Boonton has asked, and I’ve been temporizing:

A good question that ended up getting EO to ban a commentator was based on a hypothetical fire. You rush into a IV Fertilization clinic that is on fire. There happens to be a live baby in a crib crying. There is also a heavy 60 pound mini-freezer whose label says it contains 150 frozen fertilized eggs. There are only moments to spare and you can only carry one out. Which is it?

It is my understanding that typically 10 blastocysts are implanted with an average of one about one “taking” and producing a child per attempt. So, in for purposes of discussion consider that, if implanted, here we are talking about an average of 15 potential children “frozen” and one in the crib. What would I do in this case is the question. Now, we really have no way of knowing in the heat of the moment what we would actually do, but for purposes of discussion I’ll try to imagine what I’d do. There are a number of possibilities here I think that are all reasonable.

1. If I knew nothing about the situation, and was a complete stranger.
2. What if one of the freezer (or infant) had blastocysts all “assigned” to someone you knew. That is the freezer was IVF product for just one couple. What if you knew either mother? Would that affect your decision?
3. If I knew of two or three women to whom those blastocysts belonged and didn’t know the mother of the infant …
4. Another variation of the question, what if it was not a living baby vs the frozen blastocysts but a heavy valise carrying cash. How much money would it have to be before you’d leave the freezer?
5. How about if it was the infant? How much money to leave the infant?
6. Numbers, I think matter. Blastocysts themselves are very small, I think. Just a cluster of a few dozen to a hundred cells. What if it was a 30 kg freezer with a million blastocysts. Would that matter? How about a 100 million? What if those blastocysts were 150 T-Rex bastocysts recovered by genetic archeology. What if there were a thousand and they were the last survivors of a racial subtype, such as a ethnicity facing extinction?

My answers:

1. (unknown) I’d save the infant. The infant more than likely has a mother and a family. Most blastocysts are abandoned. For IVF techniques produce and excess of blastocysts, and understandably parents stop trying to have more children … when they achieve pregnancy. Why the rest are not then immediately destroyed is of course because such destruction is felt by most people to be morally problematic.
2. (known mom) This would certainly matter. I’d save the freezer or the infant if I knew the parents … unless the parents where the parents of the “freezer” blastocysts and I knew that they had no intention of having a child.
3. (prospective parents known) I’d likely save the blastocysts. That would likely be at least two or three babies to the one …. on average. If it was “even”, I’d likely save the infant.
4. (money) I’d save the freezer.
5. (money for infant) I’d save the infant.
6. (numbers) At some number it becomes highly likely that more lives will be spared if the freezer is saved. A million makes it almost certain that the freezer has more value. T-Rex … -> the infant. I have no idea where I’d fall on the racial question. But if I thought that prospective mothers would be found, I’d favor the freezer.

Finally, I’ll note, I am one of the pro-life persons who think that IVF is morally problematic in and of itself … for what it’s worth.

I’ve got a few loose threads running around. I’m going to pick a smaller one tonight. Last night I quoted Wendell Barry on the public and private nature of sex and the consequent dialog in our society which has lost its sense of community. And I think we should take seriously the notion of moving our discourse out of the conservative/liberal divide and center it around community. With that in mind (and another loose thread to nip) in this comment trail, commenter Boonton suggests that there is not good “pro-life” answer to:

A good question that ended up getting EO to ban a commentator was based on a hypothetical fire. You rush into a IV Fertilization clinic that is on fire. There happens to be a live baby in a crib crying. There is also a heavy 60 pound mini-freezer whose label says it contains 150 frozen fertilized eggs. There are only moments to spare and you can only carry one out. Which is it?

