Arwen/Elizabeth

Socrates I am not, but here we go...

Dear All, I have now closed the comments section of this post.  As I said, I knew that we were not going to solve our disagreements today, so that is fine.  I do hope that all the writings gave you something to think about.  Thank you again for being so charitable toward one another.  I will now go back to completely self-centered blogging :)

-Arwen/Elizabeth

I tried to write a happy post today, all about my adorable little brother turning twelve. That’s gotten put on the back burner, because my mind has been consumed by another topic. It was fueled by a discussion over at Cecily’s blog, where I tried to explain that the anti-abortion position is not a religious belief.

I used up more space over there than I wanted to, and I was definitely in the minority, so I stopped trying to keep up that argument. But it’s been bubbling in my head all day, and since this blog is my own space, I thought I’d give it a try over here.

People talk a lot about whether or not abortion is wrong. Is that the real issue, though? Lying is wrong, but that doesn’t mean it should be outlawed. In regard to abortion laws, which is what the debate is really about, the question is not whether abortion is wrong, but whether it should be outlawed.

It seems to me that what we all agree on, what the Constitution agrees on, is that we have a fundamental freedom to do as we wish, even if someone else believes it’s morally wrong. And the only time that right to do as we wish can be restricted is when what we want to do infringes on someone else’s rights. Also, I think everyone would agree that there is a hierarchy of rights. For example, if I think I would be happier if I had that nice car of yours, I don’t have a right to take it. Your right to your property is more important than my right to happiness. If I’d be more at peace if you were dead, I don’t have a right to take my gun and shoot you. Your right to life is more important than my right to happiness. And so on.

It’s definitely true that every person has a legal right to control what happens to his or her own body. If you want to get a tattoo, feel free. But you can’t force someone else to get a tattoo – then your right to make yourself happy with tattoos is pre-empted by his right over his body.

The real question with abortion, then, is whether more than one person is involved. If it was conclusively clear that only one person was involved, then no one would care. Sure, go ahead, clean out your uterus. That’s your prerogative. But what if there is another person involved? In choosing that person’s death, a woman is letting her right to do as she wishes take precedence over another person’s right to life. And that doesn’t make sense. If it did, you should be legally allowed to murder someone else if his presence in your life was threatening to disrupt it too much. That is clearly counterintuitive.

Many pro-choice people I meet like to imply that the personhood of a fetus is an article of faith. As in, “If you believe it’s a person, then don’t have an abortion, but don’t try to stop me from having one if I believe it’s not a person.” Well. As I tried to say over at Cecily’s, we cannot assume that personhood, at any point, is a matter of religious faith. Cecily commented (I didn’t check if this is right or not) that Judaism teaches that the soul enters the body at birth. I’m not sure what point she was trying to make, but it got me thinking. If that teaching means it’s okay for Jewish people to have abortions, then what if I start a religion and teach that the soul enters the body at age two? Will it then be okay for my followers to kill their toddlers?

The answer is, clearly, of course not. That’s ridiculous. Cecily’s comment actually pointed toward the truth – that when personhood begins is something that your own religious faith does not define. It is outside of personal belief.

You only have two options here: either you believe that truth exists, or you believe that it doesn’t. If you don’t believe truth exists, than you cannot believe that anything should be outlawed on principle, because principles by definition have to do with truths. For example, if you don’t believe that truth exists, then you can’t believe that rape should be outlawed, because rape is one person infringing on the rights of another. Perhaps you think that rape is infringement, but I might think completely differently, and if there is no truth outside of our opinions, then how do we decide which one of us is right? Without truth, there is no right.

So if you are convinced (intellectually, not as a matter of blind faith) that truth exists, then you are forced to face the question: when does a person become a person? Clearly we cannot let each person decide this for himself, because he could decide that his neighbor doesn’t become a person until, say, age 29, and then he could infringe on her all over the place, take her stuff and beat her up, and then just say that he wasn’t infringing on her rights because he didn’t believe she was a person, and therefore she had no rights.

