Today is my adopted daughter's first birthday. She was born at 7:02 in the morning. At 10:00 that fateful day, my wife and I received a call from our agency saying that a little girl was born three hours earlier, and asking if we could 'hit the ground running.'
We did.
Today, she toddles around the house, grasping her milk bottle, bonking things with it. A one year old is a marvelous human being, like no other: curious, funny, dramatic, flirtatious, self-aware -- relentless -- as relentless as the rhythms of life all around us, in the green of Spring. She will not be stopped, like the budding leaves outside her blue room on this sunny Spring day.
My wife and I adopted after many years of attempting to conceive, starting the old fashioned way, escalating to high tech. At a certain point, we were confronted with ratcheting-up the high tech conception machine, needing to be fed packs of money. We dithered at the machine's threshold, rationalizing. We decided against it, concluding that parenting was more important than casting our genes.
What followed was two and a half years of the adoption process, involving classes, forms, background checks, check-writing, and waiting in the desert. We waited a very long time; we got involved with a teenage birthmother, who eventually retracted her offer from us; we waited, and waited some more; and then, 10:00 on March 24th, 2004, the desert bloomed.
Recently, much has been written about the morality of abortion. I can tell you that in the past, I have essentially voted for abortion rights, and have yet to vote against them. But never have I done so with a clean conscience. Never with a sense of victory or righteousness. It was a rational vote, running against the grain of my soul.
Here's what I feel:
I look into the beautiful, smooth face of my budding girl, who chases dust bunnies down the hallway. I look into her eyes, and know that legally, she was an option. A choice. Her birthmother did not wish to raise her, or perhaps even love her -- but she let her live, for unknown reasons.
There is a peculiar gray zone in our culture. I have seen PBS documentaries showing the extraordinary efforts that medical science can make to save a fetus. As technology develops, the dateline of viability moves back further and further towards the point of conception. Another dateline -- the option to abort -- remains somewhere at the other end of pregnancy. Life and death decisions are made between those two rational lines. The reasons for aborting vary greatly, but the outcome is always the same: death, and tragedy.
I will have to admit that since adopting, my view on being 'pro-choice' has changed. Someone asked me about my position on abortion, and this was my post-adoption response:
"I am pro-choice. A baby can either be kept, or given to a worthy, loving family."
I will admit I am unclear on the legal aspects of abortion. Legal or illegal, abortions happen. They're tragic. They might be murder -- or at least the killing of a possibility. Secular and deist priests disagree, and cannot form consensus. And they never will. Somehow, faith trumps rationality in the abortion debate. People either have faith that a fetus is a glob of cells, no different from a cancer; or that it is a man or a woman in the rough, with sentience and a connection to the universe that is more important than our Earthly desires.
Annie Gottlieb of Ambivablog wrote in The AmbivAbortion Rant, Part II:I would like to try an experiment. I want to try to find a way to talk about the value of a human life without automatically resorting to religious language. There are reasons to avoid abortion like the plague that neither contradict religious reasoning nor depend on it, and that may speak to people whose ears and minds close the moment they hear “God” and “child-killing,” because they fear that a much larger agenda lies in wait.I would counter Ms. Gottlieb's fair-minded attempt to extract religion from life with this challenge: Conceiving, gestating, birthing and raising human children is nothing short of a religious experience. It's anything but a rational, reasoned, scientific endeavor, resting upon facts and figures. What bothers me about our secular dystopia is that the flower of human existence -- our wonder, awe, spirituality, mystery, entrancement with the possibilities -- is so tragically snuffed out by our rational pursuits. The very core of our being is, well, being. There is no rationality in existing, or in living. Even the most unreligious among us exude an infectious mysticism and holiness when they give birth, if only for a scant few irrational moments.
Children are immensely impractical. They disrupt, they demand, they're expensive, they're loud, insistent and can be quite selfish. Even atheists define parenting in religious terms more than practical ones, betraying an undefined faith in fate and hope. Children connect us to the past and the future, and constantly challenge us to live as fully as they do. Every moment counts. Time cannot be wasted -- there's worms to be found in the backyard, and the skittering sound that the Autumn leaves make on the street. There's the smell of Papa's coffee in the morning, and the funny braids of the rag rug by the toy chest.
As the civilized world rationalizes away its own inheritors and successors, people should have to look into the eyes of my little girl, who has managed to stay on this Earth as her birthmother's option. In a world full of so much death and tragedy, gaze into my daughter's dark brown eyes -- you will be reaching into humanity's primordial core, the deepest of wells. It's hard not to fall into the spell her eyes cast, pulled between the sparkling possibilities of her future, and our eternal human past, so vast. Try looking into her eyes, and not feel religion.
Happy birthday, sweet daughter.
