I believe the way we view life, as in “…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” profoundly shapes our worldview decision making. And it really comes down to only 2 possible views – either human life is expendable, or it is sacred, worthy of self-sacrifice. Our country was founded on the latter, but it is fast moving towards complete human expendability.

On Thursday, July 2nd, a meeting was held in the old Foster Town House, the oldest continuously operated public meeting house in the country. It was a great, even historic, example of how this country debates important issues. Congressman Langevin, being home in RI during the July 4th recess, wanted to hear from his constituents. Well, he got an earful.

I was called via robo-caller by the congressman to attend the meeting, and expected several hundred people to show. But short notice, and virtually no advertising made for a very small, but highly charged group of about 30 people. After the Congressman gave a brief overview of his recent efforts, the fireworks flew. (I regret not bringing my camera!)

Cap and trade (energy), the stimulus bills, exorbitant government spending, transparency and health care topped the issues. Everyone who desired got a chance to question the Congressman and air their grievances. Those present learned his primary concern was getting universal health care reform passed this year.

Accidently shot in the back at a firing range as a teen, Jim Langevin is paralyzed from the waist down. To a great extent, this experience has shaped his perceptions, colors his language and drives his ambitions. And while I applaud the many legislative successes he has made for the handicapped, I’m concerned about his ideas for the future, particularly health care and the moral implications of government oversight of each person’s life.

Our meeting eventually ventured into the public funding of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research (HESCR). The congressman considers himself pro-life, often voting against abortion, but given his injury, he expressed his own idea of what it means to be pro-life.

He suggested that excess embryos from IVF (in-vitro fertilization) procedures were only going to be discarded as medical waste. His take is, unless the “fertilized egg is implanted” it’s not going to be a child. To use these “fertilized eggs” for research that might prove beneficial to others is to be greatly “pro-life”, and he cited Sen. Orrin Hatch as a role model who held similar views.

Setting aside the Utah Senator, who is not my representative, I was perturbed by the congressman’s repeated references to “fertilized eggs” and the idea that embryos are not already children. Using the wrong term masks the moral implications of what is actually done, which is utilitarian destruction of human beings.

After the meeting, while I was speaking with one of his local aids, the congressman came over and we had a brief private conversation on this issue. Here’s what I conveyed:

“You keep referring to human embryos as fertilized eggs, but they are not eggs. Do you know how long they are fertilized eggs?” “No” “Once fertilization starts, they are fertilized eggs for about twelve hours. Let me illustrate this. Say you have an ice-cube, which represents the egg, and you put it into a glass, which is the womb, or the IVF “petri-dish”, and you fertilize it – add sperm or in the case of our ice-cube, add heat. When the ice cube melts, you no longer have an ice-cube, you have water. The same is true of the human egg, it’s gone after the completion of amphimixis – you now have a zygotic human being. But to take it one step further, imagine that the water started filling the glass on it’s own. That’s what human life does – grows on it’s own in the proper environment. So we really shouldn’t refer to human embryos as fertilized eggs.”

We continued the conversation on the topic of ESCR, but Rep. Langevin continued to refer to fertilized eggs, even after I showed him I was educated on the topic. I asked him if it was okay to have a utilitarian view of human life – to use other’s body parts without their permission, and he struggled with that briefly, but was saved by his assistant who declared it was time to go.

During our discussion I asked if he was familiar with Robert P. George – he wasn’t. It’s now a goal of mine to hand Jim Langevin a personalized copy of this book.

If scientific accuracy does not inform our moral decisions at the highest level of government, then I have little confidence decisons made will be in the best interests of the country. Debate is about drilling down until the solid truth is found, and building upon that.

The Congressman has some research to do about what it means to be fully human.

Human Rights HESCR, moral relativity

or Illumination of Ideas

This is a continuation of my last post Adam Hamilton’s Color Theory.

I want to be fair to Adam, because in my prior post I stated he’s assuming both sides can agree on 7 points:

1. Legitimate concerns of both sides
2. Life of mother exception
3. Decrease is desirable
4. Universal birth control access and info
5. Pregnancy duration & moral complexity
6. Coercion
7. Safety

The single thread running through these is a concern, perhaps love, for other humans. His illustrations reinforce this idea of a single dimension.

Yet I hope my extended illustration showed we can’t always assume others see things in common with us, even though we’re using the same language and words, and appear to have the same desire.

My prior post was about seeing, and that’s critical. Adam clearly sees himself as pro-life, while others see him as pseudo or perhaps semi pro-life. As I pointed out, how we perceive ourselves within the context of the problem is an essential starting point. Do we truly understand the common element? That light – absolute transcendent Truth, must be at the core of our being and we must willfully be obedient to it. If we’re not intellectually, emotionally and spiritually honest with ourselves, then there is little hope we’ll be honest with others. If two sides cannot agree about this truth, then there is no common ground at all.

The conflict between abortion-choice and pro-life is a clash of two distinct world-views about truth. The metaphysical grounds aren’t the same – it’s multi-dimensional yet primarily a spiritual contest. If you want to talk about a single continuum, you’d have to address how each individual views life itself, and what they truly believe when it comes to their own origin, meaning, morality and destiny.

Adam has an incredibly powerful and moving testimony about his own origin which places him firmly within the context of the problem, giving him a legitimacy and a voice as one who was redeemed.

