Why Abortion is a Product of Skepticism

By Antonio J. Galindo Aleman

Skepticism is a way of looking at the world and its relation to the human mind. Although it is an ancient form of thought, skepticism is alive and well today and influencing in our present times.

It seems that skepticism has most affected the moral life of the human person because it denies the existence of intrinsic good or evil. It makes morality a matter of mere opinion where in the end there is no commonly-held moral law to be followed. In the following essay, we will look into a current moral atrocity, which now seems to be the most “normal” of human activities: namely, abortion. We will see the influential support it receives from skepticism, and finally, we will respond to this form of skepticism to clarify that it is indeed possible to know that abortion is an intrinsic moral evil.

Is Reality Unknowable?

In the last century abortion has become, unfortunately, a very popular thing around the world. “My body, my choice” is the slogan that feminists and other abortion promoters use to justify their crime. It is obvious that this way of thinking is influenced by skepticism. Their main argument is that we cannot know whether what is inside the womb of the woman is a human being or not. Skepticism believes that nothing can actually be known, often misquoting St. Augustine. Therefore – according to this skeptical logic – we are free to do whatever we want with what is in the womb because in the end it is just a piece of matter. At times they even call the child in the womb a “product of conception”.

This is the frivolous argument abortion supporters use to defend their action, pretending that abortion is not an evil action. The logical conclusion of this kind of thinking is that natural law does not exist and that the autonomous individual himself becomes the primary source of morality.

Rejection of Metaphysics

At the root of skepticism is the direct rejection of the possibility of metaphysics: namely, if we cannot know anything, then, we cannot know if we have a transcendent soul and thus, we can do whatever we want with the matter inside of the womb: it simply is not a human person with inherent dignity and the right to life. This kind of skepticism is not absolute because it does not reject knowledge of the material world per se. Thus, it would more properly be called relativism because one’s actions are chosen simply according to how they seem to the individual and not as they really are.

It is important to see this difference because even though science (i.e., genetics, ultrasound technology, etc.) has shown that what is inside the womb is a living thing, there are still some people rejecting even this certain knowledge which affirms that what is inside of the womb is a living thing. Science does not show that what is inside is a human being with dignity and rights – it just shows that it is a living thing. Therefore, if you interrupt the development of this living thing, you are killing a living being.

Not only do we know that there is a living entity in development inside the womb, but we also know how it ends. It ends in becoming a human being. The problem here is how we define human being. Is a human being someone who is capable of reasoning, playing sports, study? This would be to judge a human person according to his capacities and not according to his essence. This is a mistake.

Rather, a human person is an individual substance with a rational nature. In order to assert that this living thing inside the womb is a human being with both dignity and inherent rights, we must first reject skepticism by showing that it is possible to acquire metaphysical knowledge.

Logical Contradictions

Skeptics believe that knowledge of truth is not possible. In the very same statement, they face a contradiction: by asserting that “truth is not possible”, they are saying that it is true that we cannot know the truth. This is an ultimate affirmation. Therefore, they are contradicting themselves showing that it is indeed possible to know the truth.

This is called the principle of non-contradiction, which is a self-evident truth through which we rule our daily life. The principle states that it isn’t possible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time and in the same respect. Likewise, it is impossible to deny knowledge of truth and at the same time to express that statement as a certain truth.

Human Being as Animated

Having seen that, now we can discuss whether the living thing inside the womb is a human being or not. We know that there are things in the world that move, which we call alive or animated beings, and others that do not move, which we call unanimated beings or non-living beings. Somehow, those beings that are alive must have something that makes them to be alive which the non-living beings do not have.

This is what we call the anima, the soul. Aquinas defines the soul as the first principle of life of those things that live, meaning that it is the form of living things. It is not matter that makes things to be living things because if that were so, then all matter would be alive, and we know by experience that this is not true.

Aquinas defines three kinds of souls in the world: the Vegetative, the Sensitive, and the Intellectual. The intellectual soul is only present in human beings. We know that we have a soul by seeing that there is a power or action in man that is totally immaterial and transcends matter. This action is the intellect. As we noted before, we can obtain certain knowledge of the truth through our intellects. The power of the intellect is present in the soul, and this is what makes man the noblest creature in the material world. The intellect is what makes us in the image and likeness of God giving us dignity and rights which we receive from God.

Science Has Spoken

Science has proven that what is inside the womb is a living being, therefore, this being must have a soul. We know also that this soul is an intellectual soul because we know how it can develop into a mature human being. Now, someone may say that it is not a human being yet because it does not have the power of intellect. It is true that the intellectual power is not still developed in the unborn child, but it has potential (which Aquinas calls “potency”) to develop. This means that it is already a human being but not mature. The powers of the soul are limited by matter and we have to wait for the brain to develop in order to be able to use the intellectual powers.

In other words, the intellectual power is there, but the human person cannot use it yet. This, however, does not remove the fact that it is a real person with dignity and rights. If we follow the argument of abortion, we could then feel permission to kill all children as they do not fully use their reason because they are not fully mature human beings. With this we see that a human person is not only not defined by his capabilities but must be defined by the fact that the person possesses an intellectual soul with dignity and inherent rights.