Abortion, Oikonomia and the “Hard cases”
This examination of the issue of abortion, the Orthodox concept of oikonomia and certain individual situations used to support and promote the “right” to an abortion has been undertaken primarily because there is a legally and culturally perceived “right to an abortion” in America.
Fetus removed for mom's health reasons
Young people growing up today cannot remember a time before the Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade in 1973 legalized abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Should Roe be reversed by the High Court, legislative initiatives guaranteeing access to abortion presently exist in many states and at the federal level, strongly suggesting that the procedure has become institutionalized in our present culture and will not be either easily or quickly abolished whatever the efforts made toward that end. For that reason, it is becoming ever more difficult for the Orthodox Church to assert among the Faithful as well as witness outside the Faith to Her doctrines on the sanctity of innocent human life — doctrines which clearly state that no such “right” to an abortion exists in the Church and further, that no one can claim to be an Orthodox Christian while utilizing, promoting, providing, supporting or condoning abortion.
Yet, even with a complete understanding of the Orthodox doctrine on abortion, some consideration must be given to the so-called “hard cases” which, though few in number, present a far more complex situation than that of an abortion performed for social or economic convenience. In point of fact, these “hard cases” are presented as reasons for having or performing an abortion in less than 3% of the 1.5 million abortions performed annually in our nation since 1974. This fact makes them relatively unique instances of pastoral consideration and as such, possible candidates for the application of oikonomia. This small study will, hopefully, provide some information for those with the weighty responsibility of interpreting the Faith and at the same time, comforting and guiding those who have turned to them in their hour of need. It is with the hope that the material herein presented will be of use and in humble recognition of the limitations of the author that this study has been undertaken.
About the term “oikonomia” (economy): This Scripturally-based concept is explained in more detail later in this article. However, for those encountering the term for the first time — and in order, hopefully, to maintain their interest in the subject under discussion — oikonomia is a pastoral function permitting what may or may appear to be the violation of the letter of canon law and/or pious practice without violating the spirit of either. In the West, the concept degenerated into the practice of “dispensation”; that is, a pope, bishop or priest “dispenses” with a particular point of Church law under appropriate (grants “dispensation”) circumstances at the behest of the supplicant. Of course, owing to the fallen nature of all human beings, the same type of thing can happen in the Orthodox Church with the practice of oikonomia (who can forget Jackie Kennedy Onassis‟s “Greek Orthodox” wedding?) but, in its proper understanding, oikonomia is always practiced with the intention of furthering God‟s Plan of Salvation. Thus, a soldier going to war may be permitted to marry during Great Lent when all such festivities are usually forbidden. Likewise, a guest may eat meat on a Friday (a violation of the rules of fasting) in order to avoid the greater fault of offending his host. However, it must be absolutely understood that oikonomia can never permit, excuse or justify the commission of a sin. If a bishop or priest does so, he has exceeded his authority and fallen into sin.
The Definition of the Term “Hard Cases”
In the abortion debate, proponents of the so-called “right to choose” often cite the “hard cases” in defense of their advocacy of abortion on demand. These consist of a pregnancy due to rape or incest and that which threatens the life — sometimes health — of the mother. Pregnancy arising from these unique and extremely emotional situations are used as a platform from which to attack those who support the right to life of the unborn child (pro-lifers).
It is by such ad hominem attacks that abortion advocates encourage the belief among the general public that those who oppose abortion are heartless, judgmental, intolerant and lacking in compassion. Popular wisdom poses the question: who would legally force a woman to bear a child conceived by rape or incest, or condemn a woman to sacrifice her own life or health for the sake of her unborn child? The purpose of this study is not to become involved in the general arguments presented by either side on this issue, but rather to view the debate in light of Orthodox doctrine in general and the concept of oikonomia in particular.
The Position of the Church on Abortion
In order to consider the question properly, it is necessary to review the doctrines of the Church on abortion and then define, as far as possible within this short study, the concept of oikonomia.
The definitive work on the subject of abortion is a small book by Archpriest John Kowalczyk entitled “An Orthodox View of Abortion”1. Fr. Kowalczyk points out that, during the first two centuries of Christianity, the teachings on abortion along with other moral issues were set down primarily in two works, the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) and the Epistle of Barnabas. In the second chapter of the former we find the following proscriptions:2
Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not corrupt boys; do not fornicate; do not steal; do not practice magic; do not go in for sorcery; do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.
