The stuff you see in trackbacks!
The Raving Atheist continues his trip down Conversion Lane with a post on the death penalty and how he’s now agin it.
And while I applaud his decision to be consistently pro-life — since it’s a lot easier to believe that someone’s opposition to abortion is truly a pro-life position, as opposed to just a slut-punishing one, if they also oppose the death penalty and unjust war — he rather misses the point.
The death penalty debate, unlike the abortion one, is rarely framed in purely religious terms. This is not to say that religious arguments, and passionate ones, are not sometimes raised by both sides of the controversy. What I mean is that advocating for one side is generally not viewed as “imposing religion” upon society. There is no slogan equivalent to “keep your rosaries off my ovaries” in the capital punishment arena. No one says “keep your Mass off my cyanide gas.” When a legislature enacts or repeals a death penalty bill, objections based upon church/state separation generally do not arise. [They also tend to fade in discussions of late-term abortion or infanticide].
My, he’s really giving that strawman a workout. Let’s unpack this paragraph. The reason that the abortion debate is framed in religious terms is that the arguments in favor of the fetus’s personhood turn on notions of faith — such as ensoulment. It’s an article of faith that the fetus is a full person with rights equal to that of its mother. However, so far the law does not recognize the personhood of the fetus (the whole argument that a fetus is “human life” is a red herring — of course it is. But legally, it’s not a person). Frankly, there’s a lot more than abortion statutes that would be affected should fetuses get recognized as legal persons prior to actually, you know, being born — there are issues involving criminal law, the age of majority, trusts and estates, classes of heirs, and probably a zillion others, that would be affected if we started recognizing the legal personhood of feti.
By contrast, the legal personhood of a condemned prisoner is not in dispute (though see below for RA’s utterly disingenuous argument to the contrary). He or she became a person at birth, and the state has to establish its right to extinguish that personhood via due process and various other provisions of the Constitution (which has many references to prisoners but none to feti) and caselaw; the argument against doing so does not turn on beliefs in the personhood of the prisoner, or whether he or she has a soul, but whether the state can or should take the life of a full person. So it’s not just life at stake, it’s personhood. The same goes for infanticide — hello, full, living born person there — and late-term abortion, particularly that which occurs post-viability. But of course, those are done only where the fetus cannot live (or the fetus has already died) or the mother’s life or health are at stake. You remember the mother — the person who carries the fetus inside her and upon whom the fetus depends for its moment-by-moment survival. Does the infant have that? No (please — try putting a fetus down for a nap in a crib). Does the condemned prisoner have that? No.
Here’s where RA gets all cranky about being made fun of by Amanda:
But reading Jill of Feministe’s call to de-emphasize the problem of executing the innocent in favor of rejecting capital punishment on its face, I was struck by the parallels to my own allegedly “magical” anti-abortion position. The abolitionist — one who puts aside questions of innocence, racism, age or retardation and the like in favor of a complete ban — is arguing for nothing but life for life’s sake. Such an argument against execution, it seems, could easily be easily be dismissed as “DNA magic,” as a fetishistic obsession with the bare resemblance of the criminal’s genetic structure to our own, or as an embrace of “ensoulment.” Why not simply declare that the condemned, like the fetus, is “subhuman” or a mere “parasite”? Why protest against the perfectly “legal medical procedure” of lethal injection?
Again, RA is confusing life with personhood and the utter dependence of a fetus on its mother with a prisoner’s three hots and a cot. Sad, really. No wonder he gave up on the reasoned life.
The post goes on like that for a while. RA seems to be upset that he got spanked by PZ Myers, too, what with the “DNA magic” thing.
this is pretty insane
Poll: Sen. Lieberman Cutting Into Challenger Lamont’s Lead in Democratic Primary
Funny, I had a religious debate with a friend a couple of weeks ago about capitol punishment. I’m pro-choice and pro-contraception, in that ensoulment of a human life occurs totally according to what your religious beliefs are (or are not). I’m against the death penalty for practical reasons (not fairly meted out, and possible, probable chance of an innocent being put to death), as well as spiritual reasons (so am I pro-life?), in that we’re giving a person a time-table to come to terms with his/her actions…and regardless of religiousity, we don’t need to be messing with that. My friend is also anti-death penalty, but she really took exception to my religious input to it. My friend argued that my spiritual reasons for being anti-death penalty were totally bunk. I agree that laws need to be made with the recogniton of the separation of church and state, but as one who has studied the law, I also feel that we need to be realistic that most of our legislators come to their positions on such issues from a religious perspective.
I might add that I’ve had the wonderful opportunity of hearing Sr. Helen Prejean speak (Deadman Walking), and talking to her afterwards…
It’s so confusing to have religious beliefs these days…it makes my f**king head hurt…
Not really, mentalsolstice. I’m pro-choice and pro-contraception and anti-death-penalty and anti-war for religious reasons, too.
It’s about compassion. It’s about holding, as a value, reduction of suffering for others, and trying to understand their situations and improve their conditions according to their needs. It’s about valuing lives over “life” and caring for the living as best you can no matter who they are or what they’re done. It’s about believing that to bring up one person who’s been brought low is worth being “soft on” ten people who want to stick a knife in you, if you have to.