But how does Adam see the meaning of his life? What about his morality, and destiny? How has this origin shaped his view of others and is that viewed through the light of absolute transcendent truth? Does he see a cohesiveness, an intrinsic quality that declares his being as a whole – as a human being? Do others see him with the same intrinsic meaning?

It is not enough to believe we hold the truth, we need to constantly pursue it and we need to know it’s a true light and not merely a reflection.

Adam’s mother loved him dearly and was willing to sacrifice her life for him. In other words her focus was not on herself, but on another – specifically Adam.

She saw something that transcended herself, that went beyond her immediate situation. Through love, she caught a glimpse of Life, the Light of the World himself. In doing so, she sought the illumination of an idea she joyfully called Adam, a man who is still pursuing the Truth.

For those who are in the dark, whether it is origin, meaning, morality or destiny, only a glimmer of light can be revealed at a time, because too much light revealed at once would be blinding.

Yet every agreement starts with the smallest perceivable amount of light, and that is sufficient to say we have something in common, even if it’s just a shade of gray.

Morality abortion, intrinsic-value, moral relativity

or there’s more to gray than meets the eye

Steve Wagner of Stand to Reason is soliciting comments regarding Adam Hamilton’s interview in Newsweek, which Adam discusses on his own blog.

Steve’s a very thoughtful and considerate guy, so when he notes someone besides himself is looking for common ground in the abortion debate it’s worth a closer look. Prior to opening the discussion, Steve is taking his time to reflect on the solutions described by Adam.

Okay – I admit, I didn’t reflect for so long, because simply browsing the chapter revealed some thinking that needs some immediate clarification, and it has to do with reflection. I may think differently after a more thorough read.

I think Adam’s quote, along with his book illustrations summarizes what I see as essential to understanding his discussion:

I believe that number could be halved if people might be willing to see enough gray to work together with those who view this issue differently than they do.

Adam needs a little lesson on color theory, because he’s forgetting that how you morally proceed is based entirely on your perspective of God and the nature of man – in other words your foundational world-view.

Here’s a nice gray metaphor – are we paper or are we a dark computer screen?

The additive color model is distinctly different from the subtractive. One adds light, while the other removes it. For instance, starting with a white page, dark spots added will remove the light reflection from the surface to arrive at gray. Conversely, if you are starting with a dark screen, you must add light to arrive at gray.

So is the substrate light or dark to begin with? In other words, is man currently good or evil? The substrate governs how we procede. But what is added, the procedure, also is crucial.

Clearly abortion is a moral procedure, but is it light or a dark spot? You can’t answer that question without knowing if the substrate is dark or light.

So Adam’s prescription for working towards middle ground makes an assumption that cannot be made – at least in a world of black and white, or more aptly, in a world of truth and light.

Because if the intention is to move towards gray, two opposite models will lead you there from two distinct directions, but only one fulfills God’s will.

He assumes the substrate is the common ground, or a single dimension, which it isn’t.

Only the light is the common element.

If we are called to be salt and light to this world, then our every move should reveal Christ to illuminate the darkness we face.

Morality abortion, moral relativity, Steve-Wagner

When it comes to certain objective behavior, it’s nearly impossible to read a comment thread on the Web without running into this kind of exchange:

moralist: I believe (objBehavior) is wrong because I’ve been harmed by (objBehavior).

amoralist: I’ll defend your right to say (objBehavior) is wrong, but saying (objBehavior) applies to everyone is wrong.

What is the amoralist actually saying?

First, the amoralist acknowledges that: the moralist is asserting that (objBehavior) is harmful in all cases and is therefore immoral.

Then the amoralist asserts that: (objBehavior) is not harmful in all cases so the objBehavior is therefore moral.

Can you spot the problem?

The amoralist must be omniscient – all knowing – because he’s trying to prove the negative: no harm in all cases. (The negative, a universal meaning void, zip, zero, nada, nothing.)

And – as if trying to prove the negative wasn’t strong enough, the amoralist has actually declared he knows about universals by using the qualifying phrase “applies to everyone” – which means all humans and every occurrence of this (objBehavior).

Clarify the amoralist assertion like this:

You’re telling me there are one or more cases where (objBehavior) is not harmful.

Chances are he’ll confirm he’s trying to prove the negative. So when you run into one of these situations you could tell him “If I understand you correctly, you’ve got nothing to prove…quite literally.”

The amoralist has encountered an insurmountable problem: he is at odds with objective reality and universal logic.

Warning: Deep thinking ahead!

Moral behavior is not subjective, like opinions. Morality is objectively, universally applicable, because humans are objective. We visibly exist and we are all subject to both good and evil.

Logically, good cannot be evil, there are no other values in between, so what is asserted as a vice cannot be a virtue. Virtue and vice are not interchangeable – that would be nonsense, akin to saying the light is both on and off at the same time. They would negate each other and become meaningless.

Either objective behavior is good for everyone or it’s harmful for everyone. Put another way, if an objective behavior harms one person, it harms all others if they engage in it. That’s a moral statement.

The only way an objective behavior can be proven morally harmless is if no one is ever harmed; not doing so rejects those who’ve been harmed as persons.

Since the amoralist is defending the moralist’s right to say he was harmed, he’s acknowledging the moralist as a person, and since he cannot prove the negative on that objective behavior, the only way for the amoralist to believe he’s correct about such moral relativity is to simply assume he’s correct about morals being relative.

The statement begs the question.

Perspective moral relativity