Over the course of the years I have been asked many questions about life and abortion by many well-meaning people.
Today I still find that many good people are confused. They really believe they are doing the right thing - or, at least, the best thing - when they support, or encourage, an abortion.
Such is certainly the case with some parents who love a daughter and, as they put it, "don't want to see her life ruined by an unintended pregnancy."
I believe the same is true of a number of social workers and other advisers of the young, who believe that in promoting abortions they are performing a truly humane service, to the mothers of the unborn, to unborn babies whose lives they feel will not be happy (especially if they will be poor), and to society at large.
I received a letter recently, for example, from a set of anguished parents. Their talented young daughter is all set for college, but she has become pregnant. They tell me they are encouraging her to have an abortion because they don't want to see her career ruined. They say they are afraid abortion is a "sin," but that it would be a worse sin if their daughter couldn't go to college, "just because she made a mistake and got pregnant." I know many people feel that way.
Then there are those who honestly believe it is only "fair" to permit pregnant girls or women to decide for themselves whether to carry or to abort a baby.
They say: "A woman should have control over her own body. Nobody has the right to invade her privacy." They see free choice in all things as an essential characteristic of the American way of life, and regardless of how they, themselves, see abortion, they do not feel they have the right "to impose their beliefs on others."
There are at least three other kinds of people who consider abortion acceptable.
There are those who believe that a baby in the womb is not really fully human, that only with birth does the baby achieve this status.
Others believe that because the law permits abortion, it must be morally acceptable. Then there are those - and I believe they are many - who simply don't think about the subject at all.
They don't see it as a serious issue. It has never personally touched their lives. Or perhaps they deliberately refuse to think about it because they would only become further confused.
While one finds a certain number of Catholics holding various of these positions, it's probably necessary to add another category altogether for those who argue that they are good Catholics, but believe the Church is wrong in its position on abortion, or that the Church has no right to "dictate" to them on this matter.
I would distinguish this group from those Catholics who simply don't know or don't understand what the Church teaches or why.
One can be compassionate and understanding about all these positions, but sadly nothing changes the objective reality: abortion kills babies in their mothers' wombs. It pains me to say that, as I know it pains all people of good will, but it is the tragic reality. And there is another tragic reality that has nothing whatever to do with compassion, and that is that abortion is big business, netting hundreds of millions of dollars for abortionists.
I know that many are offended by the use of the word "killing." Actually, it is the word used in a famous editorial published in 1970 in the California Medical Association Journal:
"Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent.
The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or extra-uterine until death.
The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected." (Emphasis added.) (From California Medicine, 113:67, 1970.)
This editorial was not written to oppose abortion. It was simply an exceptionally frank warning to doctors that they had better adopt the new ethic and gear up for the brave new world of abortion ahead of them. As the editorial pointed out, some real twisting of words would be required to make people forget that abortion is the taking of human life. In other words, they would have to come up with another word for "killing," if they were ever to make abortion socially acceptable. But a change in words, unfortunately, does not change the reality.
In any event, it seems to me time to list some of the questions I have been asked about abortion, and to try to suggest some answers, recognizing that some may require lengthier and more complicated answers than space permits, and that there are many other questions that might be asked. Following that, I would like to propose some ways of helping to restore a sense of sacredness about the life of the unborn and indeed, of all human life.
1. What is abortion? This can sound like a foolish question. But it is my experience that there are a number of young people who undergo abortions and do not understand what is happening to them. As a matter of fact, doctors who perform abortions generally prevent the woman or girl from seeing what is happening, and pro-abortion organizations have consistently resisted any legislation which would require that a young girl be told what an abortion is, or be required to wait even 24 hours before having an abortion.
The important thing, perhaps, is to emphasize what abortion is not. Abortion is not merely the removal of some tissue from a woman's body. Abortion is not the removal of a living "thing" that would become human if it were allowed to remain inside the woman's body. Abortion is the destruction of an unborn baby.
