I do have a question about an abortion to save the life of the mother.
You see, my sister
is a miracle child. When my mother was pregnant with my sister (in 1982), my mother knew it was an unusual pregnancy, but didn't know
how unusual. The entire pregnancy my mother had difficulty eating, sleeping, and breathing. Although she was due to deliver on Aug 5, a week before she was due the doctors induced her because the baby's heartbeat was difficult to hear.
The doctors induced my mother for 24 hours before doing an ultra sound. For 24 hours my mother waited for a baby to come, and no baby came. Finally, after doing the ultra sound (remember, this is 1982 fuzzy ultra sound technology here!), the doctor's said the baby was breach and that a Cesarean section would be necessary.
When the doctors opened my mother up, her uterus was flapping like crazy from the drugs used to induce her, but there was no baby. My sister was lying asleep in my mother's
abdomon.
My sister was an abdominal pregnancy. The doctors said the chance of both the mother and child surviving are literally one in one million.
To make the story even more amazing, the exact same thing happened in the exact same hospital 10 days earlier.
(The story actually made National Headlines; my mother has a book with all of the clippings.
Here is one of them. Fittingly, my parents named my sister Gloria.
)
Here's the thing. The doctor's said they would have recommended an abortion if they had known my mother was carrying my sister in her abdomen. An abdominal pregnancy is a form of an ectopic pregnancy, and can be deadly for both mother and child.
I was three when all of this happened. Thanks be to God, my mother and sister are fine. However, circumstances could have turned out very differently. If my mother had died, she would have left a husband and daughter behind.
I understand what the canons say about abortion and all of that. However, how is a mother to decide what to do? Sacrifice the life of her and the child, or sacrifice the life of the child to keep her own? Also, what measures of discipline would the church take with the mother in such a circumstance?
My point in posting this is two-fold: a) to show that not all abortions are committed by Liberal bra-burning feminists who hate God. b) to find out what kind of discipline (in this particular part of the forum) the Coptic or Oriental Orthodox Church's would take with the mother.
