Having examined the important biblical and medical facts,
we are now in a better position to face the practical questions of decision
making on abortion. When, if ever, would abortion be ethically justified
for the Christian? What about cases of rape? Are anticipated birth defects
grounds for abortion? What about unwanted pregnancies?
Other questions surface at the level of public policy. Would
a return to restrictive abortion laws mean an increase in illegal abortions
and maternal deaths? In a pluralistic society, should Christians seek laws
that reflect their moral convictions? These and other difficult questions
arise when Christians try to apply biblical convictions to public life. This
chapter will first examine decisions regarding personal ethics and then consider
questions of public policy.
Abortion and Personal Ethics
Rape
During the late 1960s pregnancy due to rape was often cited
as
End of Page 63 - Begin Page 64
cause for liberalizing the then-restrictive abortion laws. Does rape
constitute legitimate ethical grounds for an abortion? An answer to this
question must take into account a number of important facts.
Notwithstanding the trauma of rape, studies have shown that
pregnancy due to confirmed cases of rape is extremely rare. In Buffalo, New
York, there was not one pregnancy from a confirmed case of rape in 30 years;
a report out of Washington, D.C., indicated only one pregnancy in over 300
rape victims.[1] Medical research indicates that there may
be physiological reasons for the low incidence of pregnancy in cases of rape.
The psychological trauma tends to inhibit normal ovulation, and men who commit
this crime are frequently infertile because of other aberrant sexual behavior,
such as frequent masturbation.[2] When promptly reported
and treated with a spermicidal agent, rape need not result in conception.
Recent history indicates that legal provisions for abortion
on the grounds of rape are easily abused. In the years 1967 through 1971
some 290 abortions were performed in Colorado on the grounds of alleged rape,
even though during this same period no rapist was even charged with the crime,
much less convicted. [3]
But what of those rare occurrences when pregnancy does result
from rape? Is it fair to expect a woman to suffer the inconvenience and hardship
of carrying a child to term when the conception was without her consent?
Such cases are obviously both emotionally and ethically difficult. A Christian
answer will involve the more basic question of the personal status of the
unborn child: Is the unborn a potential or an actual human
being? It is not difficult to imagine how the hardship to the woman might
outweigh the value of a merely potential life and therefore justify
abortion. But if the newly conceived life is an actual human being,
that would take precedence over the possible hardship and inconvenience to
the woman, and abortion would not be an option.
I am convinced that the biblical and medical evidence favors
the latter view. Since there is no clear biblical evidence that the developing
child is less than a person, the Christian's decision must presume
the personhood of the developing human life. The Christian may rest assured
that even in the most tragic circumstances God can
Page 65
sovereignly bring good out of evil and cause blessing to his people
(Rom. 8:28; Gen. 50:21).
Expected Birth Defects
Another focus of recent discussions has involved anticipated
birth defects. When there has been a history of genetic abnormality, or if
the mother has been exposed to dangerous drugs or radiation during pregnancy,
would that justifiably call for an abortion? The question involves a complex
network of ethical and cultural factors. Parents today, especially in the
middle class, have come to expect more perfection in their children. The
appearance of a defective infant is more emotionally traumatic to such parents
than in an earlier time, when children were not so clearly regarded as extensions
of parents and their aspirations.[4] In contemporary American
culture, where social acceptability is increasingly measured by physical
attributes and intelligence, many parents are unwilling to face the difficulties
of raising a handicapped child.
Pushing the question into sharper focus is the newly developed
technique of amniocentesis. In this diagnostic technique a hypodermic
needle is inserted into the uterus, and a sample of the amniotic fluid is
removed. The sample is then analyzed in order to detect possible genetic
abnormalities. One disease believed to be detectable by this method is Tay-Sachs
disease, a rare but fatal genetic disorder found almost exclusively in Jewish
children. The disease causes blindness, deafness, progressive deterioration
of the nervous system, and ultimately death by the second or third year.
