Procreation, Overpopulation and Responsible Parenthood

Abstract

RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD AND OVERPOPULATION 407 PART Two PROCREATION, OVERPOPULATION AND RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD With the conclusion of Part One we completed a study of the goals and values of procreation as contained in the formula, "procreatio ad bonum speciei." In Part Two we leave the order of ends and values and enter the order of moral responsibility . Procreation and the entire sexual life have been shown to be in the service of the species, and of the future of the species, especially by way of education. Is the good of the species simply a service which is rendered, without the conscious cooperation of man? Or is the bonum speciei an end of respon.nble action of a particular married couple? Does the individual man or married couple have any responsibility towards the species in the act of procreation, independently of and prior to any laws which may be enacted to govern this relation? I. RESPONSIBILITY TO THE SPECIES 1. Basis of Responsibility to the Species That the answer to the above question should be in the affirmative is obvious from all that has been said concerning the relations between the individual and the species, especially in the case of man, where the relation is one between a rational individual and the species. The close union existing between the member and the species has a metaphysical basis which has already been explored. This metaphysical basis produces the foundation for the relation of responsibility between the individual and the species considered as a universal notion. Responsibility to the species considered as society is based on an ethical consideration which stems from the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion of "person." 408 WARREN REICH Substance is that which exists in and for itself. The incommunicable individual substance reaches its highest level in its rational form, which is the person. The person is first of all an ontological entity, inasmuch as it possesses a superiOr incommunicability on account of its soul; but even more so is it a psychological and ethical entity, capable of performing free actions and of having rights and duties. Only the person is master of its own actions.1 This freedom of and mastery over one's own actions, opening up onto unlimited possibilities, establishes the value of the individual man. Man is conscious of the fact that his greatest potentialities are not realized in the present moment, but can only be effected through the harmonization of all his powers, which can best be accomplished in union with other men. The corporal and spiritual progress of the individual man is essentially bound up with the community.2 Thus drawn into society, the person must look beyond his self-fulfillment, for he has a natural appetite to seek the good of his species.3 J\1an, being a superior rational creature, has a rational appetite for a broader common good, whereby he is drawn to do good for other members of his species, even those far removed from himself.4 Consequently, the individual person is responsible for attaining a greater good, i.e. the bonum commune, which he is serving. Therefore, the notion of personality implies a relation to one's self and to the surrounding world: the entire material world with its need for work and cultural development, but more especially the world of humans, in which man finds himself responsible to the fellow-members of the species, who also enjoy individual rights. The essential elements of personality include, then, freedom, imperishability, and responsibility for the whole of the world.5 1 Pot. 9, 1 ad 3. 2 I 96, 4 co.; ll-ll109, 3 ad 1; 114, ~ ad 1; III 65, 1 co. 3 C. G. III, ~4. 'Ibid. 5 Josef Pieper, Uber die Gerechtigkeit (Munich: Kosel, 1953), p. ~4, citing C. G. III, 11~. RESPONSIBLE PARENTilOOD AND OVERPOPULATION 409 It should be noted again that when we speak of having a responsibility to the human species, we mean the human species as that concrete unity known as " the human race," as well as a given part thereof, within the framework of a country, state, community, etc., of which the individual man is a member. But it should also be asked whether man...