Tag: Abortion

In Mississippi, Tuesday (November 8 ), citizens will be asked to vote on the Personhood Amendment, declaring the fertilized embryo a legal person. The amendment is intended to legally prevent abortions.  However a group called Resolve –  National Fertility Association has publicized concerns that the bill could render In Vitro Fertilization illegal or at least open to legal challenge. Personhood USA, a group supportive of the bill claims that In Vitro procedures will not be threatened. The video below features a discussion from both points of view.

The Personhood Amendment would be a wonderful step forward in walking back Roe v. Wade. It will surely face an uphill battle with legal challenges that will likely land it in the Supreme Court of the United States.  Nevertheless the initiative is bold and gives me great hope. Thus it is a great sadness to hear the latest protests that put passage of the Amendment at risk.

I am neither a political pundit nor a lawyer. But what I am is a concerned believer in God who deeply regrets the mess we have gotten ourselves into by our many attempts to play God.

We clearly play God by sentencing innocent life to death by abortion. This is life God has created (cf. Jer 1:4; Psalm 139 ) In effect we snatch the life from God’s creative hands and say, “This shall not be.”

But we also play God by insisting that infertile couples have a right to conceive and bear children, when nature and nature’s God have said no. With in vitro fertilization we go beyond assisting fertility and then depending on the marriage act. Rather we sideline the God given manner for conception and turn it into a technology in a petri dish. This too is a way of telling God “This shall not be” in reference to infertility and normal conception.

There are many problems with In Vitro fertilization that has caused the Catholic Church to forbid it.

1. Life as Consumer Product – In IVF, a fertilizable ovum is removed from a woman’s ovary and put in a petri dish (the Latin for dish is vitrum) to which a few concentrated drops of sperm are added. This removes human conception from the marriage act, its sacred and proper place, where God acts to bestow life.  IVF puts it in the laboratory where man controls the process and conception is treated as a technology and consumer product, rather than as part of a mystery of fruitful love caught up in the marriage embrace and the love God.
2. No person and no couple has a right to a child. A child is a person with rights; he or she is not merely an object, a possession, or a technological product.
3. God is Wrong! From a faith perspective, IVF simply refuses God’s “failure” to act in accord with the wishes of the parents, and removes the decision from God. God may be teaching something to the couple due to their infertility. Perhaps he wants them to adopt, perhaps he has a special work or cause he wants them to be devoted to. But IVF suspends such discernment, and forces the solution.
4. There is a strong bias today toward only caring about what is best for adults. This is widespread in our culture. Hence, if adults are unhappy they can divorce, not matter what this does to children, the children have no legal voice or say in the matter. Further, if a child comes at an unexpected or inopportune time, many just abort. Again, it is the adults who matter. In IVF there is also some of this thinking since what seems to matter most is that the adults want a baby. Never mind what IVF may do to how we think of life, as a technology to be exercised at our whim, rather than a sacred mystery. Never mind that imperfect embryos are discarded or frozen. Never mind that many IVF procedures selectively abort later. Never mind that IVF children are more often born prematurely, or suffer higher rates of birth defects. What matters is what adults want and demand.
5. Discarding Embryos – As already stated, it is a usual practice that more eggs are fertilized than the woman will need. This is because not all embryos survive. Thus, more than one egg, usually several or numerous eggs, are fertilized. If “too many” embryos survive the rest are either discarded (i.e. killed), frozen or mined for stem cells (i.e. killed).
6. For reasons such as these, the Church considers IVF to be gravely sinful.
7. You can read more here: INSTRUCTION ON RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE IN ITS ORIGIN AND ON THE DIGNITY OF PROCREATION
8. There are certain procedures allowable to Catholics which enhance fertility but do not remove or replace the marriage act. But IVF is far beyond what is approved for the reasons stated.

So here we are with another cultural show-down. Resolve –  National Fertility Association is not a pro-abortion group as far as I can tell. In fact I would imagine that many, if not most, of its members would describe themselves as pro-life. But IVF and abortion have this in common: Playing God and saying that I have a right over life, that I call the shots.

Further, while many of its members and “consumers” of IVF services may choose not to think so, discarding of embryos is killing, is aborting. Freezing them is a cruel delay and a further indignity. Imagine keeping children on ice until their arrival is more convenient. And what if they never become convenient? The big chill continues until they become stale (i.e. dead).

