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NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

ED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/documentationonrcath



Documentation on

THE RIGHT TO LIFE

AND ABORTION

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

UNITED STATES

CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

1974

Publications Office

UNITED STATES EATHOLIE EONFERENEE

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.E. 20005





CONTENTS

TESTIMONY OF UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

ON CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROTECTING UNBORN

HUMAN LIFE BEFORE THE SUB COMMITTEE ON CONSTI-

TUTIONAL AMENDMENTS OF THE SENATE COMMMITTEE

ON THE JUDICIARY. March 7, 1974 1

I. The Human Dignity of the Unborn Child 4

II. The Protection of Human Rights in Law 16

III. The Right to Life of the Unborn in the Context

of American Law 19

IV. A Review of the Court’s Opinions in Roe v. Wade,

Doe v. Bolton 21

V. Proposal For a Constitutional Amendment 27

VI. Conclusion 29

TESTIMONY

His Eminence John Cardinal Krol 35

His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Manning 39

His Eminence Humberto Cardinal Medeiros 41

His Eminence John Cardinal Cody 43

RESOLUTION OF THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS ON THE PRO-LIFE CONSTITUTIONAL

AMENDMENT. November 13, 1973 45

STATEMENT OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE.

National Conference of Catholic Bishops on the Anti-Abortion

Amendment. September 18, 1973 47

PASTORAL GUIDELINES FOR THE CATHOLIC HOSPITAL

AND CATHOLIC HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL AD HOC COM-

MITTEE ON PRO-LIFE ACTIVITIES.

National Conference of Catholic Bishops. April 11, 1973 49



PASTORAL MESSAGE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE COM-

MITTEE. National Conference of Catholic Bishops. February

13, 1973 55

STATEMENT OF THE COMMITTEE FOR PRO-LIFE AFFAIRS.

National Conference of Catholic Bishops. January 24, 1973 59

DECLARATION ON ABORTION. National Conference of

Catholic Bishops. November 18, 1970 61

STATEMENT ON ABORTION. National Conference of Catholic

Bishops. April 22, 1970 63

STATEMENT ON ABORTION. National Conference of Catholic

Bishops. April 17, 1969 65

EXCERPT FROM HUMAN LIFE IN OUR DAY. Pastoral Letter,

National Conference of Catholic Bishops. November 15,

1968 69

EXCERPTS FROM CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH IN THE
MODERN WORLD. Second Vatican Council. December 7,

1965 71



TESTIMONY OF UNITED STATES

CATHOLIC CONFERENCE

ON CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

PROTECTING UNBORN HUMAN LIFE

BEFORE THE SUB-COMMITTEE ON

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE

ON THE JUDICIARY

March 7, 1974

On repeated occasions during the past ten years the National

Conference of Catholic Bishops has spoken on the security of life,

the right of each individual to life, and on the morality of abortion.

Perhaps the most succinct expression of these repeated statements

is contained in the Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution

on the Church in the Modern World
,
addressed to all mankind:

For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the sur-

passing ministry’of safeguarding life—a ministry which
must be fulfilled in a manner which is worthy of man.

Therefore from the moment of its conception life must

be guarded with the greatest care, while abortion and

infanticide are Unspeakable crimes, [no. 51]

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as

any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or

willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of

the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted

on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; what-

1



ever insults human dignity, such as sub-human living

conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery,

prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well

as disgraceful working conditions, where men are

treated as mere tools for profit, rather than as free and

responsible persons; all these things and others of

their like are infamies indeed. They poison human

society, but they do more harm to those who practice

them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover,

they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator, [no. 27]

These statements of the Council, and the many that have been

issued by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, have

enunciated two central themes:

1. The right to life is a basic human right which should be

protected by law.

2. Abortion, the deliberate destruction of an unborn human

being,
1

is contrary to the law of God and is a morally evil

act.

In regard to the first point, the right to life is a basic human

right, proclaimed as such by the Declaration of Independence and

Constitution of the United States, and also by the United Nations

Declaration of Human Rights. But human life cannot be considered

merely as an abstract notion, for human life always exists in a

human being. Thus, it is the life of each specific, individual human

being that must be protected and sustained, and the responsibility

falls equally on society and on individual persons within society.

As for the second point, we wish to make it clear that we are

not seeking to impose the Catholic moral teaching regarding abor-

tion on the country. In our tradition, moral teaching bases its

claims on faith in a transcendent God and the pursuit of virtue

and moral perfection. In fact, moral teaching may frequently call

for more than civil law can dictate, but a just civil law cannot be

opposed to moral teaching based on God’s law. We do not ask the

civil law to take up our responsibility of teaching morality, i.e., that

abortion is morally wrong. However, we do ask the government

and the law to be faithful to its own principle—that the right to
life is an inalienable right given to everyone by the Creator.

We also reject the argument that opposition to abortion is simply

2



a Catholic concern. The state abortion laws of the 19th century,

although highly prohibitive, did not represent Catholic morality.
2

The proposed statute of the American Law Institute, a model on

which some state laws were revised in recent years, did not repre-

sent Catholic morality. The rejection of liberal abortion laws in

North Dakota and Michigan, by 78 and 62 percent vote of the

people in a public referendum, cannot be attributed to Catholic

moral teaching, since in both states the Catholic population is less

than 30 percent.

Furthermore, in a religiously pluralistic society, government is

not expected to formulate laws solely on the basis of the religious

teaching of any particular Church. In the formulation of law,

though, it is appropriate that the convictions of citizens, and the

principles from which they are derived, be taken into considera-

tion. There are certain principles of morality taught by the various

Churches that are part and parcel of the legal tradition of Ameri-

can society. In our country, religious leaders are increasingly com-

pelled to present a moral argument in regard to legislation. Such

was the case in regard to civil rights, to anti-poverty legislation, and

to other instances of the violation of human rights.

The abortion decision is a complex web of many factors—social,
personal, cultural, emotional, religious, etc. In its opinions in Roe

v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton
,
the Court overstepped its authority and

made some apodictic moral pronouncements. Morality was defi-

nitely imposed; the Court’s own morality—based on inaccuracy
and error. That the Supreme Court would presume to usurp the

role of moralists and ethicians is telling cause for moral teachers

to clearly articulate their position—that is, their reasons and the
bases of their reasons for legally protecting the unborn.

We appear here today in fulfillment of our considered responsi-

bility to speak in behalf of human rights. The right to life—which
finds resonance in the moral and legal tradition—is a principle we
share with the society and the one that impels us to take an active

role in the democratic process directed toward its clear and un-

equivocal articulation.

The Supreme Court of the United States has denied protection

of the right to life to the unborn, and the most realistic way to

reverse that decision of the Court is to amend the Constitution of

the United States. Thus, we place before this Committee our testi-

3



mony in behalf of an amendment that will establish that the

unborn child is a person and is entitled by law to the protection of

the inalienable right to life, a right accorded by the Constitution

to every human being in this nation.

In this testimony we wish to address the following points:

I. The Human Dignity of the Unborn Child.

II. The Protection of Human Rights in Law.

III. The Right to Life of the Unborn in the Context of American

Law.

IV. A Review of the Court's Opinions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v.

Bolton.

V. Proposal for a Constitutional Amendment.

VI. Conclusion.

I. THE HUMAN DIGNITY OF THE UNBORN CHILD

Newly conceived human life should be reverenced as a gift from

God and from nature. The dignity of the unborn child is neither

conferred nor taken away by any man or woman or by any govern-

ment or society. That dignity is rooted in an objective individuality

that inherently tends toward the openness and transcendence men

commonly call personhood.

The developing unborn child has increasingly been an object of

study of a variety of empirical sciences, such as genetics, biology

and fetology. The scientific evidence thereby accumulated should

form an integral part of the human assessments that any man or

any government makes regarding the reality and worth of the

unborn child.

Life’s Beginnings

It is an accepted biological fact that human life begins at

fertilization. Subsequent to the Supreme Court's abortion de-

cisions the noted fetologist, Dr. Landrum B. Shettles, 3 submitted

a public letter to the New York Times (February 14, 1973) in

which he accused the Supreme Court of denying the truth about

when life begins. The doctor stated in part:

4



Concerning when life begins, a particular aggregate of

hereditary tendencies (genes and chromosomes) is first

assembled at the moment of fertilization when an

ovum (egg) is invaded by a sperm cell. This restores

the normal number of required chromosomes, 46, for

survival, growth, and reproduction of a new composite

individual.

By this definition a new composite individual is started

at the moment of fertilization. However, to survive, this

individual needs a very specialized environment for

nine months, just it requires sustained care for an in-

definite period after birth. But from the moment of

union of the germ cells, there is under normal develop-

ment a living, definite, going concern. To interrupt a

pregnancy at any stage is like cutting the link of a chain;

the chain is broken no matter where the link is cut.

Naturally, the earlier a pregnancy is interrupted, the

easier it is technically, the less the physical, objective

encounter. To deny a truth should not be made a basis

for legalizing abortion.

Such conclusions, the doctor noted, were based “on twenty

years’ work in this field, apart from any known religious influence.”

The Supreme Court has ruled that the unborn child does not

deserve the full protection of society’s laws until the time of birth.

Yet, some years ago Life magazine, in a special feature on the

unborn child, stated:

The birth of a human life really occurs at the moment

the mother's egg cell is fertilized by one of the father’s

sperm cells. 4

The remarkable advances in modern times in the sciences of

embryology, fetology and genetics have dispelled many ancient

falsehoods about the nature of life in the womb—that in its early
stages of development the embryonic human life possesses an

inert plant-like character, or that the male sperm determines the

make-up of the child while the mother only passively nurtures the

child, or that male children develop faster than female children,

etc.

Dr. H .M. I. Liley, the New Zealand pediatrician, 5 has cogently

5



expressed the marked effect the advances in biology have had on

the traditional notions of life in the womb:

Because the fetus is benignly protected, warmed and

nourished within the womb, it was long thought that the

unborn must have the nature of a plant, static in habit

and growing only in size. Recently through modern tech-

niques of diagnosing and treating the unborn baby, we

have discovered that little could be further from the

truth.

The fluid that surrounds the human fetus at 3, 4, 5 and

6 months is essential to both its growth and its grace.

The unborn's structure at this early stage is highly

liquid, and although his organs have developed, he does

not have the same relative bodily proportions that a

newborn baby has. The head, housing the miraculous

brain, is quite large in proportion to the remainder of the

body and the limbs are still relatively small. Within his

watery world, however (where we have been able to ob-

serve him in his natural state by closed circuit x-ray tele-

vision set), he is quite beautiful and perfect in his

fashion, active and graceful. He is neither an acquies-

cent vegetable nor a witless tadpole as some have

conceived him to be in the past, but rather a tiny human

being as independent as though he were lying in a crib

with a blanket wrapped around him instead .of his

mother. 6

Evidence from Genetics

Genetics tells us that at fertilization a new human individual

begins. A standard text book on genetics gives the following

technical explanation:

A human being originates in the union of two gametes,

the ovum and the spermatozoon. These cells contain all

that the new individual inherits organically from his or

her parents. The hereditary potentialities present in the

fertilized ovum are unfolded, as cell divisions succeed

each other, in an environment first prenatal and then

postnatal, free to vary at all stages within narrow or wide

limits. The child, and finally the adult, is what he is at

6



any time during his existence because of the hereditary

constitution which he originally received, and the nature

of the environment in which he has existed up to that

time. 7

The newly conceived life is human because it is from human

parents and it is alive in a distinctively human way because, unlike

the sperm and ova that, unfertilized, necessarily die, the fertilized

ovum has the ability from within itself to reproduce itself and, if

no untoward events occur, it will develop through the various em-

bryonic and fetal stages to birth. The fertilized ovum represents a

full human genetic package of 46 chromosomes. While half of

these chromosomes is derived from each of the parents, the

newly conceived life differs genetically from its parents as a unique

combination of genes.

