A Christian friend of mine challenged my continued pro-life involvement recently. He wrote:
"Just curious here. You're an agnostic/atheist type now? Is that right?
Just wondering from whence you derive your ethic for the unborn given a naturalistic/materialistic worldview.
That is: given (presumably) that you believe there is no God, or any transcendent being who created everything, and that all things came into existence by non-purposeful, random chance (ie. nothing) and that all things are evolving, hence humans are just a branch on the evolutionary tree, albeit highly complex, here through a long history of natural selection favoring our genes in death, disease, and struggle of the fittest....
WHY are human babies' lives intrinsically valuable? Why is abortion "WRONG"? And HOW, again given an atheistic worldview, in which death is final, can we expect any JUSTICE for all the lives killed from the womb???
I don't see any consistency in an atheist type getting angry about killing the unborn. Traditionally, atheists and other secularists have favored a PRO-DEATH culture of abortion, etc.
Just curious to know how you remain CONSISTENTLY pro life FROM AN ATHEIST, SECULARIST STARTING POINT."
The following was my reply:
Easy. Science makes it clear that the unborn are members of our own species. If I value my own existence and life as a human being, it only makes sense to want to see other human lives protected from harm, suffering, and wrongful death.
Contrary to what Christians believe and what I always presumed to be true, morality does not need God to exist. Even if there is no ultimate judge righting the scales in some alternate dimension beyond this life, there are still some things that are true of all of us in this current existence. Humans feel, humans experience, humans can suffer and humans can know amazing sensations and emotions - including love, sorrow etc. As a human being I am endowed with cognitive faculties that include the ability to reason and to empathize. When I empathize, I recognize that other humans experience, suffer and feel much as I do. I simply want for them what I want for myself.
Assuming we have evolved, this is not such an odd concept. To a large degree as a human specie we've moved beyond Darwinian survival of the fittest and might-makes right. We are growing in knowledge and understanding, we are fine-tuning our empathic skills and learning to co-exist for the betterment of humanity and the planet. I suspect that if we don't render ourselves extinct with individualistic practices, humanity will continue to improve, war will become less common, we will continue to grow in our understanding of other as our equal.
Abortion fits right into that because it's an area of growth. Abortion still plays into the might-makes-right and the individualistic patterns of thinking. It's backward thinking that allows us to deny personhood and rights to those that stand in our way, rather than paving a way to alternative solutions that don't demand the death of one of the conflicting parties. I am convinced that as science continues to make human life in the womb an incontrovertible truth that does away with the myth of "blob of tissue with no consciousness", and as humanity continues to grow toward egalitarian problem-solving, abortion will go the way of segregation, slavery and other injustices.
Violent injustices against humans, such as abortion, aren't wrong because some big man in an alternate dimension behind the sky told us so. They're wrong because fellow humans are being mutilated and denied the opportunity to live, breathe, eat, love, and walk under the sun for this finite period of time that we all have to do so.
If life is all there is, then life matters all the more.
Abortion is not a "violent injustice". To deny a a rape victim the right to abortion is. The issue is not black-and-white as you would have it. A foetus is not a person for the same reason that a sperm is not a person. Therefore abortion isn't murder on the same rationale that masturbation is not some hideous crime against humanity.
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comment, Tim. I believe that out of all the arguments in favour of abortion rights, this one is without a doubt the most easily refuted. It's basic biology 101:
DeleteSperm and ovum are differentiated parts of another human being, they contain dna and information but they are not a whole and complete entity in and of themselves. Sperm and ovum are like skin cells - they are parts of another entity.
A fetus on the other hand is a distinct whole. A new entity. A very small and under-developed entity, yes, but a distinct whole nonetheless. S/he has within itself as he or she is now, complete inherent capacity to become a mature human adult of an already determined gender, eye and hair colour. The predisposition to certain illnesses and personality traits is already determined and will remain in her code for life, as she continues to develop.
In other words, when sperm and ovum have merged, an entirely new genetic code is written into existence that will continue to develop itself through all stages of human development, according to the pattern inherent in that code. An infant is not a mature human adult, but an under-developed stage in that continuum that given proper time, nutrients, and protection from destruction will continue to develop. Likewise, a fetus is not a mature human adult, just as it is not yet an infant, but these are merely stages along that continuum of development that began when the self-directing code came into existence at fertilization.
Sperm, skin cells, and other parts of human beings are differentiated cells. Of their own inherent capacity they will never change their form or develop into something more than the cell that they currently are.
This is not something pro-lifers made up. Again, this is biology 101. Any embryology text book will confirm this.
Some people seem to have a problem separating morality from God. I figured that even God could not judge anything unless God had a preexisting standard to go by.
ReplyDelete