A Reply to a Letter on Abortion
Letter from a United Church Minister to a Pro-Life Lawyer

Doug McManaman
Reproduced with Permission

A Reply to a Letter on Abortion (I was recently asked by an Ontario lawyer to respond to the following letter. What follows is the letter, and then the reply to it below.)

Dear _______ :

You have asked me two questions, requesting my response. The Questions are: 1) Does human life start at conception, and 2) Do you have the right to pray and picket outside the _____ General Hospital to stand up for the sanctity of life? I don't know what your conversation with the Rev. ______ contained or if he thought you shouldn't picket the hospital as you claim. However, I have my own response to your questions and it is as follows:

To start with I believe you and I (and ______ too) would heartily agree on the principle of the sanctity of life. However, though this principle is probably the single most basic and standard concept in ethics and law, it is also one of the most elusive. There can be found a great variety and uncertainty about its meaning, origins, and specific normal value. Its roots, though are in theology, the Bible, and philosophy. There are two ideas that are closely related, the sanctity of life, and quality of life. The second concept is even more elusive to define. But much of the arguments over abortion, euthanasia, execution, etc, involve contrasting ideas within these two areas of ethics and conscience. I do not believe one can take a stand absolutely on one of these principle to the ignoring of the other.

(A) There is the doctrine that the life in living organisms is caused and sustained by a vital principle that is distinct from all physical and chemical forces and that life is, in part, self-determining and self-evolving. From this point of view parents don't have the right to abort a genetically defective foetus; parents, physicians and society are not free to choose the genetic quality of children; the interests of both individuals and community are best served by continuing the pregnancy and preserving the new born life of genetically (or otherwise) defective children, no matter how damaged or high the costs of preserving that life; because life is sacred scientists have no right to intervene in the natural processes of human life by means of genetic research and engineering; to encourage such research and manipulation is to risk qualitative changes in human life and the values we attach to life; it risks, in human hands, a dangerous and unpredictable control over human nature and destiny which ought to be left to God and/or the laws of nature. In this view wherever there is human life, any human life, whether comatose life, foetal life, deformed or suffering life, the sanctity of life principle is the final, conclusive reason against taking, ceasing to preserve or (genetically) altering it. The principle is not one reason to weigh along with others in this view - it is the only one that counts. It settles decisions about abortion as readily and directly as decisions about the comatose.

(B) Accepting that it is true the religious roots of the above concept emphatically insists that human life is ultimately divine (of God), that its worth and dignity is sacred and divine, and that humankind does not have dominion over it, does not rule out that God has "deputized" to humankind some of the dominion, some of the control over life. Does not the theological notion of life held "in trust" or "on loan" by us include a degree of responsible decision making by us, even in matters of life and death? Does not the biblical/theological understanding of the world, creation and life being "entrusted" to humankind mean that we are to be responsible decision-makers in response to God's command and with respect for the sanctity of life? While not all theologies or theologians would give an affirmative answer to those questions, many respectable theologies and a great deal of religious practice would.

1. Judeo-Christian morality and practice have long affirmed that there is no inherent contradiction between acknowledging God's dominion over life and death, and yet acknowledging that individuals or the state may, in self-defense, imprison the lives of those judged to be violent offenders or murders, threatening the common good.

2. The Bible and tradition appear to legitimize the principle of control over life shared by God and humankind. And there is no evidence that killing in self-defense in response to a perceived threat is an exception to God's dominion over life, or as a "qualifying" of the sanctity of life principle.

3. In fact arguments in defense of killing in self-defense is legitimate because life is sacred and worth of respect - particularly the lives of those unjustly threatened.

4. It is in accordance with the divine plan and a challenge that humans take responsibility for the world.

5. The gradual transition to the creative freedom of humankind and the secularization of the world was initiated and encouraged by the Christian Gospel. The world is not superior to humankind, or an already finished product, but it is the as yet unformed, rough-hewn material which still and always requires shaping by humankind's free creativity.

