DIRECT ABORTION: AN IMMORAL HUMAN ACT TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS

DIRECT ABORTION: AN IMMORAL HUMAN ACT TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS

Nowadays people no longer reject and judge the acts which are morally bad. Many kinds of immoral acts are being made here and there such as murder, suicide, mercy killing (euthanasia), homosexuality, pedophilia, incest, rape, direct abortion, etc. People who commit these acts say that they are free to choose and do whatever they want! But they forget that true freedom does not abuse morality. In this article we will only talk about direct abortion; it is not because other kinds of immoral acts are undermined, but because we want to claim and to cry high for those unborn children who are killed due to egoistically unhealthy interests of people. Is an unborn child a human being? May one kill the unborn? What are reasons which lead people to commit direct abortion? Does not unborn have right to live like others persons? Does abortion have consequences? Those questions will guide us in our inquiry.
Abortion (from the Latin word aboriri, which literally means “to perish”) may be briefly defined as “the loss of a fetal life”. 1 As Milton A. Gonsalves explains, abortion is the expulsion of a fetus from the womb before it is viable, that is, before it can live outside the mother. It is not the premature delivery of a viable fetus.2An abortion can be spontaneous, a miscarriage that is no one’s fault, or induced, voluntarily. Brought about, induced abortion can be, the foreseen but unwanted consequence of doing something else, or the expulsion of the fetus intended as end or means.3So, ethically we can say that an abortion can be voluntary or involuntary, indirectly voluntary or directly voluntary. In our article, we will only talk about abortion which is intentionally performed as end or means in several ways at the request of the woman for non-medical reason by human intervention. This kind of abortion can also be called an elective or direct abortion and this one is morally bad. It must be avoided at all costs.
The reasons why women have abortions are diverse and vary dramatically across the world4. Some of the most common reasons are to postpone childbearing to a more suitable time or to focus energies and resources on existing children. Others include being unable to afford a child either in terms of the direct costs of raising a child or the loss of income while she is caring for the child, lack of support from the father, inability to afford additional children, desire to provide schooling for existing children, disruption of one’s own education, relationship problems with their partner, a perception of being too young to have a child, unemployment, and not being willing to raise a child conceived as a result of rape or incest, among others. Moreover, some abortions are undergone as the result of societal pressures. These might include the preference of children of a specific sex; disapproval of a single or early motherhood, stigmatization of people with disabilities, insufficient economic support for families, and efforts toward population control (such as China’s one-child policy which was enacted in 1979). These factors can sometimes result in compulsory abortion or sex-selective abortion.
Those who defend direct abortion argue that the fetus is not a person, but only a bit of tissue that will become a person at birth. Others affirm that the fetus is a part of the mother’s body, not an individual freedom and right, and even if it does have rights, those of the mother far outweigh its right. We must know that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception (i.e. from the time of fusion of sperm and ovum). From the conception the normal zygote has the potential to become a fulfilled human being with the essential property of human being. Jean Bernard5 explains that the life does not begin at birth, the human zygote which is the result of fecundation of ovum by spermatozoid, contains in power the whole complete human being which will be later and his liver, and his heart, and his brain. The embryonic child has a human soul; and therefore is a human being from the time of its conception. Furthermore Jean Bernard6 argues that to admit that the embryo is a potential person, it is admitting that the characteristic properties of a person are present, latent in the embryo. It is clear that the properties as conscience, intelligence, do not belong to a cell or to a small number of cells, but suppose a biological organization more complex and appear later.
Those who say that the rights of the mother far outweigh the rights of the fetus do not have reason. Indeed, the mother and the fetus have an equal right to life. The fetus, being a person, has a right to life, and the mother, being a person has a right to life. Killing the fetus is to violate its right to life; the abortion is an unjust killing. How someone who has not been aborted can perform abortion? It is injustice! If he/she was that fetus, could he/she have accepted to be aborted? But even if he/she could accept, it could be committing suicide because no one has right of taking away even one’s life. Someone who can regret to not have been aborted is abnormal because every normal human being wants to conserve his life and this life is a gift; we are not allowed to take it away, the reason why the life of other including the one of an unborn must be protected. The fetus has an equal right to its life with its mother, therefore neither the mother, nor medical practitioner, nor any human being whatever can lawfully take that life away. As for Milton A. Gonsalves: “All persons are equal in their right to life, and age gives no priority. If there is question only of indirectly permitting the death of one or the other, that one should be chosen who has better chance of survival”.7 Every person has a right to life. So the fetus as a person has also a right to life. The fetus should not be killed; an abortion should not be performed.
