Reasonable People Cannot Always Agree To Disagree

Don’t you just love it when someone with whom you're arguing says, “Well, we will just have to agree to disagree”, as a spin of the phrase ‘Reasonable people can agree to disagree’, or as the shortened version, ‘Reasonable people can disagree’? Can reasonable people disagree over cannibalism in order to permit cannibalism, without doing violence to civilization?

As a pro-life advocate who gets into lots of discussions, I hear this ‘agree to disagree’ more and more. It tells me my points are getting to the irrational heart of defense for the abortion slaughter. When an advocate for abortion of alive little ones trapped in a womb tries to discuss the topic from a reasoned position, irrational underpinnings are eventually exposed and the ‘reasoning’ stops, in favor of either ending the discussion or deflecting the ‘reasoning’ into areas better defined as emotional landmines.

A whole new field of argument is arising in defense of exploiting individual human lives. There is a common foundation for these arguments, a theme running through the lines of reasoning from the ‘pro-choice’ camp, but the origins of that commonality are not to be found in choice to abort; it has a more subtle beginning than that.

Prior to ‘choice to abort’, dehumanization of individual life had already laid a foundation for exploiting and choosing, a basis for viewing individual human life as a phenomenon that grows in value, as opposed to being endowed with unalienable right to be. And it came into our collective psyche as a supposed benefit to humankind, a means to have science aid in conceiving babies with ‘artificial insemination’. Subtracting from our humanity, artificial insemination moved to more detached dehumanization, with in vitro fertilization, the scientific ‘miracle’ of conceiving ‘something’ outside of the woman’s body, then that thing being implanted into a woman’s body, to have a ‘growing (increasing) right to live’. [Devout Catholics would say contraception was the beginning of dehumanization, but that’s an historical discussion and not the focus of this essay. The Roe abortion decision came in 1973, but ‘artificial insemination’ had been a reality for years prior to Roe. The first in vitro fertilization baby in the world was born in July of 1978 in England, after many years of research. Today, many thousands of children are born annually as a result of the IVF technique.]

I cannot recall what I thought when first I learned that something could be conceived in a petri dish that would later be implanted in a woman’s body, to even later be born as a human baby. I have a vague recollection from my youth that some people warned against artificial insemination, warned that such manipulation of human conception would lead to a dehumanization process, a ‘slippery slope’. I don’t quite remember what was warned of down that slippery slope, but I don’t have to remember, because we are living in the age of arrival!

Now, at this descended-to plateau, engulfed in a degree of darkness not anticipated so long ago, we are again facing a slippery slope. How will we come to recognize it as a hazardous slope? … This time the hazard has a name. Will America reject cannibalism, despite the campaign to focus only upon the utilitarian value of cannibalism, diverting attention from the truth that we face cannibalism? If prepared properly, we will accept cannibalism, just as we accepted in vitro fertilization. [Note: I purposely repeat the word rather than allude to the reality. Cannibalism should have a revulsion value. Modern examples of cannibalism, such as the incident with plane crash victims who survived by eating the flesh of already dead crash victims, tend to blur our historic revulsion to cannibalism. Let’s focus upon the Jeffrey Dhamer version of cannibalism, the kill and consume version, as opposed to the ‘harvest from accidentally dead’ version of cannibalism.]

What could make cannibalism more palatable, more consumable? … Allow me to illustrate by sharing a recent discussion I had with a close cousin, a father of four.

My cousin asked me to explain a recent news story in which a research scientist was profiled for an heroic desire to cure his daughter’s spinal injury by developing protein matched tissues for transplantation. Nowhere in the story was the viewer (it was a TV presentation) given the underlying facts of how this tissue would be generated, only that stem cells closely matched to the daughter’s tissues would be harvested to treat her injury. As I explained the process of ‘therapeutic cloning’ (methodology the scientist intends to rely upon for the tissues he desires), my cousin displayed no revulsion to the process. No matter how graphic my description of the cloning and killing process, my cousin could see only the utilitarian value of the harvesting, never the cannibalistic reality of killing an individual human being conceived for the sole purpose of harvesting spare parts to treat the older individual human being. I was shocked that a well-educated man would not be repulsed by this cannibalism. Upon later reflection, I understood why. It’s that damn slippery slope!

