Abortion. Euthanasia. Embryonic stem cell research. Some of the most contentious and disputed issues of our day are matters of bioethics. The lines are sharply drawn and each side presents their arguments. Much heat is produced by the debates but very little light is shed to help us illuminate our path.
Most of us recognize – and reject – the opposition’s view because it is based on a "religious" or "secular" worldview. But while we acknowledge this fact, we rarely dig beneath the surface to see if our differences aren’t rooted in a more foundational presupposition. After all, some religious people support abortion while some secularist want to ban ESC research. The easy labels don't always apply, which is why I believe that once we look deeper we find that our fundamental disagreements on bioethical issues are due to our profoundly different views on the nature of human dignity.
Dignity is defined as the quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect. This definition is significant because it highlights the key differences between the two most dominant worldviews in our culture – a functionally atheistic materialism and the Judeo-Christian form of theism.
In the theistic view, human life has an inherent dignity. A generous and loving Creator not only provides our biological existence but retains this same gift for his own enjoyment. Human life, therefore, does not belong to us but to Him. Our purpose – to glorify and love our Creator – is not based on any particular state of our biological development. All life is intrinsically valuable because it is valued by our Creator. Dignity is not something that is earned, it is merely recognized.
In sharp contrast, the materialist narrative claims that human life only has a qualitative dignity. Humans are products of chance, created without purpose by an impersonal universe. Our existence is nothing but a fluke; our consciousness a cosmic accident. Since we have no personal Creator, the worth of the personal is determined by fiat – the worth of life is whatever we decide it shall be. Dignity, therefore, is not inherent to all human life but based on the existence of certain qualifying criteria.
The criteria for making this determination is variable and open to dispute. Some recognize it as a certain time of human development – after the first or second trimester (Roe v. Wade), after birth (abortion on demand advocates), or after age two (ethicist Peter Singer). Others base it on certain cognitive states such as consciousness and exclude those, such as the fetus and certain comatose patients, who do not fall in this category. Still others who hold this view base it on a loosely defined “quality of life.” Advocates of euthanasia, for example, believe that certain interest (i.e., the desire to avoid suffering) can take precedence over the dignity and worth of life.
One of the obvious problems with the qualitative view is that it allows other humans to define when life has dignity. Most materialists, particularly those in a liberal democracy, have no problem with this approach when they are able to draw the distinctions. A week-old human embryo can be excluded because it is “only a clump of cells.” Likewise, a two-month-old fetus is only a “potential” human being. Many materialists believe that to make these distinctions all that is required is the application of reason and observation.
But the demarcation lines are often not as clear as the materialists would have us believe. For example, why do they consider it legitimate for a married couple to abort a child who is diagnosed with Down’s syndrome yet cringe at the idea of Nazi’s exterminating children afflicted by that same disease? And what about cases where dignity is considered secondary to economic considerations? If is it acceptable to “selectively reduce” a set of twins in order to avoid "shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise" can it also be justified when Indian families abort female children in order to avoid paying a future dowry?
And even if agreements about who is worthy of dignity can be reached, the question of who determines the authority over life and death remains unanswered.
For the theist, the answer is obvious. Since only God can give human life, He is the only one who can determine when life should be taken away. The authority to kill can only be delegated to the level of human government responsible for maintaining justice. While this power can be abused, it is understood that there are set parameters and conditions handed down by God for when such actions can be undertaken and that, ultimately, a moral accounting will be required.
The materialist, on the other hand, thinks that we are solely responsible for deciding the fate of human life. Society either consents to certain forms of killing based on agreements derived through the “social contract” or such authority is wrested away and taken by force by either individuals or the state. Liberal democracies tend to prefer the former while authoritarian forms of government favor the latter. But neither approach can be judged to be “right” or “wrong.” They are simply “different.”
Eventually either the theistic view will achieve a dominant level of acceptance or the materialist will win, slowly but assuredly, by default. Each path will lead to a sharply different results. Recognizing the dignity of all life has lead to freedom, equality, and respect for all humanity. Basing dignity on qualitative factors, though, has lead to genocide, slavery, and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Which road we choose will determine the fate of bioethics. And the fate of bioethics will determine the fate of our future.
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Joe:
...while some secularist[s] want to ban ESC research.I'm sure they're out there, but as yet, I have not encountered any.
