Hello, Deo.
Let me try to soften this statement up for you, because I admit it does pack a punch.
If we are talking about making abortion illegal, as it should be, then it will be important to agree exactly when protection in the womb begins. All of us agree that this protection should begin at conception. If you had it your way, as well meaning as it is, then abortion would actually be legal a few weeks to a month after conception because, as you say, the baby isn't actually a baby, but a potential baby. If this were the law, people would do their best to use it to their advantage with the morning after pill and other methods. So in fact, what it sounds like to me is that you are really promoting is more restrictions on abortion rather than getting rid of it altogether. I used to feel this way myself. I just decided to change my way of thinking. I really wonder if such restrictions would reduce the number of abortions or if things wouldn't really change. If you are not suggesting more restrictions but in fact an elimination of the practice altogether, then it's hard for me to understand why you wouldn't feel that "a person is a person no matter how small," to quote Dr. Seuss. You see what I'm trying to say?My point is, we are all have the basic human right to life, or none of us have it. If arguments like Deo’s are accepted, then there is no such thing as human rights – there are only priviliges, which the government may or may not grant to any particular group of people.
Vern, I agree with everything you write until your second bullet point–the one in which you bring DNA into the picture. Again. I wrote previously that the argument from biology is just not compelling to me when what we’re talking about is spiritual anthropology, not genetics.
In other words, to declare the unborn not a human being we must invent other standards? We must ignore the plain evidence of DNA?
How about we use the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Science and the Church agree – the unborn child is a living human being.
I hate to mention such a distasteful example, but look at communicable cancers (there are such things–see this month’s Harper’s for a fascinating article). The cancer cells are fully human. They’re also quite living. And in the case, for instance, of the mother who was injected with the cancer cells of her daughter in a weird attempt to try to come up with a treatment for her daughter’s condition (the daughter died, the cancer was inexplicably not removed from the mother–she died too), the cancer in the mother was separate *human *DNA. Separate, living, with human DNA satisfies your three criteria–therefore the cancer must be a human being…? I don’t think so. This is where our spiritual anthropology comes in handy–it allows us to make a determination between what is cancer and what is human in this case. How otherwise do you explain the difference, given your three criteria?
I think you’re better off with the Encyclopedia Quotation–I know what the Roman Church teaches on the subject. What I’m getting at, what I’m interested in, is trying to understand why it teaches what it teaches and whether or not I can agree with that why. The Catechism doesn’t quite go into that detail.
Not that tired old chestnut again!
So you want to dictate to me what I can use? And dictate to the Church what its doctrine is?
(My emphasis)
It teaches that the unborn child is human from conception because it patently is human.
READ HUMANE VITAE! It tells you why the church teaches what it does.
I know you think your argument is great. But it’s really not. Really. Just take a look at it. Communicable cancers are an old chestnut? Who knew?
I’m not dictating anything to anyone! I’m trying to help you win your argument with me!! I was implicitly referring to the context of the discussion, not making a general suggestion that you can do away with the catechism!!
I don’t disagree that the catechism teaches what it teaches and teaches it fully. I really wonder what’s going on with you. Can you respond to what I write and not to what you want me to have written?
Vern, actually read posts 124 and 125 and you’ll ask yourself why you decided to ask these questions. Despite yourself, you’ve actually been very helpful, Vern. Thanks. But taking a moment to step down from the righteous indignation and actually listen to what others are saying is a great thing to do every now and again.
Thanks, dkoinzan. I’ll try to do that this weekend.
The idea that you can use cancer to promote the idea that an unborn child is not human is an old one – tried and refuted many a time. After all, you don’t believe an unborn child is a cancerous growth, do you? Why should you expect me to believe it?
Come on – you throw out old chestnuts, tell me what I should use to shape my positions, and then you accuse me of not reading your posts?
No. I don’t believe a child is a cancerous growth. Why? Not because DNA tells me anything about the cancer, but because spiritual anthropology tells me something about the child.
If you had read the posts (124 & 125) you wouldn’t have written this. For instance, did you read when I wrote:
This is just mystifying. Read what I’ve recently written, not what you want me to have written. Okay? I’ll quote it again (because I don’t think you read it the first time, and I can’t be sure you read it the second time either):
Then why bring it up?