The initial response, which you can follow (but I’ll summarize) is that there is at least one problematic feature to this, that the IVF is problematic for many who hold pro-life positions, e.g., the Catholics. I suggested that one might make a problematic moral question in the context of an extermination/concentration camp, but that the different arguments might ignore a “Gordian solution” (in the case of saving IVF blastocysts its that IVF is problematic in the case of the camp … it is the mere existence of the camp). Mr Boonton leaped at an mistaken notion of what such a “camp moral quandary might be”, so before going further I’ll offer that as an aside before going on to the real point. In the context of a camp, a analogous moral question might be, you are in position to save either one child imprisoned in the camp or 5 (pick a number greater than 1) children of the guards … you know that tomorrow everyone in the camp will die. Whom do you save, the one child or the five? The one has had a recent life filled with horror, the others benefited from luxury not of their making but as a result of their parents choices (crimes) and (abuse of their) positions of power.

So the matter at hand with the asides finally set, err, aside, is that we want to discuss abortion in not in a “cold-blooded mechanical” fashion, but instead in the language of “respect, responsibility, sexual discipline, fidelity, or the practice of love.” Now we live in a culture which has been dominated by a particular (Christian-Greco-Roman) culture. What this means is that our narratives describing what comprises healthy community all involve a healthy helping of ethics which include a disavowal of abortion, and for now what that means for those of us in our culture is that abortion is a symptom of a breakdown of community. So, I’ll turn the tables back on the pro-choice crowd, how does abortion fit into your notion of healthy community? And if it doesn’t why is the question of pro-choice/pro-life on the table? For the question at hand isn’t one structuring law right, its recovering community.

Used to be that Google would allow pro-abortion groups to advertise with them, but not anti-abortion ones.  The threat of legal action in the UK has shown them the error of their ways.

Christian and other religious groups opposed to abortion were allowed to advertise on Google for the first time from today, after the search engine capitulated in the face of a legal challenge.

Google had banned pro-life religious groups from buying adverts against search terms such as “abortion” and “abortion help” but was forced to abandon its policy after it was accused of breaching equalities legislation.

The challenge was brought by the Christian Institute, a cross-denominational pressure group, who said that Google’s change of heart was an acknowledgement of the rights of everybody to hold an opinion on the subject.

Mike Judge from the Christian Institute said: “Google were taking adverts from pro-abortion groups, and our view is that was a free speech issue. What we want to do is set out the acts in a pretty factual and pretty sensible way”.

Google had been taken to court by the Christian Institute earlier in the year, arguing that its policy was in breach of the Equalities Act of 2006. Initially, Google said it would fight in the courts, but changed its mind over the summer. Its new policy applies globally.

Acknowledging that the issue of abortion was “an emotive subject”, Google said that it reconsidered its policy following the Christian Institute’s challenge, and said it would be “creating a level playing field and enabling religious associations to place ads on abortion in a factual way”.

I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.

Doug’s post below reminded me that I wanted to recycle a post from a few years ago (apologies to those who have read it already). I think it’s topical.

Jessica is the daughter of our friends. Every day, the school bus comes for Jessica, who happens to be the last child on the route. On this particular bus, the kids have assigned seating, and Jessica sits next to the same young boy–day after day. And, day after day, this young, frightened boy cried the whole trip. He was crying when the bus came to Jessica’s house, and he cried the rest of the way to school.

One day, Jessica decided to help the boy. She reached out her small hand, and gently laid it on his arm. The boy stopped crying. The mere touch of another, gentle soul was enough to comfort him. The next day came, the boy was crying. Jessica sat down, reached out, touched his arm, and he stopped crying. This pattern repeated the next few days. She did not have to say anything, her touch was all he needed.

And then, a few days later, something interesting happened. On this day, the boy stopped crying a few blocks before the bus reached Jessica’s house. He knew she would be getting on the bus soon and that was enough to comfort him. She still put her hand gently on his arm, of course. This pattern repeats to this day. The boy stops crying a few blocks before Jessica’s house.

I suppose he can sense where the bus is because of the curves in the road near her house. You see, the boy is blind. He can neither see Jessica, nor her house. He just senses when the bus is almost there.

