Article II. On Embryotomy, Etc

I. Embryotomy - from Greek embryon = fetus and temno = I cut - to which craniotomy - kranion = skull - and cephalotripsy - from kephale = head and tribo = I crush - pertain; embryotomy, I say, and similar operations, are gravely illicit. For they contain killing, and that direct killing (n. 731). There are added the responses of the Holy Office,¹ which declare that in Catholic schools it cannot safely be taught that craniotomy and any surgical operation directly killing the fetus or the pregnant mother are lawful.

¹ May 28, 1884 (Collect., n. 1618) and August 14, 1889 (Collect., n. 1716).

IV. Extraction of an ectopic or extra-uterine fetus¹ is to be judged as follows:

1. If, considering the time elapsed from conception, provision can be made for the offspring, it is lawful,² indeed it even obliges if otherwise the fetus cannot certainly be baptized.

2. If provision cannot be made for the offspring, it is not lawful to extract it from the body of the mother, because the act of extracting is assumed as a means insofar as it is killing, that is, insofar as it tears the offspring away from the mother. Nevertheless it is lawful to extirpate a tumor infected with cancer or lethal on another count, even if the fetus is cut out at the same time, because the act of extirpating is not assumed as a means insofar as it is killing, that is, extirpative of the offspring itself.

3. If there is doubt whether or not a true fetus is had, the same solutions have force. Others judge that in the case an ectopic fetus can be extracted from the mother's body, even if provision cannot be made for its life, because, they say, the certain right of the mother must be preferred to the uncertain right of the offspring. But these things are not pleasing, because, to use again the words of St. Alphonsus, "it is intrinsically evil positively to expose an innocent person to danger of direct death" (III, 394), or because it is illicit to place an act which probably is directly killing an innocent person.

¹ Namely, sometimes it happens that conception occurs outside the natural place, that is, outside the maternal uterus; in that case birth cannot occur in the natural way. Moreover, a threefold ectopic pregnancy is distinguished, namely tubal, ovarian, and abdominal, of which tubal, which takes place in the oviduct, seems more frequent.

² Cf. Holy Office, May 4, 1898 (Collect., n. 1997); likewise May 5, 1902; yet the latter decree lacks pontifical approval.

V. Acceleration of birth (n. 733) is lawful for a proportionate cause, as if the safety of the mother is hoped for from accelerated birth, or if it is feared that the woman cannot give birth to a more developed fetus. Hence the Holy Office¹ declared that acceleration of birth is not per se illicit, provided it is performed for just causes, and at that time and by those methods by which, according to ordinary contingencies, provision is made for the lives of the mother and fetus.

¹ May 4, 1898 (Collect., n. 1997).