Abortion Crisis And The Church By Joe Bissonnette

Worldwide, the abortion debate has heavily controlled society through social, political, and economic turmoil. In the United States, abortion has set itself as a hot topic for an extended period of time. The country’s history has seen a plethora of status changes regarding abortion, whether in support of or not; however, the landmark court case Roe v. Wade of 1973 federally legalized abortion. Despite abortion being legal, it has been debated consistently nonetheless by varying political leaders throughout the fifty years following Roe v. Wade. Ultimately, in June of 2022, the aforementioned landmark decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. This overturning led to new debates with significant focus on older scientific information

Whether for or against abortion, these sides present opposing arguments in their own fashion, which stand significant to the debate on abortion and provide a cause for resolution. Those who hold a pro-life stance on abortion argue that abortion is immoral by stripping the life of a child who will mature, as well as causing negative social change in regards to promiscuity in teens. In Joe Bissonnette’s article, “Abortion: Conscience, Crisis & the Church,” he argues abortion’s role both fetally and parentally: “abortion is a crime with two victims, both the child and mother.their stories have more resonance as a caution against abortion among the young than as a call to healing for those who have had abortions” (20). Additionally, Patrick Lee writes in his journal “The Pro-Life Argument from Substantial Identity: A Defence” that abortion is immoral due to the fetus eventually maturing in time: “As the difference between a six-month old human being and that same human being twenty years later is only one of maturation, the same is true of the human embryo or [fetus] compared to the twenty-year old she matures into”

The argument in favor of abortion is often delivered by emphasizing the lack of scientific consequences in the fetuses terminated by the procedure, while also adding the importance of proper abortion care in medical settings. In Joona Räsänen’s article, “Pro-Life Arguments Against Infanticide and Why They Are Not Convincing,” she argues that abortion signifies no discontent in the fetus by using an analogy of being unknowingly murdered: “if a dog has a winning lottery ticket and someone changes it to a losing ticket then no harm is done, because the dog is already in the position where it cannot value a winning ticket over a losing ticket” (660). Räsänen’s argument serves the purpose of demonstrating the lack of consciousness in a fetus, comparing it to a dog’s lack of conscience to differentiate two outcomes. Scientifically, she asserts that a fetus would feel no harm from an abortion because it has no conscience that it was ever living, and thus, it could never understand positivity in life from