Let me start with a two basic facts: 1) abortion is a termination of human life matter and potential and 2) the witness of the Church has been in opposition to abortion, going back to the first century where the Didache says "thou shalt not murder a child by abortion." Given that abortion is such a termination and Christian witness from the earliest instance is against it, what reflection can we offer in our culture today about abortion? For example my church, the Episcopal Church, is pro-life but doesn't want abortion laws to be changed. Why?

Logically, for an entity to become something new, whatever state it becomes must exist in potency within what is now. A woman exists in potency within a girl who exists within potency within a fetus and/or embryo. We can fight over whether a human "person" exists as an embryo, but that is ultimately an unconvincing argument since babies are not truly human "persons" in the sense of reasoning and thinking. Babies do not have speech patterns to begin the cognitive process and thus form memory and intelligence. Those who thus say that human intelligence is required to be human leave themselves open to the real possibility of infanticide. Other people base arguments on human "likeness." The more the embryo looks human, the more willing they are to accord the developing fetus the status of "human." This is not a good argument as it ultimately does not address Teri Schiavo type end of life issues wherein human likeness is abundantly present, but again, speech patterns that form memory and intelligence are gone.

So the question is: how to recognize that Teri Schiavo is truly dead but being cognizant that the discussion bears directly upon abortion, and even worse, infanticide?

First, violations upon a woman’s body may be resisted, even violently. At no point should rape or incest be thought of as anything less than violent assaults upon a female. She is entitled to resist violently, and is further entitled to resist all consequences of the assault, including abortion. We would not think to say that any person who was assaulted in any other fashion should continue to live with the consequences of the assault without resistance. While it is true the child in potentia bears no fault, the child is an innocent victim of the father’s sin, not the mother’s right to self-defense. We would not support the kidnapping of women and require them to give blood and life support to another for 9 months. If a woman can indeed bear the child of her rapist, she is to be commended but the woman who resists every outcome of the rape is not to be thought less moral or blameworthy.

Second, medical necessities sadly sometimes do allow abortions. In such cases, double-intent causality is helpful: the primary intent is to save the woman’s life, which either passively or actively requires an abortion. Grimly, a mother has a right to self-defense—even against her own child. There is no moral blame or guilt in this argument. There is a personal history in my family of this. One of my female relatives was pregnant and began bleeding heavily one night. As background, her husband was vehemently opposed to abortion. Although my family never stated this in quite this fashion, the doctors gave him a choice that night: he could authorize a therapuetic abortion for his wife and save her life, or he could take chances with the very real consequence that both his wife and the child would die. He was less ardent about his opposition to abortion after this as he realized his approach was less than acknowledging of the very real medical situations that sometimes complicate our lives.

Third is the area where the majority of abortions fall: elective abortions, or abortions of choice. Multiple reasons exist for these. Most seem to involve convenience. It is sad to think that human life and potential is based on convenience of another, but this is certainly a grim reality in modern society. What to think? We should be careful of issuing condemnation since the reasons run from purely selfish to genuinely distressed. We also should keep in mind that most women do not choose to have abortions on a whim “oh, I’m going to run down and get an abortion today…” Those of us who are asked for advice should be sensitive and listen before jumping to conclusions about the questioner’s morality, ethics or decency.

As a fourth area of consideration, we must attend to theology. Without a doubt, the Church regards abortion as a grave matter. As I stated earlier, the witness of the Church through the ages has been constantly to regard abortion as a mortal sin in most instances excepting the rule of double consequence. However, no less than St. Thomas Aquinas, while certaintly not advocating abortion, stated that the human soul did not animate the body until "quickening," roughly the first trimester in modern terms. His thinking was that the life force of the body before then was an "animal soul," which he understood as being without the uniquely human characteristics of intelligence, reasoning and abstraction. Keep in mind that he regarded the human person as being "in potencia" (in potential) within the fetus and thus any interference with the fetus would be interference with a human achieving their fullest potential. This is the solid reason for Catholic opposition to the death penalty: the human person is still in potential to receive grace, repent, make satisfaction and attain the Beatific Vision. Cutting that short is an act of violence against humanity. As a counterbalance, I must also acknowledge that simply by scratching my arm, I probably lost more human cells than a zygote is comprised of. While these cells are certainly human, they do not have special claim to protection. Realistically however, these cells do not exist "in potencia" to become human. Therein lies the wisdom of the Church.

Translating this discussion into law is troublesome. Too many people want to replace reflection with laws—as if laws ever saved us from anything, brought morality to human hearts or ushered in the Coming of Christ’s peace on earth. Laws could stop some abortions, true. However, imagine if banning all abortions except for medical reasons were enacted everywhere. Quite simply, women and their doctors would then simply lie about medical conditions. States would then try to set up medical snoops to investigate whether individual abortions were justified. Since abortions are medical procedures, both patient and doctors would cite privacy laws against medical records being reviewed by the state. If those records were then compelled, there is a very real chance the doctor would have duly recorded the “compelling” medical reasons for the abortion. We would then have trials about whether the doctors falsified records, patients lied about being raped, incest being claimed--is this really the road we want to travel?

These laws are not our solution. In fact I believe them to be ineffective and a waste of time by all parties. Thus, while I can quite reasonably be called prolife, I am also de-facto prochoice because I do not think laws would be effectual.