My grandmother - my mom's mom - died because her Catholic doctor refused to give her a hysterectomy when she was in the early stages of uterine cancer. She didn't go get a second opinion, because he'd been her doctor all her life, and she trusted him. She died when my mom was six.
Chances are still pretty good that I never would have known her, with survival rates what they were back then, but... she might have had at least a chance, you know? My mom and her siblings might never have had to deal with being split apart to the ends of the earth, or deal with an orphanage that abused them, or...
You just don't fucking cross religion with medicine, okay? Just... just don't.
WTF? Was she even pregnant? I guess that's because Catholics believe that women only exist for the purpose of baby-making, and if she can't make babies she must be worthless. Your poor mom, though - in the process of passing judgment on a woman's body as worthless if she can't reproduce, he condemned an actual living girl and her siblings to grow up motherless. That's so very godly and Christian!
I don't know what the rules were 50 years ago, but now, official Church doctrine is that contraceptives are a no-no, but medical treatments that cause sterility as a side effect are okay. So a hysterectomy to treat cancer would be allowed, since not having kids isn't the goal. Of course, some people follow stricter rules than the official ones, or only know the overall rule ("no contraceptives") and not the exceptions to the rule.
Yeah, I don't really know if the doctor was just particularly fundamental or if the doctrine was different back then - or even if she was pregnant at the time, which is a possibility. I've only heard things secondhand from my mom (who was really young) and what a couple of her aunts told her, before they passed away, so it's hard to verify anything.
She wasn't even Catholic herself, so playing by his rules wasn't even necessary. I can't say if she would've taken the treatment, had it been offered to her, of course, but it might've been a possibility.
Comments 89
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Chances are still pretty good that I never would have known her, with survival rates what they were back then, but... she might have had at least a chance, you know? My mom and her siblings might never have had to deal with being split apart to the ends of the earth, or deal with an orphanage that abused them, or...
You just don't fucking cross religion with medicine, okay? Just... just don't.
Reply
Reply
Reply
She wasn't even Catholic herself, so playing by his rules wasn't even necessary. I can't say if she would've taken the treatment, had it been offered to her, of course, but it might've been a possibility.
Reply
Well that's a new variation on the whole "women get abortions like kids get candy from a gumball machine!" mentality.
What a progressive pope, whoopie.
ETA: respectfully request OP add "fuck this guy" tag to post
Reply
That was my hope that built up after the last Francis post, going out the window...
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment