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Soul Purpose
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Soul Purpose |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I worked for Catholic Charities for several years in the late ‘80’s and early 90’s and for the most part they were very nice people who went very far out of their way to help people in a lot of trouble for various reasons, including drug addiction and psychiatric disorders, homelessness, starvation and physical and sexual abuse. One thing you might find among many of the people served by Catholic Charities, especially among the women served by Catholic charities, is that they were often victims of sexual assault, and that the many of the people sexually assaulted were underaged women, and/or women who were living on the street and who were drinking and at high risk for giving birth to kids with fetal alcohol syndrome. If the children were born, the mothers were often unable to care for them, and the cycle of abuse was frequently carried on for several generations. The most frequent abusers of children under five tend to be the mothers themselves. After that, the abusers tend to be the older guys living in those homes; the boyfriends, the husbands. I think that there were too many births. That’s my opinion, of course. But if there’d been more work on repairing lives, including more outreach with birth control services especially, I think the group as a whole might have fared better. My emphasis would have been different has I been running things, and there were good reasons that I wasn’t, beyond simple indolence on my own part, and lack of training in that sort of approach at that time. We need to remind ourselves here that the business of the Church is not so much in the amelioration of lives, though lives are very important indeed, and it would be deceptive to suggest that the Church is indifferent or uncaring about lives; but it is important to remind ourselves that the business of the church is much more intimately entwined with souls. Now I happen to believe in souls, but I’m not sure that everybody else does. Freud, for that matter, does. When Freud writes about psychoanalysis — one of the reasons that Freud is worth taking seriously, in my opinion — he doesn’t talk about minds or brains of neurologies, the way so many others do. Almost always, you will find him using the German word Die Seele, which translates as Soul. The Church is most interested in Souls as well, and that can be a bit of a problem when you’re running a charity that supplies medical treatments. You are likely to forbid birth control which can be a major intervention in helping out qualitiy of life and health of bodies, but does little or nothing about new souls except tending to help them be born into conditions which are more advantageous to their longterm survival. And you are likely to forbid abortion, which favors the happiness of souls that are already hanging about and may offer them a chance at bettering their condition, and at offering such new souls that do show up a better chance at having a better time of it. This is a choice that the Church has already made, a choice in favor of more souls over that of the ammelioration of the condition of those already here. I do not condemn the choice, though it is not a choice that I think I want to make for somebody else as I write this right now. Were you to catch me tomowwow, I think you’d probably find me saying the same thing; but you’d probably also find Mother Theresa disagreeing with me, and she is not somebody that I can say I would like to disagree with very often. Sitting in an office, taking to somebody who is drinking like a camel and inhaling large amounts of freebase cocaine is an interesting thing to do. The laws of normal discourse will be operating as usual at other locations on the planet. Grocery stores will continue to sell food. Wedding chapels will pronounce people married. Judges will pronounce them separated and lawyers will make money trying to move the goalposts between the two, and skim off enough money in the process to keep everybody angry enough to keep coming back for more. But talking to people who have “issues,” especially “Issues” with booze and drugs is like spending all day at the fun-house. No matter what sort of oddness is going on inside these people’s heads, however, for many of them, their bodies are still functioning in a somewhat normal fashion, which means the women are producing the potential of a child every month or so, whether they remember it or not, and they have hormone systems that have put that piece of information very far up on the “to do” list at any given time, rain or shine. Life has also surrounded them with men who love them very much before they pass out. It is hard to remember Birth Control when one tends to forget actually having sex, and to plan having sex in advance is something that can be very difficult. Few things get in the way of a good drinking life the way children can, so attitudes about planning for sex will quickly run into problems when one talks to a client about whether or not she actually wants to have a sexual relationship with somebody, and what that might mean. That’s when the conversation is with a woman. Within the context of a Catholic charity, I don’t recall the subject of the man’s sexual life coming up at all unless he was gay and felt he was suffering from his orientation and the way he felt about himself as a result, or unless the man was talking about the things he thought the woman wanted from him. As a counselor, neither birth control nor abortion was an option you were supposed to discuss unless you were there to discourage it, or to offer other options. This, to me, is not counseling. This is anti-counseling, in which the counselor is systematically closing off options that are legal and available to the patient to support what is the counselor’s value system, in the belief that the counselor’s value system is and must be better than that of the client. It closes off the clients exercise of his legal freedoms and the expression and elaboration of the client’s identity, and to me it is totalitarian and repressive. I distinguish this from suggesting that the client should be free to make any decision at all. That is already the client’s right, and cannot be taken away from him short of imprisonment or murder of the client by the counselor. To suggest that it isn’t is silly, and it is merely a suggesting made by some as a red herring, to draw attention away from the actual abridgement of rights forced on the client in this situation by the counselor and the church. A client deserves to know what the legal options are, and what the disadvantages and advantages each has so that the client can make up his or her own mind about the issue at hand. Going to a Charity that is run by a trusted resource is only a good starting point, since one may occasionally be forced to make up one’s own mind about how trustworthy the organization is around some issues. An example? “As a war Veteran, I trust my government utterly to treat me with the respect my years of service and the blood I’ve spilled for my country would naturally entitle me to” seems in fact precisely that sort of statement. Many Jewish veterans of the German Imperial Forces must have felt the irony of that as they were lined up to be gassed during the Second World War. The Catholic Church is not even a close match to the Nazi Party, yet it seems fairly clear that when the cloice has come down to the life of the mother or the life of the unborn child, there have been situations where the mother would have considerable cause to wonder where the interests of the Church would lie. In needing to consider her own decision on such matters, we live in a country where we are in fact free to make up our own minds about the information we gather as a basis for such a decision. In agreeing to limit the amount of information we have in coming to such a decision, I believe that we are not serving our own interests here. If the Church believes they are serving a higher interest — and they may well be; nobody gave me special information to answer that question with a more authoritative or more truthful slant than the Church has — then it should feel that more information should bolster its case, make its case more solid, more believeable, more bulletproof. Instead, it seeks to take information off the table. It wants its women to know less. It wants its people to be unbothered by facts, uncluttered by the need to think. I didn’t like that attitude then. I don’t like it now. [This message has been edited by Bob K (02-04-2012 11:53 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
If Birth Control and Abortion are to be provided as part of the standard employer funded health care package, that puts the Church in a bind. As a vendor, it has freedom to decide what it wishes to sell. It doesn't have to sell fish, for example; or sell all varieties of health care if it specializes in cardiology. As an employer, however, it does have to provide at least the standard coverage to fulfill its legal obligation. I suspect that it can't impose its religious beliefs on its employees in quite that blanket a fashion without at least some major test case. Seeing the language they're talking about chucking around, using words like "unjust," I suspect they're working up to such a test case, but don't have it yet. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob, You've stated things in a roundabout way, but if I understand you right, the following summarizes your position. 1) Abortion and Birth Control are viable and often helpful options 2) The Catholic Church is against these helpful options 3) These options remain legal rights in America 4) Therefore those in the Church who are counselors should be prevented from either presenting these options in a negative light, or conversely not presenting them in a positive light. I would like to comment on these through responding to some of your quotes: quote: While, as a good protestant, I would have no qualms with birth control (excepting those forms which terminate conception rather than prevent it), I believe that the pro-life position is misrepresented by your above statement, as if the Church were simply for quantity and not quality of life. Regarding the Church's position on abortion, this is a false dichotomy. For example, the Church would say that the guilt and regret that many if not most women face after abortion, even with the easing evasion of another life to support, does not amount to amelioration. And yet social services, such as adoption and foster care, do in fact take the mother's life and health into consideration. I'm not responding so much to argue this case, as I am to object to the over-simplification you have given. quote: So in effect, what you are saying is, is that the Church should not be allowed to practice any ideology that opposes a legislated egalitarianism of ideas (which many, in and outside the church, consider to be a travesty of 'rights'). Thankfully the legality of abortion, and its status of being an individual right, is far from being concluded in the ongoing national debate. At the very least, what you are suggesting could turn into a violation of the separation of Church and State, which is usually taken to separate public policy and Church influence, but in its original context was put in place to prevent the tyranny of the Government in telling the Church what it cannot do, regarding its own beliefs practices and convictions. And counseling women that abortion is (in actual scientific fact) the taking of a human life, and (in moral philosophy) should only be done in those extreme cases where the Mother's life would be lost otherwise, is generally part of those beliefs and practices which are not to be dictated by the State. Certainly placing legal bounds on the Church about something as unsettled as "abortion rights", would, in my estimation, be totalitarian and repressive. And in what sense the Church is withholding knowledge, by taking a definite position against abortion, escapes me entirely. It's as if you were saying that to be against anything at all, you must be obfuscatory about it. That's no logical necessity by any stretch. Informed opposition is not the same as perpetuating ignorance. Perhaps the Church has resorted to obscurantism before, but certainly so have pro-choice counselors who fail to present the scientific case (made more poignant by developing diagnostic technologies, such as fetal ultrasound) for human life in utero, saying that the unborn human being is little different than an appendix, anesthetizing reason by referring to them as 'products of conception' and other euphemisms. quote: I guess Godwin's law may be forgiven if I provide an analogy from National-Socialist ideology too? First of all, I'm more than certain it has been a minority in the church who would go to the extreme of wanting to save the unborn child at the expense of the mother's life. Secondly, of our respective hitleresque comparisons, the dehumanizing doctrines of the Nazis which justified treating a certain class of human beings as non-human, is much more similar to the belief that the unborn are not human beings simply because they are unborn. quote: I wholeheartedly agree. quote: Might this be a caricature of the Catholic position about aboriton in particular, and of the Christian position in general? To assess whether the Catholic position really is one of obfuscation versus information (or if that charge is unfounded in many cases), check out the writings of Francis Beckwith, who presents a thoughtful and thorough apologetic for the Christian pro-life position. This of course, does not mean that Mister Kaven and I don't have a lot of common ground. And I'd love to discuss some of this too. I just don't think that common ground includes the question of whether abortion should be a right, or whether Church counselors should be made to present it as a viable option. (Nice to see you 'gain Bob) Stephen |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
(What happened to Ron's comment?) |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Ess, though I never saw his comment, I'm guessing it was aborted ... I know, I know ... You can throw things at me now. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
A comment by Ron was originally the first reply to the thread. It seems suspicious that he would remove it like that. And now Bob is not posting and responding all the sudden... |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
I deleted my comment, Ess. Bob came back in and edited his original thread, changing the title and pretty much the entire post. My comment, in fact, quoted a comment Bob made in the original that no longer even existed. Bob subsequently made his second post, which I felt, with the mention of health care, changed the direction of this thread yet again. My comment had become a non sequitur so I deleted it, and since we're already discussing religion and health care in another thread, I felt no need to post another comment to replace the deleted one. Satisfied? |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Sure, sure, blame the poor poster. I was just sitting here, all alone. In the dark. Hiding from the large cruel conservatives. Sigh. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
quote: Not completely, it's not fancy enough. I was hoping you would say aliens infiltrated the site and stole your comment to take home as proof of the superior heights of intelligence that certain beings on our planet have reached  [This message has been edited by Essorant (02-10-2012 09:31 PM).] |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bahahaha Is it an alien or a shape-shifter? :P And Bob, It's not nice to make comments about someone's weight. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Ha! If you're somebody with a weight problem, I'm sorry to hear it. I am as well. Apparently religious identity doesn't have much to do with propensity to eat slowly enough to thoroughly experience the process of eating and enjoying the flavors in food and the actual experience of swallowing and following the physical experience of when hunger crosses into satiety. We're too busy thinking about things well over our heads. I wonder if God meant us to structure ourselves this way, or if the weight is simply His reminder that we're not paying attention to one more soul experience. Hey there, Mr. Bob, I can just hear it now, stop feeling so guilty and start paying attention to what it's like to actually eat the food that God's grace supplied. Do you think it might make any difference in how you treat the people you share the experience of eating it with, and how you want that meal time to go? Would that change anything. Would that change your notion of what the notion of, for example, The Last Supper, might have meant, and what the level of sharing might be possible for you withing a loving and religious family? And so on. Even a light conversation with you, Stephen, can be a treat sometimes. I think that simply feling guilty about being fat is such a waist of an opportunity — Ha! — when you think of the possible joys that exploring the issue might hold, if one can do so with some spirit of amusement and love. As for the Birth control issue, I think that there's something essentially wrong headed about it. The Catholics are certainly not against Birth Control, yet the conversation is framed as though Catholics were against Birth Control. The Doctrine is against "artificial" birth control, and even natural birth control, if done in a dependable fashion, is going to cost money to keep track of body temperatures. You might even need special medical consultations of some sort or another or you might have to buy a computer or other apparatus to keep track of ovulation times. For women who've had to do this sort of thing to help get pregnant, even if they don't take drugs to help the process along, the investment in time and energy can be considerable. What about the monetary investment? And would the investment in not getting pregnant in those terms be any less? All of it is natural, all of it, it seems to me, within the guidelines of "natural birth control." The Church, since all of this falls inside what is doctrinally approved, should find all of this acceptable, shouldn't it? What's the problem? The Church should be pleased to pay for what is within church guidelines. It supplies an important health need for half the people the Church employees; or, possibly, even more of them. Perhaps the Church wants to make sure that the money that it pays its employees does not get spent on buying pork products, lest any of its employees be tempted to eat forbidden food and endanger the salvation of their souls. I am certain that both the orthodox Jews and the Islamic folk who happen to work for the Catholic church in some capacity or another woulkd be happy to have the Church ensure that these sins were also covered, and would be appreciative, especially since the Church's position on Birth Control already so closely approximates their as well. I have some rules I would like to have the church include as well, though they would have to throw out several of their own rules in order to substitute mine. There shouldn't be any problem there, however, because my rules are much more important than their are, you can take my word for it, just as they are asking me to take theirs, and I don't wear funny hats, like the Pope. Clearly, whatever I say must be more important, bucause I am not cluttered by expensive haberdashery bills, evidence of bad thinking and a wasted childhood. Just ask me. And if you don't believe m,e on my own authority, just ask me to tell you about my secret, and I tell you the real truth. God told me, but the details are really really secret, and none of you come from the right kind of family to really be told without being struck dead. Honest. A neighbor of mine had a dog named Sam, and he told me all about it. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Maybe I got a little bit off track, there at the end. Just a little. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Frankly Bob, it seems to me your response is a curious mix of refreshing insight that shows thoughtful consideration (as in your comments about eating) combined with disappointing humor that shows less evidence of it (as in your statements about God revealing trivialities, which seems to mock revelation on all terms). But the foibles of some forms of legalism (within the Church or otherwise) are not comparable to other, more weighty convictions and truths of the Church. And so it doesn't really make sense to use the former to cast doubt on the latter. More peripheral beliefs about diet and such in no way parallel those about the sanctity of life. But, it is much easier to obscure this with mention of regulations about eating pork and guidelines for garment length ... et cetera, ad nauseum. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Well, I stand corrected about my tendency to trivialize things that other folks find important. The sanctity of life is certainly important. I think that you are about as wrong about birth control as a man can get. The Church allows it, as you should be more than well aware by now. Knowledge of that fact should take any discussion of The Sanctity of Life off the table here. Were the discussion limited to abortion, you might have grounds for upset that i could follow and sympathize with. Please explain to me how you have managed to conflatre the two discussions, or how I have made some error in my understanding here. If I have gotten a bit too broad in my humor, I am sorry, and I meant no offense by it, but then the Church has no business in telling me what sort of birth control I should use, either. If they believe that it's forgivable to have clergy acting the way they believe clergy may act and remain acting as clergy, they have no right to insist that binding legislation be passed affecting the freedom and health of others. The legal principle in question is that of acting with clean hands, and they do not have hands clean enough to make their wishes an issue in this debate; no insofar as I understand their behavior over not decades, not centuries, but millenia. Show me, don't tell me, the path of moral leadership. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
quote: I do appreciate you saying so. quote: I'm really hoping this is hyperbole, because I once knew someone who thought that ... nevermind. quote: I do know that Bob. I wasn't under the illusion that the RCs are against any and every method to prevent conception. When I said that, as a good protestant, I have no problem with "birth control" (excepting those forms which do not merely prevent fertilization), I thought it was obvious I was referring to the methods which most people think of when they say "birth control" ... pills and things, which are in fact the methods central to this particular controversy. quote: You mentioned abortion three times in your posts above, making me think that it was included in the discussion. I've certainly never said that it was limited to that. Even if I personally chose to only speak of that aspect, it would not mean that I'm limiting the discussion. I certainly haven't conflated them, since this controversy definitely includes forms of "birth control" such as the "Morning After Pill" ... and also a positive view of abortion itself in your own words. In the future I recommend that if you don't want an aspect discussed, don't make multiple mentions of it yourself. quote: Wait a minute ... I thought this controversy was about something that was already a standard declination of the Roman Catholic Church for their religious reasoning, and already well known by its willing and consensual employees, which Obamacare is seeking to alter ... not about how the Church wants to legislate anything new to dictate whether anyone practices birth control. Those details and nuances are important to mention lest anyone get the wrong impression here. quote: Maybe you're right. Maybe you're not telling the whole story. But moral leadership is a principle I generally agree with. Still, the right of the Church to make its own decisions about what it provides or pays for (because of a moral conviction) is a different matter entirely ... and the right of the Government to change that for them. quote: That's stretching it (pun intended). I'm not sure that any cultural group of people, religious or otherwise, can claim clean hands for millenia. The folks we came from Bob traded in chattel slavery. I'm sorry for it. But I don't think it can or should be used to challenge my own moral integrity however (or yours), and I don't feel personal guilt about it. What the Church can claim as original is the truth of the doctrine of original sin, which is as true for you and me, as for anyone else, and is confirmed by your statements. I'm not saying that your point is wrong, as much as it is taken too far. That kind of insistence would discredit everyone, and were I to believe it, I could hardly believe you. Anyway, as always Bob, it's lively and energetic talking with you my friend. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Simply because I think you're wrong, doesn't mean you are wrong. Simply because I think you're about as wrong about birth control as a man can get, doesn't mean the situation isn't reversed, and the party in the wrong isn't me, even though I'd be the last person in the world to assure you of that. Just went off antidepressants after about 20 years. I find that I have much better access to my feelings, and that the old truism about depression being anger turned inward is getting a workout as about 20 years worth of anger is getting vented into the ionosphere. If the EPA could tax this stuff, it'd make a fraking fortune. I don't believe in original sin. Even if I did, that doesn't mean that gives me the right to impose that belief on others; nor to impose the consequences that belief may suggest, if accepted as true. That's one of the reasons that we do not have a state religion. That’s also one of the reasons why so many religions would love it if the United States would only be reasonable and choose theirs to be the state religion to clean up the errors of all those clearly wrong-headed and ill intentioned others who worship inferior loas who lack sufficient understanding. While most religions are willing to tell us why other people are wrong, they seem to have a great deal of trouble making their own injustices, sins and loathsome practices seem practical, tasty and delicious to such folks as have been on the receiving end. Feel free to fill in your own examples here __________. Attach such extra sheets as you feel may be needed. One would be tempted to say that the notion of original sin has been placed at the heart of so much Christian theology simply as an excuse for the way that Christians seem to believe they have a right to act toward others, and for the high-handed fashion they seem to feel is forgivable in the way they treat others, except Christians are not the only ones who find the set of behaviors congenial. quote: Well, that’s interesting, I suppose, but let’s be a little bit clear here. I really have substantial trouble believing you. It’s not that I think you’re a liar; I really don’t think anything of the kind. I simply don’t think you’ve thought the issue through in any but the most abstract of terms, and I really don’t think you have a clear notion of what you’ve signed up for here. Or if you do, you’re running on a level of reality that I simply don’t think I can follow. What’s a person? Let me put that in Caps for a bit more emphasis, albeit drawn from artificial sources, WHAT’S A PERSON? WHAT’S A PERSON? I have known a lot of them, and sometimes I even are one myownself. Some of them, for all practical purposes, are stupid as bricks. I worked for a while at The Fernald School, in Waltham, Massachusetts as a mental health worker with retarded men. We called them “Students,” because they went to a State School, though some of the guys I worked with were in their seventies, and some of them had IQ’s in the 30’s and 40’s. I also knew people whose IQ’s were essentially immeasurably low, and who were pretty much confined to hospital beds and who looked a lot like flesh-covered fish, with rudimentary feet and hands. They couldn’t talk. I felt all these folks were persons, were people, and some of them were friends of mine, and my relationships with them were actually much more personal than any of the relationships I had with the people I grew up with, and knew for ten years, twenty years and more. There were people I knew all my life that I found I kept at a distance; and I wasn’t able to do that with some of these people. There was something about them that was much more personal because I experienced them much more directly. I felt in some ways that I was their guest. In some ways, it was as if I was visiting a place where everybody was in third grade and had been in some cases for 50 years, and they all had third grade down perfectly. It was wonderful. Even the terrible bullies of third grade had perfected themselves in that art, and the experience was huge, personal and, somehow, magnificent. The experience was powerfully tactile. It touched me all over, like water. You could smell it, because nobody was particularly clean, and it had a scent like the sour milk the state sent down from another state school in Templeton which everybody called The Colony. My guys called the milk "Moo Juice." All of these folks were people, and you couldn’t escape it. Yes, there were other people. I’ve known people in my everyday life, but then so has everybody else. I’ve know patients on locked units, and that’s different, Stephen; but I imagine not so different from stuff that you've seen. You can probably imagine yourself working there; and family, sure; you'll know more about the experience of our own kids because I don’t have any, though I’ve worked with kids and loved some, and raised some, at least for a while, when I was a kid, and carried my kid brother around on my shoulders. And I’ve dealt with strangers, who are people, But when I start talking about the morning after pill, I am talking about abstractions when I talk about the people that don't become people as a result of women who take a dose. These might someday be people someday, sorta, too, but I don’t have that experience when I talk about them or think about them. I can't smell the garlic on their breath, or think what an unpleasant comment to make about a friend of mine, or what an attractive way of holding her head. When I am around people, I feel the surround at all times and I can feel the interaction, the back and forth of it at all times as powerfully as I can feel the ministry — believe it or not — of this fella who was at that school I mentioned. He was not very bright, he was one of the students in fact, unshaven and toothless, and he had a minister’s robe he wore. I can’t tell you his name because it really is unfair to do so. He felt he was a minister and he took his role very seriously, and I think that for all practical purposes, embarrassing as he might have been to the actual minister at the school at the time, he may have been one in real human terms. I think God would have smiled on the ministry and understood it, and I think I’m certainly reasonably respectful of it now; more so, certainly, than at the time. He was a person, and you could feel him. I have had discussions about birth control with friends before; frequently, in fact. I could always tell that the people I was conversing with were people because they felt like people, and I experienced them as people and they had a personality about them. In fact, even the folks on the Green Blind Unit at The Fernald State Hospital, who could not see the color Green, and who were frequently profoundly retarded had personalities in my memory, and you couldn’t avoid the experience of knowing that. For me, this was not an abstraction, it was a fact as solid as a cinder block foundation. You could build on it, you could stub your toe on it, even if you didn’t want to. These are people. There are people that you live with historically, too. These folks have as immediate a presence as the bus driver, your wife, or your pastor. We can pretty much agree about these folks, and we can often agree on the names they have because they often have some actual historicity. Moses, Jesus, Julius Caesar, Van Gogh and the various heros and villains are right there, as well as the more personal family ancestors and the folks that populate our individual histories. The sort of folks that the church is asking me to accept into the realm of the real, however, don’t have that impact for me. They aren’t people. They never were people and they never will be people. They may be somebody’s hopes for being a person someday, but then they may not even be that. These are not people, these are not human, these are not even quickened,since we are not talking about abortion here but birth control. We are talking about abstractions being granted the equivalent of citizenship. I’m willing to go very far to give rights and privileges to people. I’m willing to listen to ideas. The Church can say that they don’t believe in artificial means of birth control, and it can encourage everybody to use natural means of birth control or no means of birth control at all if it so chooses. The issue is not control over what people believe; there, the church has as much right as the zero population growth folks, and neither should force the public to have children or not have children. It wouldn’t be fair. The issue is the availability of birth control for those who want to use it and for those who may need it, and for that reason, the service needs to be funded. Even if the Church itself believes that the service is a terrible and an evil thing, evidently up to 90% of the members of that church have made use of that wretched thing from time to time. You don’t stop needing health services when you’re a sinner, and being a sinner doesn’t make you less deserving of them, despite the implication here suggesting that we shouldn’t take care of what our sinners need, we should only take care of what our sinners say policy should be when they’re being hypocritical. To me, frankly, planning on that basis, seemly like planning to get into trouble and wondering how the trouble ever could have happened. However did that unwanted pregnancy happen, anyway? That abortion was completely uncalled for, and we thought we understood our daughter. Now we’ll just have to forgive her for the rest of her life, if any of us can quite manage it. This is the sort of statement that gets me in trouble for being unsympathetic, but it’s also the sort of statement that is founded on unpleasant reality based experiences that flow out of refusing to deal with the conflicts that come up in dealing with moral binds such as this one. I don’t mean to be unsympathetic, but the binds that come up in dealing with this sort of stuff do not go away as easily as my friends on the right would hope. And I would hope as well, for that matter, since I don’t love pain any more than you do. The masses of cells that don’t end up graduating Harvard as a result of the morning after pill may in fact amount to a profound disturbance to you, as might the number of cells that don’t implant into the uterine wall as a result of a woman taking The Pill, or the more usual issues with the diaphragm. I am willing to believe that these things are issues for you and amount to a disturbance of some proportion. I have known you for a while, and I credit you with a lot of depth, so I have trouble imagining that the level of upset is on a very concrete level. I’ve gone to some trouble to talk about what that concrete level means to me, because I don’t want to trivialize it or to play language games with it. I mean a level in which the experience actually is personal because there is a person involved. I think that a lot of the discussion here is difficult because the whole notion of life in general and personhood in particular has gotten really muddied up, and that the distinction has gotten lost. For me the distinction is important. The Buddhists will frequently talk about reverence for life, when what the mean is a reverence for sentient life. The Janes will carry a whisk to brush insects away because they carry things a bit further. I would need a lot of convincing before I’d go to the wall to fight for an insect, or even a 64 cell human blastula, frankly, and for me the distinction turns around that issue of personhood, and what is a person. I’ve lost teeth and tonsils and had surgical repairs following accidents that have cost me in the Big Mac range (seemed like it at the time, at least; mano-a-machina with a conveyor belt). I want the thing I invest my sympathies in to have a palpable personhood to it. It will probably have to have quickened before I will actually feel outrage, or for me to be sure that my sympathy is genuine and not manipulated. I don’t demand that anybody else follow my principles, nor do I see how I could. People operate so differently. But I can ask myself what an authentic claim might be on my sympathies, and why I might believe that I could look somebody in the eye and say that I think birth control was fine, and why I thought that a morning after pill would be fine, and why I thought that hormonal birth control would be fine. |
