Posted on 12/02/2006 1:33:42 PM PST by Coleus
Infertility - not assimilation or inadequate education - is perhaps the biggest obstacle to Jewish continuity, suggests Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector and professor of philosophy at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. “We are in a great demographic crisis,” says the Conservative rabbi, an expert in medical ethics. “We Jews are not even reproducing ourselves, let alone growing.” Dorff understands how much education is required to take somebody born Jewish and transform that person into someone who knows a lot about Judaism and practices it. “But you can't educate someone who is not there,” he said in a phone interview with the CJN.
Infertility has hit Jews harder than other American populations because a higher percentage of Jews go to college and graduate school, Dorff says. These individuals often defer marriage and childbearing until after completing their education and establishing careers. Unfortunately for those planning to get pregnant in their late 20s and 30s, age is “by far the most important factor” in fertility for both men and women, says the rabbi. He'll address this topic Sun., Dec 10, as keynote speaker at Siegal College's conference on Bioethics and the Jewish Tradition. Participants will discuss “The Beginning of Life: Medical, Family and Ethical Issues.” The conference is sponsored by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and supported by a grant from The Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation.
The optimal age to procreate is 22, according to the American Medical Association. Infertility rates rise for those between ages 27 and 35; about 30% of couples between 27 and 35 are infertile, Dorff says. Couples age 35 to 40 also see an increase in offspring with Down syndrome and other genetic defects. From ages 40 to 42, couples have only a 9% chance of delivering a healthy child. It's essential that organized Judaism take steps to try to reverse this demographic trend, the rabbi says. Parents and community leaders should encourage teens to apply to colleges with a large Jewish population to enhance their romantic opportunities as well as their educational and religious ones.
Second, young Jewish couples should be encouraged to marry and bear children younger, perhaps while still in graduate school, and to have three or four children, not the typical two. “Encourage means money,” Dorff adds. “Those of us beyond child-bearing years have to provide money for affordable day care and tuition for day schools and Hebrew schools and Jewish camps.” As a rabbi, Dorff frequently counsels those struggling with the “sheer ache” of infertility problems. “There's a lot of tension in the marriage. Every month is a final exam, and if you're infertile, you're going to fail a lot of those exams. Jews are not used to failing, especially something as personal as this.
“Marriages break up. People question ‘Who am I as a man?' ‘Who am I as a woman?' ‘Who are we as a couple?'” While many young Jewish couples think that modern science makes it possible to stretch their child-bearing years almost to menopause, Dorff says that is just not true. Assisted reproduction techniques, however, can help many Jewish couples have a child. Some of these procedures raise ethical questions. Having children with the parents' own egg and sperm, fertilized in a petri dish and then implanted in the womb, is not a problem ethically, at least not to Dorff. Rather, it's a problem financially. In vitro fertilization (IVF) costs $10,000 (and up) a try. Insurance doesn't cover the procedure, and couples have only a one in five chance of having a child with each IVF attempt.
Using donor gametes (sperm or egg) raises other issues. Among Orthodox Jews, very few would allow the use of donor gametes, Dorff maintains. The problem is there's always a possibility, no matter how remote, of unintentional incest in the next generation. This is especially true in closed communities that tend to intermarry. Couples are more likely to know the identity of egg donors than sperm donors. But egg donations pose questions about how to raise the child, Dorff points out. For example, an infertile woman desiring a child asks her sister to donate an egg. Is the egg donor the baby's mother or aunt?
Before even contemplating having a child, Jewish couples should be tested for the dozen or so Ashkenazi Jewish genetic disorders, the rabbi insists; these include Tay Sachs, Canavan's, and BRCA I and II genes, which carry a predisposition to developing breast and ovarian cancer. “Even if the news is bad, it's good to have the knowledge,” he says. “Not testing raises the ethical question, ‘Do you have the right not to know?'” A couple carrying affected genes can take steps to avoid having a child with a genetic disorder. In the case of recessive genetic diseases such as Tay Sachs, if both parents are carriers, they have a 1 in 4 chance of having a child with the disease. One way to avoid this is to do preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to determine if the embryo has the mutant gene.
