Answering Arguments
for Abortion Rights
Part One – The Appeal to Pity
by Francis J. Beckwith
Christian
Research Journal, Fall, 1990, Page 20.
When the
Supreme Court ruled that the state of
It is also
apparent that pro-life spokespersons and political candidates have, for the
most part, responded inadequately. They have either toned
down their pro-life position, caved in to the opposition, or permitted the
pro-choice movement to control the terminology and framework of the debate. [1]
It is my hope
that this four-part series will help to reverse this trend by providing a
rigorous intellectual defense of the pro-life position -- helpful to policy
makers, political consultants, pro-life leadership, and ordinary Americans.
In this first
article, after briefly explaining what it means to be pro-life and discussing
why abortion on demand is legal in
Of course, not
every defender of abortion rights holds to all or any of the arguments that
will appear in this four-part series. Some of the more sophisticated defenders
of abortion rights eschew much of the popular rhetoric and defend their
position on other grounds. But since most people will come into contact with
these arguments in both the popular media and pro-choice literature, it is
necessary that they be carefully analyzed.
WHAT IS PRO-LIFE?
The pro-life
position is subject to somewhat varying formulations. The most widely accepted
and representative of these can be defined in the following way: The unborn
entity is fully human from the moment of conception. Abortion (narrowly
defined) results in the intentional death of the unborn entity. Therefore,
abortion entails the intentional killing of a human being. This killing is in
most cases unjustified, since the unborn human being has a full right to life.
If, however, there is a high probability that a woman's pregnancy will result
in her death (as in the case of a tubal pregnancy,
for example), then abortion is justified. For it is a greater good that one
human should live (the mother) rather than two die (the mother and her child).
Or, to put it another way, in such cases the intent is not to kill the unborn
(though that is an unfortunate effect) but to save the life of the mother. With
the exception of such cases, abortion is an act in which an innocent human
being is intentionally killed; therefore, abortion should be made illegal, as
are all other such acts of killing. This is the pro-life position I will be
defending in this series.
Some people
claim to be both pro-life and pro-choice. This is a ploy taken by politicians,
such as Nevada Senator Richard Bryan and New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who
appear absolutely petrified to take a stand on the abortion issue. They usually
say, "I'm personally against abortion, but I don't object to a woman who
wants to have one if she believes it is the right thing to do."
The problem
with this statement is that it doesn't tell us the reason why the politician claims to be personally against abortion. Since
most people who are against abortion are so because they believe that the
unborn are fully human and have all the rights that go along with such a
status, we would expect that if the politician were personally against abortion
it would be for the same reason. But this would make the politician's personal
opposition and public permission of abortion somewhat perplexing, since the
assumed reason why he would be personally against abortion is the same reason
why he should be against publicly
permitting it, namely, that an entity which is fully human has a right to life.
After all, what
would we think of the depth of an individual's convictions if he claimed that
he was personally against the genocide of a particular ethnic group (e.g., the
Jews), but he added that if others thought this race was not human, they were
certainly welcome to participate in the genocide if they so chose? What I'm
getting at is simply that the nature of some "personal" opinions
warrants public actions, even if these opinions turn out to be wrong, while
other opinions (e.g., one's personal preference for German chocolate cake) do
not. Thus, it makes little moral sense to claim that one is both pro-life and
pro-choice.
WHY ABORTION ON DEMAND IS LEGAL IN
It is important
that the reader understand the current legal status of abortion in
In Roe, Justice Harry Blackmun
divided pregnancy into three trimesters. He ruled that aside from normal
procedural guidelines (e.g., an abortion must be safely performed by a licensed
physician), a state has no right to restrict abortion in the first six months
of pregnancy. Thus a woman could have an abortion during the first two
trimesters for any reason she deemed fit, whether it be an unplanned pregnancy,
gender selection, convenience, or rape. In the last trimester the state has a right, although not an obligation, to restrict abortions to
only those cases in which the mother's health is jeopardized. In sum, Roe v. Wade does not prevent a state
from allowing unrestricted abortion for the entire nine months of pregnancy if
it so chooses.