Sickle-cell anemia, an incurable and ultimately fatal disease usually found
among Blacks, is another condition subject to prenatal diagnosis. Down's
syndrome (Mongolism), which occurs once in 600 to 700 live births, is also
thought to be detectable through amniocentesis. As research progresses, the
number of diseases detectable prenatally will continue to grow. The increasing
sophistication of such medical technology will bring society face to face
with the real possibility of large scale genetic screening and programs of
"positive" eugenics to "weed out" the potentially unfit.
[5]
Personal decisions on these matters should reflect a full
awareness
Page 66
of several important medical facts. Among pregnant women with a previous
history of genetically related birth defects, the probability that the newborn
will be abnormal is never greater than 50 percent.[6]
This means that a program of selective abortion could well destroy more
normal than abnormal children. Furthermore, an increasing number of
defects can be adequately treated after the child is born. For example, most
cases of hearing loss and heart defects resulting from maternal contraction
of rubella (German measles) are medically correctible. Some 80 to 90 percent
of women are immune to rubella because of exposure in early childhood and
thus are not even at risk during pregnancy. [7]
Then too, diagnoses based on amniocentesis are subject to error.
Dr. Hymie Gordon, chief geneticist at the Mayo Clinic, reported a case in
which Tay-Sachs disease was diagnosed. Amniocentesis was performed, the fluid
examined, and the disease appeared to be confirmed. But after an abortion
was performed, the baby was examined and found to be perfectly normal. Dr.
Gordon also noted a case reported in the British medical journal
Lancet, in which a pregnancy was terminated because of an alleged
extra chromosome in the cells, apparently indicating Mongolism. The baby
destroyed in this case was discovered to have been perfectly normal.
[8]
Mistaken diagnosis is also possible in women exposed to potentially
hazardous radiation during pregnancy. Dr. R.F.R. Gardner, a British gynecologist,
has reported the following case:
A thirty year old woman had been married eight years and after a spontaneous miscarriage had never again conceived. She had irregular periods and was ordered x-ray treatment to her pituitary gland (at the base of the brain) and to her ovaries. On the third weekly treatment she was found to be eight weeks pregnant. The radiologist said there was no choice but to perform an abortion; all the obstetricians agreed. The patient, however, insisted that the pregnancy was something of a miracle and that 'with God's will' it would proceed to term. It did. At six years the child's physical and mental growth were above normal. [9]
In this case the decision to abort would have meant the destruction
of a perfectly normal child.
The thalidomide tragedies of the early 1960s made the public
Page 67
sharply aware of the dangers of taking powerful drugs during pregnancy. Dr. C. Everett Koop, former surgeon-in-chief at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, now Surgeon General of the United States, has drawn attention to the following letter, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph on December 8, 1962, when abotion was being discussed in European newspapers as a means of eliminating children born defective because of thalidomide:
Trowbridge
Kent
Dec. 8, 1962
Sirs:
We were disabled from causes other than Thalidomide, the first of us two having useless arms and hands; the second, two useless legs; and the third, the use of neither arms nor legs.
We were fortunate . . . in having been allowed to live and we want to say with strong conviction how thankful we are that none took it upon themselves to destroy us as useless cripples.
Here at the Debarue school of spastics, one of the schools of the National Spastic Society, we have found worthwhile and happy lives and we face our future with confidence. Despite our disability, life still has much to offer and we are more than anxious, if only metaphorically, to reach out toward the future.
This, we hope will give comfort and hope to the parents of the Thalidomide babies, and at the same time serve to condemn those who would contemplate the destruction of even a limbless baby.
Yours faithfully,
Elaine Duckett
Glynn Verdon
Caryl Hodges [10]
This testimony indicates that people with such disaabilities consider
their lives worth living and may well appreciate the routine aspects of life
more than "normal" people do.
Again, the fundamental question is the personhood of the unborn.
The Christian who, on the basis of the biblical and scientific data, concludes
that the unborn child is to be treated as a person will
Page 68
not opt for abortion in cases of anticipated birth defects. While in
extreme cases ("monstrous births") the line marking personhood may be vague,
the vast majority of anticipated defects are not that problematic. The Christian
can recall from Scripture the sovereign power of God to bring glory to himself
through the handicapped (Exod. 4:11; John 9:1-3). God's glory and grace are
manifested very clearly in human weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). The ministry of
Jesus demonstrated God's compassion and concern for the sick and the handicapped.
