Abstract
That prolife and prochoice labels are much too simplistic to accommodate the subtleties of a carefully reasoned argument on abortion is abundantly clear in Theodora Ooms’s approach to the issue. Her focus on the family, with its critique of individualistic elements on both sides of the debate, represents a sane and realistic alternative to the extreme positions. Moreover, her proposal of the family as mediator between individual and social values may be viewed as both radical and conservative in its implications. It is conservative of the root value of the family itself, by which individuals throughout time have sought to develop their unique identities; it is radical in that it challenges that variety of individualism which our culture recommends.
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References
Cf. City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., No. 81–746, as cited in The United States Law Week, Supreme Court Proceedings 51 (4768), Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington, June 14, 1983. What has been popularly labeled squeal legislation by the media is the requirement that minors seeking abortion first obtain parental or judicial consent for abortions. Ooms, however, advocates parental notification rather than consent.
Theodora Ooms, ed., Teenage Pregnancy in a family Context( Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981 ).
Cf. Centers for Disease Control, Abortion Surveillance, 1978, issued November 1980 by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. These figures are applicable only in the United States for the year reported.
See Josiah Royce, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy( Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885 ), p. 201.
Cf. Josiah Royce, The Problem of Christianity, ed. John E. Smith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968 ).
Cf. Susan Phipps-Yonas, “Teenage Pregnancy and Motherhood: A Review of the Literature,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry50, no. 3 (July 1980), pp. 403 – 431.
Cf. 410 United States Reports 113, decided January 22, 1973: “This right of privacy• is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.”
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© 1984 The Hastings Center
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Mahowald, M.B. (1984). Commentary to Chapter 4. In: Callahan, S., Callahan, D. (eds) Abortion. The Hastings Center Series in Ethics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2753-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2753-0_6
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