But we would see the truth, and we would say, clearly she is a person and she has rights, so leave her alone. And give her back her bicycle. Et cetera.

So, for legislative purposes, we can’t let each person decide this for himself. There has to be a guideline: before this point, it’s not a person and doesn’t deserve legal protection; after this point, it is and it does. The US Supreme Court has said that this point is at birth. But what if the Supreme Court is incorrect? (We’ve decided that there is such a thing as truth, remember? So we can have incorrect.)

What is the difference between a fetus and an infant? Some people say viability, that a baby can live on its own, while a fetus is dependent on the mother for life. Well, okay, but many babies are born prematurely and still live. Does that mean that a baby born at 36 weeks does not achieve personhood until four weeks later? Or does a fetus who reaches a certain gestative age deserve protection because he could live outside his mother’s body if he was born immediately? Also, many premature babies live now who wouldn’t have lived a century ago. Does this mean that the age at which a person becomes a person has changed? That it used to be, say, 37 weeks and now it is 28? That does not seem like it could be true.

So what else? I have heard of few real differences between a fetus and an infant, and no metaphysical ones. Sure, a fetus and an infant differ in age and development, but so do a toddler and an adult. No one is arguing, surely, that a toddler does not deserve the same protection that an adult does, simply because he is smaller and dependent on someone else for survival.

Science shows us that new life begins at fertilization. Now, we don’t believe that all life is worthy of the same protection (most of us have no qualms about stepping on an ant) so the real question here is: is that new life a separate person with his own rights? Or not?

If it is a new person, then clearly abortion should be outlawed, because it’s the same thing as murder. If it’s not a new person, then the question is moot. Pro-choicers, if you’re brave enough, listen up! This is the question that I have never gotten a satisfactory answer to, and, as I have tried to show here, it is the fundamental question in the abortion debate: When does personhood begin?

I’d love to see a debate in the comments section of this post. Bear in mind, saying, “I disagree with you,” is not debating. I want an answer to my question. Straight up. Pick a point at which personhood starts, and defend it. And if you don’t step up, I’ll assume you’ve been convinced by me. (Grin.)

I’ll delete all comments that are uncivil, and also all comments that are not arguments. Go to it!

I wish voting wasn't so easy

I grew up without a television. My parents were too poor to buy one when they first got married, and by the time they could afford one, they’d realized they liked living without it. This meant that, while most of my classmates viewed reading as a chore, I loved it. Books were entertainment to me, like television was to them. This was fine with me: I loved books, and wasn’t interested in trading them for some stupid television. In this respect, I had no desire to be like my classmates.

As much as I loved my TV-free life, though, I didn’t necessarily want it to be common knowledge. Kids, especially in elementary and middle school, only know what they’ve grown up with. To them, my not having a television was simply unthinkable. Add to that the fact that I’m the oldest of six kids, and you can see that, to a bunch of pre-adolescents, I was basically a freak. With horns. And glasses. (Did I mention the glasses?) I learned quickly to keep the details of my family life secret, rather than be subjected to endless questions and criticism. Of course, they always found out eventually, and by the time I reached adolescence I had found friends in people who weren’t so narrow-minded about my ‘weirdness.’ But the stigma, the feeling of being different, always stuck with me. 

When I started reading blogs regularly, the feeling came back. I loved reading about other people, but I didn’t want them to know about me because I’m conservative, both religiously and politically. I thought that if I started a blog and was honest about myself on it, people would label me as narrow-minded and flame me. I wasn’t sure I was willing to put myself out there like that. But I finally decided to, and I’m so glad I did! Blogging has been so far a wonderful experience for me, with no hating involved. Yesterday, after admitting that I voted for Bush, I was a little worried, but the Kerry-voters who commented were kind and not judgmental at all. 

