I remember that comment thread on the old Right Christians site. It was an awful experience. It started out with someone calling abortion a holy work, which I freaked out over, and left the first comment that whether one is pro-choice or pro-life, can't we agree that abortion is a tragedy, perhaps a necessary tragedy in some cases, but certainly not holy. It went downhill from there. I did try to give the our man Stan line, about abortion being a failing of the community to support the woman, about thinking of the fetus as our neighbor, and some other stuff to get away from the person/not a person or pro-choice/pro-life dichotomies, but it didn't work, and obviously the woman who made the suicide comment was very, very upset. I regret the whole thing.

What do you mean by our culture's narrow defintion of human life?

I meant that the equation of unplanned motherhood with death that those two women seemed to be making suggested that we think that 'human life' means not just being alive but living exactly how we planned to live. Amy Richards' definition of 'my life' was narrowly confined to her Manhattan freelance writer's lifestyle, and she didn't seem to think she'd really be alive without it. It's a definition of human life based on individual autonomy, I suppose.

I tend to think that's a losing battle even without the pregnancy factor. As John Lennon famously put it, life is what happens when you're making other plans.

As Bob Dylan famously put it:

"You're going to have to serve somebody:
It may be the devil,
Or it may be the Lord,
But you're going to have to serve somebody."

The idea that you can live for yourself is a fatal delusion.

The thing that gets me about Kerry's comments is not that they could not somehow be made coherent -- delayed ensoulment, after all, has a long tradition in Catholic philosophy -- but that their very incoherence shows that he hasn't actually figured out his answer. And that's odd, because for political reasons if nothing else, he ought to know what to say he believes about when a human life becomes a human person.

Kerry's answers are, I think, unsatisfactory from a Catholic perspective. But is he still confused, or is he voicing a simplified version of a certain "liberal" Catholic perspective?

That perspective is generally very reluctant - because of twinning, recombination, and the high rate of miscarriage of fertilized eggs - to call embryos before restriction and gastrulation "human persons" with souls. After all, in traditional Catholic thought, the soul is indivisible and indestructible, and cannot split, fuse, or disappear. Furthermore, this perspective could draw on an older theological tradition to suggest that the soul cannot possibly animate an "unformed" fetus - that is, one without the physical structures necessary for imagination, cogitation, and memory. Thus, at best, we have talk of "nascent human life" (Fr Richard McCormick), which would leave early abortion still morally impermissible, but less than murder - the "termination of genetic uniqueness" in one formulation, conceivably equivalent to contraception. Thus, Kerry separates "life" from "person" and suggests that there is a gray area of "transformation" or "evolution" between the two, in which the state has no compelling interest to interfere.

The question then is when we can indeed talk about a "person" that the state must protect. The official Catholic position is that, even if there is doubt about the presence of a human person, one simply cannot dare to risk murder. A hunter cannot shoot his gun without certainty that there is not a person behind the moving bush. But some Catholic moralists would suggest the possibility of probabilism - that even a less probable argument in favor of liberty may be followed and a more probable argument in favor of the law may be disregarded. Thus, McCormick would say "Rights of an uncertain subject (uncertain by uncertainty of the subject's existence) are automatically uncertain rights" that can be violated for sufficient reason. Kerry would seem to hold a grotesquely intensified form of this probabilism - that "you have all kinds of different evolutions of life, as we know, and very different beliefs about birth, the process of the development of a fetus," so that there is really no certain point at which we can say that a human subject with certain rights exists in the womb. Thus, perhaps the same probabilism that led Curran, McCormick and others to approve of research with human zygotes, combined with the deep pluralism that Kerry sees regarding the science of fetal development, can lead to approval of abortion on demand.

Kerry's position then might be coherent but utterly fails at two points - it doesn't realize the dangers of probabilism, which was used to justify certain types of slavery; and it suggests that we cannot come to any certain conclusions about the presence of a human person in the womb during the entirety of pregnancy. Kerry's position could conceivably (at best)effectively defend the morning-after pill and stem cell research, but nothing more. There would then still be compelling reasons to disagree, I think, but recognize some degree of theological merit.

Neil

Well, I didn't really mean this as a defense of Kerry's Catholicism, or of Kerry in general. It's more of a defense of a middle position on abortion that I think a lot of people instinctively hold, but tends to get lost in these debates that assume that a fetus must be a full person or be nothing at all. It's a stab at explaining not only Kerry's viewpoint but how people can believe that abortion is OK in extreme cases like rape and deformity but not for the reasons Richards did it.

I have to admit, wandering off the subject a bit, that I never really understood why it's the presence of a soul that makes killing something evil or not. If a soul is eternal, it actually means that you can't kill it. Not that that makes killing it OK, of course, but I don't see why that's the big criterion.

