Le Sabot Post-Moderne

Reminds me of a circulating email joke a while back. Some guy and God are trying to outdo each other. Finally it comes down to creating life. God picks up the dirt, makes a man. The guy bends down to scoop up some dirt and God interrupts saying, "Uh-uh, you get your own dirt." This seems kinda like that, in that men can take elements found in the natural world and "create life" just like we can make test-tube babies. But where'd they get the elements from? God had to have created them, didn't he? Man will still never be able to speak any material thing into existence. But I'll bet there are people who are trying. :)

If/when they succeed at this venture, I'd like to see them try it again, this time making their own chemicals and "dust of the earth."

From the article:
"Researchers argue over the definition of life, but they generally agree that it must have three elements: a container, such as the membrane wall of a cell; metabolism, the ability to convert basic nutrients into a cell's working parts; and genes, chemical instructions for building a cell that can be passed on to progeny and change as conditions change."
Funny, I think this is what the pro-life movement has been saying for years. And if it is "life" then terminating it would be...

AutMom --

Prolifer I am, that doesn't work as a prolife argument. All you've done is proven that an unborn baby is as alive as a cockroach. All taking of "life" of course, is not murder -- and pro-abortion types of course agree that the baby is "alive." They just don't agree that it's human. They just seem to think that something always containing exclusively human DNA that will inevitably develop into what they agree will be a human being if it lives long enough, isn't human. ;-)

Well, I guess the two arguments could be used side by side. A) it's alive, it meets the scientific standard for life, and B) being as it is comprised solely of human DNA, it is of the species homo sapiens, that is, human. So if it's alive and human, it is "human life" and to end it is "murder".

I only wish the Roe v. Wade challenge that was inevitable to occur at sometime in American history, could have waited a decade or so more, when ultrasound became widely used. If we (as a nation) knew then what we know now about fetal development, and hadn't already accepted abortion as an unpleasant but real part of American life, I think it would have had a much harder time becoming the law of our land.

As it stands now, I don't think it will ever be reversed. It has become incorporated into our society. We all know someone who has had one, even those of us who grew up in the church, sheltered in Christian schools, etc. Too many women have either had one and thus are pro-choice by default (meaning they didn't like it, but sure are glad they were able to finish college, not tell their husband about the affair, or whatever) or know someone else whose life if ostensibly "better" for not having borne a child they carried, thus these people feel compelled to be pro-choice and desire the legality of abortion to continue. Americans, on the whole, find it ugly but want that choice. Even those who would never use that choice think it should be available to avoid crack babies or welfare babies or some such nonsense (which of course, it hasn't prevented).

These are not at all my opinions, understand, but I think a good many Americans feel this way, and thus the law will not change no matter how many supposedly pro-life Presidents we elect. Reagan, Bush the Elder, and now GW Bush all have not been able to do anything to change it. And as the viable Republican candidates seeking various offices veer more toward the center, you find Giulianis and Schwarzeneggers who are fiscally conservative but socially moderate, and these are the future Presidents (well, ok, not Schwarzenegger himself, but you know what I mean). I think we would do better to work at the grassroots level to help women in need *now*, rather than focus on electing a President who may or may not have the chance to appoint a Supreme Court justice who probably won't have the chance, or be able to swing other justices, to reverse the decision. The only way it'll stop, I say, is if women stop seeking abortions. To do that, we need to support women.

Autmom, just to clarify:

I agree with being able to use the arguments in tandem to prove the point. I guess my point was that without the second, which will never be conceded, the first will get you nowhere. And in practice, if you have the second, you don't need the first. People who are willing to acknowledge humanity aren't going to hedge on whether "it" is alive.

But we don't have any substantial disagreement. :-)

I think the arguments that a fetus is a human life, a human organism, are absolutely indisputable. Anyone who denies that is either being uncareful or is really stupid. However, that doesn't show that a fetus is a person, according to the pro-choice position. Personhood is a moral property, and merely being biologically human and also being your own organism doesn't get your personhood necessarily. After all, someone who is braindead but whose body is functioning on autopilot isn't a person, according to this view. That's why this issue is at a deadlock. Personhood is being defined in such a way as to achieve the pro-choice view. It's question-begging, but they've managed to shift the burden of proof to the pro-lifers as far as most people see it, simply by sleight-of-hand redefinition.

Jeremy, you have a good point there, but of course their position is still untenable. ISTM the burden of proof in on those who would disconnect personhood from humanity. WHY isn't a braindead person a person?

The standard answer is the inability to exercise rights and responsibilities. But that makes babies and children not persons (even well beyond the point where horrormeisters like Peter Singer would deny them personhood) it makes ignorant people not persons, etc. There's no consistent way of defining "personhood" in a way that's distinct from "biological humanity" that doesn't get the pro-choicers in trouble sooner or later.

Which just leads me once again to sigh and reflect on how it's all really a matter of the heart and will. Not that we should abandon the reasoned arguments, but they only work where the heart is at least somewhat receptive in the first place.

So what you're saying is, with the concept of "personhood" they've created a category of people whose rights they can deny. I suppose it makes life more comfortable for them.