6. Responsibility for decision-making and action in the world is left to humans - when they accept that responsibility they are neither playing God nor playing human but being human. Since both theology and human experience suggest that God does not in fact directly intervene in the biological processes of life and death or make life and death decisions, humans would be abdicating responsibility to passively leave the care, protection, and control of life to God.

When does human life begin and when does human life end? Biological/scientific date on the gestational process and on the dying process is interesting knowledge, but the question still has a moral policy. Here there is no one, set, policy for all situations. As new knowledge and discovery are found sometimes old rules have to be up-dated, maybe even changed. At the very least the rules have to be re-examined.

Ethical principles give us standards of relevance or "reasonableness" when appraising these tough questions. Otherwise if these principles were not abstract and indeterminate they would be simply rules of conduct themselves and we would have an endless list and evolution of rules, but no principles and which to test them. (Refer to philosopher Immanual Kant's idea of the categorical imperative).

Kant also argues that only rational, self-aware, free human beings can have absolute value, or dignity, and thus have rights. Things and animals, because not capable of acting responsibly have only value, not dignity. It is questionable that foetus is a person, though obviously a potential to become one. However, it may be well argued that though not persons in the strict sense, the foetus may have value and sanctity and are worthy of protection.

One thing I feel is very important here is the right of the woman to make a decision where faced with good reason to make one regarding an early abortion. Enter here the ethic of responsibility. This is a dynamic matter, whereas in an ethics of rights they tend to be static. Quality of life decision-making goes well beyond an ethics of rights and is closer to an ethic of responsibility. In fact the questions and the subject matter under discussion become insoluble if the Christian law of love is not applied. The theologian, Paul Tillich made the fundamental statement that "life is being in actuality and love is the moving power of life." In our experience of love the nature of life becomes manifest. Love, like all emotions, is an expression of the total participation of the being which is in an emotional state. It is a law unto itself and cannot be overruled by legalities and systems of belief in religious or politics. Neither power nor justice rule love, but love governs all the Christian does and is. I am referring here to the New Testament love, agape, which can only be translated as "Christian love," the unconditional love the first Christians learned from Jesus. St. Paul pointed to Christian love as the highest of all the virtues, and St. Augustine made love the source principle upon which all other virtues hang.

Because of love ethics becomes relative. Love replaces law. Jesus and Paul replaced the precepts of the Jewish Torah with the living principle of agape, goodwill at work in partnership with reason. It seeks the neighbour's best interest with a careful eye to all the factors in the situation. They redeemed law from the letter that kills and taught that it is the spirit of the law that gives it life. Thus the difference between legality and sufferance. Love does not make life simple and easy. It calls for thought, understanding, making decisions. But it does so in the spirit of divine compassion.

In conclusion _____ , I think you have a right to demonstrate for your beliefs. The manner in which you do so gives the appearance of compulsion rather than compassion. Your signs and posters appear to be used to create revolting consideration of your cause. This does not win the attention you desire nor the spirit of compassion I hope underlies your passion. In the name of Christ people have been burned at the stake as examples of His rule, now you would denounce them and ostracize them. Less cruel but no less violent. The newspaper clipping you sent me by Fr. ______ ends with the writer stating: "Into the world of Herod was Jesus Christ born. And in our world today, the cry of the baby of Bethlehem is still heard." To this may I add the words of Joseph Fletcher, professor of Social Ethics, from his book "Situation Ethics," page 156: Even if Christ were to be born a thousand times in a thousand stables, laid in a thousand managers and in a thousand Bethlehem's, unless he is born in our own hearts through our own responsive love, our gratitude responding to his redemptive love, we do not have the faith of the incarnation, we do not know what Christianity is."

Sincerely,

______, January 5, 2004


Reply to Letter Dated January 5, 2004 On Abortion

(D McManaman)

I would argue that there are serious problems with this letter that are easy to resolve. Let's begin with the line:

However, though this principle is probably the single most basic and standard concept in ethics and law, it is also one of the most elusive. There can be found a great variety and uncertainty about its meaning, origins, and specific normal value. Its roots, though are in theology, the Bible, and philosophy. There are two ideas that are closely related, the sanctity of life, and quality of life. The second concept is even more elusive to define.

