Natural law and abortion

Natural law and abortion concerns what natural law -- first developed by Aristotle and expanded by Thomas Aquinas -- requires concerning the practice of abortion. Many state constitutions, and arguably the U.S. Constitution, incorporates natural law.

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For two thousand years, from the beginning of the Roman Empire, the Christian tradition consistently defended the sanctity of life from conception until death. Historian John T. Noonan writes: “As soon as the Christian community in the Roman Empire became vocal (from the 2nd century on) ... they emphatically and unanimously proclaimed their complete rejection of abortion at any stage of pregnancy. ... Abortion is also condemned by all of the world's great religions, not merely by the Catholic Church or the Christian tradition. Vedic spiritual writings from India that date from about 1000 B.C., Hinduism, conservative and orthodox Judaism, and Islam have all acknowledged abortion as an heinous evil and grave crime. Even Hippocrates, a pagan Greek physician, writes in his famous Oath, “I will give no deadly medicine even if asked, nor suggest to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.”

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Dozens of mostly state court decisions address abortion regulations in the context of natural law. One example is an Ohio appellate court that upheld a challenge against a pro-life law:

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Section 1, Article I, Ohio Constitution, together with Section 2, Article I, Ohio Constitution (together originally contained in Section 1, Article VIII of the 1802 Ohio Constitution), make it quite clear that, under the Ohio Constitution's Bill of Rights, every person has inalienable rights under natural law which cannot be unduly restricted by government, which is formed for the purpose of securing and protecting those rights, and that all governmental power depends upon the consent of the people. Thus, the Ohio constitutional provision is broader in that it appears to recognize so-called "natural law," which is not expressly recognized by the Bill of Rights or any other provision of the United States Constitution, although it is recognized in the Declaration of Independence. In that sense, the Ohio Constitution confers greater rights than are conferred by the United States Constitution, although that Constitution has been construed very broadly so as to maximize the nature of the individual rights guaranteed by it.

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Preterm Cleveland v. Voinovich, 89 Ohio App. 3d 684, 691, 627 N.E.2d 570, 574-75 (1993) (footnote omitted).