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Explaining Abortion? A response to the arguments of Alison Taylor

The Ven. Alison Taylor, ArchDeacon in Melbourne and member of the ArchBishop’s “think thank” that produced a submission to the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) advocating a gradualist position with respect to abortion, has written a defence of the group’s position entitled “Explaining the Anglican abortion submission“. The full text is available by following the link.

As part of her paper, ArchDeacon Taylor makes a number of arguments from Scripture and the Fathers which I consider need an adequate response. This is not an attempt to answer all of her piece, but to deal with those specific areas.

The Gradualist Position in the Fathers

Taylor writes:

...all Anglicans need to be aware that the ‘gradualist’ position on abortion, put forward in the Submission to the VLRC but criticised in this month’s letter, is a position very widely held in the Christian Church, and of ancient origin, dating from the fourth century at the latest and having among its proponents St Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas.

There are a number of arguments made here. First, we are told that the gradualist position is “very widely held in the Christian Church”. If more people believe something, then there is a case that we should put more weight on that position, granted. However, majority opinion has never been the defining mark of orthodoxy. True, even at Nicea democracy was important - the bishops there voted in favour of “homoousion” by a massive majority. But only decades later a number of Councils challenged that decision. They, too, were democratic and yet was the Son suddenly not “of one substance with the Father”?

In the democracy of the Church it is, ultimately, one man one vote. That Man is the Lord Jesus Christ through whom God the Father has perfectly revealed Himself. God’s word is enough to overturn the caucus of the whole of humanity. As the Apostle tells us:

Let God be proven true, and every human being shown up as a liar, just as it is written: “so that you will be justified in your words and will prevail when you are judged.“ (Rom. 3:4)

Second, Taylor would argue that the gradualist position is “of ancient origin, dating from the fourth century at the latest and having among its proponents St Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas.“. This is an intriguing claim and, since first having come across it several weeks ago, I have struggled to find evidence backing it up.

What, in fact, the history of the church shows (as any Christian pro-choice website will be at pains to point out) is that the Early Church was almost universally opposed to abortion of any sort. So, one can find quotes from luminaries such as the authors of the Didache, Barnabus, the pseudepigraphical Apocalypse of Peter, Athenogoras, Tertullian, Chrysostom and the Councils of Elvira and Ancrya which all take an absolutist position on life and oppose abortion. Taylor also calls Augustine into her camp. Sadly she has not given us a reference to chase up her claim but I tried to do a bit of work myself. The closest I could find to Augustine espousing a gradualist position is this from The Enchiridion 85-87 where he deals directly with these matters in a section discussing the Resurrection of the Dead. Perhaps the strongest statement he makes in favour of the gradualist position is this:

Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified? (Ench. 85)

“Seeds that have never fructified” may seem to support a gradualist position on life. But consider how Augustine then continues…

But who will dare to deny, though he may not dare to affirm, that at the resurrection every defect in the form shall be supplied, and that thus the perfection which time would have brought shall not be wanting, any more than the blemishes which time did bring shall be present: so that the nature shall neither want anything suitable and in harmony with it that length of days would have added, nor be debased by the presence of anything of an opposite kind that length of days has added; but that what is not yet complete shall be completed, just as what has been injured shall be renewed.

For Augustine, all these lost unborn will be resurrected. Indeed, more than this, they are to be fully considered as “men” i.e. fully human. Note how in the immediately preceding chapter he raises the issue:

Yet that the bodies of all men—both those who have been born and those who shall be born, both those who have died and those who shall die—shall be raised again, no Christian ought to have the shadow of a doubt. (Ench. 84 - my emphasis)

These lost unborn, then, are included by Augustine in his assessment of “all men”. They are, in his thinking, fully human and will be fully resurrected at the last day.
Granted, Augustine has some doubts over exactly when life begins. So:

At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive, seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead. (Ench. 86)

It is entirely reasonable, then, to argue that Augustine may have viewed a beginning of life some time subsequent to conception. But this is not gradualism. This is still a discrete movement from not-life to life. There is “the time that a man begins to live”. More than that, he directly addresses the question of the life of the “therapeutically” aborted. It is “too audacious” to suggest that they are not alive. And life, remember, is a discrete (not gradual) thing for Augustine. So too, he argues for the full humanity of the deformed unborn in Ench. 87.

Thus it appears very difficult to support the claim that Augustine supported a gradualist view of life in the womb, at least when one examines the text wherein he directly addresses the subject. Of course, Augustine did change his views on a number of subjects over his life so it is possible he retracted this position later. Perhaps the Ven. Taylor would be able to demonstrate where Augustine does espouse the gradualist position?

As for Aquinas, I have not yet examined his position although I do note that others have. Readers will have to decide for themselves whether they are convinced or not. At this stage, however, we would suggest that the support that Taylor and her colleagues are looking for from the Early Church simply does not exist.

The Gradualist Position in the Scriptures

Of course, as we have argued above, even if Augustine had supported the gradualist position that would still, ultimately, be of no benefit for us in discerning the mind of God. Instead, we should always turn to the Scriptures and so it is Taylor’s comments on the Bible that we now address.

