A Priest on Abortion: Woman as the Proper Moral Agent

Few of us are neutral about abortion. Most Americans want abortion to be legal and safe. They respect the freedom of a woman to choose whether or not she is to bear a child. But most Americans are concerned that we not create an abortion culture, that abortion not become just another method of birth control.

With 1.5 million abortions each year--4,000 a day--the issue becomes a profoundly pastoral one for me. I know children who are now with us because in the honest and prayerful struggle with the question of abortion, their mothers --some married, some single--decided to carry a child to maturity and birth. They all have expressed profound gratitude that abortion was a legal and safe option.

I know women whose lives were literally saved from unraveling emotionally and who were given a chance for healthy, mature living because legal, safe abortion was an available choice which they accepted.

As the fierce debate on this unyielding dilemma breaks across the American landscape, I want to share some of my convictions and my doubts. We are bound together by a community of faith. There is space for struggle, for conflict, for exploration, for listening and for loving those who disagree with us.

First, the legal issue. The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on Roe vs. Wade in 1973 made abortion on demand legal in the early stages of pregnancy and gave states the right to protect the potential life of the fetus in later states of pregnancy--or, as the court said, when the fetus is viable, capable of living outside the womb. The medical and scientific communities have consistently said a fetus is viable no earlier than 24 weeks.

Then on July 3, 1989, a divided Supreme Court opened the way for states to limit a woman’s access to abortion--allowed states to place more and more limitations on abortion. This decision did, however, stop short of overturning the Roe vs. Wade ruling that made the practice of abortion legal in America.

Associate Justice Harry A. Blackmun, author of the 1973 ruling, called the July 3 decision ominous. He wrote, “I fear for the future. I fear for the liberty and equality of millions of women . . . .” He said a woman’s fundamental right to choose abortion had survived but it wasn’t secure.

The July 3 ruling is an attempt to force abortion policy out of the courts and into the political arena--into 50 state legislatures. Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that abortion is “a political issue” more than a legal one. So from now on state legislators will grapple with ethical, medical and legal complexities that even the Supreme Court couldn’t solve. Walter Dellinger, professor of law at Duke University, said, “Virtually all the power in legislatures is held by men who will never be affected by the restrictions they impose.” Yet their conclusions will have a profound effect upon one of the most intimate decisions in a woman’s life.

There is a story of three professional people arguing about whose was the first profession on Earth. The argument involved a surgeon, an architect and a politician. The surgeon said, “I had to be first. The Bible says that out of the side of Adam, God took a rib and created Eve. That takes a competent surgeon.” The architect said, “No, you are wrong. I had to be first because the Bible says that out of the chaos God created and fashioned this marvelous universe.” The politician said, “Oh no. I was first. Who do you think created the chaos?”

Politicians in the Missouri Legislature are saying: “The life of a human being begins at conception.” They will require a test at 20 weeks to determine whether the fetus is viable, even with the medical community agreed that all evidence says a fetus isn’t viable before 24 weeks.

This is playing to the anti-abortionist position that abortions are being done very late. Politicians have been convinced that late-term abortions are commonplace enough to warrant restrictive legislation. Some anti-abortion activists have cleverly created the myth that women have abortions right up to the time of delivery for frivolous reasons. The facts are clear and otherwise: 90% of all abortions are done before the 13th week of pregnancy; fewer than 1% of all abortions occur after the 20th week--and most of those are for urgent medical reasons.

Missouri is one of many states that restrict funding for most abortions--leaving poor women and many young teenagers to scrape together enough money to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Only New York, California and a few other states provide funds for abortion. Now Missouri says no public facilities can be used. It hits the poor the hardest; the rate of abortion among women whose family annual income is at or below the poverty line is more than double the rate for women of the middle class and above. Some states also seek to ban abortions from all clinics and require a hospital setting. Now, more than 80% of abortions are safely and inexpensively performed in clinics. This hospital requirement would quadruple the cost to about $800--one more effort to make abortion less accessible, especially to the poor.

The Constitution guarantees a woman the right to exercise some control over her unique ability to bear children. The high court has now removed portions of that control. On the steps of the Supreme Court, Faye Wattleton, president of Planned Parenthood, asked rhetorically about these constitutional guarantees: “When did it become a political question whether women had reproduction rights?” The answer was easy: July 3, 1989. And yet as the late Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson said at mid-century, “One’s right to life, liberty and property . . . depends on the outcome of no election.”

Whether pro-choice or anti- abortion, you do not have the right in this diverse, pluralistic society to force beliefs and opinions on others. There can never be a just law requiring uniformity of behavior on the abortion issue.

From my perspective that is what the Roman Catholic Church and the religious right attempt to do on abortion. The late Cardinal Cushing of Boston once said, referring to the birth-control controversy: “Catholics do not need the support of civil law to be faithful to their religious convictions, and they do not seek to impose by law their moral view on other members of society.” May his spirit prevail.

Many of us have deep religious feelings about abortion, about the moral quality of the individual decision involved; but I believe it is critical to distinguish how I might judge the act of abortion morally and what I believe a societywide policy on abortion should be. Whatever my views, the woman must be the moral agent in that decision.

