In recent years, I’ve become sympathetic to some pro-life arguments. So on the issue of abortion, I don’t think the Catholic Church is totally backwards. I agree with Catholics on (casual) late-term abortions and even respect their stance against abortion in the case of rape. But excommunicating a nun/medical professional who in good faith just wanted to save the life of a patient is incomprehensible.
So you agree with the LDS position on abortion?
Close, but not quite.
One of the biggest reasons I am for abortion rights (before the age of viability, preferably first-trimester, with late-term available for medical reasons, such as severe defects in the womb) has to do with the fact that I believe NO woman should have to -prove- she was raped in order to get an abortion. I’ve been sexually assaulted twice in my life, both times too young for pregnancy to be an issue, but the idea of -forcing- a woman -or girl- to carry a child that was the result of rape – to have that reminder of what happened with her every single day – is nothing short of torture. If she makes that decision, that’s her own choice to make, but putting her in a position where she doesn’t have that option is disgusting. I cannot respect a position that tells women that they should keep a pregnancy from rape because it is taking even more control out of her hands in the wake of a situation where control was entirely lost.
On the subject of the nun – the question asked why she was excommunicated when pedophiles were not was an excellent one. Such actions make it clear that those in higher positions of the Catholic church are more concerned about protecting their men than preserving lives of women or the innocence of children.
I entirely agree that victims of rape who become pregnant (which is exceptionally rare) have a terrible burden to bear. I don’t hear anyone diminishing that point. But the argument that this justifies abortion always confounds me. In what other crime do we deliver the most severe punishment (death) to a person that had nothing whatsoever to do with the wrong-doing? Imagine what a distorted principle of justice that would look like in any other case. Retributive justice demands that wrong-doers be punished. But it is a clear and obvious violation of retributive justice to punish an innocent.
I do patient billing for Catholic Healthcare West hospitals, including the one in this story.
The fact that I am paid to represent the organization kills me a little, even though I don’t work for them directly.
Having watched the piece, I’m no longer as enraged. The hospital did right. The church did wrong.
I’ll happily play the token “radical” pro-lifer here.
The moral claim here is clear enough – the ends don’t justify the means. It is always and in every case wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Period. Full stop. Human beings have a basic and inviolable dignity. Isn’t that a really humanistic thing to say?!
The mother’s life is not worth any more than the life of the unborn person. The unborn child is not a disease. Doctors should certainly do what they can to save a pregnant mother’s life. But saving her life by intentionally killing an unborn child is morally wrong. Again, the ends don’t justify the means. In a nutshell, utilitarianism is false. This ex-nun approved the intentional killing of an innocent person. Whatever the good outcome for the mother that she was aiming for, that is what she did.
The Church teaching on this is extremely clear, though I hasten to add that the Church’s moral view on abortion is not a sectarian claim but is one rooted in justice claims knowable by natural reason. But Canon law is quite clear on this – if you procure an abortion, you and all of those involved automatically excommunicate themselves (actually the Canon law says that they were all excommunicated the moment the abortion happened, not because of some administrative decision). Note, the Bishop did not excommunicate her, she excommunicated herself by her choice. Let’s look for a moment at this scary sounding word “excommunicate”. What does it mean? Well, she chose to exit the community of Catholic believers, to put herself outside of the communion of belief in which she once apparently shared. She is free to do that.
People will pile on the Church for this. That is predictable enough. But what are they piling on for? Is the Catholic Church obligated to allow anyone and everyone, with whatever sort of beliefs on fundamental moral and theological issues, full communion with the Church? Is the Church required to not have principles? Is the Church not permitted to stand up for its principles – indeed, to stand up for the basic principles of justice?
The argument is not that the Catholic Church doesn’t have the right to excommunicate her. Given the Canon law (and I’ll trust your reading of it), that was the consequence of her action. But insofar as the Canon law makes what I think is a morally permissible (if not obligatory) action excommunicable, the Canon law ought to be reconsidered.
Plus, had the pregnancy not been terminated, both the mother AND fetus would likely have died, no?
I don’t know if they both would have died, though that was clearly a possibility. But this misses the point – the ends don’t justify the means.
Standard intro to ethics example: a man kidnaps you and your family. He offers this proposal: you kill one of your kids or else I kill all of you. Do you kill your kid? I don’t. Why? Because it is always and everywhere wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. I am not a consequentialist.
I asked my dad this question. His answer made me laugh: “I’d kill the kidnapper.” Ha ha.
In real life, I wouldn’t take the offer. Having to decide which child to kill would be unfathomably painful. But that I wouldn’t take the offer doesn’t mean I shouldn’t.
Jon – it might morally obligatory to kill an innocent person in order to save someone else’s life? Once generalized, doesnt this look like a disturbing moral principle to you?
Yes, kill the kidnapper! Hey, it is a trumped up example, though it gets to the point.
You are right, that you wouldn’t doesn’t mean you ought not. That said, the initial “gut” moral reaction does deserve some attention.
“…to kill an innocent person in order to save someone else’s life? Once generalized, doesnt this look like a disturbing moral principle to you?”
Damn. I never thought of it that way.
Sincerely, Jesus
Touché! But Ryan, don’t you call the act of deicide evil? There is a difference between killing innocents and making of oneself a sacrifice.
Also, I don’t go for penal substitution theories of atonement that reduce the cross to utility.
In short, Ryan, aren’t you conflating killing and dying? The principle here is that it is wrong to kill innocents to save innocents. This does not mean that it is wrong to die for the sake of innocents.
If killing (and being an accomplice in it) Jesus was a morally excellent or obligatory, then why is Judas not a great saint? Instead, Satan is chewing on him in the frozen pit of he’ll (Dante).
Judas “was elected to a work for which he was fitted,” according to Augustine (De correptione et gratia 7.14), while Jesus’ other disciples were “elected to mercy,” and “to inherent the kingdom.” So, quite frankly, I think we’re asking the same question.
It disappoints me that apparently none of you have seen The Dark Knight. When the occupants of the ferries rigged with explosives are ordered “press the button to destroy the other ferry or you all die”, they made the right choice and waited for Batman to capture the joker and save them all. Nobody should act rashly until Batman has been given enough time to intervene.
Ryan – Without getting into Augustine’s theory of election (that would be a pretty serious “thread-jack”, wouldn’t it?), let me put it to you square:
Do you think that Christians are committed to the general moral approval of killing innocents in order to save the lives of others?