Since we have no personal Creator, the worth of the personal is determined by fiat – the worth of life is whatever we decide it shall be.I would argue that worth-by-fiat is at least as true, and arguably more true, in the theistic view. After all, we have value because God says we do. If that's not a "fiat," I don't know what is. I would describe "worth" in the secularist worldview more as "arbitrary" than as "worth-by-fiat."
Advocates of euthanasia, for example, believe that certain interest (i.e., the desire to avoid suffering) can take precedence over the dignity and worth of life.I take exception to this characterization as well. It is the loss of dignity that comes with degenerative diseases that helps justify euthanasia, in the view of its supporters (such as myself). In fact, "death with dignity" is a rallying cry frequently used by groups who support euthanasia.
One of the obvious problems with the qualitative view is that it allows other humans to define when life has dignity. Most materialists, particularly those in a liberal democracy, have no problem with this approach when they are able to draw the distinctions. A week-old human embryo can be excluded because it is “only a clump of cells.” Likewise, a two-month-old fetus is only a “potential” human being.I believe you'll find these "problems" are far from unique to "materialists." I think you'll find many self-proclaimed Christians making similar arguments. Are the materialists, and they just don't know it?
For example, why do they consider it legitimate for a married couple to abort a child who is diagnosed with Down’s syndrome yet cringe at the idea of Nazi’s exterminating children afflicted by that same disease?Because the aborted child is not yet self-aware, and never has been. It may not make a difference to you, but it does to me (and to a lot of people like me).
If is it acceptable to “selectively reduce” a set of twins in order to avoid "shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise" can it also be justified when Indian families abort female children in order to avoid paying a future dowry?Honestly, such ethical questions have absolutely no relevance unless you concede that abortion is a valid, legitimate, moral choice in at least some cases.
Since only God can give human life, He is the only one who can determine when life should be taken away.Sounds like a terrific argument against capital punishment, war, etc. :)
While this power can be abused, it is understood that there ser paramaters and conditions handed down by God for when such actions can be undertaken and that, ultimately, a moral accounting will be required.Is it? That's funny, because I don't see any of that enumerated in our legal code...
Recognizing the dignity of all life has lead to freedom, equality and respect for all humanity. Basing dignity on qualitative factors, though, has lead to genocide, slavery, and the gas chamber of Auschwitz.That is a wholly unfair comparison, especially when you consider the implicit parallel between the materialist view and the theistic view. Some of the greatest atrocities in human history have been committed in God's name, and yes, atheistic Communism was guilty as well. To try to argue that the theistic versus secularist aspect has any real bearing is to ignore large chunks of human history.
Somewhere buried in this post is a general sense that ethics is not necessarily tied directly to theism, and as far as that goes, I'll agree wholeheartedly. But you tread dangerously close to making invalid assumptions about the effect one's views on theism versus secularism have on those ethics. Carl Sagan was an atheist, and by all accounts, a really nice guy. Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism, was by most accounts an ass. :)
posted on 07.29.2004 3:01 PM2
Great post Joe,
However, a small correction: Roe v Wade does not recognize that the criteria that defines the value of human life begins after the first trimester. In fact, Roe v Wade explicitly makes abortion legal for all women through the first 2 trimesters.
Serge
posted on 07.29.2004 3:08 PM3
Ophelia of the Blog "Butterflies and Wheels wrote this peice which I feel addresses some of your statements Joe:
source: http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/
There is an entrenched idea, even among many atheists, secularists, skeptics that arguments about religion - arguments between atheists and theists, science and religion, believers and non-believers - are futile, at best a waste of time and at worst offensive if not cruel. But the trouble is there seems to be no such idea on the other side. Believers and theists seem to have no hesitation or diffidence whatever about assuming their beliefs are both true and synonymous with virtue, and saying as much. This is a peculiar arrangement, any way you look at it. The side that has it right, that considers evidence and logic and probablities, is politely silent. The side that, if forced to choose between evidence and belief, chooses the latter, is always rebuking the other side for not doing the same. There is much to be said for politeness and tolerance and not offending, but not if it's all on one side. And in any case, even though there is much to be said, there is not everything. There is also a great deal to be said for understanding how the world is and how things come about there - whether through the actions of an omnipotent omniscient benevolent supernatural being who created a world full of disease, accident, pain, sorrow, hardship and death, or through natural and unconscious causes - in order to deal effectively with that world.
