Abortion, natural law, and the soul

To fully address the issues we face in this topic, I'm going to start with natural law and then discuss the soul - is it subsistent?  These are discussions that philosophers and theologians have faced throughout history.

While I agree that man has an inner moral compass to depend on and that compass allows mankind to make sound moral decisions, we are at a time when the moral compass of mankind is damaged due to a numbness or blindness to natural law as shown by the willingness of our political leaders and the media to turn a blind eye to the shop of horrors operated by Gosnell.  Through natural law we are aware of what is moral and immoral, but the fact we as a society openly accept and even praise abortion as the foremost right of women without a thought given to the life of the unborn child is a violation of natural law   Why is accepting abortion as a woman's right proof we have lost our ability to recognize and follow natural law?  Women are emotionally designed to be nurturers especially of the life growing within them and through abortion they violently destroy the very life they are supposed to protect.  This is why pregnant women go to extremes to stay healthy so they can protect the child they are carrying and the reason women who smoke or drink on a regular basis quit for the duration of their pregnancy.  It is also why the frothing and unhealthy anger demonstrated when the "pro-choice" ideology is critiqued is another symptom that natural law is being violated. .  A quote from a “Law & Order” episode just came to mind and it is very true: "My daughter was pro-choice until she became pregnant." 

What is the soul and is it subsistent?  The brain cannot be our soul as we are more advanced than the closest primate and we are able to engage in free will unlike other primates although our brains are similar in design.  Something additional enables humans to use intellect and free will instead of instinct for advanced tasks and that something is the soul.  In short, I would respond the soul is multifaceted and spiritual in nature similar to that of angels but different; it is subsistent in that it exists before the formation of the physical body and continues to exist after the death of the body.  The soul, the spiritual part of our being that sets humans apart from other primates, is the defining factor of human worth that grants each individual from the unborn to the mentally handicapped and the elderly person with Alzheimer’s their uniqueness. 

“The soul communicates that existence in which it subsists to the corporeal matter, out of which and the intellectual soul there results unity of existence; so that the existence of the whole composite is also the existence of the soul.  This is not the case with other non-subsistent forms.  For this reason the human soul retains its own existence after the dissolution of the body; whereas it is not so with other forms” Summa Theologica Q76 Art 1, Thomas Aquinas

Without this respect and uniqueness history has shown us that we begin to view certain subsets of humanity as no better than animals and deserving less respect than other humans or even viewing them as not deserving life.  To rely on the brain as the determining factor in determining worth or life quality, we are treading into dangerous territory as this sets aside an entire segment of society as unworthy or unnecessary or at least leaves open the door to do this. Our definition of personhood must be as broad as possible to ensure that all of mankind receives the necessary respect and protection afforded by law.