'MORAL CONSISTENCY AND ABORTION': An Exchange of Views
an exchange of views 'Moral Consistency and Abortion' St. Louis, Mo. To the Editors: That there is a dichotomy between the stands of some Catholic legislators on the taking of life...
...Generally I would tend to take a righttolife position on all these issues...
...I am not against consistency in moral argument...
...The way out would be, as suggested in the article, to make a distinction between pre- and post-natal life...
...One is liberal if he is for abortion, against capital punishment and for a humane treatment of prisoners...
...But, again, in question is not the right-to-life principle as such, but the justification of a specific kind of killing...
...the article is disjointed and rambling, not analogous regarding its main points, incorrect in certain matters, and misleading...
...This leaves us with no guides or standards that can be applied, seemingly, to either viewpoint...
...And this is, of course, what the argument really comes down to...
...Similarly, an awareness of the irrational vengefulness that basically supports capital punishment, the lack of correspondence between the inherent fallibility of human justice, crime and punishment, the apparent ineffectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent are among the considerations which, beside the right-to-life principle, should inform our judgment on capital punishment...
...To be anti-abortion is a conservative posture these days...
...Only with saints...
...But upon reflection, I have to say that it is lofty rhetoric but poor ethical reasoning...
...The structure of the situation is different from war and capital punishment...
...The requests Are too mechanical...
...But my point is that the abortion problem is a specific one which has to be dealt with on its own terms...
...They can do so only by singling out the abortion issue as a special ethical problem, having to do with the human quality of the fetus, the definition of killing, etc...
...But the President was invited, and his remarks (on educational policy) were lauded without qualifications by Cardinal Krol...
...But then what is at stake is not so much the right-to-life principle as the justification of killing 17 May 1974:262 in a war situation...
...So is support for capital punishment and for strict treatment of criminals...
...I suggest they look into Catholic Relief Services, largest voluntary relief organization in the world...
...Furthermore, the Fifth Commandment in the original Hebrew clearly means "Thou Shalt Not Murder" and --at least by Old Testament norms-the book of Genesis states, "If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed...
...His appearance at this moment before the Association was a political act, an expression of solidarity, that could not have occurred if Cardinal Krol had thought President Nixon's accelerated destruction of Indochinese was morally unacceptable...
...That is the present or recent political climate...
...To the Editors: It is not at all surprising that the authors of the article "Moral Consistency and the Abortion Issue" [Mar...
...But if the critics of the right-to-life position refuse the validity of the distinction between pre- and post-natal life, implicit in that position and making possible a qualitative dfference between the two kinds of killing, how can they justify making a similar distinction, be it, admittedly, for a different purpose: to show that prenatal life is not quite human...
...Specific questions have to he asked with regard to each problem that do not apply to the others...
...Finally, as regards attitudes toward war, war has shown an accelerating tendency to victimize increasing numbers of innocent bystanders...
...It is clear that this situation raises some ethical questions and I am grateful to the authors for having pointed up some of them...
...Personally I find abortion very hard to justify...
...The reason for all this is obvious: The writers did not say what they really mean, they beat around the bush...
...What now...
...Our critics stress the unique innocence of the fetus as the basis for a sharp distinction between pre- and postnatal life...
...But I would still maintain that the ethical considerations in these various situations are not identical...
...The unborn child is the most innocent, defenseless among us...
...He can say that certain criminals have forfeited their right to life and that, therefore, capital punishment is morally acceptable, even indicated...
...Chestnut Hill, Mass...
...We concluded that a complex set of other, traditional values were probably exercising a predominating influence...
...I am afraid, however, that I can not share their position...
...It was liberal to be against the war...
...So was support for the Vietnam war...
...But in the same way the anti-abortionist or right-to-life person can argue that in certain cases his right-to-life principle does not apply...
...Taking this route leads the pro-abortionist to define prenatal life as not quite human...
...This was at a time when the President was under intense and world-wide critical attack for escalating the bombing in Indochina...
...But who can trust This way of saying things and take the leap To getting lost in dry vaults...
...Dept...
...The pro-abortionist tries to argue that abortion is a special case, not really killing...
...To the Editors: That there is a dichotomy between the stands of some Catholic legislators on the taking of life by abortion, and the taking of life in the Vietnam war, or by capital punishment seems to be demonstrated in your article of March 22nd, entitled "Moral Consistency and the Abortion Issue...
...The anti-abortionist tends to argue that no such justification is possible...
...Where would the writers have a clergyman draw the line on whom to pray with...
...The difference is that anarchism is prevented, and the community decides what situation is so serious that it requires the taking of human life...
