Sentencing a woman to sacrifice her life to an embryo is not upholding the 'right-to-life'... You cannot be in favor of life and yet demand the sacrifice of an actual, living individual to a clump of tissue.
Leonard Peikoff
Christian Conservatives pride themselves in being in favor of a “Culture of Life”. This sounds innocent enough. I mean, “life” is a good thing, right?
Not if it’s at the expense of liberty. The Culture of Life agenda could be more accurately entitled “The Culture of Slavery”. The movement demands that their values be imposed on others without consideration of the right to privacy or of the concept of self-ownership.
If America is a free nation, then women must have full reproductive rights; if America is a free nation, then people must be allowed to choose how and when they die, WITHOUT ANY GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE.
It’s also worth noting that the pro-life movement is not a cultural movement. It is a political movement. Pro-lifers want their values written into the law regardless of what the culture would dictate.
11 comments:
hey, um, i was thinkin', like, what if there was a need to abort babies, like overpopulation, how would these pro-life conservatives act?
I doubt it would change their views. First, it's unlikely that these conservatives would be convinced that such a problem existed. Notices how they are in denial about global warming, among other things. Second, even if they did believe abortion served a good social purpose, they would probably still be against it. Since they use God to justify their beliefs, everything else is secondary, including the welfare of society. Pretty sad, but that's religion for ya.
first of all, the idea of global warming is something Al Gore invented to send us into a panic so he could 'cure' us. Do these conservatives believe in the death penalty for taking a human life? If so, there might be no one left in this overpopulation issue if they had their way.
Climate change is a serious problem that the world needs to get a handle on. Even Bush agrees with that.
Anyway, to answer your question, being pro death penalty is consistent with the conservative ideology. Many pro-lifers support the death penalty. However, not all of them do. Also, there are a lot of liberals who are pro-life, though it is much more strongly related with conservatism.
but what is "life"?
mere existence? happiness? feeling "alive"? life in the end is death anyway. does "life" require a presupposed reason, be it known or longed for?
what is your definition of life?
what is the conservative definition of life?
do we all have the same definition?
and being that life as-we-know-it is finite, how should our perspective on that differ from what it would be if life were eternal?
im asking for thorough responses, thank you.
You say that being pro-death penalty is "consistent with the conservative ideology." Do you mean that this attitude toward the death penalty logically fits under the conservative ideology, or are you just stating that this is how many, if not most conservatives think about the death penalty? I ask this because I want to know your position, and because I do not think that being pro-death penalty is consistent with the "culture of life" philosophy.
Responding to secular conservative's comment
"definition of life?"
Well, the issue isn't really what the definition of what life is, but rather what the definition of a human being is. According to my definition, a fetus isn't (or souldn't be) considered a human being because it is still part of the female's body. Some conservatives think that that a fetus deserves equal rights right from the moment of conception. But to answer your question, I guess my definition is any autonomous agent which reproduces, has the ability to adapt and can convert external material into energy.
"being that life as-we-know-it is finite, how should our perspective on that differ from what it would be if life were eternal?"
I don't think it should change how we handle issues like these. Because even if life is eternal, we only have control over the period of life that we live on earth, so our policy should be focused on that.
Responding to emily's comment
I meant that most conservatives and a lot of those who are against abortion rights are pro death penalty, whether or not that logically "fits".
First let me give some background into the term "Culture of Life". Pop John Paul II coined it. According to the Pope, a culture of life would exclude practices of euthanasia, abortion, capital punishment, unjust war and contraception. However, in American politics, when politicians invoke the Culture of Life, they are primarily referring to abortion and euthanasia issues.
Now to answer your question, I don't think being pro-life is necessarily inconsistent with being a proponent of capital punishment. Abortion - according to pro-lifers - is murdering a human being. You can be against murder yet support the death penalty. There is no contradiction because utilizing the death penalty isn't murder; it is fitting punishment for such.
but, if we were to live on earth eternally, how should our positions change? would conservative positions change? on abortion?
what to you consider to be just prerequisits for life, or reproducing?
I don't support abortion in most circumstances. The world IS overpopulated. For instance, China is very overpopulated and thus has adopted the one child policy.
I believe global warming is obvious. And many environmental abuses are to blame for it, overpopulation certainly increases the output of said abuses. Nature can't support our lives at this rate forever, we may very well kill ourselves someday, and when we're all dead perhaps nature's balance will be returned.
I am Agnostic, I don't need a God or a law to dictate to me what is upright and what is conscientiously objectable.
