25 May 2003
By
Fr. Michael Dolan
This week’s article: “Roe v. Wade, Part 1”
An article entitled “The Waiting Game” in the May 19th issue of Newsweek caught my eye. It addresses the issue of judicial appointments and notes that the Democratic core interest groups are putting pressure on the leadership to take a stand against nominees they believe aren’t in the main stream on women’s right to choose (read abortion), affirmative action and civil rights.”
Now my question is why the upset?
If all of these issues were clearly and unarguably defined what is there to fear? Well the truth of the matter is that certainly with regards the abortion issue not only has it not been clearly and unarguably defined, but it has been construed and proclaimed with the most flagrant disregard for facts and any other recourse to objectivity. Since perhaps most of the general population has never read the landmark Supreme Court pro-abortion decision known familiarly as Roe v. Wade, I thought I might take you through it stepwise now, and over the next few weeks, so you ought see for yourself what I am talking about.
And so we begin.
In the preamble to the decision, the Hippocratic Oath, arguably the most famous, and most revered oath ever sworn which served as the standard of medical ethical practices for 2500 years, had to be discarded. After all, physicians from time immemorial had taken this oath which said in part “…furthermore, I will not give to a women an instrument (remedy) to produce abortion.” The court found the answer by concluding it was a “Pythagorean manifesto and not the expression of an absolute standard of medical practice.” What they were saying is that since the Pythagoreans were only a small fraction within the whole of the Greek population, their manifesto was therefore irrelevant. It didn’t matter that it evolved as the concise, universally accepted statement of medical ethics.
Stop for a moment and consider what the majority of the court is attesting to. They are saying that an ethical standard, a code of moral behavior, that does not have its origin in societal consensus is not to be accepted as defensible or compelling no matter how long it is held in high esteem, no matter how many knowledgeable people accept and profess its authority and no matter how many people have benefited from it. It is of interest to note that Christianity starting with the person of Jesus has never been accepted as “an expression of an absolute standard” of moral practice. Does that mean it is irrelevant or dismissible? Was there objectivity or logic in the Court’s rationale for dismissing “the apparent rigidity” of a long accepted and reversed statement of medical ethics. I think not. But it does not stop there.
May God bless you always,
Father Mike
Next week: More on Roe v. Wade