Once the descending plateau is reached, an acceptance quotient has been established. In the case of therapeutic cloning, the acceptance quotient involves a speciously arranged ‘degree of humanness’ … a conceptus, or zygote, or embryo, or second (or even third) trimester fetus is not deemed a full human being. Nay Sayers will not be allowed to interfere with utilitarian value of the ‘conceive, support, kill, and harvest methodology’. Individual human life, prior to being born, is deemed ‘not yet a complete human being’ on our familiar darkened pro-choice plateau, thus to conceive individual human life, support that life, kill that life, and harvest from these ‘not yet complete human things’ is not defined as cannibalism. If these conceived individuals were admitted to be full human beings, would we still embrace the cannibalistic exploitation due to the utilitarian value of their individual designer body parts? The scientist of my cousin’s query most certainly would and my cousin would, because darkness this far down the slippery slope, this far down inside the funnel of dehumanization, is so great.

The pre-born are less human than the born? … Yes, when you strip away the rhetorical gamesmanship, the obfuscatory verbiage, that is what the arguments descend to, that is the dimness of our modern world. That is the plateau to which we’ve descended, from the seemingly innocent stage of artificial insemination then in vitro fertilization as merely medical assistance to natural conception. Touted as a boon to infertile couples, the in vitro fertilization process manipulated sex cells in a lab environment, conceived multiple embryos to be implanted in a woman’s uterus, stored excess embryos … and the process redefined the earliest age of an individual’s lifetime as but one stage ‘in a process that eventually becomes a human being’. So, where was the error in reasoning first made?

Sex cells are sub-units of organs; organs are sub-units of organisms; embryos are whole organisms. That was so quick, allow me to reiterate: cells are sub-units of organs, organs are sub-units of organisms; an individual human being is an organism; a kidney, for instance, is an organ of an organism.

In vitro fertilization manipulates, first, sex cells … sub-units of sex organs, organs of the parents. But if successful, in vitro fertilization conceives a whole, new organism … not just an organ, the whole organism! As the embryo grows, with the cell total climbing from one, to two, to three, to five, etc., the early cells are totipotent or pluripotent--less differentiated into the individual organs of the organism--thus the early cells are the organs of the individual begun with ‘petri dish’ conception, the assertions of Senator Orrin Hatch notwithstanding. [Senator Hatch claimed that conception doesn’t happen in a petri dish, possibly because Senator Hatch is pushing a bill that would allow therapeutic cloning, but not ‘reproductive cloning’. Senator Hatch has already decided that what is conceived in a petri dish and not allowed to live long enough to be born is not an individual human being, thus these ‘less than human’ beings will be fair game for killing and harvesting … fair game for his ‘to be protected’ form of cannibalism! Orrin Hatch’s reasoning has faltered at the difference between organs and whole organisms, thus he deems an embryo as no more than a non-differentiated organ that will ‘someday’ become an organism. And he’s patently and completely wrong!]

Whether in a dish or a human host, the embryo is an individual human being alive at the earliest age along the continuum we call a human lifetime. That fact is what was passed over so quickly when the debate over in vitro fertilization was squelched. That is the tiny error so grossly exploited to toss America down the slippery slope.

Now, after gradual descent (artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, amniocentesis, etc.) and later steep descent (abortion on demand, fetal tissue harvesting, partial birth abortion), we have arrived at a descended-to plateau beyond which is cannibalism, conceiving then killing individual human beings because their designer body parts at an embryonic age are of utilitarian value, of more utilitarian value than their unalienable right to life. Can ‘reasonable people’ agree to disagree on cannibalism, to allow the cannibalism to continue? May God have mercy upon America if such is reasonable at this stage in our nation’s life.

The "agree to disagree" business means that there is no absolute truth (according to them.).

Proof it without quoting the Bible which isnt proof. I could just as well quote from the Baghavad Gita or the Koran.

You are making the error of equating blood (a subunit of the organism) with the whole organism (as in an embryo is the organism, the whole person at the age of embryo).

Then what's your problem with stem cells? Cells are just part of that glob of cells you call a human being at two weeks. Are you saying that taking a cell or two is equivalent to canibalism but that taking a pint of blood isnt?

Looks like lot's of anger there, Dave. Let me guess - Athiest?

