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The Sacrament of Abortion
Issues of life and death, love and responsibility are at the core of every religion. That is why the English translation of this book was originally published with the title "The Sacrament of Abortion," as it shows that the decision to abort may also spring from a religious feeling that it is the "right" thing to do, both physically and spiritually. As Ginette Paris writes, "Abortion is about love, life, and death." Since its original publication, the book has ben widely used in abortion clinics in Canada and in France and has even been given by some doctors to each and every women who had the procedure, along with pain killers.
113 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1992
45 people want to read
About the author
Ginette Paris
29 books26 followersGinette Paris Ph.D. is a psychologist, therapist and author of many books, including Wisdom of the Psyche: Depth Psychology after Neuroscience (Routledge 2007). She was trained as a psychologist in Montréal, Canada where she was a tenured professor in the Department of Communication of the U. of Québec in Montréal for 15 years. In 1995 she became a permanent US resident and a core faculty at the Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara. Her books have been translated in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish. Her lectures and workshops, in the US, Canada and Europe, are usually done in collaboration with Pacifica's Public Events, or through The Foundation for Mythological Studies. Dr. Paris is a Honorary Member of the C.G. Jung Society of Montreal and serves on the editiorial board of Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 9, 2021
Ginette Paris has offered one of the worst defenses of the abortion issue you can find in print. It's worse than Katha Pollitt's recent book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights. If you want a good defense of the pro-choice position, the very best you can find is David Boonin's A Defense of Abortion. Save yourself the money and don't buy this book.
Now, I'm pro-life, so I do disagree with the pro-choice position. But the reason why Boonin's book stands far above and beyond this book (and Pollitt's book) is because it not only presents a rational argument for the pro-choice position (contra this book), but he also engages with pro-life arguments and responds to them. That's rare in the pro-choice literature, as authors tend to ignore the pro-life argument altogether, simply assuming the case for the pro-life position fails, then giving their own defense of the abortion issue, usually with irrelevant arguments. This book is standard pro-choice fare, ignoring the pro-life argument and giving a religious argument for why abortion is necessary: it should be viewed as a form of human sacrifice to the goddess Artemis (a goddess she doesn't seem to believe in, so one might reasonably ask: why should we offer human sacrifices to a god who doesn't exist?). On top of the sophistry you'll find in this book are blatant falsehoods about Christianity, and unsurprisingly, very few of her claims are supported by any sources (since most of her claims are flat-out false).
Paris is hostile to Christianity. That's understandable if she's not a Christian, but she merely assumes Christianity is false, she doesn't argue for it. Why should we accept human sacrifices to Artemis if you're not willing to argue for the falsehood of Christianity? For that matter, if you're not willing to give an argument for the reality of Artemis, why should we allow human sacrifice in the form of abortions to this false goddess? Now, granted non-Christians believe the existence of Yahweh to be false. But Christianity has one major advantage over pagan religions: There has been 2,000 years of Christian intellectual history defending the existence of the Christian god. If you want to claim God doesn't exist, you have to contend with at least 30 compelling arguments for God's existence (just a few examples: Aquinas' Five Ways, the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument, the Kalam Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Argument, the Axiological (Moral) Argument, the Modal Ontological Argument, the Transcendental Argument, the Argument from Desire, etc.).
Let's look at just some of the claims she gets blatantly wrong (and as would be expected, she doesn't bother to source):
On page four of Paris' book, she claims that since Christianity strips nature of its sacredness and places it in God (whose realm is not of this world), this is dangerous for trees, animals, oceans, forests, etc. But this is a mistake: while there are Christians who may take the view that she expounds, the proper understanding of nature given Christianity is that God has created the world and us in it. He has also given us the responsibility to be stewards of his creation (after all, he put Adam and Eve in charge of tending the Garden of Eden). A proper understanding of nature is that God created it and has made us stewards over it. Therefore we should be good stewards and take care of that which God has created.