Like many other
states, the state of
In
·
In
actual effect, Roe v. Wade
judicially created abortion on demand in the
The concept of
"health," as defined by the Supreme Court in Doe v. Bolton,
includes all medical, psychological, social, familial, and economic factors
which might potentially inspire a decision to procure an abortion. As such,
"health" abortion is indistinguishable from elective abortion. Thus, until
a more narrow definition of "health" is obtained, it may not be
possible to limit effectively the number of abortions performed. [6]
After
viability the mother's life or health
(which presumably is to be defined very broadly indeed, so as to include what
many might regard as the mother's convenience...) must, as a matter of
constitutional law, take precedence over...the fetus's life... [7] (emphasis
in original).
It is safe to
say, therefore, that in the first six months of pregnancy a woman can have an
abortion for no reason, but in the last three months she can have it for any
reason. This is abortion on demand.
Those who
defend abortion rights do not deny this disturbing fact but often dismiss it by
claiming that only one percent of all abortions are done in the last trimester.
There are several problems with this statistical dismissal. First, the fact
that third-trimester abortions are permitted for nearly any reason and that
unborn children are left unprotected is significant in itself regardless of
whether a small percentage of total abortions has taken place during this time.
Second, since there are about 1.5 million abortions per year in the
ARGUMENTS THAT APPEAL TO PITY
When one
fallaciously argues by appealing to pity, one is arguing that certain actions
should be permitted or tolerated out of pity for those performing them (or
those on whose behalf they are done), when in fact the basis for showing them
pity is not a legitimate basis for the action. For example, a woman who argues
that she should not receive a parking ticket because her child was crying and
she took her child to a candy store to cheer her up is fallaciously appealing
to pity. [8]
The following abortion rights arguments are textbook examples of such appeals
to pity.
Argument from the Dangers of Illegal
Abortions
Anyone who
keeps up with the many pro-choice demonstrations in the
The chief
reason this argument fails is because it commits the fallacy of begging the question. In fact, as we
shall see, this fallacy seems to lurk behind a good percentage of the popular
arguments for the pro-choice position. One begs the question when one assumes
what one is trying to prove. Another way of putting it is to say that the
arguer is reasoning in a circle. For
example, if one concludes that the
Boston Celtics are the best team because no team is as good, one is not giving
any reasons for this belief other than the conclusion one is trying to prove,
since to claim that a team is the best
team is exactly the same as saying that no team is as good.
The
question-begging nature of the coat-hanger argument is not difficult to
discern: only by assuming that the unborn are not fully human does the argument
work. If the unborn are not fully human, then the pro-choice advocate has a
legitimate concern, just as one would have in overturning a law forbidding
appendicitis operations if countless people were needlessly dying of both
appendicitis and illegal operations. But if the unborn are fully human, this pro-choice argument is tantamount to saying
that because people die or are harmed while killing other people, the state
should make it safe for them to do so.
Even some
pro-choice advocates, who argue for their position in other ways, admit that
the coat hanger/back-alley argument is fallacious. For example, pro-choice
philosopher Mary Anne Warren clearly recognizes that her position on abortion
cannot rest on this argument without it first being demonstrated that the
unborn entity is not fully human. She writes that "the fact that
restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself,
show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of
the consequences of prohibiting it..." [9]
Although it is
doubtful whether statistics can establish a particular moral position, it
should be pointed out that there has been considerable debate over both the
actual number of illegal abortions and the number of women who died as a result
of them prior to legalization. [10] Prior to Roe, pro-choicers were fond of saying that
nearly a million women every year
obtained illegal abortions performed with rusty coat hangers in back-alleys
that resulted in thousands of
fatalities. Given the gravity of the issue at hand, it would go beyond the duty
of kindness to call such claims an exaggeration, because several well-attested
facts establish that the pro-choice movement was simply lying.
First, Dr.
