Religious History of Abortion Rights (Catholic)....... 3

Secular History of Abortion Rights .....

4

Summary of Test Case (June 73 Good Housekeeping)

PREFACE

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that the decision to terminate a pregnancy during the first three months is a private matter between a woman and her doctor. The same is true of the second three months, except that a state may regulate procedure in the interest of maternal health.

This is the law of the land.

But this landmark decision has resulted in almost unbelievable emtional turmoil. Books have been written; pictures have been published; facts have been distorted. And now, a crusade has been mounted to try to reverse the Court's decision.

Legal abortion means state neutrality on the abortion decision, a neutrality that allows for differences in individual conscience. Those whose conscience does not harmonize with abortion are free to reject the service. Those who face an unwanted pregnancy and wish to terminate it are free to get medical assistance under safe, sanitary conditions. They are freed of the need to seek illegal, back-alley emergency help. Legal abortion coerces no one and establishes equal freedom of choice for all. The principle of state neutrality was expressed once by the late Cardinal Cushing of Boston who said, (speaking of birth control), "Catholics do not need the support of civil law to be faithful to their own religious convictions, and they do not seek to impose by law their moral views on other members of society."

We have valuable facts and figures from states that legalized abortion several years ago. For example, in New York City, the record shows a decline in: Maternal deaths

Hopitalization:
offths"
"bungled" abortions

Abandoned infants

Cost of public welfare

and, in addition, the saving of untold misery for many thousands of women.

No one deals with abortion lightly. No one recommends abortion as a method of birth control. Surely all of us dream of a world where every child is a wanted child, born to the security of loving parents. We are all repulsed and sickened when we see battered children, beanten senseless by parents who are in a situation where they can't cope, hence vent their angers, fears, and frustration on their helpless children.

The citizen's job is to provide himself with all the facts and information pertinent to this legislative issue. To help in this task, this booklet has been compiled.

-2

INTRODUCTION

"Please don't get into the emotional battle over abortion. to stick to facts and logic."

Just try

This has been the admonition to our writers; the guiding policy in preparing this Handbook.

But we are emotionally moved, as much or more than the so-called Right-to-Life people. They focus their emotion on the plight of the poor "baby"--as they insist on calling the new life at any stage of gestation-and if they would confine their emotion to the case of late-term abortion, we would tend to agree with them.

For we, too, especially dislike abortion as it approaches infanticide. But we do not confine our tears to this alone. We are also, yes, especially worried about the infant after it is born: about the horrors of lethal congenital disease, for example. I saw one such myself: an infant with a congenital bone deficiency. The bones were brittle: "like egg shells"; and knowledgeable people confided that a hundred bones were broken, just in the process of being born. "It will die within a week" the doctors said, but no: its life dragged on for an incredible eleven months. I saw the baby only once, but that one brief glance at the agonized little face was burned into my memory for a lifetime.

Yes, we worry about this kind of suffering, and about many other things that are related in their inhumanity. We worry about women who are trapped in a terrible dilemma by a pregnancy they cannot endure; about children who die from their parents abuse, about men, women and children in far-off lands who die in war from the horrible weapon called Napalm; and about our own young men who are also the victims of war.

We think this will never be a better world, until we all learn to be concerned about the suffering of mankind, and indeed, of all earth's sentient creatures.

Typical of the scores of letters I have received about my column on abortion is one that begins: "I can hardly believe that a man of your intelligence would be in favor of abortion."

This is how people oversimplify a complex situation. I am not "in favor" of abortion. I don't think it's a good thing. It may very likely be "immoral", however we define that word. What I am against is making abortion a crime.

SUPPOSE I came out, 40 years ago, against Prohibition. People would write in to say that I was "in favor" of liquor. I am not at all in favor of liquor, as far as I'm concerned, all of it could be poured into the Pacific Ocean tomorrow morning, and the world would be a better place for it.

But this doesn't mean I think we should have laws making the drinking of alcoholic beverages a crime. Not everything that may be bad for us, or even immoral, should be made against the law.

Abortion is an unhappy solution, but all the alternative solutions are worse, to my mind. Making abortion a crime does not stop it, or even reduce it. All it does is make it expensive, dirty, underhanded, hypocritical, dangerous, and class-discriminatory.

IF THE SUBJECT is left to the discretion of the state legislatures, as some have suggested, adjacent states will have different abortion laws; so those who can afford it will travel across a state line to have an abortion, while those who can't won't. This makes a mockery of any law.

There is no point in passing a law that cannot and will not be enforced, and furthermore, that provides widespread opportunities for graft, corruption, and connivance, as did Prohibition.

AS TO THE MATTER of "life", and whether the fetus is "alive", this is a thorny metaphysical as well as biological question that no one can answer with any assurance. What strikes me as somewhat incongruous about the "right to life" people is their intense concern with the fetus, coupled with their apparent indifference to life after the womb--with their negligible efforts to reduce poverty at home, starvation abroad, and war throughout the world.

If life itself is as precious as all that, one would expect these people to be in the vanguard of the peace movement, for recurrent wars are certainly the greatest violator of the right to life. Waving a flag and wearing a "Right to Life" button, strikes me as a doubtful posture.

Reprinted by permission
of Sydney J. Harris and
Publishers-Hall Syndicate

For centuries the Catholic Church has vacillated back and forth on the question of abortion. A decision which should be a woman's personal, civil right has been a political battleground.

1198 to 1216. Pope Innocent III held that abortion was "not irregular" if the fetus was not "vivified" or "animated." Animation was considered to be 80 days for a female and 4 days for a male. It was never explained just how they could know the difference between a female and male fetus. This crucial distinction was adopted into the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX.

1588. Pope Sixtus V forbade all abortions.

1591. Pope Gregory XIV rescinded that order, and reverted back to allowing abortions up to 40 days for both female and male fetus. The female fetus gained equality that year.

1869. Pope Pious IX returned to the sanctions of Sixtus V and forbade all abortions at any time, thus again changing the Church's teachings regarding the 4-day "vivification" concept.

Contrary to popular belief, the Church's position on abortion is a moral and traditional one and has never been an official encyclical nor an official Church doctrine or dogma.