While it is true that humans have always sought methods of contraception and abortion, Paris claims that Christians, alone, during the Middle Ages brought hostility toward midwives by the Church on page 10 of her book. Now, I don't know if this is true as she didn't care to source her claim. However, what I *do* know is true is that Christians have never shied away from scientific advancement. In fact, during the Middle Ages science was flourishing thanks to Christians (for more on this, see: The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution by James Hannam). In fact, even though they believed in a God who can heal miraculously, Christians have always understood that God largely works through his people. So Christians built the first hospitals (as well as the first universities). Christianity has always been on the forefront of intellectual pursuits, so while there may have been the occasional Christian who thought this way, it seems quite unthinkable to assert that this was the view of Christianity, as a whole.
On page 21, Paris repeats the oft-made claim that the Christian Churches don't care about mothers, the tensions in local communities, etc. This, of course, is a bogus claim considering that while they are pro-life, they are also the largest charitable organization in the world Christians are responsible for liberating women and minorities. Christian missionaries ended the practice of foot binding in China, Christians were responsible for ending the slave trade in England and the United States, etc. There will always be people who misuse religion (specifically Christianity). But you can't judge a religion by its abuses.
These are just a few of the claims that she gets blatantly wrong. To respond to all of them would take another book, in itself.
She does make the claim that there would be a certain point in pregnancy at which it would be wrong to make a human sacrifice for the woman, but she doesn't really make any statement as to when this would be. To say nothing of the fact that she can't make this argument. If it is okay to make a human sacrifice for the mother's benefit, then it seems that it shouldn't have an age limit to it. If you place an age limit on when the woman can make this human sacrifice, then you have to contend with the question of what makes fetus X permissible to kill by not fetus Y (at whatever arbitrary age limit you set).
On page 25, she seems to set out her main contention (though she doesn't spend much, if any, time justifying it): A fetus suffers less by having its life cut short than adults do (e.g. by wars and disease). After all, she states, a fetus is no bigger than a raisin and is less conscious than a chicken. Plus, by making it legal to wage war but illegal to have an abortion, society has placed the "right to kill" in the hands of men, not women.
Now obviously these are poor arguments for abortion. For one thing, it denotes the fact that Paris probably hasn't spent any time in philosophical reflection over the act of killing -- not all acts of killing are equal. Even in times of war, there is a difference between a just war and an unjust war. If a war is unjust, then no one -- man or woman -- has the moral right to wage it. If she wants to argue for the moral rightness of abortion, she has to give an argument that abortion is a moral act of killing. No such argument is forthcoming.
Additionally, saying a fetus is "no bigger than a raisin" is misleading, since by the time of the fetus stage (after two months' gestation), the fetus is still tiny, but it grows substantially. Women have abortions during all months of pregnancy, though the numbers decrease as it gets later in pregnancy. Most abortions are done when the fetus is larger than a raisin. But as Stephen Schwartz asks in his book The Moral Question of Abortion, why does size matter? Why is size relevant in the question of whether or not it's permissible to kill you? The fact is, it isn't. Even more, while I was asleep last night, I was less conscious than a chicken. So if Paris' argument succeeds, that means it was permissible to kill me last night while I was asleep. But this is clearly absurd. Your personhood is not grounded in your presently exercisable capacities -- it is grounded in your inherent capacities which flows from your nature as a rational agent.
It's clear that Paris has not done the work of properly arguing for her position. There is massive evidence that the Christian god exists, and no evidence that Artemis exists. Nor does Paris present any or even seem to believe in Artemis. Yet she would have us accept abortion as an act of human sacrifice to a goddess who doesn't exist as a symbol of female fertility. This is clearly a barbaric idea, one that even pro-choice people of good faith should reject.
