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>Mr. Pilch, There are no easy answers for abortion.<
It has often been said that no easy answers to the abortion question exist, and this statement is commonly said with such confidence as to persuade many undiscerning people into the belief that it is a self-evident truth. Nevertheless the answer to the question exists, and I believe it quite logical. This answer, as with all logical solutions to our quandaries, is arrived at by reason founded upon principle. When we accept a principle, we agree that it applies not only to the individual, but to the entire society. We in effect agree that the principle is a defining attribute of our nature, our character.
One principle we civilized humans have, for all intents and purposes, universally accepted as reasonable, is the principle that all claims must be supported by fact. The person making a claim is compelled by reason to support his claim not by subjective arbitrary determinations, but by objective fact. Fact is the ticket allowing passage into the mind of reasonable men. If one fails to support one's claim with fact, then the reasonable man, by virtue of his reasonable nature, is forced to reject the claim out-of-hand. If we follow this principle, and hold diligently to it, then fact will take us only where it leads, and if it never leads in a certain direction, we will never find ourselves proceeding in that direction.
Now considering the entire course of human history, abortion is a relatively recent phenomenon. There was a time when humanity developed, irrespective of allegedly reasoned claims against the lives of unborn children. This is not to say that no claim against such lives ever existed prior to legalized abortion, but rather that the claims were made and enforced by use of illogic (i.e. barbarism). The warrior who killed a pregnant female and destroyed her unborn child did not do so having proven the expendability of the child. Indeed, he hardly supported the expendability of the female. He did so merely because he had taken into his own hands the ruling principle of all relations: Might makes Right; and when humans take into their hands this principle, it amounts to simple barbarism.
In this regard, times have not changed because whenever abortion is applied to humanity, those who make the application claim, by implication, that the human conceptus is expendable. To reasonably make this claim, allowing its acceptance by men of reason, the abortion supporter has the logical obligation to support it with fact; and we see it does not require the most perceptive reader to understand that here is where reason compels one to reject Abortion doctrine. It is not by fact that the abortion supporter proves the expendability of the conceptus, but by arbitrary determinations informed by ever shifting public sentiment. The abortionist aborts the conceptus not because he can prove the claim implicit in abortion, but simply because he can. He has taken into his hand the principle of Might makes Right, and this principle in the hands of man is simple barbarism.
If we accept this barbarism, then it becomes the logical basis for all manner of reasoned claims against human life. Once we accept the abortion supporter's illogic, then we must logically accept any other claim against human life should it arise. For example, should our country move the last two inches from Partial Birth Abortion to the abortion of neonates (as some respected people now advocate), would any of us have a moral obligation or logical grounds to speak against it? As euthanasia grows in popularity (and I think this now inevitable), and is eventually applied to defective neonates, then to "unwanted" neonates, would I have an obligation or grounds to speak against it, particularly in a "live and let live" world? If I would, then on what principle; and why do I not have the same obligation today? If I would not, then would I ever have the obligation to defend anyone, my neighbor, for instance, against murder? Is so, then on what principle? On none, because barbarism against humanity is already codified into law, and it is upon this barbarism that all claims against human life are made logically possible.
Now of course we won't necessarily accept all claims made against human life, but we cannot reject such claims by reason. We must reject them only by "feelings". Nevertheless it is the logical inconsistency extant in society's acceptance of abortion that allows other claims against life to be accepted over time. Those making the claims can and even now do use them to errode society's resolve against them. If we can kill the conceptus, then on what basis can one proscribe killing the eight-week old fetus? If we can kill the eight-week fetus, then why not kill it at four months? If at four months, why not at eight or even nine months? If we can actually deliver the thing, save for the head, and then kill it, why not kill it just after we have delivered the head? If here, why not there? Any claim can be made against human life, and over time the logical inconsistency can be used to eventually enforce it. This is why it is inevitable that euthanasia will be legalized. It is a claim against human life, and we have no reasonable argument against it. Even notions of viability are powerless, because they are arbitrary.
I am no absolutist on abortion, and could reasonably argue that, as in the case of a mother and daughter both of whom are drowning, and a husband who can save only one of them, the husband can save the mother without causing a moral breach. Nevertheless in cases where no other force but a human one determines the death of the child, then principle requires we condemn it for what it is-- pure murder.
It is murder because humanity is indivisible, found all along a smooth continuum. The conceptus, the four week old fetus, the 10 month old child, the 16 year old teen, the 90 year old adult all exist on a smooth contiuum of human development, and there is no place on that continuum to which one might point to reasonably claim a lack of humanity exists. It is all humanity.
