Mercy-killing and wedge issues

Let's begin with two examples, one fictional and the other real:

A. At a mine cave-in, Joe's friend Seth Pruitt stands over the body of a man he admits to having euthanized. The man was mortally injured, in agony, and begging to be put out of his misery. Seth swears Joe to secrecy, leaving Joe to struggle with his conscience, and decide if it's right to keep the secret. "The Quality of Mercy," Bonanza (Season 5 Episode 9).

B. Years ago I read about a father and sons who were horribly burned when the garage that were working in exploded. They weren't killed instantly. They were mortally burned and die hours later at the hospital. That's not a case of euthanasia, but for those who support euthanasia, it's a good candidate to illustrate the issues.

1. On the one hand there are ethicists, generally Christian, who think euthanasia is intrinsically wrong. For convenience, let's call it the deontologist position. 

One apparent advantage of the deontologist position is that it seems to be simpler to apply. It forbids mercy killing under any circumstances. I'll revisit the question of whether it avoids the complications and imponderables of the alternative position momentarily. 

2. In addition to the argument from principle, the deontologist is concerned that once you open the door a crack for mercy killing under any circumstances, that becomes a wedge issue or wedge tactic which will be exploited. And, indeed, that's a legitimate and very realistic concern. Once euthanasia is permitted, there are those who continually extent and expand the scope of candidates for euthanasia. A mania for killing ensues. This has been documented by Wesley J. Smith: https://www.discovery.org/c/human-exceptionalism/

3. On the other hand are ethicists who think euthanasia is permissible in certain situations. Some ethicists are very conservative about the permissibility of euthanasia, limiting it to "extreme" cases. Others are far more lenient. For convenience, let's call it the euthanasist position.  

These labels are simplistic. On the one hand it's possible for a deontologist to consider mercy killing justifiable under very exceptional circumstances. On the other hand, euthanasist is an indiscriminate term. Proponents of euthanasia can range along a continuum from highly restrictive to open-ended. But labels are necessary to identify and distinguish the respective positions, so with those caveats in place, they will suffice for discussion purposes. 

4. A challenge for the euthansist position is where to draw the line. 

i) That raises the thorny old issue of the sorites paradox. However, the sorites paradox doesn't necessarily disqualify the euthanasist position. The sorites paradox isn't confined to ethics. There are many situations in human experience susceptible to soritical paradox, yet we disregard it and go right on drawing moral or practical distinctions, even if we can't solve the paradox. 

ii) In addition, we're often confronted with forced options where we have no choice but to draw a line, even if the cutoff is arbitrary. If, moreover, you can't avoid stipulating an arbitrary threshold, then a degree of arbitrariness is blameless. 

iii) That's said, some arbitrary distinctions are more reasonable than others. While there are borderline cases, some distinctions approximate clear boundary conditions.

5. For its own part, the deontologist position doesn't escape the sorites paradox. Even hardline opponents of euthanasia typically concede that there are moral limits on our duty to keep people alive. Take a terminal cancer patient with stage 4  cancer. Desperate medical intervention may prolong the patient's life, but the treatment itself is increasingly destructive to the patient, with ever diminishing returns. 

If, however, the obligation to keep people alive is less than absolute, then that concession creates gray areas. In a sense, then, both the deontologist and euthanasist are in the same boat, although one may occupy the stem while the other occupies the stern. 

6. Regarding the Bonanza dilemma, there are two additional issues:

i) On the one hand, Seth has no right to obligate Joe to keep Seth's action a secret. He lacks the moral authority to unilaterally make that decision for Joe. At best, Joe must enter into that voluntarily.

ii) On the other hand, even if we conclude that Seth's action was morally unjustified, that doesn't automatically mean Joe has a duty to report him to the authorities. This is the flip side of (i). Just as Seth can't make Joe share responsibility in the deed, since it's Seth's deed, not Joe's, Joe is not responsible for what Seth did.

