International Catholic University
When a Catholic woman philosopher enters into the discussion of abortion, she enters with a variety of tools and experiences that provide the perspective for her examination. She enters with the tools of her disciplines -- philosophy and science. She, because she is Catholic, has been formed by the stories of the scriptures -- the Annunciation, the Visitation of two women each with a problem pregnancy, the Nativity -- and she is formed by the scriptural theme of "love for the least of these." When, in addition, she is a mother, she enters the discussion of abortion with the memory of her experience and awareness of nascent human life developing within her body. These are important experiences, which enrich her perspective and which she ought not cast aside.
The question of abortion continues in the contemporary culture to be an emotion-filled and value-laden issue. The public debate appears to be centered on the subjective pole of the act -- the reasons why and the justification for abortion. This focus has been so powerful that the objective pole of the act, that is, the reality of what is done when an abortion is procured or performed has been largely obscured. As a consequence, the public debate has been seriously skewed. The philosophical debate centers on the ontological status of the conceived but not yet born human being -- the conceptus. What I would like to do in these next two lectures is: (1) offer some observations; (2) present some historically interesting information; (3) delineate the outline of the contemporary debate; (4) formulate an ordered position; and (5) from within that position respond to the opposing positions. (The adequacy of the justification for abortion will be addressed in the lecture on maternal-fetal relations.)
First the observations. The first observation is that there is a certain simplicity about the issue of abortion. If abortion takes the life of a human being, then abortion is a species of the moral problem of killing human beings -- a kind of homicide. And the ethical injunctions that apply to other kinds of killing of human beings apply similarly to abortion. If, on the other hand, abortion is an act that destroys a life that is not a human life, then abortion is not the same as other acts of killing human beings and the ethical injunctions regarding abortion are to be attenuated according to that circumstance. So a central issue here is what is the object of abortion, that is, what is it that is destroyed when an abortion is procured. The second observation is that the conclusions that are reached in regard to abortion have implications for other significant issues in medical ethics among them cloning, the use of stem cells, genetic testing and screening, and assisted reproduction.
A bit of history: Abortion as a means of birth control is as old as the human race. There are other practices, such as stealing, murder, and rape, are also as old as the human race. And society rightly condemns these actions. The longevity of the practice of abortion is no more testimony to its moral acceptability than the fact that presence of the practices of stealing, murder, and rape would require their acceptance by society.
Now throughout much of history there has been little regard for the nascent human life, mainly because it remained hidden. Nonetheless, there are some early instances of the condemnation of abortion. The Oath of Hippocrates (c. 5th century B.C.) which called the guild of ancient physicians to practice their art within a set of specific ethical constraints contains the pledge, "I will not give a woman a pessary to cause abortion." While the meaning and the extent of application of that swearing has been subjected to interpretation in the contemporary world, nonetheless its appearance in antiquity suggests at least that those most closely associated with the practice of medicine condemned the practice of abortion.
On the other hand some philosophers including Plato, in pursuit of his ideal Politeia, encouraged or permitted abortion for pregnancy out of season and infanticide for unwanted and imperfect children. Plato admonished the citizens of the Republic that it was, "preferable not even to bring to light anything whatever thus conceived, but if they were unable to prevent birth to dispose of it on the understanding that we cannot rear such an offspring" (5.461c). Recall that for Plato the more important good is the good of the polis. The individual is subsumed in that larger good. In a more limited sense, Aristotle, in the Politics, permitted abortion provided that it be done before life begins. Aristotle wrote, "when couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before life and sense have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation" (1335b 20-25). Note Aristotle's careful caveat "before life and sensation."
While the Scriptures of the Old Testament record nothing about abortion in the modern medical sense as an elective medical intervention, they do testify to a profound regard for the human being developing in the womb of the woman. The prophet Jeremiah records God's love for the unborn in these words, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you" (Jeremiah 1:15). The Psalmist acknowledges the careful creation and intimate love of God for God's creature in these words, "You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother's womb. My very self you knew; my bones were not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth" (Psalm 139:13-15).
