The Tablet: 'there are grounds for reconsidering the Catholic Church’s present position on abortion'

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The Tablet: 'there are grounds for reconsidering the Catholic Church’s present position on abortion'

Blogged by James Preece on 15th June 2010

The 5th June edition of The Tablet attempts to justify abortion.

First Charles E Curran (Professor of Human Values in the Perkins School of Theology at the Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas) writes:

Killing is sometimes accepted in the Catholic tradition as in war and in self-defence. Thus killing thus is not a moral evil (which can never be done), but a “non-moral”, “pre-moral” or “ontic” evil, that can be done if there is a proportionate reason. Saving the life of the mother is a proportionate reason justifying the abortion.

The whole Church, the hierarchical Magisterium and theologians must listen to the Holy Spirit speaking in the lives of Christian people – the sensus fidelium.

In other words, he thinks that killing an innocent baby to save the life of the mother is morally equivalent to killing a man who has picked up a gun and attempted to invade one's country.

The question can be simply answered. If my wife had a deadly disease which could only be cured by killing our toddler (perhaps my wife needs all of her bone marrow and several vital organs) would you say "Saving the life of Ella is a proportionate reason justifying the killing of a three year old girl?"

No. You wouldn't. Because you recognise that my little girl is a person with as much right to life as her mum.

So why do you think it okay to kill an unborn child to save the mother?

Next, Professor Tina Beattie (director of the Digby Stuart Research Centre for Catholic Studies at Roehampton University) writes...

So, a procedure could be performed with the intention of saving a mother’s life which indirectly caused the death of the foetus (for example, by removing the cancerous womb of a pregnant woman), but the direct, intentional killing of the foetus can never be condoned, even to save the mother’s life.

This kind of argument may appeal to those who value moral absolutes over ambiguity, but many of us regard dilemmas such as the one confronting Sr Margaret and her colleagues as being too complex for formulaic judgements.

The intention in this case was not to kill the child but to save the mother, and some may regard the distinction between directly and indirectly destroying the foetus as of little ethical relevance in situations of such tragic complexity.

Those who "value moral absolutes over ambiguity"...

She values ambiguity?

The distinction between directly and indirectly destroying a person is highly relevant. If I drive my car in to a person on purpose it is a very different thing to if I drive my car to work and accidentally hit a person on the way.

Given that in Christian theology the understanding of personhood is fundamentally relational because it bears the image of the Triune God, it is hard to see how an embryo can be deemed a person before even the mother enters into a rudimentary relationship with it.

Human beings are made in the image of God and this image is found in it's fullness in the way human beings relate to one another in love. "Let us make them in our image".

To use the beautiful way in which a human person made in the image of God is fulfilled by loving relationships with other human beings as an excuse to deny the humanity of a child is a disgusting and depraved act of evil.

You haven't met your mother so you are not a person.

This is what it comes to?

Did I mention that this magazine is being sold at the back of Westminster Cathedral under the watchful eye of Archbishop Vincent Nichols?

Who does...

Nothing!

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Reader Comments

Jane de Villalobos said...

Thank-you for this excellent article. Thank God that the biological mothers of my adopted children do not read the Tablet and DID have a loving relationship with their unborn babies, such that they chose life and adoption for them, even though according to Tablet ethics they had excuse enough to kill. I abominate the Tablet and all it stands for as it justifies the murder of my own precious children: this is pure evil.

Nicolas Bellord said...

So presumably Adam was not a person until Eve arrived on the scene.

This is nothing new from the Tablet. I had correspondence with John Wilkins years ago when he revealed equally strange views about abortion. More recently I was told by one of their staff that a more nuanced approach should be adopted. I am not sure how you have a nuanced abortion.

And then there is the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth where the former ban on referrals for abortion has been removed with the approval of Cardinal Cormac, the Papal Nuncio and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or so we are told and there has been no public denial from any of these three despite being asked.

Hestor said...

What hope is there for us when the shepherds have joined the wolves?

All the more reason to seek out a church or chapel where the old rite is said and large families Catholic congregate.

Amanda said...

No Hestor,
Salt and light are not commanded to only be with other salt and light...
Take your large family and orthodox values and be a sign. You will shine more brightly in the darkness.

I do struggle with the Church's teaching on ectopic pregnancy though, can anyone help??

Ben Trovato said...

The relationship argument (such as it is) falls apart entirely the minute one considers that the unborn child is already in relationship with God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Our Blessed Mother, his or her guardian angel, all the angels and saints....

Gerry said...

The Tablet writers seem to have forgotten that the Catholic Church runs on authority from the Holy Spirit and that JPII made an infallible statement about abortion.

