The Implications of "Personhood"

Apparently, a lot of people have criticized this candidate for sheriff’s insistence that he will use “deadly force” to stop an abortion in his county.   I can certainly see why you would criticize him if you reject the “personhood” thesis – the claim that a fetus is a full human person from the moment of conception.  However, if you accept that thesis, the candidate seems to be on solid moral ground.

Granted, he’s not on solid legal ground.  We have not (yet) decided, as a matter of law, that a fetus is a person entitled to all legal protections extended to persons – including prohibitions against being killed.  The fact that a candidate for sheriff is proposing to act contrary to current law is surely troubling.

But millions of people, including the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates, are on record supporting the “personhood” thesis.  They want that thesis enshrined into U.S. law.  You would think that their criticism would be limited to his plan to use his office to impose his own moral views on others, as if his views were the law.  You would expect their criticism to focus on the importance of enforcing actual law, not one’s own convictions about what the law should be.

However, you should not expect any criticism of the sheriff candidate's stated willingness to use “deadly force” to protect “innocent persons” from slaughter – particularly when you, yourself, believe that this is what abortion constitutes.  If you accept the “personhood” thesis, as millions of Americans insist that they do, then using deadly force to protect innocent persons, including multi-celled zygote persons, makes perfect sense.

As Dr. Seuss taught us long ago, “a person is a person, no matter how small.”

Joe Huster

Making Things Up

The theory that rape cannot result in pregnancy is somewhat shocking.  Thousands of women each year claim that they became pregnant as a result of rape, and there is nothing in the medical or scientific literature that would lead a rational person to doubt their allegations.  Nevertheless, many hard core pro-lifers – those who want to criminalize abortion without exception – accept that theory and, implicitly, call the women who claim that their pregnancies were the result of rape “liars.”

The logic goes something like this:  A fetus is, from the moment of conception, a full human person – a “someone.”  As a full human person, a fetus is entitled to the full range of legal protections enjoyed by all persons, including legal prohibitions against being killed.  The fact that you became a person as the result of rape is irrelevant to the question of whether prohibitions against being killed apply to you – as a “person” they do.  Therefore, a “rape” exception to an abortion ban is inappropriate.

The logic of this argument is airtight.  By that I mean the conclusion follows from the premises, logically.  If the premises are true, the conclusion is true.  However, the vast majority of people are uncomfortable with a law that would force a scared, fourteen year-old girl to bring her rapist’s baby to term.  It seems pretty obvious there should be an exception in such cases – and rightly so.

In a normal person’s mind, the presence of this kind of cognitive dissonance leads them to reconsider the premises they are relying on.  If I think there should be an exception for rape victims, perhaps I don’t really believe that a fetus is a full person from the moment of conception.  Maybe there is a period between conception and person-hood when an abortion is not tantamount to killing “someone.”  Of course, there is no logical problem adopting the view that, as unfortunate as forcing the young girl to bring her rapist’s baby to term would be, the law must do so in order to honor the embryo’s right to life.  However, there is a huge moral/psychological problem with adopting this view, which is why very few hard-core pro-lifer’s ever articulate it.

Enter the “make things up strategy.”  A certain faction of the pro-life camp has latched on to the theory that pregnancy cannot be the result of forcible rape.  They argue that a woman who is being forcibly raped is so traumatized that her body will not produce the hormonal “juices” that make pregnancy possible.  There is no science behind this claim.  It contradicts the testimony of thousands and thousands of actual women.  And it implies that all women who allege that rape caused their pregnancies are liars.  But no matter.  The theory dissolves the cognitive dissonance and exempts the believer from any need to reexamine their original premises.  I can go on believing as I wish.  Whew!

Unfortunately, this is not a strategy unique to the abortion debate.  The GOP has discovered that you can undermine any scientific finding or resolve any cognitive dissonance threatening an ideology by the following method:  (1) make something up; (2) find someone with impressive credentials to endorse it; and (3) keep repeating it until it sticks in people’s minds as “truth.”

The fact that it works for so many is really worrisome!

 Joe Huster

"Legitimate Rape"

The flap over Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s (R) “legitimate rape” comment is fascinating.  Akin claimed that in cases of “legitimate rape,” women have built in biological protections against pregnancy.

By “legitimate,” of course, Akin meant “genuine.”  His point was that rape exceptions (to abortion restrictions) are unnecessary because pregnancies do not happen to genuine rape victims.  His darker point, not explicitly stated but logically implied, is that every pregnant woman who has claimed “rape” is lying – she is instead pregnant as the result of her own voluntary decision and should, therefore, not be allowed to escape the consequences of her actions.

That this is pseudo-science serving a harsh ideology is undeniable.  That it is a repugnant tactical move (shaming pregnant women who allege rape) designed to exonerate an extremist political posture (forcing rape victims to carry their rapist’s fetus to term) is equally obvious.   But what interests me is why hard-core pro lifers – those who wish to criminalize all abortions without exception – resort to such silly, repugnant arguments.  Why don’t they just stick to their “personhood” argument?  After all, if you believe that a fetus is a “person” from the moment of conception, you have a rather straight-forward argument in favor of banning abortions – namely, abortion kills someone who has a right to life.

