Pursuant to my brief post on the defeat of M-312, one commenter (David Nickol) observes that the motion was, if I may so paraphrase, ill-considered:
M312 would have set up a committee in parliament to answer the following questions:
(i) what medical evidence exists to demonstrate that a child is or is not a human being before the moment of complete birth,
(ii) is the preponderance of medical evidence consistent with the declaration in Subsection 223(1) that a child is only a human being at the moment of complete birth,
(iii) what are the legal impact and consequences of Subsection 223(1) on the fundamental human rights of a child before the moment of complete birth,
(iv) what are the options available to Parliament in the exercise of its legislative authority in accordance with the Constitution and decisions of the Supreme Court to affirm, amend, or replace Subsection 223(1).
By human being the Canadians seem to mean something more akin to what we would call a human person.
Whether an unborn child at any specific state of development is a human being or a human person is not a medical question. It is a philosophical question, upon which there is no significant hope of reaching a resolution, especially in a legislature. Hundreds of years of legal precedent go against considering an unborn child a human person. To do so has all kinds of unknown ramifications for pregnant women, each of whom will be put in the unique situation of being a human person with another human person inside of her who deserves full protection of the law.
On my view, he is right to question the motion along these lines, which is why I declined to sign a major statement of support for it that was circulated to MPs. Instead, I and a couple of professors from other universities published in the National Post a letter that read as follows:
Canadians have for too long countenanced an indefensible degree of separation between legal convenience and moral reality. The significance of M-312 (the Woodworth motion calling for reconsideration of s. 223 of the Criminal Code) is that it invites Parliament to make amends for that. Though there is much debate philosophically over the essence of personhood, few doubt that the human fetus carries within itself the requisite attributes for personhood. It has nevertheless been tempting not to count the pre-born among those with legal standing, just as it was once convenient not to count slaves or women. With much difficulty we faced our moral failure with respect to the latter and modified the law accordingly. Is it not time we did so for the former also? Or do we so covet legal immunity from the killing of the pre-born that we are prepared to sacrifice all moral consistency?
It will be evident, of course, that I do not agree with Mr Nickol’s conclusion that the motion was “not worth the effort” or even deserving of defeat. For a further articulation of my own view, I refer interested readers to A Chance to Resuscitate Canadian Politics.
September 28th, 2012 | 2:32 pm
That an unborn child is a human being is most certainly a settled medical question in so far as the claims of modern medicine are based on objective science rather than on political correctness. That the unborn child is a human being is attested to by both science and common sense. The fertilized egg is the offspring of humans, therefore it is human. It is growing, therefore it is alive. It is self-evidently innocent. From conception the unborn child is an innocent, living human being.
Right. There is no sure measure of what constitutes a “person.” Corporations are legal “persons” under the law. What does some legal paperwork have that the child in the womb does not?
A legal person can be whatever the law says it is. What makes one a “person” in terms of the law is entirely subjective. We don’t have “soul-o-meters” or “personhood-detectors.” We should make life and death decisions regarding innocent human beings based on what we know with certainty. Even if we didn’t have the certainty that science and common sense provides, those with even the slightest respect for human life would always choose to err on the side of life. Science and common sense tells us that an innocent, living human being is present from conception. So it is a matter of whether or not the modern, atheistic, radically secularized state has even the slightest respect for human life, whether or not it sees itself as the protector of the inalienable rights of humanity — the first of which is the right to life — and, for that matter, whether or not it even acknowledges that humanity possesses inalienable rights.
Obviously, regardless of its status as a legal person, the child in the womb once enjoyed the protection of law in accordance with “the long held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value for every human life regardless of its stage, condition or status.” This was due to the fact that, as Dr. Watts points out, “This ethic has had the blessing of the Judeo-Christian heritage and has been the basis for most of our laws and much of our social policy.” If this wasn’t the case there would have been no need for Roe to strike down existing laws protecting the life of the child in the womb. There is a long tradition of granting the unborn child the protection of law simply because the child is an instance of innocent human life.
Not really. Those ramifications would not be different from the ramifications of the traditional Western ethic that “has been the basis for most of our laws and much of our social policy,” and which acknowledged the “intrinsic worth and equal value of every human life regardless of its stage or condition,” and which was the basis for the laws that once protected the life of the child in the womb regardless of its status as a “legal person.”
Actually, the whole question of whether or not to grant legal personhood to the unborn is bogus. It is difficult to claim anyone is a person persuasively if those to whom your claim is addressed have already decided that the segment of the human family under consideration are not persons, since personhood is entirely subjective. History attests to the fact that those members of the human family who are the victims of the bigotry of the times are often declared to be something less than full “persons” by those in power, such as happened to Blacks in the U.S, and as happened to Jews in Nazi Germany. One would think the bigots would eventually come up with something original, instead of making the worn out, over-used claim that the victims of their bigotry are not “persons.”
Whenever bigotry is sanctioned by law it is eventually seen as a gravely immoral catastrophe of immense proportions. This will one day be the case with the abrupt withdrawal of the protection of law from children in the womb, who are the victims of contemporary bigotry.
It is a matter of our being humans, not “legal persons.” Humanity preceded the state and brought it into existence before there were “legal persons.” The state exists for humanity, not humanity for the state. It is time for humanity as humanity, not as “legal persons,” to knock Caesar off his high horse and put him in his place, reminding him that it is not his to bestow or withdraw the inalienable rights of humanity; it is his only to protect them. That is, of course, because those rights are just that — inalienable — they didn’t come from the state, and the very reason humanity brings the state into being is to protect those rights. Reread the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
September 28th, 2012 | 2:38 pm
It is indisputable that a fetus is a human being right before it is born. That does not suggest in the slightest that non-viable fetuses and embryos are persons, or that fertilized eggs are babies or children.
September 28th, 2012 | 3:42 pm
Generation after generation people have looked to death as a way of improving life. Whether it was the Mayans sacrificing their people, Hitler’s attempt to purify the human race Bashar al- Assad’s killing his own people in an attempt regain a foothold as leader of Syria (to name only a few examples), none of these have ended well. The Mayan civilization collapsed, Hitler was called to account and Assad’s days as a murderer are numbered. I am deeply concerned that we, as Canadians, have no one to call us to account for the terrible crimes committed against the unborn unless people with a moral base rise up to stop abortion. The alternative should be of great concern to all of us.
September 28th, 2012 | 4:40 pm
John, Christians in Syria support Assad, because they will know what will happen to them if Assad is forced out.
Russia supports Assad, because the Russian Orthodox Church actually cares about its fellow Christians, unlike our craven politicians.
Assad is by no means perfect, or even good, but he is miles better than the alternative.
September 28th, 2012 | 5:02 pm
That an unborn child is a human being is most certainly a settled medical question in so far as the claims of modern medicine are based on objective science rather than on political correctness.
harry,
You are engaging in verbal slight of hand, not careful, philosophical reasoning. Let’s take a 2-week old embryo. Is it human? Obviously if it is a human embryo, it’s human. Is it a being? I don’t suppose anyone could deny it’s a being in some sense of the word. So is it a human being? Obviously it is . . . in some sense of the word. But one might also argue that a human sperm is living, is human, and is a being in some sense of the word, so why could we not say a human sperm is a human being? We could, but that doesn’t make it a human person. You are taking advantage of the fact that in everyday English, human being and human person can be used as synonyms. But if we are having a philosophical discussion and being very careful about our terminology, we will give exact meanings to our terms, and we will not use human being and human person to necessarily mean exactly the same thing.
September 28th, 2012 | 5:42 pm
what medical evidence exists to demonstrate that a child is or is not a human being before the moment of complete birth
This would be a very odd charge to give to any group, let alone a group of legislators. Medical evidence is not really an issue. For many (most?) who consider abortion acceptable in early pregnancy, it would not be acceptable in very late pregnancy (at least not unless the mother’s live was seriously threatened). The staunchest pro-life advocates (for example, harry) often seem to make a distinction between early abortion and late abortion, even if they condemn all abortions.
Many who condemn abortion support embryo-destructive stem-cell research and seem not at all troubled by the way fertility clinics operate in America—creating more embryos than necessary and freezing some, most of which will later be destroyed (killed? murdered?). It seems clear to me that most people—including pro-life advocates—see a distinction between a fertilized egg or early embryo, on the one hand, and a fetus at eight months and two weeks.
September 28th, 2012 | 6:37 pm
Hi, David Nickol,
We could if we were ignorant of basic biology. And a sperm can be a legal person, as can a corporation or anything else. As noted legal positivist Hans Kelsen once put it:
Of course, it has been claimed that Kelsen’s ‘Pure Theory of Law’ paved the way for Nazism since it separates law from morals and thereby, it is claimed, dulled the conscience of the German people, leading them to ignore the claims of justice.
But that doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this discussion. What matters here is that a human being has inalienable rights independent of its status as a legal “person.” Those human rights do not come from the state. The inalienable rights to life and liberty are intrinsic to one’s humanity and are not derived from one’s status as a legal person. The state sanctioning the killing of innocent human beings is a violation of its primary and fundamental mission.
September 28th, 2012 | 7:04 pm
maximilian,
how did you arrive at “right before it is born?” and why is that indisputable?
September 29th, 2012 | 3:27 am
I find it disheartening that the only commentators on this topic are of the male persuasion, so I thought I’d add my $0.02
My uterus is a part of my body, and is not subject to legislation. If I want to get an abortion, that is my right. My body, my decision… end of argument. The only people who should get a say in these laws are the people they affect. Women.
September 29th, 2012 | 6:28 am
Maximilian, why do you insist on referring to newly formed human beings as “fertilized eggs”?
September 29th, 2012 | 9:16 am
Tracee, interesting comments. So if a woman commented, giving a prolife perspective, her view would be valid?
September 29th, 2012 | 9:54 am
Everything exists within the context of time, so to fully understand an issue, we have to take time into account. What happens to human life after that life leaves the womb? The life lives and grows, and will continue living and growing until death. If we wish to pretend that life begins at an arbitrary moment some time after conception, we need to be prepared to accept that death can occur at an arbitrary moment sometime before the end of life and growth. Hence the link between abortion and euthanasia. The truth is our best protection. Life begins at conception.
September 29th, 2012 | 12:09 pm
Our bodies are subject to the law. Try explaining to the police that the illegal drugs in your possession were only going to affect your body, so “there is no problem, officer. My body, my decision.” Imagine going downtown and walking down the sidewalk stark naked on Monday morning and then attempting to explain to the arresting officers that “My body is not subject to legislation. My body, my decision.”
Women and the child that gets killed. Abortion is often traumatic to women and is sometimes fatal to them. Often they regret their abortion for the rest of their lives. Abortion is nearly always fatal to the children; they are people affected by the law, so, according to you, they should have a say too. Well, the children aren’t prepared to express themselves yet, so Pro-Lifers do that for them.
It is not without reason that abortion used to be against the law.
September 29th, 2012 | 2:10 pm
Andrew: how did you arrive at “right before it is born?” and why is that indisputable?
At that point, the only difference between a baby and the late-stage fetus is its location. It is identical to a baby. So you can actually speak of an unborn baby – a baby that has not yet been born. An embryo or a fertilized egg is not a baby that has not yet been born. If one removed a fertilized egg, and compared it to a baby, one might notice some differences. Not so with a third trimester fetus.
Bret: Maximilian, why do you insist on referring to newly formed human beings as “fertilized eggs”?
Because I do not share your point of view that a fertilized egg is a newly formed human being, or a child, or a baby. It is odd that you would expect me to use a loaded term that is biased toward your position, rather than even a neutral term. The term fertilized egg is pretty much indisputable, “newly formed human being” is very much disputable.
September 29th, 2012 | 2:57 pm
Here, for context, is part of the Criminal Code of Canada:
For comparison, here is a similar part of New York Penal Law:
It seems to me that (i) and (ii) of M-312 are irrelevant to its intended purpose. As I have argued, there is no new scientific evidence that would have any bearing on whether, say, an unborn child at 8 months and 2 weeks of pregnancy would be considered nonperson whereas a child born after 8 months and 2 weeks of pregnancy would be considered a person. I take M-312, by the way, as an effort to prompt a decision that an unborn child at any stage of pregnancy is a person, not as an effort to prompt a decision at what point (if any) an unborn child is not a person and at what point (if any) it becomes a person.
Section (iii) seems to be begging the question. If it were agreed that there existed “fundamental human rights of a child before the moment of complete birth,” legislators could proceed from their instead of bothering with (i) and (ii).
Here is what seems to me fundamentally flawed with M-312. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I know a little about Canadian law. I know even less about the laws of all the other nations of the world.) It appears to be an attempt to regulate abortions by redefining the unborn as persons. To the best of my knowledge, abortion has never been regulated by declaring an unborn child a human person. In the few countries that have relatively recently gone from lesser to greater abortion restrictions (e.g., El Salvador, Nicaragua, Poland), it has not been done by declaring unborn children to be persons under the law and punishing abortion as homicide. Simply put, this is (as far as I know) a totally novel way of trying to restrict abortion. Lip service is given by the pro-life movement that personhood begins at conception, but previous laws when abortion was criminalized in the United States did not forbid or punish abortion as the killing of a person, and “trigger laws” (ready to go into effect if Roe v Wade is repealed) also do not treat abortion as the killing of a person.
It seems to me that it has always and everywhere been the case that when legal authorities wished to regulate abortion, they specifically regulated abortion rather than making declarations about the moral status of unborn children for the purpose of allowing other, existing laws to come into play in cases of abortion.
As I (and others) have noted before, declaring an unborn child a human person creates a unique situation in which a human person with human rights is fully contained in another person with human rights. This raises all kind of questions, from the trivial to the profound. A trivial example is laws regarding elevators or public spaces that restrict the number of occupants. For example, legal regulations limit the number of persons in elevators. Do pregnant women count as two? Do tickets that say “Admit One” suffice for pregnant women? More profound examples are laws applying to child welfare. Could pregnant women be prosecuted for risk-taking behavior that men or women who are not pregnant are free to engage in? What about women who drink, smoke, or use potentially harmful (or illegal) drugs. Might a pregnant woman who refuses to stop drinking alcohol be imprisoned to safeguard her baby? Might she be charged with serving alcohol to a minor?
I really don’t believe a legal approach has been worked out to deal with a person with full human rights carrying inside of it a person with full human rights. I think that is the reason why abortion laws (when abortion has been restricted) have been written they way they were. I think that even if the pro-life movement makes great progress, abortion will probably be regulated as a unique crime, not as the killing of a person. This (and I am just speculating) will continue to be the case, because the law must be practical. The “true” philosophical definition of a human person might unborn children, but the traditional and practical legal definition will probably not change to include the unborn children as human beings (persons) under the law.
September 29th, 2012 | 4:54 pm
The truth is our best protection. Life begins at conception.
Why do we celebrate birthdays?
Why are Christmas and Easter the two biggest Christian holy days? The Feast of the Annunciation is celebrated, but its celebration is minor compared to Christmas.
September 29th, 2012 | 5:04 pm
“So if a woman commented, giving a pro-life perspective, her view would be valid?”
Let’s give it a shot, for what it’s worth. Any embryo in my womb is not me. His or her body is not my body. His or her life is not mine. I am not the most important person in the world or the center of the universe. I am not an island, and I do not possess god-like prerogatives.
