Well she got her daddy’s car

And she’s cruisin’ through the blogwatcher stand now

Seems she forgot all about the library

Like she told her old man now

And with the radio blasting

Goes cruising just as fast as she can now…

Blogadder: Reply to The Rat re marriage. Expect more from our rodent friend presently.

Russo’s Republic: Sara’s speech on abortion. UPDATE: Julian Sanchez rebuts Russo here; her reply is here. My comments: 1) Can’t every single one of Sanchez’s claims about the fetus be applied exactly as well to the newborn?

2) One of the most troubling aspects of the current abortion debate is the belief that all personhood is defined relatively–in other words, there is no “self,” there is no “person,” but we use these words as conventions to denote relationships between people. Thus I can apply, withhold, or withdraw personhood or personal identity from the child (/Blob Of Cells) I carry depending on how I feel about it (…her) or how it (or he) is treated socially. I’ve said before that the entire history of the 20th century should make us shudder at this kind of reasoning–and not a philosophically-unsupported Kass shudder either! I’m not clear on where Sanchez’s argument differs from this relative-personhood view. (It may well differ, but he hasn’t really made clear his own understanding of what creates or fixes an identity. He’s suggested rationality or the presence of “mind”; but surely those two terms are as open to skepticism and controversy as the terms “self” and “person.” How much mind is enough? How much “abstract symbol manipulation”?)

3) You can get my basic takes on abortion and personhood here, here, and here–click here to skip to the bit about brainwaves. Sorry for the repetitive quoting from Maggie Gallagher–she puts things really well, and since I’ve written about the same subjects in many different places, some of the same quotations and phrasings will come up several times.

4) Russo’s sketching a little on the basis of ethics, but whatever, I’m not convinced that her hemi-semi-agnosticism should really prevent Sanchez from agreeing with her.

Amy Welborn: Great stuff in the comments on this post–including these fun anecdotes from a priest: “Reminds me of the best line from my seminary days: professor says, ‘if they found the bones of Jesus, it wouldn’t affect my faith…’ To which one of the seminarians responded, ‘if they found the bones of Jesus, I’d go out and get laid.'” And from the same priest: “Another of his great lines: the same professor, ‘Of course Jesus wouldn’t have gone around claiming to be God… that would have been heresy to the Jews.’ To which our intrepid seminarian responded, ‘Yeah, they probably would have crucified him.'”

Also, a random shout-out to Sandra Miesel. I love her no-nonsense, up-front takedowns of sketchy miracles and much other Catholic wishful thinking. Here’s an excellent article she wrote on the witch burnings in Europe. Apparently she also writes science fiction, but I haven’t read any yet. She rocks; get a blog, Miesel!