And there is in Exodus 21:22 a passage that refers to the accidental injury to a pregnant woman and the possible occurrence of miscarriage as a consequence of the injury. In the Hebrew translation it is said that if the woman is injured, the person who caused the injury suffers a punishment commensurate to the injury, that is life for life, eye for eye, etc. If the woman is uninjured but the child is lost, a penalty is to be set by the husband of the woman. However, the Greek translation of the same passage prescribes the penalty of life for life for the death of the child if the child is formed. (Noonan, 6).
In the early Christian tradition, abortion is condemned as early as the Didache (c. 1st century A.D.). The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is an ancient statement of Christian principles. Among its proscriptions are: "You shall not slay a child by abortion. You shall not kill what is generated."
For some of the early philosophers and some of the early theologians the questions of the determination of the humanity of an entity was answered in terms of the kind of soul -- the psyche that was the source of its activities -- that is, the soul as the principle of its life. Ensoulment was not a narrow theological question. It was an account of the internal source of the variety of activities manifested in the life of the entity. The move was from activities to the intrinsic principle of those activities. Nutritive activities, such as living, growing, and developing, offered evidence of the presence of a vegetative soul. The activity of motion suggested the presence of a sentient soul which higher-level soul subsumed the lower level activities, that is the nutritive. Rational activities indicated the presence of the rational soul, a soul that has the capacity to think, to understand, to reason, to choose, to decide. The rational soul as a higher-level soul subsumed the vegetative and sentient activities. (I shall return to this question in the next lecture.)
In the contemporary world, the abortion debate is embedded in a matrix which is defined by limits which range from the most subjective claims to the barest objective claims. Among these elements on the subjective side or the "why" side are the following. There is the claim of a right of women to abortion as the necessity of absolute control over reproductive processes in order that women be free to develop their potential. This right has been given legal sanction by courts and legislatures in many countries. In the United States, for example, the 1973 decisions by the Supreme Court found abortion to be a fundamental right inherent in the right to privacy and protected by constitutional guarantee (in the penumbra of the Constitution in Amendments 1, 4, 9, and 14). Some social planners have offered abortion as an aid to families in circumstances of social and/or economic distress and others have offered abortion as a humane solution to the problems of deformed, battered, and retarded children. On a global level, abortion has been suggested as a significant contribution to the solution of population problems. In addition, the contemporary culture is rife with a particular kind of liberalism which canonizes autonomy and makes personal choice the essential criterion for the determination of the rightness of an action. Choice has become the trump card in the culture; human beings are considered autonomous rights-bearing individuals whose obligations are those chosen. On the objective side or the "what" side lie the questions of the beginning of human life, the nature of the conceptus -- the conceived but not yet born human being, and the question of personhood or the value of a human life.
Because the objective question must be answered first in order to be able to weigh the adequacy of the subjective determinants, it is appropriate to start there. The empirical sciences, especially embryology and fetology, are the sources of the empirical facts describing the developmental stages of human life. The pertinent information from these sciences is that regarding neither the cosmological origin of life nor even the phylogenic origin of human life. It is information regarding the ontogenetic beginning and unfolding of an individual human life from beginning to end.
In those sciences, the occurrence that marks the beginning of the process that is the life and development of an individual human being is marked at syngamy. Syngamy is the end point in the process of fertilization -- a process which begins when the ovum, containing in its pronucleus the species kind and half the species number of chromosomes, is penetrated by the sperm, which contains in its pronucleus a similar complement. The chromosomes borne by each pronucleus conjugate along the mitotic spindle supplied by the sperm and with their pairing the full species number of chromosomes is reestablished. With the completion of this pairing, a new level of metabolic activity begins in the single cell zygote. This new level of activity is not limited to the nuclear activity, for example, the gravitation of the cytoplasm -- a maternal contribution -- establishes a polarity most likely in a direction following the penetration by the sperm.
The activity of the new being is directed to its survival. It generates barriers to its being penetrated by additional sperm; it generates barriers which prevent its implantation in an inappropriate environment; and when it arrives in a suitable environment, it generates those structures to nurture and support its continued existence and growth. The occurrence of syngamy marks a locus of simultaneous convergence and divergence. The convergence is the coming together of the genetic donation of both parents and that of their ancestors. Here the continuity of life is maintained. The divergence is not simply the discontinuity between parent and offspring because of genetic uniqueness but also discontinuity because of inner unity and separateness from others of the de novo being. Once the zygote is constituted in the fusion of the chromosomal material there is a new individual. Hence, syngamy has been designated the ontogenetic zero point of development.