The notion that only the "pro-choice" position is rational and opposition to abortion can only be religious is one of the most insidious myths of the left (and libertarian right). That a fetus from conception has a life of its own is a scientifically proven fact. If that were not the case, procedures such as in vitro fertilization, freezing embryos for later implantation, and surrogate pregnancy would simply not be possible. Those procedures also make a hash of the viability argument. From conception, a fetus can in fact survive in environments outside the mother's body. It can be conceived in a test tube, removed from the woman's body and implanted it it later, or removed from the body of one woman and implanted in the body of another. I agree that to have a child is to a large extent to take a leap of faith, but to accept that it is a child from conception is not.
Cicero
Couldn't have said it better myself. I must say though there are those would disagree with you on that point. Happy Birthday little one!
For those that understand what it means to be responsible for the life of child I ask that you consider this question before you relinquish that responsibility. Do you trust the government to raise your child?
Funny, Cicero, that my very different experiences of parenthood would bring me to similar thoughts on this terrible subject. My head won't countenance a vote outlawing abortion, but my heart is heavy when I imagine that my own daughter, many years from now, could be tempted by the choice that the birth-mother of your child rejected.
One of the greatest privileges in my life has been raising my now eight year old daughter.
I have a saying, "the very best parents are always people who've never had children", and I used to be one of those.
However, raising my daughter has completely changed my perception of society and humanity. I used to say things like "who taught that child to bite or hit", but now I realize that babies are basically smart animals that, like any dog or cat, need to be trained how not to bite, and not to hit, and not to cry and throw a fit because they're a little uncomfortable. I must say that my daughter has had the greatest impact on my life and social/political views.
Happy Birthday!
Fred,
You're right to say the pro-life position is ratinal, too. But you miss the point with this sentence:
You miss the point because that isn't the issue. My potted plants have a life of their own. The question is, does the fetus have a soul from conception? This can be dressed up in secular garb as "is a fetus human", but it amounts to the same concept.
This is where, as Cicero notes, the debate goes very grey.
Medical science is indeed pushing back the survivable frontier. And nothing has had more impact on the abortion debate over the last 30 years than the technology of ultrasound imaging. These things are changing the debate's parameters, even as they link their philosophical conclusions with other issues and begin to form constellations of belief. These constellations are becoming more and more important in a public policy sense, again thanks to biotechnology et. al.
But when we're discussing the shape of the debate, the polls are pretty clear - and neither side likes what it's hearing. The "pro-choice" set is disturbed by solid supermajorities coming down against abortion under some circumstances, esp. third trimester. The "pro-life" set is disturbed by solid supermajorities favouring some access to abortion.
And, as Cicero illustrates, individual people will continue to have personal experiences that pull them back and forth, with different values warring for supremacy.
This was always a cultural battle, and that is where it will truly be fought. The legal stuff is more than a sideshow - but less than a resolution.
We are watching a woman die from lack of water ( it will come first ) by the order of a clintonista judge. the legal structural bar to overturn a judge is so high they are able to tell congress ( in violation of article 3 ) to go get stuffed.
We are now the CommuNAZIs
Her parents begging for her life remind me of parents begging for the lives of those held by the beheaders in Iraq.
The creators of the mass graves, death camps, Euthenasia of the handicapped, infirm, retarded, all had their millions of words of rationale that forcefully made the case that their actions are correct.
rationality devoid of morality will take you there, it will take you there not with the crude tools of a single homicidal killer, but with the mechanized efficiency of the mass killing homicidal all powerfull state.
all you need to get there is to declare the moral argument irrevelant. all you need to do is omit God.
The principled moral argument is not entangled in precedents.
One would think that the principle would cause some kind of hard reset once reason and proceedure has taken us all the way to Nazi-America, but half the country is devoid of principle, they have become cogs in the mechanism.
That Peter Singers nazi ethics are now controlling can no longer be denied.
good words Cicero, you see much of the same thing in the vote, those with kids vs those without kids.
A gal sees the world differently once she has a child.
What she sees differently cannot be expressed very well in statute or legal arguments, its a trancendental thing of flesh and spirit.
Its the very thing the influence of which the left is purging from our government.
The perfection of the leftist godless spritless mechanism of "law" has now turned the question of a parents wish for life of their daughter into a mechanical equasion.
Thats not what you see in the eyes of a child.
Enjoy while you can Cicero, and beware the terrible two's !
Becoming a parent can soften your view on abortion. However, keep in mind that most women don't have an abortion because it is the easiest thing to do. For some women it is the right thing to do. Simple as that. Enjoy your baby. They grow up fast. I know. Mine turns 26 Monday.
