Abortion: The Right to Choose, or Murder?

Is there a more controversial issue in the World than abortion? It is now legal in most countries in the western hemisphere, but only recently so. It wasn’t legalised in Britain until 1967, when it was one of the many social reforms of the then Labour Home Secretary Roy Jenkins. It was done so on social grounds, as a response to both the growing feminist movement and the demands of a woman’s right to choose, and to end the blight of backstreet abortions which had reached almost epidemic proportions during the Second World War and in the  years immediately following its conclusion. In the United States its legalisation was founded on the Supreme Court Judgement in the case of Roe vs Wade in 1973, which found in favour of a woman’s right to choose. This judgement has been frequently challenged ever since and pro-life groups have in the past achieved Congressional rulings in their favour that have restricted the use of public funds to pay for abortions. Prior to 1967, abortion was only legal in Sweden and Denmark.

Abortion is an emotive issue and it is very easy to argue against abortion when all the emotional verities seem to stand against it. Is it wrong to kill a human being? If so, then it is wrong to destroy a human foetus developing in the mother’s womb, and we have all seen the heart-rending pictures. Yet many of those who oppose abortion also support the death penalty, which is the legalised murder of an adult human being. So, perhaps, I should predicate this argument with the word innocent. It does, however, blur the moral boundaries somewhat.

Conservatives would argue that life creation is a gradual process, a process that begins in the mother’s womb. A liberal may well say in response to this that a child is not a child until it is born. So where do we start?

Viability is the moment at which a fetus could survive outside of the womb. This formed the basis of the Roe vs Wade judgement which stated that the State had the responsibility to protect potential human life but that this life becomes compelling at the point of viability. Prior to this the aborting of the foetus could be legitimate.

Quickening is the point at which the mother first feels the foetus to move. According to Catholic theology this is the moment when the baby receives its soul from God. If the foetus is capable of movement then this is proof that it is alive. Any abortion beyond this point would constitute murder. It would appear that on ethical grounds the liberal argument supporting abortion is a weak one. But Liberals do not argue in favour of legalised abortion on ethical grounds alone.