1

Excellent!

2

That does it Joe.

Ive been considering buying this book but have put it off not knowing if his friends were just hyping it to help him sell copies or not. But if you liked it, that is a good enough endorsement for me, can't wait to get my paws on it!

Thanks Joe!

3

I haven't read this one, but it is definitely on the short list. I have read a similar book, Culture of Death, The Assault on Medical Ethics in America by Wesley Smith. It sounds like Party of Death may be a bit of a rehash but maybe there will be a few gems.

If you read "Godless" let us know how you liked that one as well.

4

"...it will eventually go unread."

I'll be way ahead of the curve on this one.

5

Following recent Supreme Court appointments, I've been wondering...how some in the Democratic Party must find it difficult to organize a pep rally around rights to terminate unborn babies. Thanks for the tip on a good read

6

Just a historical note here. When Tiffany wrote his book in 1849, slavery was indeed constitutional. Even Abraham Lincoln recognized this. Tiffany's book only became obsolete when the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, was passed in 1865. It is doubtful that the amendment would have passed without the Civil War. It may also take a constitutional amendment to resolve the abortion issue. Let's hope it doesn't take a civil war.

7

Rob:

I'm sure you will, which is why your comments read like the daily talking points from the DNC. But you're in the best academic company. I'm sure Ward "Geronimo" Churchill will be ahead of the curve with you.

8

Joe,

You say: "They [the members of the "party of death"] believe that human organisms have basic rights because of certain qualities they possess, such as the capacity for abstract mental functioning. But by basing dignity on such qualitative conditions it becomes impossible to explain why people who have more of a quality (i.e., artists, geniuses) should not be regarded as having more worth."

I doubt that this will prove to be a wedge that might split open Ponnuru's argument, but what you've said overlooks a certain relevant possibility. The possibility is that there is a certain quality that (i) is all-or-nothing and not a matter of degree, (ii) a human comes to have in the course of development, and (iii) is that on which our moral worth depends. Such a quality might be the capacity for conscious experience. Either one has this quality or one does not; it does not come in degrees. Thus if it is made the basis of moral worth, we will not be forced to say that, among the class of humans with this quality, some matter more than others. Off the top of my head, I can name half a dozen ethicists who posit some such all-or-nothing quality as the basis of our worth.

Joe, you also seem to commit a fallacy that has come to be known by the name 'speciesism'. Let us say that we discover an alien race on Io, Jupiter's fifth moon. They prove to be much the same as us both cognitively and emotionally; most fall within the normal human range of these capacities. Would it be right to say of them that they mattered less than us simply because they were not human? Of course not. They matter as least as much as do we. Moreover, it seems that we and they matter from the moral point of view because of some characteristic that we and they share in common. What makes us matter as we do is what makes them matter as they do. What might this characteristic be? Here opinion begins to divide and I'll not pursue the matter in any greater detail. Suffice it to say that this little argument seems to show that it's necessary to suppose that moral worth depends upon some characteristic that can be shared among members of different species.

9

The weakest part of the book comes in chapter six. In the recent bestseller Freakonomics, economist Steven Levitt marshals statistics to prove that abortion has a crime-reducing benefit. While Levitt’s argument contains a kernel of truth (self-imposed genocide can obviously have an impact on crime), it has been repeatedly and thoroughly debunked. For Ponnuru to take a stab at the corpse seems superfluous.

I don't recall this happening. I do recall you saying you would soon be publishing a commentary on Freakonomics's theory but I don't believe you ever did.

I think the core of the dispute here is definitional. When do you define human life beginning? Notice the important adjective there, 'human'. Life can certainly be non-human. Back during the Terri Schiavo case I gave the sci-fi hypothetical of a man who was decapitated but his lower body is kept live by advanced tech (more advanced than we have today but I think we agree not by that much). Yes that is life, yes that is human life but that isn't human life.

10

"...your comments read like the daily talking points from the DNC."

It might interest you to know that I have voted in every national election since 1980, and have only voted democratic twice: 2000 and 2004. I have, in fact, broad areas of disagreement with the Democratic party.

Good manners forbid me to tell you what your comments read like.

Are republicans required to mention Ward Churchill or Michael Moore a certain number of times per week? Should I be bringing up Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly in response? I didn't get the DNC memo on that one, apparently.

11

Hey Joe, let me get this straight:

1. The title of this wretched text is "The Party of Death," which refers to those persons in society who champion a woman's right to privacy, death with dignity, and a legal system free from religious dogma.

2. The cover has a blurb by Anne Coulter.

Y'know what? I dismiss the book as the screed of yet another partisan hack.

12

Rob I'll be way ahead of the curve on this one.

I have to give credit where credit is due: that is a clever retort.

Franklin The possibility is that there is a certain quality that (i) is all-or-nothing and not a matter of degree, (ii) a human comes to have in the course of development, and (iii) is that on which our moral worth depends.

Actually, Ponnuru does address all those points. The problem for the POD is that this logic inevitably leads to a justification for infanticide. We could debate the philosophical merits of the position, but politically it will never be broadly supported. If Howard Dean starts using Peter Singer’s argument that we can kill newborn infants since they don’t possesses these qualities, the Republicans will control the government for decades.

Off the top of my head, I can name half a dozen ethicists who posit some such all-or-nothing quality as the basis of our worth.

I can too. And there arguments inevitably contract the limits of “personhood” in ways that are repugnant to most rational people.

Joe, you also seem to commit a fallacy that has come to be known by the name 'speciesism'.

I’ll readily admit that I am a “speciest.” I believe that humans have an instrinsic worth that is higher than any other creature. That is why if I had to choose, I would save the life of a three day old infant before I would a three year old gorilla.

And while I reject the notion that this is a “fallacy”, I wouldn’t be committing it even if it were possible. My argument is that humans in the earliest stages of development have a right not to be killed is not, in itself, “speciest.” Wanting to protect one species does not mean that I devalue, denigrate, or condone the wanton killing of other species.

Boonton I think the core of the dispute here is definitional. When do you define human life beginning?

There is no dispute about when human life begins. It begins at fertilization. That is a scientific fact. What is at dispute is the concept of “personhood”, whether it is rooted in qualities a human possess and whether lacking such qualities allows us to take that human’s life.

Notice the important adjective there, 'human'. Life can certainly be non-human.

Sure, life can be “non-human” if the creature that is living is not of the species homo sapiens. But if the being is of our species and is alive then it is a living human being.

Yes that is life, yes that is human life but that isn't human life.

Notice how you have to bring in a sci-fi hypothetical in order to create a new category of “non-human human life?” While that might make for a fascination dorm room discussion, it really has no bearing on ethics in the real world.

13

It's a new category? Are you sure about that? Let's try to clean up our language. Instead of human life let's say human personhood. We agree that a kidney, removed from a person is alive and is human life (it's not a pigs kidney after all) but the kidney is not a person. If a clumsy doctor drops it on the floor and kills it he is not guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

If you don't like the sci-fi example how about one where the brain has died leaving behind just the body. Many would reasonably consider this the death of the human personhood even though various organs may still function with the aid of technology.

On the other side of life you are trying to win the argument by trumping definitions. You assert human life begins at conception. OK but as we agreed life can be human without personhood (the kidney, the brain dead body etc.) Of course the life is human meaning belonging to the species homo sapians. But then it was human before fertilization (what species did the egg and sperm belong to?)

14

Raven Y'know what? I dismiss the book as the screed of yet another partisan hack.

Well, of course you do, Raven. Doing otherwise might require you to think and you've never given us a reason to believe you might resort to that type of behavior.

15

Joe,

Two quick points.

1. If the quality upon which our moral worth depends is the capacity for conscious experience (and Singer says something very much like this), we do not thereby condone infantacide. Infants are just as much capable of conscious experience as are you and I. This seems like such an obvious point that I must have missed something . . .

