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234  "Right to Life"
      May 18, 1972

     In his letter to Cardinal Cooke of New York, released on May 6,
1972 President Nixon squarely associates himself with "the defenders
of the right to life of the unborn."  I am sure that Mr. Nixon could
not have made such a politically hazardous commitment without a strong
conviction that this is a positive "vote for life."  As such, a
mother's rights to secure an abortion might have to take second place
-- albeit  the community might consider ways of compensating an 
unwilling mother, just as other confiscations of private property for 
social purposes are constitutionally reimbursable.  However, few people
are aware of the full reach of biological implications of asserting
the fetus' rights to life.  The simplest way that I can explore 
these is to assume the posture of advocate for the fertilized egg.  I
will, however, mention only in passing the impact on mere numbers of
population that would follow from giving each egg a birthright.
Likewise,the morality of contraception, of frustrating the elan vital of
every sperm and egg, prior to fertilization, although unsettled in
Cardinal Cooke's hierarchy, presumably falls outside Mr. Nixon's 
intentions in speaking about the rights of the unborn.

     To speak of "murdering the unborn" is an inflammatory accusation
that should be repudiated by the most thoughtful advocates of eggs.
This kind of moral logic would compel putting the lives of mothers at
serious risk in many precarious pregnancies.  Alternatively, many an
obstetrician struggling to save the live of a mother would have to be
cast in the role of a legal executioner, for performing his obvious
duties in difficult circumstances.  The case against abortion does not
require giving the egg an absolute privilege, merely a compelling one
though subordinate to that of a person in being.

     As an egg-advocate I would nevertheless have to invoke a grave
moral indictment against those who ignore the innumerable losses of
fetal life that occur spontaneously in the first third of the period
of pregnancy.  For every hundred recognizable pregnancies, at least 20
will result in a miscarriage or early stillbirth.  Many more fertilized
eggs, but of unknown number, must be lost "down the drain" by
failing to implant successfully in the uterus so as to give recognizable
symptoms of pregnancy.  Understandably, there may be more moral
fervor against positive acts of discard, but why have the defenders of
the right to life of the unborn been totally involuntary silent about
manslaughter of almost a million "lives" a year?  A proportion of
these wasted fetuses could doubtless be rescued by existing techniques
of medical management, of prenatal care, or even just improved maternal
nutrition.  For the most part we would have to think of mounting a
major research program to meet the moral imperative of respecting
fetal rights.  We might then succeed, for example, in devising ways to
recover lost embryos and reimplant them into the uteri of valiant
women who volunteer for the salvage of these unborn lives, an onerous
chore, but morally less burdensome than letting them die.

     In fact, it may be necessary to place an immediate moratorium on
research on the health of embryos, for fear that we might learn how
to let them live.  For this could lead to new moral responsibilities at
a cost we could not endure.  A large proportion of early stillbirths
are genetically defective or have monstrous imbalances of chromosomes.
When such precarious embryos do survive to be born, they pose far
greater hardships on parents and siblings, and on a community that
must share the cost of their upbringing, than were they to be quietly
lost at an earlier stage.  The successful defense of the right to life
of every fetus would result in a hundred-fold increase in our existing
burden of serious congenital malformations and and 10 fold-overall.
And we would be hard put to draw the line between "acceptable" and
"unacceptable" fetuses in a moral framework that confers rights upon
the fetus that countervail over those of the mother. To neglect to do
humanitarian research is also morally accountable, but a further 
multiplication of a sin so easily evaded by studied ignorance will find
easier absolution.  Indeed, since medical knowledge brings us so many
difficult moral problems, why not burn all the books, and the doctors
with them, and leave all questions of human life to our faith in God.
  
     The fact is, we have long since cast off these oversimplified
faiths.  And I cannot maintain the posture of egg-advocate without 
ending up with impossible contradictions, or offending the sensitivities
of the sincere devout.  I believe that many opponents of abortion
could retain their position without imposing it upon others, and 
without invoking an absolute principle of rights of the fetus that, 
carried to its logical conclusion, would seriously harass the lives of
the whole community of responsible human beings.
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