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oceanvu2 Senior Member
since 2007-02-24
Posts 1066Santa Monica, California, USA |
I think the "original sin" was coming to consciousnes, and Freud wrote fiction. Other than that adiscussion of "procreative rights" is absurd. We have a biological imperative to procreate, but it seems that at the moment we've procreated enough to ensure the survival of the species and men, as well as women have choices. If, as has happened in the past, the population of human animals is catastrophically reduced, we will probably find ourselved making like bunnies for good reason, and looking down on those who don't. I would just hope the progeny of such bunnies don't make the same hash of things. For the heck of it, I'll throw in the notion that belief is always irrelevant. One can believe or not believe in birth control, for example. Neither belief has much effect on either birth or control. Jimbeaux |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob: quote: I objected to this simply to point out that when someone says "You're as wrong as you can be", they've usually deceived themselves on one or more of the following points: 1) They fully understand the other side's position 2) they have no points of agreement with their disputant and that 3) he or she has no points of validity whatsoever. Usually you're the one pointing out such triumphalist fallacies when others debate. I just found it odd that you'd say such a thing, that's all. I certainly don't think that you're as wrong as a man can be regarding birth control or even abortion, though I disagree about some pretty significant points. quote: Well, you do apparently believe in the ubiquity of the reprehensible behaviors that believers recognize as sin, and usually respond to such with obvious moral indignation rather than dismissing it as another natural variation, so that's good enough for now. quote: I certainly wouldn't think so either. For the most part however, I've felt that this conversation is about how you think the Catholic Church should themselves be made to behave regarding what they teach, support and provide for. That's a different state of affairs altogether, and one that you haven't commented on yet, preferring the repeated charge of Ecclesiastical bullying instead. And it's quite reasonable for me to say this without having to believe myself that religious leaders have never oppressed anyone in the name of religion. And it's quite unreasonable to spread a one-sided historical panorama of castigation, as if that spoke anything to the present debate ... and as if, even if it did (which maybe it does, I've certainly conceded the importance of moral example and cleaning one's own house first), there were not a whole array of positive and self-reformative examples in Roman Catholic history which you simply choose to omit. quote: While I agree with this principle of self-examination that Jesus prescribed, which so many secularists find useful for ecclesiastical bashing, I would say there's certainly a few blank pages (of more positive examples throughout history) that you might insert as well, if even-handedness were a goal in this discussion. quote: At least I'm grateful that you recognize it a temptation, rather than a positively meritorious way of viewing the matter. It's true enough in many examples, but there is much to counter-balance a wholesale incrimination. quote: What I find ironic is, that many of the people in your examples are not obviously "persons" to many others. It's one thing to quickly ramble about people in vegetative states, disabled beyond contributing anything to the societal machine, those with terminal illnesses, or even newborn infants, and declare how personhood is so obvious for them. I would certainly be an idiot and a bit dispicable to argue otherwise. And yet all of these examples have been (and are) challenged from time to time regarding their personhood, on similar lines of reasoning involving either function or development. Sound familiar? Of course arguing for the non-humanity of these will not be the same in details as those in abortion-rights arguments, but they are doubtless the same principles. Secondly, I'm really not interested in arguing with you about my own existence, as an exercise in how far the Sophist method can extend. And while I think the question of whether someone is human regarding those with no voice, isn't quite so obvious as it is with certain philosophers (I do believe it's obvious with them too, I'm convinced ... I think they're human even when their philosophy disallows that conclusion), I think the whole "What exactly is _____ anyway?" is very much an overplayed refrain. For the sake of this discussion, I'm willing to go with the simple but sound notion that scientifically speaking, biologists admit that a zygote is a human organism in the earliest of stages, not an organ or appendage of another organism, exhibiting quite a unique status, and that the Roman Catholic Church extends this knowledge into the ethical/ moral realm. And though I think they're right in principle, if not in all specifics, it's not necessary here to argue that point. The RCs accept such, and have religious freedom to decline providing for such procedures and treatments that go against that religious conviction. People still have the freedom to either work for them or not, to seek employment elsewhere or accept these terms. You're right, we don't have a State Church. But that also means we shouldn't have a State that rules the Church in such matters, which pragmatically would amount to the same thing. The original situations, from which the separation of Church and State idea grew, were typically examples of the Government imposing rules on the churches, not examples of the Church refusing to comply with liberating and enlightened Government. quote: Bob, We’re past the days (if there ever were such) when the unborn are ‘abstractions’. They are at least a brand new organism distinct from their parents. quote: Someday sorta? How about most always definitely? It seems like intentional ambiguity on your part, which has very little resemblance to the real situation, and which is no rational argument against the pro-life position. Perhaps the “feelings” forum is better place for that kind of statement? You can’t smell garlic on their breath ... what a criterion! Conventional eating habits, according to Bob, is a good determiner of humanness. As to your comments about someone’s appearance, or lack there of ... have you never witnessed a group of ladies cooing over (increasingly definitive) ultrasound pictures? I have. I work among a predominately female population in Nursing. Besides, the fact that one woman makes such a connection while another doesn’t, is irrelevant to the reality of what or who is being commented on. I'm certainly not making my own argumentation based upon the prenatal cooing, though I affirm that one reaction is more fitting and proper to reality than its cold alternatives. quote: Right. Just not by the Church whose religious dogma stands against it. It can and should be obtained by other means. quote: But be careful not to skew the issue here. It’s always easier to be less “upset” when something doesn’t directly involve you, INCLUDING the death of those we both agree are fully and unequivocally human. No, a feeling of upset based upon personal experience is not as relevant as you’re making it. I certainly think other questions are more central to the discussion, given that human emotions (or lack thereof) are fickle and often irrational. quote: Yes, I’ve witnessed the muddling process in the last couple of thousand words. But the fact remains, that at the moment of conception we have a brand-new organism, and at the earliest stages the fetus has undeniable human characteristics (such as a four-chambered beating heart at 3 weeks). Does this amount to comprehensive knowledge, or the kind of philosophical certitude you usually debunk or demand alternately? Of course not, such a degree of modernistic certitude isn’t available about any human discussion. But neither is the question of human life all that muddled except by those who choose to pour ink in the water. quote: a bit further? So I guess those who are against the murder of us human beings walking around in the direct sunlight, are also only taking it a “bit” further still? What’s a few trillion cells anyway? Why would you even suggest the necessity of defending “pro-bug-life” as some kind of prerequisite for defending human life? Sticking a 64 cell blastocyst next to an ameoba, is simply to obscure the difference with superficiality, at least for those of us who have already accepted that human ethics don’t extend to the centipedes. Why must you force someone to argue every point, before they can argue any point? quote: So very few will have this advantage Bob. Remember that the emotive approach (what I feel is real) isn’t always the best guide in decisions. I’m sure you’ve observed the truth of this from the vantage of psychological therapy. Let me use one of your methods and ask you "what does palpable mean"? quote: But this conversation didn’t start about you. It was about why the Church, and her counsellors, or finance officers, should be made to fund and support something that is against their religious beliefs and convictions. Jim: quote: Hey Jim, it's been a while since we've spoken to one another. Good to see you around. But I want to ask ... Are you saying that belief doesn't influence action? Certainly if one believes that abortion is wrong (for example) then abortion will not likely happen with them. Other courses of action will be followed. Likewise, if one believes a fetus is a non-human-being, or that the intentional termination of a human life is somehow justified, then an actual abortion may happen. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that that your "belief" about belief amounts to a kind of philosophical fatalism or determinism. As if to say "what happens happens". I can understand this sort of philosophy which has little to do with reason and more to do with resignation (or despair?) ... But I still insist that in your every day experience and assumption, belief still very much affects human choice and action. Stephen [This message has been edited by Stephanos (02-19-2012 05:32 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: This seems a hopeful but incorrect conclusion. It is hard to imagine a more deceptive paragraph, and I’d like some clarification. Who are the “We” you speak about in your first sentence? If you intent to include me in that number, you have made a mistake, and I want to be clearly excluded. Furthermore, I want to know why you would write a sentence who would be ambiguous enough to suggest that I might be among that number. In bluring the distinction between those who hold your somewhat unclear point of view and those who do not, you suggest that there is no distinction to be made. If you are unaware of the distinction, you should make yourself aware of it. One of the points of distinction is around the very use of the adjective “unborn” as a noun, “the unborn.” People who make sense of the position you appear to be attempting to articulate, one which I frankly have a great deal of trouble understanding, seem to believe that you may use that adjective “unborn” with the indefinite article in front of it, and that by doing so, it seems to specify some specific and identifiable thing having to do with life. I have no seen any evidence that this is so. Prions are unborn. Bacteria are unborn. Rocks and elements are unborn. My grandneice, delivered by Caesarean section two days ago is also unborn and will remain so her whole life. The play Hamlet turned on exactly such a play on words, if those of us who actually read or saw the play will remember. The adjective “unborn” becomes meaningful with the addition of some useful and appropriate noun afterward unless the person who using the construction is attempting some tricky and generally deceptive locution. The nature of the noun generally underlines exactly how deceptive the usage is, as in, for example, the phrase “pre-owned” rather than “used” to go with the noun “car.” George is a “pre-owned car salesman,” for example sounds even more deceptive than “used car-salesman.” In this case, I fail to see ther distinction between speaking of ”the Rights of the Unborn” and “The Rights of the Pre-born.” The Unborn or The Pre-Born What? In fact the Unborn HAVE to be abstractions gramatically because there is no noun to fix person, place of thinghood upon, and without that noun, all we have is quite literally a modifier without identity. Stephen accuses me of doing what he has done in fixing the very terms of the discussion. If he wishes to be more specific, he must specify which noun he wishes to use. Child, fetus, collection of cells are all, I suppose possible, though none of them fit the terms of the discussion he would appear to wish to frame. This is why the Religious Right is trying to reinvent the language and the reality with which the English language can frame the discussion right now. A Child is traditionally saved for somebody who is already born, and there are legal traditions and ruling that seem to apply. The religious right tends not to want to use that word. It also tends to have some v ery different feelings about how children are supposed to be treated than how children are to be treated before they are born. Beatings of young children by parents are often thought of as very much the right of the parents to administer as they see fit, and they right of the parents to allow those children to die for lack of standard medical treatment is often championed by the religious right. If the question involved here were one of pre-birth care, for example to prevent death of th child in childbirth from predictable complications, the discussion would or could be very different. The Religious right might well be taking the side that no medical care could be permitted despite the sure knowledge of birth complications and the liklihood of abortion because the only care permitted could be prayer. Right? The issue isn’t the health and safety of the child, and pretending that it is makes me a bit queasy, though I do appreciate the degree of self-righteousness involved in the discussion. The Religious Right will argue that the parents have a right to pray for the child to recover from a breach birth position or to not require a transfusion to save its life and that the State should not be able to say otherwise. I say that the law should come first. And that the Church should have to follow the law the same way any other employer does if it wants to function as an employer within the country. It is not above the law. IUf The Religious Right doesn’t want to speak about the Unborn as abstractions, then it should attach the appropriate noun to the construction they’re using for the proposed discussion, and allow the discussion to develop along those lines. “The Unborn,” in the meantime, certainly appear to be abstractions until they are capable of existing as specificities and as individuals on their own. If you believe they are brand new organisms distinct from their parents, I think that there may be cases when you are correct, but I would like to know how you determine that. Many of the tests that you come up with would be, I suggest to you, impractical. Many of the tests would probably be simply wrong. A great many of them would involve making choices that I saw many Republicans say were inhumaine or too expensive to pay for when the thought of them came up in discussion of the health care legislation last year and the year before involving rationing of health care services. Given that you might be able to keep some of these babies alive at the cost of having to allow other patients to die, who do you believe is going to make those decisions, and which voters do you believe will support making those decisions? If you refuse to deal with these people as “abstractions,” then you need to deal with the realities that these decisions insist we face. That’s what I believe, if you think these situations have to be dealt with. Please, how do you suggest we do the things you say we have to do? |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Deleted as a duplicate entry...reading it once was enough! [This message has been edited by Balladeer (02-21-2012 08:47 AM).] |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob: quote: Melodrama aside, what I meant is that such are the days when technology has made known in ever more definitive ways, what the fetus really is like. Week 12, hair and fingernails. And no you're not exempt from that kind of proliferating knowledge. quote: Don't read too much into the Grammar. In simplest terms, since "human being" is denied by abortion-rights-advocates, the term "unborn" is a substituted or shortened form of "unborn human-being", which proves little, except that pro-lifers either concede too much in their own communication, or they're just okay with abbreviated forms. Probably as simple as that. Whatever else you might read into this is lost on me. quote: Really? The obvious difference being that they can't be born, and never are. It's been proven otherwise, billions of times over with the fetus. Here's something to ask yourself: "what is a category error"? quote: That's ridiculous Bob. I work in the medical field, and "birth" is not limited to vaginal delivery. Cesarian Birth, is very much a common term. I can get to the next floor up by stairs or elevator Bob, but either way I don't stay on ground level. Honestly, such semantic tomfoolery doesn't make for good argumentation. quote: Which is "human being", and which is the heart of the very debate, the thing we are disputing. You can only assume your argument is correct, in order to deny that a fitting noun exists, which is circular. Am I denying circularity on my part? Of course not. I'm assuming my argument, in order to call the fetus what it is, human. But I'm also arguing why one circle is a better fit for reality than the other, and providing reasons. quote: And yet, either term wouldn't prevent most anyone from grasping the reality of the situation. A car is a car, whether in assembly, new on the lot, trashed by a careless owner, or refurbished and resold. My point is that most people effortlessly glide past the terminology used (which is always imperfect due to the nature of language) without constant suspicion of conspiracy or deceitfulness. Post-modern philosophy has exerted a demagogic control over your methodology that extends to literally everything you speak of lately. I wonder if you realize how controlling such a "hermeneutic of suspicion" can be for someone who accepts it uncritically. Last time I bought a used or pre-owned vehicle, neither I nor my car-salesman was under much delusion about the meeting of interests involved. So what? Someone once posted the following on piptalk, and I feel about the same way: "can't decide if this is a shade of 'pale smoke', 'fuzzy sheep', 'ash essence', 'moth grey', 'fog', 'thin ice', or 'arctic cotton'. The possibilities are endless. A grey belt in origami might help, but sadly, I lack credentials in that cutting edge martial art ..." (DRS) quote: Human beings ... I thought you at least understood that the basic pro-life argument was for this. If not, now you do. quote: Okay... and ...? "Human being" works just fine, for my position, and for most pro-life advocates. I'm sure that those of both sides, however, understand that human status is what is being argued about. It would be impractical if not ridiculous to expect your opponent to use your own verbal biases in framing his or her argument now wouldn't it? ... and to protest this over and over rather than to argue your own case? Relax Bob, I'd never expect you use the term human being when discussing a blob of uterine cells with fingernails and hair. And though, as for myself, I'm quite convinced that science has adequately distinguished between a fetus and a dermoid cyst (or teratoma), I certainly don't feel the need to perpetually object to you sticking to your linguistic guns. quote: Not always "as they see fit", by any means. But, indeed, most abused know when they've been, and as a well adjusted adult I can say that corporal discipline benefited me. But that is a separate issue. Let's talk about the difference between a dermoid and a fetus. quote: Right ... But I'm certainly not arguing that religious freedom should be boundless. In the case we're discussing however, employees may still choose among employers (children don't usually have this option among parents), and the question is about whether the Church should be made to fund or provide something their dogma has been against for some time. Again, do I have to argue for everything before I can argue for anything? Is this a "smokescreen" like in those old spy movies I watched as a kid? quote: "Might well be"? How about "Doesn't"? As far as I know, both medical care and prayer are both permitted by most Protest and Catholic Churches. Must you now invent theoretical arguments (or present fringe arguments) that need be defended before we resume discussion of why you think the Catholic Church should be made to provide certain kinds of birth-control and abortion? Again why should I have to argue for everything before I argue for anything? quote: O diviner of motives, apparently righteous but not self-so, one thing I can't pretend, is to have the certainty that you have concerning this. And so, I'll abstain from thine queasiness. quote: I'm not sure the "religious right" is as unanimous as you say they are about this issue. But even if so, I've never claimed to unconditionally support what religious-right wants. So, am I still having to argue for everything? I'm convinced that you're quite intelligent, and can divine that there may be actual differences between issues, even (believe it or not) those having similar dynamics. quote: I'm not aware that it hasn't developed along those lines ... ie, that those in discussion are human-beings. It makes me think you haven't read much by way of any serious pro-life apologetics (along the lines of Francis Beckwith or Scott Klusendorf), which, like any other position, couches its language within its own assumptions, even in defense of those assumptions. Human Being is a noun used over and over. On the one hand you'd accuse the noun users of circular reasoning (which is invariable with presuppositions), and on the other you'd accuse those who refrain from using the noun of