Discussion On Abortion

A YouTuber named Craig sent me a PM regarding my video on abortion. His comments and my responses were too large for the YouTube video comment section:

Craig: And you also may be missing the point a bit. Consider the fact that if the overdue baby (who, again, is healthier, more developed, and far more capable of independence outside the womb) has a scissors jammed into the back of his head and his brain sucked out, the law is silent. However, if that 23 week old baby on life-support had the same procedure done, the perpetrator would be tried with murder...EVEN IF the mother had requested it (in which case she'd be charged as well).

How is it obvious to you that the absence of having drawn oxygen into his lungs somehow makes this morally and legally sensible?

Me: There is nothing obvious about any of this, especially late term abortion as you describe. In the case of the baby still in utero (late term abortion) the reason must have to do with the safety of the mother. The killing of an already delivered baby in an incubator, as you describe, is not a fair analogue, nor would it happen.

I also am horrified by the idea of late term abortion. But I have to repeat, I don't know what the cause might be for performing one. I can't believe that any doctor would undertake such an action lightly. If I were a husband faced with a choice of wife or baby, I think I'd choose to save the wife. I am way past that now, but I would hope that you never are faced with such a choice.

Craig: Admittedly, they ARE both an "interference" in what would have happen if nature just ran its course. But to equate an interference that sustains life with an interference that destroys life is a logical disaster. Would you equate "feeding a quadriplegic" with "starving a paraplegic"? In both instances, we are "interfering" in what would normally happen if nature were left to her own devices. Of course not. There is simply no comparison with an "intervention" that sustains life and an "intervention" that destroys it. By this logic, we could equate Dr. J. Mengele with Dr. W. Mayo...both were just "interferers".

Me: I think your comparisons here are extreme. Mengele and Mayo? Mengele experimented on people against their will, while Mayo tried to aid them in recovery. Intent has a lot to do with it. Intervention isn't always the same. I'm sure that's your point, but your approach is an appeal to emotion, which was my objection to the so-called pro life movement in the first place.

Feeding a person who wants to live and can't feed himself is perhaps an intervention, but who starves a paraplegic? Can you cite me a case? If you bring up a case like Terri Schaivo you will be equating paraplegia with persistent vegetative state, which is not analogous at all.

Craig: We can agree that abortion is a complex issue; but I don't see how complex issues justify inconsistent thinking. It seems to me that some consistent thinking and some fundamental commitments are precisely what we need to think our way through complex matters.

Me: It would be great if in this life we could always be consistent. But circumstances are not consistent. The case of a fetus killed (think Sharon Tate) when the killing was done in malice and to a fetus whose arrival was anticipated with joy is not the same as aborting the fetus produced through rape or incest, or one which would endanger the life of the mother. A certain inconsistency is required in life. We are not machines.

Craig: The way I see it, Largo, is that there is an atrocity in our midst...an absolute blood bath right on our front doorsteps. 53 Million abortions in North America in the last 40+ years. And this blood bath is being justified and euphemized by misleading rhetoric and admittedly inconsistent thinking.

ME: I can agree that there are far too many abortions, and for reasons of convenience or laziness in birth control. But think of the alternative. Abortions were performed when they were illegal, too, but frequently under unsanitary conditions and by practitioners who were unqualified and may have killed the mother. To outlaw abortions would never end them. But it would make them more dangerous.

The rest of your letter seems to rest on your belief that the unborn have the same rights as the born. I already explained that a blastocyst is not a baby, and calling a fetus a baby as if it had a personality is rhetoric on your part, designed to evoke emotion and a visceral rather than an intellectual response.

I agree with you that abortion generally is a bad idea, because, as I said, most abortions are probably done because people didn't take precautions against pregnancy in the first place and are not ready to deal with the consequences. But I am not ready to call it murder. On this we simply do not agree.

The "breath of life" argument, by the way, was from the bible. I'm not a believer myself, but many of the "pro life" faction are, and I referred them to scriptures saying that Adam, for example wasn't born with a living soul, but became one when the breath of life was breathed into his nostrils (and thence, one would suppose, into his lungs).

I have tried here and in my video to present a civil argument without rancor. I hope that can be maintained, even as we disagree.

