will wait, of course, for further developments. If it proves to be a
child, you will attempt no operation till it becomes viable at least.
But suppose that fatal consequences are apprehended before the presence
of a human being can be ascertained by the beating of the heart; suppose
that delay would endanger the mother's life; and yet if you undertake to
cut out the tumor, you may find it to contain fœtal life. In such urgent
danger, can you lawfully perform the operation? Let us apply our
principles. You mean to operate on a tumor affecting one of the mother's
organs. The consequences this may have for the child are not directly
willed, but permitted. The four conditions mentioned before are hereby
verified, under which the evil result, the death of the possible fœtus,
may be lawfully permitted; namely: (_a_) You do not wish its death;
(_b_) What you intend directly, the operation on the mother's organism,
is good in itself; (_c_) The good effect intended, her safety, to which
she has an undoubted right, overbalances the evil effect, the possible
death of the child, whose right to life is doubtful, since its very
existence is doubtful; now, a certain right must take precedence of a
doubtful right of the same species; (_d_) The evil is not made the means
to obtain the good effect (see "Am. Eccl. Rev.," Nov., 1893, p. 353).
This last condition would not be verified if it were proposed, not to
cut out the cyst, but to destroy its contents by an electric current.
Then, it would seem, the fœtus itself, if there be one, would be
directly attacked.

2. The case would present greater difficulties if the growth in question
were _known_ to contain a living fœtus. Such a case is discussed in all
its details, with remarkable philosophical acumen, and in the light of
copious information furnished by prominent members of the medical
profession, in the pages of the "American Ecclesiastical Review" for
November, 1893, pages 331-360. The participants in this interesting