deception. Sounds more like a trap called "false dilemma" than any reasonable argument of your own. quote: From the standpoint of Embryology the "test" is whether fertilization has occurred, where a brand-new genetic code emerges when the nuclei of sperm and egg fuse, beginning the life of a brand new human organism that will likely proceed to birth if not terminated. And while a fertilized egg that has not implanted presents conundrums for us in the question of ethics and birth control, most abortion cases lack this kind of ambiguity. quote: Well, I never said that Health Care didn't present us with dilemmas. But solving them by the active termination of human-beings in early stages of development is not the path I'm willing to support. There are certainly many ways to promote adoption and foster care, and to unite couples with fertility problems (or couples who simply want to adopt in addition to having biological-children) with babies with social problems. These issues will have to be explored and tended to whichever path is chosen. quote: Well I must say I suspect that your questions here are merely rhetorical. But to answer, I'm a big advocate of adoption and foster care, we could start there. We could start by suggesting that the funds allocated for fetal exterminations be transferred to programs that promote more life-affirming choices. Stephen |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Mike, did you just accuse Bob of duplicity? :P |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Uh, call it restless finger syndrome  |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: The first response when I google is the dictionary of atheism. The problem isn’t with what is born alive or not. The problem is with the failure to specify the noun, as you are well aware. The category error is either unlikely or impossible without the confusion thrown into the mixture by the Religious Right which fails to specify the terms of the discussion. You are being disingenuous to suggest otherwise. In fact, that particular category error is exactly what the Religious Right counts upon in the discussion; that people will assume that masses of tissue women walk around with in their wombs for nine months before giving birth do have the same quality of sentience, awareness and life that Ryle, Aristotle, and their own wives, children and friends have. Do they? I really don’t know. I also know that you don’t know, either; though I have every reason to believe that your belief and all your reason tell you that it’s so. There’s simply no absolute way of knowing these things because there’s really no absolute way of knowing anything. That’s the philosophical conundrum that folks have been facing for as long as there have been folks to face things. We do the best we can with the limits that reality places on us, and many of us try to pretend that we can do better for reasons that are best known to them. Bless ‘em, and I hope they get the best of the deal. I hope they’re right and I’m not. If you don’t want me to make these kinds of category errors, give me a concrete noun. I do appreciate “Human Being,” by the way. I think that’s a sincere good try, and knowing you, I believe you mean it, and that you’ll do your best to keep your statements in line with that proposal for the noun. I’m going to use this as a small section of my response and ship it off. I’ll try to ship of small, chewy, bite sized chunks and see what we can make of them. It’ll probably help me stay clear and preserve my bouncy and delightful mood over the difficult topic, and to treat you with the honor and courtesy you deserve, and which your religious convictions deserve as well. I don’t have to agree with them, but I know how well they treated you and your family, and how well they treated other people who’ve needed their help, and I’m going to do my best to treat them well. I only hope I can do it consistently. My best, Bob. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
quote: Well, Bob, in your reply you've simultaneously continued to demand a "noun" (were you a grammar teacher once? you remind me of one I had long ago), and pointed out in positive terms that I've provided one, without offering any critique of it, apart from your epistemology that nothing whatsoever is certain. Maybe you could offer a critique of "fetus as human being in early stage of development" that makes use of something other than the impossibility of philosophical certainty about anything at all? I respect you too Bob, and have enjoyed the exchange. And boy, I'm glad you posted a short one this time.  Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: My critique was of “the unborn,” which did not supply a noun and which confused the discussion for reasons I already specified. You attempted to blame me for a category error made by polemicists on the religious right, near as I can figure. That was their error. It was unsuitable to fault me for it, though in the heat of discussion, it’s understandable. The Religious Right has attempted to focus discussion on some of the qualities of the thing under discussion. In doing so, it obscure the nature of the thing under discussion, if you follow me. The quality it’s shoving into the limelight here is whether or not birth has happened (“the unborn") at the expense of the definition of the thing. A noun, after all, is a person, a place or a thing. If the nature of the thing is kept unspecified, then the discussion is not about a thing but an abstraction so tenuous it cannot be visualized. The Religious Right keeps this information vague. I am willing to talk about “a human being” because it offers the advantage of an actual noun clause, rather than simply the adjective. There is a thing involved. The Religious Right gives this thing an immediate promotion to personhood. I would not care to offer a critique of the word “fetus.” I’m rather fond of it, and it brings up some of the medical material that you sometimes speak about and sometimes don’t. I googled “fetus” in the medical dictionary. fetus [fe´tus] (L.) the developing young in the uterus, specifically the unborn offspring in the postembryonic period, which in humans is from the third month after fertilization until birth. See also embryo.? The stages of growth of the fetus are fairly well defined. At the end of the first month it has grown beyond microscopic size. After 2 months it is a little over 2.5 cm long, its face is formed, and its limbs are partly formed. By the end of the third month it is 8 cm long and weighs about 30 g; its limbs, fingers, toes, and ears are fully formed, and its sex can be distinguished. After 4 months the fetus is about 20 cm long and weighs over 200 g. The mother can feel its movements, and usually the health care provider can hear its heartbeat. The eyebrows and eyelashes are formed, and the skin is pink and covered with fine hair called lanugo. By the fifth month the fetus's body is covered with a cheeselike substance (vernix caseosa), which serves to protect it in its watery environment. By the end of the fifth month it is 30 cm long, weighs 450 g, and has hair on its head. At the end of the sixth month it is 35 cm long and weighs 900 g, and its skin is very wrinkled. After 7 months the fetus is 40 cm long and weighs over 1.3 kg, with more fat under its skin. In the male, the testes have descended into the scrotum. By the end of the eighth month it is 45 cm long, may weigh 2.3 kg, and has a good chance of survival if it is born at that time. At the end of 9 months, the average length of a fetus is 50 cm and the average weight is 3.2 kg. adj., adj fe´tal. “The unborn fetus” makes a great deal of sense to me. I like the part where it says that it has a good chance of survival of surviving on its own if it’s born at the end of the eighth month. I understand that with help the fetus can actually survive in some cases if necessary with substantial help if born as early as the later part of the fifth month. I have other friends who’ve worked in the medical field, too. That doesn’t mean that I believe that women should be forced to carry a child they don’t wish to carry, however. They should have available means of conception control and should have abortion available on demand. Should they wish to talk their decision over with others, those resources should be available for them to take advantage of, free of charge. If a woman wishes to have an abortion, the decision should be hers. Other people do not have to like her decision. That includes the father of the child. If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one. If you believe that there are alternatives to abortion that work well, that might be enough to convince a lot of women not to have them. You should really try to set up a working foster care and adoption network that would seem appealing enough to these women that they will simply feel that abortion is a silly choice and that adoption and foster care is the obvious way to go. So far, any and all attempts in this direction have been a terrible failure. Voters won’t pay for it and the law-makers who say they are anti-abortion won’t go two inches out of their way to spend one cent. Nor will the religious organizations who are so avidly anti-abortion and anti-birth control willing to do anything to make adoption and foster care appealing enough to the people they want to target. A fetus, I guess, is what an embryo becomes when he does his homework. My understanding is that a fetus can quicken, that is learn basic dance moves in utero; while an embryo can’t even dream about them. Traditionally, people have tended to think that a child isn’t really alive until it quickens, though that’s far from universal. That would be a distinction between the word “fetus” and “embryo,” though not a critique of either. Both are in fact unborn states of human development. Many have considered that “ensoulment,” should you believe in that concept, follows upon quickening. Here’s a quote from one of the great little-read 17th century English poets, Sir John Davies, from one of his fine courtly poems called “Orchestra, or a Poem of Dauncing.” It’s a long poem, one to be read at, slowly, over time, and out loud if possible, if it’s ever possible, for people who love really fine poetry. If I haven’t quoted him before, I’ve deprived you. “Great Nature first doth cause all things to love, Love makes them daunce and in just order move.” And of course he’s right. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
