What makes abortion such a moral evil?
We often hear that abortion is an evil of extraordinary moral depravity, so much so that it trumps other forms of murder. I think that’s right, relatively speaking. Let’s take a typical case of legal abortion wherein a woman chooses to have her child murdered (the euphemism, I believe, is “terminate the pregnancy”) by a licensed physician with whom she has entered into a contractual and financial agreement.
The physician who actually performs the abortion is morally guilty of murder. The mother, though she did not actually kill her child, consented to and willingly arranged the murder, which results in what the Catechism describes as her “formal cooperation” in the evil of abortion (par. 2272). However, her moral offense is exacerbated by the fact the severed the “natural bonds” between mother and child. The Catechism reads:
Infanticide, fratricide, parricide, and the murder of a spouse are especially grave crimes by reason of the natural bonds which they break. (par. 2268)
It appears that the moral culpability of the mother is greater than that of the physician who performed the abortion insofar as the mother is guilty of formal cooperation in murder and has severed natural bonds through infanticide. Unless, of course, the physician is father or sibling to the murdered child. At least, this is how I understand the Catechism on this point.
This all suggests that, from a moral standpoint, abortion (along with other acts of killing family members) is an especially evil form of murder, graver than murdering friends or strangers.
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Policratus,
I have heard a wise old Irish Thomist priest say that the physician who performs the abortion is not guilty of murder but rather is guilty of manslaughter. I wasn’t able to ever ask him why ask he retired to Ireland before I could.
“exasperated”?
While abortion is an intrinsically evil act, I would argue that the circumstances of abortion– since most abortions are related to poverty and economic circumstances– could reduce the culpability of the mother. And I would not be in the business of saying one act of murder is worse than another act of murder.
Did John Paul in Evangelium Vitae write of a reduction of culpability?
According to the AGI study, 48% of women have an abortion because 1) too immature/not ready for responsibility 2) to avoid adjusting life
Only 25% have an abortion for “economic related” reasons.
I don’t it is accurate to say “most abortions are related to poverty and economic circumstances”.
Did John Paul in Evangelium Vitae write of a reduction of culpability?
Yes. It is also addressed in the Canon Law he promulgated.
Policraticus is not addressing the question of culpability, he is adressing the question of gravity.
Jonathan: I don’t know– does he need to? You are familiar with the basic principle, right?
Legion: these statistics diverge from Guttmacher. Do you have a source?
MM,
Guttmacher, “apparently”, is not a trusted source.
John Paul pointed out the “kinship of flesh and blood” that is broken by abortion, and stated that its root cause was the evil of selfishness first seen in the Garden. He also stated that contraception and abortion are closely connected, and “of the same tree.”
I do not see anything addressing a reduction of culpability. Please cite these sources if they are available.
does he need to? You are familiar with the basic principle, right?
Perhaps you are familiar with the notion that family structure and the desires of the human heart matter more than economics with regard to the poisoned fruit of abortion and contraception, as John Paul indicated in Evangelium Vitae?
He said the roots of these problems are of a cultural and moral nature, “beginning with the mentality which carries the concept of subjectivity to an extreme and even distorts it, and recognizes as a subject of rights only the person who enjoys full or at least incipient autonomy and who emerges from a state of total dependence on others.”
“exasperated”?
Thanks. I fixed it.
This kind of analysis is deeper than what you find in typical abortion debates about “right to life” vs. “right to bodily autonomy.” “Rights talk” is adversarial and egalitarian, while the concerns voiced here are more about the unity of the human family and our duties to the weak.
I worry this passage can throw us into an unproductive tangent:
“It appears that the moral culpability of the mother is greater than that of the physician who performed the abortion insofar as the mother is guilty of formal cooperation in murder and has severed natural bonds through infanticide.”
The physician is the one doing the deed by abusing his training to kill instead of heal. There are several betrayals in an abortion.
I sometimes think we leave the doctors out of the equation. The pro-life movement should also talk about the need to prevent doctors from attacking the unwanted unborn, and the need to encourage doctors holding to their pro-life principles.
EV 12: “In fact, while the climate of widespread moral uncertainty can in some way be explained by the multiplicity and gravity of today’s social problems, and these can sometimes mitigate the subjective responsibility of individuals, it is no less true that we are confronted by an even larger reality, which can be described as a veritable structure of sin.”
EV 18: “Decisions that go against life sometimes arise from difficult or even tragic situations of profound suffering, loneliness, a total lack of economic pros- pects, depression and anxiety about the future. Such circumstances can mitigate even to a notable degree subjective responsibility and the consequent culpability of those who make these choices which in themselves are evil.”
EV 66: “Even though a certain psychological, cultural and social conditioning may induce a person to carry out an action which so radically contradicts the innate inclination to life, thus lessening or removing subjective responsibility, suicide, when viewed objectively, is a gravely immoral act.”
It appears that the moral culpability of the mother is greater than that of the physician who performed the abortion insofar as the mother is guilty of formal cooperation in murder and has severed natural bonds through infanticide.
I would probably reword this to say: The objective act of the mother is worse than that of the physician since her act is an abuse of her intrinsic being as mother whereas the physician merely abuses his faculty. I would not have difficulty seeing how in the proponderance of actual abortion acts the mother’s culpability would be less given that she would more likely have circumstances that mitigate her culpability that the physician would not enjoy.
MZ:
John Paul continues (esp. after 18) to condemn problems beyond those “personal situations” to those of culture and society, which influence the false notions of individual freedom.
