>Since RU-486 is a morning after pill, there can be no other motive to use it than to terminate any prospective embryo in development. So I don't understand why you won't simply equate this with first degree murder, given your premises.<
I merely stated the principle and left it to you to understand that it applies to THE USE of any device which would intentionally destroy the conceptus under the circumstances I have described. RU-486 may well have other uses than the destruction of children. So I tried to avoid making a blanket claim that its use is tantamount to murder. Such a claim is potentially as fallacious as the claim that the driving of cars is murder simply because it can be used to intentionally destroy children. RU-486 is but a pill, you see. So the issue is really not RU-486. It is the destruction of the conceptus, and the motive behind that destruction.
>You have claimed to know what is murder and what is not, so a bit more inquiry is called for here. We recognize types of murder ranging from reckless disregard for life, to manslaughter, to 2nd degree and then premeditated murder, with various possibilities of extenuating circumstances or diminished capacity at the different levels. If a person knows that tobacco smoke, even second hand, and alcohol as well, can cause fetal death and miscarriage, as most people are now aware from public health notices to that effect, I don't see why given your philosophy, we should not try these people for manslaughter at the very least. Manslaughter does not require the direct intention to do harm, merely the knowledge that harm might be done, and not even that in all cases.<
The issue in the moral analysis of these cases all involve motive. The nuances of how our law should support our moral analysis are quite other matters. Taking into account motive and the rights of humans to life, bestowed upon us by our Creator, as the Founding Fathers have claimed, the person who is successful in using second hand smoke to kill another, this, with the express purpose of killing, commits murder. The measures taken to force the offender to pay retribution may vary, depending upon the extenuating circumstances of the case. Some cases, even wherein a death has occurred, may not phillosophically meet the qualifications for murder. A woman,for example, may be a slave to the cigarette, or to the bottle, and as such is perhaps to be treated as one who commits a crime because of her illness, and not because of a clear diabolical will to destroy human life. Should she be imprisoned? Perhaps not. Should she be given assistance so that she might free herself of her bonds? Perhaps so. Should she be given a protected status on the basis of her compulsion? Absolutely not! Whatever the law decides, it is possible that in some cases, the motive involved in the use of an offending substance was not to kill, but to satiate a biologically driven urge. If this is true, then the homicide committed here would not philosophically classify as murder, though the law would perhaps be compelled to protect the woman as well as society.
Let us suppose a woman were about to give birth to a child. The husband is present along with the doctor and nurses. The baby is delivered breech fashion and is almost fully delivered except for the head. The father has just discovered that despite having being told he and his wife could not have a baby, his wife has finally delivered not only a healthy baby, but the daughter he has so very much longed for. The father watches in anticipation for the appearance of the child's face, and just as the doctor begins to bring out the head, he takes a scissors and plunges it into the back of the child's skull, shortly thereafter sucking out the child's brain. Do we here have a murder? Let us us say, the mother then says hysterically to her husband "I'm sorry John. I know how much you wanted a girl, and I wanted to give you one, but I had my own fears about raising a girl in this world. I could not make up my mind, and so I told the doctor if the baby was a girl, he should kill it." Now do we have a murder?
We have a murder regardless of either of these circumstances because that child was a human with a right to life; and that doctor and that mother willed the death of the child, using their power over the helpless child to execute their will, purposefully denying the child its God-given right. They both are murderers. |
