Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Nice evil

Is the "common man" a "moral monster"? Hilary White on "nice evil."

HT: TUAD.

15 comments:

  1. Hi Patrick,

    If you would please, could you e-mail me at truthunites@hotmail.com?

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  2. The problem with this post is that most people who support legal abortion don't really consider a very young fetus a "person", and they thus don't consider removing a barely fertilized egg to be "murder".

    Support for abortion erodes as the fetus develops. Fewer people, I'm certain, believe that PBA should be legal than do abortion within the first trimester.

    A very young fetus is without many of the fundamental characteristics of what we medically and traditionally consider to be "alive": things like a brain stem, consciousness, a functioning heart. So in most people's minds, terminating a pregnancy very early is no more murder than killing a sperm cell. It's not on the level of throwing a full-grown adult into an oven.

    You can quibble with the truth of whether a fetus that young is truly a fully human person, but what I'm saying is that many people don't consider it to be the case.

    Of course, there are exceptions like Peter Singer who believes you can terminate a pregnancy two months after delivery.

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  3. James said,

    The problem with this post is that most people who support legal abortion don't really consider a very young fetus a "person", and they thus don't consider removing a barely fertilized egg to be "murder".

    How is that a problem, James? If Adolf Eichmann didn't consider Jews to be persons or to have the full rights of persons you're saying he wouldn't be a moral monster?

    A very young fetus is without many of the fundamental characteristics of what we medically and traditionally consider to be "alive": things like a brain stem, consciousness, a functioning heart. So in most people's minds, terminating a pregnancy very early is no more murder than killing a sperm cell. It's not on the level of throwing a full-grown adult into an oven.

    That the "very young fetus" is alive is obvious. I wasn't aware anyone argued that the very young fetus was non-living.

    In a way, you seem to be a demonstration of Hilary White's point when she talks about the "'personally opposed but…' culture."

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  4. James said:
    ---
    The problem with this post is that most people who support legal abortion don't really consider a very young fetus a "person", and they thus don't consider removing a barely fertilized egg to be "murder".
    ---

    Of course, "person" isn't the relevant issue. The question is whether the unborn is a human being or not.

    "Personhood" has always been abused in legal works. In addition to the points Jonathan mentioned, the U.S. Constitution once defined a slave as 3/5ths of a person.

    It's also why you won't ever find a person rights organization. It's always human rights that we deal with.

    And it's really a simple thing. If the unborn fetus isn't a human being, then no justification is needed to terminate the preganancy. But if it is a human being, then there are very few justifications left (i.e., the same justifications for killing any other human being, and most of those wouldn't apply to the unborn).

    James said:
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    A very young fetus is without many of the fundamental characteristics of what we medically and traditionally consider to be "alive": things like a brain stem, consciousness, a functioning heart.
    ---

    Those things aren't used to consider whether something is alive. Life is scientifically determined by asking whether something grows, changes, has a metabolism, and reacts to stimuli in the environment. This is why single-cell bacteria, or the fungus behind your septic tank, or moss on a rock are considered alive.

    James said:
    ---
    So in most people's minds, terminating a pregnancy very early is no more murder than killing a sperm cell. It's not on the level of throwing a full-grown adult into an oven.
    ---

    But of course a sperm cell isn't a human being, whereas a fetus is a human being. This is why the generic term "fetus" isn't appropriate to use. There are different kinds of fetuses. Mice have mouse fetuses. Dogs have dog fetuses. Monkeys have monkey fetuses. Humans have human fetuses.

    And it's pretty simple to prove: you cannot interchange a mouse fetus with a dog fetus or a human fetus. They are distinct from one another. Likewise, you can't interchange a fetus with a sperm cell.

    James said:
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    You can quibble with the truth of whether a fetus that young is truly a fully human person...
    ---

    Possibly, but you cannot quibble that it's a human being at a specific state of development. And if you want to kill a human being, you have to justify doing so.

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  5. "But of course a sperm cell isn't a human being, whereas a fetus is a human being."

    For the sake of argument, let's stick with the fertilized egg for a week or two after conception. There is no head, no brain stem, no conscious (or unconscious) thought. There is no heart. It's a mass of cells.

    Are you saying that that mass of cells should enjoy the same Constitutional protections as you do?

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  6. James said,

    Are you saying that that mass of cells should enjoy the same Constitutional protections as you do?

    Are you saying that less developed persons should not enjoy the same constitutional protections as more fully developed persons?

    (P.S. In a sense you're a mass of cells too, James. Of course, neither you nor the week old concepti are merely a mass of cells. So your point of it being a "mass of cells" is either trivial or question begging.)