September 29th, 2012 | 6:16 pm
Hi Maximilian: the only people who I hear use the highly loaded phrase “fertilized eggs”, are those who are trying to justify abortion. The correct term is embryo.
September 29th, 2012 | 6:59 pm
Harry: Abortion is often traumatic to women and is sometimes fatal to them.
Abortion is safer than childbirth. Ditto for the trauma of having an unwanted child.
Harry: Often they regret their abortion for the rest of their lives.
Wait, you propose banning abortion because, according to you, some women regret their abortion? If you banned everything that some people regret, nothing would remain legal. It sounds like a proposal made by Michael Bloomberg.
Harry: Abortion is nearly always fatal to the children
Begging the question.
Harry: Well, the children aren’t prepared to express themselves yet, so Pro-Lifers do that for them.
Good, then I expect you to support the rights of actual children, too.
September 29th, 2012 | 7:07 pm
David: Could pregnant women be prosecuted for risk-taking behavior that men or women who are not pregnant are free to engage in? What about women who drink, smoke, or use potentially harmful (or illegal) drugs. Might a pregnant woman who refuses to stop drinking alcohol be imprisoned to safeguard her baby? Might she be charged with serving alcohol to a minor?
This sounds like a no-brainer to me, even without criminalizing abortion. I do not believe that pregnant mothers have the right to harm their future children in any way. “Sorry, baby, but you’re just going to have to live with your breathing problems, cause your mommy loved her whiskey, and couldn’t bother to stop when she was pregnant.” If any harm comes to the child, because of the mother using alcohol, crack, or other substances she ought to know damage the child, she should be put away for life.
The Criminal Code of Canada is truly horrible. It allows you to kill a child right before birth, as if not having been expelled from the body of the mother makes one any less of a human person.
September 30th, 2012 | 9:28 am
Harry – Not everyone agrees with the doctrine of ‘corporate personhood’ either.
As to “What Is A Person?”, I think the previous discussion with that exact title covered it pretty well.
September 30th, 2012 | 10:27 am
Peg: I am not an island, and I do not possess god-like prerogatives.
This is a very interesting statement. Would it be OK for (a) god to kill innocents?
Bret: Hi Maximilian: the only people who I hear use the highly loaded phrase “fertilized eggs”, are those who are trying to justify abortion. The correct term is embryo.
Blob of tissue would be loaded, fertilized egg is not. There is a huge difference between this entity at the moment of conception, and eight weeks after conception (which is what we think of when we say embryo). I would not call it a fertilized egg eight weeks after, but in the early stages, that’s what it is.
But if you want to avoid using loaded language, be my guest and stop saying ‘newly forming human’.
September 30th, 2012 | 5:12 pm
Hi, David Nickol,
When science and common sense are not on one’s side, the best one can do is to insist on framing the issue in terms of what is entirely subjective, controvertible and for all practical purposes incalculable. One can never be proven wrong (or right) that way. So I can see why you insist on framing the issue in terms of whether or not the child in the womb is a “person.”
A corporation can be a legal person. Legal positivism maintains that anything can be a legal person. Yet massive segments of the human family have been denied full legal personhood in the past, like Blacks in the Old South and Jews that found themselves subject to the Nazi regime. It seems as though justifying brutal violations of human dignity by resorting to the claim that the victims are not legal persons is the preferred tactic of government at its worst, government that has lost sight of its fundamental mission, which is to protect the intrinsic rights of humanity, not to bestow or withdraw them.
The fact is that the “atheocracies” that modern, atheistic, radically secularized governments have become cannot and do not acknowledge the intrinsic, inalienable, God-given rights of humanity. Old people that have become a burden will soon be “non-persons” as will the disabled and the non-productive. Eventually anybody who disagrees with those in power will have their legal personhood evaporate. This path has been taken before in the not-too-distant past. It ended in disaster. Why would we want to go down that road again?
As JP II put it, “As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.” Hitler was elected.
September 30th, 2012 | 5:27 pm
The question is: When did I begin?
Come on, all you fine thinkers, you know the answer to that question. You KNOW it, but you won’t admit it.
Oh, merciful God forgive us all.
September 30th, 2012 | 6:22 pm
Maximilian, from the moment of conception onward, we have a newly formed human being. That’s just a fact. I think it was Ronald Reagan who said that we can have our own opinions, but not our own facts. My guess is that you don’t wish to admit this, because of its moral implications (you will perhaps retort that you don’t admit it because it’s an interpretation that you don’t believe is accurate. Fair enough.).
September 30th, 2012 | 6:53 pm
Maximilian, Your comments to peg are,frankly, disrespectful. If you don’t believe in God (or gods) that’s of course your right, but please realize that others do, and deserve to have their beliefs treated with respect. You make some good intelligent comments. But you seem to have a tendency to view beliefs concerning God and religion with some derision.
September 30th, 2012 | 7:01 pm
Bret, Mark, if someone disagrees with you, by that very fact they must be arguing in bad faith? Is that it?
September 30th, 2012 | 7:38 pm
After reading the above I’m beginning to understand why even “pro-life” adherents are mostly content to argue. Drone morality. Morality on the cheap. Here’s a suggestion: each of the commenters above should be required to embed photos of the subject involved at the ages indicated. And how about statistics? When do most abortions take place in Canada, America, England etc.
I’m also beginning to understand why the civil rights movement in America for which the above sport is mother’s milk was silent for years as the as enslavement expanded across the planet. Is it why you once saw Darfur t-shirts but not South Sudan t-shirts? As in law school, a counsel of despair and moral abdication.
September 30th, 2012 | 10:16 pm
The question is: When did I begin?
Then the question is: What is meant by I? I wouldn’t have any problem saying my physical body began at the moment “I” was conceived, but when I say I or myself, am I referring to my body? (And of course, physically, there is nothing left of the zygote my physical body originated with. There remain just copies of copies of copies . . . of copies.)
Why can’t we remember being conceived, or even born? Is the self continuous? Am I the same person I was thirty years ago, or even thirty minutes ago? Is there even such a thing as the self?
Some years ago, then Cardinal Ratzinger said some interesting things in trying to explain Original Sin:
If persons are “relational”—an idea that makes perfect sense to me—there can be no such entity as a person in total isolation. A person in total isolation can’t even be a person. And what could be more isolating than not having eyes, ears, and a brain? So it is difficult to think of the self as coming into existence at the moment of conception, unless self simply refers to the physical body.
September 30th, 2012 | 10:54 pm
Ray Ingles, no not at all. I have no doubt that those who disagree with me on abortion are people of integrity. Abortion is a difficult issue, and we should respect each other.
October 1st, 2012 | 9:03 am
David Nickol wrote: “Why can’t we remember being conceived, or even born?”
I remember being born. I suspect all of us do but no longer have the context to recognize it.
October 1st, 2012 | 9:42 am
Bret – You say things like, “My guess is that you don’t wish to admit this, because of its moral implications”, or when Mark says, “You KNOW it, but you won’t admit it.”
How is this not what C.S. Lewis called Bulverism?
October 1st, 2012 | 9:52 am
I remember being born. I suspect all of us do but no longer have the context to recognize it.
Mike Melendez,
There’s a family story that is probably close to a hundred years old by now of a child on my mother’s side of the family who had spent very little time being being cared for by her own mother and so much time with relatives that she declared one day: “I remember when I was born. There was nobody there except me and grandma.”
October 1st, 2012 | 9:58 am
Mark: The question is: When did I begin?
If your answer is: as a fertilized egg; then you can make someone immortal by simply freezing him as as fertilized egg.
Bret: Maximilian, from the moment of conception onward, we have a newly formed human being. That’s just a fact.
But humans are not one-celled beings. Humans have eyes, ears, a brain, a heart – none of which a fertilized egg possesses. In fact, I’ll show you a fertilized egg under a microscope, along with a bacterium, and I’ll challenge you to tell which is which.
Bret: My guess is that you don’t wish to admit this, because of its moral implications
Why? I have no problem taking a moral stance, even if no one agrees with me. It also does no harm to me personally in any way, except for the move toward theocracy, which I don’t like.
Bret: Your comments to peg are,frankly, disrespectful.
I wasn’t being disrespectful in any way – even after having been called about ten adjectives, including evil, barbaric, ignorant, and the like, without one supporting argument. If you want to target disrespectful comments, you can start there.
Bret: If you don’t believe in God (or gods) that’s of course your right, but please realize that others do, and deserve to have their beliefs treated with respect.
Respect has to be earned. It is not an entitlement. Certainly, Peg did not treat pro-choicers with much (or any) respect, though I did not respond in kind.
Bret: But you seem to have a tendency to view beliefs concerning God and religion with some derision.
Because I asked if it is legitimate for a god to kill innocents? It seems a very reasonable question to me. Harry earlier told me that I was going to hell for supporting abortion rights, in the same post he said that killing innocents is moral, as long as it is done by god. Fundamentalists have called me a “baby-killer”, even though they worship a god they think is responsible for killing many innocent babies. That is… odd.
October 1st, 2012 | 10:16 am
Ray Ingles,
With a significant exception, everyone knows, but refuses to admit, that from the zygote on, a developing human is a person with a right to life. The exception is women who procure abortions (including multiple abortions). They have been duped by society and the abortion industry into honestly disbelieving something the rest of us know is true.
October 1st, 2012 | 11:13 am
@David,
You may not have noticed but I am not in your family and I do remember being born. Perhaps you meant to ask why you don’t remember your birth? If it helps you feel better, I do not remember my conception.
Stop and think for a moment. After breathing, the first new thing a new born is presented with is vision. Vision is worthless without a huge capacity for memory on which to apply our inborn pattern matching. Much of that extra capacity is pruned away about three years of age as it is no longer needed. The basic patterns have been established, e.g. that shape is a dog.
So you understand better, my memories are not visual. I had no established visual patterns then so Grandma is not someone I would recognize. They are sensory and of the process itself. One reason I might have access to the memory was that the majority of my thinking was sensory, with visual eventually dominating, until my late teens, which I believe is unusual. Most switch to majority verbal thinking earlier.
October 1st, 2012 | 11:21 am
“But humans are not one-celled beings. Humans have eyes, ears, a brain, a heart – none of which a fertilized egg possesses.”
Begging the question as well as biologically preposterous. Fifty points from Slytherin.
You’ve just declared babies born without eyes or ears, as well as recipients of artificial replacement hearts, to be “not human.” Human beings are the offspring of other human beings, containing (approximately) 46 chromosomes of the human genetic type.
October 1st, 2012 | 12:13 pm
Some atheists say, “Deep in your heart, you really know you’re fooling yourself about this God stuff. You’re so fervent because you’re trying to hide that.”
Do you find that at all convincing? No?
That’s because there’s no point in addressing someone’s motivations until and unless you address their arguments first.
I personally am quite willing to believe that religious people actually believe what they say they believe. I think they’re mistaken, and can explain why, but I don’t think they are lying to me or themselves about that.
What if it were possible for someone to honestly believe something different than you do?
October 1st, 2012 | 12:19 pm
Pentamom: You’ve just declared babies born without eyes or ears, as well as recipients of artificial replacement hearts, to be “not human.”
Not at all. I could have named dozens more things, all of which fertilized eggs lack. It’s the whole that makes a human, not any one thing – or lack thereof – in particular. If a baby were born as just a fertilized egg, I would declare that “not human”.
Pentamom: Human beings are the offspring of other human beings
Tautological definition.
October 1st, 2012 | 1:25 pm
Perhaps I don’t understand, but what was the harm of forming a committee to study the apparent fear-mongering? Are such questions of ‘if they’re human, then X’ and ‘if this, absurd Y is possible’ better handled in comboxes and debates (what of it that exists in Canada with its speech restrictions) than in parliament?
October 1st, 2012 | 1:33 pm
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
“created equal” Even that Deist, Thomas Jefferson, who editing the Bible on his own, knew that.
And here’s what Wikipedia says about babies under the Spartan code:
“Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, a mother would bathe her child in wine to see whether the child was strong. If the child survived it was brought before the Gerousia by the child’s father. The Gerousia then decided whether it was to be reared or not. If they considered it “puny and deformed”, the baby was thrown into a chasm on Mount Taygetos known euphemistically as the Apothetae (Gr., ἀποθέται, “Deposits”). This was, in effect, a primitive form of eugenics. Sparta is often portrayed as being unique in this matter, however there is considerable evidence that the killing of unwanted children was practiced in other Greek regions, including Athens.”
I would hope we’ve learned something since then, but I sometimes wonder.
October 1st, 2012 | 3:07 pm
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .
Mike Melendez,
A number of times I have gone on a Google quest trying to determine whether “all men” was intended by Jefferson to include women (not to mention blacks), and it appears that historians’ opinions vary. I think it is safe to say, however, that Jefferson was not referring to the unborn.
October 1st, 2012 | 3:14 pm
A tautological definition would be “human beings are human. What I said was logic.
You seem to want to subject biological reality to instinct, intuition, and subjectivity. If we were discussing something less critical than whether something that might be human deserves the protections accorded to humans, that might be interesting. As it is, it seems like a dodge.
October 1st, 2012 | 3:36 pm
Mike: “created equal” Even that Deist, Thomas Jefferson, who editing the Bible on his own, knew that.
Do you have any evidence that he included fertilized eggs in this definition? Abortion was not criminalized until the later 19th century, so I doubt that very much.
Mike: I would hope we’ve learned something since then, but I sometimes wonder.
We have, we regard it as morally wrong. On the other hand, some people read about stoning young girls and exterminating Amalekites and say: you know, that was really the right thing to do.
October 1st, 2012 | 4:08 pm
You seem to want to subject biological reality to instinct, intuition, and subjectivity. If we were discussing something less critical than whether something that might be human deserves the protections accorded to humans, that might be interesting.
pentamom,
“Biological reality” has little to do with the abortion debate. Some pro-life advocates seem to believe that if those who support abortion would just consult an good embryology textbook, they would turn pro-life. But questions about abortion are largely philosophical, not medical. Is a human zygote, embryo, fetus human? Of course it is. Is an embryo or a fetus a human being? It’s reasonable enough to call them that. But is a zygote or an early embryo a person? It’s just not a question medical science (or any science) can answer. It’s going to depend on what you think is a reasonable definition of a person, and that is not a scientific matter.
If human beings ever encounter a new, alien life form, how will we know if it is a person or not? Not by it’s DNA. It may not even have DNA.
October 1st, 2012 | 6:23 pm
Pentamom: A tautological definition would be “human beings are human. What I said was logic.
You included the very word ‘human’ in your definition of human – which is a definite no no. That makes it tautological, not far removed from “human beings are human”.
Pentamom: You seem to want to subject biological reality to instinct, intuition, and subjectivity
It is rather obvious to me that it is not biology, but religion, that lies at the basis of these beliefs. That would certainly explain why someone here told me that I am going to hell for supporting abortion rights – which is not often an argument made by biologists when they disagree with someone. Also, it is rather clear that even people who believe that fertilized eggs are human persons, don’t act like it. Fifty percent of all fertilized eggs fail to implant, and I see no concern about that, nor anyone taking steps to prevent it (which would be rather simple and perfectly effective). The only application of this belief seems to be the issue of abortion.
