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Cardinal's Paper Discusses Baby Case

From: Dr. Haiselden And The Bollinger Baby
Creator: n/a
Date: November 20, 1915
Publication: The Chicago Daily Tribune
Source: Available at selected libraries


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Baltimore, Md., Nov. 19 - -Special- - The stand of the Catholic church in the case of the Bollinger baby, is officially set forth today in the Baltimore Catholic Review, the publication of Cardinal Gibbons:

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"We are obliged on moral principles to take care of life. No one is obliged to take extraordinary care. An operation is an extraordinary means of prolonging life and one commits no moral wrong if he refuses to submit to an operation.

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"The results of operations - serious ones - are always uncertain, not matter how confident a physician might be. For it too often happens that operations, even under favorable conditions, do not succeed and the paient dies. Operations are generally regarded as means of last resort. A physician may be excused if he does not try an operation.

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"The circumstances of the Chicago case are not all known. But the deformities of the child might have been such that an operation could be considered a very extraordinary means of prolonging its life. In that supposition, no one could be blamed if the child was let die according to nature. Dr. Haiselden was not obliged to operate on the child."

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