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Politics : To be a Liberal,you have to believe that..... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (2445)	9/17/1999 11:40:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6418

I'm going to post three replies to this post of yours, Christopher. They overlap, but make different points. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN JEWS AND EMBRYOS (OR EARLY FETUSES) <<<You have still not answered the question I asked: on what logical basis do you decide that Jews are human and fetuses aren't?>>> [Since, as you know, Christopher, I am not a supporter of late term abortions, I am going to restrict this discussion to the first eight to twelve weeks, that is, to embryos and very early fetuses-- for the purpose, Christopher, of isolating the principle which I think will show your thinking for the authoritarian and intrusive religious dogma that it is. Unless I have misunderstood, and you are restricting your objection to abortion to later term ones? If this is the case, I direct my post to those readers who do oppose even early abortion.) Amazingly, you appear to be saying that if an embryo isn't a person, then a Jew isn't. And that if a woman gets an abortion, she is morally equivalent to a Jew-killing Nazi. You equate Nazi Jew-killing with a woman's removing an embryo or early fetus from her uterus because she does not want to be forced to carry a potential human being in her abdomen until it becomes an actual one. The Nazis knew very well, of course, that Jews were human beings in the universally accepted sense of those words. Jewish accomplishment, as human beings, in the realms of the arts and sciences drove the Nazis to fury, and led them to burn, destroy and stigmatize those representations of Jewish genius that they could reach. They burnt Mendelssohn's musical scores, they burnt many works of scholarship, and they knew that these works were not the creations of less-than-human beings. A common term of abuse for Jews among the ultra-Catholic politicians in the Austrian milieu from which Hitler emerged was "pig-dogs." Of course there is no such animal as a "pig-dog," and of course the politicians were under no illusion that there was such an animal. It was merely an insult. Please do not ask me to prove that a Jew differs from a pig-dog. Your reference (the analog of Jews to embryos), therefore, is not to a philosophical issue, but to a mere rhetorical device. Although they rhetorically, and for political effect, called them "subhuman" at times, the real Nazi objection to the Jews was that they were, in the Nazi view, bad human beings (a conviction derived from, ultimately, Christian scripture.) I have not taken the position that embryos are "bad," waxing rhetorical to present the view that embryos are not human beings. I have arrived at the view that a potential thing is not the thing itself in the usual way, by utilizing the oranges-and-apples-discrimination segment of my brain. One does this daily, many times. In fact, an individual who could not distinguish between potential entities and the eventuated entities would be diagnosed as having suffered some type of brain damage, and would qualify to be the subject of a book by Oliver Sacks, the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat. I might point out that misleading, obfuscating use of rhetoric is a common tool of those with authoritarian agendas. Two examples of such rhetorical devices are the appellations "sub-human" for Jews, and "fully human" for the embryonic blueprint of a human. The former lie justifies the use of the state by members of one religion to persecute members of another religious persuasion, the Jews. The latter justifies the use of the state by members of one religion to force females of other religious persuasions to incubate embryos in their uteruses until they become human beings.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (2445)	9/17/1999 11:41:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6418

Here is a thought experiment: 1.Nazis say: Jews must be killed 2.Onlookers say: Why? 3.Nazis reply: Because they are bad 4.Onlookers say: Bad? How? 5. Nazis say: Their forefathers killed Christ, and therefore we can not have their tainted blood polluting our Aryan strain. Thought experiment continued 1. A young woman who has missed her period says: I must terminate this pregnancy 2. Christopher Hodgkin says: Why? 3. Woman replies: I have children already I can't adequately take care of; or, I was raped; or, it is the result of incest; or, I must escape this hideous marriage, and I can't, with a baby; or, I am dependent on my parents, who will kick me out and not let me go to college if they learn that I am pregnant; or I don't want a child, no, no,no, I don't want to be pregnant and give birth, no no no, I don't want it, I do not want this embryo to grow into a baby. 4. Christopher Hodgkin says: None of the above matter to me. They are outweighed by MY belief that the embryo in your uterus should be treated as though it were a human being. Certainly it will become one, and your responsibility, not mine, I might add, if I can force you to keep it in your uterus for several more months. *In fact, I am already referring to what is in your uterus as "fully human," so that it might sound to an inattentive listener as though I were saying "a fully-human being."* 5. Woman says: I don't share your belief. Would you tell me the origin of it? Is it just a feeling you have? Is it, perchance, the construction you place on injunctions contained in revealed religion? Please be as specific as possible. You seem to be equating blueprints for human beings with human beings. You seem to be advocating that everyone adopt, toward non-conscious, non-sentient embryos, genetic blueprints, the same attitudes that they have toward human beings... Do you always equate potentials with eventuated actualities?... Using this mystical equation of yours, do you propose to force the arm of Government into my uterus? To force me to incubate these cells against my will, until that potential becomes reality, Mr. Hodgkin?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (2445)	9/17/1999 11:44:00 PM
From: E	Respond to of 6418

THE MEANING OF "FULLY HUMAN" AND "HUMAN GENETIC MATERIAL" <<<You believe that Jews are fully human and fetuses are not. But I want to know WHY you believe that? What are your specific criteria for saying this set of complete human genetic material is fully human and this set is not? You still haven't answered this for me.>>> You, Christopher, say that what an embryo or early fetus is, is "a set of complete human genetic material," and you use the term "fully human" to describe it. You haven't said that it is a human being, I see. You have certainly tried to imply it with the two phrases "a set of complete human genetic material," and "fully human," which act is the written equivalent of fast-talking. But you can not say outright that it is a human being, because it is not!-- as you know. It is, in fact, a blueprint for a human being. "Human genetic material" plus certain biological circumstances and the passage of time will become a human being. Without those, it will not. And, incidentally, an ovum and a spermatozoon, even before uniting, represent a "set of complete human genetic material," albeit one still separated by, perhaps, the thin membrane of a condom. And this "set" is "fully human," -- and each of its parts, ovum and spermatozoon, are, individually, "fully human," too -- though it is not, of course, a human being. (Yet the religious community, some of it, on a rationale which while not precisely identical, will feel much the same to its victims, forbade the sale of contraceptives to those of other persuasions. Given their beliefs, I dare say you defend this behavior.) So you imply, to the hasty reader, with the phrase "human genetic material," that the embryo is a human being; and you do it also by describing it with the words "fully human." But does your slickly obfuscatory term "fully human" really equate to "human being"? Of course not. (BTW, a kidney is "fully human," even if it's been removed from its owner, unless it is the kidney of a pig, or dog. And so is a human appendix, or fingernail, or breast, or tooth, or leg, "fully human." But none of them are human beings.)

To: The Philosopher who wrote (2445)	9/17/1999 11:50:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 6418

<<<Later in your message, once again you ascribe to me beliefs that I have never offered you and don't hold.>>> Would you please tell me the beliefs I ascribed to you that you don't hold? Maybe I mixed you up with Neocon? or with another who defends people of one faith forcing others to live by their religious dogma if they can get the government to do the enforcing? It doesn't matter; the views have been expressed, and I'm glad to have responded; but I am interested to know which specific ones you don't hold that I am under the impression you do. Sorry, btw, that I'm so late in replying to your message. We have been without power, then with it briefly, then without it again, for what seems like a very long time. Also, our road has been washed out! I am the only person without 4-wheel drive who's driven it! So far, so good.