Is The Sanctity of Life to be regarded as a Moral Absolute? Discuss in Relation to Abortion.

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Charlene Lee                                                                                                                                                                                    Page  of

Is The Sanctity of Life to be regarded as a Moral Absolute? Discuss in Relation to Abortion.

        Before I start to discuss whether decisions about abortion can be a morally absolute I shall start by defining what the ‘sanctity of life’ and what a ‘moral absolute’ is.  The ‘sanctity of life’ is seen to be sacred because God gave it to us as a gift, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness;”
1.  Therefore Christians believe that we all reflect the image of God and as such our physical forms are part of God.  So God is a part of us and we do not have the right to interfere with his gift of life, nor to make life or death decisions concerning others.  Members of the Medical profession make life and death decisions as part of their job, so many Christians might be concerned when these decisions are about abortion.  “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  If any one destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him.  For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are.”2. Paul said that your body is a temple because for the Jews the temple was the most sacred place so to say that their bodies are like God’s temple is emphasising that their bodies are sacred because god both gave them to you and his spirit is within you.  

        Now before I go any further I need to explain what a ‘Moral Absolute’ is.  Moral absolutism is the theory that there are absolute values.  This is to affirm bivalence; the statement can only be true or false and does not depend on the evidence.  A realist who holds a correspondence theory of truth would believe that the sanctity of life is a moral absolute i.e. it cannot be changed, there are no ‘grey areas’-it is always wrong to tamper with life or violate its sacred nature.  While the Roman Catholic view is influenced by this absolutist approach, Protestant moral thinkers may take an anti-realist view.  This maintains that a set of beliefs may be held if they cohere with or ‘fit in’ with other held beliefs.  Therefore, to a Protestant moral thinker the rights of the mother and the exercise of agape (doing the most loving thing) and the rights of the foetus must all be considered.  Even Roman Catholic moral thinkers argue that ‘indirect abortion’ is permissible, an example of this would be in the case of uterine cancer.

        Now that we know that both our lives and our bodies are seen to be sacred and we know what a moral absolute is we can now discuss this in relation to abortion. There are two central issues surrounding abortion these are whether the foetus is a person or a potential person and what rights does it have.  These are three views of when the foetus becomes a person:

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This table shows that there are different views about how the foetus’ life is viewed.  If the foetus is regarded as fully human then it has all rights that a person would have and that it can never be aborted.  The bible tells us that the foetus is a child and it has all the rights as a human and that because God gave it life so therefore it is sacred. “For thou didst form my inward parts, thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.” 4 God also knows us intimately from the moment of conception as he would know any other human.  

  1. Genesis                 1:26
  2. I Corinthians          3:16
  3. Table from Christian Ethics options and issues by Norman L. Geisler page135
  4. Psalm                 139:13

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,”5.  This therefore shows that God has given the foetus life and a soul as soon as it is conceived, and we already know that we should not tamper with God’s creations because they are sacred.  This mean that if the mother were to have an abortion then this would be tampering with God’s creation and this would be wrong. And God tells that it is wrong to kill in the 10 commandments, and he also tells us “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined,”6 this lets us know that hurting the woman or child is a punishable action.  Today this can also be used against a woman who chooses to have an abortion.  It shows that God does not agree with terminating the child’s life and anyone how does should be punished.  Pope Sixtus V said in 1588 that any abortion is wrong and should be considered as murder.        

        Nonreligious beliefs also point towards the fact that the foetus is fully human, this is due to science.  We can place an endoscope inside the womb and we can watch the foetus developing.  We also know from science that at the moment of fertilisation, all the genetic information for the development of the child is present.  “In biology and in medicine, it is an accepted fact that the life of any individual organism reproducing by sexual reproduction begins at conception, or fertilisation. (Dr. Micheline M. Matthews-Roth) 7.  

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        Socially there are many reasons why it is seen as being wrong to kill a foetus, a major issue is that fact that you are killing; now, if it is seen to be right to kill a foetus due to abnormality, undesirability or poverty then it would be seen correct for euthanasia and infanticide, as there is no real difference between all three.  So abortion should always be seen as murder.

        There are criticisms of the view that the foetus is fully human; if the mothers’ life is in danger and the foetus and the mother will die then ...

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