Yes murder was said "the right thing"
After all a baby can be an inconveinence
They can be such a hassle, the infirm, the retarded, how dare they "impose" their needs on us, we have other plans for our life, better to kill em and be rid of them.
Flawless logic hm ?
Raymond, the general American public agrees with Larraine - and so do I, sitting here outside your country looking in. I am not convinced that a fetus is fully human, deserving of all the rights thereto. This removes the issue of murder from the table.
I am, however, willing to be persuaded. Again, as the great majority of your countrymen are. Advances in medicine et. al. have moved me from a fully pro-choice position to one that supports laws against 3rd-trimester abortions. Cicero's experiences have moved him a bit farther... but if you pressed him on issues like pregnancy by rape, you're likely to find him agreeing with Larraine that sometimes it can be the right thing.
In short, most of the public believes 2 seemingly contradictory things:
[1] That sometimes abortion is the right thing, as well as the convenient thing.
2 That sometimes abortion is a moral wrong serious enough to legislate against.
The debate's course hinges on where the lines are drawn. Both the "pro-life" and "pro-choice" camps know where they want the line drawn... but most Americans don't agree, and are thus largely unrepresented in the back-and-forth debates.
The case of Ms. Schiavo is one of those related "constellation of belief" things I was talking about. My take tends to track quite closely with both Bill Hobbs and Rachel Lucas, and if I can formulate it precisely enough I'll write about it.
In both cases, we have situations of reasonable people in unreasonable situations, and choices that seem to lead to an abyss on both sides. The public's "muddling through" approach to these issues, based on conflicting principles and personal experiences may have more wisdom in it than we give it credit for.
so if a child is the product of rape or other events not sanctioned by society then the baby loses his right to life.
I guess you could add non approved genetic factors, non approved finacial factors, if or not the baby will be seen as a burden etc.
All of which, is a misdirection from the whole point.
The point is a humans right to his own life, the babies right to his life, not to irrevelant factors that are nothing but sophistry, a sophist misdirection away from a persons right to his own life.
All else is pure evil .. its NAZI.
We are watching a woman die from lack of water . . . by the order of a clintonista judge
I believe Judge Greer is a Republican, as were most of the judges that reviewed this matter.
We are simply witnessing the result of the elite response of the conservative legalists to Roe v. Wade: a slavish deference to the legislative branch and a refusal to consider morality not expressly written within the four corners of a law.
Patrick
Against death orders is "elite" ... Interesting
We are seeing the after effect of it Yes ,, the NAZI death culture that it promulgates .. an innocents right to his own life is no longer so clear, is it ... there are all these ratiuonales for us to decide issues of life and death of innocent others now. based on factors ranging from finaces to inconvenience.
Elected representaives who have authority over the courts useing that authority is now slavish ... intereresting way to put that.
Here we are suddenly on the same frequency.
We have devorced ourselves from the source of law.
Law is now no longer a promulgation from above, but of human whim, and moral values, seen as artifacts of the higher power, now looked opon as, well artifacts, and with disdain.
Moral equivalence is applied to situations that demand moral judgement.
Patrick: We are simply witnessing the result of the elite response of the conservative legalists to Roe v. Wade: a slavish deference to the legislative branch and a refusal to consider morality not expressly written within the four corners of a law.
It's been a long week of topsy-turvy and inside-outsky rhetoric, but this might take the taco.
What morality do you mean, and what law is it not expressly written within?
>>You miss the point because that isn't the issue. My potted plants have a life of their own. The question is, does the fetus have a soul from conception? This can be dressed up in secular garb as "is a fetus human", but it amounts to the same concept.
Well, since nobody around here is likely to come up with an empirical definition of "soul", I have a word to describe arguments for or against abortion based on whether or not a fetus has a soul.
That word is "ludicrous."
Go ahead -- prove me wrong. Come up with an empirical definition of "soul" and then demonstrate that someone, anyone has one. Then this discussion can have meaning.
I propose a more useful consideration: does the fetus have meet some standard of mental functioning. Or, if you like, the potential for future mental functioning. The argument could go any number of ways based on what specific parameters were used, but at least we would be back in the realm of words that mean things rather than gibberish.
>>All of which, is a misdirection from the whole point.
>>The point is a humans right to his own life, the babies right to his life, not to irrevelant factors that are nothing but sophistry, a sophist misdirection away from a persons right to his own life.
True.
The entire argument involves what constitutes a person. If we can come up with a solid definition of what a person is, these decisions become much simpler.
Nazis concluded that Jews weren't really people, but instead were vermin. (Some more charitable Nazis probably allowed for the possibility that Jews were both people and vermin.) Once that categorization was made, the rest follows logically.
That question was decided in germany in the 1930s wasnt it ?