In fact no reasons which are morally justifiable can drive people to perform abortion even if it is a pregnancy caused by rape or incest. Blessed Pope John Paul II declares: “Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being”.8And the Second Vatican Council declared: “Life once conceived must be protected with utmost care; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.9 Postponing childbearing is good but we cannot do it by killing other human beings. The evil is not a means to obtain the good effect; it would be to do evil that good might come of it, this procedure is never allowed. The human fetus is a human being with a right to live; making abortion is morally the same as the murder. It is also clear that extracting the living fetus before it is viable, is destroying its life as directly as it would be killing a grown man directly to plunge him into a medium in which he cannot live, and hold him there till he expires.
Using abortion as a means of postponing childbearing to a more suitable time or cause of financial problems or other reasons is not allowed, it is morally condemnable, and it is a murder like others! “To consider an unborn child as an aggressor against its parents, who by their own voluntary act caused its presence in the mother’s womb, seems absurd”.10Planned Parenthood must be done by using natural method of periodic continence, this method is morally good and Blessed Pope John Paul II 11affirms it by saying that the only “method” of birth regulation is periodic continence. Who do not want to admit the effect must avoid its cause. Once the life is conceived no one has right of taking it even the parents cannot kill that fetus even if they participate in his conception. In addition, the late Blessed Pope John Paul II12argues that making abortion a means in problems of birth regulation (conscious maternity and paternity) would not have any justification of principle.
Some States have legalized certain or all forms of abortion but this does not remove the immorality of abortion, it will not prevent abortion to have consequences and to be a morally bad act which is against morality. “…No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit on act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the church”.13 Even if a State can legalize abortion, we have always to follow our conscience and the morality of an act, a good act is to be done and bad to be avoided. Morality is a thing and public policy another. “Take care not to confuse morality with public policy because legality does not necessarily always coincide with morality”. 14 In addition, the State could not give right to the physician; for it has not itself the right to put an innocent person to death. It is not the State which gives life the reason why it is not allowed to give right to put people to death.
Before concluding our reflection we cannot forget to say that it is an inexpugnable that our acts have consequences in our life, the good acts have their rewards and the bad acts, their punishment. An elective abortion as a bad act has also an impact on the whole society. It has consequences to the fetus which misses innocently his life, to the woman who must live with the implication of her decision. As the late Pope John Paul II15 explains, abortion causes deep complexes in the woman’s psyche. A voluntary abortion has also impact for the persons who perform and assist in the procedure of abortion; for the spouse, family and the society who will know that those kinds of immoral acts exist.
By way of concluding, direct abortion is a very morally bad act. In this article we saw that an unborn is a person like others and he has right to live and to be protected. No one must kill an unborn and no morally reasons which can drive persons to perform abortion. Abortion has consequences not only to the one who performs it but to the whole society. In our world a huge number of abortions is performed. There are many points of view and interpretations on the question of abortion, and each has its ethical, legal, social, cultural, religious, medical implication. But we ought to know that a good act is to be done and the bad to be avoided. The evil is not a means to obtain the good effect, therefore direct abortion as a bad act can never be used to obtain a good effect. The good is a value, ought and an end; the reason why it is of the utmost importance that we must seek and desire it every time, everywhere and to everyone. Direct abortion and other kind of immoral acts must be avoided at all costs.
Do you reject and judge direct abortion and other kind of immoral acts? If yes, remain in this way; if no, what do you think and what are you waiting for?
1http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01046b.htm , visited on 11th/02/ 2013.
2MILTON A. GONSALVES, Fogothey’s Right & Reason: Ethics in Theory and Practice, 9th ed., New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1985, p. 250.
3Ibidem, p. 252.
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion, visited on 28th/02/2013.
5Cf. J. BERNARD, De la Biologie à l’éthique, Buchet /Chastel, Paris, 1990, p. 197.
6Ibidem, pp. 197-198.
7MILTON A. GONSALVES, Op.cit, p.255.
8Evangelium Vitae, no 62.
9 Gaudium et Spes, Church and the Modern World, no 51.
10MILTON A. GONSALVES, Op.cit, p. 255.
11 Cf. K. WOJTYŁA, Amour et responsabilité, Éditions du dialogue, Paris, 1978, p. 226.
12Ibidem, p. 278.
13Evangelium Vitae, no 62.
14MILTON A. GONSALVES, Op.cit, p. 250.
15Cf. K. WOJTYŁA, Op.cit, p. 277.
By DUSHIMIMANA Dieudonne (Didus)