Biologically every living being is assigned to only one species,

e.g., Homo sapiens
,
regardless of its developmental stage. Such

species differentiations are genetically determined. “Its [a living

being’s] designation [to a species] is determined not by the stage

of development, but by the sum total of its biological character-

istics—actual and potential—which are genetically determined.
However, if we say it [the fetus] is not human, i.e., a member of

Homo sapiens
,
we must say it is of another species. But this can-

not be.” 8

The mysteries of life being revealed to us by genetics should

not be underestimated. We are told that a single thread of DNA

(Deoxyribonucleic acid, the chemical material of which the informa-

tion-carrying material or genes are composed) from a human cell

contains information equivalent to six hundred thousand printed

pages with five hundred words on a page. Such stored information

at conception has been estimated to be fifty times more than that

contained in the Encyclopedia Britannica. 9 Dr. Hymie Gordon,

Chief Geneticist at the Mayo Clinic, comments on the genetic facts:

.... from the moment of fertilization, when the deoxyri-

bose nucleic acids from the spermatozoon and the ovum

come together to form the zygote, the pattern of the indi-

vidual's constitutional development is irrevocably deter-

mined; his future health, his future intellectual poten-

tial, even his future criminal proclivities are all de-

pendent on the sequence of the purine and pyrimidine

7



bases in the original set of DNA molecules of the uni-

cellular individual. True, environmental influences both

during the intra-uterine period and after birth modify the

individual's constitution and continue to do so right

until his death, but it is at the moment of conception

that the individual’s capacity to respond to these exoge-

nous influences is established. Even at that early stage,

the complexity of the living cell is so great that it is

beyond our comprehension. It is a privilege to be allowed

to protect and nuture it . 10

The wonder evoked by life’s beginnings does not abate during

the subsequent development of the unborn child. Fertilization is

followed by three basic biological activities: cell division, growth,

and systematic and orderly differentiation of the various parts of

the embryo to form the organ systems . 11

Scientists and researchers caution that our empirical knowledge

regarding the world of the developing child is dependent upon the

scientific methods and accumulated results of today . 12 The data

is fragmentary. Nonetheless, we can anticipate greater and not

less empirical verification of the humanity of the unborn child in

the future. As the fetologist, A. W. Liley notes, “Most of our

studies of foetal behavior have been later in pregnancy, partly

because we lack techniques for investigation earlier and partly

because it is only the exigencies of late pregnancy which provide us

with opportunities to invade the privacy of the foetus.” -13

The traditional understanding of the fetus as a “passive, de-

pendent, nerveless, fragile vegetable,” 14 is understandable be-

cause the only serious students of the fetus were embryologists

and physicians concerned with childbirth. “The accoucher was

concerned primarily with mechanical problems in delivery, so that

the only aspects of the foetus which mattered were the presenting

part and its diameters in relation to the diameters of the birth

canal. . . . The embryologists studied dead, static tissue and at-

tempted to deduce function from structure. . . .” 15

The question of scientific methodology reaches to the question

of prejudice and misconception. The humanity of the unborn child

is sometimes demeaned with abusive descriptive terms . 16 The dis-

tinctly human features of the unborn child possess an alien char-

acter as compared to the comfortable and familiar world of the

8



adult. From the perspective of the various scientific disciplines

Dr. A. W. Liley remarks:

... In the present century, many disciplines have ex-

tended their interests to include the foetus, but in fields

from surgery to psychiatry the tendency has been to

start with adult life and work backwards—knowing what
the adult state was, one worked back to what seemed a

reasonable starting point to reach that goal. Therefore,

in fields from physiology and biochemistry to education

and psychology, there has grown up the habit of regard-

ing the foetus and the neonate as a poorly functioning

adult rather than as a splendidly functioning baby. 17

Early Fetal Development

From fertilization the child is a complex, dynamic, rapidly grow-

ing individual. At seven to nine days after fertilization implantation

in the uterine wall begins. 18 By the end of the first month the

child has completed the period of relatively greatest size increase

and physical change of a lifetime. A primary brain is present and

the heart, though incomplete, is pumping the child’s own blood

with a regular pattern.

From the beginning of the second month the external features

of the child take on distinctly human appearances. As one com-

mentator states:

By the end of the seventh week we see a well-propor-

tioned small-scale baby. In its seventh week, it bears the

familiar external features and all the internal organs of

the adult, even though it is less than an inch long and

weighs only l/30th of an ounce. The body has become

nicely rounded, padded with muscles and covered by a

thin skin. The arms, only as long as printed exclamation

marks, have hands with fingers and thumbs. The slower-

growing legs have recognizable knees, ankles and toes

[references cited] . Shettles and Rugh describe the child

at this point of its development as a one-inch miniature

doll with a large head, but gracefully formed arms and

legs and an unmistakably human face [reference

cited] ,
19

9



The brain is now sending out impulses that coordinate the func-

tion of the other organs. Reflex responses are present as early as

forty-two days. The brain waves have been noted (EEG) at forty-

three days.

After the eighth week no further primordia will form. Until adult-

hood, when full growth is achieved somewhere between twenty-five

and twenty-seven years, the changes in the body will be mainly

growth and gradual refinement of working parts. 20

In recent years a variety of photographs have visually docu-

mented the human development of the unborn child. The most

famous of these are the Nilsson photos. 21 However, such photos,

striking evidence that they are, are generally pictures of embryos

and fetuses that have died. The eight week old fetus presents an

unmistakable human being with blunt features and extremities. 22

As Dr. Paul E. Rockwell, Director of Anesthesiology at Leonard

Hospital in Troy, New York reports, a fetus of eight weeks, while

actually alive, appears to be perfectly developed. It is death which

superimposes the bluntness of appearances.

Eleven years ago while giving an anesthetic for a rup-

tured ectopic pregnancy (at two months gestation) I was

handed what I believe was the smallest living human

being ever seen. The embryo sac was intact and trans-

parent. Within the sac was a tiny (approx. 1 cm.) human

male swimming extremely vigorously in the amniotic

fluid, while attached to the wall by the umbilical cord.

This tiny human was perfectly developed, with long,

tapering fingers, feet and toes. It was almost trans-

parent, as regards the skin, and the delicate arteries and

veins were prominent to the ends of the fingers.

The baby was extremely alive and swam about the sac

approximately one time per second, with a natural

swimmer’s stroke. This tiny human did not look at all

like the photos and drawings and models of ‘embryos’

which I have seen, nor did it look like a few embryos I

have been able to observe since then, obviously because

this one was alive!

. . . When the sac was opened, the tiny human immedi-

ately lost its life and took on the appearance of what is

10



accepted as the appearance of an embryo at this age

(blunt extremities, etc .).
23

The Life of the Unborn Child

The notion that the developing child is part of the mother like

the tissue of a maternal organ has been thoroughly disproven.

The unborn child is not only independently alive, growing and

active, but it is now thought to be “very much in command of the

pregnancy." 24 Perhaps even from the preimplantation stage
,

25

the fetus guarantees the endocrine success of pregnancy, and

thereby induces all manner of change in maternal physiology to

make the mother a suitable host, e.g., stops menstrual flow so that

blastocyst can implant in the uterine wall. The fetus single-

handedly solves the homograph problem; determines the length of

pregnancy; determines which way he will lie in pregnancy (seeks

position of comfort) and which way he will present in labor; and

he is not entirely passive in labor . 20

The fetus exhibits a complex of behavioral characteristics. The

fetus demonstrates a cyclic pattern of drowsiness and activity; is

responsive to pressure and touch; evidences pleasurable and bitter

taste reactions; swallows, an activity which probably provides

nourishment; sucks his thumb; responds to external light; is

startled by sudden noises. The fetus also exhibits pain responses.

Dr. A. W. Liley comments:

The foetus responds with violent movement to needle

puncture and to the intramuscular or intraperitoneal in-

jection of cold or hypertonic solutions. Although we

would accept, rather selfishly, that these stimuli are

painful for adults and children and, to judge from his

behaviour painful for the neonate, we are not entitled,

I understand, to assert that the foetus feels pain. In this

context I think Bertrand Russell’s remark in his Human

Knowledge, its Scope and Limitations rather apt—he
relates ‘A fisherman once told me that fish have neither

sense nor sensation but how he knew this he could not

tell me.’ It would seem prudent to consider at least the

possibility that birth is a painful experience for a baby.

Radiological observation shows foetal limbs flailing

during contractions and if one attempts to reproduce in

the neonate by manual compression a mere fraction of

11



the cranial deformation that may occur in the course of

a single contraction the baby protests very violently. And

yet, all that has been written by poets and lyricists about

cries of newborn babies would suggest that newborn

babies cried for fun or joie de vivre—which they never
do afterwards—and in all the discussions that have
ever taken place on pain relief in childbirth only maternal

pain has been considered. 27

The fetus begins moving limbs and trunk from about eight

weeks. However, it is normally not until the 16-22 week period

before the mother perceives such movement. Historically this

phenomenon has been called “quickening,” and it was identified

as the time at which the fetus becomes an independent human

being possessed of a soul. It is now apparent that “quickening” is

a function of maternal perceptions. “Quickening is a maternal

sensitivity and depends on the mother's own fat, the position of the

placenta and the size and strength of the unborn child.” 28

In a speech at a medical convention Dr. Liley, addressing the

question of the personality of the fetus, stated:

... We may not all live to grow old but we were each

once a foetus ourselves. As such we had some engaging

qualities which unfortunately we lost as we grew older.

We were physically and physiologically robust. We were

supple and not obese. Our most depraved vice was

thumbsucking, and the worst consequence of drinking

liquor was hiccups not alcoholism.

When our cords were cut, we were not severed from our

mothers but from our own organs—our placentae

—

which were appropriate to our old environment but un-

necessary in our new one. We do not regard the foetal

circulatory system, different as it is from the child's or

adult's, as one big heap of congenital defects but as a

system superbly adapted to his circumstances. We no

longer regard foetal and neonatal renal function, as-

symetric as it is by adult standards, as inferior, but

rather entirely appropriate to the osmometric conditions

in which it has to work. Is it too much to ask therefore

that perhaps we should accord also to foetal personality

and behaviour
,
rudimentary as they may appear by adult

12



standards, the same consideration and respect? (em-

phasis added) 29

The perception of the humanity of the unborn child is embedded

in a variety of human contexts, scientific, medical, legal, artistic,

etc. A full personal response to the various contexts is required in

a well-ordered society:

Response to the fetus begins with a grasp of the data

which yield the fetus’ structure. That structure is not

merely anatomical form; it is dynamic—we apprehend
the fetus’ origin and end. . . . Seeing, we are linked to

the being in the womb by more than an inventory of

shared physical characteristics and by more than a num-

ber of made-up psychological characteristics. The weak-

ness of the being as potential recalls our own potential

state, the helplessness of the being evokes the human

condition of contingency. We meet another human

subject.
30 (emphasis added)

The Valuation of Unborn Human Life

Honesty compels us all to admit that in the abortion debate the

question of when human life begins is not the central issue in dis-

pute. Rather, the main question is: how should society value the

unborn human life that is present? Even this broader question,

however, should be rooted in a lively cognizance of the reality of

the life being valued. Often, however, this valuation process is

characterized by a schizophrenia that denies, distorts or dismisses

as “mere fact’’ the reality of the unborn life being assessed so as

to advance other particular values.

An editorial in the September, 1970 issue of California Medicine

(the official journal of the California Medical Association), accept-

ing as necessary fact what it calls the ongoing demise of the tradi-

tional Western ethic that “has always placed great emphasis on

the intrinsic worth and equal value of every human life regardless

of its stage or condition,” acknowledged that “human life begins at

conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until

death.” At the same time the editorial defended the quite common

denial of this fact as part of the strategy whereby the “new ethic”

would gradually replace the traditional ethic.

13



The process of eroding the old ethic and substituting the

new has already begun. It may be seen most clearly in

changing attitudes toward human abortion. . . . Since

the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been

necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea

of killing, which continues to be socially abhorent. The

result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact,

which everyone really knows, that human life begins at

conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-

uterine until death. The very considerable semantic

gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as

anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if

they were not often put forth under socially impeccable

auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of

subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is

being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected,

(emphasis added)

The value of the individual human life no longer possesses an

inalienable character that gives rise to such procedural rights as

due process and equal protection. Individual worth is, under the

“new ethic,” to be determined by the vision of “a biologically

oriented world society.” In this new world in which “hard choices

will have to be made with respect to what is to be preserved and

strengthened and what is not,” it is the medical profession that

possesses the greatest competence and expertise to provide lead-

ership for us all.

Parallels between this editorial and the Supreme Court rulings

on abortion are disturbing. The Supreme Court effectively denied

the “well-known facts of fetal development” (Wade, p. 41) by con-

signing them to the realm of speculation and theory: “We need not

resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those

trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and

theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at

this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a posi-

tion to speculate as to the answer” (Wade, p. 44). Having avoided

a full and open discussion of the question of the objective hu-

manity of the unborn child, the Supreme Court ruled, on moral

grounds, that life effectively begins under the law no earlier than

viability “because the fetus then presumably has the capability of

meaningful life outside the mother's womb” (Wade, p. 48—em-

14



phasis added). The fetus is perfectly viable in utero and only a

disease process or attack renders it non-viable.

When the objective reality of individual human life is either

denied or reduced to simple factual ity, those values that men com-

monly perceive to flow from the personal transcendence that in-

heres in the individual (e.g., an inalienable right to life, liberty,

pursuit of happiness) are replaced by other values (“meaningful-

ness,” “a biologically oriented world society”) that tend to possess

a high degree of arbitrariness, caprice, or personal or group bias.

The concept of “meaningfulness” espoused by the Court as the

criterion for determining whether any value should be attached to

the unborn child raises the spector of the “life devoid of value”

ethic that was operative in the genocide and euthanasia programs

of Nazi Germany. That ethic is reputed to have been nurtured

since the early 1920’s by a significant part of the legal and medical

professions of Germany. 31 Both the California Medicine editorial

and the Supreme Court decisions place heavy reliance on the medi-

cal profession to exercise judgments that extend beyond their area

of medical competence.

On August 7, 1972, Dr. Walter Sackett, a Representative to the

Florida legislature, testified before a U. S. Senate Committee on the

topic of death with dignity. At that time Dr. Sackett approvingly

quoted a statement made to him by a medical director of a Florida

hospital for the care of the severely mentally retarded, to the effect

that 90% of the 1500 mentally retarded now in two Florida hos-

pitals should be allowed to die. Dr. Sackett invoked the cost-

benefit model. The money now used to care for these severely

retarded individuals could be more usefully diverted to other

causes.
32

Culturally our society has moved from limited abortion to abor-

tion-on-demand, and now, it appears, our society is moving to

limited euthanasia and limited elimination of the mentally re-

tarded. A reasonable man must ask: what are we doing? where

are we going?

