Monday, December 5, 2016

Abortion: Supported by logic? Supported by scripture?


One of the most contentious topics of our lifetimes is the topic of abortion.  Mud-slinging and stereotypes fly from both sides with no end in sight.  In this article I will attempt to give a reasoned, non-emotion fueled, look at this issue.  I will not hide the fact that I am pro-life and a Christian, although, I think those two traits do not necessarily have to go together.  There are some non-religious people in the pro-life camp as well as religious people in the pro-choice camp.  I will first take a philosophical look at the issue and then, since Christians are to look to God’s Word for guidance, I will look at Biblical scriptures that are used from both sides in the argument.

Philosophical analysis
My analysis begins with positing a deductive argument in opposition to abortion:
1.      It is morally wrong to intentionally kill an innocent person – i.e. murder.
2.      The womb of a pregnant woman contains an innocent person
3.      Abortion kills the occupant in the woman’s womb.
4.      According to #2 that occupant is an innocent person.
5.      Therefore, abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent person and is morally wrong.

This is a deductive argument in that if the premises are true the conclusion necessarily follows.

I think most would agree with premise 1 but if there are disagreements it would require a separate discussion on what actions, if any, are “morally wrong”.  Premise 3 and 4 are non-controversial.  The heart of the argument is premise 2.

The question of when and what constitutes personhood or humanness (in the philosophical context) will not be decided here.  It is a debate that is nowhere near an end.  Despite this we will look at some ideas that have been considered.

Some have argued for “viability” as the gauge for personhood and this has been used in some legal definitions but viability is a measure of technology and not personhood.  As technology increases the age of viability has and will continue to decrease.

Some may argue that what is in the womb at 4 weeks is much different than what is in the womb at 39 weeks and that while what is in the womb at 39 weeks may be a person what is in the womb at 4 weeks is not.  My question then is what is the defining property for personhood that they are using in making this determination and when is it obtained?  

I would propose that whatever defining property anyone comes up with that it be consistent and not ad hoc.  The evaluation method should be able to be applied equally to the unborn as well as the infant and on to the elderly – from the healthy to the handicapped. 

Some have suggested that the determination of personhood should be self-awareness and\or capability for rational thought.  On a quick glance this sounds reasonable but then what about infants and mentally handicapped, both of which would fail this definition?  This would be an example of a defining property that cannot be held consistently as I suggested in the previous paragraph.

When there lacks a clear definition, how do we proceed?  We can look to examples in our experiences.  When there is an uncertainty of whether or not innocent persons may be in danger what is the typical protocol?  Consider hostage situations.  Law enforcement could storm the location in an aggressive attack if there is no possible danger to innocent persons but if there is uncertainty then their plan may change.  The common protocol is caution in favor of the potential of innocent persons – i.e. when there is doubt they play it safe in the interest of life.  When there is uncertainty of the presence of innocent persons the decisions made and actions taken will assume the presence of innocent persons.  What reasoning can be given to not do the same regarding the unborn in the womb?  I do not see any.

Based on this reasoning I believe that premise 2 is valid and the conclusion of the deductive argument stands – abortion is morally wrong.

What about the rights of the woman?  Does she not have the rights over her own body?  The right to have control over one’s own body is one that is common in our society.  From eating to smoking to drinking to getting a tattoo, the rights over one’s own body is not infringed except for determining an appropriate age for one to participate in these actions.  Limits on these actions can be allowed when these rights might infringe on another person’s rights.  We have laws regarding second hand smoke and drunk driving to protect the innocent.  Likewise, I would submit that the woman’s right over her body may be infringed upon when there exists the possibility that it conflicts with the rights of another.  In such a situation we must determine which right is more fundamental.  In this case it may be infringing on the life of an innocent person.  Life is the most valuable property a person could ever have.  It is the most basic right anyone could have.  Without it no other rights could exist.  So, it seems to me that we have a logical reason to support the right to life in this case over the right of control over one’s own body.

Is this unfair to the woman?  What if it is a pregnancy she did not want?  What if she wasn’t even a willing participant?  What if the life in the womb is a danger to the woman’s life?

Some argue that the unborn in the womb is nothing more than a trespasser.  Personally, I think this is an argument from desperation.  The unborn in the womb didn’t choose to be there.  Why is it that in the pro-choice argument not everyone gets a choice?  Also, in my country at least, trespassing is not a capital crime and those accused of trespassing have the right to due process.  Abortion robs the right of due process.

Many on the pro-life side will often allow two exceptions: rape and if the pregnancy endangers the life of the mother.