Taylor writes:

What the Bible does not teach, and which has never been a part of Christian doctrine – contrary to the assertion in this month’s TMA letter – is that ‘all human life has absolute moral value’. The latter view is unbiblical because it would be untenable for Christians in situations where complex moral choices must be made, in diverse circumstances ranging from military defence and self-defence to the sometimes conflicting rights of mother and unborn child.

Taylor appears to have confused the absolute moral value that God, in the Scriptures, places on life with the allowances that the same Scriptures make for certain deaths to occur. Most strikingly, it is often the absolute value of life that

demands

a life be taken. One example will suffice at this point - the Death Penalty.

The Death Penalty, like abortion, is an emotive subject. There are some who argue that we should never take life, even that of a murderer, since all life is sacred. What has struck me time and time again on this matter is how the Bible itself argues in the opposite direction. Consider this instruction to Noah:

Genesis 9:6 “Whoever sheds human blood, by other humans must his blood be shed; for in God’s image God has made humankind.“

Note carefully the logic being employed. The status of human life as being “in God’s image” is the rationale for capital punishment. Arguments about theocracies, the competence of courts and the like aside, this simple statement must be grappled with. The advocation of the taking of life in the Scriptures does not stand against a simultaneous affirmation of the absolute value of life. Rather, they stand necessarily together.

Taylor writes on,

Nowhere in the Bible is a foetus accorded the full moral status of a human person. On the contrary, in the sole biblical text on induced abortion, Exodus 21.22-23, an abortion caused by injury to a pregnant woman is regarded seriously but considerably less than murder. Other than what might be inferred from this text, the Bible is silent on the issue of the moral status to be accorded to foetal death, as it is on the question of when an embryo might be said to have a soul that survives death. These two issues, which preoccupy the abortion debate today, could probably not even have been conceptualised by writers living in the Biblical era.

What strikes me immediately is that Taylor is simply incorrect when she claims “Nowhere in the Bible is a foetus accorded the full moral status of a human person”. There is one very compelling text that demonstrates otherwise.

Psalm 51:5 Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me.

King David, convicted of his sin in committing adultery with Bathsheba and then arranging for her husband’s death, traces the origin of his sinfulness right back to his time in the womb - indeed further yet; right back to his conception. He was, he claims, a morally culpable being right from that moment when sperm and egg fused. This is, surely, one of the strongest arguments for the moral status of the unborn. The zygote is seen to be a moral individual, albeit morally tainted. Elsewhere the Scriptures affirm positively the work that God is doing as the unborn child progresses in the womb:

Psalm 139:13-14 Certainly you made my mind and heart; you wove me together in my mother’s womb. I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. You knew me thoroughly;

David recognises that although he was a morally culpable zygote, he was also an awesome creation of God. It is especially noteworthy that this text receives no mention either in the submission of the “think tank” or in Taylor’s piece that we are responding to.

Taylor also argues from Exodus 21. Here is what is written:

Exodus 21:22-23 “If men fight and hit a pregnant woman and her child is born prematurely, but there is no serious injury, he will surely be punished in accordance with what the woman’s husband demands of him, and he will pay what the court decides. But if there is serious injury, then you will give a life for a life,

Taylor argues from this, “an abortion caused by injury to a pregnant woman is regarded seriously but considerably less than murder”. I have to say, it’s hard for me to come to that conclusion. On the contrary, “if there is serious injury, then you will give

a life for a life

“. This is in the context of various other proscriptions against murder. The only thing in this text that is treated “less seriously” is the premature birth of the child, with no serious injury - hardly the same as a deliberate abortion.

We want to affirm, along with Taylor and the rest of the “think thank” that abortion is a serious and complex issue. Yet, at the same time, we also read the Scriptures and see therein the absolute value of life. We also see, time and time, the people of God being called to protect the innocent, the vulnerable and the weak. Never do the Scriptures endorse or even condone the sacrificing of such for the benefit of others.

But we should also affirm that there was one sacrifice for the benefit of others, a sacrifice that was entered into willingly, not under coercion, that provides forgiveness for all - not least to those who have participated in or supported the practice of abortion. Our Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life willingly in order to restore to life those who, from conception, were slaves of sin. He also speaks to the Church today in the Scriptures and calls us to affirm the very life that he came to save.

Posted by on 03/04 at 11:42 AM

This is a curious statement: “...the Bible is silent on the issue of the moral status to be accorded to foetal death, as it is on the question of when an embryo might be said to have a soul that survives death. These two issues, which preoccupy the abortion debate today, could probably not even have been conceptualised by writers living in the Biblical era.“

Why is it that so many 21st Century Westerners seem to have an underlying assumption that our ancestors were stupid? No one can work out just how Stonehenge could have been erected, because, well, ancient people were stupid, don’t we all know? They must have been, because we don’t have any surviving documents from the 3rd Millennium BC explaining calculus and modern structural engineering. So they couldn’t have had any understanding of the complexity of the issues surrounding the deliberate termination of a pregnancy.
As if we have a sole claim on the capacity to think about ethical and metaphysical concepts.

Posted by Leonie Windsor �on� 03/04 �at� 04:50 PM

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