The Epistle of Barnabas also gave absolute strictures regarding abortion:3
You shall not slay the child by abortion. You shall not kill that which has already been generated. The forbidding of such acts in writing was necessitated by the influx of pagans into the Faith. These new Christians did not have the Ten Commandments and Mosaic Law as a moral foundation, thus the Church found it essential to clearly prohibit behavior which though abhorrent to the Jews, was acceptable and even common among pagans.
The Fathers on Abortion
The Fathers of the Church also spoke out strongly against abortion. Clement of Alexandria, writing in the third century stated:4
Universal life would proceed according to nature if we would practice continence from the beginning instead of destroying, through immoral and pernicious acts, human beings who are given birth by Divine Providence.
In the fourth century, St. Basil the Great condemned the abortionist as well as the woman:5
Those who give potions for the destruction of the child conceived in the womb are murderers, as are those who take potions which kill the child.
He further reiterated his condemnation of the woman by saying:6
A woman who deliberately destroys a fetus is answerable for murder.
St. Basil also broached the “formed/unformed” concept of fetal development considered in the case of the accidental death of an unborn child as seen in Mosaic Law (Exodus 21:22-24):7
…we do not have a precise distinction between a fetus which has been formed and one which has not yet been formed.
St. Gregory of Nyssa, Basil’s brother and contemporary in the Church, was equally forthright about the protection due to the child in utero from the moment of conception, touching as well on the concept of “ensoulment”:8
There is no question about that which is bred in the uterus, both growing and moving from place to place. It remains, therefore, that we must think that the point of commencement of existence (my emphasis) is one and the same for body and soul.
A precursor to the Fathers’ testimony about the nature of the child from conception — a century before Basil and Gregory — Tertullian in the West addressed the question of at what point the fetus becomes human:9
Abortion is a precipitation of murder, nor does it matter whether or not one takes a life when formed, or drives it away when forming, for he is also a man who is about to be one.
St. John Chrysostom spoke about those who would force a woman to abort in order to hide immoral activity. This Father of the Church was discussing the clients of prostitutes and male adulterers, but he could be speaking to the lovers, husbands and parents of today:10
You do not let a harlot remain a harlot, but make her a murderer as well.
The abortionist Chrysostom considered “…..even worse than a murderer.”11
These teachings of the Fathers from the Golden Age of the Church were handed down through the centuries, eventually becoming part of the Photian Collection adopted in the year 883 as the official ecclesiastical book of law. This uncompromising doctrine has not been in any way changed or diluted but, in fact, has been reiterated down through the centuries by the spiritual leaders of each generation of the Faithful.
The Canons on Abortion
In time, the Church recognized the necessity of including the prohibition of abortion within the written canons along with the specific ecclesiastical penalties attached. The first canonical pronouncement specifically on abortion was that of the regional Council of Elvira, Spain (c.303 A.D.) which imposed a life-long excommunication for the sin. The Eucharist was forbidden to the repentant guilty, even on their deathbed. This penance was relaxed when the Council of Ancyra, (314 A.D.) adopted Canon 21:12
Regarding women who become prostitutes and kill their babies, and who make it their business to concoct abortives, the former rule barred them for life from communion, and they are left without recourse. But, having found a more philanthropic alternative, we have fixed the penalty at ten years, in accordance with the fixed degrees. The final form of the Church’s proscription on abortion came in 691 A.D. with Canon 91 of the Quinisext Ecumenical Council which decreed that people:13
…who furnish drugs for the purpose of procuring abortion, and those who take fetus-killing poisons, they are made subject to the penalty prescribed for murderers.
The Modern Orthodox Church in the United States on Abortion
In keeping with the two thousand year continuity of the Faith, contemporary hierarchs and theologians have been equally outspoken about the doctrines of Orthodoxy with regard to abortion. Archpriest John Meyendorff, theologian and later Dean of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary spoke to New York State’s liberal abortion laws in 1972, 1,281 years after the Quinisext Council and one year before Roe vs. Wade:14
The fact that this interruption takes place at an initial stage in the human life process makes, of course, a psychological difference, but does not change the nature of the act of abortion being killing, and as such a very grave sin, because killing is evil….The hundreds of thousands of legal abortions performed in New York hospitals are a case of mass killing.
At the All-American Council of the Orthodox Church in America in 1973, the same year as Roe, Metropolitan Ireney cried out against the legalization and therefore cultural and societal acceptance of abortion in these words:15
The very moral foundations of society are being subjected to doubt, and there is no open objection… …the whole meaning and context of life is being reduced to the seeking of material goals, external success, and the gratification of the senses…..As a horrible symbol of this moral decay I cite the legalization of abortion, this frightening transgression of the most sacred of all Divine Commandments.