Re: Issues of Philosophy

Craig: It was not an appeal to emotion. I was not suggesting something was true or false on the basis of how it makes you feel. I was deducing very logically what the implications would be if we took the philosophy undergirding that comment and applied it beyond the abortion issue.

Me: I don't think so. Your Mengele/Mayo comparison was not to the point, unless appeal to emotion was your intent. No one thinks Mengele was justified in experimenting on human beings against their will. But many people see abortion as a necessary, if distasteful procedure in some cases. Applying an example like that in comparison to an abortion doctor is disingenuous. You could hardly have expected other than an emotional reaction.

Craig: As hypothetical as the example is, its sole purpose is to illustrate the impropriety of indiscriminately lumping life-sustaining (Mayo) and life-destroying (Mengele) "interferences" into the same category.

Me: I did not group life sustaining interferences with life destroying ones, you did with your Mengele/Mayo comparison. Again I ask you to cite a case where anyone denied food to a paraplegic. That would be a fair analogue. And again, I caution you not to use Terri Schaivo, since all that could be called personhood was already absent from her body before the support was removed.

Crig: Many late term abortions are done for the same reasons early term abortions are done. The mother does not want the child.

Me: If you can document this, I might take you seriously. But to me it sounds like posturing in the absence of an argument. What doctor would do such a procedure with "I don't want this kid" as the reason? If there are doctors who would do so, they are bereft of any ethical values. But, as I said, I think doctors only perform late term abortions for very compelling reasons. Prove me wrong, and I will agree with you. Your unsupported assertion that this is so is not enough.

Craig: Then why is that your position? Perhaps "obvious" was too strong a word. Perhaps I should reword it to simply say, why is that a compelling enough line in the sand for you to hold that as the point of legal protection as opposed to another point (like conception)?

Me: I explained that MOST people who oppose abortion do so for religious reasons, and I pointed out scripture about the "breath of life." Obviously that did not resonate with you. I am not willing to say conception is the beginning of any more than a process, which may be interrupted, either naturally or extranaturally at any point. I pointed out in the video that a great many abortions occur spontaneously (naturally) for various reasons.

With regard to scripture, you should note also that in the bible (Hosea 13:16 for example) not only does the lord order infants already born to be "dashed in pieces," but "women with child ripped open." How's that for a late-term abortion, and at the command of god!

Check out also Isaiah 13:18 "...they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes shall not spare children."

If your argument is purely secular you haven't made your point.

Craig: It is also a strawman to suggest that the entire pro-life movement can be labeled and thus dismissed as an appeal to emotion.

Me: Perhaps some individuals don't appeal only to emotion. But what do you call the signs protesters carry of partial birth abortions and fetuses in the womb? I have seen them. They are highly emotional. Add to that the "pro-life" label, the obvious opposite of which is "anti-life" and you have nothing BUT an appeal to emotion. Perhaps not everyone in the movement deems personhood to begin at conception. But most do. Why else would stem cell research be such a hot button issue?

Craig: I agree that some late term abortions are done to protect the life of the mother (an exception that I am inclined to defend legally; I can also respect an exception in the case of incest and rape).

Me: I'm glad you can see at least some exceptions.

Craig: The objection is obvious. The victim has inalienable rights. No man should ever have the right to hit his wife, and no adult should ever have the right to have sex with a child.

Me: Then why do you even propose that? In practically the next sentence you say that that is MY philosophy extrapolated. That is simply not true. My thoughts on abortion apply only to that narrow subject. To accuse me of holding that spousal abuse and child rape could ever under any circumstance be acceptable is false and repugnant. You have no way of knowing what I think beyond what I told you. To say that you know my unexpressed "philosophy" is beyond hubris.

You yourself admit to making an exception in the case of incest or rape or danger to the life of the mother. Yet you expect some kind of superhuman consistency of me. You say you "draw the line" at conception. If that is true and absolute, how can you have any exceptions at all? It is as I said, inconsistency is a necessary part of life. Circumstances change. That is not a tautology. We merely have a difference of opinion.

Aldous Huxley famously said that the only consistent people are the dead. I agree. If you must have consistency, you need to stop debating, because you will never achieve it, either from your opponent or from yourself.