Jessica’s actions on the bus do not surprise her parents. She has four siblings at home, including a newborn sister. Whenever one of her sisters, or her brother, is hurt, Jessica is there to comfort the child. Offering her gentle shoulder and heart for another’s comfort. That’s who Jessica is–comforter of the hurting. She is also one of the happiest children I have ever seen. There’s always a smile on her face.

Jessica turned five this past February. [She is now eight.] That, in itself, is a miracle. Jessica was born with hydrocephalus. While in her mother, the fluid built up in her tiny brain and damaged it. Jessica also has Down Syndrome. There are many things that Jessica will not be able to do in her life. To some, Jessica should never have been born. Some, having received the news of her condition, as her parents did, by amniocentesis, would have chosen to end the pregnancy, and her life. The reason, I suppose, is that she won’t have much quality of life. She’ll never be a productive member of society. She may not be able to take care of herself. Not much of a life in our modern society.

However, I know one little boy on a bus who knows that Jessica is nothing short of a gift from God.

Maybe the doctor mentioned in Doug’s post below needs to meet Jessica.

One prominent Canadian OB/GYN says “Yes.”  Problem is, he finds that worrisome. 

Sarah and Todd Palin’s decision to complete her recent pregnancy, despite advance notice that their baby Trig had Down syndrome, is hailed by many in the pro-life movement as walking the walk as well as talking the talk.

But a senior Canadian doctor is now expressing concerns that such a prominent public role model as the governor of Alaska and potential vice president of the United States completing a Down syndrome pregnancy may prompt other women to make the same decision against abortion because of that genetic abnormality. And thereby reduce the number of abortions.

Published reports in Canada say about 9 out of 10 women given a diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate the pregnancy through abortion.

Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Ottawa, worries that Palin’s now renowned decision may cause abortions in Canada to decline as other women there and elsewhere opt to follow suit.

He says not every woman is prepared to deal with the consequences of Down babies, who have developmental delays, some physical difficulties and often a shortened lifespan.

Well, we can’t have role models diminishing that 90% figure one little bit, can we?  I just find it completely appalling that this sort of “concern” is expressed, let alone by a leading OB/GYN.

Read the rest of this entry

The Catholic church has had to correct the thinking of some Democrats in the past in reference to the church’s position on abortion.  (Well, they’ve spoken out in the past; there’s no evidence yet that the actual thinking was corrected.)  Most recently, the Speaker of the House herself has come under fire for misrepresenting Church teaching in order to buttress her own views.

Politics can be treacherous. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked on even riskier ground in a recent TV interview when she attempted a theological defense of her support for abortion rights.

Roman Catholic bishops consider her arguments on St. Augustine and free will so far out of line with church teaching that they have issued a steady stream of statements to correct her.

The latest came Wednesday from Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, who said Pelosi, D-Calif., “stepped out of her political role and completely misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic Church in regard to abortion.”

It has been a harsh week of rebuke for the Democratic congresswoman, a Catholic school graduate who repeatedly has expressed pride in and love for her religious heritage.

Enough “pride” and “love” for her to, y’know, accept her Church’s teaching?  Apparently not.  The “steady stream” of corrections don’t seem to do much.  More below the fold…

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I was talking with an old buddy of mine about a political topic last night (whether allowing China to keep its MFN trade status with us has helped or hurt Chinese Christians) when he told me that didn’t care one way or the other how our government interacted with their government (I’m paraphrasing) because God is bigger than any government and that He will work His will in that country regardless.

I was a little disconcerted about this, since I believe that we can and do have a part to play in the world as Christians, including the political sphere. My friend then got a little more specific. For him, politics was just not something he was gifted or interested in. He had relatives who were very politically inclined, and he’d had a number of conversations with them where they suggested that he needed to be more informed and involved. His point to me was this: There are those who are interested and gifted regarding politics just like any other ability (encouragement, teaching, etc.). For those that are gifted (and all these gifts come from God), they should get involved and active. It would be a misuse of their talents not to. For he and others who are not gifted in this area, it would be a waste of time to try to fit in where God had not intended them to.