I am going to be really surprised if you say yes.
Dr. Kleiner
Two thoughts:
1) No need to get your bike-riding britches in a bunch. You are, after all, the one who brought up Judas and tried to get… snarky.
2) Anyone serious about the Bible as “the word of God” needs to either affirm the above or explain himself. Christians constantly point to the suffering and death of innocents, often during natural disasters, as a means God uses to bring an awareness of His power –and goodness– to a lesser number. The God of the Hebrew Bible would seem to have no qualm with this.
Presumably those who find this “incomprehensible” or are enraged by this moral position think it is morally permissible to kill innocent people in order to procure other ends. (So far all of the posters seem willing to grant that the unborn is a human being, at least at some point).
Once you allow for the intentional killing of an innocent, once you say that the ends justify the means, in what principled way will you limit this? It is not hard to see that such a principle, evenly applied, would be morally obnoxious.
Is it for the life of the mother? Her mental health? How malleable of a category is that? Maybe we would kill innocents because we judge their lives to be not worth living (I am not sure if this is what Cherie meant by “defects in the womb” … but even if she did not intend that, plenty of people hold that position). Take it to non-pregnancy examples. Can we kill elderly people for the sake of certain desirable ends? What about the mentally handicapped? Perhaps the terminally ill? Which ends will justify these means? How will you draw the line? I’ll let Peter Singer’s own words hang him: “I do not deny that if one accepts abortion … the case for killing other human beings, in certain circumstances, is strong.” (this is from Singer’s book “Practical Ethics”)
I’m a utilitarian. I think my atheism commits me to that (not that I wasn’t a utilitarian as a Mormon, however). And while I probably disagree with where Singer draws some of his moral lines, that disagreement is over particulars, not fundamentals.
And even were I to subscribe to the philosophy that “the end doesn’t justify the means,” I would do so out of utilitarian concerns. That’s kind of the cliche utilitarian response to deontology, I know–that deontology is at its base still utilitarian–but I buy it.
Also, if the ends never justify the means, how can you ever justify war? Wouldn’t you have to be radically pacifistic?
This may be off topic, but I’ve tossed this around in my mind and I wanted to get your opinion on the subject. I’m very sympathetic to the moral assertion that the ends don’t justify the means (what distinguishes us from the “bad guys” again?). However, if we hold to this principle I think that it goes farther than many of us might like. In war, we send soldiers into battle with an almost certain knowledge that many will die. However, we are willing to let some of our innocent soldiers die to defend the rest of our society. If we don’t think the ends justify the means, then how can we in good conscious approve of any action that would sacrifice some lives to preserve others, including even defensive warfare? How could we be anything but complete pacifists? I might (and probably am) missing something, and if I am I would appreciate being corrected. Again, I’ve wrestled with this before and I don’t have an answer to this question. Any thoughts on this would be great.
I avoided nuance above for the sake of clarity with the issue at hand. But I’ll add some nuance to address the just war issue.
First it is worth saying that some kind of pacifism should look attractive to non-consequentialists. I am last on line for hawkishness.
On the ends and the means point: “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (Thomas Aquinas)
That said, the Catholic tradition (and Aquinas) does tend to defend just war in rare
circumstances, so what gives? Let’s compare abortion and war. One is an intrinsic evil (one that can never be justified). The other is not –
because in the case of a just war you are not actually killing innocents.
So let me rephrase Aquinas: “An (intrinsicly) evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention”.
Sorry for being redundant. I didn’t see Jon’s latest post.
I know of one catholic woman who wouldn’t receive the abortion no matter what the case because of what her church has said on the matter. She would die with her child, rather than sacrificing her unborn child to save herself (even though the child would have no possibility of living). Not only do I think this is terrible for the woman (and is similar to suicide) but is entirely destructive to her family and her already born children. To have her follow this idea to her death and the emotional and circumstantial damage to her family just seems utterly ludicrous and based on faulty logic.
Now if the woman were to sacrifice herself to save the child, that is a different story. I think the woman has as much right to decide to die so her child can live as she has a right to terminate the fetus to save herself. However, I still think this brings up the issues of suicide for the CC. Would they rather have the mother effectively kill herself or would they have her kill an innocent? Although, it might be possible to not view it as a suicide because “god” is causing the death of the mother.
The woman did not commit suicide. She did not die be her own hand, nor God’s. It was whatever disease that she had that killed her. People with cancer that stop chemo treatments don’t kill themselves, they die of cancer.
So she chose not to sustain her own life by intentionally killing an innocent. That looks admirable to me. Did it have a negative emotional impact on her family? Perhaps. But does the emotional welfare of your family justify killing an innocent person? Goodness no! It is always and everywhere wrong to commit the intrinsic evil of intentionally killing an innocent person.
It is suicide by not partaking in preventable action when there is a solution guaranteed to work. Remember how the parents in Oregon didn’t give their son medicine for a basic illness because it was against their religion, and the son died? Well, they are now being prosecuted for murder. It’s the same idea. They effectively killed their son because they refused him vital medical attention. If a woman can be saved by removing a dying fetus, but she refuses, it is effectively suicide.
I find it interesting that you call “it” an innocent in one phrase, and a disease in another.
Or is it just an innocent disease? Who’s to say that we should kill off diseases?
If I referred to the unborn person as an “it”, I did not mean to. Persons are Thous and not Its. Chalk it up to late night posting. I certainly never called the unborn a “disease” – in fact I went out of my way to say that being pregnant is not a disease.
Ben says: “If a woman can be saved by removing a dying fetus, but she refuses, it is effectively suicide.”
Let’s take out the medicalized language and “call things by their proper name” (JPII). “If a woman can be saved by killing an innocent person, but she refuses, it is effectively suicide.”
Really?
Ben says, “It is suicide by not partaking in preventable action when there is a solution guaranteed to work.” Well, perhaps I can only be saved by an emergency transplant, but there are no ready donors. So if I do not kill an innocent person to harvest their organs, I am “effectively” committing suicide?
Look, intentionally killing a person is NOT a medical treatment. That we consider it a medical treatment goes to show how much the pro-choice movement has won the semantics of the debate. Hence JPII’s insistence in Evangelium Vitae that we call things by their proper name.
If you want to “speak plainly” put it this way: “If a woman can be saved by killing an innocent unborn child who has no chance at life what so ever and the unborn child would die of natural causes within a few weeks no matter the case, but the woman refuses, it is effectively suicide.”
