The 'Demystification' of Life

...Charles Bender (reported in "Performing Abortions," Magda Denes, Commentary October, 1976, p. 35) reflects on his abortion practice: " . . . I have no conscious conflict over killing a fetus . . . . I don't relish delivering the fetus . . . . I think we're certainly living in a time of decreased human respect, of decreased human relationships, and of decreased sensitivity to killing off things...

...What is needed is a resurrection within our society of the basic humanistic and religious and moral traditions which gave us the fundamental insight into the inviolability of human life and the sanctity of human life...

...I have been stressing the validity of the anti-abortion position within the traditional premises of our legal system and of our total society precisely to emphasize a broader issue--The extent to which the values of the sensate trend have permeated our society and are eroding the moral character o/ that society...

...They plot this general trend from the rise of wealth and luxury in the city culture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and extend it to the year 2000 and beyond...

...This same phenomenon has been observed and commented on by any reflective thinkers from widely different points of view...

...This means in turn a great ethical revival and, I believe also, a great religious revival...

...They were made by the Spanish king, Juan Carlos I, in association with a select group of articulate and pragmatic advisers who began their political careers in the Franco era...

...This shock is a sign of our unawareness of the moral decadence which has been growing within our society...

...There is no reason why he would not also approve the primitive and pagan treatment of the helpless elderly...

...Watson speaks approvingly of the practice in primitive tribes of abandoning babies on a hillside...

...And so now to return to where I began--the explicit position of Dr...

...A legal system does embody, as the German court said, the basic values of the society to which it belongs...

...Western man's psychic balance has been much more disturbed by that pragmatic materialism which is in reality endorsed by great numbers of men who intellectually profess the most elevated spiritual ideas...

...Thus, Ignace Lepp (Death and Its Mysteries, p. 70) connects our abnormal fear of death with this sensate trend: Another cause of abnormal fear of death is the increasing materialism of Western civilization...

...A shrewd and articulate public figure, he skillfully united a disorganized social democratic center by submitting his own name for a seat in the Cortes (Spanish Parliament...

...But the widespread feeling of insecurity in the West, despite all our laws for social protection, constantly xeminds us how precar~,ous the hedonistic way of life is...

...Perhaps we can confront the inactive part of our society with the choice that is basic here, namely a choice to accept the fundamental right to life of all human beings or to accept the erosion and limitation of that right by a series of qualifications that inevitably will more and more reduce the protection of human life in our legal system...

...Though at the beginning he had been feared, as the campaign ended he had acquired many admirers and some few votes...

...And, Dr...

...In The Year 2000 Kahn and Wiemer identified a series of trends which they extrapolated from the past into the future of at least this century...

...the horror of Nazism was possible only because of the latest effects of this trend...

...Now should this trend continue and should those who would uphold in society our traditional and basic system of values become a minority, a small minority, the law itself would necessarily reflect this...

...former president o/ Georgetown University, is Mcl)onncll Professor o] Justi,'e in American Society at Saint Louis University...

...The most important decision they made was to risk democracy...

...In fact, I am not convinced that working for a constitutional amendment is the essential way to achieve the goal of the pro-life movement...

...In 1859 the AMA Committee on Criminal Abortion attributed the widespread practice of abortion to "mistaken and exploded medical dogmas...

...This appears now to be reversed...

...The scientific and medical evidence is clear...

...and vote their true feelings in the next election...

...The real question is: Has the "demystification" of human life and the contempt for human beings gone so far in our society that the courts, by legal dodges and definitions, can pay lip service to the tradition wh~e excluding thousands of human beings from their concern...

...And if their reaction is strong enough, we may reach the position enunciated by the high German court which asserted that the sanctity of human life was a value of of society and a proper object of German law...

...Given this basis and these premises, it is perfectly clear that the law and the courts should undertake to protect unborn human beings just as much as those who have emerged from the womb...

...Abortion is indeed a matter for personal religious and moral consciences, although this does not, as some seem to think, preclude legislation about it...

...If we cannot achieve a revival, Kahn and Wiener's projection of the Sensate trend will turn out to be a prediction of the total permeation of society by materialism and sensuality, its total dehumanization amid moral anarchy...

...This brings us to a primary consideration of great importance--the relation between a legal system and the values of the larger society, of the people...

...I THE REIGN IN SPAIN KENNETH E. MOORE The election created many heroes and a few villains The most consequential decisions made in Spain in the twenty months since the death of Franco have been made behind the scenes...

...After all, murder, theft, rape and most of the offenses listed in the criminal code are matters for the individual moral and religious conscience...

...Peter Singer (in an August issue of the New York Review o] Books) asks: "Is there any morally relevant difference between doing an experiment on a dying dog and doing it on a dying fetus...

...All great religions --not only CatholicNhave something to say about this...

...or the hedonistic, but it includes a movement towards "This-worldly," "Epicurean" or "Hedonistic" attitudes...

...He is seen as a wily old revolutionary who in hard-fought campaigning will say what others dare 22 July ]977:460...