Let’s look at rape first.  Rape is a horrific crime and the emotional damage caused by it could only be fully understood by those that have experienced it.  A pregnancy caused by a rape could potentially leave the victimized woman in emotional trauma for 9 months or more.  We cannot ignore or minimize this but as I said in my opening paragraph I am removing emotion from this discussion.  Given my deductive argument above, how would rape affect it?  It wouldn’t.  Rape is a crime with a victim.  Murder is a crime with a victim.  Rape leaves the victim with emotional and possibly physical damage.  Murder leaves the victim dead.  Abortion in the case of rape would be two crimes with unequal consequences for the victims.  If I am correct that life is the most basic right we have then it takes precedence over life that is free of emotional or physical damage.  We should work with, minister and do what we can to help the healing of those placed into a position of a pregnancy they had no choice in but still we should not rob a person of the most basic right of life.

What about an exception in cases where the life of the woman is in danger?  This could present quite a dilemma in that here we have the life of one person conflicting with the life of another person – how could a decision be made on which person should be allowed to live?  I could be a hardliner and say that given the deductive argument presented above that abortion would still be murder so the thing to do is just let nature take its course but instead, what I would passively argue is that if we strive towards saving both lives and only when there is no other option do we do otherwise we are still striving to secure life, that most basic right.  I believe that passive argument may be unnecessary though.  What I really want to ask about this scenario is if it is real or simply a red herring.  Does the situation really exist where an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother?  In abortion the delivery of the baby is still necessary – it just isn’t alive when delivered.  So, how would an abortion help?  Typically the mother can receive other treatments that will preserve both the life of the mother and the unborn1.  Another point to consider is that abortions cannot be done immediately but can take up to 36 hours to prepare the womb.2 That would seem to make the idea of an abortion as an emergency procedure to save the mother a false dilemma.

So, I find the argument against abortion to be the most logical conclusion to this moral question. I don’t find any of the arguments in favor of abortion to be logically consistent or genuine.

What about scripture?  As a Christian I should always look to the Bible for guidance.  There are scriptures used by both sides of the argument.   Let’s take a quick look at some of these scriptures.

Biblical Analysis
Scriptures used for the Pro-Choice argument
Exodus 21:22-23  This passage presents a scenario where two men are fighting and a pregnant woman is accidentally struck.  The woman is not hurt but depending on the translation the baby is either the victim of a miscarriage or born premature but alive.  The Hebrew word in question here is yasa and means to go or come out.3  Frequently, yasa is used in the Old Testament to render a live birth.  This may be irrelevant to this argument since this scripture is not referring to an intentional act of killing the unborn.  Those that use this scripture to support a pro-choice argument usually say that verse 23 shows that the unborn are not given the same rights as those outside of the womb.  This understanding would require the translation of yasa as a miscarriage or abortion but since verse 22 clearly depicts an accident it wouldn’t be a murder but simply an accident or an equivalent of involuntary manslaughter which doesn’t carry the same penalty as murder.  It is not a statement on the value or rights of a person but instead a statement on the intentions of those that caused the event.
Jeremiah 20:14-18 In this passage Jeremiah is lamenting that he was ever born.  He expresses a wish that he had been aborted, having his mother’s womb as his grave.  The error in using this as scripture for pro-choice is that it assumes that an expression desiring that one had been aborted is declaration that abortion is morally permitted but this text doesn’t go that far.  He wonders why he was born just to end his life in shame but we know that Jeremiah’s life did not end in shame.  His reason for desiring that he had been aborted was shown to be wrong.  What this scripture does do, though, is speak of the unborn as a person. 
Ecclesiastes 6:3-5  and Job 3:16-19 Like the passage from Jeremiah we have an account of a person lamenting life and questioning if it is better to never have been born.  This does not promote or support abortion but questions whether or not it can be better to never have been born than to not be able to enjoy the fruits of life or find rest and security from the wicked.

Scriptures used for the Pro-Life argument
Psalm 22:10, Luke 1:15 and Luke 1:41 These verses are used by some pro-life advocates to show the personhood of the unborn in the womb.  I do not think that is the intent the Psalmist or Luke had.  These verses seem to me to be figurative and\or hyperbolic speech.
Exodus 20:13  This is the command from the 10 commandments against murder.  I do believe abortion is murder but I do not believe this verse can be used as an argument against abortion unless the personhood of the unborn in the womb is established first to establish the act as murder.

