Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Mark- get ready for a MAJOR fight on this. When the conservatives try to say anything to infringe on the so-called “right” of abortion and take it to the people, the liberals get up in arms more than anything. Just a little marker on how extreme their resistance is- the National Organization of Women actually opposed a bill, signed into law last year, that protected infants born after a botched abortion (!!!!). thats right, children who were already born are consired “fetuses” by the most important and large pro-choice group out there.

I am so happy to read this article though, it made my night. in my opinion abortion is the greatest moral failing of our time- the slavery of our generation. If we continue to put it off, like the legislators of the 1840s put off slavery with gag resolutions ect, history will not look kindly upon us. I call on George W. Bush to drop this gay marriage nonsense and push measures similar to this instead. He claims to think an unborn child is a human being- how can be possibly make that other stuff a priority instead? I am glad the representatives of south dakota have the political courage I wish our national representatives had.

Another issue which the a majority of conservatives see in black and white terms - abortion always bad -
pro-life, regardless of quality - always good.

Where the majority of liberals contend an abortion decision must always weigh a number of factors since it involves the lives of more than just the fetus. Lib’s don’t think the state has any right to pass laws that impinge on such a uniquely personal and difficult decision where the Dr., religious advisor, the Mother, Father, and siblings, all may have input necessary to make such difficult decision.

But the conservative view holds they and the state know better than those directly affected how to speak and what to speak on behalf of the fetus which has no voice. The single voice without a voice, like children and adolescents under age 18, should of course dictate law for all of the others who may have and should have a say in the decision which will affect so many persons with a voice.

David- what is the moral principle upon which you make your argument. Let me give you several options:

1. the court says “mothers have a privacy right to kill their newborns until 6 months after birth- this is a private decision for the mother and the state should not step in”- we’ll call this the peter singer position

2. “mothers have a privacy right to kill their newborns until birth- this is a private decision for the mother and the state should not step in”

3. “mothers have a privacy right to kill their newborns until the new born is viable, approximated by the 2nd trimest- this is a private decision for the mother and the state should not step in”

4. “mothers have a privacy right, but it does not extend to taking the life of an unborn child unless her life is at stake”

I dont know where you are on this range, but i am at #4. the court has chosen somewhere between #2 and #2. which would you say is correct?

Now comes the second question- why does the court have the right to declare that the people cant choose #4? why is the opinion of those on the court about if 1, 2, 3 or 4 is correct binding on the people? I put foward that there is no constitutional principle upon which the court can say that #4 is not a legitimate option the legislature can take. The 14th ammendment gives the court the right to say that the law cant take someone out of the class of “human beings”, it does not give them the power to define the unborn child out of that class- that authority is not granted to them and the support for roe v. wade comes not from a serious constituion analysis (almost all constitution scholars, even if they agree with it, now admit that roe v. wade is not grounded in solid constitutional reasoning- the supreme court said as much in Casey, upholding it only because of Stare Decisis- see the concurrence)

Parents surely have a special responsibility and authority over their children- but that responsibility extends only to taking good care of the child. if a parent beats their child, or worse yet, kills their child, the state should step in. That is a principle that I doubt you will disagree with, although after what NOW said about the children who were born after a botched abortion, nothing will surprize me.

You asked where I stand. I don’t ordinarily volunteer where I stand, since, like most others, my stances are composed of information, lack of information, beliefs, values and priorities. The latter three are very personal and therefore I don’t usually share those.

As to where my analysis takes me based on the information I have accessible, I have no problem sharing and I thank you for asking. This is not a black and white issue for me. There are too many exceptions that make applying a uniform law an injustice unto itself. A law that says all intentional fetal deaths constitute a crime, will eventually constitute an assault on the liberties and freedoms of mothers to make decisions about their own bodies and pregnancies. That is my reasoned conclusion, now follows the rationale and reasoning that got me there.

First of all, the issue of when a fertilized egg becomes a human being subject or object to the laws of the federal government cannot and should not be a religiously influenced decision. So the rhetoric about a fertilized egg being a human being makes no sense to me. Women abort spontaneously with enough frequency to have created a medical demand market of women affected. If the fetus is spontaneously aborted, should the state begin an inquiry as to what chances or negligence may have played a causal part in that spontaneous abortion for the purpose of determining if a crime of negligence or manslaughter is applicable. That to me is absurd and would lead to horrendous miscarriages of justice ( no pun intended ).

I propose that a mature deer has a greater capacity of sensing its own life, of giving it value as demonstrated by flight behavior, and has a memory of existence, all of which a fetus up to a certain point does not have. We permit and encourage the killing of deer for sport - for fun- for grins - for rights of macho passage. Those who would propose that the decision to abort a 12 week old fetus is a crime, can only make that case on religious grounds bearing on the concept of soul. For without soul, the human fetus has no greater status than that of a deer, in fact, less based on sensory experience and realization of concept of self. So, unless we are to turn government over to the church to mandate moral living, I would contend this argument is not valid.

What of the later term unborn fetus. Here the subject gets murkier. Certainly at some point, a fetus unborn is little to no different than a newborn, the only significant difference being that of having passed out of the womb into the room and having the physical dependency upon the mother cut. The newborn is capable of being raised by any number of different people, even workers of the state. Prior to birth, the fetus cannot be nurtured by anyone but the biological mother.

So if there is a stage of development of the fetus which should trigger state oversight and regulation, what stage of development should that be? End of first tri-mester, second, third, or some other maturational event? As is readily seen, this argument will never lead to concensus. Some would argue when it looks like a human it should be protected by the state. Others would argue when it has senses and the neural networks to experience and respond to pain is when state protection should take place.

Then there are those who would argue that until the fetus exits the womb and enters the room, it is entirely dependent upon the biological mother and the state should have no rights to legislate into a citizen’s body or decisions regarding the health issues surrounding a citizen. Until the fetus enters the room, it is not a citizen, and therefore a mother’s decision to bear or abort a fetus should not trigger state oversight or intervention.

Life vs. quality of life. What is human life without a brain? What is a human brain but a processor for experiences which define the holder of the brain, and his/her relationship with existence outside its own brain. Should the state mandate that brain dead individuals be kept alive in perpetuity at cost to the state for no other reason than the body still processes food and waste and reacts reflexively to localized stimulation? If not, then what interest does the state have in criminalizing a woman for having aborted a brain which has not yet had the opportunity to define itself in relation to anything outside of the brain. To me, there is no difference. And no loss either way, save for potential.

