The third of the three arguments for the sake of the child says, "We should not bring a defective child into the world. If we have reasonable grounds to believe that the child will be defective, and therefore handicapped, either physically deformed or mentally retarded, it is an act of mercy not to let such a child come into the world.
He will have a miserable life, a life of anguish and suffering. We should spare him that. It is better for him that he not be born at all."
Abortion to prevent the birth of a "defective" child is not morally justified, for several reasons.
The verdict that a child in the womb will be born defective can easily be mistaken. It is hardly ever, if ever, a certain one. As a rule it is a mere probability, and not even a very high one. "There is some chance that your child will be born with a defect."
Since that is so, why not wait until birth? Why kill a child who might be defective? One may well be killing a child who is in fact perfectly healthy. So, if the reasoning is that a "defective" child should be terminated, why not wait until one knows with certainty whether she is in fact "defective." Why not wait until birth?
And kill her at birth? Does that sound horrible? But why is killing this same child before birth any different? Why is killing her at an earlier phase of her existence "all right," "an act of mercy," while killing her at a later phase such a horrible thing? The difference is purely psychological. One who favors killing before birth - called abortion - need not see the child, hear her cry, or look into her pleading eyes. The child is not seen, so she is psychologically not there as a real person with whom we identify. That says a lot about us; it says nothing of any significance about the child herself.
It is one thing if a severely handicapped person decides for himself that his life is not worth living; it is quite another if we impose such a decision on him. The same reasons, in terms of individual autonomy, that make it wrong to kill an unwanted child also make it wrong to kill a defective child.
Many handicapped people have happy lives. They find meaning and fulfillment in life through creativity and love. They are glad to be alive. The argument for aborting a defective child assumes that such a child will be unhappy. This is an unwarranted assumption, and when it is removed, the pro-abortion argument based on it collapses. Eugene F. Diamond, M.D., speaks to this point, and to the previous one:
There is no evidence that the handicapped child would rather not go on living. As a matter of fact, handicapped persons commit suicide far less often than normal persons. An interesting study was done at the Ana Stift in Hanover, Germany, a center where a large number of children with phocomelia, due to thalidomide, are cared for. Psychological testing on these children indicated that they do indeed value their lives, that they are glad that they were born and they look forward to the future with hope and pleasant anticipation.
There are numerous case histories of handicapped persons leading productive, fulfilled, meaningful lives, glad that they are alive. Each of them is a refutation of the idea that a handicapped person cannot achieve a meaningful life; or that such a person is merely a "vegetable."
In a 1973 issue of Newsweek magazine, the medical section carried an article entitled "Shall This Child Die?" It reported on the work of Drs. Raymond S. Duff and A. G. M. Campbell at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. These men permit babies born with birth defects to die by deliberately withholding vital medical treatments. The doctors are convincing the parents that these children would be a financial burden and that they had "little or no hope of achieving meaningful 'humanhood.’" The doctors understood that they were breaking the law by doing away with what they called "vegetables," but they believed the law should be changed to allow for such deaths.
Sondra Diamond, who is in private practice as a counseling psychologist and is currently completing her doctoral work, responded to the article in a letter to the editor of Newsweek...
"I'll wager . . . that you have never received a letter from a vegetable before this one, but much as I resent the term, I must confess that I fit the description of a 'vegetable' as defined in the article, ‘Shall This Child Die?'
Due to severe brain damage incurred at birth, I am unable to dress myself, toilet myself, or write: my secretary is typing this letter. Many thousands of dollars had to be spent on my rehabilitation and education in order for me to reach my present professional status as a counseling psychologist. My parents were also told, 35 years ago, that there was 'little or no hope of achieving meaningful humanhood' for their daughter. Have I reached 'humanhood'? Compared with Drs. Duff and Campbell I believe I have surpassed it!"
The term "vegetable" is one of the greatest affronts to the dignity and preciousness of each person: its use cannot be too strongly condemned. No human beings are "vegetables," they are all persons. Some lack the physical skills, mental abilities, or other capacities that we associate with "normal" persons. This does not make them nonpersons, "vegetables." If we use this term, we are failing, they are not. We fail in our response to their being as persons, as full persons, with the same dignity and rights as the rest of us.