Bernard Nathanson -- who was one of the original
leaders of the American pro-abortion movement and co-founder of N.A.R.A.L.
(National Abortion Rights Action League), and who has since become pro-life --
admits that he and others in the abortion rights movement intentionally
fabricated the number of women who allegedly died as a result of illegal
abortions.
·
How many
deaths were we talking about when abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L. we
generally emphasized the drama of the individual case, not the mass statistics,
but when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000 to 10,000 deaths a
year." I confess that I knew the figures were totally false, and I suppose
the others did too if they stopped to think of it. But in the
"morality" of the revolution, it was a useful figure, widely
accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics. The
overriding concern was to get the laws eliminated, and anything within reason
which had to be done was permissible. [11]
Second, Dr. Nathanson's observation is borne out in the best official
statistical studies available. According to the U.S. Bureau of Vital
Statistics, there were a mere 39 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972,
the year before Roe v. Wade. [12] Dr. Andre Hellegers, the late Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
at
This is not to
minimize the undeniable fact that such deaths were significant losses to the
families and loved ones of those who died. But one must be willing to admit the
equally undeniable fact that if the unborn are fully human, these
abortion-related maternal deaths pale in comparison to the 1.5 million preborn
humans who die (on the average) every year. And even if we grant that there
were more abortion-related deaths than the low number confirmed, there is no
doubt that the 5,000 to 10,000 deaths cited by the abortion rights movement is
a gross exaggeration. [15]
Third, it is
simply false to claim that there were nearly a million illegal abortions per
year prior to legalization. There is no reliable statistical support for this
claim. [16]
In addition, a highly sophisticated recent study has concluded that "a
reasonable estimate for the actual number of criminal abortions per year in the
prelegalization era [prior to 1967] would be from a
low of 39,000 (1950) to a high of 210,000 (1961) and a mean of 98,000 per year.
[17]
Fourth, it is
misleading to say that pre-Roe
illegal abortions were performed by "back-alley butchers" with rusty
coat hangers. While president of Planned Parenthood, Dr. Mary Calderone pointed out in a 1960 American Journal of Health article that Dr. Kinsey showed in 1958
that 84% to 87% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians
in good standing. Dr. Calderone herself concluded
that "90% of all illegal abortions are presently done by physicians."
[18]
It seems that the vast majority of the alleged "back-alley butchers"
eventually became the "reproductive health providers" of our present
day.
Argument from Economic Inequity
Pro-choice
advocates often argue that prior to abortion being legalized, pregnant women
who did not go to unscrupulous physicians or "back-alley butchers"
traveled to foreign nations where abortions were legal. This was an option open
only to rich women who could afford such an expense. Hence, Roe v. Wade has made the current
situation fairer for poor women. Therefore, if abortion is prohibited it will
not prevent rich women from having safe and legal abortions elsewhere. [19]
This argument
is fallacious: it assumes that legal
abortion is a moral good which poor
women will be denied if abortion is made illegal. But since the morality of
abortion is the point under question, the pro-choice proponent assumes what he
or she is trying to prove and therefore begs the question.
One can think
of a number of examples to better understand this point. To cite one, we would
consider it outrageous if someone argued that the hiring of hit men to kill
one's enemies should be legalized, since -- after all -- the poor do not have
easy economic access to such "professionals."
In the abortion
debate the question of whether abortion entails the death of a being who is fully human must be answered before the question of fairness is even asked. That is to say,
since equal opportunity to eliminate an innocent human being is rarely if ever
a moral good, the question of whether it is fair that certain rich people will
have privileged access to abortion if it becomes illegal must be answered after we answer the question of whether
abortion in fact is not the killing
of an innocent human life. For it is not true that the vices
of the wealthy are virtues simply because the poor are denied them.
Argument from Population, Poverty, and
Financial Burden
Some pro-choice
advocates make much of both the use of abortion as a means of population
control and the financial and emotional burden a child may put on a family. It
is argued that in such situations abortion is justified. Along the same lines,
a number of pro-choice advocates argue that if abortion is forbidden, then the
poor will keep producing more children to draw more welfare. Hence, in addition
to pity, there is an economic incentive invoked in this appeal.