The brain dead adult has no potential. The fetus has a potential of becoming a person if birth occurs and interaction with an environment outside the womb begins the process of inquisitiveness, fascination, attention, discrimination, all those brain functions that help define the earliest concepts of self.

And here is as far as reason, rationale and logic take me. Putting the religious concept of soul aside (which one must do unless one wants to open the gate to religious doctrine determining what is and is not a crime and what punishment is appropriate) the state has no interest in what happens inside a citizen’s body and that includes pregnancy. To rule any other way invites state scrutiny into the behavior, activity, and intent on the part of a pregnant woman should any misfortune occur to the fetus.

Literally, we would be opening the courts to crimes based on how much caffeine a mother drank, whether she smoked or not, whether she went on amusement park roller coasters with intent to harm the fetus. This invasion of privacy and a woman’s right to respond to her pregnancy as she deems fit will only lead to something akin to the State’s interest in birth as demonstrated in Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’. That book should be read by anyone concerned with the issue of the state’s right to legislate and control the birthing process.

interesting response, I will just make a couple of small observations:

1. The description above seems to suggest rather heavily that roe v. wade must be wrongly decided. Since the argument is basically that it is such a hard question of when a child deserves legal protection, and you clearly struggle with the line, there is absolutely not consitutional mandate on the issue either way. there is a way set up to deal with such tough issues and that is our democratic process. Judges are not scientists, nor do they have any special skills that will help them mediate the disagreement between myself and you as to whether draw that line.

2. I think the key point here is the way one views human beings. This goes WAY beyond abortion, and gets to a much deeper viewpoint (which, of course, informs where one ends up on abortion). I want every one to just notice the sort of thread that runs through the above argument- basically a human beign is nothing but a processor, nothing more than a collection of body parts with impulses, senses to interact to the outside world. This is one view of human beings- it is held by people like peter signer. I urge you, David, to go read his book- it is excellent. He will show how that view of human beings (especially your deer analogy), must lead to the conclusion that a new-born infant, especially a mentally challenge one, deserves less legal protection than a monkey or a deer. Now that does not prove that this view is wrong, but it IS a logical implication of this view of people.

I offer that there is another view. it is not based upon religion (I am not religious at all, and I hold this view as to many other agnostic and even atheist people). It is the view that our nation was founded on, and the phiosophy behind that great line in the decleration of indepedence. this view holds that human beings are moral agents with the capicity for reason. It is one that can explain why someone who is in a coma for a temporary period of time does not lose their right to life (As David’s analysis would have to conclude he would- and for the sake of simplicity, lets say the coma is one that lasts exactly 9 months). It is the only one who can give an account of individual rights (note that david’s account of human beings can give no explanation of why people have individual rights, because they do not start with the understanding of the involiable human individual, btu rahter of a mass of cells that interacts with the world). You can reject this view if you want- but you have to admit that any defense of individual rights on principle, absolute principle, will go with it. So if you believe gays should be treated equal to other human beings, or blacks should have equal voting rights, this is the world view that allows you to give a principled account of it (if human beings are just collections of cells, it is difficult to see why there is anything like “justice” or “right and wrong” in the world for you to compare the current state to).

I think this is nothing less than the most profound disagreement in world views about human beings that one can have. My view was the one held by our framers, lincoln, kant, martin luther king and many other great moral philosophers. David’s view has become much more popular in more modern times- holding the tradition of extremely respected and brilliant philosophers of our century (i would say this school would include people like Nietzche, among other brilliant people)

The dispute about abortion, in my view, is exactly the dispute between these two world views. I choose to stand with the idea of individual human rights, while others choose to stand with the deconstruction version of human as collection of cells. I am sure David will correct my account of this dispute because he was a philosophy major, but the generalities of these two world views are likely correct.

3. Finally, you say “So the rhetoric about a fertilized egg being a human being makes no sense to me.” It is a scientific fact that a fertilized egg, at least after implantation, is a human being. Check any embreology book. the real question is whether it is a human being worthy of legal protection- thats what point #2 is all about.

Misha said “basically a human being is nothing but a processor, nothing more than a collection of body parts with impulses, senses to interact to the outside world.”

You are seriously misquoting what I said. My exact words were “What is a human brain but a processor for experiences which define the holder of the brain, and his/her relationship with existence outside its own brain.”

That is a far cry from what you misquoted. The ability to define oneself in relationship to ones inner and outer world is what is meant and clearly stated in my words.

It is a clever argument to start out by saying one isn’t going to make a religious argument and then turn around and attempt to debunk the only empirical argument which can be made for human definition. Then one moves on to imply some metaphysical human definition which is inviolable but carefully do not declare it for what it is - a religious definition that lies beyond the physical world we live in. Clever, but a contradictory argument.

Animals are miracles, but empirically observable miracles requiring no faith or belief. Humans are every bit as miraculous for the same reason, they are infinitely complex, evolved over millions of years to fill a niche and support the circle and cycle of life. A miraculous and awesome thing life is. And on this empirically observeable level, we would be bound to treat all life with reverence and respect. But, no, we have to bring religion into it which dicates that the human species is somehow more important, more valuable, more deserving of a place on this earth than any other living thing. Oh, well, so much for religion in practice. Not all reigions hold that humans are infinitely superior to other life, but, in practice, the followers of all religions tend to live as if they were. So hypocrisy is evenly distributed among religious followers all over the world, including those of my chosen religion.

Guess I would have to read the book, but his argument that pro-choice folks somehow view a deer which is killed for sport as having more rights than a human fetus is one I can reject out of hand. Folks I know who are pro-choice don’t think of the situation that way nor do they regard human fetuses, even aborted ones as objects of sport. Simply a preposterous argument on his part, in my opinion, out of touch with what pro-choice folks think and believe about the issue.

Well, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Siddhartha, and a host of other great and wise thinkers on the nature of man have just been relegated to the level of school children who simply do not understand what they are talking about because they don’t agree with your interpretation of where inviolable human rights come from. They all hold that the nature and definition of man comes from his own perceptions or, brain and its interaction with either the real world or the ideal world if his/her brain can perceive it.

