Religion & Law

Thanks to Michael for his questions. There is a lot of good discussion on the Commonweal and First Things blogs about the Arizona case. On the First Things blog, there is, in addition to the post by Michael Liccione, an interesting post by Elizabeth Scalia. (Here.) There is a good discussion of the canon law issues on Ed Peters's blog. (Here.)

I think the moral discussion recapitulates the discussion we had about ectopic pregnancies back in October and November of 2006. That is why it was not a surprise to see Karen Stohr (from Georgetown) weigh in on the Commonweal blog. Karen contributed some very useful comments to our discussion of ectopic pregnancies. 

The problem that I have with Cathy Kaveny's account is that it seems a too facile description of the acts involved in the Phoenix case. She says that the doctors were only engaged in the surgical separation of mother from baby. She makes this sound as if it were a failed C-section. Yet, it seems that the doctors were engaged in a D&C or D&E. To call this a removal is similar to describing a craniotomy as simply rearranging the dimensions of the baby's skull. It seems that Cathy is trying to justify a direct killing by the good motive.

Richard M.