Not all handicapped people can reach a level of achievement like that of Sondra Diamond. Meaningful human life does not require this. My father, Balduin Schwarz, told me of the moving experience he had long ago in a home for the severely mentally retarded. Though very limited in their activities, they showed by their facial expressions and gestures a deep gratitude to those who took care of them. They were capable of receiving and giving love. They appreciated what was done for them, they responded from their hearts, and in this their lives had a deep meaning.
But suppose a handicapped person is not happy, even miserably unhappy. Does that mean we should kill him? Should we kill all unhappy born persons. Why try to kill all unhappy preborn persons?
I suggest that the argument for abortion for a "fetus" diagnosed as probably "defective" rests on the assumption that the "fetus" represents a merely potential person who is not yet there, and who may therefore be terminated before he actually arrives. Hence the phrase "let us not bring into the world a defective child," as though the child were not yet here. Once the fallacy of this assumption is recognized, and it is seen that the child is already here, then anyone who reverences human life, all human persons, whether normal or handicapped, will understand the absurdity of abortion in the name of "not bringing a 'defective' child into the world." (The same point applies to the "unwanted child.")
I noted above the inappropriateness of the term unwanted as applied to children: there are no unwanted children, only unwanting adults. Some such parallel applies to the term defective, as in "defective child." It is true that there are real differences among children, between those who have the capacity to walk and those who do not, between those who can see and those who are blind, and so on. These are important differences, and the negative in each case does imply a defect. But it is not a defect of the person; it is a defect in ability and bodily state. The term "defective child" is odious because it implies that it is the child himself who is defective, rather than something about his body. "But many defective babies die naturally before birth, in the very early stages, or later by miscarriage. Nature 'takes care of them' by providing a merciful death. Where nature fails, should we not do the same: provide a merciful death? Should we not, therefore, abort defective babies?"
No. There is a world of difference between natural death and murder! If a very sick person dies of his illness, that is a natural death; it is not a moral evil, it is not murder, since no one intentionally killed him. If he is deliberately killed, "mercy killing," that is murder. What is perfectly obvious for born persons applies equally to preborn persons.
Abortion for the Sake of the Family
Abortion is sometimes advocated for the sake of family welfare. "We cannot take care of another child. It would not be fair to the other children." These, and other similar reasons, may be valid for not bringing another child into existence. But once a child is there? We have only to remember that the child in the womb is already there, as much as any born child. She is just as real as a born child and should be treated in the same way.
The reply to this abortion argument is basically twofold. One: Abortion would not be right even if it did benefit the family. As I have been stressing, we cannot benefit people by murdering someone. We cannot kill B to benefit A, not even to save A’s life, still less for other benefits.
Two: Abortion does not benefit a family. On the contrary, it has in general a disastrous effect on the family and its members in four specific ways.
First, in a society where abortion is accepted, children who survive to be born naturally wonder why they exist when many of their brothers and sisters were destroyed. Such children, Dr. Ney states, may suffer from guilt, from distrust regarding their future, and from carrying a heavy burden of expectation they may not be able to fill. "Since their fate once hung on their desirability, they tend to feel secure only when they are pleasing to their parents."
This is a heavy burden to carry, not all children succeed. In some cases it may lead to depression and suicide. Ney also explains that having abortions causes guilt leading to "antepartum depression that interferes with a mother's ability to bond." Failure to achieve bonding with the child tends to lead to child abuse, problems with subsequent pregnancies, and aversion to touching a child born later. Children who are abortion survivors, since they feel they exist only because their mothers chose them, tend to feel deeply insecure. "Since their security rests in their wantedness.... [they] keep checking. . . , 'Do you really want me?’"
Second, perhaps the deepest and most devastating effect of abortion on family life. and the other children especially, is that abortion cheapens life:
Abortion diminishes the value of all people, particularly children. When the destruction of the unborn child is socially sanctioned and even applauded, the child can't have much value. More than anyone, children realize they are becoming worth less. Thus, the rate of suicide has increased correspondingly.