2. You say that humans have a worth greater than any other creature. Any other earthly creature? Any other creature at all, even if not of this earth? If you mean the latter, it seems that you wish to say that we matter more than any other creature, no matter how great its cognitive and emotional capacities. But that's surely absurd, isn't it? Alpha Centaurians might matter just as much as we, and presumably they would if they were sufficiently like us in mind. But this seems to entail that there's some quality we have, a quality we share with the imagined Alpha Centaurians, that makes us matter as we do. It isn't simply being human that makes us matter as we do. Rather it's something humans have or do, something that nonhuman creatures could have or do as well. (This was said in my first post, but you didn't respond. Hope you will this time.)

16

Joe Carter writes: "That is why if I had to choose, I would save the life of a three day old infant before I would a three year old gorilla."

But if you had to choose between saving the life of a three day old infant and a heavy canister with 1,000 frosen embryos, which would you choose?

As I recall, this hypothetical was raised before and no pro-lifers were willing to give a straight answer.

17

ex-preacher But if you had to choose between saving the life of a three day old infant and a heavy canister with 1,000 frosen embryos, which would you choose?

I wish I had the book handy because Ramesh gives an excellent response to this question.

This is a false dilemma because the choice is between saving lives of equal human dignity. I don’t believe that basing the decision on the numbers involved is enough to base the moral decision on (otherwise it could be used to justify torture). But I would most likely save the three day old infant.

What this does not do, though, is show that the infant is more worthy or that the embryos are not living, worthy of dignity, etc. After all, if I were to rush into a nursing home and save my grandmother rather than another elderly woman, it would not mean that we were justified in killing senior citizens.

18

Just noticed an outrageous comment in your reply to Boonton, Joe. You say there's no dispute about when human life begins. It begins at fertilization, you say.

I recall that this has been disputed in this very forum. Some say (and I'm among them) that, though the fertilized egg is surely alive, it predates the human being that will later come to be. (Didn't VirusDoc say the same? I seem to recall that Peter van Inwagen - a Notre Dame philosopher whose name I expect you know - says it too, and says of himself that he follows Peter Geach - the great English philosopher - in this. If you want, I'll hunt down other examples.) It is a stage on the way to a human being but is not yet itself a human being. Yes, it is human and it is alive. But this does not imply that it's the human being that will later emerge from its mother's womb. Compare: a human sperm cell is human, and it is alive. But as all will agree it is not a human being.

Why say that the fertilized egg is not yet a human being? VirusDoc's reason (as I recall it): at the time of fertilization and soon thereafter, twinning can occur. (This is only the first premise in the argument, but now that I've reminded you of it I expect that you can fill the rest in.) My reason: a set of cells together compose a single organism only if their activity is coordinated to serve the greater purposes of that organism; the cells within a blastocyst are not so coordinated; thus they compose no greater organism, i.e. they are a mere plurality; thus the fertilized egg from which the blastocyst came was not yet a human being.

19

But if you had to choose between saving the life of a three day old infant and a heavy canister with 1,000 frosen embryos, which would you choose?

I'd choose to save the infant first and then try to save the embryos (assuming they are human). By the same token, I would also try to save an infant before I attempted to save a 100 year old man, but that doesn't mean I think the man any less human than the infant or that we should be able to cut him up for medical experimentation.

20

Joe,

Ex-preacher complains that anti-abortion folks don't give a straight answer to the type of thought-experiment he presents; and then you proceed to give a quite crooked answer. You make me giggle.

Yes, in some cases we might save the one we know or love. So let's take greater care in how we set up the case.

The newborm is quite healthy and will live a long healthy life if saved.
The newborn is a stranger to you and will remain so for the whole of its life if it is saved.
Each of the 1000 frozen embryos is quite viable and will, if saved, be implanted, grow into a healthy infant and live a long happy life.
None of the 1000 embryos is from a woman or a couple you know; and you will never know any of the children that will result from their implantation if in fact they are implanted.
The total net consequence for all beside the newborn and the embryos will have the same value no matter if you save newborn or embryos. From the point of view of consequences for others, it makes no difference which you save.

Now, what say you Joe? What should we do? It seems obvious to me. Save the newborn.

21

Franklin I recall that this has been disputed in this very forum. Some say (and I'm among them) that, though the fertilized egg is surely alive, it predates the human being that will later come to be.

While I respect your opinion, I believe it is scientifically and philosophically untenable. I can see why some people may cling to it as a necessary rationalization in order to justify abortion, but I think that as an argument it fails to take into account relevant data.

Robert George has an excellent (though lenthgy) rebuttal to this:

Robert George’s lengthy reply deserves a close reading, I’ll highlight the two areas that refute Meilaender’s two main premises:

(1) Some have claimed that the phenomenon of monozygotic twinning shows that the embryo in the first several days of its gestation is not a human individual. The suggestion is that as long as twinning can occur, what exists is not yet a unitary human being but only a mass of cells – each cell is totipotent and allegedly independent of the others.

It is true that if a cell or group of cells is detached from the whole at an early stage of embryonic development, then what is detached can sometimes become a distinct organism and has the potential to develop to maturity as distinct from the embryo from which it was detached (this is the meaning of "totipotent"). But this does nothing to show that before detachment the cells within the human embryo constituted only an incidental mass. Consider the parallel case of division of a flatworm. Parts of a flatworm have the potential to become a whole flatworm when isolated from the present whole of which they are part. Yet no one would suggest that prior to the division of a flatworm to produce two whole flatworms the original flatworm was not a unitary individual. Likewise, at the early stages of human embryonic development, before specialization by the cells has progressed very far, the cells or groups of cells can become whole organisms if they are divided and have an appropriate environment after the division. But that fact does not in the least indicate that prior to such an extrinsic division the embryo is other than a unitary, self-integrating, actively developing human organism. It certainly does not show that the embryo is a mere clump of cells.

In the first two weeks, the cells of the developing embryonic human being already manifest a degree of specialization or differentiation. From the very beginning, even at the two-cell stage, the cells differ in the cytoplasm received from the original ovum. Also they are differentiated by their position within the embryo. In mammals, even in the unfertilized ovum, there is already an "animal" pole (from which the nervous system and eyes develop)iv and a "vegetal" pole (from which the future "lower" organs and the gut develop). After the initial cleavage, the cell coming from the "animal" pole is probably the primordium of the nervous system and the other senses, and the cell coming from the "vegetal" pole is probably the primordium of the digestive system. Moreover, the relative position of a cell from the very beginning (that is, from the first cleavage) has an impact on its functioning. Monozygotic twinning usually occurs at the blastocyst stage, in which there clearly is a differentiation of the inner cell mass and the trophoblast that surrounds it (from which the placenta develops).

The orientation and timing of the cleavages are species specific, and are therefore genetically determined, that is, determined from within. Even at the two-cell stage, the embryo begins synthesizing a glycoprotein called "E-cadherin" or "uvomorulin," which will be instrumental in the compaction process at the eight-cell stage, the process in which the blastomeres (individual cells of the embryo at the blastocyst stage) join tightly together, flattening and developing an inside-outside polarity.vi And there is still more evidence, but the point is that from the zygote stage forward, the embryo, as well as maintaining homeostasis, is internally integrating various processes to direct them in an overall growth pattern toward maturity.

But the clearest evidence that the embryo in the first two weeks is not a mere mass of cells but is a unitary organism is this: if the individual cells within the embryo before twinning were each independent of the others, there would be no reason why each would not regularly develop on its own. Instead, these allegedly independent, noncommunicating cells regularly function together to develop into a single, more mature member of the human species. This fact shows that interaction is taking place between the cells from the very beginning (even within the zona pellucida, before implantation), restraining them from individually developing as whole organisms and directing each of them to function as a relevant part of a single, whole organism continuous with the zygote. Thus, prior to an extrinsic division of the cells of the embryo, these cells together do constitute a single organism. So, the fact of twinning does not show that the embryo is a mere incidental mass of cells. Rather, the evidence clearly indicates that the human embryo, from the zygote stage forward, is a unitary, human organism.

