Saturday, April 19, 2008
Repurcussions
This piece from AmericanThinker.com shows how bad policy, paricularly liberal policy, such as Roe v Wade, can and does easily morph into far more regrettable situations. All the more reason to reverse that pathetic and immoral decision A.S.A.P. and cut the crap about when life begins and when one is a person. It's all subterfuge anyway.
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8 comments:
Yep. That's also why "ethicists" such as Princeton's Peter Singer rightly point out that if partial-birth abortion is permissible - and he thinks it is - then why not infanticide?
Hmmm... I don't think I agree here.
This is a significant failure of logic, relatively in the "slippery slope" category. The argument is placed in the AT that given that death is the worst thing you can do to an individual, and given that Roe v. Wade allows women to give death to a fetus, therefore any action by a mother against it's fetus is therefore outside of the jurisdiction of law.
AT notes : "Therefore, if any class of human beings can be legally killed, it logically follows that they can also be injured or mutilated, however horribly, without penalty to the perpetrator."
If we use this same lack of logic in, say, the death penalty, then any action is allowed against criminals: medical experimentation, torture, slavery, and other actions which are illegal. AT even acknowledges the 8th amendment as being the sole exception, immediately destroying its own argument.
Laws can and do allow a specific action to be done, such as abortion, and other laws can be written to disallow other actions, such as mutilation, manipulation, and destruction--without any hypocrisy at all.
Per the AT: "Rightly or wrongly, our legal system regards death as the greatest possible injury that one person can inflict on another."
This is an opinion, not stated as such in the law.
Doc,
I see your point, but it doesn't really work as well as you think. First of all, the corollary between a fetus and a convict is not exact, but only to illustrate how the law had to define that we won't inflict cruel and unusual punishment upon law breakers. Without such a law, it follows that such things would be permissable if we already had the right to do worse, which is to end the criminal's life. I suppose one can debate if death is worse than torture, but there aren't available to us anyone who can confirm that death is a better option. Keep in mind, from torture one can recover. So I think the logic holds.
More precisely, if we focus only on the fetus, the logic becomes more solid, particularly when one concedes how many already don't respect the fetus as a person endowed with the same unalienable right to life as the rest of us. (This is why in one of my original postings I stated that Roe v Wade was premature since the question of personhood had never been decided legally.) If the fetus or embryo is not a person as we are, then there is even less concern for what happens to it. Frankly, why should anyone care? Since so many of us do care, the thought that the possibilities described in the AT article are not so far fetched. And considering the curious nature of scientists, as well as their cold, clinical and academic perspective, it is imperative that the question of the beginning of personhood is answered in no uncertain terms.
I appreciate your comments.
I do not disagree that the fetus is not given the same rights as a post birth human in our current structure, or in the minds of many. I do disagree in the structure of AT's logic.
I did not morally or legally equivocate convicts and embryos; rather, I was using this as an example of interpretation of logic in the structure of laws. Laws are written to specifically state what can and cannot be done to a fetus (or a convict), and are not rendered moot by the fact that a fetus or a convict can be killed.
The article, to me, was more disturbing to see that the UK has constructed laws stating that couples cannot intentionally choose to knowingly screen or engineer embryos to have a serious medical condition but the Department of Health has decided to strike any reference of deafness as a serious medical condition. 'Cause, uh, THAT makes sense!
On second thought, I could be okay with that, as long as the parents receive no disability or coverage under their NHS when the deaf child needs medical or other disability treatment.
Point: Roe v. Wade is not "liberal policy." It's the prevailing decision of the Supreme Counrt of the United States. As such, it's the law. Not "liberal policy."
Carry on.
ER,
I hope you're not using an oil-based paint for that whitewashing you're doing. It's harder to clean up.
Roe v Wade is an example of the most liberal interpretation of the Constitution. Even liberal law scholars agree, though they approve of the result. Law or otherwise, it's still liberal policy.
ER,
I hope you're not using an oil-based paint for that whitewashing you're doing. It's harder to clean up.
Roe v Wade is an example of the most liberal interpretation of the Constitution. Even liberal law scholars agree, though they approve of the result. Law or otherwise, it's still liberal policy.
Doc,
I appreciate your comments as well (yours too, ER, and I mean that). But somehow I think we have simply different approaches to the same end. Where we part seems to be a matter of no importance.
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