There is nothing elusive about the concepts 'quality of life' and 'sanctity of life'. The sanctify of life ethics refers to the fundamental Christian principle that human life has its origin directly in God. The human person exists in the image and likeness of God, and thus human life is of immeasurable value. There is no criterion by which to measure the value of human life. Creation exists for the sake of the human person, and the human person is the only being in the physical universe that God the creator has willed into existence for his own sake. That is why human persons must always be treated as an end, and never as a means. To treat another as a means to an end is to love them not for their own sake (in continuity with the intention of God), but for the sake of what he or she does for me (for my sake). To use a person is to abuse a person. The sanctity of life ethics regards individual human life as sacred, holy, created by God, and of immeasurable value.

Contrast this with the quality of life ethic. Here, the contention is that the value of human life can be measured, that it is not invaluable. The criterion for measuring the value of human life is the same criterion used to measure any other product of technology, namely the quality of the thing. So, the quality of life ethic looks to the physical and mental quality of the person. If the child in the womb is developing abnormally, it is believed that one has the right to destroy the child, since it is worth less than had it been developing normally. Similarly, the quality of life of a person in a persistent vegetative state is deemed to be low, and thus the value of this person's life is considered to be less than that of a fully functioning human being.

So there is nothing elusive about these terms. The two attitudes are opposed and cannot be reconciled at all. The author of the letter seems to think they can be reconciled. This is likely the result of his confusion over the terms and his contention that their meaning is elusive. But once their meaning is clarified, it is obvious that the positions are contradictory and thus irreconcilable.

But much of the arguments over abortion, euthanasia, execution, etc, involve contrasting ideas within these two areas of ethics and conscience. I do not believe one can take a stand absolutely on one of these principle to the ignoring of the other.

The author asserts his point, but fails to demonstrate how the two attitudes towards human life (one that attributes a relative value to life, the other an absolute value) can and should be reconciled.

Accepting that it is true the religious roots of the above concept emphatically insists that human life is ultimately divine (of God), that its worth and dignity is sacred and divine, and that humankind does not have dominion over it, does not rule out that God has "deputized" to humankind some of the dominion, some of the control over life. great deal of religious practice would.

Here the author is confusing two principles. God has not 'deputized' anyone to exercise dominion over human life. Punishing criminals by removing them from society is not an instance of exercising dominion over human life. One does not have an inalienable right to live in society. One may lose that right by becoming a threat to the common good. But one does have an inalienable right to life, because God the creator willed each person into existence for his own sake, not for the sake of what he can do for others (although he is called to live in service of others). Human life is a basic intelligible good, not an instrumental good. To regard human life as an instrumental good is to refer that life to the lives of other human beings. That would amount to violating the requirement that we treat other human beings as persons equal in dignity to ourselves. To treat human life instrumentally, that is, in reference to myself, for example, is to treat myself as an end and another human person as a means to my end. This is a violation of fairness. And to directly attack human life, that is, to intentionally destroy human life for whatever reason, is never justified, because human life is intrinsically good, that is, intrinsically holy (sanctity of life ethic).

Does not the theological notion of life held "in trust" or "on loan" by us include a degree of responsible decision making by us, even in matters of life and death?

Yes it does. But responsible decision making does not include exercising dominion over human life (note the word 'dominion' from the Latin 'dominus' or Lord). Much less does responsible decision making include intentionally destroying human life for a good end. As St. Paul says, it is never permitted to do evil that good may come of it (Cf Rm 3, 8). This is a very important moral principle. 'Responsibility' means precisely the 'ability to respond' to human goods. Moral principles are modes of responsibility that direct us to how to respond to human goods, that is, they direct us to love's requirements. A decision that involves the direct or intentional attack on human life cannot be responsible, for it fails to respond to life's intrinsic goodness. It fails to respond to the demands of love.

