# "This is a Catholic country". Your foetus is more important than your life. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 14, 2012, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966 "2012-11-14T07:49:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Cinnamon\_Imp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@Cinnamon\_Imp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cinnamon_Imp)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/122 "2012-11-16T13:06:55Z")
> [@BigAppleBucky](#): > > Seeing what the father must have seen, I’d of done some shouting and when that didn’t work would have arranged to get my wife away from the Irish butchers and into a more civilized country. Probably London. > > But these folks apparently were from India so getting to London or Paris might have been impossible. A couple of things - she was an educated woman, with a dentistry degree. So I doubt the idea of getting to London was beyond her and her husband, and I’m sure it was within their financial means. And how would you transport your critically ill, septicaemic, miscarrying wife? Most airlines would refuse to allow her to fly, and I think in the past Ireland has prevented pregnant women from travelling abroad when it was suspected they were off to get an abortion elsewhere. I’m not defending Ireland, but I don’t like the victim-blaming implications that the husband or wife did anything wrong here. I wonder if it would have been within the doctor’s legal limits to deliver the fetus as an “emergency premature birth” and whisk it off to an incubator, and be seen to be doing everything they could to try and save it, whilst treating the mother? ---
**Author:** ![Sampsiceramos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Sampsiceramos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampsiceramos)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/123 "2012-11-16T13:11:36Z")
> [@Noone\_Special](#): > > No they weren’t. **Following religious nutbaggery which endangers the life of a person directly cannot, any way you try to spin it, be called “ethical.”** I’m pretty sure there’s a little something called the **Hypocratic Oath** that may be construed differently. I’m pretty sure that they should feel **compelled** to break capricious, immoral laws – that are in no way designed to help anybody else, just hinder – in order to save their patient. But maybe that’s just me. So besides everything else, they are **also** incompetent? Figures… :rolleyes: > > You don’t say. > > Those doctors are common criminals and should be treated as such. Bolding mine, of course. Now, to business: 1. As to your claim concerning whether or not “following religious nutbaggery” can be called ethical or not, you are wrong. _Oh, so very fucking wrong_. It is, by its very containing content of ethical relevance, ethical. Whether it is subsumable under the evidently bizarre deontic paradigm that you espouse, I do not care, nor is it relevant. It is inherently of an ethical nature, notwithstanding its correlation with any particular applied instance of a normative theory, and any other contention runs contrary to all conventions of academia. Ignorance fought. 2. Now, as to your, and that of **Der Trihs** , claim that doctors have some moral obligation to break laws, to and fro, should they have the slightest inkling it might benefit their patients: **How dare you? How dare you, you sanctimonious, presumptuous assholes?** You would have doctors, not just as individuals, but as husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, subject themselves to the overt legal risk of _life in prison_ to save each and every patient that walks through the doors of their place of employment? You would have them forfeit the right to see their children grow, to see their grandchildren born, and you would do this because somehow, in your deranged mind, taking the Hippocratic Oath (which, I might add, they do no longer take, taking instead the Declaration of Geneva, you useless, bloviating tool) places upon their shoulders a duty to sacrifice everything unquestioningly for complete strangers, a duty they would share with no other member of society in peacetime, and barely with any in wartime. Why not just simply demand they commit suicide and donate their organs ten years after graduation? Some might even prefer it to life imprisonment! I can summon up no words that accurately convey my distaste for your frankly insane position on the moral obligations of doctors. I share your distaste for the misogynistic gerontocracy of the Catholic Church and the lap-doggery of many a government to it, but the sacrifices you would claim of physicians so as to not consider them common criminals can never be demanded. If offered voluntarily, they are to be commended beyond measure, for the volunteer would be a better man than both you or I, but they _cannot be required_, lest one be a **sanctimonious, presumptuous asshole, and especially seeing as neither of you pontificating imbeciles would ever accord to your own proscriptions without the compunction you so improperly decry**. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/124 "2012-11-16T13:21:41Z")