Thats the core question. to some we are just blobs of protoplasim, and the godless states built on that did away with 174 Million innocent people.
With no moral anchors your windborne, and the direction of travel is always the same.
Whats amazing is the speed that it was accomplished in, here in the USA, the leftist death religion seems to travel in granny gear, a factor that provides no uplift to the resitors, who find slower incremental NAZI even more difficult to stop and impossible to reverse.
During the nurenburg trials a nazi judge was at a loss to identify, just where things had taken the turn .. he was told evil border was crossed when they sanctioned the killing of the first innocent.
In all that he did, Hitler made certain to stay within the law and follow the direction of the courts.
All that comes after is only a matter of time, once the line has to be redrawn the first time it becomes meaningless.. it becomes no more a measure for tomorrow than the old line you passed yesterday.
TJM
And I, and I assume many, are becomming alarmed when we see the starte adopting Peter Singers definition of personhood, that excluding the jews, is almost identical now to the NAZI view.
It wasnt only the Jews that was the target of the death machine, they are actually no more than a third of the reasons for killing.
Those that called themselves socialists, From Hitler to the rulers of the USSR who added 61 Million of their own to the leftist pile of 174 Million murders, have come up with no end of reasons and rationales for murder.
Every time people like me see another line crossed, another principle get trampled underfoot, in the relentless march to the left and its cultural marxist postmodern "reasoned" defintions of personhood...........
In fact I doubt the dumbed down amoral population will have even the ability to know where they are once they finally arrive.
I don't see how anyone cannot accept that the soul or spirit of the individual comes into being with the conception of his physical body. If not then, when?
>>It wasnt only the Jews that was the target of the death machine, they are actually no more than a third of the reasons for killing.
Finally, a respectable person.
One of my pet peeves is when people talk about "6 million Jews killed." It's not 6 million Jews killed, it's 11-15 million people killed. It's rare to find someone else who cares about this. Welcome, brother.
>>Those that called themselves socialists, From Hitler to the rulers of the USSR who added 61 Million of their own to the leftist pile of 174 Million murders, have come up with no end of reasons and rationales for murder.
Indeed. State socialism is one of my great enemies. I shouldn't be confused with a supporter of state socialism or communism. I'm probably one of the most anti-socialist persons you've ever encountered, as Joe and AL will certainly attest to.
>>Every time people like me see another line crossed, another principle get trampled underfoot, in the relentless march to the left and its cultural marxist postmodern "reasoned" defintions of personhood...........
If we cannot use reason to assess what is or is not a person, surely we are doomed. Is a chair a person? Is a tree a person? The ability to distinguish between these is important for rational people. Is a fetus a person? What is your definition of a person? If it isn't based on sharply definable and observable properties, there will be trouble, just like with Nazis.
Lets discuss some notions that might help us define what a person is:
Life -- trees are alive and not people.
Human Genetic Life -- stray skin cells are alive and not people. Stem cells are alive and not people. Are zygotes people? Bear in mind that stem cells can probably be converted into zygotes. Are immortalized cancer cell lines people?
Human Zombies -- Forget Miss Terry for the moment. There are living human bodies born with a functioning brain stem and little else. Are they persons?
Alien intelligences -- Would intelligent alien life deserve the respect due persons? Or is personhood definitionally unique to human life forms?
Artificial intelligences -- Would thinking inorganic machines qualify as people just like certain thinking organic machines? When AI shows up, how will we treat them?
(At this point I highly recommend the part of the Animatrix titled "The Second Renaissance." If you haven't seen it, you should go to the animatrix web page now and watch it. You won't regret it.)
Great post. Overall, not a great comment thread (Beware Godwin's Law). But then, this is a difficult and emotional subject.
I vote pro-choice...some pro-choice, along the lines Cicero and Joe Katzman pointed out.
Don't presume that I haven't thought about this. Discussed and argued with friends and family.
Don't assume I don't know anything about the biology or theology of conception.
Don't jump to conclude that I haven't had life experiences that bear on this issue.
And kindly don't act as if I'm a ... as if I sing the Horst Wessel...
And I'll try and do the same for you.
Your religious outlook lets you know that you're right and I'm wrong. OK. But you are still one citizen, and so am I, and you haven't convinced me of anything, and we still have to live in the same society. Somehow. At least, until one of the extremist single-issue parties, "pro-life" or "pro-choice", manages to form their own Taliban government and impose their views on the rest of us--those of us, as Joe Katzman pointed out (9:32pm), who negotiate, with difficulty, between two conflicting principles.
A assert the discussion has gotten absurd long ago, some have reasoned themselves into their own asshats.
We all know where people come from, from embryo to old age those attempting to say that there is some binary state change along the way are making an absurd argument. the passage of time and expounding of words by thoese that deny humanity by the subjective fad of the month have degraded humanity.