Does not the biblical/theological understanding of the world, creation and life being "entrusted" to humankind mean that we are to be responsible decision- makers in response to God's command and with respect for the sanctity of life?

What has been entrusted to humankind for its use is not human life, but sub-personal creation. Human life is entrusted to us to revere, not to use as we see fit.

Judeo-Christian morality and practice have long affirmed that there is no inherent contradiction between acknowledging God's dominion over life and death, and yet acknowledging that individuals or the state may, in self-defense, imprison the lives of those judged to be violent offenders or murders, threatening the common good.

No one has ever claimed that there is a contradiction between God's dominion over human life and the principle that the state may imprison violent offenders. That is not in dispute. But one cannot somehow link this idea with the suggestion that perhaps God might permit us to dispose of human life in certain situations. This is poor logic. In fact, it is the Fallacy of Ignoring the Question and Begging the Question at the same time.

The Bible and tradition appear to legitimize the principle of control over life shared by God and humankind. And there is no evidence that killing in self-defense in response to a perceived threat is an exception to God's dominion over life, or as a "qualifying" of the sanctity of life principle.

This is true because killing in self-defense is not direct killing, that is, it is not an instance of intentionally killing another human being. Direct killing involves adopting a proposal that includes the death of the other (child or patient). In self-defense, one is not adopting a proposal that includes the death of the aggressor. But abortion is the adoption of a proposal that includes the death of the unborn child. The moral object of the act is the death of the child (that is why saline is injected, or forceps introduced). Destroying the child is what is chosen as a means to some further end. The author is confusing issues. Abortion is never an act of self-defense, because the unborn child is not an aggressor.

The gradual transition to the creative freedom of humankind and the secularization of the world was initiated and encouraged by the Christian Gospel. The world is not superior to humankind, or an already finished product, but it is the as yet unformed, rough-hewn material which still and always requires shaping by humankind's free creativity.

It is unclear what is meant by 'secularization of the world'. It is difficult to imagine how the Gospel could be behind anything like the secularism we suffer from today. Equally suspicious is the term 'creative freedom'. The only thing that this term could possibly be compared to is the virtue of prudence and the notion of prudential judgment. Whatever the author is getting at, abortion is not and never has been a prudential judgment. In the case of abortion, we have a clear grasp of the relationship that exists between the will and the basic good of human life. Without any ambiguity, the will is directed against human life. Such an action cannot be compared to self-defense, much less the concept of punishment. Justice is ordered towards re-establishing the order of fairness disrupted by the offender. But abortion is directed against the life of the unborn child.

The statement that "the world is not superior to humankind" is also strange and difficult to make sense out of. Indeed, creation exists to serve the needs of humankind. What this has to do with the issue at hand is unclear to me.

Responsibility for decision-making and action in the world is left to humans -when they accept that responsibility they are neither playing God nor playing human but being human. Since both theology and human experience suggest that God does not in fact directly intervene in the biological processes of life and death or make life and death decisions, humans would be abdicating responsibility to passively leave the care, protection, and control of life to God.

I don't think this is correct. God is the First Existential Cause of all that is. Yahweh means 'I AM', or "He Who Is". He is directly and immediately involved in the creation and preservation of all that exists, especially human life. As for leaving the care and protection of human life to God, no, the care and protection of human life is our responsibility. But destroying life is not caring for life, much less is it a case of protecting human life. As for controlling human life, that is not for us, but for God alone. To exercise control over an individual human life is to violate the requirement that each person be treated as a person equal in dignity to ourselves.

When does human life begin and when does human life end? Biological/scientific data on the gestational process and on the dying process is interesting knowledge, but the question still has a moral policy. Here there is no one, set, policy for all situations. As new knowledge and discovery are found sometimes old rules have to be up-dated, maybe even changed. At the very least the rules have to be re-examined.

The biological data on the question of the beginning of human life is indeed a settled question. The answer is at the moment of conception. Professor Hymie Gordon, Chairman of the Department of Medical Genetics in the Mayo Clinic, reported to a Congressional Hearing in April 1981, with regard to abortion:

From the moment of conception, the organism contains many complex molecules; it synthesises new intricate structures from simple raw materials and it replicates itself. By all the criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.

