(This column appeared on Townhall.com on May 6.)
Is waterboarding torture? If it is, we’ve been torturing our service members for years. As a United States Naval Aviator, I attended SERE school in the California desert in 1985. SERE (which stands for Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape) prepares combatants for the possibility that they might be taken prisoners of war.
While many aspects of the training remain classified, I can say that we received treatment far more challenging and uncomfortable than anything the terrorists ever experienced at Gitmo or Abu Grab. As has been reported elsewhere, waterboarding was common at SERE school as it was in my class. It was done to help us resist giving up sensitive information in the event we were interrogated by the enemy. SERE is probably the most impactful training I’ve ever experienced.
Now, despite decades of its use on American service members, President Obama declares that waterboarding is torture when used on terrorists. Is it? Reasonable people cannot disagree whether scalding a person’s skin, dismembering him, or beheading him constitutes torture. Those are undeniably torturous acts that our enemies have inflicted on Americans. But since waterboarding leaves no permanent physical damage, reasonable people can disagree over whether or not it’s actually torture and should be used on terrorists. I’ll address that question in a future column.
What I’d like to address in this column is the shocking inconsistency of the President’s position. Despite being against waterboarding, President Obama does not seem to think that scalding, dismembering, or beheading is torture in all circumstances. In some circumstances, the President actually approves of such treatment, so much so that he is now exporting it to other countries with our tax dollars. He’s even thinking of forcing certain Americans to inflict it on the innocent.
In fact, the President along with most in his party and some in the Republican Party, think that such brutality is a Constitutional right, which they cleverly disguise with the word “choice.” Choice in these circumstances actually means scalding, dismembering, or de-braining a living human being—which is literally what saline, D&C, and partial birth abortions respectively accomplish. (Before anyone labels me an “extremist” for making this point, realize that I’m just factually describing what these procedures literally do. In my opinion, the “extremists” are those who deny these verifiable truths.)
The President might say that the comparison doesn’t work because we’re not sure about the humanity of the unborn. He said as much in the Rick Warren debate when he declared that the question of life’s beginning was “above his pay grade.” Well, if there’s any doubt about when life begins, shouldn’t you err on the side of caution and protect what may be a human being? If you’re not sure whether the rustling in the bushes is a deer or your daughter, won’t you get a certain ID before shooting?
Actually, there is no doubt about the humanity of the unborn. We are sure that an unborn child is a human being, and we know this not by religion, but by hard scientific data. The President knows this. If embryonic life is not human, then why does he insist on using taxpayer dollars to harvest embryonic cells? Answer: because they are human. Moreover, human bodies and body parts are extracted from the womb by abortion, not just “tissue.” Finally, it’s a scientific fact that at the moment of conception a new genetically unique human being exists. You haven’t received any new genetic information since the moment you were conceived. Only four things separated you from adulthood—time, air, water and food. Those are the same four things that separate a two-year old from adulthood. We don’t allow the killing of two-year old humans; why should we allow the killing of humans just a little bit younger who happen to be in a womb—especially those at full term?
But the legality of abortion is not the main point here. That’s bad enough, but the President is advocating something even worse. He isn’t just allowing abortion to continue, he seeks to promote and subsidize it through the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). That deceptively-named bill will end the choice of certain doctors to conscientiously refuse to do abortions, and it will end the choices millions of Americans have made to restrict abortion through parental notification laws, informed consent laws, and even bans on partial birth abortion. All of those restrictions freely chosen by the people of this country will be invalidated by FOCA. The President also wants to force taxpayers to pay for abortions right here in America.
Why does he want to do this? Doesn’t he know what goes on in an abortion? I have to assume yes. He’s a very intelligent man. That leaves us with one of two possibilities, neither of which is good. Either he really believes that scalding, dismembering, and de-braining ought to subsidized and increased, or he is willing to champion these things to please his base for his own political gain. The former is madness. The latter is an example of “the ends justifying the means,” which leads us back to waterboarding.
Questions for the President:
Why do the ends justify the means if they protect you with your base, but the ends don’t justify the means if they protect the American People?
Why do you think that waterboarding the guilty is immoral, but subsidizing the killing of the innocent is the right thing to do?
I’m not intending to be uncharitable, and I hope I am mistaken. But it appears to me that this President is willing to subsidize the killing of the innocent to potentially save himself, but is unwilling to simulate drowning on the guilty to potentially save thousands or millions of Americans—a simulation that we have performed on our own servicemen for decades.
This is a preemptive comment. If anyone thinks I am condoning torture, you need to read the piece again. That question will addressed in a subsequent column.
Blessings,
Frank
Reasonable people cannot disagree whether scalding a person’s skin, dismembering him, or beheading him constitutes torture.
I disagree that beheading is torture; I think that’s murder.
What I’d like to address in this column is the shocking inconsistency of the President’s position. Despite being against waterboarding, President Obama does not seem to think that scalding, dismembering, or beheading is torture in all circumstances. In some circumstances, the President actually approves of such treatment, so much so that he is now exporting it to other countries with our tax dollars. He’s even thinking of forcing certain Americans to inflict it on the innocent.
Mind if I ask you to be a bit more specific?
Oh, wait, I see:
In fact, the President along with most in his party and some in the Republican Party, think that such brutality is a Constitutional right, which they cleverly disguise with the word “choice.” Choice in these circumstances actually means scalding, dismembering, or de-braining a living human being—which is literally what saline, D&C, and partial birth abortions respectively accomplish. (Before anyone labels me an “extremist” for making this point, realize that I’m just factually describing what these procedures literally do. In my opinion, the “extremists” are those who deny these verifiable truths.)
You’re making a faulty, politically-driven analogy. Nevermind.
Gha…first you guys equate gay marriage with genocide, and now you’re comparing abortion to torture? What’s next — atheism is the same thing as dropping a bomb on a crowded city? Yeesh. I’m beginning to think you’re capable of twisting absolutely anything whatsoever into your political agenda.
Well, if there’s any doubt about when life begins, shouldn’t you err on the side of caution and protect what may be a human being?
Shouldn’t you oppose the death penalty, in order to “err on the side of caution?” In case an innocent person might have been convicted by accident or fluke? After all, it does happen. I guess those people’s lives aren’t as valuable as that cluster of cells, huh?
Moreover, human bodies and body parts are extracted from the womb by abortion, not just “tissue.” Finally, it’s a scientific fact that at the moment of conception a new genetically unique human being exists.
Tsk, tsk….it’s simply not practical to afford all fetuses all the same rights as a living, productive (and BORN) member of society. It doesn’t work. The whole concept behind this is blind religiosity; to you, a single cell (which is what all fetuses begin as, and the state in which they exist when you claim they are suddenly and abruptly “human”) is the same thing as you or I.
Get a fetus, and get someone you know personally. Stand them next to one another. If you can do that and still say that they’re the “same thing,” then there’s really nothing left to say because you’ve — quite ‘Frankly’ — lost your mind. They’re not the same thing. A fetus should not be treated the same as a human that has been born and has survived ON HIS/HER OWN in society, because they are NOT the same thing. Simple hard scientific fact.
(See? I can do it, too!)
But the legality of abortion is not the main point here. That’s bad enough, but the President is advocating something even worse. He isn’t just allowing abortion to continue, he seeks to promote and subsidize it through the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). That deceptively-named bill will end the choice of certain doctors to conscientiously refuse to do abortions, and it will end the choices millions of Americans have made to restrict abortion through parental notification laws, informed consent laws, and even bans on partial birth abortion. All of those restrictions freely chosen by the people of this country will be invalidated by FOCA. The President also wants to force taxpayers to pay for abortions right here in America.
Yeah? What’s the problem? You’re just twisting the perspective a little is all; it’s easy to do. Watch: You’re trying to end the choice of women to decide not to conclude a pregnancy with a delivery. You’re trying to end the choice of humans to live freely in a secular society. You’re trying to end the choice of people to raise their children in an environment that doesn’t force false religious evidence on them in place of hard scientific fact — a term that you use but I am not convinced you even understand, as evidenced by the Big Bang debate in your other topic.
In any case, I’m pretty much done here. Let me know if you come up with a response sometime in the future that isn’t ridden with political rhetoric and cries of “evil” and “sin” and “badness.” The way you abuse those words makes them meaningless to me, such that I just kinda filter them out of everything you write.
P.S.
I also think it’s odd that you’re trying to portray this as a debate about torture, when it’s really about abortion. That’s about as non-sequitur as that guy who tried to say that working on your car is like worshipping God….can’t you at least be honest in your efforts anymore? Or are you going to resort to the bait-and-switch argumentative tactic from now on?
“a simulation that we have performed on our own servicemen for decades”
That doesn’t mean it isn’t torture, just that we have to prepare servicemen for the possibility that they might be tortured. The servicemen sign up for this, it is part of their training. We executed Japanese soldiers after WW2 for waterboarding US soldiers. It was certainly seen as torture then.
Have you seen someone have a baby? Certainly it is the most painful thing I’ve ever seen someone go through. Over several hours my partner lost a litre and a half of blood and couldn’t walk for days afterwards. That was her choice. But I’d say that forcing someone to go through that could be seen as torture.
“Those are the same four things that separate a two-year old from adulthood.”
You could argue that main thing that separates any human from being a corpse is time. That doesn’t mean the two states are the same or even remotely similar.
The essential difference between a one-day-old combination of sperm and egg, and a two-year-old, is that the former can exist outside of another human being. The former not only has to grow in another, it has to be a particular one. Another difference is that the latter has a brain, which to me is a prerequisite for being human. Without that, the day-old single-cell organism isn’t really much further on from being human. If it’s got a soul already, what does it mean if it splits a few days later and becomes a twin? Half a soul each?
“If embryonic life is not human, then why does he insist on using taxpayer dollars to harvest embryonic cells? Answer: because they are human.”
False conclusion. It’s because they can be used to heal human beings, not because ‘the embryonic cells are human beings’.
“Well, if there’s any doubt about when life begins, shouldn’t you err on the side of caution and protect what may be a human being?”
One could equally say that if there’s any doubt about whether the person you’re torturing is innocent or not, shouldn’t you err on the side of caution. Would you be happy for your daughter to be waterboarded?
At any rate, I can be doubtful about where life begins between 12 weeks and 26 weeks, but still be convinced that at 2 days it is absurd to draw an equivalence with a child or adult.
And each of my sperm are genetically unique too, that doesn’t mean they are equivalent to being humans in their own right.
Sorry, “Without that, the day-old single-cell organism isn’t really much further on from being human.”
I meant to add ‘much further towards being human than a sperm’.
“If anyone thinks I am condoning torture, you need to read the piece again.”
Is your argument not that torture is ok, but that waterboarding etc doesn’t actually constitute torture?
Have you ever heard of the after effects of abortion? It’s certainly not the simple, clean, and neat procedure it pretends to be, even for the mother!! Here’s a google of the subject, from all perspectives. Don’t take my word for it!
http://www.google.com/custom?q=after-effects+of+abortion&sa=Search&client=psp-toshiba&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&safe=active&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BLH%3A19%3BLW%3A100%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fbase.googlehosted.com%2Fbase_image%3Fq%3Dpsp-image-u0nmbb%26size%3D1%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.toshibadirect.com%3BLP%3A1%3BFORID%3A1&hl=en
Frank
One of the best articles you’ve written.
That’s cute how you link torture and abortion.
Here’s the problem with your view of abortion. You fail to realize that no one will ever agree on when life begins. You think it begins the moment a sperm rams itself into an ovary. There’s a fundamentally huge difference in a two week old clump of cells and a two year old child. Knock a two year old in the head and you’re a murderer, but an unwanted formation of cells in a uterus that only has the potential to become a human and no cognitive ability or feeling? It’s not murder to abort.
I believe this because I do not believe in a soul. Your consciousness all stems from your nervous system. If you’re walking down the street and get whacked in the head the lights go out. How many times have you had surgery and one minute you get a mask over your face and then the next you’re in a completely different room and missing an appendix or tonsils? Those chemicals in the gases and the IV hypnotics stop consciousness. It’s probably a lot like death will be. Out go the lights. Brain activity doesn’t begin in a fetus until about the beginning of the third trimester or in the last two months. As far as the abortion issue goes I think the middle of the second trimester should be cut off unless there is discovered a severe birth defect which would result in death (there should never be a reason for a woman to go through labor to deliver a dead baby) or any complications that could kill the mother.
But of course this is an issue of CHOICE. And it’s an issue of individual belief. It’s often spoke of like it’s going to be forced on people. Or the people speaking against it, who ironically have made the choice for themselves that they’d never do it, try to dictate how to think to the rest of the world.
Here’s an interesting notion that I’d like you, Mr. Turek, to comment on. It’s somewhat related to this post. Let’s dig up Terry Shiavo for a minute. Clearly she was brain dead. And right-to-lifers were arguing for a “natural death.” The question I have is what kind of “natural life” did she or anyone in this position have? Without human intervention people like her would die a natural death. So a major question is: just because we have the ability to keep people alive in a vegatative state, should we? And would keeping them alive for years be torture? Years of bed sores and wound infections. What’s the stand on that? (There, I cleverly linked torture to euthanasia.)
Mr. Turek if you want to fight something worth fighting, something that there’s “hard science” for, something you believe in, then fight the idiots that think the world is only a few thousand years old and that people and dinosaurs lived together.
Leave the issue of abortion up to the women that actually have to be the judges of their own choices, lives, and consciences.
Anyone who doesn’t think waterboarding is torture, consider this:
Imagine your wife, sister, mother or daughter is taken by an Afghani official and waterboarded 70 times in an attempt to make her deny Christ. Would you say that she was tortured?
If you say no, does this mean you think the US was wrong to prosecute and execute Japanese soldiers after WWII for waterboarding US troops?
Have you ever heard of the after effects of abortion? It’s certainly not the simple, clean, and neat procedure it pretends to be, even for the mother!! Here’s a google of the subject, from all perspectives. Don’t take my word for it!
Umm….you do know that you’re not the first person ever to really understand the scope of the abortion process, don’t you? You are not the first person ever to see these things. Just because some of them may shock you doesn’t mean they will shock everyone (because not everyone is just now seeing them for the first time), and even if they do shock, that will not necessarily change anyone’s mind. You can’t rely on appeals to emotion to make a case in a society where emotions are already running high, because people are looking for a voice of reason to explain things in a way that appeals to them. If you run around like Turek crying “torture” and “murder” and “liberal conspiracy,” then the vast majority of people will hear you and grow distant from you and your cause, and you will continue to retreat into the sectarian corner of society you have cleaned out for yourselves.
You can only wave your ideals like a club before so long before people get used to being hit with them; then, quite suddenly, you’ll find that you have no way to defend yourself against common sense.
Frank
One of the best articles you’ve written.
You know what’s sad?
That’s actually true. This is the best one. Kinda makes you wonder what the worst one looks like, amirite?
Anyone who doesn’t think waterboarding is torture, consider this:
Imagine your wife, sister, mother or daughter is taken by an Afghani official and waterboarded 70 times in an attempt to make her deny Christ. Would you say that she was tortured?
I can guess based on the intellectual ‘honesty’ of this article that Frank would probably say, “Of course that’s torture, because it forced her to deny Christ, and to not know God is torture for the soul.” Or some other such thing.
“…but is unwilling to simulate drowning on the guilty”
While I’d take a guess that it would be naive to imagine that Guantanamo is full of choir boys, isn’t another of the left’s principal (and principle) objections that these people haven’t even stood trial? So it is in fact incorrect to refer to the detainees as ‘guilty’.
Hughes: “It’s certainly not the simple, clean, and neat procedure it pretends to be, even for the mother!”
Neither is normal birth for the mother. Have you ever seen someone have a baby?
Again, this article is not a about the morality of waterboarding, but about those who oppose waterboarding (like President Obama) but support abortion and wish to fund it with tax dollars. Why is waterboarding immoral, but tearing babies apart something the government should endorse and fund?
Tim, yes beheading a human being is murder as you say. So is debraining a baby.
Andrew, yes the combatants haven’t had a trial. Neither have any babies. But again, this isn’t about waterboarding. It’s about the logical and moral inconsistency of those who are against waterboarding but support and wish to subsidize much worse treatment for the unborn (particularly full-term babies).
Toby, if consciousness is your standard for what constitutes a human, then is there anything wrong with killing people who are unconscious?
Tim and Toby, Disagreement doesn’t mean there is no right answer. In fact, we obviously disagree but you apparently think my position is wrong, otherwise you wouldn’t even be commenting here. You obviously think the right moral position is that a woman have a “choice” regardless of the humanity of unborn. Moreover, on previous threads you have denied there are objective moral rights, yet here you appear to be arguing that a woman has such a right to an abortion. Do you think that such a right exists and that it would be wrong to take away even if the majority voted to take it away? Do you think it is morally right to fund abortion?
Blessings,
Frank
“Andrew, yes the combatants haven’t had a trial. Neither have any babies. ”
Then you’re doing the very thing you despise by branding as guilty those without trial. You’d help your cause by saying that you are consistent in that you support ‘innocent until proven guilty’ for all – from babies upwards. If you’re accusing the other side of being inconsistent, you need to show that you’re consistent yourself.
“Again, this article is not a about the morality of waterboarding”
Again, with respect, I think you’d have helped your argument to concentrate on that then, and not throw in so much apologetics for waterboarding. It might have helped the message slip down for the ‘red-meat brigade’ on Townhall, but they already all agree with you on abortion anyway.
“Moreover, on previous threads you have denied there are objective moral rights”
No-one here has ever denied that they hold moral opinions on subjects. All we’ve said is that we don’t believe in a ‘moral-providing God’.