As it was prophesied, he would not "break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering
wick" (Matt. 12:20).
Many Christian parents testify that the birth of a handicapped
child has drawn them closer to God. Dale Evans Rogers provides an
example:
Our baby came into the world with an appalling handicap. . . . I believe with all my heart that God sent her on a two year mission to our household, to strengthen us spiritually and to draw us closer together in the knowledge and love and fellowship of God. It has been said that tragedy and sorrow never leave us where they find us. In this instance both Roy and I are grateful to God for the privilege of learning some great lessons through His tiny messenger, Robin Elizabeth Rogers. [11]
Abortion as a precaution against birth defects short-circuits the biblical
witness to the triumph of God's grace in human suffering and tragedy. It
fails to recognize what the experiences of others have confirmed — that
a severely handicapped child can be used of God to show his love and bring
a deepened spiritual growth into a family.
Unwanted Pregnancy
What about unwanted pregnancies? Can the Christian consider
abortion as a "back up" to other means of birth control? Recent figures indicated
that for many American women abortion is used not only as a "back up" method,
but as the primary means of avoiding unwanted pregnancies. According to recent
figures provided by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, of women who have abortions
in America, 79 percent are unmarried, 70 percent are white, and 33 percent
have already had one abortion. Teenagers constitute
Page 69
30 percent of all American women having abortions.[12]
These striking figures call into question some commonly held assumptions
about who seeks abortions. First, the women are predominantly unmarried.
Nearly four of five abortions are sought by women who want to avoid the
consequences of sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Second, better than
two-thirds are white, which falsifies the assumption that abortions are
predominantly sought by poor black women on welfare. As recent studies show,
abortion finds its heaviest support not among lower or lower-middle class
women, but among white upper-middle class women for whom childbearing may
conflict with career goals.[13] In a study conducted by
the Bowman Gray Medical School on poverty-level Blacks, 79 percent of 776
poverty-level black females and 70 percent of 215 low-middle income black
females were found to be "not in favor of abortions under any circumstances."
When 990 urban black females were studied, 77 percent were found to oppose
abortion under any circumstances, and this opposition was manifested in their
carrying their children to term. [14]
The figures on the number of teenagers having abortions are
especially disturbing. In 1980 over 460,000 abortions were performed on
teenagers. Statistics indicate the rising incidence of premarital sex among
teens. Johns Hopkins researchers conducted a study that showed a 30 percent
increase in teenage sexual activity in only five years. By age 16, the study
found, 25 percent of these young women had experienced premarital sex; by
age 17, 40 percent. [15]
The result has been a wave of teenage pregnancies. According
to figures released by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, some
one million American girls aged 15 to 19 were pregnant in 1976. Teenagers
account for one-third of the national birth rate and for half of the
out-of-wedlock births. Of teenagers who engage in premarital sex, only one
in five uses contraception regularly. [16]
These figures are disturbing, because history has shown that
periods of sexual anarchy in a culture are more often than not correlated
by social, economic, and military weakness and the decline of that culture.
That is borne out in the histories of ancient Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia,
Greece, Rome, and modern Europe.[17] Sexual disorder, of
which the present abortion ethos is a symptom,
Page 70
undermines the strength and stability of an entire society.
[18]
Unwanted pregnancy is no legitimate ground for abortion.
Inconvenience or even personal hardship would not justify taking the life
of the unborn child. Even Norman Geisler, an evangelical scholar who believes
the unborn represent "potential" rather than "actual" human life, agrees
that abortion is not justified under such circumstances. Once conception
has occurred, argues Geisler, ". . . it is too late to decide that it should
not have been done. There are some morally one-direction decisions in life
and intercourse leading to conception is one of them. . . . Taking a potential
life is not morally justifiable simply because one does not want to suffer
the social or physical discomforts which come from their own free choices."