“Therefore, by the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, and in communion with the Bishops of the Catholic Church, I confirm that the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral. This doctrine, based upon that unwritten law which man, in the light of reason, finds in his own heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15), is reaffirmed by Sacred Scripture, transmitted by the Tradition of the Church and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
“The deliberate decision to deprive an innocent human being of his life is always morally evil and can never be licit either as an end in itself or as a means to a good end. It is in fact a grave act of disobedience to the moral law, and indeed to God himself, the author and guarantor of that law; it contradicts the fundamental virtues of justice and charity. ‘Nothing and no one can in any way permit the killing of an innocent human being, whether a fetus or an embryo, an infant or an adult, an old person, or one suffering from an incurable disease, or a person who is dying. Furthermore, no one is permitted to ask for this act of killing, either for himself or herself or for another person entrusted to his or her care, nor can he or she consent to it, either explicitly or implicitly. Nor can any authority legitimately recommend or permit such an action’” -Paragraph 57

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Donna said...

That sound you hear is W.G. Ward spinning in his grave ....

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Vesper said...

But your examples don't seem to hold up. Firstly, the case of killing an unborn child in order to prevent the death of another person would be more akin to the case of conjoined twins. Frequently doctors make the decision to intervene in the gestation of conjoined twins, killing one in order to preserve the life of the other. Now, you may still be opposed to this, but the medical point is that, without such an intervention, both will die. Similarly, in cases where abortion is permitted on the grounds of protecting the mother's health, the matter is that without such an intervention, both mother and child will be lost. This is significantly different to your counter example of simply killing a toddler to protect a parent. Also, imagine if your wife was in this situation having just conceived. I would say that you can easily sympathise with the decision to save her life then, so she can continue to look after your living child with you (congratulations by the way!). Now, I don't want to give a horrible counter example, but if you were asked to chose between your newborn and her, you and she both may (or probably would) choose to protect the infant. But this is different to a case where an abortion is required to save her, and it is by no means clear you would not opt for saving her in such a situation.

Your driving a car to work example is also a bit flawed. Accidentally killing a person in a road accident is both indirect and unintentional. This makes it unlike your surgery example, which is indirect but intentional (since performing an action in full knowledge of the consequences is to intend those consequences to come about). A better counter example would be if a traveller from the future came back in time (bear with me!) and said 'If you drive to work today you will knock a pedestrian down accidentally, no matter how careful you are'. I would say, in such a situation, if you still decided to drive on that day, rather than take the bus, you would be responsible for the death of that person, even if the action was indirect. You cannot therefore equate 'indirect' with 'unintentional'; indirect acts are sometimes quite intentional

James said...

Hi Vesper,

It's well understood and accepted that a medical procedure to save the mother which inadvertently leads to the death of the child is not an abortion. The problem with The Tablet article is that clearly describes "the direct, intentional killing of the foetus".

You lose me when you say "performing an action in full knowledge of the consequences is to intend those consequences to come about"

I know that when I buy petrol some of the fuel duty I pay will be used by the government to fund Marie Stopes. Are you suggesting therefore that when I fill my car with petrol I intend to fund abortions?

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Vesper said...

Ha - fair point! But I suppose you can't choose not to pay the duty. A woman who is informed that an operation will save her life but kill her child can choose not to have it. Also, we could be even more Jesuitical and distinguish between mediate and proximate consequences; when you pay for petrol the money passing on to MS is a mediate consequence - it happens via someone else's agency. If the petrol station were owned by MS and attached to an abortion clinic then your conscience would be challenged to a greater degree. Perhaps then you would not pay for petrol at all and choose not to drive, since the funding of abortion would become proximate. The medical issue is proximate, not mediate, so it is a stronger moral problem

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Vesper said...

Just to clarify - I mean here to say that you could not 'intend' to fund MS by purchasing petrol since you do not know that your tax money, specifically, will go to that organisation. You also know that, whether or not you buy petrol, tax money will go to MS. However, an operation which leads to the death of a child is entirely different. You know quite precisely that you will kill the child, and by choosing to save your own life you therefore intend that consequence.

kerath25 said...

Vesper -

I can see where you are coming from with your argument, that one would know that the baby is going to die either way and therefore the difference is negligible. It was a difficulty that I struggled with when a family member went through such a scenario.

The key is mindset and intent. Let me pose another analogy: you are informed by a friend one night that a man in town has a grudge against you and plans to kill you. Your friend knows this man and offers to kill him while he is asleep. You know that when this man finds you, there will be a fight and, in defending yourself, the man might be killed anyway.

I readily admit that there are problems with this analogy, but it draws the basic lines. One way is involves acts obviously and intrinsically evil, but the other, while it results in the same outcome, is an unfortunate and undesired event.

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Vesper said...