Although I do not believe we have scripture that directly addresses abortion I do believe we can find the views of the earliest Christian church by writings outside of the Bible.  For example, The Didache, a Christian writing dated to the 1st century states “you shall not murder a child by abortion”.4

Abortion is possibly the greatest tragedy in modern history but we should not demonize the women that have found themselves in a crisis pregnancy and have chosen an abortion.  Often they were not presented with the information and options that are available.  We must provide support to these women or to agencies that have experience in ministering to the women in the crisis pregnancy and providing support to the women that are experiencing post abortion trauma.5

Bill Clute is the Greenville, SC chapter director for Reasonable Faith.  He works as an IT professional with a degree in Computer Systems from the University of North Carolina-Asheville where he was also a member of the basketball team.  He has also been a professional airshow pilot and now flies a plane which was built from scratch by he and his father.

References
1.      Dr. Anthony Levatino Addresses Congress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53tzMV9OmvY (4:20 mark addresses abortion to save the life of the mother)
2.      Ibid
5.      In my area the Piedmont Women’s Center is an agency providing this type of assistance.

Sunday, August 7, 2016

The Argument (for the existence of God) from Objective Morality - Does Qualia Soup defeat it?



The Argument from Objective Morality is one of the most popular arguments for the existence of God that is used by Christian apologists.  The youtube site “Qualia Soup”, hereafter referred to as just QS, has a 3 part video series on morality.  Part 1 is on evils committed by religious people and Part 2 is on the evils of “religious books”.  Both of these can be responded to and I may do so in future articles but my focus here will be on the argument from objective morality and only Part 3 deals with it.

The Argument from Objective Morality is explained in this video:

The argument is as follows:
1. If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

The 3 part video series by QS can be found here:

Part 3, which I will be evaluating, begins at the 27:48 mark.

QS does not dispute the logical validity of the argument – that is that the conclusion (3) necessarily follows from the premises (1 and 2) if they are true.  QS goes after both 1 and 2 to show they are not or cannot be true.

QS argument against objective values
QS, first, deals with the definition of objective moral values, as used by prominent Christian apologist Dr. William Lane Craig, hereafter referred to as WLC.  The definition that WLC uses is that to say that something has objective moral value is to say that it has good or bad value independent of whether anyone believes it to be so.  It would be to say that it is not a result of opinion, which would be subjective.

QS argues against this idea by saying that if two people perform an action with one thinking it evil and the other having no sense of evil (i.e. they are ignorant of it) we don’t accept their harmful behavior but we don’t call it evil.  That is not true.  In our society the acts are still deemed as evil acts but the punishment may be altered given a person’s ignorance of the crime, possibly for reasons called insanity.  Murder is still deemed murder but may carry a lesser degree in the sentence.1 

QS also argues that if good and evil are independent of anyone’s beliefs about it then it is unintelligible.  QS states “To say that some things have unevaluated value becomes unintelligible”.  Should we believe that statement to be true?  Are things true or false only if they can be evaluated?  I don’t think so.  Consider 2+2=4.  Would that mathematical statement be true even if nobody ever thought about it?  I think it would.  QS may object and say that evaluating math concepts and moral concepts cannot be treated the same.  Why not?  Suppose the world was coming to an end and there was just one person left.  Would the idea that it would be wrong to murder still be true?  I think so.  Despite the inability to carry out a murderous act or even think about it, it would still be a wrong act.

WLC points out in his presentation of the Argument from Objective Morals that the animal kingdom is morally neutral (amoral).  When one animal kills another it kills it but it does not murder it.  It has done no evil act.  If humans are just more advanced species than the rest of the animals, to think humans actions have good or bad value would then be a demonstration of speciesism.  QS objects, stating, “our greater capacity for moral reflection is not ‘unjustifiable bias’.  It is a relevant difference”.  This seems to miss the point though.  Our greater capacity for moral reflection is an issue of epistemology (i.e. how we come to know things) but the Argument from Objective Morality is about ontology (i.e. the existence of things).  WLC’s point is that if the animal kingdom is amoral and humans are just more advanced via evolution then why should we not think humans are amoral as well if there is no objective standard?

QS argues that values come from “what we judge morally valuable or important”.  This concept, when actually carried out, has led to some of the most oppressive and destructive societies the world has ever seen.  History is full of societies that have abused various sects of people because the ruling party did not deem others to be morally valuable or important.  A subjective base for morality is dangerous.