[19]
Socioeconomic Hardship
What of the cases where the pregnancy may add to socioeconomic
hardship? Perhaps the woman is already burdened by a large family, and the
situation is aggravated by an irresponsible husband who is an alcoholic.
Such circumstances are indeed tragic and should call forth Christian responses
of sympathy and active support. Even then, if the unborn child is seen as
a person in God's sight, the decision will rule out abortion. Though meant
to alleviate the woman's plight, abortion may in fact do otherwise. As we
noted earlier, the experience of one British medical social worker showed
that:
. . .the woman's feeling that she cannot tolerate bringing a child into the world may be a symptom of a situation such as an inability to cope with married life, and by making abortion too readily available we do little but relieve the patient's immediate suffering for a short time and thus do her no real service, producing in her a sense of guilt which she can redress only by becoming pregnant again as quickly as possible." [20]
A more positive approach is to provide counseling and financial services that would allow the woman to carry the child to term. In cases of extreme hardship, the child could be given up for adoption. Although an emotionally difficult course of action for the woman, it
Page 71
gives others the satisfaction of parenthood and is far preferable to
taking the child's life. The present shortage of adoptable babies in America
can be traced mainly to the prevalence of legal abortions. Prices for adoptable
Caucasian babies on the illegal market now run as high as $20,000.
[21]
In the light of Scripture, even an unplanned pregnancy can be
a gift from the Lord (cf. Ps. 127:3). God's sovereign purposes and providential
control of human affairs often transcend conscious human intentions (cf.
Gen. 50:20). The child born as a result of an unplanned conception may have
a strategic contribution to make to the work of God's kingdom. There is no
more striking example of this than the Lord Jesus, whose conception was,
by human standards, unplanned.
Threat to the Life of the Mother
Are there any conditions, then that justify abortion? The position
I have reached is that abortion is morally justified in those relatively
rare medical circumstances where the life of the mother is threatened by
the continuation of the pregnancy. This is the official position of the Roman
Catholic Church,[22] as well as Protestant leaders such
as Paul Ramsey, Harold O.J. Brown, Francis Schaeffer, C. Everett Koop, Bruce
Waltke, John Frame, and Charles Ryrie. Medical conditions falling into this
category would include an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy and cancer of the uterus
during pregnancy. Since under present circumstances it may not be possible
to save both lives, intervention is performed with the intent of saving the
life that can be saved, i.e., the mother's. If nothing is done, then both
mother and child would presumably perish. The situation is analogous to that
faced by a physician arriving at the scene of a catastrophic train wreck.
Given the circumstances, the physician cannot salvage all the endangered
lives. He must therefore use his best judgment and abilities to salvage the
lives that have a real prospect of survival. Rarely is there a tragic conflict
between the mother's life and the child's, and such circumstances should
occur even less often with the progress of medical science.
Page 72
Abortion and Public Policy
Population Control
Discussions of abortion as public policy often concern "the population
explosion." During the 1960s, scientists such as Paul Ehrlich, author of
Population Bomb, compared the current population growth to a cancer,
in that "a cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells," and "the
population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of
people."[23] In 1962 Newsweek warned that "the current
rate of growth, continued in 600 years, would leave every inhabitant of the
world with only 1 square yard to live on. By the year 3500 the weight of
human bodies on the earth's surface would equal the weight of the world itself.
By the year 6000, the solid mass of humanity would be expanding outward into
space at the speed of light."[24] Such predictions fueled
arguments that legalized abortion was necessary to control unchecked population
growth.
Subsequent history has shown those predictions to be overstated.
In 1976, 14 years after its 1962 report, Newsweek concluded that the
"population explosion" of the 1960s had become the "population implosion"
of the 1970s. "Just a decade ago, demographers were predicting that by the
year 2050 the earth's population would have tripled, creating a planet suffocated
in its own humanity. . . .Now, due to a plummeting birth rate in many nations
and a sharp rise in deaths in others, . . . the world's population growth
is tapering off, and . . . the threat of an eventual world population of
12 billion has now faded."[25] In a more recent study Lester
Brown, director of the Worldwatch Institute, reported that the world growth
rate fell from 1.9 percent in 1970 to 1.64 in 1975. Dr. R.T. Ravenholt,
population director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, projected
that the world population growth rate would fall below 1 percent by 1985.