"Every child a wanted child" sounds noble. When it is taken to imply the destruction of children who are unwanted, it becomes something frightening.
If society adheres to the ethic that the unborn child only has value when he is wanted, that ethic can easily be applied to small children.... If the unborn has no value and it is all right to kill him, then it is defensible to kill children who have lost value because they are now unwanted.
People do not harm what they highly value. As children decline in value, it becomes easier to neglect and dispose of them.
A third dimension of abortion on the family is its destructive effect on the structure of the family. Under current American law, a woman can get an abortion without her husband's consent, even without his knowledge. The child conceived by the man and woman together is torn from the man and put at the mercy of the woman who has the power to have him destroyed. The union of father-mother-child is destroyed; the family structure is effectively destroyed.
Or, if it survives, it does so in spite of the power, enshrined in law, of a woman to destroy her unborn child, a child that should be seen as belonging in a family rather than to an individual woman.
The same applies to the right, under current American law, of a minor to have an abortion without her parents' consent or knowledge. A child who cannot have even minor surgery without parental consent may have an abortion! Recall the hazards for women from abortion, physical and psychological. These alone should mandate the necessity for parental consent. The preborn child may be torn from the young (minor) woman; and she may be torn from her parents in her decision to abort. In no other way could the family structure be more effectively destroyed.
Noonan puts it well when he observes that making abortion legal and readily available means that a "childbearing woman ... became a solo entity unrelated to husband or boyfriend, father or mother, deciding for herself what to do with her child. She was conceived atomistically, cut off from the family structure."
Finally, abortion can be devastating to the man, and to the relation between him and the woman. The man is often the forgotten figure in the abortion drama. "What many people don't realize is that men, too, suffer from the abortion process - especially fathers of aborted children. Whether they encouraged the abortion or opposed it, they endure feelings of guilt, depression, grief, and often describe the abortion experience as bewildering and painful beyond their coping abilities."
Here is an excerpt from a pamphlet titled: "How Abortion Affects Men: They Cry Alone." Referring first to the woman, it says: "The evidence grows daily that she is, indeed, a casualty - that she is a real victim, along with her unborn baby, of this most unnatural procedure.... The purpose of the pamphlet is to point out that much the same can be said of the aborted child's father."
Dr. Vincent Rue expounds:
Sociologist Arthur Shostak observed in an article for The Family Coordinator that three out of four male respondents studied said they had a difficult time with the abortion experience and that a sizable minority reported persistent day and night dreams about the child that never was, and considerable guilt, remorse and sadness.
For men and women alike, the feeling of emptiness may last a lifetime, for parents are parents forever, even of a dead child. Emotional resolution is nearly impossible because there is no visible conclusion - just a memory. Because the unborn child was denied humanity, he or she is denied a grave or marker. The grieving process is left unfinished....
Because of the basic inequality between the partners in the abortion decision, the capacity to develop trust.... intimacy, honesty and companionship is severely restricted. This same inequality has the potential to breed displaced male aggression via child abuse, spousal abuse or self-abuse.
A woman's "right to choose" abortion, and the law that protects this, means that the father is denied any rights to protect the child. In many cases the father very much wants the child. To have his own child destroyed, at the request of the woman with whom he begot this child, is devastating.
Not all men want the child. Some in fact take just the opposite position. This too is harmful, for it is harmful to human relations. Speaking of men who support abortion, Wailing says, "Now they can pursue their pleasures without a thought about the consequences. When told of a pregnancy, they say to the woman, ‘That's your problem.' Other men do even worse - they apply great pressure on the woman, threatening to break off the relationship if she doesn't have the abortion. She must choose between the baby or the baby’s father."
Not surprisingly, abortion takes its toll on human relationships: "Researcher Emily Milling found that of more than 400 couples who went through the abortion experience, most of the relationships (70 percent) had failed within one month after the abortion."
Abortion for the Sake of Society
It is argued: "What will we do with all those unwanted babies? Abortion is needed to control population growth in the face of the threat of overpopulation," And, "it is unrealistic to say that all abortions are immoral. If we lived in a perfect world, we would not need abortion; but we do not. Killing is never good, but it is sometimes necessary, as in war time."