Beyond pointing
out that the so-called "population explosion" is an economic and not
a people problem, [20]
there are several fundamental moral problems with this argument. First, it does
not really support the pro-choice position that abortion is a fundamental right
the pregnant woman can exercise for any reason she deems fit during the entire
nine months of pregnancy (see above).
If this argument is successful it only establishes the right to an abortion in
the cases of overpopulation, poverty, and financial burden, and not "for any reason the pregnant
woman deems fit."
Second, like
the other arguments we have examined, this one also begs the question. That is,
only if the pro-choice advocate assumes that the unborn poor are not fully
human does his or her policy carry any weight. For if the unborn poor are fully
human, the pro-choice advocate's plan to eliminate overpopulation and poverty
by permitting the extermination of the unborn poor is inconsistent with his or
her own ethic of personal rights. Thus, the question of aborting the unborn
poor, like the points brought up earlier, hinges on the status of the unborn.
Furthermore, if
the unborn are fully human, then this is also a good argument for infanticide
and the killing of all humans we find to be financially burdensome or
emotionally taxing. Therefore, only by assuming that the unborn are not fully
human does the pro-choice advocate avoid such horrendous implications. Thus, in
order for this argument to work, the pro-choice advocate must beg the question.
This is not to
say that the human race may not reach a time in its history at which
overpopulation becomes a problem so severe that it must significantly curtail
its birthrate. At such a time it would be wise to try to persuade people either
to willingly use contraceptive devices or to practice sexual discipline. If
such a tactic does not work, then forced sterilization may be a viable --
albeit desperate -- option, since it does not entail the death of the unborn.
In any event, if the unborn are fully human, abortion is not a solution to
population problems even in the most dire of circumstances. Hence, the real
question is whether or not the unborn are fully human.
Underlying this
type of pro-choice argument is a fundamental confusion between the concept of "finding
a solution" and the concept of "eliminating a problem." For
example, one can eliminate the problem of poverty by executing all poor people,
but this would not really solve the problem, since it would directly conflict
with a basic moral truth that human beings should not be gratuitously
exterminated for the sake of easing economic tension. This "solution"
would undermine the very moral sentiments that ground our compassion for poor
people -- namely, that they are humans of great worth and should be treated
with dignity regardless of their predicament. Similarly, one can eliminate the
problem of having a headache by cutting off one's head, but this is certainly
not a real solution. Therefore, the argument of the pro-choice advocate is
superfluous unless he or she can first show that the unborn are not fully human
and hence do not deserve to be the recipients of our basic moral sentiments.
·
In an
age where we doubt the justice of capital punishment even for very dangerous
criminals, killing a fetus who has not done any harm,
to avoid a future problem it may pose, seems totally unjust. There are indeed
many social problems that could be erased simply by destroying those persons
who constitute or cause them, but that is a solution repugnant to the values of
society itself. In short, then, if the fetus is a human being, the appeal to
its being unwanted justifies no abortions. [21]
This is not to
minimize the fact that there are tragic circumstances with which our society is
all too familiar, such as the poor woman with four small children who has
become pregnant by her alcoholic husband.
But once again we must ask whether or not the unborn entity is fully human, for
hardship does not justify homicide. In such cases, those in the religious and
charitable communities should help lend financial and emotional support to the
family. And it may be wise -- if it is a case of extreme hardship -- for the
woman to put her baby up for adoption, so that she may give to others the gift
of parenthood.
Argument from the Deformed and Mongoloid
Child
Since it is now
possible to detect through amniocentesis and other tests whether the unborn entity
will turn out to be physically or mentally handicapped, [22] some pro-choice advocates argue that
abortion should remain a choice for women who do not want to take care of such
a child. Another reason cited for advocating the aborting of the defective
unborn is that it is better for such children never to be born rather than to
live a life burdened with a serious mental or physical handicap. There are
several problems with this argument.