“Spiritual anthropology”? Is that a recognized discipline, something you could get a graduate degree for?
I read it.
I’m not angry. But I vigorously defend the right to life for those who cannot defend themselves.
Let me get this straight – you want to dismiss my arguments and tell me what to use and how to use it? And by not allowing you to dictate to me, I am somehow ignoring what you wrote?
Of course I’m serious – who aborts a child takes the burden on himself of knowing with certainty the child is not human.
I bring it up, not because I think children are cancer, but because you’re so hung up on the DNA argument when it comes to proving the existence of the metaphysical reality of the human being. Your argument is threefold:
It refers to the spiritual make-up and development of the human being. The term seems pretty clear to me.
Fantastic! Vigorously defend away! But in the process, please don’t mistake your friends (or those who would like to be your friends) for your enemies in your struggle.
You are the tetchy one. I suggested to you an argument that I found persuasive (and which wound up convincing me), complete with backup materials. I dismissed your arguments because they were ineffectual, at least to me. To someone else, they may be lovely and work very well. I suggested you may want to try another tack with me if you really wanted to convince me of something or have a conversation. To me, it seems like if I’m arguing with someone and trying to prove a point, I will use as many tactics as I can to convince them. I’ll examine their arguments, I’ll rally other sources and things to my defense. If I see that I’m not getting anywhere with one tactic, I’ll select another, or try to explain my point better in the meantime. I will not continue to harp on a tactic or an argument that has proven fruitless, no matter how attached I am to that argument, nor will I enlist to my aid only peripherally germane source material. Do you see what I’m saying? You continued to use the same tactic to which I did not respond. That’s frustrating. (I wasn’t even arguing with dkoinzan and he/she, intuiting what she felt I needed given the course of our discussion, suggested I read Humanae Vitae. Great! I’m going to do just that!)
I don’t think your “parable” is a particularly good one–it’s a bit maudlin, incredibly general, and rather too sentimental to be effective in my book. What it really says is: before target practice, or generally before shooting boxes in a dump, make sure there are no children around. It’s no argument against abortion.
Dead wrong. The cancer is simply a slightly modified version of the orginal host’s DNA. And that’s a far cry from the child’s DNA.
A reasonable definition of “spiritual” would be “the non-physical aspect of a human being.” A reasonable definition of “acheology” would be “the study of man through physical artifacts.”
Death is maudlin. And if the death of a child doesn’t inspire sentiment in you, I pity you.
Not in the case of communicable cancers–the DNA of the cancer may be from someone long or recently dead, but the cancer lives in a new host. It has happened that technicians have accidentally pricked themselves on needles used for cancer biopsies and have developed the cancer they were originally treating. The DNA of the cancer is from someone else and is not their own.
Spiritual archeology, perhaps. But not spiritual anthropology.
Death itself isn’t so maudlin. But over-sentimentalizing it makes it so!
Not to labor the point, but the connection you’re drawing for the purposes of the abortion argument would mean that the moral of the box story is this: Don’t accidentally shoot children in a box, unless you’re sure the children aren’t human. It…er…sort of doesn’t make any sense.
It is horrible that unborn children are being slaughtered. Granted.
And you said:
How is that different from what I said? “The cancer is simply a slightly modified version of the orginal host’s DNA.”
So tell us what “spiritual anthropology” is? What universities give graduate degrees in the field?
How do you “over-sementalize” death? Have you ever told a grieving relative they were “over-sementalizing” the death of a loved one?
When I used real children, you didn’t seem to get the point.
I suspect we are seeing a defensive mechanism spring into action here.
Yep – a defensive mechanism.
Then why defend it?
In those extremely rare cases where both will die if nothing is done, and only the child will die if an attempt is made to save the mother, the Church applies the Principle of Double Effect. This same principle is used in other cases – such as provision of painkillers to terminal patients, self-defense, and so on.
Go here:
all the time, and forget about where the money comes from. Heck, he might even try to figure out how to sell all the “by product waste” of the process to make even more greenbacks!