Disclaimer – Now, there are likely many well-intentioned couples who may never have thought through all this, or have been misguided, or are just so desperate for a child that they’ll do almost anything. But in the end, IVF is problematic and morally wrong for the reasons stated.

We live in times where too many think that they can just have what they want. Many think that, if we can do something, we should be free to do something. But there are other things at stake than just what people want. There is reverence for the sacred mystery of life, there is concern for the common good, there is what actually happens to imperfect or superfluous embryos.

And in Mississippi there is a good bill that is now threatened by IVF enthusiasts whose basic premise seems often to be that they should be able to have what they want, no matter side effects. And for Resolve –  National Fertility Association it is clear that IVF is more important to them even than working to end abortion. The threat to IVF procedures, even if legally remote, is so grave to them, that they are willing to see abortions continue by the millions, if only they can still have IVF. It would seem more of the same from our culture that wants what it wants no matter the cost.  What a mess.

Here’s the video of the Fox news debate. Sorry for the Ad if it pops up.

There is a magnificent interview over at National Review Online of professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, Christopher Kaczor. He is the author of the new book The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice (Available at Amazon HERE). The interview is conducted by Kathryn Jean Lopez, of National Review, and though she takes up the voice of a pro-“choice” advocate, she is not.

Professor Kaczor answers the most common questions and objects with great clarity. I would like to present a few excerpts of the lengthy interview here and encourage you to read the rest. I will excerpt it in the form of listing the question and the pertinent point he makes. And few minor remarks by me are in red. The Full article is here Pro-Life Aristotle

1. What right do you, a man, have to make such a case [against abortion]?

KACZOR: Legally speaking, everyone has a right to free speech, including speech about abortion….has the right and obligation to speak out in defense of the defenseless and in favor of a just social order. The question …seems to presuppose that abortion is simply and solely about women, but this is a false supposition. The majority of abortionists are men — more men than women describe themselves as “pro-choice” — and in the United States, men pay for abortions with their tax dollars. Aside from these considerations, every abortion involves the pregnant woman, the expectant father, the one who is aborted, and the society that allows it.

I would only add here that just under 50% of babies killed are male. I remember be “serenaded” at the last Pro-life march here in DC by pro-abortion counter demonstrators who I had witnessed to. They “sang” for me: “Hey, hey, ho, ho, pro-life men have got to go. Hey, hey, ho, ho, if you got pregnant then you’d know!” They also told me, that as a man, I had no right to speak on this issue and since I was a priest, I was even more disqualified. As you might guess, a few of them accused me of being a pedophile. Yes, yes, if you put yourself out there expect to get it with both barrels

2. No book [or law] will eradicate the fact that there are women who will feel the need to abort their unborn children and doctors who will provide the service. It was the case before it was legal and it will be after.

KACZOR: I think you are right that abortions took place prior to legalization and abortions would continue if abortion were made illegal. The same point can be made for theft, child abuse, and assault, which have always happened in human history and which will always happen. Indeed, if people never did the act in question, making a law about it would be superfluous.

Exactly and I would add that i think laws do influence some people not to do certain things. I know that one of the reasons I never tried drugs in High School was that I knew they were illegal and the risk associated with such use helped to deter me. Many say you cannot legislate morality. To certain extent I agree and don’t lots of unnecessary laws, but my own experience is that law both reflects and influences moral decision making.

3. What’s the least compelling argument supporters of legal abortion make?

KACZOR: “It is my body, it is my choice.” [Actually], in abortion, there are two bodies involved, the body of the pregnant woman and the body of the human being in utero. [They] can be of different blood types and different races, and it can happen that one of them dies and the other lives and vice versa. If there were only one body involved, then absurdities follow such as that a pregnant woman has two heads, four arms, and, if she is carrying a boy, also a penis. Further, “choice” is a euphemism disguising the reality. Everyone supports good choices that are just and promote human welfare. The question is whether abortion is such a choice. Great answer, and humorous to boot, showing the thoughtless absurdity of the slogan.

4. What’s different about your Book and your argument?

My argument is not faith-based, but rather based on reason and evidence. There is no appeal to theological authority; there are no Scripture citations to justify conclusions, and no premises that come from ecclesial authority. The case against abortion is made to all persons of good will, regardless of their faith or lack thereof. As a priest I usually have recourse to Scripture. But it is clear that we must also make use of Natural Law arguments based on natural reason.

