I suspect one reason some people think like this meme depicts above is because they don't have children. See declining birth rates in the US and other western nations. It's as if a baby is something "other" to them. I guess more like knowledge by description than knowledge by acquaintance. Anyway, to these people it may seem like it's an abstract debate, without significant personal stakes. That is, it's a debate between "a person with rights" vs. "a woman's right to bodily autonomy" as if "rights" is the sole or central concern, while our "humanness" is something incidental or secondary. As if "rights" are conferred by one group of human beings to another group of human beings, so it's ultimately human beings who decide which "rights" are more fundamental. They can't seem to appreciate that we're dealing with human beings who, simply by virtue of being human, have inherent or innate rights.
At best, they might see kids around them. However, they may see kids, but do they truly see kids? I know too many people or couples who "can't stand kids". Who don't wish to be around kids let alone have kids. People who are more career-minded than family-minded. (I'm referring to childless couples by choice, not childless couples who longed for children, but sadly never could have children due to infertility or other reasons.)
At the same time, it's easier to kill someone if the killer doesn't consider their victim a human being. Or considers them a lesser kind of human being. Like when Germans began to see the Jews as rats or vermin (cf. Kafka's Metamorphosis, Spiegelman's Maus). Like masters seeing slaves as their inferiors. Or like considering babies (at the embryonic or fetal stage of life) mere "clumps of cells".
People can de-God God by failing to esteem God as he ought to be esteemed, but people can also de-humanize humans by failing to esteem humans as we ought to be esteemed. Human beings aren't God, of course, but we're not a chunk of randomly assembled molecules in an aqueous solution either.
Hawk--
ReplyDeleteWhere does anybody get the notion that bodily autonomy has no legal limitations?
One cannot request a surgeon to remove his kidney do that he can sell it.
A patient with Body Integrity Identity Disorder will not have his request for the removal of his left arm honored.
For the separation of adult conjoined twins to advance, both must give consent. [It's plain silly even to contemplate one of the twins demanding to be separated, let alone one of them demanding that it happen RIGHT NOW (rather than wait nine months when the other twin will have recuperated from heart surgery and have a much better chance at surviving the separation)].
Why do pro-choice "arguments" always seem to have so little there, there? They almost always seem to be based on pure emotion.
Thanks, Eric! Some pro-abortion arguments are, like you said, quite contradictory or illogical or at least built on highly contentious premises.
DeleteAre you aware of anybody on that side who DOES provide fairly reasonable arguments? It's important, I think, to know our opponents' strongest defenses.
DeleteI remember going to hear Sarah Weddington speak a long, long time ago. (She argued Roe v. Wade before the Supreme Court.)
What she said the principal question was is the following: When do rights attach to the fetus? (And not: When does it start living or functioning in such and such a manner?)
She talked about how the society as a whole celebrates birthdays, not conception days. And how, in general, we do not throw funerals for miscarriages.
Now, of course, a good friend of mine did indeed hold a funeral--and burial--for her miscarried child. And I know of many women, and men for that matter, who grieve deeply over a failed pregnancy. Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge that it is, at least, a logical argument.
Thanks, Eric. That's a good point. I too have heard of people who have held funerals for miscarriages, though I don't think I've ever known anyone in my life who has. Of course, many miscarriages occur without the mother even realizing she was pregnant in the first place. Still, it's a good point about the need to create a culture which values life in its fullness. By the way, I wrote about miscarriages here, though I haven't re-read what I wrote years ago, but hopefully it's still decent.
DeleteI guess the "best" arguments I've seen are the ones dealt with in The Ethics of Abortion (2nd ed.) by the Catholic philosopher Christopher Kaczor. Of course, I think Kaczor handily deals with them, so I don't think they're successful, but anyway there are several sophisticated arguments there.