By Dave Andrusko
Christopher Kaczor
Of all the pro-abortion arguments, the defense that has always struck me as the most odd is the pregnant-woman-as-container. Christopher Kaczor tackles the “intimacy argument” as part of his larger rebuttal titled, “Let’s Talk about Abortion” A Response to Dennis O’Brien.”
O’Brien had written a piece for Commonweal Magazine that carried the headline “Can We Talk About Abortion?” It is still another of his attacks on the Catholic Bishops for their resolute opposition to abortion. Kaczor’s response addresses three of the arguments embedded in O’Brien’s piece rather than providing a point-by-point rebuttal of O’Brien’s Jeremiah against the Bishops.
In the interest of time, I’ll look at just one. Here is Kaczor quoting O’Brien:
“O’Brien does not deny the harm of abortion, but he does seek to contextualize it in the intimacy of gestation. The reality of pregnancy—the unique, intimate relationship of the human being in utero and the pregnant woman—changes the ethics of feticide: ‘The pregnant woman’s womb is not just a geographic location for an independent entity that would be the same if it were located someplace else.’ To deny this reality is to reduce the pregnant woman to a ‘container.’”
The “intimacy” argument “begs the question,” Kaczor maintains: “Why should independent moral status require independent physical status?”
Think about it for a second. (1) The unborn did not will herself into existence—she was not beamed into her mother’s womb; (2) the baby is wholly dependent on the mother/all the power resides with one party: the mother.
We say that the more powerless the child, the more powerful is the argument against taking the child’s life. To the pro-abortion ear, that, at best, clanks, at worst, is incomprehensible.
The pro-abortionist reasons, “The child cannot stop me from exercising my will, ergo, off with her head” (and arms and legs). By contrast, the pro-lifer looks at the same situation of dependency and concludes, “It is precisely because my child’s only defense is mercy that I am morally obliged to protect her.”
Kaczor writes,
“So, the intimate relationship that exists in every pregnancy gives rise to the duty of the mother not to harm her own child prior to or after birth, including by prematurely ending the child’s life.”
This may be too obvious to mention but what if another woman—a surrogate—is carrying the baby who was brought into existence via IVF? And what if, contract or no contract, the surrogate (the “container”) decides she wants an abortion? What would O’Brien think?
What would his position be if the mother has second thoughts and demands that the surrogate abort the baby? See where this argument leads you?
Kaczur’s full analysis is very much worth reading. It’s found at www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/09/3998.