…when you are in the situation during childbirth you could only save mother or child, the teaching was to save the child always.

But if, as Joe says, the conscience has primacy, then you cannot have a hard and fast rule to cover all situations. These two concepts conflict.

When issuing these edicts, how much does the Church tell you about the primacy of conscience?

As I say, when I was told that I was around 7 and it was over 50 years ago, so I hope you don't expect me to remember the conversation verbatum. But I think what were told was sophisticated and complex but not actually conflicting. Yes, in the end conscience has primacy, we were told. But also, you have to be careful to distinguish between something 'as a matter of conscience' and claiming something is for reasons of conscience when it is simply 'that which you wanted to do'. It is no mean feat separating those two. As for the 'always', while the teachers did try to cover quite subtle things with us, that was understood to be 'always' in the informal conversational sense rather than the mathematical.

And for those who doubt it, this was the sort of thing taught to 7 year olds in my school!