T
TCB
Guest
The New Atlantis is out with several excellent articles. The editor Eric Cohen frames the current debate of ESCR as a choice of rationality versus equality.
The Tragedy of Equality
Eric Cohen
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/index.html
“That said, I do not believe that modern democracies will ultimately tolerate the death of children in the name of embryos. The state will mandate embryo-based medicine for underage persons. It will force parents to act in ways that seem more reasonable. But in doing so, the democratic state may cannibalize the very principle of equality on which it rests. It will compel people to act in inegalitarian ways. It will seek a course that seems more reasonable, but one that requires adopting the irrational view that embryos are not persons or the inegalitarian view that some persons possess dignity but others do not. And while I doubt that I could ever be the parent who lets his child die, even if the law still allowed me to do so, I’m not sure I’d want to live in a world where the commandment to treat everyone equally has been abandoned, and where moral sentimentality trumps moral reason.”
I think that we are in that state now. The supporters of abortion either hide behind irrational arguments (the fetus is not human, etc) or inequality (best represented by the Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer who states that parents should have the right to kill children until the age of two).
The Tragedy of Equality
Eric Cohen
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/index.html
“That said, I do not believe that modern democracies will ultimately tolerate the death of children in the name of embryos. The state will mandate embryo-based medicine for underage persons. It will force parents to act in ways that seem more reasonable. But in doing so, the democratic state may cannibalize the very principle of equality on which it rests. It will compel people to act in inegalitarian ways. It will seek a course that seems more reasonable, but one that requires adopting the irrational view that embryos are not persons or the inegalitarian view that some persons possess dignity but others do not. And while I doubt that I could ever be the parent who lets his child die, even if the law still allowed me to do so, I’m not sure I’d want to live in a world where the commandment to treat everyone equally has been abandoned, and where moral sentimentality trumps moral reason.”
I think that we are in that state now. The supporters of abortion either hide behind irrational arguments (the fetus is not human, etc) or inequality (best represented by the Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer who states that parents should have the right to kill children until the age of two).