Poverty is Real, And it is Not OK

[ribozyme]

pcdf.org/meadows/india.html

This is an article from Donella Meadows, the person who wrote the (in)famous The Limits to Growth.

"Another story: Two beautiful young women pound coconut husks to extract fiber for rope. They are so finely featured that with a small twist of fate they could be $1000-a-day New York models. Instead, with no self pity and without stopping their steady thwacking, they explain that they can do 3 piles of husks a day (worth $1.75) before their arms give out.

"Thousands of people living in black plastic villages in the dusty outskirts of cities. People with one possession – a razor, an iron, a wrench, a bicycle rickshaw – upon which their livelihood depends.** They aren’t ‘poor but happy’ or ‘poor but spiritual’ or ‘poor in things but rich in relationships.’ Those North American platitudes fell in big chunks out of my brain, never to be uttered again.**

"It isn’t OK that anyone has to live in grinding poverty. Any six-year-old knows that. It’s even less OK that poverty is held in place by a web of circumstances that makes my life (and yours) very comfortable.

Vicki didn’t even try to offer solutions. “That’s way too American a thought, especially in my infancy with this issue. But my eyes have seen enough to know that it is right, just, and moral that we use the freedom and ease and education and opportunity and affluence that we enjoy here to speak and act on behalf of folks who have no voice and no hope. We need to speak, not for our own comfort but so our species will mature into the lovely, gracious, compassionate collective we have it in us to be.”

Emphasis mine…

I think poverty reduction is much more important than talking about abortion.

 

[puzzleannie]

I think poverty reduction is much more important than talking about abortion.

why do you think this way, if you do not admit the poor have a right to live, endowed by their Creator, which must be protected by law, then it follows you cannot assume they have any other rights–to employment at fair wages, to safe housing, health care or to any other material needs. It is a logical fallacy to claim concern for their welfare if that concern is not based firmly on conviction that the poor have a right to exist at all.

 

[Angels_Unaware]

Is there only one social issue we are allowed to talk about?

Both are important. If you meant that poverty is not spoken about enough, perhaps that is true. But there is not a limit on the amount of Christian rhetoric allowed in our society.

 

[Oscarthecat]

Of course you, as an individual, are free to choose which human rights issue you want to focus your energies on…

…but why discourage others from focusing their energies on those issues they find most urgent?

Abortion is also real, and it is also “Not OK.”

 

[ribozyme]

Of course you, as an individual, are free to choose which human rights issue you want to focus your energies on…

…but why discourage others from focusing their energies on those issues they find most urgent?

Abortion is also real, and it is also “Not OK.”

But what if the “people” who you are “protecting” from abortion end up with lives with nothing, not even a realistic sliver of hope? What good have you done by preventing an abortion? What good would have done if you place less emphasis on their physical and social needs after they are born?

Vicki went on: "What I came to understand was that many of these people had no hope. Not that they had not eaten that day. Not that they had only rags to wear. But that the fragile thread of hope had snapped – the sense that through some effort they might take care of themselves and their children and better their lot.

 

[Oscarthecat]

But what if the “people” who you are “protecting” from abortion end up with lives with nothing, not even a realistic sliver of hope? What good have you done by preventing an abortion? What good would have done if you place less emphasis on their physical and social needs after they are born?

Your question seem to be “why bother stopping abortion if those saved from abortion are bound to a life of poverty anyway.” But again, some people choose to combat the evil of abortion, others choose to combat the evil of poverty.

You seem to presume that life has no intrinsic value, such that the value of a life is relative to the satisfaction of physical and social needs- without which, a person ought not be allowed to be born.

But if you don’t believe that life has intrinsic value, then why are you even concerned about poverty?

If a life of poverty is not worth living, then why bother worrying about the lives of those living in poverty?

Why should the poor even be allowed to live even after they are born?

If their lives are so bad you think they should never have been born, why not call for their extermination right now?

 

[Reepicheep]

Ribozyme: -
Why must it be one or the other?
Can we not oppose abortion and also oppose poverty?

 

[ribozyme]

?

Why should the poor even be allowed to live even after they are born?

If their lives are so bad you think they should never have been born, why not call for their extermination right now?

Because they have interests and preferences and those who are not born do not have any interests.

 

[apromisemade]

I, to quote another, believe “life begins at conception, but it does not end at birth.” Abortion needs to be combated, but there are many other ways to serve and better the lives of those already here and breathing. Just imagine if after Hurricane Katrina, all the faith base organizations had said “No, sorry, we need to focus all our time and energy on preventing abortion.” I oppose abortion, but feel called to focus the bulk of my energy on bettering the world in other ways. Is that so wrong?

 

[wapsi]

But what if the “people” who you are “protecting” from abortion end up with lives with nothing, not even a realistic sliver of hope?

