Letters, Volume 14 #1

MacGuigan makes much of conscience. What he fails to discuss is the necessity of both a formed and informed conscience. Often a distressed woman, on finding herself pregnant, makes a decision to abort without understanding the nature and development of her unborn child. Many of these women, deceived by euphemisms such as "blobs of protoplasm" or "products of conception," decide to "end their pregnancy," unaware that the heart of their child began beating eighteen days after conception.

These same women often feel they have no "choice" because of economic or social conditions. To add to the confusion, many think what is legal must be morally right. Under these horrendous conditions, it is more appropriate to speak of pressured women being exploited than exercising their conscience. The number of women undergoing post-abortion syndrome testifies to this. The suffering of these women is palpable.

Ann Keating rightly questions MacGuigan's emphasis on viability. Over the past twenty years, viability has been pushed further and further back. Premature babies born at earlier and earlier states of their development are being saved. Surely our rights should not be dependent on the state of medical technology.

According to the Ontario Ministry of Health, in 1993, there were 803 abortions performed on preborn children between nineteen and thirty-seven weeks gestation in Ontario alone. MacGuigan, apparently, would allow even these late abortions if they were "therapeutic." What does this mean? What "disease" is cured? Most late abortions are performed because a potential handicap has been detected. The proper name for these abortions should be eugenic, not therapeutic. History has already shown us what happens when we decide that there is such a thing as a life devoid of value.

The ramifications of such attitudes don't, of course, end at abortion. Robert Latimer's defence in killing his daughter who had cerebral palsy is the logical extension of state-sanctioned abortion of the handicapped.

Given our current economic and demographic situation (low birth rate, growing aged population and health and welfare cutbacks), it is difficult to take seriously MacGuigan's advice to pro-lifers to address the economy. Currently, only the pro-life groups offer constructive assistance to distressed pregnant women. With politicians slashing public assistance, our task becomes monumental. MacGuigan's defence of abortion and assisted suicide as a right rings hollow when we see the forces that, in effect, turn the so-called right into a duty.

In a democracy, the rights of the vulnerable should be paramount. It is not so much a religious issue as one of fundamental justice. The weak and the infirm, whether born or preborn, deserve no less.

June Scandiffio
President, Right to Life
Association of Toronto and Area

Perhaps MacGuigan has had too many years of being worn down by public pressure in office. But where is Keating coming from? She proclaims that MacGuigan has brought a breath of fresh air, but she wishes he had explored further the church's teaching that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception."

Pardon me? After reading the church's teaching, any committed and thoughtful Catholic would conclude in a nanosecond that the MacGuigan argument is without merit. I believe that St. Augustine's approach is the right one here. If our logic comes up against the church's teaching, then perhaps our logic is wrong, and we had better figure out how that happened. MacGuigan and Keating have reversed Augustine's imperative.

"Explore further"? Start by reading the excellent review of the same book by Michael Power.

Philip Carney
Kingston, Ont.