First, abortion is bad for society because it is bad for people! Abortion is bad for the child. The child is already in the world. She should not be excluded from membership in our society merely because she is still in a secluded place, necessary for her so that she is nourished and protected during those first formative weeks of her life. Abortion is bad because it represents frightening hazards for women, physically and psychologically. It is bad because of its effects on other children. It is bad because of its effects on the family structure. It is bad because of its effects on men. Abortion is bad because of its effects on human relations.
Many other dimensions could be added: its effect on the medical profession when doctors, committed to healing and saving, become hired killers; its effect on nurses having to reassemble the broken pieces of a baby torn apart by the abortion knife; and its effect on the society that lives in the midst of a holocaust. Abortion is a deadly plague with many victims.
Second, "What will we do with all those unwanted babies?" Often it is the pregnancy that is unwanted. The child once born, and perhaps even before birth, is very much wanted. A child unwanted now may be very much wanted later. And if a child is at first wanted, then later unwanted, does the objection imply that she should later be killed, when she is born? Adoption, not abortion. While millions of babies are killed, so many couples who want to adopt cannot.
If there are still many babies "left over," we can make room for them. We can adjust our lifestyles to take care of them. If a boat full of poor, hungry refugees were to come to our shores, begging to be allowed in, would we turn them away to their deaths? Or would we open our hearts to them? Open our gates to let them in?
Abortion is, if anything, still worse than a closed door to refugees; that is more like withholding support, as discussed in chapter 8. Abortion should be compared to killing the refugees after they land on our shores. ("The child is already in the world.")
In the worst case scenario, we return to the original question, "What will we do with all those unwanted babies?" Mass extermination, as the Nazis did with "all those unwanted people" in their society? If it would be an atrocity to kill "all those unwanted babies" after birth, would it be any less of an atrocity to kill them before birth?
It is sometimes said that abortion is cheaper than welfare; that eliminating or sharply curtailing abortion means adding welfare costs later on. This is not evident when we consider the thousands of couples eager to adopt and take care of babies. But grant the premise for the sake of argument. "Abortion is cheaper than welfare." Of course. It is always cheaper to kill a child than to feed him and clothe him! The same applies to the aged, infirm, and to handicapped persons. What follows? That we should kill people to get them out of the way?
Third, "Abortion is needed to control population growth in the face of the threat of overpopulation." The question of overpopulation is broad and complex, far beyond the scope of this book. Let me suggest three significant points in reply to this objection.
There is evidence to suggest that population growth, far from being a threat, is actually healthy. One author who argues for this is P. T. Bauer. His thesis is that as population increases the standard of living increases.
Since the 1950s rapid population increase in densely-populated Hong Kong and Singapore has been accompanied by large increases in real income and wages. The population of the Western world has more than quadrupled since the middle of the eighteenth century. Real income per head is estimated to have increased by a factor of five or more. Most of the increase in incomes took place when population increased as fast as, or faster than, in the contemporary less developed world.. . .
In both the less developed world and in the West some of the most prosperous countries and regions are extremely densely populated. Hong Kong and Singapore are probably the most densely populated countries in the world, with originally very poor land.... In the advanced world Japan, West Germany, Belgium and Holland are examples of densely populated countries. Conversely, many millions of extremely backward people live in sparsely populated regions amidst cultivable land. Examples include the backward peoples in Sumatra, Borneo, Central Africa and the interior of South America. They have ready access to vast areas of land - for them land is a free good. In South Asia, generally regarded as a region suffering from over-population, there is much uncultivated land, land which could be cultivated at the level of technology prevailing in the region....
Evidence contradicts the idea that unchecked human reproduction will fill the earth because the sheer number of people will outdistance food resources, as Malthus warned. James A. Weber argues against Malthus (and contemporary Malthusians such as Paul Ehrlich):
This Malthusian drama of despair has captured the imagination of generation after generation of population experts, including our present crop of doomsayers. However, there is one thing wrong with the scenario. It is exactly the opposite of what has happened in the past or what can be expected to happen in the future. Far from outdistancing material progress in the past, population growth has lagged far behind, as is evidenced by continuing rapid increase in per capita income that has occurred in the United States and other advanced countries since Malthus formulated his population principle.
