"Abortion is a religious issue. No group should impose its religious values and prohibitions on the rest of society. We live in a pluralistic society. Different groups of people have different moral beliefs. An individual religious group may oppose abortion as morally wrong, but it has no right to impose that belief on society as a whole."
The crucial thing is to understand that abortion is wrong because it is the killing of an innocent person, the violation of his most fundamental right, the right to be. This is not only a religious matter, but a basic ethical concern, accessible to all people. I have urged that we identify with the child and do to her what we would want done to us. These are universal ethical appeals, not sectarian religious ideas.
Abortion is a civil rights issue, one that parallels slavery and discrimination. To argue that preborn human beings be given the same rights and respect as the rest of us is no more a religious matter than to argue that blacks be given the same rights and respect as the rest of us.
There are two senses of the term "religious issue." One refers to what the objection is based upon, that is, questions and topics that are properly left to individual persons and groups, such as the nature and existence of God. The other refers to religious issues that are also matters of public concern, for example marriage, divorce, capital punishment, human equality, and discrimination. To say that something is a religious issue in this second sense does not preclude government involvement in it. On the contrary, the government cannot be neutral on these things: for example, it either allows no-fault divorce or it does not. Abortion is a religious issue in this second sense.
Questions and topics that are religious issues in the second sense are generally also philosophical issues; that is, questions that are to be answered by the use of reason, rather than appeal to religious faith. Thus, in showing that the being in the womb is a real child and that abortion means killing this child, I have made no appeal whatever to any religious faith or theological principles. It has been a strictly philosophical argument, appealing to reason. In showing that a human person begins her existence at conception, I used scientific data and philosophical arguments, especially the one showing that conception-fertilization is the radical break. The two major philosophical arguments attempting to justify abortion - Thomson's "no duty to sustain" argument and the Tooley-Warren argument that the being in the womb is only biologically human but not a person - were refuted by strictly philosophical arguments. Finally, given that the being in the womb is a small person, it follows logically that he should be given the same legal standing as the rest of us, that abortion must be made illegal just as any other killing of innocent persons.
It is interesting to note that the preborn child was recognized as a person in Roman Law, with the same rights as born persons. Thus, for example, Julian, the classical Roman jurist, expresses this recognition in Roman Law when he teaches that the child in his mother's womb is to be treated as a member of human society in terms of legal rights. And the jurist, Paulus, teaches that whoever is in his mother's womb is to be protected as if he were already born; he is to be granted the same civil rights and the same benefits accruing from them as anyone else.5 Roman Law was surely not a religious matter. What the Roman Law clearly recognized, we too should recognize.
Furthermore. there are widely recognized secular codes of ethics that explicitly condemn abortion and/or acknowledge the sanctity of human life in the womb. Thus the Hippocratic Oath includes the promise: "I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion."6 And The World Medical Association Declaration of Geneva states, as part of the Physician's Oath, "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."7
No Consensus to Make Abortion Illegal
There is no consensus for making abortion illegal. Hence doing so would mean unfairly imposing the beliefs of some people on the rest of society."
First, just as there is no consensus for making abortion illegal, there is also no consensus on making it legal. Abortion is a controversial matter, opinion is divided. The objection argues equally against the pro-abortion, or pro-choice, side: "Abortion should not be legal because there is no consensus for making it legal."
Second, we must examine the nature of abortion itself - whether or not the being in the womb who is killed is a real person - not what people think about abortion. If abortion is not the killing of a child, if it is something private, then it should be legal, consensus or not. If abortion is a woman's right, then she should have that right under the law, consensus or not. Those who campaign for women's rights, including "the right to abortion," believe that this is something right in itself, called for in justice, not something that should be enacted only if there is a consensus for it. This shows that consensus is not relevant in this kind of issue, where questions of fundamental human rights are at stake.
Third, when we examine the nature of abortion itself, carefully and objectively, we see that the being who is killed by it is a real person, one of us. With this we come to the core fallacy in the consensus objection, and the fundamental reply to it as an argument for legalizing abortion. What this argument really says is that a person is not to be given recognition under the law as a person, his right to live protected by the state, simply because he is a person, and entitled to this protection; but only because other persons have agreed to recognize him as a person. If that view is taken no one is safe. If your right to live, your right to equal protection under the law, depends on there being a consensus that the group you belong to should be protected, then your rights are fragile indeed.
In short, fundamental rights, above all the right of a person to be recognized and respected as a person, do not depend on the democratic voting procedures that are perfectly appropriate in other matters. The recognition of fundamental rights cannot be made subject to popular votes. Such rights are not granted by the people by majority votes; they cannot rightfully be taken away in this manner. They are above the level of democratic processes based on majority opinion.
Fourth, suppose there is a lack of consensus for outlawing abortion. Rather than wait for a consensus to enact laws to protect the rights of preborn persons, these laws should be enacted as a matter of justice, with the expectation that the laws will then help create the consensus. Rather than the consensus leading to the laws, the laws can lead to the consensus. This is what occurred in the case of civil rights laws to give equal treatment to blacks. If an oppression is legal (racist oppression of blacks, the killing of preborn babies), it tends to be widely practiced. This tends to make it respectable, which in turn tends to create a lack of consensus to outlaw the oppression. We must reverse this process. Our obligation is to respect persons, irrespective of the shifting tides of popular consensus.
No Simple Answers to Complex Questions
"We should avoid simplistic answers to complex problems. Abortion is a complex problem, and simply outlawing it is a simplistic solution."
First, abortion is only complex psychologically and socially, not morally, as was shown in chapter 9. The killing of an innocent child to get rid of him is as clear-cut an evil as one can find.
Is the outlawing of murder of born persons simplistic? In a way, yes: you simply cannot do that! The same must apply to preborn persons.
Second, if prohibiting all abortions is simplistic, allowing all abortions -which is the current state of affairs in America8 and throughout much of the rest of the world - is no less simplistic. What, in the view of those who use this objection, would be the ideal or true solution? A law that forbade some abortions and allowed others? But then why should only some innocent preborn children be protected and not others? Because there are justifying factors in some cases, such as rape and incest? These factors do not justify murdering the child. An innocent person cannot be killed, or allowed to be killed, for the benefit of others.
What, after all, is wrong with a "simple" prohibition of murder? That is all that is being asked for, for preborn and born persons alike. Changing "simple" to "simplistic" is merely inserting a negative emotional overtone, to try to frighten people away from supporting what is demanded by "simple" justice: protection of innocent, defenseless small babies.
religion has nothing to do with it stupid. god doesnt create babies a man an woman . religion has nothing at all to do with it not a thing..............
posted by: lynne (reply)
post date: 02.03.04 (6:25 am)
Abortion *is* a complex problem. That is because a fetus cannot survive on its own. An abortion is not merely killing a living thing, it is cutting off support to it which results in its death.
It is also complex because at issue is a lump of tissue that probably doesnt have brain function. Is it legally alive if it doesnt have brain function?
Is it philosophically alive if it doesnt have brain function? Religions have traditionally been used to answer that question which is one reason why a lot of people believe abortion is a religious issue.
Anyhow I can think of many many more complexities to this issue including a lot of problems that would be accociated with actually enforcing an abortion ban.
"Abortion is a religious issue. No group should impose its religious values and prohibitions on the rest of society. We live in a pluralistic society. Different groups of people have different moral beliefs. An individual religious group may oppose abortion as morally wrong, but it has no right to impose that belief on society as a whole."