I couldn't agree more. Arguments from Scripture won't work on folks who don't believe it is infallible,and often times those who do argue from scripture wrest passages out of context and so lose credibilty anyway. Furthermore, one thing the most visible group of anti-abortion folks (i.e., the screechers on t.v. and in newspapers) get wrong is that they do the same thing the abortion-rights people do in that they claim to "know" something which they simply do not. In fact, I am not even sure the abortion rights people do this all the time. I think some just say, "Yeah, we don't know, but who cares, it's her right to choose" which is at least an honest, albeit a very odd honest approach.
So, like you, I think, I don't think a search of the scriptures is going to do a lot of good. I am curious as to why you posed the question in the negative, however, that is, to go looking for instances of a fetus being treated as "less than human" as opposed to simply ascertaining what the texts say about the unborn, if anything. What you described sounds like the gearing-up for an exercise in proof-texting. At any rate, if you approach a document which is between 2000 and 6000 years old with concepts behind a word like "fetus" on the brain you are probably headed for trouble. A serious study of the Pentateuch requires more than a curiosity about what an ancient Jew might think about 21st century western culture's take on abortion, which is what I think such an undertaking will really amount to. The ancient Jew doesn't care about us, could scarcely begin to comprehend, much less approve or disapprove of us. Like Augustine, who the court in "Roe" mentions briefly in one of its myriad touch-and-go nods to antiquity, the ancient Jews knew little about human gestation and nothing about genetics. My guess is that God knew that when He handed them the Books. Nevertheless, as you pointed out getting our noses in Scripture is never a bad idea.
So, my reference to the passage from King David was merely intended for us "insiders", so to speak. Again, I know that many non-believers may not give one whit about what David says and so arguing from the Bible will get us nowhere. But that doesn't matter. We don't have to convince many people that murder, polygamy, rape and incest are immoral because the scriptures say so, do we? I'm not even sure that we could.
One argument is simply that since we don't know when life begins, we shouldn't abort fetuses, since, well, they might be alive, or people. This goes to humility, the willingness to submit to not knowing, and acting like we don't know, even when it is difficult to do that. Which reminds me, we should get our terms straight. When I say "when life begins" I mean "when a person starts". I think we are straight on this. For my money, I see a person once the sperm and egg become an altogether different thing with its own genetic code. The creature is the very beginning of a process of changes which terminates at death. Zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, child, adolescent, adult. So, I find it no more troubling to think of a zygote as a person than I do a young child or a debilitated old man. The talk of the fetus not being viable makes me say, "So, what? Neither is a baby." Or, if by viable the argument is that the fetus cannot survive without more gestation, or incubation, does that mean that a fetus delivered away from medical care is not a person, but one delivered in a hospital is?
These are, of course, more "beginnings" of the whole debate. We can go anyway you like, though I suggest we leave Darwin out of it since his own followers no longer believe much of what he said, and the same goes for Freud. Those guys are to evolution and pyschology what Copernicus is to physics. As for psychologists, dreams don't mean anything, or maybe they do, they urge us to believe.
Whatever we do, I have no doubt that I will gain more from any discusion we have than you two guys will, so if no one is up to basically instructing me, I understand. I am, admittedly, coming late to this and am quite stupid to boot. Maybe we should simply start with discussing what we know versus what we believe.
Finally, I was in no wise flattering Jon. I had a good hearty laugh and owed him a heartfelt thanks. That is a great story.
So, like you, I think, I don't think a search of the scriptures is going to do a lot of good. I am curious as to why you posed the question in the negative, however, that is, to go looking for instances of a fetus being treated as "less than human" as opposed to simply ascertaining what the texts say about the unborn, if anything. What you described sounds like the gearing-up for an exercise in proof-texting. At any rate, if you approach a document which is between 2000 and 6000 years old with concepts behind a word like "fetus" on the brain you are probably headed for trouble. A serious study of the Pentateuch requires more than a curiosity about what an ancient Jew might think about 21st century western culture's take on abortion, which is what I think such an undertaking will really amount to. The ancient Jew doesn't care about us, could scarcely begin to comprehend, much less approve or disapprove of us. Like Augustine, who the court in "Roe" mentions briefly in one of its myriad touch-and-go nods to antiquity, the ancient Jews knew little about human gestation and nothing about genetics. My guess is that God knew that when He handed them the Books. Nevertheless, as you pointed out getting our noses in Scripture is never a bad idea.
So, my reference to the passage from King David was merely intended for us "insiders", so to speak. Again, I know that many non-believers may not give one whit about what David says and so arguing from the Bible will get us nowhere. But that doesn't matter. We don't have to convince many people that murder, polygamy, rape and incest are immoral because the scriptures say so, do we? I'm not even sure that we could.
One argument is simply that since we don't know when life begins, we shouldn't abort fetuses, since, well, they might be alive, or people. This goes to humility, the willingness to submit to not knowing, and acting like we don't know, even when it is difficult to do that. Which reminds me, we should get our terms straight. When I say "when life begins" I mean "when a person starts". I think we are straight on this. For my money, I see a person once the sperm and egg become an altogether different thing with its own genetic code. The creature is the very beginning of a process of changes which terminates at death. Zygote, embryo, fetus, baby, child, adolescent, adult. So, I find it no more troubling to think of a zygote as a person than I do a young child or a debilitated old man. The talk of the fetus not being viable makes me say, "So, what? Neither is a baby." Or, if by viable the argument is that the fetus cannot survive without more gestation, or incubation, does that mean that a fetus delivered away from medical care is not a person, but one delivered in a hospital is?
These are, of course, more "beginnings" of the whole debate. We can go anyway you like, though I suggest we leave Darwin out of it since his own followers no longer believe much of what he said, and the same goes for Freud. Those guys are to evolution and pyschology what Copernicus is to physics. As for psychologists, dreams don't mean anything, or maybe they do, they urge us to believe.
Whatever we do, I have no doubt that I will gain more from any discusion we have than you two guys will, so if no one is up to basically instructing me, I understand. I am, admittedly, coming late to this and am quite stupid to boot. Maybe we should simply start with discussing what we know versus what we believe.
Finally, I was in no wise flattering Jon. I had a good hearty laugh and owed him a heartfelt thanks. That is a great story.
3 Comments:
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Jon, since you mentioned Freud and are a philosopher, I am curious. Have you read a book by Peter Kreeft (a Catholic philosopher) called "The Unaborted Socrates"? One section of it deals with one argument from psychology in favor of abortion.
(I had to remove the comment above because I misspelled "psychology".)
Todd, nope, never read him and I'm hardly a philosopher :)....Just a nerd...I'll check Kreeft out sounds interesting...I love the title...
Sorry for not responding to your post, but I'm still thinking about what to say...Will try to have something up this afternoon...
I mentioned Freud because I thought he might creep up when we talk about what a "Person" is...Do you really mean the spirit? If you mean the spirit or (put most rightly) the "you of you" I'm wondering if we can really talk about a "beginning" to that....do you see what I mean?
F1 - Personhood = Spirit
F2 - Hypo - The spirit begins at
zygote
F3 - The Spirit of the person is
formed with the DNA of the
Zygote.
F4 - -> My Spirit is in my DNA
Conclusion - Absurdum - When I pluck a hair from my head I am making my spirit smaller...I am somehow aborting my personhood through an act on my physical being.
What I mean to say (but am still trying to figure out if it makes sense) is if you start to connect personhood (or spirit) with the physical body and place a time on the moment which the spirit enters the body it could lead to some problem areas....How this relates to our over riding discussion may be minimal, but I wondered what you'd say about it....
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