quote: I think only for those who aren't paying attention to the larger picture of the debate. Good pro-life arguments present the thing-in-question as a human-being in early stages of development. Yes these human-beings are sometimes referred to merely as the 'unborn'. A mere reference to a random quality? Not really. Remember that in the minds of most abortion-rights advocates, birth is the magic line that makes the thing-in-question either a human being worthy of protection, or an interesting though dispensable aggregate of cells. An attempt to protest the use of the word "unborn" may itself be an effort to obscure, since the fact that the thing-in-question (human-being in reality) will be born, apart from deliberate termination, becomes much more predicate, rather than conversationally covert. quote: Not at all at the expense of the definition, except for those who haven't been reading articulate pro-life arguments for themselves. While the word "unborn" may be used, it is relevant for the reasons I just mentioned, and not without additional statements about the fetus as a human being in early development. So the argument has never been about an abstraction, but about an unborn human being. In pro-life discourse these terms are sometimes used separate, sometimes together, and alongside other terms altogether. quote: I've never known a newborn, or even a two-year old that could survive on it's own either. Dependence, with medical technology or otherwise, is another faux criterion for calling the fetus human, in abortion rights arguments (The viability argument). quote: Why should a woman be forced to feed a child they don't wish to feed then? Why should they not also have infanticide available on demand? If it's all and only about the wishes of the woman? The woman's right of choice and action would not supercede the human rights of a newborn infant. Why should it be different in pregnancy? quote: If a woman wishes to have infanticide, the decision should not be hers. She does not have to like the decision of law. What I said is obviously radically different than what you said, though you'd agree I think. I'm consistent in my basic approach with the unborn and the newborn. But with you, why such a radical difference between an unborn human being in an early stage of development, and a born human being in an early stage of development? Why are the "wishes" of the woman of highest regard in one case, and hopelessly subordinate in the other? Or if you don't like the way I've worded my question (being so assertive about the fetus being human), why is the thing-in-question worthy of human rights after exiting the body of the mother, but not also before? quote: I won't Bob. If you don't like traffic laws, don't drive. If you don't like the responsibility of children don't get pregnant, and don't get someone pregnant. If you are not avoiding responsibility, but honest to goodness cannot take care of your child to be, there are other options besides keeping the child or terminating your pregnancy. quote: Thanks Bob for the recommendation. We have contributed to adoption agencies. We've also adopted twice ourselves from a culture where the Government has often forced abortion with mothers who have violated one-child-only laws. I'm fairly certain that most adoption agencies do hold a pro-life philosophy, and many of them were established with the idea of being a life-affirming alternative to abortion. They are certainly worthy of our support, whether we are able to start such an organization, or merely financially help those already established. quote: I certainly don't take any of this without a grain of salt ... okay, well I'm going to need a shaker. Okay, much of this is simply untrue. Not one red cent? Nothing done at all. Sounds like "dismissal by alleged abysmal failure". It's not a degree of failure (which could be cited for most any enterprise, including, thankfully, the abortion industry) that I object to, not even huge failure, but the tone of replete futility, which just isn't true. There is typically NO COST to give up a baby for adoption. That can't even be said for abortion. So what are you expecting to be done by adoption agencies to make such a thing easier? quote: Or is not expelled. quote: My understanding is that both of these are human beings in early stages of development. 3 weeks after fertilization and the embryo has literally a beating heart. As always interesting discussion Bob. But since we've talked about category errors, I'll share another one in the ongoing abortion debate. In Georgia a bill was lately introduced to make the legal time-frame for abortion less, from 24 to 20 weeks I believe. In response a ridiculous bill was introduced to make vasectomies illegal, apparantly to let males know what it feels like to have medical decisions made for them. Did anyone notice that the natural correlative for vasectomy is a tubal ligation or hysterectomy, not an abortion? I believe many brain cells are being aborted. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
[Edited - Talk about the post, Bob, not the poster. Thank you, Ron. [This message has been edited by Ron (02-28-2012 02:30 AM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I think the notion is that men don't actually feel the intrusion of of other people into their physical boundaries the way that I believe at least some women do. I can't tell you for sure because surity requires I be able to pass a physical exam that I simply cannot pass. But this is what I think. This intrusion of the one gender into the areas that the other feels is theirs by right of bodily integrity has caused massive rage going back at least as far as the Trojan war. We can argue whether or not Helen was Agamemnon's property all day and all night, and whether Agamemnon was going to war about whether he felt he had a right to control Helen and her body or not in actual fact, but the basic principle is probably there. Probably. As a guy, I have the right to say what you do with your body and the genetic products of your body. In the end, I have a right to kill you and your offspring if you don't please me. This gathers from a few different cultures and edits and patches to support my thesis, but if you dishonor me or my clan many middle eastern cultures allow or even demand I take your life if you are are woman; and, under Roman law, a father may kill his children for displeasing him right up until the time he dies. A lot of the somewhat unpleasant royal infighting in the Roman royal and imperial houses was very distasteful but legal under Roman law, by extention. While we function under English Law, which is better in many ways, this whole business about what the actual rights of women actually are seem to me to be in something of a flux. Roman Law seems to govern some of the ways we look at women. I'd be interested in seeing how the legal notions of women and children are reflected in the way the Catholic Church and the religious community thinks about Abortion and birth control, and how English common law thinks about Abortion on the other hand. I'd also like to know where the thinking about women having a right to make up their own minds about bringing a child to term on not comes from, and what legitimacy that idea feels it rests upon. I have to say that I think that there is a powerful biology behind a woman wanting to bear a child, and that there's a lot of behavior in men and women both directed toward making sure that a live birth happens, and that the live birth ends up as a functioning and reproducing adult that will repeat the process. For something else to happen along the way, there's got to be a pretty good reason. For that thing to happen as frequently and as successfully as planned abortion and planned birth control, the reason has god to be better than pretty good. Both practices have history going back as far as we have written records. If you wish to exercise any successful control over the practice of abortion, then I think you would need at a minimum, an understanding of the advantages that it provides and of the purposes it serves, and that you be willing to examine ways of providing those advantages at least as well and at least as easily as abortion does itself. Otherwise, Abortion will continue to be the solution of choice. The test of that point when an appropriate alternative has been found is when the abortion numbers begin to drop and the number of people availing themselves of your solution begin to rise in proportion. It's not easy. It is simple. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob: quote: Conceded. As long as the strange fact that both genders spend 9 months or so inside the bodies of women is also conceded, making it a unique situation, not comparable at all to a vasectomy. quote: But reason and explanation shouldn't be conflated. There are explanations why people murder other people, involving endless talk about aspects of nature and nurture. There's not likely any good reason. quote: Bob, really? Do you not think these "advantages" obvious enough? Every one of us parents with children remember the time when we didn't have to plan for baby sitting for dates, didn't have to watch our money as carefully, didn't have to endure vigils with illness, didn't have to clean spills, change diapers, teach someone to speak and express themselves day by day, become interested in humble things you would have no interest in otherwise, etc ... etc ... And for the poor, these are only magnified. But don't act as if those who disagree with you don't understand what it means to not bring a child to term. It's nothing anyone would need to go to school for, it's what we call obvious. Whether we can sympathize is a good question. Whether we think these advantages justifies the legality of abortion is another. quote: Yes, I've already commented on some specifically. Since you've remained general, I'd like to ask why you think adoptive services and foster care do not provide equal "advantages". quote: It's not that simple Bob. I'm sure you feel that good counselling, and building support systems is preferable to exhibiting violence and abuse in personal relationships, right? It would therefore be ridiculous for me to suggest that the only proper way to deal with abuse is to allow the democratic process to play out (through the improvement of the deficiencies of counseling) and turn the numbers around ... and until your methods win out, without the help of any legality, we'll just have to say that violence and abuse is a viable and nearly-respectable option with its own advantages. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: Makes sense to me. quote: You’re taking me out of context here, and I’m not sure you understand my point, Stephen. If you want a solution to Abortion, you can have one that is a serious solution or one that is simply a pretend solution, to pick two options among many. I would bet that you want a solution that actually works because people turn to it out of choice automatically. The reason that I believe this is because that is the position that abortion itself seems to occupy for many women now, and has for thousands of years. Yes, many people give up children for adoption. No, that is not the answer, though it is an answer, and not a bad partial answer. If it was a good answer, there would be no problem for you with the number of abortions, because there wouldn’t be any, would there? The problem would be solved with the solution you’ve already offered; and it’s not. More of the same might help, yes, but I think the problem is that it doesn’t address some of the problems that many women have with the issue. What are these problems? Well, I think we need to ask women who are having abortions what these issues are instead of asking people who are insulted at the thought of women having abortions in the first place. You’re more likely to get an accurate answer. Only with better information can you plan for a different outcome and have it have much chance for a different outcome. If you keep coming up with the same old answers because you refuse to get answers from sources you don’t like, you’re more or less trapped getting the same results you’ve always gotten. I don’t recall hearing you say that you love what you hear from women who want to get abortions yet, but those are really the only people who are going to be able to give you the answers that will make you happy. And they’re going to have to want to do something that feels like a better thing for them. Not for you. Not for society. Not for God. Not for the police or the government. Not for Christ. It’s really going to have to feel like it’s an answer that feels better for them. quote: You’re in such an all fired hurry to get to your point you can’t even imagine an answer other than the one you’re trying to push down my throat and the throat of what appears to be many if not most women who want to have an abortion. Thank you, by the way, for telling me why women want abortions. Some of them doubtless do want abortions for exactly those reasons. What’s your success rate in talking women out of having abortions with a set of rationales like that, though? 95%? 