Playing god
We humans have found some pretty clever ways to rationalize some pretty nasty things. Many claim our sense of morality comes from god, which I suppose makes sense given that he is the most murderous character in literature.
posted by Matt Bors at
2:00 AM
17 Comments:
Oh, come on Matt, an all-powerful man in the sky that no-one can see and whom only a few untreated schizophrenics can hear has got to be the best reason possible for telling the gal next door what to do with her uterus.
What're you, some kinda lousy atheist or something? The truly pious should be standing guard at American labia. Go on, tell me they shouldn't!
Good one.
Matt, would you kindly tell me why Bill O'Reilly & Fux Noise should not be held vicariously liable for the murder of Dr Tiller as was Tom Metzger was in the death of Mulugeta Seraw? Toon me, baby.
Matt, as to the apparent flippancy of the Dr in the first panel, I hope you haven't been drinking any of the cool aid. Have a read of this:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/06/01/patients-remember-dr-tiller/
The idea that large numbers of women are having late term abortions out of convenience or whatever is an idiotic one. I'd bet such women are alot less common than men who kill their sentient, terrified kids to make a point to their ex-wife, and I wouldn't want my rights dictated by the behaviour of those guys. Do people who make such arguments KNOW any women?
I've jumped out of planes, been a soldier & various other things that people think are brave, but people who wade into the front line of human tragedy every working day, as Dr Tiller did, show a degree of moral courage and self sacrifice which I know to be beyond me.
No, no Kool-Aid. I'm for safe, legal abortions. But they do end life, even if it isn't a fully birthed human being.
The computer ate a "ts" at the end of "patients" in that link, if anyone wants to read the 1st person accounts of visiting Dr Tiller.
Matt, having a total left knee joint replacement surgery ended the life of my left patella, anterior & posterior cruciate ligaments and associated cartilage.
However, I will insist to the day I die that if it's inside my skin, I have every right to do with it whatever I want. I can't see any difference between my left knee and the contents of a woman's uterus. It's part of her body until it's expelled, be that by spontaneous (quite a number of fertilised eggs wind up on tampons of their own volition) or surgical abortion- or by live birth.
"I can't see any difference between my left knee and the contents of a woman's uterus."
We all didn't start out as knee bones. I don't think fetuses are tiny little angels with souls but surely you acknowledge a difference between a knee bone and fetus with a heartbeat. If there wasn't a difference so many people wouldn't struggle with the issue.
I certainly do acknowledge the difference between a fetus with a heartbeat and knee bones. A fetus is usually found about 12-18 inches above knee bones, at least it was when I last checked Gray's. Gray's also tells me that fetii are located withing the rather finite boundary known as the epidermis, where one person ends and the rest of the world begins.
In liberal democracies which recognise human rights, laws respect and protect the notion of the individual person. There's a demarcation point of where people begin and end and that's their skin. The state has no particular rights to access my knee bones. I can't see why legislation can ever exist that says they have any similar right to dictate how one chooses to operate their uterus. If such could reasonably exist, sanitary articles would be seized by the state every month to ascertain that there's no 'babies' deposited on them which could potentially be 'saved'. Not viable, you say? Viability is a very relative term when you consider in-vitro fertilisation and surrogate mothers.
Of course I'm being an absolutist but it's fairly necessary when there's people around who believe in invisible omnipotent sky-daddies who simultaneously think they have enough of a grip on reality to dictate life and death matters to women.
Like I said, I'm pro-choice, so I don't favor banning it either. I'm merely saying it's ending life--not a baby, but still life--and has a very different moral dimension than most any other medical procedure.
As a man I feel my opinion on this matter is somewhat irrelevant as I will never have to make such a difficult decision. However, I will give it anyway. I agree 100% in a women's right to choose, like Matt, but I do believe there is a clear difference between the Potential for life and an actual life. I would not catagorize a cluster of cells with the Potential for life in the same list as my patella either. If you remove your knee cap or wisdom teeth, no problem, if you kill a breathing, living person, big problem. I don't feel that a zygote or fetus is either of these things though. I do agree this puts in a different moral dimension as Matt said, but not a life.
Matt, I love when you call people out on their (our) hypocrisy. Really, I do.
I fail to see any hypocrisy in a surgeon performing an abortion. I maintain it's not any different from a knee surgery or an appendectomy.
weezgoog et al, the United States does have laws that respect the notion of the individual person, but its Constitution and laws allow the government to deprive a person of life (by execution and military strikes), liberty (by imprisonment), and property (by fines, eminent domain, and other methods) upon due process. I wonder if there could be Constitutional support for anti-choice legislation udder the due process clause.
This is funny, and it makes a great point. The kind of genocide depicted in say, Joshua, if committed today, would bring global condemnation and probable sentencing in The Hague for war crimes.
"I'm merely saying it's ending life--not a baby, but still life--and has a very different moral dimension than most any other medical procedure."
I understand where you are coming from, but the definition of 'life' is by no means static. All biological organisms are comprised of living cells. So in that sense there is just as much life in the knee as there is the foetus. If you're trying to define 'sentient life' it's a tough arguement to say a foetus is sentient. And besides, animals are sentient beings and we certainly don't respect them so that arguement carries little weight. We define a foetus by it's potential, not what by it is. But a foetus is just a parasite until it makes it outside of a woman's body and survives.
Teleprompter--I like that idea. I'd like to steal it for a comic. Although I see it ending a little differently.
Blake--Good point. I'd say a fetus has more potential than a knee and a viable fetus more so than a freshly fertilized egg. We probably should respect animals more as well. Many have higher mental capabilities than a newborn as I'm sure PeTA would point out in some bloody educational display.
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