I would still call this negligent suicide, you have me unconvinced. Your comparison is off the mark. Consider a comparison with a tumor, because the innocent is going to die regardless of what is done. If there were a massive tumor in a woman’s stomach, and doctors could easily and readily remove it to save the woman’s life, but she refused, it would be a form of negligent suicide.
Kleiner, put your wife in place of the woman. If your wife had your unborn child inside of her, and it was dying but also killing your wife, you wouldn’t want your wife to have the abortion? You would rather have her die to avoid the sin of terminating a child that never had a chance of living?
Ben -
Two points:
1) On the question of suicide here I think you are seriously confused on a metaphysical level. There is a difference between killing and letting die. When you kill (yourself or another), you are the cause of the death. When you let die, the disease is the cause of the death. The notion that man is the cause of every death – either by his action or inaction – is symptomatic of modern man’s intoxication with his alleged mastery over nature so that all causes come to be seen as human causes.
Does everyone who refuses medical treatment kill themselves? Must we then, to avoid committing suicide, take every possible measure to prolong life all the way to the very end? In this day and age, there is almost always some other medical treatment you could try, all the way to the bitter end. So is it never, then, morally permissible to enter hospice care? This would make the coroner’s job easy in most deaths – just enter “suicide” every time a person refuses life-saving treatment at the end of a long medical struggle.
That being said, the distinction by itself does not tell us about the morality of the action in either case. Rather, this distinction gets us clear on the causes of things. But I can imagine justified killings. And I can also imagine unjustified cases of letting one die. An example: if you come upon a boy drowning in a pond, and you just sit there and let him die, I think you have some moral responsibility for his death even though you did not kill him (you were not the cause of death).
But I go back to something very simple: killing an innocent person is not a medical procedure! I think my analogy to the killing an innocent to harvest organs is a good analogy.
2) We have two kids and my wife is 33 weeks along in another pregnancy now (she is due July 22, you can all pray for her that day
). We have had this discussion every time she has been pregnant. Of course what we would rather have happen is not be faced with such a terrible situation (I am thinking of immanent death for the mother unless she aborts). God willing we won’t be faced with it this time (of course at this point in this pregnancy we could do an emergency c-section and the baby would have an extremely good chance of surviving).
It is an absolutely wrenching decision, I don’t think anyone would deny that. But the principle is pretty clear. My wife actually does not like talking about it (pregnant women can have some emotional turbulence, you know), but she always says that she knows it would be wrong to abort even in this case. For me, I am sure the decision would be absolutely terrifying. Do I want to excommunicate myself from the Church? How principled am I? My answer sitting right here is to heed the principle, never intentionally kill an innocent. But let’s hope I never have to find out how principled I am. I hope that for all of you too.
I disagree with the Catholic position that mom should go down with the ship, especially when we’re talking about an 11 week fetus. There is very, very scant evidence that an 11 week fetus occupies any kind of moral ground like “an innocent” or even “person,” whereas we can be quite sure that mom is a living, breathing human being, whose life should be given priority.
And btw, if this gives any insight into the “you shoot one of your family members or I’ll kill them all scenario,” if I were the doctor in charge of a woman who wanted to sacrifice herself rather than abort a dying fetus, I knock that woman out, abort the fetus, and let the chips fall where they may. I’d be a monster if I didn’t. This is a bad analogy anyway, since as I say, I don’t believe a fetus has the moral standing of a living human, but let’s just, for interest sake, say that it is. And let’s say that I’m a stranger standing in the living room of a family and some psycho says to me, “kill this kid or I’ll kill the whole family.” The correct answer, of course, is what Jon’s dad said, but let’s say that’s not an option. Who’s to say that the most morally virtuous thing I could do would be to shoot the kid? Of course, I can’t then expect high moral points from the family. In fact, the sacrifice I’ve made may well lead to the father killing me in turn, but in the end I will have saved the rest of the family, and in killing me, the father will have killed the person who killed his son.
Someone mentioned The Dark Knight Scenario, but there was also a scene in the remake to the Poseidon Adventure where one person is pulling another person up an elevator shaft and that person has someone hanging onto his legs. The elevator is free-falling down from above them and the person holding them says “kick him off, or we’ll all die.” The one guy kicks the other guy off his legs and the two of them are saved. This is pretty much the utilitarian perspective, and though it left a decidedly bad taste in the audience’s mouth, it seemed to be dramatically accepted. Nobody really wants to imagine scenarios like this, but they happen all the time.
Hunt raises a different objection than everyone else. Hunt is right in this – if the unborn (at this stage or any other stage) has no moral status then there would be absolutely no reason to not abort. If it is just tissue, then it is like picking a scab.
I will hold back from making arguments on the moral status of the unborn. I am not sure Jon intended to start a whole debate on the morality of abortion. The Nun case was interesting because you can frame it as making a choice to save a life by taking one.
I’ll just say this: any concept of the person (see Peter Singer or Mary Anne Warren) that excludes the unborn will invariably exclude other people that we don’t want to exclude (newborns, mentally handicapped, the sleeping, those in comas, etc etc).
To declare against utilitarianism is all well and good, until the shit hits the fan, then people tend to waffle.
For those who want to delve into the emotional aspect of this question probably better than it could be described in words, watch Sophie’s Choice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie's_Choice_(film)
But again, this is really a false analogy.
A foetus is not a child. It is not a person. It is no more murdering/killing “an innocent” to abort a pregnancy than it is to eat a chicken. Probably even less so than that, because especially at earlier stages of development, there is not only an utter lack of intelligence, cognition, and self-awareness, but also of pain.
“I’ll just say this: any concept of the person (see Peter Singer or Mary Anne Warren) that excludes the unborn will invariably exclude other people that we don’t want to exclude (newborns, mentally handicapped, the sleeping, those in comas, etc etc).”
Prove it. In what way is the slippery slope argument valid in this case? I don’t think that it is at all. There is a clear delineation between a foetus and a born child or otherwise extra-uterine person. The unborn aren’t legally considered people in many, many countries, and it has not yet led to the murder of newborns, handicapped, those in comas or most ridiculously of all, people who are sleeping. We needn’t necessarily take every idea to it’s most extreme logical conclusion. I don’t agree with Singer that in order for it to be moral to abort is has to also be moral to kill a newborn. Morality isn’t a set of totally rational, logical rules. It is malleable to fit the situation, the person, etc. It is perfectly ok for our society to decide that it is moral to abort a foetus but immoral to murder a child, of any age.