Perhaps this is the moment that we should seize to reflect on

the immediate past history of Western civilization, lest the words of

George Santayana apply to us: “Those who do not remember the

past are condemned to relive it.”

15



The Supreme Court, by denying the right to life to the unborn

child, has rent the fabric of human law whereby the inherent worth

of every man is recognized. Such an error, attacking the founda-

tion of human society, must be remedied by amendment to the

government’s Constitution.

II. THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN LAW

Debates about the relationship of law to morality are complex.

It is our purpose simply to point to certain fundamental principles

which must be incorporated into the legal ethic of any just society.

First of all, there has been a growing awareness throughout the

world that the protection and promotion of the inviolable rights of

man are essential duties of civil authority, and that the mainte-

nance and protection of basic human rights is a primary purpose

of law.

Throughout the 20th century there has been a growing recogni-

tion of basic human rights by the United Nations and by individual

countries. There has also developed an acute awareness that the

human rights of minorities are most easily overlooked or ignored

because most often they cannot articulate their claims. Further-

more, there has been a continuing realization that human rights

are not subject to distinctions of race, age, sex or national heritage.

Rather, they are universal rights of all men and women which are

inherent in the nature of man and are the basis of human dignity.

But human rights give rise to duties and to responsibilities, both

in the person who possesses the right, and the society of which he

is a part. Freedom to exercise one’s human rights is qualified by

responsibility to society or to another person. For the sake of order,

society must have a way to adjudicate apparent conflicts of rights.

Thus, a well ordered society establishes laws that will promote and

protect human rights, maintain order among persons, and promote

the good of all. As Justice Holmes indicated, the First Amend-

ment’s guarantee of free expression does not permit a person to

yell “fire” in a crowded theater.

The existence of human rights and the fragility with which

they are maintained places a claim on society to provide bulwarks

16



of protection for individuals. A society committed to justice,

equality and freedom must establish a system of law that protects

the rights of each person while maintaining order and promoting

the common good.

This principle was declared by our founding fathers in the

Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are

created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable rights, that among these are

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure

these rights, Governments are instituted among men,

deriving their just powers from the consent of the gov-

erned. That whenever any Form of Government becomes

destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to

alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government,

laying its foundation on such principles and organizing

its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most

likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Also, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights affirms as

a guiding principle that:

... it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have

recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny

and oppression, that human rights should be protected

by the rule of law. . . .

and the Declaration proclaims that:

Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of

person.

Finally, speaking to a world that welcomed his moral leadership,

Pope John XXIII, in the great encyclical, Pacem in Terris, asserted

that:

Any human society, if it is to be well-ordered and pro-

ductive, must lay down as a foundation this principle,

namely, that every human being is a person, that is, his

nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. By

virtue of this, he has rights and duties of his own, flow-

ing directly and simultaneously from his very nature.

17



These rights are therefore universal, inviolable and in-

alienable. [no. 9]

. . . Every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity,

and to the means which are necessary and suitable for

the proper development of life. [no. 11]

It is generally accepted today that the common good is

best safeguarded when personal rights and duties are

guaranteed. The chief concern of civil authorities must

therefore to be ensure that these rights are recognized,

respected, coordinated, defended and promoted, and

that each individual is enabled to perform his duties

more easily. For ‘to safeguard the inviolable rights of

the human person, and to facilitate the performance

of his duties, is the prinjcipal duty of every public

authority.’ [no. 60]

As citizens of this Republic, and as religious leaders within it,

we are compelled to speak to society and to motivate people in

behalf of the rights of individuals. The scientific evidence confirms

that unborn human beings are members of the human race. Thus,

we, as religious leaders, have a grave responsibility to call for laws

that will protect the right to life of the unborn. We also see a duty

to urge a legal-political order founded on justice and truth that will

protect and maintain the rights of all men. The social encyclicals

of the modern era, the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, and

the encyclicals and writings of Pope Paul VI on world development,

justice and peace are directed to that very end.

Anyone who retreats from the discussion of moral questions

or pleads noninvolvement when it comes to establishing a just

social order by means of law and public policy, may well be failing

in his responsibilities as a citizen.

It must also be understood that law plays the role of teacher.

In some cases, the law teaches that certain actions are good and

should be encouraged. In other cases, it teaches that certain

actions are wrong or dangerous for society, and should be dis-

couraged, and even prohibited. Increasingly, in a world in which

ideas are readily available and rapidly disseminated, the law can-

not remain silent without thereby failing to protect human values.

This is especially true in regard to the right to life. Unless the law

18



expresses a commitment to safeguarding the lives of all, it teaches

that life itself is a nebulous value, and one that can be denied.

In regard to the right to life of the unborn child, the Supreme Court

has denied any value to that life during the first six months of its

existence in the womb and assigned only a relative value during

the last three months. And on the Court’s sliding scale, the value

of the life of a viable fetus that can easily survive with ordinary

care is second to the right of privacy, socio-economic factors,

health factors, or the age of its mother. For practical purposes,

the unborn child is often the victim of maternal convenience or the

individual physician’s opinion that the mother may be physically,

emotionally or economically taxed by child care.

III. THE RIGHT TO LIFE OF THE UNBORN

IN THE CONTEXT OF AMERICAN LAW

Those measures designed to correct, through constitutional

amendment, the violence inflicted upon the Constitution and upon

our entire jurisprudential ethic by the decisions of the United

States Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton deserve

to be supported from the perspective of developing American law

regarding the rights of the unborn child.

The opinion of the Supreme Court removing all legal protection

for the unborn child is regressive. Our legal tradition has shown a

steady and increasing concern to protect and extend the rights of

the unborn child. As one legal expert observed: “The progress of

the law in recognition of the fetus as a human person for all pur-

poses has been strong and steady and roughly proportional to the

growth of knowledge of biology and embryology.” 33 If the unborn

child can inherit, be compensated for pre-natal injuries, can be

represented by a guardian, can have his right to continued exist-

ence preferred even to the right of the mother to the free exercise

of her religion as in the blood transfusion cases, and enjoy other

such rights, then the law would be schizophrenic to allow the

unlimited destruction of that child.

From the Code of Hammurabi, discovered in 1901 and dating

back to the third millennium B.C., until the present, civilized

nations have prohibited abortion. In some cases the law sought

to curb promiscuity, in some cases it sought to protect women

19



from medical quackery. But the law also sought to protect the

right to life of those members of society who were least capable of

protecting themselves. Thus, the United Nations Declaration of the

Rights of the Child, ratified in 1959, proclaimed that “the child, by

reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safe-

guards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as

well as after birth.

The Declaration of Independence, the document which estab-

lishes this country as a nation, declares that all of us are “created

equal”— it does not state that we are born equal, nor that we

achieve equality after we have been in our mother’s womb for three

months, or six months, or after we are capable of “meaningful

existence,” but that we are “created equal” and endowed by our

Creator with the right to life. The Bill of Rights
,
a document con-

temporaneous with the Declaration of Independence, states flatly

that we may not be deprived of life without due process of law.

In order to understand the violence done to the Constitution by

these decisions of the Supreme Court, then, it is only necessary to

appreciate the fact that the Court placed a penumbral right—the
right to privacy which is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution but

has been enunciated by the Supreme Court—over an explicit right,
the right to life itself, which is one of the most important guaran-

tees which the Constitution expresses.

The infliction of any misinterpretation upon the Constitution

threatens each of us in that particular area which has been so

misinterpreted. For example, a misinterpretation of the Free Exer-

cise Clause as it applies to one religion adversely affects all re-

ligions; or a misinterpretation of the right of an alleged criminal to

be free from unwarranted search and seizure, adversely affects the

right of all citizens to be free from unwarranted searches and

seizures. So too, then, does a misinterpretation of the Constitu-

tion guarantee that none of us may be deprived of life without

due process of law threaten the fundamental right of life which

each of us supposedly possesses.

Unborn children, by any reasonable biological standard, must

be viewed as growing, functioning, living human beings. The

decisions of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton

effectively remove an entire class of human beings from the pro-

tection of the Constitution and sanction the destruction of these

20



human beings without any semblance of due process. The Court’s

gratuitous comments extending the protections of the Constitution

only to those who, in the Court’s words are “capable of meaningful

existence’’ or who are persons in the “whole sense” pose obvious

threats to other classes of citizens. It is the violence done to the

Constitution and our entire legal ethic by these decisions that

require an immediate excision of this misinterpretation from the

body of American law.

These are the more obvious points in the Court’s opinions. The

opinions deny the personhood and the legally protected rights of

the unborn. The Court has also established a climate of permis-

siveness in regard to abortion. The Court has set the stage for

society—or government—to decide that some lives are “devoid
of value,” are lacking in “meaningfulness,” or are unworthy of

protection because their continuation is a threat to the con-

venience of others.

The Court has also set the stage for a possible coercive use of

abortion by government. By citing Buck v. Bell in an approving

fashion, the Supreme Court gives support to an expansion of gov-

ernment control of reproductive rights for social reasons. The

Court places itself in the tradition of justifying the violation of indi-

vidual human rights for social ends, rather than requiring a greater

commitment of society to find solutions to these problems that

are in accord with human dignity.

The simple fact is that abortion ends the life of a human being.

It is an unprecedented gesture to place the penumbral right of

privacy, nowhere mentioned in the Constitution, over the right to

continued existence which the same Constitution explicitly pro-

tects. These opinions do violence to the Constitution and are

reminiscent of the infamous decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford.

IV. A REVIEW OF THE COURT’S OPINIONS IN

ROE v. WADE, DOE v. BOLTON

Until January 22, 1973, the life of the unborn human being in

the womb of his or her mother was protected by state laws, and by

the judgments of many state and federal courts throughout the

United States. On that date, the United States Supreme Court

21



struck down the abortion laws of Texas and Georgia, and in a

wide-ranging opinion, ended this nation's long tradition of legally

protecting unborn human life. We have already stated our rejection

of the Court’s opinions, and we herewith provide some of the

salient reasons for that rejection.

1. The unborn child is not considered a person as the Four-

teenth Amendment understands the term and is therefore not

entitled to constitutional protection for his/her right to life.

In attempting to justify this position, Justice Blackmun acknowl-

edges that the personhood of the unborn child rests on two

questions: (1) the definition of person in the language and meaning

of the Fourteenth Amendment, and (2) when human life begins.

Blackmun answers the first question by admitting that “the Con-

stitution does not define ‘person’ in so many words” (Wade, p. 41).

Citing a series of places where the term “person” is used in the

Constitution, Blackmun concludes that “none indicates, with any

assurance that it has any possible pre-natal application” (Wade,

p. 42). The Justice also cites an absence of case law indicating

that the fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth

Amendment (Wade, p. 41). Finally, he states that the Supreme

Court “inferentially” held that the unborn child is not a person in

U. S. v. Vuitch (Wade, p. 43). No one of these explanations proves

conclusively that the unborn ever was—or must be—excluded
from personhood within the meaning and language of the Four-

teenth Amendment. One of the major criticisms of the Court’s

opinions in Wade and Bolton is their unexplained inconsistency in

adopting an evolutionary concept of the Constitution on one point,

i.e., that the holding is consistent “with the demands of the pro-

found problems of the present day” (Wade, p. 50) and a static view

of the Constitution on the personhood issue
—

“all this . . . per-

suades us that the word ‘person’ as used in the Fourteenth Amend-

ment does not include the unborn” (Wade, p. 43).

Justice Blackmun, in his analysis, ignored two other questions

pertinent to his opinion. Is it clear beyond a doubt that the Four-

teenth Amendment excludes the unborn as a person, and can the

constitutional meaning of person under the Fourteenth Amend-

ment be read to include the unborn? An historical reading of the

views of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment indicates that

they equated the terms “person,” “human being” and “man.”

22



Moreover, they situated their understanding of these terms in the

Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal/'

The reference to creation, which was understood to mean a divine

act prior to birth, raised no question in their minds.

Moreover, the law can declare certain beings—inanimate as well
as animate—to be persons, as was admitted by U.S. Supreme
Court Justice James Wilson, one of the framers of the Fourteenth

Amendment. Finally, the argument has been made that inanimate

objects be accorded legal rights, and specifically that trees be

recognized as persons. 34

Justice Blackmun admits that his observations concerning the

personhood of the unborn child in law are not conclusive, and

thus he takes up the question of the beginning of human life. In

his investigation of this point he ignores the impressive and un-

challenged scientific evidence on the existence of human life from

conception; he misreads and erroneously misinterprets the Roman

Catholic teaching on the matter (Wade, p. 45); he admits that “we

need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins” (Wade,

p. 44); he leans to the position that “life does not begin until live

birth” (Wade, p. 44); and he concludes that “the fetus, at most,

represents only the potentiality of life” (Wade, p. 46). The con-

clusion is not substantiated by the evidence, and it establishes a

new term
—

“the potentiality of life”—that is not supported by the
empirical evidence on when life begins.

It is difficult to pay credence to such fallacious reasoning, but

it is tragically unjust to deny the most fundamental human right to

all unborn children forever on such ambiguous and spurious

grounds.

2. The woman’s so-called “ right to privacy” takes precedence

over the child’s right to life and safety. According to the majority

,

the abortion decision is primarily a medical decision
,
but one in

which the woman’s personal interests are extensive and determin-

ing. The doctor's decision to perform an abortion should be “exer-

cised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological,
familial, and the woman’s age—relevant to the well-being of the
patient.”