In PGD, the father's sperm and several of the mother's eggs are fertilized in a petri test. The resulting embryos are tested for disease. Only a healthy embryo would be implanted in the mother's womb; the diseased ones would be discarded. As genetic testing and PGD becomes more routine, ethicists worry about the possibility of creating so-called designer babies. Parents could choose a child based on sex, and someday in the not too distant future, they could select for some other characteristic, such as height or eye color. Ethicists like Dorff ask, “What's the difference between therapy and enhancement?'' PGD is not an ethical problem for Jews, even Orthodox Jews, Dorff insists, even though it does involve destroying embryos, albeit diseased ones. Similarly, embryonic stem-cell research, which Orthodox rabbis support, requires the destruction of a days-old embryo.
“The Talmud says that for the first 40 days a fertilized egg is in the womb, it is simply liquid,” Dorff explains. “Throughout pregnancy, a fetus does not have the status of a full-fledged human being.” The moral watershed is whether we learn about a disease before or after it's a fact, he maintains. After the child is born, Jews have to see a person created in the image of God and make sure that individual has as full a life as possible. But before the child's birth, Jews have the right and duty to test for genetic diseases and to employ methods such as PGD to make sure they bring a healthy child into the world, Dorff says. That in itself raises ethical questions, too. “What diseases do you choose against?” the rabbi asks.
Dorff acknowledges that it's really hard for him to talk about choosing to bear a healthy child in the presence of people from the disabled community. With advances in science, he notes, the moral issues have to be re-examined.
“Once you can do something, you do have to ask whether or not you should do it,” he says. “Not everything you can do, should you do.” mkarfeld@cjn.org Bioethics and the Jewish Tradition will be held Sun., Dec. 10, at 7:30 p.m. and Mon., Dec. 11, from 7:30 a.m.-noon at Siegal College. It is open to the community and offers continuing education credits. Call 216-464-5827 or register online at http://siegalcollege. edu.
Ahem, I have stated that I believe the evidence of life directing growth and development in the individual is evidence of the soul present in that living organism (at the most rudimentary level, it is evidence of the will to live, in my calculus). Perhaps you wish to poo poo the notion of spirit present with the soul?... I can see why you're 'up all night.'
--I believe--
"I believe" is not proof.
I think St. Augustine was a theologian and a bishop, not a scientist. He did not have access to anything like the level of scientific data that began to develop in the mid 19th century, and which has been amassed today.
...slaves were human, but were not considered persons under the Constitution until the 13th and 14th Amendments.
...An illegal alien is a human, and of course, is a person. But is he a person to which the Bill of Rights applies?
...And let's face it, slaves had the same unalienable rights as everyone else, they were ignored though, by refusing to accept that a slave was a person as envisaged by the Constitution....
Let me say that I agree with you that slave had inalienable rights that were simply ignored and abrogated. The operative word, though, is citizen, not person. Slaves were not considered non-persons legally; they were considered as non-citizens. Well, for census purposes they were not considered entire persons, they only counted for 3/5ths of a person.
You bring up a great point about illegal aliens, which illustrates Harry Blackmun's hair-brained misunderstanding of even basic grammar. If his idiotic interpretation of the syntax and grammar of the 14th Amendment were applied to immigrants referred to in the same clause of the same sentence they wouldn't be persons either while they crossed the Atlantic ocean, and I suppose they wouldn't be persons until they were naturalized and so could also be killed as long as the homicides were committed by licensed physicians.
- "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
The whole reason that people like Harry Blackmun want to invent an irrational dichotomy between human and person when it comes to certain other human beings is that the former want to get rid othe latter by killing them, and the only way they can try to justify it is by imagining a non-existent category of being; a sub-human. There isn't any more such thing as a potential person than there is a potential turnip. All persons are actual just as all turnips are actual.
That words have to be twisted beyond recognition to achieve certain desired ends should tell people something about the nature of what is being plotted. It's like the present attempts to redefine marriage.
Even using your 1828 dictionary, I demonstrated that certain requirements seemed to be necessary to be a person.
