On the Issue of Birth
In this society no issue has excited more attention and been so passionately advocated as the issue generally termed the “abortion issue.” This is the negative reference to perhaps the most sacred and nearest point to divinity that humankind may reach, childbirth, the recreation of self by ourselves. This mysterious transformation takes place in the gentle quiet of woman’s womb and has always legitimately been regarded, notwithstanding the commonness and frequency with which it may occur, with a degree of reverence and even awe.
The discussion of the issue of birth is composed of three distinct areas of understanding – as theology, as law with respect to the Constitution and as public policy. This is a very brief survey of some of the issues involved.
Birth and Theology
The human being is composed of two parts, commonly known as body and soul. These are separate at the start and they separate again at the finish but for life in between are merged together as one for the duration of each individual’s existence. When sperm meets egg at conception in the body of a woman a purely biological chain reaction begins which results approximately nine months later in the birth of a new human. At this point, everyone agrees, the soul is fully engaged and life is present.
At the outset, however, the body and mind of this new physical entity that will grow into a child is minute, totally dependent and completely undeveloped. It is distinct from the interior stuff, the invisible animation, the kernel of divinity, the soul. Where the body is mortal and endures a distinct process of development and then decline, the soul is immortal as far as we know and aloof and exists not only before and after the physical body exists but remains always whole and indivisible. Therefore, it stands to reason that the soul cannot be present until the body and mind are developed enough to receive, contain and conduit soul.
To suppose otherwise would be like the man who owned a vial of rare, delicate and invaluable elixir who contracted with a potter to build a new vessel in which to store it. If the man then became impatient and came to the potter’s studio and tried to pour this thick liquid into the pot prematurely, while the wet clay was still unformed and spinning on the potter’s wheel, it would merely mix with the wet clay as the destabilized pot collapsed into a lump of mud. Obviously the rare elixir would destroy the clay structure and risk contamination and loss of the fluid. On the contrary, the whole point of pottery (as with the parturition process) is that the receptacle must first be properly prepared to receive its precious contents. In pottery this means the clay must be molded, fired in a kiln, properly dried, annealed and finished before it is ready.
The same is true of a human fetus. It must be finished to a minimal standard of containment before it is ready to receive its animating spirit. To prematurely align the fully mature power of soul with an immature carrier of body and mind would be counterproductive to any discernable purpose. This is not just conjecture but is demonstrable. Because we know what these beings, ourselves, who are animated with soul look and act like. The two distinguishing features which separate a human being from simpler organisms and elevate it to a higher capacity with responsibility for its own existence may be described as (1) consciousness of self and (2) the exercise of free will.
No human being may be said to truly exist absent these two elements. They are the physical manifestation of the spiritual soul in action. They are life itself. Otherwise the body is a useless organism, a merely mechanical entity, like a computer without its software.
In the womb the fetus has neither of these properties. By design it is on virtual life support in a state of severely suspended animation, dependency and sensory deprivation while it is in its developmental stage. It is structured this way as a failsafe precisely to preclude the possibility of premature consciousness in an unformed body and mind.
This is because the actual determinative context of childbirth is governed by one great additional rule, the cardinal, overriding law which may never be broken. This is: Two souls may not simultaneously inhabit the same space.
Otherwise a soul would be placed in conflict and competition with the soul of its own mother in the same body in which it was coming to maturation. That is impossible to conceive. In fact, the entire purpose of soul in being is embodied in its physical independence. That is the sole purpose of imbuing a body with its presence. For a soul to exist where no ability of independence exists is a contradiction which obviates its own rationale. The only animating spirit present in pregnancy then can belong to the mother.
It has always been assumed so until scientific advancements of sonograms and in-vitro methods of fertilization have confused the clarity and simplicity of the debate. But in the end these scientific advancements only confirm what has been thought about childbirth from the beginning, not dispute it. As with Descartes who said: “I think therefore I am,” awareness of being alone may constitute being and cannot exist (or “be”) in any other context. As consciousness is knowledge obviously one cannot be conscious without knowing of it or, conversely, one cannot be unless one knows one is. Therefore life, in fact and as we understand it, meaning free will and consciousness of self joined to a human body, may only begin coincident with full consciousness of self at birth, not at any prior point of development.
This life as we know it begins when light and air first touch the freshly minted and newly unshrouded child. Like a light flicked on to illuminate a life until then spent in darkness, we awake as if from a dreamless state or a deep dream forgotten, from our infinite sleep. And when the first breath of dry air is taken, when the umbilical is cut and life support removed, only then, precisely at that first rare moment of consciousness of realization may consciousness of self occur. And only at the absolute spontaneous natural inhalation of this divine comprehension can heart and soul and mind fuse into one being and a fetus become a child.