> [@Sampsiceramos](#): > > Bolding mine, of course. Now, to business: > > 1. As to your claim concerning whether or not “following religious nutbaggery” can be called ethical or not, you are wrong. _Oh, so very fucking wrong_. It is, by its very containing content of ethical relevance, ethical. Whether it is subsumable under the evidently bizarre deontic paradigm that you espouse, I do not care, nor is it relevant. It is inherently of an ethical nature, notwithstanding its correlation with any particular applied instance of a normative theory, and any other contention runs contrary to all conventions of academia. Ignorance fought. > > 2. Now, as to your, and that of **Der Trihs** , claim that doctors have some moral obligation to break laws, to and fro, should they have the slightest inkling it might benefit their patients: **How dare you? How dare you, you sanctimonious, presumptuous assholes?** You would have doctors, not just as individuals, but as husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, subject themselves to the overt legal risk of _life in prison_ to save each and every patient that walks through the doors of their place of employment? > > You would have them forfeit the right to see their children grow, to see their grandchildren born, and you would do this because somehow, in your deranged mind, taking the Hippocratic Oath (which, I might add, they do no longer take, taking instead the Declaration of Geneva, you useless, bloviating tool) places upon their shoulders a duty to sacrifice everything unquestioningly for complete strangers, a duty they would share with no other member of society in peacetime, and barely with any in wartime. Why not just simply demand they commit suicide and donate their organs ten years after graduation? Some might even prefer it to life imprisonment! > > I can summon up no words that accurately convey my distaste for your frankly insane position on the moral obligations of doctors. I share your distaste for the misogynistic gerontocracy of the Catholic Church and the lap-doggery of many a government to it, but the sacrifices you would claim of physicians so as to not consider them common criminals can never be demanded. If offered voluntarily, they are to be commended beyond measure, for the volunteer would be a better man than both you or I, but they _cannot be required_, lest one be a **sanctimonious, presumptuous asshole, and especially seeing as neither of you pontificating imbeciles would ever accord to your own proscriptions without the compunction you so improperly decry**. ::Checks forum:: Yup, it’s the Pit. So, in other words, you’re a religious nut-case and you believe not intervening, ever, in a pregnancy is oh-so-important – important enough to kill a woman for. OK. Got it. You’re a loon and an advocate of killing a woman for the sin, _ **SIN!!** _ I say of getting into a position where she could be saved by removing an **non-viable** fetus from her uterus. Got it. There ain’t enough roll-eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Sampsiceramos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Sampsiceramos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampsiceramos)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/125 "2012-11-16T13:37:08Z")
> [@Noone\_Special](#): > > ::Checks forum:: Yup, it’s the Pit. > > So, in other words, you’re a religious nut-case and you believe not intervening, ever, in a pregnancy is oh-so-important – important enough to kill a woman for. > > OK. Got it. You’re a loon and an advocate of killing a woman for the sin, _ **SIN!!** _ I say of getting into a position where she could be saved by removing an **non-viable** fetus from her uterus. > > Got it. > > There ain’t enough roll-eyes. Apparently, you are as lacking in ability to read as in everything else. I detest the Catholic Church as equally as you, and have stated so. I believe in abortion on the whim of the mother. I am a staunch agnostic, and consider religious belief or non-belief the realm of loons and bumbling indifferents. What I do not, however, believe in, something you seem to fail to understand, is making claims demanding unto absurdity of a group, of a profession, for having the nerve, nay, _the unabiding gall!_ to “solemnly pledge to consecrate their lives to the service of humanity”, as the Declaration of Geneva puts it. You can bellow all you want about the supposed moral obligation of physicians everywhere to risk life, limb and livelihood at any time, for any stranger, but it does not make you less wrong. It does not make you less of a fool. And most importantly, it serves **solely** to make you a tasteless hypocrite. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/126 "2012-11-16T14:00:07Z")
Just curious, what _legal_ effect does the [Declaration of Geneva](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_geneva) happen to have in Ireland, or anywhere else for that matter? ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/127 "2012-11-16T14:02:40Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Religion. If Ireland wasn’t a nation dominated by religiously motivated woman haters, … Sounds like the US about 30 or 40 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/128 "2012-11-16T14:27:38Z")