The majority opinion begins its discussion of privacy with the

blunt assertion that “(T)he Constitution does not explicitly mention

23



any right of privacy" (Wade, p. 37). Moreover, the Court dis-

agrees with the contention "that the woman’s right is absolute"

(Wade, p. 38). Without offering any compelling proof, the Court

nonetheless elevates a penumbral right to the status of a funda-

mental right. Yet mindful of the legal quicksand on which the pri-

vacy doctrine rests, the Court attempts to salvage some control by

qualifying the personal right to privacy with a compelling state

interest. Having already denied personhood to the unborn, locat-

ing a state interest is difficult. So the Court seizes upon protection

of the woman’s health, and the protection of "potential life" after

viability.

However, marriage and childbearing have always been recog-

nized as matters deserving state interest and state support. Thus

we have a wide variety of health programs to provide pre-natal,

childbirth, and post-natal services to mother and child. These in-

clude nutritional care for both mother and child, and HEW has

provided AFDC benefits on behalf of the unborn child throughout

pregnancy.

Moreover, the question of abortion necessarily involves the rela-

tionship between the mother and her unborn child. In fact, medi-

cine, psychology and anthropology confirm that this is a highly

important relationship in regard to the development of personality.

But this relationship creates rights and duties, which, although

they may change in the course of time, actually perdure while

both remain alive.

Finally, in basing the opinions on the nebulous right of privacy,

the Court entrapped itself in a maze of logical inconsistencies in

regard to the mutual responsibilities of the woman and her doctor.

The majority asserts that the right of privacy "is broad enough

to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her

pregnancy” (Wade, p. 38). However, her right to obtain an abor-

tion is dependent on medical consultation, because "the abortion

decision is inherently and primarily, a medical decision, and basic

responsibility for it must rest with the physician" (Wade, p. 50).

Thus, according to the majority opinion, the woman has a right

to abortion, but cannot effectuate that right without medical

consultation. After consultation, at least during the first trimester,

she may obtain the abortion at any time, at any place, from any

person regardless of wheher that person is a doctor. Since "basic

24



responsibility for it [the abortion] must rest with the physician"

(Wade, p. 50), presumably the physician can be sued if harm be-

falls the woman. Never before has any Court or any legislature

given such a broad grant of power and responsibility to physicians,

but this unprecedented grant also reduces the physician to con-

sultant and scapegoat at the very same time.

3. The state may not establish any regulations that restrict the

practice of abortion during the first three months of pregnancy.

A woman, who in consultation with her physician decides that abor-

tion is advisable, may obtain the abortion free of any interference

by the State.

In granting this unlimited power to abort to women during the

first trimester, the Court necessarily denies the accumulated sci-

entific evidence on the growth and development of the unborn

child. As indicated above this scientific testimony leaves little

doubt that the fetus is human, and that the fetal stage of de-

velopment is but one phase of a continued existence beginning

at conception and terminating at death. Death may occur at age

one or at any other chronological point, or it may occur prior to

birth. It is the same human being who dies, no matter when.

In holding that the decision to have an abortion must be left

completely to the woman and her doctor during the first three

months of pregnancy, the Court permits the abortion to be per-

formed by anyone, and in any place. Thus the Court allows pre-

cisely what everyone—including those who endorsed liberal abor-
tion laws—have continuously rejected, i.e., easily available abor-
tion performed by non-medical personnel outside medical facilities.

4. The state may establish some guidelines to protect the health

of the woman who decides on an abortion during the second three

months of pregnancy.

This concession of the Court is empty, since medical evidence

has already proven that second trimester abortions are risky, and

that complications during the first eight weeks are also quite high.

The Court’s concern about the second trimester skirts the almost

universal finding both in foreign countries and in the United States,

that prior to and after abortion, psychological problems persist.

There is another point that the Court chose to ignore in its

tripartite division of pregnancy. During the first 18 months of the

25



abortion-on-request law in New York, Dr. Jean Pakter, director of

the New York City’s Bureau of Maternity Services and Family Plan-

ning reported that more than 60 of the legal abortions resulted in

the birth of a fetus that showed some signs of life. Two of the

fetuses survived, and one was living healthily with its mother at

the time of the report, while the other was still in the hospital.

Since the New York law prohibited abortion after 24 weeks, the

Court is faced with establishing a legal structure that permits, in-

deed encourages, the death of some children who could otherwise

have survived.

5. After the point of viability, which the Court designated as

between the 24th and 28th weeks of pregnancy, the state may

manifest a concern in “the potential human life of the fetus."

The state may then establish laws to protect fetal life, unless the

abortion is necessary for the life or health of the mother. Pre-

sumably, this covers anything from a serious threat to the mother's

life to a late-term abortion for mild depression, anxiety, or “the

distress for all concerned associated with the unwanted child.

Once again the Court has held out protection to the unborn on

the one hand, and taken it away with the other. The terms “viabil-

ity,” “potential life,” and “compelling” lead us into a quagmire of

vagueness.

The Court’s opinion asserts that the “potentiality of human life”

is present at “viability.” According to the Court, “(V)iability is

usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks), but may occur

earlier, even at 24 weeks” (Wade, p. 45). In reality, given our

constantly expanding knowledge of obstetrics, and our scientific

technology for meeting problems during pregnancy, the fetus is

viable throughout the pregnancy so long as its environment is not

disturbed and so long as it is not the subject of attack.

Moreover, the Court settles on one earmark of viability—age of
the fetus—whereas medicine refers to age and weight of the fetus
as earmarks.

The Court has coined the term “potentiality of human life”

(Wade, p. 49), but has neither defined the terms adequately nor

given criteria for judging its existence. Since potentiality is a

relative term, it is also present during the first and second tri-

mester, and is not conditioned on viability.

26



6. Perhaps most important was the manner in which the Court

evaluated unborn human life. The unborn child is viable when it

it “capable of meaningful life” outside its mother's womb. Fur-

ther, even the viable child prior to birth is not a person “in the

whole sense." Thus the Court has set a precedent whereby the

right of life is no longer inalienable but is subject to governmental

and societal judgments regarding its meaningfulness and quality.

These concepts, “meaningful life” and person “in the whole

sense,” are in fact value judgments which the Court leaves cloaked

in ambiguity. It was such concepts that Nazi Germany used in

justifying euthanasia and other eugenic controls when they desig-

nated certain lives as “devoid of value.”

Moreover, we are already being visited with the monstrous re-

sults of the Court’s immoral ideology. Forty-three deformed

infants were allowed to die in a major university medical center

rather than face lives devoid of “meaningful humanhood.” A

doctor who commented on the matter said that withholding surgery

—and sometimes ordinary nurturing care—from children born
with defects is a common practice in hospitals throughout the

country.

Finally, Nobel Laureate Dr. James Watson, has suggested that

children should be declared persons three days after birth to allow

time for their parents to decide whether the child’s life should be

maintained.

These examples magnify the tragic error of the Court’s reason-

ings in Wade and Bolton. These opinions of the Court express value

judgments and moral judgments that are beyond the Court’s area

of jurisdiction. They must be corrected by the passage of a con-

stitutional amendment to protect the unborn.

V. PROPOSAL FOR A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

As Americans, and as religious leaders, we have been com-

mitted to a society governed by a system of law that protects the

rights of individuals and maintains the common good. As our

founding fathers believed, we hoid that all law is ultimately based

on Divine Law, and that a just system of civil law cannot be in

conflict with the Law of God. The American system of constitu-

27



tional law has proven to be a workable system of law, and one that

has generally responded to the delicate balancing between defend-

ing the common good and human rights on the one hand, and

according a due enjoyment of personal freedom on the other.

But a system of law, to be just and equitable, must respond to

new challenges. A static system of law runs the risk of failing to

provide protection for human rights, and it soon degenerates into

a system of regulatory controls, rather than a system of justice.

The administration of law is a function of government, and in the

American system, the establishment of laws and the election of

government officials is based on the democratic process. Once

any government or system of law does not acknowledge the rights

of man or violates them, it not only fails in its duty, but its orders

completely lack juridical force.

The opinions of the Supreme Court in Wade and Bolton deny the

basic principles of the Constitution, and refuse appropriate legal

protection to the unborn child. The Court’s opinion is absolute

and universal; the unborn have no recourse or appeal.

After much consideration and study, we have come to the con-

clusion that the only feasible way to reverse the decision of the

Court and to provide some constitutional base for the legal pro-

tection of the unborn child is by amending the Constitution. More-

over, this is a legal option consistent with the democratic process.

It reflects the commitment to human rights that must be at the

heart of all human law, international as well as national, and be-

cause human life is such an eminent value, the effort to pass an

amendment is a moral imperative of the highest order.

The so-called “states’ rights’’ approach to the amendment is un-

acceptable. It is repugnant to one’s sense of justice to simply allow

as an option whether the states within their various jurisdictions

may or may not grant to a class of human beings their rights,

particularly the most basic right, the right to live. Further, by its

action the United States Supreme Court has removed the unborn

child from protection under the U.S. Constitution, and thereby the

Court has raised the abortion issue to the level of a federal ques-

tion. Federal constitutional rights, improperly, but substantially

denied, must be substantially affirmed.

We are aware that a number of Senators have sponsored or co-

28



sponsored specific proposals. We wish to commend their efforts

and to place before this Committee our own convictions. Moreover,

we understand that these hearings are to assist the Sub-Committee

on Constitutional Amendments in formulating precise language

that will be brought to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ulti-

mately will be placed before the full Senate.

At this time, we wish to articulate the values that we believe

should be encompassed by an amendment, and we hope to provide

a more detailed legal memorandum at a later date.

Thus, any consideration of a constitutional amendment should

include at least the following points.

1. Establish that the unborn child is a person under the law in

the terms of the Constitution from conception on.

2. The Constitution should express a commitment to the pres-

ervation of life to the maximum degree possible. The pro-

tection resulting therefrom should be universal.

3. The proposed amendment should give the states the power

to enact enabling legislation, and to provide for ancillary

matters such as record-keeping, etc.

4. The right of life is described in the Declaration of Independ-

ence as “unalienable’' and as a right with which all men are

endowed by the Creator. The amendment should restore the

basic constitutional protection for this human right to the

unborn child.

VI. CONCLUSION

Law constitutes a fundamental and indispensable instrument in

making it possible to build up a more just and loving society. Only

the law, in conjunction with a broadly conceived program of educa-

tion, can effectively extend the horizons of democracy and civil

rights to include explicit and full protection for the rights of the

unborn child.

It has taken a century for the promises held out by the Thirteenth

and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution to begin to bear

fruit in our present society. However long the road before us in

29



securing effective recognition of the civil rights of the unborn child,

we must begin now with what is the necessary first step, the enact-

ment by Congress of an appropriate constitutional amendment.

However, we do not see a constitutional amendment as the

final product of our commitment or of our legislative activity. It is

instead the constitutional base on which to provide support and

assistance to pregnant women and their unborn children. This

would include nutritional, pre-natal, childbirth and post-natal care

for the mother, and also nutritional and pediatric care for the child

through the first year of life. Counseling services, adoption facili-

ties and financial assistance are also part of the panoply of serv-

ices, and we believe that all of these should be available as a

matter of right to all pregnant women and their children. Within

the Catholic community, we will continue to provide these services

through our professional service agencies to the best of our ability

to anyone in need . 35

30



NOTES

I Abortion is defined as the expulsion of the fetus prior to vrability. Some

authors use the terms “feticide" for the destruction of the fetus prior to

viability, and “infanticide" for the post-viability, late-term abortion.

2 These laws were placed on the books as a consequence of a very deter-

mined effort by the American Medical Association. They cannot be traced to

the political influence of Catholics, but were enacted by a political system

in which Catholics had little part.

3 Cf. Robert Rugh, Ph.D., Landrum Shettles, Ph.D., M.D., with Richard

Einhorn, From Conception to Birth: the Drama of Life’s Beginnings (New

York: Harper & Row, 1971).
4 “Drama of Life Before Birth," Life, April 30, 1966.

5 Dr. H. M. I. Liley is a pediatrician. She has collaborated in studies of

the unborn with her husband, Dr. A. W. Liley, who perfected the intra-uterine

transfusion.

6 H. M. I. Liley, Modern Motherhood (New York: Random House, rev. ed.,

1969)

, pp. 26-27.

7 J. A. F. Roberts, An Introduction to Medical Genetics, 3rd ed. (London:

Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 1, as cited in Germain Grisez, Abortion:

the Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments (New York: Corpus Books,

1970)

, p. 6.

8 Roland M. Nardone, “The Nexus of Biology and the Abortion Issue,” The

Jurist (Spring, 1973), p. 154.

9 R. Houwink, Data: Mirrors of Science (New York: American Elsevier Pub-

lishing Co., Inc., 1970), pp. 104-190, as cited in Bart T. Heffernan, M.D.,

“The Early Biography of Everyman," in Abortion and Social Justice, eds.

Thomas W. Hilgers and Dennis J. Horan (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1972),

p. 4.

10 Hymie Gordon, “Genetical, Social and Medical Aspects of Abortion,”

South African Medical Journal (July, 1968), pp. 721-730, as cited in Heffer-

nan, p. 5.

II Nardone, p. 153.

