Abortion

One of the most divisive issues in American society is abortion. Unfortunately it seems that it is not possible to have any reasoned and civil discourse about this topic. And such a discussion is extremely important because, I believe, abortion does involve, not simply political issues, but important moral questions about human life and human rights.

What makes such a discussion difficult, if not impossible, is the dynamic that is pushing both sides to extreme positions.

Recently Bishop William E. Lori, the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Ad Hoc Committeee on Religious Liberty, responded to an editorial in America magazine, "Policy, Not Liberty." In his letter Bishop Lori writes:

“The March 5th America editorial takes the United States Bishops to task for entering too deeply into the finer points of health care policy as they ponder what the slightly revised Obama Administration mandate might mean for the Catholic Church in the United States. These details, we are told, do not impinge on religious liberty. We are also told that our recent forthright language borders on incivility.

“What details are we talking about? For one thing, a government mandate to insure, one way or another, for an abortifacient drug called Ella. Here the “details” would seem to be fertilized ova, small defenseless human beings, who will likely suffer abortion within the purview of a church-run health insurance program.”

The role of the drug Ella as an abortifacient is challenged by a number of writers. However, what I find most challenging is the bishop’s description of the fertilized ova as “small defenseless human beings.” Unquestionably they are human life, at least incipient human life. But “human beings?” A fertilized ovum once implanted in the womb can divide and produce twins, triplets, etc. Can a “human being” divide in two? I find the bishop’s language extreme.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Journal of Medical Ethics recently published an article which argued that the reasons used to justify an abortion also justified the termination of the life of a newborn. The authors write:

“Severe abnormalities of the fetus and risks for the physical and/or psychological health of the woman are often cited as valid reasons for abortion. Sometimes the two reasons are connected, such as when a woman claims that a disabled child would represent a risk to her mental health. However, having a child can itself be an unbearable burden for the psychological health of the woman or for her already existing children,1 regardless of the condition of the fetus. This could happen in the case of a woman who loses her partner after she finds out that she is pregnant and therefore feels she will not be able to take care of the possible child by herself…

“A serious philosophical problem arises when the same conditions that would have justified abortion become known after birth. In such cases, we need to assess facts in order to decide whether the same arguments that apply to killing a human fetus can also be consistently applied to killing a newborn human…

“Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her. This means that many non-human animals and mentally retarded human individuals are persons, but that all the individuals who are not in the condition of attributing any value to their own existence are not persons. Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life…

“If criteria such as the costs (social, psychological, economic) for the potential parents are good enough reasons for having an abortion even when the fetus is healthy, if the moral status of the newborn is the same as that of the infant and if neither has any moral value by virtue of being a potential person, then the same reasons which justify abortion should also justify the killing of the potential person when it is at the stage of a newborn.”

Another example of the difficulty in engaging is civil discourse is the adamant position of many who refuse to consider any limitation of the right of a woman to secure an abortion. Yet in India, which seems destined to be the most populated country in the world, one of the major reasons for having an abortion is to avoid giving birth to a daughter. This attitude has already created a significant demographic imbalance in China.

What is human life? At what point do we speak of a person? What is the role of civil law? How do the rights of a woman interact with other rights? How do we go about exploring any of these questions?