First, this
argument, like many of the appeals to "hard cases," does not really support the pro-choice position
-- the position that abortion is a fundaamental right the pregnant woman can
exercise for any reason she deems fit during the entire nine months of
pregnancy (see above). In other
words, if this argument is successful in showing that abortion is justified in
the case of a woman pregnant with a deformed or Mongoloid fetus, it only
establishes the right to an abortion in such cases, not "for any reason the pregnant woman deems fit."
Second, like
many of the pro-choice arguments, this argument begs the question by assuming
that the unborn entity is not fully human. For if the unborn are fully human, then to promote the aborting of the handicapped unborn is no
different morally than promoting the execution of handicapped people who are
already born. But such a practice is morally reprehensible. Are not adults with
deformities human? Then so too are smaller people who have
the same deformities. In fact, pro-choice advocates Peter Singer and
Helga Kuhse, who argue for their position in other
ways, admit that "pro-life groups are right about one thing: the location
of the baby inside or outside the womb cannot make such a crucial moral
difference...The solution, however, is not to accept the pro-life view that the
fetus is a human being with the same moral status as yours or mine. The
solution is the very opposite: to abandon the idea that all human life is of
equal worth." [23]
Although I do not agree with this conclusion, and will argue against it in this
series, Singer and Kuhse make an important
observation: the question is not whether a handicapped individual is born or
unborn, but whether handicapped human life should be protected equally with
healthy human life.
Third, it is
amazingly presumptuous for mere human beings to say that certain other human
beings are better off not existing. Those who make such judgments concerning
the handicapped seem to assume that handicapped persons cannot live meaningful
and even happy lives. However, this assumption is false. Former Surgeon General
C. Everett Koop, who worked for years with severely deformed infants as a
pediatric surgeon at
·
Some of
the most unhappy children whom I have known have all
of their physical and mental faculties, and on the other hand some of the
happiest youngsters have borne burdens which I myself would find very difficult
to bear. Our obligation in such circumstances is to find alternatives for the
problems our patients face. I don't consider death an acceptable alternative.
With our technology and creativity, we are merely at the beginning of what we
can do educationally and in the field of leisure activities for such
youngsters. And who knows what happiness is for another person? [25]
This is not to
deny that there are tragedies in life and that having a handicapped child is
often a difficult burden to undertake. But I think it is important to realize
that if the unborn entity is fully human, homicide cannot be justified simply
because it relieves one of a terrible burden. Though it may be hard to accept,
I believe the following principle is fundamental to correct moral reasoning: it is better to suffer evil rather than to
inflict it. [26]
If this moral precept were not true, all so-called moral dilemmas would be
easily soluble by simply appealing to one's own relief from suffering. But in
such a world the antidote would be worse than the poison,
for people would then have a right to inflict suffering on another if it
relieved them of their own. This would be morally intolerable.
Moreover, it
should not be forgotten that a handicapped child can give both society and the
family into which it has been born an opportunity to exercise true compassion,
love, charity, and kindness. It is an assault upon our common humanity to deny
our capacity to attain virtue in the presence of suffering.
Fourth, for
obvious reasons many handicapped people are vehemently opposed to this
argument. In fact, there is not a single organization of handicapped people
that is on record in favor of abortion of those who may be handicapped. Surgeon
General Koop cites the following letter, which appeared in the London Daily Telegraph (8 Dec. 1962) at
a time when European newspapers were seriously discussing the use of abortion
as an effective means by which to avoid the birth of children who became
defective in utero
due to their mother's use of Thalidomide (a tranquilizer used by European women
in the 1950s and 1960s but never approved by the FDA for sale in the U.S.):
·
Trowbridge
Sirs:
We were
disabled from causes other than Thalidomide, the first of us two having useless
arms and hands; the second, two useless legs; and the third, the use of neither
arms nor legs.
We were
fortunate...in having been allowed to live and we want to say with strong
conviction how thankful we are that none took it upon themselves to destroy us
as useless cripples.