I support the Death Penalty for many malicious crimes against man, murder and rape being the big two. If you are a relative of the victim, I believe you should have the right to take the life perpetrator or a lesser penalty if the court allows and you deem fit. After all your country does have a responsibility to ensure the safety of itself and its nationals, and criminals walking around is a sure way to undermine both. I also believe tax payers shouldn't share the burden of housing and feeding and "rehabbing" murderers and rapists, as far as I'm concerned they are a waste of life, space, and resources. If a man takes your daughter or son's life and you want to let him live, and personally pay for his food and home, be my guest (the Japanese actually had a practice similar to this). But I don't want him roaming the earth and some day setting his or her bad intentions upon my future children or friends, or friend's children. Malicious criminals of these kind should if not put to death, at least never be free from the bars of a prison.
If you have sex, chances are you know you might become pregnant or get someone pregnant. And if you don't use a contraceptive well that just says to me that you WANT or don't care if you get pregnant. If you are even slightly educated you're aware of the consequences of sex, accept your responsibility.
It is not a sacrifice of a woman's life to give birth to a child; of their life style? Yes, of their LIFE, no, not unless they die giving birth. Anyway if you don't even wanna raise your own child, you could give it up for adoption if you're not fit to care for them.
It seems obvious to me that it is morally wrong to have an abortion because if unimpeded and god willing (so the saying goes but doesn't really have anything to do with god) the conception will lead to the birth of your child. Now of course if you interfere with this after conception you can alter the course of nature. Whether it be by smoking, drinking, doing drugs, abortion, self-imposed violence. I especially feel it is wrong even if you believe in abortion to have an abortion without the father-to-be's consent. Especially in a marriage, I think it really should be part of the pre-nuptuals to have a written agreement of needing the father's consent to abort. Pro-choice, gimme a break, you made the choice when you had sex.
A couple grey areas.
If you're a rape victim, to abort or not to abort? Some keep it some don't. It's a really tough and emotional decision especially in these situations, and it's just sad any way you look at it, but I feel this may be a situation where abortion should be allowed. I certainly wouldn't look down on you for it either way after all you didn't ask to be raped. You didn't choose to have sex.
Incest.
I think it depends on whether both are of the age of consent. If not, it's rape. If so you chose to do it, deal with it.
Medical complications.
I know if I myself were put to a choice here. If you've ever truly been in love you know how tough a choice like this would be. If the mother is concious I think it should be her choice with or without the consent of the father. That's not risking your lifestyle, that's risking your life period. If she is unconcious I think the choice goes to the father, hopefully you two have discussed such a terrible possibility prior. Or if the couple is unwed, perhaps it should go to the family. Certainly a situation where you might want documents to make things clear. Well I would have to choose my love maybe it's a selfish reason. If she were conscious and wanted to go through with it I would support her and respect her for it and cross my fingers.
Forget politics, forget what's fun and crazy or a culture of life, let's have a culture of honor and dignity. I just want to live in a country of like-minded folks where one person's freedoms don't impede upon another's (embryo's included, poor baby embryo's don't have the ability to choose their life or death until they can speak, if they don't wanna live then, go ahead and have a 15th trimester abortion). Somehow the thought just makes me sick that if I were aborted I wouldn't have experienced all that I have good and bad, and that because someone choose an abortion a future child won't either, or become whatever they become, some killers, some doctors, some nobel prize winners. Anyway, it's one thing to abort, but if you call yourself a christian and have an abortion or believe in it, for god's sake find yourself a religion that suits you.
To "secular conservative"
Eternal life wouldn't change my stance on abortion. But it would probably be wise to impose a child limitation, not world-wide 'cause like with most anything it's important to have choices, and the different choices different countries make in the way they want to live life gives us examples to work from and better everyone's lives. If I'm in country A, and country B wants to fuck like bunnies, well go for it but I hope your resources can sustain your many lives as long as you don't try to thieve my country's resources. Of course with their china-like population they'd probably just overrun my country with military superiority and take them. Hmmmm, I am assuming that you can still die if you don't eat and drink right?
Well I hope this gave someone some insight or added fuel to the fire, sorry so long winded.
--Jon
Liberal Conservative
We are breeding a culture of indignant dishonorable money grubbing power hungry narcissistic bastards because we're all born into a world where the word value pertains to money instead of character.
To the anonymous with the long post. You said:
It seems obvious to me that it is morally wrong to have an abortion because if unimpeded and god willing (so the saying goes but doesn't really have anything to do with god) the conception will lead to the birth of your child.
This is sort of an argument from nature--that it is immoral to interfere with the natural course of things. According to this logic, shouldn't we also not impede the natural course of lethal diseases? Shouldn't we allow Alzheimer's to erase the memory and personality of our loved ones, if that is the natural course of things--if that is God's plan?
Such reasoning is always applied in an inconsistent manner.
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