...they ask, until it sounds As though people I know are living inside Them, breathing, rustling about, waiting for me To work myself in...
...the Catholic Bishops' Human Development Campaign, a non-denominational, self-help anti-poverty project...
...While deploring the lack of moral concern with regard to Vietnam suggested by the data, I do not think that the question of the war can be reduced to a right-to-life issue...
...22] found that the attitudes toward abortion, war, capital punishment Commonweal: 261 and related issues can be understood far better in terms of political and religious conservatism, or liberalism as the case may be, than in terms of a consistent application of the right-to-life principle...
...No matter how liberal or restrictive the conditions under which a legislature may allow abortion, nevertheless the right to abort must be granted by the legislature, :rod not be awtilable ondemand...
...Catholic Social Services of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, the largest network of private social-service facilities in Pennsylvania...
...Devenney's criticism of our claim that Cardinal Krol had exhibited a steadfast moral solidarity with President Nixon is disingenuous...
...The conservative is against abortion but finds capital punishment less objectionable...
...on the contrary, the principle of the "sanctity of human life" appears to be simply overwhelmed by nationalism and antiCommunist ideology...
...So is the question of killing in war...
...I even feel in sympathy with the argument as developed in the article under discussion...
...It was not enough to say to many Germans in World War II that they did not have to take part in the slaughter of the Jews...
...Others argue that it can, under circumstances, be justified...
...But how can the statement that "the anti-abortionists don't have to abort" compensate for the despair and helplessness that follows when an issue can no longer even be debated...
...Incidentally, Cardinal Krol did not invite President Nixon to address the National Catholic Education Association...
...We were quite explicit that inconsistencies might well be found on the same range of topics for pro-abortionists, but what legitimates our more restricted analysis is precisely the frequent assertion by anti-abortionists that the sanctity of human life determines their attitudes toward abortion...
...Only with governors or Presidents or candidates of one particular party...
...The article is tough to briefly comment on because its rhetoric is far better than the writers' logic...
...It is a great deal different for a legislature to determine that abortion is permissible, and to state the conditions under which it is permissible, than to allow the individual to abort for any reason, or even a whim, without any authority in the legislature to restrain her in any manner...
...At any rate, if I were to take this kind of consistency seriously, I would have difficulty in not seeing inconsistency in the position that opposes both killing in war and capital punishment, yet sees no problem in abortion...
...It may even be that the mother alone, and by herself, might be allowed to judge whether her situation meets the conditions, laid down by the legislature, under which abortions are allowed...
...The killing that takes place in abortion is not the same as in an execution...
...On the eve of the 1972 Republican Convention, a conservative Philadelphia Bulletin columnist, Adrian Lee, quoted Cardinal Krol as saying that "we [he and Richard Nixon] share a common concern over the depletion . . . of the religious and moral convictions which govgrn human behavior" ("Cardinal Krol . . . and the Right to Life," August 23, 1972...
...War may he necessary sometimes...
...But since I have the Allied liberating forces to thank for my life, I find it difficult to take a radical pacifist position...
...Their objection to the inconsistency of the fight-to-life position is acceptable only if they are willing to declare that abortion is not killing...
...A better grasp of the best interests of the nations involved in that conflict, more respect for the autonomy of the Vietnamese people, a better awareness of the futility and silliness of the crusade against Communism, and other such considerations should have played a role in the formation of the attitudes toward the war...
...Under the Supreme ('ourt decision it not only became irrelevant, but impossible, for communities represented by their legislators to debate the issue any longer...
...One can complain that the antiabortion forces are not consistent in that they do not apply their right-tolife principle to such situations as war and capital punishment--to take the most obvious issues...
...I can also see that there may be situations in which abortion is the only solution...
...The right to life is only one of many...
...If we remove the process we remove hope, and we impose bitterness and despair...
...The difficulty, of course, is that this would lead to a less liberal position on the abortion issue...
...Devenney nor Cardinal Krol chose to repudiate this explicit expression of moral solidarity...
...The anti-abortionist tends to emphasize the innocence and defenselessness of the unborn and insists on its being human...
...I do not need to describe the problem-situation in detail...
...It is by no means clear that the problems of abortion, war and capital punishment, even though they all have to do in some way with the right to life, are identical problems...
...If the writers had been interested in doing their homework, I would gladly have supplied them with the Cardinal's statements on related subjects-as Archbishop of Philadelphia, or on behalf of both U.S...
...It does not hold...