And there’s a difference between ‘being unconscious’ and ‘having no brain to provide consciousness’. You can say that a zygote will develop consciousness if left long enough, but you could also say that any living person will die of old age if left long enough – that doesn’t mean that the two states are similar.
Mr. T,
“Toby, if consciousness is your standard for what constitutes a human, then is there anything wrong with killing people who are unconscious?”
Are you actually asking if it would be permissible to kill someone just because they were asleep? I’m not saying this as an insult to you, but you’d have to be pretty ignorant kind of person to equate the kind of unconsciousness of something that has no ability at all for consciousness with the unconsciousness of someone that does have the ability for consciousness. Someone brain damaged to the extent of brain death is a different kind of unconsiousness than someone sleeping. If the brain dead person had left a living will in which they requested not to be left alive on machines then I assume you’d have no problem with the machines being turned off, but if they left no will and it fell to the spouse or guardian then do you suddenly think it’s murder? The consciousness that made them who they were is essentially dead and all that’s left is involuntary nervous function. It’s fatuous to think that anyone would think it’d would fine to kill someone if they were merely sleeping. it just seems that you have a completely cynical way of thinking about humanity. As if we all just want to murder and rape everything in sight.
“Tim and Toby, Disagreement doesn’t mean there is no right answer. In fact, we obviously disagree but you apparently think my position is wrong, otherwise you wouldn’t even be commenting here. You obviously think the right moral position is that a woman have a “choice” regardless of the humanity of unborn. Moreover, on previous threads you have denied there are objective moral rights, yet here you appear to be arguing that a woman has such a right to an abortion. Do you think that such a right exists and that it would be wrong to take away even if the majority voted to take it away? Do you think it is morally right to fund abortion?”
For many questions there are no right answers. How long do you cook a loaf of bread? To an internal temperature of 200 degrees. But actually you can cook it anywhere between 196 and 210 and still get an end product that’s bread. The temperature differences are an individual choice for the final texture, but the product is still bread.
I’ve stated other times here the I don’t believe in objective morality. I think everything is subjective. And I don’t think I’ve commented on objective rights before, that must be Tim you’re referring to. I don’t apply morality, objective or otherwise, to rights at all. To me there is only the right of freedom. Freedom to choose, freedom to think individually, and to apply these to anything. The major problem I have with religion and people of the conservative ilk is that on one hand they want to be left alone by their government, yet want to impose their beliefs on everyone. A person should have to the complete freedom to choose. Some choices will not be the right choices for everyone, but that should not negate the right to choose them. Murder and stealing are generally wrong, but conditionally in my view. Self preservation renders talk of objectivity moot.
I don’t believe in the humanity of the unborn. I believe there is human potential and that until the last trimester there is a decently functioning brain and the beginnings of humanity. Is there consciousness? I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, so it’s my position that a compromise between these two opposing sides should be limiting abortion to the first half of pregnancy and only in the second half for extreme cases. You go for the easy, cheap shot, Mr. T, in talking about “debraining babies.” To be honest you should say fetus, but that doesn’t conjure the image you wish to convey. It’s harder to think of a veritably formless mass of cells being removed early in pregnancy and provoke outrage and indignation.
Do I think abortion should be funded? Yes. As much as I think all persons should have access to healthcare. Abortion is a part of healthcare as much as birth control.
No, I don’t think that a majority voting to take away a right is reason to do away with that right. It’s not really rights I’m talking about here, it’s freedom. And a majority can be an incredibly stupid and cruel group of people as you can imagine. A majority could vote to say that blacks lose all there rights and are to be slaves again. A majority could vote and say that everyone in schools should pray everyday, even if they don’t belong to the religion that’s praying. And, imagine this if you can, a majority could vote and take away your religion, make it illegal.
So if I believe in anything nearing objectivity, it’s individual freedom.
Let me start of by saying just a few words about my personal feelings on abortion. (I don’t normally involve my feelings in these discussions because my feelings add nothing to logic or reason, but I feel like I should note them in this case.)
I cannot imagine a circumstance in my life in which I would find abortion to be the moral choice. I agree with Andrew that there is a vast difference between a blastula and a child or adult, but I suppose I would err on the side of caution (as Dr. Turek suggests). (I do also oppose the death penalty, and am even pro-”life” enough to be a vegetarian. So how do you like that Mr. Ryan? j/k)
(I can perhaps think of circumstances under which it may be the more moral choice, but these are complex and extremely unlikely scenarios. They are so extreme that I don’t think I can properly analyze them and the effect they would have on me.)
Based on this, I believe that a world in which there are practically no abortions is preferable to one in which abortion is a common occurrence or a simple form of birth control (something akin to abortion practice in the Soviet Union and Soviet Bloc, for example). That said, I do not consider myself part of the pro-life community. There are several reasons for this, which I will state as briefly as possible (i.e. I am not attempting to make a good argument for this view, just to sketch it).
Studies on the subject largely conclude that abortion rates do not change significantly based upon their criminality. Often, the lowest abortion rates are found in countries where it is perfectly legal (i.e. Western Europe), so I do not see criminalization as a good way of achieving the goal.
From the New York Times, Oct 12, 2007: “A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.”
Furthermore, I think that the overturning of Roe v. Wade would actually do great harm to the pro-life cause. Support for Roe v. Wade is at about 2/3 among the American public. If the case were to be overturned, it would be against the public will.
It would not take long to find heart-breaking cases to put in front of the people to paint the policy as inhumane. (This is where the consequences of the public will really come in; the fact that a majority may support something is in itself meaningless.)
If you would like an example of what I mean simply search “choice?” (with the question mark) on youtube, and look for the video of the same name.
The difference is, this would no longer be a limited low-budget campaign, but stories in the media and stories spread among neighbors in communities.
In states that would outlaw abortion (not all states would, of course, and an overturning of Roe v. Wade would not make abortion illegal), we would quickly see cases that the average American would see as cruel and heartbreaking. Those who now work so hard to protect life would be cast as the cruel and heartless ones.
Think of the first mother that dies because an abortion for her health was refused…
Think of a rape victim being hauled to the county jail for what most empathetic people see as simply trying to end her nightmare…
Think of the young teen who dies from a “back-alley” abortion.
These images, in a land where a strong majority (again about 2/3) favor Roe v Wade, would be devastating to the anti-abortion movement.
(On the other hand a majority, a bit over 50%, of Americans see abortion as immoral, and this is a point from which the anti-choice/anti-abortion movement can work and probably achieve much success.)
Now, onto the larger point addressed by Dr. Turek…
When I first read the post, my reaction was similar to Tim’s — it seemed a non-sequiter. Then I finally figured out why. As Tim said, he does not see beheading as torture; he sees it as murder, which led me to realize that:
The same action can be performed and one case be torture, and another not.
Let me give an example of this.
If I take a scalpel to your abdomen because I want you to tell me where your child is, that is torture.
If I take a scalpel to your abdomen because I am a surgeon and your spleen has ruptured and you are bleeding internally, it is not torture.
The action is the same. The key to judging torture is not necessarily in the action; it is in the motivation for that action.
From Webster’s dictionary (the definition which I think is clearly most appropriate to the discussion of waterboarding:
The infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure (emphasis mine)
It is this key part of the definition which is the reason that waterborading of servicemen and servicewomen does not constitute torture, and the second sentence of the article is a false conclusion. Was your friend Chris Hitchens tortured in your view, Dr. Turek?
This definition is also the reason that leads this argument to strike many of us as a non-sequiter.
No one undergoes an abortion procedure to punish or coerce the fetus. I highly doubt any meaningful number receives sadistic pleasure from it.
Dr. Turek is mixing definitions to make the argument.
I could satirize the argument thusly:
It seems as though everyone in this country is running around saying how wrong torture is, yet when I finished my philosophy final, every student was in the hallway agreed that the final was “pure torture.” How could this be? What a hypocritical country!!!
I know that sounds silly, but it is a similar thing. There are various definitions and connotations to a word, and while the word may be the same, those connotations don’t necessarily carry over.
The fundamental question in the torture debate is: what are we willing to do to get a given person to do what we want?
The question in the abortion debate is different.
That said, let me defend Dr. Turek for a moment. I do not think he intended to present a non-sequiter argument. I firmly believe that Dr. Turek simply had the though one day (probably after hearing some pundit wax forth on waterboarding): “how come we spend all of these hours talking about how wrong it is to torture, when poor innocent babies are tortured everyday?”
This was meant honestly, but it simply breaks down when it is strictly analyzed.
I think the other problem is also what Tim commented on. This is transparently political. With that in mind, let me make a few points about some things that take credibility away from the article, at least to readers not already open to its message. (Then again, this was originally posted on townhall.com where a political article is to be expected, it just does not carry over well to this forum.)
I can say that we received treatment far more challenging and uncomfortable than anything the terrorists ever experienced at Gitmo or Abu Grab. (emphasis mine)
There have been very credible and documented cases of forced sodomy at Abu Ghraib.
Do you really mean to say that the training the US Armed Forces practices is worse than forced sodomy? It seems fairly clear to me that you did just that in this article.
Now, despite decades of its use on American service members, President Obama declares that waterboarding is torture when used on terrorists.
As Andrew pointed out, the United States executed those who waterboarded its soldiers. To somehow link the idea that it is torture to President Obama and act as if this is a new concept also takes away from credibility. If this article is read by someone with this knowledge of history, its credibility is greatly reduced; it seems to try to paint some negative association on the President, when his belief has been the standard belief for a long, long time. The desire to belittle the president overshadows the desire for accuracy and honestly, it seems to me.
(Furthermore, I think both Andrew and I have clearly demonstrated why waterboarding a willing person is not the same thing and cannot be considered torture.)
But since waterboarding leaves no permanent physical damage, reasonable people can disagree over whether or not it’s actually torture and should be used on terrorists.
So anything that leaves no permanent physical damage is arguably not torture?
So for example a room 101 type scenario, but one in which you are not permanently physically harmed might be just fine and not be torture?
the President actually approves of such treatment, so much so that he is now exporting it to other countries with our tax dollars.
As I am sure you are aware, there is debate as to whether or not a lifting of the Mexico City policy actually decreases the unwanted pregnancy rates and therefore abortion. Therefore the conclusion you offer here is simply obviously a political one.
It leads me to a hypothetical question, asked of anyone who wishes to answer it. Would you rather pay, out of your own pocket for 1 abortion, if you knew that 10 others would not be performed because of this; or would you rather have 10 abortions take place, as long as you were able to proudly say that you in no way support such horrendous things?
(small irrelevant point): Well, if there’s any doubt about when life begins, shouldn’t you err on the side of caution and protect what may be a human being? If you’re not sure whether the rustling in the bushes is a deer or your daughter, won’t you get a certain ID before shooting?
Is a deer not a “life?”
(I also think Andrew’s question on this point, as it relates to the death penalty is deserving of an answer.)
If embryonic life is not human, then why does he insist on using taxpayer dollars to harvest embryonic cells?
Please see “xenotransplantation” on wikipedia.
It is very common to use pig heart valves in humans, for example.
Does this make pigs human?
Lots of federal money is spent to research various chemicals to potentially cure disease.
Could I say: “If these chemicals are not human, then why does he insist on using taxpayer dollars to research them?”
We don’t allow the killing of two-year old humans; why should we allow the killing of humans just a little bit younger who happen to be in a womb—especially those at full term?
This brings up an interesting point. As you know the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act outlaws these procedures except to protect the life of the mother. (It does not offer an exception for the health of the mother, which is the biggest objection to the law by its opponents.) The law has been ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court.
Do you not believe that a family should be able to make this choice, to abort when it will potentially/likely kill the mother? Do you think that partial birth abortion should be illegal in all cases? If so, are you not saying that the life of the fetus is more important than the life of the mother (who may often have other children who still need a mother)? If so, how do you defend this position (not saying it’s indefensible, but how do you come to the conclusion)?
If your answer is no (that is, there are cases that this should be legal), are you not supporting torture?
He isn’t just allowing abortion to continue, he seeks to promote and subsidize it through the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA).
Just for the record, here is what President Obama said at a 29 April, 09 news conference: FOCA “is not [my] highest legislative priority.”
That leaves us with one of two possibilities, neither of which is good.
There are other possibilities of course. I do not know if this is an intentional lie or intellectual lack of imagination…
it appears to me that this President is willing to subsidize the killing of the innocent to potentially save himself, but is unwilling to simulate drowning on the guilty to potentially save thousands or millions of Americans.
So it is your view the President believes that abortion is wrong, but is lying about it for political reasons?
Also, is there anything you’d be unwilling to do in order to “potentially save thousands”? Would you be willing to dismember Khalid Sheikh Muhammad? Begin skinning him alive until he breaks? Why or why not?
I have another question as well. As you may know, the White House has been holding meetings with both pro-life and pro-choice groups in order to find the common ground that the President so often talks about, and to find ways on which all sides can agree to reduce abortion rates.
Why not write about this effort to praise it and thereby increase pressure on it to actually achieve a result? Why not spend time writing an article with constructive ideas to reach the goal of less abortion? (As examples around the world show, it is possible to lower abortion rates drastically from current US rates, without resorting to criminalization. In the current situation, where political progress seems unlikely for at least several years, are these avenues not worth pursuing?)
“I’m not intending to be uncharitable, and I hope I am mistaken. But it appears to me that this” author is willing to forgo real progress on the reduction of abortion in order to appear tough and clever to his base.
(I am not just trying to be clever in saying that. It represents my honest feeling. I hope I am wrong, and I hope that Dr. Turek will take up the challenge and write something that may move the discussion forward! As I said at the beginning, Dr. Turek agree on the issue — morally, at least.)
I also have a further question that I would like to address to anyone who self-identifies as a member of the pro-life movement:
If there is no meaningful difference between a fetus and an adult, aside from time, air, water and food, then why are funerals for miscarriages not common? I am not saying that they never happen, I know they do (sometimes even by people who politically support “choice”), but they are not the standard, even among the pro-life community.
If there really is no difference between a fetus and a one-week old baby, then I would expect them to be treated in exactly the same way. Yet they are not…
(I just did a google search and found only 125,000 returns, many of which seemed to only ask the same question I am posing; I am unoriginal, apparently. To contrast, “abortion” returns almost 25,000,000 entries.)
Tim, yes beheading a human being is murder as you say. So is debraining a baby.
For reference, when you use the term “baby,” I can only assume you are talking about either (A) a baby that has been successfully delivered, or (B) a fetus that has, for all intents and purposes, grown to be a baby.
Let me put it simply for future reference, to avoid misunderstanding; the problem I have with partial birth abortion is the same problem I have with declaring that a fetus is the same thing as a human being; I simply do not believe that one second it can be a cell, and the next it can suddenly be a “human being.” I do not think it’s accurate to classify the transition between sperm/egg/zygote and human baby so abruptly. Likewise, I do not believe that it can be a “fetus” one second and a “human baby” the next. And so saying that near-to-term pregnancies can be terminated solely on the grounds that “it’s not a baby until it’s been born” also doesn’t ring true for me.
However….I really don’t think it’s your or my decision to make, Mr. Turek. I think that’s a decision that women (and the fathers of their potential children, to a lesser extent — remember, women have to carry the cell/creature inside of them for a length of time and nurture it with their own vitality, unlike men, regardless of the men’s role in creating the cell/creature).
Also, I find your eagerness to classify so many women as “murderers” on par with the likes of Hitler or Saddam (or other torturers/mass murderers) to be a bit discrediting….
Andrew, yes the combatants haven’t had a trial. Neither have any babies. But again, this isn’t about waterboarding. It’s about the logical and moral inconsistency of those who are against waterboarding but support and wish to subsidize much worse treatment for the unborn (particularly full-term babies).
That’s quite a load; there is no inconsistency between opposing torture and supporting abortion. It’s simply a matter of perspective; using the paper-thin “logic” you’ve applied here, we could make a case that you’re being illogical towards just about anything. You connect things so distantly and then try to argue as though they are obviously similar; that kind of tactic is always D.O.A. because 99% of the people involved don’t think that way, and don’t see from your angle. And unfortunately for you, you can only argue that they’re being inconsistent if they view it on the same term as you claim they do.
Tim and Toby, Disagreement doesn’t mean there is no right answer.
You’re quite right about that, I think. What any of us thinks about it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever as to whether or not there even is a right answer.
In fact, we obviously disagree but you apparently think my position is wrong, otherwise you wouldn’t even be commenting here.
Not at all! If I thought your position was “objectively wrong,” I wouldn’t be arguing with it the way I am. I would simply come out and say, “Mr. Turek, you’re wrong and I think you should change your ways.” It’s no interest of mine to change your ways, nor is it (very likely) within my means. I’m simply here to try and understand what appears to be a sarcastic mockery of the rationality that so many people use to make decisions. I’m curious about the facade of reason you masquerade when starting threads such as this; you’re so desperate it hurts, and it shows in the weak connections you’re forced into in order to maintain your original point. And that quite simply fascinates me.
You obviously think the right moral position is that a woman have a “choice” regardless of the humanity of unborn.
Nope; I think that’s what I feel it should be, and so I act on that. There is nothing to be said about objectivity or “rightness” in anything approaching an objective sense. Just my personal philosophy, which our political system advocates that we assert in order to achieve what we might perceive to be a “just” end, even if only in our own mind — for at the end of the day, all we have to go on is what we feel, and how we react to ideas of “morality” in ways that we aren’t in direct control of.
Moreover, on previous threads you have denied there are objective moral rights, yet here you appear to be arguing that a woman has such a right to an abortion.
Not at all; I’ve never argued that a woman has an objective right to an abortion. I’ve said that I support a woman’s right — that I place value in this idea, that a woman should be more in charge of her body and the processes within it than you or some other person, religious or otherwise — and that I will assert this idea in my political leanings. That’s all I’ve said. You seem to be projecting your philosophy onto me again; that’s not how I act or think.