October 1st, 2012 | 6:41 pm
David,
You’re becoming incoherent. You claim that abortion was not illegal until the later 19th century, in other words, it was time honored. Then you note that stoning young girl was also time honored. I know you’re not saying they are the same but I don’t know what you are trying to say.
I have no idea what the level of biological knowledge has to do with the level of validity of Jefferson’s claim in the Declaration of Independence. There were also slaves at the time who were not afforded those rights. We as a country took a long time about it, but we eventually put our actions where our mouth was with regard to slaves. One might think we had also done so with abortion, but we seem to have fallen back on the time honored.
October 1st, 2012 | 6:48 pm
I appear to have confused David with Max in my previous post. My apologies David.
As to Google and the meaning of “men”, I thought you were old enough to remember when “men” was the collective term for all humanity. It was so within living memory. For all the nitpicking of the historians, the sentiment of the statement is clear. Beyond that you wind up with a theological discussion of when we humans are “created”. The Bible does have something to say about that.
October 1st, 2012 | 7:33 pm
David, I fully grasp that the question of humanity does not settle the question of personhood in a world where some have arrogated to themselves the right to decide which humans do and do not receive human rights. However, Maximilian actually is disputing the humanity of human offspring, so that is what I was addressing.
Your last paragraph is quite puzzling, though — an alien life form is by definition not human. Whether it is due the same rights humans are entitled to is in that case an additional consideration.
October 1st, 2012 | 8:42 pm
@Charles,
In a democracy discussion needs to happen on all levels. Why limit it?
October 1st, 2012 | 9:21 pm
The advocates of “legal” abortion (taking innocent human life is intrinsically illegal) have a seemingly inexhaustible supply of arguments that amount to nothing more than semantic gymnastics, linguistic distortions, baseless assertions and sophistry proclaimed in an authoritative sounding manner, the point of which is to move the issue into the realm of the entirely subjective, a realm that is their only safe refuge, since both relentlessly objective, philosophically/religiously neutral science and common sense have already annihilated their position and they know that. The best they can do is to attempt to distract as many people as possible from the basic realities of what it is that they advocate. That reality is the last thing they want anyone to consider.
The way to quickly clear away all the smoke they create is to examine the photographic evidence depicting the gruesome realities of “legal abortion.” It quickly becomes apparent that abortion advocates are proponents of “legalized child-killing” not “legal abortion” as though the issue was one of whether or not to restrict a medical procedure instead of an issue of whether or not to restrict violent, homicidal assaults on innocent children. This is not an unfounded use of emotionally charged language, it is the only honest, non-euphemistic way of describing an emotionally charged reality. One can’t honestly describe what is essentially inflammatory behavior without sounding … well … inflammatory. Sometimes one has to choose between being honest even if doing so sounds inflammatory, and in being a participant in propagating a “Big Lie” that is lethal to millions of innocent human beings.
Not that examining the evidence will be convincing to ardent abortion advocates. It won’t. They believe in what they advocate in spite of the evidence, of which they are fully aware. That they are aware of it is easily determined by the lengths to which they go to keep it hidden and to discourage others from examining it. It is not like they make a habit of parading pictures of the child-victims of late abortions in front of the public, saying, “See! What more proof could you possibly want that this is right and good?” The photographic evidence is not disturbing to ardent abortion advocates, yet they know it will be disturbing to the rest of us. To those who have come across the evidence after being taken in by the “Big Lie,” ardent abortion advocates, in effect, can only say with Chico Marx in Duck Soup (only it isn’t funny), “Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?”
I encourage all First Things readers who have been following this discussion and who have never taken into consideration the damning photographic evidence, to take a look at the Priests for Life web site at
http://www.priestsforlife.org
About half way down the page, under the heading “SOME KEY LINKS” is an “Abortion Photos” link. Follow the links on the page to which that link takes you. It will soon be abundantly clear why abortion used to be against the law, and how hollow the rhetoric of abortion advocates really is.
One more thought: The general public and post-abortive women in particular are also victims of the “Big Lie” in the truest sense of the word. For some thoughts on that see my post at
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/11/08/personhood-in-mississippi/
at the tag “harry November 10th, 2011 5:40 pm”
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:38 am
Too many of today’s atheists and liberals forget just how much they owe to Christian thought about morality and childbearing. One major reason pagans all around the Mediterranean converted was because Christians took morality seriously, caring for the least among them as Jesus taught, and among the least were infants. Christian communities were distinguished by their refusal to kill their children. They ended infanticide everywhere they went and in its place grew an increasing respect for life.
The pro-choice movement believes that it can promote abortion and still somehow maintain a respect for life. But you can’t empower women while telling them to kill what is growing in their womb. Our civilization finds it harder and harder to justify war or tolerate high body counts. It mainstreams the disabled and fights against animal cruelty. We have increased our humaneness in every area except the unborn.
The contradiction cannot last forever. At some point, even atheists will be drawn toward life or face the grim logic of selfishness. You can see the cracks in the wide support for the ban against partial birth abortion and the lukewarm, dutiful support of Planned Parenthood. But most of all you can see it in the increasing support for the pro-life cause and the decreasing enthusiasm for abortion. Few are *for* abortion anymore.
However, the pro-life movement continues to overplay its hand. The attempt to declare the fetus a person is bad law, and the attempt to demonize Planned Parenthood discredits the movement. People can tell when you are stretching the truth in order to score points.
The truth is that, after Constantine, abortion has always been tolerated, winked at, treated with a blind eye. Even in the nineteenth century, when evangelical fervor gripped many Americans and abortion was, for a time, illegal, it was hard to get a conviction in an abortion case. Most people instinctively perceive that abortion differs from murder, even though it is murder.
It’s the cooler heads in the pro-life and pro-choice camps that are going to make some progress, not the extremists, the people who think abortion can be simply resolved.
October 2nd, 2012 | 1:02 am
Your last paragraph is quite puzzling, though — an alien life form is by definition not human. Whether it is due the same rights humans are entitled to is in that case an additional consideration.
pentamom,
I asked how we would know if an alien life form was a person. Persons don’t have to be human beings. God is a person (or three, for Christians), and angels are persons.
October 2nd, 2012 | 8:27 am
harry –
Which is it? Do they believe in what they advocate, or not?
October 2nd, 2012 | 9:15 am
harry,
Pictures of aborted fetuses, while I suppose not entirely irrelevant to the abortion debate, prove nothing of importance. Do pro-life advocates object any less to “abortifacient” drugs that inhibit implantation? From your point of view, a person at the moment of conception is just as much a person as an 18-week fetus. Do you consider embryo-destructive stem-cell research or inhibiting implantation any less morally wrong because it is bloodless and microscopic?
October 2nd, 2012 | 9:23 am
Maximillian wrote, “Abortion was not criminalized until the later 19th century.”
Coke, (1552-1634) who quoted both Bracton (1210-1268) and Fleta (14th century), both of whom classified it as homicide, regarded abortion as “a great misprison and no murder,” but he cites no authority or cases for this change. 3 Coke, Institutes *50. H
In Scotland, it was a crime at common law [Hume i 186, 187]. In practice, the offence charged was “using an instrument or some poison or noxious substance with intent to procure a miscarriage.” This relieved the prosecutor of the need to prove the foetus was alive, or even that the woman was, in fact, pregnant.
If the woman died, the crime was murder [Hume i, 263, 264], which would be so, only if the act were “a serious and dangerous crime” and that is the context in which Baron Hume discusses it.
October 2nd, 2012 | 10:17 am
Ray Ingles, again, not at all. It’s not logically fallacious for me to make a guess. It would be fallacious of me to assume something is true without providing logical support. Hence my qualifier of “guess.”
October 2nd, 2012 | 10:21 am
Maximilian: I have said that we all need to be respectful of each other. You certainly seem to me to be an intelligent and moral person. We just disagree about abortion. I agree with you that no one should call anyone names, and you know that I have not called you names, nor would I. I don’t believe you’re going to hell. (actually, I don’t believe that anyone is going to Hell, I accept universal salvation, but that’s a discussion for another time).
October 2nd, 2012 | 11:10 am
Everybody instinctively knows it is wrong to kill innocent children. The evidence makes clear that children are being killed by the millions. You tell me why they desperately continue to attempt to hide what the evidence makes plain is nothing less than child-killing behind a crumbling facade of legitimacy. One can only assume they believe in it.
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:17 pm
Everybody instinctively knows it is wrong to kill innocent children.
harry,
I think what everybody should know is to pay no attention to statements that begin, “Everybody instinctively knows . . . .”
Also, many people who are no less firmly convinced than you that it is wrong to kill “innocent children” are not convinced abortion is wrong.
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:48 pm
Yeah. Right. And those photographs of piles of “adult tissue,” or mere “byproducts of the eugenic process” found in Nazi concentration camps proved nothing of importance either, right? Do you really think using the word “fetus” to objectify the victims lessens the gravity of taking the lives of innocent children by the millions? The evidence clearly demonstrates that that is exactly what is happening.
Implantation is only a change in the environment of the newly conceived human life. If it wasn’t a human life before implantation it won’t ever be afterward. If it is a human life before implantation it won’t ever be any more human than that at any time afterward.
The question of whether or not the child is a legal “person” is a distraction from the central issue. What matters is that the child is an innocent human being whose human rights are intrinsic to its humanity and are not derived from its status as a legal person.
The size and/or development of a human being is not a factor in his/her having a right to life. That right is intrinsic to his/her humanity, which is there in its fullness at the moment of conception. All that is added after that is the assimilation and use of oxygen, nutrition and hydration, which adds nothing to the child’s humanity any more than those things add humanity to other kinds of living things that assimilate them. At conception the child is as human as a human can be, and already has as much a claim to human rights as any human will ever have.
Inhibiting implantation creates an environment hostile to child’s continued life. It is like locking a child outside on a freezing cold winter day or locking him/her in a closet and refusing to provide the child nutrition and hydration.
You quickly changed the subject from the evidence that millions of victims of “legal” abortion are clearly recognizable as babies who have been violently murdered. I accommodated you. Now let’s go back to the evidence the abortion rights folks want so much to avoid. What can possibly justify deliberately dismembering millions of helpless, wiggling, kicking baby boys and girls, which the evidence demonstrates is the reality.
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:50 pm
Mike: You claim that abortion was not illegal until the later 19th century, in other words, it was time honored.
I don’t think so, I do not accept the argument from tradition/antiquity. My argument was solely that Jefferson probably did not think of fertilized eggs as human beings.
Mike: Then you note that stoning young girl was also time honored. I know you’re not saying they are the same but I don’t know what you are trying to say.
That we look at the Spartans killing children and are rightly appalled. However, at the same time, some folks read the Old Testament and believe that it was right to stone young girls to death, or to exterminate the Amalekites.
Mike: I have no idea what the level of biological knowledge has to do with the level of validity of Jefferson’s claim in the Declaration of Independence. There were also slaves at the time who were not afforded those rights.
Slaves were indisputably human beings. Inferior human beings unfortunately, according to the slaveholders, but human beings nonetheless. I do not believe that the same holds for fertilized eggs.
Mike: As to Google and the meaning of “men”, I thought you were old enough to remember when “men” was the collective term for all humanity. It was so within living memory.
It’s ambiguous. It could mean either. Man was a collective term for all of humanity, but that does not mean that it was used to mean that in this specific instance.
October 2nd, 2012 | 12:52 pm
Tracee,
Re: “My uterus is a part of my body, and is not subject to legislation. If I want to get an abortion, that is my right. My body, my decision… end of argument. The only people who should get a say in these laws are the people they affect. Women.”
Actually, it depends on how you view your marital relationship with the father of the child. Catholic theology understand marriage as a sacred union of equal partners, thus the father of the child has equal right or say over the life of the child, and really, God is the true “parent or “caregiver” of the child. Even if you take religion or God out of the picture and see marriage strictly as a business contract, father would or should legally still have equal say.
If you take father completely out of the picture, (such as being impregnated from a sperm bank), you would still have to consider what your “motherhood” towards the child means philosophically, something like in the Gilmore Girls TV series.
Further, scientifically or biologically, woman is just a natural container or “environment” for the growth of the child. Modern technology is pretty close to being able provide such biological environment from the moment of conception. If that ever happens you would have no excuse for killing the child in your womb. If you are philosophically or religiously inclined, even today your choice is between 9 months of inconvenience or killing and subsequent nightmares, remorse, or bad conscience for the rest of your life.
October 2nd, 2012 | 1:01 pm
Harry: The advocates of “legal” abortion (taking innocent human life is intrinsically illegal)
I agree. Killing the innocents is always wrong, no matter who does it or commands it. However, you earlier told me that you believe that there are exceptions to this rule.
Harry: both relentlessly objective, philosophically/religiously neutral science and common sense have already annihilated their position and they know that.
By all means, present this science and common sense to us. Sadly, last time your argument was that I am going to hell for supporting abortion rights – neither science nor common sense.
Harry: The way to quickly clear away all the smoke they create is to examine the photographic evidence depicting the gruesome realities of “legal abortion.”
This is a sheer appeal to emotion, and not one that supports your argument. Your argument is that life beings at conception, and that taking a pill preventing implantation is also murder. Now, that is not gruesome, and yet you would argue against that.
Harry: an issue of whether or not to restrict violent, homicidal assaults on innocent children.
I absolutely do believe in restricting genital mutilation of innocent children.
Harry: It is not like they make a habit of parading pictures of the child-victims of late abortions in front of the public saying, “See! What more proof could you possibly want that this is right and good?”
This is a curious statement, as I have many times stated that I believe that late abortions should be outlawed – in fact, they are. So why would I be doing that? I recognize a child when I see it, and a fetus in the third trimester is indisputably a child. The same is not true for a fertilized egg.
And Michael PS, thank you for the information.
October 2nd, 2012 | 1:24 pm
David Nickol,
Sadly, the issue of abortion may never get satisfactorily addressed in a modern society where God is legally separated from the state. Modern constitutions are full of contradictions. Nevertheless, this is not what the “separation of the church and state” means in the in the context of the US constitution, and, paradoxically, even the Canadian constitution is not separated — in fact it starts with the words:
“Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law…”
The issue of laws and legal code has deep roots, and one can see a parallel of Jesus’ disputes with the pharisees, and how the word “pharisee” has ever since got a bad reputation and connotation. Pharisees were concerned not with the straightforwards interpretation of God’s law, but rather they added a lot of sophistry, or weasel words, to what should be a common sense and factual arguments, just as the modern lawyers do. Modern “personhood” is one such weasel word — logically, you will either consider biological facts and their proper philosophical interpretation according to which human life starts at conception, or you will be forever debating what personhood means legally in the context of a self-contradictory constitution.
Really, in such legal circumstances, the only solution is an appeal to love and life, just as Jesus appealed to the sinners of his time, and in prevention or in the scientific, philosophical and theological “education” of mothers and fathers hoping that once they know the facts they would choose life over death, because in the modern pharisaical legalistic systems, which speak of God yet deny Him in the subsequent legislation, there is no hope for ever finding truth and justice God demands.
October 2nd, 2012 | 1:59 pm
harry –
Yes… and no. I’m with Maximilian, and oppose late-term abortion (except in cases of threat to the mother; you can’t force someone to risk their life for another).
