Unspeakable Conversations (Should I have been killed at birth? The case for my life.)

The New York Times Magazine ^ | 02/16/03 | HARRIET McBRYDE JOHNSON

[ml/nj]

No, that's not at all fair. He wants to legalize the killing of certain babies who might come to be like me if allowed to live.

Doesn't this line of argument apply to everyone who favaors abortion?

ML/NJ

[ValenB4]

''But,'' I say, ''his talk won't matter in the end. He won't succeed in reinventing morality. He stirs the pot, brings things out into the open. But ultimately we'll make a world that's fit to live in, a society that has room for all its flawed creatures. History will remember Singer as a curious example of the bizarre things that can happen when paradigms collide.''

I agree that in the long run, morality remains pretty constant. But it can be temporarily warped through all sorts of sick rationalizations and redefinitions of humanity.

A human is a human from the moment of conception to the point of natural death. Whatever a person's physical or mental state, whether developing or degrading, is irrelevant. I don't understand how anyone can be so cruel. When in doubt, it is better to err on the side of life.

[ChemistCat]

It took me quite some time to thoroughly read and digest this article, and I HOPE that anyone commenting will have put in the same effort.

She's an atheist and I gather that abortion doesn't offend her. She doesn't address capital punishment but I would hazard a guess from her world-view that she opposes executing criminals.

She tries to steer completely away from any moral absolutism, while insisting that all-non-fetal human life be given an unabridged right to live. That is an absolute principle, albeit one not originating in any scripture (or so she wants to think.) It's the idea that "her" people, the disabled, might be classed with the deformed-fetus-community as being disposable, that bothers her. She wishes to deny the peculiar value of a human spirit even as she denies that the capacity for cognition is not the value of a human being. If any lump of flesh with the right DNA is human, then my removed tonsils had a right to live, as well as every fetus, even those without brains, hearts, functioning digestive tracts. As soon as you add God and that wonderful gift of discernment He gave us back into the issue, voila, such problems solve themselves. The issue of who has a right to live becomes amenable to a solution.

The long and short of it is that Singer's and her philosophies are not so very different from one another, and are both faulty because they do not derive their first principles from any authority. Their discourse is empty of real substance, because they have consciously negated the origin of ethics. It's "All P is X. All X is Y. Therefore all P is Y." "No, P is never Y. Therefore not all P is X." They have removed the "thou shalt not" from ethics. Having done so, the exercise becomes a manipulation of empty symbols, saturated with survival instincts and pride.

It doesn't go anywhere meaningful, because science and reason without faith can only chase their tails.

[ChemistCat]

Error correction time: She wishes to deny the peculiar value of a human spirit even as she denies that the capacity for cognition is (OMIT NOT) the value of a human being

[jokar]

Bump to find later.

[sport]

Since he wants to kill certain individuals, singer should lead by example.

To wit: He should be first in line to be killed.

[sport]

I would say yes.

Again, those who favor abortion [read killing others] should lead by example.

[pepperdog]

You are so very right!

[Burr5]

"She's an Atheist."

I'd be an atheist too, if I'd been "dealt" the cards in life she has. In fact, I AM.

Why do people who don't believe in things (which other decent people believe, blah, blah, blah,) for which there is no scientific evidence, and for which there is ample cause for doubt continue to be belittled?

I am so glad this woman is crusading for (obvious) human rights, but stop mingling the relevant with the irrelevant.

[AppyPappy]

Singer would argue that dogs shouldn't be euthanized but humans should. That speaks volumes about him.

[jwalsh07]

I read it also and you have done what was on my mind more justice than I could have.

An excellent synopsis. I find Singer despicable and the author centerless.

[BibChr]

Nobody's ever answered you?

People look down on atheists because most know they're in denial.

It is remarkable in this woman in that meaningful discussion of values, meaning, and ethics on the one hand, and atheism on the other, are mutually exclusive.

There. Now someone's told you.

Dan
Why I Am (Still) a Christian

[It's me]

It doesn't go anywhere meaningful, because science and reason without faith can only chase their tails.

Great line, I love it.

[MHGinTN]

The one thought that continually visits my mind when reading of or by Singer is "He is so deeply selfish; selfishness is the source of his crusading, his closet-messiahship. Attorney Johnson likely argued her side well, but if she has failed to see the deeply selfish core from which Singer 'philosophizes', she fails to reach the foundational weakness in his inhumane belief system. And, alas, deepest selfishness is the source of atheism, the motivation to deny a Creator, the substance of original sin.

[cyborg]

I applaud her efforts to make sense of her life. However, after reading this essay I was left with a very bad taste in my mouth. First of all, I'm insulted at her handy usage and assumption that multiracial children and babies are "invisible members" of society. Speaking as an American born Spanish mulatta, I've never felt "invisible" or "marginalized" by anyone in America. Why do the liberals like to inject race, then turn around call conservatives racist? Also, her example is not valid because of the other forces driving the politics/financial complications of adoption. Bad example. Another thing that tipped me off was the lesbian camp out thing. Christopher Reeve may be a Unitarian, but he has a believe in God.

She and Peter Singer are cut from the same cloth. Actually I think Singer is a better man because he states his beliefs up front and doesn't use phony distractions to prove his point. She is an atheist and I assume believes in evolution. Evolution WOULD have her chopped to bits in an abotion vacuum or partial-birth abortion-ized. Apart from God and the Bible, she can't really explain why she should be allowed to live other than to spout humanist-earth religious platitudes and goobley gook.

[Burr5]

You haven't "told" me anything.

Ethics, meaning, and values certainly exist in abundance among believers.

I am only asking: why must those who do not believe in (what most Christian denominations acknowledge to be) the unprovable, continue to endure the insults of people like you, who make sweeping, unfounded generalizations about our "ethics"?

[potlatch]

A very long and interesting read. Only an atheist could think as Singer does. While sympathising with Harriet's dissability, I note her expectations that 'caretakers' should be provided [the government] to them.

[ChemistCat]

Thanks. The race argument she makes IS absurd. I don't believe there is any such thing as an unadoptable baby (assuming that it can be cared for by parents of normal resources--some babies, obviously, can't.) I think there is only too much red tape in the adoption process...and racism, lots and lots of racism built into it. How can it be better for mixed-parentage children to go to foster homes instead of adoptive homes, in the interest of trying to match melanin levels???

Colin Powell is pretty darn light skinned. Condaleeza Rice has light features. I'd say that any barriers that once existed have fallen most places (not all.) You can be whatever you want to be, whatever your heritage, in this country. If you're disabled, there are laws in place that make it possible to be a lawyer, to afford to be cared for so that you stay alive, comfortable, and functioning. These things are only possible if our society stays extremely wealthy. She won't live long if that changes.

If she really thought things through, she'd become a conservative, because the compassion that lets her survive and thrive comes from wealth.

[ChemistCat]

Arguing about my testimony with you would be completely futile. I was once an atheist, as you are. I was once resentful when people "babbled Jesus" at me and I had to be polite about it. Thank you for being polite.

You're wrong, but only if you take the risk and try prayer on your own, privately, can you adequately test the hypotheses upon which you depend. I was amazed once at the warmth and love that flooded my entire mind when I took that risk and prayed for the first time. He was there the whole time, whether I believed or not.

That knowledge is not something I can give anybody. If you don't pray sincerely to find out, you stay out in the cold, convinced that the universe is void of purpose.