One of the topics we consider in the online Science and Religion course I tutor is bioethics. Abortion, in particular, provokes much discussion. A common viewpoint is that it's ok to abort a foetus if it hasn't developed the ability to feel pain. This, to me, is a very strange argument. Does it mean that murder of an adult is ok if it's not painful? I'm sure most people wouldn't go there (unless it was euthanasia).
Abortion is a tricky topic. I revolt against it with every fibre of my being, yet I wouldn't want to see it made illegal. I think it's disgusting that a woman might decide to terminate just because she doesn't want a baby at that time, but I have nothing but compassion for women who feel that they have no other choice.
But I just don't see why unborn babies should be treated so differently to adults. If it's ok to abort a baby who is disabled because the family won't be able to deal with them, is it then ok to euthanase a disabled adult or even child, because they family can't cope with the burden of caring for them? Surely nobody would argue this!
Anyway, just a few random thoughts I've been pondering while marking journals...
2 comments:
But I just don't see why unborn babies should be treated so differently to adults.
Isn't it because they are so so different?
If you ask what makes killing murder, most people (who aren't vegetarians) will say that it's because the thing being killed is a person (and it's against their will, not in self defence etc.) Anyone who supports abortion is simply saying that a foetus is not a person. The question is a metaphysical one, so I don't know how you could prove one side right and the other wrong on an issue like this. I dare say there isn't any one right answer.
(As an aside, I have to wonder, if it's a purely metaphysical question and metaphysical questions usually provoke differences of opinion in random ways, why then are there so few Christians saying that foetuses are not people and so few atheists believing that they are?)
Surely nobody would argue this!
Not many would agree with him, but I think Peter Singer argues that infanticide is morally acceptable and involuntary euthanasia is ok for adults if their quality of life is no good.
There are certainly some people who agree with that argument -- how else does one justify letting a disabled woman starve to death in the name of "compassion"? Or read the story, linked from Craig's blog, about the couple right now struggling with their infant daughter's physical ailments. When it seemed likely that their daughter had Down Syndrome, the doctors asked if her parents really wanted them to take all the steps necessary to preserve this dear one's life.
The thing is, "human" is a subcategory of "person" -- one would have to argue that a fetus is not human, which is patently absurd, in order to make the argument stick that the fetus isn't a person. God is a person. Animals are persons. Humans are persons. The state in which a human lives -- in utero, on life support, with a disability -- doesn't change its being human.
Post a Comment