The way in which spokesmen for some major denominations have joined the general public chorus demanding “abortion reform” is chilling to many evangelicals. They question the seeming haste with which some press the case for abolishing all statutes against the performance of abortion, and for leaving the decision “solely in the hands of the patient and her licensed doctor.” One would suppose, from the wording of policy statements, that the legal and social questions involved must be settled without delay.
It is the more remarkable that one such affirmation declares that “the fetus is not a person, but rather tissue with the potentiality, in most cases, for becoming a person.” Paul Ramsey of Princeton observes (“Feticide/Infanticide Upon Demand,” Religion in Life, Summer, 1970) that for the first time in history, some church leaders have endorsed the “tissue” theory of unborn life. This view suggests that until some point well along in the history of the fetus, the embryo is merely a segment of tissue, comparable to a tonsil, so that its removal from the uterus has no more significance than the excision of an offending gathering of bodily cells.
It is important to try to understand the reasoning behind the zeal of some churchmen to endorse what amounts to abortion on demand. The most friendly judgment is that they are motivated by compassion for those women who for one reason or another feel they must terminate a pregnancy. Certainly there are human situations that ought to move the sympathies of the Christian person, as for example the case of the woman pregnant by forcible rape, of the minor pregnant by an incestuous exposure, or of the prospective mother whose mental integrity, or even her very life, is unmistakably in jeopardy if her pregnancy is completed.
One of the unhappy features of the so-called situation ethic is that it leans heavily upon abnormal and exceptional cases. Many of the human situations for which abortion is proposed as a remedy are of this type. In considering the real issue (i.e., whether the fate of a given fetus should be decided by abortion). compassion seems secondary to the rights of a human life situated in what Paul Ramsey calls the “process of becoming the one he already is” (in John T. Noolan, Jr., The Morality of Abortion, p. 67).
Some argue that since abortions are commonly performed anyway, it would be preferable that they be done under “legal” and medically controlled conditions. This really begs the question of whether or not abortions of any kind should be regarded as an evil, and thus be sanctioned only on the grounds of closely controlled exceptions in which they are permitted so as to mitigate a worse evil.
In some pronouncements, abortion seems to be considered an essential part of population control or “responsible parenthood.” This means at best that abortion is a back-up measure when contraceptive methods fail, and at worst that abortion is in fact a part of the total contraceptive package.
If this latter implication take firm root in the public mind (or in the minds of church people), it will add plausibility to the error of some Roman Catholic pronouncements that insist upon linking together “contraception and abortion.” Responsible Protestant thinkers have for several decades insisted that contraception stands upon a wholly different moral ground than abortion. It would seem that churchmen would do well to maintain this distinction with great clarity.
There is reason to believe that some Protestant churchmen who have assented to “abortion reform” have failed to take into account the latest findings on the “humanization” of the fetus. Certainly the “tissue theory” breaks down here. The best information now available indicates that from the moment of conception, the zygote receives the genetic code. That is, it has the equipment for specific genetic programming that makes it not only a developing being but a particular being. As John T. Noonan, Jr., says, “a being with a human genetic code is man” (The Morality of Abortion, p. 57).
It seems clear that implantation in the uterine wall and the end of possible zygotic segmentation occur at about the same time. The fertilized ovum at this time loses the ability for genetic twinning and begins to establish a beach-head in its temporary home. Certainly from this point onward, the ceaselessly growing collection of cells has a highly specialized—and we believe sacred—character. Its worth is not to be determined by length or weight or by ability to survive in a separate environment.
Many of us are persuaded that the “tissue theory” is a rationalization that fails to take into account either the capabilities or the rights of the fetus. Some, of course, insist that the organism is not truly human until it has become such through the process of human socialization. A little reflection will show that if this view were to become dominant in the thinking of our society, not only abortion but infanticide could easily be justified.
It is sometimes argued that a fetus is not human until it becomes “viable.” This is usually interpreted to mean that it is not really a person until it is capable of survival outside the uterus. But “viability” is a highly relative term; survival ability varies with the individual fetus, and especially with the availability of sophisticated equipment for conserving its warmth and assisting its respiration in the crucial hours following a premature birth. The range of variables is too great—especially in an age of almost fantastic technology—to make viability a criterion for the attainment of personhood.
It is surprising to discover that the pronouncements of so-called liberal churchmen are not only more permissive but also less discerning than those of such a secular agency as the American Law Institute. For example, the institute recommends that a proposed abortion be reviewed by at least two physicians in consultation. This is something quite different from making the decision a purely private one between the patient and her physician.
A more basic issue is before the Church in our time. Should its spokesmen rush to “second the motion” of society in a given case? Or is its role more properly to create in society a climate compatible with the Church’s oft-repeated insistence upon the sacredness of human life? Paul Ramsey remarks incisively at this point that “churchmen seem to have a penchant for saying today what the surrounding culture said twenty-four hours earlier.”
The Church may soon be faced with the demand of the Lord of the Church that it proclaim prophetically the demands of the Eternal against the hedonistic, now-oriented culture. Its genius is to protest, rather than to approve, a life style that makes secular and private convenience a substitute for moral principles.