The ontogenetic zero point of development for an individual human being is defined as that point on the continuum of development that marks the beginning of the development of a new individual. Prior to this point, the individual and also the particular continuum used to delineate its existence did not exist. From this point forward the individual exists, develops, and expresses or actualizes the potentialities that are its genetic endowment until some point in time when because of exogenous or endogenous factors the individual ceases to exist.
The ontogenetic zero point of behavior requires significant neural and muscular development. With the commencement of neuromuscular activity, behavior follows. This beginning of behavior is dependent upon prior structural growth which is genetically determined. The structural growth is such that it may be said to anticipate and determine the subsequent behavioral expression. Behavior matures in a direction following organ maturation and behavior functions to reinforce and to refine organic capacities (Carmichael's Law of Anticipatory Function). Development is continuous and is organized in a specific and forward direction. While various stages of development are named for reference and for convenience, the delimitation of stages is "purely arbitrary," that is, one stage merges into another without any real point of demarcation.
The following is a summary of the biological process. Morphological growth and subsequent behavioral development are products of genetic encoding at work in an environment that is normal for the species of organism. Self-generating developmental stages succeed one another in a genetically determined manner. The phenotype (apparitional characteristics) of the individual which was identical to the genotype (assemblage of genes) at syngamy now emerges as the expression of the particularities of the genetic constitution in the process of a continuously changing environment. From syngamy until death the genetic code continues to influence and to determine growth and behavior, provided the presence of a suitable environment and the achievement of the proper stage of development. The present reality of the human being from its ontogenetic zero point of development onward, that is, from zygote, to preimplantation embryo, to embryo, fetus, neonate, child, adolescent, adult is an upper directed dynamism toward ever fuller realization of being until the onset of decline, senescence, and death. Each lower stage lays down the conditions for the emergence of the next higher stage and each lower stage is the necessary condition for the possibility of the becoming of the next higher stage. The self-actualization of the human being is not limited to its biological determinations. The life of the individual is a process that presses towards actualization of psychological and intellectual potentialities that are inherent in the constitution of the individual human being. Abraham Maslow described this process of self-actualization in the following,
Man is ultimately not moulded or shaped into humanness or taught to be human. The role of the environment is ultimately to permit him or to help him actualize his own potentialities, not its potentialities. The environment does not give him his potentialities, he has them in inchoate or embryonic form, just exactly as he has embryonic arms and legs. And creativeness, spontaneity, selfhood, authenticity, caring for others, being able to love, yearning for truth are embryonic potentialities belonging to his species membership just as much as are his arms and legs and brain and eyes (Maslow, 130).
Maslow is making at least two important points here. One of these is that what a human being is -- as constituted in his nature -- determines what a human being may become. The second is that neither culture nor history nor socialization creates human beings. Environmental factors -- including psychological and biological -- may inhibit or encourage the actualization of psychological potentialities. For Maslow what a human being is and what a human being could be exist simultaneously. He says, "Potentialities not only will be or could be; they also are" (ibid.). The existential reality of the being at its earliest stages of development is that of a being in whom the perfections, whether body or behavior or psychological, exist as an unachieved state of affairs. The existential reality of the adult human being is that of a being in whom some of these perfections exist in a relatively more or less achieved state of affairs. The possibility of self-actualization requires the continuous existence of a being with the capacity for these perfections and the existence of that human being in its normal environment.
Since much of the philosophical discussion about the ontological status of the conceptus has centered on the notion of its potentiality, that issue will be addressed next. The rich philosophical notions of act and potency carry distinctions adequate for describing the developing life of a human being. The description of the present reality at any developmental stage in the life of an individual human being must convey the fact neither of nothing nor of completed being. The conceptus exists as a present reality -- in act -- with potentialities directed toward a particular perfection -- the goal established by the genotype. The conceptus is a human being in act. Within that being resides the active natural potentiality to become a more fully developed human being. Explication of this complex potentiality requires attendance to the notions of potentiality that are active/passive, natural/specific, and remote/proximate. In active potency, the being goes from not acting to acting and is also the agent of the action. For example, the human being may develop or move, by its intrinsic agency from being not conscious to being conscious. In passive potency, a human being has the capacity to receive a modification but the agency of the modification is an external agent. For example, a potential president may actually become president by the agency of the voters. The president received the office (a passive reception) from an extrinsic agency. The present reality of the conceptus in relation to the adult human being is not that of passive potentiality which requires extrinsic agency for actualization. In the act that is the conceptus there resides the active potentiality to become a more fully developed human being.
