I Can't Explain Why We Shouldn't Murder Disabled Children

[Luigi]

I heard an interesting speech on a CD. It was originally issued as a vinyl record (Joan Baez, "Carry It On," Vanguard, 1971) in the height of the Viet Nam war. The speech is by a guy named David Harris, who was one of the leaders of "non-cooperation with the draft" during the war. Because he refused to cooperate with the draft, he was sentenced to three years in prison. This is a speech he made shortly before he was picked up and remanded to prison.

 

I don't know what his religious affiliation was, or if he even had any. But he makes a couple of interesting points. Some of the references are specific to the draft and the Viet Nam war, but the speech also makes sense in light of abortion law, government exercise of that law, and resistance to unjust laws in general.

 

"The fact is that I'll spend three years of time in jail. The fact is that that's very small. The fact is that you and I live in the midst of a society which does much more than send people to jail. We live in a society that's become synonymous not simply with sending people to jail, and not simply with starving people all around the world, not simply with the most devastating tools of destruction that mankind has ever known, not simply with the pillaging and rape of an entire landscape. We live in a society that, beyond all those things, has become synonymous with death itself. Which is why myself and many people like me are going to spend a lot more than simply three years in prison. Not because we've simply violated the law - there are thousands upon thousands of law violators. The question is not simply law. There's been a much more basic principle that's been violated.

 

Beyond all things, the life of a man is that man. That beyond all other things, every man has an indigenous right to live, and to exercise life. And if there's one statement that I'll leave behind, it's a very simple statement that I'll close with, which is that there's no direction to go except forward. There's no place to run, and there's no place to hide. There's only one way that you and I will get out. There's only one way that you and I will see the things we want to see and that's to build them. And that may be a painful process. That may be a process in which any number of people expend any amount of energy. It may be a process in which you and I have to endure any number of things that don't seem to us to be pleasant.  

 

But it must be done.

 

It must be done - for a very simple reason. The simple reason that life is sacred.

[CatherineM]

Ironic that it was those same Make Love not War types that pushed hardest for legalized abortion.

[4588686]

Ironic that it was those same Make Love not War types that pushed hardest for legalized abortion.

It's not really ironic at all.  The 'Make Love not War types' were advocating sexual liberation and the end of America's really savage and fraudulent war in Vietnam.  

[mortify ii]

We all started as one single cell, Hasan, that in itself gives it immense value.

[4588686]

We all started as one single cell, Hasan, that in itself gives it immense value.

 

 

Why?

[Luigi]

"We live in a society that's become synonymous not simply with sending people to jail,...We  live in a society that, beyond all those things, has become synonymous with death itself." 

 Agree strongly. Probably more true now than during the Viet Nam war. Back then, we were attacking other people, now we're attacking our own in the form of abortion. Back then, the war was fought to contain a major threat (the spread of Communism - you can argue that it was wrong-headed, but at least they did have a reason), now babies are aborted because one or more parents simply don't want the child, not because it's any kind of major threat.

 

"Beyond all things, the life of a man is that man. That beyond all other things, every man has an indigenous right to live, and to exercise life."

Agree strongly. Interestingly, this speech was made in 1971, before the Supreme Court passed Roe vs. Wade, and before the opposition to that case came up with "the right to life." The Viet Nam war folks were already talking about "every man has an indigenous right to live and to exercise life."

 

"It must be done - for a very simple reason. The simple reason that life is sacred."

Agree strongly. And this ties in to the Matt Walsh blog - I can't explain why killing "defective" babies is wrong if the people I'm talking to don't accept at least the basic idea that life is sacred. And it ties in to the Belgian approval of euthanasia, and the wrongful birth suits - in all of these cases, life - human life - is seen as mere biology, not as sacred.

 

 

Elsewhere on the DVD/record, Harris talks about the horror of napalming innocent children. And I agree with him strongly on that issue, too. But nobody in the abortion camp seems to feel any horror about saline solutions, suction tubes, or partial birth abortion. I find it ironic that people were so willing to march in the streets, resist the government, go to jail, yada yada yada, on the Viet Nam issue, but there has been no outcry from the same group over the senseless slaughter of their own children.

Edited December 25, 2013 by Luigi

[Ice_nine]

Why?

 

good question. Why does consciousness make someone valuable, since that seems to be your basis of deciding who affords legal protection. Please explain to me, using empirical evidence, why consciousness and "emotional complexity" the barometer you use.

 

It should be easy since you're always talking about how we can't force our silly "faith-based" beliefs onto the public. Gives me the science!

[4588686]

good question. Why does consciousness make someone valuable, since that seems to be your basis of deciding who affords legal protection. Please explain to me, using empirical evidence, why consciousness and "emotional complexity" the barometer you use.

 

It should be easy since you're always talking about how we can't force our silly "faith-based" beliefs onto the public. Gives me the science!

 

 

When did I request that Lilllabettt, or anybody, produce emperical evidence for that claim?