I suspect there are two reasons.  First, very few people believe that a zygote is a “person” or a “someone.”  Given the way we use those words, and what we normally mean when we use them, a multi-celled entity, however “human” and “alive,” does not qualify as a “person.”  Granted, some people disagree.  But in cases of such disagreement, there really isn’t anything to say.  When I meet people who insist that zygotes are “persons” or “someone’s” – and, as a Christian, I have met numerous people who took this position – I simply say that we’re using these terms in fundamentally different ways.  If you think a zygote is a “person” or a “someone,” fine.  Given what I mean when I use these terms, I don’t.

BTW, even people who believe that zygotes are “persons” often argue on safer ground.  Consider the claim that “human life begins at conception.”   This statement has the virtue of being undoubtedly true.  It has the additional virtue of substituting the term “human life” for the term “someone.”  The apparent strategy is to get the concession on “human life,” and to then suggest that “human life” necessarily implies “someone’s life.”

What this argument strategy implicitly denies is the possibility that an entity could be (1) alive, and (2) human, and (3) not (yet) a someone.  But to most people, upon reflection, this appears to be a distinct possibility.  Consider the millions of fertilized human embryos currently stored in freezers.  One day they might be unfrozen, implanted in a womb, and develop into a baby born to a loving mother.  Such embryos are certainly human.  They are also alive.  But are they a “someone?”  Are there millions of “persons” in the freezers?

If you think the answer is “no,” as I do, then you can see why the argument “life begins at conception” does not save the personhood rationale.  That is because the description “not someone” is compatible with “alive” and “human.”

Additionally, there is a strong possibility that the “personhood” argument is not nearly as strong as it initially looks.  That is, even if one concedes that an embryo is a “person” from the moment of conception, it may not follow that abortion is morally impermissible, or that it should be outlawed.  On this point I’ll leave you to peruse the most famous (and arguably the most enjoyable) philosophical article ever written on this topic by philosopher Judith Jarvis Thompson.

Joe Huster  

Pants on Fire! - Redux. UPDATE

Talk about an unrelenting liar!

I just watched an ad-clip in which Mitt Romney accused President Obama of “raiding” the “Medicare Trust Fund” to the tune of $716 Billion, and then using the money to fund “Obama Care.”  Even a cursory review of the facts shows that this claim is utterly preposterous!  Consider what the Affordable Healthcare Act accomplishes:

1.         It closes the infamous “donut-hole” under Medicare Part D - the prescription drug coverage plan.  Seniors will no longer face out-of pocket expenditures for prescriptions above a certain level of spending;

2.         It allows seniors regular preventative check-up visits to their doctors without any co-payments; and

3.         It extends the solvency of Medicare eight (8) years (according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office).

Even more amazing – it accomplishes these improvements without cutting medical benefits in any way.

Imagine that!  The President steals huge sums of money from Medicare and, in the course of doing so, lowers it’s out of pocket costs, improves its benefits package, and extends its solvency.

That’s quite a feat!  I can’t figure out how someone could rob me of a huge sum of money and extend my solvency.  I sure as hell can’t figure out how you can rob me and thereby make me better off.

I understand how partisans can believe this – partisans can make themselves believe anything if it benefits their side. But does anyone really think Mitt Romney, with all his famed business acumen, is stupid enough to believe this?

No way.  He’s just a shameless liar.

Joe Huster

UPDATE:  The $716 Billion that Obama allegedly "stole" from Medicare were actually reductions in the rate of reimbursements to Medicare providers over the next ten (10) years.  These reductions were agreed to as part of the larger reform in which additional patients would be insured and hospitals and other providers would collect from their insurance, and thus recoup the losses due to the reduced Medicare compensation.  In any event, reducing payments to Medicare providers sounds like keeping additional money IN Medicare, not taking money OUT of Medicare.  What Mitt said was a pretty shameless lie!

Mitt Knows How the Economy Works

Mitt Romney knows how the economy works.    Damn straight he does!   That's what is so frightening about him.

Joe Huster

Pants On Fire!

I was just listening to Mitt Romney repeat the latest charge against President Obama.  In summary, the charge is “Obama said that if you have a business, you didn’t build it yourself.  The government did.”  After repeating this charge, Romney added that “saying something this outrageous demonstrates just how out of touch Obama is” [Paraphrase].

Where to begin!

First, Obama did not say that business owners “did not build their businesses” and/or “the government did.”  Obama was talking about the roads and bridges that were built by all of us collectively, that allow businesses to operate.  Although he may have experienced a slip of the tongue, the unmistakable message was that businesses do not thrive solely by the efforts of entrepreneurs.  They also benefit from the collective investment we all make in our infrastructure.  Entrepreneurs do not build their businesses on their own – they do so with help from the rest of us in the form of government.