To put it another way, even if Seth had a duty to turn himself in to the authorities, it doesn't follow that a second party has a duty to turn Seth in to the authorities. A second party isn't directly responsible for Seth's actions.

iii) Of course, that doesn't mean there's never an obligation to report a wrongdoing to the authorities. But that's not a universal duty. It depends on the nature of the wrongdoing.

iv) Moreover, even if we conclude that Seth's action is morally unjustifiable, there are extenuating circumstances that mitigate the guilt and distinguish it from murder. The intent is different. 

v) Likewise, we should often judge people more leniently who had to make a snap decision under duress compared to a premeditated action. 

7. There is, however, a difference between the actions of random individuals and a social policy. For instance, if my younger teenage brother loses his temper and smacks me in the face, I'm not going to call the cops, have him arrested and charged with assault. But making personal exceptions for close relatives doesn't mean we should decriminalize assault and battery. 

8. Finally, I doubt that all moral dilemmas are soluble in principle. It's easy to dream of hypothetical predicaments with no licit options. There won't always be a handy formula. I think we ultimately depend, not on having the right answers for every conceivable situation, but on divine providence not to put us in morally compromising situations. 

The grandparent analogy

I know of grandmothers and grandfathers who are entirely dependent on their families to care for them due to senility and dementia as well as physical frailty. In fact, sometimes one wonders if the lights are still on or if anybody's even home, because their dementia is so advanced. They don't seem like "persons" anymore.

If their families stopped caring for them, they would die. If their families kicked them out of their homes, these grandparents would be lost. They'd wander around in the cold night alone and afraid until they died if no one cared for them.

So does that give families the right to force their grandparents out of their home? Grandparents who have dementia and who no longer seem like "persons"? Of course not. That'd be considered murder. And even euthanasia activists require informed consent before euthanization.

In short, these families have no right to murder their dependent grandparents who don't seem like persons by turning them out of their homes. So why should families have the right to murder their dependent babies who don't seem like persons by turning them out of their wombs? Or are the two disanalogous? How so?

Down Syndrome

Today is my Down Syndrome son’s 16th birthday, and I am ever more aware that there is no gift I can give him that is greater than the gift he is to me. Allow your child to bring out the best in you, especially when you face challenges, it is their special talent. https://t.co/nOR8iotHsC

— Elizabeth Lev (@lizlevrome) February 22, 2019

Hard cases

i) Not surprisingly, proponents of abortion and infanticide like Peter Singer lead with the hard cases because that's a wedge issue. Is it wrong to bring a child into the world at high risk of a short, painful life?

From a Christian standpoint, this life is not all there is, so the fact that you get off to a bad start in life doesn't mean it stays that way. There's the hope of heaven. But that wouldn't be available if you never existed in the first place. 

Antinatalists sometimes counter that the danger of hell offsets the hope of heaven. Not that antinatalists believe in heaven or  hell. They just raise that objection for the sake of argument. But there are problems with that objection:

ii) That applies to healthy happy kids as well as the case of kids at high risk of a short painful life. So unless you're an antinatalist, that argument proves too much or too little. That's not an argument for abortion or infanticide, but sterilization to forestall procreation. 

iii) In a cost/benefit analysis, it's not enough to single out one side of the equation, for the potential loss must be considered against the potential gain. The high risk of harm may be offset by the high risk of losing a compensatory good. 

iv) I'm not suggesting a cost/benefit analysis is an appropriate tool to evaluate abortion or infanticide. I think that can be a legitimate consideration regarding contraception, but once a child is conceived, it's too late for a cost/benefit analysis to pertain. Abortion and infanticide can't be justified by a cost/benefit analysis. However, it's useful to consider that perspective for discussion purposes, to rule it out even on its own grounds. 

v) Suppose I'd like to have four kids. Suppose I have counterfactual knowledge that the firstborn will have a short painful life. And it doesn't matter when my wife and I have our first child. I don't think it would be wrong to practice contraception in that event. In the age of contraception, Christian parents do make decisions about how many kids to have, and spacing them. Unless you oppose contraception in principle, it's not wrong to take into consideration whether the woman is at high risk of medical complications (e.g. miscarriage) or fetal abnormalities. 

