Ep. 106: Is pro-life compatible with Christianity?

[mitchellmckain]

The hypocricy comes in when Humanists insist that they value all "persons" equally, and then immediately talk about a heiarchy, and a guide for determining human worth.

I value my pet cat and my pet dog equally. But I treat them differently, and expect different things from them because...well one is a cat and the other is a dog. I value two of my friends equally but I socialize with them differently because they have different personalities. Similarly humanists value all persons equally but treat them differently because each is a different person. What's so hypo-critic about this?

Am I or one of you two missing something here? I was under the impression that value and worth refer to the same thing.

I suppose that sayak means to dispute yjoeyh's claim that humanists talk about "a heiarchy and guide for determining human worth" and so perhaps yjoeyh needs to substantiate his claim and show us where humanists are doing what he claims, so that we can see for ourselves if this represents "determining human worth" or simply treating people differently because their differences make this appropriate.

[crazylegsmurphy]

What disappointed me in this episode was that, other than the few times Emery brought it up, almost the entire conversation took place without mentioning the women involved.

Why is it that the moment that a woman gets pregnant, Christians seem to forget that she is still a person? Why is it that Christians are so concerned with the baby, but seem to care very little what the circumstances are for these women?

Until we have the technology to "beam" babies into the wombs of women willing to take on this burden, I can't see how anyone is justified in telling another person what the can, and can't do with their body.

[Keep The Reason]

I can't see how anyone is justified in telling another person what the can, and can't do with their body.

Well, we do tell people what they can and can't do with their bodies, all the time. As usual, we are wildly inconsistent about it unless you see the core issue at hand. For instance, women cannot legally be prostitutes in most places,using their bodies for pleasure-- where actual injuries are practically nil. But men are championed and paid obscenely high amounts to be football players, prizefighters, etc. even though injuries are guaranteed. Both are using their bodies directly, for the pleasure of others.

The core issue is, of course, sexuality. Granting women the rights of their full sexuality takes it out of the hands of men controlling them, and men are incredibly threatened by this. And this impulse got encoded by the patriarchal religions we now suffer under. The worst of these, of course, is Islam. But Christianity has just figured out how to be more subtle about it, so much so that a mega organization of almost exclusive male membership, celibate at that-- the Catholic Church -- is able to literally dictate the sexuality and reproductive destiny of billions of people, who happily go along with this inane, and insane, model.

[Keep The Reason]

Sorry, but that sounds directly self-contradictory. I get that Humanists value all humans... but equally? Is it not better to say that Humanists assign a minimal value to all persons, and then scale the value up kind of like your example of autonomy?

Where did you get this idea from? And if you want to talk about scaling human value, maybe the focus should be on how theists value those who are in their in-group, versus those in the out-group. I mean after all, who is the greatest divider of human value but Yahweh and Yeshua in the bible?

[sayak]

Hi,
So I wanted a clarification. What is the criteria of deciding human person-hood (who has rights etc.) for humanist?

a) Is it the presence of a brain activity in the brain. Then if (though experiment) there is a human with no brain activity now (due to accident) but did have before and could again have in future (medical intervention, like neural regrowth say) then would we say that the person died in the middle? And when such a medical intervention is developed, do the society have a moral obligation to resuscitate the brain dead person if possible? And the moral obligation stems from the right to life the person has gotten when he was living. Would this analysis be correct?

b) And the reason this right does not extend to fetus is that the person that the fetus would be did not pre-exist its non-person existence in the womb now. So there were no previous rights that could carry over to its current state.

I was musing on the social contract and the original position as defined by Rawls, and was wondering if once the veil of ignorance lifted one could find oneself in the position of that brain dead guy or as a fetus or not. Since rights there stem from game theory principles what you could become influences the contract one would get.

[Keep The Reason]

a) Is it the presence of a brain activity in the brain.

The brain, to me, is the thing that most defines our "humanness".

Then if (though experiment) there is a human with no brain activity now (due to accident) but did have before and could again have in future (medical intervention, like neural regrowth say) then would we say that the person died in the middle?

Well, if "died" means "life ended" then obviously no because they were still alive. But in terms of being "brain dead" then yeah, sure (that's why we have the differentiating term, "brain dead".