But, sad to say, all too often the much to be said for tolerance trumps the much to be said for truth. Ironically the result is not peace and harmony and mutual respect but rather that the religious crowd gets more and more full of itself, more demanding and aggrieved and truculent, more inclined to tell everyone what to do and slander atheists as immoral nihilists. That's where tolerance gets you, apparently. The atheist side, i.e. the side that's able to see the world as it is without the aid of absurd fictions, is (out of pity for the weak-mindedness of the other side?) all politeness and respect and tactful silence. The theist side, the side that prides itself on believing in supernatural beings and heaven and life after death, is all assertion and scorn and noisy disagreement.
So the hands-off policy is no good. That just lets the believers have it all their own way, and they use their advantage to chastise and bully the skeptics. The people who have no evidence for their beliefs rebuke and tyrannize over the people who do have evidence for their beliefs: a highly perverse set-up. Daniel Dennett wrote in a recent Op-Ed piece in the New York Times of matter-of-factly telling a group of clever high school students that he was an atheist.
Many students came up to me afterwards to thank me, with considerable passion, for "liberating" them. I hadn't realized how lonely and insecure these thoughtful teenagers felt. They'd never heard a respected adult say, in an entirely matter of fact way, that he didn't believe in God. I had calmly broken a taboo and shown how easy it was.
As Dennett points out, this is what happens when skeptics, atheists, and secularists keep silent: they begin to seem a far smaller percentage of the population than they are: doubters feel isolated and peculiar, and believers feel superior, confident and self-righteous. It simply doesn't answer in the long run to give way to error and bad thinking, it only encourages it.
But it's futile, goes the cry. It's a waste of time, it's useless, people never change their minds about these things. So Susan Greenfield, in an interview a few years ago:
I've sat through many science-religion ding-dongs, and they strike me as a complete waste of time. No one is going to change their views. The Atkins-Dawkins stance treats science almost as though it were a religion, and evangelically try to convert other people. Meanwhile, the religious person can't articulate why they believe what they do: they just do.
But people do change their views. Not all of them all the time, not easily, not necessarily even when they are confronted with evidence or good arguments. But they do change them sometimes, and it's impossible to know in advance what those times are. People read books, they discuss, they think, and sometimes they do change their views. Sometimes from atheism to theism, alas, but also sometimes the other way. And as for 'just believing' something, what of that? We can all believe all sorts of things that are not true. We can believe the sun travels around the earth, or that crystals have healing powers, or that it's a good idea to take antibiotics when we have a cold, or that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was an authentic document. What is wrong with someone better-informed disabusing us of our mistaken beliefs?
I don't believe in God but that is a belief, not some thing I know. I believe I love my husband, but I couldn't prove it to you one way or the other. How could I? I just know I do. My particular belief is that there is no Deity out there, but I can't prove it and therefore I would not have the temerity to tell other people they're wrong. The coinage of proof is not appropriate for belief...
But belief in one's own internal emotional state is not the same thing as belief in the existence of an entity in the external world. Naturally we can't prove our own emotions to other people, any more than a bat can prove to us what it is like to be a bat. But what does that have to do with truth-claims about a supernatural being? And in any case the issue is not one of proof but one of evidence. We can't prove our emotional states, but we can offer evidence. We can't prove the non-existence of a deity, but we can ask why there is no good evidence of its existence. Bertrand Russell pointed out that we can't prove there's not a china teapot orbiting the sun, and Carl Sagan pointed out that we can't prove there's not an invisible odorless inaudible dragon in the garage, and both pointed out that that's no reason to assume there is.
Of course, if we simply want to believe in orbiting teapots, or fairies at the bottom of the garden, or Quidditch, or the Easter bunny, for our own amusement, that's reasonably harmless (except for the state of our intellects). But religion is a public matter, to put it mildly. Religion doesn't just sit back and let the world go its own way and believe whatever it 'just does', religion intervenes. Religion makes truth claims about the world, and on the basis of those truth claims, it tells us all how to think and behave. That alone is reason enough to consider the assertions of religion every bit as open to contradiction and challenge and discussion as any other set of truth claims.