Thanks for the stimulating discourse. I appreciate that, unlike some in that comment section, you haven't lost your temper or damned me to hell. (Or was that in some other comment section? I get that a lot.)

Best regards,

Larry

To the argument: “God didn’t lie in Genesis. He just meant that Adam and Eve would die ‘spiritually’. Anyway, they did die instead of having eternal life because they were kept away from the tree of life.”

I hear this argument all the time. It's ridiculous. Genesis doesn't say Adam was told, "Do this and you will die spiritually." It says "Do this and you will die." Do you have any idea how desperate it sounds when you get backed into a corner by the very words printed on the page, and you have to make a silly excuse like that? "Well, he didn't really say they would die. You have to read between the lines."

Right!

The book that is supposed to be the perfect guide seems to be incapable of stating plainly what it means. That's very convenient, IF the real purpose of the book was to raise a priestly class with special insight and the ability to interpret the book. Now, think about that. Who would profit most from making the guidebook vague and needing interpretation? Why, the interpreters! And they still do, don't they? Or do you not pay tithes and make offerings?

If you take the story of Adam and Eve literally, as many biblical apologists do, you must know that Adam, being newly created, would have no way of knowing that a day meant any more than one period of light and darkness. As it was put in Genesis, it was supposed to be a threat. How much of a threat would it be to you if someone told you, "Now, don't do this, because if you do, sometime within a thousand of your years I'm going to punish you for it."? Keep in mind, Adam may not have experienced even one year. How was he to know what a thousand meant? Also, up to that time, death hadn't been witnessed. How was he supposed to know what death meant?

Your objection to this line of thinking is typical of people who want to have it both ways. You want the bible to be true and perfect, but when it says something that is counter to what you believe you simply refuse to recognize what is right before you.

you write: "God didn’t say you are going to die right away.. he said you will surely die "

Do you have a bible? Can you read? It says in Genesis, Chapter 2, verse 17 (KJV) "But the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for IN THE DAY that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." In the day means immediately. It means before the sun goes down once. It means what it says. That's not an interpretation. that's exactly what the bible says!

You write "how can you say something sudjesting (sic) God lied first when God is perfect and when he made you in the first place?"

I think you mean "suggesting." I'm not suggesting that god lied. I'm saying directly and clearly that, by the testimony of the words in the supposedly perfect bible, he said they would die on the same day that they ate from that tree. Adam lived over nine hundred years according to the same book. He didn't die in the same day he ate the forbidden fruit.

The serpent told the truth and god lied. Simple. It says so.

Another person offered (on another topic): "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (NIV) John 20:29

My answer:John 20:29 That kind of statement is perfect for bamboozling people who might otherwise be tempted to think. Believe what you can't see. You get more credit for believing without evidence. It proves that you can be led by anyone with a big enough promise.

::Side-show barker:: "Step right up, Sonny. Do everything I tell you and you will get ee-ternal life. What’s that? Proof, you say? Why, it's more sure without proof. Only fools ask for proof. They will die and go to hell. You can look down from heaven and laugh at 'em!"

What Is Moral?

A YouTuber in Australia posed a number of dilemmas to me and asked what I thought the moral action would be in each case. They were the type of dilemma that really has no right answer because in no case is there a satisfactory resolution. One of the questions was about "Sophie's Choice," whether any choice she made could be moral. What follows are some of his later questions and my responses.

>>" I wonder if you may expand on your point about the specific examples given not being moral issues, to stop any further confusion (if you see any)? "<<

I'll try. As I said before, I think questions of this kind are idle because they really allow no good result. You can make yourself crazy with exercises like this and wind up no wiser than when you started, because there simply IS no correct answer. Or, it’s entirely possible that you are a deeper thinker than I am. I say that without irony or rancor. Your mind seems to have a facility for philosophy that mine simply doesn’t. I get bogged down mentally in philosophical questions, and I’m never sure that I’ve addressed them well enough.

>>”Ultimately I would say moral decisions are inconveniently subjective (observing how even those with supposedly objective versions of morality, like the religious, wax and wane is evidence for that). “<<

I think moral questions are always subjective. For there to be an objective morality there must be one correct answer dictated by authority. If you accept that, you are then left with the question, “whose authority?” If you rely on the authority of a god, you should consider that for that god – that law GIVER - all answers must of necessity be subjective, since he/she/it answers to no other authority.