Second.  Romney obviously knows this.  He is not stupid.  Anyone of reasonable intelligence who watched the clip of Obama’s speech knows what he meant to say.  So Romney is intentionally lying.  Not that lying is anything new to Mr. Romney.  He lies so reflexively and continuously that it is difficult to keep up – fortunately, someone is up to the task.

Third, I find it amazing that Mitt Romney and other conservatives think this will be an effective line of criticism.  I mean, Mr. Romney is correct about one thing – Obama would have to be pretty out of touch to say something that stupid.  No one except a die-hard partisan Obama hater could bring themselves to believe that Obama actually thinks the government, rather than business owners, builds private businesses – and Romney’s already got their votes.  I’d be embarrassed to publicly assign that belief to anyone – much less to the president of the United States.

So not only is Mitt Romney a liar, he’s a political fool.  And to think I used to admire the man!

Forth, I find it astonishing that Romney is willing to lie so brazenly and repeatedly in public.  He is a Mormon, after all.  From what I know about Mormon teaching, the entire reason every human being is put on earth by God is to perfect themselves - morally speaking.  And perfect honesty is an element of that moral perfection.  Didn’t Jesus say “what should it profit a man if he gain the entire world only to lose his soul.”  I’ve never seen a more public display of someone rejecting that teaching.

According to his own professed beliefs, Mitt Romney is apparently willing to lose his soul to gain the entire world.  And none if his fellow Mormons appear concerned about this.

I’m just saying . . .

Joe Huster

Constitutional Crisis

Hi Everyone,

Our local church is going through a transition regarding its association with the Missionary Church.  The Constitution of the Missionary Church limits membership to those who affirm an extensive set of moral and doctrinal positions.  It seems that some of the members of our Church (me obviously) are not on-board with all of these doctrines and we’re debating whether this fact should force us to disassociate ourselves and start a new church.

So I read through the Missionary Church’s constitution this morning.  Got a big kick out of it!  Frankly, if the Missionary Church is committed to limiting its membership to individuals who agree with each of their stands, there needs to be a serious membership purge.

But I digress.  Of particular interest to me were the sections that began “we recognize that sincere Christians have conscientious differences as to their understanding of the teaching of the word of God regarding . . .” and “we recognize there are committed Christians who hold different views concerning . . .”

The issues being discussed were “participation in war” and the doctrine of “assurance.”  The constitution explicitly stated that “sincere Christians” can reasonably disagree about these issues – implying that sincere Christians could not reasonably disagree about the issues on which the Missionary Church was willing to take a stand.  On those issues, the rightness of their views is so obvious that no genuine believer could, in good faith, take a different position.

It takes a remarkable degree of arrogance to think, for example, that the doctrine of inerrancy is so obviously correct that no sincere Christian could question it.  The doctrine is absurd on its face, given that the only way confirm it would be to check the bible for errors - and the doctrine itself expressly forbids such checking.  I’m guessing that we’re supposed to believe in the inerrancy of the scriptures because the scriptures themselves claim to be inerrant.  But how do we know that scriptural claims of inerrancy (assuming they exist) aren’t themselves errors of the very sort some of us are worried about?

I mean, come on guys.  This is low hanging fruit!  I can’t make myself accept a doctrine justified by such obviously circular reasoning.  Add to that the fact that the scriptures endorse some pretty questionable ideas, practices and historical narratives and I’m wondering how anyone in their right mind could believe in inerrancy.

Don't even get me started on Gay rights!

And yet the Missionary church is so confident about this doctrine that it is willing to say every genuine Christian accepts this doctrine as obviously correct?

I’ve long believed that we should always remain open-minded.  I don’t believe open mindedness is an intrinsic virtue – that it is valuable in and of itself.  I don’t think that we should expose ourselves to new ideas just because they are new, particularly when older ideas have served us well.

But open-mindedness has “instrumental” value because it is a necessary condition for correcting error.  An interesting feature of having beliefs is that everyone necessarily thinks their current beliefs are true.  It is impossible to think otherwise.  Of course, everyone also knows that they have believed wrongly in the past, so it is reasonable to assume that at least some of our current beliefs are wrong.  The problem is that we don’t know which of our current beliefs are incorrect.  They all seem correct right now (or we would have already abandoned them).

And there is only one way to find out – we must listen to those who reject our beliefs with an open mind.  By “open,” I don’t mean uncritical.  Beliefs that have served us well are entitled to some deference.  And criticisms of our beliefs should themselves be subjected to scrutiny.  “Open” means actively entertaining the possibility that my current belief or understanding may be wrong, or partially wrong, or incomplete.  It means giving those who dissent a fair hearing – not for their sake, or out of some silly notion that all beliefs are entitled to respect – but for our sake, so that we might have the opportunity to exchange error for truth.

That’s why I think constitutions of this sort are so problematic.  There’s nothing wrong with a statement of beliefs.  What’s wrong is the attempt to protect these beliefs from criticism by constitutionally excluding members who disagree. That is not only wrong.  It is foolish.  It guarantees that all members of the Missionary Church will continue to hold false beliefs to the extent that the constitutional drafters were wrong about anything.

Joe Huster