Anti-abortion activists have not proven their assertion that a foetus, of whatever stage of development, is a person. Almost inevitably, once religious arguments and dogma are removed, the right of a woman to choose seems stronger than the right of a foetus to not be aborted. I do think that very late-term abortions are to be avoided, if possible, and I see a difference between a 1st or even 2nd trimester abortion and a 3rd trimester abortion. Ideally, a woman who knew she didn’t want a child would be able to abort in the 1st trimester, and later abortions would only occur because of defect, accident, disease, or other health risk. But because of how limited abortion services are, and how socially unacceptable it is to get an abortion, it is often unfeasible or impossible for a women to obtain a timely abortion. I therefore value the right of a women to choose over the rights of a foetus to not be aborted. I do not consider a human foetus to be a person with full human rights.
And while a foetus has the potential to become a human, but so does every sperm, every egg, every fertilized ovum that didn’t correctly adhere to the uterine lining. Is it murder to masturbate? To have your period? If a foetus legitimately has personhood, is the morning after-pill a form of murder?
Furthermore, I’m uncomfortable with the assumption of speciesist beliefs. In the end, humans are animals. We may be self-aware and (somewhat) intelligent, but we’re still animals. To accord huge amounts/degrees of rights to humans and nearly none to other animals (including our close cousins, apes), seems rather hypocritical.
I agree that an early term fetus, that lacks self-awareness and pain, is not a person. I am fine with 1st trimester abortion, morning after pills, contraception, masturbation and periods. But don’t we, as a society, have the obligation to establish when a fetus becomes a person with all the rights of a person? Should a 3rd term fetus have the same lack of rights as an embryo? I’m not arguing here, this is an honest question of mine.
There is so much to respond to here. There is a lot of really misinformed and sloppy thinking in this post. It is predictably laced with ridiculous assertions about “dogma” and all the rest of it. People who have discussed this topic with me before can vouch for me on this – I NEVER invoke religious dogma or revelation when I argue against abortion. You do not need to. The wrongness of abortion can be known by principles of justice known to natural reason.
Still, Craig (and Hunt) have fingered the issue. If the unborn is not a human person (does not have moral value), then abortion is permissible. But, by arguing this way, you pretty well cede (as you should) the relevant principle of justice (that it is wrong to intentionally kill innocent people, no matter what good comes). Okay. That means it is now a question of application. Who is a person?
Some responses to some of Craig’s points, in no particular order:
1) Masturbation and menstruation are not murder because the egg and semen are not human beings. Those who make this argument demonstrate little more than their ignorance of what the pro-life arguments actually say. The inseminated egg is genetically human, with its own unique genetic identity. A life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the moether. Aren’t a lot of you materialists? Isn’t this a slam dunk argument for a materialist that the unborn is human?
2) If there was such a “clear delineation between a foetus and a born child”, then I wonder why there is so much disagreement? Oh, because of “dogma”. Yawn. Is there a clear delineation between a fetus 2 weeks before birth and the born baby? Sure doesn’t seem like it to me.
The baby in the nun case was aborted at 11 weeks. By that time, the unborn person has all of its organs, hands, fingernails, etc. It is moving spontaneously. This actually doesn’t require much moral imagination (as it does in the very early weeks). Take a look for yourself:
http://www.pregnancy.org/fetaldevelopment/week-11
3) Since it should be obvious to everyone that the unborn is a human from conception, pro-choicers move the goal posts. Now being human is not enough, you have to be a person, as if you could be a human and not be a person. In my view, you cannot be a human without being a person. And I don’t much get in for “function tests” to see who is and who is not a person. Again, these will invariably lead to morally obnoxious exclusions. How could a human individual not be a human person?
4) Mary Anne Warren makes one of the more famous arguments for the permissibility of abortion from the concept of personhood. (Google her article ‘On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion’). Her criteria are very close to Craig’s. Consciousness and the ability to feel pain, the ability to reason (solve relatively complex problems), the ability to act in ways that go beyond instinct (anticipate the future, choose, etc.), the capacity for complex communication, and having a sense of self. Singer’s argument is similar but not identical.
She thinks you need to have all of these in order to be a person. Warren herself thinks this would provide moral justification for infanticide. Is this taking her concept of the person to “extreme logical conclusions”? No. It is called being logically consistent.
Now let me reassert that I am not into function tests for personhood. That is just a behaviorist reduction that I reject for older reasons. But even if we are going to play the functionalist game, let’s look at the criteria (again, I am just rapid-firing here, not in any particular order):
- There is medical evidence that the unborn can feel pain as early as 8 weeks. In the nun case, the abortion happened at 11 weeks.
- Newborns cannot solve relatively complex problems, nor can some mentally handicapped adults. I’m am not sure when a regularly developed child has this capacity, but it may take a while. So they would be excluded.
- A human being would cease to be a person when asleep or temporarily comatose. So you are a person while awake, lose the status when you go to sleep, then regain the status when you wake up. What an absurd conclusion.
- Depending on what is meant by “complex communication” (I think Warren describes that as the ‘ability to speak in an indefinite number of ways on an indefinite number of topics). At what age can a child do that? 6? 12? What about those with dementia? Again, the mentally handicapped would be excluded.
I could go on …
I would make two arguments for treating the unborn as a person, which I will only gloss here:
1) I would also make a metaphysical argument, one which appears confirmed by modern genetic science. The unborn has its own genetic identity and has its own program of existence, growth, and development. (Isn’t it inconvenient when science actually justifies the views of religious people? And isn’t this a case where the secularist is actually subverting science for the sake of their own dogmas?)
2) Even if we could not know when human personhood begins (if it is “above our pay grade”, as Obama said), then morality would require that we act as if it was. Say you are planning on demolishing a building, but you don’t know if there are any persons inside. How should you proceed? Since you do not know for sure if there are persons in the building, ought you proceed as if there were or were not? Since human persons have inherent dignity and value, I always err on the side of valuing the human person. (Again, I think I am more humanistic than most people on this blog!).
In other words, the mere probability or possibility that the unborn is a person should suffice to justify a prohibition of killing the unborn. In this sense, we need not agree on the metaphysics of personhood.