Why should we ? she can swallow and the police wont alow her to be given a drink. She has expressed a like of jello and apple juice. She dont drool, brain dead people drool. She can swallow, she can talk (in a slow mumble)
If they are allowed to give her a drink, and she swallows, it blows the case for the forced death out the window... so they wont let her be given a drink, so the farce can be kept.
Yes, see how easy that is ?
Amac
A sheld used by socialists to deflect clear lessons of socialist evil, by shutting down the mentions of the particulars of the many evils of Socialist Germany, to allow the advocacy that the same evils be repeated, the idea that the individual has no rights, the leftist view of "social justice"
course long after that invention we can add lots of other leftist hellholes to the list, Hitlers national socialist come in third in crimes against humanity behind the USSR and China.
I vote pro-choice...some pro-choice, along the lines Cicero and Joe Katzman pointed out.
Notice the Orwelian words for License to murder .. murder is now "choice"
Pro Life ? the opposite is pro murder, why cant they admit to even it proper name.
What does "choice" have do do with a defintion of killing.
I reject the fake Orwellian language designed to avoid the clear defintion of the act it covers for, the act of killing. the snuffing out of a human being.
So did the Nazis, the Commies, and Peter Singer and his postmodern utilitarian achedemics that have. by the Terri Standard, been successfull in promulgating the postmodern Singer defintion of personhood. a clear victory for evil.
That stares in right in the face. large. right now.
Around what moral anchors ? by what yardstick ?
Its clear there are none left. all have been pulled up, we are complete set adrift and being swept along by the current of death. its 1936 all over again.
You are what you do.
All views are not equal, right and wrong exists, and if you want to know what side wrong might be found, the act of killing an innocent found on one side and not the other is a good indicator what side is right and the other wrong.
The questions are simple, its justification of evil that requires clever words and sophistry.
The good are a tolerant lot, they allow twisted evil to live among them and rise to power, the twisted evil interpet this tolerance as license.
the opposite of life is death, not "choice" ... Paging Mr Orwell.
Why if we dont allow evil to abuse at will we are the taliban. good logic there.
The conflict is a fraud, its sophistry.
The clear moral imperitive has a clear dictate, and those who find the moral verdict inconveinient for them then set about to argue past it.
Why ,, its suddenly complicated, and mired in phycological puzzles. all designed to avert your attention from the core principles you must destroy to get what you want. license to kill.
Nine of this is new ... Margeret Sanger, the Eugenist who founded Planned parenthood whos aim was to depopulate the USA of blacks, and the NAZI got the Euthenasia Abortion idea from a book
law professor Karl Binding of the University of Leipzig and Alfred Hoche, professor of psychiatry at the University of Freiburg, stressed the therapeutic value of destroying "life unworthy of life."
One of these scientists was Adolf Jost, the author of The Right to Death (1895).
The nazis of today use more PC sounding language, and they know well the historic revultion we would have of ovens and poison gas.
But it isnt the mechanism of killing, its the killing, it isnt tha languange and word choices and genteal tones used by todays killers, its the killing.
Its as if we can do the same but simply change its form and apperance. the angel of death no longer has a black robe skeleton fingers and the reapers blade, nor does he wear the SS on his collar any more, the makeup on, but not the makeup of, the killing has changed.
Its murder with a smile and the robes of death are pastel and clinical technitans white.
How dare we opponents of the taking of innocent life impose on killers ? stand in the way of a killer ? how dare we you say ?
>>>>There are living human bodies born with a functioning brain stem and little else. Are they persons?
>>Yes, see how easy that is ?
Ok, so human zombies count as persons. Check. This is not an unacceptable standard, and helps avoid many dangerous outcomes, much as you have indicated.
Let's try and clarify things further:
Do Great Apes count as persons? It's not hard to find healthy adult great apes which are more interactive and intelligent than human zombies. At some point it will be possible to engineer smarter Great Apes, to the point of making new species of ape which are smarter than the current average human, and without using human DNA directly. Will they count as persons?
What about chimps modified WITH human cells/DNA? Do they count? How much human DNA does a system have to have in order to count? Etc.
This can be views as a more realistic variant of the Aliens/AI argument. Note that the "We shouldn't be making such abominations in the first place" argument isn't useful: such entities WILL be created, and when they are, should they have rights?
>>A assert the discussion has gotten absurd long ago, some have reasoned themselves into their own asshats.
You are correct that coming up with bad answers to these questions will lead to disaster. Where you go wrong is in assuming that refusing to answer these questions will avoid trouble.
In order to stop widespread destruction of entities you consider persons, it will be very helpful for you to be able to convince reasonable people that the entities in question really ARE persons. Reason is sometimes a good tool for this.
