to bear an anencephalic baby, that is a baby with no forebrain - the main part of the cerebrum, responsible for thinking and coordination. Anencephalic babies are born unconscious and insensitive to pain. Without a functioning cerebrum, these babies have no hope whatsoever of ever gaining consciousness. Most are stillborn or die within hours of birth: http://www.iwhc.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=page&pageID=752