Up to that time the biology of human birth, while perhaps more complex, is not unlike the birth of an animal pup. It is soul and consciousness of self that add the moral element of personal responsibility to an objective absolute which distinguishes us from the animal kingdom and renders us in some small way divine.
To be sure, there is no imprimatur to knowledge which declares this version of events fact. I bring it up not to argue the point or to persuade others who disagree but merely to neutralize the attempt by some to enforce their theology on others who may disagree with them. Their theology which states that life begins at the precise point of conception is perfectly legitimate and worthy of respect. However, the belief that the fertilized egg at the exact point of conception attains the moral equivalency with the mother in whose womb it will grow does present a number of particular problems with regard to theology, law and public policy which must be explored further.
The primary difficulty arises when this theological debate is superimposed as a justification by political operatives to try to criminalize the honest behavior of those in disagreement with it and to proclaim moral superiority for themselves in the process. And when you understand that the policies that the politicians propose often go well beyond the limits of the very theology their policies are supposedly the product of, it is easy to come to doubt their sincerity. Especially as many of the same politicians and their supporters who claim to have such undying affection for the unborn frequently show so little actual regard for the well being of those already alive.
Some of these politicians have actually promulgated laws, barely overturned by the Courts, which state that the health of the fetus must be preferred over the health of its own mother. They have said that even a severely deformed fetus, perhaps as the result of rape or incest, must be brought to term even if to live for just a day regardless of any short or long term deleterious effect it may have on the health of its own mother.
In the process this reduces mothers to second or even third class status worthless except as empty vessels, breeders, less important by far than the progeny they produce. Saying that a woman’s body and soul is negligible to the process of birth is as absurd as a lumberjack felling a 300 year old oak tree to retrieve a single acorn to plant in the hopes that it may one day grow to be an oak. To respect a fetus as incipient life is important and vital but to elevate regard for its health over the health of its own mother whose body has produced it is a parody of the law and a self-evident pollution of its own theology. This can only be thought of in terms of the type of sensitivity, respect and reverence for motherhood not displayed in public since Henry VIII.
Though often left publicly unstated in the debate, some infer that if a fetus is lost through miscarriage or abortion the soul or essence of that potential being will somehow fall through the cracks of existence and time and be lost from sight of God. Naturally this is specious and envisions a sloppy universal design. This would suggest that, contrary to Einstein, God must play dice with the world after all. If God is omniscient why would he not know which fetus was to come to term and which wasn’t? For a theology to suggest otherwise contradicts God’s fundamental divinity. On the contrary, if a fetus doesn’t reach term for any reason who would suggest that its soul, even if present, would not return into the hands of its benevolent creator?
In fact, mankind has always instinctually recognized the special status of a baby which has been brought to term versus a fetus which has not. If a late term miscarriage occurs no parents ask to see the fetal tissue’s remains. But what baby who survives for even a day or two is not treated specially, stroked and doted on, given a name, often even a burial and sometimes even a death announcement in the local newspaper?
In addition now the meaning of “life” in the political realm has been moved backwards in time to a point of pre-conception, to the embryonic stage. So we are told that if a lab tech with a pair of tweezers and eye-dropper should artificially combine sperm and egg in a petri dish that, even if God doesn’t want it and man didn’t intend it, science has created a soul and that that too is a baby every bit the equal of you or I. As doubtful as this is, if a lab tech can really, as it were, out-God God, we really need to pay them a lot more money.
Yet since in that limited embryonic state absent the mother’s womb no growth may begin or may possibly occur and in that state the embryo may reside for an eon and never be a boy or girl; clearly even fewer of the requisite characteristics which constitute life are present in the embryo than in the fetus. Yet we are told by politicians that such a microscopic embryo equates in moral weight with potentially millions of actual souls whose health might be improved or lives might be saved from its use in scientific research which could result in cures for disease.
In sum it follows that, theologically speaking and in the minds of most Americans, in the process of childbirth all devotion and care must go first to the mother then to the fetus, not the other way around. Yet those who would overturn Roe v. Wade would reverse this equation and on a difference of faith and theology make criminals of those who would disagree with them.
Birth and the Constitution
The second tier on which birth and abortion policy may be debated in this society is in accordance with the Constitution. One doesn’t have to be a constitutional scholar to judge legal rulings’ effects on the public and these results need to be consistent with our basic rights and liberties. Those who would overturn the decision of Roe v. Wade, the decision which legalized abortion under some circumstances, use the term “judicial activism” to condemn the decision. They claim that is contrary to the spirit of “strict constructionism” or “original intent” which they inveigh as the basis to want to overturn the decision.
