{"id":2649,"date":"2008-05-21T16:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-21T16:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism\/"},"modified":"2008-05-21T16:09:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-21T16:09:00","slug":"politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html","title":{"rendered":"Politics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

One of the problems with the pro-life debacle this week in Britain is that the pro-life cause relied too much on political, sentimental and utilitarian arguments.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The political argument is, \u201cThis is a matter of women\u2019s rights.\u201d or \u201cThis is a matter of the unborn human person\u2019s right to life.\u201d When you argue something in terms of human rights, nobody really cares about human rights. They care about who is stronger or richer or more powerful. In this case, the woman is stronger than her infant. So her rights prevail. The feminist is stronger than the fetus, so her rights prevail. Political human rights arguments (which used to be about defending the rights of the weak and vulnerable) are now arguments about the defense of my own \u2018rights\u2019 which is code for my own wealth, my own power, my own autonomy. Any argument based on political rights will be won by the strong.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
A sentimental argument is one that appeals primarily to the emotions. The main sentimental argument in this case is the appeal on fetal pain. \u201cThe fetus feels pain so we must not allow abortions.\u201d The difficulty with this is that the baby killers will simply say, \u201cOh, does it feel pain? I guess we should\u00a0anesthetize\u00a0the fetus first, then kill it.\u201d or they say, \u201cAll the more reason to make later term abortions a rarity. Let\u2019s abolish all restraints on early abortions and make them available to everyone everywhere.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The Utilitarian anti abortion argument uses recent medical advances to argue for a lower limit. \u201cWe can keep premature babies alive now who are born at twenty three weeks. So we need a lower abortion limit.\u201d They don\u2019t get it. The baby killers don\u2019t think that way at all. They think the pregnancy should be ended whenever the mother wants it to be ended. Whether the \u2018baby\u2019 an survive or not is immaterial. As long as it is still in the womb it is the mother\u2019s decision.\u2019<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Sentimental and utilitarian arguments are fine as part of the arsenal, but the only way abortion will really stop is when people decide that it is gravely immoral. They will only decide that it is gravely immoral when they decide that killing an innocent person is gravely immoral, and they will only decide that when they really understand what a human person is, and they will only understand that when they come to believe that each person is an immortal soul created in God\u2019s image, and they will only come to believe that when they start believing in God.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Every argument is a theological argument.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the problems with the pro-life debacle this week in Britain is that the pro-life cause relied too much on political, sentimental and utilitarian arguments. The political argument is, \u201cThis is a matter of women\u2019s rights.\u201d or \u201cThis is a matter of the unborn human person\u2019s right to life.\u201d When you argue something in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPolitics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One of the problems with the pro-life debacle this week in Britain is that the pro-life cause relied too much on political, sentimental and utilitarian\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Politics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the problems with the pro-life debacle this week in Britain is that the pro-life cause relied too much on political, sentimental and utilitarian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-05-21T16:09:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html\",\"name\":\"Politics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-05-21T16:09:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-05-21T16:09:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\"},\"description\":\"One of the problems with the pro-life debacle this week in Britain is that the pro-life cause relied too much on political, sentimental and utilitarian\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Politics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Politics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism","description":"One of the problems with the pro-life debacle this week in Britain is that the pro-life cause relied too much on political, sentimental and utilitarian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Politics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism","og_description":"One of the problems with the pro-life debacle this week in Britain is that the pro-life cause relied too much on political, sentimental and utilitarian","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html","og_site_name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","article_published_time":"2008-05-21T16:09:00+00:00","author":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html","name":"Politics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-05-21T16:09:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-05-21T16:09:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad"},"description":"One of the problems with the pro-life debacle this week in Britain is that the pro-life cause relied too much on political, sentimental and utilitarian","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/05\/politics-sentimentality-and-utilitarianism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Politics, Sentimentality and Utilitarianism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","caption":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}