With reference to abortion, examine and comment on the view that the sanctity of life should be regarded as a moral absolute

GCSE Religious Studies (Philosophy & Ethics)

.In 54 countries (61% of the world population) abortions are legal.

.In 97 countries (39% of the world population) abortions are illegal.

.There are approximately 46 million abortions conducted each year, 20 million of them obtained illegally.

.There are approximately 126,000 abortions conducted each day.

Abortion is the premature expulsion of the foetus from the womb. This is when a mother chooses to terminate a pregnancy and kill the developing baby when it is in her womb. This creates moral dilemmas which have been the centre of acute controversy for many years. There are basically two sides to the argument; pro-choice, and pro-life. The first promotes the freedom of choice by the women; the latter promotes the un-mitigating view to protecting any unborn innocent life. These views can be dispute, what cannot be disputed is the confliction abortion creates with the moral view to the Sanctity of Life.

According to the Anglican Church, abortion is, in itself, wrong, but there are a very few circumstances in which it can be considered “morally preferable to any available alternatives” so, sometimes abortion could be considered the best thing to do. Whether it is in the interests of the mother, or the interests of the unborn child. According to the Roman Catholic Church, having an abortion is considered always to be a “grave moral wrong”. However, the view that actually influences the fate of the unborn child, the current law on abortion, says that abortion is accepted in some special circumstances, the law does not take the view that it is totally wrong, more that it should be, if at all possible, avoided. The law, it seems, has taken a very much “pro-choice” stance on the controversial topic. The law has attempted to tackle the technicalities of abortion by putting a time scale on the accepted time for an abortion (which currently stands at 24 weeks); this is the time that the unborn foetus apparently “becomes” an unborn child. And I use that term loosely, it is my own personnel opinion that a child is a child from the moment of conception, and it should be treated thusly, so I call the unborn “organism” a child. But the actual term for the unborn child is a matter of hot debate. Names ranging from embryo, to foetus, to organism to baby. It depends on your point of view. According to the bible, life is precious, and a gift from God. He created man “in his own image”, so life should be honoured and revered. Of course, the various factions of the church have interpreted this in different ways, but the message that undoubtedly shines through concerns the view of The Sanctity Of Life. This message is clear, so, if the Roman Catholic Church says it’s wrong, and the Anglican Church says, most of the time, abortion is wrong, surely that makes abortion totally wrong? But the factions of the same religion have interpreted the same message differently, in quite a substantial way.

The Catholic Church says it is totally wrong, always, as shown in The Catechisms Of The Catholic Church, in which it says; Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life. Whereas the Anglican Church says, in the General Synod Of The Anglican Church; “All human life, including life developing in the womb, is created by God in his own image and is therefore to be nurtured, supported and protected", and that "Marriage is the ideal context for the procreation and rearing of children". This implies that there are some circumstances where it can be considered the morally preferable thing to do. So the question one must set out to answer is, is the view of the sanctity of life, a moral absolute?

The sanctity of life is relatively straight forward and loosely based on natural moral law. When considered from an external point of view, what it says is that life is God’s gift. Simple. But this has many hidden implications; an obvious one would be “thou shall not kill” (Exodus ch.20). If life is God’s gift then it would be blasphemous to waste it, or for another human being to take it away. Also, if life is God’s gift, then abortion is not the only area where we must turn to divine guidance as to what we do, if life is God’s, then do we have any control over our life whatsoever? If life belongs to God then what right do we have to make any decision at all? From what we have for breakfast, to euthanasia. Reversely, if life is God’s gift then it could be said that we have been given the right to do what we please with it, in this instance, is God’s power limited to just giving life? Because if we have been given life to do as we please with it, then with that, all god’s power and control, which is what is implied in the sanctity of life, is taken away. Humans have been made existentialists, connected to God only through our existence, otherwise totally alone. A radical thought, but that is what view of the sanctity of life incurs. Anything the bible says can only be interpreted; this gives rise to very different views on the same things.

This is a preview of the whole essay

But what do Ethical theories say on the sanctity of life? To any Teleological theory, there are no absolutes, so what does this say about the sanctity of life? If the ends justify the means, then, in theory, the sanctity of life would not be viewed as a moral absolute, so there is no need to uphold it. What this could imply is that even Christian ethical theories do not have a very strong connection to God. Because human life isn’t respected or valued. In short, to any teleological theory, murder could potentially be justified, and therefore proved to be the morally right thing to do. So, should the view of the sanctity of life be regarded as a moral absolute, and thus making abortion the morally right or wrong thing to do? So far I have discovered that the Roman Catholic Church is un-mitigating on their belief that the sanctity of life should be regarded as a moral absolute, with no exceptions, making abortion always wrong. That the Anglican Church disagrees with abortion but accepts that it is sometimes necessary and could be regarded as “the morally preferable thing to do” in special circumstances. And those teleological Ethical theories, such as utilitarianism or situation ethics, intrinsically do not have any moral absolutes so there is never any time when abortion is definitely right or wrong. In the next few pages, then, I will discuss whether, with reference to abortion, the sanctity of life should be regarded as a moral absolute.