A new human life begins as soon as the egg has been fertilized. Science reveals without question that once the egg is fertilized every identifying characteristic of a brand-new human being is present, even the color of the eyes and the hair, the sex and everything else. Pregnancy is the period for this new human life to mature, not to "become human" -it already is. This is why the Church considers abortion the killing of a human being, and why the Second Vatican Council called it an "unspeakable crime."
The World Medical Association adopted in September 1948 the Declaration of Geneva: "I will maintain the utmost respect for human life, from the time of conception; even under threat I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity." In October 1969 the International Code of Medical Ethics stated: "A doctor must always bear in mind the importance of preserving human life from the time of conception until death." Again in 1970 the World Medical Association reaffirmed its position by way of the Declaration of Oslo: "The first moral imposed upon the doctor is respect for human life as expressed in the Declaration of Geneva: 'I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the first moment of conception."'
In 1974 the Declaration on Procured Abortion (by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) stated: "Respect for human life is called for from the time that the process of generation begins. From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother, it is rather the life of a new human being with its own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already…" This declaration was ratified by Pope Paul VI, who confirmed it and ordered it to be promulgated.
When the Church uses the phrase "procured abortion" it means, in nontechnical terms, deliberately terminating a pregnancy at any stage before the child in the womb can live outside the womb.
2. Don't the majority of Americans support abortion?
Based on my experience, the majority of Americans do not support abortion on demand. For example, most Americans would not support abortion in cases where a woman does not want a baby of a particular sex. The majority of those who support abortion seem to limit that support to cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is in jeopardy. Certainly there are polls which seem to suggest that the majority do favor abortion and abortion funding. Many who feel that if they are a minority they must be wrong can feel intimidated by these findings. We must remember, however, that the timing of a poll, the kinds of questions asked, who asks the questions, and who is asked, all influence the results. This has been demonstrated frequently in relation to polls on abortion.
Polls, however, whatever the results, do not determine what is morally right or wrong. If abortion is the taking of innocent life, it is wrong, no matter what the polls might say, or how many people might vote for it.
Despite some recent reports of psychological studies, I personally receive letters from all over the United States from women who have suffered the pain of an abortion, or who, in the moments shortly before having an abortion, came to see that abortion is the killing of a baby. These letters are deeply moving, and most end by encouraging me to continue to speak out, and to do whatever I can to help restore a sense of sacredness of the child in the womb.
Some feel that the right to be born is dependent on being wanted. They suggest that if a mother does not want her baby, the baby will be deprived of love, care and nurturing and may even be subject to abuse. Yet, how many unplanned children have been born to parents who initially did not want them, but whose attitudes changed completely to total acceptance and love? How many unwanted children have made enormous contributions to the world, as musicians, writers, doctors, entertainers, teachers, parents, or in other capacities?
Is an unborn baby to be denied the right to life because it is not wanted? Candidates for political office spend much campaigning time and often a great deal of money in trying to convince voters who don't want them to vote for them. Is an unborn baby to be denied even the opportunity to have someone plead with a mother to let the baby live, wanted or not? Is the unwanted baby to be denied the opportunity given to millions of refugees who have been admitted to the United States?
Mother Teresa of Calcutta is world famous for her concern for the poor, the abandoned, the dying, the homeless, the institutionalized, the forgotten. Far from seeing a solution to the problems of such in abortion, however, she startled the world by her address when she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. One of the most important statements she made is, "Today the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion."
For Almighty God there is no such thing as an "unwanted baby." Every one is made in His image and likeness and is uniquely part of the Divine Plan. If there is a woman anywhere who does not "want" her baby, I plead with her to nevertheless let that baby live. A great number of people want that baby as does the Church - we love that baby from the moment it is conceived.
For it was you who created my being, Knit me together in my mother's womb, I thank you for the wonder of my being, For the wonders of all your creation. (Psalm 139)
3. Why do people in the pro-life movement want to change the law? Some people argue that changing laws will not eliminate abortions. It is certainly true that a change of heart is more important than a change of law. What is forgotten, however, is that the law is the great teacher. Children grow up believing that if a practice is legal, it must be moral. Adults who live in a society in which what was illegal and believed to be immoral is suddenly declared legal, soon grow accustomed to the new law, and take the "new morality" for granted. In fact, many people seem to fear that if they don't support the new law and the "new morality" it has introduced, they will be considered undemocratic and "un-American."