(3) We now turn to the third argument. Some people, apparently, are moved to believe that embryonic human beings are not worthy of full moral respect because a high percentage of embryos formed in natural pregnancies fail to implant or spontaneously abort. Again, we submit that the inference is fallacious.

It is worth noting first, as the standard embryology texts point out, that many of these unsuccessful pregnancies are really due to incomplete fertilizations. So, in many cases, what is lost is not actually a human embryo. To be a complete human organism (a human being), the entity must have the epigenetic primordia for a functioning brain and nervous system, though a chromosomal defect might only prevent development to maximum functioning (in which case it would be a human being, though handicapped). If fertilization is not complete, then what is developing is not an organism with the active capacity to develop itself to the mature (even if handicapped) state of a human.

Second, the argument here rests upon a variant of the naturalistic fallacy. It supposes that what happens in "nature," i.e., with predictable frequency without the intervention of human agency, must be morally acceptable when deliberately caused. Since embryonic death in early miscarriages happens with predictable frequency without the intervention of human agency, the argument goes, we are warranted in concluding that the deliberate destruction of human beings in the embryonic stage is morally acceptable.

The unsoundness of such reasoning can easily be brought into focus by considering the fact that historically, and in some places even today, the infant mortality rate has been very high. If the reasoning under review here were sound, it would show that human infants in such circumstances could not be full human beings possessing a basic right not to be killed for the benefit of others. But that of course is surely wrong. The argument is a non sequitur.

22

Joe,

Thanks for answering. Now, a follow up. Why would you save the newborn over the embryos?

Let's work on the assumptions stated above by Franklin - neither the infant nor the embryos are related to or known by you in any way. Many, if not all, of the embryos could result in successful births.

23

Naughty Joe! You call my opinion 'a necessary rationalization'. You presume to know my motive and pronounce it irrational. (Isn't it a curiosity of English that rationalizations are irrational?) That's ad hominem, you know. (It's a subtle form, I grant, but it's ad hominem nonetheless.)

More on the substantive issues you raise later.

24

It would seem, ex-preacher, in your fun little word problem you are using a tired approach to try to justify your self-validating relativism.

At the end of the day, however, Joe's choice to save the newborn does not change the objective sanctity of the lives of all human beings, regardless of their stage of development.

Let's turn the tables: Assuming you would save the infant, would you do the same if he was 9 months along in his mother's womb? 8 months? Where do you objectively draw the line?

I have dear friends who have a daughter that is now five years old...born after only seven months of gestation.

Where do you draw the line?

Personal choice?

Ahhhh...yes, give humans the right to kill other humans. Sounds reasonable...since everything is relative.

If everything is relative, why even argue about it? Isn't it just up to each of us?

Your feet are planted firmly in mid-air.

25

Franklin Now, what say you Joe? What should we do? It seems obvious to me. Save the newborn.

Before I respond, let me reiterate that no matter what we add to the hypothetical, the conclusion will never be “therefore embryos aren’t human beings.” While it may be an interesting thought experiment, it has no bearing on the morality of embryo-destruction.

Let me use a non-human example to show what I mean.

You enter a burning building a find a dog and a cat. You can only save one, which do you choose?

If you say the dog, that doesn’t mean that cats are not worthy of life and can therefore be killed. Whatever motivation you might have for preferring dogs to cats has no bearing on the worth of cats.

ex-preacher Thanks for answering. Now, a follow up. Why would you save the newborn over the embryos?

For emotional reasons. The sight of a newborn has an effect on me that embryos do not. Does this mean that I think that newborns are more worthy of life than embryos? No. All else being equal I would have to make the decision on other motivations. In this case, emotion would overtake reason.

Let's work on the assumptions stated above by Franklin - neither the infant nor the embryos are related to or known by you in any way. Many, if not all, of the embryos could result in successful births.

Again, since the dignity of the humans in each case are equal, I would have to base the decision on other criteria. One that I might rationally and morally choose is stage of development. The choice would be terribly arbitrary, though, and be akin to choosing an adult over a newborn.

Franklin Naughty Joe! You call my opinion 'a necessary rationalization'.

Sorry, that’s not what I meant. When I said, “I can see why some people may cling to it…” I was referring to people who have weighed all of the relevant data and still choose the weaker argument. Personally, I think that you are in the same epistemic position that I was about a year ago. After being convinced by a rather solid argument, I accepted the position that the post-twinning, 14-days-after-conception window was where the moral line of humanity should be drawn. That argument, though, missed some relevant data that George mentions and which removes any justification for accepting it.

Now I’m not saying that everyone who refuses to accept George’s argument is rationalizing. But I think that if someone started from a neutral position, that his case would be considered the stronger one.

26

I waded into the "pro-choice" vs. "pro-life" fever swamp when I wrote this blog post.

If you don't believe in abortion, then don't get one and encourage other not to get one. But don't delude yourself into believing that abortion/suicide/euthanasia will end once all our elected politicans have little (R)s besides their names. No politican or judge is going to wave a magic pro-life juju stick and banish evil from the hearts of expecting mothers.

Nor does government even make a marginal difference. There were 1.3 million illegal abortions in 1968, compared to 850k legal abortions in 2000. Whatever the pro-life movement is doing to stop women from having abortions, it should keep on doing it and not let the government muck it up.

27

Mark, you know nothing about my views on abortion and ethics.

Joe, I plan to respond as soon as I have the time.

28

But by basing dignity on such qualitative conditions it becomes impossible to explain why people who have more of a quality (i.e., artists, geniuses) should not be regarded as having more worth.

Personhood, to borrow from math, is a floor function.

Problem solved. (although it really wasn't a problem to begin with)

29

Whatever the pro-life movement is doing to stop women from having abortions, it should keep on doing it and not let the government muck it up.

Whatever the anti-rapists are doing to stop rape, they should keep on doing and not let the government muck it up. Same argument?

30

The other night I took my dog for a walk. As the light of the full moon reflected off the waves it seemed to double in intensity and beauty to the point that all I could do was stand in awe. If I thought it would have done any good at the time I would have said to my dog, "Hey Ralph, slow down for a second and just look at this profoundly beautiful view."But the dog was only interested in marking its territory and sniffing the bushes for the scent of other markings. It never saw the big picture nor did it ever enter its mind that there was anything more important than the basest animal instincts.

That, I think is analogous of the Party of Death. They don't see the big picture, namely the beauty and sanctity of human life. Nor does it ever enter their mind that there is anything at stake other than territorial rights involving the basest animal instincts. Of course they will not read this book nor ever see their folly because they are too preoccupied with their head in the bushes sniffing out the latest arguing point, leaving their mark, and then happily trotting ahead under the delusion that by their actions they had somehow graduated to the head of the pack.

How many times do people on this forum have to recall the indisputable facts that human life begins at conception, that the so called "right to an abortion" is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, that abortion not only kills an innocent human being but does great physical and psychological harm to the mother, that partial birth abortion is neither rare nor ever necessary to save the life of the mother, and that it is immoral to dehydrate a helpless invalid. These are only a few of the many areas where the left has their head in the bushes (or in other places) oblivious to the fact that the meaning of life has passed them by.

31

Let's get away from the burning building hypothetical, it was useful when it was first proposed but it gets convoluted quickly as conditions and clarrifications get piled onto it.

The lengthy passage Joe quoted regarding whether an embryo is a 'human individual' reveals the problem is one of definitions. The issue is 'human personhood' and how it is defined, not so much the mechanics of fertilization and twinning. Let me illustrate how:

Suppose you believe that God puts a soul into the matter that makes up a human body. Before that moment, the matter is just matter, not a human person. After that moment the matter has the personhood of that human beign.

