Dean Barnett is pro-life, but he’s not religious, according to his column in the Boston Globe.
Barnett is a non-observant Jew, yet he he’s pro-life because of the moral logic that such a belief entails. And he doesn’t think one need be religious to be pro-life either.
The big moral question regarding abortion is, “When does life begin?” While most people agree that life begins at some point between conception and birth, pro-choice absolutists argue that life doesn’t begin until the fetus is fully delivered. Thus, they can enthusiastically defend a procedure like “partial birth abortion” where the fetus is partially delivered and then brutally “terminated” before it is fully delivered. At the other end of the spectrum, pro-life absolutists, reflecting John Kerry’s stated view, argue that life begins at the moment of conception.
While Barnett says he’s not an absolutist on either end, he’s not saying that life doesn’t begin at conception. What he does say is that you can’t know exactly when life begins from a scientific point of view, and thus ethics and morality would demand that we be cautious about it. In other words, if we aren’t sure life doesn’t begin at conception, then logic would tell us not to abort if we don’t know.
The problem with his logic is that there are plenty of pro-abortionists who’ve come to concede that life might indeed begin at conception, but so what? They are quite willing to say that even if the baby is a living human being, he has no right to make demands upon his mother and her body and thus she has every right to kill him.
Granted that still’s pretty much an extreme point of view, but the number of adherents to that view is growing. It’s part of that slippery slope so many have been warning about for so long.
I applaud Barnett for his forthright approach and honesty and for calling the mainstream media on its tendency to make abortion a “religious” issue, as if morality was a matter of worship style. But is this fighting a battle that the war has already moved beyond?
I applaud Barnett for his forthright approach and honesty
OK, but the problem is that he is neither forthright nor honest (if only with himself) when he states “we don’t know where life begins” and that “the only people who can say with absolute certainty and total conviction when life begins do so as a matter of faith or belief, not as the inevitable result of a logical process.”
Such statements are patently false. As a purely scientific matter, we know what “life” is. It has a specific scientific definition. And we know what a human is. Again, it has a scientific definition. And we know what an individual being is. Yet again, by scientific definition.
It is amazing that, in this scientific age, where we have all sorts of answers for all sorts of scientific/biological quesitons, some continue to insist that science cannot answer the question of the beginning of life. The fact is, science can answer it, science has answered it, and it is only because some do not want to hear the answer that they insist that this is some unknowable and unanswerable question. Were it not for the politics, which have become a quasi-religious belief on the part of pro-abortionists, then it would be acknowledged by all that, as a matter of scientific fact, the life of an individual human being begins at conception, that is, when a living human sperm unites with a living human ovum. Now, “life” per se does not begin at conception—rather, science tells us that it began millions of years ago, but an individual life does begin at conception, not at some unknown and unknowable and magical point later on.
As a matter of scientific fact, the last case of spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter happened millions of years ago. Since then, life has been a continuum. “Life” does not spontaneously begin ex nihilo. It is only because the entity within the womb is alive at the moment of sperm-ovum union that it begins the process of cellular division and reproduction and taking in nourishment and giving off waste and developing more recognizable organs and features, growing and growing and growing for the next 70-80 years.
Now, that is fact. Scientific fact. And it is neither forthright nor honest (nor helpful to the cause) to suggest otherwise.
“Barnett is a non-observant Jew….” I don’t mean to sound snide, but that seems like a flightless bird, or a legless horse, or a progressive liberal Catholic.
Bender (above) hit the proverbial nail on the head regarding the beginning of individual human life. That being the indisputable case, there is no valid pro-choice position whatsoever. Abortion is infanticide; feticide if that makes terminology sticklers a tad happier—but in any case, it is the total, cruel, and utter destruction of an helpless developing human child within what should be the normative safety and nurturing environment of his/her mother’s womb. It is murder. And on the scale as it is performed in the United States, it is genocide.
That needs to be the thought when our bishops each decide on whether or not pro-abortion Catholic politicians can receive the Holy Eucharist. So far, their individual decisions too often compare well with Pontius Pilate.
They are quite willing to say that even if the baby is a living human being, he has no right to make demands upon his mother and her body and thus she has every right to kill him.
Dom,
It’s a view that, as you say, is growing. My take is that it’s no longer extreme. It’s become a norm.
Most people who kill their kids know what they’re doing. (I’m so sorry to write that.)
I thought Barnett’s article was good reading, but its content is more mid-1970s or earlier than early 2000.
Because today, most people know—and even admit— that a baby is alive at conception. It often makes no difference. If the baby is inconvenient, the baby often dies.
John:
Bender (above) hit the proverbial nail on the head regarding the beginning of individual human life. That being the indisputable case, there is no valid pro-choice position whatsoever.
You mean there is no <u>moral</u> pro-choice position whatsoever. There are, God have mercy on us, all sorts of valid reasons for the pro-choice point of view.
For starters? It’s blessed by the same government that gave us the notion that everyone is entitled to the inalienable right to live.
Everyone, from John Kerry to science to the little kid who pats his mom’s belly and speaks of his “little brother” (and by the way, that same mom who refers to the being in her belly as her baby) knows when life begins.