One way people try to protect religion from these harsh inquiries is by declaring that it inhabits a separate sphere from that of science, that it is more like poetry or story-telling than it is like science. Stephen Jay Gould wrote a surprisingly silly book making that claim a few years ago. But it won't wash. First because of the truth claims issue: religion doesn't act like poetry, it doesn't just tell stories or create images, it makes assertions that we are expected to believe. Second, because religion does not have the expertise that is claimed for it, even in that 'separate' sphere. Gould (this was one of the silliest things in the book) repeatedly said that religion had expertise in morality among other things. But why? What conceivable expertise does religion have on moral questions? What does religion know that moral philosophers do not know? Richard Dawkins is incisive on this point in his classic essay 'Dolly and the Cloth-Heads':
Religious lobbies, spokesmen of "traditions" and "communities", enjoy privileged access not only to the media but to influential committees of the great and the good, to the House of Lords (as I mentioned above), and to the boards of school governors. Their views are regularly sought, and heard with exaggerated "respect", by parliamentary committees. Religious spokesmen and spokeswomen enjoy an inside track to influence and power which others have to earn through their own ability or expertise. What is the justification for this?...Isn't there more justification for choosing expert witnesses for their knowledge and accomplishments as individuals, than because they represent some group or class of person?
Or there is the notion that science can answer 'how' questions and religion can answer 'why' questions, as in this item from a television discussion of science and religion.
Science can tell us how chemicals bond but only religion can answer the why questions, why do we have a universe like this at all?
But of course religion can't do any such thing. It only says it can, which is a different matter. Anyone can say that. Anyone can say anything at all. But since the answers religions give are not true, it is not clear why their answers to the 'why' questions are any better than their answers to the 'how' questions, or any other questions. Richard Dawkins, again, puts the matter well:
I once asked a distinguished astronomer, a fellow of my college, to explain the big bang theory to me. He did so to the best of his (and my) ability, and I then asked what it was about the fundamental laws of physics that made the spontaneous origin of space and time possible. "Ah," he smiled, "now we move beyond the realm of science. This is where I have to hand you over to our good friend, the chaplain." But why the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef? Of course chaplains, unlike chefs and gardeners, claim to have some insight into ultimate questions. But what reason have we ever been given for taking their claims seriously?
Needless to say, it's a large question. So all the more reason to pull together some material on the subject.
OB
posted on 07.29.2004 3:16 PM5
I think the materialists are winning due to the compromise of the theistic community.
Take the overall acceptance by the Evangelical Christian community of embryo cryopreservation in Assisted Reproduction Technologies. A good 40% of the embryos an infertile couple chooses to freeze will die in the thaw process. Having just started to navigate the moral minefield of IVF, I have been surprised by how many Christian “pro-life” couples alter their definition of conception to clear the way for freezing. This compromise often leads to others—destroying embryos, mercy embryo transfers, putting embryos up for adoption, and donating embryos for stem-cell research. This article, recently published in Christianity Today, mentions the United Methodist General Counsel actually passed a resolution urging individuals to donate their frozen embryos for stem-cell research and eliminated any reference to an embryo’s personhood in said resolution.
posted on 07.29.2004 3:25 PM6
tgirsh,
I would argue that worth-by-fiat is at least as true, and arguably more true, in the theistic view. After all, we have value because God says we do. If that's not a "fiat," I don't know what is. I would describe "worth" in the secularist worldview more as "arbitrary" than as "worth-by-fiat."
I would agree with that. Of course, I would consider God’s fiat to be more important than man’s (or, for that matter, man’s “arbitrary” judgment).
I take exception to this characterization as well. It is the loss of dignity that comes with degenerative diseases that helps justify euthanasia, in the view of its supporters (such as myself). In fact, "death with dignity" is a rallying cry frequently used by groups who support euthanasia.
That’s because they define “dignity” just as I said they did: based on a qualitative condition. The problem is that they subordinate the “dignity of life” to a “dignity” defined by self-reliance and vanity. Having a degenerative disease does not make your life any less worthy.
I believe you'll find these "problems" are far from unique to "materialists." I think you'll find many self-proclaimed Christians making similar arguments. Are the materialists, and they just don't know it?
In this post I’m using “materialist” in the sense of an adopted worldview. A Christian can, for example, be a “functional atheist” if their beliefs have no bearing on the way they think or live. The same holds true for thinking like a materialist.