The moral issue is the sanctity of life. The reason debate is so acrimonious is that both sides share the ethical principle of respect for life. But the sanctity of life doesn’t end debate for we must deal with two sanctities--fetus and mother.

Let me state two extremes of the debate. Anti-abortion forces are declaring more and more that human personhood begins at conception--then aborting a fetus is, to them, no more acceptable than any other form of murder. Randall Terry’s group, Operation Rescue, met last month for a rally at the First Nazarene Church in Pasadena. Rescue members are committed to closing down abortion clinics. Terry, who has been arrested in city after city, continues to push his cause with increased vigor. He says, “We’re calling on thousands of pro-life Americans to peacefully blockade these killing centers with their bodies to prevent children from dying, and we will launch an equal force against state legislatures to chip away at the Roe decision legalizing abortion.”

At the other extreme, some pro-choice forces feel a fetus is a mass of dependent protoplasm to be extracted without regret. Abortion is merely the flushing away of a mass of tissue.

Both extremes fall short.

When does human life begin? When is there a living human person? That is not a biological fact to be discerned; it is a theological perception. To say the fetus is not alive, not a living reality, is absurd. From the moment of conception it is a growing life. But to say at the moment of conception there is a human person is equally absurd.

I believe there is life at conception, life at a special time in its development--part of a continuum that begins in the uterus, emerges as a human being at birth, passes through childhood, adolescence and adulthood and ends in death. The fertilized egg is human in origin and destiny. It is growing and has the potential of human personhood--though it cannot be called a human person at that early moment.

Such a distinction is basic even to conservative theologians like Dr. John R.W. Stott, who comments that the decision to abort for reasons of a mother’s health involves a choice “between an actual human being and a potential human being.”

Anti-abortion people want to erase all distinction between potential life and actual life.

For many women, abortion is one of the most important decisions they ever make. Two ethical concerns about life are present: the sanctity of the potential human person and the sanctity of a mother’s life--her moral decision over her own body. She struggles with the quality of life she could offer the baby at birth, the impact of that birth on the existing web of her other responsibilities--plus her own mental health and well-being.

I am not pro-abortion--but I am passionately pro-choice. I believe a woman is the proper moral agent to determine the use of her body; she should have the choice of carrying to maturity her pregnancy. As a theologian I see no way the moral status of a fetus can be of greater moral standing than a woman deciding her destiny.

It is a question of individual conscience. I refuse to give over the moral issue of abortion to a church or the religious right.

Before 1973, American women often chose to risk their own lives rather than have an extra child that could destroy the family’s ability to cope or would cause an unmanageable crisis in family life. Some ghastly practices were used when surgical, safe abortions were not available.

The radical nature of methods once resorted to speaks of the desperation involved in unwanted pregnancy. There is something vicious and violent about coercing a woman to carry to term an unwanted child. To force the unwanted on the unwilling, to use a woman’s body against her will and choice, is a kind of legalized rape that is morally repugnant.

The growing restrictions that state after state will place on abortion, in many instances recriminalizing it, will not reduce the instances of abortion. Women will continue to put their lives at risk to terminate unwanted pregnancy. New restrictions will only put poor women in a more desperate place and leave all women who have taken this risk more mentally scarred for life. I cannot believe such action reflects a moral society.

Is there a way out? As a priest and as an ethicist, I want to be counted as pro-choice, keeping abortion legal, safe and available to all. But I seek a society in which abortion is less and less necessary, so count me among those who favor public policies that will reduce the number of abortions without coercing women. The only way that is possible is to create a different kind of nation.

-- The society we seek must have as its primary agenda the rights of the born, the improved quality of life for those who come into this marvelous world--adequate care and protection from the first stirrings to the final groans. My grievance is severe with so many anti-abortion advocates who demand justice for the unborn but who also advocate dismantling social programs that provide a decent life for children once they enter the world.

If we are to reduce abortions, we must reaffirm by work and action the rights of the born.

-- The society we seek doesn’t flaunt and exploit sex at every turn. Vast numbers of adults today participate in the devaluing of human sexuality by separating sex from love and commitment.

-- The society we seek is one where greater scientific effort goes into developing safer and more reliable birth control, along with a commitment to have this contraceptive information and these contraceptives available to all people. Today 50% of all teen-agers are sexually active. I believe that reality is a very unhealthy phenomenon in our culture. Only 33% of teen-agers use any birth control method consistently; 25% of all abortions are among the teen-age population. Condoms prevent pregnancy and protect against the AIDS virus. It’s immoral not to act with urgency in getting contraceptives to teenagers who are sexually active.

-- The society we seek says all life is sacred everywhere, for if it is cheap anywhere, it is cheap everywhere.

Only as we see every human being across this planet as a sacred person to be cherished--only then will we see a society emerge in which abortion is less and less a necessary option.

So with hearts that feel and brains that think, let us continue to walk as disciples of the Christ. And for me, at this moment in time, that means to join my life in solidarity with women who claim the moral responsibility over their own bodies. May God direct our efforts and illuminate our path.

Amen.