Knowing that at the moment of fertilization many atoms are lined up in such a way that various organs will grow and maybe even whether or not twinning will happen down the line is of no real use to this question of personhood. If God doesn't yet put the soul into that matter at that moment it is like a computer whose operating system has not yet been loaded.

Joe's responses stumble directly into philsophical materialism. They implicitly assume that a human person is a particular assembly of matter. He would just define that assembly as a fertilized egg while another person may define it as a fertilized egg implanted in a womb while another person may define it as a fertilized egg that has divided into at least half a million cells and so on.

But if Joe is going to present a materialistic definition of personhood he should justify why it is better than any other materialistic definition.

32

How many times do people on this forum have to recall the indisputable facts that human life begins at conception

This is indisputable because you stopped to look at the moon while walking your dog the other night?

They [those who disagree with Terence] don't see the big picture, namely the beauty and sanctity of human life.

Ironically he then goes on to equate human beigns who disagree with him to dogs. So much for the benefit of being inspired by 'the beauty and sanctity of human life'. Before you cry this is unfair of me lets try to imagine what he would say if I had analogized Terri Schiavo to a dog?

33

Protagonist:
"There were 1.3 million illegal abortions in 1968"

I am curious where you obtained this statistic from.

34

Another hypothetical. I'm curious to see how people would respond.

You enter a building burning. You see a 98 year old man, who has lived a long and blessed life. You see a 18 year old woman, who has incredible potential. Whom do you save? And why?

Moral worth is tricky. We would say that they individuals have moral equal dignity and value. But would each death be equally tragic? And what are the implications of that fact?

The fundamental problem is that there are a lot of terms thrown around and very little idea of their implications. Worth, value, intrinsic, inherent, qualities, etc. Everything isn't black and white.

35

Boonton:
"But if Joe is going to present a materialistic definition of personhood he should justify why it is better than any other materialistic definition."

The definition is not so much materialistic as legalistic. When does one become eligible for human rights? Is it as soon as possible, or is there a process for the granting of these rights? If there is a process, who defines it? Who says that the process cannot be changed?

36

#31 and # 32

The word human being.

37

Marco,

A more interesting objection to the 'life Nazis' can be related to your hypothetical. Death is natural and in its own way a good. The purpose of life is not to live forever at all cost using any and all means necessary.

If you think that we are all allotted a certain amount of life then by choosing to save the young woman you are saving a larger amount of life than by saving the old man. Likewise when people on the Titanic loaded children onto the lifeboats first they were not members of a 'Party of Death' choosing to disvalue the lives of the adults and the men but rather respecting both life and death's place in it.

38

"Ironically he then goes on to equate human beigns who disagree with him to dogs. So much for the benefit of being inspired by 'the beauty and sanctity of human life'. Before you cry this is unfair of me lets try to imagine what he would say if I had analogized Terri Schiavo to a dog?"

Note: There is a vast difference between being a dog and behaving like one. It is unclear what "analogised Terri Schaivo to a dog" means, but I dare say that she would have been treated far more humanely had she been given a dog's treatment under the same circumstances. They don't dehydrate dogs when they are incapacited. That would draw a hefty fine for cruelty.

Many an atheist on this forum has taken exception to the fact
that are regarded as amoral. They take a 'who me?' approach
to the entire issue of sin because they firmly believe that they are decent, well meaning, charitable people. On the surface they may be, as are the many Christians on this forum (who incidentally have no problem acknowledging their own moral depravity) . They understand that it is by grace that they are saved and not by their good works, lest any man should boast.

I have found that those who would argue the most vorciferously that their moral compass is accurate are typically the most inaccurate when it comes to taking the right stand on the great moral issues of our day.

That is all I have to say on the matter.

39

I asked Joe why he would save an infant over embryos. He wrote: "For emotional reasons. The sight of a newborn has an effect on me that embryos do not. Does this mean that I think that newborns are more worthy of life than embryos? No. All else being equal I would have to make the decision on other motivations. In this case, emotion would overtake reason."

No disrespect, Joe, but I don't buy this. Suppose the baby and embryos were both shielded from you by a screen? Then the "sight of a newborn" wouldn't have any effect. Which would you choose? The newborn.

You say the reason is emotional, not rational. So you are saying that it is irrational. Perhaps you would compare it to choosing to save a dog over a cat. A matter of taste, perhaps.

I don't think you're being intentionally deceitful. I think you realize, almost by instinct, that there is a big difference between a newborn and embryos. This difference can be discerned rationally. I think you don't want to give any ground on this issue, so you are covering yourself by calling it emotional.

Let me take the example a step further. Let's suppose the newborn is a complete stranger. Let's suppose the embryos belong to you and your wife and that if the embryos are lost you will not be able to have biological children. Which would you choose to save? I think we both know the answer.

40

Hey, pontificate if you must, but please leave the Constitution out of it!

In your post you endorse the author’s quote:

Take, for example, Joel Tiffany’s A Treatise on the Unconstitutionality of American Slavery in which he contends “the assumption that the Constitution guarantees slavery, are so absurd and ridiculous as necessarily to destroy all such argument.”

Well, actually, the Constitution did endorse slavery. It was, by the way, the only option the proponents (Madison, Jefferson, et. al.) of the measure felt they had to get it approved by southern states (please see their personal letters for further discussion). To wit, please note the following sub-articles:

Article I

Section II
[3] Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. (Who were those “three-fifths of all other persons?”)

Section IX

[1] The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. (What people were being “imported” such that there would be a concern about a “tax or duty” placed upon them akin to any other commodity?)

Hence, following the civil war, slavery was formally banned by amendment to the Constitution. An amendment, which would have been quite unnecessary, had the original document not recognized it as an institution.

As the title of my post suggests, express your religious views any way you see fit. I will, and incidentally have, fought to defend your right to do so. But, if you are going to drag the US Constitution into it, you had better get your facts straight.

Only a Veteran and a Historian,

M. Tully

41

#29

No, that's a bad comparison. A rape victim does not depend on the rapist for her biological survival. Nor does the rapist have the same level of innate biological control over the rape victim. Because the relationship between rapist/raped is so tangential, preventing rape involves only causal law enforcement--the proverbial "cop around the corner" who could intervene, or even the threat of a cop around the corner. But to prevent an abortion, you would need an orwellian level of surveillance over the mother's physical state and care of herself.

The sad fact is if a mother want to kill her unborn child to die--or for that matter if someone wants to kill themselves--there is no way to prevent it from happening. To propose otherwise is to propose a complete end to personal sovereignty in society.

#33

Richard Schwarz, Septic Abortion (Philadelphia: JB Lippincott Co., 1968) and Tietze C, Henshaw SK. Induced Abortion: A World Review, 1986. New York: The Guttmacher Institute, 1986. Cited here and here.

If you have any way to refute the statistic, I'm all ears. There's some convincing testimony here that numbers were exaggerated by the pro-choice movement.

Nevertheless, if the cited statistic is off by even 30%, it would still show a big fall in the abortion rate.

42

ex-preacher,

I’ll take a stab at answering your question. I would save the infant instead of the frozen embryos for the same reason I would save the infant instead of a 100 year-old man (or a 60 year old man for that matter) - a point which another commenter already made. The reason being that in such a situation one must make a snap value-judgment concerning many factors; some conscious, some unconscious. This would involve such issues as potential and fairness. In the case of the old man I would rationalize that he had already lived a full life and had the opportunity to take advantage of it, thus the child is more deserving. In the case of the frozen embryos, I would be unsure of their real potential for life. It is difficult to make a quantitative or qualitative judgment concerning frozen embryos because of their fragility. Their future is inherently very uncertain because they are not inside a womb. They are artificially and mechanically suspended by the will of man. The issue of fragility is exactly why multiple eggs are fertilized in the first place. However, my imperfect value judgments have no bearing on the sanctity of the lives of either embryos or old men.

