The Abortion Debate

Since I mentioned abortion in "Political Myopathy," I thought that it would be worthwhile to undertake a more thorough investigation of the various opinions on the subject. There is a vast array of opinions about whether and when abortion should be legal. We will begin with the most radical pro-abortion view and work our way back.

1. Since birth is primarily an accidental change, and children do not have full and active use of the faculty of reason until around age 7, any child up to this age may be aborted.

2. Since birth is primarily an accidental change, and children do not even recognize reason in another, let alone actively use reason, abortion ought to be allowed up until children are able to recognize and follow reason in another.

3. Abortion should be allowed up until the child is born, at which time he becomes a person and a citizen of his country, and thus entitled to life.

4. Abortion ought to be permitted up until the age of viability, at which time it is only accidental that the child is in the womb.

5. Abortion ought to be permitted up until the age of quickening, at which time the child exhibits explicit and quantifiable signs of animal life.

6. Abortion should not be permitted at any point, since the child is a distinct human person from the moment of conception.

Although the first two positions are only rarely proposed, since the laws of every country that I know of rightly consider this to be murder, they seem to be fairly logical extensions of the pro-abortion stance. They are based upon something that is more intrinsic to man than birth.

Still, the use of reason is still potentially present in the individual from the moment the human soul is joined to the new matter. However, until the matter is sufficiently developed, the individual is unable exercise reason. A notion and understanding of the role of soul seems to be the underlying problem in this whole debate. Although the ancients noted that something beyond matter is necessary to explain life. A purely material and physical understanding of the universe is unable to distinguish between or account for the difference between the living and the nonliving. If you were shown a picture of a person and were asked whether he was sleeping or dead, you would be unable to answer.

Now you say, this is still a bit superficial. What if you were able to examine the individual? You would check the individual's vital signs: heart beat, breathing, brain waves, etc. These days, the medical field defines death as the absence of brain waves, but as I mentioned in my post "The meaning of Death" on 23 May 2008, at least two individuals have spontaneously regained "living" after having previously ceased brain function. So called vital signs are signs that generally accompany life, but are insufficient for accounting for or causing life.

We should all just read Aristotle's De Anima.

The ancients still had a hard time explaining what was in utero, especially when in the early stages of gestation, but they all agree that it is at least potentially a fully functioning human person. We now know through ultrasound imaging and surgical procedures that the child moves about under its own power much earlier than previously thought. The ancients could only rely upon the sensation of the mother, but we can "look" into the uterus. The child is also distinct from the mother from its first moments. It has distinct DNA, and its cells are functioning under their own direction to develop the child's body.

This is a tough issue, and unfortunately many on both sides are driven by emotion rather than reason. The discussion also strays into rather accidental matters such as the difficulty in raising a child. No doubt raising children is difficult, but if one is not in such a state as to accept the natural consequences of ones actions, adoption can always be arranged. The real question is whether the child is a human person from the moment of conception, not whether the parents are inconvenienced or the mother's health is put at risk. Risks are not certainties, and what mother or father would not want to give his life for his children after they are born? Does not the motherly or fatherly instinct direct the parents to risk their own harm to protect their children?