And when such a medical intervention is developed, do the society have a moral obligation to resuscitate the brain dead person if possible? And the moral obligation stems from the right to life the person has gotten when he was living. Would this analysis be correct?

As noted, it should be one's personal choice, though there are gray areas. If you're brought to the ER after an accident, then the default is try to save the life because most people do want to live. But if it's during some illness or it would mean a decades-long debilitating vegitative state, then that is up to the perosn to decide.

b) And the reason this right does not extend to fetus is that the person that the fetus would be did not pre-exist its non-person existence in the womb now. So there were no previous rights that could carry over to its current state.

I would be inclined to agree with this.

I was musing on the social contract and the original position as defined by Rawls, and was wondering if once the veil of ignorance lifted one could find oneself in the position of that brain dead guy or as a fetus or not. Since rights there stem from game theory principles what you could become influences the contract one would get.

Well if I were the breain dead guy it would not matter any more. I'd be brain dead and have no volition in the matter. But I let my significant others know what my disposition is to be, and they have let me, so it's covered. If others do the same, the "problem" vanishes.

[mitchellmckain]

Hi,
So I wanted a clarification. What is the criteria of deciding human person-hood (who has rights etc.) for humanist?

a) Is it the presence of a brain activity in the brain. Then if (though experiment) there is a human with no brain activity now (due to accident) but did have before and could again have in future (medical intervention, like neural regrowth say) then would we say that the person died in the middle?

No we would not. The legal definition of death requires that there be no possibility of recovery.

And when such a medical intervention is developed, do the society have a moral obligation to resuscitate the brain dead person if possible? And the moral obligation stems from the right to life the person has gotten when he was living. Would this analysis be correct?

I don't think this is logically supportable. There has to be limits to how far we are obligated to go to extend life. We are bankrupting ourselves expending increasing amounts to extend life incrementally.

b) And the reason this right does not extend to fetus is that the person that the fetus would be did not pre-exist its non-person existence in the womb now. So there were no previous rights that could carry over to its current state.

The zygote is certainly not a human being therefore it is quite reasonable to draw a line somewhere, before which the woman has a right to terminate the pregancy. This is an absolute necessity as long as there are victims of rape and the embryo cannot be removed to have a life of their own apart from the woman.

I was musing on the social contract and the original position as defined by Rawls, and was wondering if once the veil of ignorance lifted one could find oneself in the position of that brain dead guy or as a fetus or not. Since rights there stem from game theory principles what you could become influences the contract one would get.

eh? I cannot make heads or tails of this. Would you mind examining this and trying to say that again?

[yjoeyh]

Why is it that the moment that a woman gets pregnant, Christians seem to forget that she is still a person? Why is it that Christians are so concerned with the baby, but seem to care very little what the circumstances are for these women?

I agree completely. This is part of the hypocrisy of pro-life Christians indeed.

Until we have the technology to "beam" babies into the wombs of women willing to take on this burden, I can't see how anyone is justified in telling another person what the can, and can't do with their body.

Now there I do not agree. We tell people what they can and cannot do with their bodies all the time, so this kind of reasoning is also hypocritical.Telling other people what they can and cannot do is part of what governments, societies, religion, families, and social interaction in general does. Now we have to decide if we want to live in a society where freedoms are so tightly controlled that a persons decision to have a child or not is so far down on the list that quibbles over the medical and scientific definitions of life in an early-term pregnancy takes precedence. I don't want to live in that kind of a society, or practice that kind of a religion. But such meaningless statements like, " I can't see how anyone is justified in telling another person what the can, and can't do with their body." is not a very good way of making that argument, because I think most people can see very easily how we can, do and should do that kind of thing.

[yjoeyh]

Where did you get this idea from?

From observation. Do you disagree?

And if you want to talk about scaling human value, maybe the focus should be on how theists value those who are in their in-group, versus those in the out-group. I mean after all, who is the greatest divider of human value but Yahweh and Yeshua in the bible?

Now you're on the right track. I already know that theists tend to practice favoritism and bigotry, so no, i don't want to focus on that. It's a tired subject. But what about how God values human life? That's a good question, and rather interesting, I think. The Bible doesn't seem to indicate that God values all people the same, but a lot of people seem to make him out to be absolutely impartial. Why is that?