I suggested that perhaps saying that everyone should follow politics is like saying that everyone should be a missionary. As high a calling as missionary might be, if God’s not made you for that, there is an even higher calling that He has you for. (Perhaps, policy wonk?)

We were at the church working with a professional sound technician who was helping us get more out of the system we have, so our conversation was done at that point as we got back into that subject. That was last night, and I’ve had some more time to consider that conversation today. Here are some additional thoughts I’ve had.

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If Barack Obama can only answer the question,

“At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?”

with,

“Answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade,”

Then he is declaring at least two things:

1. he does not have the ability, knowledge, or wherewithal to determine the answer, and
2. he is incapable of understanding any answer that he may eventually determine, or be educated on

That he is incapable of determining any answer stems from the fact that the question Rick Warren posed was improperly qualified with a subjective “in your view” loophole. Such a loophole opened the door for a subjective, “I’m personally opposed to abortion…”, rhetoric. Yet, despite the loophole, Obama could do no better than give a non-answer, thereby displaying either supreme ignorance, or supreme deceit.

Mr. Obama, if you cannot determine, even within the vagueness of an “in your view” opinion context, when a baby gets human rights, how can you justify supporting an abortion-friendly policy which could very well, and indeed does, violate the human rights of “babies” across this country? Wouldn’t the mere fact that you proclaim ignorance on the issue mandate that you take the safer stance of protecting the rights of the unborn?

Yes, Mr. Obama, the answer to that question is way above your pay grade, as is the office of President of the United States. You, sir, are either an ignorant fool, or a self-serving, platitude preaching, substance devoid politician, attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of many an American citizen.

Watch this video for some details into Barack Obama’s position on abortion, specifically his position on what to do with babies born alive after a botched abortion.

Yes, this video does make an emotional appeal, but listen to the facts as well.  This is Obama living up to his reputation as the most liberal of Senators.  Hey, he’s even to the left of NARAL, if you can go that far without falling off the political spectrum.

[tags]Barack Obama,US presidential election,abortion[/tags]

If, one were to take seriously (which is admittedly hard), the left’s seriousness about reducing abortion as in Mr Clinton’s (in)famous: safe, legal, and rare … there is the problem of adoption. [note: in the following I’m going to ignore the clear conundrum raised by the question unasked or unanswered by those to whom that phrase has meaning, which is if abortion is not problematic, then why is rare valued.]

Adoption is held as an mythological sign for the pro-choice crowd. Both asking, well if you pro-lifers are so serious about saving babies why aren’t y’all adopting. But, examining the adoption procedures in this country a little more carefully the answer becomes clear. Because the largely pro-choice crowd has raised immense barriers to adopting. Getting qualified for an adoption costs close to $20k for legal fees, home studies and the like. The question is … Why?

Well, one reason one might suggest is that because the parents of the child are giving up their moral and legal responsibilities toward the child, they cannot be depended upon to insure the quality and home for the child so the state must do that instead. But, at what cost? A great number of well qualified caring parents are excluded from the process because they lack the disposable income in order to jump through the states required adoption hoops.There is another conclusion to be drawn from the existence to high barriers to adoption. That is, that orphans and children needing adoption (in this country) are in fact rare. If the problem of excess orphans was actually acute, essential moral market forces would bring the barriers down. That they haven’t and that adoption agencies and their lawyers successfully continue to charge high prices for their services is

Actually another highly likely reason is that legislators setting guidelines for abortion (often) forget TANSTAAFL when they make their laws. What cost adding one more check, after all it might just save one kid from misery? Well, there is a cost. But it’s not apparent.