Earlier on in development, it’s not quite so clear. The logic is relatively straightforward:
1. A ‘subject’ can feel and be aware. An ‘object’ can’t.
2. To be a ‘person’, one must be a ‘subject’, not an ‘object’.
3. In humans, having a brain is a necessary condition for being a subject, for having awareness. (Whether or not it’s sufficient, it’s definitely necessary.)
4. Human beings without developed, interconnected brains are not subjects. Until they develop interconnected brains, and after the brain dies, they are objects.
5. Therefore, human beings without brains are not persons. They cannot suffer, cannot experience anything – and cannot have rights.
Now, you can dispute those propositions. Please read the discussion I linked to before you do so, though, because I may have already addressed your objections.
October 2nd, 2012 | 2:44 pm
Do you really think using the word “fetus” to objectify the victims lessens the gravity of taking the lives of innocent children by the millions?
harry,
You are not so much debating the issues, in my humble opinion, as repeating pro-life propaganda, which is of course your right.
Fetus is a perfectly good word. When I took biology in college, we dissected a fetal pig. No one felt the need to call it an unborn baby pig, let alone an “innocent, wiggling, kicking” baby pig—to employ a phrase from one of your past messages. If fetus is too clinical, then “innocent baby” goes too far in the other direction. To whatever extent innocent means anything when discussing babies, it applies to all babies. It is not as if innocent babies are unfairly being aborted while guilty ones go scott free.
As I say, fetus is a perfectly good word to use when discussing abortion, but I tend to use unborn child or unborn (or born alive) infant so as not to go too far one way or the other. I am really not particularly interested in making a moral defense of abortion here, but more in making the point that the issue is not so obvious as pro-life propagandists make it out to be. There is very little about the abortion debate that is “self-evident,” and to declare people who disagree with the pro-life position as being wrong and knowing it is about on the same level of civil discourse as claiming that Catholics oppose abortion because the Church wants to increase the population so there will be more Catholics to put money in the collection plate, or because the Church hates and fears women and feels it has to control them.
October 2nd, 2012 | 3:37 pm
Ray Inglis
We all understand the word “person,” in expressions like “the person over there,” or “offences against the person.” It means a living, human body, as in “wilfully exposed his person…”
It does not mean an hypostasized abstraction, such as “subject.”
October 2nd, 2012 | 4:53 pm
We all understand the word “person,” in expressions like “the person over there,” or “offences against the person.” It means a living, human body, as in “wilfully exposed his person…”
Michael PS,
How about as in “the Second Person of the Holy Trinity,” or (said of someone who has unaccountably committed a crime) “that’s not the person I know,” or “he’s become a different person,” or “she’s her own person,” or “I’m not that kind of person”? None refer to a physical body. Angels are considered persons (by the Catholic Church, at least), and yet they do not have physical bodies. The idea of the soul leaving the body at death and the idea of Purgatory also indicate that persons are not physical bodies. People speak of the saints or their departed loved ones as being in heaven, but certainly their bodies aren’t there.
October 2nd, 2012 | 6:00 pm
Monkeyville: even the Canadian constitution is not separated — in fact it starts with the words:
Canada was under British rule until the early 20th century, and still recognizes the Queen of England as its nominal sovereign. England has an established church, and the Queen is the nominal head of the church. Why is it such a surprise that Canada would not have a church-state separation, and that the folks who rebelled against England would?
Monkeyville: Modern “personhood” is one such weasel word — logically, you will either consider biological facts and their proper philosophical interpretation according to which human life starts at conception
I haven’t seen anything but bare assertions without evidence. Repeating this endlessly does not make it true.
October 2nd, 2012 | 7:21 pm
Michael PS – Is Michaelangelo’s David willfully exposing himself? No, because it’s an object, not a person – and can’t willfully do anything.
October 2nd, 2012 | 7:43 pm
Apologies, David. In that case your question isn’t puzzling, merely irrelevant. Humans are to be accorded human rights. Other things may be entitled to those rights as well. That it may be complicated to determine what non-humans ought to be deemed persons has no bearing on the question of whether an embryonic human is in fact human.
Maximilian is in effect proposing that there is a class of distinct biological organism that belong to no species, or else to a species other than that of their parents, until such time as they mature and join their parents’ species. That is biological nonsense, and my comments are limited to his argument.
October 2nd, 2012 | 10:08 pm
David,
“I asked how we would know if an alien life form was a person. Persons don’t have to be human beings. God is a person (or three, for Christians), and angels are persons”
You’re being uncharacteristically evasive here. I think you’re right to oppose the pro-life attempt to redefine a legal person, but you’re wrong to condone abortion after implantation.
“There is very little about the abortion debate that is “self-evident,” and to declare people who disagree with the pro-life position as being wrong and knowing it is about on the same level of civil discourse as claiming that Catholics oppose abortion because the Church wants to increase the population so there will be more Catholics to put money in the collection plate, or because the Church hates and fears women and feels it has to control them”
You put this very well. Although I know you like to chew at the edges of this issue, I wish you would state plainly what you believe about abortion and why.
October 2nd, 2012 | 10:10 pm
Michael PS,
“Coke, (1552-1634) who quoted both Bracton (1210-1268) and Fleta (14th century), both of whom classified it as homicide, regarded abortion as “a great misprison and no murder,” but he cites no authority or cases for this change. 3 Coke, Institutes *50. H”
As I do frequently, I appreciate your long grasp of history and law. It’s often clarifying.
Here it’s clear that abortion has long been considered criminal without being considered murder.
The pro-life movement errs in calling abortion murder, while the pro-choice movement errs in calling it merely a philosophical choice.
A fuller understanding of history would end a lot of nonsense.
October 2nd, 2012 | 10:11 pm
Maximilian,
“Sadly, last time your argument was that I am going to hell for supporting abortion rights – neither science nor common sense. I recognize a child when I see it, and a fetus in the third trimester is indisputably a child. The same is not true for a fertilized egg”
I don’t know what Harry said, but I would say that you are already hardening your heart when you accept abortion rights.
It’s odd to argue that you’re waiting for the fetus to resemble a child. I don’t know whether you have had children yet, but there’s something thrilling when you hear that first heartbeat and know that this child is growing and on its way to becoming an independent, separate human being.
The argument for abortion rights is really an argument for second chances. Everyone knows that sex will lead to pregnancy, but humans crave a second chance, a do-over, and abortion gives them that chance. Why not simply accept the consequences of your own choices?
October 2nd, 2012 | 10:13 pm
Ray,
“5. Therefore, human beings without brains are not persons. They cannot suffer, cannot experience anything – and cannot have rights.”
You argue a nice piece of logic, but the foundations you are building on were created by Christians who centuries ago laid down some pretty simple assumptions about life. That infanticide is wrong, that abortion is wrong, and that sex should be treated seriously as the beginning of life and as belonging to marriage.
Compared to this solid foundation, your logic is merely argument that requires fine medical and philosophical distinctions.
If we know sex leads to pregnancy, why not treat sex seriously rather than treating abortion lightly?
October 3rd, 2012 | 3:05 am
David Nickol wrote, “The idea of the soul leaving the body at death and the idea of Purgatory also indicate that persons are not physical bodies.”
If the principle of human rational life in me is a soul (which perhaps can survive me, perhaps again animate me) that is not what i mean by “me.” Nor is it what I am. I am a living, human body and I shall exist only as long as that exists. If people find this idea shocking, they only betray how deeply infected by dualism they are. St Thomas teaches the same (Summa Ia q 75:4) and the Ecumenical Council of Vienne (1311-12) condemns as heresy the denial that the rational or intellectual soul is the form of the human body, of itself and essentially.
I agree that “person” has an extended application, as when we speak of corporations as “moral persons.” This derives from the Roman jurists, who used “persona” to mean actor or agent, one who performs acts in the law. The theological use is, professedly analogical. Latin Christians used persona to translate ὑπόστᾰσις. The root meaning of these two words is mask and hence they came to denote an actor in the theatre.
October 3rd, 2012 | 3:17 am
Michael
“Murder” itself has an interesting history. It is part of the story of how homicide, from being a wrong against the kindred, came to be seen as an injury to the lord, to whom the deceased owed allegiance and whose protection he enjoyed and to the king a chief lord. “Against the peace of our lord the king, his Crown and dignity is the traditional conclusion of indictments for murder.
This evolution was still going on in Bracton’s time; it was scarcely complete in Fleta and even Coke includes “under the King’s peace” in his definition of murder.
In Scotland, too, the prosecution of crime by public officials, rather than by the party aggrieved, is a rather late development.
Legal writers need to be read on their own terms.
October 3rd, 2012 | 9:04 am
Michael –
I guess I don’t understand. As I parse your words, it sounds like you’re saying, ‘That’s a solid argument, but I’m going to reject it because it doesn’t agree with what I want to believe.’
I mean, “centuries ago” people believed that the Sun and planets revolved around the Earth, and laid down a foundation for that both scientific and scriptural. What if people had told Kepler, “You make a good case for heliocentrism and elliptical orbits, but centuries ago people laid down some pretty simple assumptions about the immovability of the Earth and the purity of the celestial spheres.” Would that be convincing to Kepler, or even relevant?
If you disagree with one or more of the premises I discussed, then the most helpful thing would be to point out which ones, and why.
When did I argue otherwise?
October 3rd, 2012 | 10:24 am
You’re being uncharacteristically evasive here. I think you’re right to oppose the pro-life attempt to redefine a legal person, but you’re wrong to condone abortion after implantation.
Michael,
I don’t condone abortion.
Although I know you like to chew at the edges of this issue, I wish you would state plainly what you believe about abortion and why.
I don’t believe I chew at the edges. I believe I deal with the very heart of the issue (or what seems to me to be the issue), which is whether personhood begins at conception. My position is that from a purely materialist point of view, I lean very strongly toward the argument that it doesn’t. But based on certain religious points of view—e.g., that humans have souls and “ensoulment” takes place at conception—then personhood does begin at conception.
My main point is that pro-lifers who say the only thing you need to do to settle the abortion question is consult an embryology textbook are approaching the issue so simplistically that they are basically just plain wrong. They are reading their own religious faith into words like human and human being and relying on emotionalism to make bad arguments. And, of course, they are claiming that not only are they correct, but everybody knows they are correct, and that those who disagree with them do so in bad faith.
October 3rd, 2012 | 11:03 am
Pentamom: Maximilian is in effect proposing that there is a class of distinct biological organism that belong to no species, or else to a species other than that of their parents, until such time as they mature and join their parents’ species. That is biological nonsense, and my comments are limited to his argument.
You got all that from my criticism of your tautological definition? It is the basic rule of definitions that you can’t use the word you’re trying to define in your definition. If you do, you end up with a useless definition – because you’re not actually describing what a human being is, you’re merely referring to something else. Thus, it is uniquely unhelpful to answer the question of whether a fertilized egg is a human person.
Incidentally, were it true that offspring belongs to the same offspring as its parents, ad infinitum, we would be one-celled organisms, because that’s our evolutionary origin.
I love it when people try to play the biology card. It is not often that biologists call people with whom they disagree “misled, misinformed, truly ignorant, moral cowards, intellectually dishonest or lazy, amoral, immoral, evil, barbaric” (as a pro-lifer described supporters of abortion recently). It is not often that they say that people with whom they disagree are going to hell. This makes it rather clear that this is not a question of biology, it’s a question of religion – specifically, a symbolic crusade by people to force other people to live their religious beliefs.
Now, if pro-lifers believe that fertilized eggs are human beings, there is something that they can do to save them. Half of all fertilized eggs fail to implant and ‘die’. Pro-lifers can save billions of lives by not conceiving. Given the fact that many pro-lifers think it is legitimate to force a 13-year-old victim of rape to bear her attacker’s child, this is not too much to ask. Cathers did it, because they believed that having children would enslave them in this evil, material world.
October 3rd, 2012 | 11:10 am
Michael: I don’t know what Harry said, but I would say that you are already hardening your heart when you accept abortion rights.
So your reasons for opposing abortion are religious too?
Michael: It’s odd to argue that you’re waiting for the fetus to resemble a child.
Not necessarily physical resemblance. Babies don’t look much like adults. But they have everything adults have in functional form, which is not true of an implanted/fertilized egg.
Michael: I don’t know whether you have had children yet, but there’s something thrilling when you hear that first heartbeat and know that this child is growing and on its way to becoming an independent, separate human being.
Thrilling or not, that is not a reasonable ground on which to deny women control over their own body – all the more because you concede that it’s not yet an independent, separate human being.
Michael: Everyone knows that sex will lead to pregnancy, but humans crave a second chance, a do-over, and abortion gives them that chance. Why not simply accept the consequences of your own choices?
When there is nothing wrong with a ‘second chance’, why not? Do you oppose Plan B, because it gives people a second chance? Moreover, what about cases where “your own choices” doesn’t apply?
October 3rd, 2012 | 11:47 am
Maximilian,
Re: ” I haven’t seen anything but bare assertions without evidence.”
The evidence and the basic facts are not hard to find online. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Canada
The new 1982 Canadian constitution: “was the formal Canadian Act of Parliament that achieved full and final political independence from the United Kingdom.” The queen does not have any political power anymore, she is just a figurehead. Besides, if you cared to read a little about Canadian history, the French (Catholic) and the British (Anglican, Protestant) religions were since the very beginning the two dominant religions, forming the basis of the Canadian culture, history and finally its constitution. So “God” in the Canadian constitution would refer to the Judaeo-Christian interpretation of God. One could argue that insofar some theological characteristics of the God of the American natives, the Great Spirit or the Creator, or the God of Muslims, can be reconciled with Christian theology, such interpretations would also fall under the Canadian Constitution.
Also, there is a plethora of Catholic resources which state and argue that human life begins at conception, for example:
http://www.catechism.cc/articles/life-begins-at-conception.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_abortion
etc.
October 3rd, 2012 | 1:53 pm
Who or what is a legal person is entirely subjective, meaning those in power can bestow it or withdraw it as they see fit and never be proven “wrong” about their decisions. This situation serves bigotry very well. Corporations are granted legal personhood yet possessing biological humanity hasn’t always been enough to merit one full legal personhood, as was the case for Blacks in the Old South and for the Jews under the Nazi regime. State sanctioned bigotry always uses legal personhood to “justify” brutal and often lethal violations of human dignity.
Possessing biological humanity is all that is necessary to merit one the human rights to life and liberty. Any other criteria becomes the tool of bigotry.
October 3rd, 2012 | 4:23 pm
Who or what is a legal person is entirely subjective . . .
harry,
The issue is not who is a legal person. The issue is personhood in philosophical and moral terms. There are believed to be persons other than human persons (God, angels). And if there are intelligent life forms elsewhere in the universe, they may be persons, too. It is certainly a relevant issue that our legal tradition does not consider the unborn to be persons under the law, but that is not what I am talking about.
October 3rd, 2012 | 6:01 pm
Monkeyville: The new 1982 Canadian constitution: “was the formal Canadian Act of Parliament that achieved full and final political independence from the United Kingdom.”
It is not strange that a country with a tradition of an established church, would not separate church and state, that’s all I was saying.
