Deep, thought provoking question about life, death and relationships.

I’ll explain later.

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General, Reflections Relationships

Last night, while searching through a “sister to sister” directory created by our church’s women’s ministry, I noticed that not one man’s name was mentioned. All the married women had anonymous spouses. Their children’s names were listed, but not the husbands.

When I mentioned that to my wife, Donna, she wrote it off to the editor keeping the focus on the “sister to sister” relationship. That quick explanation struck me as being wrong, not because it might be true, but that such behavior isn’t apparent cause for concern, even within a fairly conservative church that upholds traditional marriage of the unity of one man and one woman.

Call it a feminine blind spot.

So this morning’s news reveals British scientists are creating sperm cells from human embryos so they can treat infertility.

In another article, related to the Mark Sanford affair, Gallup finds that the most morally objectionable behavior in the United States is “married men and women having an affair”.

So we have a case of husbands ignored by women within a church, the male physiological function being replaced by scientists using the human offspring of other males, and the most reprehensible behavior is marital infidelity, while divorce is more morally acceptable than wearing fur coats.

Most women can’t see the problem. My own wife doesn’t see it, despite long discussions on the topic.

Again, from today’s news: even when a female author gets most things right – she still doesn’t see the problem.

Can you see it?

And to be fair – many men can’t see the problem either.

Morality men, Relationships, woman

Refuting Thompson’s Violinist Argument (AKA Parasite Pregnancies)

Lileigh Lehnen was an 8-1/2 month developed unborn child who suffered an injury prior to birth, was born via c-section, then died. Technically, the judge ruled her death a non-homocide because she wasn’t considered a person at the time of the attack based on Colorado law. Her location was critical, both to the cause of her death, and how she was treated by the court. Lileigh’s death highlights the irrational logic of abortion-choice, where one can legally be a non-person human-being.

Lately over at Jill Stanek’s blog I’ve run into several abortion-choice advocates who acknowledge the child is a human being, but argue the mother’s bodily-autonomy (sovereignty actually) overrules all rights of her child including the right to life.

In short – consent is for sexual intercourse, but not the resulting pregnancy.

Francis Beckwith, in Defending Life, points out the bodily autonomy argument has been made extensively by Judith Jarvis Thompson, Eileen McDonagh, David Boonin and others in variations on Thompson’s violinist example.

Here’s the scope of issues (addressed in 3 articles):

1. Metaphysical: The intrinsic nature of contestants – procreation & relationships;
2. Morality: agency of rights/responsibilities;
3. Intuitions, analogies and philosophical anthropologies – rationale & application.

1. Metaphysical: Intrinsic Nature of Contestants

Since the contest is about rights between two humans, we must first examine the metaphysical basis of origin, substance and existence of the human beings to determine if they are equal on every morally relevant point to decide this contest.

Thompson et al. concede the child is a human being. However, the child’s rights as a human being are contested, immediately indicating that the personhood of the unborn child is somehow different than born human beings. We need to discuss relationship, personhood and non-intrinsic objections to resolve the metaphysical question.

a. Relationship

With pregnancy there are 3 specific relationships: procreative/paternal relationship, location within mother, and dependency upon the mother.

The procreative/paternal relationship provides a strong basis for rejecting the other philosophical anthropology offered by Thompson et al., because through pro-creation, the very existence (not merely on-going life) of one of the beings is dependent, in part, upon the other being. The other part, the DNA for that child’s substance, was provided by the father. So quite literally, at the completion of conception (amphimixis), two have become one flesh. All human existence depends upon an unbroken chain of pregnancies – a relational continuum of life.

Thompson’s violinist arguments beg the question by leaning exclusively upon dependency upon mother, and assuming the pro-creative/paternal relationship is non-essential to the question of human rights. They throw out motherhood as a procreative process and assume an incomplete definition of motherhood. a metaphysical grounding detached from this means of origin within the context of the vital relationship that brings about humanity.