First of all, to gather a more detailed source of information, I think that the sources I have used should be studied in more depth, to form an informed view on the sanctity of life; I will look at how different people have interpreted the sanctity of life and formulate a view on whether the sanctity of life should be regarded as a moral absolute.

But what do Ethical theories say on the sanctity of life? To any Teleological theory, there are no absolutes, so what does this say about the sanctity of life? If the ends justify the means, then, in theory, the sanctity of life would not be viewed as a moral absolute, so there is no need to uphold it. What this could imply is that even Christian ethical theories do not have a very strong connection to God. Because human life isn’t respected or valued. In short, to any teleological theory, murder could potentially be justified, and therefore proved to be the morally right thing to do. So, should the view of the sanctity of life be regarded as a moral absolute, and thus making abortion the morally right or wrong thing to do? So far I have discovered that the Roman Catholic Church is un-mitigating on their belief that the sanctity of life should be regarded as a moral absolute, with no exceptions, making abortion always wrong. That the Anglican Church disagrees with abortion but accepts that it is sometimes necessary and could be regarded as “the morally preferable thing to do” in special circumstances. And that teleological Ethical theories, such as utilitarianism or situation ethics, intrinsically do not have any moral absolutes so there is never any time when abortion is definitely right or wrong. In the next few pages, then, I will discuss whether, with reference to abortion, the sanctity of life should be regarded as a moral absolute.

First of all, to gather a more detailed source of information, I think that the sources I have used should be studied in more depth, to gain a real insight into the opinions of various groups, their reasoning for their views must be analysed.

First of all, perhaps the largest force, in Britain and Europe at least, is the Catholic Church. The “rule-book”, if you like, for the Catholic Church is the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This clearly says that;

“Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his [or her] existence, a human being must be recognised as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent life.” What this says is that from the moment of conception, the option to abort the pregnancy is considered absolutely and totally wrong. The Church goes on to say that this principal has never changed and is unchangeable. This clearly means that; according to the Catholic Church, with reference to abortion, the sanctity of life should be regarded as moral absolute.

But what about the Church of England? This stance is very much more a contradicting one. On the one hand, the Church says that it shares the view of the Catholic Church in that “abortion is gravely contrary to the moral law”. And on the other hand, according to the Church’s governing body, the General Synod, “The Church of England combines strong opposition [to abortion] with recognition that there can be – strictly limited – conditions under which it may be morally preferable to any available alternative.” Two conflicting principals are apparent here, one saying that abortion is totally morally wrong, the other saying that sometimes it may be understandable. The mother is considered in a very central way also; “The mother of the unborn child needs all possible understanding and help, especially if factors connected with the pregnancy are difficult. Successive resolutions have urged the need for compassion for the mother (1966) and have emphasised that she has interests which need to be taken into account” This is very confusing because the whole point of a moral absolute is that there are no circumstances in which that conflicting moral dilemma can be accepted. But here is the Anglican Church, the Church of England, conflicting its own ideals. If you believe that God set out the moral laws of Christianity, and those laws are still apparent to this day by all factions of Christianity, then is God himself contradicting his principals? What about if you believe that the moral laws of Christian are subject to the interpretation of an original text over thousands of years, then this means that the confliction apparent in the Church of England is purely down to human error. To me, this would appear a much more reasonable reality. What if we looked to the Bible though, what would the Bible say about Abortion and the sanctity of Life? After all, the Bible is a record of the teachings of God himself, and God is something that both factions of the Church can agree on. In Jeremiah 1:5 it says: “before you were formed in the womb I knew, and before you were born I consecrated you.” What this effectively means is that God has effectively put his Holy mark on you even before conception. The mere potential of your being is enough for God to count you as an innocent life with a right to live. Therefore, we can gather from this that the whole of Christianity should hold the view of an Absolutist view to abortion – it is always wrong.

But a religion is concrete anyway, Religion is so strong because people believe in them, what about law that people may merely agree with, what about ethical theories such as Utilitarianism and Situation Ethics?

There principals can be applied, with much more detail, to situations. I will start with Utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism was founded by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832). It was a theory designed around human needs and preferences. Bentham believed that all humans were driven by the instinct to avoid pain and seek pleasure, or happiness, so he based his theory on this principal.