It is amazing, for example, how smoking habits have been turned around. With the deluge of media advertising and the strict legal limitations put on smoking in places like New York City, many people now even feel embarrassed to smoke in public. Suddenly, with new laws in jurisdiction after jurisdiction, smoking is seen as less acceptable than ever before - actually immoral and irresponsible in the eyes of many. Now a law is being proposed that a state should divest itself of all investments in tobacco companies. There is no question: law and changes in law constitute a mighty force if there is a determination to enforce it.
I have no doubt that a change in the law would go a long way toward changing the attitude of Americans toward the rights of the unborn, at least over the long haul. It is effective regarding virtually every other issue. For example, in 1966 at the White House Conference on Civil Rights, then Solicitor General of the United States Mr. Thurgood Marshall (now a Justice of the Supreme Court) had this to say about the effect a change in law can bring about: "Of course law--whether embodied in acts of Congress or judicial decision--is, in some measure, a response to national opinion, and, of course, non-legal, even illegal events, can significantly affect the development of the law. But I submit that the history of the Negro demonstrates the importance of getting rid of hostile laws and seeking the security of new friendly laws . . . "Provided there is a determination to enforce it, law can change things for the better. There's very little truth in the old refrain that one can not legislate equality. Laws not only provide concrete benefit, they can even change the hearts of men, some men anyway, for good or evil.... The simple fact is that most people will obey the law and some, at least, will be converted by it."
There are those who argue that we can not legislate morality, and that the answer to abortion does not lie in the law. The reality is that we do legislate behavior every day. Our entire society is structured by law. We legislate against going through red lights, smoking in airplanes and restaurants, selling heroin, committing murder, burning down peoples' homes, stealing, child abuse, slavery and a thousand other acts that would deprive other people of their rights. And this is precisely the key: law is intended to protect us from one another regardless of private and personal moral or religious beliefs. The law does not ask me if I personally believe stealing to be moral or immoral. The law does not ask if my religion encourages me to burn down homes. As far as the law is concerned, the distinction between private and public morality is quite clear. Basically, when I violate other people's rights, I am involved in a matter of public morality, subject to penalty under the law.
Is it outlandish to think that laws against abortion might have some protective effect? It is obvious that law is not the entire answer to theft, arson, child abuse, or shooting police officers. Everybody knows that. But who would suggest that we repeal the laws against such crimes because the laws are so often broken?
4. If abortion were again declared illegal, wouldn't many women risk their lives in back alley abortions?
It should not be taken for granted that merely because an abortion is performed legally, it is performed under medically favorable circumstances, in sterile operating rooms, by expert physicians. Stories of "botched" abortions are sadly plentiful. That many abortions are carried out by highly competent doctors under clinical conditions as physically safe for the mother as in other forms of surgery cannot be questioned. But legality is no guarantee of safety or concern.
The question itself suggests that a pregnant woman must have an abortion for one reason or another. Obviously, there will always be people who will take their own route to try to solve their problems, but legalizing abortion has encouraged many women to follow the abortion route because it now seems respectable. They would never have considered an illegal abortion.
Who can do more than speculate about what might happen? If we turn to the pre-1973 record, even the highest estimates of abortion annually were but a tiny fraction of the million-and-a-half since 1973, the year abortions were legalized for the nation. I quote Dr. Bernard Nathanson, M.D., once the hero of the abortion movement, now firmly committed to the right of every unborn. In his book, Aborting America, Dr. Nathanson addresses the question of "back alley" abortions:
"The favorite button of the pro-abortionists is the one showing the coathanger, symbol of the self-induced abortion and the carnage that results from it, or the similar problem of botched illegal abortions done by 'back-alley butchers'. . .