vi) But even in that situation, you can go ahead and conceive the child for the child's sake. The gift of life carries with it the potential for eternal bliss. 

vii) However, my scenario introduces another consideration. I can't have later kids unless I have the first one. If I refuse to have the first child, then that denies the future kids an opportunity to share in the gift of life, because their existence is contingent on the existence of the firstborn. It's a nested relationship in which I can't have more than one child unless I have at least one child. Yet the lead child will suffer a short painful life. Therefore, even if we frame the issue in crass cost/benefit terms, there are tradeoffs. The justification for having the first child can't be isolated from the other children, in that internal relation. 

viii) A critic might object that this improperly uses the firstborn as a means to an end.

But to begin with, I'm not a Kantian deontologist. And even if I was, the principle is not using people as a means, but using them merely as a means. As I've already discussed, the existence of the firstborn isn't just for the benefit of his siblings–for he himself is as much a potential beneficiary (in the long run) as they are. And he will be loved during his short painful life.  

ix) A critic might object that I'm resorting to a consequentialist justification. But even if I was, that doesn't commit me to consequentialism. I'm simply responding to the antinatalist, abortionist, or infanticidalist on his own grounds, for argument's sake.

On consequentialism, aborting the first child would be the logical alternative. A special needs child will be demanding on the parents. And aborting the first child will clear the way for his siblings. But I already ruled that out. Eugenic abortion is evil. 

x) Finally, a critic might object to my counterfactual calculation on the grounds that hypothetical humans who never exist have nothing to lose or gain. 

That's the Epicurean argument. One issue is whether that commits the critic to the symmetry argument, where prenatal and postmortem nonexistence are equivalent. I've argued elsewhere that to be denied the opportunity to exist is the greatest deprivation of all. 

This doesn't mean there's a duty to have as many kids as possible. And this doesn't mean we're wronging nonexistent persons by not conceiving them.

But there is a sense in which potential persons have a stake in the lottery of life. They have a personal interest in sharing the same goods as those who exist. 

Suppose I have a teenage brother I dislike. Suppose I could step into a time machine, change a variable in the past. I exist in the new timeline, but my brother does not. He never existed in the new timeline. If my brother found out about my plans, would he have reason to feel threatened? Would he have reason to thwart my plans?  

Jerry Coyne on infanticide

Jerry Coyne is a leading atheist popularizer. Without religious restraint, there are no moral boundaries. It comes down to who has more power. This reveals the dark side of atheism, when you strip away the hortatory rhetoric about emancipation: 

After all, newborn babies aren’t aware of death, aren’t nearly as sentient as an older child or adult, and have no rational faculties to make judgments (and if there’s severe mental disability, would never develop such faculties).

Our pain at making such a decision is lessened knowing that dogs and cats, like newborns, don’t know about death and thus don’t fear it.) The reason we don’t allow euthanasia of newborns is because humans are seen as special, and I think this comes from religion—in particular, the view that humans, unlike animals, are endowed with a soul. It’s the same mindset that, in many places, won’t allow abortion of fetuses that have severe deformities. When religion vanishes, as it will, so will much of the opposition to both adult and newborn euthanasia.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/should-one-be-allowed-to-euthanize-severely-deformed-or-doomed-newborns/

Retroactive abortion

By Clark Kent

Daily Planet staff reporter

Having legalized infanticide for 5-year-olds and euthanasia for men and women on their 30th birthday (inspired by Logan's Run), secular progressives were stymied. There wasn't much room left over to carry out their misanthropic policies in a forward direction. So it was more efficient to go backward by mandating retroactive abortion. This utilized time-travel technology. All citizens were ordered to report to abortifacient time-machines. This enabled secular progressives to implement a consistent policy. It was so successful that a week later, the human race was scrubbed from the space-time continuum. That timeline never happened. Earth instantly reverted to the Cretaceous age. 