Religious people tell me that god decides what is good and what is evil. Supposing that is true, then to god, there really is no difference. God could as easily define an action as good that we now take for evil and vice versa. The entire concept of good and evil becomes moot. Good is good because god says so.

The foregoing is my clumsy paraphrase of Bertrand Russell. But I think it sums up the objective vs subjective idea.

I mentioned in another video that the word “moral” comes from a Latin root meaning “custom.” The word “ethics” comes from the Greek “ethos,” which means the same thing. Human beings are social animals with enough intelligence to realize that their ultimate well being depends on their relationship with their fellow creatures. We get along best when we make decisions based on what we perceive to be the greatest good for the social network in which we live.

There are, of course, pitfalls in a subjective morality. For some tribal peoples the custom demands hunting of rival tribes, taking heads as trophies of their power and even eating their enemies as a means of gaining their strength symbolically. Such an “ethic” might actually work in societies that are small enough and remote enough, and, indeed, did work for many centuries in places like Borneo.

In my first video on whether the Prophet Muhammad was a pedophile I opined that, for his time, when increasing the tribe was of paramount importance, it might have been reasonable for girls to be married as soon as they had entered puberty. That Aisha was only nine makes her just a child in a modern person’s understanding, whether she had menstruated or not. But 1400 years ago, assuming she had entered puberty and was capable of conceiving, that fact would have been the ONLY thing considered. Those people knew nothing of child psychology, nor of the physical damage that could result from that kind of union. I mentioned that the average age for girls to be married at the time of the alleged Jesus’ birth was about 13, the normal time for the onset of puberty. That would be considered immoral today, because our society’s customs are based on greater knowledge than those people possessed.

The point is that morality may change with the degree of a society’s knowledge. It is a matter of custom. I did point out that “thighing” was a different matter, and in my opinion, was always wrong. The custom of every civilized society has been to protect, not abuse its children. Many Muslims have told me that that practice was never allowed, while others admitted that it was long ago. Others, Sunnis, have told me that only Shiites ever did such dreadful things, and that “they aren’t real Muslims anyway.” That, of course sounds like a Baptist telling me that a Catholic is not a “true” Christian.

I seem to have gotten off the track. Back to your message.

>>”Also, it may seem that we are bound to be savages, each with totally incompatible ideas about how to run a community and we therefore are unable to fairly make decisions, but thankfully we are blessed with the idea of democratic society. This fortunately allows a general consensus to be reached on a code of conduct (or on more specific issues) for a group; where each member agrees to abide by these rules if they are to be a part of it, thus providing some objective law”<<

That code of conduct is arrived at by purely subjective means. Again, if obedience to authority, whether that authority is agreed upon democratically or not, can be called objective, it is still only objective in the sense that it is followed unquestioningly. Following the law is objective, while making the law, in a democratic society, at least, is subjective. Morality, if it can be said to exist at all, falls somewhere in the gap between the two.

>>"A simplified version of my requirements would be that the aim in any decision is to maximize the amount of future pleasure for all those involved. Most of us value our lives based on the amount of joy we can cram in, so a moral ideal which takes the length of life and its quality into account, seems appropriate. "<<

I can agree with this definition. I dumbed it down a little in a video by saying that what is moral does good while what is immoral does harm. Simplistic, of course, but to the point. One can always get an argument, though. Not everyone agrees on what is harmful, for example.

The best moral statement, to my mind, is still what we know as the golden rule. Christians will jump on that statement and claim that their Christ said it. But they neglect to mention (or don't know) that Confucius said the same thing in slightly different words five centuries before the birth of the alleged Jesus. You can also count on some person pointing out that if you are a Masochist and like painful things done to you, you might follow the rule, but do harm. You will never argue morality in any form without dissent from someone. I guess that's part of what makes life interesting.

Frankly, if there were an afterlife in a heaven of utter bliss, with no problems, no dissent, everyone thinking, feeling and doing the same thing, I wouldn't want to go there. I called it the Eternal Ennui. Boredom that lasts forever!