Abortion about ending potential life
In his Nov. 27 letter, Dan Rak takes the position that abortion is murder just the same as a mother is guilty of murder if she kills her child after it has been born. I would view this differently.
My position turns on the concept of potentiality versus actuality. While a fetus is within the womb of a pregnant woman, such a fetus is but a potential human being and not yet an actual independent person alive in this world.
But then once a baby is born and is no longer within the womb of its mother, it has become an actual independent, living person. In my opinion, an abortion does end the future existence of a potential human being, but I do not consider the termination of potentiality to be a murder.
On the other hand, the killing of a baby already born is the ending of the life of an actual living person. and the wilful termination of actuality is indeed murder. Ending potentiality is not as serious an offense as terminating actuality.
Theodore M. Utchen
Wheaton