I am a woman, a nurse, and consider myself a feminist, but I accept
the Church’s teaching that abortion is always wrong. Indeed, if the
Church did not teach that, I would have a hard time believing anything
it does teach about practical matters. I also am convinced that
abortion should no more be legal than killing you or me or anyone
else. But the fact of the matter is that in this country abortion is
legal and, at least for now, there does not seem much hope of making
it illegal. We therefore need some clear guidelines on our duties
regarding abortion.
I have friends who have done sidewalk counseling; one of them also has
engaged in rescues.435 For various reasons—one of which admittedly is
cowardice—up to now I have been unwilling to do either of those
things. My friends think I am failing to do my duty. The one who has
been involved in rescues argues that everyone has the same duty to try
to stop abortions as to try to stop the killing of an already-born
child, the only difference being that the Supreme Court’s ukase has
made abortion legal.
While I see the force of his argument, it seems to me to prove too
much. Specifically, it seems to point to a duty to gun down
abortionists—something a few people have done, but hardly anyone
approves of, much less regards as a duty. Let me explain. My work as a
visiting nurse sometimes takes me into rough neighborhoods at all
hours. After one bad experience that I will not go into, I learned to
use a handgun, got a gun and a license, and now carry the gun at all
times in my shoulder bag. Suppose I am walking down the street and see
a man brutally beating a small child with a baseball bat; I take out
my gun and order him to stop; he shouts a threat at me, turns, and
hits the child again. Surely, it would be right for me to shoot him,
and, as I was taught to do, I would aim at the middle of his back to
give myself the best chance of stopping him. If I killed him without
using more bullets than necessary to stop him, I am sure nobody would
object. But if everyone has the same duty to try to stop abortions as
to try to stop the killing of an already-born child, then I have a
duty to gun down abortionists.
While I would like to know what you think of the argument between my
friend and me, I am more interested in the broader question: Does
everyone have a duty to try to stop abortions?
Analysis:
This question calls for applying norms regarding civic responsibility
and the use of force to protect innocent people’s lives. Everyone who
recognizes the evils of abortion and its legalization should do
something to oppose them. But since each individual has his or her
unique personal vocation, each must discern what he or she ought to
do. Prima facie, the justification of force to defend the innocent
seems to extend to gunning down abortionists. Although arguments
against doing so drawn from prospective bad consequences are not
decisive, the action is unjustifiable insofar as, rather than being an
effective means of protecting the lives of unborn persons, it is a
revolutionary act that surely will not succeed.
The reply could be along the following lines:
Abortion and its legalization are great evils.436 They differ in some
ways from the mass murders carried out under Stalin, Hitler, and
others, but also in some ways are comparable to those crimes and in
other ways even worse: because of the greater numbers being killed,
their total innocence and defenselessness, the essential role played
by those primarily responsible for nurturing the victims, the
widespread support of this slaughter by both rulers and people in
so-called liberal democratic nations, and the complicity in the
killings of so many religious leaders, educators, people trained in
law, health care professionals, people in the mass media, and so on.
Everyone who recognizes the evils of abortion and its legalization
should do something to oppose them. What that should be depends on an
individual’s unique opportunities and capacities. Opportunities—what
can be done—are limited to what is morally acceptable as well as to
what is possible in other respects; one’s capacities are limited by
one’s other responsibilities. All of us should do what we can, that
is, some of the morally acceptable things that are in our power and
that we can do without neglecting duties that flow from other elements
of personal vocation to which we already have committed ourselves or
which, being inescapable, we have accepted as God’s will. So, for
instance, the contemplative nun and the bedridden man in a nursing
home ought to work against abortion chiefly by praying for divine
intervention or by writing letters of protest, not leaving the
cloister or sickbed to participate in your friends’ work at clinics.
Your friends’ commitment to their effort is commendable, but they and
others engaged in a particular sort of activity against abortion, its
legalization, or any other injustice should not think or say that
everyone should do the same. Whether or not you should take part in
their efforts, they are wrong in pressuring you. Conscientiously
examine your opportunities and capacities and discern what you should
do about abortion. Though your appropriate contribution might partly
coincide with theirs, it also might well be entirely different.