Now, I'm pro-life, so I do disagree with the pro-choice position. But the reason why Boonin's book stands far above and beyond this book (and Pollitt's book) is because it not only presents a rational argument for the pro-choice position (contra this book), but he also engages with pro-life arguments and responds to them. That's rare in the pro-choice literature, as authors tend to ignore the pro-life argument altogether, simply assuming the case for the pro-life position fails, then giving their own defense of the abortion issue, usually with irrelevant arguments. This book is standard pro-choice fare, ignoring the pro-life argument and giving a religious argument for why abortion is necessary: it should be viewed as a form of human sacrifice to the goddess Artemis (a goddess she doesn't seem to believe in, so one might reasonably ask: why should we offer human sacrifices to a god who doesn't exist?). On top of the sophistry you'll find in this book are blatant falsehoods about Christianity, and unsurprisingly, very few of her claims are supported by any sources (since most of her claims are flat-out false).
Paris is hostile to Christianity. That's understandable if she's not a Christian, but she merely assumes Christianity is false, she doesn't argue for it. Why should we accept human sacrifices to Artemis if you're not willing to argue for the falsehood of Christianity? For that matter, if you're not willing to give an argument for the reality of Artemis, why should we allow human sacrifice in the form of abortions to this false goddess? Now, granted non-Christians believe the existence of Yahweh to be false. But Christianity has one major advantage over pagan religions: There has been 2,000 years of Christian intellectual history defending the existence of the Christian god. If you want to claim God doesn't exist, you have to contend with at least 30 compelling arguments for God's existence (just a few examples: Aquinas' Five Ways, the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument, the Kalam Cosmological Argument, the Teleological Argument, the Axiological (Moral) Argument, the Modal Ontological Argument, the Transcendental Argument, the Argument from Desire, etc.).
Let's look at just some of the claims she gets blatantly wrong (and as would be expected, she doesn't bother to source):
On page four of Paris' book, she claims that since Christianity strips nature of its sacredness and places it in God (whose realm is not of this world), this is dangerous for trees, animals, oceans, forests, etc. But this is a mistake: while there are Christians who may take the view that she expounds, the proper understanding of nature given Christianity is that God has created the world and us in it. He has also given us the responsibility to be stewards of his creation (after all, he put Adam and Eve in charge of tending the Garden of Eden). A proper understanding of nature is that God created it and has made us stewards over it. Therefore we should be good stewards and take care of that which God has created.
While it is true that humans have always sought methods of contraception and abortion, Paris claims that Christians, alone, during the Middle Ages brought hostility toward midwives by the Church on page 10 of her book. Now, I don't know if this is true as she didn't care to source her claim. However, what I *do* know is true is that Christians have never shied away from scientific advancement. In fact, during the Middle Ages science was flourishing thanks to Christians (for more on this, see: The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution by James Hannam). In fact, even though they believed in a God who can heal miraculously, Christians have always understood that God largely works through his people. So Christians built the first hospitals (as well as the first universities). Christianity has always been on the forefront of intellectual pursuits, so while there may have been the occasional Christian who thought this way, it seems quite unthinkable to assert that this was the view of Christianity, as a whole.
On page 21, Paris repeats the oft-made claim that the Christian Churches don't care about mothers, the tensions in local communities, etc. This, of course, is a bogus claim considering that while they are pro-life, they are also the largest charitable organization in the world Christians are responsible for liberating women and minorities. Christian missionaries ended the practice of foot binding in China, Christians were responsible for ending the slave trade in England and the United States, etc. There will always be people who misuse religion (specifically Christianity). But you can't judge a religion by its abuses.
These are just a few of the claims that she gets blatantly wrong. To respond to all of them would take another book, in itself.
She does make the claim that there would be a certain point in pregnancy at which it would be wrong to make a human sacrifice for the woman, but she doesn't really make any statement as to when this would be. To say nothing of the fact that she can't make this argument. If it is okay to make a human sacrifice for the mother's benefit, then it seems that it shouldn't have an age limit to it. If you place an age limit on when the woman can make this human sacrifice, then you have to contend with the question of what makes fetus X permissible to kill by not fetus Y (at whatever arbitrary age limit you set).