    **Corrected typos

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  7. That reminds me of a comment Doug Wilson made to Sam Harris in 'Letter from a Christian Citizen', quoting Dr Suess: "a person's a person, no matter how small."

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  8. Jonathan and Peter, you believe in the soul, yes?

    Does a body with a soul have the same value as one without it?

    There has been some disagreement throughout early Church history in terms of when "ensoulment" occurs (including Augustine, Aquinas and Gratian).

    Again, I'm not arguing for PBA (which is clearly murder). I'm simply suggesting that when one becomes truly "human" is not universally agreed upon (even among some of the most respected Christian theologians.

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  9. James said:
    ---
    It's a mass of cells.
    ---

    All humans are a mass of cells.

    You said:
    ---
    Are you saying that that mass of cells should enjoy the same Constitutional protections as you do?
    ---

    Setting aside the issue of "mass of cells," I look at this as far more basic than the Constitution. Every human being has human rights. In order to take away those human rights, one must provide proper justification.

    Thus, I maintain that in order to terminate a pregnancy, one must provide a moral justification for doing so; just as terminating an adult mass of cells requires a moral justification.

    The Constitution deals with whether or not its legal; but things can be un-Constitutional and moral, or they can be Constitutional and immoral. Nevertheless, to the extent that the Constitution seeks to be moral, then yes, the unborn should have basic Constitutional rights just like everyone else.

    You asked:
    ---
    Jonathan and Peter, you believe in the soul, yes?

    Does a body with a soul have the same value as one without it?
    ---

    First, I'm sure you're defining soul differently than I would. I define the soul as the entire human, which is a synthesis of body and spirit. As such, I disagree that a body cannot have a "soul"; but rather that the spirit can be absent from the body for a time, but only to the point of the resurrection.

    I believe, therefore, that substituting the word "spirit" for "soul" in your question should suffice for looking at my own meaning (of which, I should note, I am not overly dogmatic--I do have reasons for these definitions, but they are not relevant to our particular discussion right now).

    In any case, you're not looking at the distinction properly. When you say "consider the body without the soul/spirit" then I maintain that you're looking at a dead body; yet an unborn human fetus is hardly dead. Even if the unborn had no spiritual aspect to its being, s/he is not equivalent to a corpse.

    You said:
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    I'm simply suggesting that when one becomes truly "human" is not universally agreed upon (even among some of the most respected Christian theologians.
    ---

    On the contrary, when one becomes "human" is not in dispute at all. It happens at conception. What's in dispute is whether that human being has the same rights as another human being, and the distinctions are drawn in the artificial realm of personhood, not being.

    A human fetus must be a human fetus. You cannot interchange a human fetus with any other object and maintain its ontology.

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  10. James said:
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    Again, I'm not arguing for PBA (which is clearly murder).
    ---

    Incidentally, I am glad that you do see PBA as being clearly murder.

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  11. James said:

    A very young fetus is without many of the fundamental characteristics of what we medically and traditionally consider to be "alive": things like a brain stem, consciousness, a functioning heart. So in most people's minds, terminating a pregnancy very early is no more murder than killing a sperm cell. It's not on the level of throwing a full-grown adult into an oven.

    and

    For the sake of argument, let's stick with the fertilized egg for a week or two after conception. There is no head, no brain stem, no conscious (or unconscious) thought. There is no heart. It's a mass of cells.

    Are you saying that that mass of cells should enjoy the same Constitutional protections as you do?


    Jonathan and Peter have already responded well to James.

    I'd add a few things:

    1. It doesn't matter what "most people" think in this case. "Most people" aren't educated in subjects like embryology or neuroscience or ethics or philosophy or theology. What's more important is what people trained in such fields argue. Moreover, what matters more is whether the arguments made by the experts themselves are reasonable arguments since experts can also make poor arguments. Of course, it goes without saying what matters most of all is what Scripture teaches. It'd be beneficial to look at standard commentaries on the relevant biblical passages for starters.

    2. Let's drop the rather fuzzy and loose "trimester" business. It's better to deal a bit more specifically.

    Embryo refers to the first eight weeks of development in an approximately 40 week gestational period, while fetus refers to the period starting at the end of the eight weeks.

    When James refers to a "very young fetus," he's implying it might be fine to terminate a nine week old "mass of cells."

