We should all be grateful to the Rev. Ryan Sliwa of Easthampton for his candid letter to the Gazette describing Catholic teaching on abortion (“Catholic thinking on abortion,” Nov. 23). I would like to follow up by extending his point, most likely in a direction he would disapprove of.
I set aside Fr. Sliwa’s conflation of “Catholic teaching on abortion” and “what Catholics think about the issue.” Survey after survey shows that the attitude of Catholics on this topic is very like that of the American mainstream, i.e. a majority is in favor of legal abortion, at least in most cases. Many Catholic laypeople simply do not accept the teaching of the clergy on this and other questions concerning sexuality and reproduction.
Where I agree is when Fr. Sliwa startlingly but accurately says that church leaders “do not oppose abortion for religious reasons . . . in fact, Catholic claims about abortion — and many other moral questions — are founded on natural law reasoning. Which is to say, a certain philosophical reflection about the way things are and about how the human person cooperates with all things real.” Readers should let that sink in: the Catholic hierarchy condemns abortion not for religious reasons. Indeed, there is not a word about abortion in the New Testament; and if the Hebrew Bible condemns it, that would come as a big surprise to most Jews.
The natural law tradition to which Fr. Sliwa refers is honorable and interesting, but by no means philosophically mandatory. As a retired philosophy professor, I can say with certainty that it is subscribed to by a relatively small minority in my profession. Catholic lay people are clearly under no obligation to adhere to it.
Finally, let me point out a troubling and pernicious fallacy in Fr. Sliwa’s letter, one often encountered in these discussions. He makes much of the fact that we know from science that “human life begins at conception.” I agree. But the implication is that nascent human life, even a fertilized ovum, is a human person, and thus entitled to protection. This is more than most people, myself included, can accept. Particularly so, when accepting it requires that one ignore the rights of the pregnant woman. I hope that Fr. Sliwa and others who agree with him might reconsider their position, and I thank him again for his forthright and helpful letter.
John M. Connolly
Haydenville