There is another conundrum present. The pro-choice crowd consistently paints abortion as easy, pregnancy as difficult, adoption as freely available (and a choice rarely chosen by the pro-life side).  However, that begs a question. If the reason that the high barriers to adoption exist are in fact that in giving up their responsibilities toward the child mean that the state do due dilligence in vetting the parent then that begs the question: Why does that at the same time exclude the state from exercising due diligence when a pregnant mom wants to terminate her child. Is she not as well, yeilding her moral and legal responsibilities toward her offspring as well?

Mr Obama is (rightly) demonized by the pro-life writers for saying,

Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

Hmm. Now I’ve two remarks to add to the fray on that. I wonder if this was on his mind, was he also (in subtext) offering:

I don’t want to be punished with a grandchild (for my failure to teach them morals and values) .

For after all, that is also in the mix. And in any sane family arrangement, if your child becomes a pre-teen mom … it is likely grandma and yourself who will be bearing a large part of the child-rearing until your child is ready and on her feet in her life’s journey. That could take a decade or more. This responsibility of course, would negatively impact the time he has available for raising his children … and to be honest I’d question sharing the time commitment of raising two children well with that required for running for President (and also being one).  So one might ask, “When are you going to teach them about values and morals?”

One also wonders, how removing consequences for actions “teaches morals and values”. Nerfing the world, removing all consequences from our choice is the pivot point for what this view of abortion. Declare non-human and outside that sector of society (the unborn) and we don’t have to deal with the consequences yet another sector of our choices. Great.

And to stave off at least one line or argument recall Mr Obama fully supports late term abortion which is certainly inside everyone’s notion of fetus as having a right to life, after all if one induced labor and brought it to term … the child would live without extreme measures to sustain life required. Mr Obama after all signed on to legislature trying require hospital staff to kill any children “which accidentally are delivered alive.” One wonders how he contrasts that with his exegesis of the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Bertrand de Jouvenel in Sovereignty notes has an effective, if reflexive, definition on political authority. A person has the authority to request those things which those to whom the request is directed feel is in his authority to request. In this manner, an “authoritarian” regime is one, paradoxically, which lacks authority. It must substitute force and terror and other methods because it lacks the authority to do what it commands. A master/slave relationship is unjust only if the slave rejects the authority of the master. In a monastic setting, the authority (freely granted) to the abbot by those in his care would in another setting seem more servile than much of the Slavery seen in the old south. However, because that authority is freely granted it is just. In that regard, one might regard coercion as the sign a government is going off the rails. The more coercion, the more imperfect the union.

The general principle that decides whether a government is exceeding its authority or restricting too much the liberty of its people therefore is measured by the amount of coercion required to enforce its decisions and not by an analysis outside of the culture and context of that particular action.

In St. Silouan the Athonite, St. Silouan teaches that following traditions of freedom, equality, hierarchy, and love as demonstrated by the Trinity (for example read the opening chapters of John Zizioulas Communion and Otherness and On Being and Communion), that the correct way for the authority, such as an abbot or staretz (spiritual advisor) is to give his command once, and if it is not obeyed offer no reprimand or repeat the command.

Parents however, cannot apply that rule in the same way. Children need repetition. As the saying goes, “The problem with children is that they are so darn immature!” In part this as well goes for men in society. Government lies somewhere between the monastery and the family regarding the need for repetition and the assumption of maturity of its members. Society cannot put a stop sign at an intersection and leave it up for just a week and leave it at that. We need reminding of the regulations and rules that society needs to operate smoothly. Additionally as generations pass and peoples come in and out of our society the customs and regulations must need be repeated.

The political process then is a exercise in walking the line, minimizing coercion in a way that maximizes human flourishing by locating and utilizing the authority that is generated naturally in human intercourse. From these simple observations a few general principles might be extracted:

• Authority, as it is generated by human contact and connection, can be strongest if generated locally, that is personally.
• Permission to do a thing is not approval. Government or its representatives can firmly condemn abortion, adultery, and so on. The point is that saying a thing is harmful to flourishing is not the same as coercing one to stop.
• The sign of better governance is not abstract review of its principals but a review of how much coercion is required to keep it in order.