The problem for Kerry, and for any other politician in today's world, is how one can a) justify writting law that would apply to all persons based on something as vague as Catholic "probabilism", and b) if he does, how he hope to be elected in order to accomplish his other political goals. It makes me question again whether persons for whom God comes first can successfully and/or morally participate in politics at all--whether as candidates, or as voters.
I agree with Camassia's point about the immortality of the soul by extending it to say that it seems worse to me to execute a guilty and unrepentant criminal, thus cutting off his chance of conversion, than it does to abort a blameless fetus whose immortality is in no danger.

I never really understood why it's the presence of a soul that makes killing something evil or not.

Traditionally speaking, the soul is the principle of life, so if something doesn't have a soul it's not alive and you can't kill it.

If a body has a human soul, then the two together constitute a human person, and what is done to the body is done to the person. If you kill a body with a human soul, you've killed a human person. (While you haven't killed the soul, you have harmed it, since by nature it belongs with its body.)

But, Tom, the soul belongs with its body for only a very brief period of time, even if the two stay together for 100 years. What is that as compared to eternity? The evidence seems to be that we hope to be resurrected in "our" bodies, but that these bodies will be new and improved bodies, not the imperfect, perishable ones in which our souls endured like caged birds until death freed them. Is it not God's will that body and soul stay together until each of us has completed the earthly tasks that have been chosen for us, and no longer?

Mary Anne Warren argued that personhood is rooted more in membership in the moral community than biology, and that since fetuses lack all five of (1) consciousness; (2) reasoning; (3) self-motivated activity; (4) the capacity to communicate; and (5) the presence of self-concepts, they are not persons. And since the fetus is not a person, the rights of the mother should take precedence.

She also flirts with the idea, like Kerry, that as we evolve into persons, our rights might also evolve in the womb and thereafter (but she would still insist on the precedence of the woman's right over the fetus').

She's willing to concede that we intuitively know it's wrong to kill person-like animals for the same reason that it's wrong to kill infants, but wouldn't carry that over to dogs (based on the same criteria above). Yet she wouldn't call either murder.

The "middle position" is comprehensible to me, but her criteria are not. I think when secular liberals use the word "person" they often have something like Warren's idea in mind, and are not conceding any sort of "inherent value" or "dignity of life."

The "middle position" on abortion (where a fetus lacks the dignity of a person, but is given that of an animal because it lacks some functions, such as consciousness/reasoning/self-motivated activity) is probably held by some people. And I find that VERY disturbing.

Why? Because of its logical consequences. If the dignity and value of human life is dependent on degree of function or ability, then one must conclude that the severely mentally retarded or those in a coma lack full human dignity, are not persons, and killing them could be justified in some cases.

Few who take the so-called "middle position" on abortion are "pro-choice" on the killing of the comatose or persons with mental retardation. I believe this exposes the moral and logical incoherence of their position.

Camssia, I'd like to address your implicit question: "I never really understood why it's the presence of a soul that makes killing something evil or not."

It is because a human being has a _spiritual soul_ (not just a vegetative or animal soul) that a human person possesses a unique dignity and inestimable value, and therefore, the direct killing of innocent human life is always immoral.

To make the point another way, the elevated dignity of the human person above animals is NOT based on the fact that our bodies are more developed, that we've evolved longer, etc. Rather, it is based on the nature of his spiritual soul which possesses the powers of intellect and will, making him capable of relationships of communion and love with other persons and with God.

To quote an Address of Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (October 22, 1996, www.newadvent.org/docs/jp02tc.htm):

"...man is "the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake" (No. 24). In other terms, the human individual cannot be subordinated as a pure means or a pure instrument, either to the species or to society; he has value per se. He is a person. With his intellect and his will, he is capable of forming a relationship of communion, solidarity and self-giving with his peers. St. Thomas observes that man's likeness to God resides especially in his speculative intellect, for his relationship with the object of his knowledge resembles God's relationship with what he has created (Summa Theologica I-II:3:5, ad 1). But even more, man is called to enter into a relationship of knowledge and love with God himself, a relationship which will find its complete fulfillment beyond time, in eternity. All the depth and grandeur of this vocation are revealed to us in the mystery of the risen Christ (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 22). It is by virtue of his spiritual soul that the whole person possesses such a dignity even in his body. Pius XII stressed this essential point: If the human body take its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God ("animas enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere iubei"; "Humani Generis," 36). Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person... With man, then, we find ourselves in the presence of an ontological difference, an ontological leap, one could say."

As an aside, and to avoid an misinterpretation, Pope John Paul II is not opposed to all theories of evolution. In the same Address above he cites evidence that is "a significant argument in favor of this theory [of evolution]."

Rather he opposes specifically those theories of evolution which are based on materialist or reductionist philosophical presuppositions - i.e. that deny the existence of a spiritual soul or reduce it to a by-product of an evolved body.

Let's compare John Kerry's position on abortion with the official teaching of the Catholic Church.

(1a) John Kerry (speaking to Peter Jennings) on treating the unborn as a person:

"[The fertilization process is]... when life begins. Something begins to happen. There's a transformation. There's an evolution. Within weeks, you look and see the development of it, but that's not a person yet..."