And all of which I demonstrated are met even by a human zygote. I showed this in two ways;
1. Potentials and capabilities are limited to the kind of thing to which they belong. A human zygote is already possessed of a rational nature otherwise he or she would and could never have the potential to exercise any such rational operation. Things can never become what they already are not in the first place.
"A thing can become only what it has the specific power to become, only what it already is, in a sense, potentially. And a thing can be understood only as that kind of thing that has that kind of a specific power; while the process can be understood only as the operation, the actualization, the functioning of the powers of its subject or bearer."
John Herman Randall (on Aristotle)
Uh, are you absolutely sure you want to insert this [fetus - n. humans after the end of the second month of gestation.] into your argument that a person is one from the moment of conception? Doesn't this definition legitimize abortions rather than proscribe them?
Only if one makes the same sort of grammatical mistake Blackmun did. That fetus is a word used to describe humans after the the end of the second month of gestation no more means that fetuses become human after the second month of gestation than that immigrants become persons upon becoming naturalized citizens.
Cordially,
Following the Civil War the 14th Amendment was adopted. This Amendment allows the creation of the legal person of the corporation. This person exists as soon as the forms are filed and the registration fee paid. This person is potentially immortal so long as fees and taxes are paid in a timely manner. Oddly, this person may own other persons of a similar nature and has stronger rights such as property rights than natural humans have. There is no soul in this person even though it exhibits many of the attributes of life.
He was both, but more than anything he studied the sciences and the Bible very critically. He believed that science trumped Biblical writings in that the writings in the Bible were considered by him to be metaphors when they conflicted with science, and should not be taken literally, something many here might think about. As a student of science, and a critical thinker, he was decades ahead of anyone else. His determination of the timing of ensoulment was based on studies of fetal development at the time.
As for the mid 19th Century, what exactly would the Pope have learned that would have caused him to reject both Aquinas and Augustine?
Let me say that I agree with you that slave had inalienable rights that were simply ignored and abrogated. The operative word, though, is citizen, not person. Slaves were not considered non-persons legally; they were considered as non-citizens.
The 5th Amendment does not refer to citizens, but rather to persons.
Well, for census purposes they were not considered entire persons, they only counted for 3/5ths of a person.
Exactly my point. But did a slave have any rights under the Constitution or even state constitutions? Even 3/5 of a right? That's why the definition of "person" simply has many meanings, and cannot be definitive for settling the abortion issues.
That words have to be twisted beyond recognition to achieve certain desired ends should tell people something about the nature of what is being plotted. It's like the present attempts to redefine marriage.
The marriage issue notwithstanding, I'm merely establishing, and with your help, that the word "person" has so many meanings as to be almost irrelevant to the abortion issue. That doesn't mean that either at some stage we cannot make a legal construct of "person" sufficient to guarantee certain rights, nor that the concept of natural rights per se can't be used. I think both of those are the central issues trumping privacy rights, but they will carry much more weight I believe when the issue of stages of development are considered.
The whole reason that people like Harry Blackmun want to invent an irrational dichotomy between human and person when it comes to certain other human beings is that the former want to get rid othe latter by killing them, and the only way they can try to justify it is by imagining a non-existent category of being; a sub-human.
Casting one side of this issue...or the other as evil, one wanting simply to kill as many fetuses as they can and the other wanting to deny a woman control of her body are nothing but smokescreens for both sides. I seriously doubt that anyone involved in this issue simply wants to kill, nor do I believe that most on the pro-life side want to control a woman's body. But until we get past those silly extreme views of the opposition, we get nowhere.
I note your whole argument centered on the capability issue. But while a potential for rational thought exists, it is not present at the early stages. Nor are any of the tools to translate that into all of the characteristics we recognize as a human being, a central nervous system, a brain, a heart, form, ability to feel pain or any other sensory perceptions. Later, yes. Your whole argument is based on the fact that it could develop into a human as we know it. This is where we part company. Once I purchased a new home with only a foundation. I was disappointed because that home was not what I had envisioned. Never again. A concrete slab is not a home.
2. I demonstrated from your own existence that it is ontologically necessary that all humans are persons.
But you failed to convince me that they are de facto persons in the eyes of the law and the Constitution. That is the issue, and not medical or etymological usages through the ages.
Well, we may meet again. Take care.