Dr Watson A. Bowes of the University of Colorado Medical School said:

Following fertilisation there is an inexorable series of events that unfolds, with cells dividing, moving, pausing, differentiating and aggregating with a baffling precision and purpose. In the early hours, days and weeks of this development, a hypothetical observer, if able to witness this microscopic drama, would find it impossible to identify precisely when major qualitative changes have occurred, just as parents, observing daily their child's growth and development, cannot say precisely when he or she stopped being a child and became an adult . . . Thus the beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple straightforward matter - the beginning is conception. This is a straightforward biological fact and should not be distorted to serve sociological, political or economic, goals.

The author of the letter continues to argue:

Ethical principles give us standards of relevance or "reasonableness" when appraising these tough questions. Otherwise if these principles were not abstract and indeterminate they would be simply rules of conduct themselves and we would have an endless list and evolution of rules, but no principles and which to test them. (Refer to philosopher Immanual Kant's idea of the categorical imperative).

Principles are not indeterminate. I don't think the author quite grasps the relationship between first principles and intermediate moral principles. As for Immanuel Kant, he underscores a very important principle: 'Treat humanity as an end, never as a means.' That is a very specific and determinate moral principle.

Kant also argues that only rational, self-aware, free human beings can have absolute value, or dignity, and thus have rights. Things and animals, because not capable of acting responsibly have only value, not dignity. It is questionable that foetus is a person, though obviously a potential to become one. However, it may be well argued that though not persons in the strict sense, the foetus may have value and sanctity and are worthy of protection.

The personhood of the fetus is not questionable at all, because its humanity is not. The fetus is not a potential person. Rather, the ovum is a potential person, and the sperm is a potential person. But at conception, a substantial or 'chemical' change takes place. The conceptus is neither an ovum nor a sperm. It is a new substance with a new direction (mitosis). To know what it is, all one has to do is observe it, for we understand the nature of something via its activity. It is not becoming something new, but is itself something new and is in the process of developing itself. A potential being does not develop; only an actual being develops. It is a living whole that is gradually developing its parts. Now, it is not a plant, nor an animal. It is a specific kind of living thing. All we have to do is watch it develop in order to know what kind of life it actually is.

Now a human life is a human person; for there is no distinction between 'human person' and 'human life'. A living human thing is a person. The distinction between 'living human being' and 'person' is a false one and constitutes a dualism that we saw in the mid 19th century in the issue of slavery, when the U.S Supreme Court concluded that even though a slave has a heart and a brain and is biologically a human being, he is not a human person according to the U.S Constitution (Dred Scott).

One thing I feel is very important here is the right of the woman to make a decision where faced with good reason to make one regarding an early abortion. Enter here the ethic of responsibility. This is a dynamic matter, whereas in an ethics of rights they tend to be static. Quality of life decision-making goes well beyond an ethics of rights and is closer to an ethic of responsibility.

The issue is whether a woman really does have the right to decide to end the life of her child at an early stage. The author has not argued his case at all. It does not matter how he 'feels' about it, but whether such a decision is truly in accordance with reason. The term 'ethic of responsibility' employed here is nothing more than a euphemism for moral relativism. The expression 'dynamic matter' is also meaningless. And the opposition between 'ethics of rights' and 'ethics of responsibility' is an invention that has no basis in reality. I have a responsibility to revere human life. I have a responsibility to observe the rights of others. The ethics of responsibility is an ethics of rights. The author is either confused, or is deliberately trying to confuse others.

In fact the questions and the subject matter under discussion become insoluble if the Christian law of love is not applied.

The Christian law of love requires that all persons revere human life and observe the rights of others. Love cannot demand anything less.

The theologian, Paul Tillich made the fundamental statement that "life is being in actuality and love is the moving power of life." In our experience of love the nature of life becomes manifest. Love, like all emotions, is an expression of the total participation of the being which is in an emotional state. It is a law unto itself and cannot be overruled by legalities and systems of belief in religious or politics. Neither power nor justice rule love, but love governs all the Christian does and is.