Do you think that such a right exists and that it would be wrong to take away even if the majority voted to take it away? Do you think it is morally right to fund abortion?
Arguing over what “should” be in the case of a majority vote is useless; we have rules, and those rules are based on people’s ideas. If you think something is right, fight for it. Everyone else does. If you lose, that’s life; if you win, that’s also life. Whatever the end result is, that is what is; complaining that the process wasn’t fair, or that you should’ve won, is completely gainless. If you think something should change even though the majority won, then it’s your job to make that change. Countries aren’t liberated because people sit at home or on blogs talking about what “should” happen; children aren’t saved from starvation because of what “should” be done about it. These things happen because people act, and they act based on what they believe (even if they abide by someone else’s rules, it’s because they trust that those rules are trustworthy by their own judgment).
I’d expect you to have gained at least somewhat of a grasp on how this works in my mind thus far; I’ve explained it enough times to write a book on it. So tell me — am I being clear enough yet, or do I still need to elaborate?
No-one here has ever denied that they hold moral opinions on subjects. All we’ve said is that we don’t believe in a ‘moral-providing God’.
You can say that a zygote will develop consciousness if left long enough, but you could also say that any living person will die of old age if left long enough – that doesn’t mean that the two states are similar.
On that note, I don’t think people attribute value to others based on the potential of their state of being; if a person could one day become computer-literate and program great systems, do we start paying them for it now? I mean, they’re the same thing, right, because they may eventually become such a person? Or should we start giving them a professional athlete’s salary because there exists the potential that they may become a pro athlete? What about a doctor? Should we give them a medical license because they show interest in medical science?
I don’t see how it’s any different to argue that we should give a cell (or cluster thereof, or early coalescence thereof) the same status as a person like you or I. They are not the same thing, simple as that. The reasons are numerous; it’s not a matter of one or two things missing, as with an amputee or a coma patient — all of them, except for a strand of DNA, are missing. None of the things that make us who we are (our personality, our consciousness, our preferences, etc.) even exist at that point. Also, many fertilized eggs do not survive past conception and are simply terminated by natural bodily processes. So if we prematurely assign names and birth certificates to these single cells (or clusters/coalescence thereof), then the process expands such that it becomes impractical.
I mean, I’m not against the odd-out mother who is so emotionally damaged by her miscarriage that she wants to hold a funeral for the fetus (or zygote, or what-have-you), but I think to force that option on all mothers is approaching disturbing.
The consciousness that made them who they were is essentially dead and all that’s left is involuntary nervous function.
I have a question for Turek regarding this (or any other Christian takers who share his position); do you believe the “soul” is part of the biological function? Or do you believe it is part of the brain? Or do you believe it exists independently of the body?
In any case, if the brain dies such that it cannot be medically resuscitated, do you believe that the person is essentially “dead?” Or if their brain is dead, but their bodily functions are still active (even if only through machine direction), do you believe it’s “murder” to “kill” the bodily functions?
It’s always bothered me; I never really understood how Christians view the integration of the body and the soul.
“I’m not intending to be uncharitable, and I hope I am mistaken. But it appears to me that this” author is willing to forgo real progress on the reduction of abortion in order to appear tough and clever to his base.
That’s what disturbs me about a lot of the politics surrounding this way of thinking, to be honest; it appeals more to the mindset that seeks to instantaneously and without prejudice vilify people who would act differently than the interested party believes is “right.” The interested party (in this case, anti-choice folks) would rather see women be arrested, vilified, executed or whatever in the interest of “showing moral superiority” than in actually solving the problems that lead to those kinds of “morally defunct” situations in the first place.
That’s what disturbs me about a lot of the politics surrounding this way of thinking, to be honest; it appeals more to the mindset that seeks to instantaneously and without prejudice vilify people who would act differently than the interested party believes is “right.” The interested party (in this case, anti-choice folks) would rather see women be arrested, vilified, executed or whatever in the interest of “showing moral superiority” than in actually solving the problems that lead to those kinds of “morally defunct” situations in the first place.
Allow me to add one thing: the part of this that disturbs my conscience is that people like Turek see it as an end-all to simply illegalize abortion. It’s the same problem that comes with the illegalization of alcohol, or of marijuana; you can’t just illegalize it and then act like you’ve done your job. If you really think it’s such a horrible strain on society, then illegalizing it is barely even an issue; whether or not it’s illegal has almost nothing to do with why people do it. Pot is illegal, and yet an overwhelming majority of surveyed teens claim to have used it before, or use it regularly. Do you think this is still a problem? Or do you think that it’s “their problem now,” that “the ball’s in their court” because we’ve made it illegal and they’re just bucking the system? If so, I have to say that this saddens me somewhat.
P.S. (sorry for the triple post….)
Another example: do you think the only reason people stop murderers is because it’s illegal? Do you think people wouldn’t still stop murderers if murder were legal? Even though it is illegal, there are still technical cases in which killing is allowed for certain strict reasons….but that doesn’t change the fact that people still combat the reasons underlying its negative effects on society, or that they would still combat those reasons regardless of whether or not it was legal.
Luke,
Do you really think that criminalization has no impact on behavior? How many slaves do you know in America today? What changed? The law. Stats pre Roe are sometimes hard to verify. But I’ve seen estimates of about 100,000 abortions per year before Roe. Now we have 1.3 to 1.5 million per year.
Moreover, the law is a great teacher. Many people think that whatever is legal is moral and whatever is illegal is immoral. Slavery is an example as is abortion.
Again, the key point is not about what is torture and what isn’t. The key point is this: If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree, then why do we permit it and pay for it through abortion?
Blessings,
Frank
“If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree”
If only Dick Cheney and his cronies DID agree that all these things are immoral.
Presumably you agree that shooting a person is immoral. If I told you I’d shot a bear, you wouldn’t think that was immoral though. So it’s not the shooting that’s the problem, it’s that it’s done to a human being. It wouldn’t matter how many times I reminded you that you don’t like shooting humans, it’s not going to change your mind on bear hunting.
Now, similarly your comparison of acts carried out on an adult with those carried out on a fetus doesn’t work for people who don’t see the two as being comparable. And Luke is saying that ‘partial birth’ abortion is only carried out when the mother’s life is at risk. So it’s disengenuous to claim this choice between life and death for the fetus is as consequence-free as deciding whether or not to shoot at a bush that may contain your daughter. A more honest analogy would be ‘either you shoot at a bush that may contain your daughter, of your wife will die’.
“Many people think that whatever is legal is moral and whatever is illegal is immoral. Slavery is an example as is abortion.”
Half the country fought against the anti-slavery laws, and they obviously believed they still had that right. If they banned hand-guns in the US tomorrow, an even greater proportion of the country would probably oppose that too. And a large proportion of the country still thinks abortion is immoral. I’m guessing that banning it wouldn’t change the minds of those who don’t currently see it as immoral.
Luke: “Why not write about this effort to praise it and thereby increase pressure on it to actually achieve a result? Why not spend time writing an article with constructive ideas to reach the goal of less abortion?”
Luke, take a look at the stated goals of the GOP and of the Christian movement (CM), then take a look at their actions. There is a massive disconnect. For example, reducing child death. Now, consider the causes of infant mortality – health mainly, poor access to medical care perhaps. Now we know that Western Europe in general has far lower infant mortality rates than America. So are the GOP/CM looking into this and trying to work out how to bring the US closer to Europe on health care? No! The opposite – the European way is derided as socialist, un-Christian even.
GOP/CM is against teen pregnancy, which again is far higher in the US than W Europe. This is apparently due to the sex ed classes you get in Europe. It’s most thorough and complete in Scandinavian nations, where teen pregnancy is lowest. It’s at its least liberal in the UK, which is closer to the US in teen pregnancy. So does the GOP/CM campaign for better sex ed? No! They oppose it, and instead support abstinence-only education, which we’ve seen is far less effective. So do they actually want to reduce teen pregnancy or not?
So to paraphrase Frank, does the GOP/CM know this but just wants to appease its base (bad), or does it deliberately pursue policies that lead to child mortality and teen pregnancy (worse).
Now, who is the biggest opposer of abortion? The Catholic Church. So you’d guess they’d pursue policies that reduce abortion and looks after children… No, they oppose contraception. And what did the Catholic Church do when it discovered thousands of its priests were abusing children? It spent decades and a large fortune hiding the truth and moving the perpetrators around to different areas so they could continue abusing elsewhere. So again, massive disconnect between stated aims and the policies they actually pursued.
Luke: “I do also oppose the death penalty, and am even pro-”life” enough to be a vegetarian. So how do you like that Mr. Ryan?”
You may have been jesting, but I take your question seriously. I always though I’d take the ‘err on the side of caution’ argument more seriously from someone who took it to its logical conclusion – oppose the death penalty and don’t eat other animals. So I respect your position. I’ve been bothered for some time that my eating meat doesn’t really go with my moral ideas. I’m not sure I can justify killing other animals for my food.
Out of interest though, I’m far more convinced by the envioronmental arguments for vegetarianism. I think the that veggy movement would do better to take a pragmatic approach and try to REDUCE the amount of meat people ate, rather than make it an all or nothing thing. In the same way, I agree with you that a pragmatic approach would get better results for the anti-choice movement too. I’m kidding – the pro-choice movement! Maintaining that a single-cell organism is equivalent to an adult or child will just turn most people off. There are far more effective approaches.
But I suspect, like you seem to, that many would rather “forgo real progress on the reduction of abortion in order to appear tough and clever to his base”. The argument Frank presents seems calculated merely to make his own side feel better about their views, hence the waterboarding apologetics thrown in with the Obama-bashing.
Do you really think that criminalization has no impact on behavior? How many slaves do you know in America today? What changed? The law. Stats pre Roe are sometimes hard to verify. But I’ve seen estimates of about 100,000 abortions per year before Roe. Now we have 1.3 to 1.5 million per year.
Frank, as usual I’m disappointed in you….this proves to me that your case is merely political (and at that, severely lacking in historical accuracy); the law was the very last thing that had any impact whatsoever on the end of the slave trade. We are still, to this very day, dealing with the repercussions of the slave trade — it is illegal, yes, but that is not what keeps it from happening. What keeps it from happening is that people are continuing to address the racial and social issues that made it happen in the first place (and that still drive many racist factions to this day — many of which also happen to be Christian, interestingly, such as the KKK or the Knights Party. Google “Knights Party” and see what comes up, if you’re interested).
The ways in which the law did affect the outlawing of slavery were more because of money than because of the law itself; high-income plantations (the most likely slave-owners) had a lot of publicity, money and tax issues to deal with, which left them almost constantly in the public eye, at least financially; if they did try to own slaves illegally, the government response could put their business at risk (which was the main purpose of slavery).
The reason that doesn’t make sense with regard to abortion is that abortion isn’t done for personal gain, nor is murder. The conditions that lead from illegalization to almost complete social abandonment in the case of slavery are not present in the issue of abortion. And so illegalizing it would not help in the same way that illegalizing slavery helped stop it from happening.
Moreover, the law is a great teacher. Many people think that whatever is legal is moral and whatever is illegal is immoral. Slavery is an example as is abortion.
So you’d prefer that people just blindly accept the laws that you want made, as opposed to understanding why they must be? I don’t suppose you think that way now, do you — now that abortion is legal? So what will change about the “objective nature” of the law once it changes to coincide with your personal view?
Also, people do not think slavery is immoral solely because it is illegal. I don’t think anyone uses “it’s illegal” as a justification for calling something immoral, especially given that immorality is the very reason people like you claim that the law is made.
Again, the key point is not about what is torture and what isn’t. The key point is this: If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree, then why do we permit it and pay for it through abortion?
*sigh*
This point has been very well covered, it’s only your political agenda that keeps you from understanding. As it’s been said:
1) An act can be torture in one case and not in another; it’s not the act itself that determines whether or not it’s torture (i.e. the same act done in training on a willing participant is not torture, for example).
2)
*disregard that 1) and 2), I had cut down some notes and things from multiple bullet points into a single paragraph and forgot to delete my numbers
GOP/CM is against teen pregnancy, which again is far higher in the US than W Europe. This is apparently due to the sex ed classes you get in Europe. It’s most thorough and complete in Scandinavian nations, where teen pregnancy is lowest. It’s at its least liberal in the UK, which is closer to the US in teen pregnancy. So does the GOP/CM campaign for better sex ed? No! They oppose it, and instead support abstinence-only education, which we’ve seen is far less effective. So do they actually want to reduce teen pregnancy or not?
What Christian politicians like Frank focus on (incorrectly, I might say) is that you can’t just tell a child, “Don’t do this,” and have them understand it enough to feel confident in not doing it. Christian sex ed relies on blind trust instead of actual knowledge; if a child is aware of the risks of teen pregnancy and venereal disease, he/she is much less likely to engage in an act. If he/she is aware of the potential of failure (which is fairly low but nonetheless present) of properly-implemented birth control methods, and if he/she is made aware of the responsibilities that are (rather abruptly, at times) forced upon young or unprepared parents, then he/she is much more able to appreciate the gravity of the situation, and in the face of this gravity is much less likely to be overcome by brief, fleeting hormone-driven emotions.
Instead of instilling this sense of Reality Check into their children, Christian politicans prefer to just say, “Don’t do it,” and assert to the children that God gave them the authority to tell them that and they should just respect it. Which the child may or may not do; in this case, if the child is not perfectly obedient to the parent (which is common both in and out of Christian families), there is the risk that something may happen, and the child doesn’t understand what is happening, just that they’re doing something they’ve been told not to. In that kind of situation a child may think, “Well, as long as they don’t find out, I’m not in trouble.” Which defeats the entire purpose of the original assertion — to keep them from doing it because it may entail consequences.
Short version: You can’t assert that something has consequences, refuse to describe those consequences and their counterparts, and then expect people to abide by it as though they understand it.
Now, who is the biggest opposer of abortion? The Catholic Church. So you’d guess they’d pursue policies that reduce abortion and looks after children… No, they oppose contraception.
Again, this is part of the “villifying” problem I have with Christian political policy; instead of addressing issues, they just vilify certain ones and try to push them away from society as though they don’t exist. Teenagers have sexual urges; this is never, ever, ever going to go away, not with all the preaching in the world. Blindly repressing it is never going to have the same effect as working through it and understanding the risks involved; reason is a very, very strong opponent to fleeting hormonal emotions, and anyone who understands the sexual process can tell you that.
Which defeats the entire purpose of the original assertion — to keep them from doing it because it may entail consequences.
Oh, wait…I forgot. Turek doesn’t decide whether something is right or wrong based on consequences, he does it based on its approach to glorifying God, remember? So it’s actually just Magically Immoral to him, completely apart from the consequences of teen pregnancy. All that is actually good, because it brings life forth! Just so long as the teens are married before they have sex.
It’s this adherence to tradition as the only guiding factor for moral clarity that confuses me in conversations like this….
Crap, one last P.S.
The problem with things like sex, from a Christian view, seems to be that they simply don’t fit into a Christian world. In a Christian world, there would be no teen pregnancies; if God really had designed people such that they were supposed to wait until a certain age, then suddenly marry, fall in love and become physically attracted to one another, then mate and produce children, then none of this would be an issue. But it is an issue, and a big one. That runs completely counter to the Christian philosophy; so instead of acknowledging this glaring flaw in his/her worldview, the Christian chooses to vilify these concepts, claiming that they are “the work of the devil” or some other silly form of supernatural temptation, perhaps resulting in man’s “uncleanliness” or “satanic-ness” or whatever. Basically, the solution to the problem from a Christian view is, tough it out and pretend that it doesn’t exist. If that hurts, or if it brings suffering, then tough cookies, because that’s the way it *should* be.
Holy crap, I think I understand the Christian view at last! Though I still think it’s a crock.
My analogy to the attitude to teen pregnancy and abortion is that when confronted with the huge number of deaths through car accidents, instead of looking at practical ways to cut down the deaths, their response is to simply advise everyone not to drive and at the same time try to ban lessons on safer driving techniques.
They then defend this plan by saying ‘name me a car accident caused by everyone NOT driving’.
Another example of the diconnect is the GOP’s die-hard support of gun rights, despite America’s huge number of gun deaths compared to Western Europe. So they care about the kids when they’re getting aborted, but suddenly don’t care when kids are getting shot. Then suddenly it’s about ‘choice’. The right to choose is fine when it’s the choice to own a gun. And yet, to evoke Bill Hicks, there’s no connection between everyone owning guns, and lots of people getting shot by those guns.
Gentlemen,
Is it at all possible for any of you to deal with issue directly rather than trot out red herring after red herring (Dick Cheney, the death penalty, the GOP, vegetarianism, the KKK, etc.)?
Again, here is the main issue: If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree, then why should we permit it and pay for it through abortion?
I thank you in advance for staying on topic.
Blessings,
Frank
“If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree, then why should we permit it and pay for it through abortion?”
Hi Frank, I thought we’d all pretty much answered this question.
In short – we see it as a false analogy.
Here’s my answer again:
“Presumably you agree that shooting a person is immoral. If I told you I’d shot a bear, you wouldn’t think that was immoral though. So it’s not the shooting that’s the problem, it’s that it’s done to a human being. That’s the key part. So it wouldn’t matter how many times I reminded you that you don’t like shooting humans, it’s not going to change your mind on bear hunting.
Now, similarly your comparison of acts carried out on an adult with those carried out on a fetus doesn’t work for people who don’t see the two as being comparable. And Luke is saying that ‘partial birth’ abortion is only carried out when the mother’s life is at risk. So it’s disengenuous to claim this choice between life and death for the fetus is as consequence-free as deciding whether or not to shoot at a bush that may contain your daughter. A more honest analogy would be ‘either you shoot at a bush that may contain your daughter, of your wife will die’.”
And here’s the key part of Tim’s posts that answers your question:
“A cell (or cluster thereof, or early coalescence thereof) [cannot be argued to have] the same status as a person like you or I. They are not the same thing, simple as that. The reasons are numerous; it’s not a matter of one or two things missing, as with an amputee or a coma patient — all of them, except for a strand of DNA, are missing. None of the things that make us who we are (our personality, our consciousness, our preferences, etc.) even exist at that point.”
And Luke agrees with you on bringing down abortion numbers, but disagrees with you on how to go about it.
And apologies if you think we’ve trotted out red herrings, but your own blog seemed designed to spark off these debates by muddying the waters with a discussion over whether waterboarding is torture or not.
Incidentally, I don’t see the death penalty as a red herring in response to you giving us the ‘err on the side of caution’ argument. Perhaps you ARE anti-death penalty for these reasons, but many people on your side of the argument are not. And I haven’t seen you posting any blogs where you offer your ‘rustling in bush’ analogy in order to argue for the end of capital punishment. In addition, you expect us to have a doubt over whether a single cell is equivalent to a human, but admit you have no doubt on the issue yourself.
I guess here is your answer on the ‘doubts’ question:
“Actually, there is no doubt about the humanity of the unborn. We are sure that an unborn child is a human being, and we know this not by religion, but by hard scientific data. The President knows this.”
I’m afraid that I believe this to be a false assertion. There is not a consensus among biologists on this issue.
See biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota PZ Myers’ blog here:
“…one of them makes the astounding claim that “Every biologist would agree absolutely that life begins at conception”. I let it pass and then I call her on it after she says it a couple more times. Eventually she explains that she’s very confident in this statement because their ‘executive director” always says it, and claims that if someone proves him wrong he’ll eat the paper it’s written on.
Easy. I sent back a quick reply…
‘I daresay that no competent biologist would take the position that these anti-choicers claim is universal among us.
Life does not begin at conception.
It’s an utterly nonsensical position to take. There is never a “dead” phase — life is continuous. Sperm are alive, eggs are alive; you could even make the argument that since two cells (gametes) enter, but only one cell (a zygote) leaves, fertilization ends a life. Not that I would make that particular claim myself, but it’s definitely true that life is more complicated than the simplistic ideologues of the anti-choice movement would make it.’”
If you want to read it in context, google “The fertilized egg is not a human life” and click on the first result.
And I don’t want to go off on another red herring here, but I’m confused by why you’d talk about ‘hard scientific data’ when you don’t seem to have a problem with creationism, which is the very antithesis of this. It comes across to me that you’ll pick and choose when you’ll accept science to back you up.
Just in case you think it’s just PZ who believes this, and you don’t have time to read the whole blog, it ends like this:
PZ: “Lewis Wolpert is, of course, one of the best known developmental biologists on the planet. In this lecture (which you really should watch and listen to in its entirety, it’s very good), he does come right out and say the bleedin’ obvious:
Wolpert: “What I’m concerned with is how you develop. I know that you all think about it perpetually that you come from one single cell of a fertilized egg. I don’t want to get involved in religion but that is not a human being.”
PZ: “When you go reaching for an authority in development, a professor at a small liberal arts college isn’t the sine qua non of the field (well, unless maybe you’re talking about Scott Gilbert…), but you really can’t pull rank higher than Lewis Wolpert.”
Again, here is the main issue: If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree, then why should we permit it and pay for it through abortion?
Your question has been answered. Just because one doesn’t support torture doesn’t mean one has to support abortion; they’re not the same thing. This is a false analogy you’ve drawn. By “staying on topic” you apparently mean that we must assume your false analogy is true, in which case I’m sorry to say I don’t have much to say on the “topic.” Because your analogy is false.
Allow me to demonstrate; “If we all agree that shooting people is immoral, then why should we finance — with our tax dollars — a public police force that sometimes shoots people in order to restrain them?”
It’s the same thing, with different circumstances; shooting people isn’t always a “bad” thing, just when it’s done without provocation or reason. Likewise, yes, beheading is something that should be avoided, and when it happens to a person like you or I, I feel unpleasant about it….but the sad fact of the matter is that sometimes (the only cases in which PBA is actually allowed by law, in fact, and the cases by which I’ve always argued any form of abortion should be legal), we are forced to choose between just keeping the mother’s life, or losing both the mother and the baby’s life. That is a difficult choice to make; I don’t think it would be fair or just in any sense of the word for you to decide for that woman whether she wants to die with her baby, or live without it.
In short – we see it as a false analogy.
Here’s my answer again:
“Presumably you agree that shooting a person is immoral. If I told you I’d shot a bear, you wouldn’t think that was immoral though. So it’s not the shooting that’s the problem, it’s that it’s done to a human being. That’s the key part. So it wouldn’t matter how many times I reminded you that you don’t like shooting humans, it’s not going to change your mind on bear hunting.
Would you believe that I typed up my “shooting people” response without reading your post first? Because I did, and then I was startled to see that you had said almost the same thing….0.0
“If we all agree that [the process by which abortion is carried out] is immoral [when it's done to a person like you or I], then why do we allow it to be carried out on a fetus/cluster of cells/etc.?”
That is what you are asking, and you twist your words to make it sound as though the solution is obvious. But, although it is somewhat of a profound question — why do we perceive certain acts as moral, with their next-door-neighbor or some other apparently similar act being anything but — it does not provoke the obvious response that you are (obviously) looking for. It’s the kind of question you could start an entirely separate topic about, because there is a TON of reasoning that goes into it, more than I care to elaborate upon in this already-cluttered topic.
There is never a “dead” phase — life is continuous. Sperm are alive, eggs are alive; you could even make the argument that since two cells (gametes) enter, but only one cell (a zygote) leaves, fertilization ends a life. Not that I would make that particular claim myself, but it’s definitely true that life is more complicated than the simplistic ideologues of the anti-choice movement would make it.’”
That is actually very interesting; I’d never thought of it that way.
P.S.
That last bold paragraph was directed at Mr. Turek, not at Andrew 0.0
Gentlemen,
There is no analogy here. Scalding, dismembering, beheading (or debraining) is LITERALLY what we are talking about inside and outside the womb. What circumstances make this morally right?
What is the beginning of a new human life? If you don’t base it on human nature (genetics), you run into absurd conclusions.
Size: Should we be able to kill smaller people because they are somehow less human?
Level of Development: Should we be able to kill younger people or retarded people because they are somehow less human?
Environment: How does changing one’s location change his or her humanity? How does an eight inch trip down a birth canal change the essence of the being?
Dependency: If you depend on others to sustain life, does that make you less human? A six-month old cannot survive on its own. Should we be able to kill her? (In fact, some teenagers aren’t viable
But despite all this, for the sake of argument, let’s say that life begins at brain wave activity (about 6 weeks in the womb). Or if you like, even at so-called viability (about 22 weeks). My article points out that President Obama (not you) wants to subsidize scalding, dismembering and debraining AFTER these times solely based on a woman’s choice (not just because her life is in danger). In other words, he wants to do this on innocent human beings in the womb, but opposes it on those outside the womb. Why the inconsistency? How is this morally right?
Blessings,
Frank
“Only four things separated you from adulthood—time, air, water and food. Those are the same four things that separate a two-year old from adulthood.”
The only thing that separates coal from a diamond is time, but the two aren’t worth the same. Water and steam are the same compound at different temperatures, but they’re not the same.
Try saying this statement and consider whether it makes sense:
“The only think that separates a two-year old from an adult is several billion cell divisions, the development of his brain and consciousness from nothing. Also at some point before turning into an adult the two-year-old may divide into two, creating two distinct new humans, and also the two-year-old might at any point before becoming an adult be spontaneously aborted by his mother’s womb. Also, no-one can feed a child until he becomes an adult – all his food, water and indeed air must come from the mother, until he is an adult, and also until that point any danger to his health could easily kill his mother.”
That doesn’t seem right to me, does it to you? Would you say that I’ve reeled off a load of hard scientific facts about the process of a two-year-old turning into an adult? I don’t think I have. And yet all those things CAN apply to a zygote/blastocyst/fetus.
I’ve never known a 5-year-old splitting into twins. And the only time I’ve known a mother have her life threatened by a ten-year-old is when he’s actually tried to kill her. I’ve heard of a two-year-old losing his mother and growing up without her. I’ve not heard of a woman dies two days after conceiving, there’s not much hope for that just-fertilised egg – It’s dependent on its mother to a vastly higher degree than a two-year-old is. Similarly, I’ve heard of a mother putting a two-year-old up for adoption because she can’t cope with raising him – but I think it’s rare for someone to take out a blastocyst for someone else to raise.
I could go on, but my point is that it’s nonsense to reduce it to ‘time, air, water and food’.
“What is the beginning of a new human life?”
Frank, I’ve given you quotes on this from two respected biologists, one of whom is an enormously well-respected developmental biologist. I’m afraid that I believe he is better informed on the issue than either of us.
“Should we be able to kill smaller people because they are somehow less human?”
Out of interest, where do you draw the line on which animals it’s ok to kill? Given that we share 97% or so of our DNA with some of the other Great Apes, would you agree we should afford THEM some of the same rights as humans. No? What if we were able to show that some retarded humans are less smart than a chimp, does that change your mind?
On what basis do you say ‘humans OK, animals not OK?’ I could go through the list like you do – size, environment, DNA, intelligence… Some animals are bigger than us, some animals are smarter than some humans.
Andrew,
If you want to get into a battle of quotes as to when life begins, we can (I’ve got plenty). If you want to bring up more red herrings about apes, we can (we may be 97% alike, but what a difference 3% makes– don’t you agree? So far no apes, to my knowledge, have been blogging here.) Those points are irrelevant to my question in my last post.
Why is it that no one will answer the question I’ve been asking? Do you agree with Obama? Yes or no and why. If no one cares to answer it directly, that’s fine. I’ll just be done asking and commenting on red herrings.
Blessings,
Frank
I already explained why the ‘red herrings’ were relevant to me. No apes blogging here, no fetuses either. What a difference 3% makes, yes. And what a difference a billion cell divisions and several months in the womb makes too. That’s my point.
“If you want to get into a battle of quotes as to when life begins, we can”
Well you were making out in this blog that there wasn’t even a battle to be had – you said it was hard science and that Obama must share your opinion on it. It didn’t take me long to find respected scientists with completely the opposite view to you on the issue. I trust their opinions, so no I’m not interested in a quote battle on it. I’m happy for you to believe what you want.
“Why is it that no one will answer the question I’ve been asking?”
Well you’ve only just posed the question stripped of all the stuff about waterboarding and life beginning at conception. I had to address all that other stuff first. If you didn’t want them addressed, you shouldn’t have put them in, they distracted from what you now say is your main point.
“In other words, he wants to do this on innocent human beings in the womb, but opposes it on those outside the womb. Why the inconsistency? How is this morally right?”
I’d have to hear the other side’s justification for this in order for me to decide, Frank. I’m not sure I trust the way you’ve presented it, given that I disagree with your interpretation on virtually everything else. However, it isn’t possible for me to investigate every single decision that a politician makes. Obama has my trust that he generally makes the right decisions.
Do you really think that criminalization has no impact on behavior? (emphasis mine)
No, I don’t. I did not say that I did.
I provided empirical evidence which leads me to believe that criminalization is not the best or most effective way to go about achieving the result both you and I seek.
That is a very different thing from saying: “criminalization has no impact on behavior.”
How many slaves do you know in America today? What changed? The law.
Honestly, this sort of argument is beneath you, Dr. Turek.
What changed? The law? Really? Nothing else? There were no enlightenment thinkers bringing up ideas of the equality of all “men”? There were no abolitionist societies preaching this message from a moral standpoint for about 200 years? There was no war?
None of that? Just a law? Just the single stroke of a pen and we were done?
Honestly, I would have thought I had earned a little more respect than that by now.
(I would also like to mention that slavery is alive and well in various forms in the US and the world. Surely you know about human trafficking , especially for sexual purposes.)
Moreover, the law is a great teacher. Many people think that whatever is legal is moral and whatever is illegal is immoral. Slavery is an example as is abortion.
So when you step foot in Massachusetts, you suddenly feel a bit more like gay marriage just might be ok?
(I know you wrote “many people,” I guess I am asking if you are among them.)
(And to tie this point in with your previous one:) Is this why we were able to do away with drug use in our society? The reason drug use recently skyrocketed in Portugal when the criminal penalties were removed? (It went down, in reality.) The reason people long ago gave up on prostitution, and now only talk about its great immorality?
Again, the key point is not about what is torture and what isn’t. The key point is this: If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree, then why do we permit it and pay for it through abortion?
There are three approaches to this question, one is moral, one is practical and one is political.
Though I don’t think it is what you’re asking, let me answer briefly the political question. Most of us have moral beliefs which our tax dollars sometimes go against. So what should we do about this? Should every person be only required to write a check for how much they think is morally right, and tell the government how the money is to be spent? This seems to be the best way to achieve what you seem to be aiming at.
The truth is, to live in a civil society, we all have to make some compromises. If you do not wish to support abortion with your money, then feel free to move to Ireland or Poland (you have this ability, I realize not all do). If you actually believe what you are saying, that is what you would do. Unless of course you do understand that this is how civil society and a nation-state functions; we make compromises and we live our lives as morally as we can.
On the practical aspect of the question, let me simply repost what I said earlier and perhaps you can answer the questions I pose.
As I am sure you are aware, there is debate as to whether or not a lifting of the Mexico City policy actually decreases the unwanted pregnancy rates and therefore abortion.
It leads me to a hypothetical question, asked of anyone who wishes to answer it. Would you rather pay, out of your own pocket for 1 abortion, if you knew that 10 others would not be performed because of this; or would you rather have 10 abortions take place, as long as you were able to proudly say that you in no way support such horrendous things?
[/copy&paste]
That last question, I think, is very important to the question you ultimately pose.
I also asked about a mother in a life threatening situation, but I think Tim stated it better. Should your opposition to “scalding…” mean that she does not have the right to choose whether she will die with her baby or live without it? Should you get to make this choice for her based on your beliefs?
Now to tie this into the tax issue. Suppose you have two women side by side in this same situation. One can afford to save her life, and the other cannot. The only way the second can be afforded this choice is through government subsidy. Another instance where practicality gets in the way of rhetoric.
I do not know your answer, yet, to the first question, but if that answer is “yes, the woman should be allowed a choice” then you can see why paying for it with your tax money might be necessary?
(If your answer is “no,” I question your respect for human life and dignity.)
Now, to move on to the moral aspect of the question.
You say that “If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree, then why do we permit it and pay for it through abortion?” But what if we leave off that last word, and replace it — what if we say: “If scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral as we all seem to agree, then why do we permit it and pay for it through war?”
I don’t think you would disagree that in the recent and more distant past bombs designed, produced and dropped by the United States did all of those things. I have a feeling that this will continue, given that we spend well over half a trillion dollars every year on our armies. (This is, of course, exponentially more than goes to fund abortion.)
So should those who believe that “scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral,” like you say we all do, have the right to have our tax money not go to such endeavors?
Your answer would be ‘yes’, right?
I think the real truth though is that you, Dr. Turek do not believe that scalding, dismembering and beheading is immoral. You do not see an absolute truth in that. You believe it is immoral in the cases that you see as immoral. C’est tout.
I think this is probably true for all of us.
You already know the answer to your “key question” because you answer it for yourself in many other cases.
I hope that helps. I am trying to be both brief but explain my views. I could honestly write a book in response to your question. Obviously a lot is lost when one writes an “executive summary.”
That said, I hope that you can no longer say: “Why is it that no one will answer the question I’ve been asking?”
Perhaps you can quickly answer two questions for me though.
If you are this bothered by the idea of your tax money going to abortion (even if it lowers abortion), why not move to Ireland or Poland? Krakow is truly a lovely city.
But more importantly… Surely you see little hope of achieving your goals politically within the next four years. Why not change strategies, for at least that period of time? Why not make a constructive and positive effort? One that might make a real difference in the life of a woman that may be pregnant right now?
I know we can all say lots of negative things about the tenure of Bill Clinton as president, but his years in office saw among the steepest decline in abortion rates since Roe v Wade. Honestly, wouldn’t you like to see that again? Why don’t you try think about ways to make it happen?
I know that you want people to know these things because of the next election, and I am not saying all such effort is useless (but I think you have to be honest with yourself and admit that this article probably changed few minds; it was “red-meat” for the already converted).
But — how is it moral to forgo practical progress, a real reduction of abortion rates, real mothers choosing to have a baby — a real, loving playful baby — so that you can be seen as uncompromising or whatever else? How is it moral to forgo real progress in the hopes that things will just change, that the electorate will change, that the people will come around in 4 years, if not then, then in 8, maybe in 12? How is this moral, when there are practical things that you can write about, work for and fight for that will prevent abortion?
So my real question is this: You could have written about the effort and dialogue taking place at the White House on how to find common ground and reduce abortion rates. You could have used your platform to put pressure on that effort to succeed. You could have put forth ideas to make it succeed. In short, you could have spent that time to actually made a difference, but you didn’t! Why?
Luke,
Yes, we could all move to another country and find other things wrong there. Yes, we could all do more to stop abortion. But we don’t have a false dilemma here. It’s not work to reduce abortion OR change the law but both. Yes, other factors that changed law and then behavior, but it was more William Wilberforce Christianity than deistic Enlightenment. And Yes, the law will have an effect on attitudes about homosexuality as Andrew Sullivan himself admits.
Could we please offer evidence instead of characterizing arguments as “beneath you.” Luke, you were the one suggesting law had no impact (now, I obviously misunderstood you, and for that I apologize.) But people who disagree have to stop the name calling and feigned offense.
But all those things are again red herrings. You still haven’t answered the question. Thanks for participating, but I’m done asking.
BTW, thanks for your email. Abbey Road side two is heavenly!
Blessings,
Frank
Dr. Turek,
I’m afraid I have to apologize. When I said the argument was beneath you, that was more of a complement. What I was saying was that typically you make arguments that are better than that.
I sincerely apologize if that came out wrong.
For what it’s worth though, I did cite various pieces of empirical evidence to support my view.
You still haven’t answered the question. Thanks for participating, but I’m done asking.
I honestly though I had.
Here is what I said just a few minutes ago: I hope that you can no longer say: “Why is it that no one will answer the question I’ve been asking?”
What part of the question do you feel that I did not answer? If you are done asking, that is fine, but I am willing to clarify or expand on anything I’ve said.
Some other comments:
Yes, we could all move to another country and find other things wrong there.
As I said, we all make compromises to live in a society. This is just something we can accept or live with.
But you do have that choice. There is a real question here though. What do you imagine your tax money might go to in Poland that you find anywhere near as objectionable as scalding and dismemberment?
Could we please offer evidence
I feel as though I have. I have cited studies of abortion rate studies, public polling data, media examples, as well as hypothetical scenarios. I don’t feel as though anything Ive said has been some blanket statement from authority. I have provided sources for most, and will gladly give a source for anything I have left out (polling data is for example has many sources which show the same thing).
What is the beginning of a new human life? If you don’t base it on human nature (genetics), you run into absurd conclusions.
Size: Should we be able to kill smaller people because they are somehow less human?
Level of Development: Should we be able to kill younger people or retarded people because they are somehow less human?
Environment: How does changing one’s location change his or her humanity? How does an eight inch trip down a birth canal change the essence of the being?
Dependency: If you depend on others to sustain life, does that make you less human? A six-month old cannot survive on its own. Should we be able to kill her? (In fact, some teenagers aren’t viable
Nobody has made any of those cases here, so I’m not sure how that relates to the topic. It’s not about “how far they’ve developed.” It’s about the fact that they’re not the same thing.
What do they have in common, Mr. Turek? DNA. That’s it. In order to say that a strand of DNA is a human being, you have to accept a standard that says humans are defined not by a soul, or by their personality, but by their DNA. If you believe in a soul that is separate from DNA, then this argument makes no sense at all.
Also, what part of the DNA do you think the human is at conception? Contrarily, what part of the body do you think is “the person” after conception? Or do you think all of it is “the person?”
If that’s the case, how can you justify someone getting an amputation? Isn’t that immoral because they’re killing living tissue, and therefore they’re killing “themselves,” even if only a part?
But despite all this, for the sake of argument, let’s say that life begins at brain wave activity (about 6 weeks in the womb). Or if you like, even at so-called viability (about 22 weeks).
This is a moot point because you’re trying to argue that there is a particular, specific point at which life magically, abruptly “begins.” I do not accept that standard, and so any case you make about when it magically begins is moot to me.
Why the inconsistency? How is this morally right?
Nobody said it was; now you’re just being intentionally dense.
I could go on, but my point is that it’s nonsense to reduce it to ‘time, air, water and food’.
Exactly; it’s a grossly dumb oversimplification of the argument.
Those points are irrelevant to my question in my last post.
Not at all; the question was that, if you determine “humanity” solely on the basis of DNA (which you claim you do), then how do you justify not holding sacred some of the animals (such as apes) that share an almost exact same alignment of DNA as humans? There are but a few minute differences. You are being inconsistent in making this case.
Why is it that no one will answer the question I’ve been asking? Do you agree with Obama? Yes or no and why. If no one cares to answer it directly, that’s fine. I’ll just be done asking and commenting on red herrings.
It’s already been answered. Yes, I do agree with Obama. And your little political snippet was biased and distorted from the beginning and thus invalid. Also, your interpretations of the bill Obama supported are inaccurate, as with most widely-publicized documents you portray on this blog. That’s your answer (for the third time from myself).
Yes, other factors that changed law and then behavior, but it was more William Wilberforce Christianity than deistic Enlightenment.
I’d argue that it was more money than either of those things. The whole “morality” case didn’t come into play until much later, to retroactively justify the blatantly, indiscriminately financial motives for avoiding such behavior (now that it was illegal).
But all those things are again red herrings. You still haven’t answered the question. Thanks for participating, but I’m done asking.
“Could we please cite some evidence for this?” I see nothing but answers to your questions, repeatedly, by multiple contributors. And I see you dodging the responses by making this claim.
I’m looking for the actual legal language in the bill right now. I haven’t found it yet, but I did find this quote from Obama:
“On an issue like partial birth abortion, I strongly believe that the state can properly restrict late-term abortions. I have said so repeatedly. All I’ve said is we should have a provision to protect the health of the mother, and many of the bills that came before me didn’t have that.
Part of the reason they didn’t have it was purposeful, because those who are opposed to abortion have a moral calling to try to oppose what they think is immoral. Oftentimes what they were trying to do was to polarize the debate and make it more difficult for people, so that they could try to bring an end to abortions overall.
As president, my goal is to bring people together, to listen to them, and I don’t think that’s any Republican out there who I’ve worked with who would say that I don’t listen to them, I don’t respect their ideas, I don’t understand their perspective. And my goal is to get us out of this polarizing debate where we’re always trying to score cheap political points and actually get things done. ”
Source: 2008 Fox News interview: presidential series Apr 27, 2008
———————–
Q: The terms pro-choice and pro-life, do they encapsulate that reality in our 21st Century setting and can we find common ground?
A: I absolutely think we can find common ground. And it requires a couple of things. It requires us to acknowledge that..
1. There is a moral dimension to abortion, which I think that all too often those of us who are pro-choice have not talked about or tried to tamp down. I think that’s a mistake because I think all of us understand that it is a wrenching choice for anybody to think about.
2. People of good will can exist on both sides. That nobody wishes to be placed in a circumstance where they are even confronted with the choice of abortion. How we determine what’s right at that moment, I think, people of good will can differ.
And if we can acknowledge that much, then we can certainly agree on the fact that we should be doing everything we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies that might even lead somebody to consider having an abortion.
Source: 2008 Democratic Compassion Forum at Messiah College Apr 13, 2008
One more important quote from that same page:
Q: Do you personally believe that life begins at conception?
A: This is something that I have not come to a firm resolution on. I think it’s very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don’t presume to know the answer to that question. What I know is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we’re having these debates.
Source: 2008 Democratic Compassion Forum at Messiah College Apr 13, 2008
The reason I see this as important is because Obama is also a Christian, and as such he does not view humanity in strict terms of scientific biology or DNA. So he is at the very least intellectually honest in saying that he doesn’t know when life begins because the standard of what exactly “life” means is unclear. Is it the state of the DNA? Is it when the soul comes into existence? And in the case of the latter, how can we possibly know when that is? Does the soul come into existence like, POOF! magically, at the exact moment the new human DNA comes into formation? If that’s the case, then what exactly is the difference between DNA and a soul, and what value does a soul have if it is no different than DNA?
I hope you can be as intellectually honest as Obama one day, Mr. Turek.
Thanks for those quotes Tim. It reminds me of why I trust Obama. I do think he answers these questions with honesty, integrity and intellectual rigour. It really struck me when I read The Audacity of Hope. It was surprising to read a politician speaking in such a clear way, not trying to score points but still directly setting out where he differed in opinion from the right side of the spectrum.
In my last answer to Frank I said “I’d have to hear the other side’s justification for this in order for me to decide”. Well in case you think that’s a cop out, I’ve had a look online on the issue and wasn’t surprised to see that it’s all a lot more complicated than is made out here. I could go into details, but it would probably just set off an argument over those details, which I’m sure can already be found elsewhere all of these kind of sites.
Another thing that comes across to me from looking at the ‘pro-choice’ websites is that these organisations genuinely care for women and children. The emphasis is very much on support, and on preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place. This goes back to my point before – there is consistency here in their aims. I don’t see the same consistency on the other side. I can’t see how someone can claim to want to reduce abortions but also oppose contraception. The only consistency there is seeking control of women and their reproduction.
It is for this reason that my first instinct is to trust the information put out by the pro-choice side more than that diseminated by the pro-life. Especially when I’ve already noted the latter group correlates with groups that are dishonest about other science issues such as evolution.
A very interesting point from Luke about how much abortion rates dropped under Clinton. I’m not that surprised though, as Clinton came across to me as someone who would address the societal issues that lead to women seeking abortions.
Now, it may be appealing to take a complicated issue and say ‘I can make it very simple indeed’. But as soon as I dig I find out that it isn’t simple at all. We went from ‘it is hard science that human life begins at conception’ to ‘I can find quotes that oppose the respected biologists you provided that disagree with me’. The former is saying that Obama must be mad to disagree with Frank, the latter admits that reasonable debate exists.
Finally, it is a shame that Frank feels we haven’t been answering his questions. Reading back, we’ve all made an effort to honestly answer him, several times over. Not giving the answer someone wants isn’t the same as not answering at all.
“…it was more William Wilberforce Christianity than deistic Enlightenment.”
I don’t know how you all got talking about slavery, and this is a side issue, but if one is giving credit to Wilberforce, it should also be noted that the defenders of slavery could be equally motivated by their Christian faith. The Reverend Thornton Stringfellow for example wrote his Scriptural View of Slavery supporting slavery as a Biblical institution. You can say he was mistaken in not taking New Testament into account, but he quotes from St Paul’s letter to the Ephisians, and also says:
“If, therefore, doing to others as we would they should do to us, means precisely what loving our neighbor as ourself means, then Jesus has added no new moral principle above those in the law of Moses, to prohibit slavery, for in his law is found this principle, and slavery also.”
He was doubtless as strong in his faith as Wilberforce.
And we’ve also seen forceful Christian apologetics for slavery right here on this site from Andrea and Matt Garwood. It’s impossible to move either on this issue – as far as they’re concerned it is there in the bible as being ok, therefore it must be moral. They defended stoning children in the same way.
They’re not that unusual in doing this. Blogger Russell Glasser recently posted:
“…In a few extreme cases, I’ve even had Christians essentially tell me that having a job is no worse than being a slave, and it would therefore not be such a bad thing if “Biblical slavery” still existed.
Christians arguing for slavery? Is this the fault of post-modernism and relativism? Or is it simply an honest effort to reconcile a book which is “known” to contain absolute immutable truth? Assuming that your faith is incompatible with slavery, by what method should I choose the truth-value of your faith over the faith of Stringfellow? I could apply reason based on core values, of course. But if this is possible, as I think it is, then I would argue that “faith” is a useless contribution to the discussion altogether.”
Talking of spending of tax dollars:
“Abstinence-only sex education programs, which emphasize a no-sex-until-marriage message, received almost $1.3 billion in federal dollars from fiscal years 2001-2009, according to the Office of Management and Budget. At the same time, studies of abstinence-only programs have shown little success; the most often-cited study, released in 2007, was congressionally mandated and federally funded and found that abstinence-only programs don’t prevent or delay teen sex.”
So why were tax dollars spent on that?
Meanwhile: “President Obama’s new budget would eliminate most money for abstinence-only sex education and shift it to teen pregnancy prevention — a U-turn in what has been more than a decade of sex education policy in the USA.
The proposed budget, sent to Congress last Thursday, “reflects the research,” says Melody Barnes, director of the team that coordinates White House domestic policy.
“In any area where Americans want to confront a problem, they want solutions they know will work, as opposed to programming they know hasn’t proven to be successful. Given where we’ve been in recent years, I think this is a very important moment,” she says.
My definition of torture is hurting someone till the point of death, or making the person feel like their are dying an example would be waterboarding. God bless to all peace and love, Emily
Thanks Emily,
Psalms 8:2: Out of the mouth of babes
[...] and immoral? Waterboarding or abortion? Dr. Frank Turek has a post here, examining whether pro-abortion Democrats are hypocrites for calling waterboarding torture, when the procedures used by irresponsible people for killing their own innocent children are far [...]
Mr. Turek,
I’d like to point out that brain activity does not start in the womb at 6 weeks. This idea has been around since a Dr. Hannibal Hamlin stated it in 1964. It was not, in fact a published article, but a speech he gave titled Life Or Death By EEG that was printed in the Journal of the American Medical Association. As such it was not subject to peer review. The other commonly sited source for this is a letter by John Goldenring in the New England Journal Of Medicine in the 1980′s. A real review article written by K.J.S. Anand and P.R. Hickey for the New England Journal of Medicine states:
Functional maturity of the cerebral cortex is suggested by fetal and neonatal electroencephalographic patterns. First, intermittent electroencephalograpic bursts in both cerebral hemispheres are first seen at 20 weeks gestation; they become sustained at 22 weeks and bilaterally synchronous at 26 to 27 weeks.
Is this a red herring? No, I’m coming to a point. As I said previously I don’t believe that life begins at conception. I’m assuming you do, Mr. T. As I do not believe this and as I do not believe in a soul I don’t care what a woman does with her body prior to the third trimester. And if you want the complete truth I don’t care what they do in the third either because someone getting an abortion a 1000 miles away from me has no bearing on my existence and I’m not going to lose sleep thinking about it. What I’d rather is that after the third trimester they go ahead and have it, but if there is the health issue with the mother, let them do whatever they want. But my rathers are my own. Others have brains and can use them to best suit themselves.
And to answer your question about Obama:
I think no one should answer the question as you state it. I think you’ve been spoonfed a bunch of garbage, sir, by a people with skewed agendas. Have you, in fact, read the Freedom Of Choice Act? It’s bill number S.1173. At no point does it mention making anyone do something they do not want to do (e.g. MAKING a physician give abortions). And it does not give a woman the right to end pregnancy after a physician determines that there is viability outside the womb. But it does give them the right to terminate to protect the life and health of the woman.
“Have you, in fact, read the Freedom Of Choice Act? It’s bill number S.1173. At no point… [snip] But it does give them the right to terminate to protect the life and health of the woman.”
Sigh… the sad thing is that I can’t even say that I’m surprised. This is why I shouldn’t even get involved in these debates. I simply can’t trust the pro-life side to present the arguments honestly. If their argument was so strong, surely they wouldn’t need to skew the truth?
Sounds like – what a surprise – Obama knows what he’s doing.
Andrew,
What do you think “health of the mother means”? It means anything even psychological distress, which means the ban has no effect. So with FOCA, If a mother wants to kill a full term baby she can regardless of any ban.
BTW, before you cast dispersions on the pro-life side, keep in mind that pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers are completely donor funded. Many of them care for women and their children before and after the pregnancy (I know, because I’ve donated to them and spoken at several of their banquets…. one just two weeks ago). On the other hand, the so-called “pro choice” side is a multi-billion dollar business. The average cost of an abortion in the U.S. is $450. And if they were truly “pro-choice” they would allow pro-life material and counselors into or near their clinics. But they don’t. They use court orders to keep such information as far away from their customers as possible.
Blessings,
Frank
Dr. Turek,
Could you please tell me what part of your question I did not answer?
You have asked for a respectful dialogue and I support that wholeheartedly. You have asked a question which I personally have spent well over 1,000 words answering trying to answer (several thousand words if one includes other comments I made on this thread, all of which are related) . Tim and Ryan have added thousands more. If you are going to claim that we have not answered your question, then it would be respectful to explain to us why you believe that, especially after I specifically asked.
I think we have all shown a willingness to discuss these issues. If we were trying to simply avoid them, we would not be here. At worst we are misunderstanding your question. If you seek mutual respect, I think you owe us enough respect to honestly tell us where you think we are going wrong. I think there is more respect in saying “here is what I am trying to get at and why I think you answered a different question” then “I’m done asking.”
Thank you
Luke
“It means anything even psychological distress, which means the ban has no effect. ”
It means she would have to convince a doctor that her health is actually in danger. If she says she’s just a little upset, that’s not going to convince a doctor that the pregnancy is endangering her health. It’s seems an unlikely scenario that doctors are going to allow many full term babies to be killed unless the mother’s health is in serious danger.
I’m not going to defend the ‘pro-abortion’ industry because I don’t know enough about it. And I trust that you dont knowingly lie Frank. But I’m willing to bet that if a representative of the industry was posting here they’d be able to give a good account of themselves. (It being a multi-billion dollar industry makes it no different from the ‘abstinence industry’, which, as I outlined above, received 1.3 billions dollars from Bush’s administration.)
I will have a long post tomorrow discussing various issues around abortion rights and abortion prevention.
But in the meantime, I wanted to ask Dr. Turek the question I have asked before.
I do understand that we all have limited time, so you can answer with a simple yes or you.
Do you believe that when the life of the mother is materially threatened, a termination of pregnancy, even in its late stages is morally acceptable? That is, the mother should be able to choose?
I am simply trying to better understand your stance.
Luke
ps I will comment more on this tomorrow (the issue of health), but doing things like putting quotes around: health of the mother, does not put forth a good face for the pro-life movement. Perhaps you don’t understand how many people, who are not dogmatic on the issue, see this. It is seen by many, and I will include myself in this, as simply insulting. It dehumanizes women, whether that is intended or not. (I think the airquotes incident was among the lowest of John McCain’s campaign and probably lost him many voters in a split second.)
And do you really dismiss psychological problems so easily? I am sure Susan Smith’s family, for one example, takes such things much more seriously than you. Psychological issues can be life and death issues as well, not something to be denigrated with quotation marks!
Didn’t Tim have a post after mine?
It seems to have disappeared.
I thought he made some good points in it. (Such as confronting a Wal-Mart employee with the ethics issues of giant coorporations, for one.)
Also, sorry for some if my typos above. I was in a hurry, obviously.
I had posted something like this; I wonder what the problem was?
What do you think “health of the mother means”? It means anything even psychological distress, which means the ban has no effect. So with FOCA, If a mother wants to kill a full term baby she can regardless of any ban.
That’s a soundbyte and nothing more. “Health” must be specified and physician-approved in this particular case. Or do you think that every doctor in the US is somehow in on this “Liberal Conspiracy(TM)?”
On the other hand, the so-called “pro choice” side is a multi-billion dollar business. The average cost of an abortion in the U.S. is $450.
So are you really trying to imply that the sole reason the pro-choice lobby exists is because they can make money off of it? If so, you’re more than dishonest, you’re also apparently very, very cynical about the nature of humans and their ability to govern themselves. There is no multi-billion dollar conspiracy to kill babies.
And if they were truly “pro-choice” they would allow pro-life material and counselors into or near their clinics.
A close friend of mine works at a Planned Parenthood establishment a small ways from where I work. The reason they turn away these people who come in wanting to preach about Jesus and how PP is “murdering children” is because it’s not appropriate for that environment. Would you want hospitals to allow protesters inside the building who constantly harass their patients, saying things like “amputation is murder!” or “drugs are against the beliefs of (insert demoninational religion here)ity!”? It’s disturbing. And if someone has already come so far as to make such a decision as to visit a Planned Parenthood facility, for example, the last thing they need is someone preaching religious BS down their throats while they’re trying to make a reasoned decision, perhaps one of the most important ones in their lives.
If these folks would find something to say, instead of parroting the soundbytes of the politicos who want to survive next election season based on their anti-choice status, that’s one thing. But even if that were the case, an abortion clinic is no place to be having such a debate. You don’t go to a Wal-Mart and harass the clerk about big businesses invading small towns and running out the smaller vendors, even if you think it’s costing people jobs and livelihoods. Not only does it not make sense, it doesn’t help anything, either, and it’s not going to close the store down. If you do that, you will be thrown out of the store in all likelihood (especially if you start disturbing other customers). And on the issue of abortion clinics, some might even say that the clinic has an obligation to protect its patients from being harrassed (and yes, following people to and from their cars and preaching to them against their will as they enter/leave is harassment by the legal definition in most places). I mean, would you go to a hospital if the staff allowed Jehova Witnesses to go room to room in the cardiac ward and preach about how nobody should receive blood transfusions, and that anyone who does is defying God’s will? I can’t say I would.
Spin this however you want, Mr. Turek; it’s the fault of people who rely on soundbytes that causes them to be taken less than seriously. There is no liberal conspiracy to speak of, just ignorance. You can go around wearing your t-shirts with pictures of babies and things on them, waving your signs that show fetuses and have catchy slogans on them, but at the end of the day, people trust people who give them reason to believe that they actually know what they’re talking about. And anyone who would try to go to an abortion clinic and preach to the patients there is clearly not the kind of person who knows what he/she is doing.
P.S.
Mr. Turek, if perhaps you moderated my original comment away because you found it offensive, then please consider this: I’m not saying there’s nothing to be said for the anti-choice side. What I am saying is that people are not using reasoned arguments to oppose abortion clinics when they go to these protests; they are just waving signs and slogans. And worse, they are doing them in a place where it will have little effect on the people they claim are responsible for the actions in the clinic. The patients are not part of some “abortion movement,” they are people who have problems — ranging from mild to very, very serious indeed — that, in many cases, a doctor has actually recommended abortion to them as a solution. It’s not as though they’ve just woken up that morning and said, “You know what, I think I’ll abort my pregnancy today.” It’s a grave decision that only comes after serious thought, and I think anyone can agree that anyone who speaks of abortion as though it’s something simple or easy to deal with (on either side of the debate) has no idea what they are doing.
And so given all of these things, what do you think it will accomplish to go to an abortion clinic and harass the employees (or complain that the employees/security are not allowing folks to arbitrarily harass their employees) about such an important matter? What is your desired end by defending these actions, and what do you think it will solve? I can tell you this: I went to a protest opposing G.W. Bush’s arrival in my town to support a local Republican candidate some two years ago. It didn’t solve much except to “show our beliefs.” It didn’t change anything, and the local news even played it down to make it appear as though only a few people showed up (when in reality there had been several hundred). So at the end of the day, there really was no point to doing it other than to “appear tough” to people who oppose G.W. That is why I think people do these things when they so clearly do not solve any problems.
Luke, Tim and Andrew,
Will get back to you. Limited internet access for the next few days.
Thanks for blogging!
Blessings,
Frank
Dr. Turek,
Regarding Crisis Pregnancy Centers and pro-life information, I think your statement inadvertently shows the problem.
You said: Keep in mind that pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers are completely donor funded… And if [the other side] were truly “pro-choice” they would allow pro-life material and counselors into or near their clinics. But they don’t.
Crisis Pregnancy Centers receive millions from the federal government. Many states also give funds to CPCs.
Now, I don’t think you indented to mislead us. I think you believe and were completely sure that what you wrote was a fact.
But you were wrong. Simply, factually wrong! (You can look up Crisis Pregnancy Center on google or wikipedia for various sources. Federal funding is discussed in the congressional report I reference below.)
Which leads me to the connected point.
In 2006, a Congressional report was published which studied the information given out by federally funded crisis pregnancy centers. It found that 87% of the centers called provided inaccurate information and overstated the medical risks of abortion.
If you would like to read the report, it is titled: False and Misleading Health Information Provided by Federally Funded Pregnancy Resource.
The pdf is available online. (Simply copy and paste the title into the google.)
I think that most of the people giving out false information did not intend to, but have themselves been mislead.
But surely you can see why a medical clinic would want to avoid having people give out misleading information to their patients.
Can you think of any other medical procedure where this would be allowed?
Let me ask a question: hypothetically, if you could prevent an abortion, but could only do so by lying, no other tactic would work, would you lie?
I actually favor everyone having as much truthful information as possible. But again, the issue here is complex. It is not as simple as saying: ok let the pro-life counselors in. (Beside the accuracy of the information, some of the points Tim raised are important as well.)
In response to what I said above, I would like to say a few more words about the issues of federal funding and taxation.
While Crisis Pregnancy Centers get federal and state funding so do clinics like Planned Parenthood.
There is a key piece of policy and legislation that I feel we need to bring up, in case not everyone is aware of it.
It is called the Hyde Amendment. It is renewed by congress every year, and has been for over 30 years.
It explicitly prohibits the use of federal tax dollars for the funding of abortion. So while planned parenthood receives federal money: “Tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood do not pay for abortions; they cover birth control, gynecological exams, cancer screening and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.” (San Francisco Chronicle, 12 Feb, 2007 “Abortion Foes…”)
(There is an exception to this, federal funds can aid in abortions where the life of the mother is in danger, or cases or rape or incest. One can see the language of the amendment, which varies changes from year to year, for details.)
The same is true for the Mexico City policy. Now that the policy has been lifted, federal funds still cannot go toward the funding of abortion.
The Mexico City policy prevents money from going to organizations which perform abortions or simply discuss them (even if they do not perform the procedure). (This is why it is known as the “gag rule” by opponents.) So, a group like Planned Parenthood, which operated internationally, could not receive any federal dollars, even if those funds were spent on things which prevent abortion.
Just for the sake of clarification.
This Is a Test Post
I am having trouble posting something and trying to determine the problem.
Moderators please delete this.
Andrew,
You’re obviously right that this is a difficult issue.
I began my comments on this topic by saying that I largely agreed with Frank, at least on everything except tactics, and I do.
I want to comment a bit on the difficulty of the issue and some of the struggles involved.
I will divide this post into two (maybe 3) sections, for clarity. I am simply sharing my thoughts on the subject; feel free to critique anything I say.
For now, I will post part one, and hope to post part two later today, but it may be Monday. Hopefully it will help that this is not one very long and overwhelming post.
I. My Rights Versus Yours
Maybe this is pointless, but let me quickly discuss some of the issues surrounding the abortion debate from a more philosophical perspective. Now this is just the way I see it, so you guys can feel free to critique it, I am not sure that I am right, but it is my hypothesis.
What we see with the abortion issue is a case of competing rights, and how different people believe that conflict should be resolved.
I think that in a way we see almost everything, at least everything that has life, as having some sort of rights. Sometimes these rights are extremely minuscule and we hardly notice them (this is probably the case with most things), but often we are conscious of them and have to resolve any conflicts of rights.
Obviously we talk in our society not only of human rights, but also animal rights. I think it goes further than that though. This being a Christian blog, I think of the case of Jesus and the fig tree. I have seen it asked more than a few times: why did Jesus curse the tree? (This question was famously asked by Bertrand Russell early in the last century, and I’m sure he was not the first.) I think we naturally (I mean through a combination of culture, upbringing, empathy, etc.) see the tree as having some level of rights — the right to be a tree, for one.
So given that anything, anything that is alive at least, is seen as having some basic level of rights, these rights often come into conflict.
To go back to Jesus and the fig tree, if Jesus curses and kills the tree because he’s angry, that leaves many uncomfortable. If he chopped down the tree and used the wood to build a house for a poor family, this would be fine. The tree may have some right to be a tree, but people have a right to live, and shelter is necessary for that. We fairly conclude that the rights of the person overwrite the rights of the tree in this case. (Now, do people have the right to chop down a forest to have a 10,000 sq ft house? That is a different question and one which we are discussing as a society, I think.)
I think we deal with these sorts of decisions much more often than we realize.
Much of this takes place on a subconscious level, of course. That is, we don’t make pro and con lists of showing the outcomes of a preference to this right or that one.
Now, back to abortion, I think that most people see a fertilized egg as having some sort of rights, though admittedly, for some those rights are miniscule. Would you and Tim agree with me on this? I would at least say that it has some rights in the eyes of the mother (the most important person in the case).
So what we face when we debate abortion is how we resolve this issue of conflicting rights. The cells have some right to continue developing (if nature allows) into a baby. The mother has the right to live a life and, we could say, to pursue happiness. There are many interests she may seek to protect. It may be that she seeks to protect the right to be a good provider and mother to other children she may already have. How we balance her right to live and to pursue her interests versus the right of the group of cells to develop (whether you consider that group of cells human life or not), is key to our take on abortion.
In short, there is a conflict of rights, and some of us solve that conflict in different ways than others.
I think a key to the way some of us (not all analyze this reminds me of a quote from Jeremy Bentham (some old English philosopher guy).
…the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?
(The quote is actually is relation to animal rights. Mr. Bentham was in many ways ahead of his time, and also advocated for woman’s rights, and even the decriminalization of homosexual acts.)
I think many people see a grouping of cells as unable to suffer, so the rights of the woman, who can suffer and feel pain, quickly take precedence for them.
(I am not saying this stance can’t be solidly critiqued, I am just saying that it influences the way many think.)
It is a key input to the way many resolve this conflict of rights.
(Now Dr. Turek, I know that the case is different in many late term abortions, but it should be noted that currently in the US, such abortions are very rare and only allowed in cases of a danger to the life of the mother. FOCA would change this exception to include threats to the life and health of the mother. Obviously such threats change the rights calculus as well. I am still curious on your stand toward late term abortion in cases of a life threatening conditions.)
To many, like Dr. Turek, the right to life, or the potential of life is far more key than the right to happiness. If something has that right — the right to life — that trumps all other rights; it is a sacred right, and no other should supersede it. The only right that might have a claim to compete would be another’s right to life. No other rights matter.
I guess what I am trying to say in all this, is that it is not as if the pro-choice side of this debate simply considers a fetus to be an absolutely worthless and useless piece of tissue. It is to the detriment of a solution to believe or pretend this is the case. On the other hand, I agree with President Obama that the the pro-choice side should not “tamp down” discussion of the “moral dimension to abortion.”
He is also right when he says: “I think all of us understand that it is a wrenching choice for anybody to think about.”
We just need to remember that when we are discussing it.
Coming up next: You Can’t or You Don’t Have To — Preventing Abortion
There’s an awful lot of words in this discussion, but it really should be a simple and short discussion, as there’s really only one fact in question.
Dr. Turek’s basic argument is that IF treating an adult human being a certain way is wrong for any set of reasons, THEN treating a gestating human being is wrong for the same reasons. He’s even granted legitimate dispute at the “cluster of cells” level, saying “Ok, forget about it until you’ve actually detected a distinct brain wave from the fetus.” (I wouldn’t have, but I understand why he did.) Even given that, abortion would be immoral except if one could demonstrate a cogent difference in the moral algebra between killing an adult human being and killing a gestating human being in utero. It’s a pretty simple argument, and provably correct.
So the only item in question is, what’s a human being?
Words mean things, so unless somebody here wants to suggest that the words “human” and “being” are being used metaphorically or figuratively, we should be able to settle the question by reading the bloody dictionary. (Only, that won’t do it because of the emotional response from partisan advocates who don’t like what the dictionary has to offer. But that’s for my next comment.)
“Human” designates species. Any attempt to assign value, maturity, cognitive ability, or any other characteristic is simply an attempt to obfuscate; “human” denotes only species. Whether an object deserves the adjective “human” or not can be determined by testing DNA. Does the cell contain human DNA, as opposed to, say, canine, or bovine? If so, then it is a HUMAN cell. Is the ear comprised of cells that all contain human DNA? Then it’s a HUMAN ear. Is the infant comprised of cells that all contain human DNA? Then it’s a HUMAN infant. And so forth. Very simple, very unambiguous.
“Being” is a bit tougher, because it’s imprecise by nature. It is a general word denoting existence, only in this instance I think it implies life; normal English usage in America would not ordinarily call something a “being” unless it were alive. So let’s assert that in this instance, it means “a living thing.” If anyone things “being” in the phrase “human being” denotes something other than “a living thing,” please state your reasons.
So, any object that a) can properly be called a living thing, and b) is comprised of cells that contain human DNA, is, by simple definition, a human being.
Now, PZ Myers and the rest at Pharyngula, whom Andrew Ryan quoted at length, are partisans who have dogs in the hunt when it comes to the abortion debate. However, I think what was meant by whomever he was lampooning, in that post where he quoted those folks, is that the definitions of “human” and “living being” are not particularly controversial. Granted, the precise point at which a being ceases to be “a sperm cell from one organism, and an egg cell from another organism of similar species” and becomes properly “an organism of particular species” in its own right, is arbitrary within about a 2-day period; it’s a process, not a singularity. However, I don’t think even the partisans at Pharyngula would dispute that at the end of that process, what remains is, in fact, a living organism. That’s a matter that’s got general agreement among biologists. And of course, since all the cells in that “collection of cells” are provably human cells, and since the collection of cells meets the common biological definition of life, then scientifically and provably it’s a HUMAN organism — or, in plain English, a human being.
Immediately, I can hear the howls. Sorry, folks, it really is that simple. The howls all speak of “meaning” which, frankly, is an imposition from whatever philosophical system you’re articulating. If you want to make this into a philosophical question, fine, but please admit that that’s what you’re doing. The scientific and biological question is easily resolved. It’s a “human being” when it can properly be called “human” (denoting species) and “being” (denoting that it’s a living organism.) That’s how language works.
So, all those words, and all those accusations, and all that howling… and it turns out that Dr. Turek is simply and provably correct…
…unless somebody here can now produce a logically valid syllogism proving that to treat a human being brutally who has X characteristic is morally wrong, but to treat a human being brutally who LACKS X characteristic is not morally wrong. Then they’d have to show, logically or scientifically, when a human being acquires X characteristic; and at that point, they’d have logically produced an argument that makes abortion defensible before a particular point in time.
I’ve heard that done plausibly with brain waves (though I don’t agree). I’ve heard people try “consciousness,” but as Frank pointed out, that would mean — logically — that it’s morally acceptable to murder an unconscious human, and that’s absurd. I’ve heard people try “intelligence,” but that would mean — logically — that it’s morally acceptable to murder unintelligent people, and that’s heinous; the Nazis went down that road, and the rest of humanity shouted “No!”
I’m asking folks to shed their emotions, and deal with the simple facts. “Human being” is rather easy, if we shed the emotions. The remaining questions are just questions of logical consistency: if we consider a criterion sufficient to change the moral equation, does it work in all cases, or does it produce absurd or objectionable exceptions?
Defenders of abortion rights like to pretend that opponents of those rights stand only on religious grounds, but the truth is that opponents of legal abortion stand mostly on simple, consistent, and generally-accepted definitions of common words. It’s the proponents of legal abortion who insist on inserting problematic theories of “meaning.”
Well, Dr. Turek has not answered yet, but judging from your post Phil, I take it that you are anti-death penalty pacifist? I would even conclude that you do not believe in self-defense (turn the other cheek, I suppose).
I think these are honorable stances, and I have no problem whatsoever with them. (Though I personally would not go that far in all cases.)
Luke
By the way Phil, why the anger?
settle the question by reading the bloody dictionary
Sorry
Another by the way:
Phil on May 16th: If you want to make this into a philosophical question, fine, but please admit that that’s what you’re doing.
Luke on May 15th: let me quickly discuss some of the issues surrounding the abortion debate from a more philosophical perspective.
I understand that we have written much and you may not have had a chance to read everything, but if that is the case, why make such statements?
Also, it seems to me that this was more of a policy and political column in the beginning, not a moral one. Perhaps I misunderstood that, but it seems that Dr. Turek was asking why the president should make policy to stop one immoral action while support another. (Dr. Turek originally used the word subsiding, which taking into account the Hyde Amendment, is arguably incorrect factually.)
Of course the question requires considerations which are political, moral and philosophical. I don’t anyone here has tried to pretend otherwise. It has been obvious what dimension was being discussed, and I see no need to accuse anyone here of hiding anything.
