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PAGE 3-March 15,1973
Court Avoided Real Question: Human Dignity
BY NC NEWS SERVICE
(The following is the first part of a two-part interview with Dr. Andre
Hellegrs, director of the Kennedy Institute for the Study of Human
Reproduction and Bio-Ethics. The interview was conducted by Thomas
Ascik of the Washington Star-News and is reprinted with permission of
that newspaper.)
Q. The Supreme Court, in its recent decision on abortion,
calls a pregnant, but otherwise healthy, woman a “patient,” and
states that abortion is “primarily and inherently a medical
decision up to the erid of the first trimester.’' Is she a patient in
the traditional medical sense?
A. Well, we’ve traditionally taken care of pregnant women.
The question is whether you consider pregnancy a disease.
Within the definition of the court, pregnancy is a disease. The
court considered the stressful factors of pregnancy and the
possibilities of future stress in making its decision. So the court
very rigidly followed the World Health Organization’s definition
of health which says that it is not just the absence of disease but
“a sense of well-being.” If being pregnant does not give a
woman a sense of well-being, then she’s ill.
“Potential life”
Q. The court uses the term “potential life” when talking
about the fetus. What is a “potential life?”
A. I don’t understand the language of the court myself. You
can’t talk of the potential hand or the potential foot of a fetus;
at least I presume not. It’s there or it’s not there, and its
obviously there. I think that people are confusing the term
“life” and the term “dignity.” The whole abortion debate has
been very fouled up in its linguistics.
I think the simple biological fact is that the fetus is human,
only because “human” is a biological category. So, first, the
fetus is categorically human. Second, the fetus is a “being”
because its there. If it wasn’t a being, you wouldn’t need the
abortion. So we’re dealing with human beings; we’re dealing
with human life.
The issue is whether we’re dealing with valuable human life,
whether we’re dealing with dignity in that life, whether it has to
be protected under the constitution. All of these are not
biological questions.
The unfortunate part of the whole debate is that people have
misused biology to create phrases like “when does life begin?”
When the question should have been “when does dignity begin?
They have used terms like “potential life,” trying to say that life
wasn’t there, when the reason for saying that life wasn’t there
was because they didn’t attach any value to it. The abortion
issue is fundamentally a value issue and not a biological one.
Q. The court says that it is only “a theory” that human life is
present from conception. You obviously think that it can be
substantiated beyond mere theory.
A. Oh, it’s obvious. I don’t know of one biologist who would
maintain that the fetus is not alive. The alternative is alive to
dead. If the fetus was dead, you would never do an abortion.
Today we are employing euphemisms to pretend that human
life is not present. This stems from the fact that we are not
quite ready yet to say, yes, there is human life but it has no
dignity. We have wanted to avoid that statement at all costs.
Q. So abortion is only a euphemistic question of life?
A. That’s right, because of the fear of saying what we
know-yes, there is human life but we attach no value to it. And
it has led, incidentally, to a very interesting phenomenon. The
court specifically says that it does not want to take a stand on
whether human life is there or not. But it says, operationally,
you may proceed to abort. If you are not willing to say when
life starts, there are two possibilities-either it is there or it is
not. If you then proceed to abort you are factually saying that
you may abort even though human life may be there.
“Point of viability”
Q. What is “the point of viability?”
A. The court divides pregnancy into three sectors. During the
first three months it rules totally under the issue of privacy.
Then it says, as pregnancy advances, the state may have a
compelling interest in the fetus at viability which it puts at 24
or 28 weeks.
The issue, of course, is that the fetus is perfectly viable at
any time during pregnancy provided you leave it in place, and it
is only because of your action that it becomes not viable. To me
the odd situation is that because you do something to the fetus
and doing that makes it not viable you may proceed to do so.
Q. What is the “compelling point” of three months? The
Court says that is the point at which the woman and her doctor
are free to make a private decision about abortion, and the state
may step in after three months.
A. The state may step in after three months except when the
life and health of the woman are involved-and the Court clearly
defines health as being economic state, stress and so forth. Now,
any pregnant woman who says, “I am pregnant and it is stressful
to me,” is right there a candidate for abortion.
Q. What is the basis of regarding the first three months as a
turning point in pregnancy?
A. It’s based on the proposition that it is safer to have an
abortion at that time than to go ahead and have the childbirth.
The court says that up to that time the mother’s health is
automatically provable to be better off not pregnant than
pregnant. And that, incidentally, is just terrible use of statistics.
What has happened is that one compares the statistics of
undergoing an abortion procedure with the general statistics on
maternal mortality as a whole. Several problems arise.