[Luigi]

When did I request that Lilllabettt, or anybody, produce emperical evidence for that claim?

Transparent dodge. Just answer the question.

[4588686]

Transparent dodge. Just answer the question.

 

 

It's not a dodge of any sort.  She's attributing to me a view I absolutely do not ascribe to, a very vulgar moral scientism, and demanding that I structure an argument within the context of the view she has wrongly attributed to me.  I don't have any sort of argument that fits her criteria but I never demanded that Lillabettt produce an argument that fits those confines and I do not believe that morality can be discerned from some objective, third person evaluation of empirical data.

[Ice_nine]

It's not a dodge of any sort.  She's attributing to me a view I absolutely do not ascribe to, a very vulgar moral scientism, and demanding that I structure an argument within the context of the view she has wrongly attributed to me.  I don't have any sort of argument that fits her criteria but I never demanded that Lillabettt produce an argument that fits those confines and I do not believe that morality can be discerned from some objective, third person evaluation of empirical data.

 

lol. I didn't demand anything Hassan, I just asked you a question that you admittedly can't answer. It feels good. ;)

You said "And science does not have much to say on what constitutes a human person since the cognitive science [sic] are still fairly young and cannot give any sort of complete or satisfying account of what consciousness is."

 

Is it so preposterous, the way you phrased it, to interpret that as "when science can say what constitutes consciousness it can say what defines personhood and then it can therefore say what constitutes value. We just don't know what qualifies as a person yet cuz the science isn't ready"? Because that's what I extrapolated, and I don't think it's a huge reach.

 

 

So maybe it's not what u meant, but I've noticed you frequently call people out on their "faith-based" beliefs before, no? And have at least insinuated these faith-based beliefs have no place in drafting laws of public policy? If I am inaccurate in my summation, do forgive me. But if that's correct then why do you say things like
 

 

 But if your starting point is that a just fertilized egg is a person in the same sense that the mother is a person then there isn't any point to carrying this conversation any further because there's no reasoning with an entirely faith based position.

 

 

Because your belief that consciousness/self-awareness/emotional-complexity/interests is what you use to define a "person" and therefore worthy of "legal-protection," how is that NOT an "entirely faith based position."? We on the pro-life side can use science in the same way. We can say a homo sapien feotus is a human and therefore worthy of protection because all humans are worthy of protection (the latter part is yes a faith-based idea, that humans have transcendental value), but even if science can say what defines consciousness, how the HELL does that help us decide who deserves protection? It doesn't do jack shittake mushrooms if you don't buy into the wisdom of Singer and his bro-dudes who use consciousness and self-awareness as the barometer for having the right to exist.

[Luigi]

"But if your starting point is that a just fertilized egg is a person in the same sense that the mother is a person then there isn't any point to carrying this conversation any further because there's no reasoning with an entirely faith based position."

 

Here is a clear example of what started this particular thread/conversation - the blogger's contention that he/we can't explain anything to anybody if the other person doesn't hold at least some of the basic assumptions that he/we hold -"there's isn't any point in carrying this conversation any further because there's no reasoning with an entirely faith based position." There's also no reasoning with an entirely closed minded other.   

 

1. Agnostics/atheists/scientists hold that only scientific proof can be used to determine "the truth." People of faith hold that traditional holy texts and traditions can also be used to determine "the truth."

2. Agnostics/atheists/legalists hold that law is the only acceptable regulator of human behavior. Humanists/Critical thinkers hold that other modes of thought - biology, medicine, anthropology, sociology, psychology, demographics, tradition, cultural mores, and even manners, and even individual conscience - are acceptable and effective regulators of human behavior.  

3. Agnostics/atheists/demagogues hold that they have uncovered the everlasting truth, and that they have the right to impose their version of the truth on all benighted believers. So-called benighted believers don't consider themselves benighted, and therefore are in no need of having someone else's version of the truth imposed on them.  

 

Both groups will continue talking past each other as long they hold no common ground.

 

The way to achieve common ground - the only way that I can see - is for the scientists/legalists/demagogues to broaden their narrow view to include the other kinds of knowing - biology, medicine, anthropology, sociology, psychology, tradition, cultural mores, manners, and even individual conscience - in their consideration of any topic under discussion. It is true that none of these can be examined through a microscope, a telescope, an x-ray, or an MRI, but they do still exist and provide valuable knowledge to human beings. And as good as science is, it can't explain everything in nature - such as consciousness - especially as regards human beings. And I would point out that holy texts of many traditions contain a great deal of wisdom that's based on centuries of lived human experience involving biology, medicine, sociology, psychology, cultural mores, manners, and even individual conscience. This is the wisdom of tradition.

 

Lastly, not everything that's currently written into American/Western law is a direct result of or dictate from the Catholic Church or other Christian denominations. Don't the churches wish it were? But it's not. So neither The Church nor the churches can be blamed for what humans beings all around the world have done for millennia and has been written into the laws of all nation states in the Western world for centuries. But people who are obsessed with only science and the law don't like to know that.