...Ergo, their research was almost nil, their examples woefully weak, their arguments limp, their conclusions-if you can call ambiguities conclusions --fell flat, I hope the writers never discover that Cardinal Krol has conducted religious services in prisons, reformatories, because they obviously would assume he "has manifested a steadfast moral solidarity" with the inmates' acts...
...Here, too, the writers, one of whom is a specialist in community health work, did not do their homework...
...The liberal is against killing in war and the gas chamber, but finds abortion less objectionable...
...However, I hasten to add that Genesis only seems to provide some justification for capital punishment, and I am not arguing for or against capital punishment, simply pointing out that the automatic inconsistency in question does not apply...
...On the death penalty: being for capital punishment and against abortion is not automatic inconsistency...
...This fact is effectively demonstrated by the Supreme Court decision in Roe vs...
...The impersonal, automated warfare employed in Vietnam, with "free-fire zones" and high-level bombing, should have been anathema to those focusing on the probable victimization of innocents, including fetuses (many of which were destroyed inside pregnant female bodies incinerated in bombing raids or shot down at Mylai and elsewhere...
...I find capital punishment repulsive...
...It certainly also does not apply to Catholics on preservation and enhancement of life after birth...
...Having lived under the Nazi occupation for five years, I think I know what war is all about and have reasons to hate it...
...such friends who understand But for these reasons of their own, leave Me empty caves to search, wherein I've called And called out names until I was assured I was a lonely man who must remain Apart from himself, and wait for his hands To change the sounds of this life...
...Someone, say, who is far away, asleep Or merely mute...
...Samuel H. Beer said in a Center Magazine article: "The liberating ethos of modern culture does seem to point to some ultimate non-standard . . . . " Members of society have difficulty in living together with any sort of coherence where it is no longer possible for them, through any legislative process, to look for a remedy for what they consider a moral illness...
...The right to legislate on abortion is society's responsibility...
...Capital punishment is a special case to be treated on its own merits...
...This is, of course, not to say that I do not deplore the conservative stance taken by anti-abortionists on issues such as capital punishment and the Vietnam war...
...These are questions that have to be dealt with in the light of the right-to-life principle but as having particular features...
...Devenney makes one minor substantive point...
...It may be that abortion should be allowed in all the in,,tanccs thai pro-abortion group~ tlcmand...
...RICHARD T. STITH, JR...
...It is like the argument heard a few years ago, that we should not make so much noise about abortion because we were killing people in the war all the time anyhow...
...The argument that the antiabortionists have less of a case because they are not equally strongly opposed to capital punishment or war is specious...
...The war was wrong, and therefore that killing was not justified...
...Thus, both the conservative and the liberal position appear to he morally inconsistent...
...like love, their language speaks Itself and dies under the touch of hands, Leaving my fingers opened at the cracks And holes of air, holding nothing--the last Sound already by...
...the $32-35 million in vital social services for the underprivileged provided annually in this archdiocese by Catholics to the total community...
...We slipped in saying that the Cardinal himself invited Nixon to speak before the National Catholic Education Association...
...Our test of the voting of Pennsylvania legislators indicates an inverse relationship between support for fetal and post-fetal life on the part of antiabortionist legislators, which would seem to call into question the "right to life" as the value and principle controlling their attitudes toward fetal life itself...
...17 May 1974:264...
...the sentenced person may have taken the life of another...
...The point that should be in question in this country is not whether abortion should be allowed, but who shall determine if, and when, abortion can be allowed...
...THEODORE M. STEEMAN, O.F.M...
...Again others redefine the situation so that no real killing is involved in abortion...
...What this amounts to is that the requirement of moral consistency as presupposed in the article is ill taken...
...An orderly society can abdicate its responsibility in no instance of this seriousness by making it possible for the individual to act without reason --particularly when such abdication is forced on a society by declaring it to be incompetent...
...Just as it is a great deal different for the legislature to determine the conditions under which capital punishment shall occur, than to allow the family of the victim, for example, to make the sole decision as to whether a killer, shall suffer capital punishment...
...But this avoids anarchy, because society still has ultimate control...
...it was impossible for those Germans to live in a society that condoned such action, with no chance given to protest...
...contributions by Cardinal Krol's Commission on Human Relations to victims of the 1972 flood in Pennsylvania and the commission's widelyknown, widely-appreciated help for welfare recipients when their welfare payments were delayed by the state legislature in July of 1973...
...This is a matter that we partly bypassed, and still do, on the ground that many anti-abortionists rest their case on the sanctity of all human life, not on the innocence of particular forms...
...ROBERT EDELSTEIN EDWARD $. HERMAN MARY W. HERMAN 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ROBERT PAWLOWSKI VOICES Voices always come out of bedroom walls...
