Viewpoint
Abortion: Maxims for moral analysis
By DENNIS O’BRIEN
At the 30th anniversary of
Roe v. Wade, it might help if we could generate some moral
conversation on the issues involved. As the debate has progressed, pro-life and
pro-choice have staked out theological positions that, like most transcendent
claims, are almost impossible to resolve. The ultimate theological character of
Catholic pro-life arguments are clearly revealed when one goes beyond slogans
like “respect for life” and asks, “Which life?”
A traditional Jewish position has been that when it comes to which
life, it is the mother’s life that has precedence. The traditional
Catholic position has been that if there were a life for life decision, either
the mother or the child dies, it is the child’s life that has precedence
because the mother has already been baptized and been able to work out her
salvation; the baby has not. Whatever one may think of that argument, it is
clearly one that works only within a set of rather special theological
assumptions. It is not a moral argument available to rational assessment.
Decisions about “which life” are by and large
hypothetical. Given modern obstetrical technique it almost never comes down to
such a crisis. I was debating the abortion question with Joseph Fletcher, the
chief proponent of “situation ethics.” Fletcher cited a situation
where answering which life was compelling. In Nazi concentration camps, he
said, women who were pregnant were immediately executed. Because of this
policy, Jewish doctors performed hundreds of abortions for women in the
camps.
Suppose, then, that a pregnant Jewish mother is cast into the camp
along with her two young children. She has the decision to abort or to face
execution and thus abandon the living children. The Jewish position would be
that the mother as the center of the family takes precedence and in the
concentration camp case there would seem to be a powerful moral obligation to
protect the born even at the cost of the unborn.
Fletcher cited this example as an utter refutation of my own
antiabortion argument. I countered that the trouble was that he was a failure
as a situation ethicist. Extreme situations -- lifeboat cases as they are
sometimes called -- do not as such give a rule for morals. We don’t think
it permissible to eat the corpses of our friends -- but in a lifeboat when we
are starving? Well.
Moral discussion proceeds from certain general maxims that may
fail utterly in extreme situations. Could one really fault a Jewish mother who
chose abortion over abandonment of her living children? I doubt it, but the
extreme case does not validate abortion in general, in every case.
Which leads to the “theology” of pro-choice. Is a
woman’s choice a value to be honored? Yes, that is a fixed moral
principle. Are all the choices made by women (or men) moral choices? Hardly. Is
the choice for abortion moral? It would certainly seem plausible in the
concentration camp case cited. Would it be moral if a woman chose abortion as a
way of punishing her husband or herself? One could at least have doubts that
abortion out of vindictiveness is morally worthy.
For pro-choicers, these latter questions cannot be raised because
“choice” has become theological, an action so sanctified that no
situation in which that choice is exercised can be subjected to moral question.
For pro-lifers the life of the fetus is sanctified in such manner that a
situation of genuine moral conflict is impossible. No wonder we have got
nowhere in the discussion of abortion in the last 30 years.
I would like to suggest that pro-life/pro-choice advocates
reorient themselves to some moral discussion of abortion. Pro-life Catholics
will have to put aside the theology that always gives precedence to the fetus;
pro-choicers will have to put aside the theologizing of choice. The moral
question is which choices, in what situations. To admit “situations”
into moral discourse is not to subvert discussion in a slew of relativism.
Moral maxims remain but morality is fitting maxims to situations. What would be
some of the maxims guiding a moral discussion?
Maxim One: Abortion presents itself within a specifiable moral
situation. This qualifies the pro-life position by insisting that situation is
relevant, the fetus is not always protected. The pro-choice position is
qualified by insisting that abortion presents itself as a moral situation.
Abortion is not morally neutral like choosing cosmetic surgery.
Maxim Two: Abortion is a serious procedure. Pro-lifers can’t
see abortion as a therapy at all, even to prevent serious harm. Pro-choicers
fail to regard abortion as serious therapy, the sort of procedure that one
would enter into only for compelling reason. Amputation is a serious therapy
for serious conditions; abortion should be serious therapy for serious reasons.
Abortion as a routine contraceptive technique trivializes the seriousness of
the procedure not only for the woman but for what it says about the status of
fetal life.
A challenge to pro-choicers: One need not invest fetal life with
all the values claimed for it by pro-life advocates, but it coarsens human life
to regard the fetus as having no value. The woman who miscarries in a
much-desired pregnancy is not distressed over a nothing.
Maxim Three: No woman should be compelled to have an abortion.
This follows from the admission that it is serious therapy. If there is an
alternative to a serious therapy (abortion, amputation) one should opt for the
alternative. Pro-choice and pro-life people should both applaud the no
compulsion maxim. Both sides should therefore foster responsible preventive
measures to avoid disastrous pregnancies that “force” women into the
choice for abortion.
This is a challenge to pro-lifers mired in anti-contraception
views that prohibit contraception as the “lesser of two evils.”
Again, theological injunction blocks moral deliberation. If God forbids
abortion and contraception as absolutes, there can be no weighing of
“evils.” Fine, but that is not the stuff of moral argument.
Maxim Four: There are proper moral, political and cultural means
that would eliminate much of the compulsion that leads to abortion as a choice.
This is where things get difficult. It would require both sides to engage in
mutual moral deliberation instead of trading theological absolutes. However, if
one accepted the prior maxims there would be obvious ways to enrich the public
policies, life situations and the discourse that affect the choice for
abortion: available adoption, moral, economic and social support for unwanted
pregnancies, recognition of some value for fetal life.
At the present time, both political parties play the issue false.
The Democrats have made it a theological/litmus test to oppose any limitation
on “choice” -- and thus any policies that might constrain or educate
choice. Republicans inveigh against Roe v. Wade, posturing about
a legal reversal, which they are reasonably sure won’t ever come about --
and probably would just as soon never happened.
Dennis O’Brien is the retired president of the University
of Rochester. He is author of The Idea of a Catholic University
(University of Chicago Press).
National Catholic Reporter, March 7,
2003
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