12 Andre E. Hellegers, M.D., “Fetal Development," Theological Studies,

(March, 1970), p. 9; Nardone, pp. 154, 157; Anne McLaren, “The Embryo,"

in Embryonic and Fetal Development, eds. C. R. Austin and R. V. Short,

Reproduction in Mammals, Vol. 2 (London: Cambridge University Press,

1972), p. 5.

13 “The Termination of Pregnancy or Extermination of the Foetus,"

Professor A. W. Liley, a speech delivered November 18, 1970.

14 Albert W. Liley, “The Foetus in Control of His Environment," in Abortion

and Social Justice, eds. Thomas W. Hilgers and Dennis J. Horan (New York:

Sheed & Ward, 1972), p. 27.

15 Ibid.

16 Cf. Philip Wylie, The Magic Animal (New York: Doubleday, 1968),

p. 272, who describes the fetus as “protoplasmic rubbish," a “gobbet of

meat protruding from a human womb," as cited in William E. May, “Abor-

31



tion as Indicative of Personal and Social Identity,” in The Jurist (Spring,

1973), p. 209. Such terms as “fetus fetish” and “blob of protoplasm” some-

times appear in debate.

17 A. W. Liley, "The Foetus as Personality,” Aust. N.Z.J. Psychiatry (1972),

p. 349.

18 Some question whether individuality is not irreversibly established

until several days after fertilization, perhaps the blastocyst stage of de-

velopment. This questioning is prompted by such phenomena as twinning

and recombination or by studies on the manner in which the genetic

material of the primary cell is activated. However, the scientific data on

these matters is still fragmentary with the result that interpretations are

necessarily quite speculative. Although scientists investigate the question

of individuality in the context of irreversibility, the known norm that indi-

vidual human life originates at fertilization should be the basis of law.

19 Heffernan, pp. 6-7.

20 The above material, descriptive of human development from fertilization

to eight weeks, is summarized in large part from Heffernan, pp. 4-7.

21 Lenr\prt Nilsson, Alex-Ingelman-Sundberg, and Claes Wirsen, A Child

Is Born (New York: Delacorte Press, 1966).

22 Nilsson, p. 81.

23 Albany Union Times
,
March 10, 1970, p. 17, as cited in Robert M.

Byrn, “Abortion-on-Demancf: Whose Morality?,” Notre Dame Lawyer (Fall,

1970), pp. 8-9.

24 A. W. Liley, “The Foetus as a Personality,” Aust. N.Z.J. Psychiatry

(1972), p. 350.

25 Heffernan, p. 3.

26 Most of the descriptive material of this section is taken from A. W.

Liley, “The Foetus as a Personality.”

27 Ibid., 351-352.

28 H. M. I. Liley, Modern Motherhood, pp. 37-38.

29 A. W. Liley, “The Foetus as a Personality,” p. 355.

30 John T. Noonan, Jr., “Responding to Persons: methods of moral argu-

ment in debate over abortion,” Theology Digest (Winter, 1973), p. 302.

31 Frederic Wertham, M.D., A Sign for Cain: An Exploration of Human

Violence (New York: Paperback Library, 1966), pp. 133-186, In 1920 a jurist

and psychiatrist published in Leipzig an influential and popular book, The

Release of the Destruction of Life Devoid of Value, in which they advocated

that the killing of "worthless people” be legally permitted. “The concept of

‘life devoid of value' or ‘life not worth living' was not a Nazi invention, as is

often thought. It derives from this book. . . . This [that the authors of the

above book were acknowledged intellectual leaders] illustrates the pre-

supposition that violence does not usually come from the uncontrolled

instincts of the undereducated, but frequently is a rationalized policy from

above” (pp. 157-158).

The gas ovens in Nazi Germany were first used by the German medical

profession in late 1939 to kill four unsuspecting, cooperative mental patients

(pp. 150-151). This initial experiment successfully grew into a well-organized

health program that was first directed at mental patients [estimated at least

275,000 killed by 1945—p. 155], but was expanded to include unnum-

32



bered of the elderly, the crippled, including crippled children, war wounded,

etc. The techniques of death developed in the mental hospitals were trans-

ferred to the concentration camps for use in the political program of

genocide (pp. 176-177).

For a fuller discussion of medical ethics in its modern cultural context, cf.

Charles Carroll, “Medicine Without an Ethic," The Journal of the Louisiana

State Medical Society (September, 1972), pp. 313-320 [an expanded version

of this article is reproduced in Abortion and Social Justice, pp. 249-266].

32 Death With Dignity: An Inquiry into Related Public Issues. Hearings

before the Special Committee on Aging, U.S. Senate, 92nd Congress, 2nd

session. Part I—Washington, D.C., August 7, 1972, pp. 29-32.
33 David Louisell, “Abortion, the Practice of Medicine and the Due Process

of Law," 16 U.C.L.A. Law Review (1969), p. 324. Cf. also John T. Noonan,

Jr., “The Constitutionality of the Regulation of Abortion,” The Hastings Law

Journal (November, 1969), pp 51-65.

34 Justice William O. Douglas in Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. Reports,

1972, 727.

35 Resolution of the National Conference of Catholic Charities, Novem-

ber 3, 1970.

33



.

.

-



TESTIMONY

His Eminence John Cardinal Krol

Archbishop of Philadelphia

Mr. Chairman:

I am Cardinal John Krol, Archbishop of Philadelphia. I appear

before this Subcommittee today in my capacity as President of the

United States Catholic Conference, the official, national-level

agency of the 300 American bishops who minister to the spiritual

and religious needs of nearly 50 million American Catholics. I am

accompanied by Cardinal John Cody, Archbishop of Chicago and

Chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activi-

ties; by Cardinal Timothy Manning, Archbishop of Los Angeles; and

by Cardinal Humberto Medeiros, Archbishop of Boston.

Each of us will present a brief oral statement, after which we

shall be happy to respond to the questions of the Subcommittee.

We also ask your permission to submit for the record a longer

written statement of the position of the United States Catholic Con-

ference, in which we express the enduring principles of the Catholic

Church on this question.

We are pleased at this opportunity to testify before the Subcom-

mittee. We are pleased, too, that the Subcommittee has decided to

conduct hearings on proposed constitutional amendments to pro-

tect the life of unborn human beings from conception onward. This

is an encouraging sign of forward movement which, we hope, will

soon lead to congressional enactment of such an amendment.

I emphasize the word “soon,” for this issue has an urgency

shared by few others now confronting the nation. Each day that

passes without such an amendment signals further massive de-

struction of unborn human beings in this country. It has been

estimated that there is one abortion every 20 seconds in the United

States—three every minute. Every week, since the Supreme
Court’s decisions of January 22, 1973, there have been as many

deaths from abortion as there were deaths at Nagasaki as a result

35



of the atomic bomb. Every nine days there are as many deaths

from abortion as there were American deaths in the 10 years of the

Vietnam war.

Last month Mr. Justice Blackmun was quoted as saying that the

court’s abortion ruling “will be regarded as one of the worst mis-

takes in the Court’s history or one of its great decisions, a turning

point.” I agree with Justice Blackmun at least to this extent, that

the abortion decisions will be viewed as a tragic mistake. But I am

convinced that they will ultimately be seen as the worst mistake in

the Court’s history. Only a constitutional amendment can correct

this mistake.

At the same time, we are aware that amending our Constitution

is not a step to be taken lightly. Congress and the states are

obliged to reflect seriously on such an action. In this process of

reflection it is essential to consider the views of many concerned

Americans. It is precisely as concerned Americans who are moral

leaders that we appear here today.

We do not propose to advocate sectarian doctrine but to defend

human rights, and specifically, the most fundamental of all rights,

the right to life itself. While we are leaders of the Catholic Church

in the United States, we believe that what we say expresses the

convictions of many Americans who are members of other faiths

and of no faith.

I do not intend to dwell at length on this point, but I believe it is

important at least to raise it, in order to dispose of a facile but

misleading slogan often directed against those who speak against

abortion. We reject any suggestion that we are attempting to

impose “our” morality on others. First, it is not true. The right to

life is not an invention of the Catholic Church or any other church.

It is a basic human right which must undergird any civilized society.

Second, either we all have the same right to speak out on public

policy or no one does. We do not have to check our consciences at

the door before we argue for what we think is best for society. We

speak as American citizens who are free to express our views and

whose freedom, under our system of government, carries with it a

corresponding obligation to advocate positions which we believe

will best serve the good of our nation. Third, in our free country,

decisions concerning issues such as the one before this Subcom-

mittee are made by legislators who themselves are free to act

36



according to their own best judgment. We dare not forget, however,

that to separate political judgment from moral judgment leads to

disorder and disaster.

In order to grasp what is at stake in the issue before us, it is

essential to understand the nature of the being whom an abortion

kills. There is an impression in some quarters that the child before

birth is simply a lump of tissue, an undifferentiated part of its

mother’s body, rather like an appendix. Nothing could be farther

from the truth.

What comes into existence at the moment of conception is

nothing less than a human being in the earliest stages of develop-

ment. As our detailed statement shows, medical science has amply

documented the humanity of the fetus. There would be no question

about the humanity of the unborn except that some wish to kill

them.

Before a woman ordinarily knows that she is pregnant, the new

human being has developed thousands of cells, a heart which

began beating within 25 days from conception, veins and circu-

lating blood, a backbone and skeletal system, a brain with traceable

brain waves, rudimentary organs, arms and legs, fingers and toes,

eyes and ears and a mouth. At the very moment of fertilization,

all of the unique genetic characteristics of an individual are de-

termined: eye, skin and hair coloring, height and bone structure,

intellectual potential, inherited emotional makeup, etc. From

conception on, 46 chromosomes are present, 23 from each parent.

This is the chromosomal content defined by biologists as that of a

normal human being. Furthermore, this new individual’s chromo-

somal pattern is utterly unique, absolutely its own and unlike that

of any other human being in the world, including either of its

parents. The scientific evidence points to only one possible con-

clusion: this is a new, unique, human individual. When this indi-

vidual is killed, human life is destroyed.

It is true that new human life is uniquely defenseless. But

defenselessness is not an argument for killing.

I do not impute evil motives to those who seek to justify abortion.

I do contend that the legalization of abortion is a tragic error which

cries out for correction. The only avenue of correction is a con-

stitutional amendment to protect the unborn.

37



Mr. Chairman, Cardinals Manning, Medeiros, and Cody will

address themselves to other aspects of this question as they are

viewed by the United States Catholic Conference. I say, in con-

clusion, that the fundamental question facing this nation in the

abortion issue is whether or not we, as Americans, reverence

human life in all its stages and are prepared to protect it. All

human life is sacred. It is the best part of the American tradition

not only to recognize this principle in the abstract but to embody

it in our laws and institutions.

I thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Subcom-

mittee and I pray that these hearings will prove to be the first step

in a successful effort to re-extend the protection of law to the

unborn.

38



TESTIMONY

His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Manning

Archbishop of Los Angeles

Mr. Chairman:

I am Cardinal Timothy Manning. I fully associate myself with the

remarks of Cardinal Krol. I wish to touch briefly on certain ob-

jectionable aspects of the Supreme Court’s abortion decisions as

well as on the appropriate position of the law with regard to human

rights.

No responsible American wishes to suggest disrespect for the

Supreme Court of the United States. But honest disagreement is

not disrespect. Recognition of the crucial role played by the

Supreme Court in our system of government should not blind us

to the fact that the court can err, as our history indicates. In this

case we believe it has done so, and its error is a national tragedy.

It is important to make this point because Supreme Court

decisions tend to be invested with an aura which places them al-

most beyond criticism. When the Supreme Court speaks, it is

presumed to be the authentic interpreter of the Constitution. But

its interpretation can be mistaken. In the case of the abortion

decisions the Court created constitutional doctrine out of opinions

which appear arbitrary at best.

Mr. Justice White spoke to this point in his dissent from the

majority. “I find nothing in the language or history of the Con-

stitution to support the Court’s judgment,” he wrote. “The Court

simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right . . .

with scarcely any reason or authority for its action . .

The fact is, nevertheless, that the Court has spoken and its novel

doctrine of virtual abortion on request will stand until concerned

Americans avail themselves of the means of redress which the

Constitution itself provides. I refer of course to a constitutional

amendment.

39



An amendment is necessary first of all to protect the lives of

the unborn children who can be killed—indeed, are being killed at
this very moment—in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decisions.
But is is also needed to restore integrity to the law itself, to make

the American legal system once more the guarantor and protector

of all human rights and the human rights of all.

Human rights stand always in need of vindication and protection.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of a civilized society, and

a particular concern of the Church, is the special care required to

provide protection for those of its members who are least able to

protect themselves. Conversely, it is a sign of sickness in a society

when it becomes callous to the rights of the defenseless and deaf

to the pleas of the weak.

I hesitate to say that the United States as a whole has arrived at

such a condition. Yet the stark fact is that the unborn are being

destroyed in our country at an unprecedented rate, and the de-

struction goes on because there is no adequate protection in the

law. No one who cherishes this nation’s historic commitment to

human rights can contemplate this situation with complacency.

As Cardinal Krol has remarked, amending our Constitution is

not a matter to be undertaken lightly. Yet amending the Constitu-

tion is now essential if the American system of law itself is to

remain true to its role as protector of the rights of all. It would

be impossible to improve on the statement of principle articulated

by our Founding Fathers:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are

created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable rights, that among these are

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

An amendment to protect the unborn is needed now in order

that these words may continue to express the reality of American

belief and practice.