Monkeyville: The queen does not have any political power anymore, she is just a figurehead.
That’s why I called her the nominal head of an established church. The Prime Minister is the actual head now.
Monkeyville: So “God” in the Canadian constitution would refer to the Judaeo-Christian interpretation of God.
It’s in a preamble, and so as meaningless as any other preamble.
Monkeyville: Also, there is a plethora of Catholic resources which state and argue that human life begins at conception, for example:
And there’s a plethora of people on the internet arguing for my point of view, that doesn’t mean that I should just sit back, announce that I am pro-choice, and tell you to Google the plethora of pro-choice views on the internet.
October 3rd, 2012 | 6:17 pm
Right. The issue is that humans have intrinsic, inalienable human rights and currently the law does not acknowledge that in opposition to the traditional Western ethic. I posted the following before and will post it again here because it helps one get the big picture:
In A New Ethic for Medicine and Society, an editorial by Dr. Malcolm Watts that appeared in the September, 1970 issue of California Medicine, Dr. Watts attempts to make the recent and controversial pre-Roe legalization of abortion in California seem like it was inevitable and is the way of the future. He realizes the stand many of the physicians in his audience take on the issue is contrary to his own. He knows many of them must still feel bound by the ancient “First, do no harm” ethic of Hippocrates, whose physician’s Oath explicitly prohibits abortion. Dr. Watts must be intellectually honest with them — his audience isn’t that of the local newspaper or television station; he is addressing intelligent, educated physicians. His remarks, those of an abortion advocate forced into intellectual honesty, make for enlightening reading.
Dr. Watts fairly sums up what the Western ethic was as applied to law and medicine. This is followed by the suggestion that the old ethic is on its way out:
Dr. Watts must admit that the ramifications of discarding the old ethic and substituting it with a new one will be substantial and serious. He continues with:
Dr. Watts must admit to his audience that deception will be necessary in order to successfully replace the old ethic with a new one, and admits that abortion takes the life of a human being:
Dr. Watts goes on to assert that “the new ethic of relative rather than of absolute and equal values will ultimately prevail” and discusses what this might require of the medical profession.
Whether you like it or not, abortion was outlawed in the U.S., as Dr. Watts points out, because “The traditional Western ethic has always placed great emphasis on the intrinsic worth and equal value of every human life regardless of its stage or condition. This ethic has had the blessing of the Judeo-Christian heritage and has been the basis for most of our laws and much of our social policy.” Insisting the issue is one of “legal personhood” remains a tactic used by bigots to exclude the victims of their bigotry from the protection of law — this works great for them because there is no way to establish what constitutes a “legal person,” it always remains a matter of the opinion of those in power, not one of science and common sense.
October 4th, 2012 | 5:54 am
Ray,
If I remember your previous statements correctly, you oppose abortion after six weeks or so. If by “oppose,” you mean that you are willing to support efforts to make abortion after six weeks illegal, then I think your position is great and welcome you aboard.
October 4th, 2012 | 5:59 am
David,
“My main point is that pro-lifers who say the only thing you need to do to settle the abortion question is consult an embryology textbook are approaching the issue so simplistically that they are basically just plain wrong. They are reading their own religious faith into words like human and human being and relying on emotionalism to make bad arguments. And, of course, they are claiming that not only are they correct, but everybody knows they are correct, and that those who disagree with them do so in bad faith”
I agree with this statement completely. I think we’ve seen each other make enough arguments that we know that neither of us play the “bad faith” card or think that textbooks answer the question.
But I still don’t know where exactly you stand. You don’t “condone abortion” and are horrified at NYC’s abortion rate, but what exactly do you think should be done about that rate? Are you willing to make abortion illegal at conception, implantation, after 6 weeks, 12, 28 , what?
October 4th, 2012 | 6:01 am
Maximilian,
“So your reasons for opposing abortion are religious too?”
Of course.
“Thrilling or not, that is not a reasonable ground on which to deny women control over their own body – all the more because you concede that it’s not yet an independent, separate human being”
Even Roe denies women control over their body after a certain point. So the argument isn’t about whether women have control but when that control ends. When do you think that control ends? After birth, after the second trimester, after viability? And why?
“When there is nothing wrong with a ‘second chance’, why not?”
Killing a human being is wrong.
October 4th, 2012 | 6:02 am
Harry,
“Who or what is a legal person is entirely subjective, meaning those in power can bestow it or withdraw it as they see fit and never be proven “wrong” about their decisions. This situation serves bigotry very well.”
It is reasoning like this that makes the pro-life movement seem silly. Only a few people—and as far as I can tell, no one on this thread—thinks that a legal person is “entirely subjective.” But your definition of bigotry does seem to be entirely subjective. If you’re going to get anywhere, you’re going to have to argue your case, not just sling insults that sound good to you.
October 4th, 2012 | 8:28 am
harry – Are you discussing this issue with Dr. Malcolm Watts? I only see David Nickol, Maximilian, and so forth replying in this thread.
October 4th, 2012 | 11:06 am
That remark sums up the problem. Photographic evidence that makes clear that children are being violently murdered has no significance to some people. They have embraced Dr. Watts’ new ethic for medicine and society. It is an ethic that requires one to become callous, cold and hardhearted.
I suppose the Nazis running the concentration camps got to the point where the photographic evidence of their activities seemed to them “irrelevant” and proved “nothing of importance.” They probably quite sincerely wondered as the evidence presented at the Nuremberg Trials shocked the world, “What’s the big deal?” or maybe thought to themselves, “This is a sheer appeal to emotion …”
Actually Dr. Watts’ new ethic was tried by the Nazis and proved to be a disaster. One has to wonder about those who want to implement it again so soon after such a catastrophe.
One could make the case that people who see no significance in evidence that children are being murdered and dismiss that fact with shallow, euphemistic language, who have managed to suppress the normal, instinctive – emotional – human reaction to children being murdered, have become something less than human, could make the case that they therefore no longer qualify for legal personhood, and should be treated as dangerous animals. How would such people defend themselves from such laws? They have already insisted that scientific evidence that they are biological humans means nothing. If the Supreme Court handed down a decision declaring them non-persons for the reasons just mentioned, would these “less than human” creatures have any argument they could make in their own defense that they hadn’t already themselves dismissed?
“We are fully developed humans and a fetus isn’t.” — No, you haven’t even developed into humans with a normal instinct to protect the young of your own kind, which is a defect. In the fetus, not being fully developed is not a defect.
“We are protected by the 14th amendment.” — Not if the Supreme Court says you are not. There is no authority above the Supreme Court. If they say you are not a legal person, you aren’t and that is final. There is no higher authority, no eternal principles, no natural law to appeal to. You are out of luck.
And so it would go.
October 4th, 2012 | 11:18 am
Michael –
Actually, more like 20 weeks. It seems that 20 weeks is about the minimum point that a fetus could possibly be aware of even something as basic as pain.
After that point, I think abortion should be prohibited – though as I noted, except in cases of threat to the mother; you can’t force someone to risk their life for another. (At least, in the U.S. legal system; I believe the Napoleonic code is different on that point. No doubt Michael PS can confirm or deny.) I’m rather glad that my mother-in-law decided to carry my (then-future) wife to term despite great personal risk, but that doesn’t mean I have the right to force others to take such a risk.
Certainly it seems no great hardship to require women, before 20 weeks, to come to a decision one way or another. It would be an unusual pregnancy – to say the least – that would not be apparent well before five months.
October 4th, 2012 | 11:42 am
Maximilian,
You accused me of providing “bare assertions without evidence”, and, besides trying to keep my posts comprehensive yet short, I replied that the evidence supporting what I wrote is not difficult to find. Generally speaking, if you and other people choose to ignore these well-argued pro-life arguments for the sanctity of human life, it is your problem— of understanding, logic, biases, family background etc., but mainly of selfishness, insensitivity and the lack of love or the “hardness of the heart”. Yes, it is also my or our problem because we are forced to live in the same society, but abortion affects me only indirectly, such as in not choosing friends whose life philosophy is “pro-death”. Those who choose to abort their children will be directly affected by the consequences, which I wouldn’t want to suffer – just like somebody who is determined to jump off a bridge, but there is only so much one can do to argue with such a person.
As far as the “preamble” to the Canadian Constitution — it is silly to argue, to put it politely, that the first key statement outlining the guiding principles of the constitution that follows is null and void of any legal meaning. Really? So why was it written in the first place and why not take it out? It is like saying that the first key statements of a very important document like the Declaration of Independence, perhaps the most famous few sentences in the history of mankind, mean nothing. Harry in the post following yours rightly mentioned these unalienable human rights which are the guiding principle of the Unites States, just as the same human rights are implied by the preamble of Canadian constitution by stating that “God” is the main guiding principle guaranteeing the same inalienable human rights in Canada. The proper meaning of the constitutional preamble should be clear if you read the interpretation of the preamble to the constitution of the United States:
“The Preamble to the United States Constitution is a brief introductory statement of the Constitution’s fundamental purposes and guiding principles. It states in general terms, and courts have referred to it as reliable evidence of, the Founding Fathers’ intentions regarding the Constitution’s meaning and what they hoped the Constitution would achieve.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_United_States_Constitution
October 4th, 2012 | 12:59 pm
Michael: “So your reasons for opposing abortion are religious too?” Of course.
I am glad that you are honest about that. Just a few days ago, I was severely criticized for stating that most opposition to abortion is due to religion.
Michael: Even Roe denies women control over their body after a certain point. So the argument isn’t about whether women have control but when that control ends.
Well, you have conceded that at the point of implantation, there is no independent, separate human being, but rather a potential ” ” ” “. In the third trimester, there is unquestionably an independent, separate human being, and it would be murder to kill it. The same is not true of an embryo or an early-stage fetus, as you pointed out.
Michael: Killing a human being is wrong.
I agree. But if that was your point, why did you argue against ‘second chances’?
October 4th, 2012 | 1:12 pm
Harry: Photographic evidence that makes clear that children are being violently murdered has no significance to some people.
Should the photographic evidence of fertilized eggs that are “murdered” also disturb us? Or perhaps the embryos in IVF-clinics or stem cell research facilities? Even though no gruesome act is shown, seeing children in Nazi camps disturbs me, but the same is not true for embryos in IVF-clincs, even though most of them will “die”.
Harry: They probably quite sincerely wondered as the evidence presented at the Nuremberg Trials shocked the world, “What’s the big deal?” or maybe thought to themselves, “This is a sheer appeal to emotion …”
No, because pictures would not be used to prove that these things were wrong, but that they had occurred. You don’t need to see any pictures to know that it was wrong to exterminate the Jews.
Harry: Actually Dr. Watts’ new ethic was tried by the Nazis and proved to be a disaster.
Actually, the Nazis criminalized abortion, so it seems they did value human life.
Harry: They have already insisted that scientific evidence that they are biological humans means nothing.
The same scientific evidence that says that people who disagree with you on this issue are going to hell?
Harry: No, you haven’t even developed into humans with a normal instinct to protect the young of your own kind, which is a defect.
Huge circular argument here.
Harry: If they say you are not a legal person, you aren’t and that is final. There is no higher authority, no eternal principles, no natural law to appeal to
And that has always been the case. Show me five cases in modern states where “natural law” trumped positive law. I doubt there’ll be even one.
October 4th, 2012 | 1:23 pm
Monkeyville: You accused me of providing “bare assertions without evidence”,
Confirmed by you, since you didn’t point to all the evidence you have posted, rather, you told me that I should go out and find evidence for your claims.
Monkeyville: I replied that the evidence supporting what I wrote is not difficult to find.
That’s really novel. I’ve never heard that before in a debate, that someone just makes an assertion, and then sits back and tells me that I should make or find his arguments for him.
Monkeyville: Those who choose to abort their children will be directly affected by the consequences
Shall I hold my breath? You posit that the arguments of the anti-abortion side are strong, and yet you can’t get beyond “you are selfish” and “you have a hard heart”, and a veiled claim that I am going to hell.
Monkeyville: As far as the “preamble” to the Canadian Constitution — it is silly to argue, to put it politely, that the first key statement outlining the guiding principles of the constitution that follows is null and void of any legal meaning. Really?
Are you familiar with the concept of a preamble? If so, you should know that in this case, as in every other case, preambles have no legal force whatsoever.
Monkeyville: It is like saying that the first key statements of a very important document like the Declaration of Independence, perhaps the most famous few sentences in the history of mankind, mean nothing.
The Declaration of Independence is not a law, a treaty or anything like that – it has the character of a resolution. The Constitution is. Not being a legal document, it contains no preamble. The entire document has the legal force of a preamble.
Monkeyville: The proper meaning of the constitutional preamble should be clear if you read the interpretation of the preamble to the constitution of the United States:
What you quote shows that it is used in the same way as legislative history, which some jurists find relevant. That doesn’t mean that legislative history has legal force, and neither does any preamble.
October 4th, 2012 | 4:31 pm
The normal and fully human are disturbed when photographic evidence indicates that what is clearly a human child has been murdered.
What do you want? A medal?
Your remarks have made it apparent that neither the deaths of embryos nor photographic evidence that children clearly recognizable as such have been murdered disturbs you.
It was self-evident that what the Nazis did was wrong, just as it self-evident that dismembering a wiggling, kicking baby is wrong. Photographic evidence indicates that what happened to the Jews really occurred, and that what is currently happening to babies really occurs. You defend the latter.
Nor do you need any pictures to know that it is wrong to take any innocent human life — but in spite of the photographic evidence you defend taking the lives of innocent human beings clearly recognizable as human children.
Only in so far as its criminalization was in line with their eugenics strategy. The initial effort to decriminalize abortion took place in Germany in 1920 when a bill to do that was introduced into the German legislature. This was long before anybody knew who Hitler was. The same year an influential book was published advocating euthanasia, “The Release of the Destruction of Life Devoid of Value.” Racist eugenics was politically correct at the time. The seeds of the legitimization of state sanctioned killing of innocent human beings were then planted and grew over the years. Hitler only put into practice what had already been accepted in theory by the German intelligentsia.
You failed to provide a link to where I said you were going to Hell when I asked you to do that. You haven’t even provided an exact quote of my remarks. Yet you keep saying I said you were going to Hell. Since you insist on accusing me of that, it can’t possibly cost me anything to say the following: Hell is real. Everybody there chose to be there. You and I and everyone else has a free will. We can choose to go to Hell. Or not. It is the understanding of many theists that staunchly defending the practice of taking the lives of innocent children is not exactly a path to the eternal bliss of Heaven, and ultimately there is only one other place to spend eternity. If you choose Hell you will go there. Now, at least you can honestly point out that I explained to you that ending up in Hell is a possibility for you and everyone else.
You make my point. Modern “atheocracies” do not and cannot acknowledge the “Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” which was the basis of the government of the Founders. This has huge ramifications.
The problem is that rights to life and liberty are not inalienable under an atheocracy. The are bestowed only upon those Caesar deems worthy of such things.
If humanity is merely the product of a mindless, purposeless, natural process that quite accidentally spewed us forth, then we have no more inalienable rights than does a cow. Cows get butchered, as have millions upon millions of innocent human beings under atheistic regimes. Here is a clue for you: Every regime in modern history that has been hostile to theism has also been fatal to innocent human beings by the millions.