Here at the Debarue school of spastics, one of
the schools of the National Spastic Society, we have found worthwhile and happy
lives and we face our future with confidence. Despite our disability, life
still has much to offer and we are more than anxious, if only metaphorically,
to reach out toward the future.
This, we hope
will give comfort and hope to the parents of the Thalidomide babies, and at the
same time serve to condemn those who would contemplate the destruction of even
a limbless baby.
Yours faithfully,
Elaine Duckett,
Glynn Verdon,
Caryl Hodges. [27]
Fifth, if there
were a negative correlation between happiness and handicap, it would seem
natural to find more suicides among the handicapped than the general public.
But the opposite is the case. Professor Krason points
out that "no study...has found that handicapped persons are more likely
than non-handicapped persons to want to be killed or to commit suicide."
Citing a study of the late Dr. Hellegers, Krason writes that "of 200 consecutive suicides at the
A society whose
ethic asserts that certain preborn human beings forfeit their right to life
simply because they have a certain physical deformity or mental handicap is a
society that will inevitably see those who have already been born with the same
features as having lives "not worth living."
The chilling
logic of this conclusion was played out in a real-life situation in 1982. That
year, Infant Doe, an Indiana newborn who was born with Down's syndrome and
correctable spina bifida, was permitted to die at the
request of her parents who asked the attending physician to withhold food and
water from the infant. This parental decision was upheld by an
·
When a
commentator has a direct personal interest in an issue, it behooves him to say
so. Some of my best friends are Down's syndrome citizens. (Citizens are what
Down's syndrome children are if they avoid being homicide victims in
hospitals.)
Jonathan Will,
10, fourth-grader and Orioles fan (and the best Wiffle-ball
hitter in southern
Finally,
abortion is sometimes justified by pro-choicers by appealing to certain extreme
cases in which the entities in the womb are so genetically abnormal as to be
arguably nonhuman.
For example,
the tertatoma is simply a tumor with some human
genetic material that has gone awry. Sometimes it may contain hair, teeth,
skin, or even fingers, but it is not an unborn human entity and does not have
the inherent capacity to develop under any conditions into a human infant. The tertatoma is part of the woman's bodily tissue and is not a
separate human individual. [30]
More difficult
is the case of the anencephalic baby. According to
the American Medical Association
Encyclopedia of Medicine, anencephaly is the "absence at birth of the
brain, cranial vault (top of the skull), and spinal cord. Most affected infants
are stillborn or survive only a few hours." Anencephaly occurs "due
to a failure in development of the neural tube, the nerve tissue in the embryo
that eventually develops into the spinal cord and brain." A woman can know
early in pregnancy that she is carrying an anencephalic
baby "by measurement of alphafetoprotein, by ultrasound
scanning, and by amnio-centesis..."
[31]
We may or may
not be dealing with human beings in the case of anencephalic
babies. Citing the work of Professor Germain Grisez, Krason argues that
"there are two ways we may view the 'anencephalic
monster,' depending on when the abnormality originates." One way,
"when the abnormality or the genetic certainty of it is present from
conception, is to view the organism as human in its conception, but incapable
of developing beyond a few hours, a few days, or a few weeks." He argues
"that in such cases, especially if the specifically human genetic pattern
is greatly transformed, we may not consider the conceptus
a human individual." [32]
Relying on Grisez, Krason writes that when
the abnormality develops some time after conception we could view the anencephelic as we would an individual who has had his head
blown off by a shotgun. "Such a person is human and remains such until he
dies." Since "the anencephalic originated
as a human and developed normally up to the point when the neural tube failed
to close...he thus can be viewed as a human being, albeit a damaged one, whose
abnormality will cause his death shortly after birth, like the gunshot-wounded
person will die a short while after his wound." [33] A damaged human is not a nonhuman.
It should be
remembered, however, that the anencephalic is a
"hard case," and cannot be used to justify the vast majority of abortions
that involve the killing of healthy unborns for any reason the pregnant woman deems fit.