Yet we do abort many things on the human continuum, making by implication, the claim they are expendable, this, with so evidence to substantiate the claim. We kill via barbarism, choosing to condemn to death certain human organisms on the continuum and choosing to save others, purely because we can, and not because of reason. And since we do this without reason, non-reason becomes the basis upon which other claims can be logically made against any other human organism on the continuum. The very same logic used to destroy it one thing, can, and I dare say eventually will, be used to destroy any other (this means you and I). In other words, to embrace the abortion doctrine, is to embrace self-destruction.
As biomedical technology improves and business, particularly insurance companies, use genetic testing to increase and/or preserve profits, new logical classes of potentially expendable humans will come into existence, and the parsing out of insurable and supportable humans will become finer. The expendability vector, by varying degrees, will point to many of us. This is not to say in the next ten years society will be killing indescriminately, but that the logic is now firmly in place supporting claims against post-natal human life that very possibly will be enforced within the next one hundred years (It will take that long because the so-called Religious Right will still be slugging away on behalf of sanity and decency). The enforcement will come gradually and reasonably (that is, by use of reason based upon barbarism), in accordance with practices held today. This person gets insurance, that one does not. He gets the heart transplant, she does not. This child is wanted, this one is not. This person has a poor quality of life, this one does not. These claims will come about as matters of convenience, much as have the claims against the lives of the unborn.
>If you make it illegal you will put that back into the alleys. I have no answer.<
Perhaps, but if we as a society hold to principle, we will see that those who go to the back alley to kill their children make unreasoned claims against those children's lives. This is understandable, as duress sometimes causes us to act unreasonably. Nevertheless this presents no reason for our entire society to rise up to codify barbarism into law. Merely because the dope addict will shoot up, presents no reason why we should present him the drugs and needles. It is preferable, to my way of thinking, to call our fellow citizens to principle and assist them if possible, than support barbarism.
Failing this, then at least allow those who attempt to hold to principle to exempt themselves from participation is this barbarism. The manner in which abortion is generally used in this country amounts to pure murder and it is simply because the country forces my complicity in this murdering of children that I struggle to make it illegal. I am forced in several ways, one of which is via my tax dollar. Since I pay taxes, some of which goes to organizations such as Planned Parenthood (a colossal abortion provider), and since abortion to me is truly murder, I am in some way supporting the murder of children.
Very well then. I am forced to support murder, and there is not much I can do about it. I can, however, do something. I am an American, and in this country I have the right to lobby the government with an effort to change the law, this, to influence it away from forcing me into what is a terribly gross conflict with my nature and with all I know to be good and true. My sense of right and wrong informs me that I cannot sit idly by while I yet have a voice, and allow children to be murdered at my own expense. It would be better were the governement simply to legalize abortion without forcing me in any way to pay for it.
>I am bothered by it.Its somewhere in the opposite of good=evil<
Well. This is a moral/religious determination. My value system informs me that the murder of children, particularly the worldwide systematic murder of children, is manifestly evil, demonic even.
>Here's one solution: Why the women why not the man? Nip it in the bud before abortion. Have a mandatory* vasectomy** at puberty. I'm serious.<
This sounds a bit oppressive, don't you think? To enforce this solution requires the violation of so many of our commonly held principles, I can hardly begin to describe it. Even if your solution were implemented, it would yet not eliminate the fact of our acceptance of barbarism. Let us firm up the principle first, then put flesh on the thing later. In this way, we will avoid progressing down the road to oppression.
>I know I left a few things out but trying to find a solution that is real and its is pretty tough esp. with my limited complexity and the attempt in answering for the majority of an overwhelming vast social matrix…<
You did fine. I think I understand your point precisely. I of course disagree with it, but am working now to see if it is possible to work with your solution in such a way that it will not violate my principles. I am still somewhat "up in the air" on the birth control issue. It seems to me the immorality of birth control rests entirely on the reason why humanity was given sex. If I can support that sex is not for procreation only, and that its pleasure component is not merely a baiting mechanism to cause us to procreate (I think I personally reject this position), then I will have shown the moral acceptability of birth control.
>but for the sake of discussion would this idea be viable? Or is there a solution?<
There is a solution, and the acceptance of the principle upon which abortion rests is not it.
(You must forgive my no doubt mony eros - I am typg this on the ran!) |