October 4th, 2012 | 4:49 pm
Harry,
“people who see no significance in evidence that children are being murdered and dismiss that fact with shallow, euphemistic language, who have managed to suppress the normal, instinctive – emotional – human reaction to children being murdered, have become something less than human”
Ease up. Set aside your precious self-regard and listen to what people are saying. David doesn’t condone abortion, Ray condemns it as soon as he guesses that the child is old enough to feel pain, and Maximilian does, too, as soon as he no longer questions its independence. The bombast is unnecessary and counter-productive.
October 4th, 2012 | 4:57 pm
Ray,
“It seems that 20 weeks is about the minimum point that a fetus could possibly be aware of even something as basic as pain. I think abortion should be prohibited – though as I noted, except in cases of threat to the mother; you can’t force someone to risk their life for another. Certainly it seems no great hardship to require women, before 20 weeks, to come to a decision one way or another.”
Just so I’m straight: you feel that we can kill a human life as long as it doesn’t feel pain, and we can make abortion illegal after week 20 as long as carrying the baby to term doesn’t kill the mother. Is that right?
October 4th, 2012 | 5:16 pm
Maximilian,
“Just a few days ago, I was severely criticized for stating that most opposition to abortion is due to religion”
I would add that most Westerners who promote abortion do so either for religious reasons or out of their concern for women’s rights, and I would emphasize that the very notion of women’s equality grew out Christian teaching about the sanctity and value of every human life: “There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can be neither male nor female–for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28.
“In the third trimester, there is unquestionably an independent, separate human being, and it would be murder to kill it. The same is not true of an embryo or an early-stage fetus, as you pointed out”
Your argument is muddled and unclear. At what point precisely do you no longer accept abortion. It sounds like you might be identifying viability, which is around 24 weeks, but would you accept Ray’s date of pain in the 20th?
Can you explain why you believe the independence of the baby trumps the mother’s right to control her body?
“I agree. But if that was your point, why did you argue against ‘second chances’?”
Sex leads to babies. Everyone knows that, but some people take the risk of having sex even though they don’t want a baby. When they end up pregnant anyway, they want to avoid the consequences of their actions, rub out the baby, and start again.
October 4th, 2012 | 5:22 pm
Maximilian,
I believe in hell, as every Catholic should, but I would not be so presumptuous as to condemn you to hell, I will leave the final judgement to where it belongs. Although I would be tempted, like in the cartoon series Dilbert, to condemn you to 10 minutes in “heck”. Perhaps you will have a change of heart on your deathbed, like others sinners and atheists before you. Neither will I presume what such a last-second change of heart means to the Supreme Judge. I meant rather the undeniable and scientifically proven consequences many men and especially women suffer after abortion for the rest of their life — a kind of hell on earth here.
I think you are badly mistaken about the role of the preamble in constitutions, and I will leave it at that. In fact I do think that the Declaration of Independence is a crucial part of the United States’ history and culture and thus it ought be taken into account when interpreting the US Constitution.
October 4th, 2012 | 6:20 pm
Harry: The normal and fully human are disturbed when photographic evidence indicates that what is clearly a human child has been murdered.
So you are disturbed when you see photographic evidence of fertilized eggs which are going to be destroyed?
Harry: It was self-evident that what the Nazis did was wrong, just as it self-evident that dismembering a wiggling, kicking baby is wrong
Then eliminating a fertilized egg is not wrong.
Harry: Nor do you need any pictures to know that it is wrong to take any innocent human life
That’s what you need to establish, that a fertilized egg is a human person that should have the same legal protection as a child.
Harry: Only in so far as its criminalization was in line with their eugenics strategy.
So you admit that Hitler criminalized abortion. Good, because many people on your side are under the incorrect impression that he legalized it.
Harry: You failed to provide a link to where I said you were going to Hell when I asked you to do that. You haven’t even provided an exact quote of my remarks.
Did you? Then I overlooked it. Here is your link: http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/09/18/catholics-for-obama/
You equate abortion with murder, and you say that my defense before your deity will be unsuccessful.
Harry: Since you insist on accusing me of that, it can’t possibly cost me anything to say the following: Hell is real.
You provide as much evidence for that as you do for the immorality of abortion. I will not be taking either proposition on anyone’s say-so. On the other hand, if you can prove either, I will gladly accept them.
Harry: The problem is that rights to life and liberty are not inalienable under an atheocracy. The are bestowed only upon those Caesar deems worthy of such things.
They are not inalienable under any form of government. I do not understand why you think that simply calling them inalienably, will make them inalienable. Suppose you created an explicit legal status for “natural law”. Such a system can only exist if and only for as long as the government allows for it.
Harry: Every regime in modern history that has been hostile to theism has also been fatal to innocent human beings by the millions.
Abortion is legal throughout the civilized world (with a few exceptions), so I can only assume that you mean to condemn the entire civilized world, with this comment.
October 4th, 2012 | 6:27 pm
Michael: I would emphasize that the very notion of women’s equality grew out Christian teaching about the sanctity and value of every human life
I will grant you as much that Christianity did regard women better than traditional Greco-Roman ideology – not including Platonism or Stoicism. And still it took 1600 years for women to be even legally equal in the Christian world.
Michael: It sounds like you might be identifying viability, which is around 24 weeks, but would you accept Ray’s date of pain in the 20th?
For the reason you pointed out (although I suspect that Ray meant that a fetus that can feel pain is sufficiently developed to be treated as human), I would not. Viability is my standard, but just to be on the safe side, I would not strictly hold to viability (you’re going to get something more muddled and unclear) – 16-18 weeks seems reasonable to me.
Michael: Can you explain why you believe the independence of the baby trumps the mother’s right to control her body?
When it is an independent and separate being, killing it is murder. And at no time is the mother’s right to anything an excuse for murder, or Casey Anthony would be truly innocent.
Michael: Sex leads to babies. Everyone knows that, but some people take the risk of having sex even though they don’t want a baby. When they end up pregnant anyway, they want to avoid the consequences of their actions, rub out the baby, and start again.
This argument rests on the assumption that an embryo/early fetus is an actual baby and worthy of protection. Presumably, you would have no problem with a second chance, or avoiding the consequences, if it were merely Plan B, or contraception. So why not cut out the middleman and argue straight for your assumption, as opposed to from your assumption.
October 4th, 2012 | 6:33 pm
Monkeyville: Perhaps you will have a change of heart on your deathbed, like others sinners and atheists before you.
Not Christopher Hitchens. And like Mark Twain said, I’d like heaven for the climate, and hell for the company.
Monkeyville: I meant rather the undeniable and scientifically proven consequences many men and especially women suffer after abortion for the rest of their life
I have not heard of that, but then again, I have not heard of men having abortions – so what do I know?
Monkeyville: I think you are badly mistaken about the role of the preamble in constitutions
I am glad you did not pounce on my poor editing. “The Constitution is” should not have been there – I originally intended to make another point. Still, what you demonstrated is that the preamble is used like the legislative history is, sometimes to see what the intent of the writers of the Constitution was. However, this does not mean that the preamble has actual legal force. If the preamble said: “And by the way, heretics should be burned” – that would be unenforceable.
October 4th, 2012 | 10:04 pm
Monkeyville,
“I meant rather the undeniable and scientifically proven consequences many men and especially women suffer after abortion for the rest of their life”
This is a weak argument. People regret a lot of things that aren’t so bad and are nonplussed by a lot of things they should feel guilty about. The regret some people feel about abortion is hardly compelling.
October 4th, 2012 | 10:56 pm
Maximilian,
“You provide as much evidence for that as you do for the immorality of abortion. I will not be taking either proposition on anyone’s say-so. On the other hand, if you can prove either, I will gladly accept them”
I’m guessing that you are more outraged by the suggestion that an immoral stand would lead to hell than you should be. You probably believe in some functional equivalent such as that religious believers condemn themselves to live in a fog of ignorance and superstition, stuck in a dark cave.
“I will grant you as much that Christianity did regard women better than traditional Greco-Roman ideology – not including Platonism or Stoicism. And still it took 1600 years for women to be even legally equal in the Christian world”
I could be wrong about this, but I feel pretty sure that women were more equal in early Christianity than they were under Platonists or Stoics. Women were prominent converts and even deacons, especially in Pauline communities. Even in medieval Christianity, you find a fair number of women mystics and, in the East, spiritual teachers. The prohibition of divorce improved the lives of women, compared to the pagan world. Many of the women who led the fight for legal equality did so out of religious conviction, having, in the US, first fought for abolition. If you think 1600 years is too long, you might point to some culture that got there faster.
“16-18 weeks seems reasonable to me. at no time is the mother’s right to anything an excuse for murder, or Casey Anthony would be truly innocent”
I’m glad to hear you say that you recognize the baby as human after 16 weeks and regard abortion after that point as murder. There are roughly 20 million abortions each year in the US, 5% after the 16th week. By your definition, that’s one million murders. One million Casey Anthony’s every year, 10 million every decade in your country. Does that bother you enough for you to support tighter restrictions on abortion that would ensure that fewer human beings are murdered? Did you support the partial-birth ban and other such measures?
“This argument rests on the assumption that an embryo/early fetus is an actual baby and worthy of protection.”
I understand the importance of maintaining a distinction between the baby in the womb and a legal person. The law has precise and non-commonsensical meanings for word like “person.” But people only call a baby a fetus when they want to keep open the option of killing it. I’ve never seen someone proudly hold up an ultrasound and coo, “Hey, everyone, look at my fetus.” So, yes, I assume that an embryo is a baby just as you assume it is not.
“Presumably, you would have no problem with a second chance, or avoiding the consequences, if it were merely Plan B, or contraception.”
I’m fine with contraception and think so-called natural family planning is as euphemistic as calling a baby a fetus. But I also believe that if you’re going to have sex, then you better be prepared for what happens when the contraception doesn’t work. That’s just common sense.
October 5th, 2012 | 8:56 am
Michael –
No. Rather, that something so undeveloped that it cannot be aware of something as basic as pain cannot possibly be aware of anything else.
Again, I hold that being a subject, rather than an object, is a necessary condition for being a person. Chop the head off a body, and keep the body alive on life support, you don’t have a person. Keep the head alive, even without a body, and you still have a person.
I actually doubt self-awareness is present for quite a while after 20 weeks, but I’m conservative. The only time abortion should be allowed is when we can positively rule out any possibility of consciousness.
Yes, that’s an accurate summation.
Perhaps someday we’ll understand consciousness well enough to know exactly how it works, and have more precise diagnostic tools. For now, though, the best we seem to be able to do is figure out when the developing brain starts to ‘hook up’ and begin integrating the various subsystems. Before that point, I feel quite confident that consciousness of any kind can’t be present.
October 5th, 2012 | 12:16 pm
Ray,
“Again, I hold that being a subject, rather than an object, is a necessary condition for being a person.”
I understand your point, but it makes me nervous because humans have a long history of determining what kinds of human life are worth keeping. Infanticide was accepted because newborns were seen more as subjects than objects. Part of the allure of early Christianity was its clarity around certain moral issues, primarily life. Christians don’t believe that we have to decide whether life has moved from object to subject. Life is life and deserves preservation regardless.
“The only time abortion should be allowed is when we can positively rule out any possibility of consciousness”
I’m glad to hear you say that, and so I’ll repeat the same questions I asked Maximilian. There are roughly 20 million abortions each year in the US, 5% after the 16th week. By your definition, that’s one million murders every year, 10 million every decade in your country. Does that bother you enough for you to support tighter restrictions on abortion that would ensure that fewer human beings are murdered? Did you support the partial-birth ban and other such measures?
October 5th, 2012 | 7:41 pm
Michael: I’m guessing that you are more outraged by the suggestion that an immoral stand would lead to hell than you should be
I do not share your premise that this is an immoral stand. I would be very pleased if people who held immoral beliefs would go to hell. I think I had the human sacrifice belief vs. action debate with you.
Michael: I could be wrong about this, but I feel pretty sure that women were more equal in early Christianity than they were under Platonists or Stoics.
You rightly mention early Christianity, because by the time of the author of Titus/Timothy, women were not even allowed to speak in churches. I mentioned Platonists and Stoics because they believed (e.g., Rufus in the case of the Stoics) that women had an equal capability to learn, and Plato even held open the possibility of having philosopher queens. It’s probably true that in practice, they did not have many (or any) actual female students – although I don’t think they are to blame for this, as women simply did not receive an education at the time.
Michael: If you think 1600 years is too long, you might point to some culture that got there faster.
Good point, but it’s rather difficult to compare, and I don’t want to assume. The entire civilized world was Christian by 1800, so there’s not really a civilized pagan control group to compare civilized Christian countries to. I’d think that both equal rights for women and abolition had more to do with the Enlightenment than with Christianity, as Christianity had already been around for about 1900 years, without that much of an effect. It is also true that Christianity has helped women in certain ways, in recognizing their equal spiritual worth, as well as in condemning infanticide, concubinage, polygamy, sexual slavery, etc.
Michael: There are roughly 20 million abortions each year in the US, 5% after the 16th week. By your definition, that’s one million murders. (…) Does that bother you enough for you to support tighter restrictions on abortion that would ensure that fewer human beings are murdered?
Your figures are off by a factor of 15. And it is not entirely clear to me what part of the 5% of abortions are carried out for justifiable reasons – fatal deformities, a threat to life, or a very serious health threat. But yes, if by ‘abortion’ you mean only late-term abortions, I favor banning them with the three exceptions mentioned before, insofar as they are not. As for PBA: does the wrong depend on the kind of procedure that is used? Or is that just an appeal to emotion on the side of the anti-abortion movement?
Michael: But people only call a baby a fetus when they want to keep open the option of killing it.
A late-term fetus is both a fetus and a baby. It’s a baby because it’s really not that different from an actual baby, but a fetus because it is still in the womb. This hardly justifies killing it. The morality of actions does not depend on the terms we use. If we called a fertilized egg a baby, it still wouldn’t be wrong to eliminate it. If we called a third-trimester fetus a blob of tissue, it still wouldn’t be right to kill it.
Michael: I’ve never seen someone proudly hold up an ultrasound and coo, “Hey, everyone, look at my fetus.”
That is not necessarily factually inaccurate, but if it is, mere prolepsis proves little.
October 6th, 2012 | 7:53 am
Maximilian,
“I do not share your premise that this is an immoral stand.”
I know that, but my comment was not directed at the issue of abortion. You and Harry have been going back and forth about whether he did or didn’t say you were going to hell for your support of abortion, and I was pointing out that you shouldn’t get your nose so out of joint about the idea that someone thinks you’re going to hell. You, after all, presumably think Harry and all religious people are wandering in darkness and superstition. There’s little difference.
“You rightly mention early Christianity, because by the time of the author of Titus/Timothy, women were not even allowed to speak in churches.”
But Titus and Timothy are also evidence that later Pauline communities had women who were still speaking. Prohibitions are evidence that deeds are being done. And it’s not like the lights went out after the second century. Convents and female saints have empowered women across centuries.
“It’s probably true that in practice, they did not have many (or any) actual female students – although I don’t think they are to blame for this, as women simply did not receive an education at the time”
You’ve put your finger on the key: practice. In Christianity, you can see women actually leading, receiving an education, and thriving. Sexism has, more or less, limited the achievement of equality in one era or place than another, but Christianity has promoted women’s equality longer and more successfully than Platonism or Stoicism.