"How many deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) we generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics, but when we spoke of the latter it was always '5,000 to 10,000 deaths a year.' I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the 'morality' of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics? The overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason that had to be done was permissible. Statistics on abortion deaths were fairly reliable ... but not all these deaths were reported as such if the attending doctor wanted to protect a family by listing another cause of death. In 1967 the federal government listed only 160 deaths from illegal abortion. In 1972, the total was only 39 deaths. Christopher Tietze estimated 1,000 maternal deaths as the outside possibility in an average year before legalization; the actual total was probably closer to 500."
Are 1,000 deaths meaningless? Are 39? Of course not. One death is meaningful. But once again, the mothers involved could have chosen not to abort. Moreover, there is no guarantee that they would have survived legal abortions either.
Can there really be any doubt that legalization has multiplied the number of abortions almost infinitely beyond anyone's expectations? I go back to what I said above about smoking. Who could ever have believed that the day would come that smoking, such a widespread habit, would be so severely restricted by law-and in relatively such a brief period of time? Have the advertising campaigns and the governmental regulations reduced smoking? Remarkably.
God forbid that making abortion illegal would result in the death of even one woman. It seems to me that the way to avoid such is to help make life livable for every pregnant woman and help make her bringing her baby into the world a socially desirable event, in which she is praised rather than condemned.
5. Why did the bishops hire a communications firm? Don't we read and hear enough about abortion in the media? I could answer this simply by quoting from a letter I received only one week ago. I am quoting verbatim.
"I am writing to express my appreciation of the decision of the American Catholic bishops to give financial support of up to $5 million to the pro-life movement. I was told this money is being raised to hire a professional media firm to 'get the truth out.'
"As a woman who has been through the abortion experience and who knows others who have been through it repeatedly, I am particularly aware and grateful. It is not something I would wish on anyone. Its repercussions are widespread, packed with emotion, and sometimes despair. This may be true to a greater or lesser degree according to the woman, her history, and/or her personality type. But the abortion experience is just one more hardening of the heart. Hardening my heart to my own flesh conditions me to do it to others and even justifies it in my mind. This is the kind of subconscious thinking, and feeling, and rationale that the abortion experience has the capability of fostering. Also, the woman may become almost hopelessly self-destructive through alcoholism, drug ad- diction or bulimia, to name a few. In addition, I wonder is it just a coincidence that aborted women I know have gone through tumultuous relationship after relationship and have had trouble initiating, developing, and sustaining happy, healthy, workable ones?"
"To get the truth out." That's precisely the reason. The fact is that we don't read and hear enough about abortion in the media. One of the most serious problems facing the pro-life movement is the way much of the press reports this issue. For the most part, for example, for whatever reason, the media have habitually used the term "anti-abortion," instead of "pro-life," for people who believe in the right to life for the unborn. Yet those who support abortion are labeled "pro-choice." Even to change the emphasis in terminology would be worth the effort of a professional communications firm.
I have given countless interviews to the media in an attempt to share with people what our efforts are all about, but have fallen short of the mark. I support the right of the media to make whatever editorial judgments they deem appropriate. But it is critical that our positions are really understood if they are to be reported evenhandedly and without bias.
Additionally we have to try to assure that pro-life news stories are not buried-in the middle of a newspaper, or as a 30-second sound bite in the middle of a newscast. Fairness in reporting on pro-life issues is imperative. Some courageous journalists-even some who disagree with the pro-life position-have made the effort to report in an unbiased manner. It is hoped that a professional communications campaign will encourage many more journalists to do the same.
For example, I have frequently repeated in public addresses, in writing and in press conferences, the offer I made in 1984 about any woman who is pregnant and in need coming to the Archdiocese of New York for free assistance. In the almost six years since I made that offer - during which time many women have been helped at great cost to the archdiocese- I have seen a reference to it only once in the secular press, and even then in only one newspaper. It is frustrating, to say the least, when the Church is constantly accused of not doing anything for women while programs such as this exist not only here in New York, but in similar efforts around the country.
What we believe about life is truly good news. I believe that every person has the right to know about that good news, to be given a fair representation of what we're about, and then to study our position and, hopefully, recognize not only the reasonableness of the position, but also the charity and love which it proclaims.
It would be unfair to suggest that the failure to get the word out is only because of the bias of the press. As a Church, we have not, in my judgment, broadly disseminated our belief that every human life is sacred because made in the image and likeness of Almighty God and that our concern for the unborn flows from this fundamental belief. If this is to change, and with it the hearts of all people of good will, we will have to improve our means of educating people, including more widespread preaching of the issue of human life. In the first instance we must concentrate on instructing Catholics about the principles regarding human life. In my experience, I have found people very responsive once they understand what it is we're talking about when we discuss abortion: the taking of an innocent human life.
In my judgment, most of the criticisms against the communications campaign are misleading and unfair. To insist, for example, that the monies to be used in communicating the message about life should be used for the poor, or to help women, to combat racism, etc. is to assert arbitrarily that human beings who are visible deserve support more than human beings who are invisible. Further, it is a rehash of the gratuitous assertion that the Church ignores other needs. (It is amazing, for example, to read that if the Church were serious about racism, it would put this money into that battle, instead of into abortion. The black bishops of the United States have called abortion genocide against blacks. What could be more racist than genocide?)
There are more than one and one-half million unborn babies put to death every year in the United States. If we spent two dollars to let the world know about each one, that would be three million dollars-the cost of the current contract with the communications company. Actually, the money is coming from a Catholic organization, and not from the Church or people at large. If it were coming from the Catholic people of the United States, it would mean less than six cents per Catholic!
I find most amazing of all, however, the objection to using modern means of communications. If we didn't have sound systems in our churches, hardly anyone would ever hear a homily. In printing religious textbooks we rely on the most clever graphics the publishers can find to get the message across. Prior to the year 1454 A.D., the Bible was available essentially only in rare manuscript form. Then came Gutenberg and movable type. Suppose the Church had said: "No way we are going to let the Holy Bible be published on such a modem invention"? The greater number of people in the world would never have had a Bible in their hands. Is it less important to spread the word on unborn babies? Are we not to use the best method we can find to publicize what is happening to them?
Our Lord never used a telegram or a fax machine. He never flew in an airplane or even rode in an automobile. Who is to say he would not do so were he walking the earth today?
Is it fair to demand that the Church not use newspaper ads, for example, to try to protect human life, when organizations like Planned Parenthood use them to promote abortion? I really suspect that from the very outset the announcement of the communications campaign was misinterpreted, intentionally or unintentionally. The campaign has been portrayed by its critics as an effort to elect or defeat candidates for political office. In no way is that its intention. It is not a political campaign. It is a communications campaign to publicize the truth about human life and abortion.
When our message is heard - the message of life and love for both mother and child I believe most Americans, whatever their religious persuasion, will want to join in commitment to the sacredness of every human life.
6. But do Catholics have the right to impose their beliefs on others? Life is a right which must be acknowledged by a civil society as a given; it is never the concession of the state. Indeed, the state has as its primary purpose the defense of the lives of its citizens; Thomas Jefferson called it, "the first and only legitimate object of good government - the care of human life, and not its destruction." Those who are weakest or most defenseless have traditionally been given even higher degrees of protection. As former Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. said, quoting the truly noble words of Senator Hubert Humphrey, "The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, the handicapped." Human life must be protected from its inception until natural death; any other point which is determined by law is purely arbitrary and wrongly allows the state to take upon itself mastery over human life.
Those who accuse the Church of imposing its beliefs on others assume that the Church's teaching on human life has been created by the Church. Not so. All who accept the Ten Commandments, that is, Divine Law, know that it is never lawful, under any circumstances, deliberately or directly to take the life of any innocent human being. (This is one of the key principles, for example, in the tradition of "Just War"-it is never "just" to attack innocent civilians.) Unborn babies are innocent of any aggression against anyone.