Utilitarianism has been criticized for only looking at the results of actions, not at the desires or intentions which motivate them, which many people also consider important. An action intended to cause harm but that inadvertently causes good results would be judged equal to the result from an action done with good intentions. However, many utilitarians would argue that utilitarianism applies not only to results, but also to desires and dispositions, praise and blame, rules, institutions, and punishment. For instance, bad intentions may cause harm (to the actor and to others) even if they do not result in bad acts. Once this is recognized, supporters argue that utilitarianism becomes a much more complex, and rich, moral theory, and may align much more closely with our moral intuitions. Some critics reject utilitarianism, both rule and act, on the basis that it is seems to be incompatible with . For example, if or is beneficial for the population as a whole, it could theoretically be justified by utilitarianism. Utilitarian theory thus seems to overlook the rights of minority groups. It might also ignore the rights of the majority. A man might achieve such pure ecstasy from killing 100 people so that his positive utility outweighs the negative utility of the 100 people he murdered. Utilitarians argue that justification of either slavery, torture or murder would require improbably large benefits to outweigh the direct and extreme suffering to the victims and excludes the indirect impact of social acceptance of inhumane policies. For example, general anxiety and fear might increase for all if human rights are commonly ignored. Human rights can thus be considered a rule compatible with rule utilitarianism. A further criticism is in regards to Utilitarianism's judgment of right and wrong. Utilitarianism holds that in any given situation the 'right' act is that which produced the greatest good, while all other acts are wrong. Therefore even charitable actions could be considered wrong under this theory. For example, if a person donated $1,000 to a charity that provided starving children with food when they could have donated $1,050 and in doing so created even more good, their action would be judged as wrong by Utilitarianism. In response to criticism of this nature the contemporary philosopher and utilitarian claimed that, although Utilitarianism would clearly dictate the above conclusion, a good utilitarian would still praise the wrongdoer for their charitable donation even though it is wrong. This is because punishing such a person would likely push them to no longer make any charitable contributions, so praising the wrongdoer would better serve the greater good than punishing them.

So what does this say about a Utilitarian’s view on Abortion? If, according to Utilitarianism, a morally right action is whatever produces the greatest pleasure (and therefore, according to utilitarianism, happiness) for the greatest number, so if more people would potentially receive pleasure from the abortion than people who don’t, then it is the right thing to do. If, however, more people feel pain from the abortion, then it is morally wrong. This is clear from the principals of the theory, therefore, there are no absolutes in the theory, if all that matters is the end result to define the morality of an action, and then potentially anything can be done in order to achieve the result. So we see a clear difference between this and say, Catholicism. The Catholic view to Abortion is that it is always wrong regardless of the circumstances, utilitarianism however, says that in some circumstances abortion is right, and in some it is wrong. Utilitarianism does not find it morally necessary to uphold the sanctity of life. This creates a dilemma in which it could be ok to sacrifice human life in order to pleasure other humans. This is clearly not practical, so what if I turn to another theory, what about Situation ethics.

Joseph Fletcher published his book on Situation Ethics in 1963. It was called ‘Situation Ethics, The New Morality’. The ‘swinging sixties’ as it was known brought about a great deal of social change. There was an opposition to traditional values such as the role of women, so it was a good year to bring about new ideas. Fletcher was an American Anglican Theologian, so his theory had a sense of Christian morality.

Fletcher said there are three ways one can make a decision. The first one is legalism. This is where someone obeys the law, always sticks to what the rules say. The second is antinomianism, when people ignore or go against the law or rules. This theory lies in-between the two, this is known as Situationism. Each situation should be dealt with individually, you should remember the rules but be prepared to put them aside, and it allows people to think for themselves. He believed that if one was to always to stick to the rules, it produces the ‘immorality of morality’. This means that in some situations, if you go by what the law says, the outcome will be immoral. For example if a mother killed someone to defend her children and she was condemned for it, this would be immoral. A situationist would look at the outcome and not see this as an immoral action as the woman was doing the loving thing by protecting her children.

The point of situation ethics is not to forget the rules; a situationist does not start from nothing. We need the rules as a basis, but the outcome of the decision must be love. Love is the most important issue in Situation Ethics, the whole theory centres around it. Fletcher said that ‘the only absolute thing was that of love. In any given situation, the right thing to do was what love required’. When making a moral decision, you must look at the outcome to decide the correct choice. One can do whatever he seems appropriate as long as the end result is love. This kind of love is not sexual or romantic; it focuses on the Greek love agape. This unconditional, unselfish love, one unites people Christians and non-Christians.

Fletcher tried to highlight that the right thing to do is not necessarily the same in all circumstances by using examples. He used the case of a mentally disturbed woman who was left pregnant as a result of rape. If she were to follow the rules of abortion and carry on bearing the child, this would be morally wrong. In this case, to have an abortion would be the loving thing to do, where as in other cases, it may not. This shows that every situation is different and there is not a single right answer for any two circumstances. For Fletcher, nothing was absolutely right or wrong. So one could say that in Fletchers book, abortion is, once again, neither right nor wrong.

So if Situation ethics, Utilitarianism and the Church of England all say that in some circumstances abortion can be considered the morally right thing to do, then what reason do we have, at all, to uphold the view of the Sanctity of Life. The only guidelines or example we have of a system which does uphold the view of the Sanctity of Life is Catholicism. So, unless it turns out that Catholicism is, intrinsically, the only moral way for human beings to live, then abortion is always wrong. Because I know for a fact that there are a lot of people who are not Catholics in England, but these people still have doubts about the morality of Abortion, so it is reasonable to believe that this doubt is in our very nature. Therefore, and I am not a Catholic, I still believe that abortion is wrong, and that the sanctity of life should be respected at all times. If this were denied, then not only would we be committing a “grave moral wrong” in the eyes of Catholicism, but we would be contradicting our very nature.

By Nathan jervis 11D1