What's At The Heart Of Abortion?

Dialogue

Feb 22

By Christina O’Brien

This article was published in the second issue of VIGIL, our magazine for the Catholic woman. Subscribe today and save 10%.

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.

2. Existentialist Feminism

But the notion of a woman’s self-determinism as a requirement for her dignity did not come from nowhere. It can, in part, be traced back to the French existentialists whose work was published in the United States in the 1940s. The most pivotal of these for the secular feminist movement was Simone de Beauvoir, who wrote the seminal existential feminist work The Second Sex. She exposed the dissatisfaction of women with the societal lot that had been apportioned to them by men. But, as an existentialist, she did so while purporting a worldview that articulated the hopeless secular response to the questions of suffering, existence, and purpose which for women, she thought, centers largely on motherhood and restrictive lifestyles.

According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Existentialism is the ethical theory that we ought to treat the freedom at the core of human existence as...the foundation of all other values.” It claims that existence is inherently meaningless and the only way to rise above the suffering of the human experience is through the exercise of personal choice. As some of the main themes of existentialism include experiences like dread, boredom, nothingness, freedom, and choice, we should not be surprised that it has significantly influenced modern society, including a cultural shift towards abortion.

Even if many who identify as pro-choice do not also identify as existentialists, the philosophy’s statements about how one self-actualizes are arguably at the heart of the pro-choice movement, which claims that women will never be able to rise above the condition of their humanity, or perhaps, their femininity, unless they can exercise their personal freedom and choice over it.

The deep roots of these principles in modern society may be why the pro-choice movement digs their heels in even when it becomes clear that an unborn child is alive, and even when they are faced with feminists who want to rectify the injustices that lead to abortion so that it becomes unnecessary.

This tendency ranges from those who will defend abortion for all reasons at all times to a more mild demonstration in the woman who would never have an abortion herself, but does not want to make that choice for others, or in the man who does not feel it is his place to legislate a woman’s body. It’s even found in the person who will condemn abortion once society sufficiently supports impoverished and marginalized mothers.

We can see this skewed worldview in the comments of the second-wave feminist, Gloria Steinem, who explains the problem as follows: “The oppression of women starts in the body because it's all about controlling reproduction. If we did not have wombs, we’d be fine. To gain control of our own bodies, from the skin in, is fundamental to our autonomy.”

It seems that Steinem and women of the same mind believe (whether consciously or not) that their oppression stems from the reality of their wombs. They were unlucky enough to be born into the sex that carries life, instead of the one that initiates it, thus their bodies are condemned to an existence of perpetual contention. Steinem’s argument that whoever controls the reproduction of the population is in power suggests that if an individual woman hopes to hold power, she must control her own reproduction, subjecting it to her own will.

“This side of the pro-choice argument is indeed antithetical to the Gospel at its core.”

This side of the pro-choice argument is indeed antithetical to the Gospel at its core. It is the idea that choice is the ultimate manifestation of one’s purpose; therefore the right to choose when to have a baby, even if the baby already exists, is a fundamental human right for a woman. Her ability to have her plans derailed by a pregnancy makes her unequal to men and, therefore, abortion must be legal and easy to access in order for the sexes to be truly equal in dignity.

Furthermore, the supposed need for abortion is not only a symptom of the oppression of female bodies but also indicative of the devaluation of the human person in general, especially when they are not "productive." It is a product of the utilitarian belief that a person's value is in their productivity and, since both an unborn child and a pregnant woman are arguably “less productive” in society than their fully developed or not-pregnant counterparts, there is no reason to defend them and their “weaknesses.”

These bleak philosophical underpinnings of the fight for abortion are far more deeply rooted than simple ignorance of the scientific fact of an unborn child’s’ life. While they are not necessarily consciously or even universally held by all members of the movement, they are arguably at the root of the worldview that deems abortion fundamental to the freedom of women. In order to dismantle abortion as a means of false liberation, we must acknowledge and challenge the ideas on which it rests.

Self-Sacrifice and Love over Self-Actualization and Choice

The end of abortion requires a radical culture shift. First, it asks that we demand a society that protects and defends pregnant women and mothers, offering them resources, support, and love. It requires that we identify systems of oppression and dignify the most marginalized groups in our society so that they need not fear raising a child in it. The idea that “pro-life” solely means “pro-birth” must cease through the actions of pro-life advocates who support the dignity of human life for all groups at all stages.

Secondly, while most proponents for reproductive choice may not purposely hold strict existential worldviews that consciously undermine the value of the female body, perhaps these philosophies constructed the pro-choice worldview more than many of us would initially expect. For this reason, the end of abortion calls for a courageous shift in the minds of pro-choice feminists who believe that the safeguarding of women’s happiness depends on control over one’s fertility and the suffering it could cause.

Victor Fankl asserts in Man’s Search for Meaning, “Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” This is the only answer to the existentialist search for a life that is personally fabricated and controlled to avoid all pain.

And, as the Christian knows, the meaning of suffering is found only in the Cross. Ultimately, ending abortion requires conversion, evangelization, and accompaniment. It requires that those of us who are committed to the cause are willing to take the slow road of trusting friendship to walk with those in our community who live by the hopeless desire to control their surroundings and create their experiences, afraid to place their trust in anything beyond earthly existence for fear of disappointment. As this worldview continues to disappoint, we can present the possibility of a Creator who affirms the reality of injustice by taking it all on Himself, but promises that it has been overcome in eternity.

In the end, we cannot force people to reject existentialist principles of unconditional choice over every area of life as a means to subvert the anxiety of the absurdity of life. These ideas will persist as long as humans struggle to believe in and surrender their lives to God.

But we can create a society where there is minimal call for abortion and its supporters are limited to those who hold tight to their claim that women need full control over the unpredictable aspects of their bodies in order to experience equality. Here, we can engage lovingly in conversation and friendship with these individuals as we would with any other person who is hurt by suffering and oppression. Through relationships and evangelization, we might show others that there is something far more meaningful than self-determination and unrestricted choice: self-sacrifice and unconditional love.