Wrong. Sounds like you are in need of same saving. Better pull that log out of your own eye and judge not that ye be judged.

As someone who was once pro-choice (what I called it then) and now am strongly pro-life, I believe that education is the key, not merely argument. The extremist left-wing lesbian feminists who started the pro-abortion movement have had decades to spread their propaganda. They lied and distorted facts to get the laws liberalized to begin with, and the lies have never stopped. I see the majority of women as victims of this lesbian radical agenda. Most average women will quite seriously tell you they wouldn't themselves have an abortion, but with a straight face tell you its a "choice" and how important it is to keep the pro-abortion laws.

"...and judge not that ye be judged."

I DO know that no matter how you slice it - killing babies is wrong, as is advocating such.
Sorry Dave, no wiggle room there.

Killing the embryonic individual for its stem cells (its body parts) is cannibalism.

Thank you for raising this issue, allowing me to point to the irrational parallels. Organs (the stem cells of the embryonic individual) are the subunits of the organism. If we took your two (I'm assuming you still have the normal complement) kidneys, you would die from the removal. If science takes the embryos organs and the embryo dies from the taking, it is an egregious act which I call cannibalism because the taking is part of an effort to sustain the life of an older individual by cannibalizing the body parts of a younger individual.

With all due respect...by your logic....G-d's response to the holocaust and infanticide (which is arguably worse) came or is coming a bit late.

I don't place this in G-d's hands....the blood and the resolution is in man's.

I DO know that no matter how you slice it - killing babies is wrong, as is advocating such.

Operative word there is baby. Killing a handful of cells is not the same as killing a baby. I scrape off cells off of my skin everyday. Does that make me a baby killer. I dont think so.

the very same science that says, people begin when they are born.

Any scientist that would claim life begins at birth is no scientist at all. Life is measurable. There may be differences of opinion as to when a fetus becomes protected by his/her rights, but the definition of life is not often debated among true scientists.

Killing a handful of cells is not the same as killing a baby.

A baby is also a collection of cells.

Reasoning free-willed individuality is the ethical basis (though not a necessary condition) for rights. To extend rights to newborns, we must recognize rights on the basis of potential for reasoning free-willed individuality. And in so doing, we extend rights to the unborn as well.

"I scrape off cells off of my skin everyday. Does that make me a baby killer."

Oh come now - do we have to re-explain basic science and genetics to you?
....some people are obviously blind by choice.

You have real problems with the difference in organ and organism:

Killing a handful of cells is not the same as killing a baby. I scrape off cells off of my skin everyday. Does that make me a baby killer. Dave S
If the 'handful of cells' is an embryo, killing that embryo is killing the organism, not merely terminating cells like skin cells ... which, BTW, are usually already dead when sloughed; the basal cell layer is where the alive cells as sub-units of the organ called skin are located. And skin, as you've had explained to you, is an organ sub-unit of the organism.

Your effort to speciously parallel lumps of cells to a whole organism at embryo age is getting more blatant. Do you have other specious games that might be less obvious? Try them ...

The reductio ad absurdum of modern relativism is enshrined in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." In other words, the universe is whatever you want it to be. I don't think so. This is nothing but drivvel.

Ah, the "mystery of human life" argument. The ultimate Tower of Babel. We can be like God and define life in whatever way we choose. This line fairly screams tyranny, but tyranny of a different sort: tyranny of "tolerance" of any sort of behavior, with rage reserved only for those that wish to maintain some kind of standard.

I'm strongly pro-life, but this article seems off base on IVF and "cannibalism." Many infertile couples have used IVF to have a baby, which in my book is a pro-life statement. I don't think even our present culture would ever sanction cannibalism.

I do agree this is not an issue "to agree to disagree." IMHO that's the height of hypocrisy by the left because lefties never take a libertarian position to "agree to disagree" when they disapprove of conduct. Have you ever heard a leftie advocate "agreeing to disagree" over smoking bans, stream levels for fish, building highways, allowing Horowitz to speak on campus or snowmobiles in Yellowstone, just to name a few?

I'm not drawing any lines. Just making reasonable assumptions. Modern medicine saved our lives. A premature baby will not survive without massive help. I'd suggest that if a human fetus needs 9 months gestation and you had just 6, and me 7 we are pretty damn lucky to be alive.

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