The bottom line is, if this nation interferes with a woman’s right to choose, this nation will be preferring one set of religious definitions while discriminating against a set of other religious and non-religious definitions. One cannot legislate into the relationship between a woman and her unborn without discriminating against a whole group of citizens who do have the right to vote and who don’t believe that all abortions are immoral or criminal. The unborn is not a citizen, does not have a vote, and does not even have definition of self unless one introduces religious concepts of soul into the equation. The minute you do that to justify depriving citizens of their right to choose, you are discriminating on the basis of a preference for one religious point of view over others.

That above paragraph is truly what the abortion issue boils down to.

So much for the land of the free. Free only as long as one thinks the way the state says one is supposed to think. I love Animal Farm. Freedom to live without the exercise of other’s freedom infringing upon one’s own freedom. It is a definition American’s should reacquaint themselves with. For the abortion issue would have pro-lifer’s exercise of their own freedom to believe that a soul is installed into the cells of a fertilized egg infringe upon other women’s right to choose who don’t believe a fertilized egg has a soul or some other uniquely human quality or attribute that distinguishes it from the unfertilized eggs which are destroyed naturally every month. This is an issue of one set of religious believers trying to use the government to enforce their religious views on every one else who does not share their view. Pure and simply, that is what this issue boils down to.

the point of the Peter Singer thing is that he has the courage to take your point of you to its logical conclusion. While I find his conclusions disturbing, at least he is able to face the reality of the pro-choice position: it requires a principled endorsement of infanticide. Singer, much like other men who can see the logical implication of their views and barely accept them has my respect a lot more than people who try to have their cake and eat it too.

As for the straw man argument about religion- it is much easier to put me in that box and then argue around like I am some religious fanatic. I assure you I am not religious at all, i am agnostic after many years of trying to find religion and deciding that I did not truely believe it in my heart. There is nothing hidden or mystical about what I am saying- I believe that there is a certain moral system that all beings of reason must live under- not because some mystical god whom I do not know said so- but because reason dictates it. As Kant often pointed out, a being of reason is governed by the laws of reason. So argue against my reasons, and please do not try to assign me religious motives which would conviniently fit your stereotype of who is pro-life.

I still think you miss the deeper point in my above argument, because you get lost in the details of the philosophical distinctions. the system of moral reasoning that leads you to your conclusion cannot give you an account of any sort of individual rights, as much as you wish to assert them. What you reject as some sort of religious view is actually the natural rights political philosophy upon which our nation was concieved.

Also, i never said that the other side of this view are “School children”- in fact THREE seperate times I called the leaders of the other side brilliant. I happen to think Nietzsche is one of the most amazing intelligent men I have ever read- even if I disagree with almost every one of his conclusion. I am NOT putting down the other side here, i am trying to show the REAL distinction between those who believe there is a reason- a right and wrong- a way of judging men’s actions thats based upon principles and not on “social constructs”.

Finally, as for your argument on abortion- it assumes its conclusion and then proceeds. It is not relavent if unborn children are not citizens slaves were not citizens either. If you read your paragraph again and put “slave owner” every play you have “woman” and “slave” every place you have “unborn child”, you will have a perfect model of an 1850s argument against the abolitinists. The only distinction you can possibly draw is your notion, that you seem to think its all important, of the ability to have a definition of self. but that is exactly peter singer’s point- an infant has no such defintion, and thus by that criteria, there is no grounds upon which to protect the infant (when is the last time infants voted?). What I am asking you to do is to examine the principles upon which you distinguish those human beings who you want the law to protect and those who you do not want the law to protect. the principles you offered above clearly fail, unless you wish to take Singer’s position, which you rejected out of hand.

In this country, we once had a class of people who were said not to be “citizens” with the “right to vote”. Those who would use them for their ends justified this action by saying that their lower mental faculties made them unequal to white people. They produced studies “proving” this. Those studies were obviously bunk, but today we sense that it is NOT this that make what those slave owners did wrong. It was that they took a group of human beings and did not treat them as humans deserve to be treated. That is, in my mind, what the abortion debate is really about. Once again we have a group of people whose lives would be more convinient if we defined another class of human beings out of legal protection and moral consideration. they have legal power, the unborn children do not- the question is are those of us who have legal power going to allow these injustices to continue just because those who are being wronged dont have a say?

the following is a note Lincoln wrote to himself, imagining an argument with a slave owner. If you understand what he is TRUELY saying here, you will understand why I think the pro-choice position on abortion is morally untenable:

“You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you”

The point is that you need to point to morally relavent characterists to show why a human is not deserving of legal protection. the following are not such characteristics: size, country of origin, attractiveness, current state of brain development, current consciousness, location, skin color- just fill in any of those traits into the above quotation, and you will see what I mean.

David! I believe that is the most eloquent and effective pro-choice argument I have ever read! I hope you don’t mind if I incorporate a few of your points into my own pro-Choice argument for future debates with the Neo-Cons!!!

Since obviously religion, and the existence of a soul and the metaphysical aspects of humanity, play a part in determining a persons pro-life stance, I’d like to once again dip into the Bible itself for an argument!

Many Christians believe that their opposition to abortion is firmly supported by the Bible. This is untrue. The Bible is remarkably silent about abortion, and all arguments about the subject are indirect and highly questionable. Not even the world’s most respected theologians have been able to draw a firm conclusion one way or the other, despite continuing debate.

Most Christians know only one Biblical reason to oppose abortion, and that is the obvious one, “Thou shalt not kill.” This is one of the most critical laws a society can obey, and every pro-choice advocate agrees with it. However, it is impossible to break this commandment if there is no person on the receiving end of this action. The challenge to Christians is to find a text that declares at what point a fetus becomes ensouled, and hence a person.