The law of the jungle

There's a certain logic to the position of Peter Singer and Democrats who are moving towards his position. If you make the right to life contingent on physical or cognitive development, then that's always a matter of degree rather than kind, so where the line is drawn is arbitrary. It could be drawn sooner or later, higher or lower. 

The trimester distinction in the abortion debate was always arbitrary. Likewise, viability was arbitrary in part because that's variable, depending on the state of medical technology to sustain a premie outside the womb. The threshold changes. In addition, it's an arbitrary to make viability the criterion because many adults require something artificial to sustain life. Medications. Surgical implants. 

A basic problem with a Singer-style argument is that it either proves too little or too much. Since human life and the lifecycle range along a continuum of physical and psychological development, IQ, and health, it becomes a question of who makes the cut. If it's a choice between treating someone with an IQ of 100 and someone with an IQ of 140, do we save the patient with the 140 IQ and euthanize or neglect the patient with the IQ of 100?

What about the disabled? They may be psychologically normal or even be a genius. Do they make the cut?

Peter Singer is now 72. Why should scarce medical resources be squandered on him rather than someone younger? 

It degenerates into the law of the jungle where power is the decisive factor. Those with more power crush those with less. 

If it's good to euthanize a dog, why not humans?

One argument for euthanasia goes like this: why euthanize dogs but not humans? Why is it good to put a dog out of its misery but not a human being?

That's an a fortiori argument: If it's good to be merciful in the lesser case of suffering dogs, is it not good (or better) to be merciful in the greater case of suffering humans?

1. From a Christian standpoint, one reason is that killing a dog isn't murder whereas killing a human being is murder absent overriding considerations. 

Of course, that pushes the question back a step. Are there overriding considerations that sometimes warrant euthanasia? The immediate point, though, is that there's a prima facie presumption against taking human life that's disanalogous to the case of dogs. Take Asian cultures where dogs are a food stuff. 

2. Not all candidates for euthanasia are suffering. Proponents of euthanasia extend mercy-killing to an ever-wider range of individuals who are said to lack the relevant quality of life.

3. Some deontologists are absolutists about suicide and euthanasia. I'm not. I think there are extreme cases in which that may be permissible. But you can't extrapolate from extreme cases to other cases where the same overriding considerations are absent.

4. Caring for people in extremis is good for both the patient and the caregiver. Take a grown child who cares for a bedridden parent who's becoming senile. 

Ideally, that forces the child to prioritize. Be less self-absorbed and focus on the needs of someone else. It requires the child to tap into all their inner resources to meet the challenge as best they can. That's good for character. Good for sanctification. Develop greater patience, sympathy, and sensitivity. 

It's good when things come full circle. The parent who cared for dependent children is now dependent on grown children to care for them. The quality of life includes a moral quality of life. It's easy to be kind when it's easy. The acid test is when it's hard.

Conversely, many patients are acutely sensitive to whether people still care about them now that they can't help out or help themselves. Now that everything must be done for them. That's a test of whether they were ever really loved in the first place. Did people only love them when it was convenient? That's pretty shallow. 

Psychologically, humans live in the past, present, and future. Memory and anticipation as well as present awareness. Animals lack that viewpoint. They live in the moment.  

Of course, humans can suffer from cognitive impairment, sometimes severe. But we can't get inside their minds to know how much they register. What's the effect of holding their hand or stroking their hair? 

IQ, abortion, and euthanasia

Peter Singer's argument for infanticide and euthanizing the senile and developmentally disabled is that IQ ranges along a continuum according to maturity and species. According to him, some higher animals are smarter than newborn babies, the senile, or developmentally disabled. Of course, that's a horrendous justification for infanticide and euthanasia, even if it were true. But in addition, here's a challenge to his operating assumption:

And what is rationality? Let us begin to try to answer this question by considering another question asked by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: "We say that a dog is afraid his master will beat him; but not, he is affraid his master will beat him tomorrow. Why not?" The beginning of the answer to this question is that the idea expressed by the word "tomorrow" is wholly foreign to the mental world of the dog.