First, love is not an emotion at all. Love is an act of the will. It is 'benevolence' or willing the other's good for his sake. It corresponds with the Greek 'agape'. Agape is not an emotion. An emotion is not something that one freely initiates, but love isn't love unless it is freely given.

Furthermore, the notion that 'love is a law unto itself' is confused. There are specific demands of love, and this is what the natural moral law and divine law are all about: specifying the concrete requirements of love. Love is not a law unto itself in the sense that it can be divorced from reality, that is, divorced from the requirements of the moral law. Such a notion is absurd. It is true that neither power nor justice rule love. Rather, love governs. But a love that is unjust is not love. A love that fails to revere human life is not love. A love that fails to observe the rights of another person is not love.

I am referring here to the New Testament love, agape, which can only be translated as "Christian love," the unconditional love the first Christians learned from Jesus.

Yes, and Jesus gave up his life so that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. Christ is the measure of agape. But the abortion ethic is the complete reverse, the perfect contradiction of agape. Instead of sacrificing ourselves for the sake of the unborn, here we sacrifice the life of the unborn child so that our lives may become more convenient. It is the perfect 'anti-Christ' act.

St. Paul pointed to Christian love as the highest of all the virtues, and St. Augustine made love the source principle upon which all other virtues hang.

St. Paul also says that 'doing evil that good may come of it' is contrary to love. And St. Augustine was clear that love has very specific demands, and that love can only be channelled through virtue, in particular the virtue of justice. Love is above justice, not below it.

Because of love ethics becomes relative. Love replaces law.

Love does not make ethics relative. Pleasure makes ethics relative. And anyone who reads the Sermon on the Mount cannot come away with the impression that ethics becomes relative through love. And love does not replace law. As Jesus said: 'Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven' (Mt 5, 17-19).

Jesus and Paul replaced the precepts of the Jewish Torah with the living principle of agape, goodwill at work in partnership with reason.

Good will at work in partnership with reason is precisely what condemns abortion as an unspeakable crime. A direct attack on human life is contrary to the principles of practical reasonableness. It is not good will at all. Good will intends the good, and human life is a basic human good, an intrinsic good. Love demands that one must not directly will contrary to human life, because love does not seek to destroy what is good.

It seeks the neighbour's best interest with a careful eye to all the factors in the situation. They redeemed law from the letter that kills and taught that it is the spirit of the law that gives it life.

If the letter kills, and the spirit of the law gives life, then I take it that killing is bad, and giving life is good. Hence, abortion is bad, and giving life to the unborn child is good. The ethics of love is life giving, not death dealing. In fact, sacrifice is the language of love, that is, sacrificing oneself so that others may have life, as Christ did. That is the law of Christ.

Love does not make life simple and easy.

Yes, and unfortunately abortion is simple and easy, whereas taking care of life is difficult.

It calls for thought, understanding, making decisions.

Above all it calls for loving decisions (life-giving decisions).

But it does so in the spirit of divine compassion.

Yes, and destroying human life is far from compassionate. So too, encouraging a woman to abort her baby is one of the most uncompassionate things we can do to a woman. The psychological damage that abortion inflicts is well documented.  

In conclusion ______, I think you have a right to demonstrate for your beliefs. The manner in which you do so gives the appearance of compulsion rather than compassion.

It gives the appearance of compulsion to those who confuse agape with indifference. But it gives the appearance of courage, justice, and love to all those who live in love.

In the name of Christ people have been burned at the stake as examples of His rule

And the irony is that some Christian ministers today will justify abortion in the name of compassion, as examples of His rule. Things haven't changed all that much. A further irony is that the contention of the author of this letter is that love relativizes ethics. That's just what one needs to bring back the burning of heretics in Christ's name, a relativistic ethics that separates love from the concrete demands of a natural law morality. Such an ethics can justify just about anything, especially if it can justify the destruction of the most helpless and voiceless among us.

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