Before we look at these texts, we should consider a quick attempt by Christians to sidestep this entire question. Personhood is irrelevant, they argue; even if the zygote were not yet a person, it is nonetheless human life, and killing it is wrong. But this argument falls easily. The Hebrew word for “kill” in the 6th Commandment is rasach, which more accurately means “murder,” or illegal killing judged harmful by the community. It is itself a relative term! Many forms of killing were considered legal; indeed, God often gave Israel permission to kill. (In I Samuel 15:3, God ordered Saul to massacre the Amalekites: “Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants…”) Generally, levitical law permits killing in times of war, the commission of justice and in self-defense. But recall that the levitical law we have in the Bible is incomplete, and comes to us in large gaps. If a law did exist on abortion, then we simply do not know what it was. Fortunately, we have an excellent idea on what the law on abortion might have been. As Rabbi Balfour Brickner, National Director of the Commission on Interfaith Activities, says:
“Jewish law is quite clear in its statement that an embryo is not reckoned a viable living thing (in Hebrew, bar kayama) until thirty days after its birth. One is not allowed to observe the Laws of Mourning for an expelled fetus. As a matter of fact, these Laws are not applicable for a child who does not survive until his thirtieth day.”
Since the fetus is not considered a person under Jewish law, it would be impossible to consider its abortion a murder. Indeed, most Jewish scholars have agreed that abortion was legal under Jewish law. This fact alone should give serious pause to the pro-life movement.

The legality of abortion in Jewish law fits into a larger and perfectly coherent philosophy on personhood according to the Bible. The philosophy I am about to demonstrate is this: that physical creation of the body comes first, and ensoulment only comes much later.

Pro-choice Christians note that the creation of Adam was a two-step process: God first formed Adam from the dust of the ground, and only then did he give him the breath of life, turning man into a living soul. This closely resembles the scientific description of pregnancy, which notes that the first seven months are devoted to constructing the organs and body, and only by the 8th month does the fetus display a waking consciousness.

There is also a long Christian tradition of the body/soul dichotomy. The flesh has long been condemned as temporary, imperfect, sinful and weak, whereas the soul has long been revered as eternal, pure, holy and God-like. It would be perfectly consistent for Christians to believe that personhood resides in the soul, and that there is no sin in disposing of a physical entity before it is given the soul of a new person.

From here we turn to specific Biblical evidence for ensoulment and personhood. Pro-choice activists have a near-argument stopper in Exodus 21:22-23:
“If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury [i.e., to the mother], the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury [i.e., to the mother], you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot…”
The traditional interpretation of this text, which even rabbinical scholars accepted for thousands of years, is this: if a man hurts a woman enough to cause a miscarriage, he reciprocates according to how much injury he caused her, i.e., an eye for an eye, etc. However, if the miscarriage resulted in no injury to the woman, then all the assailant had to pay was a monetary fine. The fact that the Bible does not equate the assailant’s life with the stillborn’s life is proof that the Bible does not count the fetus as a person.

This was the traditional interpretation — until recently, that is, when pro-life Christians became alarmed by the pro-choice side’s successful use of it in the debate on abortion. They took a close second look at the passage, and discovered a second possible interpretation. The text actually turns out to be ambiguous. It does not say who exactly suffers the “mischief” or harm; it could be the fetus as well as the mother. In that case, a miscarriage resulting in a live birth was punishable by a monetary fine, but a miscarriage resulting in fetal injury or death would call for the same from the assailant.

This new interpretation suffers from three drawbacks. First, the Jews, who know their own tradition best, have always accepted the first interpretation. Second, the laws of surrounding cultures (Assyrians, Hittites, Sumerians, Babylonians, Hammurapi and Eshnunna) were similar to Israel’s, due to widespread copying of laws. There is no ambiguity in their laws; any harm caused clearly refers to the mother. Finally, miscarriages in ancient times almost always resulted in stillbirths; saving premature babies is an achievement of modern science.

An even more astonishing pro-choice passage is Numbers 5, where the Lord appears to give a curse that causes abortions in unfaithful wives. According to this passage, the Lord instructed Moses that a husband who suspected his wife of sleeping with another man could take her to the priest for a test that would either confirm or deny his suspicions. The test involved his wife drinking a cup of “bitter water,” which consisted of holy water mixed with the dust of the tabernacle floor. If the woman were innocent, then no harm would come to her by drinking it. But if she were guilty, then she would be cursed with “bitter suffering;” namely, “she will have barrenness and a miscarrying womb.” In this text, God himself appears to be endorsing the practice of abortion.

This text produces angry reactions in pro-life advocates; here are some of the defenses that this writer has encountered. First, there is a translation problem. In the King James Version, verse 27 is translated as “her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot.” What this means, unfortunately, is open to interpretation. However, newer translations of the Bible, which are based on improved scholarship, give less ambiguous translations. The New International Version gives “her abdomen will swell and her thigh waste away,” but adds in the footnotes that an alternate translation is “she will have barrenness and a miscarrying womb.” The New Revised Standard Version, one of the most respected translations by scholars, gives “her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop…,” which more clearly indicates an abortion procedure.

A second objection is that water mixed with dust from the tabernacle floor does not sound severe enough to be an abortive agent. This observation, however, is irrelevant, in that God curses the water in verse 21 to cause a miscarrying womb if she is guilty. It is the curse, and not the water, which is relevant to the abortion procedure.

Another objection is that God alone has the power and the right to give life or death, and in this passage, it is clearly God’s curse that causes the miscarriage. It follows that humans would still not have permission to conduct abortions at will. Put another way, we know that a third of all fetuses less than 10 weeks old are spontaneously aborted; this could be viewed as an act of God, but it does not give humans the same right.

This argument nonetheless fails to a few observations. First, it was the suspicious husband’s choice to subject his wife to this procedure, and it was the priest who carried it out, which gives humans both a choice and a role in carrying out abortions. True, God may have made the final determination whether or not to cause the miscarriage, but if he had intended for humans to have no role in the process, he would have spontaneously aborted the fetus without their knowledge, choice or participation.

Second, humans are forced to “play God” whenever they make any decision about their reproduction. Bringing a life into a world of needless and acute suffering is just as terrible as not — who are humans to make that decision? The Bible certainly doesn’t speak to that issue, either — hence humans are placed in a God-like position no matter what they choose, with no Biblical direction on either option. Not many pro-life Christians have considered this flip-side to their arguments.

Finally, this passage establishes a precedent: God does not desire children to be raised in sinful environments. In the absence of explicit Biblical instruction on whether or not to bring life into a world of needless suffering, these precedents are the best we have.

A third pro-choice passage is Genesis 38. In this story, Judah mistakes Tamar as a prostitute, and orders her to be burned to death, despite the fact she is three months pregnant. If her twin fetuses had been considered persons, the law would have delayed her execution at least until her twins were born. (The execution order was later lifted, not because of this consideration, but because Judah learned Tamar’s true identity.)