Is it “socially unacceptable” to get an abortion? It is the most common “medical procedure” in the united states. There are more abortions than live births in New York city.
Craig’s argument, following Singer on speciesism, can be consistent (though I think still wrong), but I don’t buy Craig’s argument that you can wiggle out of some of the morally ugly and uncomfortable conclusions.
By the way, morning after pills are not always abortifacient. If it prevents insemination then it is not. But if insemination has occurred, then it is. I believe Catholic hospitals will use these mess during a short window after a rape event, though don’t quote me on that.
Kleiner, A few things to consider:
On that it is always wrong to kill innocents: This is fair, but I would change “wrong” to “very undesirable.” I’m thinking of instances of surgical separation of Siamese twins. This is kind of a contrived example, though pretty much identical to the “mother with dying fetus” scenario. Twin are sometimes separated with the foresight that one of them won’t survive the operation. During the procedure it becomes clear which is stronger and the other one is abandoned. Now, you might file this one under Aquinas’ dictum that there was no intention to kill, but really, this just seems like mental gymnastics. You can hear something similar in the video when the priest recites the practiced “there was no intention to abort…” No, there was intention to abort, and no amount of rhetorical slight of hand is going to get you out of it. It’s terribly important to be crystal clear on this, so that you can face the real implications of the act. Saving a woman’s life by aborting the fetus really is doing an abortion.
On the difference between egg and sperm and fertilized egg: Yes an inseminated egg is “genetically human,” but then so is ever cell in your body, so are the cells in a hair follicle that gets pulled out when you comb your hair. You’re really up against a wall when you claim that a fertilized egg has any greater status than a sperm, without resort to some kind of religious hocus pocus. It has a complete duplex set of genes. So? Craig’s point is simply that if you’re going to do a reduction on being human back to the blastocyte, you might as well continue going back to the egg and sperm. THAT is the true spirit of materialist reduction. And in an interesting sense, turning tables on you, it’s you who is being the material reductionist when you claim that what is human is contained solely (if you will) within the fertilized egg. Yes, that is the thing that is worth preserving and fighting over, an amorphous blob that could not possibly have moral status without some kind of supernatural essence.
Of course, along with this idea comes the responsibility to, yes, really consider the developmental aspects of the fetus, its emergent status in the womb. But the simplistic “it’s got 46 chromosomes, it must be human” is not going to cut it.
3) Since it should be obvious to everyone that the unborn is a human from conception, pro-choicers move the goal posts. Now being human is not enough, you have to be a person, as if you could be a human and not be a person.
This is an equivocation on “human.” Do you mean “human tissue” or “human person,” because you switch back and forth as suits your purpose.
On your last two points:
1. I’ve pretty much covered above.
2. To err on the side of valuing human life sounds so good it’s tempting to dismiss it as propaganda. Remember, however, the other side of the coin. The ability for woman to control their reproductive lives. The end of “back alley” abortions. The consideration of rape victims, and so on and on. The issue is a massive controversy because there are so simple platitudes that can be followed.
Since I think every human being is a human person, I don’t grant that it is an equivocation. But I am well aware that some consider that an equivocation and so try to divide the “genetically human” from the concept of being a human person. That is why that was the next point I engaged.
Hunt says, “You’re really up against a wall when you claim that a fertilized egg has any greater status than a sperm, without resort to some kind of religious hocus pocus.”
I just entirely disagree with this claim. Something happens at conception. Something unique exists after conception that did not exist before. This “something” has a unique genetic identity and has its own program of existence. The sperm will not become a human adult given its own course of existence. Neither will the egg. But the inseminated egg will, so long as its environment is conducive. But in no environment will the mere sperm or mere egg transform itself into a human adult over time. Was there any “religious hocus pocus” in that? Let me turn the question around – is it impossible to be a pro-life atheist, because the pro-life stuff is imported by “religious hocus pocus”?
I would respond in a similar vein to the claim that inseminated eggs are no different than cells. One has a program of life and development that is unique and its own. Allow the inseminated egg to develop in its own natural way and in a favorable environment, and it will become a human adult. The hair follicle you yank out of my head will not. So maybe I was too short above. The inseminated egg has its own unique genetic identity (so is not the mother or the father, there is a 3rd human on the scene) with its own program of life and development. This makes it a unique human individual.
By the way, I don’t think the doctrine of double effect (the “mental gymnastics” with unintended effects) is just mental gymnastics. The doctrine can certainly be abused (and the priest in the video was mightily abusing it, I think), but I think it is a legitimate moral principle.
I am not sure you really responded to my probability argument, other than saying it sounded too good. Is that an objection?
I guess your response was the “other side of the coin” – the woman’s “right to choose”. But I reject that whole semantic approach to begin with. First, I think the whole idea of “choice” in this debate just hides a really disordered notion of freedom (you are your brother’s keeper, you know). Second, no one has a right to choose to intentionally kill an innocent person, no matter how much it might burden them to not be able to kill them. The whole language of choice here is simply misplaced. Imagine using that language of choice in the case of killing any other innocent person! (Do we need to “balance” my right to choose to kill atheists against the rights of atheists to live?!)
This puts us back to square one, whether or not the unborn is a person or not. But perhaps we can agree on this, just so we narrow the debate. IF the unborn is a person, then it is morally wrong to intentionally kill the unborn and the language of choice is misplaced. IF the unborn is not a person, then the language of choice is correct because there is no moral status to the “tissue”.
But it is here, I think, that my probability argument (well, it is not mine, JPII makes it in Evangelium Vitae) has great force. Since it is exceedingly difficult to settle the debate on personhood, we are down to placing our bets. I think my bet is the most compassionate and humane. In fact, I have a hard time imagining what a justification for the other “bet” would even look like.
All of that said, the rape case is obviously particularly tragic. But I will repeat what I said above – in what other instance would we levy the most extreme punishment against a person who had no hand in the crime? Anyway, I will say that as a practical political tactic I would be happy to prohibit abortion in all cases except the immanent life of the mother or cases of abortion or incest. While the studies vary, it appears that less than 1% of the abortions performed each year in the United States are for rape or incest. About 6% are for the “health” of the mother, but I can only presume that only a minuscule subset of that is for life-saving cases. I have seen .1% as a reported figure on this. There were 820,151 abortions in the US in 2008. If we had a law that might actually pass (abortion only in cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother), we would have had only 9,021. I still think those are wrong, of course, but I think you have to be prudential in politics.