As for your friend’s argument that everyone has the same duty to try
to stop abortions as to try to stop the killing of an already-born
child, your counterargument—that this would imply a duty on your part
to gun down abortionists—might not move him. He might accept that
implication and urge you to put your gun and your skill in using it to
good use. Of course, he might say it would be wrong to aim at the
middle of the back of the brutal man in your example instead of
aiming, say, at his shoulder, and, likewise, that it would be wrong
for you to kill abortionists rather than choosing some less drastic
way of stopping them—for example, cutting off their hands. However,
that would not address the issue your argument raises, namely, whether
you are soundly applying the principles that can justify using as much
force as necessary to defend innocent life. Prima facie, it seems
sound, for you could gun down an abortionist with precisely the same
intention with which you would shoot the brutal man beating the child:
not intending to kill or even injure him, but only to stop him and
protect the victim.437 Moreover, since in both cases those being
stopped are engaging in objective injustices that should be stopped,
in neither case would you be acting unfairly toward those you stopped,
provided you used the minimally destructive means adequate to protect
the victim.
Your friend could reply that, despite their common features, the two
cases differ in other morally relevant respects. He might offer four
arguments. First, that gunning down abortionists is hard to reconcile
with the Christian gospel, which emphasizes loving even enemies and
seeking the conversion of evildoers. A dead abortionist cannot repent;
women prevented from obtaining the abortion they wanted are unlikely
to be moved to repent by the abortionist’s death; and many hearts,
reacting self-righteously against the killing of an abortionist, are
likely to be hardened with respect to the slaughter of the unborn.
Second, he might say it clouds prolife witness by making it seem that
even those who oppose abortion approve killing people when they think
doing so would serve some good end. Third, he might say that the cases
of shooting abortionists have proved it to be counterproductive. It
provokes a strong, negative reaction from most people and
countermeasures by public officials that impede every other form of
prolife work, not least nonviolent direct action such as sidewalk
counseling. Fourth, your friend could suggest with some plausibility
that violence against abortionists serves as a bad example for many
sorts of extremists, thus contributing to an increase in the
lawlessness and unjustifiable violence already common in our society.
You can, of course, point out in reply that none of those
considerations is decisive, since the gospel does not entirely forbid
the use of force to defend the innocent (such as the child being
beaten to death with the baseball bat), and, although gunning down
abortionists has some bad consequences, it also has various good side
effects. For example, it bears witness to the truth that unborn babies
are no different in human worth and personal dignity from people
already born; it keeps alive the awareness that legalized abortion is
morally equivalent to murder and not similar to other morally
questionable practices and institutions tolerable in a generally good
and just society; and it serves as an example of unselfish courage in
a society pervaded by self-indulgence and moral cowardice.
Your friend might reply in either of two ways. He could accept the
conclusion and concede that under appropriate conditions, which
probably seldom occur, it is morally right to use as much force as
necessary to stop abortionists.
Or he could point out another difference between stopping the brutal
man in your example and gunning down abortionists. The brutal man is
an isolated wrongdoer whose violence is afforded no protection by
society and its institutions. But abortionists are others’ agents—they
serve women who have decided to get rid of their unborn children—and
both doing and having abortions are socially accepted, protected by
law, and even, in some respects, supported by public policy. The
fellow beating the small child with a baseball bat almost certainly
will not be replaced if you shoot him. Thus, your effort very likely
will achieve your good end of protecting the child. But if you gun
down one or even many abortionists, the women who meant to use their
services, and others who will decide to obtain abortions, certainly
can—and almost all probably will—find someone else to kill their
unborn babies. And while killing or maiming large numbers of
abortionists might have a temporary deterrent effect on actual and
potential abortionists, it probably would quickly provoke a
well-organized public response. New governmental programs almost
certainly would make doing abortions more lucrative and provide
abortionists with special protections and privileges. Abortion
probably would be at least as widely available as it is now, so that
no fewer, and perhaps even more, unborn babies would be killed. Since
our society already is deeply committed to the evils of abortion and
its legalization, gunning down abortionists therefore would be
pointless unless one went on to gun down the public officials who
support abortion. But that would be starting a revolution with no
prospect of success; and, like war generally, a revolution without a
prospect of success is unjust to the nation, whose common good it
injures rather than promotes. Therefore, your friend could conclude,
gunning down abortionists is unjust, while nonviolent direct
action—rescues, sidewalk counseling, picketing abortionists’ homes—is
just.
But should you participate? Perhaps. More likely, it seems to me, your
unique capacities and opportunities call you to make your contribution
in some other way—for example, working to persuade other nurses to
resist pressures to participate in doing abortions and/or using your
knowledge and professional contacts to help desperate women find a
suitable alternative to abortion.