On page 25, she seems to set out her main contention (though she doesn't spend much, if any, time justifying it): A fetus suffers less by having its life cut short than adults do (e.g. by wars and disease). After all, she states, a fetus is no bigger than a raisin and is less conscious than a chicken. Plus, by making it legal to wage war but illegal to have an abortion, society has placed the "right to kill" in the hands of men, not women.
Now obviously these are poor arguments for abortion. For one thing, it denotes the fact that Paris probably hasn't spent any time in philosophical reflection over the act of killing -- not all acts of killing are equal. Even in times of war, there is a difference between a just war and an unjust war. If a war is unjust, then no one -- man or woman -- has the moral right to wage it. If she wants to argue for the moral rightness of abortion, she has to give an argument that abortion is a moral act of killing. No such argument is forthcoming.
Additionally, saying a fetus is "no bigger than a raisin" is misleading, since by the time of the fetus stage (after two months' gestation), the fetus is still tiny, but it grows substantially. Women have abortions during all months of pregnancy, though the numbers decrease as it gets later in pregnancy. Most abortions are done when the fetus is larger than a raisin. But as Stephen Schwartz asks in his book The Moral Question of Abortion, why does size matter? Why is size relevant in the question of whether or not it's permissible to kill you? The fact is, it isn't. Even more, while I was asleep last night, I was less conscious than a chicken. So if Paris' argument succeeds, that means it was permissible to kill me last night while I was asleep. But this is clearly absurd. Your personhood is not grounded in your presently exercisable capacities -- it is grounded in your inherent capacities which flows from your nature as a rational agent.
It's clear that Paris has not done the work of properly arguing for her position. There is massive evidence that the Christian god exists, and no evidence that Artemis exists. Nor does Paris present any or even seem to believe in Artemis. Yet she would have us accept abortion as an act of human sacrifice to a goddess who doesn't exist as a symbol of female fertility. This is clearly a barbaric idea, one that even pro-choice people of good faith should reject.
March 21, 2016
Paris' main argument is a little shocking. Abortion, though killing, is acceptable and should be done as a sacrifice to the goddess Artemis (seen more as a symbol than an actual diety),She argues that men have always had the power to kill, through war and aggression. and if we want equality, women must also be able to kill, though abortion. I agree with her criticism of Christianity as a belief system that doesn't reflect woman's experiences or live up to its professed ideals and found myself nodding as she talked about the difference between masculine and feminine spirituality. It seems that we have similar worldviews, yet have come to diametrically opposed positions. She wants to create her own purely feminine, goddess based spirituality that allows for murder and make the sexes equal by giving them the power to take life. I wish to restrict killing both through war and abortion and emphasize the nurturing and compassion associated with the feminine. Remaking a new feminine spirituality is beyond my capabilities, but I do acknowledge its absence. But rather then lowering women to men's level by promoting killing through abortion, I would rather raise men to the feminine level by preventing war and promoting nonviolence.
I "got" a lot of what Paris was saying, but I disagree with her conclusions. I had to give this three stars for her exposition of her world view but I did not find her conclusions to be ethical.
I "got" a lot of what Paris was saying, but I disagree with her conclusions. I had to give this three stars for her exposition of her world view but I did not find her conclusions to be ethical.
January 13, 2011
The short version is I liked it and wish the argument were far more common, less taboo, and easier to find. It would blow open the abortion debate in this country. I'd like to hear it fleshed out more, I'd like more statistics/evidence, and for me I'd like to find a secular rather than pagan basis--she spends some time battling Christianity with paganism, but I'm no more pagan than I am Christian. But it's a quick easy read and totally worth it. There should be more like it.
February 17, 2018
This book is five-star evil.
