The 1973 United States Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade decisin, while providing for some semblance of legal structure to the political debate over abortion, has led to further question within moral and religious aspects of our society. In that decision, the Court found that a woman had the right to choose whether or not to abort a pregnancy within certain constaints; however, if a fetus were a person, accourding to the Court, abortion would be found impermissible. While this decision made an attempt at establishing a legal precedent, from a moral and religious standpoint, it is wrong. Upon the moment of conception, the human embryo is a person; and as a result, ensoulment of the fetus occurs simultaneously, making it’s abortion an act at odds with moral rectitude, and a sin within the teachings of the Catholic Church.
In accordance with the 1973 decision, “the Court believed that the State has a compelling interest in protecting potential human life at viability” (Kamm 16).
Viability can be defined in terms of the Court’s use as the capacity of the fetus to live outside of the womb, with the aid of mechanical support. While this issue of viability exists as the main distinguishing element the Court uses to grant fetal life the label of personhood, the actual point of viability is one that can be debated.
The Term Paper on Case Briefing Vizcaino V. Us Dist. Court for Wd of Wash
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Viability has been pointed out to be a function of technology, and is therefore a variable instance that cannot legitimately be defined as any consistent chronological point in a pregnancy. Furthermore, as viability exists as a function of technology, its point of instance could theoretically be defined very early in the pregnancy, and would constantly change with developing technologies. This being said, it is hardly possible to place human rights upon a variable instance with debatable significance. So as viability ” is not necessarily correlated with a later stage of the fetus’s development, let alone a stage in which it assumes the characteristics of a person rather than merely those of a potential person”, then the Court’s view of viability as a crucial point is virtually unfounded (16).
While the point of viability becomes an invalid argument in defining the instance in fetal life takes on human rights under the law, it may still be argued that “what really matters for the issue of abortion, is not when the human organism begins, but… when it becomes someone rather than just something” (Channer 35).
This lies at the heart of the issue, as abortion can only be wrong morally if it kills someone, as opposed to just killing a biological organism (something).
So when does the fetus become a person the? One common argument is that before it has developed a working brain, the fetus has no mind. Lacking the capacity for consciousness, rational thinking, feeling, and perception, one could argue that after conception there is room for an early abortion in which no person is destroyed. However, when you look at the actual mental capacities of a newborn baby, these neutral skills and attributes have not been fully developed yet either, and they certainly do not account for why we would consider them a person at the moment of birth. Therefore, the actualization of the mind does not define the personhood of the baby (or fetus), but the potential capacities are what qualify them as persons, “in virtue of its fetus potential to develop, mentally and/or spiritually, in a certain way (36).
The Term Paper on Human Development 5
Life starts at conception. Immediately fertilization takes place changes and events occur that will determine the kind of person to be born. This research tries to find out the effect of early life on the later life of an individual. And if early life affects the later life of the individual, then do children who grow up in violent communities have a tendency to exhibit violent behaviors as ...
So as the fertilized egg, upon conception, has the potential into a baby, it also maintains the potential to develop into whatever the baby has the capacity to become (37).
Upon conception, “human embryos have the basic capacities to think and will, even though it will be some time before they exercise those capacitis” (Lee 5).
Therefore, possessing these potentialities, human embryos and fetuses are persons in the broadest sense that they are an entity that has the capacity of a whole human being. So since a human organism comes to be is that at which the human being becomes a human person. Therefore, since the human organism comes to be at conception, so too can the embryo or fetus be defined as a human person at that point (6).
Now that it has been established that a fetus can be identified as a person upon conception , one can approach the moral and religious aspects of its abortion with an understanding that, for all intents and purposes, the Courts’ defintion of fetal personhood is more or less irrelevant. Instead, one must look at the moral and religious perspectives (as aided by science) of the life and sanctity of the fetus.
In the tradition of the Catholic Church, all persons are born into this world with a soul. If the fetus is a person upon conception, as we have proven, then does not ensoulment take place simultaneously? Patricia Beattie Jung, in her article Abortion and Organ Donation, makes reference to a Sidney Callahan quote regarding the rights of fetal life, and the call to the realization that fetal personhood also encompasses ensoulment:
Just as women and blacks were considered too different, to undeveloped, too biological to have souls…so the fetus is now seen as mere biological life.
(Jung and Shannon 155)
Historically, the salvation of souls has taken center stage in all Church teachings and doctrines. So when looking at the practices of the Catholic Church, it is important to note that “in the moral schema of the Christian Churches the condition of the immortal soul of a fetus, infant, or child was more important than any defense of its physical and mortal life” (Drutchas 39).
Therefore, the concept of the ensouled fetus has a decisive significance in the moral and Catholic debate surrounding abortion.
The Essay on Abortion Law Fetus Person Human
Abortion Law And It's Issues Essay, Research Abortion Law And It's Issues Abortion Law and its Issue Chris Ston ID. Number: 9710769 October 10, 199 Philosophy 1100 A 9 Prof. N. Brett In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the case of Dr. Henry Morgen taler vs. Her Majesty the Queen, that section 251 of the Criminal Code of Canada, the law regarding abortion, was in fact contrary to ...
Traditionally, many different precedents had been set regarding the point at which ensoulment of the fetus actually occurs. Historically, the Catholic Church has wavered on its teachings, and “in the end, only a authoritariab papacy had the political clout to enforce conformity” on the issue (42).
So while scholars and Church officials alike have been undecided for centuries on the actual point of ensoulment of the fetus, it could serve one well to simply consider the nature of the soul: it is the substantial form of man. Therefore, “the soul of a living thing comes to be when the living thing itself comes to be” (Lee 80).
So God’s ensoulment of an individual person must come at the instance that person comes to be; at conception.
When considering the Catholic tradition, one can also look towards the scriptural teachings. While the scriptures do not address abortion in any detail, biblical writers do attribute human characteristics to the unborn child, making no real distinctions between a newborn baby and a fetus. “The continuity [the sprectrum of life – conceptus, embryo, fetus, baby, child, adolescent, adult, old adult] in Scripture indicates that God is not only forming and caring for the unborn child, but forming him as a specific individual for a specific postnatal calling” (Fowler and House 86).
Therefore, the personal activity of God performed in the shaping of the fetus in a mother’s womb is essentially the ensoulment of the child upon creation, and upon conception.
Aborting a child, at any point, would be murdering the existence of a soul with the capacities of a full human person. In theis regard, abortion is a sinful wrong. For ” at whatever stagethe deed is done , ‘child unique is killed. Everyone living today was once a zygote, an embryo and a fetus. A vacuum pump would have easily destroyed them just as effectively as a bullet, a car accident or a virulent virus” (Channer 22).
The 1973 Supreme Court Roe vs. Wade decision made most abortion legal ending women’s struggles with the dangers of underground abortion tequniques. While providing structure on political level, the basis of the ruling- as long as the fetus is not a person the aborting it is a valid and legal option – is unfounded. The human fetus is a person upon conception, and is divinely ensouled as a gift from God as His creation at the same instant. Therefore, the abortion of a pregnancy, at any point, is murder, is morally wrong, and is a sin within the teachings of the Catholic Church.
The Term Paper on Is A Fetus A Person
Is the Fetus a Person?: It is nearly impossible anymore to find someone who does not have an opinion about abortion, and probably a strong opinion at that. Yet endless debates on the topic usually go nowhere, leaving the proponents of both sides even more committed to their positions and the open-minded observers confused. AThe most important effect of the legalization of abortion on public health ...