When Jehovah gave monetary equivalents to the value of people of certain age groups in Leviticus 27:1-7, the lowest values were given to children between the ages of one month and five years. Boy babies were worth five shekels, and girls were worth three. Below the age of one month, they did not even merit a price.

For census purposes in Numbers 3:15, only male babies older than one month were to be counted. Below this age, they were not considered persons to be counted.

These texts, combined with the traditional Jewish acceptance of abortion, form a consistent philosophy on personhood. Of course, the religious right has its own favorite Biblical texts in this debate. As we go over them, however, notice how they do not at all contradict the above philosophy.

The most commonly quoted texts occur in poetry, an unfortunate fact for Christian conservatives, because they are already clearly on record for denouncing the idea that Biblical poetry can be taken as scientific fact. For those unfamiliar with this controversy, a brief digression is in order. The issue in question is the flat earth debate. The ancient Egyptians believed that the earth is flat, and the sky is a dome or tent-covering that God pulled over it. The sun, stars and planets were said to have hung from the ceiling. The Israelites were heavily influenced by many Egyptian beliefs, and this was one of them. For this reason, all the Bible’s descriptions of the earth sound like a house: the four corners of the earth, the pillars of heaven, the firmament (literally translated, a firm dome or ceiling), the windows of heaven (which, once opened, allowed the oceans above the firmament to pour through, causing rain), and the sun entering the sky through a door in the east and exiting through a door in the west. Isaiah wrote: “It is He that… stretcheth out the Heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell in.” Jews and Christians both interpreted these texts as literal fact for thousands of years. When Columbus sought to sail around the world, Catholic bishops used these texts against him, warning him that his lack of faith would cause him to fall off the edge of the earth.

Of course, Columbus and Magellan proved otherwise, and Christian apologists have ever since defended their error by claiming that these texts were metaphors, mere poetic flights of fancy, ones that described appearances only. It follows that poetry is not meant as literal science

The first thing I learned on my high school debate team is that one sure way to lose a debate was to “strawman” the other side’s position. You could argue that the other side’s views clearly LEAD to an unacceptable implication, but that it was poor debate practice to try to “beat” your opponent by assigning arguments to him that he did not make and then “refuting” them.

Given the above observation…. I find it intersting that while not a single person made a religious-based argument for stopping abortion on this thread (not even one!), all of the responses from the other side here have been toward some strange, strawman christian version of the prolife position.

The bible says a lot of things, and I have never been inclined to believe anything more or less because it was written in the bible.

I was merely going to the source! You personally may just have moral objections to abortion, and thats fine. But the vast majority of pro-life people base their beliefs on what they think is the Bible. The most common argument I’ve heard is “Thou Shall Not Kill”. But I can assure you that I am not coordinating some attack against you! You were just mentioning some metaphysical aspect of humanity which goes beyond the mere cellular definition which struck me as religious in nature…although you might not admit that!

I believe that humans are simply a collection of cells…although a very coordinated collection you can be assured! I don’t believe in a soul…which I assume by your words that you really don’t either. So that basically leaves us with our individual beliefs on what the value of life is. In that case, neither one of us can possibly have moral ascendancy over the other. We are forced to live within the values of the society around us..which as of 4:43AM Central Time February 25th,2004 says abortion is legal. We can have moral arguments all day but that won’t change the law. But Bush is trying to get those Neo-Con judges in there as we speak! You may get your way yet..from these “activist” Judges we keep hearing about!
Except these activist are of the Christian Coalition variety!

curious, lovecraft, would it really be “activist” if a judge overturned roe v. wade? I mean, all that would be doing is saying the people have the right to vote on the issue. Now if they used the 14th ammendment to protect unborn children and declared that all abortions were judicially outlawed, THAT would be real activism (kind of like Roe is :)).

Maybe because its 5:46 AM here :), I wonder something deeper. if you believe “that humans are simply a collection of cells…although a very coordinated collection you can be assured!”
What exactly is the source of your moral judgement? If we are not reasoning being governed by the laws of reason (and since we both arent religious, lets throw that out the window), what do you mean when you say something is “wrong”. For example, you say that banning abortion would be “wrong”- what does that statement mean to you? does that mean its wrong in some objective sense? if not, does that statement have any content? is it just a report on your feelings about the issue? If so, are those feelings any more valid than anyone else’s on any issue? (say, the feelings of hitler that all jews needed to die). My points is that if we accept your starting point, I cant see why we would care about anything at all or how we would go around making these arguments at nerely 6-freekin-A.M. I do believe that, in the end, we all believe that there are some things that are right and some things that are wrong- it seems strange to talk one’s self into a world view that denies that understanding.

i was unclear when i wrote the following:

“If we are not reasoning being governed by the laws of reason (and since we both arent religious, lets throw that out the window)”

What I meant to say was: “if you claim we are not reasoning beings governed by the laws of reason, and since we cant say that our judgements are valuable because of some religious concepts, what is there left to judge based on?” —> my point was that if we reject the religious notices, which we both do, AND we reject the notions that human beings are governed by objective laws of reasons, we are left with no grounds for our judgements. I happen to believe its incoherent to deny that we are reasoning beings governed by laws of judgement, but it seems like your account would.. anyway.. its WAY too late.

Simple. Moral Relativism. There are no universal and essential moral values, and morality is “relative” to particular societies and peoples. Like I mentioned, abortion is legal right now..therefore I am not morally offended by such a practice. I base my own beliefs on what is right and wrong on those of the society around me…at any given moment! Should abortion become illegal tommorow, then I will simply adjust my stance. Now before we start arguing about how an obedient “drone” I’ve become, let me just say that basically I am an immoral person by nature. I think a Nietzsche quote is due right about now!

By morality the individual is taught to become a function of the herd, and to ascribe to himself value only as a function…Morality is the herd instinct in the individual. - Nietzsche

I believe morality is something learned and is not an innate part of humanity. I’m sure you’ve heard of Feral Children, itself proof that morality is something learned..not given. Society has taught me that women sometimes kill their babies when they are not wanted. I’ve observed similar behavior in animals, particularly a momma cat we had once that ate her entire litter of kittens! I’m sure she had her reasons, but that cat probably didn’t spend a second debating the morality of it. I see no difference in that cats motives and those of a pregnant womans. If the woman does not desire the child, then it is her right to abort it. Infanticide is a naturally occuring phenomenon and should not be considered a crime or immoral. And once you’ve taken God out of the equation, then nature is all you have left!

