Popular Dutch theologian advocates radical abortion solution

[Reclusius]

Recently, two bio-ethicists made a pledge for ‘post-natal abortion’. Horrible as it sounds, it turns out that a Dutch catholic theologian has made a proposition with eerie similar reasoning. At first, it seems he wants to take a ‘moderate’ position, but when you read carefully, he goes even further then pro-choice activist. The latter will say they allow abortion because they consider the foetus not really as a human yet. This theologian argues for abortion while he does consider them as real persons.

I’ve translated the article:

A pledge for prenatal euthanasia in case of unbearable suffering

Today, Trouw published my opinion article on abortion only in case of unbearable suffering I like to give some thoughts and background to why i wrote this article. Because it ís a matter of life and death.

When i wrote my article for Trouw, now already a week ago, I guessed that it would stir quite some dust. After all, the whole abortion debate is stuck in a trenchwar for many years now. Confessional parties (“life is absolutely inviolable from conception to grave”) and liberals (“every mother should be absolutely autonomous on decisions about her own belly”) don’t give each other an inch. Because it is literally a matter of life and death, we must continue to engage with each other in debate. Also, because in a moral debate no absolute, decontextualized statements can be made. On forehand, I thought through why i wanted to write this article and the reactions i would get.

I pledge to consider abortion as a form of very early euthanasia. That’s not a matter of semantics and no verbal acrobatic act to hide the brutal reality of aborted children. How you call something has implications for how you look and how you evaluate it. So I am convinced that for ethical considerations it does very much matter whether you speak of early abortion or early euthanasia.

This has to do with the entrenched positions in the abortion debate i was explaining earlier. The reactions on my articles even spoke of a “non-debate” because “everyone agrees is” that a woman is the boss on her own own belly. However, given the abortion position of the Christen Unie and SGP at least a part of Dutch society thinks different about this subject. Now that the Freedom Party in this debate also seems to rally to the side of the ‘abortion, we should keep thinking about it’-position, it appears that for a larger group of Dutch people, abortion is not a ‘done deal’ but a complex moral dilemma.

Anyway, the CU, SGP and Freedom Party incidentally advocate their position on medical and not on religious grounds. Because the state of medical science is so far that we can keep children so early in the pregnancy alive outside the womb, the problem becomes clear. How can you legally allow a child to 24 weeks may be aborted if the same doctors are able to keep children from 25 weeks in an incubator alive?

In my opinion article, I note that many ‘confessional objectors’ refer to the beginning of human life. Religious people will consider conception (fusion of sperm and egg) as the beginning of life, worthy of protection, while “radical liberals” consider the beginning of life as close as possible to the actual birth in order to generate a maximum of moral freedom for abortion. If one calls abortion a form of early euthanasia, this discussion is no longer relevant, and this very philosophical point can be pushed aside. It pollutes the abortion debate.

Like the PVV parliamentarian Gerbrands, i pledge to put down the responsibility for an abortion not absolute in the hands of the mother, but ultimately to the treating physician. There has to be first and foremost a medical necessity for this ‘early euthanasia’ and not merely an ‘emotional necessity’ on the side of the mother. Firstly, this prevents abortion being used as a late form of contraception or as a solution to any undesired pregnancy whatsoever. A mentally retarded girl of 14 who was raped by her father, may be unable to bear and nurture children.

to be continued…

 

[Reclusius]

continuation:

…Second, the moral pressure may be lifted off the shoulders of the mother, whereas it is now exclusive to her. Who chooses to put a ‘non-perfect’ child into this world, often feels being declared guilty for this by other people: “You could have chosen abortion? Now it’s your own fault”. In addition, health insurers may decide to no longer care for such ‘mistakes-that-could-have-been-avoided’. These discussions áre being conducted. If you make the decision on an abortion a medical assessment by doctors and families together, it will take the disproportionate pressure taken off the mothers.

For both sides, this provides an opening. The religious parties are given the recognition that life begins at conception. And the radical liberals maintain the possibility of abortion. Both parties must also give something in: one their desire to absolutely ban abortion what so ever and the other their unlimited right to have it performed.

Of course both parties are not satisfied, and i am being crushed between the confessional hammer and the liberal anvil. Religious people will say that i continue to allow abortion, and liberals cry havoc that i eradicate the rights that three generations of ‘boss-in-own-belly’-feminists had fought for.

