Essays In Pastoral MedicineWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Religion
Essays In Pastoral Medicine
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
First aid in illness and injury; Medicine
Case VI. Suppose a case like Case V. in every particular except that
when the surgeon finds the foetus he can not tell whether it is alive
or not. He should,_ a fortiori_, finish the operation.
Case VII. A case of ectopic gestation is diagnosed, the conditions are
explained to the woman, and she refuses to be operated upon. Is she
justified? The probability is one to two that she will escape death if
she waits, and much less than one to two if she finally refuses
operation. The moralists would tell her she may refuse operation.
Case VIII. Let us suppose a case where a Fallopian tube either has its
lumen so narrowed by a gonorrhoeal inflammation that although the
spermatozoa may pass through and fecundate the ovum this fecundated
ovum can not get out to the uterus; or, secondly, that the gonorrhoeal
infection has completely shut the tube, yet migratory fecundation has
occurred through the route of the other tube and the passage along the
fundus of the uterus to the ovary of the infected side. In either case
an ectopic gestation begins.
The first case is improbable from a medical point of view, {37} and
the second is barely possible. Gonorrhoeal infection of the tubes is
common enough, but when it occurs it usually shuts the tube up
permanently. In chronic salpingitis at times the ovarian end of the
tube is not wholly closed at once, and since the body of the ovary is
very rarely affected by gonorrhoea, there is a possibility worth
considering of a tubal pregnancy through migration to occur.
In such a condition the woman might have been infected with
gonorrhoea, first, before her marriage through fornication or
accident; second, after her marriage through adultery or accident;
third, after the marriage by her husband.
If she had been infected through fornication or adultery, she is
accountable for the foreseen consequences of her sin, and she has put
an impediment for which she is responsible before the embryo. Suppose
the physician knows these facts. Then the excuse for indirectly
hastening the death of the foetus does not, at first sight, seem to
exist, because the foetus is apparently not a materially unjust
aggressor. It could easily happen that a surgeon's refusal to operate
in a case like this would cause the death of the mother and foetus.
Should he let both perish? Is he to let the mother die for the sake of
staving off for a half-hour the certain death of a useless embryo the
size of a pigeon's egg? It is not a useless embryo the size of a
pigeon's egg, but a human being, the most important thing on earth,
and a human being shut off from life and baptism as a direct
consequence of that woman's brutal sensuality. But the woman may be
the mother of other helpless children. What is to be done? Let us
recur to the example of the homicidal maniac.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account