    However, by the end of the embryonic period, over 90% of the structures which comprise the adult human have been established and can be distinguished. This includes the brain and the heart. Not to mention the foundation for the lungs and respiratory tract. In fact, the ectoderm including the neuroectoderm and neural tube, which is the immediate precursor to the central nervous system (e.g. brain), forms in the third week around day 21-22. Similarly the heart begins to form around this time too. It begins as a pair of tubes which later fuse. The heart starts to beat around day 22.

    For example, check out the Carnegie stages which cover the embryonic period - see stage 23. Or check out this photo which is a fetus at the end of its eighth week and moving into its ninth week.

    So, first, "medically" speaking a "very young fetus" does have a "brain" and "heart."

    But secondly keep in mind images of a "very young fetus" like the ones in Carnegie stage 23 or here since this is what James is implying is fine to terminate.

    And, obviously, we could get more specific, but at least this is better than the "first trimester" label.

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  12. 3. A zygote is indeed quite different from spermatozoa or sperm. For one thing, sperm are haploid cells which means they have half the complement of chromosomes (23), while zygotes are diploid cells and have the full number of chromosomes (46).

    As such, a zygote is formed by the union of the father and mother's sex cells i.e. the sperm and ovum at fertilization. The zygote has its own set of chromosomes which are unique from either of its parents' set of chromosomes. So it's not as if the zygote is a cell which is part of the mother or father like one of their somatic cells might be. Again, a zygote has its own unique DNA. This too is different from the DNA of sperm which only contain half the DNA of the male parent.

    "[T]erminating a pregnancy very early is no more murder than killing a sperm cell" is rather disanalogous, to put it mildly.

    4. Prior to and during the process of fertilization, an ovum is in a sense ejected from the mother's body once every 28 days in the process of ovulation in the female menstrual cycle, while sperm are thwarted from entering into the uterus and thus to the Fallopian tubes by a series of defenses in the woman's body. (Of course, sperm are built to overcome those defenses - e.g. capacitation.)

    However, once an egg is fertilized by a sperm, and a zygote is created, the woman's body suppresses its defense and other related mechanisms which would cause the zygote to be ejected as a foreign body, and instead begins to nourish and grow it (e.g. via the placenta). Well, until around 40 weeks when the woman's body changes again and begins to push the baby out. Indeed the inevitable destiny is to be distinct and emerge from the mother's womb. So during the 40 weeks the woman's body treats the zygote-embryo-fetus as distinct from her own body.

    In any case, the implication here is that the baby is not merely a part of the woman's body. It's an entity unto itself, one which is dependent on but distinct from the mother.

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  13. 5. Likewise, as should be obvious by now, a "week or two after conception" is vague. After all, there are a lot of significant embryological changes within the first two weeks post-conception, changes which lay the foundation for the "head," "brain stem," etc.

    One can't take a snapshot in isolation and state that since there's no brain or heart as we know it at this stage, then the zygote or embryo or fetus is nothing more than a mass of cells.

    Of course, I could say much more with regard to the embryological side of things, but I'll stop for now.

    Instead I'll just quote scientists and embryologists Keith Moore and Vid Persaud: "Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmennt) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo)."

    6. Generally, neuroscientists attribute the cortex to conscious thought. They cite cases like Phineas Gage. Further they cite the evolutionary development of the human brain (e.g. the brainstem is supposedly the most primitive area of our brain since, among other things, it's responsible for "primitive" functions such as control of heart rate and breathing and so on). But is consciousness limited to the cerebral cortex?

    Anyway, there's still tremendous debate over adult consciousness as well as in the "formation" of consciousness from the unborn to baby and child and onwards. We have anatomical, physiological, behavioral, and other data, but it's difficult to interpret the data. How do we test for conssciousness? How do we define consciousness? One possibility seems to be pain. Can a fetus feel pain? When? To what extent? Etc. But even this is hotly contested. Besides, pain is hardly a necessary let alone sufficient criteria for consciousness since some people who are conscious don't feel pain (e.g. lepers). Other criteria such as rationality and intelligence are hard to measure too. Just witness debates over, say, IQ tests. Or if we go with emotions then witness the debates over EQ tests. And on and on we go.

    So to say an embryo or fetus doesn't have consciousness may or may not be true but I'd think it's premature at this point.

    Of course, consciousness itself is hardly a sufficient criteria for personhood. It's not as if a mentally retarded person is less a person than a mentally healthy person.

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  14. Sorry, I dashed off the last bit as I was in a hurry at the time, and spotted a couple of (I think minor) errors on re-reading it - mainly in #6.

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  15. TUAD said:

    If you would please, could you e-mail me at truthunites@hotmail.com?

    I've emailed you.

    Or you can email me at patrickchan at fastmail.fm if you'd like.

    Thanks.

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