Case #11: Abortion and Embryo Adoption
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Descriptive Dimension
Is abortion primarily a corruption of personal morality (centered on evil acts) or a social evil? How would the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith answer this question? Do you agree with the CDF's suggestion that abortion is a kind of age discrimination with respect to the right to life?Normative Dimension
Again, thinking from within the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church, what are the fundamental goods at stake in the debate over abortion? Is this an issue of a legitimate conflict of goods where the goods at stake are ultimately incommensurable (in other words, where freedom for self-determination and new life must each be respected and therefore cannot be weighed against each other)? Is abortion, as in John Paul II's analysis, always an intrinsically evil act, incapable of being ordered to love of God?
Practical Dimension
How should one measure success in dealing with the issue of abortion in our country? What kinds of activist approaches are helpful and which are hurtful or at least ineffective? Does embryo adoption strike you as a moral practice, one that might even be required by any of the senses of justice we discussed?
Fundamental Dimension
When thinking about the case of abortion, how important is freedom? We tend to think about this issue in terms of conflicting goods of two lives, or freedom against life, but is abortion really about conflicting freedoms (the freedom of the adult now and the freedom of the person who cannot yet exercise it)?
Sources for Discernment
On what bases do the Catholic bishops judge abortion to be a grave moral evil? What specifically theological resources are employed? Do you think that theological resources are necessary to think through this issue, or is reason alone capable of determining the goodness or evil of abortion?