"I'm a pagan and my sense of what's moral isn't the same as Christian morality." p 62. (you got that right)
"Abortion is a sacrifice to Artemis. Abortion as a sacrament - for the gift of life to remain pure." p 107
This book reads like an un-edited stream of conciousness: it presents a bloody picture of abortion as ritual sacrifice, without any effort to edit for accuracy or coherence.
There are glimpses of truth throughout. She notes the barbarity of slavery and of prisons. On pg 60 she elaborates at length on the plight of communities without daddies.
But, contradictory, she explicitly castigates patriarchy on nearly every page. So which is it? Is society better or worse without a father at home?
Another meta-contradiction: she paints a picture of abortion as normal and healthy time of celebration....and gives equal time to the necessity of priests and priestesses to grant absolution.
Some moments are laughable. Ginette asserts that the moment a baby's head passes through the cervix, the mother becomes Artemisian - the ever-virgin with powerful thighs. HA! p. 85.
Perhaps the biggest laugh of all was the repeated use of the expression "reproductive power" on pp. 90 and 91 to describe abortion. (You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.)
Ginette is not shy affirming that a fetus is a living human child and that abortion is an act of love for life. (The expression Lust for Life would have been a bit more eloquent. Perhaps Ginette will revise in a second edition.)
Her comments on mythology and history are quite fascinating; but there is a gross shortage of footnotes, so it is difficult to verify.
Further, Nearly every reference to the Bible is perverted and twisted beyond imagination; either Ginette is lying, or she is an ignoramus. (The twisting of Abraham and Issac on pg 37 is typical.) Either way, her scholarship is proven to be a zero and the entire book is thrown into question.
Read by the un-informed at face value, this little book is a horror show of revived paganism.
The only consolation is this is an advertisement for Cannanites to kill Cannanites. Let the dead bury their dead. Or suck them down the sink, as the case may be.
"I'm a pagan and my sense of what's moral isn't the same as Christian morality." p 62. (you got that right)
"Abortion is a sacrifice to Artemis. Abortion as a sacrament - for the gift of life to remain pure." p 107
This book reads like an un-edited stream of conciousness: it presents a bloody picture of abortion as ritual sacrifice, without any effort to edit for accuracy or coherence.
There are glimpses of truth throughout. She notes the barbarity of slavery and of prisons. On pg 60 she elaborates at length on the plight of communities without daddies.
But, contradictory, she explicitly castigates patriarchy on nearly every page. So which is it? Is society better or worse without a father at home?
Another meta-contradiction: she paints a picture of abortion as normal and healthy time of celebration....and gives equal time to the necessity of priests and priestesses to grant absolution.
Some moments are laughable. Ginette asserts that the moment a baby's head passes through the cervix, the mother becomes Artemisian - the ever-virgin with powerful thighs. HA! p. 85.
Perhaps the biggest laugh of all was the repeated use of the expression "reproductive power" on pp. 90 and 91 to describe abortion. (You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.)
Ginette is not shy affirming that a fetus is a living human child and that abortion is an act of love for life. (The expression Lust for Life would have been a bit more eloquent. Perhaps Ginette will revise in a second edition.)
Her comments on mythology and history are quite fascinating; but there is a gross shortage of footnotes, so it is difficult to verify.
Further, Nearly every reference to the Bible is perverted and twisted beyond imagination; either Ginette is lying, or she is an ignoramus. (The twisting of Abraham and Issac on pg 37 is typical.) Either way, her scholarship is proven to be a zero and the entire book is thrown into question.
Read by the un-informed at face value, this little book is a horror show of revived paganism.
The only consolation is this is an advertisement for Cannanites to kill Cannanites. Let the dead bury their dead. Or suck them down the sink, as the case may be.
July 15, 2017
Nobody likes abortion but it should definitely be a woman's choice. Abortion has been around since the beginning of time and will be around until the end and it should be safe and legal. End of story.
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