The Church and Abortion by O'Brien George Dennis;O'Brien George Dennis;

Author:O'Brien, George Dennis;O'Brien, George Dennis; [O'Brien]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Pregnant Persons

Stages on Life’s Way

I have argued that “person” by itself is too thin a concept to specify the exact range of our moral duties; one has to consider specific persons. We determine our moral duties in terms of a host of factors that qualify the person and our attendant duty. Biological status is one important factor. Age is a biological fact about humans, but how aged persons are regarded by themselves and in their culture can be strikingly varied for good or ill. The aged may be revered for wisdom or sent off to play shuffleboard in Sun City. Pregnancy as a biological condition also sets a moral framework. What is the moral situation of a woman as this may be qualified by age and situation? Pregnancy carries a different human meaning for an abandoned underage girl and a happily married woman. Health, economic circumstances, relationships, and a host of other topics are likely to be added into what it means for this woman to be pregnant.

Traditional Catholic natural law theory seems to interpret pregnancy solely from biology. The title of John Paul’s “theology of the body” talks, Man and Woman Created He Them, suggests concentration on biological difference as determinative for duty. A pregnant woman is in a particular biological state and it is from this state alone that her moral duty is to be specified. The problem is that biological male and biological female are only sketches for being a man or a woman. Gertrude Stein was famous for proclaiming “a rose, is a rose, is a rose.” That is an appropriate characterization for natural entities like roses and rocks—they are just what they are, roses or rocks. It is not clear that human persons can be defined by iterations of biological sameness. If I may resort to fancy philosophy, I think those philosophers are correct who intone, “Human being is that being whose being is in question.” Unlike the rose that is a rose, I am everlastingly asking “Who am I?” A woman is not a woman is not a woman when it comes to who she is. A pregnant woman is not just her biological pregnancy, a clear biological state—she is this pregnant person in some stage of her life and times with whatever happy expectations or dread that state may hold.

A pregnant woman finds herself not merely in a biological condition, but also defined within a particular set of cultural, economic, social, moral, and so forth circumstances. The move from biological condition to this pregnant person in her specific setting is crucial in moral deliberation about abortion. Both pro-choice and pro-life advocates have a tendency to abstract from the specific condition of this pregnancy as a spiritual event in the life of the woman. Pro-life concentrates on biological sameness, while pro-choice bypasses the moral and spiritual overtones by valuing choice, not what is chosen. How does this woman at this age and circumstance in this culture understand and evaluate her pregnant state? How should

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