M
mlcampbell
Guest
I need some help. In a contemporary ethics class I’m taking at college, we recently were assigned an article that attempted to philosophically justify abortion. One of the author’s first moves was to outline what she termed the extreme, anti-abortion stance. Not surprisingly, she chose Popes Pius XI and Pius XII as representatives of this view, quoting passages from the former’s Encyclical on Christian Marriage and the latter’s Address to the Italian Catholic Society of Midwives,:
“however much we may pity the mother whose health and even life is gravely imperiled in the performance of the duty alloted to her by nature, nevertheless what could ever be a suffiencent reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent?”
“Hence there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral ‘indication’ which can establish or grant a valid juridical ground for a direct deliberate disposition of an innocent human life, that is a disposition which looks to its destruction either as an end or as a menas to another end perhaps in itself not illiceit.”
We gather from these passages that abortion, according to the “extremist” (Catholic) view, is impermissible even if the mother will die. We have here St. Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of double effect, where we distinguish between the intentions and the known consequences of a certain action: Even though the mother dies as a result of having the child, this is not the same as directly killing her; aborting the child, on the other hand, constitutes a direct and intentional termination of life. According to our instructor, St. Thomas Aquinas actually developed the ethical principle of double effect, because he was trying to justify killing in self-defense. Well, interestingly enough, the author of the article I’m reading actually takes this concept and applies it to abortion, asserting, in fact, that abortion, in cases where the mother’s life is at risk, is a situation of self-defense.
The author draws the conclusion that having the right to life does not guarantee having a right to be given the use of, or a right to be allowed continued use of, another person’s body; that life must be given, because the mother has a pior right to her body. So just because the mother ought to give her body to her baby, it doesn’t follow, in the author’s mind, that the baby has a right to the mother’s body.
So I guess what I’m asking for is some assistance in refuting this argument. We would all likely agree that killing a robber in self-defense, although unfortunate, is justified–so why is this not the case with abortion? Is it because the baby is unlike the robber in that it is innocent? And how would a Catholic like myself respond to the author’s point that the child does not have a right to the mother’s body? I apologize that this message is so long. I just wanted to be as specific as possible–after all this is a philosophy class I’m taking, and I need to be able to respond appropriately.
Thanks for your help.
“however much we may pity the mother whose health and even life is gravely imperiled in the performance of the duty alloted to her by nature, nevertheless what could ever be a suffiencent reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent?”
“Hence there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral ‘indication’ which can establish or grant a valid juridical ground for a direct deliberate disposition of an innocent human life, that is a disposition which looks to its destruction either as an end or as a menas to another end perhaps in itself not illiceit.”
We gather from these passages that abortion, according to the “extremist” (Catholic) view, is impermissible even if the mother will die. We have here St. Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of double effect, where we distinguish between the intentions and the known consequences of a certain action: Even though the mother dies as a result of having the child, this is not the same as directly killing her; aborting the child, on the other hand, constitutes a direct and intentional termination of life. According to our instructor, St. Thomas Aquinas actually developed the ethical principle of double effect, because he was trying to justify killing in self-defense. Well, interestingly enough, the author of the article I’m reading actually takes this concept and applies it to abortion, asserting, in fact, that abortion, in cases where the mother’s life is at risk, is a situation of self-defense.
The author draws the conclusion that having the right to life does not guarantee having a right to be given the use of, or a right to be allowed continued use of, another person’s body; that life must be given, because the mother has a pior right to her body. So just because the mother ought to give her body to her baby, it doesn’t follow, in the author’s mind, that the baby has a right to the mother’s body.
So I guess what I’m asking for is some assistance in refuting this argument. We would all likely agree that killing a robber in self-defense, although unfortunate, is justified–so why is this not the case with abortion? Is it because the baby is unlike the robber in that it is innocent? And how would a Catholic like myself respond to the author’s point that the child does not have a right to the mother’s body? I apologize that this message is so long. I just wanted to be as specific as possible–after all this is a philosophy class I’m taking, and I need to be able to respond appropriately.
Thanks for your help.
