A supposed right to abortion centers on a woman’s autonomy to determine her life’s course. The first problem with that assumption is the utter disregard for the other life involved, namely, that of the unborn child. The second problem is that of acceding to an autonomy disconnected from objectivity. Freedom is properly ordered to the truth since the longing of the will is a longing for that which truly satisfies it; and what is truth but the correspondence of mind to reality? Pure autonomy, on the other hand - pure self-expression and pure self-determination - is the will turned in on itself, stewing in its own juices.
Before a society can be considered well-ordered, creative, and consonant with human dignity, it must be based on truth. As the Apostle Paul exhorts us: Away with falsehood then; let everyone speak out the truth to his neighbor; membership of the body binds us to one another [Ephesians 4:25]…work for a closer fellowship in the world of spiritual values…These benefits not only influence, but at the same time give aim and scope to all that has bearing on cultural expressions, economic and social institutions, political movements and forms, laws, and all other structures by which society is outwardly established and constantly developed (St. Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, articles 35 & 36).
Laws, then, do not stand in isolation from a society’s moral imagination, but are actually constituent parts of its transformation.
David J. Conrad
Before a society can be considered well-ordered, creative, and consonant with human dignity, it must be based on truth. As the Apostle Paul exhorts us: Away with falsehood then; let everyone speak out the truth to his neighbor; membership of the body binds us to one another [Ephesians 4:25]…work for a closer fellowship in the world of spiritual values…These benefits not only influence, but at the same time give aim and scope to all that has bearing on cultural expressions, economic and social institutions, political movements and forms, laws, and all other structures by which society is outwardly established and constantly developed (St. Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, articles 35 & 36).
Laws, then, do not stand in isolation from a society’s moral imagination, but are actually constituent parts of its transformation.
David J. Conrad
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