I can see where you're coming from, but this makes a case from self-defence. In this example, the man is himself guilty of a wrong and therefore I can legitimately place my own interests above his. But a conjoined twin, or a baby who endangers the life of its mother is not guilty, therefore one cannot invoke 'self-defence' in killing it. The only comparable example would be to imagine yourself alongside an innocent man in a sinking ship with only one life jacket. In such a situation you might be fair about it and flip a coin, but you might be magnanimous and decide that since you know of your own guilt in this world, but not of his, you can suppose his life to be more worthy in your eyes, and undertake an act of charity. And after all, what is more innocent than an unborn child?

kerath25 said...

Like I said, not the greatest of analogies, because the madman is guilty of a crime, while the baby is not. It was merely to demonstrate that, while the ends are important, sometimes the means make all the difference.

I am confused over what particular point you are trying to make. If I understood your original stance correctly, you argue that it should be licit to seek an abortion if the life of the mother is in danger and that the death of the baby while attempting to save the mother is no different than the abortion, because one knows the outcome. If this is wrong, please correct me.

You mentioned above that it is legitimate to put your interests above the criminal because he is criminal; also, that the unborn child is innocent. But that implies that in a situation where the other party is innocent, it is not legitimate to put your interests above theirs. Your sinking ship demonstrates this, but it does not do well as an analogy as it is. It does not show the physical inequalities between the two people involved or draw out the possible endings. Remembering that we are speaking of a situation where the most likely outcome is the death of one party is almost guaranteed, not 50/50.

Take the case of a tubal pregnancy (I do not know what should be done in the case of the conjoined twins, so I will leave it to wiser people). If the mother attempts to carry to term, both parties will almost certainly die, though there is a vanishingly small chance that both will survive. If the mother opts for surgery, every known medical technique is used to save the baby, but again, death is almost certain. If the mother opts for an abortion, death is certain. For a closer analogy, on your sinking ship, the other man would need to be a notoriously bad swimmer and likely to drown with or without a life-jacket. He is innocent and you regret his drowning, but there is no known means of saving him. However, holding him underwater so that he does not pull you down with him is still wrong. Again, this is not an airtight analogy, but it should serve as an outline.

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Kathleen Lundquist said...

Here's another observation re: Professor Beattie's theological ineptitude as evidenced in the statement, "... it is hard to see how an embryo can be deemed a person before even the mother enters into a rudimentary relationship with it."

The statement contains the key to its own refutation, which is the word MOTHER. The existence of the embryo/child/new human being has changed a woman into a mother. I can't think of a more profound transformation brought into being by a relationship between persons.

Jason the first said...

Rather than just some Professor's statement on the matter of when a mother enters a rudimentary relationship w/ an embryo I will indulge you w/ actual events that transpired in my wife & my life. My wife & I were told she was pregnant. This would be our 4th child after 7 years from the last. We were so happy and thankful. We told my mother and brothers. Thought of baby names, only after 1 month of finding out. We started planning this child's future. This baby had really caused us to even bond w/ each other more. This baby brought up memories of how it was to be new parents again, a new mother for my wife. I agree this Professor has contradicted himself w/ the wording of "mother" in his statement. Well month 2 and we found out the pregnancy was a still birth. It was devastating. We were told it would take 6 months to get pregnant again. Well another month later and we were pregnant again. Today my wife is 8 months pregnant and we are so happy and blessed. Life is something best left to God and not the doctors all the time. At best they are just using their best guess. God doesn't guess but knows.

Vesper said...

Kerath - I stand corrected, that is a better analogy. I was originally playing with an abstract model that would probably never transpire (i.e. a striaght choice between mother and child). But your analogy is much better

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Amanda said...

Hmmm....
I think this could be a red herring. In my experience (health care worker!) almost all the vanishingly small number of women who have to choose between their life and their baby's life, choose to prioritise the baby's life over their own. 97% of abortions in the UK are early, social abortions on young, fit married and single women.

kerath25 said...

Amanda,

You are right that the case being discussed here is one of the least (if not the least) common reason for seeking an abortion. The difficulty is that many people want to take the Church's stance on abortion (never licit), ask about this one very rare scenario and then use it as a reason to allow all abortions (and shout that the Church doesn't care about women at the same time). If it is not completely clear that abortion is always wrong, even when it intends good, then it will continue to creep back into society.

Richard M. said...

Speaking at least for myself, I "value moral absolutes over ambiguity." Every time. All the time.

Rita C said...

In the case of an ectopic pregnancy or a cancerous womb, the baby cannot survive. In the case of conjoined twins, there have been a number of cases where the twins were not separated, and continued to live conjoined into adulthood. It is not necessary to make the decision to separate them. We don't always have to intervene.

I don't understand how anyone can say that a pregnant woman is not in a relationship with her unborn child. Women look out for the first kick, they prize their ultrasound pictures of the baby and show them to all their friends, just as you would do with your born children. They get to know when the baby is awake or asleep because of its movements in the womb. Babies recognise music and voices they have heard in the womb. These arguments are rubbish.