Recently, Jason Kuznicki reconsidered the same-sex marriage question, and his considerations as always are well worth considering. Like abortion, eugenics (Downs abortions for example) and euthanasia these are matters on which Christian tradition frowns. But … how does the Christian traditions and theology noted above as well as Jouvenel’s ideas on authority instruct us to order policy?

Marriage, as noted toward the end of his essay, is an institution which has grown up in community, fostering, encouraging, family to aid in the raising of the next generation (and the care the prior). In that mode, it would be permitted for a state to maintain a statement of the need to support the nuclear stable family. It is not optimal for the state to either enforce denial of same sex marriage to Boysville, New Hampshire or on the other hand to insist that it be part of the community in Evangeliste, Kansas. It is however, likely that those small communities can generate the authority to enforce policies which from an outsiders perspective are far more encompassing, but from within the community are however within the limits of freely granted authority.

Today’s easy access and dissemination of information makes coercion harder if not impossible to hide (especially in the long term). A lot of coercion present in society could be removed by granting to the local community, where authority is strongest, those things which affect the community. That community can then grant to higher structures, city, county or state, the authority to regulate relations with other communities. Likewise states to the federal level. What needs to be watched for is local communities governments resorting to undue coercion to enforce their requests especially on subsets of their community.

However that seems a easier line to walk than finding a non-coercive way of finding a federal or state level statement on marriage that  both Boysville and Evangeliste will swallow.

(Note: I’m thinking out loud here, hoping that commeters will help me solidify my thoughts with more coherence. )

Two posts. First, Richard Chappell notes:

Some people judge that homosexuality is immoral, because they find it intuitively repugnant. They must also be aware that a few short decades ago people thought that interracial sex was immoral, on the same basis. This suggests that such intuitions provide a very flimsy basis for discrimination. Indeed, I find it completely baffling that homophobic conservatives fail to realize that they are the modern day equivalent of yesterday’s racist conservatives. Why are they not humbled by history? What makes them think that their disgust-based moral intuitions are any more reliable than their grandparents’ were?

There are two aspects to this, one fairly trivial. Mr Chappell goes from “Some people judge … because” to “homophobic conservatives fail … equivalent of yesterdays racist conservatives”. The “some people” goes from an adjectival description that (rightly) describes a small minority, while on the other hand to my reading “homophobic conservatives” is less likely to read as an even smaller subset (those in the “some people” category of before who are also conservative) to a notion that of a notion tarring essentially all conservatives as homophobic.

In the comment trail, Brandon argues for repugnance as a basis for other issues such as incest, which Mr Chappell finds acceptable.  I offer two alternative tests:

 Consider abmnemnopaedophilia, that is hiring young children (from poor family backgrounds) so that one might apply a drug which prevents the creation of long-term memory and then “use them” for the purposes of sexual enjoyment. That is, paying a family to give up their child for a night’s “entertainment” (with material renumeration) along with the application of a drug which prevents the child from having any memory (the next day) of nights events. This, from a purely utilitarian standpoint, should have no issue. That is, no lasting or measurable harm is done, the paedophile gets his “reward”, and the family gets some much needed financial assistance. It would seem that the primary argument against is repugnance (or perhaps virtue ethics).

Consider also the following sort of slave trafficking. In this sort of traffic young orphan girls from third world cities, who have been captured by street elements and sold locally into brothels might then re-acquired into first world, say European or American brothels. In those brothels, these girls are still sexual chattel … but they get better clothes, better food, work more reasonable hours and have a substantially improved lifespan and as well, the third world nation gets an influx of captial. Again a utilitarian can offer no complaint.