If they votes morally, talks morally, and acts self-righteously moral, it is probably a religious argument one will get in debating the person on the issue of abortion.

Is there an argument being made here that religion does not affect, shade, or influence our thinking and debate on an issue like abortion and what makes a group of cells in a woman’s womb a human being in the eyes of the law? Does a religious argument have to begin with the statement “this is a religious argument”?

As I painstakingly argued, the abortion issue cannot be debated without introducing both the religious and a secular definition of what constitutes a human being and when. Pro-lifers find abortion immoral at least, and a crime of capital murder at worst, which by definition defines a fetus as a full fledged human being with the same rights and entitlements under the law as children have. How do they defend that definition? With some form of the concept of a soul delivered unto the egg by the sperm.

I never saw a sperm with a bag full of soul as a present to the egg, have you? There you have the secular argument that it takes more than a clump of cells resembling a tumor to be defined as a human being with full rights and protections under the law.

I love when the polls show the Christian Right are both the most adamant supporters of pro-life legislation and the most adamant supporters of the Iraq war, capital punishment, and right to bear arms (here in Texas). Talk about moral relativism…

An important and timely election issue, Mark. Great subject for an article.

lets see- they believe innosent unborn children should not be murdered, that the worst killers in the country should be put to death, that people have a right to protect themselves as garanteed by the 2nd ammendment, and that horrible dictators who brutalize their own people and spit on treaties they made with us should be diposed. Dont even try to understand the other side, that way its easier :)

As for moral relativism, I am glad I was able to get the admission out of at least one of you guys that your arguments lead you to that. Your point of view leaves you no moral grounds upon which to condemn hitler or slavery, for example. I am impress though, that Lovecraft was willing to take fully the implication of this point of view- i can respect it in an intellectual sense (there is no sarcasm there, I wish the left who is actualy morally relavist would be willing to admit it like you did, instead of trying to have their cake and eating it too).

p.s. there is nothing more ridiculous to me than when someone who is morally relavists starts talking about Bush doing “injust” or “wrong” or “terrible” things. They say its WRONG to invade iraq, WRONG to protect unborn children, WRONG to execute murders- but they do not believe that there is, in the end, anything like right and wrong. Or they try to scrit the issue, trying to talk about “equality” and “values” and how other people are “wrong” in their judgements, but in reality, under a relativist framework, all of those judgements are totally hollow (as Nietzsche would tell you, you are being a passive Nihilist). I wish people would have the courage of their conviction like Nietzsche did and just admit that you dont really believe these judgements have any force whatsoever. alas, I dont see that happening any time soon, they will continue to make arguments that undermine the ground of objective moral judgement while casting those judgements themselves.

Misha, but it does leave ethical grounds wide open.

Jesus said, Thou shallt not kill. He didn’t say except when you think a person is guilty, he didn’t say, except when you think another country could some day be a threat. The hypocrisy of the Christian right calling Pro-Choicers moral relativists is well… Choice!

Misha, something is not straightforward here. It is not the Pro-Choicers who are condemning Pro-Lifers as immoral or evil people. It is the other way around. Think about that for a minute…

Pro-choicers say, Judge not, lest ye be judged.
The hypocrisy can be amply demonstrated by both sides of the argument. Choose your poison.

Bush is wrong on Iraq because he chose unilateral action against the wishes of the world community. I don’t care if you call it “determined” or “decisive” or whatever, it has since been proven a flawed policy where we are chasing shadows in the desert of weapons that never existed! At the time Bush attacked Iraq, Saddam was allowing weapons inspectors unprecedent access to even his Palaces, so any statement that Saddam was not cooperating is incomplete without noting that, in the end, Saddam began cooperating COMPLETELY..but apparently Bush was on some kind of timeframe and felt he HAD to attack ASAP.

Every congressman and senator who voted to allow Bush to attack Iraq was told, in detail, that Saddam posed an immediate threat and could launch weapons within 45 minutes. They were shown aerial photos of supposed “weapons bunkers” and illustrations of alleged chemical trucks. The case was made that Saddam had to be taken out because he posed an IMMEDIATE threat. So Bush got the permission he sought…to attack Iraq. As of today, none of those terrible weapons have been found. So I base my opinion that Bush was wrong to invade Iraq on the facts at hand.

Another misconception I hear alot is Saddam was killing people by the thouands in Iraq. Well he did kill political enemies yes, but was he simply killing people at random indiscrimanately? NO! How could a cold-blooded killer like that have 100,000 protestors chanting his name and holding his picture up? And I can think of many countries with far worse human rights violations that the US simply ignores, China being the largest. While China incarcerates thousands of political prisoners each year, the US continues to purchase the majority of its goods from them! Bush says “Cuban communism is bad” on one hand, but “Chinese communism is good” on the other! Inconsistency like this also makes me think Bush is wrong.

And I don’t think abortion is wrong because I think a neglected baby is worse. A life of casual disregard is worse. Simple existence with no love is worse. Force a woman to have an unwanted baby and you have that worse case scenario. A neglected life is simply a far greater crime than to not have existed at all. Making babies is the easy part..raising a child is the tough part. If your not prepared to stop your life and raise a child, then you don’t NEED one. Unfortunately the sperm and egg have no concept of responsibility!

And had I been a German citizen in the 30’s, then due to my moral relativism I would probably not see Jewish persecution as a crime. Shocking?!! Not hardly. That was the typical attitude of Germans at the time and they have nothing to be ashamed of. Only the victor writes the history books,eh?

Lovecraft, just for clarity allow me to define my terms: Moral (adj.): Based on strong likelihood or firm conviction, rather than on the actual evidence: a moral certainty. Ethical: [adj] of or relating to the philosophical study of ethics; “ethical codes”; “ethical theories”.

