What's At The Heart of Abortion?
Here’s a sneak peak at what you can expect in our latest issue of VIGIL!
In each issue of VIGIL, we feature an article in our Chapter Two department. This department takes topics or arguments we’ve all had at some point and advances the conversation beyond the typical response. In Issue One we talked about Instagram and what we predict the new emerging issues will be. Issue Two we gave abortion an in-depth look and wanted to move past why abortion is wrong and really get at the heart of this issue. Here’s a sneak peak at this powerful article.
By Christina O’Brien
Almost 50 years after abortion was supported by the supreme court in Roe v. Wade, both the pro-life and pro-choice movements have made little progress in eliminating their opponents despite both side’s beliefs that their positions are irrefutable.
As Catholics, our stance on abortion is clear: all life is sacred at every stage, therefore abortion is the unacceptable termination of a beloved and innocent human person who was intentionally created by God. Upon examination of the question of an unborn child's personhood, we find that whether or not a fetus is a human being is not a matter of personal belief.
But that question actually may not be as central to the pro-choice worldview as its opponents think it is. We must understand the philosophical underpinnings of the abortion argument, otherwise our debates will remain unconvincing and the abortion stalemate will persist.
There is a reason for the disregard of the unborn child’s’ importance in the abortion debate other than simply disagreeing with it. But first, it’s important to note that it is not only a matter of religious piety to deem each fertilized egg a living human being – it’s an irrefutable matter of scientific definition. At the moment of fertilization, the cells of a new individual, genetically distinct from that of its parents, begin to replicate, rendering that individual the offspring of two members of our species. If this is not enough to answer the question of whether it is a scientifically living human, we can turn to scientists’ agreed-upon conditions for matter to be deemed living and we will find that a developing fetus at any stage meets those criteria.
There was a time when I, and other anti-abortion advocates, felt certain that if everyone knew this matter of science, abortion would no longer be a question. It would become obvious that abortion is a practice that discriminates against the weakest members of our species - those who, although are human, do not meet the criteria of those deserving of human rights. Following this logic, one sees that this is the same argument used in every other form of discrimination to defend marginalization of different groups in society since the beginning of civilization. Under this view, abortion is obviously problematic, and many confidently condemn it.
So why is abortion still under debate?
Faye Wattleton, the president of Planned Parenthood from 1978-1992 made clear that the question of abortion for the pro-choice movement was not fundamentally about the life of the unborn child. “I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the woman's body, and therefore ultimately her choice.” Wattleton is fully aware of the reality of abortion, so why would she support it so unconditionally?
Why is abortion heralded as a fundamental human right?
The central issue in the pro-choice argument is not that the unborn child is not alive, it is that the rights of a woman to choose the circumstances under which she becomes a mother outweigh a baby's right to live. At this point, many anti-abortion advocates condemn the pro-choice movement as discriminatory, selfish, hypocritical, and even violent. However, we can have far more productive and merciful engagements when we analyze the pro-choice desire for and defense of the idea that women must have the final say on whether or not they become mothers.
At its heart, the pro-choice attitude is an attempt to exert control over the suffering and sacrifice inherent to womanhood, seeking meaning and actualization through the exercise of unconditional personal choice, especially in reproduction.
Undermining of Femininity
The reality of a woman’s place in societies throughout the ages is well known; gender roles were clear and unmoving. All members of the family worked in the home and as long as men were virtuous and caring providers, although not perfect, this social structure worked reasonably well to uphold the value of women’s work in the home.
After the Industrial Revolution, as modernism continued to gain traction, the importance of the home became increasingly undermined and the notion that the work world was the “real world” became more widely accepted. This led to women feeling underappreciated and unimportant and, in a real sense, unable to contribute their gifts in a society that was increasingly allowing people to do so. It should not be ignored that women were dependent on men to be good providers and if a husband did not provide, or did so abusively, there was little a woman could do.
Until 1978, five years after abortion became legal, it was legal and common to terminate a woman’s employment if she became pregnant. The plight of women until 60 or 70 years ago does not need to be recounted at length to be considered legitimate. The point our culture made is clear: femininity equals weakness and pregnancy an inconvenience.
Today we know that God gives each human, including women, unrepeatable gifts that are meant to be used in whatever way he intends: within the home, outside of it, or both. In a world that offers each individual a choice in how to contribute to it, it goes against God’s will to create a uniform mold for all women, barring them from participating in society; it also disagrees with God’s heart to diminish the value of motherhood, family, and life within a home.
But why did the response to inequality take such an extreme stance as to insist that pregnancies needed to be ended at will? Why not insist on a cultural change that affirms the goodness of pregnancy and challenges an over-emphasis on work and relational power dynamics? Why was it not good enough to assert that both men and women have brains, souls, and gifts and they should be seen as such?
As the culture changed, society resisted recognizing the inherent power and dignity of woman - that her fertility was one of many remarkable gifts she had to give to the world, so it continued to undermine it. The second-wave of feminism held that men would refuse to see a woman as an equal unless she eliminated or controlled her most fundamental difference and powerful quality: her ability to bear life into the world.
If the population holding the power would not affirm the dignity of femininity and motherhood, then women would have to buy that narrative in order to participate in society. In doing so, they subconsciously agreed that male bodies were superior because they did not infringe on productivity through fertility. This would have propelled the core belief that a woman who wanted to enact some kind of self-determinism while living a fulfilled life needed a way to avoid and end unwanted pregnancies because society made it clear that, as a fertile woman, she could not be equal in dignity to men.
We’re only half way through the article! To read the full thing, grab the latest copy of VIGIL here!