Another noteworthy statistic: while the rape case is incredibly tragic, a Harvard study found that over 75% of women who were impregnated by a rape event chose to keep the baby.
A political aside: I am cautiously optimistic. More people now self-identify as pro-life than pro-choice in this country. And even pro-choice leaders have openly discussed their concerns about the future because young people are increasingly pro-life and are quite energetic about it (NARAL head Keegan made some news a while back bemoaning the incredible passion of the some 400,000 people, many young people, at the March for Life rally). The pro-choice contingent (and certainly the pro-choice leadership) appears to be graying. There has been a consistent drop in the number of people aged 18-29 who support abortion since the early 1990s (with a nearly 10 point jump in those saying abortion should be “illegal in all circumstances”). This is really quite a remarkable statistic since younger people tend to be “left” on most social issues (more accepting of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, etc).
The difference? Ultrasound technology. It is just amazing what you can see. Seeing the ultrasound is a fairly blunt instrument of moral argument, but pictures are very effective. As best as I can tell, the pro-choice counter-assault falls pretty flat (‘Ignore the picture and what you plainly see with your eyes and listen to us make new distinctions between human being as a biological class and human being as a member of the moral community!’).
Kleiner quote: “Something unique exists after conception that did not exist before. This “something” has a unique genetic identity and has its own program of existence. The sperm will not become a human adult given its own course of existence. Neither will the egg. But the inseminated egg will, so long as its environment is conducive. But in no environment will the mere sperm or mere egg transform itself into a human adult over time.”
That’s an accurate description, and I’ll grant that physically and metaphysically there is “something there” that was not before. The real question is whether that something has enough moral status to demand its preservation in the face of other factors. This is where many pro-life advocates dismiss every reason for abortion as mere frivolity, and this is really giving short shrift to the argument. It simply isn’t a slam dunk to say we should err on the side of life when you haven’t adequately assessed the subject matter. It’s simply not acceptable to dismiss a ruined life, a ruined career, an abusive relationship, etc. as mere frivolity. Most importantly, it’s not fair to women who had to suffer botched abortions, those that are suffering them now today, and the potential droves that may suffer them in the future. According to Guttmacher Institute, 70,000 women die, worldwide, from complications of illegal abortion.
Kleiner quote: “I guess your response was the “other side of the coin” – the woman’s “right to choose”. But I reject that whole semantic approach to begin with. First, I think the whole idea of “choice” in this debate just hides a really disordered notion of freedom (you are your brother’s keeper, you know).”
Well, as per my previous answer the stakes are higher than just abridgement of freedom, but again, I get the impression that all anti-abortionists picture some valley girl inconveniently found pregnant and wanting to get rid of it before the prom. The situation is a bit more serious for a lot of women. However, I wonder, since you call this a disordered notion of freedom, what is your opinion of Thomson’s “violinist” scenario? If you’re not familiar with it, a summary is here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion
“Do we need to “balance” my right to choose to kill atheists against the rights of atheists to live?!)”
As indicated in the case of the violinist, this is very dependent on the intimate physical demands imposed on the personal right of a mother. You have no right to kill atheists; there are no atheists connected to you by tubes (I’m guessing).
Kleiner quote: “I think my bet is the most compassionate and humane. In fact, I have a hard time imagining what a justification for the other “bet” would even look like.”
Well, now I’ve given you a couple things to chew on!
Kleiner quote: “The difference? Ultrasound technology. It is just amazing what you can see. Seeing the ultrasound is a fairly blunt instrument of moral argument, but pictures are very effective. As best as I can tell, the pro-choice counter-assault falls pretty flat (‘Ignore the picture and what you plainly see with your eyes and listen to us make new distinctions between human being as a biological class and human being as a member of the moral community!’).”
I can’t argue with your stats, if they are accurate, however I assiduously avoid indulging propaganda. Ultrasound images are perhaps not classifiable as that, nor maybe are endless photos of tiny hands wrapped around adult fingers, but I take them all with a grain of salt. I have no doubt whatsoever that if a properly funded and organized movement had found organ transplant reprehensible we would have been barraged with a number of gross photos and today kidney transplant would be labeled ghoulish and require surreptitious and stealthy arrangement.
In the future I would not be surprised at all if late term abortion is outlawed here, and who knows, maybe justifiably. If a sound decision is ever made it will be by pure chance, since there’s never been a rational discourse and probably never will. I have greater doubts that early abortion will ever again be outlawed.
So we have found some common ground. This why I said it was obvious that the inseminated egg is a human (in the biological sense) from the very beginning. So we agree on this; everyone agrees on this. That is why Mary Warren and others have to move the goalposts, shift gears and argue about personhood instead of humanity (now reduced to the “biological” sense).
My position is then this: you cannot be a human and not be a person. All human beings, whatever their functionality, are human persons from the moment of their conception. Not all persons are human (God is personal, and angels are persons, and there might be alien creatures that are personal), but all human beings are persons as a matter of kind.
My probability argument is that even if we think that one can be biologically human without being a person, it is extremely difficult to sort out when that occurs (and frankly most attempts to sort it out have ugly or absurd consequences in terms of excluding humans that we all think are persons – like the mentally handicapped, the sleeping, young children, etc), so we ought to bet that they are a person if there is even a chance that they are.
I do want to clarify something: I hope I have not given the impression that I think every abortion is done out of mere frivolity. I am afraid that many are simply selfish choices, but I know that many abortion decisions are difficult and heart-wrenching. In no way have I sought to dismiss the emotional trauma of unwanted pregnancies. I know that there is great pain in many of these decisions, and often a feeling of being faced with two really bad choices.
That said, I do think it is still a slam dunk. Assuming the unborn is a person, the value of a person ALWAYS outweighs any amount of emotional trauma for another person. No matter how much emotional trauma is caused, the desire to alleviate that emotional trauma would NEVER justify intentionally killing an innocent person.
Again, once you grant that the unborn is a person, I think moral statements like this one look perfectly obvious. Saying this does not mitigate my compassion for the person who suffers the emotional pain (ruined life, abuse, etc). But here is about as morally obvious a statement as I think I could make – you can’t kill innocent people just because it would make you feel better (again, fully validating the legitimacy of those painful emotions and experiences).
So don’t include me as a pro-lifer who thinks all abortions are valley girls getting rid of an unwelcome “problem” before the prom. However, the other side should not over-state their case – there are plenty of elective abortions done for those selfish and frivolous reasons.