The issue of abortion is in a sense, a non-issue politically. Using the definition of moral above, one could never hope to sway a moral person’s opinion on this subject, since actual evidence does not support their conclusions, belief does.
On the other hand, freedom of choicer’s usually point to birth as an observeable and readily measurable demarcation point at which a fetus becomes a human being in the eyes of the law. This argument however valid, is weak, since the debate shifts to splitting hairs, how can a baby one minute after birth be that substantially different from a fetus on minute before birth?

Pro-choicer’s nonetheless have the stronger argument, though only modestly so, based on the fact that they are will to use an agreed upon and empirically measurable developmental stage for the purposes of establishing law which restricts a woman’s right to choose how her body and its contents are treated.

Ultimately, I believe Roe V. Wade created the law in probably the fairest and most just manner possible save for partial birth abortions. Those were not defensible except in the matter of choice as to which life to save, the fetus or the mother.

It is going to be very difficult for either camp to move the Roe V. Wade benchmark since neither camp is going to be able to pull voters or opinion from the other camp into their own. Thus, politically, this is a stalemated issue.

Of course, the Sup. Ct. could unstalemate the issue without consideration of the politics or the deeply divided populace on this issue. And that is a whole other discussion.

Nope. Those definitions and that epistemology do not work. Humor me.

Moral laws are principles designed to sustain and perpetuate human life. There is no subjectivity or, necessarily, religious mysticism involved.

Now, the question raised in the piece we are discussing, at least to me, is WHEN does a state have a moral obligation to protect human life?

The first, second, third trimester notion is medically and legally passé. It was built on a 1973 attempt at understanding, though Blackmun himself never purported to understand. The Court has long since abandoned the trimester-coded reasoning and held merely that the right of a woman to have an abortion is a matter of settled law.

This is not a women’s rights issue, though describing it as such can stir emotions. And there are some people who hold, with Wesley Clark, that a woman should be able to abort her child up to the point of natural delivery. Any such argument runs into its own emotional problem for it is ostensibly an argument for aborting after birth. By extension, it can be an argument for elimination up until the age of reason. And if a child was born with a defect which will prevent it from ever forming a rational thought, this child is out of luck.

Either way, I can think of several reasons why this problem cannot be solved in here. It is impossible to answer an argument when dealing with a subjective metaphysic.

But let us shelve the notion that conservatives seek to have the state control reproductive choices and such. Protective human life is the primary interest of a state. Governments are instituted among men, to use the phrase, for just such a reason. Liberals on this subject, on the other hand, want the state to determine at which point a human life become a human life. When is an entity alive? When does it become human? Conservatives prefer to leave the answer to nature. Any government which purposes to decide at what point an innocent human life may be taken is not the type of government which the framers of our Constitution created.

lets inject a little political science into this philisophical discussion. my biggest problem with abortion as a political issue is this. the government simply doesnt have the ability to judge what is a life and what isnt. David is right to say that pro choicers have the stronger argument because of their more easily identified demarcation point. it might also be pointed out that this country was founded on common law, and until a vast majority of Americans want to change a law on an issue so incredibly personal, the government should stay out of it.

Mark, you were doing great right up to the last paragraph, where you say, Any government which purposes to decide at what point an innocent human life may be taken is not the type of government which the framers of our Constitution created.

Your statement presupposes that the government already recognizes an “innocent human life” in the womb before taking a legal stand on the issue. So, you completely ignore the pro-choice argument. That amounts to saying pro-lifers should have their way because I believe that. The premises for debate were leading somewhere, but the conclusion fails to build on the premises you set forth.

Misha wrote:

> There is nothing hidden or mystical about what
> I am saying- I believe that there is a certain
> moral system that all beings of reason must
> live under- not because some mystical god whom
> I do not know said so- but because reason
> dictates it.

Reason dictates the existence of a moral system? You must have some kind of logical proof behind that claim. You are presumably basing this logical proof upon a set of indisputable Axioms upon which all reasonable humans will agree without argument (in much the same way we agree to agree that parallel lines never meet). Do you?

I, for one, always thought that our moral system was an arbitrary one, created by collective agreement (or disagreement) by our society. It changes and evolves, with no absolute truths.

That said, I also beleive that it is vitally important that we artificially create and agree upon Axioms to guide our society’s existence. The Ten Commandments are an attempt at this basic Axiomatic approach to law and morality. Some (not many) of them hold a lot of weight even outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition “Thou shalt not kill” (or, in non-religious terms, “killing is bad”) is hard to argue with in most cultures. It’s Axiomatic.

Modern ideas like “slavery is bad” or “freedom of speech is good” are almost axiomatic nowadays, but they certainly weren’t axiomatic as little as 300 years ago. I personally think that “men and women should be equal under the law” is axiomatic, but most of the world (and a good deal of this country) doesn’t yet agree with me.

I think the definition of when a zygote becomes a human being, however inelegant or vague the definition might be, may end up needing to be an entirely NEW arbitrary socially-agreed-upon axiom. The old “killing is bad” axiom doesn’t work for me because I just dont buy that a two-week old fetus is a human being. I just don’t buy that. You are looking for a neat, clean little definition like fertilization or uteral implantation or something. I think that such neat definitions are impossible, just as it is impossible to neatly define what pornography is or what treason is or what pre-emptive self-defense is.

I gotta say, those old philosophers like Kant and Hegel, every time they use the word “Reason”, I can’t help but think that they really mean “a supernatural force”, or “God”. Nobody ever bothers to prove social ideas as deriving from strict universal axioms (because they know it’s impossible) so they use “it’s Reason!” as a crutch. But without universally-accepted axioms and logical deductions from those axioms, it ain’t Reason - it’s spin.

-Cf

I refer you to the answer I gave some moments ago. It dealt in political science, to wit: pro-abortion advocates seek to have a government determine at what point a humanlife begins, while anti-aborts choose to let nature determine when a human life begins.

When a free society creates a government, its primary purpose is to protect human life. A government which purports to determine when human life begins, when it can be snuffed, ceases to be a free and civilized government in the truest sense. That is not a rash statement. Consider it.

Mark, you write as if the answer is obvious, but I honestly don’t know the answer (nor do I think anyone “knows”, they just “believe”): When does human life begin?

The reason why the answer to this question is not obvious - and why it must be decided by consensus agreement among humans (i.e., politics) - is because we’re in the middle of a scientific explosion that we’re only now coming to grips with. Before modern medicine, the definition of when a life begins was certainly birth. Now we know a lot about the whole development process, and we can witness, on film even, every step of the way from the fertilization itself, to the zygote, to implantation, and all the way to birth.

