At 05:26 PM 6/15/01 +0300 Charlie Bell wrote:
>OK, let me explain my full position on this, and, no doubt, i'll be branded
>as some weird psychotic by you.
Not psychotic, just inconsistent. Then again, it looks like you
recognized that already.....
>Human life is *sentient*. A human is not sentient until the age of 3 or 4.
>Self-awareness doesn't appear until then.
>
>However, it is obviously wrong killing a presentient human once they're out
>of the womb. No-one will argue against that, unless they're already happy
>with the idea of killing adults. Destroying a consciousness is wrong, plain
>and simple, hence the death penalty is wrong.
So, is human life "sentience" or is it "consciousness?" This seems like a
contradiction to me - but it is also ancillary to your main point, so I
won't dwell on it.
>So, seeing as we can't kill living breathing babies, and there is no
>difference between a 9 month -1day baby and a 9 month +1day baby except for
>how they breathe, we can't destroy a foetus at that stage without some
>serious hypocrisy.
You and I both agree on this.
>So, given that we agree that destroying a potential sentient at this point
>is wrong, we have to say that destroying a potential sentient is wrong.
We both agree on this.
In fact, this point is so important, I'd like repeat it just to be sure:
"We both agree that that destroying a potential sentient is wrong."
>However, we have a serious social crisis, in the if we abolish abortion
>entirely, we're risking losing adults to folding tables in back-alley
>'clinics', and there's a serious crisis looming. If we remove that option,
>we are back to forcing teenage girls into sticking knitting needles up
>themselves. It has happened, it will happen again.
And here is where I completely disagree.
First of all, there most certainly would not be a serious social crisis.
Here is a great web page on the subject:
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/loveboth/chapter27.html (read this page at
least as far as the graph)
One of the most salient figures in this excellent analysis is that in the
year before abortion was legalized in the United States, all of 39 women
died from illegal abortions. Now admittedly, that is 39 too many, but it
hardly rises to the level of social crisis. There are a lot of other
problems that produce 39 deaths a year, which don't raise this amount of
concern.
Indeed, using your above logic, I could argue that we could prevent
societal crises by euthanizing the homeless also. Yet, I am sure you
would not support that. Likewise, we could easily save far more than 39
lives by banning all cars that are capable of speeds greater than 35 mph.
Obviously these are reductio ad absurdum arguments, and I don't seriously
expect you to respond to them.
The more serious point, however, is this: Do you really think that it is
justifiable to wrongly kill 1.4 million potential sentients each year for
the sake of 39 people?
JDG
__________________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - ICQ #3527685
We are products of the same history, reaching from Jerusalem and
Athens to Warsaw and Washington. We share more than an alliance.
We share a civilization. - George W. Bush, Warsaw, 06/15/01