40



TESTIMONY

His Eminence Humberto Cardinal Medeiros

Archbishop of Boston

Mr. Chairman:

I am Cardinal Humberto S. Medeiros. Like my colleagues, I wish

to express my gratitude for the opportunity to testify before this

Subcommittee. With your permission, the United States Catholic

Conference will also submit a more detailed legal memorandum at

a later date.

My colleagues and I are aware that many members of Congress

have sponsored or co-sponsored proposals intended to correct the

situation created by the Supreme Court’s abortion decisions of

January 22, 1973. This is an extremely significant expression of

congressional sentiment. The Senators and Representatives who

have taken such action deserve the thanks of concerned Americans

who perceive the injustices created by the Court’s ruling in denying

to unborn babies their inalienable and constitutionally defensible

right to life and to birth and in denying to unborn persons “equal

protection of the law” and the right of “due process.”

A “states rights” amendment, which would simply return juris-

diction over the abortion law to the states, does not seem to be a

satisfactory solution to the existing situation. Protection of human

life should not depend on geographical boundaries. The Supreme

Court’s action itself has made abortion a federal question.

I am not a legal scholar and I shall therefore not attempt here

either to formulate a proposed amendment to the Constitution or to

provide the language of such an amendment. Rather, I shall at-

tempt to set before this Subcommittee basic and necessary con-

siderations which should become the foundation upon which a

constitutional amendment should rest.

1. The constitutional amendment should clearly establish that,

from conception onward, the unborn child is a human person in the

terms of the Constitution.

41



2. The Constitution should express a commitment to the pres-

ervation of all human life. Therefore the prohibition against the

direct and intentional taking of innocent human life should be

universal and without exceptions.

3. The right to life is described in the Declaration of Independ-

ence as “unalienable” and as a right with which all men are en-

dowed by the Creator. The constitutional amendment should re-

store the basic protection for this human right to the unborn, just

as it is provided to all other persons in the United States.

As for an amendment which would generally prohibit abortion

but permit it in certain exceptional circumstances, such as when a

woman’s life is considered to be threatened, the Catholic Con-

ference does not endorse such an approach in principle and could

not conscientiously support it.

The teaching of the Catholic Church regarding abortion is very

clear: “For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpass-

ing ministry of safeguarding life—a ministry which must be ful-
filled in a manner which is worthy of man. Therefore from the

moment of its conception life must be guarded with the greatest

care, while abortion and infanticide are unspeakable crimes.”

(Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 51)

This teaching has been recently repeated by the National Con-

ference of Catholic Bishops of the United States in their resolution

of November 13, 1973. They stated: “Finally, we wish .to make it

clear beyond doubt to our fellow citizens that we consider the pas-

sage of a pro-life constitutional amendment a priority of the highest

order, one to which we are committed by our determination to up-

hold the dignity of the human being and by our conviction that

this nation must provide protection for the life, liberty and pursuit

of happiness of all human beings, before as well as after birth.”

42



TESTIMONY

His Eminence John Cardinal Cody

Archbishop of Chicago

Mr. Chairman:

I am Cardinal John Cody. Some of the technical and legal

aspects of the abortion issue have been covered by my colleagues.

In concluding our joint presentation I wish to touch on certain

long-range implications of the Supreme Court’s abortion decisions

and of the current practice of abortion in this country.

One aspect of the Supreme Court’s action which has received

relatively little attention, and yet deserves the most serious and

profound reflection, is the criterion it adopted in evaluating unborn

human life. The unborn child, according to the court majority, is

to be considered viable when he or she is “capable of meaningful

life’’ outside the mother’s womb. Furthermore, even the viable

child prior to birth is, in the eyes of the court, not a person “in the

whole sense.”

What precisely does this mean? The very vagueness of the

language, as of the thinking, makes it difficult to say with cer-

tainty. And it is exactly its subjective vagueness which makes this

line of thought so dangerous. At the very least it appears that the

Supreme Court has taken the position that there are no clear and

objective criteria to guide our approach to human life. Instead,

human life is to be respected only to the extent that it meets shift-

ing interpretations of “meaninglessness” which government,

society or an individual may choose to apply.

This represents a radical threat to the dignity and sanctity of

all human life. I do not suggest a moral “domino theory,” as if

abuses against the value of human life in one area lead inevitably

to abuses in others. But readiness to destroy some human lives

because they fail to measure up to ill-defined, subjective standards

of “meaningfulness” can infect society’s attitude toward life in

general and lead to abuses which were originally unforeseen.

43



This has begun to happen in our country. I will not recount in

detail the incidents which have already come to light in recent

months—of sterilization of public welfare recipients and of handi-
capped infants allowed to die. Apparently the cruel standard of

“meaningfulness” has already begun to take its toll on other lives

besides those of the unborn. Where does the process end? Who

among us feels confident that he or she knows?

My point is this: unless America is prepared to protect unborn

human lives, it cannot with confidence guarantee protection to any

life. A threat to any innocent life is implicitly a threat to all.

Society is obliged to protect and enhance human lives—all
human lives. Our concern should not be limited to the unborn

but should extend to women experiencing problems in pregnancy

and to their families. A wide range of medical and social services

must be available to all who need them. A truly humane and

compassionate approach will employ measures such as these, not

abortion.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure that you and the other members of this

Subcommittee have heard a great deal from concerned Americans

who wish the speedy enactment of a constitutional amendment to

protect the unborn. So have we. The public demonstrations which

occurred on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol and in many communi-

ties around the country on the first anniversary of the abortion

decisions were visible testimony to the deeply held desire of mil-

lions of Americans for action to protect the unborn. These are

Americans of many different creeds and races. A Jewish doctor,

writing in the letters column of the February 23 issue of Time, had

this to say:

As a Jew, I hold the right to life of an innocent just as

sacred as any Catholic may. It is true that Catholics are

particularly mobilized against abortion. Why shouldn’t

they be? Are not Jews particularly mobilized against

genocide—or is that wrong? How is it possible that a
line of distinction can be drawn between kinds of human

life?

That is a question which all Americans might well ponder as we

confront the tragedy of abortion in our country today. “How is it

possible that a line of distinction can be drawn between kinds of

human life?”

44



Resolution of the

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

ON THE PRO-LIFE CONSTITUTIONAL

AMENDMENT

November 13, 1973

On repeated occasions since January 22, 1973, offices of the

National Conference of Catholic Bishops have expressed opposi-

tion to the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. Abortion, the

destruction of a living human being in the womb of its mother, is

morally wrong. No law or judicial opinion can change the moral

judgment. We are convinced that the decision of the Supreme

Court is wrong, and must be reversed. The only certain way to

repair effectively the damage perpetrated by the Court’s opinions

is to amend the Constitution to provide clearly and definitively a

constitutional base for legal protection of unborn human beings.

A number of constitutional amendments have been introduced in

Congress, but to date, no definite action has been taken.

We wish to state once again, as emphatically as possible, our

endorsement of and support for a constitutional amendment that

will protect the life of the unborn. We urge Congress to conduct

hearings and move with all deliberate speed to pass a pro-life

amendment. We reaffirm the statement of the NCCB Administrative

Committee of September 18, 1973.

At the same time, we remind our people that the passage of the

amendment will require concerted and continued efforts on their

part to convince the Congress and the American people of its abso-

lute necessity. Specifically, we urge public information programs

and petitions to state legislatures to memorialize Congress in be-

45



half of a pro-life amendment. In all of this, well-planned and co-

ordinated political organization by citizens at the national, state

and local levels are of highest importance. Our system of govern-

ment requires citizen participation, and in this case, there is a

moral imperative for political activity.

Thus, we commend and encourage pro-life groups that have

already initiated programs of political action to bring about con-

gressional action on a constitutional amendment. We urge con-

tinued and unified efforts directed toward convincing the Congress

to hold hearings at the earliest possible date. We especially invite

the collaboration of other religious leaders in pursuing a pro-life

constitutional amendment.

Finally, we wish to make it clear beyond doubt to our fellow

citizens that we consider the passage of a pro-life constitutional

amendment a priority of the highest order, one to which we are

committed by our determination to uphold the dignity of the human

being and by our conviction that this nation must provide pro-

tection for the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all human

beings, before as well as after birth.

46



STATEMENT OF THE

ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

ON THE

ANTI-ABORTION AMENDMENT

September 18, 1973

The Administrative Committee of the National Conference of

Catholic Bishops reaffirms its commitment to a constitutional

amendment in defense of unborn human life. While abortion tran-

scends legal and constitutional issues and involves fundamental

questions of individual and social morality, a constitutional amend-

ment is now the only viable means to correct the disastrous legal

situation created by the Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion.

We therefore urge early hearings in the Senate and House on

pending constitutional amendments to protect the unborn. We also

urge pro-life supporters to call on their senators and representa-

tives to support congressional hearings at an early date.

We are strongly encouraged by the fact that numerous pro-life

amendments have been introduced in both houses of Congress.

We commend the many members of Congress who have sponsored

such amendments. In view of the evidence of widespread popular

and congressional support for an amendment, we feel that prompt

and positive congressional consideration is in order.

Furthermore, independent of the hearings, we recognize the

need for grassroots pro-life organization on behalf of such an

amendment. Local action can render an essential service: for ex-

47



ample, by public information programs on the subject of abortion,

by contacts with congressmen, and by encouragement to state

legislatures to petition Congress—as several have done—on be-
half of a constitutional amendment. Men and women of good

will, regardless of creed, who support the cause of human life must

prepare now to make an effective, united, long-term effort.

The complex legal issues relating to an amendment are now

under intensive and continuing study by the bishops’ conference

and by the legal staff and advisors of the United States Catholic

Conference. At present we do not single out any specific pending

amendment. Our detailed views regarding the wording of an

amendment will be stated at an early date, in the context of con-

gressional hearings or some other appropriate forum. Our im-

mediate concern, however, is that Congress take action to insure

prompt and favorable consideration of this urgent matter and

that pro-life individuals and groups prepare now for the supportive

action which will be necessary to win congressional approval and

ultimate ratification of an amendment.

48



Pastoral Guidelines for the

CATHOLIC HOSPITAL AND

CATHOLIC HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL

AD HOC COMMITTEE ON

PRO-LIFE ACTIVITIES, NCCB

April 11, 1973

The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on January 22, 1973,

in regard to the abortion laws of Texas and Georgia radically

changed the legal and political discussion of the past decade.

For practical purposes, the Court has given its approval to abortion

on request, and the sweeping opinion of the Court has left many

states in legal disarray regarding abortion.

Legally, the question of responsibility has been made ambiguous

by the Court’s opinion. The Supreme Court held that the right of

privacy encompasses a woman’s decision to obtain an abortion.

The Court also stated that the abortion decision is “primarily a

medical decision and basic responsibility for it must rest with the

physician.” In its opinion, during the first three months, once the

woman has decided to abort and the physician has been consulted,

anyone may perform the abortion procedure. Thus according to

the Court, in such a case the physician is primarily and basically re-

sponsible, though he may have the least to do with the abortion

itself.

In terms of moral teaching, the American Bishops have declared

that the “opinion of the Court is wrong and is entirely contrary

to the fundamental principles of morality. . . . Whenever a con-

flict arises between the law of God and any human law we are

held to follow God’s law.” Catholics then, may not obey laws that

require them to act in violation of their conscience.

49



Catholic hospitals cannot comply with laws requiring them to

provide abortion services, and Catholic physicians, nurses and

health care workers who work in facilities that provide abortions

and sterilizations may not take part in such procedures in good

conscience. Thus, in light of the legal safeguards respecting the

moral responsibilities of Catholic hospitals and health care person-

nel, there is reason for a specific application of moral principles.

In this analysis, the application of the moral principles on con-

scientious objection to abortion is approached in terms of the

responsibilities of Catholic hospitals and health care personnel to

give witness to their faith and moral convictions, and the restric-

tions imposed by moral convictions on policies and behavior.

Sterilization is treated separately, and a special section is added

on excommunication.

J. Principles of Responsibility for Catholic Hospitals

1. Catholic hospitals must witness to the sanctity of life, the

integrity of the human person and the value of human life at

every stage of its existence.

2. Catholic hospitals should commit themselves to a special

effort in providing compassion and care for pregnant women

and their unborn children. This would include providing a full

range of pre-natal, obstetric and post-natal services. It would

also involve spiritual assistance and sacramental administration.

In this regard, the designation of sisters or nurses. as special

ministers of the Eucharist in keeping with the latest norms of

the Holy See might be especially helpful in making it possible

for women to receive the Eucharist frequently during their stay

in the hospital. (Cf. Immensae Caritatis. Sacred Congregation

of the Sacraments, January 29, 1973.)

3. Catholic hospitals should show a willingness to extend

privileges to physicians and health care workers who share this

commitment to serving life, particularly in situations where such

health care workers find that their opposition to abortion or

sterilization procedures places them at a disadvantage in other

hospitals or facilities.

4. Catholic hospitals must give public notice of their com-

mitment to the sanctity of life and their refusal to provide abor-

tion or sterilization services.

50



5. The Catholic hospital has a responsibility to clearly enun-

ciate its policies for all physicians holding privileges and for

all health care personnel employed by the hospital.