People who are so poor that they only own one possession are unlikely to be able afford an abortion.

Certainly poverty needs attention. But that doesn’t mean that abortion is unimportant.

 

[Reepicheep]

Because they have interests and preferences and those who are not born do not have any interests.

“Do not have any interests”
–does not mean–
“do not have any rights”.

The not-yet-born have as much right to live as the rest of us.

 

[Christy_Beth]

Both abortion and poverty are social evils that need to be combatted. In doing so, we can’t fall prey to our own preconceived notions of which one is “better” than the other. Is it “noble” to live in poverty? No. I don’t know how many times I’ve come across the attitude of “well, if they try a bit harder, then they wouldn’t be so poor.” All the amount of effort is meaningless if there is nothing to work towards.

Abortion? What is that besides murder? Like poverty, it impoverishes the human race. We should be asking ourselves what we can do to improve life for those who are affected by both.

And let’s not leave out the other evils in life. Unequal justice, prejudice and all other similar attitudes.

 

[Brendan]

If one believes that the right not to be poor supercedes the right to life, then there is a clear solution for poverty in such a worldview.

Kill all the poor people.

It ends poverty, which is the primary goal in such a worldview.

Is this really what you subscribe to?

 

[Brendan]

Because they have interests and preferences and those who are not born do not have any interests.

If you are refereing to consciece preferences or interestes, there is a solution there: kill all the poor people while they are sleeping. A sleeping person has no interestes or preferences either.

If you are refering to intrinsic interestes, ones that continue to exist even if the person is exhibiting no rational thought, then yes, the unborn have the same interestes as anyone else.

 

[Gamera]

I’ve heard just about everything, but I’ve never heard anyone say that poverty is unreal or that poverty is OK.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Reading the quoted snippet, one wonders if the writer would have felt differently if the husk pounders were ugly middle-aged men. And what it costs to live wherever these people are, is not stated, nor even whether they get $1.75 for one pile or three.

And “North American platitudes fell in big chunks out of my brain”. ??? I suspect the writer had few to begin with, other than those that are cherished by the left; e.g., if you’re beautiful and are not earning $1,000/day, your life is a waste.

People with “one razor, wrench or bicycle rickshaw” upon which their livelihood depends are viewed with horror. Are we then, in a more advanced society, to feel those who also have electric clippers as well, a whole box of wrenches or a skid steer, “upon which their livelihood depends” are to be similarly pitied?

Poverty is real, and it is bad. But this writer’s wail has no context.

 

[cthulhubryan]

As there is life, there is hope.

To argue that aborted babies are better off aborted than to be born into poverty is a very slippery moral slope. The logical conclusion of that argument is that we should spray poison in these areas so that the children will die before reaching the age of accountability and then send in troops to forcibly sterilize the survivors so that no more children will be born into this poverty.

How much better to focus efforts to end the holocaust of abortion while also focusing efforts to ameliorate the conditions of the impoverished?

 

[ribozyme]

Reading the quoted snippet, one wonders if the writer would have felt differently if the husk pounders were ugly middle-aged men. And what it costs to live wherever these people are, is not stated, nor even whether they get $1.75 for one pile or three.

And “North American platitudes fell in big chunks out of my brain”. ??? I suspect the writer had few to begin with, other than those that are cherished by the left; e.g., if you’re beautiful and are not earning $1,000/day, your life is a waste.

People with “one razor, wrench or bicycle rickshaw” upon which their livelihood depends are viewed with horror. Are we then, in a more advanced society, to feel those who also have electric clippers as well, a whole box of wrenches or a skid steer, “upon which their livelihood depends” are to be similarly pitied?

Poverty is real, and it is bad. But this writer’s wail has no context.

Have you read the entire article? It would only take about 5 minutes. It is basically Donella Meadows recalling her memories about India when she read a letter from Vicky Robin. But I guess you do not like Donella Meadows’ ideas though.

 

[ribozyme]

If you are refereing to consciece preferences or interestes, there is a solution there: kill all the poor people while they are sleeping. A sleeping person has no interestes or preferences either.

If you are refering to intrinsic interestes, ones that continue to exist even if the person is exhibiting no rational thought, then yes, the unborn have the same interestes as anyone else.

I suppose before they go to sleep, they want to wake up.

As there is life, there is hope.

What hope? You mean something somewhat absurd such as the technological singularity eradicating poverty?

 

[yellowbicycle]

I think poverty reduction is much more important than talking about abortion.

OK. Then fight poverty. You don’t have to choose one issue, though. Both are terrible afflictions on the world.
And, besides, they’re so intertwined that if you fight poverty you ARE fighting abortion and if you fight abortion you are fighting for the rights of the poor. So, if what stirs your heart is to work on poverty reduction, then do so and know that it pleases God greatly that you are helping his less fortunate.