It doesn’t have to be confusing. It’s confusing to be told these aren’t religious positions and values, sure, or that you ought to have other ones, but it comes down to loving as much and as hard as you can, and recognizing that to shoot judgment first and ask questions later is losing an opportunity to serve.
There are other kinds of religion, of course, and I can’t speak for them. For me, though, these things fit together just fine.
I feel that the quality of a person is more important than their mere claim to existence and innocence with potential is a trump of all else. The quality of the potential life should be balanced against the already proven track record of the mother. What is the reason for termination of the pregnancy and what does that termination say about the quality of the person deciding to terminate? Why would someone want to keep the decision to terminate a preganacy private? Would the decision to terminate reflect on the character of the one making the decision? Is the decision to terminate for life saving reasons or is it to lighten the burden of responsibility for a bad decision? Since privacy is considered a core of the abortion debate these statistics are the ones most closely held in secrecy. Why?
We have become a society that depends on investigating character for all kinds of things, jobs, marriages, loans, security clearences and much more. If one were to be trusted with a government clearance wouldn’t the decision process regarding an abortion provide a clearer look into the mechanics of that process and a good predictor of future decisions. It is almost too good of an indicator to let pass.
You know what quality I look for in people worth caring about, Steve? A pulse.
(Actually, that’s not true–there are a lot of dead people I care about very much.)
Everyone’s got untapped potential, up until their very last moments. And I don’t ask what kind of person someone is before I give them medical attention, or food if they’re fainting from hunger, or a kind word when they’re sobbing helplessly on the street. I don’t ignore the elderly dying because they’ve only got a few hours left, and I don’t decide they’re not worth giving care to if they did bad things a long time ago.
Just because a credit card company wants to know about every quantifiable mistake you ever made doesn’t mean we should take their example when constructing our moral values.
Compassion has nothing to do with credit reports. It’s about chances, about seeing the best someone could be, and about recognizing that the meaner their conditions, the more help they need. Even if they won’t accept that help, even if it’s not help you can or ought to offer, or their condition is none of your business past the imperative to care.
There is one thing, as far as I’m concerned, that the termination of a pregnancy says about a pregnant woman: that she’s just been through something difficult that other people will give her a hard time for. And that means she deserves my attention and whatever leg up I can give her. The rest of it is none of my business.
I have to confess to rampant empiricism here.
The only reason I oppose the death penalty is that (for obvious reasons) I don’t trust the government to reliably identify people who ought to die.
And the only reason I’m pro-choice is because the alternative is unspeakable.
Literally unspeakable. Watch me try: “Involuntary pre…involuntary chi…involuntary par….”
Nope. Unspeakable.
I really admire that attitude, little light. I wish I were as consistently compassionate.
Everyone is opposed to unjust war.
I also don’t see what being opposed to abortion has to do with death penalty. By same logic, pro-choicers are inconsistent if they don’t support all conceivable choices one might encounter, such as the choice to not pay taxes.
Or, if you prefer, if many pro-lifers are hypocrites for supporting DP, why do pro-choicers oppose it?
Why isn’t their “anti-life” ethic consistent, as mine is (consistent pro-death… kind of has a nice ring in it :P)?
Oh, sweetheart. You really aren’t from around here, are you?
I dunno, might have something to do with nosy fuckwits passing judgment on them.
Why would someone want to keep the decision to terminate a preganacy private?
Timothy McViegh.
steve, are you saying that women who have been judged (by you? by an abortion provider?) to have bad character are the ones who should continue unwanted pregnancies and have babies? and the women who are judged to have good character are the ones who should be allowed to abort? (i’m sure that in your world, any woman who had good character wouldn’t want to abort, anyway.) why is a credit card company entitled to have a customer with good character, but a child deserves a mother with poor character (whatever that means…)? all unfertilized eggs and sperm have “innocence with potential,” as do chickens and cows, so i don’t think i’d rely on that as an indicator.
DNA Magic? I do believe the term is Sperm Magic. What a weenie.
Zuzu, since you’ve determined to act stupid, I will explain: There is no objective Justice-O-Meter that people use to determine whether a war is just or unjust. When people support a war, they generally think it is a just war, and when people oppose a war, they think it is unjust.
So opposing unjust wars is redundant, and it probably, in this context, really means “opposing wars that Piny thinks are unjust”.
No, Tuomas, I’m not “determined to act stupid.” I am simply pointing out that there are, indeed, a HELL of a lot of people in this country who don’t really give a flying fuck that the Iraq war was based on nothing. Including the people who got us into it in the first place.
There are a larger number who lost their taste for it when they realized that it was indeed based on nothing, but there are still millions who support it regardless.
What does it help, now that the decision has already been made, and Saddam has been deposed?
This is a retroactive standard of justice, and it is possible to recognize that the justificatifations for the war were false, but it does not mean that one is obligated to think that the only just thing to do now is withraw all troops immediately. Indeed, some pro-war folk think that something good may yet come from the thing, and that the US has a moral obligation to help in this.
Because many of us do not view an embryo as a person to be killed.
