"'Til Somebody Loves You": Thoughts on the Abortion Debate

(This article by Jack Good was published in the March/April 2008 issue of The Progressive Christian.)

One does not expect to find theological insights in the lyrics of Dean Martin. Nonetheless, his popular song, “You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You,” contains an important truth—one that has implications for the ongoing debate on abortion.

At the heart of the abortion debate is the question, “At what point does human life begin?” Beneath that issue is another, less often discussed, query: “What are the criteria by which human life is defined?”

Four stories lay the foundation for the argument that will follow.

The first story is from scripture. The second chapter of Genesis describes the creation of a single person. This single entity, however, is quickly seen as incomplete. Only when a companion joins the Adam, is humanity set in motion. This story sets a pattern for the Bible. No person is depicted in Scripture as isolated. Even Jesus, whose inner resources might have been expected to allow him to stand alone, needed companions to fulfill his personhood. Jesus emerged from a family structure, he ministered within a group of disciples, and was finally incarnated in a church.

The second story is from anthropology. My undergraduate professor of sociology related a story he insisted was well documented, but which I have come to accept as urban legend. Hunters in France, in the mid-nineteenth century, so the story was told, found a boy who had been adopted as an infant by a pack of wolves. A wolf mother suckled the child, and the pack reared it as one of their own. The “boy” ran on hands and knees, made the sounds of wolves, and with his teeth fought those who tried to bring him into human society.

The truth of the wolf boy story is unimportant. By telling this tale, my professor wanted to encourage us to think about a definition of human life. Are we defined only by our biological makeup, or does our humanity depend on contact with the human community?

The third story is more immediate. A friend from my religious community and his wife are soon to be grandparents. One Sunday after worship he revealed that tests had shown that the fetus his daughter-in-law is carrying has a defective heart. It is unclear whether the fetus will survive to birth, and if born, can endure on its own. Coincidentally, my wife and I know grandparents of the mother. Recently, we shared a dinner with these four anxious, older-generation people. We discussed the surprising impact of a kinsman whom they may never meet in the flesh. Not only had this developing life entered into relationship with an extended family; his physical difficulties had caused the members of that extended family to bond. Biologically incomplete and physically imperfect, he is already a participant in the human community. His physical weaknesses empower him to achieve what is, arguably, human status. He is somebody because many people love him.

The fourth story is from Hollywood. In the movie Cast Away, the character played by Tom Hanks is stranded on a Pacific island for four years. The writers knew, however, that if left entirely alone he would slowly withdraw into a subhuman condition. So they devised an interesting dramatic turn. Somewhat accidentally, Hanks created a companion, a painted face on a volleyball (which later, inexplicably, became a coconut). The companion allowed Hanks to practice verbal skills, and to express emotions. “Werner” saved Hanks’ humanity.

Each of these four stories points, in a unique way, to a single truth. While biological functioning can take place in isolation, human life happens only within a web of relationships.

Relationship has been the missing element in almost all abortion debates. The common definition with which all parties seem to begin is human DNA. Sadly, neither side of the abortion debate has made a serious effort to see life through anything other than this material lens.

Only in our modern, science-oriented society has human life been defined in exclusively biological terms. Our ancestors placed this issue in a broader framework. In pre-scientific communities, little was understood about the nature of a fetus. Other realities were painful and obvious: Pregnancy was often interrupted by acts of nature, and many infants lived only a few days outside the womb. Parents, therefore, resisted making full emotional commitments to their newborn until the chances of long-term survival improved. Thus the welcoming ceremonies in traditional societies usually did not take place until ten days or more following birth. This gave the new child a chance to prove its viability. Only then did the parents risk giving the newborn a name and presenting her/him to the larger community. Naming was especially important, for the name represented the child’s place in, and acceptance by, society.

The Christian tradition once recognized clearly the role of relationship in defining new life. The concept of limbo was developed largely to solve a problem: what happened to the souls of infants who had been born, but died before a baptismal service named them and claimed for them a role in the community? Without this welcoming and naming ceremony, they were seen as unprepared for paradise. Biologically complete but not socially formed, they were consigned to limbo.

The story of Jesus’ circumcision shows the importance of the naming/welcoming ceremony in Jewish tradition. His name had been suggested earlier, but Luke makes clear that Jesus could not take ownership of that name until it has been given to him in the temple. Expanded names by which he was later known all reflected relationship: “Jesus, son of Joseph,” or “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Technology has had a two-pronged impact on the ethics of abortion. Sonograms have strengthened the emphasis on the biological, as each stage in physical development is traced. Alongside this development, another, less obvious, reality is emerging. The same sonograms allow parents to identify the sex of their in vivo offspring and spot problems that might have a major impact on the nature of this new life. Many children are given names months before birth. Parents know their children and are in relationship with them long before they hold them in their arms. If bonding is a requirement for ensoulment, then that milestone is often reached at a very early stage.