QS argues that “given ‘Sufficiently specified standards’ – It will be an objective issue…how well any particular specimen measures up to those standards.  The choice of standards is not objective but is not arbitrary.”  This is just moving the target.  Objectively determining if a non-objective standard is measured up to works fine when we are talking about how well an athlete performs in a given set of rules for an athletic event but when the playing field is the moral landscape of humanity it doesn’t get one out of the problems of a subjective framework – problems which would be that it is left to majority rule or most powerful rule.  QS rightly points out that majority rule or most powerful rule does not establish an objective moral framework.  In fact, within the athletic analogy we only need to look at instances where a player has not only committed a foul within the rule of the given game they are in but also stepped out of bounds of the moral standard.  Society does not view their actions as having just violated a current subjective standard but that they have done something that is wrong period!  For example, when Metta World Peace (aka Ron Artest) elbowed a player in the head in a playoff game it was viewed as something that was wrong, not just in the game but in life.2  For the Oklahoma City fans it was probably equivalent to the unpardonable sin.  I, being a long time Laker fan, was able to forgive him. :)

QS argument against objective duties
QS’s first objection to objective moral duties is the same as one of its objections to objective moral values – that if it exists independent of any persons knowledge then it is unintelligible, or in this case QS says that it “has no purchase”.  My response to that objection is the same as my response in the objective values section above.  Here QS says that as our knowledge increases our understanding of our moral duties may change.  QS establishes a measuring device here – a “protective attitude”.  But why think this “protective attitude” is a duty or something a moral duty should sprout from?  The Argument from Objective Morality posits a reason why we could use a “protective attitude” as a measuring device but absent an objective morality it is just arbitrary.  Some may argue that it is reasoned to but if it involves reasoning to a subjective standard, it is still at its roots, arbitrary.

QS refers to David Hume to state that we can’t get an “ought” from an “is”.  That is a statement that Christian apologists agree with.  QS continues, though, to illustrate Hume’s view that evil isn’t a feature of murder but a judgement arising from sentiment.3  Supposing a non-objective framework I would agree with Hume that this is what it would have to be – sentiment.  It would just be a feeling but nothing really evil about murder and that feeling could vary from person to person.  But is that how we treat murder?  No, we treat it as if it is really wrong – not just a feeling for some people.

QS states that “If I want others to not hurt me”, “to avoid hypocrisy”, “this obliges me not to hurt them”.  This is a behavior rule we can all agree with but it still does not set a right and wrong.  In fact, it is saying that it is not really wrong to hurt someone unless you want to avoid hypocrisy but that just moves the question of why, given a non-objective framework, is it wrong to hurt someone to the question of why, given a non-objective framework, is it wrong to be a hypocrite?  QS says that this is a preference and that when we dissect all moral obligations we find some element of preference.  Is this true?  If we assume a non-objective framework then, yes, it is necessarily true - but what about God as an objective foundation for morals?  Morals as part of the nature of an uncreated, necessary being would not be based on a preference.

QS notes WLC’s use of St. Anselm’s concept of God as the ‘greatest conceivable being’.  Here QS goes on to make a refute of Anselm’s Ontological Argument but WLC does not use the Ontological argument as part of the reasoning in the Argument from Objective Morality.  WLC simply uses the ‘greatest conceivable being’ concept as the definition of God and we can reason to what some of the necessary qualities would be for this ‘greatest conceivable being’. 

We can actually start with premise two of the Argument from Objective Morality – if it is true then we can responsibly ask what would be required for this objective standard to exist.  It would require that it not be an opinion; it could not be arbitrary; it would have to be unchanging; it would have to be necessary; we could even rightfully argue that it would have to be good in nature.  All of these are qualities commonly attributed to God so that if objective morals actually exist then it would follow that God must exist.

QS then makes an argument that if we had to choose a model for morals it wouldn’t be the God of “ancient scriptures” since that God “violates principles we hold to be most basic”.  What are these “most basic” principles if not an objective standard?  It seems that in trying to defeat an objective standard QS is appealing to one.  Furthermore, ancient scriptures such as The Bible are irrelevant to the Argument from Objective Morality.  While I believe The Bible to be true and The word of God and a good source to learn morals from and that it can be defended; it is not part of this argument and can be dealt with elsewhere.

I have not addressed point by point each of QS’s arguments but I believe what I have refuted covers them all, i.e. in some cases an individual refute of mine covered multiple points by QS.  I believe the Argument from Objective Morality remains a valid and strong argument for the existence of God.

At the end of the video QS states a part 4 will be coming out that will explain the “origins and components of a more well rounded morality”.  I searched for that video but could not find it on the QS youtube site.
Notes

3.       I did not take the time to review Hume’s statements that QS refers to.  It sounds correct to my recollection but if it is not, my response is to QS’s presentation of Hume’s views and not necessarily Hume’s view if they differ.

Bill Clute is the Greenville, SC chapter director for Reasonable Faith.  He works as an IT professional with a degree in Computer Systems from the University of North Carolina-Asheville where he was also a member of the basketball team.  He has also been a professional airshow pilot and now flies a plane which was built from scratch by he and his father.