First Issue of the Human Life Review
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the HUMAN/'~ LIFE- REVIEW" , , WINTER, 1975 , / Featured in thi~ issue: ' , SenatoJ;' James L. Buckley on. A'Human Life Amendment '\ , "-- Dr.,Andre E. Hellt~gers on . o • .; Abortion and Birth Control 'P~of. John T. Noonan on ...A New Constitutional Amendment Ppof. John Hart Ely on. ... .'. The Supreme Court Decisions \ Rabbilmmariuel Jakobovits on .•.The Jewish View " , / / M. J. Sobran On . <) .. .. .. \Rhetoricand Cultural \I ,War' ) Published by: , , , The Human Life 'Foundation, Inc.~ Vol. I, No.1' I I I I,' I I ./ \ " ,/ I \\ I~, t. \ \ I / I " 1 I ,-\, I , \ I, I f' 'I ' , :'/ I I' , , I ,, < " I' I / '/ ;~ 'I ... ' ,~ I -' ' , ) I " " ; " I r ; I -.~ 'I' / , I, ,I I 'I ! ','I I, I '...:-' I I' t-J) ,I / ,/' / \ - I /1' '\ ', ...: '" ," .(' I -\ , L I .' \ / \ " ......... \1 v I I , i I 1 I ,\ ... ~ ( ir' j , I ) "--' \' I I' / I '~- -I I , < "-.,,- r , '"" ; ,; ,I' , \ -/ .. - I I, , / '7, ''</ II I I < I 1. 'J I; -' ( I , ' ,I (/ \{ I Ii " ,/ I ! 1/ \ \- I \ ' I ,I / i' 'I ,--' / I I , , / , , I / / I.~ ... " .' ( " , ,- I / ( '. / , -r ' --;_ I I \ 'I' , " /~ ~ / I ( ,/ / ~ / 1.1, (, -' , I r_ \ " /I I J !:-.- '.- ... J ~/ - .\ \ I 'I / THE HUMAN LIFE REVIEW WINTER 1975 Introduction 1 A Human Life Amendment Senator James L. Buckley 5 Abortion: "Another Form of Birth Control?" Dr. AndreE. Hellegers 19 Why a Constitutional Amendment? John T. Noonan Jr. 24 The Wages of Crying Wolf . John Hart Ely 44 Jewish Views on Abortion Rabbi Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits 74 Abortion: Rhetoric and Cultural War M.J. Sobran 85 Appendix 99 Editor Publisher J.P. MCFADDEN EDWARD A. CAPANO Editors ROBERT M. DELANEY JOSEPHINE G. LYNCH MARY ELLEN SYNON M.J. SOBRAN Editorial Advisory Board JEFFREY HART JOHN T. NOONAN JR. MICHAEL M. UHLMANN Published by THE HUMAN LIFE FOUNDATION, INC. Editorial Office, Room 540, 150 East 35 St., New York City 10016. The editors will consider all manuscripts submitted, but assume no responsibility for unsolicited material. All editorial and subscription inquiries (and all requests for reprints and permission to reprint) should be sent directly to the editorial office. Single copy price $2.50, postpaid. Bulk prices on request. Vol. I, No.1. © 1975 by THE HUMAN LIFE FOUNDATION, INC. Printed in the U.S.A. · .. about THE HUMAN LIFE REVIEW This review makes no pretense to detail. Its purpose is to inform those already interested in and concerned about the meaning of life, and death. If in so doing we also perform a more general educational service-in teresting those freshly arrived at such questions-we will of course be delighted (and to this end we mean to publish as much source and ex planatory material as possible). But the casual reader may well find much that is implicit, or unexplained to his satisfaction, in what follows; for this we ask his indulgence, and hope that he will be inspired to pursue the answers himself. This first issue is devoted almost entirely to the problem of abortion, which raises very difficult questions, from the highest moral and philo sophical levels down to basic social and even practical considerations. No single publication, much less a single issue of it, can attempt comprehen sive treatment of so vast a subject. Consequently, what we have tried to achieve here is a broad range of material that will provide both general and specific knowledge of what is involved, in the opinion of men who have deeply pondered the matters about which they write. These include a religious leader, a senator, several lawyers and medical men, plus a young journalist of penetrating insight who gives a "layman's" viewpoint. We hope to greatly enlarge our spectrum of contributors in subsequent issues. The articles include several specially written for this review, plus other material already published elsewhere, for while much remains to be said about abortion, much (of great value) that has already been said has re ceived too little notice, and we want to bring a balanced view to the at tention of a wider audience. INTRODUCTION ON JANUARY 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court decided two abortion cases. Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana (who is chairman of the sen ate subcommittee now holding hearings on abortion) gives the following description of the Court's action: "The effect of these two cases was to rule unconstitutional every one of the 50 state laws regulating the practice of abortion. The Court held on a vote of 7 to 2 that, as a matter of law, an unborn child was not a 'person' within the Constitutional definition of that term and that the constitutional 'right to privacy' of a prospective mother barred any government, be it state or federal, from interfering with the absolute right of the woman to terminate her pregnancy up to the time of 'viability,' or the ability of the fetus to exist outside the mother's womb, which the Court arbitrarily defined as occurring only in the last three months of pregnancy." Senator Bayh adds: "The Court's decision came as a shock to many legal scholars ..."