> [@Sampsiceramos](#): > > making claims demanding unto absurdity of a group, of a profession Er, whence do you find the “absurdity” of the demand? I can name several well-known professions off the top of my head whose practitioners are expected and indeed required to face death on a moment’s notice – if that doesn’t meet the threshold of “absurdity”, what possibly could? ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/129 "2012-11-16T14:40:18Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Yeah, true enough. The idea that India has some kind of moral leg to stand on on this issue was really bothering me; I’m not a huge fan of abortion (although still pro-choice), but female infanticide makes me quite angry. I guess the way it looks to me is India saying, “Allowing a woman to die because of your religion is wrong. But pay no attention to us killing female fetuses because we don’t think women are as good as men!” But it 's (mostly) not government sponsored. They don’t hear “This is a Hindu country”. It’s due to the ignorance of the populace and ignorance can be changed. Willful ignorance will not be changed. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/130 "2012-11-16T15:13:19Z")
> [@Sampsiceramos](#): > > 1. Now, as to your, and that of **Der Trihs** , claim that doctors have some moral obligation to break laws, to and fro, should they have the slightest inkling it might benefit their patients: **How dare you? How dare you, you sanctimonious, presumptuous assholes?** You would have doctors, not just as individuals, but as husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, subject themselves to the overt legal risk of _life in prison_ to save each and every patient that walks through the doors of their place of employment? > > You would have them forfeit the right to see their children grow, to see their grandchildren born, and you would do this because somehow, in your deranged mind, taking the Hippocratic Oath (which, I might add, they do no longer take, taking instead the Declaration of Geneva, you useless, bloviating tool) places upon their shoulders a duty to sacrifice everything unquestioningly for complete strangers, a duty they would share with no other member of society in peacetime, and barely with any in wartime. Why not just simply demand they commit suicide and donate their organs ten years after graduation? Some might even prefer it to life imprisonment! If I supported the death penalty, I’d want them executed for what they did. _They tortured a woman to death._ I don’t much care _why_, frankly. Nor do I care about the careers of torturers and murderers who call themselves doctors. > [@Leaffan](#): > > Sounds like the US about 30 or 40 years ago. And to a large degree now. ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/131 "2012-11-16T17:42:22Z")
> [@Sampsiceramos](#): > > I am a staunch agnostic, and consider religious belief or non-belief the realm of loons and bumbling indifferents. Would you classify Bertrand Russell as a loon or a bumbling indifferent? What of A.J. Ayer’s “igtheism”? ---
**Author:** ![Sampsiceramos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Sampsiceramos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampsiceramos)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/132 "2012-11-16T19:54:07Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Er, whence do you find the “absurdity” of the demand? I can name several well-known professions off the top of my head whose practitioners are expected and indeed required to face death on a moment’s notice – if that doesn’t meet the threshold of “absurdity”, what possibly could? There is a marked difference between, say, requiring a policeman or SWAT-member to face down criminals, and requiring a doctor to break the law to such an extent that it destroys his life. Should the policeman, or SWAT-member, die in the line of duty, then it is by no voluntary act of their own alone - always there will be some other transgressing part. But requiring a doctor to tear apart the fabric of their lives by their own hand? 'tis not appreciably different from requiring these other professions of which you speak to shoot themselves. Which, I might add, is my overarching point. The doctors in this particular case acted in a more than regrettable fashion, and perhaps there is some merit to the thought of prosecuting these particular ones for some degree of negligence, but they were never obligated to break the law, and the such doctrines espoused by **NooneSpecial** and **DerTrihs** are so preposterously twisted in the demands, in the general working conditions they would impose upon doctors, that those doctrines cannot stand unchallenged. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/133 "2012-11-16T22:14:59Z")
> [@Sampsiceramos](#): > > Bolding mine, of course. Now, to business: Now to the REAL business. Ethics, would DEMAND that anyone with any conscience, and backbone, any common decency at all, would do the right thing no matter what some fucked up bullshit religious law demands. Hiding behind some religious rule and allowing someone to die for no reason except to cover your own pathetic ASS is beneath contempt. It is are no different from the muslim fanatics who push their own fucked up versions of Shariah law, generally with similar results. But yeah, I bet it’s different when THEY do it. THEN it’s wrong. Hmmmm. To hell with BOTH. Sometimes, and this may be hard to comprehend, someone has to stand up and say “THIS IS BULLSHIT”, and force the issue - up to and including going to court. That’s how fucked up laws get challenged and thrown out. All I can say is thank GOD (irony) that the U.S. has so far managed to keep the priests out of OUR government for the most part. Otherwise I guarantee we would be having the same shit happening here. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/134 "2012-11-16T22:16:35Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Sounds like the US about 30 or 40 years ago. Some assholes want to bring it back. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/135 "2012-11-16T22:34:01Z")
