Abortion - May We Risk Murder?

For those who believe that human life begins at conception and that all human life is sacred the issue of abortion is a simple one. Whether based on the Natural Law or Divine Revelation the taking of innocent pre-born human life is seen as an "unspeakable crime" (Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, 51). 

Others, however, may not be so sure. They may not know the scientific fact that from conception each of us is a unique biological individual of the human species, a fact that the DNA of every cell in the body affirms. Or, if they do, they may argue that the new human life is not a person deserving of full legal respect. In the absence of a consensus on when such legal protection ought to begin, they either tolerate, or argue on behalf of, a right to abortion if the mother desires it - whether or not conditions are attached, such as stage of development, presence of genetic or other anomalies, etc.. 

Remarkably, however, in doing so they overlook something quite simple in the moral order, we may not act blindly where human life MIGHT be present. Consider a couple examples which illustrate this principle.

Case1. A man hears a noise downstairs in his house. Grabbing his gun he goes down to investigate and enters the darkened room from which the noise emanates. Without ascertaining whether a human being is present, the home owner sprays the room with gunfire, killing his son who was rummaging around looking for something. Is this reasonable behavior? Is it criminally culpable, in either the civil or moral sense?

Case 2. A man goes out in deer season to bag his limit of bucks. Losing sight of a deer he creeps forward for a shot. When some bushes shake the man fires, assuming it to be the deer. In reality it was another hunter using the bushes for a blind. Is this reasonable behavior? Is it criminally culpable, in either the civil or moral sense?

In both cases the reasonable diligence required for moral action was lacking! In both cases fatal assumptions about the target were made, killing innocent human beings with an absolute right to life. While courts and juries might treat these fatal errors of judgment with sympathy, not holding the guilty to the full force of the law, the regrets and sense of guilt could stay with the shooters throughout life.

The case of abortion is no different. The doctor, with a mother's permission, enters a darkened room (the womb) and kills what is certainly her biological offspring (child), by any scientific definition. They kill what is a human being, even by the criteria of the most liberal proponents of abortion, who at best are uncertain if it is a human person deserving of our full respect, and at worst simply don't care. 

No individual or society can long survive such moral blindness, since if such callous disregard is exercised with respect to the foundation of the civil order, the inalienable right to life, then all other rights and issues necessarily are less trouble to the conscience. Why respect marriage and family, why care about the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the mentally ill, about those on the margins of society. Respect for life begins where it is weakest, or it is absent. There is little that is out of bounds to the conscience of the person who is capable of ignoring the simplest moral axioms on the gravest of issues. The progress of Western societies to euthanasia, as is the general callousness of modern culture and its ready recourse to violence as a solution to problems, becomes understandable where abortion is acceptable.