“The entire civilized world was Christian by 1800, so there’s not really a civilized pagan control group to compare civilized Christian countries to.”
Hey, you’ve got the entire globe to work with here, hundreds of non-Christian societies to choose from. I think lots of those societies were “civilized,” so I don’t accept your idea that the civilized world is limited to Christian nations, but I hope you noticed that you just claimed that the civilized world was Christian. Doesn’t that imply that Christianity creates what you call civilization?
“I’d think that both equal rights for women and abolition had more to do with the Enlightenment than with Christianity, as Christianity had already been around for about 1900 years, without that much of an effect.”
You need to untangle two things here. First, this way of opposing Christianity and the Enlightenment is only true for some figures. Many others were both Enlightened and Christian and would not have distinguished the two currents in themselves. For them, the Enlightenment was a form of Christianity. Second, look at the leaders of both the women’s movement and abolition, and you’ll see that most of them believed they were acting out of their Christian convictions.
Christians pursuing Christian goals produced the Enlightenment. The fact that so many Enlightenment figures turned against Christianity is mostly the result of resistance from entrenched Christianity.
“It is also true that Christianity has helped women in certain ways, in recognizing their equal spiritual worth, as well as in condemning infanticide, concubinage, polygamy, sexual slavery, etc”
Those are pretty important ways! And they also suggest that you exaggerate when you claim that Christianity didn’t have “that much of an effect.”
“Your figures are off by a factor of 15.”
I apologize for misreading Guttmacher’s statistics. The CDC reports 50,000,000 abortions each year in the US, much higher than the 20 million I stated. This brings the death toll of fetuses that you have decided to call babies up to two and a half million.
“And it is not entirely clear to me what part of the 5% of abortions are carried out for justifiable reasons – fatal deformities, a threat to life, or a very serious health threat.”
When Guttmacher studied abortions after week 16, they found that only 2% of the women reported late diagnosis of fetal deformities. Eliminate those 50, 000 and the death toll goes down slightly to 2,450,000.
That number includes all deformities, not just the fatal ones, and the other two reasons you find justifiable are not large enough to make it onto Guttmacher’s list.
Since I am apparently bad with numbers, I encourage you to read the brief report yourself. http://www.holysmoke.org/fem/fem0543.htm
“But yes, if by ‘abortion’ you mean only late-term abortions, I favor banning them with the three exceptions mentioned before, insofar as they are not.”
I was using the definition of abortion that you provided, which is after week 16. I’m not asking about the procedure of partial birth. I’m asking about whether you oppose all abortions after week 16, with only the exceptions you listed.
“As for PBA: does the wrong depend on the kind of procedure that is used? Or is that just an appeal to emotion on the side of the anti-abortion movement?”
This is a puzzling question. You believe that after 16 weeks a fetus is a baby. You believe it is murder to kill such babies. But you think it is wrong to appeal to emotion when describing how one procedure used exclusively on such babies breaks their skulls and suctions out their brains. I’m sure that you believe that murder is murder, but aren’t you more horrified when the murder involves torture, dismemberment, etc.?
“The morality of actions does not depend on the terms we use.”
Your point is both correct and obvious. My point is that the terms we use can make it *easier* to be moral or immoral. One reason you insist on calling a week-old baby a fetus is because you want to be able to kill it. I want to call it a baby because I don’t want you to kill it. Vocabulary makes a difference.
The word “fetus” only entered the vocabulary of ordinary people when people started searching for ways to justify abortion. I doubt that the term appeared very often outside medical literature before 1973. Even today, the most pro-abortion couples will point to an ultrasound and show pictures of their “baby” or will tell you the “baby” has been kicking. They will talk about the “fetus” right up until the moment they decide to “keep the baby.” Euphemisms mean something, as Orwell famously taught.
October 6th, 2012 | 7:14 pm
Michael: You, after all, presumably think Harry and all religious people are wandering in darkness and superstition. There’s little difference.
The issue is not that I particularly care about whether he thinks people go to hell or not, but that he is on a religious quest, along with the vast majority of people who are anti-abortion. That may be why making secular arguments is fairly pointless.
Michael: But Titus and Timothy are also evidence that later Pauline communities had women who were still speaking. Prohibitions are evidence that deeds are being done.
Not in a particularly flattering way for Christianity, since what is claimed to be an apostle is saying that they should not speak in church. I also think that you overstate the empowering effect of ‘female saints’ and convents. And you state that Christianity, unlike Platonists and Stoics, educated women. When – unless you count simply attending church as an education? Education is fairly rare for men in the Middle Ages, and definitely for women.
Michael: I hope you noticed that you just claimed that the civilized world was Christian. Doesn’t that imply that Christianity creates what you call civilization?
Christianity started out with a civilization – Rome. But it’s not terrible, in my view, especially in a time when most people were ignorant to begin with. I certainly prefer Christianity to Islam. But I prefer paganism (if I had to choose) and philosophy to Christianity.
Michael: Many others were both Enlightened and Christian and would not have distinguished the two currents in themselves. For them, the Enlightenment was a form of Christianity.
It can’t be a form of Christianity, or it wouldn’t have taken so long. There is no doubt that it can be reconciled with Christianity, or that a particular interpretation of Christianity would lead one to advocate abolition and equal rights for women, but to say that Christianity naturally or automatically leads to these two things is mistaken. If it did, it wouldn’t have taken 1900 years. Yes, Christianity is more friendly to both causes than, for example, Islam.
Michael: Those are pretty important ways! And they also suggest that you exaggerate when you claim that Christianity didn’t have “that much of an effect.”
“That much of an effect” is talking about getting equal rights for women, not helping them. Despite commendably getting rid of those practices, women were still very much unequal. That was my point.
Michael: I apologize for misreading Guttmacher’s statistics. The CDC reports 50,000,000 abortions each year in the US, much higher than the 20 million I stated.
Come on. That number is illogical. It would mean that one in three women have abortions every year. It amazes me that you wouldn’t question it. Actually, the CDC reports about 800,000 abortions for the year 2008. I tracked down your source, and you glosses over the “since 1973″ part.
Michael: I’m asking about whether you oppose all abortions after week 16, with only the exceptions you listed.
Of course. I wouldn’t have said it, if I didn’t. The other reasons in the Guttmacher report aren’t nearly enough to justify an abortion after week 16.
Michael: You believe that after 16 weeks a fetus is a baby. You believe it is murder to kill such babies.
Not exactly, but close. After 16-18 weeks, in my view, you enter a gray area, and you don’t want to be there. Upon viability, it’s indisputably a baby. This may strike you as hypocrisy, because you said the same thing before, and I didn’t correct you, but I try to keep my comments as brief as possible.
Michael: But you think it is wrong to appeal to emotion when describing how one procedure used exclusively on such babies breaks their skulls and suctions out their brains. I’m sure that you believe that murder is murder, but aren’t you more horrified when the murder involves torture, dismemberment, etc.?
Yes, but if murder were legal, I would not propose to only ban murders when they involve torture and dismemberment, even though I am more horrified by such murders. I would propose to ban all murders. It is no relief to know that babies would be killed less gruesomely. I am naturally inclined to suspect the motives of the anti-abortion movement, all the more due to such intrigues.
Michael: One reason you insist on calling a week-old baby a fetus is because you want to be able to kill it.
Actually, a week-old ‘baby’ is still an embryo, I would not call it a fetus. But if you place such a premium on words, would you call a fertilized egg that has just implanted a baby – if you think that such a word makes it less likely that it will be ‘killed’?
Michael: The word “fetus” only entered the vocabulary of ordinary people when people started searching for ways to justify abortion. I doubt that the term appeared very often outside medical literature before 1973.
I looked it up for you. First recorded use in the English language dates to the 14th century, in Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomew’s De Proprietatibus Rerum.
Michael: Even today, the most pro-abortion couples will point to an ultrasound and show pictures of their “baby” or will tell you the “baby” has been kicking.
It strikes me as a rather weak argument to pounce on the words people use to make claims about what people “really” believe. It’s just what people say. For example, the fact that I say “oh my God” when I am shocked, does not mean that I believe in a god – sometimes theists use this as an argument.
October 7th, 2012 | 5:16 pm
Maximilian,
“The issue is not that I particularly care about whether he thinks people go to hell or not, but that he is on a religious quest, along with the vast majority of people who are anti-abortion. That may be why making secular arguments is fairly pointless”
Harry is on a religious quest; you’re on a quest for reason. He accepts religiously based arguments; you accept secularly based ones. Making religious arguments with you is as “pointless” as making secular ones with him. By putting the debate this way, you are making an exchange of ideas harder and less likely. There’s more shared ground between the secular and the religious than you seem willing to admit at such moments.
“Not in a particularly flattering way for Christianity, since what is claimed to be an apostle is saying that they should not speak in church.”
Compared to today, no. Compared to other places and times, Timothy and Titus look pretty good. Many of your precious Enlightenment figures had some pretty low opinions of women.
“I also think that you overstate the empowering effect of ‘female saints’ and convents.”
Read a little more history. Some women acquired enough power to have considerable influence. Where else in world history have women created their own communities and ruled themselves as they did in convents? Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, and Hildegard of Bingen all wielded significant power.
“And you state that Christianity, unlike Platonists and Stoics, educated women. When – unless you count simply attending church as an education? Education is fairly rare for men in the Middle Ages, and definitely for women”
Poor women who entered convents received an education. Women have always sought equality when they could.
“Christianity started out with a civilization – Rome.”
Tease out which elements of civilization that you admire came from Rome and which came from Christianity. I’d love to see your list.
“But I prefer paganism (if I had to choose) and philosophy to Christianity”
Why do you prefer these? What did they create that was so admirable?
“It can’t be a form of Christianity, or it wouldn’t have taken so long. There is no doubt that it can be reconciled with Christianity, or that a particular interpretation of Christianity would lead one to advocate abolition and equal rights for women, but to say that Christianity naturally or automatically leads to these two things is mistaken. If it did, it wouldn’t have taken 1900 years.”
When Rousseau and Voltaire broke from religion, they took a lot of Christianity along with them, especially Christian values. Jefferson famously cut up the New Testament, but he didn’t throw it away. He found value in some parts of it that are not articulated strongly anywhere else. Show me the equivalent anywhere of the Sermon on the Mount. Elizabeth Cady Stanton also brought many of her Christian values into the abolitionist and women’s suffrage movements even after she broke from organized religion. Meanwhile, women like Francis Willard remained Christian even as they pursued abolition and suffrage. William Wilberforce was Christian. You’re trying to make distinct two things that were mixed for many people and continue to be.
But Christianity does lead naturally to abolition and women’s rights. In every period, some Christians have demanded an end to slavery and for equality for women in the name of Christ. It doesn’t lead inevitably, but it does lead naturally.
It took so long for abolition and women’s equality to be achieved *universally* because the Church early on succumbed to the temptation to align itself with political power.
“Despite commendably getting rid of those practices, women were still very much unequal.”
But less unequal than they were anywhere else.
“Actually, the CDC reports about 800,000 abortions for the year 2008. I tracked down your source, and you glosses over the “since 1973″ part.
My mistake again. I apologize, but I told you to provide your own numbers! ;-)
But you’re still ducking the issue. Since 1973, abortion has killed 2,450,000 babies, using your definition of baby. Of the 800,000 abortions in 2008, 40,000 were babies by your definition of baby. How many of those deaths bother you, and what are you prepared to do about them?
“Yes, but if murder were legal, I would not propose to only ban murders when they involve torture and dismemberment, even though I am more horrified by such murders. I would propose to ban all murders. It is no relief to know that babies would be killed less gruesomely.”
The pro-life movement has been quite clear that it wants to ban all murders. If it could, it would. And so it has gone for the strategy of chipping away at what it can. It’s a little like the abolition movement, which passed laws that prevented the expansion of slavery because it didn’t yet have the support to end slavery. Surely you wouldn’t accuse those abolitionists of being wrong to oppose the expansion of slavery or the fugitive slave act.
“I am naturally inclined to suspect the motives of the anti-abortion movement, all the more due to such intrigues”
What motives do you suspect? I’m really interested in hearing the answer to this question.
“But if you place such a premium on words, would you call a fertilized egg that has just implanted a baby – if you think that such a word makes it less likely that it will be ‘killed’?”
Yes, I call an implanted egg a baby. I call it a baby because it is a baby.
“I looked it up for you. First recorded use in the English language dates to the 14th century, in Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomew’s De Proprietatibus Rerum”
Thanks, but you looked up the wrong thing. I asked for when the term entered popular conversation. When did ordinary people start talking about fetuses and in what contexts? My answer is that doctors talk about fetuses, but ordinary folk only talk about fetuses when they are preparing to kill them. Otherwise, they talk about their babies.
“It strikes me as a rather weak argument to pounce on the words people use to make claims about what people “really” believe. It’s just what people say.”
I’ll quote the great George Orwell: “In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”
Similarly, words like “fetus” are needed to name the thing you want to kill without calling up a mental picture of the baby you are actually killing.
October 8th, 2012 | 10:48 am
Michael –
I’m actually concerned about that, too. I used to have problems with abortion after ~30 days, as that’s when neural tissue starts to form. But I’ve learned more about the neurology since then, and 20 weeks really seems to be the minimum possible window.
The 16th week is not the 20th week. And the 20th week already contains a ‘margin of safety’ – the actual time seems to be around 22 weeks, but development rates differ so it’s best to be cautious.
As Maximilian’s pointed out, it’s not clear at all how many of those abortions are medically justified, as well. (For example, even without threat to the life of the mother, there’s anencephaly, often not visible for quite a while.)
In this political climate, getting a 20-week ban in place will be difficult – both of the large sides will view it as an unacceptable compromise – but I’m trying to spread that idea.
October 8th, 2012 | 9:01 pm
Ray,
“The 16th week is not the 20th week.”
Ok. Let’s take week 21, which has 1.1% of all abortions. If there are 800,000 abortions a year, then 8,000 occur after week 21.
“As Maximilian’s pointed out, it’s not clear at all how many of those abortions are medically justified, as well.”
The study I cited earlier about causes said that 21% of women aborting after week 16 reported that their most important reason for doing so was because they couldn’t afford a baby now. Another 21% said they were unready for responsibility. 42% had good reasons for being careful about sex.
Just 3% reported a health problem with the child, and another 3% that the mother had a health problem.
So that’s 6% of post-16th week. Let’s say it’s 12% for the post-21st week. That is still 7,000 dead babies every year by your definition of baby and by your definition of justifiable homicide.
How outraged are you by that number and what do you plan to do about it?
“In this political climate, getting a 20-week ban in place will be difficult – both of the large sides will view it as an unacceptable compromise”
I agree that it will be difficult, and I agree that most won’t accept it. I’m happy to accept it, however, because I believe that once pro-choicers start to imagine ending some abortions, their hearts will open to ending all abortions.
“but I’m trying to spread that idea”
Where? I don’t see you trying to do so here on First Things. You seem much more intent on defending your definition of life’s beginning than ending the practice.