What they throw out cannot be thrown out: the procreative process and the substance nature of both mother and child are of the same nature, an on-going human nature. (They redefine motherhood.)

However, does 1) being of the same substance of human flesh and blood and 2) the existence of both “beings” brought about through a unbroken chain of pregnancies make them morally equal on all bodily rights?

Well, with criminal violations aside, we treat all born human beings of that same substance and that procreative process equally. In fact being human (in the flesh) is the very basis of human rights equality, since it’s critical we hang those rights off something tangible. And since all other born human beings arrived on this planet the same way, the human substance – flesh and blood, and the conception & gestational process is universally equal to all human beings. Clearly both substance and gestational process are pivotal to our discussion, while age and time is not.

b. Personhood

Arriving at the issue of personhood, the question must be raised: do the two contestants have the same moral basis for personhood? That is, not do they possess the same degree of development of person, but do they each possess all the essential common characteristics we recognize as necessary for a human person?

I believe this is the great schism in the debate, because the abortion-choice position assumes human beings can redefine the personhood of other human beings.  This would require an isolation of the person from their bodies – a nullification of the intrinsic nature of human beings.

Can that be rationally done? The issue is critical because we’re dealing with personal autonomy. How can we test this?

Because the mother-child existence relationship is unique, the only reasonable test of this detached sense of personhood is to swap the two contestants physical locations making the daughter the mother and the mother the daughter. The mother’s “person” is now within the body of the daughter – think of the movie Freaky Friday, then zoom back to the time of pregnancy. (But unlike Freaky Friday, the bodies are exchanged as well.) Granted this is a conceptual swap, but from a practical sense, our chain of unbroken pregnancies acknowledges the mother was a daughter at one time. So the proceative/gestational relationship is not rejected and the only assumption is removal of time constraints so we can exchange the spatial & birth order relationships between the two contested human beings.

Should that change the moral basis of the mother’s person, by exchanging places with the daughter?

One would reasonably say no – it shouldn’t and that’s precisely my point: to claim it would change the moral basis would be a circular argument (and reveal the personhood begging schism) because the claimed abortion “right” shouldn’t change no matter who was in the womb.

So far we’ve run into two problems:

1. The abortion choice position begs the question by assuming a rationale based upon a non-sequitur and in so doing they reject the metaphysical basis of their own personhood – the natural human procreative/gestational process.
2. They beg the question again by assuming a definition of personhood that cannot logically exist in the world of living, propogating humanity.

I know – that’s some deep thinking, so let me clarify: As human beings we don’t morally possess the right to redefine the personhood of any other other human being because such redefinition can be applied to yourself as a human being. It subjects humans and is circular. For logicians out there – whole (intrinsic or universally true) human beings cannot be declared non-whole, (partial or universally false) human beings. That’s self refuting, like saying TRUE is FALSE.

c. Non-intrinsic objections

Human Rights abortion, autonomy, bioSLED, intrinsic-value, pregnancy, Relationships

Earlier this week on the Today show Dawn Eden had the opportunity to introduce the idea of chastity (and promote her book “The Thrill of the Chaste”) to a national audience. She did an excellent job answering the implied questions “Why remain chaste? Why forego sex while dating and wait until marriage?”

Dawn provided her own reason for choosing chastity: “you can’t seek permanence through impermanence”.

What a great statement. For me, that stimulated some thinking about what we seek in relationships and how we build intimacy with members of the opposite sex. Given that the panel was all women, I thought I would take a shot at expanding upon that statement, particularly with regard to a man’s need for respect.

First off, please note that while Dawn’s response is not a biblical quote, it is a biblical viewpoint, because God is the most permanent being we can possibly imagine having a relationship with. So permanence is this immensely desirable characteristic. Permanence means stability because the unknown is removed. It’s also immeasurably valuable, because we have no way of conceiving the value of a universal.