This would mean that the earth's present population of some 4.6 billion would
rise to only 5.4 billion by the end of the century — not to the 6.3
billion predicted in 1970. The shortfall of some 900 million between the
two predictions equals the present combined populations of North America,
Latin America, and Europe. [26]
There has also been a sharp decline in the population growth
rate
Page 73
in the United States. The rate declined by 33 percent between 1970 and
1975, a drop largely due to a decrease in the marriage rate and an increase
in female employment; women now make up approximately 40 percent of the labor
force.[27] Since 1975 the fertility rate for American women
has remained constant at 1.7 children, the lowest rate in the nation's history.
If current trends continue, by 1990 the United States will have more people
over 55 than children in elementary and secondary
schools.[28] The postwar "baby boom" has suddenly become
a "baby bust" in the United States.
Declining fertility rates and the aging of America carry some
ominous implications. At present there are some 23 million Americans over
the normal retirement age. By the turn of the century, nearly 31 million
will be 65 or older. Three decades after that, their number should swell
to almost 52 million — more than twice the current
total.[29] This growing proportion of the elderly in the
American population will place increasing burdens on the already strained
Social Security system. In 1945, the ratio of wage earners to recipients
was 35 to 1. Today, with 33 million people drawing social security payments,
the ratio has fallen to 3.2 to 1. By the year 2035, the ratio may be less
than 2 to 1.[30] In an inflationary economy with rapidly
rising medical costs, this means an increasingly large tax burden will have
to be assumed by a decreasing proportion of younger workers. Since the average
elderly person has higher medical and drug expenses than the average young
person, the shift in the age distribution foreshadows higher tax burdens
for all Americans as we move toward the twenty-first century. The increased
social and economic strains may be too great for a society already showing
signs of moral and economic weakness. In retrospect, plummeting fertility
rates in the United States during the 1970s may prove to be a curse rather
than a blessing.
Many of the assumptions held in the 1960s about the relationship
of population growth to other social problems were very questionable. It
was thought, for example, that population growth contributed directly to
economic stagnation, crime, and environmental pollution. Such assumptions
were overly simplistic. The economic history of the United States shows that
periods of economic expansion correspond with periods of population
growth.[31] European
Page 74
nations such as England and the Netherlands, with population densities
many times greater than the United States, have considerably lower rates
of violent crime. Environmental quality is more a matter of the proper management
of waste disposal than of population density. In developing nations effective
contraception, better medical care, and improved employment and educational
opportunities — rather than abortion — can make population growth
manageable. [32]
Thus the severity of the population problem and the need for
abortion as its solution were overstated in the 1960s. The facts of recent
history have shown that population concerns do not support legalized abortion.
If anything, concern in the United States should now focus not on a "population
explosion," but on plummeting fertility rates, which will produce serious
imbalances in the proportion of elderly people in our population.
Illegal Abortions
One of the most common arguments for legalized abortion is that
permissive laws reduce the number of illegal abortions, thereby reducing
maternal deaths in so-called "back-alley" abortions. It is estimated that
prior to the Court's 1973 decisions, illegal abortions numbered anywhere
from 200,000 to over one million a year.[33] The oft-quoted
figure of 10,000 maternal deaths annually from illegal abortions, based on
an estimate by F.J. Taussig in his 1936 book, Abortion Spontaneous and
Induced, is a very dubious statistic, as we shall see.
It is, of course, true that changing the laws reduces the number
of illegal abortions, since by definition most abortions once considered
criminal thereby become legal. A New York Planned Parenthood official estimated
that prior to permissive abortion in that state, between 80 and 90 percent
of illegal abortions were done by physicians.[34] The typical
"back alley" abortion was really performed in the physician's back office.
