Faiths of Our Fathers

A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion, by Seattle University philosophy professors Daniel A. Dombrowski and Robert J. Deltete, continues to interest me. It argues that Catholics such as I should be open to a pro-choice position concerning abortion because the church, prior to the seventeenth century, objected to early-stage abortions only because they were said by St. Augustine and others to pervert the only non-sinful use of sex: procreation by married couples.

St. Augustine and, later, St. Thomas Aquinas, held that a fetus could have no truly human soul until the later stages of pregnancy, when it was fully formed.

When scientific inquiry in Europe ramped up during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, scientists at first incorrectly found reason to think the embryo was, contrary to Augustine and Aquinas, fully formed from the moment of conception — just very, very tiny. Ergo, it could have a God-given soul after all, and early-stage abortions were wrong.

Since that time, two key things have happened. The sexual mores of Catholics have changed, and procreation is no longer seen as the only legitimate function of sex. The intensification of conjugal love and even the taking of physical pleasure in the sex act are now seen as legitimate uses of sexuality.

Sex can be appropriate today, many Catholics believe, as long as there is "mutual agapic respect" between consenting adults. Agape, a Greek word for love, is synonymous with Christian love. As long as erotic love is subsumed within agape or Christian love, Dombrowski and Deltete argue, it is not necessarily sinful — even if the adult partners are not married or are of the same sex.

Also, science has rectified its original supposition that the tiniest embryo is a fully formed, potentially soul-bearing "homunculus." We now know (for example) that the ability of the fetus to undergo experiences — e.g., to suffer — begins only when the cerebral cortex has been fully "wired up," which happens no earlier than the 24th week of fetal development. It looks as if Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were right about "delayed hominization" after all.

Dombrowski and Deltete argue that today's liberalized sexual mores and the latest evidence concerning fetal development combine to offer us Catholics a reasonable way to support a woman's "right to choose."


Dombrowski and Deltete go on to argue, in their chapter on "Catholicism and Liberalism," in favor of what they term a "liberal" form of societal governance. To them, "liberal" governance is what makes for political and social "justice," a state of affairs which I think boils down to an active appreciation by all in the society of pluralism. Though we all tend to identify with communities having "relatively comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral views" (see pp. 106ff.), we all are supposed to see that "the only way to have one 'comprehensive' view reign supreme over others is to force it down people's throats ... " (p. 107).

As an example of a "relatively comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral view," take Catholicism. As another, take Evangelical Protestantism. Yet another might be "secular humanism," an outlook of which many atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers are accused by Catholics and Evangelical Protestants. The list of comprehensive views is a long one. Each, according to Dombrowski and Deltete, ought to recognize that the path to mutual pluralistic "justice" runs through the setting aside of one's own party's "reasonable" positions concerning disputed matters, such as abortion rights, in recognition that other "relatively comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral views" can also claim to be reasonable ones.


That wholesale embrace of pluralistic "justice" is a taller order, I think, than Dombrowski and Deltete admit.

I think the reason has to do with human nature. One of the most fundamental aspects of our nature is that we value our communal solidarities so highly.

When Catholics or Evangelicals, or secular humanists, or anyone else, bond into communities, there have to be some meaningful signs given by each member of communal solidarity, which generally amount to the making of some sort of personal sacrifice on behalf of the community.

Not all signs of communal sacrifice need to be in any way illicit. That said, they can be and often are at least quasi-illicit.

Take, for example, the sign of sacrificial solidarity made by a soldier who takes up arms against an enemy. Killing is generally seen as a violation of one of God's commandments — or, for nonbelievers in God, of one of the basic principles of morality and ethics — yet when a soldier kills an enemy combatant, that's not seen as a sin. One reason for the exception is that the soldier's sacrifice of his personal innocence in wartime is an unmistakable sign of his solidarity with the nation as a whole.

Another, more debatable example might be that of a protester against abortions who kills an abortion doctor. As Dr. Susan Wicklund's This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor shows, Wicklund as an abortion provider lived in constant fear of assassination at the hands of true believers who think abortion is murder.

Again, I think killers of abortion providers are sacrificing their personal innocence in order to give an unmistakable sign of their solidarity with other "right-thinking" folks.

Their actions are clearly (a) immoral and (b) irrational. But that's my point. Human nature so values signs of sacrificial solidarity with one's own party or group that considerations of rationality or even basic morality can easily get shunted aside.


We Catholics are far from immune. That's why I think Dombrowski and Deltete's arguments that Catholics ought to reevaluate their positions on abortion fall mostly on deaf ears. Many — dare I say most — Catholics today take it that, even if Dombrowski and Deltete are right from a strictly philosophical point of view, such a view is an intrinsically "deracinated" one.

"Deracinated" is a word Dombrowski and Deltete use often. Stances such as that of Dombrowski and Deltete that Catholic traditionalists and communitarians oppose, the traditionalists and communitarians call "deracinated" ones. To deracinate is to pull something up by its roots. Certain philosophical positions that have been advanced, traditionalists and communitarians complain, tend to pull Catholics right out of the soil of their tradition.

For example, many Catholics feel they are being deracinated by views such as that of Dombrowski and Deltete that make abortion seem less than absolutely wrong.

Consciously or not, such Catholics probably feel that entertaining a pro-choice stance constitutes a break with the faith of their fathers. ("Faith of Our Fathers" is a hymn we Catholics sing often in church. Every community organized around "relatively comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral views" could adopt the same hymn!)

Accordingly, if only as a sign of sacrificial solidarity, many Catholics consent to give up any personal, individual attempt to reason abstractly about the morality of abortion. Their assumption is that the church has done all the abstract reasoning that is required, and it is simply the duty of themselves as Catholics to follow their church's lead and oppose abortion.

Signs of sacrificial solidarity — ways of upholding the "faiths of our fathers" at some (possibly great) personal sacrifice to ourselves — mean so much to us that "deracinating" philosophical arguments like that of Dombrowski and Deltete don't often stand much of a chance.