Because the aborted child is not yet self-aware, and never has been. It may not make a difference to you, but it does to me (and to a lot of people like me).
Thanks for helping prove my point. Do we take a vote on what humans are worthy and which are not? What if we have different criteria?
Honestly, such ethical questions have absolutely no relevance unless you concede that abortion is a valid, legitimate, moral choice in at least some cases.
I’m not saying the question is valid within my worldview. I’m asking how such distinctions are made in yours.
Is it? That's funny, because I don't see any of that enumerated in our legal code...
Does it have to be to be true?
That is a wholly unfair comparison, especially when you consider the implicit parallel between the materialist view and the theistic view. Some of the greatest atrocities in human history have been committed in God's name, and yes, atheistic Communism was guilty as well. To try to argue that the theistic versus secularist aspect has any real bearing is to ignore large chunks of human history.
I agree with your point about how people act. But the theists you mention are acting in ways that are inconsistent with their worldview.
Somewhere buried in this post is a general sense that ethics is not necessarily tied directly to theism, and as far as that goes, I'll agree wholeheartedly.
Ethics is not necessarily tied to an acceptance of theism. But if the theist is right and we are created to have a “moral sense” then it wouldn’t matter if you recognized it or not.
But you tread dangerously close to making invalid assumptions about the effect one's views on theism versus secularism have on those ethics. Carl Sagan was an atheist, and by all accounts, a really nice guy. Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism, was by most accounts an ass. :)
My point isn’t that atheist are necessarily immoral or that theists are, by their belief, ethical exemplars. But if we stripped away all of the fluff and polish and followed each worldview to its logical conclusion we would find that the atheist has no reason, based on the tenets of his own worldview, to act moral. If he does it is because of a “cognitive dissonance” between what his beliefs tell him and how he chooses to act.
posted on 07.29.2004 3:35 PM7
But Joe that's absurd. You follow the Bible yet you're capable of overiding the biblical suggestion that adultresses be stoned to death or that children and grandchildren can be directly punished for the actions of their ancestors for the rest of time. So where does that over ride ability 'come from'? Does it need to have an independant origin, an implant from an alien or a download into your wet drive from thr Matrix?
Are you going to cook up a three thousand word apologetic and then try to sell us that every theist out there thoughtfully runs that through their mind before opining on the morality of punishing children for the crimes of parents?
Or is possible, indeed probable, that like human speech this is something you acquire as a human being without hardly any conscious effort as you grow up?
Or are you going to address this issue squarely that you, as a human who grew up around other poeple, develop the morals of many of those people and continue to refine them throughout your life because that's what humans do?
Are you going to accept the evidence for this; to wit humans who grow up alone with no other poeple have no morals?
Or are you going to stick with this same tired old claim that somehow, you and only your religion as the one and only 'true' religion has a corner on morality. Just as we are to seriously believe that a book of sorcery and oral histories dreamed up by bands of bronzed aged goat herders are the one and only possible explanation for the origin of the universe and the meaning of human life. Simon says....
8
OMF Serge -
Not to nitpick, but Roe v. Wade (perhaps unintentionally) did not create enduring bright lines regarding when abortions can be restricted/prohibited, because Blackmun tied the balancing of the competing rights of the mother and fetus to viability, which has changed and will continue to change with technology.
posted on 07.29.2004 4:17 PM9
One thing I've noticed in this very circular debate on theism versus atheism is that the consequences of a belief system are discussed more than the the merits of the belief system itself. The arguments Joe uses against materialism, for lack of a better description, is that this point of view leads one to conclude that all moral norms are relative and if taken to its logical conclusion that leads to chaos. Theism on the other hand supposedly enforces universal norms and thus leads to a wonderful society. Joe never actually studied the foundations of each one, or the factual basis of each one. Joe is saying he can't accept materialism because it could lead to dire consequences (as if religion doesn't have the same caveat). This is a similar issue that many YEC's have with modern science, and in fact Joe has with pure materialistic evolution. Because of the potential moral or physical conclusions it is impossible to accept any level of evidence that validates the case for the given belief system.