It seems to me he clearly expresses, as the Catechism reflects, that abortion is a grave evil rooted in a sort of selfishness (personal and cultural, when extended to “rights”), not economic condition. Now, this is not to say that economics may not built upon a false notion of individual freedoms, because the two are intimately intertwined in free market thought especially. My point is that economic conditions are not a cause of homocide.
Human decision is.
It seems to me he clearly expresses, as the Catechism reflects, that abortion is a grave evil rooted in a sort of selfishness (personal and cultural, when extended to “rights”), not economic condition.
He shows both actually.
The Guttmacher Institute is the research arm of Planned Parenthood. I’d trust their statistics to the extent they diverge from the PP ideology, and no further.
Ok – I think we might have been tangled up in the meanings of culpability and cause.
MM
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/abreasons.html
See the concluding stats at bottom of page.
There may be something I have overlooked, but so far I have not found any reference in the Catechism of any official Catholic document that directly states that abortion is murder. Neither have I found any statement to the effect that abortion is infanticide. There is no doubt left that abortion and infanticide are both gravely wrong. However, abortion is never called infanticide or murder.
It would be interesting to note the contrast with civil law, at least in America: abortion laws were primarily directed at the provision of abortions by others, and only in a minority of jurisdictions was there a period where mothers were the object of the laws. This is not surprising, given the long-standing general reluctance in Anglo-American jurisprudence to create crimes for situations where there was too many subjective factors for courts to consider not only for adjudication but for sentencing.
I don’t recall how many US states at the time of Roe had any laws making it a crime for the mother in addition to the third-party provider.
David,
From Evagelium Vitae ~58
“The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder and, in particular, when we consider the specific elements involved. The one eliminated is a human being at the very beginning of life. No one more absolutely innocent could be imagined. In no way could this human being ever be considered an aggressor, much less an unjust aggressor! He or she is weak, defenceless, even to the point of lacking that minimal form of defence consisting in the poignant power of a newborn baby’s cries and tears. The unborn child is totally entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying him or her in the womb. And yet sometimes it is precisely the mother herself who makes the decision and asks for the child to be eliminated, and who then goes about having it done.”
More…
From Casti Connubii ~63-64
63. But another very grave crime is to be noted, Venerable Brethren, which regards the taking of the life of the offspring hidden in the mother’s womb. Some wish it to be allowed and left to the will of the father or the mother; others say it is unlawful unless there are weighty reasons which they call by the name of medical, social, or eugenic “indication.” Because this matter falls under the penal laws of the state by which the destruction of the offspring begotten but unborn is forbidden, these people demand that the “indication,” which in one form or another they defend, be recognized as such by the public law and in no way penalized. There are those, moreover, who ask that the public authorities provide aid for these death-dealing operations, a thing, which, sad to say, everyone knows is of very frequent occurrence in some places.
64. As to the “medical and therapeutic indication” to which, using their own words, we have made reference, Venerable Brethren, however much we may pity the mother whose health and even life is gravely imperiled in the performance of the duty allotted to her by nature, nevertheless what could ever be a sufficient reason for excusing in any way the direct murder of the innocent? This is precisely what we are dealing with here. Whether inflicted upon the mother or upon the child, it is against the precept of God and the law of nature: “Thou shalt not kill:”[50]
In my opinion it seems clear that a hypothetical 16-year-old girl who is bullied and pressured into sex by her older boyfriend, and then bullied and pressured into obtaining an abortion, is in no way as culpable as a hypothetical 30-year-old woman who sleeps around, then traipses off to the abortuary to fix her “oops.
In both cases a physician has murdered the infant child; the degree of material cooperation, I think, is the same in both cases; but the free will of the first girl is diminished.
I don’t recall how many US states at the time of Roe had any laws making it a crime for the mother in addition to the third-party provider.
I’m pretty sure the answer is none.
In regards to legal actions against the women, I explored it a bit here: http://vox-nova.com/2008/02/19/abortion-punishing-mothers/
There is a standing statute in Wisconsin that offers criminal penalities for a woman who procures an abortion.
Br. Matthew,
I am glad I said “there may be something I overlooked.” Encyclicals certainly count as official documents. I stand corrected. Thanks!
David,
No problemo. I too was unsure whether abortion had been called murder until I did some word searches.
Think of these “extreme” example. Ms. A, a rich woman from California, unmarried, procures an abortion because she does not wish to lose her good looks, especially when parading around in beachwear. Ms, B, a villager in central Democratic Republic of Congo, procures an abortion after being repeatedly gang-raped by a militia that killed her husband and children.
Objectively speaking, both cases of directly-procured abortion are intrinsically evil (by definition, circumstances cannot matter). But the moral culpability of Ms. A is many many times greater than that of Ms. B. And this gets reflected in positive law: while many would applaud punishing Ms. A, I can’t imagine anyone desiring to punish Ms. B.
MM,
Possibly, but not necessarily. We must keep in mind the three requirements for a mortal sin-grave matter, full knowledge and full consent. The first one is a given since we are talking about abortion but the other two depend and could go either way.
I don’t see why it would be any worse to punish Ms. B over Ms. A, in a purely legal stance. The civil law tends not to care about “sob stories”. Sure, we can all relate to the class hatred of some uppity rich b!tch from Cali but the crime was still committed in either situation and two wrongs don’t make a right. Law is not about anyone’s “desire”.
Let’s not diss Cali out of hand – why is it always California in these examples? Is Alabama without rich sinners? :)
Matt: of course I meant southern California, not the bay area! :)
Then all is forgiven, MM.