"The question of abortion is something very intimate, very private to a woman. Only she should decide whether to continue her pregnancy to term, or to end it by abortion. No one else, and certainly not the government, should tell a woman what to do. She alone should decide. Hence abortion should be legal."
There is certainly something very intimate in the relation between a woman and the child she is carrying. The child is hers, entrusted to her, residing in her, nourished by her, protected by her. And it is a terrible evil if someone comes from the outside to interfere with this relationship destructively. It is abortion, not the prohibition of it, that violates the intimate realm of a woman who is pregnant. It is abortion that intrudes into this beautiful sanctuary, where a small, innocent, defenseless child is nestled and protected. Abortion sunders the beautiful and natural relation that exists between woman and child by violently tearing the child out, brutally killing him in the process.
That the woman herself requests the abortion in no way nullifies this point. It is objectively a violent sundering of this natural, intimate relationship. By her abortion she becomes a part of this terrible evil, and often suffers from it as the second victim.
Yes, there is something private and intimate that we should protect: the child. Abortion is a violation of the child's privacy, an intrusion into what is intimate for him, his own person. The methods of abortion and the pain they cause are a violation of intimacy and privacy.
Thus the appeal to intimacy and privacy, insofar as it is valid and reasonable, means forbidding abortions. The child's right to live, not to be killed, especially by the painful methods of abortion, that right surely outweighs anyone's claim to a right to privacy. And the state must protect that right, just as it protects other civil rights.
Many of these objections rest on the idea that abortion is private to the woman, where no one else should interfere. It is not. It involves another human person, the child, who is killed by this act. It involves other people as well. The family structure, human relations, and other children may be adversely affected by abortion. Noonan outlines the many ways in which abortion affects society at large:
Each act of abortion is, by declaration of the Supreme Court of the United States, a private decision. Yet each act of abortion bears on the structure of marriage and the family, the role and duties of parents, the limitations of the paternal part in procreation, and the virtues that characterize a mother. Each act of abortion bears on the orientation and responsibilities of the obstetrician, the nurse, the hospital administrator, and the hospital trustee. The acceptance of abortion affects the professor and student of medicine and the professor and student of law. In the United States, abortion on a large scale requires the participation of the federal and state governments.
"The question of abortion is something very intimate, very private to a woman. Only she should decide whether to continue her pregnancy to term, or to end it by abortion. No one else, and certainly not the government, should tell a woman what to do. She alone should decide. Hence abortion should be legal."