• Are there any circumstances where it is acceptable to end the life of an unborn baby?

    Traditional medical ethics will allow certain life-saving procedures which have the foreseen but unintended consequence of ending, or harming, an unborn baby’s life, for example in the case of an ectopic pregnancy Just as a cancerous womb may be removed even if it contains a living unborn baby, similarly a damaged fallopian tube may be removed even if it contains an embryo who is still alive.

    Critically, the intention is to save the mother’s life, not to kill or assault the unborn baby. The focus is the body of the woman, not the body of the baby. This is not an abortion, even if the result of the procedure is that the unborn baby dies.

    Giving cancer treatment to a pregnant woman is another example in which an unborn baby may die as a result of treatment intended to save the mother’s life. However, chemotherapy is safer than many assume and many babies have been born unharmed whose mothers were treated for cancer during pregnancy.