Legalization simply allowed physicians to perform them more openly. Thus
the revealing title of a recent article in one of the opinion magazines,
"Suddenly, I'm a Legal Abortionist." [35]
Page 75
The experience of other nations casts doubt on claims that
permissive abortion laws solve the problem of illegal abortions. Dr. Christopher
Tietze, a well-known population expert and advocate of abortion, has concluded
that permissive laws have not significantly reduced the incidence of illegal
abortions in the Scandinavian countries.[36] Many women
still seek abortions outside the authorized channels, perhaps to circumvent
the remaining medical and administrative provisions of the Scandinavian laws.
The experience of Japan also suggests that permissive abortion laws have
not eliminated illegal abortions. Even in countries like the United States,
with very permissive abortion policies, women who wish to have no records
made of their abortions still seek clandestine ones in significant numbers.
There are good reasons to question the figure of 10,000 maternal
deaths annually from illegal abortion, based on F.J. Taussig's estimate in
1936. That estimate presupposed a 1934 study by M.E. Kopp of women who had
attended the Margaret Sanger Birth Control Clinic in New York between 1925
and 1929. The Sanger Clinic sample from which the figures originated was
hardly representative of the population as a whole, since 41.7 percent of
the women were Jewish, and 26.1 percent Catholic. More recently Dr. Christopher
Tietze has estimated that there may be some 500 maternal deaths annually
in the United States from all abortions, legal and
illegal.[37] Coming from a prominent advocate of abortion,
this estimate casts serious doubt on Taussig's earlier figure.
Dr. Andre Hellegers, professor of obstetrics and gynecology
at Georgetown University Hospital, in testimony before the Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, presented figures on
confirmed (as opposed to estimated) maternal deaths from abortion.
In 1942 there were 1,231 deaths from abortion. By 1968 the number had fallen
to 133, showing a steady decrease since 1942. Even before the 1973
Supreme Court decisions, such deaths were relatively rare. A change in the
laws, Dr. Hellegers observed, would not materially reduce this figure, since
"as a condition becomes rare it becomes difficult to reduce the number even
further." [38]
The argument that legalized abortion removes the public health
hazards to American women is open to serious question. Some
Page 76
sources claim, based on statistics from Eastern European nations such
as Yugoslavia and Hungary and from the United States, that legal abortion
is safer than childbirth. Besides ignoring the status of the unborn child,
the statistics themselves are doubtful. After a careful review of the Eastern
European statistics, Dr. Thomas W. Hilgers, professor of obstetrics and
gynecology at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, concluded: "The claims
that abortion is x-times as safe as childbirth is a fabrication invented
to sell abortion. Certainly it is not justified on the basis of available
information."[39] There is simply no assurance that all
maternal deaths actually due to legal abortions are being reported as such.
Another problem often overloooked are serious post-abortion
complications. As we have already seen, research done in Czechoslovakia,
Japan, and other countries with long experience with abortion shows that
abortion increases the risks of the following: accidental perforation of
the uterus, injuries to the cervix, increased frequency of miscarriages,
prematurity, tubal pregnancies, and menstrual irregularities. Swedish and
Norwegian figures cite an incidence of accidental sterilization following
abortion of about 4 percent, notes Dr. Andre Hellegers. With some 1.5 million
abortions annually in the United States, 79 percent of them performed on
unmarried women, the real danger is that some 45,000 unmarried women are
accidentally sterilized each year by abortion. Seldom are women who seek
abortions warned of such hazards. Such medical evidence indicates that large
numbers of American women can be expected to sorely regret having opted for
abortion.
Discrimination Against the Poor?
There are several problems with the common argument that laws
restricting abortion funding discriminate against the poor. As we have already
noted, the greatest pressures to change laws come not from people in poverty,
but from upper-middle class professionals. Poverty level Blacks, for example,
are among the strongest opponents to abortion. Of women having abortions,
79 percent are unmarried, and 70 percent are white. The typical seeker of
an abortion is not a poor black woman on welfare with a large family, but
an
Page 77
unmarried white teenager or professional woman pursuing a career. The
desire among poverty level Blacks is not for more government subsidized abortion,
but for better employment, housing, and educational opportunities. Some Blacks
cynically see subsidized abortions as an attempt by white liberals to find
a quick technological "fix" to the problem of poverty and burgeoning welfare
costs.