In further response to the Court decision, the Metropolitan, in his position as spiritual leader of the Church in America, sent a telegram to President Richard Nixon, which read in part:16
Together we, the Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, in the name of numberless Orthodox Americans, wish to convey to you, Mr. President, our feelings of shock and indignation at the recent ruling of the Supreme Court on the issue of abortion. We urge you to initiate all constitutional procedures necessary to reverse this tragic decision.
In May of the same year, a seminar on the Orthodox approach to contemporary medical ethics held at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, Crestwood, New York, released the following statement:17
…human life begins at the moment of conception and all who hold life sacred and worthy of preservation whenever possible are obliged at all costs to defend the lives of the unborn children regardless of the stage of their embryonic development.
The Twenty-Third Clergy-Laity Congress of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, held in Philadelphia in 1976, issued this statement:18
The Orthodox Church has a definite, formal and intended attitude toward abortion. It condemns all procedures purporting to abort the embryo or fetus, whether by surgical or chemical means. The Orthodox Church brands abortion as murder; that is, as a premeditated termination of the life of a human being….The only time the Orthodox Church will reluctantly acquiesce to abortion is when the preponderance of medical opinion determines that unless the embryo or fetus is aborted, the mother will die. Decisions of the Supreme Court and State legislatures by which abortion, with or without restrictions, is allowed should be viewed by practicing Christians as an affront to their beliefs in the sanctity of life.
In 1985, Metropolitan Theodosius, present leader of the Orthodox Church in America issued a statement in support of Roman Catholic Bishop John McGann’s (Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York) historic “Life March” on the Feast of the Holy Innocents (December 28th). This statement included part of the “Resolution on Human Life” adopted by the Sixth All-American Council in 1980 and said:19
…the willful abortion of children is an act of murder and the sinful character of that act always remains, even when conception has taken place in the most tragic circumstances (my emphasis). To protect the life of the unborn all legal means should be employed, including the adoption of a human life amendment to the United States Constitution. This statement makes specific mention of two of the “hard cases” (rape and incest) and states unequivocally that any child so conceived is entitled to the Christian assessment of the sanctity of life — and hence the protection of that life — in the same way as any child conceived in love and joy. In 1982, Orthodox moral theologian, Fr. Stanley S. Harakas wrote a book entitled “Contemporary Moral Issues Facing the Orthodox Christian.”20 In that book, Fr. Harakas devotes an entire chapter to the question of abortion as viewed within the context of Orthodox doctrine and spirituality. Among other comments made, Fr. Harakas points out:21
Human life is not an unconditional gift from God, but carries with it certain responsibilities. That God considers the taking of an innocent life to be a particularly heinous crime is evident, not only from the Sixth Commandment, but also from the story of Cain and Abel recounted in Genesis 4:1-6. Further, the Incarnation of the Logos has, for all eternity, sanctified all human life, in both its physical and spiritual aspects.
and further:22
…since God is perfect beyond our human comprehension, the process of growing more like God, of “developing our personhood,” is a never ending one for every human being. It begins at conception and continues to the very moment of our physical death. Thus, no human being is a “person” or entirely “human” in the fullest sense, since none of us are exactly like God. Yet, all human beings share the same potential for developing into “persons” whether they be in the womb, at the prime of life, or on their deathbed. The potential for “personhood” of the human fetus is evident not only from the Orthodox concept of psychosomatic unity, but from Scripture.
In discussing the question of the “rights” of the woman and the “personhood” of the fetus, Fr. Harakas goes on to say:23
Orthodoxy rejects such notions (the right of a woman to an abortion) due to the great value attached to life by God, and the fact that life is a gift which no person has the right to take. If we do not have the right to take our own lives, how much more so must it be that we have no right to take the innocent life of the embryo or fetus in the womb?…That the developing person inside the mother‟s womb has a life separate from its mother is evident from the fact that its chromosomal makeup is different from the mother‟s since it is a combination drawn from both mother and father. Further, it is genetically unique; its particular combination of traits and characteristics shall never be repeated.
and further:24
In opposition (to the idea that the unborn child is not „fully human‟), we profess that no human being is ever fully a „person‟, but that all persons have the potential to become „fully human‟, to achieve union with God. Therefore, we cannot declare on the basis of „personhood‟ that the fetus in the womb has less value in the eyes of both God and man than a person born.
