... said the Abbot.
1. Abortion up to the moment of birth (New York State, 2019):
"The law also now allows medical professionals who are not doctors to perform abortions in New York... The law also addresses late-term abortions. Under New York's Reproductive Health Act, they can be performed after 24 weeks if the fetus is not viable or when necessary to protect the life of the mother." - https://edition.cnn.com/2019/01/23/health/new-york-abortion-measures-trnd/index.html
(Interestingly, CNN here leaves out the real hole in the law, that will let through the coach and horses: the words "or health" to be inserted after "life" in the quote above. In the UK, 97% of abortions are justified by reference to mental health.)
- https://www.news10.com/news/local-news/full-text-read-the-full-text-of-the-reproductive-heath-act/1718439748
- https://www.spuc.org.uk/news/news-stories/2018/may/dont-use-mental-health-to-justify-abortion-law-change-psychiatrists-warn
2. Arguments for abortion after birth (British Medical Journal):
"Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus' health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled."
- https://jme.bmj.com/content/39/5/261
3. Drifting towards euthanasia (Royal College of Physicians):
"In a statement, the RCP said: “following this new poll, the RCP will adopt a neutral position until two-thirds of respondents say that it should be in favour of or opposed to a change in the law”. That is to say, unless two thirds of respondents say they oppose euthanasia, the College will change its position to one of neutrality."
- https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/royal-college-of-physicians-polls-members-likely-to-go-neutral-on-euthanasi/12938
Already a man has been euthanised for being an alcoholic:
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/man-holland-netherlands-dutch-euthanised-alcohol-addiction-alcoholic-netherlands-a7446256.html
Soon, it may be disabled young people and adults; the old and/or decrepit; the poor...
Will only prisoners convicted of a capital crime be safe?
9 comments:
My tiny streak of libertarianism leans towards the idea that this is the last decision that anyone may ever make, and it shouldn't be taken from them.
People will do as they wish. I'm only attempting to argue a particular moral position, not to campaign for law and the use of coercion.
But we are seeing the gradual creeping-in of a death culture, which starts as voluntary but I fear will move towards psychological - maybe even financial? - pressure and then compulsion.
And my earlier piece today is about resenting being given biased information by sources that claim impartiality.
Paddington - is that libertarianism or is it communism or Nazism, perhaps the two most murderous, anti-human political systems in history?
I'm sure you know your own country's Declaration of Independence better than I do, but I'll quote this:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Therefore, the right of life which has been endowed by the Creator is not something which anyone is entitled to take away.
The death penalty - the one for convicted prisoners, not unborn kids - is another matter.
@Stewart: I think one could argue that the rights referred to in the Constitution are about citizens (adults) and don't attempt to address issues of parenthood and children's rights.
Further, these were words written by eighteenth-century Western men, not by a divine being. I understand that at least some of the subscribers to the Declaration were not what you would call Christians but deists, who might believe in a God who created the world but has little or no interest on the affairs of human beings.
Can we still believe - as the Founding Fathers seemed to - in objective moral laws/rights without postulating a Creator who is also a Lawgiver?
It's a difficult topic and we have to work hard to avoid becoming over-emphatic.
An aspect that disturbs me is the increasing involvement of official bodies in nibbling away protections, as though we can delegate morality to committees who may be weighing financial matters against human life.
@Sackerson - You were also writing about euthanasia, but I don't expect that those who drafted the Declaration could have envisaged the death culture of today at both ends of the spectrum.
I think they were probably deists of some kind.
The thing is that we need to get our laws from somewhere (obviously). An atheistic world view cannot provide a fair set of rules, as has been proven over and over. If the nihilists are right then there is no basis for truth, there can be no right and wrong and there can't even be free will, and I'm paraphrasing the likes of Dawkins and the late Will Provine.
It is therefore obvious that you need to look outside of human subjectivity and, as we can all witness, the more that the nihilists are in control, the less freedoms we have, other than what suits the elite, which is depopulation.
I agree with your final paragraph completely.
Eugenics, here we go.
@Stewart Cowan - there is so much wrong with your reply that I do not have enough time in my vacation to properly answer you. Nonetheless, here are a few ideas:
1. While the writers of the DoI were likely Deists, they were quite aware of life and death decisions about other humans. Several owned slaves, for example.
2. Brighter minds than mine have pointed out that systems derived from the assumed or interpreted wishes of a deity are far more arbitrary an unfair than one which has been thought out by humans as humans. If you want to go with the Christian God, then the available writings and pronouncements are not only capricious, but often contradictory.
3. Conflating atheism with nihilism is another deliberate trick. If one accepts that there is not afterlife, then one's life becomes more precious, in so many ways.
James - eugenics didn't go away. It just morphed by way of 'human rights' and 'equality'.
Paddington -
1. As far as I'm aware, every society had slaves prior to 1800, so that proves nothing.
2. To quote you back, "there is so much wrong with your reply...". What have been the most atheistic countries? The USSR - at least 20 million killed, not including abortions; China - at least 40 million killed; North Korea - lovely, isn't it?
Although, perhaps, strictly speaking, N.Korea is probably a theocracy, seeing as the Kims insist on being worshipped as gods. If you want subjective, arbitrary and callous rules, then look to atheistic regimes - and look close to home as well, as our rights diminish all the time.
3. That's just not true. Suicide rates have increased as church attendance has decreased. If we are evolved pond slime then what value has human life anyway?
I have to say that I think you are using your vacation to relax your thinking too much.
1. A bit of a non sequitur. To talk about the inherent rights of humans while owning them is hypocrisy.
2. I would agree that those societies are awful. That has pretty much nothing to do with what I said. People have, and do, construct their moral systems from a non-religious basis. It is an interesting set of Statistics that the most religious parts of the US also have the highest rates of murder, rape and other violent crimes, highest rates of teen pregnancy, highest abortion rates, highest rates of divorce, sexual assaults on children, and much more.
3. Do you have any evidence at all that this is causative? If it were, then the additional suicides should all be atheists, and I suspect that this is not the case. I would argue that the non-existence of an afterlife makes one's life even more precious.
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