This is all religions fault. Fuck religion. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/136 "2012-11-16T22:51:37Z")
I have seen no convincing defense or apology for the doctors on this message board or in any other forum. Not a single one. If I were Empress Una, I would strip them of their medical licenses, find them guilty of negligent manslaughter, and open them and the hospital up to unrestricted civil remedies (meaning, no pre-set “cap” on liability) by the victim’s families. The thing that gets me is after all the hurlyburly dies down, Ireland will continue being a “Catholic Country” just the same as it was when this happened. For every person marching for change, there’s 1,000 sitting at home probably thinking the status quo is just a-ok fine with them. ---
**Author:** ![Hrududu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Hrududu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hrududu)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2012, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/137 "2012-11-16T23:25:30Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > The thing that gets me is after all the hurlyburly dies down, Ireland will continue being a “Catholic Country” just the same as it was when this happened. For every person marching for change, there’s 1,000 sitting at home probably thinking the status quo is just a-ok fine with them. The Taoiseach has said that he “will not be rushed on the issue of abortion by pressures from any side.” > **[Enda Kenny says abortion report will be published](https://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1116/345931-abortion-legislation/)** > > Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said that the report of the expert group on abortion will be made public after it has been brought to Cabinet. Rushed? They’ve had 20 years to legislate since the X case. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/138 "2012-11-17T00:34:57Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > Why isn’t anyone taking exception to Der Trihs’ statements? I swear liberals always get a pass around here. > [@Revtim](#): > > Instead making this post, you could have challenged them yourself. Why didn’t you? Umm, whoosh, I think. > [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Go be on someone else’s side for a while; you’re stinking up the place for the we of the Forces of Goodness and Light who are trying to make the world **better**. > [@Reyemile](#): > > Threads like this make me wonder if **Der Trihs** is trying to be a conservative Stephen Colbert. > [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I was going to call **Der Trihs** to task for that, but I see you guys already have. Do you honestly think that anyone involved in this decision feels good about it? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/139 "2012-11-17T00:54:21Z")
> [@Hrududu](#): > > The Taoiseach has said that he “will not be rushed on the issue of abortion by pressures from any side.” > [Enda Kenny says abortion report will be published](http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1116/abortion-legislation.html) > > Rushed? They’ve had 20 years to legislate since the X case. Did you see the Late Late? :mad::rolleyes::(:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/140 "2012-11-17T01:12:55Z")
> [@Sampsiceramos](#): > > The doctors in this particular case acted in a more than regrettable fashion, and perhaps there is some merit to the thought of prosecuting these particular ones for some degree of negligence, but they were never obligated to break the law, and the such doctrines espoused by **NooneSpecial** and **DerTrihs** are so preposterously twisted in the demands, in the general working conditions they would impose upon doctors, that those doctrines cannot stand unchallenged. Translation: They tortured and killed a mere _woman_, not a _real_ human being; and they did it for Jesus, not Allah. If they did the same thing to a woman in the name of Islam, or to a Jew because they were neo-Nazis we wouldn’t be seeing the same attempts to handwave aside their responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![Hrududu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Hrududu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hrududu)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2012, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966/141 "2012-11-17T01:33:34Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Did you see the Late Late? :mad::rolleyes::(:smack: I only caught the last 5 minutes of it and sighed to see the same old faces that Vincent Brown always has on. But in that 5 minutes I did catch that pro-life doctor making some ridiculous statements. There seem to be an incredible amount of idiots crawling out of the woodwork this week. It makes my head spin to think that a lot of them are real people expressing what they genuinely believe. It would be easier if I thought they were all just internet trolls stirring the pot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-a-catholic-country-your-foetus-is-more-important-than-your-life/640966.md?page=8)