But in actuality these terms are usually reversed and misused when they are applied to Roe v. Wade.
Consider a woman in a difficult childbirth in a clean maternity ward in a modern hospital. Complications have ensued which not only jeopardize the health of her fetus but the long term health and even life of the mother herself. Those who would overturn Roe claim that it is “judicial activism” to allow that woman, in concert with the child’s father, both their families and the best medical opinion and practice available, to decide what next to do. Opponents of Roe say that it was the “original intent” of the founders of this country that this life and death decision must be made for this woman in advance by her Congressman.
Apparently they believe that members of Congress are the greatest infallible moral high guardians of the nation, our new high priests, above reproach and so exalted in all their actions that they are to be trusted with our very lives. And all this time you thought they were just venal hypocrites who would sell out their own mothers for a quarter. Since they aren’t quite brave enough to sell out their own mothers and daughters, however, they have apparently decided to sell out everyone else’s. After they denigrate motherhood, what’s next, the restriction of apple pie? Naturally, freedom and the American way have been under fierce assault by them for quite some time.
On the contrary, it’s painfully easy to see that it is actually unjustifiable judicial activism for members of Congress and the Courts to intrude themselves unwanted into such a primary issue like childbirth without extraordinary cause and justification. Women have actually handled the special needs and difficulties of motherhood quite well for thousands of years without them. They are specially made and instinctually oriented to all the subtleties of the work. So the fact that some in this society want to trample the rights of individuals against the will of the majority, are willing to misrepresent the Constitution to do so and to usurp the natural rights of motherhood in the process is quite a conflation of reasons to doubt the integrity of their motives.
Although the decision in Roe is approved of with qualification by the vast majority of the American people, those who originally disagreed with the Roe decision fastened on the invocation of an American’s basic right of privacy in the decision as a reason to overturn it. Though it seems an absolutely indisputable implied right, when they read the Constitution (many perhaps for the first time) they saw that the word “privacy” itself did not appear in the text. Aha! These opponents of Roe then devised the extraordinary principle that any right not specifically enumerated in and authorized by the Constitution must be considered to not exist. Yet it is as impossible to conceive of freedom without privacy as it is life without breathing (which, I should warn you, is not specifically guaranteed in the Constitution either).
The obvious extrapolation of this perverse logic is that we have no basic rights at all outside of those specifically allowed to us by the benevolence of our government. This is not only dangerously foolish it is, once again, precisely opposite the truth as well as the clear understanding of the authors of the document. All rights are ours naturally by birth and only may be infringed for extremely good cause and by common consent and according to open, specific and commonly agreed upon democratic procedures. As a general rule, when interpreting the Constitution one should always err on the side of more freedom for Americans whenever practicable, not less. The burden of persuasion must always be on those who want to infringe on natural rights rather than on those who would leave them be. If a right is not mentioned in the document it must be presumed to exist rather than automatically presumed not to unless good and valid reason is presented.
To suggest the reverse evinces a complete and disingenuous disregard not only of the meaning of our Constitution but of the very nature of law in human existence. To claim that such a glass half full approach to freedom was the “original intent” of our founders is a profound insult not only to them but to everyone who has lived and fought to keep us free.
Of course, some consider such sophistry as this to be political fair game, merely a harmless exercise by base politicians of political gamesmanship for the acquisition of electoral leverage over their political opponents. Quite the opposite, such thinking has potentially catastrophic repercussions. Who doubts that after spending decades in denial that such a thing as fundamental to freedom as a right to privacy even exists in law that that this will not eventually lead to practical consequences that show up in policy?
This would seem to feed directly into the growing police state mentality currently underway in this country and is certainly apparent in some of the questionable legal arguments put forward to justify it. If a woman’s historic rights of motherhood are denied it is a short leap for a small mind that all Americans’ telephones should be tapped without cause, warrant or oversight. On what other basis can an administration claim that all the activities of our lives should be transparent to them and none of their activities transparent to us? This makes a mockery of democracy and is a complete transposition of the entire essence and structure of constitutional government. To play games with the Constitution for temporary political ends is not only egregiously shallow but extraordinarily dangerous and simply cannot be tolerated.