100%? Doubtless there are no women who are having abortions now that you’ve explained it all to them. Or if there are, it must be that they simply didn’t understand it and you didn’t explain it to them so they would really understand what it was that they were really thinking. Having cleared up all the potential women wishing abortions in Georgia, there is nothing left to do but take the show on the road, is there? Pardon my sarcasm. Knowing what it’s like or not like to bring a child to term is really beside the point in many ways. What is the point is what this woman is thinking and why she is thinking it. There really are advantages to having an abortion, and there may be many commonalities from woman to woman, but each woman may in fact be different, and you don’t know until you ask. quote: At the risk of repeating myself, we both like the notion of adoption, but there are an awful lot more abortions than there are children given up for adoption. If it were such a great solution, there would be no abortions and all the children that might otherwise be aborted would be adopted. It’s not even close. You may call that a successful solution, I would call that abortion on demand, same as usual. There are also some folks who believe that there are inherently racist elements in the adoption process, where white folks frequently get the pick of kids from other races. This is an issue in the community of social workers of color, or it used to be at any rate. There are also issues around the age of adoptees, the IQ of adoptees and the gender of adoptees. Foster care has periodically been an issue where foster care is in some venues a way of supporting a family. There are also different cultural values about adoptions. In Hawaii, for example, adoption is culturally very much a part of the culture, and children will often move in and out of families in a somewhat fluid fashion because of the large extended family structures. It’s much more rigid in some of the western european cultures. Basically, adoption doesn’t work as well because of different cultural values on the subject and because it’s not clear that it really has all that much of an effect on abortion rates anyway. Certainly not enough for the Religious community to feel that it’s a solution. You love it, for example, but you’d never say that it’s made Abortion a non-issue for you. For something to be a solution to Abortion, it should really make a substantial contribution to making Abortion ago away, at least that’s what I think. Otherwise,m you’re simply not talking about a solution, are you? See the comment of mine you quote next below. quote: quote: Absolutely. quote: I simply don’t follow. You suggest that because I believe that a proven treatment is better than an illegal activity ... what? Your use of the word “therefore” suggests that there is an analogy with an appropriate parallelism to follow, and yet, mirabile dictu, none does. I see the indignation, and I understand it, but the promised logic does not to my eye make an appearance. If I missed it, I’m sorry, and I’d love to have it pointed out. Again, nobody except a sadomasochist loves abortion. It is at best a second-best solution that women end up crowded into. Part of the way they are crowded into abortions is failure in the system that allows women access to birth control and “family planning.” If we want to reduce Abortions, it’s most likely that the first best interventions will have to be made on that level, and that means that we need to stop assuming that everybody is middle class and runs their lives as though they were written by the writers of Father Knows Best. We need to try to understand what the various models of what families are that we’re trying to live with in The United States today. All the models are not the same. We need to look at what the roll of Father is in the various family systems today. Sometimes father is an actual single person, sometimes a father is one guy that a woman has a relationship with among several she has known over her lifetime. Sometimes the woman is the primary caregiver, sometimes it is a series of women wit men passing in and out of the home. There are all sorts of different notions of Family that Americans are struggling to live today, and Abortion is something that helps regulate how those families function internally and externally. It helps place the notion of the family first, and helps define the linkages between one part of a family and other parts of a family. It is, as an institution and as a technique, both more than this and less than this. Unless this aspect of Abortion is looked at and appreciated, I believe, it will remain a complete puzzle for people who dislike it on moral grounds, yet it serves an important function is marking and trimming lines of relation and affiliation that women especially would be powerless to affect otherwise. Men are the ones who tend to be in charge of names and paternity in the more formal sense in most varieties of American culture. With the use of the power of abortion, they can lay down their own statements about who is related to whom and who is to be, in some senses, literally cut out of the family tree. That’s my thinking about the subject right now, and this is the first time I’ve had a chance to formulate the thought. It may be the first time I’ve seen anybody make a written note of thinking that particular thought, for that matter. Ha! |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob: quote: You have to assume something, that we quite disagree on, for your statement to be anywhere near plausible: that people will always choose the good or best when given the chance. In such an ideal world law would not be needed, we would just offer the best, and watch the alternatives dwindle away. But since I don't think people always choose the good, even when it's available, I think making something detrimental to human-rights illegal would be helpful in greatly reducing it, when some people are going to choose it by default as the "easiest" thing to do. I'm not under any illusion that such measures would eliminate abortion. But neither am I under the illusion that the measure of how good an alternative is, is how many people avail themselves of it. quote: Bob, you assume much. Firstly, you assume I have to ask them myself, when they already have been asked. I have read research, and percentages, of what post-abortive women have themselves said regarding why they chose abortions. I can mention them. But very few reasons, if any (and these of much smaller percentages) are not addressed or answered by the adoptive alternative. One study you can refer to is "Reasons U.S. Women Have Abortions: Quantitative and Qualitative Perspectives". The following link has a short article, with a link to the larger study results inside. http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2005/09/06/index.html You've been conspicuously silent in giving any reasons for abortion that might not be addressed by adoption, so let me request that you provide a few, either from your own thoughts, or from all the women you've asked. quote: There are a lot of "nots" in that sentence! Why such an either/ or approach? If more are involved in this than the woman, then that tells me that her needs should definitely be included, but not exclusive. It is curious to me that you left out the unborn human being, which is as central to this discussion, if not moreso, than the mother. Much more of their lives are affected, don't you think? You say it's only a potential life, but the mother's happy preferences without laws that limit or ban abortions, are only potentialities as well. It just doesn't stand to reason that you would make one human consideration supreme (which doesn't jeopardize life, and which I've never denied should be included), to the exclusion of all others. quote: It's been asked. So, Bob, what are the advantages to having an abortion over an adoption that are not trivial? I'm sure, though you have a Y-Chromosome, you could at least imagine one for the sake of discussion. Either that, or derive one from all the women who have been asked for research purposes. You're insistence upon a reason from me (or from women in Georgia?), that you yourself cannot provide or even conjure, is a smoke-screen. If not, I'd like to resume the discussion surrounding such reasons, when you get the time. quote: It is a great solution. It is also a solution which requires more effort. One must actually go through childbirth. It is not financially burdensome, probably about the same as abortion, though I haven't financially compared the procedures of child-birth with abortion. Again, yours is the fallacy of thinking that the goodness of a solution correlates with how many people avail themselves of it. I'm sure spousal abuse is far greater than a loving participation in counseling ... does that mean that such counseling is not a good alternative, and that striking my wife should be legalized, since people will naturally choose the better course of action? The bottom line is, as long as dehumanizing rhetoric is used in speaking of an unborn underdeveloped human being, and that women are persuaded into thinking that abortion is akin to an appendectomy, why would they choose something that requires more time and effort? It wouldn't matter, if such were true. But if such isn't exactly true, as the science of embryology leads us to believe, then adoption is the best choice even though not being the easiest choice, and not having the advantage of being an out-patient procedure one could have in the morning, and go to work the next day, or go shopping at the mall. quote: Can anyone say "Red Herring"? As the Caucasian father of two Chinese children, and as someone who knows a friend who has adopted a child of another race, I can tell you that none will object to these children being adopted into loving families, who are not racist themselves. quote: Cultural values can be changed, as they are not absolutes. And there would be no way of telling whether or not it has an effect on the abortion rate. One thing is very obvious however ... every woman who gave up her child for adoption could have chosen abortion instead. And if abortion were more restricted, and adoption more promoted, then there is little reasonable doubt that the abortion rate would fall, and adoptions would rise. quote: Sounds like a non-sequitur. I'm not female, so personally, abortion is a non-issue for me. I don't think abortion is ethical or moral, so personally abortion is a non-issue for me. I've never felt the need to get rid of a child, or had the feeling that I couldn't raise a child, so personally abortion is a non-issue for me. But abortions still happen, in a pretty much on-demand fashion (though thankfully laws have limited this), so socially abortion is still an issue for me. My argument is that adoption can make abortion a non-necessity for many women who might think it to be a necessity. What these facts have to do with your above sentence, I cannot tell. quote: No, not a total solution. I think on-demand abortion should be illegal. So adoption is merely an alternative to abortion, not a total solution. quote: My point is, since you obviously think counseling is a good alternative to violence, and don't feel that its value is diminished by the many many people who choose to partake in violence rather than trouble with counseling, you understand the position of believing in a good alternative, and also of seeing the necessity for legal restrictions on those who will not choose the better on their own. That position which you doubtless hold, in essence, is not different than my own regarding abortion. quote: Only in the sense of removing a person from the "family" ... and other alternatives do that just as well. Abortion is not unique in that role, except in its ease and "convenience" and out-patient status. quote: Abortion as a feminist backlash against patriarchal domination of names! I see. Only, the mother gets to actually terminate the life, rather than just determine the name, just to show she won't be pushed around. Sounds reasonable. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I posted something here which I reposted another place. If you hadn't seen this note, you'd probably never have known. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Sorry to say, I still don't know ... or I don't know where it is? Could you be specific? thanks, Stephen |
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