...Yet, they see the trend growing stronger across the expanse of centuries...

...So spoke Nobel Laureate James D. Watson in an interview for Prism, May 1973...

...No doubt he would approve of the patria potestas of pagan Rome and of the ancient Chinese custom of exposing baby girls...

...Another hero created in the electoral process was Santiago Carillo, leader of the Communist party...

...This poll as much as anything may have contributed to the center's victory for there is no doubt that great numbers of socialist supporters decided to vote the safe center now II I II I I KENNETH E. MOORE, r associate pro[essor o/ urban anthropology at the University o/ Notre Dame, is the author of Those of the Street: The Catholic-Jews of Mallorca...

...The center he led was an accommodation not a party, and those who voted for it voted for the man who organized it--surely not the diffuse coalition itself...

...The religious resources that are dormant in large segments of our population can he brought to a Great Awakening...

...He proposes simply that by a legal fiction, such as the Supreme Court used, babies would be declared not living until three days after birth...

...One can hope that the violent confrontation between the pro-abortionists and the pro-life groups in this country might create a consciousness similar to that created in Germany by the Nazi experience...

...If the pro-life movement is to achieve a permanent goal, then it must address itself to the restoration of the moral conscience of society and not merely to legalities...

...The increasing individual violence against persons is a symptom...

...Another election must be held some time in the next four years and the most powerful leader of the left will surely be a young labor lawyer from Seville named Felipe Gonzalez...

...Suarez began the election in a somewhat heroic stance for he more than anyone else is seen as the architect of Spain's democratizing process...

...Justice White in dissent said, "I cannot accept the Court's exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected fight to exterminate it," that is, to commit a murder which will now not be included under the legal definition of murder or manslaughter...

...The last poll before the election showed the Socialist Party of Spanish Workers (PSOE, Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol) ahead with 28.9 percent of the vote as against 25.6 percent for the Center (UCD) led by monarch-appointed Premier Adolfo Suarez...

...At thirty-five, he now stands as spokesman for the loyal opposition...

...The abortion issue has forced thousands of Americans to face this fundamental issue about which philosophers, sociologists and theologians have been speaking with no social effect...

...The potential for that revival exists in the United States today...

...I am not thinking here of the victories of dialectical materialism...

...Among these "trends" they selected is an embracive development designated as "increasingly Sensate...

...There was a time when physiological and medical knowledge was so imperfect it could be thought that irl the earlier stages of pregnancy the fertilized ovum was a part of the woman's body and was not 22 July ]977:458 "quickened...

...As humans we all have a stake in it" [emphasis added...

...He does appeal to cases such as the severely abnormal and handicapped child around which a great deal of controversy and a great deal of sentimentality has been developed, but what he proposes goes far beyond any sentimental sympathy for the special cases...

...Should such an amendment be passed, obviously the pro-life movement would have obtained a victory and would have stopped at least for a time the erosion within the legal system of the protection of human life...

...There is no doubt that I)r...

...It is a question of the nature of human life...

...The increasing disregard of "anything like that" has been manifesting itself in many ways in Western society...

...There is no reason why, given such a decision, the period should not be extended to three months or even a year, no reason why analogous cases in the course of life could not be covered by a legal fiction which would make the destruction of human beings simply not murder...

...Lying, for example, is generally recognized as a sin and & moral evil, yet the law penalizes it only in special cases such as perjury...

...This is a matter for all religious leaders and all moral men and women...

...The principle here appealed to has been a basic commitment both of our society and of our legal system...

...This, he says, would give the parents and the doctors an opportunity to decide whether or not they want the baby, whether or not the baby should live...

...It is with him or someone like him that King Juan Carlos will in years to come join in the task of organizing and governing the New Spain...

...Watson, which is, I am sure, shared by and sympathized with by many materialistic and humanistic scientists and other persons in our society, well-educated though they may otherwise be...

...The German Federal Constitutional Court, in striking down permissive abortion legislation said: Underlying our Basic Law are principles for the structuring of the state that may be understood only in the light of the historical experience and the spiritual-moral confrontation with the previous system of Nazism...

...and as the man who had the courage to allow the entry of the Communist party in Spain's first election in fortyone years...

...there can be no doubt that at the moment of conception a new life entity comes into being, distinct from the mother and in the species of human beings...

...This is not reducible simply to the sensual FA'I"H|~R ROBERI" J . HI.NLII, S.J...

...How could any comparison, not unthinkingly prejudiced in favor of our own species, attribute greater dignity or integrity to the dying fetus than to the dying dog...

...Commonweal: 459 Many persons have realized with a shock that large numbers of Americans are quite willing to support the 1973 Supreme Court decision and the revocation of laws against the murder of the unborn and of others...

...Watson is correct in seeing our changing attitudes toward life and human personality as part of a long-term trend...

...There is plenty of evidence that our society is not prepared to renounce its basic values with regard to human life, but there is also plenty of evidence that in the minds of many citizens the matter is at least clouded and in some minds human life has been reduced almost to the level of animal life...