When Does Life Begin?
However, Fr. Harakas’ book does bring up another question which is an integral part of the ongoing abortion debate; that is, when does life begin: at conception or at implantation; at “viability” (the age at which the child may survive outside the womb) or at birth; when the heart begins to beat (approximately twenty-four days of gestation) or at the earliest date fetal brain waves can be measured (approximately six weeks)?
For most serious scholars, the choice would appear to be between the moment of conception and the moment of implantation which occurs several days after conception. Even the most staunch supporters of abortion recognize that the child in utero is most assuredly alive and possessing of all organs in a functioning condition at two months after conception (eight weeks) which is considerably earlier than the earliest presently known time of viability ex-utero (twenty weeks). And certainly, birth is hardly a creditable time frame as that may successfully occur from twenty weeks on, the child being just as “human” at each stage of the pregnancy.
The statement of Fr. Harakas which makes this of primary interest in this study is one which concerns the two “hard cases” of rape and incest. On that subject, Fr. Harakas has said:25
In cases of rape or incest, due to the unnatural and often violent character of these crimes, as well as the danger of disease, it is urged that medical procedures take place as soon as possible to flush out the sperm before fertilization or implantation (my emphasis) can occur. Young women should be instructed that such action take place immediately (no later than three days after impregnation [my emphasis]) But once implantation (my emphasis) occurs, the pregnant woman should carry the child to term, and the alternative of adoption should be approached in a spirit of Christian love.
Clearly Fr. Harakas is speaking at least in part, of preventing the sperm from reaching the ovum. Naturally, the flushing of sperm to prevent conception is valid both medically and theologically. In the case of incest however, none of these well meant nostrums are applicable unless the incestuous relationship consists of a one time “rape.” Clinically, incest is most often an ongoing, long lasting sexual liaison and therefore does not produce the one-of-a-kind encounter to which Fr. Harakas’ prescription is addressed. It may also be noted that in pregnancies resulting from either rape or incest, the victims often go through a denial process until the pregnancy is far advanced thus further rendering such nostrums ineffectual.
The Reality of Conception
Pro-Life rally
When he mentions implantation, however, Fr. Harakas is now speaking of something which is already conceived and growing as it travels down the fallopian tube to the uterus. For a better understanding, it is necessary to know something about both conception and implantation — what they are and what part they play in the developing child. In their book, From Conception to Birth, The Drama of Life’s Beginnings, Roberts Rugh and Dr. Landrum B. Shettles give a brief overview of the miracle of conception and its immediate aftermath:26
The sperm cell has an average life of about 48 hours inside the female tract. If it has not found and fertilized an ovum by then, it will die… …the unfertilized ovum lives for about 12 to 24 hours.
When the armada of spermatozoa, after battling through a murderous obstacle course at a speed of one inch in 20 minutes, finally arrives in the vicinity of the ovum, only about 2,000 of the original hundreds of millions remain in the running. The nose-cone-like cap (the acrosome) of each sperm produces an enzyme called hyaluronidase, which digests the protective cumulous cells in its path around the ovum. Now the finalists in the race confront the zona pellucida, the clear, gelatinous, but firm cover of the ovum. A mature spermatozoon bores with some effort through the zona pellucida, apparently with the cooperation of the ovum, and finally it pierces the cell membrane itself at any point on the surface. As soon as this occurs the ovum rejects all other spermatozoa, although many may try to attach themselves to the zona pellucida.
In the process of penetrating the ovum the successful spermatozoon loses it acrosomal cap. Once inside, it loses its tail as well, leaving just the sperm head, which is basically a nucleus containing 23 chromosomes. Only a mature spermatozoon can stimulate the otherwise dormant ovum. Now there begins a complicated process known as development, which never really ceases until the death of the individual many years later. The protoplasmic content of the ovum begins to vibrate. If you could examine such an ovum alive under very high magnification, you might describe the activity of its cytoplasm as relatively violent, only everything would be taking place on a drawn-out time scale, like an exaggerated slow-motion picture……The remaining nuclear material (of the ovum), the pronucleus, containing 23 chromosomes (half the normal complement, because a previous division had taken place within the ovary), then moves slowly toward the center of the ovum. There it meets the pronucleus of the sperm, which also contains 23 chromosomes. The two pronuclei become enlarged and lose their enclosing membranes. Within 12 hours they merge, so that the fertilized ovum, now called a zygote, has its requisite 23 pairs of chromosomes (one member of each pair from each parent) restored and is ready to develop into a baby.