5. Is it just to tell a [pregnant] teen she’s got to have a kid…?

Of course, no one should ever be forced to become pregnant, but a pregnant woman already “has a kid.” After pregnancy has begun, the question is not, “Do we force her to have a kid?” but rather “Will we support this expectant mother and her child?” People of good will should answer “yes.” A wonderful turning back of the the phrase “have a kid.”

6. What does Aristotle have to do with the poor mom who feels as if she has no alternatives when she realizes she is pregnant? The desperate teenager? The single professional who can’t both do her job and have this child?

KACZOR: I believe that everyone, including the poor mom, the desperate teenager, and the single professional, desires to find true happiness. I also believe that Aristotle, and even more fully Thomas Aquinas, showed that the way to true happiness consists in activity in accordance with virtue. There can be, therefore, no authentic happiness found in activity that is unjust.

I can think of one case in particular: a young student, not yet finished with her education, who found herself pregnant with a man she did not know well. With so many responsibilities, both to her extended family and to her studies, she felt desperate, alone, and trapped. It was truly an act of heroism for that woman to decide to place that child for adoption. I know the woman in the story very well. She is my birth mother. I feel such an enormous debt of gratitude to her….I don’t think there is any woman who in the long term regrets, even in the most difficult of circumstances, making the choice for life. But I know there are many thousands of women who still remember and mourn, even decades later, the date that their baby would have been born.

A moving and wonderful story of how making virtuous choices, even when difficult brings happiness.

7.  Are there myths about abortion you’d like to use this book to shoot down?

[One] myth is that there is a debate about “when life begins.” In fact, informed parties, both those opposed to and those in favor of abortion, acknowledge that the human fetus is a living organism. Notice the phrase, informed parties. I have met more than a few uniformed people who still buy into the “tissue” argument or have been convinced of it by a Planned Parenthood official. Still, I am convinced that, deep down, everyone knows the child is alive and is a human being.

[Another] myth is that the debate is about whether the “fetus is a human being.” Informed participants in this discussion, regardless of their views about abortion, understand that the living organism within the woman is a member of the species homo sapiens…..The real question in the debate is: Should all human beings be respected and protected, or just some?

The debate about “personhood” is really the debate about who will be included in the human community, who will be respected, and who will receive legal protection. This debate goes back over the centuries, throughout which various classes of human beings were excluded from the human family. Those excluded tend to change over time but have been at various points Native Americans, Africans, Catholics in Protestant-dominated countries, Protestants in Catholic-dominated countries, non-Muslims, Jews, the handicapped, and women. Every single time we’ve said, this or that class of human beings does not merit protection and respect, I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. Today, I believe we’re making another terrible mistake in excluding from full protection and respect human beings prior to birth.

Yes, those who deny personhood or full legal recognition to the infant are in some pretty terrible company and heir to so pretty awful chapters in human history. Any quick look at history reveals how ugly it all is.

8. So what if a mother’s life is in danger? What if she has cancer? What if she will likely die if she is not treated? And what if when she is treated, the child might very well die?

KACZOR: Any legitimate medical procedure that is needed to save the woman’s life — whether or not she is pregnant — may be performed, so long as the death of the unborn child is not sought as a means or as an end. Of course, a pregnant woman may choose, if she wishes, to decline such interventions in order to preserve the life developing within her. These cases are governed by what is called the principle of double effect….So long as the death of the unborn child is not sought as a means or as an end, and the procedure is necessary in order to save the life of the mother, it may be done even if it brings about the bad effect of fetal death. In a similar way, the death of the mother may not be sought as an end or as a means, yet she may choose to accept her own death as a side effect of protecting the life of her child. Innocent human life is worthy of respect and protection, but in some tragic situations, life will be lost whatever is chosen.

Again, the key point with double effect, is intent. There can be no direct intent to harm the child in the womb. One may forsee the possible or even likely loss of the the child, but does not wish or intend it. Further, the death of the child cannot be means by which the woman is saved. The death of the child is only the regrettable side effect of a procedure that is critically necessary to save the mother.

The whole interview is wonderful and he even uses a Star Trek analogy at one point. Consider reading the article. I am interested in your comments. I also realize that the “double effect” scenario mentioned at the end is troubling and difficult for some who are not used to hearing it. But it is straight-forward Catholic moral theology. Nevertheless, I welcome questions about that and also that readers might also supply greater insight to that or any of the points made here.