II. Responsibilities of Physicians, Nurses and Health Care Workers

1. Physicians, nurses and health care workers should give

public witness to their belief in the sanctity of life, the integrity

of every person and the value of human life at every stage of its

existence by their compassion and care for their patients.

2. Physicians, nurses, and health care workers should pro-

vide encouragement and support for women and their children.

They should be especially attentive to the tensions created for

women by society’s depreciation of the value of life. When ad-

visable, they should seek the assistance of the chaplain in mak-

ing available the Church’s spiritual assistance and sacramental

administration.

3. Physicians, nurses and health care workers who work in

hospitals that provide abortion or sterilization services should

notify the hospital in writing of their conscientious refusal to

participate in such actions. When efforts are made to compel

participation in these procedures, health care personnel should

protest this violation of conscience to their superiors and to the

administrator.

4. In their professional associations and contacts, Catholic

physicians, nurses and health care workers should candidly and

charitably explain their convictions to their colleagues when

called upon to do so. Charity also requires that they refrain

from judging the motives of their colleagues or patients who do

not agree with or will not accept their conscientious convictions.

Catholics must expect that their faith and moral convictions on

the sanctity of life may result in their being misjudged, treated

unfairly or alienated. Such is the price of Christian witness in

today’s world.

5. An aborted fetus showing signs of life, at any stage of

pregnancy, is entitled to Baptism.

III. Restrictions that Follow from Moral Convictions

1. No Catholic hospital may provide abortion services, nor

51



may any Catholic hospital make its facilities or personnel avail-

able for abortions.

2. A Catholic hospital should make it clear to all staff and

health care workers that abortions and sterilizations are pro-

hibited, and that agreement to this policy is a condition for

privileges.

3. Abortion, the deliberate expulsion of the fetus from the

womb of its mother to terminate the pregnancy, is a serious and

immoral action. Catholics who perform or obtain abortions, or

persuade others to do so, commit a serious sin. Among those

who assist the woman, primary responsibility for the abortion

procedure rests with the doctor who advises and/or assists the

woman to have an abortion.

4. All who willingly and deliberately assist in abortion pro-

cedures, share the sinfulness of the abortive act. This is particu-

larly true of the attending surgeon and the health care personnel

who administer abortifacient drugs or other abortion procedures.

5. Nurses and health care personnel may not assist in abor-

tion procedures. Particular questions of conscience should be

taken up with a confessor.

6. Cooperation in the sinful act of abortion would not ordi-

narily extend to preparing patients for the procedure or provid-

ing after-care. However, because in many instances abortion is

promoted as an alternate method of birth control and thus a

denial of the value of the child, the cooperation of the Catholic

health care worker may be interpreted as agreement that the

unborn child is of subordinate value and has no right to life.

Christian witness may well require Catholic nurses to avoid even

those actions that—although not necessarily evil—may be in-
terpreted as a compromise of Christian values.

Sterilization

1. Sterlization, though it does not destroy the life of the

unborn child as does abortion, may not be used as a means of

contraception.

2. Doctors, nurses and health care workers in hospitals that

permit sterilization procedures should not perform or assist in

52



such procedures. They should declare their unwillingness to

participate in a letter to the administrator.

3. Nurses may be called upon to prepare a patient or provide

after-care when the sterilization is attendant on delivery of a

baby. The nurse’s role is complicated and difficult. She should

provide support and encouragement to the mother in regard to

delivery of the child, and emphasize the positive aspect of giving

birth. At the same time, the nurse should refrain from agreeing

with the decision to terminate the reproductive function by

means of sterilization.

Excommunication

1. Because abortion is a serious evil, both for those who

take part in it and for society, the Church has sought to dis-

suade people from utilizing it by placing it in a special moral

category. Under Church law, those who perform or obtain an

abortion or deliberately persuade others to do so, place them-

selves in a state of excommunication. Ordinarily this involves

the woman who obtains an abortion, the doctor who performs the

abortion, the person who persuades a woman to have an abor-

tion, and any person who cooperates to the extent that the

abortion would not otherwise take place without his or her

cooperation.

2. Excommunication is a special penalty, and conditions

under which it applies must be strictly interpreted. Generally it

does not apply to nurses and other assistants, nor can it be ex-

tended to legislators. It does not apply in any way to steriliza-

tion procedures.

Conclusion

Human life exists in a person, who must be respected and cared

for, and at times, reconciled to God and the community. Catholic

hospitals and health care workers have distinguished themselves

in the past in the provision of competent medical care motivated by

respect for the person and Christian charity. Along with the added

responsibilities they will face in an increasingly permissive abor-

tion atmosphere there are also opportunities for Christian witness,

for competent care based on charity, for encouraging women and

health care workers who refuse to take part in abortions, and for

53



reconciling and showing mercy to those who have failed. Now,

more than in the past, Catholic health care workers, and perhaps

especially those in hospitals not under Catholic auspices, will be

ministers of God’s word and mediators of His grace. They deserve

the support and assistance of the entire Church.

Finally, though these guidelines have attempted to cover a wide

range of problems, there are many cases that do not fall within the

specified categories. In these cases, the standard principles of

moral theology need to be applied. Parish priests, hospital chap-

lains and sisters involved in the ministry to the sick should be avail-

able to explain and apply the principles and to encourage and sup-

port doctors, nurses and health care workers.

AD HOC COMMITTEE ON PRO-LIFE

ACTIVITIES, NCCB

John Cardinal Cody, Chairman

Bishop George W. Ahr

Bishop Juan A. Arzube

Bishop Walter W. Curtis

Bishop Francis Dunn

Bishop Timothy Harrington

Bishop Andrew McDonald

Bishop Harold R. Perry

Secretary: Msgr. James T. McHugh,

Family Life Division, United States

Catholic Conference

Consultant: Sister Virginia Schwager,

Division of Health Affairs, United

States Catholic Conference

April 11, 1973

(These guidelines are intended to correlate with the pastoral state-

ments of NCCB and of individual Bishops. They do not replace

diocesan policies
,
but are supplementary to them.)

54



Pastoral Message of the

ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

February 13, 1973

Almighty God, the Creator of the world, has imprinted in the

heart of man a law which calls him to do good and avoid evil. To

obey this law is the dignity of man, according to it he will be judged

(cf. Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 16). In the

encyclical letter, Peace on Earth, Pope John XXIII spoke of how

nations can achieve justice and order by adhering to God's law:

Any human society, if it is to be well-ordered and pro-

ductive, must lay down as a foundation this principle,

namely, that every human being is a person, that is, his

nature is endowed with intelligence and free will. By

virtue of this, he has rights and duties of his own, flow-

ing directly and simultaneously from his very nature.

These rights are therefore universal, inviolable and in-

alienable (Peace on Earth, no. 9).

. . . Every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity,

and to the means which are necessary and suitable for

the proper development of life (Peace on Earth, no. 11).

The Supreme Court, in its recent decision striking down the laws

of Texas and Georgia regulating abortion, has stated that the un-

born child is not a person in the terms of the Fourteenth Amend-

ment. Moreover, the Court held that the right of privacy encom-

passes a woman's decision to terminate a pregnancy, although the

right of privacy is not an absolute right, and is not explicitly men-

tioned in the Constitution. In effect, the Court is saying that the

55



right of privacy takes precedence over the right to life. This opinion

of the Court fails to protect the most basic human right—the right
to life. Therefore, we reject this decision of the Court because, as

John XXXII says, “If any government does not acknowledge the

rights of man or violates them, ... its orders completely lack

juridical force.” (Peace on Earth, no. 61)

The Court has apparently failed to understand the scientific

evidence clearly showing that the fetus is an individual human

being whose pre-natal development is but the first phase of the

long and continuous process of human development that begins

at conception and terminates at death. Thus, the seven judge

majority went on to declare that the life of the unborn child is not

to be considered of any compelling value prior to viability, i.e.,

during the first six or seven months of pregnancy, and of only

questionable value during the remaining months. Ultimately this

means that the fetus, that is, the unborn child, belongs to an in-

ferior class of human beings whose God-given rights will no longer

be protected under the Constitution of the United States.

We find that this majority opinion of the Court is wrong and is

entirely contrary to the fundamental principles of morality. Catholic

teaching holds that, regardless of the circumstances of its origin,

human life is valuable from conception to death because God is the

Creator of each human being, and because mankind has been

redeemed by Jesus Christ (cf. Peace on Earth, nos. 9 and 10). No

court, no legislative body, no leader of government, -can legiti-

mately assign less value to some human life. Thus, the laws that

conform to the opinion of the Court are immoral laws, in opposition

to God's plan of creation and to the Divine Law which prohibits the

destruction of human life at any point of its existence. Whenever

a conflict arises between the law of God and any human law, we

are held to follow God’s law.

Furthermore, we believe, with millions of our fellow Americans,

that our American law and way of life comprise an obvious and cer-

tain recognition of the law of God, and that our legal system is both

based in it, and must conform to it. The Declaration of Independ-

ence holds that all men are endowed by “their Creator with certain

unalienable rights,” among which are “life, liberty and the pursuit

of happiness.” The Preamble to the Constitution establishes as

one goal of the people of the United States “to secure the blessing

56



of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity/’ Without the right to

life, no true liberty is possible.

The basic human rights guaranteed by our American laws are,

therefore, unalienable because their source is not man-made legis-

lation but the Creator of all mankind, Almighty God. No right is

more fundamental than the right to life itself and no innocent

human life already begun can be deliberately terminated without

offense to the Author of all life. Thus, there can be no moral

acceptance of the recent United States Supreme Court decision

which professes to legalize abortion.

In light of these reasons, we reject the opinion of the U.S.

Supreme Court as erroneous, unjust, and immoral. Because of our

responsibilities as authentic religious leaders and teachers, we

make the following pastoral applications:

(1) Catholics must oppose abortion as an immoral act. No one

is obliged to obey any civil law that may require abortion.

(2) Abortion is and has always been considered a serious viola-

tion of God’s law. Those who obtain an abortion, those who

persuade others to have an abortion, and those who perform

the abortion procedures are guilty of breaking God’s law.

Moreover, in order to emphasize the special evil of abortion,

under Church law, those who undergo or perform an abor-

tion place themselves in a state of excommunication.

(3) As tragic and sweeping as the Supreme Court decision is,

it is still possible to create a pro-life atmosphere in which all,

and notably physicians and health care personnel, will in-

fluence their peers to see a value in all human life, including

that of the unborn child during the entire course of preg-

nancy. We hope that doctors will retain an ethical concern

for the welfare of both the mother and the unborn child, and

will not succumb to social pressure in performing abortions.

(4) We urge the legal profession to articulate and safeguard

the rights of fathers of unborn children, rights that have not

been upset by this Supreme Court opinion.

(5) We praise the efforts of pro-life groups and many other

concerned Americans and encourage them to:

57



(a) Offer positive alternatives to abortion for distressed

pregnant women;

(b) Pursue protection for institutions and individuals to

refuse on the basis of conscience to engage in abortion

procedures;

(c) Combat the general permissiveness legislation can

engender;

(d) Assure the most restrictive interpretation of the Court’s

opinion at the state legislative level;

(e) Set in motion the machinery needed to assure legal and

constitutional conformity to the basic truth that the un-

born child is a “person” in every sense of the term

from the time of conception.

Bringing about a reversal of the Supreme Court’s decision and

achieving respect for unborn human life in our society will require

unified and persistent efforts. But we must begin now—in our
churches, schools and homes, as well as in the larger civic com-

munity—to instill reverence for life at all stages. We take as our
mandate the words of the Book of Deuteronomy:

I set before you life or death . . . Choose life, then,

that you and your descendents may live . . .

58



Statement of the

COMMITTEE FOR PRO-LIFE AFFAIRS

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

January 24, 1973

The sweeping judgment of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Texas

and Georgia abortion cases is a flagrant rejection of the unborn

child’s right to life. The Court has chosen to ignore the scientific

evidence regarding the unborn child’s human growth and develop-

ment during the first six months of life in the womb of its mother.

No consideration has been given to the parental rights of the

child’s father.

In effect, the opinion of the Court has established that abortion-

on-request is the public policy of this nation.

Despite attempts to do so, the Court has failed to justify its

opinion on theological, historical or scientific grounds. Nonethe-

less, during the first six months of the child’s life, the Court has

made the doctor the final judge as to who will live and who will die.

This seems to reverse the history of American jurisprudence that

prohibits the deprivation of the right to life without due process of

law. Never before has a humane society placed such absolute

and unrestricted power in the hands of an individual.

Although as a result of the Court decision abortion may be legally

permissible, it is still morally wrong, and no Court opinion can

change the law of God prohibiting the taking of innocent human

life. Therefore, as religious leaders, we cannot accept the Court’s

judgment and we urge people not to follow its reasoning or

conclusions.

Meeting as the Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Affairs, we have

formulated the following recommendations:



1. Every legal possibility must be explored to challenge the

opinion of the United States Supreme Court decision that with-

draws all legal safeguards for the right to life of the unborn

child.

2. We urge all State legislatures to protect the unborn child

to the fullest extent possible under this decision and to restrict

the practice of abortion as much as they can.

3. The Catholic Church pledges all its educational and

informational resources to a program that will present the case

for the sanctity of the child's life from conception to birth. This

will include the scientific information on the humanity of the

unborn child and the progress of human growth and develop-

ment of the unborn child, the responsibility and necessity for

society to safeguard the life of the child at every stage of its

existence, the problems that may exist for a woman during

pregnancy and more humane and morally acceptable solutions

to these problems.

