Khrievotuo Seletsu
Imagine a day when everything above is clear, when we are happy about the solar panel charged, our clothes drying up or our pickle bleaching; and kids playing around on the lawn or a picnic over yonder in the meadows. But we realize that it is not an appropriate day for all the activities that we are doing because it is summer. Then we see the nimbus rolling in across the mountains darkening the valley leaving no opening for the sun to beam below.
Surely, we were in a nauseating situation but we couldn’t do anything since we were on the wrong day and season. In a society (particularly Nagas) where many things are installing themselves into the traditional line in the form of education, technology, fashion, transportation etc. it is excruciating to see the perpetual practice of child abortion. Nagaland is a place where we mourn for days for the dismissal of our near ones, but never for the baby killed in abortion.
Nagas are well supplied with gargantuan updates and information of the modern trendy world, but we don’t see the gaffe that is prevalent inside the society. This clandestine activity (abortion) is an exigent concern that should be discussed immediately or never shall we see the morality of our culture. But talking about abortion, there are different reasons. Some abort because of certain medical reasons, some to cover up their shame, some just to keep the preferred number of children.
There are several scholars and authorities who have discussed on the problem of child abortion. And I believe this is one of the biggest and controversial discourses in the course of moral ethics. Certainly, many have the proclivity to say that it should be legalized or, it is not a sin if seen through scientific terms. And of the opinion by Christian ratiocination it is a sin no matter what.
Is it permissible to abort in desperate conflict situation such as rape and the like? Is the zygote a human being in the sense of possessing a rational soul? When exactly is the rational soul infused into the body? Whom shall we save when both the mother and the baby inside are in danger of death at parturition? Can abortion be allowed if the pregnant mother has pathological conditions? There are opinions and arguments that foetal life does not become individual, personal, human until at least two weeks after the sperm and the egg unite, as such, destruction of that life in desperate cases would not amount to abortion in the moral sense.
From legal and philosophical viewpoint, there are some ways that can make abortion permissible. The Ethical Directives (No. 4) issued by the US bishops stated that: In extra-uterine pregnancy the dangerously affected part of the mother (e.g. cervix, ovary or fallopian tube) may be excised, even though foetal death is foreseen, provided that (i) the affected part is perceived already to be so damaged and dangerously affected as to warrant removal; (ii) the operation is not just a separation of the embryo or foetus from its side within the part (which would be a direct abortion from the uterine appendage); and that (iii) the operation cannot be postponed without notably increasing the danger to the mother.
There are also cases of genetic diseases from a number of different causes. Most are caused by a single-gene defect; some diseases are achondroplastic dwarfism, Huntington’s chorea, sickle-cell anemia, cystic fibrosis and many others. But in the case involving Tay-Sachs disease, Court of Appeals judge Bernard Jefferson ruled that not only the parents but possibly even the physician and laboratory could be sued for negligence in not having aborted the fetus.
In 1591, Pope Gregory XIV explained in his Bull Sedes apostolic that: “where no homicide or no animated foetus is involved, not to punish more strictly than the sacred canons or civil legislation does.” St. Thomas claimed that at the moment of conception, there originated a vegetative organism that would slowly evolve into a sentient organism to become, later on, a rational organism, a real human being. This is interesting and more complicated as against the theories set by the early Christian ethicists because the rational soul is thought to be infused into the body at conception. Thomistic metaphysics accepts the theory of hylomorphism according to which matter and form are the constitutive causes of being. This means that there is a reciprocal causality between matter and form so that the form can be received only into a matter that is capable of receiving it. So, the zygote in the very beginning is not capable of receiving a human form – the rational soul.
From Christian perspective, there are a good number of theologians who feel and ascertain the truth that abortion is a sin no matter what. Traducianism claimed that the human soul was generated along with the body at conception. The theory of pre-existence took the Platonic view that the soul had a premundane existence and joined the body at or after conception. Creationism held that the soul was created by God then and there and infused into the developing embryo. Whatever the sciences plot on the legalization of abortion, whether they say the zygote has got no consciousness or self-awareness, no wonder we would still possess self-awareness if we had fainted or had slept. A person is stages of senility may give no more sign of self-awareness, yet he still possesses the organs required for such activity.
Evidences taken from Genesis 3:5; Psalms 113:9; 127:3 shows that children are a gift from God. Familiarly, Jeremiah’s call should be noted as his was a situation involving the formation and development of the body even before he was born. So is David who was crafted when he was still in his mother’s womb “For Thou didst form my inward parts; Thou didst weave me in my mother’s womb” (Ps. 139:13). Following the verses we see another on verse 16 which says “Thine eyes have seen my unformed substance...” showing that God have made the soul and the body even before the conception of a human being. In reflecting over the sin in his heart, David laments, “surely I have been a sinner from birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Ps. 51:5). Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke, after doing careful exegesis of various passages in the Old Testament came to “the inescapable conclusion that the image of God is already present in the fetus.”
Experts have said that twins can be re-combined, but if we take this theory it is not an empirical statement. Probalism is used only in the doubt of law but never in the case of doubt. In the same way, a zygote concerning this issue i.e. the combination of twins into one can be considered as a case under doubt of fact. The question of life of a fetus is already mentioned in the Bible, like our days are already written, and that life is made alive before conception. The theory whether twins can be re-combined or divided is a theoretical concept and narrow but on the immortality of the soul it is a factual one because it will be verifiable after death.
But leaving aside all the confusions and theoretical imbroglios about abortion, there is still a question that agitates some people. What if a girl had aborted a child without any reasons? And one day the same girl or the father of the child receives redemption from God as He is a forgiving God. On the day the mother and father reach heaven with their salvation and see their own child who was killed from the womb, what attitude shall the mother/father have towards that child? Because the child had a soul back then on earth, and it will be meaningless if we cannot possess any consciousness of our earthly life in heaven (because we are to be rewarded according to our deeds).