So now that I’ve discovered that there is love across the party lines, I want to explain to y’all about why I voted for Bush. I don’t really know that much about the average Bush-voter nationwide, but I hope I don’t fit your stereotype, whatever it is. I’m not a member of the Religious Right, although I am religious and also right-leaning, and in fact, I think those crazy fundamentalists are putting their own souls in jeopardy when they scream that others are going to hell. I don’t drive an SUV (although I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing so) and I’m not racist or militantly pro-war and I give money to the poor. I’m not a right-wing nut job. I vote the way I do not because anyone tells me to, but because I believe in my heart that I am doing the best thing for my country.

I’m a one-issue voter. Have been since 2000, when I turned eighteen. It’s actually my dream that one day I’ll be able to consider other issues, but I’m not counting on it in my lifetime. My issue is abortion. I’m aware that a lot of you out there in blogworld, a lot of smart, funny, kind women, are pro-choice, sometimes vehemently so. I’m met many who think that pro-lifers are bigoted, hateful, narrow-minded people who just don’t care about women. Many others think that we are well-meaning, but simply not kind, compassionate, or sensitive enough to understand the complex problems of real women’s lives. In my experience, even those who are on the fence on this issue tend to view the pro-choicers as pro-woman and the pro-lifers as pro-baby.

Well, I am here to tell you: pro-lifers are pro-woman, too. When I vote for pro-life candidates, and when I’m signing things like the petition in favor of this, I’m not thinking, “Well, suck it up, women – the babies are more important than you.” No. No. A thousand times no. I am pro-life because I believe abortions are bad for babies, but I am also pro-life because I believe abortions are bad for women. Abortion has been shown to have harmful psychological and emotional effects, not to mention physical ones. I believe it is objectively far worse for women than carrying a child to term and raising him or giving him up for adoption could ever be.

You see, killing an innocent person is always a bad thing. The person doing the killing is not always morally culpable – if a woman truly believes that her pregnancy is not a person, and her conscience tells her that it is okay to terminate it, then I will not blame her for the death of that child. But I will still believe that her choice does not help her. If you love someone when you choose the good for that person, then I do not love my fellow women if I encourage them to make a choice that is objectively not a good. We become better people when we follow the moral law, when we make unselfish choices, when we choose the good for its own sake. Affirming the value of the life of an unborn child by choosing to carry it to term, even if it is inconvenient for you, is always a good choice. (If it is actually dangerous for you, that is another matter – a woman is morally allowed to save her own life.)

I believe wholeheartedly everything that I said in the previous paragraph, and this is how I am pro-woman and pro-life at the same time. I realize that not everyone believes as I do. But before you get all up in arms because I’m trying to impose my morality on the rest of the world, let me ask you: for those of you who think that anti-abortion laws are ‘legislating morality’ – what do you think that anti-murder, anti-rape, and anti-theft laws are? Someone has to decide those things are objectively wrong, and that it’s the government’s job to fight against them. And just because nearly everyone agrees on this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have to do with morality. If someone said, “How dare you people make laws forbidding me to kill others just because you happen to think it’s wrong,” you’d discount his position entirely. And yet if unborn people (blastomeres, embryos, fetuses, whatever you want to call them) are in fact people, then that is what pro-choicers say all the time. (Whether the unborn are people or not is a much longer argument, and one for another day.)

Can you see how, if I believe that the unborn are real humans being killed, instead of just clumps of cells being terminated, my conscience obliges me to work to protect them? If people were going into offices, homes, and schools, and killing 4000 innocent people a day, and this was perfectly legal, it would be an outrage. If one of the presidential candidates was against this, and one was actually for it, the vote would be a no-brainer. All other issues would pale in comparison to the horror of thousands of people dying. This death is what I believe is happening in America as we speak. This is why I had no choice but to vote for the candidate who is in favor of protecting those lives. For the sake of thousands of children who might never get to see the light of day, I had to do it. I pray fervently for the day when we will realize that the unborn are people, just as we have realized that those of a different skin color are people. Then maybe my decision about who to vote for will not be so easy to make.

I voted for Bush - let the blogworld equivalent of stoning begin!