However, based on broad trends of past and present world population growth, it is possible to suggest that world population will return to an extremely slow growth rate about the time it reaches the neighborhood of 10 billion people, which should be approximately the middle of the next century.
Jacqueline R. Kasun argues that 10 billion people is not too many for the world to sustain:
Colin Clark, former director of the Agricultural Economic Institute at Oxford University and noted author of many books on population-resource questions, classified world land types by their food-raising capabilities and found that if all farmers were to use the best methods now in use, enough food could be raised to provide an American-type diet for 35,100,000,000 people, almost 10 times as many as now exist! Since the American diet is a very rich one, Clark found that it would be possible to feed three times as many again - or 30 times as many people as now exist - at a Japanese standard of food intake. Nor would these high levels of food output require cropping of every inch of available land space. Clark's model assumed that nearly half of the earth's land area would remain conservation areas. The noted city planner, Constantin Doxiasis, arrived independently at a similar estimate of the world's ability to feed people and to provide conservation areas.
Clearly there is plenty of room on this earth for 10 billion people. "We could put the entire world population [around 4 billion] in the state of Texas and each man, woman and child could be allotted 2,000 square feet [the average home ranges between 1,400 and 1,800 square feet] and the whole rest of the world would be empty."
There is evidence to suggest that the problem, far from being a population explosion, is rather the opposite: a declining population, a population rate below replacement, leading to extinction:
Ansley J. Coale, director of the office of Population Research at Princeton University, states: "Of the 31 countries that are usually listed as highly developed, 21 now have birthrates below replacement." Coale points out that, in the U.S., "by the time the Zero Population Growth movement came along, fertility was in the midst of its steepest decline in history - 50% in 16 years. We are below replacement now and are continuing to grow only because of the age distribution of the population. If the downtrend continues, we will begin to have a shrinking population not long after the end of the century." . . .
Thus, there is no population explosion in the U.S. or in the other developed countries. Population scholars estimate that rates of growth are higher in the less-developed world, but also note evidence of declining growth rates in a majority of the countries for which data are available.
Suppose the worst, that there is a real danger from a population explosion. Are we simply going to kill off all the "extra people," a Nazi-type "final solution"? It is shocking even to mention this. The alternative is that all persons be respected, that no one be killed to get him out of the way. All persons means everyone, born or preborn.
Fourth, "Isn't an absolute ban on abortion unrealistic? We don't live in a perfect world. Killing in war is bad, but war is sometimes necessary. Isn't it the same with abortion?"
We do not live in a perfect world. We live in the pervasive presence of moral evil. Abortion as the unjust killing of small, helpless, innocent children, especially on a mass scale that makes it a holocaust, is a frightening example of this. Far from being a solution, abortion killings make the world more imperfect. And much worse than imperfect.
The destructive effects of abortion - on women, on men, on other children, on the structure of the family, on society - make abortion hardly a realistic solution, but exactly the opposite. A realistic solution is something positive, not destructive like abortion.
The argument for abortion that compares it to war is not valid. If "going to war" is a way of trying to settle disputes, the comparison is indeed apt: Both are terrible moral evils. For both are assaults on innocent people, both cause horrible sufferings, both have terrible side effects; both are fundamentally destructive. If it is the question of defense against unjust attack, war becomes a complex subject, far beyond the scope of this book. Some defensive wars are indeed unjust, and some tactics in war are unjust. Intentionally killing an innocent person is always wrong, whether by a rifle, a bomb, a saline solution, or a knife.
Abortion is indeed a war, a war on the preborn, in which they cannot defend themselves, in which they are killed in extremely cruel ways. Saying that war is not a solution applies most aptly to the war on the preborn.
The third of the three arguments for the sake of the child says, "We should not bring a defective child into the world. If we have reasonable grounds to believe that the child will be defective, and therefore handicapped, either physically deformed or mentally retarded, it is an act of mercy not to let such a child come into the world.