* In fact, the Court's action shocked and surprised a great many other Americans as well. Understandably, those who had advocated abortion-on demand were delighted, especially because the Court had gone further than even they had hoped or expected; anti-abortion activists were correspond ingly angered at seeing their efforts-organized almost entirely on state and local levels-frustrated by a single fiat from the federal level. But, as is usual in such emotion-charged issues, both these factions were and re main minorities (however militant and vocal) at opposite ends of the spec trum. The great majority of Americans remain somewhere in between, and perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that the Court (perhaps to its own sur prise) not only failed to settle the abortion issue, but also seems to have caused this great majority to consider it seriously for the first time. Whereas pre-1973 public opinion polls indicated that many were undecided (or just plain didn't know), recent polls show a remarkable upsurge in both interest and definite opinion: last year a Gallup Poll, which asked only whether or not the respondent favored the Court's rulings, found only 9% undecided (and a 47-44% margin in favor of the Court); a later poll by Sindlinger & Company (which specifically asked opinion on abortion) found only some 3% undecided (with a better than three-to-two vote-59.4% to 36.2%-against abortion). We believe that such broad differences and shifts of opinion truly reflect *The above is taken from a speech delivered by Senator Bayh to a "Right to Life" group. The full text of Sen. Bayh's remarks are reprinted. with permission, in Ap pendix A. 3 INTRODUCTION the current situation. In our judgment, the majority of Americans, although now obviously very interested in the abortion issue, both wants to know more about it, and needs to know more if we, as a nation, are to achieve a workable solution to a dilemma that so closely (and often bitterly) divide us. The Human Life Review hopes and intends to contribute as much as possible to the narrowing of this information and education gap. In our lead article, Senator James L. Buckley gives eloquent testimony in behalf of his own beliefs as to what the abortion issue means for all Americans. He does more, we think: for anyone coming upon this contro versy for the first time, he provides a wealth of facts and information, an excellent introduction to the general arguments on both sides. He accom panied his speech (the original text is slightly abridged here) with a num ber of documents submitted for the record. For space reasons, we were un able to reprint them all in this issue, retaining only an editorial from a well known medical journal that, we felt, was vital to the understanding of his arguments (see Appendix B). The full text, along with all the additional material submitted, is available in The Congressional Record for May 31, 1973. In addition, a great wealth of material was developed during the hear ings (still continuing) before Senator Bayh's subcommittee-again, more than we can possibly reprint-which will be published, eventually, in the official record. This testimony was roughly divided into medical, religious (and moral), and legal categories, although naturally the three have tended to overlap and mingle throughout the sessions. Here, we have tried to give some idea of what was said by choosing a) some unusual examples and b) other material that touches upon the same subject matter (but which was presented elsewhere) that should prove more congenial to the general reader. In Appendix C you will find excerpts from the testimony to the subcom mittee given by a New Zealand medical expert, Dr. Albert W. Liley, and in Appendix D, excerpts from the testimony of a world-famous French doctor, Dr. Jerome Lejeune. These excerpts are not only typical of the kind of testimony given, but also serve to remind the American reader that abor tion is by no means a local or parochial concern. On the other hand, we reprint here the full text of a speech given by Dr. Andre Hellegers, a well-known American expert, to a session of the United Nation's world population meeting in Rumania last August. (Dr. Hellegers testified at length before the subcommittee, but we felt that his Bucharest speech, which covers much of the same subject matter, was a more general and succinct summary, and therefore of more immediate value to the reader). The legal testimony (still continuing) was especially detailed and volu minous; here again, the editors believe that we can provide interesting and informative examples via the two articles selected.