In searching for a spouse wouldn’t we desire those permament intrinsic qualities, as well as cultivating them in ourselves? In so doing we would be creating a relationship based on the quality of endurance and permanence, instead of impermanence.

But do we really express that desire when we seek relationships? Do we truly believe permanence is valuable?

Whatever attitudes we hold, whatever we believe to be true is eventually expressed to others. For instance, if we believe it’s okay to test sexual compatibility then immediately doubt is cast into the relationship. If that doubt is exposed to the light – what would it reveal about the true character of the person who wants to test compatibility?

Let me make that more concrete: Jo Arden Maeder suggests that women should test sexual compatibility then lie about their reasons to their men. We can test that by asking “Would she – Jo Arden Maeder, ever actually state to her ‘man’ that she was testing him for sexual compatibility?”

Some would argue a man’s greatest need is respect, while others would say it’s sex. The reality is a man’s greatest need is respect when it comes to sex.

Even promoting the idea of undertaking a sexual compatability test devalues and disrespects men because it reduces us to our sexual organs and performance in bed. With regard to sexual organs, in any other venue, when we are judged by an immutable characteristic, such as our skin color, age, sexual organs or body mass, we call such judgements discrimination. To even suggest the notion hints at misandry – and a quick perusal of the Today show site indicates that attitude in abundance. To focus on performance reduces men to a mere product who’s utility comes through providing pleasure to the one who seeks it.

Therein lies the crux of the problem – and so highly visible in that Today show segment and the like. Most feminine oriented media and magazines speculate endlessly about why things aren’t working and what needs to be done to fix them. This does a great job selling products, but in the end it reduces us all to merely being products, the kind prone to breakage and need of replacement. In other words, there’s no respect at all.

What made Dawn stand out in the crowd was her rejection of that idea and her focus on the imperishable and wonderful, and in the process she introduced something bright, sparkling and permanent into the lives of many: Hope.

Perspective chastity, Eden, Relationships, review, sex

Lately I’ve been grappling with the idea of “intrinsic value” which seems to be, well, essential, to most thought provoking pro-life human value arguments. This idea escapes so many people – in argument after argument I’ve noticed that few seem to grasp what “intrinsic” means, offering instead their own interpretation. And it’s not merely the pro-choice crowd that misunderstands the idea.

Stand to Reason’s Greg Koukl, while interviewing Robert P. George (who, along with Christopher Tollefson wrote “Embryo:A Defense of Human Life”) mentioned that radio host and columnist Dennis Prager, while understanding the pro-life position, also failed to grasp the meaning of “intrinsic value”. (Listen to STR Podcast of 2/19/08 at 37:30 in)

Inspiration being what it is, the other morning I woke up with bread on my mind – how wonderfully diverse bread is, and yet so representative of humanity in terms of illustrating this idea of our intrinsic value.

Like people, bread comes in all sorts of shapes, sizes and different forms, from whole loafs to flat breads to rolls and biscuits. Sometimes yeast is added, sometimes it isn’t. It also comes in various colors, textures and tastes based upon numerous ingredients, yet it all has one single thing in common: grain flour.

From a challah loaf to a pita pocket, without grain flour, there is no bread. It could be said that particular ingredient is intrinisic to bread.

The analogy to human beings is that our flesh and blood, the human cellular material which is the combined ingredients from both mother and father, defines us as humans – not any other ingredient that might be added after.

Our flesh and blood is intrinsic to our nature as human beings, to our very personhood as beings. Just as you can’t remove the grain flour and still have bread, you cannot remove flesh and blood and still have a human being regardless of their concious state.

Disconnecting personhood from flesh and blood (dualism) undermines all bodily rights reasoning for abortion. How can you rightly claim it’s your personal body, if you don’t believe it has a coherent, intrinsic value as a whole?

When Christ lifted up the loaf, he may have been illustrating more about his relationship to humanity than what was immediately apparent.

Human Rights abortion, flesh & blood, George, intrinsic-value, Koukl, Relationships, Tollefson