Abortion is also forbidden, however, by Natural Moral Law, which governs all peoples, of all religions. The Greek playwright Sophocles, and the Roman official, Cicero, spelled out the universal character of Natural Law long before Christ. Our own Declaration of Independence was declared, not on the basis of a particular religion, but on the basis of Natural Moral Law. It appealed to "the Laws of nature and of Nature's God," and on this basis declared it self-evident that all are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that the first of these is the right to life.
To argue on the basis of Natural Moral Law takes us back to the question of whether the unborn is human. If it is human, it is in the very nature of things that we should not deliberately destroy it, just as it is in the very nature of things that we have no right to go around killing children already born. No one ever hears a woman who learns she is pregnant say: "I am going to have a fetus." She says: "I am going to have a baby." It would be "unnatural" for a mother to put her baby to death after birth. It goes against the very nature of things. If the baby is a baby before birth to destroy it is equally unnatural. Yet science today, and not only religion, reveals without reasonable doubt that an unborn baby is a baby. The other night I heard a woman arguing on television that it is "unnatural" to take the skin off an animal in order to make a fur coat. The program went on to talk about how cruel we are to raise foxes and minks for that purpose. Is it only the destruction of an unborn human being that is considered "natural"?
7. Isn't it un-American to deny people the right to choose?
No one has a right to choose to put an innocent human being to death. The use of ambiguous language and euphemisms has been tragically successful in switching the emphasis from "life" to "choice," so that those who are trying to defend life are accused of trying to deprive people of choice. The argument then becomes: "In a pluralistic society, what authority do you have to deprive me of my reproductive rights?" Reproductive rights, however, are not the issue; killing human beings is.
The Church understands that there are circumstances in which some people believe that abortion is the lesser of evils. They believe, for example, that it would be better to have an abortion if a baby will be born retarded or deformed; or if a mother is poor, or already has several children; or, as we noted above, if a young girl's education or career would be disrupted by a baby, or her reputation damaged. (Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, is quoted as saying, "the most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it" (Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, by George Grant, Wolgermuth & Hyatt, 1988).
The Church recognizes that many hardships can occur with a pregnancy. But there is a fundamental principle which must always prevail: The end never justifies the means if the means are evil. In other words, no matter how difficult the alternatives, they can not justify the direct killing of an innocent human being. What kind of world would it be if it were not faithful to that principle? Where would the killing stop?
Many people reject capital punishment. Yet before capital punishment is administered to someone who is charged with a heinous crime like murder, he or she is first tried by jury and found guilty. Yet, many who reject capital punishment accept, support, and consider it a "right" to take the life of an innocent unborn baby, who has never had a trial, or been found guilty. To the Church this is inconsistent.
American laws deny the right to kill innocent human beings, or even various "endangered species, like certain fish, birds or animals. Why is it "un-American" to argue against the "right" to kill the unborn? The Church mourns the ravages of the environment, pollution of the air, the rivers and lakes and oceans, the poisoning of wildlife, the potential of nuclear war and an accompanying holocaust. But sheer common sense, if not mercy for the helpless, demands that a society address before all else the destruction of its own children.
Some people say abortion is a right because it hasn't been proved that the unborn is human. Even some who accept the fact that the unborn is fully human, however, insist that a woman's "right" to have an abortion prevails over the right of the unborn to live. For example, a recent poll found that 76 percent of the women questioned believe that abortion is murder, yet 55 percent of the women who considered abortion murder still assert that it is a woman's right. Can there really be a "right" to commit murder? Is it "un-American" to say that no one has a right to commit murder? (Incidentally, I neither use nor encourage the use of the term murder for abortion. Here I am simply quoting the word used in the poll.)
The same frightening inconsistency is at work in the euthanasia movement, with many people believing that the elderly, the cancer-ridden, the deformed, the retarded should be "put out of their misery," because their 66 quality of life" doesn't warrant their continuing to live. But unfortunately there is, at times, another subtle, anti-Catholic bias at work in this whole argument. Some people still believe Catholics are second-class citizens, who owe their allegiance to a foreign power (the pope), and are dangerous to the "American way of life." To such people, it is acceptable for non-Catholics, or Catholics who dissent from Church teaching, to do everything they can to promote abortion, including influencing public officials to pass pro-abortion legislation. Those who support "abortion rights" are considered perfectly American in using the media, advertising and other means to promote abortion.