To the the confessionals, i say a lesser evil may sometimes be done to prevent a greater evil. Even Catholic moral teaching allows for palliative sedation wich is in fact is euthanasia, only it’s not called so (talking about semantics!). Pope Benedict XVI also does some ‘lesser evil’ thinking when he allowed prostitutes to use condoms to prevent them for STD’s (Light of the World, 2010).

To the liberals, I say dying, may it be early or late in life, is never an event that only belongs to the autonomous individual. Firstly, the ‘freedom’ wich they say an individual has is increasingly being doubted anyway (even purely biochemically speaking) because man lives and dies in a community, sometimes small, sometimes large. This consideration to die is never just a personal matter. Of course, this does plays a big role, and that’s a good thing.

The question remains to what extent my position can contribute to a fruitful debate on this very difficult issue. I would like to repeat my conclusion from the Trouw article: Abortion is horrible. Every human being from conception on deserves the same care, attention and sanctification, as everyone in this world. Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world where suffering and pain (often) occur. In some cases, a physician, along with the family, may decide that the suffering of an unborn child is so great that only suicide is the only solution

Frank G. Bosman is a Catholic theologian, attached to the University of Tilburg

original article in Dutch

 

[Spyral]

Interesting, there’s also been a recent thing about how since newborns have no ‘aims’ they are indifferent from a foetus. Ergo ‘post birth abortion’ should be legal.

Logically I agree - assuming abortion is fine (it’s not!) then there shouldn’t be a difference before passing through a birth canal and after passing through. However the fact that most people would find this abhorrent should tell us what we need to know about abortion.

If people with ‘no aims’ are not human then we should probably grind up the depressed, the elderly? Perhaps the long term unemployed… (sounds similar to a short Austrian dude with a toothbrush mustache)

 

[timotheos]

Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world where suffering and pain (often) occur. In some cases, a physician, along with the family, may decide that the suffering of an unborn child is so great that only suicide is the only solution.

Frank G. Bosman is a Catholic theologian, attached to the University of Tilburg

How does this man enjoy any credibility as a Catholic or a theologian. Since when can someone crawl into the head of an unborn baby, decide that they are suffering, and deem the suffering so great that life is not desirable, then recommend the baby be killed and call it suicide?

Unintelligible and incoherent. But it is worth watching the Netherlands, because it will show us how an entire nation descends into madness.

 

[hazmat]

ILogically I agree - assuming abortion is fine (it’s not!) then there shouldn’t be a difference before passing through a birth canal and after passing through. However the fact that most people would find this abhorrent should tell us what we need to know about abortion.

not really. women cannot take take out an unborn baby in the early stages of pregnancy and abandon it/give it up for adoption. until our medicine/technology advances, it will die every time when separated–which is what women want: separation/termination of pregnancy. once the baby is born, death is no longer inextricable; the woman and baby are already separated, there is no pregnancy left to terminate/abort. if you think a woman just wants to get an abortion because she likes to kill babies, then such a woman might still want to kill a baby after birth, but she wouldnt be able to cite separation/termination of pregnancy as the motivation for it.

 

[reformedman1]

i didn’t know europe still had theologians.

 

[LisaA]

not really. women cannot take take out an unborn baby in the early stages of pregnancy and abandon it/give it up for adoption. until our medicine/technology advances, it will die every time when separated–which is what women want: separation/termination of pregnancy. once the baby is born, death is no longer inextricable; the woman and baby are already separated, there is no pregnancy left to terminate/abort. if you think a woman just wants to get an abortion because she likes to kill babies, then such a woman might still want to kill a baby after birth, but she wouldnt be able to cite separation/termination of pregnancy as the motivation for it.

No your logic fails. Even if the mother and baby are ‘separated’ due to birth or a late abortion, the baby will STILL die without intervention. The reality that we don’t know at what point in a pregnancy a child is viable outside the womb makes this an unsupportable division between abortion that will always result in death and when it is possible to save the child through intervention. Further this date changes with advances in technology.

As to the canard “women who want to kill babies” I ASSURE you that IF a woman thought of the unborn as a BABY she would NOT abort. The problem is that women have been indoctrinated that anything still inside the womb is merely “tissue” or “part of the woman’s body.”

The key is to prove through medical science that everything about the unborn human being is still human. The only difference is inside or outside.

Lisa