Let us turn to another aspect of the question. Suppose I knew that one of these embryos would grow up to find a cure for cancer? Suppose that I knew the child I was going to save would grow up to be a mass murderer? This changes everything does it not? This is exactly why humans have no business making such value judgments. We should adopt a philosophy that honors life and let God take care of the rest. It seems to me that you are the only one playing games here.

43

Note: There is a vast difference between being a dog and behaving like one. It is unclear what "analogised Terri Schaivo to a dog" means, but I dare say that she would have been treated far more humanely had she been given a dog's treatment under the same circumstances. They don't dehydrate dogs when they are incapacited. That would draw a hefty fine for cruelty.

No they euthanize dogs, giving them a lethal injection tht kills them quickly and with minimal possibility of pain. Since you think that's better I'm surprised to see you aligning yourself with the Jack Kevorkin crowd.

44

ex-preacher,

P.S… If I am correctly seeing where you are trying to go, it strikes me that you are making quite a bold extrapolation here. The question at hand is, “Should we make value judgments concerning life?” You take a contrived and extreme case where one is forced to make a value judgment, then you extrapolate to “It is ok to make such value judgments.” Please tell me how you justify such a leap.

45

Hi!
I remember an argument for pro-life that was really good, but I can't remember who made it first, so I can give him the credit for it.
The argument goes like this:
Imagine there's a building that has to be demolished, and the person in charge of it is not sure if there's anyone in, he's just starting to destroy it without checking first, wouldn't that be considered criminal? not responsible ?
just the same, if the left-wing pro-choice people affirm that they don't know for sure when life begins (an excuse, I think) it will still be not responsible to go ahead and act as there's no human "inside the building"

1. We assume that we're not sure when the human life starts (fertilizaion or ...)

46

M. Tully Well, actually, the Constitution did endorse slavery.

The point being made is not whether the Constition condoned slavery (that is rather indisputable) but whether at the time it guaranteed slavery. That, as the treatise by Tally notes, is a very different thing.

In a similar way, the Constitution may be neutral on abortion (allowing the states to decide) but it should not--and dare I say, does not--guarantee with the full force of federal law the right to unrestricted abortions.

47

Ex-preacher No disrespect, Joe, but I don't buy this. Suppose the baby and embryos were both shielded from you by a screen? Then the "sight of a newborn" wouldn't have any effect. Which would you choose? The newborn.

Obviously in order to make the choice I would have to know that one of the humans was a newborn infant. Even if I were not able to see that particular child, my emotional response would be based on my experiences and emotional attachments to such children. So seeing the specific child does not really change anything.

You say the reason is emotional, not rational. So you are saying that it is irrational. Perhaps you would compare it to choosing to save a dog over a cat. A matter of taste, perhaps.

Not necessarily. I don’t think that emotional equates to irrational. I think some emotions (i.e., disgust) can be completely rational and rooted in cognitive processes that are based on reason.

I also would not say that it is a “matter of taste.” An emotional preference, perhaps, but that is different than an aesthetic choice.

I think you realize, almost by instinct, that there is a big difference between a newborn and embryos. This difference can be discerned rationally.

Well, of course, I agree with that. There is a big difference between a newborn and an embryo just as there is a big difference between a newborn and an adult. Differences in stages of maturation and development can certainly be rationally discerned.

Let's suppose the embryos belong to you and your wife and that if the embryos are lost you will not be able to have biological children. Which would you choose to save? I think we both know the answer.

Contra Darwin, I would save the newborn. While you might think otherwise, I assure you that in the absence of having to make such a horrible choice, that this is what I truly believe I would do. Is that the answer you expected?

48

There is another review of Ponnuru's book on American Spectator today.

49

protagonist:

To your credit, you cite an article which refutes your statistics on the numbers of illegal abortions before Roe V Wade. But then you write,

"Nevertheless, if the cited statistic is off by even 30%, it would still show a big fall in the abortion rate."

The article which you cited makes a claim that undercuts your argument by more than 30 percent; it states that pro-abortion forces made claims that were 1500% higher than the actual numbers. It's amazing that Dr. Bernard Nathanson's story doesn't get more coverage. This fact alone shows the incredible bias of media.

The statistics from the various studies that you cite are suspect. Dr. Nathanson is on record saying the whole furor over the numbers of back-alley abortions was "fabricated." Every study I've seen on the numbers of abortions before Roe V Wade have been connected with pro-abortion folks, or could be. The claim that abortions are down since Roe V Wade is offensive.

50

Obviously in order to make the choice I would have to know that one of the humans was a newborn infant. Even if I were not able to see that particular child, my emotional response would be based on my experiences and emotional attachments to such children. So seeing the specific child does not really change anything.

Since we're sticking with this hypothetical I think the point ex is getting to is that traditionally embryos have not been viewed as full human persons. This is not an invention of Roe.v.Wade. For example, miscarriages are usually not treated the same as a death of a newborn child. Even among pro-lifers very few would treat abortion as full blown murder with the death penalty for both mother and doctor despite the fact that a woman who hired a hit man to kill a newborn baby would run a big chance of getting the death penalty.

This hypothetical illustrates that 'gut sense'. I understand that there are some preferences at play here. You're right, if you choose to rescue your grandmother from a burning nursing home it doesn't mean you're making a statement that all old people but her are worthless.

On the other hand isn't it intereting that no one has said they would rescue the 1,000 embryos? No one. Not only that but no one seems to feel a great need to justify this choice. If someone let 1,000 people die in order to save one person they loved it might be understandable but would hardly be without guilt. If a cop choose to let 1,000 people die and saved one instead he very well could end up fired or even worse.

Jeff:
It is difficult to make a quantitative or qualitative judgment concerning frozen embryos because of their fragility. Their future is inherently very uncertain because they are not inside a womb. They are artificially and mechanically suspended by the will of man. The issue of fragility is exactly why multiple eggs are fertilized in the first place. However, my imperfect value judgments have no bearing on the sanctity of the lives of either embryos or old men.

But isn't this playing God? If a children's hospital was on fire it would be offensive if the firemen decided to save the cancer ward for last because studies show childhood cancer has a high mortality rate. If you're allowed to let probabilistic statements about the future potential life of an embryo have weight in your decision why isn't, say, Michael Schiavo allowed to do the same for his wife?

51

jd
The statistics from the various studies that you cite are suspect. Dr. Nathanson is on record saying the whole furor over the numbers of back-alley abortions was "fabricated." Every study I've seen on the numbers of abortions before Roe V Wade have been connected with pro-abortion folks, or could be. The claim that abortions are down since Roe V Wade is offensive.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion

Access to abortion continued, however, as the disguised, but nonetheless open, advertisement of abortion services, abortion-inducing devices, and abortifacient medicines in the Victorian era would seem to suggest.[20] A few alleged examples of surreptitiously-marketed abortifacients include "Farrer's Catholic Pills", "Hardy's Woman's Friend", "Dr. Peter's French Renovating Pills", and "Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound".[21] Patent medicines which claimed to treat "female complaints" often contained such ingredients as pennyroyal, tansy, and savin. Abortifacient products were sold under the promise of "restor[ing] female regularity" and "removing from the system every impurity."[22]

What's often missed with the 'back ally abortion' argument is that pro-choicers often buy into the arguments for the legal monopoly doctors have on medical treatment ("only a licensed physician can do a medical procedure, anyone else who does one is a quack and dangerous!"). The fact is abortion is a realtively simple procedure that could be done by someone with minimal training. So if one person shows up in an ER with a serious infection from a 'back ally abortion' there probably were a great many who had no problems. (Infections were probably the most common problem with illegal abortions, no doubt many were simply treated with anti-biotics and were never formally reported as a botched abortion).

