Catholic and Enjoying It!
Here’s an excerpted conversation from the comboxes on this thread, in which a post-modern named Tony61 speaks from the smug suburban security of his mental prison to various Catholics who are trying to suggest that our perceptions and legal definitions of things do not constitute the whole of reality. Note, in particular, as Ye Olde Statistician attempts in vain to bring Thomistic common sense to bear on the idea that Things are Only as We Think Them:
Posted by Tony61 on Monday, Nov 8, 2010 9:52 AM (EDT):I understand the desire to protect the unborn, but don’t we really need a decision, (maybe even a Constitutional Amendment?), defining when person-hood begins and ends? Only then can we determine who has rights under the law.
Posted by Robert King on Monday, Nov 8, 2010 4:55 PM (EDT):@Tony61 – I think this is part of the problem: the beginning and end of human life is not something DEFINED by law, but rather something RECOGNIZED. A baby in the womb has rights under nature’s law; it is only that the human law is out of step with nature.
The Supreme Court decision or the Constitutional Amendment might be helpful in bringing the law on the books in line with natural law; but it isn’t necessary to determine that an unborn baby has rights.
Posted by Tony61 on Monday, Nov 8, 2010 5:12 PM (EDT):“… it isn’t necessary to determine that an unborn baby has rights.”
I beg to differ. Our legal and legislative institutions are the only bodies charged with granting rights under the [civil] law. A “baby [sic] in the womb” has no such rights, natural or civil, namely because it isn’t a “baby”. In order for civil rights to be determined, some recognized authority must define the laws that define a fetus as a person. Natural law… well, I’m not sure what you mean by that.
Posted by Mark P. Shea on Monday, Nov 8, 2010 5:34 PM (EDT):So, contra JFK and the American founders, rights come not from the hand of God, but from the generosity of the State. A human being has rights just so long as the state says he has them. It is not the state that has to show it has the power to kill, but the human being who has to show that he has the right to live when the state declare him unworthy of life. And since babies are remarkably inarticulate on this, as on so much else, we should simply acquiesce to the theory established by raw judicial fiat in Roe.
Posted by Tony61 on Monday, Nov 8, 2010 5:43 PM (EDT):I didn’t make the law, only interpreting for you, as did the SCOTUS in 1973. That’s exactly why I don’t understand why anti-abortion voters settle for the whole “we need judges” charade; why not hold your legislators feet to the fire and demand a LAW, like they do in Europe. Ron Paul is the only legislator I can think of who is calling for an equal rights amendment for fetuses. Instead pro-life voters acquiesce to all the boneheaded policies of Republican presidents because they promise to appoint justices who will restrict abortion—yet it will never make a difference.
I’m a pro-choice voter who wishes SCOTUS would get it overwith and overturn Roe already so that the GOP cannot use it time and again to get one-issue voters to the polls, who then vote against their own interests on every other issue.
Posted by Ye Olde Statistician on Monday, Nov 8, 2010 9:36 PM (EDT):“Personhood” is not a legal question. You could define legally a whole class of people as, say, 3/5 of a person, or another class as untermenschen and it would not change reality one iota.
A “person” is an “individual human being”; so the only questions are:
a) Does it have being? (i.e., does it exist?)
b) Is it human? (i.e., genetically H. sap. and not dog, monkey, crocodile)
c) Is it an individual? (i.e., genetically distinct from other such beings; subsistent in itself (i.e., grows and develops on its own powers, needing only nutrients from the outside); etc.)Posted by Tony61 on Monday, Nov 8, 2010 11:40 PM (EDT):You could define legally a whole class of people as, say, 3/5 of a person, or another class as untermenschen and it would not change reality one iota.
That’s funny. I bet the african slaves to whom your refer thought that their reality was changed quite remarkably due to their designation. Words mean something under the law. Calling a fetus “person” under the law would certainly change the reality.
Pro-life people are duped into believing that their legislators are fighting for voters’ desires to end abortion. Far from it; if the abortion debate ended, then your incentive to vote for them would diminish.
Posted by Ye Olde Statistician on Tuesday, Nov 9, 2010 12:11 AM (EDT):That’s funny. I bet the african slaves to whom your refer thought that their reality was changed quite remarkably due to their designation. Words mean something under the law. Calling a fetus “person” under the law would certainly change the reality.
‘Twouldn’t change reality, only politics. They were still fully persons, even if the law did not recognize them as such. If you pass a law declaring that a tail was a leg, you would wind up treating horses and dogs differently, but it wouldn’t change the horses and dogs – and it wouldn’t make a tail a leg. Neither would a law mandating that pi = 3.00 change the reality of circles, it would only change the effectiveness of architects and engineers.Posted by Tony61 on Tuesday, Nov 9, 2010 12:13 AM (EDT):YOS is like Master Uguay smoking pot.
Statistically, we’re all dead.
The Church teaches that humans are capable of understanding certain things by the light of reason. However, it is also the case, I think, that some people’s reason is so darkened by lousy education or the absorption of thought patterns inimical to common sense that a miracle of grace is necessary in order for them to grasp that 2 plus 2 is four. That somebody finds it difficult to grasp the notion that a tail cannot become a leg or a person 3/5 of a person by an act of Congress is one of the signs that an unusually darkened intellect is toiling in stygian blackness of night.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In