Little in biology is more thrilling to watch or more significant in its implications than the first division of the zygote into two equal parts by the process known as cleavage. It is through this process that a single fertilized ovum will give rise to the more than trillions of cells of the newborn baby……Every daughter cell is therefore identical in chromosomal make-up, and hence in hereditary potential, to the original zygote. Thus each cell of the developing baby, right from the beginning, contains an equal number of chromosomes from each of the parents, and it is these chromosomes that carry the all-important hereditary units known as genes.
The first cleavage of the zygote takes about 36 hours, but each succeeding division takes slightly less time. Finally the proliferation levels off to a fairly constant rate. The second cleavage is completed by 2 days after conception. By the end of 3 days there are 16 to 32 cells, and by 4 days there may be 60 to 70 cells…..In a few days there are enough cells to form a sphere called a morula, which looks like a mulberry encased in a transparent envelope called the zona pellucida.
The cells of the morula are functionally integrated. They have already lost some of their independence, and if one cell were separated from the cluster it could no longer give rise to a separate individual. As the number of cells increases, the morula moves away from the site at which the original ovum was fertilized, down through the ciliated oviduct, and, on about the third day, through a narrow opening into the uterine cavity, where there is more room. (At this age, if the embryo were examined under a special microscope, the prospective sex could already be ascertained.) This is where the embryo (and later the fetus) will grow and develop for the next nine months. Here then, in the simplest of terms and the briefest of descriptions, is the marvel of conception and all that follows including implantation. It is easy to see here that the actual beginning of life must be acknowledged as being at the moment of conception; implantation is simply another step along the path of a life already established. It is not for nothing that the Fathers speak only of conception although they knew nothing of intra-uterine life and therefore of implantation. Without microscopes or modern technology, they knew by the Grace of the Holy Spirit that life begins at that miraculous moment when the sperm pierces the egg. St. Basil the Great spoke to the issue of the protection offered by the Church to the unborn child during the different stages of pregnancy and here his statement is reiterated:27 ..we do not have a precise distinction between a fetus which has been formed and one which has not yet been formed.
It is also interesting to note that in the scientific and medical communities, even those who support abortion acknowledge the fact that human life begins at conception. In the journal California Medicine, this editorial which appeared fully three years before Roe vs. Wade was intended to justify the spurious “debate” about the beginning of life then being waged in scientific, medical and political circles:28
The process of eroding the old ethic and substituting the new has already begun. It may be seen most clearly in changing attitudes toward human abortion. In defiance of the long held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition or status, abortion is becoming accepted by society as moral, right and even necessary. It is worth noting that this shift in pubic attitude has affected the churches, the laws and public policy rather than the reverse. Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or extra-uterine until death (my emphasis). The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not often put forth under socially impeccable auspices. It is suggested that this schizophrenic sort of subterfuge is necessary because while a new ethic is being accepted the old one has not yet been rejected.
The “old ethic” which the editors so loftily dismiss is, of course, the Biblical (Christian) Ethic and the “new ethic” is the utilitarian philosophy of Atheistic Secular Humanism. This editorial was written over nineteen years ago and in that time things have gotten worse as Humanism asserts its dominance over every aspect of American and Western culture.
The New Battlefield
The danger in setting the period between conception and implantation as an acceptable time to destroy the already conceived child is that it is both arbitrary and artificial without any real medical, scientific or theological meaning. It has instead the meaning each individual involved cares to give it. Therefore, while one person may speak scrupulously and compassionately only about cases of rape and incest, the less scrupulous will use this “dispensation” — not oikonomia — to cover every “traumatic” pregnancy. And, by accepting for whatever “good” reason the legitimacy of the termination of pregnancy after conception, there is no way to intellectually or theologically forbid the taking of that life at a later stage for reasons which may be less “good.” Like the proverbial hole in the dike which begins as a trickle but leads to a flood, such exceptions inevitably lead back to abortion on demand and the death of 1.5 million unborn children annually.
Although the possibility of the interruption of pregnancy between conception and implantation as a mass means of abortion seemed unlikely just a short time ago because of among other reasons the need for surgical intervention, the development and planned marketing of the abortifacient “birth control,” Norplant — whose purpose is to not only prevent conception but to also prevent the implantation of the fertilized ovum when conception has taken place — now makes the period between conception and implantation a new battlefield in the abortion war. Of course, the ubiquitous “low-dose” birth-control pill may also act as a chemical abortifacient and the common IUD (intra-uterine device) does so as well.
CONTINUED