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_abortions there are about 40M abortions per year globally and 19M unsafe ones. The reference is unfortunately not sourced but it also claims that when abortion is not available hospitals can spend up to 50% of their resources dealing with the consquences of 'unsafe abortions'. Considering that even in Africa, where you'd expect illegal medical procedures to be the most dangerous in the world, the death rate from 'unsafe abortion' is 1 in 250 it takes a very large number of illegal abortions to swamp a hospital with patients suffering from complications.

52

Joe
Not necessarily. I don’t think that emotional equates to irrational. I think some emotions (i.e., disgust) can be completely rational and rooted in cognitive processes that are based on reason.

I also would not say that it is a “matter of taste.” An emotional preference, perhaps, but that is different than an aesthetic choice.

Hmmm, I think you played right into ex's hands by making the above statement. If strongly felt emotions may in fact be rational (even if you may be unable to articulate the logic of why they are rational), then the strongly felt emotion that one should rescue a single newborn rather than a 1,000 embryos hints that embryos do not carry the trait of personhood that a newborn does.

If you had simply tossed up your hands and said there are no moral solutions to such problems hence all answers were nothing more than matters of taste or irrational emotions you could at least preserve your argument that embryos have personhood.

Contra Darwin, I would save the newborn. While you might think otherwise, I assure you that in the absence of having to make such a horrible choice, that this is what I truly believe I would do. Is that the answer you expected?

Notice how not only does everyone seem to opt for saving the newborn but even the thought of saving the 1,000 embryos seems to be treated with contempt. Above the hopeful father who saves his wife's fertilized embryos is depicted as have selfish Darwinian motives for doing so rather than a father saving his living children.

53

Much confusion arises simply from poor definitions. Although the words human and person are used popularly with many and overlapping senses, sensible argument demands that their most precise definitions be understood and agreed upon. "Person" is a legal definition referring to an entity with rights and resposibilities. The process of incorporation applies rights and responsibilities to an abstract entity such as a business that can be treated under the law much as an individual human would be. Under this definition an embryo is not presently regarded as a person. Whether it is proper to do so should be the result of moral reflection, not the starting point.

What should be beyond question is that the embryo is in fact a living human individual that is genetically distinct from either parent. Objective, empirical observation compels that assessment. It is not dependenent on any religious teaching. Any moral reasoning that doesn't begin with that understanding is defective from the start.

54

Joe wrote: "Obviously in order to make the choice I would have to know that one of the humans was a newborn infant. Even if I were not able to see that particular child, my emotional response would be based on my experiences and emotional attachments to such children. So seeing the specific child does not really change anything."

Fine. Let's make it a tantrum-throwing, snotty-nosed two year old. Or how about a smart-mouthing, rebellious 16 year old. Or an angst-ridden, amoral twenty-something. Or a depressed middle-ager. Or an old man in a wheelchair. I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that under almost any scenario, you save the living, breathing born person over the embryos.

Joe wrote: "Not necessarily. I don’t think that emotional equates to irrational. I think some emotions (i.e., disgust) can be completely rational and rooted in cognitive processes that are based on reason."

I agree. In fact, that's the exact point I'm trying to make. You try to wave away your decision by attributing it to emotion. I'm saying that there is a rational and even moral basis for saving the born person or the embryos.

Joe wrote: "Well, of course, I agree with that. There is a big difference between a newborn and an embryo just as there is a big difference between a newborn and an adult. Differences in stages of maturation and development can certainly be rationally discerned."

Okay, now you're playing games with me. Obviously, we all know there are maturational differences. My point, as I think you know full well, is that there is a far larger difference here that would impel nearly all of us, under nearly any scenario, to choose to save a single born person over 1,000 embryos.

Joe Wrote: "Contra Darwin, I would save the newborn. While you might think otherwise, I assure you that in the absence of having to make such a horrible choice, that this is what I truly believe I would do. Is that the answer you expected?"

That is the answer I expected. No matter how much we wanted the embryos to be born, you and I both know that the born person is in a completely different position than the embryos, who are potential persons.

55

Ex...

Even if I were to concede that embryos are "potential persons", they are still actual humans. Killing actual humans / potential persons for the reasons given by the majority of abortion seekers remains suspect (and that's stating it mildly).

56

"Person" is a legal definition referring to an entity with rights and resposibilities

While I think you're on the right track you're wrong about the responsibilities part. Everyone thinks a newborn baby, for example, has rights but responsibilities?

BTW, this topic is a bit all over the place because the issue of abortion is lumped in with euthansia and withholding life support in some cases (sorry folks, Schiavo was not euthanisized).

I have never heard a serious person argue that people like Terry Schiavo are 'non-persons' or anything like that in regards to euthansia. Only the 'life Nazis' presented that argument as a straw man. Every serious supporter of euthansia I've heard actually takes personhood quite seriously and argues that the state has no business stopping a person from requesting their own death.

The Schiavo case was a step removed from euthansia because it was about withholding certain types of medical care. The legal question was whether or not her husband was the proper spokesman for her wishes considering that she was unable to speak for herself. The argument then was not that she wasn't a person but rather that as a person her husband had the right to speak on her behalf.

Imagine for a moment that she was able to speak and said she did not want a feeding tube. Would the proper 'pro-life' position be that her mouth should be forced open and the tub pushed down it in order to prevent her from dying? How about people who decide not to have difficult to endure procedures like chemotherapy or dialysis even though refusing to do so is bringing about almost certain death for themselves?

Again are we really talking about respecting the dignity of life here or making a fetish out of keeping the heart monitor beeping?

57

ex,

I believe there are two broad schools of thought regarding abortion, embryos and so on; the process school and the moment school.

The moment school says personhood happens at a specific moment. Before you can do more or less what you want. After you can't do anything that you wouldn't do a newborn baby or your older brother. The process school says that personhood is aquired as part of a process.

Roe.v.Wade is classic process orientated thinking where the right of the woman to abortion gets more and more strings attached to it as she progresses thru the trimesters.

Legally moments are easier to work with. It's easier to set legal adulthood at a moment (18th birthday) than it is to try to institute some type of sensible but fair sliding scale. Biologically, though, processes seem to be more common. Biologically adulthood happens as a process with some things coming at different rates. True it's pretty hard to say someone is '45.5% adult' but most people agree with something along those lines.

This, though, just addresses whether or not abortion involves hurting a human person or not. It's still another question whether one has the right to infringe on one person's life (the woman) for the interest of another's life (the unborn baby).

Bryan:
Even if I were to concede that embryos are "potential persons", they are still actual humans. Killing actual humans / potential persons for the reasons given by the majority of abortion seekers remains suspect (and that's stating it mildly).

It may be suspect but 'potential persons' are not persons. Losing a 'potential job' is not the same as losing your job. Losing a 'potential girlfriend' is hardly the same as losing a real one. Your auto insurance isn't going to pay you anything because I might have 'potentially hit' your car this morning.

58

Most people would choose the newborn. I suspect that much of this preference comes from assumptions about the probable outcomes.

What will the world look like a year from your choice? On one hand, you should expect two happy parents of a healthy year-old child. On the other, you should expect a canister of frozen embryos that will eventually be discarded, or perhaps sacrificed to the god of medical research. On one hand, you have the anguish of two bereaved parents. Nothing like that on the other hand. It is no surprise that most people prefer the first choice.

Let us instead presume that all of those embryos are going to be implanted next week. You are now choosing between one healthy child, and perhaps 700 healthy children. Two bereaved parents, or two thousand bereaved parents-to-be. (Their pain may be less, but it is real. Check with anyone who's suffered a miscarriage.) Doesn't the calculus change a bit?