Yes, the issue of the corporation as a person as well as slave who were not persons, and only later 3/5 of a person, make the term person difficult to work with from the standpoint of the abortion issue.
I take it you have no beliefs, no science to believe in, no ... oh, never mind, your ilk are hardly worth discussing anything concerning life with. You just naysay and play an intellectual on TV perhaps. I cannot possibly approach your peak on that high mountain of yours. Be happy, don't worry ...
You just proved my point.
Exactly my point. But did a slave have any rights under the Constitution or even state constitutions? Even 3/5 of a right? That's why the definition of "person" simply has many meanings, and cannot be definitive for settling the abortion issues.
Would it be correct to say that since a slave's rights were not recognized by Constitutions, and that because "the definition of 'person' has many meanings", and "cannot be definitive for settling the abortion issue", that you are also thereby unable to make a moral distinction between slavery and non-slavery?
I note your whole argument centered on the capability issue. But while a potential for rational thought exists, it is not present at the early stages. Nor are any of the tools to translate that into all of the characteristics we recognize as a human being, a central nervous system, a brain, a heart, form, ability to feel pain or any other sensory perceptions. Later, yes. Your whole argument is based on the fact that it could develop into a human as we know it.
No. No. No. My whole argument all along has been that there is no such thing ontologically as something "developing into a human". The idea is not connected to reality. It is a categorical error on the level of asserting that the color blue has taste.
The whole premise of your argument against fetal personhood is the notion that non-persons can change into persons. You are saying that a living being can undergo a essential change in its nature during its lifetime.
Such a proposition is completely illogical because if the alleged change was biologically inevitable from conception (as we know it is) then it is incontrovertible that this alleged change is not a change in essential nature because if the being naturally initiated the change then it must have already been in its nature from the beginning to do so.
Once again, there is no such thing as a potential being. There is no such thing as a potential person. All beings are actual as all persons are actual.
I leave you with a quote from
A reply to Peter Singer
It is true that an embryo or fetus (or infant) lacks the immediately exercisable capacity for self-awareness, rationality, or free choice. Yet, the embryo or fetus does have the basic, natural capacity for such actions as consequent to its nature, that is, as entailed by the kind of entity it is. The embryo or fetus, precisely in virtue of the kind of entity he or she is, has the capacity to develop himself or herself to the point where he will perform such actions. And no one has been able to give an intelligible reason why we should base full moral rights on immediately exercisable capacities — which can come and go — rather than on the basic, natural capacities that a human being at any stage of development has in virtue of the kind of entity it is. (Of course, the full development of these capacities can be impeded from an early stage, as in the case of persons afflicted by certain severe congenital forms of retardation or impeded later in life by senility or other forms of dementia, none of which transforms human beings into subhuman creatures."
[emphasis mine]
Cordially,
No, I have no problem distinguishing the two. I was responding to your posts which referred to a person by using the dictionary. I simply said that, dictionaries notwithstanding, the Constitution does not necessarily consider a fetus a person, at least not for purposes of the 5th Amendment. And clearly it doesn't with respect to the 14th, which refers to citizens as either born here or naturalized here as the only ones to whom the 14th Amendment applies. My determination considers that the concept of person...or citizen must be expanded legally in order to get some relief under the rights amendments, that's all.
No. No. No. My whole argument all along has been that there is no such thing ontologically as something "developing into a human". The idea is not connected to reality. It is a categorical error on the level of asserting that the color blue has taste.
That of course depends on whether the courts, in deciding to expand the accepted use of either person or citizen looks to development stages to make such a determination. Simply telling the high court that no abortion should be allowed at all, ever, because a human being is growing, does not give them anything more than the original arguments.
The whole premise of your argument against fetal personhood is the notion that non-persons can change into persons. You are saying that a living being can undergo a essential change in its nature during its lifetime.
What I'm saying is there is a distinction between a fully formed fetus, with a developed brain, central nervous system, sensory abilities and bodily formation that does not exist at the moment of conception, and that it is not out of the realm of reason to consider those issues.
Well, I simply wanted to ensure you didn't mistake my position, and I pretty much believe I understand yours.
Take care.
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