A SERIOUS QUESTION FOR ALL ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVISTS:
If you are right, then abortionists are murderers. You know who these murderers are, and you know where they live. You know that this morning they will get up and murder more children. Do you not have a positive obligation to stop them before they kill again, using force if necessary? If there was a euthanasia clinic for five year olds down the block, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We'd all be loading our guns, regardless of what the State or anyone else said, right?
So why are these abortionists still alive? Couldn't assassins of abortionists use a strong justification defense? Even honest pro-choice jurists would have to conclude that "reasonable people" -- in this case >40% of the population -- would conclude that innocent life was in immediate danger?
There are only a few logical explanations for why abortionists are still breathing. One is that the anti-abortion activists are cowards. Another is that they are liars. So which is it? Or is there a third explanation?
No.
See ? just as easy.
Peter Singer says thats "speciesism"
Singer does not, however, offer any argument for potentiality. After all, calves, pigs and chickens have the capacity to develop into, well, calves, pigs and chickens. Unborn children have the capacity to develop into, well, utilitarian academicians, who can expound on the properties of personhood at the nation's higher institutions of learning.
This is the same Singer, heralded in a recent interview with the New Yorker as the "greatest living philosopher,"
I am shocked, SHOCKED to report that Singer declared, "I am an atheist."
Whos refusing the answer ? ive answered it, those wanting license to kill dont like the answer. so they reject the morality behind it, and we are set adrift, windborn, suddenly black and white becomes shades of gray, the moral imperitives become moral relativism, moral judgement is replaced with Moral equivalence.
The basis for German euthanasia is the intellectual genesis that led directly to the killing of disabled infants and disabled adults had little to do with racial theories. Rather, it came from a book, Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, published in 1920, long before Hitler took power.
Written by a famous law professor, Karl Binding, in collaboration with a noted physician, Alfred Hoche, and called "the crucial work" by Holocaust historian, Robert Jay Lifton, Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life advocated ideas that are strikingly similar to Singer's.
Singer expands on that murderous theme, announcing that Americans have a "moral obligation" to kill the aged and infirm because they consume far too many of our medical resources.
Since the tube was pulled, the leftist media has been a drone about how painless its supposed to be.
Never mind the agony related by the woman thats been all over radio and on Larry King tonight that told a story of suffering and agony, and is only here because her hubby fought against the doctors Peter Singer NAZI directive to kill her.
Many have made the case thet same could be possible for Terri, but she was never given the chance. the very therapy that brought the woman back from nothing has never been allowed for Terri
If the doctors had gotten their way the woman would be dead. but tonite she was a guest on larry king. she sure sounded articulate for a vegtable.
Quite a looker too, i noticed, as she reflected on the 8th day of starvation the nazi doctors put her through.
But reason alone leads to the death camps the gulags and the mass graves. and our moral anchors have been pulled up for conveinience and expedience.
Morality has been replaced by the irrational fraud that poses as rationality, Singers postmodern utilitarianism, nothing new, its a core component of the lefts mental dys-function.
TJM
bq. If you are right, then abortionists are murderers.
Many a nazi functionary said they was following orders, many a nazi judge said they was simply following the law.
What happened to those that dared resist evil in nazi germany ? Prison or the death camps.
Would the outcome here be any different ?
Try to give Terri a drink and you will find yourself in handcuffs .. resist too much and you will be shot dead. its all in the end enforced at the point of a gun.
Many a good german found himself powerless, and shouted down by the ernest voices of those under the evil spell that ruled the whole people.
Some have tried, did it help ? did it advance the argument ? did it stop anything ?
Would we ?
A 14 year old dutch girl can have the state put her to death if she feels "depressed"
Are the dutch up in arms ? or is the bar of moral relativism for the population simply showing our future, with the only question is how fast do we get there.
Do the Dutch still have their guns ? Yes thats part of whats needed, so the leftist drift is slower here.
And you have your answer, but logic alone didnt give it to you.
btw TJ
I really was/am wanting to deal with your hypotheticals, but understand they are not as high a priori as caused by the shock of seeing Peter Singer bio-ethics become established policy.
The left have dismissed our dismay, that he is a fringe wing-nut, but failed to address the hazel O Leary factor, the same type of fringe wackjobs that Clinton placed at all levels in the goverment saw the same happen in judicial appointments.
And any judge that is not a Devotee of Peter Singer ethics is labeled as "extremist right"
to the left, the only person not a right wing extremist,, is a leftist extremist.
The argument that Peter Singer is fringe can no longer be made. his ethic is on public display now for all to see, as we watch people put in handcuffs for daring to take the woman some water.