[Keep The Reason]

From observation. Do you disagree?

Yeah. As a humanist I don't have a scale of the worth of a human being. But I mean a human being not a potential human being.

But what about how God values human life? That's a good question, and rather interesting, I think. The Bible doesn't seem to indicate that God values all people the same, but a lot of people seem to make him out to be absolutely impartial. Why is that?

I think the whole issue of god and the concepts of "life and death" is turned around in Abrahamic theology.

If the god of the bible exists (to play out the thought experiment), then life to him is really death-- a departure of the human soul from him. A god like Yahweh would see death as being the real life, which is why Yeshua goes around saying this life is transitory, unimportant, and the real life is yet to come. So Yahweh's value of human life is actually nil, zero, naught. It doesn't much matter to him about human life because that's just a way station. All he says is you have to believe "this" (Yeshua, in the case of Christianity) in order to get on the train.

Now obviously, I don't believe any of this describes how things are, but if the biblical god were to be real, this is the way things would be.

[yjoeyh]

Yeah. As a humanist I don't have a scale of the worth of a human being. But I mean a human being not a potential human being.

Right, but I'm talking more about when it gets past the point where you would no longer view it as a potential human being, but an actual one. What about a woman who is nine months pregnant, and finds out there is a 90% chance she will die unless she has an late-term abortion, yet the little one is perfectly healthy otherwise? Do you still consider it a 'potential' human being at this stage or a an actual human being?
If you consider them an equally valuable human being, could you justify prioritizing a 90% risk of a human death with 100% risk of a human death?

[sayak]

I was musing on the social contract and the original position as defined by Rawls, and was wondering if once the veil of ignorance lifted one could find oneself in the position of that brain dead guy or as a fetus or not. Since rights there stem from game theory principles what you could become influences the contract one would get.

eh? I cannot make heads or tails of this. Would you mind examining this and trying to say that again?

Just as a brief crash course, I was referring to the social contract theory of Justice developed by John Rawls.This theory happens to be the most famous of all social contract based theories on political and social morality developed yet. It begins with all individuals who would form the part of the society begin from a veil of ignorance where they do not yet know what their position in life would be or what their talent/gender/race etc. would be. In this situation they know very little of their particular life-situation but as much as possible about human beings in general. At this point they begin bargaining for an appropriate "social contract system" of rights, rules and obligations. The particular form of society that is then constructed is construed by Rawls as the "just" form of social contract based society. They would want to bargain for a system that overall is stable and prosperous but also such that in whatever situation they find themselves in when they "awake" in actual society they have a good shot at the "pursuit of their desires"...whatever those happen to be.
The specific problem I was discussing are which situations are allowable after the veil is lifted. If early fetus were an allowable position then pro-choice is in trouble. Otherwise its fine...for this structure at least.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/

Keep the Reason :- Thanks for your replies. It clarifies the position. Good.

Moving on to how animal rights work under social contract....that's another thread.

The pro-life Christian position is based on the assumption that human being begins at conception. Why hold to such a position. Why not say that the soul begins to interact with the material world within the body only when the brain begins to show activity. Otherwise how can brain dead people be dead? I fail to see why orthodox Christian position is so overwhelmingly anti-abortion...biblical basis please?

[sayak]

Yeah. As a humanist I don't have a scale of the worth of a human being. But I mean a human being not a potential human being.

Right, but I'm talking more about when it gets past the point where you would no longer view it as a potential human being, but an actual one. What about a woman who is nine months pregnant, and finds out there is a 90% chance she will die unless she has an late-term abortion, yet the little one is perfectly healthy otherwise? Do you still consider it a 'potential' human being at this stage or a an actual human being?
If you consider them an equally valuable human being, could you justify prioritizing a 90% risk of a human death with 100% risk of a human death?

Since we will be going into a debate whether the late term fetus has accrued as much weight in his right to life as his fully adult mother, lets take a worthier example.

If there is one pill and you can give it to one person only, either the 21 year old mother or her new born infant. Both die without it. But whoever takes the pill will live. Who gets it and how?
a) should there be a lottery? Or should the mother get it.

Views?