October 9th, 2012 | 10:15 am
Michael –
Because I think I can be most effective by convincing people of that definition. I think it will lead people on both sides to come to the conclusion that abortion after 20 weeks should be restricted to cases of medical necessity. The comments appear to be gone from this article, but I argued with some – ahem – rather obstreperous pro-abortion types about this very issue there, too.
I’m heartened by the fact that politicians are starting to present bills that would institute just such a ban.
October 9th, 2012 | 11:30 am
Hello, Michael,
“Harry is on a religious quest …”
I believe in God and in His Son, Jesus. I consider myself an orthodox Catholic. Yet one doesn’t have to believe in Jesus or be Catholic to see that deliberately taking innocent human life is wrong, and see that the evidence demonstrates that often the human lives being taken are clearly recognizable as babies; it is not like one has to depend on scientific knowledge to reach that conclusion. One just has to have eyes to see.
So, while I may be on a quest, it is not only a religious quest. It is a also very secular, human quest for basic justice and the reestablishment of the traditional Western ethic. That is a quest anyone and everyone would be on, it seems to me, whether or not they are religious, if they only looked into the origins of Nazi genocide. Long before Hitler came to power the German intelligentsia had embraced abortion and euthanasia, had deified the state and had set the stage for a Hitler to come to power and put their theories into practice.
Contemporary atheistic, radically secularized states have taken the same path. Abortion and euthanasia — state sanctioned killing of innocent human beings — is being legitimized in the public mind. There is even discussion in respectable medical journals advocating taking the lives of babies after they are born — including perfectly healthy babies. Blatant infanticide. See:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/03/01/a-sign-of-the-times-2/
I think one just has to be a rational human being with a normal compassion for other members of the human family, possess a normal intelligence and have facts of the matter available to them to embark on this quest.
By the way, Michael, I must say that you have made some very good arguments here. I am impressed. ;o)
October 9th, 2012 | 6:12 pm
Ray,
Thanks for this reply. I read through your comments on the other First Things thread, and they were clearer in this context.
I think anyone who is arguing for restrictions on choice and is acting on those arguments is an ally, and I hope that you will eventually see that consciousness is not a sufficient criterion for determining whether killing is justified.
October 9th, 2012 | 6:37 pm
Michael: Harry is on a religious quest; you’re on a quest for reason. He accepts religiously based arguments; you accept secularly based ones. Making religious arguments with you is as “pointless” as making secular ones with him. By putting the debate this way, you are making an exchange of ideas harder and less likely. There’s more shared ground between the secular and the religious than you seem willing to admit at such moments.
I am simply describing a situation the way it is (as I see it). I did not cause it to be this way, nor do my words have any effect on the situation. How much shared ground there is between a secular and a religious person, depands on the person. I may have more shared ground with you, than with an atheist who is a moral relativist.
Michael: Compared to today, no. Compared to other places and times, Timothy and Titus look pretty good. Many of your precious Enlightenment figures had some pretty low opinions of women.
Not so sure, what positive statements do(es) the author(s) of Timothy and Titus make about the rights of women? It seems that he/they is/are simply trying to take away established rights (or to legitimize it in retrospect). Insofar as women were treated properly by Christians, the credit belongs to Paul, and Jesus, and the Christians who treated women with respect.
Michael: Read a little more history. Some women acquired enough power to have considerable influence. Where else in world history have women created their own communities and ruled themselves as they did in convents? Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, and Hildegard of Bingen all wielded significant power.
It depends on what you mean by ‘significant power’. When a former dauphin fails to ransom you, because it is a discredit to him that he has to rely on a peasant girl, this is a fairly dubious proposition.
Michael: Poor women who entered convents received an education. Women have always sought equality when they could.
But we’re messing up the timeline a bit here. Are we talking about early Christianity, in which there were no such convents, to compare them to Platonists and Stoics? Sure, early Christians allowed women to attend church, but I would not think that this counts as giving them an education.
Michael: Tease out which elements of civilization that you admire came from Rome and which came from Christianity. I’d love to see your list.
This is a very difficult thing to do. But to give you just one example, monogamy came from Rome, and not from Christianity. If you look at the Old Testament, you’ll find no evidence that monogamy is in any way prescribed. However, Rome allowed people to marry only one wife, and the church adopted this practice.
Michael: Why do you prefer these? What did they create that was so admirable?
Philosophy. It was not “created” by pagan believers, but it was something that was largely tolerated by pagans. Compare that to the Christian Middle Ages, during which the only philosophy that was tolerated was Christian philosophy. I also like the fact that paganism has no ethical pretensions – religious commandments rather often result in people doing evil.
Michael: Show me the equivalent anywhere of the Sermon on the Mount.
I cannot think of an equal to the radicalism and pacifism of this sermon, but for the simple ethical Golden Rule, I would cite rabbi Hillel and Confucius.
Michael: You’re trying to make distinct two things that were mixed for many people and continue to be.
Not at all. I am not arguing that Enlightenment is incompatible with Christianity. I am arguing that it does not follow automatically from Christianity, or it would not have taken so long. Certainly, when you’re following someone like Jesus, it would be insane to say that abolition of slavery is incompatible with Christianity. Some Pauline letters and Old Testament verses make your task slightly more difficult, but not impossible – because the abolitionist can only appeal to general principles, while the advocate for slavery can cite chapter and verse in which slavery is justified.
Michael: In every period, some Christians have demanded an end to slavery and for equality for women in the name of Christ.
You will have a very hard time finding Christians who did any such thing between, 400 and 1700. I can’t think of one, though there may be one or two.
Michael: But less unequal than they were anywhere else.
True statement for any agricultural society.
Michael: Of the 800,000 abortions in 2008, 40,000 were babies by your definition of baby. How many of those deaths bother you, and what are you prepared to do about them?
I don’t think I’m ducking the issue at all. I’ve told you twice already that I am opposed to this. Saying it a third time won’t make it any stronger. What I do about it, is the same I do about anything that I don’t like: argue against it. Unfortunately, the ceaseless attacks on women’s rights have so poisoned the political atmosphere, that pro-choicers commendably but wrongly in this case are on their guard against any possible attack. So I was once accused of being a stealth opponent of abortion, even though I am the strongest pro-choicer one can imagine.
Michael: Surely you wouldn’t accuse those abolitionists of being wrong to oppose the expansion of slavery or the fugitive slave act.
Garrison would, but I wouldn’t. That still leaves us with the question: why ban one particular method, and not all late-term abortions? How much of a consolation is it, to know that they will be killed using another method?
Michael: What motives do you suspect? I’m really interested in hearing the answer to this question.
I often hear opponents of abortion describe ordinary abortion described as though it were ‘partial-birth abortion’. I suspect that was the real aim of elevating in the public mind this particular practice. The more you can identify abortion in general with gruesome, late-term abortions, the more opposition there will be to abortion.
Michael: Yes, I call an implanted egg a baby. I call it a baby because it is a baby.
That’s stretching the definition of ‘baby’ beyond anything I can comprehend.
Michael: Thanks, but you looked up the wrong thing. I asked for when the term entered popular conversation.
I know, but that would be very difficult to find out, whereas this was very easy.
Michael: Similarly, words like “fetus” are needed to name the thing you want to kill without calling up a mental picture of the baby you are actually killing.
Why should the word ‘baby’ summon the mental picture of a born baby? After all, you just said that a fertilized egg is a baby. Why should I not think of a fertilized egg when I hear the word baby?
October 9th, 2012 | 6:43 pm
Harry: Yet one doesn’t have to believe in Jesus or be Catholic to see that deliberately taking innocent human life is wrong, and see that the evidence demonstrates that often the human lives being taken are clearly recognizable as babies;
Don’t blame Michael for using the words ‘religious quest’, it is merely a reference to what I earlier said you were on. But Harry, tell me one thing. You say that it is wrong to take human lives clearly recognizable as babies. Would you then say that fertilized eggs are OK to eliminate, as they are not clearly recognizable as babies?
Harry: Long before Hitler came to power the German intelligentsia had embraced abortion and euthanasia
But not Hitler, who opposed abortion. Hitler attacked the intelligentsia for reading a lot of books but not understanding them very well.
Harry: There is even discussion in respectable medical journals advocating taking the lives of babies after they are born — including perfectly healthy babies. Blatant infanticide.
A very evil as well as absurd argument. Abortion refers to aborting a process – pregnancy. The idea of an after-birth abortion is an absurdity.
Harry: I think one just has to be a rational human being with a normal compassion for other members of the human family, possess a normal intelligence and have facts of the matter available to them to embark on this quest.
So what is it that I lack? Speak freely.
October 10th, 2012 | 1:27 am
Maximilian,
“How much shared ground there is between a secular and a religious person, depands on the person. I may have more shared ground with you, than with an atheist who is a moral relativist”
But that is not how you put it to Harry. You claimed a distinct difference between the two quests, and rejected him for his quest, not because you didn’t share ground but because you don’t share quests.
“Not so sure, what positive statements do(es) the author(s) of Timothy and Titus make about the rights of women?”
In Timothy, women are told to be submissive, but are described and treated with dignity: “That is why the presiding elder must have an impeccable character. Husband of one wife, he must be temperate, discreet and courteous, hospitable and a good teacher; not a heavy drinker, nor hot-tempered, but gentle and peaceable, not avaricious, a man who manages his own household well and brings his children up to obey him and be well-behaved. Never speak sharply to a man older than yourself, but appeal to him as you would to your own father; treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers and young women as sisters with all propriety.”
Women flocked to Christianity because it held men to high, moral standards that then led to men treating women well. A temperate man who doesn’t drink or get angry will respect his wife and treat her well. Men who must treat all women as mothers or sisters will respect the rights of women to be treated kindly and well.
“When a former dauphin fails to ransom you, because it is a discredit to him that he has to rely on a peasant girl, this is a fairly dubious proposition”
You’re just picking at gnats now. Christianity gave some women a route toward political, economic, and social power. Yes, it was circumscribed, but it’s circumscribed now, and the larger point is that you find more prominent women in Christian history than you do elsewhere and they exist before the Enlightenment.
“But we’re messing up the timeline a bit here. Are we talking about early Christianity, in which there were no such convents, to compare them to Platonists and Stoics? Sure, early Christians allowed women to attend church, but I would not think that this counts as giving them an education”
If you want to stick with early Christianity, there’s some evidence in Junia and Phoebe and even the legend of Thecla that women became leaders in Pauline communities. Women are more prominent in the history of early Christianity than they are in history of Platonism or Stoicism. We know their names and stories.
“This is a very difficult thing to do. But to give you just one example, monogamy came from Rome, and not from Christianity.”
Ok, you’re really reaching here. Polygamy had died out among Jews centuries before Christ, and Jesus was explicit that marriage was between one man and one woman, not multiple wives. Not even divorce was allowed. The passage I quoted from Timothy is clear that monogamy is the standard.
You’ve got to do better than this if you’re going to stick to your claim that Rome was civilized before Christianity.
“Philosophy. It was not “created” by pagan believers, but it was something that was largely tolerated by pagans. Compare that to the Christian Middle Ages, during which the only philosophy that was tolerated was Christian philosophy.”
Tolerated by pagan believers? Should I tell you about Socrates again? But seriously, your answer makes little sense. I ask you why you prefer philosophy over Christianity and your answer is circular—just philosophy. And you like pagans because they left philosophy alone. That’s hardly much to brag about. While some Christians were hostile to philosophy, the middle ages preserved Plato, read Aristotle eagerly when he reappeared, and admired Arab and Jewish philosophers. Christianity has a long engagement with philosophy.
“I also like the fact that paganism has no ethical pretensions – religious commandments rather often result in people doing evil”
But that’s the problem. Without ethics, there’s only raw power. Loyalty means only kin. It’s a small world with small minds. And religious commandments result in evil? That’s ridiculous.
“but for the simple ethical Golden Rule, I would cite rabbi Hillel and Confucius”
The golden rule is sweet and all, but it’s not too challenging. It doesn’t encourage us to push our morality to the heights demanded by the Sermon on the Mount.
“I am arguing that it does not follow automatically from Christianity, or it would not have taken so long.”
Too long compared to what? Given the sloppiness of the answers in this post, I’m beginning to think that you don’t have a very precise thing in mind when you say Enlightenment, so tell me what exactly what you mean by it. You seem to think it has something to do with abolition but EVERY significant leader of the anti-slavery movement was Christian. Plus, there’s a long line of Christian teachings against slavery. Not just Paul, but St. John Crysostom and a passel of popes: John VIII in 873, Pius II in 1462. Anselm and Thomas Aquinas condemned it, and Pope Paul III was active in fighting it.
Before you ask why people didn’t obey these Christian teachings, remember that popes don’t have armies. They can preach against slavery, but they can’t force even their own subjects to obey. Complicated, isn’t it?
“You will have a very hard time finding Christians who did any such thing between, 400 and 1700. I can’t think of one, though there may be one or two”
Care to take back this statement given my answer about slavery?
“I don’t think I’m ducking the issue at all. I’ve told you twice already that I am opposed to this. Saying it a third time won’t make it any stronger. What I do about it, is the same I do about anything that I don’t like: argue against it.”
I know that you’re “opposed to it,” but I asked whether it “bothers” you enough to do something about it. Babies are dying, being killed right here in your own country by the tens of thousands every year. More babies die each year in the US from abortion than all the people killed by cars in the US each year. We have seat belt laws and speed laws, and I presume you support these, but nothing for these babies. And remember that I’m using your definition of baby, not mine. Merely arguing against it seems pretty tepid to me.
“Unfortunately, the ceaseless attacks on women’s rights have so poisoned the political atmosphere”
Attacks on which rights? And why would an attack on one right make you any less concerned about the murder of children?
“even though I am the strongest pro-choicer one can imagine”
You seem inconsistently pro-choice to me. You insist on women’s right to choose, but you’ve decided on your own to oppose women’s right to choose after week 16. Some pro-choicers believe that women can choose right until the end, and your beloved pagans and philosophers saw nothing wrong with infanticide, though happily they were free of ethical pretensions and free of the religious commandments that would have caused them to do evil as they left children to be eaten by wolves. (A little sarcasm there.)
“That still leaves us with the question: why ban one particular method, and not all late-term abortions?”
I’ve answered that question. By banning the method, you’ve saved a few more lives.
“I often hear opponents of abortion describe ordinary abortion described as though it were ‘partial-birth abortion’.”
They’re wrong to do so. Harry and I have fought about this very issue.
“I suspect that was the real aim of elevating in the public mind this particular practice. The more you can identify abortion in general with gruesome, late-term abortions, the more opposition there will be to abortion”
I don’t have a problem with that as long as no truth is distorted. What makes abortion easy is that the baby is tiny, unseen, and sometimes not even felt. If you don’t see or feel it, you can pretend it’s not alive and that you’re not killing anything. That’s the point of sonogram laws. If you can see a head, fingers, then you know you are killing a child, not just a blob of tissue. Abortion is so tempting because it’s like bombing at thousands of feet. You press a button and people you never see die. Simple, easy, and hopefully untroubled by conscience.
“That’s stretching the definition of ‘baby’ beyond anything I can comprehend”
Why do you feel the need to call this developing human life by some term other than baby?
“I know, but that would be very difficult to find out, whereas this was very easy”
Then I win!
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact