Posted on 01/22/2008 6:58:59 PM PST by Dumb_Ox
I would be interested what side the turnout supported.
Boonin’s arguments are juvenile. I hope the other guy took the time to destroy them.
I am stupefied. Am I to understand that the University of Colorado actually allowed students to be exposed to pro-life arguments from a university professor?
“the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”... am I missing something? Well, of course you know the Dims support abortion, ‘for the children’.
Should have left half the seats empty for the students who were aborted.
That's the rebuttal????
So how is inflicting pain and death on an innocent, helpless human being for profit, moral?
Kreeft and Boonin have debated at Yale. See ISI's video of the debate.
Academia favors the highly motivated, and it just so happens that Boulder's Catholic student organization is enjoying a Catholic renewal. If more pro-life students were active and engaging the community, these debates would be much more frequent.
The problem, of course, is that a Mother and her child are not strangers to one another. It would be unjust to insist that you keep a stranger alive at great inconvenience to yourself. It is not unjust to insist that you keep your own offspring alive. In fact, law, custom and morality all insist that we do keep our offspring alive.
You don’t have to take in the homeless man on the corner merely because the night is bitter cold. But if you lock your child out on the same night, you’re going to jail.
The Professor’s argument is nothing more than a non sequitur in fancy dress.
remembering the college protests during the gulf war, i was sickened to think of protestors disrespecting our men (and women) in uniform.
turns out that it was an anti-abortion rally surrounded by dozens of students talking, accepting literature, and actually reading it as they left.
and, it was a peaceful rally (1 or 2 kooks)
it gives one hope.
Dr. Kreeft is a favorite of mine... good writer, excellent thinker.
jw
I am just delighted that there was a debate, a free exchange of ideas and that the pro-life position was heard and that neither side was shouted down.
His argument is more subtle, and far more idiotic, than that. In essence, it's nothing more than a bait-and-switch.
He equates pregnancy with being knocked on the head and being forced to keep somebody alive for nine months -- as if the pregnant person had no say in her condition. But in the vast, vast majority of cases, pregnancy comes as a result of knowingly and willingly participating in the act of impregnation. It's a completely different scenario than the "thought experiment" he puts forth.
At most, this works as an argument for the "rape" exception, but it goes no further than that.
“The problem, of course, is that a Mother and her child are not strangers to one another. It would be unjust to insist that you keep a stranger alive at great inconvenience to yourself. It is not unjust to insist that you keep your own offspring alive. In fact, law, custom and morality all insist that we do keep our offspring alive.”
I would also submit that in the case of having to keep a stranger alive for nine months against one’s will, in the case of a pregnant woman, at the end of that nine months, there is no requirement that the woman keep the child against her will. She has the option of putting the child up for adoption. Thus, with the exception of the “inconvenience” of having to carry the child to term for approximately 9 months, the inconvenience ends when the baby is born and put up for adoption if the mother does not want that child. She can then go on her merry way.
I am in constant wonderment at the selfishness of women whom allow themselves to get pregnant and then can’t even bear the inconvenience of waiting only 9 months in order to get rid of their unwanted child. That the woman would rather kill it than carry it to term and give the child away, alive, to have its chance at life.
The pro-abortion people have consistently denigated adoption as a kind of abandonment of one’s own child, something which resonates emotionally with many people. Then there is also the sense of futility of a nine-months preganancy with no child at the end of it all. Abortion is then offered as the lesser evil, but the second best thing is supposed to be keeping the child, although it imposes a heavy financial burden on the mother. There is, of course, an unstated purpose of the planned parenthood types, which is to prevent the bringing into the world unnecessary children, to place a general burden on society. This has morphed into a sense of duty to “the earth” not to overpopulate it.
Truth is a remarkably transforming agent. Good article and I'm glad this event happened.
Actually another rebuttal is even stronger than yours.
The infant’s situation is *created* by the mother!
The infant did not put himself in the situation that would require sustenance from the mother. The mother did.
The analogy would be if you, hit somebody on the head that put him in a coma, and it just so happens that your blood is also the only one is the world that matches his so you are the only one who can keep him alive. Do you have a moral obligation to hook your body to his to keep him alive for the 9 month it takes for him to come out of the coma.
Even common law recognizes this. This is normally no duty to rescue someone else, except if it’s your action that put the person in danger, in which case there is a duty to rescue.
Just think, we shudder at the thought that infants were tossed in to fire as sacrifice for Baal in ancient times, thinking we are so much more civilized above such ancient barbarism.
But instead all we do is sacrifice even more babies than they did at the altar of casual sex. The same evils that haunted humanity then still haunts us today. We’d like to think we’ve come a long way, instead all we have done is gotten better at closing our eyes and hiding from the evils we commit.
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