What Abortion is Not
September 7, 2022
Fr. John Riccardo
Given the increasing rhetoric on the matter of the unborn and whether they should be considered persons and, therefore, defended, we are posting excerpts from a talk recently given by Fr. John at a Right to Life of Michigan event. Though we previously posted a link to the audio and video of that talk, because of the importance of this issue it has seemed worth dividing parts of the talk up into more digestible “bites” for our own consumption and so as to be able to share with others. Last week's 1st excerpt can be found at actsxxix.org. This is the second of four parts.
What Abortion Is Not
I would like to talk for a moment about what abortion is not.
Abortion is not a religious issue. It does not depend on faith. It does not depend on what is stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It does not depend on what is in the Bible. It does not depend on what the Pope says or what a bishop says or what any person in a collar says.
Nor is abortion a matter of belief. We are much too careless with our language. To say that you believe abortion is wrong is simply an erroneous way of speaking. It has nothing to do with belief.
Abortion, like every other moral issue, is a matter of careful reasoning. So it is about thought, not belief. It is not a question of faith; it is a question of sound, rational thinking. And it is tied up with unspoken principles that lie at the heart of law.
The definition of murder in the State of Michigan, as worded in the 2012 Michigan Supreme Court case “People vs. Reese,” is when “a person of sound memory and discretion unlawfully kills another.”
Another what?
It does not say. It is just “another.” It is that ambiguous. But the answer to this key question is either another human being or another person. Abortion is permitted in our state and elsewhere because the unborn child, which science tells us is a human being, is denied the status of personhood.
And that is the crucial point. This is where we, as men and women, want to do everything we can to think clearly and to speak clearly—and calmly, which of course almost never happens on this issue.
It is this simple. And frighteningly, personhood just doesn’t relate to abortion. It relates to a whole host of other issues, including why I should care about the poor or why I should care about immigrants or why I should care about another race—or why I should care about anybody.
It is really a simple either/or.
Either everybody—every single human being—is a person and therefore has rights, most especially the right to life, without which no other right matters or else only some human beings are persons and therefore only some have rights, most especially the right to life, without which no other right matters.
If in fact it is the latter, that only some human beings are persons, then who gets to decide? To whom would we give that kind of raw power? What are the criteria they would use? Skin color? There was a time in this country—and we’re still hurting from it—when people of color were denied personhood. We came to recognize, at least by law, that this was unjust. We have a long way to go to continue to bring healing in our country, as the last few years have shown. But at least in law we recognize that skin color does not determine personhood.
What about gender? Age? Usefulness? What would that criteria possibly be? No matter what we use, if it is only some human beings are persons, can we not see that it would necessarily be arbitrary? It would be grounded in nothing other than raw power, which is why laws and elections matter.
What does law do? Well, law does a lot of things. It governs the fabric of society. And it imposes morality. We hear this kind of expression all the time from people: “Don’t impose your morality on me.” Well, that is exactly what law does. Law imposes morality. There is a law, for example, that says you cannot rape. Why? Well, because that would be an unjust thing to do. It violates someone’s bodily integrity.
Why am I not allowed to steal? Because it violates someone’s right to own property. So laws impose morality. The only question is whether a law is grounded in reason, whether it is grounded in truth. If it is not, a law would be unjust like the laws we used to have with regard to slavery.
Laws also educate. Laws teach. They especially teach young people. They form a way of thought. They help us to see, whether for good or for bad, what is acceptable behavior and what is not, what is to be tolerated and what is not. We have had 50 years of people growing up with a law that taught that it is okay, that it is acceptable to kill innocent human beings intentionally and deliberately. Our current situation in this state is frankly schizophrenic. We have a law that says you cannot kill a human being, an innocent human being, and we have a law that says you can. The only difference between the two is that some human beings are persons and some are not.
Elections matter. They determine those men and women who are going to stand in our place and represent us. People who will decide which is the wiser, sounder choice? Who do we want to make the ultimate decisions to govern a just society? Do we want to elect people whose reasoning is that all human beings are persons and therefore have rights, most especially the right to life without which no other right matters, or do we want to put in positions of power men and women who think, no, actually only some human beings are persons and therefore only some have rights, most especially the right to life without which no other right matters?
We will vote in Michigan this November on a ballot proposal that will decide issues of grave importance. Do we really want to enshrine laws in our penal code that say only some human beings are persons? Can we not as reasonable, rational, intelligent people see how absolutely, utterly dangerous that is?
Michigan is either going to be one of the most restrictive states with regard to abortion, which is to say one of the states more than any other state recognizes that all human beings are persons and therefore have rights, most especially the right to life without which no other right matters, or we are going to be one of the most liberal states in the country that does not recognize that all human beings are persons and therefore only some have rights, most especially the right to life without which no other right matters.
That is up to you and me. We have the most extraordinary privileged opportunity to decide that.