Yet, the debate over abortion continues as if only the physical matters. Pro-life people are especially prone to define human life in purely biological terms. Billboards sponsored by pro-life organizations proclaim, “Abortion stops a beating heart.” Literature is circulated with pictures of the fetus. The assumption: if looks human it must be human.

The argument from biology is inadequate. Its faults are seen in end of life issues as clearly as at the beginning of life. A body and a beating heart are not enough to constitute humanity. A functioning neurological system, including a brain, must be part of the mix—largely because a brain is essential if one is to relate to other sentient beings. It is widely agreed that the diagnosis “brain dead” is adequate reason to turn off supportive equipment and allow the remainder of the organism to die. In the hotly debated Terri Schiavo case, the argument turned on whether she had mental functioning, and whether she could respond to the loving overtures of her family. Why should a fetus whose brain is yet to develop be considered fully human, when an adult accident victim whose brain has been destroyed is considered to have perished?

Issues of birth control will be approached differently if the importance of relationships in defining life is acknowledged. For example, pro-life advocates would have to back away from the position that taking a morning after pill might end a human life. By what definition of humanity can a group of cells whose existence is known to no one—cells not yet attached to the walls of its host womb—be called human? Can human life be defined only by its potential?

In addition, the ban on use of frozen embryos in scientific experiments is difficult to defend when it is noted that the embryo’s only social context is a freezer of other inert organisms.

Pro-choice spokespersons have failed to challenge their opponents on this issue. Perhaps they hold back because they know that many of their own arguments will be open to challenge if participation in human community becomes a part of the definition of humanity.

Those arguing for choice would have a narrower but stronger position if they would acknowledge that relationships begin to form before birth. For parents who anticipate new life with joy, their in vivo children take on one of the markers of humanity earlier than have babies in any other time in history.

Bonding, however, is not automatic. Arguments for preserving the possibility of abortion in the case of pregnancies that result from rape or incest would be stronger if relationships are emphasized. Women are not super-human; they cannot be expected to emotionally embrace a reminder of violence done to their bodies.

Some women cannot bond to the fetus because doing so will damage their relationship to those already dependent on them. An overextended mother of several other children might seek an abortion because she sees the prospect of another baby as a threat to the web of relationships she is barely holding together.

Late term abortions, which constitute only a tiny fraction of total abortions, are of special concern for those who emphasize relationship. A woman who has carried a fetus into the third trimester has probably formed more than a biological attachment. When, at this stage, a physical deformity is discovered that means the fetus is unlikely to survive outside the womb, or when giving birth means endangering the life or future fertility of the mother, values clash.

Pro-choice representatives would, I am confident, gain stature in the public arena if they would concede that late term abortion is, in a moral but not legal sense, the taking of human life. On rare occasions that wrenching decision must be made, and made against a background of competing values. Endangering the life of a mother who may have other dependent children is ethically problematic. Neither is it easy to defend a decision that would endanger the fertility of a woman who wishes to have future children. When relationship is left out of the equation, what appears to be a pro-life decision for the fetus can be, in fact, a pro-death decision destroying a multitude of present and future human ties.

When relationship is central to the argument, the decision of whether, in an emergency situation, to preserve the life of the mother or that of the unborn child tilts toward the mother. The in vivo child has entered into relationship with its parents and perhaps other members of the immediate family. The mother has an ongoing, usually care-giving relationship with the same people, plus an extended network of relationships with friends, clubs, religious institutions, and, often, professional contacts.

Arguments for preserving the option of late-term abortions, in those rare instances in which it must be considered, should be carried on with tears as well as logic. Having to choose to preserve one human life by destroying another creates one of the most horrific moments in human existence. Such occasions do, however, occur. No amount of legislation will cause those awesome conflicts to disappear. Acknowledging their tragic ambiguity is a step toward sanity.

By failing to address adequately the question of what defines human life, the two sides of the abortion debate miss an opportunity to stop talking past one another and engage in a meaningful dialogue. Both sides would be forced to give ground if the matter of human relationship became part of the debate. As both concede parts of their heavily defended positions, new opportunities for common understandings might appear.

Any effective dialogue on this subject must recognize that all abortions are a form of death: death of potential, often death of a dream, always death of a biological organism. Nonetheless, death cannot be avoided, just as all abortions cannot be abolished. Abortions take place in all societies no matter how restrictive the laws. By stressing relationship, pro-life proponents will surrender their position that ensoulment occurs with conception, and pro-choice proponents will back away from denying humanity to a beloved and nearly developed fetus. With their differences narrowed, perhaps the two sides can discuss ways to minimize the tragedy of abortion and maximize the number of babies who, at their birth, are somebody because somebody loves them.