Birth and public policy
The third area of contention concerning birth is the effect the resulting policies will have on the public. Ideally these should give the greatest latitude in action possible to the citizenry commensurate with public interest while protecting the legitimate beliefs of the minority. Where we may best see the end results of the policies proposed by those who would overturn Roe v. Wade is in their votes to deny foreign aid to nations which allow family planning as part of their internal policy.
The results are clear. The curtailment of sex education leads to more unwanted pregnancies not fewer. Denial of funds for contraception also leads to more unwanted pregnancies than would otherwise be the case as well as the much increased spread of potentially deadly diseases transmitted sexually. Taken together or each separately these two things inevitably lead to more abortion not less. To deny a right to legal abortion at the same time you pursue policies which lead to more unwanted pregnancies merely means more black market and illegal abortions. These are invariably preformed in less than safe and sanitary conditions and inevitably lead to a multitude of other medical, legal and societal problems. In addition these policies necessarily eventuate in greater numbers of unwanted children born into unwholesome situations of great deprivation and unstable and dangerous circumstances where their unhappy lives may meet with premature ends anyway.
There is no dispute as to the variety and depth of harmful results which may come from the denial of foreign aid in these circumstances. In short, when put fully into action the policies designed to most clearly personify the theology that is allegedly its basis, in practice actually achieves the opposite result of what the supporters of the theology say they are trying to achieve with these policies.
Conversely, the policy mix we employ now in this country of sex education with an emphasis on abstinence and personal responsibility, availability of birth control, logical family planning and legal abortions under a limited number of circumstances performed in clean environments and medically appropriate circumstances, actually serves to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies, helps curtail the spread of disease and leads ultimately to fewer abortions rather than more. No policy governing something this subtle and complex will ever perform perfectly in every circumstance. But at least the policy in place now is based on good medicine, openness, fairness, good principles of education, freedom of religion and effective law enforcement and legislation consistent with sound theology, the Constitution and responsible political leadership. The same cannot be said for policies put forward by those who would overturn Roe.
Why would our public servants try to change what is working and force on us a theologically dubious and constitutionally unsound, one size fits all solution, that is not fully believed in by a large majority of our population? Why return to those dark days that haunt the memory, of abortions in dingy rooms and dark alleyways and all the horrid coat hanger policies of the ignorant past that can only lead to a profusion of negative consequences for our society? Why deny professionals their rightful role in scientific advancement and proper medical judgment? There are two basic motives behind the policies as they are currently being put forward by those who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
First, irrational fear of the future. Knowing more and more about the workings of the human body and its progress from sperm and egg to baby, frightens many people in the great variety of its unanticipatible implications (like human cloning, for just one). A simplistic policy which declares the entire process unteachable, unknowable and illegal is the classic Luddite attempt to throw a blanket over the entire issue, ignore science and regress to those forgotten days when ignorance was still presumed bliss. No one suggests that some of these issues are not delicate, difficult to grasp and must be carefully watched after but to merely try to throw out all the good that science can do in irrational fear of an imaginary harm which could theoretically occur someday is a time-worn tendency in life as discredited intellectually as it is futile in practice. Only cowards look backward in life, heroes look ahead. Those who are afraid of the future will be destroyed by it long before it arrives.
Second, when religion and politics marry it corrupts them both. It is an unnatural and antidemocratic union which leads to malformed offspring of bad law and bogus theology. When connected with money driven and corrupted partisanship these forces invariably work at odds with the best instincts of freedom and democracy. The bizarre result, if you can believe it, is that members of our political class, perhaps the least honest and most materialistic people in the country, are presuming on the basis of their great spiritual and ethical insight, to make theological decisions for the rest of us. This is something they are neither authorized nor qualified to do.
The “abortion Issue” as in its negative form it has come to be commonly known in our polarized society, whatever the initial noble spirit behind it, has been abased for crude and divisive political purposes. As it is being currently pursued it is not about good policy for the country and it is certainly not about the political class possessing a finer moral sensibility than the rest of us.
Whatever you personally believe, for politicians to try to reverse a policy that most of the country is in favor of and criminalize their opponents based on a matter of conscience which is in dispute, is an attack on religious freedom and entirely contrary to their oaths of office as servants of all the people.
The implications are sinister. As employees whose salaries are paid by all of us their job is to mediate, moderate and ameliorate the differences and disputes which may naturally arise among us. These politicians, however, by their actions do not so much seek to solve these problems fairly as to exacerbate them cynically for purposes of graft, power and political intimidation. By this means they govern by divide and conquer policies which play to their advantages both electorally and for fund raising purposes. This is just one method in which our political leaders are corrupting the offices they hold so the people may not unite against them to throw them out of the offices they are corrupting.
