Remembering the End

Among the various ways in which the moral questions regarding abortion are framed, one that seems underrepresented is teleology – the analysis of the purposes – or ends – of things.

One aspect of teleology is relevant to the common refrain of “my body, my choice.” This is more serious of an objection to the pro-life cause than is sometimes recognized, for how can one determine what a “body part” is? 

One might point to the genetic difference of the mother and child to say that they are distinct bodies, but that raises other questions, because there are living things that, although genetically distinct, still have a somewhat stable presence and function in the human body – so much so that they might seem to be a part of the body in which they reside. The bacteria inside our digestive systems are an example of this. 

How, then, can one distinguish between a “body part” and a distinct body? I would propose that the distinction has to do with whether a thing is oriented toward staying to perform a certain function within the body, or whether it is oriented towards leaving to become something greater outside of the body. For instance, although a skin cell might leave the body by falling off, when it falls off, it merely joins the dust around where it fell – a thing for which it is less specially adapted than it is for being part of the human organ of the skin. In other words, even if it falls away from the skin, it still is, by definition, a skin cell. In contrast, a human fetus grows and develops from its very beginning towards leaving the mother’s body, and does not reach the culmination of its development until it has separated from the mother’s body. Rather than leaving the body to become something lesser, it leaves the body to become something greater. It was oriented towards living separately from the mother’s body, and leaves that body as part of its growth, whereas a skin cell is specially adapted to function as part of the body, and it leaves that body as part of its decline.

Teleology also becomes relevant in considering the well-known Violinist Argument. To state the argument briefly, a person’s right to life does not include the right to use someone else’s body to survive, and thus a fetus, even if it is a person, does not have the right to be supported by its mother’s life against her will. However, an adult human living off of another adult human’s body has at least one critical difference from a fetus living off of its mother’s body. The difference is one of teleology: a mother has an organ in her body that is biologically oriented toward the purpose of supporting an unborn human’s life, whereas there is nothing in the human body that is naturally oriented towards directly sustaining the life of another adult human being. The pro-life activist Stephanie Gray Connors made this point when she disclosed in an interview several years ago that she felt that the Lord had spoken to her during a debate in which her opponent presented a variation of the violinist argument. She believes that the Lord told her, “I made the uterus for a different purpose.” To express this a different way, this part of the body has a purpose – an end – that is oriented toward the development of an unborn child. 

Another key difference between the situation of the violinist and that of the unborn child is the teleology of the action being proposed in response to the life in question. In the case of the violinist, the action of unhooking him from oneself is defending oneself against an unjust infringement upon one’s bodily resources, which are meant for the good of oneself. Withdrawing assistance from him is not the same as directly killing him, even if it has the effect of ending his life. In contrast, abortion happens by directly attacking that which is the bodily life of another human being (as was argued above), and removing it from an organ which is oriented towards supporting its life. Directly attacking the life of an innocent human being is unjust in every circumstance, regardless of the intentions involved. This explains why even in the case of an injustice such as rape, abortion remains also unjust. The unborn baby is an innocent party in the situation. As the proverbial wisdom has it, “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Finally, teleology also has something to say in response to the claim that the dependence of an unborn baby on the mother’s support to sustain its life proves that it is not fully human, and thus does not have the human right to life. First of all, it is worth noting that this argument proves too much – at least too much for what most will tolerate – for there are others who are also dependent on external support to sustain their lives. Very young children after birth, as well as many people who are severely ill, injured, or disabled, require the direct care of others to survive. Few seem to be willing to dispute their humanity. The link of this with teleology may be expressed as follows, in a way that echoes the great John Donne: the purpose – the end – of human life is to be part of a web of relationships of love, not to be a self-contained island. It would be a violation of our end either to refuse any care to others, or to not receive or accept some level of care from others. While we do not owe unlimited care in every situation, and for instance, it may not be reasonable in every case for biological parents to raise their own children (adoptions do have their place), it remains true that those who cannot care for themselves ought to receive care, to the extent it can reasonably be given, from some source within the human community.

All of this converges upon one point: we live, ultimately, for the sake of more than our own contentment. We may know that we are oriented towards our proper end – that of the aforementioned web of love – when we can answer the question of Cain – “Am I my brother’s keeper?” – with an unmistakable “Yes.”