I would argue that both of these situations are “intuitively repugnant.” As well, one might be able to hoist reasoned arguments why they are bad, however there also utilitarian reasons why they are “good.” However one might ask those who would support either of the two test cases, “Why are you not humbled by history?” Why do you think your utility-based moral intuitions are reliable? Perhaps instead of proving a reason to doubt “repugnance” might we find instead utility a flimsy basis for ethical decision-making.
Mr Schraub asks:

A new ad out tries to force McCain into that question pro-lifers never want to answer: if abortion should be a crime, how much time should women who have them serve?

[…]

I’ve yet to hear a coherent justification (at least, one that isn’t nakedly paternalistic — e.g., women are irrational creatures controlled by their emotions, so they can’t be punished) for why abortion can be outlawed (as murder), but the murderers should get off scot-free. I suppose if someone doesn’t think abortion is murder, but still can come up with a reason for it to barred, they could dodge out of this, but the few arguments I’ve heard on those lines are also pretty paternalistic (it’s a serious decision, and we can’t know if you’re taking it seriously enough unless you’re willing to prove it somehow to the state).

A counter question that “pro-abortion proponents” never want to answer (or offer coherent justification) for is why they are for regulation (are paternalistic?) on virtually every other phase of life/issue, e.g., gun ownership, seat belts, hay rides, retirement, school regulation, and so on …  but when it comes to killing the fetus brook no regulation or oversight at all. Paternalism per se is not a thing from which the left shirks … except in the case of abortion. The “pro-abortion” proponents also fail to offer “a coherent justification” for the notion that the pater, i.e., father, has any rights at all in this matter, which is unfortunate.
Now, the argument for regulation of abortion that I’ve made is not, I think, paternalistic (that is based on the idea that the state is wise but women are “irrational creatures”) but motivated instead by the idea that virtue is the path to happiness and that providing an environment in which virtue can flourish is one of the primary ends of the state. My argument was not singling out young women by any means, but was based on the notion that every serious ethical personal decision that affects society, i.e., marriage, divorce, abortion, and end-of-life issues might rightly be confronted by methods in the public square so that the society might be assured that the person(s) involved recognize that a serious ethical decision is being made. Men or women considering marriage often declaim they would climb any mountain or brave any raging torrent to be with their beloved. Aboriginal American cultures often had such barriers, fasting, vision-quest, or other feats to overcome which one might argue served this purpose. In modern Babylon, i.e., our culture, civil courts currently serve something of that purpose. Currently our courts have a limited set of tools, like prison, fines, and service. It seems likely if we considered the task of the courts to assign barriers to demonstrate one’s resolve, a larger set of tools might be assigned to their disposal, which could then be also used perhaps at a generically higher level, for those who don’t present their case in court.

That is basically a less mocking restatement of the “serious ethical decision” argument. It is one I’d argue for at a local level, so that if/when barriers would be set, they would be made at a micro-scale to be proportionate and be seen as reasonable to those setting them. However, in policy, it is one I don’t ascribe to on a national level. I’m currently of the opinion that these decision of abortion, euthenasia, divorce, marriage, and so on should all be made locally, at the village/precinct level.  At the local level, one response to deciding to forego the regulations put up in these matters is that, you must face the set consequences … or move (preferably prior to breaking the law and facing said consequences).

A gift from God.

³ Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.

⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one’s youth.

⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.

Well, unless they’re not planned or wanted. Then they’re a punishment, right Senator?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNbaig-D5pk[/youtube]

[tags]children,Barack Obama,Psalms,abortion,sex education[/tags]

That’s the title of a post by Russ Neglia on his Townhall blog "Pro-Life, Pro-Logic".  How does the determination a person relate to the beginning of the universe?  Click through and see his well-reasoned arguments (hence the blog’s name). 

While you’re there, read his excellent post on the language of abortion.  He really deconstructs some of the (sometimes contradictory) words and phrases used to justify the abortion position.

[tags]abortion,language,pro-life[/tags]