Catholics and others convinced that the unborn has rights, and should be allowed a free choice - that is, to choose life - are branded, on the contrary, as "un-American." Is that fair?
6. But do Catholics have the right to impose their beliefs on others? Life is a right which must be acknowledged by a civil society as a given; it is never the concession of the state. Indeed, the state has as its primary purpose the defense of the lives of its citizens; Thomas Jefferson called it, "the first and only legitimate object of good government - the care of human life, and not its destruction." Those who are weakest or most defenseless have traditionally been given even higher degrees of protection. As former Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. said, quoting the truly noble words of Senator Hubert Humphrey, "The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, the handicapped." Human life must be protected from its inception until natural death; any other point which is determined by law is purely arbitrary and wrongly allows the state to take upon itself mastery over human life.
Those who accuse the Church of imposing its beliefs on others assume that the Church's teaching on human life has been created by the Church. Not so. All who accept the Ten Commandments, that is, Divine Law, know that it is never lawful, under any circumstances, deliberately or directly to take the life of any innocent human being. (This is one of the key principles, for example, in the tradition of "Just War"-it is never "just" to attack innocent civilians.) Unborn babies are innocent of any aggression against anyone.
Abortion is also forbidden, however, by Natural Moral Law, which governs all peoples, of all religions. The Greek playwright Sophocles, and the Roman official, Cicero, spelled out the universal character of Natural Law long before Christ. Our own Declaration of Independence was declared, not on the basis of a particular religion, but on the basis of Natural Moral Law. It appealed to "the Laws of nature and of Nature's God," and on this basis declared it self-evident that all are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that the first of these is the right to life.
To argue on the basis of Natural Moral Law takes us back to the question of whether the unborn is human. If it is human, it is in the very nature of things that we should not deliberately destroy it, just as it is in the very nature of things that we have no right to go around killing children already born. No one ever hears a woman who learns she is pregnant say: "I am going to have a fetus." She says: "I am going to have a baby." It would be "unnatural" for a mother to put her baby to death after birth. It goes against the very nature of things. If the baby is a baby before birth to destroy it is equally unnatural. Yet science today, and not only religion, reveals without reasonable doubt that an unborn baby is a baby. The other night I heard a woman arguing on television that it is "unnatural" to take the skin off an animal in order to make a fur coat. The program went on to talk about how cruel we are to raise foxes and minks for that purpose. Is it only the destruction of an unborn human being that is considered "natural"?
7. Isn't it un-American to deny people the right to choose?
No one has a right to choose to put an innocent human being to death. The use of ambiguous language and euphemisms has been tragically successful in switching the emphasis from "life" to "choice," so that those who are trying to defend life are accused of trying to deprive people of choice. The argument then becomes: "In a pluralistic society, what authority do you have to deprive me of my reproductive rights?" Reproductive rights, however, are not the issue; killing human beings is.
The Church understands that there are circumstances in which some people believe that abortion is the lesser of evils. They believe, for example, that it would be better to have an abortion if a baby will be born retarded or deformed; or if a mother is poor, or already has several children; or, as we noted above, if a young girl's education or career would be disrupted by a baby, or her reputation damaged. (Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, is quoted as saying, "the most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it" (Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, by George Grant, Wolgermuth & Hyatt, 1988).
The Church recognizes that many hardships can occur with a pregnancy. But there is a fundamental principle which must always prevail: The end never justifies the means if the means are evil. In other words, no matter how difficult the alternatives, they can not justify the direct killing of an innocent human being. What kind of world would it be if it were not faithful to that principle? Where would the killing stop?
