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.

I don't have to agree to disagree.

Let me rephrase it: You can't do anything about it if someone disagrees with you. You can say "i will not agree to disagree," but the only way to make that statement logically true is to somehow subjugate your opponent. And that's not going to happen.

How bout this: A puppy is a Dog. A dog may not be a puppy, get it?

Yep. I've been hip to your semantic gadgetry from the beginning. But aside from suggesting an unwillingness to debate the real facts of the issue, it's pretty much meaningless. Unless you can get really creative and tell the class how the interchangability of three words justifies the murder of 1.5 million human beings annually, I'd say this little back and forth has outlived its usefulness.

Feel free to make up some more definitions to prove whatever point it is you're trying to make. Maybe I'll get back to you in the morning.

Those who oppose abortion in this country do not have to have one.

I used to think, who cares if Democrats kill their young?

But during the 2000 Election while I was engaged in a lot of praying, the answer came... God cares.

God cares, Hank. What can I say? He cared about slavery and the Holocaust, and He heard the anguished cries of the Iraqis.

A function in the sense that it is something that the brain carries out. Music is a function of the piano (another function of the piano is to fall on unwily coyotes in roadrunner cartoons), but the piano isn't the music.

The viability argument makes no sense because the fetus is perfectly viable where it resides, it is only unviable when it is forceably removed from the environment that it is biologically designed to exist in at that stage of its development.

A tadpole only has gills and can only breathe in water, you take it and place it on land and it will die, because it is not viable away from water. After it grows lungs it becomes a frog and is viable on land. But the fact it became only viable on land at a later stage of life doesn't mean it wasn't alive before, you don't get to take a tadpole out of the water, watch it die, and say you didn't kill it because it was never alive because it was not viable away from water.

You can take a person underwater and he will drown, just because he isn't viable underwater doesn't mean he wasn't alive, he was fine where he was, he only became unviable after he was forceably removed from his natural environment.

There are two type of libertarians, those who are committed to the principles of liberty, and those that want to be free to do what they want without being hassled, they are only interested in libertarianism as a means to that selfish end.

The first type is concerned about liberty for everyone, that's why they are pro-life (the rights of the unborn is important to them), they support the war in Iraq, because they understand that sacrifices must be made to preserve liberty,and that liberating fellow human beings is a worthy pursuit, etc, etc.

The second type only cares about themselves, they don't really care about the rights of the unborn, they are more interest is not being prevented from having abortions. They don't care about making sacrifices, they don't care to help others to gain liberty, etc.

Unfortunately the LP consists mostly of the 2nd group. The type A libertarian, which I consider myself one, generally votes Republican.

No, agree to disagree implies that you will leave the issue alone because you recognize that both views are equally valid and you will no longer attempt to change the other one's mind.

Not agreeing to disagree means you do not concede that the other position is valid at all, and make no promises to stop revisiting the issue again and again.

This "agree to disagree" stuff also applies to libertarians that do not accept the truth of who Jesus Christ is. I encountered this very thing over the last coupla days here on the forum.

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

Have you ever seen an ultrasound of an abortion?

Brings me to tears whenever I think of that reality.....
....Please stop down at your local abortion clinic at baby-killing time and pray with those pro-life warriors standing in the gap for these defensless children.
4,000 babies die every day like this - and 300,000 pulpits are silent - we should have thousands at every "clinic" in America, and we would if main-line churches actually gave a damn about more than anti-war rallies and pot-luck dinners........

The government forbids you to ingest cocaine. Does that mean that it's likely to turn around and force you to ingest cocaine?

Or Ritalin (which is very similar to cocaine chemically)? Have you checked out the public schools lately?

But surely you know that most [libertarians] are [pro-abortion]. If you're one of the excpetions, you can exclude yourself from my generalizations.

I don't know why you think this generalization is accurate. I think it's purely conjecture, probably based on a dislike of libertarians and a desire to project upon them traits you find disagreeable.

Most libertarians I know are conservative-libertarian, which is also how I would describe myself. I know of no conservative-libertarian that is pro-abortion. One of the basic rights of all humans, codified in the Constitution, is the right to life, even for an unborn baby.

Indeed, reasonable people cannot disagree to mediation, let alone to mediation between the unborn and the rest of the world. The Supremes forfeit their duties every day so long Roe v Wade is in place, denying their roles as mediators between people and replacing it with arbitrary algorithmic legislation.

We cannot agree to disagree on the need to have a supreme court and mediators to represent the unborn.

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