There are two distinct factors that make up the notion of active potentiality. One is constitution or nature and the other is tendency. Constitution is the underlying manifold which determines the direction of the tendency. It is that which tendency by its dispositive thrust urges to completion. Tendency is the drive to action. The conceptus is, by its constitution, determined as a human being and is, by tendency, determined to become -- in a fashion prefixed by its constitution -- rather than not. Since the tendency of the conceptus in regard to fuller human development proceeds in a completely determined manner and since it cannot become something other than what the constitution determines it to be and since it cannot of itself not become, it may be said that the potentiality of the fetus for more fully developed human life is an active potency.
Active potentialities are designated either natural or specific. In the accomplishment of an active specific potency, such as the choice of a specific food to satisfy hunger, the agent has a degree of freedom in the actualization of the potency. The agent may specify the manner in which to actualize the potency. Active natural potencies, such as the formation of the cerebral cortex, are accomplished in a completely determined manner. The agent is not free to choose whether or not to actualize the potency. Tendency determines that the potentiality will be actualized. In addition the agent is not free to specify the manner in which to actualize the potency. For the actualization of an active natural potency nothing is needed on the side of the agent beyond its constitution and the tendency to realize the constitution. Factors external to the agent may bring about its destruction and hence inhibit the actualization but the agent itself cannot inhibit the actualization.
A further distinction is made between those potentialities which may be designated remote and those which may be designated proximate. This distinction is a function of time and development. The presence of the proximate potentiality allows the possibility of immediate realization. The presence of the remote potentiality allows the possibility of future activity and future realization. However, the remote precedes the proximate and is the necessary condition for the existence of the proximate in terms of both constitution and tendency. The proximate is the further developmental specification of the remote. In regard to specific functions characteristic of more developed stages there exist in the conceptus the remote potentialities which specify the proximate potentialities which proximate potentialities are necessary for action. For example, in the chromosomal material, in a relatively unachieved state of affairs, there is all that is necessary for the becoming of the neocortex which serves as the proximate potency for the higher thought processes.
In summary then, the existential reality of the conceptus is that of a human being in act. It expresses that being as a unified whole, unified in itself and distinguished from others. It is living as indicated by its growth and its ability to utilize materials from its environment to sustain its existence. Its individuality and uniqueness derive from its genetic constitution. It is human and in it reside not only the biological potentialities but all the potentialities that are distinctive of human existence. "The complexity of the whole human body is contained in some real way in its first cell" (Granfeld, 28). From the facts of biological and psychological development and from the translation of these facts into metaphysical terms a minimal notion of the life of the human being emerges. A human being is an open, unfinished being who begins its existence at syngamy -- the ontogenetic zero point of development -- and who becomes what it is by developing its potentialities. The becoming which is described in various stages is a time-conditioned unfolding of the possibilities given at fertilization. The existential reality at each stage of development is different only in degree of actualization. What exists in the more fully developed human being in a relatively achieved state exists in the zygote in a relatively unachieved state. If there is to be intellectual development, there must be prior psychic development. If there is to be psychic development, there must be prior organic development. Each prior stage is the necessary condition for the emergence of each successive stage, and each prior stage anticipates in its development the specifications of the next higher stage. It is the same human being who begins in existence, who develops, matures, declines, and dies. The adult human being cannot be more than the reality contained in the zygote. The existential reality of the adult is that of a being who is in action the fulfillment of the existential reality of the zygote in whose act the sum of the potentialities of the being reside. The zygote is the living human being at a particular stage of its development. It is what the human being should be at that age. The embryo is the living human being at a particular stage of its development. It is what the human being should be at that age. And so on . . . It is the same individual who develops organically, psychically, and intellectually.
If this is so, then abortion destroys a developing human being. Hence, abortion is as act of homicide.