This idea…is well expressed by a bit of verse by W. V. Quine:

The unrefined and sluggish mind

Of Homo javanensis

Could only treat of things concrete

And present to the senses.

A rational being is a being that can do the following:

Represent to itself complex states of affairs, including non-actual states of affairs, that are strikingly remote from its present sense-perceptions. For instance…finding new ways to dispose of the refuse that feeds the rats that carry the flees that are infected with the bacterium that cause the plague. It can believe that certain states of affairs are actual and that others are non-actual. It can desire that certain states of affairs be actual and others non-actual…("I am trying to imagine what our life will be like if we really go ahead and have a child")…It can sort states of affairs into the categories of "probable" and "improbable"…It can devise plans of action that draw on its beliefs about which states of affairs are actual and non-actual and probable and improbable…It is capable of recognizing other beings as having all these capacities, and it is capable of communicating to those that do facts and orders and questions related to states of affairs it represents to itself…

Rationality marks a great divide, a discontinuity between humanity and the beasts. It is wrong to suppose that there is something apes and elephants and beavers have a little of, and we have more of, and that as a consequence, we are rational and they are not. 

It is not that we are "more intelligent" than, say, apes, and that that is why we are rational and apes are not–as Alice is able to solve word-analogy problems and spatial-relation problems faster than Alfred because she is more intelligent…We may indeed be more intelligent than apes; indeed I suppose we are. But if so, that is not why we are rational and apes are not. If there is a connection, it goes the other way: we are more intelligent than apes because we are rational and therefore have more use for intelligence-for intelligence, if it is anything, is the ability to manipulate mental representations of states of affairs in various useful ways, and we have a lot more, and a lot more complex, representations to manipulate than apes do….Human beings who are of subnormal intelligence owing to injuries or generic defects do not have minds at all like the minds of apes, any more than apes of subnormal intelligence have minds like the minds of elephants or beavers. Rather, they have human minds that are of diminished capacity in respect of dealing with the demands of life in a human community. P. van Inwagen, Metaphysics (Westview Press, 4th ed., 2015), 184-86.

You almost never see disabled people in China

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5km2Cb3nwQ

I think this reflects the difference between a traditionally Christian culture and a traditionally non-Christian culture. In non-Christian cultures, disability is shameful. The disabled aren't valued. 

Is 76 Years Too Long to Live?

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/is-76-years-too-long-to-live

Charlie Gard and the Experts

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/opinion/sunday/charlie-gard-and-the-experts.html

When in Rome, do as the modernists do

Ross Douthat Retweeted

Michael B Dougherty @michaelbd  Jun 30

Bracing to watch the Vatican undergo the sexual and cultural revolution of a century in the space of one pontificate

https://stream.org/whos-killing-charlie-gard/

https://stream.org/pro-choicer-appointed-key-vatican-pro-life-think-tank/

Better to let the whole world burn

The Catholic Church holds it better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse. 

http://www.newmanreader.org/works/apologia65/chapter5.html

There's a brittle absolutism you encounter in some theological circles. It's often found among Catholic ethicists like Elizabeth Anscombe, Alexander Pruss, Germain Grisez, and Christopher Tollefsen. A Protestant exponent is Lydia McGrew. 

In Lydia's case, I suspect her absolutism is driven by her commendable opposition to abortion and euthanasia. Now perhaps she'd say it's the another way around: her absolutism is driving her opposition to abortion and euthanasia. 

However, Lydia has said:

Suppose that a general has ordered a military strike against a certain location and that there is some outcry that this was unethical because it was not a military target but a civilian target. The general had a lot of statistics and facts showing precisely this question, showing why this question arose, but he still chose to order the strike despite the doubts. Later, he sees pictures of the children who have died in the airstrike, precisely as predicted by the statistics he had available to him about the civilian population at that location. He is filled with remorse and offers a deep statement of grief and repentance. We should certainly not say to him, "You had the statistics in advance. You knew that it could plausibly be regarded as a non-military target. What did you think you were doing? Why do these pictures change anything? You should make your decisions with your eyes wide open or not make them at all!"  

