Part 9: The Death of a Child
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A Fatal Lack of Logic in the Law.
Because fetal life is human life, the killing of a fetus has profound moral significance. Roe v Wade gave women complete license to kill their unborn children. (EN 24)
The killing of a human being is “homicide”, and the killing of infant human beings is “infanticide”. Abortion is a form of infanticide because the living being in the womb is genetically human, and will develop by its own internal genetic coding into a “viable” and birthed person within 9 months assuming stable biological conditions. (EN 25)
The issue is whether the killing is “justified homicide”. “Homocide” is of course a term taken from the criminal law, and abortion, because of Roe v. Wade, is no longer a legally defined crime. Still, the logic of the criminal law, and the logic of science, together with ethical considerations, lead to the conclusion that human beings are being killed, and that a presumption exists that such killing is wrong unless it can be justified.
In the criminal law, the usual legal excuse for homicide is self-defense, a defense not applicable to abortion. In abortion, the offered justification in Constitutional terms is that the woman who carries the child has an interest in “liberty” and “autonomy” that trumps the “State’s interest” in protecting unborn fetal life. As any parent will testify, “autonomy” and “liberty” are of course restricted by the responsibilities of parenthood. Parents chose differently because they sacrifice for their children. The “liberty” and “autonomy” interest is really about not being required by law or nature to “sacrifice” for the life and well-being of a living child. Put bluntly, when weighed against the sacrifices of parenthood, the parents decide it is better to kill the child. Federal constitutional law, created by Roe v. Wade, allows this choice if the child is still in the womb, and even protects the act of killing against laws that interfere with it.
By examining the “justified homicide” conclusion in cases like Roe v. Wade and Stenberg v. Carhart, we can weigh for ourselves whether the decisions are rationally and ethically sound. Why should we engage in this process? Because the issues of life and death are so fundamental to who we are as individuals and as citizens that we cannot privatize these decisions, but must speak out boldly to address them.