First, childbirth as a whole takes nine months whereas the
abortion by definition takes less than that. So, obviously, there
is less risk of dying in a three-month period than in a
nine-month period because you have lived less long. The second
problem is that if you die of anything before you have had a
chance to get an abortion, you are counted among the
non-abortion deaths. The third problem is that all women who
want a child regardless of their health status and who decide to
go through with it, and die, automatically fall under the death
statistics and-not under the abortion statistics. So you are really
comparing apples and oranges. It is total misuse of scientific
method.
Q. Medically where does the term “the first trimester” come
from?
A. The first trimester comes from the fact that up to 13
w'eeks the abortion procedure is rather a simple one. The first
trimester has nothing to do with what a fetus is at 13 weeks
compared to what it is at 26 weeks. Up to 13 weeks it is rather
safe to get aborted. From 13 to 26 weeks you have to change
methods; you have to do saline infusions or hysterotomies.
Then the statistics don’t look quite as good.
The court maintains that up to 13 weeks it is safer to be
aborted than to have a child, which is already poor statistics.
After 13 weeks the court recognizes that the abortion procedure
becomes more dangerous and therefore says that the state may
begin to have some regulations to protect the health of the
woman. After the 27th week there may be some interest in
protecting the fetus as well. But it again spells out very clearly
that whenever maternal health is involved, as defined under the
World Health Organization’s definition of stress, the state
cannot stop the woman from getting an abortion. The first
trimester has nothing to do with the viability issue; it has to do
with the safety of the abortion procedure.
Q. You’re saying that meaningful life outside the womb
could start at the 27th week?
A. Well, after the 27th week we no longer use the term
“abortion” in obstetrical circles. We then talk about “premature
delivery.” Now the survival rate between 20 and 28 weeks is
only 10 percent. The question here is how long must you have
lived to be considered viable. That’s an issue in its own right.
What is, of course, absurd about the situation is that it is the
procedure that makes the fetus available. Obviously the chances
of survival are greater the closer to 40 weeks you are. But
viability at any time during pregnancy is only with assistance.
But it is just like a newborn child which is only viable with
assistance.
(Next week: Right of privacy and bad biology.)
6 Permissive 9 Self-Indulgence
Scorned by Pope in Lenten Talk
ROME (NC) - Pope Paul VI heralded
Lent with a ringing vindication of
Christian self-denial and a scornful
dismissal of “permissive”
self-indulgence.
Mortification and penance “train us
to self-mastery, give unity and
BISHOP SPENCE DIES ~
Auxiliary Bishop John S. Spence,
63, of Washington, D.C., died
March 7 after a long illness. He
had been a bishop for nine years
and was known for his activities in
ecumenism, civil rights, and
assistance for the poor. (NC
Photo)
C.U. School
Dean Named
WASHINGTON (NC) - Benedictine
Father Col man J. Barry has been named
dean of the new School of Religious
Studies to be opened at the Catholic
University of America here this
September.
Father Barry, a visiting professor at
Yale University’s divinity school, was
president of St. John’s University,
Collegeville, Minn., from 1964 to 1972.
The 51-year-old Church historian and
author was selected for the C.U. post
after a five-month search for candidates
in this country and Europe.
He will head a consolidated school
consisting of the present schools of
theology and canon law, the present
department of religion and religious
education, and two new departments,
Church history and biblical studies.
The biblical studies department will
be the only one of its kind in a U.S.
academic institution. It will continue
the work now done in the university’s
Semitics department.
The School of Religious Studies will
continue to offer pontifical
(ecclesiastical) degrees) in theology and
canon law, as well as the common
American degrees.
C.U. President Clarence C. Walton
praised Father Barry as “an experienced
scholar, administrator, and teacher.”
The special search committee that
recommended Father Barry for the new
post was chaired by Archbishop William
W. Baum, who as the new archbishop of
Washington will also serve as C.U.
chancellor.
equilibrium to our faculties,” he
declared.
“It will be said by some, seduced by
the current amorality, that this is no
way for a son of our century to behave.
With the blandishments of liberation,
today’s man is urged to find himself by
abandoning himself to the broad and
steep-down highway of ‘permissive
morality.’ ”
The Pope had few words for such a
philosophy.
“This is base and vile. It is not
liberty.
“The athletes of sport know this.
Should the athletes of the spirit forget
it?”
Pope Paul, clad in a chasuble of deep
purple bordering on black, was
preaching at his Ash Wednesday Mass in
the Dominican Church of Santa Sabina
on Rome’s Aventine Hill.
The fourth-century church, which at
one time was the private church of the
Popes, just as the Sistine Chapel is
today, has been since the fifth century
of the so-called stational church for the
first day of Lent, that is the church
where the Popes hold their Ash
Wednesday services.