We know perfectly well that sometimes people have a notional commitment to doing a particular action but then have their minds and hearts changed by being viscerally confronted with the reality of what they have chosen. And this is not a bad thing but a good thing. It is on the many subtle interactions between conscience and the real world that our hopes for repentance often turn.  

http://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2016/10/dont-tell-people-to-harden-their-hearts.html

One the one hand, criteria can select for corresponding examples. On the other hand, examples can select for corresponding criteria. Like Chisholm's distinction between methodism and particularism. 

Presumably, then, she doesn't think a person must begin with deontology. Rather, they might begin with some paradigm-examples. They then turn to deontology to supply a formal justification for their moral intuitions.  

I suspect her brand of absolutism is based on the concern that once you make allowance for exceptions, that becomes a wedge issue. Where do you draw the line? Any position short of saying that abortion, suicide, and euthanasia are always wrong is a foot. And once they get a foot in the door, you can't stop it from swinging wide open. 

Now I myself subscribe to moral absolutes, although my list of moral absolutes is shorter than Catholic ethicists. But the brittle absolutism I'm assessing has counterintuitive implications. 

Take the cliche of the ticking timebomb scenario. The absolutist will say torture is intrinsically wrong. By contrast, the "pragmatist" or "consequentialist" has no compunction about torturing one terrorist to extract information about the location of the bomb that will save thousands or millions of innocent lives.

Take the cliche of lying to Nazis about Jews you're harboring. The absolutist will say lying is intrinsically wrong. By contrast, the "pragmatist" or "consequentialist" has no compunction about lying to Nazis to save his Jewish neighbors from the gas chambers. 

The question that raises is, what is the moral absolute? Is the moral absolute protecting the innocent? Is the moral absolute protecting the vulnerable? If that's the moral absolute, then ironically it's the "pragmatist" or "consequentialist" who's acting on that that principle while the absolutist is so uncompromising that it prevents him from protecting the innocent. Prevents him from protecting the vulnerable. The absolutist will sacrifice millions of innocent lives rather than violate a moral absolute. But, then, what is the moral absolute? Evidently, it's not protecting innocent life. It's not protecting the most vulnerable members of society. Rather, there's some overriding concern that prevents the absolutist from doing what's necessary to protect the innocent from harm. Is it the consequentialist who's violating moral absolutes–or the absolutist, by his failure to intervene? 

Perhaps the absolutist will say that while protecting the innocent and the vulnerable is a moral absolute, that's not the only moral absolute. There's an absolute prohibition against torture. There's an absolute prohibition against lying. 

But in that event, their absolutism generates moral dilemmas. A conflict between equal duties: an absolute duty to protect the innocent and the vulnerable over against an absoute duty not to lie or torture. And that, in turn, leads to moral paralysis. Wringing your hands in the face of preventable evil.  

Consequentialism is the bugbear of deontology. But brittle absolutism drives conscientious people into the arms of consequentialism, because their absolutism is so theoretical, and ineffectual, and counterproductive. 

Tenderness leads to the gas chamber

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/tenderness-leads-to-the-gas-chamber/

Assisted suicide

Why is there such a push for assisted suicide? Why the urgency? You can be sure that Democrats will spearhead this fundamental "right". Let's grant for the sake of argument that suicide is a right. Let's further grant that some people need to commit suicide. Let's be very lax and say that if you don't think your life is worth living, that's sufficient reason to kill yourself.

Even if we grant all those assumptions for discussion purposes, what makes assisted suicided a cause to lobby for? The reason I frame the issue this way is because most people already have the ability to kill themselves if they wish to. So why is it necessary to make provision for someone else to kill you when you can do it yourself? After all, how-to tips on suicide are readily available. You can find them on the internet. You can find them at your public library. Moreover, people do kill themselves with some frequency. So why the demand that someone else kill you?