...It was an authentic gamble, for once the commitment was made a passionate electorate in reprisal against forty years of fascist autocracy could vote to wipe out the past and turn the government over to a majority of the left, who once in power would immediately be at odds with the well-entrenched traditional and private sector, setting the stage for all the exigencies of deafly defined class conflict...

...Thus we are dealing with problems far deeper and broader than the abortion issue...

...If, however, the trend I have identified above would meanwhile continue within our society, there would come a point at which the amendment itself would become obsolete and inoperative, a point at which therefore the legal system would itself reflect the erosion of respect for human life in society and begin to enact into law provisions permitting all sorts of violations of the sanctity of human life...

...Kahn and Wiener recognize the counter-effects of the Reformation, both Protestant and Catholic, and the periodical renewals of Christian morals and decency...

...The basic question is whether the respect for human rights has become so eroded in our society that the courts can now reflect that erosion by excluding groups of human beings from their protection...

...It is quite obvious that the mad scientist of our old-fashioned horror movies is alive and well and is living in our universities and in our research centers...

...Law and Values On the one hand, the legal and judicial system, especially of a religiously disestablished state (the situation in Israel, for example, may be quite different) does not and should not automatically enforce religious principles or even all moral values...

...The most glamorous hero was Premier Adolfo Suarez whose six-by-nine-foot picture was the most dominant artifact in the Spanish nation for three weeks before the election...

...Perhaps the abortion issue will bring many of these persons up abruptly to face the issue, between their religious convictions and their materialistic mode of life, their moral obligations and their acquiescence in so much immorality in society...

...As Dr...

...We would have a reversion to pagan legal systems in which the protection of human life is not primary...

...the issue is a matter of civil and human legal rights, namely whether the law and the courts will truly protect the civil and human rights of all human beings...

...to go as far as a modern state dare in trusting its future entirely to the will of an unpredictable electorate...

...After all, he said in the same interview "'Sacredness of life' or anything like that [emphasis added] is not relevant to my concerns...

...The increasing contempt for human life as such-Commonweal: 457 what Watson calls the "demystification of life"--is part of that overall movement...

...The protection of civiJ and human rights, especially the right to life, of all human beings has been both an accepted ideal in our society and a basic premise of our political and legal system...

...Too many of those who still retain a fundamental religious conviction and who fundamentally are trying to lead a religious life, have at the same time adopted the materialistic ideals of our society and engaged in the same mad pursuit of pleasure that has characterized all sophisticated paganism...

...The courts have traditionally shown a special concern for the defenseless, the helpless and the underprivileged...

...Justice White (and Justice Rehnquist) are reasserting the historic and current context of our law, namely, the value commitments in the society and its general culture...

...The fact that abortion is regarded as a great sin by all the high religions (including until quite recently all Protestant and Jewish sects), or that it is regarded as a basic moral evil does not justify legislative or judicial action...

...THE 'DEMYSTIFICATION' OF LIFE ROBERT I. HENLE Increasing individual violence against persons is a symptom "It [a scientific technique] will, however, accelerate the trend toward the demystification of life that has been going on over the past century, in which life ceases to be a gift of God but, instead, becomes something we control...

...Human beings possess an inherent worth as individuals . . . which uncompromisingly demands unconditional respect for the life of every individual human being, even for the apparently socially 'worthless.' The Nazi experience made Germans aware of the "demystification" trend and has called forth a positive reassertion of the moral and spiritual values of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, especially with regard to human life...

...The issue is not whether the Catholic Church is trying to impose its religious beliefs on our pluralistic society...

...Consequently, it is not enough to take political and legal action...

...It is not accidental or rhetorical that the Germans have linked their opposition to liberal abortion laws to their experience of Nazism...

...He answers: "It is the dog that is the more intelligent, sensitive and autonomous being...

...The issue of abortion is not specifically religious or even moral...

...The center won because the majority of voters were cautious, but the final tally reveals a powerful socialist bloc...

...Given the fact that hedonism has become the supreme existential goal of life for so many, why shouldn't the prospect of having to renounce such enjoyment be considered frightening...

...And so we would be back at the general pagan disregard for human life...

...Watson advocate some qualified abortions...

...It is not merely the case that men like Dr...

...The Spanish election created many heroes and a few villains...

...We have come a long way since the Ages of Faith...

...The Franciscan movement--which began precisely in the most luxurious centers of Italian city life--was a medieval religious response...

...A revival of morality and decency will require--not picketing, not legal action, not arguments--but an inner change in many religious persons that will make marked differences in their external behavior...

...That protection should begin with the first moment of conception and continue throughout human life...

...A practical conclusion of this is that even a constitutional amendment to establish a constitutional guarantee for the basic value and sanctity of all human life within our legal and political system might indeed not solve the problem permanently...

...This is nothing but bad physiology and is contrary to fact...

...He has come to be trusted for his fearlessness and basic honesty...

...The trend has not been without setbacks...

...Harold O. J. Brown, a Protestant anti-abortion leader, said: "Abortion ix not a religious issue...