Some things I think about Abortion laws.

I have been ruminating over social issues and trying to find a way to express what I think. One big issue that seems to not go away and that our nation is divided almost in half by is abortion. I have been trying to understand the root of this issue. On one hand we have people who are driven by what I have understood as a religious motive. The argument goes something like. 1. God creates life and has forbid us from taking it. 2. As soon as sperm meets ovum, a new life is created. 3. Therefore any form of abortion is murder. I have such a hard time with this simple argument.

That when sperm meets ovum is the beginning of life is actually a new idea. In the 1960’s the foremost opponents to birth control, The Roman Catholic Church was clear that life begins at implantation, not upon fertilization. When I hear the church “has always taught this” I realize that the person I am speaking with is not clear on what the church has always taught. Certainly today there are many who would outlaw abortion who could care less what the church teaches or has taught but still accept it as plainly evident that life begins at fertilization. So, the question I have been asking is what is life anyway? What makes a person a person? The Roman Church and much of Christianity have said that what makes a person a person instead of say, a monkey or a dog, is a soul. Humans have a soul. Well that’s great. In fact those who propose outlawing abortion almost all claim that the soul is imbued into the zygote (Sperm and egg joined to make a single cell).

So, I then ask, if a soul is what makes a person, what is a soul? Here I hit a real wall. No one anywhere has a good answer. (Wikipedia actually does a pretty good job with a generic description of soul.) The best answer I have yet heard is it is

… it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature. CCC par. 365

The problem is, so many things are alive that this concept of soul starts to become irrelevant to me. Certainly monkeys and dogs are alive. By te above description they qualify for souls. But few would agree to this. So what then is a soul? If anyone has a good answer, I would love to hear it.

Here is another nifty bit of information. The Roman Church has done an excellent job of describing when death occurs. The Roman Catholic idea is that death is defined as when the soul and body are no longer united. Because the soul is not measurable, they have struggled with the question of when death really occurs. It is not OK to bring an artificial end to life, so taking organs for transplanting for instance is ok only if the person being harvested is really, really dead. In fact, they published an excellent document on it not long ago http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdscien/2009/excerpt_signs_of_death_5l.pdf.

So the church has staked a claim that people are dead when the brain ceases all activity including involuntary activity that keeps the body alive, AKA brain death. Here is another hard thought. If life clearly ends when brain activity stops, why would one assume it begins before brain activity begins?

So according to neurologists, around weeks 5 and 6 are when the first electrical impulses begin, and those are disorganized firings of neurons. Not even as systematic as those seen in, say, a shrimp. The first coherent signals begin about week 25. So, why would anyone claim that life begins earlier than that? And yet they do. A very good friend told me it is a matter of faith. I am ok with that. But if it is a matter of faith, then the next question is how can we have a matter of faith decide laws? In this nation, that is a huge challenge.

More about our nation of laws next time