With issues like artificial insemination, genetic engineering, and cloning, this process becomes even more blurred. Our ideas of pregnancy and parenthood are going to change dramatically over the next century. It’s not hard to imagine that, in only a few years, a scientist will be able to create a hundred zygotes a day, perhaps even a hundred a minute.

Defining a “human” is going to become very sticky and very important issue, and “nature” can’t define it - we will need to.

-Cf

Mark, then your argument states we are already an inhumane society, since we snuff life with capital punishment and folks now want to see it on TV. We preemptively attack and kill thousands upon thousands of innocent people in Iraq having sold the case for war on a host of pieces of information which have turned out to not be true.

You said “A government which purports to determine when human life begins, when it can be snuffed, ceases to be a free and civilized government in the truest sense.”

You certainly then would agree that in the truest sense, we are not a free and civilized government based on our penchant for capital punishment and preemptive war, correct?

Christopher Fahey, that was a most appropriate and insightful response, in my opinion, regarding the necessity for defining when atoms and molecules become a human being in the eyes of the law.

Does a technician impregnating a petri dish zygote with a sperm become a murderer when a twitch causes irreparable harm to the zygote?

It is a most difficult task even coming up with a definition that protects the freedoms and rights of all persons affected by such definitions. Let alone to acquire a concensus. And until we do both of these, it would be wise to let Roe V. Wade remain for at least we as a nation of people have come to live with that law in relatively peaceful compliance. To change it without concensus, will fuel conflicts in which passions will become criminal again.

David… Yours is a popular argument: “If you say that it is wrong for a human to take a life, then what of capital punishment?”

Actually, I have never here stated my position on capital punishment, but I now will to make my point.

The concept of a human taking the life of another to make recompense or to punish is acceptable in certain circumstances. For instance, if one person maliciously takes the life of another, that person forfeits the right to his own life. Remember, with the right to life comes the obligation to respect that same right in others.

Someone mentioned that humans have to determine when life begins. How? It is bound to be arbitrary.

What distinguishes a human at any stage of life from another type of being at any stage of life? What is this “essence” of humanity? When a human sperm fertilizes a human egg, is the product of this miraculous fertilization therefor canine? Bovine? Or is it a mollusk?

When discussing Life, a concept so wondrous as to avoid a human scientific definition, we have to think on the metaphysical level. What is this human, and why is it a human?

Listen, I understand these are things we all should think about, and we should all come to the best conclusion we can.

This is why, to be truthful, I think politics debases the concept of Life. The South Dakota law removes politics from the equation as much as possible and defends the life. (Though I believe it was David who ascribed some political motive to this question. This could also be an interesting topic of discussion.)

Whatever is decided by whomever does the deciding about what women should or should not, may or may not do … women do kill their children-who-could-have-been. Some women, at some times. Lots of women, lots of times. For a long, long time women have done this. They do it now. They will do it in the future, is my guess.

Since they have kept on doing it in every time in every place, secretly if not openly, no matter how persuasive or coercive the attempts to prevent them doing it have been, one wants to know, why?

When a woman realizes it is there, within her, and her response is, “No. This must not be, no.” Why IS that the response, sometimes? Why is it so definitely “no” that she takes a chance of dying herself to make sure this one does not appear?

I have never seen an exhaustive inquiry into this most important question. Once I saw a magazine article, “Why do women choose abortion?” It focused on two very young women, one was rejected by her boyfriend, another by her parents. So we get a clue. Some women face big trouble, emotional issues that they perceive as unbearable.

This is only a few molecules off the tip of the iceberg of reasons and causes of why this thing is done. It is not a woman friendly, mother friendly, baby friendly world out there yet. Not for a lot of women in every historical age, including this one. Not for a lot of women in every country, including this one.

In Western culture, it is the Maiden, in both her hot-and-sexy, and innocent-and pure-aspects who is valued. The other phases of womanhood: child, mother, grandmother, are not selling cars today.

A lot of young maidens are making the most of their brief years of being at least desired, if not worshipped. Some of them take it all for granted, think the world was made to revolve around them, and have the money to use frequent abortions as their only form of birth control. A lot of hows and whys come to mind. How? (have they come to sexual maturity so ethically and emotionally impoverished?) Why? (do they have money but no values?) Where? (is the confidence and self esteem that enables a girl to say, hey, dude, cover that thing or its no go?) Even if she fears he might say, “Later, babe.”

I just can’t condemn these lost females, desperate to be picked, in every generation since who knows when. As long as the transformation from maiden to mother means loss of status to the point of invisibility or non-existence in the eyes of the young men they desire, these girls are going to get the thing inside killed because it threatens the survival of the only acceptable reality they can picture: Me and him, him and me, happy together.

Does she deserve to die, she and others like her? They pursue their stunted concept of happiness with single minded ruthlessness. Would it serve her right to have to have the baby? Are these her choices, a ruthless male culture or a dirty illegal abortionist? Contemplating a lifetime of resentment, contempt and abuse dished out by a young man caught, “made to take responsibility,” no wonder so many of them would rather kill the baby, even rather die.

Fine, enlightened, compassionate men and women of good will may argue when life begins, reason with the squeamish still in denial about the killing, anguish over the slaughter of the innocents, and pass laws in an attempt to save them, but the killing will go on, laws or no laws. Only then a lot of the mothers will die as well as the children-to-be.

Women know that making abortion illegal will not release a woman from dark and bloddy matters of lfe and death, but will send her back to deal with them alone once again, with all against her, and none to help, unless there is one friend who will stand by her.

We have come a long way up out of ignorance, superstition and barbarism, but we are not yet civilized. We do a lot of killing, men and women both. This isn’t yet a world where human beings are valued. Subsidies aren’t awarded and decisions aren’t made on the basis of how they are going to affect children, nursing mothers, and the men who want to provide for them.

Until we get fixed the things that are still so wrong with our culture and our society and our very selves, the things that make it such bad news that a person is coming into the world, the things that are so wrong that millions of young women can’t relax and greet a pregnaqncy with joy… Until this situation changes, it will be political suicide for anyone who tries to block women’s access to safe, legal abortion.