Joey, advise reading Rawls to understand what equality implies in secular ethical theory.See the link in my previous post. Other political philosophies (singer or sandel) also work. Best,

[mitchellmckain]

I was musing on the social contract and the original position as defined by Rawls, and was wondering if once the veil of ignorance lifted one could find oneself in the position of that brain dead guy or as a fetus or not. Since rights there stem from game theory principles what you could become influences the contract one would get.

eh? I cannot make heads or tails of this. Would you mind examining this and trying to say that again?

Just as a brief crash course, I was referring to the social contract theory of Justice developed by John Rawls.This theory happens to be the most famous of all social contract based theories on political and social morality developed yet. It begins with all individuals who would form the part of the society begin from a veil of ignorance where they do not yet know what their position in life would be or what their talent/gender/race etc. would be. In this situation they know very little of their particular life-situation but as much as possible about human beings in general. At this point they begin bargaining for an appropriate "social contract system" of rights, rules and obligations. The particular form of society that is then constructed is construed by Rawls as the "just" form of social contract based society. They would want to bargain for a system that overall is stable and prosperous but also such that in whatever situation they find themselves in when they "awake" in actual society they have a good shot at the "pursuit of their desires"...whatever those happen to be.
The specific problem I was discussing are which situations are allowable after the veil is lifted. If early fetus were an allowable position then pro-choice is in trouble. Otherwise its fine...for this structure at least.

Ok then this would have to be limited by what is consistent with the very idea of becoming, which means that the result has to in some sense still be the same person. So for example becoming a rock should be excluded because there is no sense in which I can imagine that the rock could be me. So yes I can imagine such superficial changes such as race and gender, but a brain dead body or an embryo without a fully functioning brain are not a situation in which I consider myself existent. And so any inclusion of these possibilites in the parameters of the setup would be 100% equivalent to the possibility that I would not be a member of this society at all and thus it would have no bearing whatsoever on the resulting social contract that I would approve. Thus I would continue to uphold the rights of the rape victim to reclaim control of her life and repudiate the imposition upon them any personal ideologies that rocks, animals, cancer cells or zygotes are human beings.

Also one should notice that this idea will also run into trouble when it comes to things that are a matter of prefernce or choice because I don't think that is very consistent with the idea of becoming except perhaps as an appeal to people to consider the possibility that they can change their mind about things or that their children might have different preferences or make different choices. I even considered requiring people to act out different choices but since this isn't authentic it fails to adequately capture legitimate expectations. For example a Christian being asked to act as a Muslim really wouldn't have the same sentiments as a Muslim and is likely to except compromises to Islamic ideals and traditions that Muslim would not.

The pro-life Christian position is based on the assumption that human being begins at conception. Why hold to such a position. Why not say that the soul begins to interact with the material world within the body only when the brain begins to show activity. Otherwise how can brain dead people be dead? I fail to see why orthodox Christian position is so overwhelmingly anti-abortion...biblical basis please?

Frankly I often think it just an EXCUSE to manufacture a self-righteous stand against people who do not agree with them. But perhaps that isn't really fair. In any case, I certainly don't think it logically consistent with scientific knowledge but then that certainly isn't the only issue on which this is the case, is it?

[Keep The Reason]

What about a woman who is nine months pregnant, and finds out there is a 90% chance she will die unless she has an late-term abortion, yet the little one is perfectly healthy otherwise? Do you still consider it a 'potential' human being at this stage or a an actual human being?
If you consider them an equally valuable human being, could you justify prioritizing a 90% risk of a human death with 100% risk of a human death?

Well, frankly, this is not a very well thought out question. I mean, what defines "risk"? Maybe on the way home the mother will be killed in a car wreck, or the newborn will. Maybe we should outlaw them going home in cars. And the idea that a woman will die in the 9th month unless there is an abortion? Come on, this isn't 1822. A simple Caesarian would solve that. A baby in utero at 9 months is obviously a person. That doesn't mean a zygote at 9 hours is the same thing.

I'm not in favor of late term abortions. I would draw the line at brain activity, awareness and ability to feel and process pain. Obviously this gets more challenging as the fetus develops, but I can't imagine a scenario wherein a 9 th month pregnancy needs to be ended for the health of the mother. You know, maybe weird, rare one-offs, like the mother s shot and it hits the fetus and the baby is dying inside her anyway. But really, how often does this ever happen?