Talk:Gianna Beretta Molla

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I've removed:

== Lifestyle ==
She participated in daily eucharistic adoration, for an hour each day, with her husband.

Melaen 01:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I have put back the statement that the Catholic Church would have allowed Molla to have a hysterectomy. I believe this is correct. If a pregnant woman is in serious danger because of a disease of the uterus she is allowed to have the uterus removed although a hysterectomy will result in the death of the fetus. Here is a passage from the USCCB's Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services:

"Operations, treatments and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child." KaB 13:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

A statement from the U.S. Catholic Bishops, who do not have jurisdiction over the laity in Italy, is not applicable here. She was an Italian woman in the 1960s. The statement is by United States bishops decades later. No such statement was made at the time by bishops in her own country. Moreover, this does not have enough ecclesiological weight to consider it a movement of the ordinary magisterium of the Catholic Church. When such statements come from ecumenical conferences or the Holy See or from the pope's mouth himself, then this may be considered more of a moral absolute. But even if the pope were to make such a stance, such statements are not retroactive to the 1960s. Neutral point of view is to leave the commentary out, because it is just that: commentary. The moral licitness of historectomies is for another page.El Clarque 8:05, 1 December 2006

Firstly, I am sure you understand that this has nothing at all to do with the morality of hysterectomies. If the Catholic Church would have allowed a hysterectomy in Molla's circumstances that leads to a different understanding of her decision. She did not decide the way she did because her Church taught that it would be a sin to decide otherwise. She may have privately thought that or she may have decided the way she did for some other reason. Either way, I think it changes our understanding of Molla and should be included for that reason and that reason only.

The USCCB were giving their understanding of the morality of the Catholic Church. They certainly did not mean to make a rule that would only apply to American women. I agree it would be much better to have some statement on the subject that was made at the time. Church rules may have changed since then. However, I think the burden of proof is on someone who thinks the Church would forbid something rather than on someone who thinks it would allow it. If you know of any bishop that said at the time, or for that matter any bishop who has said since then, that a hysterectomy would not be allowed I would be glad if you would tell us.KaB 10:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Here is a passage from the old Catholic Encyclopedia article on abortion:

However, if medical treatment or surgical operation, necessary to save a mother's life, is applied to her organism (though the child's death would, or at least might, follow as a regretted but unavoidable consequence), it should not be maintained that the fetal life is thereby directly attacked. Moralists agree that we are not always prohibited from doing what is lawful in itself, though evil consequences may follow which we do not desire. The good effects of our acts are then directly intended, and the regretted evil consequences are reluctantly permitted to follow because we cannot avoid them. The evil thus permitted is said to be indirectly intended. It is not imputed to us provided four conditions are verified, namely:

That we do not wish the evil effects, but make all reasonable efforts to avoid them;

That the immediate effect be good in itself;

That the evil is not made a means to obtain the good effect; for this would be to do evil that good might come of it - a procedure never allowed;

That the good effect be as important at least as the evil effect.

All four conditions may be verified in treating or operating on a woman with child. The death of the child is not intended, and every reasonable precaustion is taken to save its life; the immediate effect intended, the mother's life, is good - no harm is done to the child in order to save the mother - the saving of the mother's life is in itself as good as the saving of the child's life.

And here is a quote from Pius XII: "...Deliberately, we have always used the expression "direct attempt on the life of an innocent person", "direct killing". Because if, for example, the saving of the life of the future mother, independently of her pregnant condition, should urgently require a surgical act or other therapeutic treatment which would have an accessory consequence, in no way desired nor intended, but inevitable, the death of the fetus, such an act could no longer be called a direct attempt on an innocent life. Under these conditions the operation can be lawful ..."

The principle of double effect, as explained in the Catholic Encyclopedia article, has been an important part of Catholic ethics since the Middle Ages and it seems that it was applied to circumstances such as Molla's at least from the early years of the last century. Molla was an educated woman who took her religion very seriously. She must have been aware of the teaching of the Church on the subject. I think knowledge of that teaching is important if we are to understand Molla's decision. KaB 19:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC)