On being Human: it’s in the eye of the beholder

My friends at Stand to Reason, a Christian apologetics organization, like to use the catchphrase, “Truth is not ice cream.” It’s their way of sparking people’s thought processes about relativism within our culture. Essentially, they’re illustrating the difference subjective and objective truth. While we can have various subjective opinions about our best flavor of ice cream, such opinions have no bearing on the veracity of the objective truth about the healing properties of medicine.

But what about the state of being human? Does yours or my status, as that of being a living human being, rest on the subjective whim of other human beings?

In the late 1990s I was selected for jury duty and questioned regarding a murder case. The defendant was accused of battery against a woman – a pregnant woman. She survived, but her unborn child died. Thus, the murder case was regarding the death of her unborn child. During the juror interview process I expressed astonishment that we have laws that allow for an unborn child to be killed through abortion, yet also have laws which allow for the prosecution of those that kill an unborn child. It seems to me that such a combination of laws presents us with a logical contradiction, namely, that an unborn child is, at the same time, both a human being and not a human being. In such an ice cream world of thought, we end up seeing that whether or not someone is considered to have been murdered depends entirely on whether or not said someone is considered to be a human being.

So… who’s in charge of determining the humanity of the unborn?

The quandary of this contradiction, and its implications, can be seen in a couple of posts at the New Mexico Independent (see here and here). One may also want to refer to a list of the 36 states which have Fetal Homicide Laws.

What is truly scary to see, in the two posts referenced above, is not the inconsistency with which pro-abortion advocates apply their compassion but how, when faced with the quandary, inadvertently (it is hoped) venture into the realm of creating second class humans. From Santa Fe man accused of killing pregnant girlfriend has high-powered legal help, regarding the fetal homicide laws,

Such laws are strongly supported by anti-abortion groups and opposed by many in the pro-choice camp, who say they are part of a long-term plan to establish rights for fetuses—at the expense of rights for women—and overturn the right to an abortion guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.

Thus we are expected to refrain from establishing rights for the unborn in order to retain the right of women to kill their unborn? A civilized society can only accept such a proposition if, in fact, the unborn are not human.

The apologists at Stand to Reason have another saying they use, with regards to abortion, which comes to the point quite succinctly:  If the unborn child is not a human being, then no justification for abortion is necessary; and if the unborn child is a human being, then no justification for abortion is adequate.