Perhaps the argument is that you have cases where people are incapacitated due to accident or dementia. Mind you, if you're diagnosed with mild dementia or a degenerative illness, you still have the presence of mind and physical wherewithal to kill yourself before you become incapacitated. If you procrastinate until it's too late to do it yourself, why think you're entitled to force someone else do it? And make no mistake, it's about requiring "health professionals" to do it.

Even if, for the sake of argument, we grant the legitimacy of assisted suicide, that's only "necessary" in a fraction of cases (i.e. incapacitating accidents). Yet euthanasia is applied far more broadly. And notice how quickly it goes from voluntary to involuntary euthanasia. 

The real reason is that assisted suicide is a pretext for government to expand its authority to kill people. It uses the guise of "compassion" and "death with dignity" and "mercy killing" as an excuse to assume the role of public executioner, become the arbiter of life and death. It's really about the absolute power of the state. And not coincidentally, this dovetails with nationalized healthcare. The apotheosis of the state. Physicians as public employees who kill at the behest of the state.

There's also something undeniably diabolical behind it all. The devil hates humans. The devil is a murderer for the beginning (Jn 8:44). The devil is the unseen architect of genocide. How else do we account for self-loathing humanism?  

Protecting and preserving life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7aoUROdmaQ

My Dad, the ER, and the Culture of Death in Colorado

"My Dad, the ER, and the Culture of Death in Colorado"

Physician-assisted death

"Six questions about physician-assisted death, from a conscientious objector" by Dr. Ewan Goligher.

Why atheists ought to vote Christian

Recently, Marco Rubio responded to an atheist. It was a good off-the-cuff answer, especially for somebody who's not a philosopher:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/430036/marco-rubio-responds-atheist-civility-and-truth

But here's how I'd respond to the atheist. Let's begin with his question:

You say you want to stand up for religious freedom. My question is for atheist voters who are looking somebody who will uphold their rights as Americans: how do you plan on upholding our rights? 

There are different ways of fielding that question, but here's one way: either your rights come from God or government. That's what it boils down to.

God-given rights are above government. God-given rights are normally inalienable, although, in some cases, it's possible to do something that forfeits your ordinary immunity to harm. 

By contrast, if your rights derive from gov't, then whatever gov't gives it can rescind. What rights you have at any particular time and place depends on what rights the ruling class chooses to grant. Your rights exist at the indulgence of the state. And the state is capricious. 

Since atheism has no absolute standard, some groups have more rights than others, and it rotates. Take identity politics. The establishment adopts a social mascot. After a while it gets bored with its toy and abandons that for a new social mascot.

For instance, anti-Semitism used to be chic. That was popular among the educated classes. Then, after the Holocaust, the establishment was pro-Israel. But later the establishment shifted from pro-Israel to pro-Palestinian. So it's come full circle. We're right back to anti-Semitism. 

In addition, the establishment has a pecking order. It supports black rights and Latino rights unless that conflicts with gay rights. Asians take a backseat to blacks and Latinos in college admissions. It supports blacks so long as they are dutifully liberal. It supports women so long as they are dutifully liberal.

There's now a civil war between feminists and transsexuals. Feminism is the old guard. But feminism is passé. Feminism is based on gender essentialism whereas transgenderism is based on gender conventionalism. Gender is a social construct. Gender is not about plumbing or chromosomes but how you self-identify. Transgenderism is the new fad. Feminists are losing their hegemony. The ruling class has found a new social mascot to pamper. 

It's like a king with royal wives and mistresses. His favorite one year may be demoted the next year. 

In the pecking order, the ruling class has decided that Muslims have greater rights than anyone else. Muslim rights not only trump Christian rights, but Jewish rights, gay rights, women's rights, &c.

A secular ruling class won't protect atheists from Muslims. It's demonstrated that repeatedly in Europe and the UK. Ironically, atheists can't trust their fellow atheists to defend their life and well being from Muslim religionists. 

The primary opposition to sharia and jihad is coming from conservative Christians (and Jews). It's the Christians who are standing between atheists and Muslim oppressors. Likewise, only Christians will protect the right of atheists not to be aborted or euthanized. 

If atheists want to be safe, they should vote for Christian candidates.