More fundamentally, the focus on funding reduces a moral issue
to the more pragmatic one of distribution. If abortion is an intrinsic evil,
then the ability of the rich to have one is no reason for ensuring that others
may do the same. The vices of the rich are not the standard for social and
legal policy. Arguments from "fairness" and "equality of opportunity" are
valid only where the thing in question is itself a social good. In this case
justice calls for equal protection of the unborn, whether of the poor
or of the rich.
"Imposing" Morality?
Some argue that a return to restrictive abortion laws would
amount to an "imposition of morality" by the force of law. They charge that
opposition to abortion represents a Christian conviction that should not
be legislated in a pluralistic society. Often they assume, implicitly or
explicitly, that such opposition is a peculiarly Roman Catholic concern.
Thoughtful Christians should subject such arguments to careful
scrutiny. First of all, as we have already noted, opposition to abortion
is not limited to the Roman Catholic Church. Evangelical Protestant leaders
such as Billy Graham, Harold O.J. Brown, Bruce Waltke, C.C. Ryrie, C. Everett
Koop, John Frame, Donald Bloesch, Francis Schaeffer, and R.C. Sproul oppose
the present abortion policies in the United States. Other scholars have come
to oppose abortion on purely secular or philosophical grounds. A notable
example is Professor Baruch Brody, a Jewish scholar who began as a
pro-abortionist but was led by his research to the opposite
conclusion.[40] Respect for the sanctity of life is not
an exclusively religious concern.
The charge of "imposing morality" reflects confusion about the
relationship of law and morality. All laws, insofar as they reflect a
Page 78
community's sense of fairness and justice, necessarily have a moral
component. To remove this moral component would make law an arbitrary instrument
for the control of the weak by the more powerful elements of society. The
"positive" laws of the Third Reich were contemptible precisely because they
lacked grounding in universal standards of justice and morality. The civil
rights legislation of the 1960s was based not merely on social expediency,
but on a fundamental sense of moral rightness. The real issue is not
whether laws will reflect a moral point of view, but rather, what
type of morality they should reflect. There is simply no compelling
reason why moral insights drawn from the Judaeo-Christian tradition should
be disqualified from legal and public policy debates. At stake in the abortion
debate is not some narrow sectarian distinctive such as the mode of baptism
or style of sabbath observance, but the fundamental moral principle of the
sanctity of human life. This basic principle, taught by the Bible and all
the world's historic religions, has until now been one of the pillars of
Western civilization. Christians do their society no service by acquiescing
to the secular humanists' arguments that would undermine human life according
to some sliding scale of value.
Discussions of law and morality often betray misunderstanding
regarding the separation of church and state. The relevant language of the
First Amendment states, "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The intent of the
amendment was clearly to prevent Congress from instituting one denomination
as the established national church. At the time the amendment was
passed, two states, Massachusetts and Connecticut, still had established
state churches. The intent of the framers of the amendment was clearly
not to prevent Christians from expressing their convictions in matters of
public policy. The cruel irony of history is that this amendment, originally
enacted in the name of religious freedom, is today interpreted to mean that
only secular humanists may express moral convictions in matters of public
policy. The "separation of church and state" is now taken to mean the separation
of nearly all Christian influence from American law and public life. Christians
should recognize this ploy for what it really is — the establishment
of secular
Page 79
humanism as the de facto religion of America. Rather than allowing
themselves to be disenfranchised, Christians should vigorously affirm their
rights to express their deepest moral convictions in public
discourse.[41] The sanctity of innocent human life, a principle
deeply embedded in the Judaeo-Christian tradition and the fabric of Western
civilization, needs again to be vigorously championed by the Christian community,
particularly in reference to the contemporary abortion debate.