The Pope prefaced his apologia for
Christian penance with a reminder that
this “severe pedagogy toward our own
person” should prompt us neither to
despise the value of the world not to
dispense ourselves from our duties
toward it.
He then said:
“Christian abnegation, mortification,
penance are not forms of weakness, nor
are they inferiority complexes. They
rather . . .are forms of personal
strength.”
He recalled Christ’s warning in the
Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 13, that
without penance “you will all perish.”
The Pope proceeded: “Sinners as we
are, we are debtors and owe some
expiation. Mortification and penance
also train us to self-mastery, give unity
and equilibrium to our faculties, help
the spirit prevail over the flesh, reason
over fantasy, the will over the
instincts.”
He summed up: “Where there is
rigor, there is vigor.”
Family Life Outlines Pro-Life
Stand for Catholic Hospitals
ST. LOUIS (NC) - A two-pronged
effort, in law and in policy, is necessary
if Catholic hospitals are to maintain a
strong pro-life stance in the face of the
recent Supreme Court decisions on
abortion, said Msgr. James T. McHugh,
head of the family life division of the
U.S. Catholic Conference (USCC).
Writing in Hospital Progress, the
monthly journal of the Catholic
Hospital Association (CHA), Msgr.
McHugh outlined the basic elements of
a strong “good conscience” law which
would protect health care institutions
and personnel in their refusal to
participate in abortion for reasons of
conscience or policy.
He also suggested policy guidelines
for “a long-range program in support of
the sanctity of life.”
Catholic hospitals “should commit
themselves to special compassion and
care for pregnant women and unborn
children,” the USCC official said. “In
effect, Catholic hospitals should become
havens for the unborn and their
mothers, and should increase obstetric
and gynecological services, rather than
decrease them.”
Citing efforts already under way to
revoke the licenses of hospitals or
physicians who refuse to participate in
abortions, Msgr. McHugh recommended
enactment in state legislatures of a
five-point “good conscience” law with
the following elements:
-No one in health care will be
required to participate in an abortion if
it violates his or her conscience.
-Any hospital with a stated policy
against abortion may refuse to provide
abortion services.
--No health care facilities or
personnel will be penalized in any way
for such refusals.
-Professional training, placement or
advancement cannot be refused to
anyone because of a refusal to
participate in abortions.
-Individuals who refuse to undergo
an abortion will not lose any public
assistance benefits or other rights or
privileges.
Msgr. McHugh said that in addition
to establishing legal protection for
individuals and institutions opposed to
abortion, Catholic-sponsored health care
facilities should establish and strengthen
positive programs geared to the support
of life.
Each hospital should reaffirm and
publicize its opposition to abortion, he
said.
He also urged Catholic hospitals to:
-“Increase pre-natal programs to
help women, and also to support fathers
of unborn children.”
-“Offer free medical care - pre-natal,
delivery and post-natal” to anyone who
cannot afford it.
-“Increase counseling services” and
other services in obstetrics, gynecology
and pediatrics.
-Make it “possible and inviting” for
non-Catholics who oppose abortion to
join Catholic hospital staffs.
Msgr. McHugh also recommended
that a “legal defense fund” be set up by
the Catholic Hospital Association to
protect the rights of hospitals and
personnel.
By providing a pro-life environment,
he said, the Catholic hospital can attract
personnel “who do not wish to spend
their time and energies in
abortion . . .and it would thereby fulfill
a prophetic role in addition to providing
the best health care.”
ASH WEDNESDAY AT THE VATICAN-- Pope St. Peter’s Basilica Wednesday signaling the beginning
Paul VI bows his head to receive ashes at ceremonies in of Lent. (NC Photo)
Catholic Pentecostal Movement
To Hold Meeting at Notre Dame
charismatic leaders from across the country, including those
from the communities reputed to be the founders of the
movement, South Bend and Ann Arbor, Mich.
Last year’s meeting on Catholic Charismatic Renewal drew in
excess of 10,000 persons, doubling the previous year’s
attendance.
Catholic Pentecostals seek renewal in the Church by
emphasizing a Christian’s relationship with the Holy Spirit and
the value of the Spirit’s gifts.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (NC) - An estimated 20,000 persons are
expected to attend the annual international conference of the
Catholic Pentecostal movement at the University of Notre Dame
here June 1-3.
The conference, whose theme will be “The Spirit of Jesus
Among Us,” will consist of general sessions and about 150
workshops on all aspects of Catholic pentecostalism.
Auxiliary Bishop Joseph C. McKinney of Grand Rapids,
Mich., is scheduled to be among the speakers at the three-day
conclave. Others expected to address the meeting will be