Luke
“Now, PZ Myers and the rest at Pharyngula, whom Andrew Ryan quoted at length, are partisans who have dogs in the hunt when it comes to the abortion debate.”
Thank goodness, therefore Phil, that we hadve such a fine non-partisan person such as yourself, with no ‘dogs in the hunt’ of your own, here to comment on the issue!
“The scientific and biological question is easily resolved. It’s a “human being” when it can properly be called “human” (denoting species) and “being” (denoting that it’s a living organism.) That’s how language works.”
My sperm fit your definition of human being. They’re alive, they’re human.
My sperm fit your definition of human being. They’re alive, they’re human.
Now you understand why G-d was displeased with Onan and had to take his life. (Genesis 38:8-10)
Though I have to be fair and say there are other interpretations for this story (dealing with Levirate marriage), the story is the foundation for a serious moral objection to contraception and… other things.
I apologize yet again for my typos. I’ve been writing from my phone, which makes me more prone to mistakes for a number of reasons.
Sorry and thanks,
Luke
I’ve heard that done plausibly with brain waves (though I don’t agree). I’ve heard people try “consciousness,” but as Frank pointed out, that would mean — logically — that it’s morally acceptable to murder an unconscious human, and that’s absurd. I’ve heard people try “intelligence,” but that would mean — logically — that it’s morally acceptable to murder unintelligent people, and that’s heinous; the Nazis went down that road, and the rest of humanity shouted “No!”
There’s an incredibly large problem with logic. Logic is often effin’ retarded. And in this case I have to shout, “NO!” to the above statement (kudos though for saying Turek’s statement was absurd). Yes, it was absurd. It’s absurd because there is a HUGE difference in consciousness between a morula and someone who is simply passed out drunk. The logic spoken of in the above statement can only be the logic of someone that rides a shortbus to school. “Gee, this person is sleeping . . . it’s okay to shoot him.” No. NO! A morula, blastula, fetus, whatever, only has the POTENTIAL for consciousness and until the time it has the ability it is a part of a woman’s body and is her’s to do with as she pleases.
Toby, Luke, I don’t think Phil has added anything the discussion that hasn’t already been dealt with, apart from Ad Hominems and swear words. Unless he brings any new points to this thread, we’re just going to rehash what we’ve already explained.
Andrew,
Too true.
Way off of topic, but did anyone read the article in the New York Times titled: “Chemist shows how RNA can be origin of life”? Just copy the title and paste it into google. Quite exciting.
Toby,
I tried to post it here but it didn’t work; I think links don’t post properly.
It seems like an interesting article, no matter where one comes from.
Luke
No pun was intended there!
Sorry everyone, I have been very busy and unable to post the follow up to my post about conflicting rights.
I will probably have to just make it shorter and of less literary quality (j/k).
I’ll try to finish it tomorrow.
By the way Tim and Andrew, I though you might be excited to know that Dr. Turek mentioned all of your “red herring” arguments on national radio today!!!
(Nothing specific, more along the lines of how “the atheists” on his blog could not counter his argument beyond posting a bunch of red herrings.)
I hope Dr. Turek will be back soon so that we can resume the discussion.
“Nothing specific, more along the lines of how “the atheists” on his blog could not counter his argument beyond posting a bunch of red herrings”
I’ll sue! Frank clearly lost the argument as far as I’m concerned. At least, he had no answer to our points.
By the way, I read a letter in the Financial Times today from Fred Rotondaro of “The Catholic Alliance for the Common Good” that applauded Obama’s efforts to reduce abortions, pointing out that 53% of Catholics voted for Obama and that his support among Catholics is rising.
Even given that, abortion would be immoral except if one could demonstrate a cogent difference in the moral algebra between killing an adult human being and killing a gestating human being in utero. It’s a pretty simple argument, and provably correct.
Not really; what you’re ignoring here is the absurd assertion that something can be “not human” one second and then magically “human” the next; that it’s not “immoral” to kill something one second, and then it magically becomes “immoral” the next, as is your apparent claim upon fertilization. I don’t believe that’s true.
Words mean things, so unless somebody here wants to suggest that the words “human” and “being” are being used metaphorically or figuratively, we should be able to settle the question by reading the bloody dictionary. (Only, that won’t do it because of the emotional response from partisan advocates who don’t like what the dictionary has to offer. But that’s for my next comment.)
I’ve no problem with that; a human being is not a zygote and vice-versa, any more than a human being is a sperm cell or an egg.
“Human” designates species. Any attempt to assign value, maturity, cognitive ability, or any other characteristic is simply an attempt to obfuscate; “human” denotes only species.
So I ask you this question: If a person’s brain is dead beyond chance of resuscitation, but their bodily functions are still “alive” (albeit via machine intervention), then are they alive, or are they dead?
I think the argument here is not so much about “humanity” as it is about “life;” what the Christianfolk here refuse to admit is that there are different ways to be “alive.”
Now, PZ Myers and the rest at Pharyngula, whom Andrew Ryan quoted at length, are partisans who have dogs in the hunt when it comes to the abortion debate.
Only in the sense that you are also a partisan with a “dog in the hunt” as well; by that reasoning, everybody is a partisan who has a dog in the hunt in the abortion debate. I mean, your dog is your religion. Everyone else’s is their belief that a woman should be able to choose. Or do you mean to claim that your reason is “special” and therefore nonpartisan?
Immediately, I can hear the howls. Sorry, folks, it really is that simple.
Not at all. And…howling? What’s this about?:
So, all those words, and all those accusations, and all that howling… and it turns out that Dr. Turek is simply and provably correct…
Well, thanks for letting me know quickly and simply that you are not credible.
Then they’d have to show, logically or scientifically, when a human being acquires X characteristic; and at that point, they’d have logically produced an argument that makes abortion defensible before a particular point in time.
If it were “only wrong to kill” humans based on DNA alone, then that would make it morally okay to kill based on DNA alone — i.e. if some animal was minding its own business and you walked up and beat it to death with a baseball bat, that would be morally okay. And it’s not, unless you’re a sociopath; most people will agree if you ask them this. So DNA and species are not the only things to consider when discussing death and “morality;” any attempt to make it that simple is simply dishonest.
I’m asking folks to shed their emotions, and deal with the simple facts. “Human being” is rather easy, if we shed the emotions. The remaining questions are just questions of logical consistency: if we consider a criterion sufficient to change the moral equation, does it work in all cases, or does it produce absurd or objectionable exceptions?
You claim to shed your emotions completely (which is of course impossible, as your emotions comprise your beliefs about the world and are reflected even in your logic, so you’re already being critically dishonest), and yet you hold to your biases and cling to simplicity in order to keep the case you’re making afloat. I call soundbyte.
Defenders of abortion rights like to pretend that opponents of those rights stand only on religious grounds, but the truth is that opponents of legal abortion stand mostly on simple, consistent, and generally-accepted definitions of common words. It’s the proponents of legal abortion who insist on inserting problematic theories of “meaning.”
Not at all; you rely on an overly simplistic view of the world that requires religious command in order to override all other reasons for respecting life. Most pro-choice folks respect life for reasons other than “it’s human and therefore holy;” the fact that you see its very “humanity” alone as a reason to say, “killing it is wrong objectively,” is evidence of the fact that you are operating on religious grounds.
I, for example, have problems with someone going out and stabbing a gorilla to death for no reason. Maybe not the same as if they did it to a human, but I still have problems with it. And that has nothing to do with DNA; it has to do with the being’s ability to suffer, its ability to percieve, its awareness of itself, and other things.
So if we look at humans as the only species deserving life, then sure, your argument could hold. But most people don’t; most people agree that humans will take priority over animals in matters of life or death, but that doesn’t mean they don’t think animals with conscious thought and the ability to feel pain don’t deserve to live, or to live without fear of death or torture. So your argument does not work after all.
By the way Tim and Andrew, I though you might be excited to know that Dr. Turek mentioned all of your “red herring” arguments on national radio today!!!
Hah, really? Nifty. Maybe I’ll be able to get some free publicity….? ;D
Nah, I’m kidding, really. I’m just a little skeptical that Frank actually reads anything that anyone posts beyond little one-shots and soundbytes. If he did, he would already have the answers to the questions he claims that nobody answers (like the Obama question that I blatantly answered, multiple times, in a style that even fit the way he asked it on the third attempt).
*sigh*
Dr. Turek,
You also repeated something on the radio which had already been discussed here, and I was a bit surprised that you repeated the contention.
I think we can all agree that scalding or dismembering a person or beheading [a person] would constitute torture. And here’s where I think President Obama and anybody who’s pro-abortion is inconstant on this issue: Because while they’re against water-boarding, President Obama does not seem to think that scalding, dismembering or beheading is torture at all in all circumstances.
I have asked you this before Dr. Turek, but since you repeated your claim, I will ask again. Do you think that scalding, dismembering and beheading are torture in all circumstances?
Do you really think that we “all agree” on this? Because when I look around I see a reality that is far, far different from that, on issues other than abortion. (I am not arguing whether or not this reality is a positive one.)
You can read the second half of my May 13th, 12:41 p.m. post to see the framing and details I used before (that seems easier and more efficient than retyping).
Thanks,
Luke
You also said many times that President Obama subsidizes abortion. Can you explain, in light of the Hyde Amendment which I discussed earlier, what you mean by this?
(At least in any way which is different from what was the reality under the Bush administration.)
I am not saying that you are wrong on this fact, but I am curious how you arrive at this conclusion given the legal and fiscal structure under which the administration operates.
Thanks
Jesse Ventura was on The View this week talking about waterboarding. He also underwent it on his SERE training, and said Yes, it is torture.
Then there’s this from today:
“Erich “Mancow” Muller, a Chicago-based conservative radio host, recently decided to silence critics of waterboarding once and for all. He would undergo the procedure himself, and then he would be able to confidently convince others that it is not, in fact, torture.
Or so he thought. Instead, Muller came out convinced.”
…Which is exactly what happened to Christopher HItchens.
Frank, you’re the only person I’ve read about who’s undergone it and still thinks it’s not torture. I think the role of Christian apologist suits you better than torture apologist.
Andrew,
Dr. Turek has not undergone waterboarding. If you read the article, it is carefully written to not say so outright. Though I suspect it leaves that impression with most readers.
Dr. Turek has not undergone waterboarding. If you read the article, it is carefully written to not say so outright. Though I suspect it leaves that impression with most readers.
….ah, I see! That makes a lot more sense now.
Wait, no, it doesn’t. If Turek wasn’t waterboarded, then why did he write the rest of the article as though he had been? If he had, then his claims might have had some weight (although I would still think waterboarding is torture). But since he wasn’t, they are just red herrings, irrelevant tangents.
Dr. Turek,
As soon as I listened to 3 clips of Obama’s speech at Notre Dame, I sent out a blurb that he unwittingly undercut his own argument.
My points were framed different and in most post I saw a closer comparitve to stem cell research (manufacture to kill). After quoting expcerpts of the speech, I commented;
“I marvel at how Barack Obama can …not see the contradiction in what he says and what he does. He is willing to pass judgement on the motives and methods of those who used enhanced interrogation techniques trying to protect lives of other peoples children when their methods did not result in the death or permanent injury of the interrogated party, just temporary discomfort and fear.
Yet, not only does he not see the equivocation, many were also seeking to prosecute over what they saw to be a moral dilemna. Stop. Hold on.
The same people making this argument are the ones defending killing babies as a womans right and then creating life to for ones persons benefit at the expense of anothers , resulting in death. Now when Barack was offended at waterboarding being torture they started investigating it as a crime. Using the same standards, then if our ethics are offended should we be seeking murder charges and revocations of medical licenses? Should we be holding attorneys who advised it was ok to do research liable for their opinions?
The contradiction is clear to see, and one does not have to be tortured to understand waterboarding does not cause death or dismemberment or scarring.
Tim, you think that waterboarding is torture? I think that also. It’ s amazing that me, and an atheist agree on something. At least you have a little common sense. God bless to all peace and love,Emily
“At least you have a little common sense.”
Emily, have you noticed that you agree with ALL the atheists on this issue, while ALL your fellow Christians, including Frank, remain apologists for waterboarding? Do you think they would all still think it wasn’t torture if their own mothers, sisters or daughters were waterboarded? Somehow I guess not.
Still, at least you give me hope for American Christians, Emily – you show that they’re not all irredeemably wicked.
Hi Luke,
Sorry for the delay. As stated in the the column itself, the point of the “Politically Correct Torture” article was NOT to pass judgment on the morality of waterboarding (as Andrew seems to think), but to simply point out that President Obama believes that waterboarding terrorists is immoral while killing the innocent in the womb should be subsidized.
Now, we can brainstorm different ways to reduce abortions, and I’m all for that (and certainly one effective way is to not pay for them!). But reducing abortions is not the focus of this article. That’s why I mentioned red herrings. Everyone seems to want to bring up everything but the main point of the article. If you agree with Obama, why not just say that there’s nothing wrong with scalding, dismembering or debraining babies in the womb? (Yes, I know, some want to suggest that there’s not a baby in there– then what actually is in there? Body parts are removed in all but the earliest abortions). In fact, Tim and Andrew seem to find nothing inconsistent with Obama’s position and I assume they want to subsidize abortion as well. OK, that’s their view. Let those reading this judge for themselves what is right. What’s your view on that question?
If you want to expand the question to deal with reducing abortions, we can talk about other points you bring up but they don’t impact the previous question. You have brought up the Hyde Amendment. Obama has not tried to overturn that yet (thankfully), but in his new budget he wants overturn the 10 year old Dornan Amendment to get abortion paid for with tax dollars in the District of Columbia.
With regard to the Mexico Policy, you seem to be suggesting that actually funding places that promote or do abortions would somehow help reduce abortions, perhaps by getting contraceptives to people to prevent pregnancy. Even if that were the case, couldn’t they reduce abortion even more if they also refused to promote abortion? If clinics are interested in getting our money for contraceptives and to reduce abortion, why not just leave out the abortion services? I suppose many of them do that, although I haven’t read any studies on that. Have you?
No matter how you slice it, funding something seems an odd way of getting it reduced. That’s why I think Obama’s is all talk about reducing abortions– his actions do the opposite.
BTW, I agree with you that the circumstances are important and help us discover the right moral principle to apply. That’s why a pilot who drops a bomb on an enemy target in a just war is not morally culpable if an enemy soldier gets scalded, but someone who scalds an innocent baby in an abortion is morally culpable.
Blessings,
Frank
Frank, it’s you who started the red herrings by trying to write two articles in one. Are you arguing that abortion is wrong or that waterboarding isn’t torture? You’re arguing for both, but you undermine any attempt to reach a moral highground in the first with your attempts to argue the second.
And yes, I see no inconsistency, and have explained my reasons for this at length.
“…article was NOT to pass judgment on the morality of waterboarding (as Andrew seems to think)”
Very disengenuous Frank. What did you mean by this then:
“but is unwilling to simulate drowning on the guilty to potentially save thousands or millions of Americans—a simulation that we have performed on our own servicemen for decades”:.
That is simple apologetics for torture, slice it anyway you want to.
Andrew, if waterboarding is immoral, then certainly abortion is. The article is about Obama’s inconsistency.
Please refer to your post that explains why waterboarding is wrong but abortion– especially late term abortion– isn’t.
Blessings,
Frank
Andrew,
Very disengenuous Frank. What did you mean by this then:
“but is unwilling to simulate drowning on the guilty to potentially save thousands or millions of Americans—a simulation that we have performed on our own servicemen for decades”:.
I meant that Obama is inconsistent. The article is about Obama’s position on waterboarding, not mine. Simulated drowning is immoral but murder is not? How so?
Blessings,
Frank
“The article is about Obama’s position on waterboarding, not mine.”
Then why introduce your own position on waterboarding if it is irrelevant? It seriously distracts from the points you claim to be trying to make.
And how can you torture a week-old fetus when it doesn’t have the capacity to feel pain?
Again, I haven’t given my position on waterboarding, only Obama’s.
You can’t torture a one-week old fetus, only kill it. You can torture AND kill those later in term. Obama is for abortion up to birth, and has even voted to refuse medical treatment to those born alive as a result of a botched abortion. The question remains for Obama and anyone who agrees with him: Why do you think that waterboarding the guilty is immoral, but subsidizing the killing of the innocent is the right thing to do?
Blessings,
Frank
Obama would only be inconsistent if he believed life began at conception, in the same way that you do. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t. Therefore you can argue with his definition of when human life begins (as you do), but that doesn’t make him inconsistent.
“Again, I haven’t given my position on waterboarding, only Obama’s.”
Whose opinion are you voicing here then? What do you mean by ‘the guilty’ when you’re referring to people who’ve never been tried? What evidence that millions of American lives were potentially being saved? Again, I think you’re being disengenuous.
“but is unwilling to simulate drowning on the guilty to potentially save thousands or millions of Americans—a simulation that we have performed on our own servicemen for decades”:.
Andrew,
Since 9-11, to our knowledge, waterboarding has only been used three times, all on KNOWN terrorists. You don’t need a trial to know that those people are terrorists.
But of course, all that is again beside the point. Do you really believe that scalding, dismembering or debraining a human body in the womb is not a grave moral wrong? If Obama is not sure when life begins, then why does he advocate this practice all through term and even refuses medical treatment after birth? How is it consistent to say you don’t know when life begins but then act as if you know it only beings if a mother says it does? How does a mother’s choice change the essence of the baby? Doesn’t it make moral sense to err on the side of life when there is any doubt? Of course, when you have a full term baby, there is no doubt– only feigned doubt by politicians who are more concerned that they survive rather than the child.
Blessings,
Frank
“Since 9-11, to our knowledge, waterboarding has only been used three times, all on KNOWN terrorists. You don’t need a trial to know that those people are terrorists.”
For a start, it’s dangerous territory to start saying ‘we know this person’s guilty, therefore the normal legal processes don’t apply’. For a second, since when was the number of times it happened relevant? If you’re going down that road, the number of late term abortions are a tiny minority. Thirdly, we were origanally told that no waterboardings happened at all. Now there’s 3 people they admit to. Your ‘to our knowledge’ is a necessary caveat. Fourthly, we know many other techniques WERE used on other people.* I don’t share your confidence that they were all terrorists. Are you 100% sure of ALL of their guilt? Not willing to err on the side of caution now?
And fifthly and most damming, you’ve no evidence that any lives were saved or that any useful information was produced.
“Zubaydah, the first prisoner to be tortured, was judged by the CIA and FBI to have told everything he knew before Bush and Cheney ordered the 83 waterboardings.”
“David Rose reported in Vanity Fair magazine last year, the result of the torture was a confession by Zubaydah that Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda had a working relationship, the key casus belli for the Iraq war.”
So the only information it produced not only turned out to be false, but gave a false excuse to take the country to war.
* [The techniques included multiple beatings; total sensory deprivation; keeping suspects awake for weeks on end; keeping prisoners on the edge of medical hypo-thermia and extreme heat; stress positions that make a human being buckle under muscular distress and pain; and religious, sexual, cultural and psychological abuse].
“How does a mother’s choice change the essence of the baby?”
So the mother has no rights at all? Have you ever seen someone give birth, Frank? Ever seen a complicated birth? It can change a woman physically for the rest of her life. It can kill. These aren’t considerations at all to you? Completely irrelevant?
“course, when you have a full term baby, there is no doubt”
Right, it’s no longer dependent on the mother in the same way. The mother’s health can no longer be put in danger by it. She can’t die in child birth once the baby has already been born! So no, obviously all those factors have changed, and no sane person would claim the two situations were the same.
Andrew,
There is already a life exception to protect the mother. We all agree on that. And yes, I’ve seen all three of my sons born– another reason I believe in God…. absolutely amazing… transcendent.
Regarding full term babies you said: “Right, it’s no longer dependent on the mother in the same way. The mother’s health can no longer be put in danger by it. She can’t die in child birth once the baby has already been born! So no, obviously all those factors have changed, and no sane person would claim the two situations were the same.”
The problem is, Obama’s legislates as if there is no difference. His political positions do nothing to protect the baby up to, and even after birth (as in the case of botched abortions). The health exception for late term babies is an unnecessary loophole as former Surgeon General Koop said. There is never a medical reason for a partial birth abortion. A woman’s health is not improved by killing the baby. If the baby needs to be extracted from the woman for medical reasons, it can be done without killing it (as through a C-section). How does killing the baby improve her health?
Blessings,
Frank
That’s funny Frank – I guess people see what they want to see. Seeing my daughter being born was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. But it was also a messy, painful, dangerous business and if anything it LESSENED my belief in God. A few weeks earlier my father died in my arms – the same experience strengthened RC’s faith, but again for me it was a purely secular event.
“is an unnecessary loophole as former Surgeon General Koop said”
So you accept KOOP’s expertise, but reject a) all the experts who have said that waterboarding is torture and also doesn’t work as an interrogation tool and b) reject the biologists I quoted who disagree with you on the beginning of human life. What if I take your friend Phil Weingart’s arguing tactic here and say that as an author of anti-choice literature, Koop is a “partisan with dogs in the hunt when it comes to the abortion debate.”? Is it OK when Phil says that but not when I say it? Does this mean that you also accept Koop’s advocation of sex education in schools as early as the third grade, including later instruction regarding the proper use of condoms?
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this issue. I don’t see any inconsistency in Obama’s position. I’m not convinced at all by your defence of torture, and I believe it undermines the moral authority you claim to have.
And although I don’t know much about this new bill, every time you make what sounds like a compelling argument about ‘partial birth abortion’ and this new bill, Luke comes along and gives a different perspective on it that always strikes me as being closer to the actual situation. And left to choose between two accounts, I’m afraid I’m drawn more to the person who doesn’t defend torture. Which goes back to what I said before about your torture arguments here being a distraction from the point you’re trying to make.
By the way Frank, off topic I know, but for balance are you planning to write an article regarding the report just published on the Catholic church-run schools abuse scandal? I’m guessing not. Would you have written an article if it had been a bunch of Atheist-run schools with children suffering decades of physical, sexual and psychological abuse, covered up by a large atheist organisation? I’m guessing you’d have written several, along with many of your Townhall colleagues. But on this issue, much silence, bar occasional attempts by some to throw accusations at the victims.
But still we see very little protest from Christians, and from Catholics in particular. Though many found time to protest about Obama at Notre Dame.
Which goes back to what I said before about your torture arguments here being a distraction from the point you’re trying to make.
It probably doesn’t help that the article starts by asking the question, “Is waterboarding torture?”
Andrew,
There’s no doubt that Koop could have been wrong on other things as we are all wrong on occasion. And there is no doubt there has been a lot of abuse in the Catholic Church and Protestant Churches, And even if I and Koop were to defend torture (which we haven’t), that wouldn’t mean we were necessarily wrong about this issue of abortion. You seem to want to talk about everything but the main point of the article, hence my point about red herrings.
I could be the worst person in the world and have absolutely no moral authority, but that is irrevelant to this point: Even though a woman’s health cannot be protected or improved by a dead baby, Obama thinks a woman has a right to dead baby and he wants the taxpayer to pay for it. If you want to agree with Obama, fine, but that’s what you’re agreeing to.
Blessings,
Frank
If you want to agree with Obama, fine, but that’s what you’re agreeing to.
I think everyone’s opinion on this has been pretty thoroughly expressed. You have your answers, don’t you? So if I may ask….what’s next on the agenda?
Dr. Turek: Sorry for the delay. As stated in the the column itself, the point of the “Politically Correct Torture” article was NOT to pass judgment on the morality of waterboarding (as Andrew seems to think),
But I think you do pass judgment on it, in the eyes of any reasonable reader. Take your first two sentences: Is waterboarding torture? If it is, we’ve been torturing our service members for years.
No rational reader would conclude that you believe waterboarding is torture.
This sets the tone of the article. It is not fair of you to then complain when people respond to what you have written.
Dr. Turek: but to simply point out that President Obama believes that waterboarding terrorists is immoral while killing the innocent in the womb should be subsidized.
It seemed to me that the point of the article was to say: if he believes this (waterboarding) is torture, how could he not believe that (abortion) is torture.
You have now changed things a bit; the dictionary did not support your contention that the latter (abortion) was indeed torture.
To quote Webster again, torture is:
The infliction of intense pain (as from burning, crushing, or wounding) to punish, coerce, or afford sadistic pleasure (emphasis mine)
So you have now changed the point a bit, and that’s fine. (I defended you on the original point and said that I believe you did not make this mistake intentionally, but rather with the best of intentions.)
Now your question is more about the complicated moral makeup of a person.
It’s like asking: how can Mr. Jones be such a good father and such a terrible husband.
So to answer: I do not know how Mr. Obama has come to the moral conclusions he has come to.
I don’t think this is something we can really know about anyone.
Dr. Turek: Now, we can brainstorm different ways to reduce abortions, and I’m all for that (and certainly one effective way is to not pay for them!). But reducing abortions is not the focus of this article.
I realize this, but your statement here misses the point of my question. (Though I will afford you the respect to not say you are bringing up red herrings; I can see that you may have been honestly trying to answer the point.)
My question was: if you can write a column that simply criticizes the President, or one which “brainstorms different ways to reduce abortions” or puts pressure on the efforts the president is making to succeed. Why choose the former?
To ask another way: do you think you accomplished anything with this column, and if so, what was it?
Dr. Turek: Everyone seems to want to bring up everything but the main point of the article. If you agree with Obama, why not just say that there’s nothing wrong with scalding, dismembering or debraining babies in the womb?
I am sorry if I have not been clear enough. I have been as clear as possible about my personal views. I will quote from my previous posts, but feel free to read them again or simply ask if any more clarification is needed.
Luke (almost 3 weeks ago): I cannot imagine a circumstance in my life in which I would find abortion to be the [morally correct] choice… Based on this, I believe that a world in which there are practically no abortions is preferable to one in which abortion is a common occurrence.
If I am still missing the point, I apologize.
Dr. Turek: In fact, Tim and Andrew seem to find nothing inconsistent with Obama’s position and I assume they want to subsidize abortion as well. OK, that’s their view. Let those reading this judge for themselves what is right. What’s your view on that question?
I am not trying to be rude, Dr. Turek, but I am honestly curious. Have you read my posts?
I have read through parts of what I have written here, and I simply do not see how my positions both from a moral and policy standpoint could be more clear.
Dr. Turek: You have brought up the Hyde Amendment. Obama has not tried to overturn that yet (thankfully), but in his new budget he wants overturn the 10 year old Dornan Amendment to get abortion paid for with tax dollars in the District of Columbia.
Yes, you keep saying that Obama is subsidizing abortion. Yet laws are on the books which prevent this from happening. Obama has not exactly put up a fight to overturn these laws.
How do you defend your contention that Obama is subsidizing abortion in the face of the legal reality?
This is what you seem to be saying: Obama is subsidizing abortion, and thankfully he has not yet tried to overturn the law which prevents him from subsidizing abortion.
I simply don’t understand the logic or contention there.
Not to bring up a red herring, but a huge issue with things like the Dornan amendment is this:
Should only wealthy woman be allowed to have abortions? If two women are in the exact same circumstances, except for their bank accounts, should they have different rights?
I am not saying that the answer is clear here. I think these are complicated issues.
Let’s look at a possible example. Two women recently became pregnant by husbands who regularly beat them. They are deathly afraid to tell the husband (he has said many times he does not want children). They have both been plotting how to leave. However one has $500 in a secret account that she has been saving to start a new life (hopefully one with the husband in jail), the other has nothing.
One can afford to get an abortion, everything is legal, and as far as our laws are concerned, she is not doing anything wrong.
The other cannot.
Is this fair? Is this right?
Again, I am not saying whether it is or isn’t. But do you see how a good, reasonable person would say that it is not right and should be remedied? Why someone could support helping the second woman with tax money, without being a sociopath who just loves the idea of abortion happening all the time?
I really hope you will find time to answer that last question Dr. Turek.
The issue with the Dornan amendment specifically has much to do with states rights issues and the rights of the district. States have the constitutional right to do what DC cannot; Obama has been largely and constantly supportive of letting DC deal with their own affairs. Why do you believe that the District should not have a right which North Carolina does?
Dr. Turek: With regard to the Mexico Policy, you seem to be suggesting that actually funding places that promote or do abortions would somehow help reduce abortions, perhaps by getting contraceptives to people to prevent pregnancy. Even if that were the case, couldn’t they reduce abortion even more if they also refused to promote abortion? If clinics are interested in getting our money for contraceptives and to reduce abortion, why not just leave out the abortion services? I suppose many of them do that, although I haven’t read any studies on that. Have you?
I have to honestly say I am a little insulted by that question. Yes, I have. Why would I come here and comment on things that I have no idea about?
I am glad you are admitting to not thoroughly studying the issue.
If you look at what I wrote, I do not say conclusively that the reality is ‘this way’ or ‘that.’ This is a difficult issue to study and good, smart people disagree. Even though I have read a lot about the issue, I do not know the conclusive answer. Maybe if I knew less, then I would “know” more.
Dr. Turek: No matter how you slice it, funding something seems an odd way of getting it reduced.
So if something seems “odd,” what does that mean, exactly?
Are you saying that you’d rather judge on whether something seems “odd” rather than whether or not it actually works?
You might say that decriminalizing drugs seems an odd way of reducing drug use, yet a big study recently released by the Cato Institute showed that this is just what happened in Portugal.
Outlawing alcohol seems like an odd way to increase drinking and creating organized crime, but it works rather well, history shows.
That’s why I think Obama’s is all talk about reducing abortions– his actions do the opposite.
Because it seems odd to you? This seems to me like very weak ground from which to accuse someone of lying about a serious moral issue.
It seems odd to me that the Wright Brothers think they can make a machine that could fly with non-moving wings. (After all, everything that flies has wings which move). That’s why I think the Wright Brothers are all talk about flying — their actions show the opposite.
BTW, I agree with you that the circumstances are important and help us discover the right moral principle to apply. That’s why a pilot who drops a bomb on an enemy target in a just war is not morally culpable if an enemy soldier gets scalded, but someone who scalds an innocent baby in an abortion is morally culpable.
What about the pilot or the commander in a case in which not an enemy soldier gets scalded, but an innocent baby and her mother? (To make sure that you do not miss the point, I am especially referencing cases in which it was known that civilians would make up the vast majority of the casualties.)
Dr. Turek,
I also wanted to note a couple of things that appeared in the New York Times in the last 24 hours.
The first is a column entitled “Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal.” It is by Nicholas Kristof.
It is an interesting read referencing various studies which you may find interesting. But what I wanted to point out was one of the closing lines:
A corollary is that the most potent way to win over opponents is to accept that they have legitimate concerns, for that triggers an instinct to reciprocate.
This is exactly why I believe it is so damaging when you belittle concerns for the health of a woman.
The second is about the President’s pick for the Supreme Court. The article is entitled: “On Sotomayor, Some Abortion Rights Backers Are Uneasy”
What do you think of the fact that the president has chosen someone who does not have a solid track record of “protecting the right to choose?”
Does the fact that many pro-choice groups are concerned about the pick have any influence on your opinion of Obama and the disingenuity you perceive?
Sorry for the multiple posts everyone:
Dr. Turek,
I criticized this statement early on, but I wanted to emphasize it again given another recent news story.
You said: I can say that we received treatment far more challenging and uncomfortable than anything the terrorists ever experienced at Gitmo or Abu Grab.
There is an article this morning in the Daily Telegraph.
It references an interview with Maj General Taguba.
It is entitled: Abu Ghraib abuse photos ‘show rape’
I will not quote from the article, but I hope you will read it. (The subject is the photographs which the administration is hoping to keep classified.)
I felt it would have been proper the first time, but it is even more so now: I urge you to retract your original statement.
In light of the evidence (you can, of course, read the original report from 2004), I simply do not see how you can defend your statement.
Again, I urge you to retract it.
If you are unwilling to do so, then I ask that you defend that decision.
Thank you.
Luke: “No rational reader would conclude that you believe waterboarding is torture. This sets the tone of the article. It is not fair of you to then complain when people respond to what you have written.”
I’m glad you agree with me. But I’ve already pointed this out to Frank several times here. He’s not going to accept it.
And I’ve already posted to Frank about the other abuses, in response to him saying that waterboarding was only used on 3 people.
As I posted before, I conclude that his argument wasn’t designed to change minds, but to ‘rally the troups’ here and at Townhall. It’s a political argument, not a religious or moral one.
I feel I should offer a correction and clarification.
The Telegraph article I cited has become the object of some controversy. The reports have been denied (though often not directly) by several parties)
However, the 2004 report backs up the allegations (the Telegraph report simply claimed that there were pictures of what had previously been described) and many of the photos mentioned in the recent discussion have been previously published by Salon. If anyone is interested in coverage of most of the issues surrounding the controversy and the scandal itself Salon has many of the pictures in question, as well as excellent coverage of the affair.
Thanks
Luke, going by Frank’s logic, rape in Guantanamo shouldn’t be termed as torture either. If there’s no difference between a) someone being put through a painful procedure against their will (waterboarding) and b) someone consenting to be put through that same procedure for a result they want (soldiers becoming stronger through waterboarding), then logically there’s no difference between a) a Guantanamo inmate being raped and b) consensual sex between two adults.
Therefore one could say: “Is rape abuse? If so, millions of married couples are ‘abusing’ each other every night all around America.”
I don’t think anyone WOULD make that argument (though I’m sure Rush Limbaugh has his apologetics for rape in Guantanamo), but it’s not really any different to the apologetics at the start of the blog here for waterboarding.
This seems to be very politically driven on bother sides… I don’t believe it is torture in terms of what the other forms are. Though I do agree it is rough. A few years back me and some friends decided to joke around and do this, it wasn’t so bad until more than a minute passed by so we stopped. I lasted awhile. I read that Hitchens did this as well, and I do agree that he’s just being a bit of a pansy.
So technically (as in does it equate to other forms of torture), is it torture? No, not at all.
By definition is it? Yes.
Always thought it was odd that we can waterboard our military for training and they think nothing of it, but a terrorirt or accused terrorist? Strange. But we also spray them with pepper spray…
“Therefore one could say: “Is rape abuse? If so, millions of married couples are ‘abusing’ each other every night all around America.” ”
Actually, rape -is- considered a form of abuse. Rape is sexual assault, a sex crime, as well as a civil assault, though it is not considered torture by legal definitions. It would be torture if it was done as punishment or to get confessions or whathave you, such as in Guantanamo, though in the legal sense, it’s not. It is a Human Rights Abuse.
“I read that Hitchens did this as well, and I do agree that he’s just being a bit of a pansy.”
Well he had it done to him by professionals who meant business, rather than his pals deciding to ‘joke around’. Hitchens doesn’t otherwise strike me as the pansy type; as a reporter has knowingly put himself in many dangerous parts of the world.
Andrew,
I don’t know the circumstances of his waterboarding, but I agree that Hitchens seems to be fearless. The man gets death threats but seems undeterred. I admire him in many ways.
Blessings,
Frank
It’s worth reading his Vanity Fair article on it. Not hard to find via Google.
Dr. Turek,
I don’t know the circumstances of his waterboarding, but I agree that Hitchens seems to be fearless. The man gets death threats but seems undeterred. I admire him in many ways.
I know you’re busy, but I am disappointed you had so little to say after a long absence. Hope all is well.
Luke