Furthermore, the argument from the apparent nonhumanness
of the anencephalic implicitly admits what is the
main contention of the pro-life position, namely, that unborn human beings
should not be killed.
Francis J. Beckwith, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Philosophy,
Culture, and Law, and W. Howard Hoffman Scholar,
NOTES
[1] See Fred
Barnes, "Republicans Miscarry Abortion," The American Spectator 23 (January
1990):14-15.
[2]
[3] Doe v.
[4] Report,
Committee on the Judiciary,
[5] John
Warwick Montgomery, "The Rights of Unborn Children," Simon Greenleaf Law Review 5
(1985-86):40.
[6] Victor G. Rosenblum and Thomas J. Marzen,
"Strategies for Reversing Roe v.
Wade through the Courts," in Abortion
and the Constitution: Reversing Roe v. Wade through the Courts, ed. Dennis
Horan, Edward R. Grant, and Paige C. Cunningham (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown
University Press, 1987), 199-200.
[7] John Hart
Ely, "The Wages of Crying Wolf: A comment on Roe v. Wade," Yale Law Journal 82 (1973):921.
[8] John Nolt and Dennis Rohatyn, Schaum's Outline of Theory and Problems of Logic
(New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1988), 172. in The Problem of Abortion, 2nd ed., ed. Joel Feinberg (Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth, 1984), 103.
[10] See Daniel Callahan, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality
(New York: Macmillan, 1970), 132-36; and Stephen Krason,
Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the
Constitution (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984), 301-10.
[11] Bernard Nathanson, M.D., Aborting
[12] From the
U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Dr. and
Mrs. J. C. Wilke, Abortion: Questions and Answers, rev. ed. (Cincinnati: Hayes
Publishing, 1988), 101-2.
[13] From Dr. Hellegers's testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary
Committee on Constitutional Amendments, April 25, 1 1974; cited in John
Jefferson Davis, Abortion and the
Christian (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1984), 75.
[14] From the
U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control, as cited in Wilke, 101-2.
[15] See
[16] See note 10; Callahan, 132-36; Krason, 301-10.
[17] Barbara
J. Syska, Thomas W. Hilgers,
M.D., and Dennis O'Hare, "An Objective Model for Estimating Criminal
Abortions and Its Implications for Public Policy," in New Perspectives on Human Abortion, ed. Thomas Hilgers,
M.D., Dennis J. Horan, and David Mall (Frederick, MD: University Publications
of America, 1981), 78.
[18] Mary Calderone, "Illegal Abortion as a Public Health
Problem," in American Journal of
Health 50 (July 1960):949.
[19] See Craig Walton, "Socrates Comes
to His Senses During Meeting With Bush,"
[20] See Jaqueline
Kasun, "The Population Bomb Threat: A Look at
the Facts," in The Zero People, 33-41. Originally
published in Intellect (June 1977).
[21] Baruch
Brody, Abortion and the Sanctity of
Human Life: A Philosophical View (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 1975),
36-37.
[22] See "Birth Defects," in The American Medical Association
Encyclopedia of Medicine, 172-73.
[23] Peter
Singer and Helen Kuhse, "On Letting Handicapped
Infants Die," in The Right Thing to
Do: Basic
[24] Quoted in
Nathanson, 235.
[25] Ibid., 235-36.
[26] See Peter Kreeft,
The Unaborted
Socrates (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1982),
140.
[27] C.
Everett Koop, The Right to Live: The
Right to Die (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1976), 51-52.
[28] Krason, 295.
[29] George
Will, "The Killing Will Not Stop," in The Zero People, 206-7. Originally published in the Washington Post (
[30] AMA Encyclopedia, 971.
[31] Ibid., 104.
[32] Krason, 386-87. See
Germain Grisez, Abortion: the Myths, the Realities, and the
Arguments (New York: Corpus Books, 1970), 30.
[33] Krason, 387. See
Grisez, 28-30.