The burden of acting morally falls equally on men and women

SIR, In the debate on the eighth amendment the concept of indivisibility may seem at first rather sought and unpromising, but I believe it is in fact very helpful under a number of headings:

1) The indivisibility of life. Nobody begins their development as a human being at six months in the womb, or at three or two months or weeks, or even at one day after conception. Every phase of the development of a human being, within and outside the womb, presupposes and is unthinkable without all that precedes it, right back to conception. It is not possible to draw any notional dividing line in time through this continuum and treat what is on one side of that line as essentially distinct from and capable of disconnection from what is on the other. We are dealing with a single continuous development of human life and to terminate it violently at any stage, no matter how early, is in the normal course of events equivalent in its essential effect to terminating it at any later stage, whether still within or already outside the womb.

2) The indivisibility of respect for innocent human life. I will put it in concrete form: When I am old and infirm and perhaps ill and in the power of others, who do I want in charge of my fate: people who feel free to terminate life within the womb for some benefit of their own or those who, by the respect they show for the life of the pre-natal human being, may be relied on to protect and cherish with undivided sentiments the life of the aged too, no matter how burdensome this may be?

3) The indivisibility of true maternal love. In the normal course of things a mother will naturally cherish all her children equally and not divide them into those who, for some reason that is no fault of theirs, do not suit her and so are rejected and even deprived of further life and those who fit conveniently with her aspirations and so are treated affectionately. If somebody learned that their mother had aborted a potential sibling of theirs for some benefit of her own, might they not well wonder what would have become of them too before birth if they had somehow been felt as a burden to her?

4) The indivisibility of morality. There can be no such thing as a human morality divided into male and female, allowing women to morally carry out acts that, if done by a man, would be immoral. This is certainly the case in matters of life and death. It is, of course, true that in the particular case of pregnancy the woman may be faced with special difficulties (and responsibilities!) – as others may be specially burdened in other circumstances -- but this does not allow her to resort to whatever action she may choose in order to escape those difficulties, though her predicament may later be seen as having mitigating force. What carries moral primacy is the nature of the chosen act itself (see 1 above), certainly not whether the agent is male or female.

I hope these thoughts may be useful, but I have, alas, no great confidence that attempts at principled argument will have much effect in the current discussion. Sincerely, Dr. James N. O’Sullivan, Limetree, New Road, Killarney.