As for animals, we already afford dolphin elevated status based on intelect. (dolphin free tuna etc) and I cant see a moral problem of elevating some animals based on intelect.
But the leftist agenda to elevate animals isnt about the elevation of animals, its about the devaluation of humans.
The concept of individual human rights has always stood in the way of the leftist terror state utopia. its the very thing that must be destroyed to bring in the leftist utopia, the argument is about that goal, not about animals, or the enviroment or concern about global warming.
Those are just tools to advance the socalist state into being, and its often been, as we have seen, successfull.
the Nazi's had enviromental arguments etc, Hitler himself was a vegetarian. such personality quirks are as common as weeds in leftist politicists.
Its nothing new.
Raymond,
I want to acknowledge reading your lengthy response (7:00am) to my brief remarks (5:51am). On a tactical level, I do wonder what you gain by directing insults at a moderate who is your potential ally in some of the key fights on the horizon. (I've asked the same question of gay friends who've rushed to the attack during discussions of same-sex marriage--a topic for another day.)
I suppose the answer lies in the transcendental nature of your insights, combined with the frustration of failing to convince a seemingly-reasonable correspondent of their self-evident truth.
Since I always post under the same pseudonym, readers can use my 3 comments on this thread to think more, or less, highly of my positions when they encounter other comments in the future.
Perhaps the same dynamic is at work with your posts.
I'll try to break down my earlier point about Roe v. Wade and Shiavo. Conservative lawyers and judges decried Roe because it changed the law on a one of the most volatile social issues imaginable. The remedy they offered was a form of textualism in which judges do no more than read what is on the page -- they leave their personal value judgments at the door. Pragmatists would say they also leave reason, experience and tradition behind as well.
From all I've been able to read about Shiavo, the judges followed the law. After all, this is a law that holds that the right to die is so important that the government will select someone to exercise it for us. This is a law that says a written living will is not necessary. This is a law that defines nutrition as medical treatment. The judges did not write this law. When the Florida legislature tried to overrule the case, they were reminded of strict seperation of powers (we won't make law, you don't judge cases).
I'm not arguring that all of the judges have become textualist, but the scales have certainly tilted. And now that the right to life movement wants judges to provide an escape valve from laws by exercising their moral judgement . . .. Well, that escape valve has been closing for a long time. To paraphrase Scalia, judges know about as much about where to draw the line between life and death in these types of cases as would people drawn randomly from the phone book.
Patrick
Great view on things "Cicero". I always thought my Dad silly when he sad "It's easy for people to support abortion because they already have been born." It's an odd saying, but it's true and I appreciate all women who make the decision to let their babies live, whether through adoption or taking care of them themselves. My brother and his wife gave up on the adoption process because it was too hard with all the close calls on receving a child to care for, so you are a lucky family. I just wish people would be more responsible for their sexual encounters, and then we wouldn't have to even talk about abortions. But then it always comes down to people who don't give a damn for anyone but themselves, doesn't it?
What insults.
Or is that a mechanism to avoid what im saying ?
That can smack of the litteral truism that a racist is a conservative winning an argument.
It often usefull to mix in humor as a tool to derail such reflexive reactons from a read when his worldview is being challenged, an attack on a persons ideas is too often seen as an attack on them.
its difficult to find an angle for humor in the face of Peter Singers bio ethics becomming policy.
Well welcome to the club, its nothing different than the grin and bear it we conservatives have had to learn.
PD Shaw #27
What you wrote there. is flawless.
And there is another law, the law of equity, that is supposed to be where morality plays a part.
But the law of equity seems to be dead, you still see it in corporate cases, but in dealing with humans, the bias seems to be against the humans.
On tactics I admit i give hardly no thought to it, i dont even think i would know how to do it, they are tools of the propagandist. Its clear you take my remarks as intended, and your warning is a cautionary one, and your admonishion is understood.
Perhaps you would admit there are two levels to my itemized disection
On the later portion, its berating the obvious, but on the second level is it not part of the rationale people are using to justify, to reason past, the violation of a moral absolute that most humans know instrinsically is wrong.
And on that level, its begging to be taken apart, for the very important reason of exposing the hollowness of it, to turn it inside out and show the inside of tha balloon.
And therin its going to feel harsh, there just is no way to get around it.
We could use some more harshness, in my opinion, letting such pass by without challenge has only took us to where we are today.
The issues here, are Huge, and the public execution of Terri will be a watershed event in this country.
We have an entire history of rebuffs from the death cultists that we would never get where we are today.
But here we are. and a good third of the country sees it, and more will once the full ramifications sink in and suppressed facts of this event come to light.
Perhaps, Terri's inhumane suffering and death will do some good, its going to be hard core reality check for untold millions.
But that gives little balm to her parents, being kept from giving their daughter a drink at the point of a goverment gun.