I know the exercise is intended to demonstrate that embryos are not people. But it's just a "lifeboat" thought experiment. All it actually shows is that one may be forced to discriminate between people.

59

I'm not sure if this was intentional, Scott, but I think you identified the key point here:

"Two bereaved parents, or two thousand bereaved parents-to-be."

A newborn has parents. An embryo has "parents-to-be."

60

Indeed, this is unusual as a lifeboat type question in that most people would be deeply disgusted with someone who made a certain choice.

I think people would be almost universally disgusted with someone who choose the canister. In a 'lifeboat' scenero they may disagree with someone who choose to discriminate, say, against age but they wouldn't feel as passionate about it. Just a guess...

More revealing IMO is the decisions we make in the real life 'lifeboat' of how much effort we put into to save different types of people. There's a huge amount of money and time going into preventing deaths among newborns. There's next to nothing in preventing miscarriages. In fact they are sometimes even celebrated as the body's way of getting rid of a 'defective' embryo.

If unborn babies are persons don't they deserve at least a serious effort to save them? True there's a difference ethically from simply not doing harm and being obligated to do good but at many as 75% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Could you even begin to imagine some illness claiming 75% of newborns without a massive effort to mobolize every resource available to stop it?

The silence is deafening unless most people are operating with a 'gut instinct' that says embryos are not people hence the death of a newborn is much worse than the death of an embryo.

61

Boonton: "It may be suspect but 'potential persons' are not persons. Losing a 'potential job' is not the same as losing your job. Losing a 'potential girlfriend' is hardly the same as losing a real one. Your auto insurance isn't going to pay you anything because I might have 'potentially hit' your car this morning."

1. You ignored the other half: they are actual humans.
2. Your analogies are flawed. The 'potential persons'in the womb will most certainly become actual persons if they are not killed. The same certainty doesn't apply to jobs or girlfriends or wrecks.

Are you prepared to argue that convenience-killing of 'potential persons who will become actual persons if not killed' is morally acceptable?

62

Bryan,

I think you are contradicting yourself. If something is a real human then it is not a potential human. If something is a potential human then it is not yet human. Being something and being a potential something are mutually exclusive.

63

"What should be beyond question is that the embryo is in fact a living human individual that is genetically distinct from either parent."

That is true, but is it in the interest of society to protect this embryo at the cost of parental choice? I, and millions of other Americans, do not think so. An embryo means no more to me than a mouse. When a friend or acquaintance suffers a miscarriage, I feel sympathy for my friend or acquaintance; I rarely give the aborted fetus a thought. Somehow, the closer to term the fetus is, the greater is my regard for it. I think most people feel this way. When my wife and I suffered miscarriages, I grieved for the lost children-to-be; I grieved for what the embryo might have become, not for the embryo as it was. One was ectopic, and surely would have killed my wife were it not for medical intervention. Now, ten years later, weeks go by when neither my wife nor I give the miscarriages a thought. It helps that we have two healthy children.

Society must decide when human life is to be protected and when it is not. This, of course, is a frightening prospect for those who long for an objective standard of morality; what is to stop society from dictating the execution of invalids, allowing the abandonment of the elderly and the birth strangling of deformed babies? The answer is...nothing. Some societies in human history have allowed some or all of these. I don't think American society is in danger of embracing these behaviors. Nor do I think American society is about to embrace full personhood at conception. I could live with a ban on abortions after a specified time period following conception, but I'm sure many people would oppose any restrictions, just as many would oppose any abortions. This issue is not going away.

64

I don't think it's a contradiction. But perhaps I am guilty of being unclear.

Abortion is the killing of X. "What is X?" is the fundamental question. It is alive. And it is human.

I am, for the sake of argument, drawing a distinction between "human" (biological definition) and "person" (moral/philosophical definition). If we are not prepared to say that a fetus is a person, then what are we saying it is? It is certainly a potential person. So the next question is under what circumstances is killing a potential person acceptable?

Perhaps I am focusing on too small a point, but I grow weary of the abortion debate avoiding the central issue: WHAT is being killed?

65

Bryan, I think you are being clear. I can see how you may raise moral issues with killing a potential person but it isn't the same as killing a real person.

Let's imagine a man is killed in a car accident and his wife has the doctors extract his last living sperm because she wnts to hve his baby. Let's say the doc has her egg in one tube and his sperm in the other. A moment before putting the two together the lab assistant sets off firecracker as a practical joke. The tubes drop and break thereby destroying the last potential offspring of the man. Bad yes but hardly murder.

66

All this debate is ludacris! You all sound as if you know what you are talking about and I am sure that most of you know quite a bit more than me. The thing is that as you debate weather or not a fetus is a human being or not you sound like you are speaking of a baby that is only a few days into the developmental process. When the UNDISPUTED fact is that by the time that most women find out that they are pregnant the baby already has a brain, spinal cord, arms, legs, and if you look at him or her in a sonogram THEY LOOK LIKE A PERSON!!!! This is not a pilosophical question it is a moral one. Is it okay to kill a human being? I know that this does not accout for the morning after pill and I am not condoning that at all. But I just want you all to cut through all this crap and face up to the fact that what the "party of death" is condoning here is the killing of innocent people who can think and respond to their suroundings. There have been premies that have survived after being born at 23 weeks! SURVIVED!! That is only half way there and no pro choice person would batt an eye at aborting a featus that is 40 weeks as long as long as the woman is not in labor and some even then! If the debate is weather or not a 6 week old featus is a person than fine but make it illegal to kill anyone older. But as Joe says sooner or later American knowledge will advance to the point where that is no longer an issue and then we can make it alltogether illeagl like it should be now.

67

"The issue is 'human personhood' and how it is defined"

The issue is that so many people have different ideas as to what human beings deserve protections. The idea of 'personhood' is a bioethical construct that I don't adhere to. You are either a human being or you are not. That is the question to me.

"Suppose you believe that God puts a soul into the matter that makes up a human body"

Let's forget about souls. I don't think about 'souls' when discussing the issue. Appealing to souls will only cause confusion because so few people even have a solid grasp of what a 'soul' is, let alone whether 'souls' exist or not.

No one can dispute the fact that a human being (distinct, separate, and different from the 'host' organism as opposed to being a *part* of the 'host' organism) comes into existence at conception. Prior to that, you only have haploid single celled organisms which are produced by the human body (egg cells are actually produced while the woman is a fetus) for reproductive purposes.

Implying that the line of 'moral worth' between embryo and ova cell is fuzzy is betraying a lot of ignorance. A gamete cannot be a complete organism of the species, since that would be ignoring their purpose. In short, gametes are only potential body parts of an organism that may or may not (but probably won't) come into existence. They are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Reproduction involves creating offspring after one's own kind. Sperm/ova are not 'after one's own kind' since they are only body parts. It would be like me calling my skin cells 'human beings'. An embryo is a creature after my own kind because - whether you like it or not - something new has been created. One strong piece of evidence (other than pure logic) which shows us this is that the embryo is the beginning of a developmental process that extends until adulthood. I used to be an embryo. Before then, my (as of yet potential) body parts lived in my mother's body and my father's body until they came together to form..voila!..moi!

For anybody to apply different criteria of human 'personhood' based on some subjective qualification that they made up is to make a mockery of the term "human rights." If my rights are subject to fickle human philosophical ideas of 'worth', then this society is no better than the worst dictatorships.

"I think you realize, almost by instinct, that there is a big difference between a newborn and embryos. This difference can be discerned rationally."

I'd hate to speak for Joe here, but ex-preacher - this is fairly easy to figure out. Joe would pick the newborn infant for the same reason why most people don't send checks to starving children in Africa.

It's an issue of familiarity not 'difference'. We aren't familiar with embryos in common human experience, so we have less empathy for them. It is the same sort of reason why people discriminated against the Australian aborigines. Golly, they look different! Must not really be human enough to value!

