Rethinking The Abortion Ruling
What you probably don't know is this: there are five Catholics -- a majority -- on the Court. [Only a quarter of America is Catholic.] Guess which five justices signed onto the ban? This seems too coincidental not to have had an impact on the ruling. (tip)
The five: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony M. Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, as reported by AP in 2005. Thomas reclaimed the "precious gift" of Catholicism in 1996. That year, he also "joined Scalia at the ordination of Scalia's son Paul into the priesthood."
According to Religious Tolerance, the modern Catholic Church considers "the fertilized ovum, embryo and fetus ... as full human beings." From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
[The fetus has] an equal right to its life with its mother; therefore neither the mother, nor medical practitioner, nor any human being whatever can lawfully take that life away. The State cannot give such right to the physician; for it has not itself the right to put an innocent person to death. No matter how desirable it might seem to be at times to save the life of the mother, common sense teaches and all nations accept the maxim, that 'evil is never to be done that good may come of it'; or, which is the same thing, that 'a good end cannot justify a bad means'.
This is the same Church that prohibits birth-control. In 1968, Pope Paul VI "reaffirmed the Church's traditional teachings and classified the Pill as an artificial method of birth control." He also condemned abortion and sterilization as well as sex for reasons other than procreation, which he claimed is facilitated by the Pill.
Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are Jewish. David H. Souter is Episcopalian, and John Paul Stevens is Protestant.
Can this ruling be so easily explained as this, simply by examining religious beliefs?
Comments
Though I am a Roman Catholic, and can find justification a-plenty within my religion for opposing abortion, one of my friends, who is a convinced atheist, is also anti-abortion. As should come as no surprise, his rationale is not that an embryo is ‘ensouled’, but rather that it amounts to a biological individual with distinctive DNA undergoing a developmental process on the way to mature personhood. Thus, he argues, insofar as the embryo is developing into a rational and fully functional person, it deserves to share in at least some of the basic rights enjoyed by fully developed persons, especially the right to life.
Further support for his position can be found in considering the status of comatose humans. Just like embryos, comatose humans are not fully functional persons. They are unconscious, bedridden, and machine-dependent with respect to nutritional intake and evacuation. However, in virtue of the fact that the possibility exists for them to regain their status as (or redevelop into) fully functional persons by finally awakening from vegetative slumber, their rights ought not to be abnegated while they lie unconscious, unable claim them. Indeed, though many of their rights may be temporarily placed in the charge of their guardians, parents, or spouses, it seems clear that comatose humans at least never lose their right to life.
Neither, therefore, should embryos lose theirs, even though they lack– like comatose persons in chance of recovery–independence, consciousness, rationality, and fully functional personhood.