Time was, I suppose, that the pro-choice folks could be justifiably considered aiders-and-abetters in involuntary manslaughter.
Not today. Today it’s Murder 1. And it’s legal.
1. Dr. John Bruchalski, of the NFP-only Tepeyac Clinic in Fairfax, VA, used to work at the research facility that pioneered IVf in the US. He said that he—and every doctor that worked in that lab—knew exactly when life begins. When the nucleus of the sperm combines with he nucleus of the egg, there is a visible flash of light, an electric signal the baby sends to the mother’s brain saying, “Hey! I’m here!”
2. There are plenty of pro-life atheists. It is the Left that turns abortion into a religious issue, by talking about when souls are created and other such nonsense. An atheist has to acknoweldge that the biological beginning of life is the beginning of life, and that if it’s wrong to kill at 20 it’s wrong to kill at -9 months.
It is interesting, the traditional philosophical debate about when life begins is the question of ensoulment. Biologically it is a given fact that at conception a unique biological entity (life) is created, but the question has always been, is this a person? Which for the Christian means does the fetus have a soul? For the atheist/ agnostic/“non-religious” the question is not does the fetus have a soul, which is not a valid question for them, or is it alive, because scientifically it is, but does it have rights?
This raises the interesting spector of the powerful majority, voting adults, deciding weither a group/class has human rights. One would think that we would have learned long ago how dangerous this prospect is, but obviously not.
Some attach rights to personhood, but what makes a person? If you use the defining that pro-abortion “absolutists” make then personhood logically doesn’t even start a birth but sometime thereafter, and we can loose it in various ways. Pro-life absolutists make the more ethically viable assumption, that human life is sacred, not just personhood. From the point of view of strict logic the pro-life absolutist position is more rational.
its content is more mid-1970s or earlier
This is VERY true. And it is also true that the pro-life movement has been stuck in this same (non)argument for the last 35 years. The movement, or at least the same ineffective pro-life “leaders” who have brought little more than loss after loss after loss after loss, has been trying the same tactic for the same 35 years to the same effect, not realizing that the scientific argument was won early on.
That is, we keep thinking that if only we can come up with the perfect argument, if only we can come up with the perfect physical evidence, then the other side will be compelled by logic and reason to admit that the entity in the womb is an individual living human person. We keep chasing after this delusion that the fight is all about the humanity of the unborn.
Well guess what??? The truth is that THEY ALREADY KNOW that the entity in the womb is an individual living human person. Kelly is absolutely right that most people know that “a baby is alive at conception,” and that abortion involves the killing of a human person. They already know that because the scientific proof is and always has been overwhelming and conclusive. The other side already knows that, even if they publicly refuse to admit it, and continue to purposely engage in falsehoods about it. (Come on, they are the type of people who kill babies—do you really think, then, that they are going debate and fight this issue honestly, and with logic and reason???)
The question of the humanity and personhood of the unborn was settled scientifically and in the minds of everyone concerned long ago, even if we foolishly continue to fight that battle. The fact is, they already know. The problem is not that they don’t know about the living humanity of the unborn, the problem is that, even though they know, THEY DON’T CARE that abortion and IVF and embryonic research involving killing. At least, they don’t care enough to give it priority over their narcisisstic wants and desires.
And even if they did care, we now have the blood of 45 million dead on our hands in this country alone and millions more world-wide. For them to openly admit what they already know deep down would be for them to implicitly admit that they are sadistic monsters, on the scale of a Stalin or Hitler, indeed, far exceeding both of them combined. And that implicit admission is too much for them to take because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, on this earth that can wash away that blood from their hands.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing, on this earth that can wash away that blood on their hands.
Now, it is at this point (and only at this point from a strategic point of view) in the pro-life struggle that the Church and the Faith come into play. Until this point, the issue is entirely one grounded in scientific fact and reason. Religion only clouds the issue until this point.
But there are limits to science, and science has reached that limit when it comes to the guilt for the blood of 45 million dead. To a large extent, the other side does not and will not admit to the humanity of the unborn because to do so would be to implicitly admit that they are complicit in the murder of so many innocents. That is too horrible a prospect for them to consider, so they continue to go down the Denial river, because there truly is nothing, absolutely nothing, on this earth that can wash away that blood on their hands.
But there is something, or rather Someone, not of this earth, who can wash away that blood. So, this is where the Church comes in, and only at this point. Instead of the delusional and ineffective tactic of arguing the human personhood of the unborn, which was proved long ago, the Church needs to return to Her mission of offering reconciliation with God, of preaching the possibility of redemption for even sins that are so great as the murder of 45 million innocents, which makes Herod the Great pale in comparison. Only in this way, can the blood be washed off the hands of all those complicit in their deaths. And that possibility of redemption, in turn, leads to the greater likelihood of them openly admitting the human personhood of the unborn.
The Magisterium has very carefully avoided defining the moment when ensoulment occurs, which Catholics should be careful to avoid imputing to the Church. It does not view that definition as necessary to deciding that deliberate abortion is gravely immoral even from the moment of conception.