I teach the Judith Thompson uver-anthologized article in my Social Ethics course. Worth noting that in that article she grants the claim that the unborn is a person from the very beginning. Of course, that is what is so interesting about her argument – she cedes what most pro-lifers take to be the clinching premise, but then still argues that abortion is permissible in some cases.
Her argument has actually been unpopular with a lot of pro-choicers because her argument would limit abortion quite substantially, probably to cases of rape and perhaps cases of failed contraception (though I think her argument there is much much weaker). But I go against Thompson’s intuition. Thompson is banking on the fact that most readers will agree that it would make you a good samaritan to stay hooked up to the violinist (who you just find yourself hooked up to without having consented to it … hence the analogy to rape) but you are not legally required to be the good samaritan so you can unplug yourself. But here I go against Thompson’s intuition – I think you do have the duty to sustain the violinist (fetus), because you are your brothers keeper. I also think her analogy, while somewhat compelling, is rather artificial.
That said, as far as my political approach goes, Thompson’s argument would get a really strict law. Thompson’s argument is not one that most pro-choicers should be eager to promote since if you put it into law you would get restrictions on all but about 1% of abortions. If you could make her failed contraception argument work (which is a real stretch, in my view), then it would be higher.
By the way, all of my stats there were from Gallop.
One positive note, Hunt. I quite agree with you that the general tenor of the abortion debate on both sides is irrational, emotional, and overheated so it seems unlikely that we’d ever get a sound decision out of that national discourse. That said, in my experience teaching Social Ethics, I have been amazed at how quickly the debate can be cooled when you just present the arguments. Students, like everyone else, are tired of the bumper sticker/placard soundbite debate on this (and many other) issues. I have dozens of students each term I teach that class that come and tell me they had no idea either side had actual arguments, and they find incredible peace of mind – and optimism – that the discussion can be had in a level-headed way. If we would just require a few philosophy courses as a pre-requisite to voting! (Actually, a friend of mine served on a jury and was convinced that everyone that serves jury time should be required to have a few philosophy courses in their background, since the people with him on his jury simply didn’t know how to make distinctions or were largely incapable of non-emotive reasoning).
One more thought:
As Hunt has talked about the emotional difficulty that abortion choices bring to some women, I was reminded of an article I read a year back or so. I think it was in the NYTimes, though I’ve searched for it and cannot find it.
The gist of the article was this:
Planned Parenthood has faced a struggle because its “external” argument and the needs of its clients do not mesh.
The “party line” for the pro-choice lobby is that the unborn is “just tissue”, that it is not an entity that has any moral standing. Hence, abortion is simply a medical procedure and there should not be any limitations on its practice, it should be covered by insurance, etc etc.
But internally, Planned Parenthood clinic have to face a different challenge – the emotional needs of their clients. And, it turns out, most women experience abortion as a morally serious event. Planned Parenthood workers have to counsel women through this emotional difficulty that travels with making this choice.
The point here is this: if the unborn was simply tissue, then why do most women treat abortions as morally serious events? People don’t wonder “but what about the appendix” when they have their appendix removed. A surgery where you have some knee cartilage removed is not experienced as a moral event in this sense. So if the unborn is just tissue, then why are these women having these experiences?
Now I suppose you could chalk it up to pro-life propaganda, emotional reactions to the possibilities of parenthood, etc. But the point of the article was this – for Planned Parenthood counselors to toe the party line and insist that the unborn is “just tissue” is not really an option because it just totally fails to respond to the emotional needs of many of their clients. So they have to take one stance “internally”. But they cannot speak in public policy arenas in the way they speak to their clients, because to do so would be to admit that the unborn has some kind of moral status. You’d start to move in the direction of Judith Thompson, a direction that will bring serious limitations to when abortions are morally and legally permissible.
When one admits that abortion is a morally serious decision (even if one is pro-choice), one is admitting that the unborn has some kind of moral status (note that I am not here insisting that it is full moral status and personhood, we’ve already been having that debate). When people like Hillary Clinton say that we should try to reduce the number of abortions, she is admitting that there is something morally serious about it. (After all, there is not a national campaign to reduce the number of haircuts, removals of teeth, or other sorts of “tissue” removal medical practices). At some point, the moral intuition that there is something special about the inseminated egg creeps into even the most ardent pro-choicers (like Hillary Clinton). That is a victory for the pro-life movement, even if it is a limited victory in one battle, with the war long yet to waged on other battlefields. But I can’t help but think that this is a seminal battle – getting people to admit that it is not “just tissue”.
I’m trying to think of a way to say what I want without sounding like an elitist, but in many ways this question is too important to be left to public opinion, especially considering that the incidence of abortion and its legality seem to be largely uncorrelated worldwide. Of course, the correct sentiment is that public awareness, knowledge and sophistication need to be raised enough so we can all collectively come to a good decision. Unfortunately, I don’t have high hopes, especially when people like Singer get ridiculed as monstrous simply for drawing attention to some obvious, yet politically and socially inconvenient aspects of our world. How, for instance, do we adequately assess the moral status of a human fetus when the vast percentage of people don’t have the slightest inkling to the moral implications of what’s on their dinner plate? Suppose we find that a 2 month fetus shares no other attribute to a person except that it can, in fact, feel pain. Should we consider it differently than a cow in a slaughter house? If so, do we understand why, or are we simply reacting to the epistemic engineering that history and culture has given us. The public is always going to remain squeamish. To even voice these question risks being labeled an Eichmann. Collectively, I don’t really think we want to live in a world with a truly accurate conception of what’s right and wrong, and so the field is left to the demagogues, on both sides of the debate. They will point to a mother’s right to choose on one hand and the sacred potentiality of blob of cells on the other without ever intending their target audience to understand, really, what they’re talking about — because they don’t fully understand it themselves.
I largely agree with Kleiner except in the case of the imminent death of the mother. I do appreciate the dialogue between Kleiner and Hunt, because I think it is important.
However, I think that we are missing the largest issue, politically, concerning abortion laws. The debate isn’t there (in politics anyway) to find an actual solution. It is carried on to get votes. Think about the Bush presidency. We had one of the most pro-life presidents ever, conservatives had control of both houses in congress, and had seven republican supreme court justices out of nine. If abortion was going to be made illegal, it would have happened in the last ten years. The issue of abortion is purely a way to get donations and votes to your political campaign. If you had politicians really worried about the mass murder of innocents, they wouldn’t be there spouting off talking points, they’d be doing everything they can to stop it. Also, think about the implications of such a “radical” law that limited abortions to rape victims or to save the mothers life. You’d have mass home-brewed abortions that would end up killing thousands of women. There would instantly be a back lash because of the large amount of deaths.