Many people reject capital punishment. Yet before capital punishment is administered to someone who is charged with a heinous crime like murder, he or she is first tried by jury and found guilty. Yet, many who reject capital punishment accept, support, and consider it a "right" to take the life of an innocent unborn baby, who has never had a trial, or been found guilty. To the Church this is inconsistent.
American laws deny the right to kill innocent human beings, or even various "endangered species, like certain fish, birds or animals. Why is it "un-American" to argue against the "right" to kill the unborn? The Church mourns the ravages of the environment, pollution of the air, the rivers and lakes and oceans, the poisoning of wildlife, the potential of nuclear war and an accompanying holocaust. But sheer common sense, if not mercy for the helpless, demands that a society address before all else the destruction of its own children.
Some people say abortion is a right because it hasn't been proved that the unborn is human. Even some who accept the fact that the unborn is fully human, however, insist that a woman's "right" to have an abortion prevails over the right of the unborn to live. For example, a recent poll found that 76 percent of the women questioned believe that abortion is murder, yet 55 percent of the women who considered abortion murder still assert that it is a woman's right. Can there really be a "right" to commit murder? Is it "un-American" to say that no one has a right to commit murder? (Incidentally, I neither use nor encourage the use of the term murder for abortion. Here I am simply quoting the word used in the poll.)
The same frightening inconsistency is at work in the euthanasia movement, with many people believing that the elderly, the cancer-ridden, the deformed, the retarded should be "put out of their misery," because their 66 quality of life" doesn't warrant their continuing to live. But unfortunately there is, at times, another subtle, anti-Catholic bias at work in this whole argument. Some people still believe Catholics are second-class citizens, who owe their allegiance to a foreign power (the pope), and are dangerous to the "American way of life." To such people, it is acceptable for non-Catholics, or Catholics who dissent from Church teaching, to do everything they can to promote abortion, including influencing public officials to pass pro-abortion legislation. Those who support "abortion rights" are considered perfectly American in using the media, advertising and other means to promote abortion.
Catholics and others convinced that the unborn has rights, and should be allowed a free choice - that is, to choose life - are branded, on the contrary, as "un-American." Is that fair?
posted by: ScubaDiva (reply)
post date: 05.12.04 (12:22 pm)
Your reasoning is faulty. There are more than "three types of people who consider abortion acceptable."
I, for one, support abortion rights - that is, the right for a woman to CHOOSE to have a child or not.
I can't answer when life begins - but I don't believe it begins at the moment of conception.
I don't believe that just because our laws sanction or don't sanction something that it is necessarily acceptable.
And, I've certainly given the topic considerable thought. For me, it comes down to the precept of individual liberty.
I could go on and on tearing your position apart in its misleading statements - not because I don't agree with your position, but your "reasoning" is faulty and makes a number of (incorrect) leaps and assumptions.
posted by: mikey1 (reply)
post date: 05.12.04 (12:34 pm)
Reply to: ScubaDiva
Life begins?? It dosen't end there. It passes on from mother to offsping.
posted by: ScubaDiva (reply)
post date: 05.12.04 (12:40 pm)
Well I don't have any problem at all with abortions done very early, but abortions done very late are about equal to murder, morally for me. The question is not whether it is 'alive or 'human'- earwax is both- but if it is a person.
Legally is obviously a much different matter- I am entirely Pro-Choice.
Most Americans are against abortion, but for abortion rights, the view espoused by Planned Parenthood.
posted by: mikey1 (reply)
post date: 05.12.04 (10:17 pm)
Reply to: ScubaDiva
Says me. A mother and father don't wait up for the stork that long. If you catch my drift.
posted by: VHolley (reply)
post date: 05.12.04 (10:17 pm)
I'm Pro-Choice. My body is exactly that, MY BODY. I think every woman has the right to choose what she wants to do.
Every woman DOES now have the RIGHT to choose. That, 1/3 of all American babies are aborted, and that many are CHOOSING abortion multiple times are a problem. That WE as a people can turn a blind eye to this PATRICIDE is astounding.
Over the course of the years I have been asked many questions about life and abortion by many well-meaning people.