Last presidential election, I was not familiar with the blogging world. This election, I am, and I woke up this morning very interested to see what different bloggers would have to say about the results. Especially since, um, I was pretty sure this would happen. Bush winning, I mean. And I'm not all that surprised by the Republicans gaining the majority in the Senate. I'm working on a post that sort of explains why I voted the way I did... but I'm also still working on this stupid Basil/Augustine paper, so I might not post it until tomorrow, or later.

Leaving on a jet plane, but still hoping to influence your vote

Tonight my husband and I travel down to warm, bright, not-currently-being-ravaged-by-a-hurricane Florida, to spend four days with my darling sister and her boyfriend. There will be sun. There will be good food. There will hopefully be margaritas. And there will definitely be dorky jokes.

You see, my husband Michael and Rosie’s boyfriend Anthony egg each other on. Each encourages the other to get down with his dork self.

For example, they love dorky compliments. When it comes to compliments that make me roll my eyes, no one can beat Michael. Right after he met Anthony, we had them over for dinner and Michael said grace. He did the thanking-for-the-food stuff, then ended with, “and thank you that we have such wonderful women to share our lives with.” Rosie and I immediately started snickering at the cheesiness of this, but Anthony thought it was very smooth. This just encouraged Michael, and since then the two of them have been absolutely incorrigible. If Rosie marries him we will spend the rest of our lives rolling our eyes.

Anyway, my point is, I’m gone for four days. Might get a chance to post, but might not. When I’m back, it will be election day.

If you’re Catholic and thinking about voting for Kerry, I would strongly suggest you check out this. Meanwhile, I’ll be hoping that those of you who are either not Catholic or who are voting for Kerry anyway will not rain hellfire on me in the comments section of this post.

Who's running for president again? John Kerry or Jim Carrey?

It's midterm week at school. During normal term-time I don't do my reading, so when tests come around, I have to cram. It's worth it, because I save a lot of time by taking good notes and not doing the reading, but it makes this week kind of tough. Thank God that Michael does the dishes, otherwise they'd be piled up and probably starting to smell by now.

I got the biggest test over with this morning. Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas on the Trinity. Plus, oh, Alexander and Arius (we don't like Arius, but all the other guys are great). It seems that in order to make a contribution to Trinitarian theology you must have a name that starts with A. Maybe I'll change mine to Amanda. Or Arthur. Arthur sounds like an appropriately solemn name for a theologian. Not that I have an aspiration to be a theologian, but theology is my major.

My teacher for Trinity is probably in his early thirties. I know he must be, because he has his doctorate, and four kids, but he looks about twelve. Maybe fourteen. It makes it hard to take him seriously. Plus, he does this thing with his hands, kind of wiggles them around... Oh, and last week he referred to John Kerry as Jim. We thought he was talking about Jim Carrey. He said, "I don't think Jim Carrey is qualified to be president" and we just stared at him. The word "duh" was palpably present in the room. We cleared up the misunderstanding, but I still laugh when I think about it. The guy is a genius, and obviously mentally qualified to vote, but... should he really be allowed to? I mean, if he gets John Kerry and Jim Carrey mixed up? On the other hand, maybe he just doesn't know who Jim Carrey is. That's a distinct possibility.

On yet another hand, there's this: in the fall of 2000, just weeks before the election, a poll of University of Michigan students found that only one-third of undergraduates could name both vice-presidential candidates. So I guess my professor should be allowed to vote if U of M students are.

Until my tests are over, pax.

This is what I've been trying to say!

Once upon a time, I may have attended this school. Even if I didn't, I definitely spent a lot of time arguing against its affirmative action policy. (By the way, a local poll taken before the Supreme Court ruling showed that two-thirds of Michigan residents opposed using race as a factor in admissions, and these results were mirrored on the national level. Apparently, Americans do recognize racism when they see it.)

In a recent column, Jonah Goldberg encapsulated what I've been trying to say for years. "Aren't conservatives against diversity? Of course not. We're against the silly ideology that says you've achieved diversity when you have a room full of people who all look different but think alike."