I think the only solution to slowing abortion rates are to educate the public, provide much more support (emotional and financially) to pregnant women, and to prevent premarital pregnancy from being so taboo.
As a side, religious organizations and local churches shouldn’t be upset at these teen girls and young women who get pregnant, they should bring them in and offer complete support to them. Instead, they sometimes ostracize them or make them feel like evil sinners. Some women turn to abortion as a way to avoid such ridicule. Of course this isn’t the primary reason for abortion by any means, but it would help. I am also not saying that all churches do this.
The current strategy isn’t to stop abortion at the federal level. As you say, if it was going to happen, Bush would have done it. Today the strategy is at the state level to gradually set more and more restrictions on the ability to get an abortion. What is probably going to eventually happen is there will be a balkanization into states where an abortion can be had and states where it is effectively illegal. This won’t impact those with the money to easily travel to another state. The poor will have to make due, as usual.
I actually have a bit of a conspiracy theory about the failure of Republican nominated SC justices to be truly pro-life.
First thing to not. Since (I think) 12 of the last 15 SC justices have been nominated by Republicans, isn’t this a pretty good example of where the political influence of the so-called “religious right” is wildly overstated? Seriously, THE issue for the “religious right” has been systematically frustrated by the very people the “religious right” allegedly put into office and has all sorts of influence over.
Second, with 12 of the last 15 being nominated by seemingly pro-life Repubs, something is fishy. How come Democrats NEVER misjudge their appointments, but the Republicans apparently misjudge so often? I have a hard time believing the Repubs are just horrible at vetting their candidates. Might it be that the Republican party is wed more closely to business and corporate interests than they are to social conservatives (at least on this issue)? Business loves abortion – it increases the size of the labor force and so drives down wages.
I’ll sneak back to my bunker now to polish my guns and count cans of spam, having shared my little conspiracy theory on this.
You and your teleological thinking… ;)
Is God the greatest abortionist of all?
John Opitz, a professor of pediatrics, human genetics, and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah, reports that at least 80% of all naturally concieved embryos are flushed out of a woman’s body, and 75% of those have developed for a week or more. Of the 80% expelled, only about half are deformed; the other half are perfectly normal. Had they remained in the womb, they would have become perfectly healthy babies. This raises some interesting questions.
In Kleiner’s previous example, we are morally obligated to save a boy drowning in a pond. If we do nothing, we are at least partially responsible for his death.
If a fetus is indeed a human from the moment of conception, then do we not also have a moral responsibility to save every last embryo that is naturally expelled from the body? We have the technological capability to save the embryo. Must we rescue every fertilized egg, and do everything in our power to ensure that it develops into a normal child?
Doing some quick math, there are 6 million pregnancies per year in america. If this represents the 20% that are not flushed out of the womb, then approximately 24 million embryos are naturally lost each year, or thirty for each of the 820,000 lost to abortion. If these embryos are human, why is this morally acceptable?
One could argue that God has, in his infinite wisdom, decided that the embryo should not live. But why then is it moral for God to kill the innocent, while we are held to a higher standard?
While, I admit, this does not necessarily grant us the right to perform abortions, I think these facts counter the argument that life is sacred from the moment of conception.
As another example, consider the following: you are in a fertility lab, and a fire breaks out. You can save either a two year old baby, or you can save ten embryos. Which do you choose? If we assume that an embryo is the moral equivalent of anyone else, then logically the ten embryos are the correct choice. Yet the idea of sacrificing a two year old child for a Petri dish is abhorrent.
Perhaps I am a monster, but I do not think an embryo is equal to an already living person.
Some of what I mentioned was from this article, which deals mostly with stem cell research. However, much of what is said applies to abortion as well.
Even if you ignore the theistic considerations that perhaps God does or does not sanction certain inseminations and think in purely naturalistic terms, spontaneous abortions, miscarriages, etc. would have to be considered a major tragedy in and of themselves. The their credit in terms of consistency, many Protestants and Catholics do mourn miscarriage. I can still distinctly remember responding to a commenter on a religious blog whose wife had lost a child in miscarriage, telling him that a woman’s body’s capacity to detect and correct (abort, basically) a congenital defect or other problem was something to be thankful for, not mourn. He was not amused.
A miscarriage is a natural death. My wife has miscarried and we mourned it as a death in the family. Everyone I know who has miscarried, regardless of views on abortion, has mourned the event. It is very sad (even if the body “knows” what it is doing).
Natural death is a great mystery, as is natural suffering in general. But I think Joe is doing preschool theology to so bluntly attribute God as the cause of natural death. I don’t blame him – all the great new atheists do preschool theology and then marvel at themselves for the shock value conclusions they infer (‘God is the greatest abortionist of all’). Again, I marvel at what is the supposed complete ignorance of the religious person – as if religious moral thinkers had not wondered about miscarriage and seen that it obviously upended their view on abortion.
Consistent pro-lifers defend life from its beginning in conception to the point of natural death. Natural death comes sooner for some than for others. I don’t think any of us have a very good account of why this is the case. But abortion is an unnatural death, a death that would not have occurred had a person not intentionally caused it.
Stem cell research is not in itself morally objectionable. In fact, the Catholic Church has funded quite a lot of stem cell research. It is embryonic stem cell research that is objectionable, because harvesting the stem cells from embryos requires the intentional destruction of a human being (in the embyronic stage). Again, if you grant (and I recognize that not everyone here has) that the unborn is a person, this is obviously immoral. Almost no one thinks I could kill Hunt to harvest his stem cells or organs, even if I could save thousands of people with them (not even most utilitarians think that, since most of them retreat to a Rule Utiltarianism to avoid such ugly conclusions).
It is an extremely difficult matter to decide what to do with the hundreds of thousands of frozen unborn that exist thanks to IVF programs (which I don’t think should be permitted). It is a part of the great tragedy of our deep cultural confusion on the meaning of life and sexuality that we are faced with problems of such an enormous scale. But the pro-life position is clear – the intentional destruction of those humans is morally forbidden.