There is a great parallel. Joe says that we can't accept the materialistic view of the mind, evolution or the universe because the potential consequences are social disorder and the destruction of civilization. That would be like saying that we can't accept quantum mechanics because with it we have the ability to make devices that can eradicate all life on earth in an instant. The potential consequences have nothing to do with the reality of the situation.
posted on 07.29.2004 4:50 PM10
The "dignity of human life factor" is still a floating concept even within theism. It is determined not only by the religious foundation but also the interpretation of the religious foundation.
Is it right to kill a newborn baby? Christianity would say no, but the Spartans would say that it is acceptable if the baby was weak.
Is euthanasia a moral choice? Christianity would say no, but in Shintoism it is not only accepted but preferred under many scenarios.
Is the life of a slave worth the same as the life of a regular citizen? Now Judeo-Christianity becomes a bit murkey on this case, and the world religions all have varying acceptance of these issues.
So we are again left with the moral ambiguities. We are simply insulated by a thin layer of theology that is selected by each individual and who's interpretation is also quite variant as well. It doesn't sound like theism is offering much more than atheism in the general sense.
posted on 07.29.2004 4:59 PM11
DS says
You follow the Bible yet you're capable of overiding the biblical suggestion that adultresses be stoned to death or that children and grandchildren can be directly punished for the actions of their ancestors for the rest of time. So where does that over ride ability 'come from'?
It comes from Jesus Christ, whose birth death and resurrection abolished forever the laws of Moses. It's why I can do everything from enjoy a bacon burger to wear clothing made from two different materials woven together (both prohibited in Mosaic Law). I though someone with the most basic understanding of Christianity would be familiar with this.
posted on 07.29.2004 5:09 PM12
DS,
But Joe that's absurd. You follow the Bible yet you're capable of overiding the biblical suggestion that adultresses be stoned to death or that children and grandchildren can be directly punished for the actions of their ancestors for the rest of time.
Yes, actually I do try to follow the Bible. But I can make a distinction between the laws that God says applied to the theocracy of Israel and those moral norms that are still in effect today.
Just as we are to seriously believe that a book of sorcery and oral histories dreamed up by bands of bronzed aged goat herders are the one and only possible explanation for the origin of the universe and the meaning of human life.
As opposed to the idea that the world just happened by accident, everything was created by accident, our minds evolved by accident, and yet – quite on purpose – we are expected to believe that there is any meaning at all to human life?
posted on 07.29.2004 5:11 PM13
Mr. Moderate,
Joe is saying he can't accept materialism because it could lead to dire consequences…
No, I’m saying I can’t accept materialism because it is (a) absurd, (b) illogical, and (c) not true.
Is the life of a slave worth the same as the life of a regular citizen? Now Judeo-Christianity becomes a bit murkey on this case, and the world religions all have varying acceptance of these issues.
Part 1 – Yes. Part 2 – No, actually, it’s not that murky.
posted on 07.29.2004 5:14 PM14
Joe,
I'll get to reading the whole thing when I get back from the dojo, but I disagree with your assertion that euthanasia is a bioethics issue. This is how I see it:
1) Yes there are ethics issue with it being used coercively, but those arise from improperly designed and administered laws.
2) We may belong to God, but we don't belong to the state. If someone wants to end their own life because of a terminal disease, that is between them and God.
3) Euthanasia isn't morally equivalent to the majority of forms of suicide because it occurs when someone is dying of a terminal, painful disease or condition.
I have my reservations about it, but I don't see any good reason to oppose it on principle. It's not about mercy, it's about ensuring that the state doesn't own you in any way on any level. There is no middle ground here, Joe. Once you let the government start determining what you can do to yourself when you are in a clear state of mind (ie not insane or psychotic) then it's over, the state will end up owning you.
posted on 07.29.2004 5:27 PM15
Do the books written by the non goat-herders have more credibility?
You know, like the ones written by the kings of the most powerful nation at the time in that part of the known world?
Also, for the record, Paul was a tentmaker. Luke a doctor, a couple were fishermen.
Amos though was a goat herder.
posted on 07.29.2004 5:51 PM16
It's not about mercy, it's about ensuring that the state doesn't own you in any way on any level. There is no middle ground here, Joe. Once you let the government start determining what you can do to yourself when you are in a clear state of mind (ie not insane or psychotic) then it's over, the state will end up owning you.
posted on 07.29.2004 5:56 PM