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.

In your first post on this thread, you stated unequivocally that human life begins at birth, and that science confirms this. If you hold firm to that belief, then why do you consider abortion a "problem" at all? Why do you feel the need to comfort people making these "difficult" choices? If there's no life, what's the problem? Where's the difficulty in a simple, victim-less medical procedure? Do you spend your time and money counseling people facing the difficult and painful decision of whether or not to undergo root canal, also?

The same goes for Ffusco, who you proudly identify with on this thread. While he ardently denies any human life is taken through the practice of abortion, he also feels the need to qualify his remarks with half-hearted, single-sentence grievances about "late-term" abortions, and the overall number of terminations performed. Why? Again, if there's no life present, why the need to qualify his support of the procedure? Is Ffusco troubled by the number of appendectomies performed in the course of the average year, as well? (I'm not asking you to answer for him, I'm merely making a point).

The anti-government angle is certainly the way to go when the no-life angle collapses under the weight of the scientific evidence (unique DNA, beating heart, functioning brain, fully formed body, determined sex, voice recognition, ability to feel pain, the will to survive, etc.). The feminists have been doing it forever ("Keep your laws off my body"). But it doesn't address the real issue. Living human beings are being killed, en masse, for profit and convenience. And the better part of your time (and Ffusco's) on this thread has been spent defending that practice, and villifying those who disagree -- via personal attacks (FFusco, more than yourself), or baseless generalizations about the Pro Life movement (we don't care about life, we're in it for the confrontation).

Anyway, on to your post:

What is not obvious to you, and to most others who oppose abortion, for example, is that if you decide government is the solution to the problem it is going to turn out just as bad as every other solution government provides, and so long as that is the emphasis, what would actually help is being ignored.

What you conveniently ignore through the course of this thread is role of government in promoting abortion. You almost touched on it when you mentioned government schools (they're a travesty, and a living testament to the incompetence of beauocracy, we agree), but you stopped well short of addressing it directly. The government spends millions of taxpayer dollars funding and promoting abortion in America and across the globe, on its own and through the United Nations. Against the will of tens of millions of Americans.

Instead of arguing that the government not be involved in the issue in ways that it's not (prohibiting it), why not argue that it not be involved in the issue in ways that it already is (promoting and funding it)?

As to the latter point, government effectively dealt with abolishing slavery, I do believe. I see this along the same lines, though I have no delusions that government can effectively end abortion altogether.

In any case, I don't think anything is going to change. I'm really not trying to convince anyone, (because it is impossible - you can't change people). The anti-abortion crowd will go on doing everything they can to offend people and make them loose interest in what really matters, which is the people who are caught up in the messes that make abortion an issue in their lives.

I think I went out of my way NOT to offend you here. I even sought some common ground. I'm not part of any crowd, I don't belong to any organization. I'm just a guy who grew up watching friend after friend needlessly make the trip to Planned Parenthood with 350 bucks in hand. I actually had two friends take their girlfriends there on the same day, honest to God. Well-off, suburban kids, too lazy to use contraception, too self-absorbed to entertain the thought of caring for a child. Their lives weren't a "mess". Their lives were terrific. That's what prompted them to get the abortions. They wanted to keep their lives that way.

You have your heart ripped out by people you care about enough times, it changes you. In my case, it's made me more vocal on the subject. Nothing more. I don't insult people, I don't brand anyone "baby killers", or beat their heads in with a Bible. I just ask "Why?". Why they find this to be an acceptable means of dealing with their own mistakes. I've never received a sufficient answer.

The abortion issue is not really an issue for me. It is too late for abortion to be a danger to me, or my children, or my grandchildren. It is too bad when any woman is in the position where the question to abort or not even comes up. To me, that is the place the whole issue ought to be addressed. If not there, everything else is too late, and can only cause more harm.

If the first part were true, you wouldn't be here posting a number of times over a period of two days. Obviously, the issue means something to you (what, I can't be sure). You say you dedicate your time and money to helping people dealing specifically with this issue. How are you able to counsel anyone with any degree of sincerity if it's not an issue for you, yourself?

You say it's too late for abortion to be a danger to you. Is that an admission that it is a danger to others? Are those nameless, faceless "others" not worthy of your time or consideration? Even your sympathy or prayers? That seems kind of callous.

I know I've said a lot here. That's what happenes when you read all day without being able to post (I was at work). These are the inconsistencies in your points as I see them. I look forward to being set straight.

But you are answering for God when you claim to know when life begins. Incorrect; I am answering for/from science, it is you who have chosen to appeal to the notion of soul advent with your 'TTOQ' assertion. I don't know, and admit as much. Actually, you do just the opposite, you assert that you have selected TTOQ because of reasons you do not deem us worthy of reading, so we cannot know the veracity of your claims. 'Personhood' for me has nothing to do with legal niceties; slaves and women at one point were not considered persons. In my view, (which is all that it is) personhood begins when you receive your soul, making you a separate person. And I believe that happens at TTOQ. Are we to believe that your choice of when the 'soul' (apparently your definition of the real you) connects to the body is the one God must invoke, or is the TTOQ you cite the same as God invokes and you have chosen to accept that for reasons you do not share with us?

Without appealing to the notion of soul, it is quite possible to establish the beginning of your particular lifetime within hours of the event, by counting back from your day of birth to the time of union between your Mother's gamete and your Father's gamete. We do not need to assume of our Creator, or ascribe to our Creator, merely observe the scientific evidence of when your bodily lifetime began and leave the advent of soul to the Creator of Souls and God's good timing.

Why can science perform this amazing trick, counting how long it is since your lifetime began at your unique conception? Because the number of days required to transform your first manifestation of you, to the time your unique body chemically instructs your Mother's body to go into labor to deliver you into the 'airfield', is predictable based on observation and record keeping and chemical markers.

In the distant past, it was not possible to be so precise, thus TTOQ was used as a standard and it was merely the fairly reliable, predictable time when your Mother would be able to feel the movements you had been performing for quite some weeks prior to her being able to feel them ... your space capsule was big enough and full enough with liquid you put there by your processes of gestational development that your tiny size didn't impact the walls of your capsule. When finally your movements did impact the walls of your capsule, your Mother could detect them, hence the assumed TTOQ.

There is a very important reason why we must, as a society, address and debate the issues of conception and when individual life begins. That's what this essay was written to address, to expose the advent of cannibalism in the name of utilitarian value in treating diseases and injuries.

Science will discover how to treat these maladies using stem cells from your body, not some designer duplicate of you, but we will have to be patient, else science will chose for us, to take a road that is caniibalistic. I don't want that for my nation. I firmly believe my nation has such brilliant scientific minds that your own stem cells will be harnessed to treat illness you may confront in your lifetime ... without resorting to the dehumanization and degredation of cannibalism.

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