No offense intended to Joe, but it is only human to have more empathy towards those we are most familiar with.

"A newborn has parents. An embryo has "parents-to-be.""

Again, you are confusing *familiarity* with (what you call) 'personhood'.

People call pregnant women 'mothers-to-be' only because of how our culture indoctrinates us on these issues. For myself, I don't call the parents of embryos 'parents-to-be.' When I have embryos, they will be my children/offspring and it won't matter what anybody else says about them.

68

Joe,

The Constitution DID guarantee slavery by recognizing that slaves were property. Article 4 Section 2 Line 3

Re: Abortion...as one who is adamantly pro-life, I'm always disappointed when Christians talk about the Democrats as the party of death. My understanding is that the rate of abortions for evangelical women is only slightly less than for the nation as a whole. I personally would like to see how many Dem women have abortions as opposed to Rep women? Do you think all those daughters of rich Republicans are celibate or are carrying their unwanted babies to full-term? People who live in glass houses shouldn't...well, you know.

69

"The thing is that as you debate weather or not a fetus is a human being or not you sound like you are speaking of a baby that is only a few days into the developmental process."

Yes, Charles, but most abortion supporters confuse embryos with fetuses. It's their way of trying to tear down our defenses. After all, if they can get us to agree that embryos don't have 'moral worth', then maybe they can get us to agree that fetuses don't, either. It's the slippery slope in action.

You are right - most embryos aren't aborted until well into their development, but most abortion supporters don't really care about that.

"THEY LOOK LIKE A PERSON!!!!"

That's true. Most people commonly judge by appearances and often this is very useful. Unfortunately, the most ardent abortion supporters will say that what the baby looks like is irrelevant. I can't disagree with them on that. Appearances can turn a mannequin into a human being. No..appearances are a strong indicator (esp. if it is alive), but it's not enough to convince them.

" But I just want you all to cut through all this crap and face up to the fact that what the "party of death" is condoning here is the killing of innocent people who can think and respond to their suroundings."

Yes, but you know what they will say in response to that: 'they aren't really thinking and responding. It is just reflexes!'

Yeah, that's a cop-out, but they couldn't care less. Witness the famous violinist analogy. Even if they recognized the fetus as a human being, many would still support abortion. If you ask me, that's pretty sick, but those are the depths that many are willing to sink to.

I guess, all I can say Charles is that all this stuff is irrelevant to abortion supporters.

Arguing is pointless, but it is fun to blow off steam - as you have just done.

70

As Christians, we greatly error when we focus on Democrats or liberals. Our great issue should be taking care of our own house and praying that God will withhold judgment. Most Christians believe that the aborted babies go to be with the Lord. And even the most die-hard Calvinists would have to admit that some of them were pre-destined to believe. We must wonder if they too are crying out, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" To continue to focus on Democrats and liberals is to be deceived and spend a lot of wasted time and energy. There has been an unprecedented slaughter of the innocents in a nation that has always called itself Christian. How long will God wait to avenge their blood and will He avenge it on our generation...

71

Stan brings up an interesting point - don't all of these 44 million aborted embryos, fetuses, babies, get a ticket straight to heaven? Many of them, probably the vast majority, if born, would have grown up not to be Christians and thus gone to hell. Isn't it better for them to get to go directly to an eternity with God than to be born and face a good chance of burning in hell forever? This means the "abortionist" is helping many more people get to heaven than most preachers are.

72

x-preacher,

Because it's murder and God hates the shedding of innocent blood and will repay well beyond the scope of the original offense. We should be quaking in our Birkenstocks instead of whining about Democrats.

73

I understand that it is murder for the one committing it, but don't all those babies go to heaven? He has sacrificed his own eternity so that they might be saved.

74

Why is it acceptable that billions are spent for medical care and research for the troubles of newborns while up to 75% of unborns die 'naturally'? If you're going to call embryos and fetuses human persons then how could you justify such disparate funding?

75

I think they all do go to Heaven but Calvinists would disagree and I'm not convinced that the Scripture is clear either way. If they all do go to Heaven, then their murder is all the more egregious and the judgment will be even more severe, especially when the offense is committed in a "Christian" (harlot?) nation.

76

stan wrote;

The Constitution DID guarantee slavery by recognizing that slaves were property. Article 4 Section 2 Line 3

Article 4, Section 2 states;

Section. 2.

The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

I don't get it stan, please explain how this part of the constitution guaranteed slavery.

77

Look at the last little paragraph in bold type, Eric & Lisa; escaped slaves will be returned to their masters. This is a constitution protection of the institution of slavery as well as indentured servitude.

78

I don't get it stan, please explain how this part of the constitution guaranteed slavery.

The last paragraph you quoted basically says anyone who is held to service in one state (aka a slave) will not be discharged from that service should he happen to escape to another state. In other words, slaves that ran away to free states were not discharged from being slaves.

Dred Scott, you'll recall, was not a runaway slave. His owner had brought him to a free state and Scott's legal argument was that by bringing him to a free state his owner forfeited ownership of him.

Rob,

Some have argued that slaverly could have been found unconstitutional per the pre-Civil War constitution but I think you are correct. A reasonable person would have to conclude that slavery was endorsed or at least officially tolerated by the pre-Civil War Constitution.

79

No ex-preacher I don't think that you can biblically support that all these un-born babies are getting a ticket straight to heaven.

80

Boonton and Rob,

You will notice that you are putting the word slave in there and it isn't there. How odd.

Joe is correct. There is and never has been a guarantee of slavery in the constitution.

There is some who would love for it to be there, but your desire doesn't make it so.

Let's put it another way.

Does that last paragraph apply to anyone other than slaves? Yes it does.

If it only applied to slaves, you would have a point. Since it applies to more than that, you are incorrect to say that the constitution guaranteed slavery.

81

Eric & Lisa

I suppose technically this could be applied to anyone sentenced to labor for committing a crime although any court looking it the language in the context of those who wrote it would almost certainly read it to be talking about slavery.'

The original Constitution explicitly guaranteed slavery by protecting it from amendment for a few years after it was originally written. I suppose you could, after that period, take the Bill of Rights combined with the expiration of slavery's protection to argue it could not be protected by the Constitution.

IMO, that position is anything but obvious. If I'm wrong then it seems as if you're implying that the post Civil War amendment banning 'involuntary servitude' was redundent. Are you?

82

But if you had to choose between saving the life of a three day old infant and a heavy canister with 1,000 frosen embryos, which would you choose?

I think this is a great question that raises all of the other questions. Jeff B. made a great point that we may choose the newborn, not because we value it more than the embryos or the old man, but becaus we evaluate it's chance at life, and what might be more just or fair. In other words, we don't necessarily have to answer the question of personhood.

However, though I agree that a unique life may exist in the zygote, we do not have to legally define it as a person at that point - in fact, I think people are free to think of it as a person at that point, but in the legal arena, I think that position is just too all-or-nothing, and we should not push for that kind of legislation.

As I have outlined at the hypothetical c-ral.org, I think we should be leveraging our existing definitions for life (used in end-of-life discussions), specifically, heartbeat and brainwaves. We can certainly argue much better that this is a human person who needs protections, v. trying to convince everyone that a patch of poorly differentiated cells is a person. If we set this type of upper limit (heartbeat etc.), we could get most rational people on board, rather than waiting forever for our 100%, all or nothing solution.

Also, by defining personhood at some point after conception, we rid ourselves of the nonsense that we have to save all of these zygotes, or not do stem-cell experimentation. I'm not just being a pragmatist here - I am saying that I think the "personhood at fertilization" argument is certainly questionable, creates a bunch of weird ethical dilemmas where there probably really aren't any (like are frozen zygotes persons with rights?), and in the legal arena, is too extreme to really be implemente