(1b) The Catholic Church officially teaches the following:

"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." (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2270, cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae I,1)

(2a) Kerry on the government's role in protecting the rights of the unborn, continuing the previous quote:

"... and it's certainly not what somebody, in my judgment, ought to have the government of the United States intervening in."

(2b) The Catholic Church officially teaches that the state must enact and enforce laws protecting the rights of unborn children (zygote/embryo/fetus if you prefer the scientific terms):

"The moment a positive law deprives a category of human beings of the protection which civil legislation ought to accord them, the state is denying the equality of all before the law. When the state does not place its power at the service of the rights of each citizen, and in particular of the more vulnerable, the very foundations of a state based on law are undermined. . . . As a consequence of the respect and protection which must be ensured for the unborn child from the moment of conception, the law must provide appropriate penal sanctions for every deliberate violation of the child's rights." (CCC 2273, quoting CDF, Donum vitae III)

Fr. Terry:
If a zygote is a person, in posession of a soul from the moment of conception, then you are saying that the soul is a divisible entity, capable of being split into multiple human individuals--potentially, I guess, an infinite number of individuals. The soul, therefore, does not define a "person" in the sense that it is a unique component of a human being, differentiating that human being in an essential way from another human being. What, then, *does* define the "person?"

Why? Because of its logical consequences. If the dignity and value of human life is dependent on degree of function or ability, then one must conclude that the severely mentally retarded or those in a coma lack full human dignity, are not persons, and killing them could be justified in some cases.

Well, most people seem to believe that killing anyone could be justified in some circumstances, so why is this so alarming? After all, we have long recognized different types of "human being" with different values and rights.

As an aside, and to avoid an misinterpretation, Pope John Paul II is not opposed to all theories of evolution. In the same Address above he cites evidence that is "a significant argument in favor of this theory [of evolution]."

Rather he opposes specifically those theories of evolution which are based on materialist or reductionist philosophical presuppositions - i.e. that deny the existence of a spiritual soul or reduce it to a by-product of an evolved body.

In other words, he opposes all theories of evolution that actually constitute science. A theory that rests on an assumption of supernatural intervention is, by definition, not a scientific theory.

If the dignity and value of human life is dependent on degree of function or ability, then one must conclude that the severely mentally retarded or those in a coma lack full human dignity, are not persons, and killing them could be justified in some cases.

I think that one holding to a "middle-position" (like Warren) would say that it's probably wrong to kill someone in a coma or a severely mentally retarded patient, but not for the same reasons as it would be to kill you or me. And say that, in these cases, the life of a "person" (in the developmental sense) would take precedence over the life of a "creature".

I'm not saying I agree with that position. But it avoids making human existence out to be something "special", which is something a true materialist probably must do.

Rob,

If the zygote has a soul, that does not imply that a soul is a divisible entity. If identical twins/triplets come from one zygote, then God creates a spiritual soul for each one of them as they separate from the initial zygote, while their body is formed from the body of the first zygote. There can be no dividing of a soul, because a soul does not have parts.

Marky,

You write: "most people seem to believe that killing anyone could be justified in some circumstances"

I am specifically referring to the direct intentional killing of an innocent human being. I do not believe that can be justified in _any_ circumstance.

You write: "we have long recognized different types of 'human being' with different values and rights."

Although some human rights are limited (i.e. children do not have the right to vote), I do not believe that "we" deny the right to _life_ to any human person, as it is fundamental and inalienable.

Marky,

John Paul II opposes theories of evolution which are based on materialist or reductionist philosophical presuppositions - i.e. that deny the existence of a spiritual soul or reduce it to a by-product of an evolved body.

That does _not_ reduce acceptable theories to what you called "A theory that rests on an assumption of supernatural intervention..." but also includes theories that make _no_ philosophical presuppositions about the existence of a spiritual soul one way or another.

I presume those would fit into your definition of scientific theory.

Fr. Terry:
If God assigns souls to each new individual who is created as a zygote splits two and three times, does that mean that God has also assigned souls to the millions upon millions of zygotes that never attach to the mother's body and simply pass away? If so, toward what end?

Rob,

Because your question veers off into the rather large issue of the Problem of Evil, I don't have an easy answer to it.

Our world has _many_ evils in it that end human life prematurely. God has foreknowledge that some babies will be killed through abortion, infanticide, natural disaster, starvation, etc. but they are no less human, and therefore they "must be recognized as having the rights of a person." (CCC 2270)

God doesn't choose to create us as persons because of our future (good or bad, long or short), but because of His goodness and his desire that we be capable of sharing in His divine life: infinite love. Human life is, by its nature, created in the image and likeness of God and is 'very good' to quote Genesis 1. The fact that human life is fragile and can be ended so easily does not nullify or undo this fundamental good. And God is about creating what is good.

Fr. Terry

Fr. Terry:
My question also veers off into the problem of God's omniscience, which leads into problems about presdestination, which leads into the problem of free will, which leads me to the suggestion that we should just call it all a mystery and let it go at that.