 

 

[CatholicsAreKewl]

1. Agnostics/atheists/scientists hold that only scientific proof can be used to determine "the truth." People of faith hold that traditional holy texts and traditions can also be used to determine "the truth."

2. Agnostics/atheists/legalists hold that law is the only acceptable regulator of human behavior. Humanists/Critical thinkers hold that other modes of thought - biology, medicine, anthropology, sociology, psychology, demographics, tradition, cultural mores, and even manners, and even individual conscience - are acceptable and effective regulators of human behavior.  

3. Agnostics/atheists/demagogues hold that they have uncovered the everlasting truth, and that they have the right to impose their version of the truth on all benighted believers. So-called benighted believers don't consider themselves benighted, and therefore are in no need of having someone else's version of the truth imposed on them. 

 

I know you're only making an example here, but I think it may be important to note that not all atheists/agnostics agree on any of these things. There's a common misconception that members of these groups ascribe to particular ideas, philosophies, and moral views. The only thing all atheists agree on is their disbelief in a god. Atheists/Agnostics are not necessarily skeptics on other issues, nor do they all believe that the scientific method best helps us know things about the world.

Edited December 28, 2013 by CatholicsAreKewl

[Luigi]

I know you're only making an example here, but I think it may be important to note that not all atheists/agnostics agree on any of these things. There's a common misconception that members of these groups ascribe to particular ideas, philosophies, and moral views. The only thing all atheists agree on is their disbelief in a god. Atheists/Agnostics are not necessarily skeptics on other issues, nor do they all believe that the scientific method best helps us know things about the world.

 

Good point - I'm aware of the differences, but I struggled to figure out how to name that group - some are agnostics, some are atheists, some are hard core scientists - so I decided to go with slashes. Some will fit into the category for one reason, some for another.

 

Also, I used the word 'demagogue' in that most recent post - it should be 'idealogue.'

[4588686]

"But if your starting point is that a just fertilized egg is a person in the same sense that the mother is a person then there isn't any point to carrying this conversation any further because there's no reasoning with an entirely faith based position."

 

Here is a clear example of what started this particular thread/conversation - the blogger's contention that he/we can't explain anything to anybody if the other person doesn't hold at least some of the basic assumptions that he/we hold -"there's isn't any point in carrying this conversation any further because there's no reasoning with an entirely faith based position." There's also no reasoning with an entirely closed minded other.   

 

1. Agnostics/atheists/scientists hold that only scientific proof can be used to determine "the truth." People of faith hold that traditional holy texts and traditions can also be used to determine "the truth."

2. Agnostics/atheists/legalists hold that law is the only acceptable regulator of human behavior. Humanists/Critical thinkers hold that other modes of thought - biology, medicine, anthropology, sociology, psychology, demographics, tradition, cultural mores, and even manners, and even individual conscience - are acceptable and effective regulators of human behavior.  

3. Agnostics/atheists/demagogues hold that they have uncovered the everlasting truth, and that they have the right to impose their version of the truth on all benighted believers. So-called benighted believers don't consider themselves benighted, and therefore are in no need of having someone else's version of the truth imposed on them.  

 

Both groups will continue talking past each other as long they hold no common ground.

 

The way to achieve common ground - the only way that I can see - is for the scientists/legalists/demagogues to broaden their narrow view to include the other kinds of knowing - biology, medicine, anthropology, sociology, psychology, tradition, cultural mores, manners, and even individual conscience - in their consideration of any topic under discussion. It is true that none of these can be examined through a microscope, a telescope, an x-ray, or an MRI, but they do still exist and provide valuable knowledge to human beings. And as good as science is, it can't explain everything in nature - such as consciousness - especially as regards human beings. And I would point out that holy texts of many traditions contain a great deal of wisdom that's based on centuries of lived human experience involving biology, medicine, sociology, psychology, cultural mores, manners, and even individual conscience. This is the wisdom of tradition.

 

Lastly, not everything that's currently written into American/Western law is a direct result of or dictate from the Catholic Church or other Christian denominations. Don't the churches wish it were? But it's not. So neither The Church nor the churches can be blamed for what humans beings all around the world have done for millennia and has been written into the laws of all nation states in the Western world for centuries. But people who are obsessed with only science and the law don't like to know that.

Right.  I would reject every one of those three listed claims.  I don't think that only scientific proof can determine 'truth.'  I don't think that scientific proof exists.  Scientific evidence certainly does.  And some tentative conclusions can be drawn from that evidence.  But I do not think that science has a final say on anything other than investigating a narrow set of empirical questions.  Although, obviously, our conception of the physical world influences other areas and modes of knowledge (and vica versa, as a Kuhnian I would reject the idea that science exists independent of values and cultural influences).  I don't know anyone, believer or not, who thinks that the law is the only acceptable regulator of human behavior.  I don't believe in any sort of everlasting truth, religious or otherwise.