...The moral arguments are different...
...Where...
...Seen in this light abortion is just another typical situation in which the basic question of the justification of killing arises...
...If this were the controlling principle, it should spill over to attitudes toward post-fetal life and welfare...
...In short, the Catholic people don't just engage in dialog, they are doers-in the most beautiful ways--where the unborn and the born are concerned...
...The question is whether and under what conditions taking the life of the unborn is justified...
...Our democratic society has its uniqueness, its expression, only in the processes by which it operates...
...If the authors of the article on Moral Consistency and the Abortion Issue find a whole set of various explanatory elements underlying the voting patterns in Pennsylvania relating to abortion, capital punishment and the Vietnam war, then I would say that is not only not surprising, but should be that way...
...The abortion-on-demand doctrine forbids the community to decide when, and under what conditions, a fetus may be aborted...
...The crucial point is not that abortion is permitted, or is possible, but that abortion-on-demand is permitted...
...How can the legislature be declared incompetent to legislate on the taking of life, on the standards to be met...
...Furthermore, innocence is a matter of degree, and would not appear a sufficient basis for explaining the marked differences in voting patterns shown on anti-abortion legislation and that dealing with war and human welfare which we found...
...REV...
...Our country comprises all its citizens, and through its democratic process all segments of society should have hope that their viewpoints might prevail...
...To remove from the community, whether state or national, all right to legislate on what is admitted to be a serious moral action leaves a bewildered society--a society which is anarchistic, at least regarding abortion...
...And I can see that there may he circumstances wherein killing is the lesser evil...
...But there are two difficulties with the argument this article pursues, one minor and peripheral, the other major and disastrous...
...Only with sinners...
...As little killing as possible...
...Then who is not Reminded of other friends he's tried to reach...
...That would be, it would seem, moral consistency...
...But it should be clear that the kind of moral argument that deals adequately with this type of situation must be specific to the problem at hand...
...Can the offended group rationalize its position so that it can continue to live in such a society...
...Sometimes from walls I've never slept beside: What now...
...And it is quite possible that on this issue one comes out with a a position more restrictive with regard to the justification of killing than in the case of capital punishment or killing in war...
...It is too simple to say that those who are against abortion do not have to abort...
...Once one claims that the right-to-life principle as applied to abortion should be applied also to capital punishment and to war, one should he willing to turn around and oppose abortion because one is against killing, be it in war, in a gas chamber, or in an operating room...
...bishops' conferences of which he is president or as head of the Pennsylvania bishops' conference...
...It simplifies a complex moral situation, demanding consistency on too abstract a level to deal adequately with the complexities of the problems as they present themselves to us...
...The grequent lack of concern for these innocents cannot be explained, as Father Steeman suggests, by the fact that the problems involved in these instances are too complex...
...The traditionally given reasons in support of capital punishment do not in fact justify the killing...
...The minor difficulty arises from the fact that the statistics are reversible, and will show that those who are antiwar, and anti-capital punishment are pro-abortion...
...To argue in public debate on the conditions under which abortion can occur is the responsibility of the citizen...
...There is no threat to national security or reason to fear the repetition of serious crime, but unwanted pregnancies and shattered careers...
...The major difficulty arises from the fact that the pro-abortionists (and probably most of the anti-abortionists) fail to discern that there is a consistent moral principle followed by the antiabortionists despite the fact that they may be pro-life in one instance and anti-life in another...
...To the Editors: Some comments re "'Moral Consistency and the Abortion Issue," March 22 issue...
...Then the demand for protection of human life which leads to rejection of war and capital punishment does not apply to the fetus...
...ED DEVENNEY Director, News Office Archdiocese of Philadelphia Commonweal: 263 ReplF Our critics either did not understand or refuse to accept the limited purpose of our investigation, which was to test the consistency of views of anti-abortionists based on the hypothesis that the principle of the "right to life" could explain their position on abortion...
...Wade which made unconstitutional the laws of all fifty states, whether those laws concerning abortion were considered liberal or restrictive...
...In fact John Hart Ely in the Yale Law Review on April, 1973, can find no constitutional connection to the decision, not even one remotely implied, and this gives him serious concern...
...of Theology, Boston College Philadelphia Pa...
...The question then arises, of course, why not complain about the inconsistency of those who oppose capital punishment and massive killing in modern warfare and do not apply that ethical concern to the abortion issue...
...Now we have to do not with criminals or enemies but with unborn life...
...Neither Mr...
Vol. 100 • May 1974 • No. 11
