In the Dominican Republic there was a pregnant teen who had leukemia and died because of a ban on abortion. In the Dominican Republic it is illegal to have an abortion, and there are no special cases where one can have an abortion. Rosa Hernandez’s 16-year-old daughter was 13 weeks pregnant and was suffering from leukemia. She needed treatment for the leukemia, but because of the ban on abortion, the doctors were hesitant about giving it to her because it might kill the baby. The mother knew that abortion was illegal and a sin but she believed that her daughter’s life came first and so tried convincing the government and hospital to make an exception.

            After a delay of 20 days, in which the family and hospital discussed the procedure, the doctors finally started treating the young girl for leukemia, but it was too late. Her body rejected a blood transfusion and didn’t respond to chemotherapy, and the next day she had a miscarriage then died of cardiac arrest. Her mother was devastated saying that she was now nothing, that her life had no meaning anymore. This caused a huge uproar with people who wanted the abortion ban to be fixed. According to Article 37 of the Dominican Constitution, “the right to life is inviolable from the moment of conception and until death.” So the death penalty is also illegal in the Dominican Republic.

            The church teaches that in cases like this, it is okay to have a procedure that would indirectly cause the baby to die. “You shall not kill” Exodus 20:13. This is why the church is against abortion, God told the Israelites, after they escaped Egypt, that killing was against His law. It is also why euthanasia and capitol punishment is wrong in Catholics eyes. But having a procedure to fix something wrong with you that indirectly kills someone is okay because the intentions are not to kill, the outcome just might happen to be that though.  

            This is the only time that the church allows for the killing of a baby, because it is not the point of the procedure. There’s no other scenario where something like this could happen. It is because we look at an unborn baby’s life differently than a person who has been alive for a while. We relate to the older person more than to the unborn baby. If we had to choose between the lives of two adults it would be much harder than choosing between the lives of an unborn baby and an adult. This is because we do not know if the baby will even survive till birth, we cannot communicate in any way with the baby, we do not know the baby personally, we don’t know if the baby will survive the procedure, and many more things. Basically, we relate more to a living person more than we do an unborn child, and we normally will choose the life of the person we can relate to better, it’s just the way our minds work.

            The CCC says, “It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.” (CCC, n. 1756.) They say that the only time we can choose a woman’s life over a baby’s is if the baby is going to die. My opinion is that it is ultimately the mother’s choice. But if this ever happened to me and I had to choose between the life of my wife and my unborn child, I would choose my wife because ultimately I can relate to her more than my baby.