This discussion of public policy leads naturally into the concluding
chapter on recent legal developments in the American abortion scene. There
we will focus on the hotly debated matters of public funding of abortion,
and the drive for a Human Life Amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's
1973 abortion decisions.
Chapter 4 || Chapter 6 || Table of Contents
1. F. Mecklenburg, "Indications for Induced Abortion,"
in Hilgers and Horan, eds., Abortion and Social Justice (New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1972), p. 48.
2. Ibid., p. 49.
3. Ibid., pp. 49, 50.
4. John Fletcher, "Attitudes toward Defective Newborns,"
Hastings Center Studies 2, no. 1 (1974): 27.
5. Frederick Ausubel, Jon Beckwith, and Kaaren Janssen, "The
Politics of Genetic Engineering: Who Decides Who's Defective?" Psychology
Today, June, 1974, pp. 30ff.
6. Mecklenburg, "Indications for Induced Abortion," p. 42.
7. Ibid., p. 47.
8. Cited by ibid., p. 43.
9. R.F.R. Gardner, Abortion: The Personal Dilemma
(Old Tappan, N.J.: Fleming Revell, 1974), p. 210.
10. C. Everett Koop, The Right to Live: the Right to
Die (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 176), pp. 51, 52.
11. Cited in Gardner, Abortion: The Personal Dilemma,
p. 204.
12. Presbyterian Journal, March 9, 1983, pp. 6,7.
13. Cf. Peter Skerry, "Defending the Family," Human Life
Review 4, no. 4 (1978): 34-41.
14. Erma Craven, "Abortion, Poverty, and Black Genocide,"
in Hilgers and Horan, Abortion and Social Justice, p. 239.
15. Joseph Lelyveld, "The New Sexual Revolution," New York
Times Magazine, July 1977, p. 2.
16. Reported in the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle, May
18, 1977, p. 26.
17. P.A. Sorokin, The American Sexual Revolution
(Boston: Porter Sargent, 1956), pp. 91-130.
18. This thesis is argued in some detail in George F. Gilder,
Sexual Suicide (New York: New York Times Book Co., 1973).
19. N. Geisler, Ethics: Alternatives and Issues (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), p. 225.
20. N.M. Cogan, "A Medical Social Worker Looks at the New
Abortion Law," British Medical Journal 2 (1968): 235.
21. Mary Breasted, "Baby Brokers Reaping Huge Fees," New
York Times, June 28, 1977, p. 1.
22. See John Connery, Abortion: The Development of the
Roman Catholic Perspective (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1977),
for a comprehensive historical overview of the Roman Catholic position.
23. Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York:
Ballantine Books, 1968), p. 166.
24. "How Many Babies Is Too Many?" Newsweek, July
25, 1962, p. 27.
25. "Population Implosion," Newsweek, December 6,
1976, p. 58.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid.
28. "Earthwatch," New Age, May, 1978, p. 20.
29. "The Graying of America," Newsweek, February
28, 1977, p. 51.
30. Ibid., p. 52.
31. This is detailed in James A Weber, Grow or Die
(New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1977), pp. 41-68.
32. Cf. Arthur J. Dyck, "Is Abortion Necessary to Solve
Population Problems?" in Hilgers and Horan, Abortion and Social Justice,
pp. 159-76. Dyck concludes that other alternatives are preferable to abortion,
both for the individual and for the society.
33. Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and
Morality (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 132, 133.
34. Cited by J.C. Willke, Handbook on Abortion (Cincinnati:
Hayes, 1975), p. 105.
35. Koop, Right to Live, p. 69.
36. Willke, Handbook on Abortion, p. 106.
37. Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality,
p. 134.
38. Dr. Andre Helleger's testimony before the Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments, April 25, 1974; reprinted by the
National Committee for a Human Life Amendment Washington, D.C.
39. Hilgers and Horan, Abortion and Social Justice,
p. 66.
40. Baruch Brody, Abortion and the Sancity of Life
(Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, 1975).
41. This thesis is vigorously argued in Harold O.J. Brown,
The Reconstruction of the Republic (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington
House, 1977), pp. 114-29.