"Culture of Life"

[lehighguy]

Something is either human or it isn't. It is a yes or no question. Either I'm human or I'm not.

If potential life falls short of humanity then it must not be very valuable. As Sklansky pointed out in his post there will soon exist medical treatments that can remove the fetus from the womb, and the entire womens right issue will be removed. Then we will have to come face to face with the fact that people just want the children not to exist, and it has very little to do with a woman's body.

Not that I'm too opposed to that. Personally, I think it is a form of murder but I'm ok with it. The less people the better. But at least I'm honest about it.

[lehighguy]

In our culture, the way it is set up, there is nothing inbetween being human and being an animal. There is no 3/5th of a human being (we got rid of that).

At some point in process it becomes a life. The second before that moment it isn't a life. I don't know when that occurs, and I doubt anyone does, but that's how I see it happeneing. All at once, not a little bit at a time.

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
I assume this is what most people intuitively/subconsciously believe, whether they admit it/realize it or not.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. If you listen to the positions/rhetoric of the different sides of the abortion debate, this is the position on life that is shouted out with a quiet whisper. If a fetus were a full-life (same value as a child just born), pro-lifers would not allow for exceptions in the case of rape, incest. If a fetus were no different than a toenail (i.e. just a collection of cells) pro-choicers wouldn't say that it is a difficult/moral decision for a woman to make --- the reason it is a difficult decision is because the fetus is different than a toenail.

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
In our culture, the way it is set up, there is nothing inbetween being human and being an animal. There is no 3/5th of a human being (we got rid of that).

At some point in process it becomes a life. The second before that moment it isn't a life. I don't know when that occurs, and I doubt anyone does, but that's how I see it happeneing. All at once, not a little bit at a time.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not necessarily the difference between being a human or being an animal.

It's the difference between being a human and being something less than a human. I don't think there's a particularly neat way to describe it -- but I'm a pretty firm believer that a fetus is 1) alive and/or a life but 2) it's not categorically a 'human'. The 'alive' part ought to be relatively simple to accept -- a fetus has cells reproducing; it's growing; is metabolizing, etc. Do fetuses constitute a 'life'? I don't know -- frankly I find such language debates to be largely irrelevant unless we're discussing ethics or legal rights -- so I'm not sure I particularly care if we call it 'human' or 'less than human' or 'baby' or 'a life' or 'fetus' or 'bundle of cells' or whatever such ways we might needlessly dance around the issue.

The 'not human' part of a fetus's character is more difficult to get a handle on; however, if we search our intuitions for how we would punish women who receive abortions -- or what kinds of lengths we would go to prevent abortions from occurring -- it becomes somewhat clearer that calling an abortion 'murder' is a tenuous position at best. But I think it's clearly ending/termination of something alive, or what we might otherwise call a killing. Does the fact that the killing of a fetus isn't murder lead us to say a fetus isn't human? I don't know, but it's not a conservation I'm all that interested in. So I'll concede that a fetus could rightfully be called a 'human', given that the we might come up with various ways of describing what it means to be 'human'. The biological component of 'human-ness' is probably narrow enough, and easily identifiable and quantifiable; but I don't think that settles the question of how we define the quality of 'human-ness' socially.

I understand Sklansky's points on abortion, and largely agree with him -- but I think he confuses 'murder' and 'killing' in such a way that clouds the rather cogent ethical points he's getting at.

[MtSmalls]

To un-hijack this thread back from the abortion debate (which wasn't the goal), please explain this to me:

If GWB is as religious a man as he claims to be, and self-identifies himself with the so-called "culture of life", why would he sign this bill into law? It states, basically, that if the board of ethics of any medical facility believes that further treatment will produce no medical benefit for the patient, and no other health care facility is willing to accept/admit said patient, the treating facility may elect to end all treatments for the patient.
Whether the patient can pay for the treatment or not, whether the patient (or their family) wants to continue to the treatment or not, the hospital can elect to refuse.

HOW DOES THIS MAKE MORAL SENSE, AND WHY IS THE CULTURE OF LIFE CROWD NOT PROTESTING THIS IN EVERY HOSPITAL IN TEXAS???

Is it because hes a hypocrite? He panders to the religous wackos who get their political beliefs from church.

[coffeecrazy1]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't hospitals private entities? Do they have to treat anybody? I know it seems like a dumb and callous question, but we are so used to thinking of hospitals like we do police and firemen...when there is a very definite distinction.

As such...bear in mind that moral obligation means very little to businesses in the strictest sense. Every business feels morally obligated to do certain things, but if pressed between moral obligation and survival, the grand majority choose survival, or they exit the market.

There's nothing particularly wrong with that, because many times that there is a moral obligation to do something, there is a business reason to do it, too(i.e. hospitals treat people off the street because they don't want to be labeled the hospital that doesn't treat people off the street).

But don't confuse a business' motivations for altruism...they are not.

[lehighguy]

There are finite resources in the world. We can't treat everyone. Using resources to treat one person could well kill another.

Or you could come at it from the arguement that life < slavery. That you can't enslave the doctor and hospital, and that thier freedom is more important then the life.

[ QUOTE ]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't hospitals private entities? Do they have to treat anybody? I know it seems like a dumb and callous question, but we are so used to thinking of hospitals like we do police and firemen...when there is a very definite distinction.

[/ QUOTE ]
By law, hospitals do have to treat everyone who has a life-threatening condition, whether they can pay or not. We've generally acknowledged that it is unconscionable that someone should be denied treatment because they don't have enough money. The Texas law is an exception to this principle.

And, again, believers in a "culture of life" should presumably not rush to justify letting this woman die because it was a profitable business decision.

[lehighguy]

I don't really agree with the concept of something being partially human. We don't really have any laws or concept surrounding a being that is partially human.

I mean when you kill a pregnant women you aren't charged with 1.3 homicides.

I don't really understand your whole killing/murder difference. If you kill a human being it's murder, if you kill a pig it's a killing.