4. Hospitals and health facilities under Catholic auspices

will not find this judgment of the Court compatible with their

faith and moral convictions. We feel confident that the hospitals

will do all in their power to be the type of institution where good

morals and good medicine will be practiced. We are also confi-

dent that our hospitals and health care personnel will be identi-

fied by a dedication to the sanctity of life, and by an acceptance

of their conscientious responsibility to protect the lives of both

mother and child. We strongly urge our doctors, nurses and

health care personnel to stand fast in refusing to provide abor-

tion on request, and in refusing to accept easily available abor-

tion as justifiable medical care.

In conclusion, we are saying that the Court has written a charter

for abortion on request, and has thereby deprived the unborn child

of his or her human rights. This is bad morality, bad medicine and

bad public policy, and it cannot be harmonized with basic moral

principles. We also believe that millions of our fellow Americans

will share our reactions to this opinion. We have no choice but to

urge that the Court's judgment be opposed and rejected.

60



DECLARATION ON ABORTION

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

November 18, 1970

In fulfillment of our teaching responsibility as bishops, once

again, we speak of the grave evil of abortion. Since the first cen-

turies of the Church's existence abortion has been considered the

destruction of human life. Nothing permits us to judge it dif-

ferently now. Scientists tell us that, from the moment of concep-

tion, the child is a complex and rapidly-growing being, endowed

with the characteristics of human life. Although dependent on a

privileged environment for development, the child in the womb

has a life of its own.

The fundamental principle has been solemnly recalled by the

Second Vatican Council:

“For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing

ministry of safeguarding life—a ministry which must be fulfilled in
a manner worthy of man. Therefore from the moment of its con-

ception life must be guarded with the greatest care, while abortion

and infanticide are unspeakable crimes." (Pastoral Constitution

on the Church in the Modern World, no. 51)

The function of law is to support and protect the rights of every

person. The unborn child’s civil rights have consistently been

recognized by American law. Proposed liberalization of the

present abortion laws ignores the most basic of these rights, the

right to life itself.

The child in the womb is human. Abortion is an unjust de-

struction of a human life and morally that is murder. Society has

no right to destroy this life. Even the expectant mother has no

61



such right. The law must establish every possible protection for

the child before and after birth.

We remind Catholic physicians and nurses that regardless of

changing laws, direct abortion is always morally wrong. Catholic

hospitals and their staffs must witness to the sanctity of life by

respecting and defending human life, before birth as well as after-

wards. Theirs ought to be the highest standards possible in the

total care both of mother and child.

The evil of abortion is not exclusively the responsibility of one

person. Society is also often guilty of a lack of compassion and

justice for the expectant mother. In fulfillment of its responsibility,

society should do all that is possible to provide necessary medical

and other assistance. We urge government and all voluntary

agencies including church-sponsored institutions to intensify and

broaden counseling and care for expectant mothers who otherwise

may be tempted to resort to solutions contrary to God’s law.

62



STATEMENT ON ABORTION

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

April 22,1970

Last year, we stated our strong opposition to ongoing efforts to

strike down laws prohibiting abortion. Our defense of human life

is rooted in the biblical prohibition, “Thou shalt not kill." Re-

grettably, there has been a radical turn of events during this past

year, and a new effort has been directed to the total repeal of all

such laws. At the same time, an effort has been mounted in the

courts to have such laws declared unconstitutional.

Therefore we speak again on this important issue of public

policy, addressing ourselves to the Catholic community and to

all our fellow citizens. For the question of abortion is a moral

problem transcending any particular sectarian approach. Our

opposition to abortion derives from our conviction that whatever is

opposed to life is a violation of man’s inherent rights, a position

that has a strong basis in the history of American law. The U.S.

Bill of Rights guarantees the right to life to every American, and

the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which our nation

endorses, affirms that the child, because of his dependent status,

should be accorded a special protection under the law before as

well as after birth. (U.N. General Assembly, November 20, 1959)

In light of the attempts to remove all prohibition of abortion

from our legal system, the life of the innocent unborn child is no

longer given universal protection in the laws of our land. Moreover,

the absence of all legal restraint promotes the acceptance of abor-

tion as a convenient way for a woman to terminate the life of her

child and the responsibilities that she has as its mother.

The implications of this proposed change in legal philosophy are

enormous. Once we allow the taking of innocent human life in the

63



earliest stages of its development for the sake of convenience,

how can we logically protect human life at any other point, once

that life becomes a burden?

The assertion is made that a woman has a right not to be forced

to bear a child against her will, but when a woman is already preg-

nant, this right must be considered in light of the child’s right to

life, the woman’s responsibilities as its mother, and the rights and

responsibilities of the child’s father. The life of the unborn child

is a human life. The destruction of any human life is not a private

matter, but the concern of every responsible citizen.

We remain convinced that human life is a priceless gift, and our

pastoral duty prompts us to reaffirm that “God, the Lord of life, has

conferred on men the surpassing ministry of safeguarding life, a

ministry which must be fulfilled in a manner which is worthy of

man. Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be

guarded with the greatest care, while abortion and infanticide are

unspeakable crimes.” (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in

the Modern World, no. 51)

Once again, we declare our determination to seek solutions to

the problems that lead some women to consider abortion. We

pledge our efforts to do all that is possible to remove the social

stigma that is visited on the woman who is pregnant out of wedlock,

as well as on her child. We also pledge the facilities and the efforts

of our Church agencies to provide counseling and understanding

to the woman who faces a difficult pregnancy. At the same time,

we are encouraged by the scientific advance of recent decades that

has already provided us with ways to support and maintain the life

and health of the mother and the development of the child in the

womb.

Finally, we are aware that the value of human life is not ex-

clusively a Catholic concern. Many Americans agonize over the

loss of life involved in modern warfare, the serious ethical ques-

tions raised by recent scientific and surgical advances, the implica-

tions of pollution on our environment and the long-range effects of

drug use. But safeguarding the life of all men requires safeguard-

ing the life of every individual, for our hold on life itself is only

as strong as the weakest link in our system of law.

64



STATEMENT ON ABORTION

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

April 17, 1969

In recent years there has been a growing concern for the

dignity of human life. The crisis of conscience that has gripped

the country over the war in Vietnam, the re-examination of the

question of capital punishment, the ethical questions raised by

newly developed skills in the transplantation of vital organs are

all indications that our people continue to place a high value on

human life. Moreover, our society recognizes that it must in-

creasingly guarantee the basic rights of every person, particularly

of those who are least able to defend themselves.

At the same time, we face a widespread effort to “liberalize” the

present laws that generally prohibit abortion. Initial efforts to

liberalize these laws focused on specific problem situations—some
of which have already become less problematical due to scientific

discovery and advance. During the past year the emphasis has

begun to change, and we are now facing a determined effort to

repeal totally all abortion laws—thereby resulting in abortion-on-
demand.

In previous statements on this question we have drawn upon

our Judaeo-Christian heritage of concern for the person and have

stressed the intrinsic value of human life—a value that bridges the
gap between man’s temporal existence and his eternal destiny.

In a pastoral letter on Human Life in Our Day (November, 1968)

we urged that “society always be on the side of life,” that “it never

dictate, directly or indirectly, recourse to the prevention of life or to

its destruction in any of its phases.” Our concern is heightened by

the awareness that one of the dangers of a technological society is

a tendency to adopt a limited view of man, to see man only for what

65



he does or produces, and to overlook the source of man’s dignity,

the fact that he is made in the image of God, and that from the

moment of his conception he is worthy of the full support of the

human family of which he is a member.

Consequently, we have frequently affirmed as our own the teach-

ing of the Second Vatican Council, that “whatever is opposed to

life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthana-

sia or wilful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the

human person ... all these things and others of their like are

infamies indeed. They poison human society but they do more

harm to those who practice them than those who suffer from the

injury. Moreover, they are a supreme dishonor to the Creator.’’

(Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, no. 27)

At the same time, we have emphasized that society has an obliga-

tion to safeguard the life of every person from the very beginning

of that life, and to perfect a legal-political system that assures

protection to the individual and the well-being of the community.

We restate with strong conviction and growing concern our

opposition to abortion. In so doing, we do not urge one ethical

conviction as the sole basis of public policy, but we articulate the

concerns that are also held by persons of other faiths and by spe-

cialists in the field of medicine, law and the social sciences.

Fully aware of problem situations that may exist at times, such

as illegitimacy, great emotional stress, possible disadvantage for

the child after birth, we find no evidence that easy abortion laws

will solve these problems. In fact, the termination of life in these

particular situations violates our whole legal heritage, one that has

always protected the right to life. Moreover, it allows for an exten-

sion of the principle that may well endanger the lives of persons

who are senile, incurably ill, or unable fully to exercise all their

faculties.

We strongly urge a renewed positive attitude toward life and a

new commitment to its protection and support. We affirm our

social responsibility, together with all society, to bring encourage-

ment, understanding and support to the victims of rape, to in-

tensify our scientific investigation into the causes and cures of

maternal disease and fetal abnormality, and to provide to all

women adequate education and material sustenance to choose

66



motherhood responsibly and freely in accord with our basic com-

mitment to the sanctity of life.

We are certain that respect for human dignity and the reverence

for human life are such widely shared values in our society that the

discussion by lawyers, doctors, ethicians, social scientists and all

concerned citizens of ethical questions like abortion will lead to a

deeper understanding of the eminent value and inviolability of

human life.

67



.



Excerpt from

HUMAN LIFE IN OUR DAY

Pastoral Letter

NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC BISHOPS

November 15, 1968

Further Threats To Life

At this tense moment in our history when external wars and

internal violence make us so conscious of death, an affirmation of

the sanctity of human life by renewed attention to the family is

imperative. Let society always be on the side of life. Let it never

dictate, directly or indirectly, recourse to the prevention of life or

to its destruction in any of its phases; neither let it require as a

condition of economic assistance that any family yield conscien-

tious determination of the number of its children to the decision of

persons or agencies outside the family.

Stepped-up pressures for moral and legal acceptance of directly

procured abortion make necessary pointed reference to this threat

to the right to life. Reverence for life demands freedom from

direct interruption of life once it is conceived. Conception initiates

a process whose purpose is the realization of human personality.

A human person, nothing more and nothing less, is always at issue

once conception has taken place. We expressly repudiate any con-

tradictory suggestion as contrary to Judaeo-Christian traditions

inspired by love for life, and Anglo-Saxon legal traditions protective

of life and the person.

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Abortion brings to an end with irreversible finality both the ex-

istence and the destiny of the developing human person. Con-

scious of the inviolability of life, the Vatican Council II teaches:

“God, the Lord of life, has conferred on man the sur-

passing ministry of safeguarding life, a ministry which

must be fulfilled in a manner that is worthy of man.

Therefore, from the moment of its conception life must

be guarded with the greatest care while abortion and

infanticide are unspeakable crimes" (Gaudium et Spes,

51 ).

The judgment of the Church on the evil of terminating life de-

rives from the Christian awareness that men are not the masters

but the ministers of life. Hence, the Council declares:

“.
. . whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type

of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or wilful self-

destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human

person ... all these things and others of their like are

infamies indeed. They poison human society but they

do more harm to those who practice them than those

who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they are a

supreme dishonor to the Creator" (Gaudium et Spes,

27).

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Excerpts from

CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH

IN THE MODERN WORLD

Second Vatican Council

December 7, 1965

27. Coming down to practical and particularly urgent conse-

quences, this Council lays stress on reverence for man; everyone

must consider his every neighbor without exception as another

self, taking into account first of all his life and the means neces-

sary to living it with dignity,
8 so as not to imitate the rich man who

had no concern for the poor man Lazarus. 9

In our times a special obligation binds us to make ourselves the

neighbor of every person without exception, and of actively helping

him when he comes across our path, whether he be an old person

abandoned by all, a foreign laborer unjustly looked down upon, a

refugee, a child born of an unlawful union and wrongly suffering

for a sin he did not commit, or a hungry person who disturbs our

conscience by recalling the voice of the Lord, “As long as you did

it for one of these the least of my brethren, you did it for me”

(Matt. 25:40).

Furthermore, whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any

type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia or wilful self-

destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person,

such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts

to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as

subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation,

slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as

disgraceful working conditions, where men are treated as mere

tools for profit, rather than as free and responsible persons; all

these things and others of their like are infamies indeed. They

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poison human society, but they do more harm to those who prac-

tice them than those who suffer from the injury. Moreover, they

are a supreme dishonor to the Creator.

From No. 51:

To these problems there are those who presume to offer dis-

honorable solutions indeed; they do not recoil even from the taking

of life. But the Church issues the reminder that a true contradic-

tion cannot exist between the divine laws pertaining to the trans-

mission of life and those pertaining to authentic conjugal love.

For God, the Lord of life, has conferred on men the surpassing

ministry of safeguarding life in a manner which is worthy of man.

Therefore from the moment of its conception life must be guarded

with the greatest care, while abortion and infanticide are unspeak-

able crimes. . . .

All should be persuaded that human life and the task of trans-

mitting it are not realities bound up with this world alone. Hence

they cannot be measured or perceived only in terms of it, but

always have a bearing on the eternal destiny of men.

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