Raymond,
> On tactics I admit i give hardly no thought to it, i dont even think i would know how to do it, they are tools of the propagandist.
This is the difference between your theology and people of diverse religious and ethical persuasions figuring out how to live in the same country.
In other words, this a manifestation of the nut that the Founding Fathers worked so hard to crack. They failed regarding Slavery (1861-65), but aside from that, their legacy is pretty impressive. Especially by comparison with other societies.
That's all I'll say, except to recommend that you add Hugh Hewitt to your web-log reading, and browse his archives from this winter. His core beliefs are much like yours, I'll wager, and he discusses the tension between tactics and core beliefs with some regularity. As do, obviously, some of WoC's regular posters.
AMac when you are looking evil in the face, cold dark unadulterated evil.
discussion of "tactics" and attempts at misdirection will only further inflame.
as the other half of the country, long over the line we refuse to cross, and drifting off into the distance to meet up with Stalin Hilter Mao and PolPot to where, we who, refuse to follow can no longer tell the difference, where it becomes stark as distinctions, without a difference ....... untill eventually nobody notices the distinctions.
You hear what im saying ?
What kind of "discussion", can you have, with a nazi ?
as the gulf becomes ever wider, the ability to communicate, the desire to communicate, no it will be like feeling dirty and needing a bath if we stood too close.
we will not follow them into evil. they are becomming other creatures, they no longer speak the same language, even commonality of DNA will come into question metphorically.
To underscore the evil .... "centration camp victim" according to todays nazis, is depicted as the look of "beauty and peace".
Yes, the concentration camp look = beauty and peace.
Sometimes I wonder if the nazis say these things just to push our buttons.
I don't know if you are calling me a "Nazi" or not; your wording (#33) is ambiguous. If the insult is meant as such, it's a first. The hill for you to climb would be to demonstrate correspondence between what you know of my views, and what views you think exemplify Nazism. And to be frank, this isn't a discussion I care to have.
If you're not calling me, particularly, a Nazi, then I suppose what you're saying is some variation of "there are bad people out there." But then you are writing carelessly, and once again, in violation of Godwin's law.
I don't know if you are calling me a "Nazi" or not; your wording (#33) is ambiguous. If the insult is meant as such, it's a first. The hill for you to climb would be to demonstrate correspondence between what you know of my views, and what views you think exemplify Nazism. And to be frank, this isn't a discussion I care to have.
If you're not calling me, particularly, a Nazi, then I suppose what you're saying is some variation of "there are bad people out there." But then you are writing carelessly, and once again, in violation of Godwin's law.
These last few posts diminish Cicero's essay. I apologize for slipping up on that; I'm done here.
These last few posts diminish Cicero's essay. I apologize for slipping up on that; I'm done here.
Readers,
Thanks for the thoughts on this thread. As always, very insightful and tangential.
Raymond, I appreciate what you are saying, and share many of your fears. But sometimes I feel your positions are bordering on the obsessive. All things evil are not only Nazis and Commies. They might include them, but more broadly, evil is in every man, every politic. Evil is an equal opportunity exploiter.
Every single thing I have posted -- deliberately balanced as possible, and even a bit sentimental sometimes (especially when it involves my daughter) -- has generated comments from you that boil down to vast leftist conspiracies, Nazis, and the disheartening pull they have on Americans.
Again, I share your concerns. But I would challenge you: In future comments, assume that Winds readers essentially grok what you have stated, having done so in many different ways. Move on from your well-established positions, and go on from there. The ladder of discussion has many rungs.
It may not be up to me, but I would prefer the commentary on my posts to be polite; comity is the best way to build off of the many valuable views that Winds readers express. I, for one, am here to learn. I am convinced that I have none of the answers.
Readers,
Thanks for the thoughts on this thread. As always, very insightful and tangential.
Raymond, I appreciate what you are saying, and share many of your fears. But sometimes I feel your positions are bordering on the obsessive. All things evil are not only Nazis and Commies. They might include them, but more broadly, evil is in every man, every politic. Evil is an equal opportunity exploiter.
Every single thing I have posted -- deliberately balanced as possible, and even a bit sentimental sometimes (especially when it involves my daughter) -- has generated comments from you that boil down to vast leftist conspiracies, Nazis, and the disheartening pull they have on Americans.
Again, I share your concerns. But I would challenge you: In future comments, assume that Winds readers essentially grok what you have stated, having done so in many different ways. Move on from your well-established positions, and go on from there. The ladder of discussion has many rungs.
It may not be up to me, but I would prefer the commentary on my posts to be polite; comity is the best way to build off of the many valuable views that Winds readers express. I, for one, am here to learn. I am convinced that I have none of the answers.