I am against the death penalty, partly for the same reasons as Mister Nice Guy – the justice system is imperfect and an innocent person should not be killed – and partly along the same lines as little light – the opportunity for redemption and repentance should come before life, not after it. I do not support the death penalty.
I support a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion. No woman should be forced to carry to term a pregnancy that she does not want to complete. An embryo, a blastocyst – this is not a human life, with actions and thoughts.
I’m not anti-life. I’m pro-logic.
Oh, pardon the insult, btw, but I just don’t think repeating “Bush lied, people died” at this point helps much.
I don’t think you are a hypocrite Nomie, and the anti-life was a joke.
I’m simply saying that the consistency lock of “If you oppose abortion, you must also oppose DP” is bull.
Don’t insult me on my own blog, for one.
For another, you’re the one claiming that nobody supports unjust war — and yet you’re arguing that people are, in fact, supporting an unjust war because of course the only alternative is immediately leaving, and we can’t have that, and maybe some good might come of it after all.
Well, I honestly thought that you were being obtuse, like I explained in #13.
I’m still sticking with my point “everyone opposes unjust wars”, the people you mentioned see utilitarian value in continued presence, that would make the war more just.
Since when does utility factor into it?
Not to mention, what, exactly, is the utility here? Sure, Saddam’s out of the way, but now Sadr and Iran are in charge. The place has become more fundamentalist, it’s a magnet for terrorists, and it threatens to destabilize the entire region and bring down the US economy.
You’d think that in order to have a just war, you’d need some kind of objective, no?
I know the feeling. I’ve decided to just take it for granted that you’re being disingenuous instead.
But they admit that there was no reason to go to war, which means that the decision to go to war was unjust. You’re also leaving out the people who supported the war for entirely cynical reasons which had nothing to do either with the lives of Iraqis or the danger posed by Saddam.
Sure. I’m quite sceptical about the whole thing (seems like a strategic and diplomatic blunder), but I’m merely pointing out that some people genuinely believe that democracy in Iraq is still possible. I hope they’re right, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Like I said, there is no onjective Justice-O-Meter.
onjective… objective.
When I said
I was not speaking of carrying to term or not. I was speaking of judging the strength and logical reasoning over emotion of the person who made such a decision.
We rate each other minute by minute and second by second. The judgement of others is clear even on this board where nothing is at stake. Were a man were to enter a relationship with a woman, knowing if she considered abortion an extreme solution or a routine one would be valuble information. If one were to entrust great responsibility in somone wouldn’t it be valuble to know how they handled stress and which path they would most likely take when faced with a difficult decision?
As for Compassion, which is more compassionate, saving those immediately in front of you or the larger group less visible? I have seen greater compassion from seemingly hard hearted people who had the larger picture in mind. Reacting on what emotionally affects you is not compassion it is being emotional. True compassion goes beyond what gives you the warm fuzzies. The question: How should people be taught to handle difficult decisions, is there no senses of duty or responsibility, or does a group hug and a quick round of Kum By Ya solve all problems. Do we want people who always pick the easiest path.
Of course we get ourselves into difficult situations and sometimes in spite of our best efforts after doing the right thing. That has no bearing on rating the quality of the person by the decisions they make. I say let them make the decision but let them be known by those decisions.
What makes you think you can be trusted to judge that?
Let alone legislate it. LGM has a great series of posts on how this kind of ambiguity has no potential place in reproductive-rights laws. I think a case could be made for death-penalty laws as well.
Is RA seriously asking us to explain the history of American legal philosophy? Is he seriously that ignorant?
I mean, really, what the hell?
Don’t want to legislate or judge anything except what I am supposed to. What I am arguing for is knowledge. Make abortion records public knowledge. If I am in a postion to judge (deciding who to marry) i will have more knowledge to judge more wisely.
Why should abortion records be public knowledge? For your titillation?
Why don’t we make *your* medical records public knowledge so we can have knowledge to judge whether you deserve treatment, or whether we can shame you for that little rash you picked up?
That’s about the damn stupidest proposal I’ve ever heard. You haven’t even come up with a good reason why you should be in a position to judge, let alone whether you should know anything about other people’s private medical decisions.
Steve,
You have been making this argument repeatedly about ‘thinking with logic over emotion.’
Funny how you keep talking about teaching women that, hmm?? I’m glad to know that I inherently cannot think logically because I have a pussy flapping around between my legs, and I need someone who possess the Magical Penis of Knowledge to tell me how to ‘think logically.’
I see Steve, you think my future employers should know I had an abortion before they decide to hire me. Because the history of my womb is going to have a direct effect on my ability to teach and do research. And we know that the faculty voting on whether to hire me is highly unlikely to contain a rabid ideologue who thinks I deserve to be stoned, not hired. Would you like to send my medical records to the nutjobs who would like to shoot me as well?
Would this public record include assumed fathers, or is it only the woman’s decisions that should be open to scrutiny? Would it include notes like “rape, incest” so we could tell the innocent damaged-goods types from the shameless sluts?
While were at it, let’s give women giant red ‘A’s to sew on their clothes so you know not to get involved with the fornicators and adulterers.
Shame is like blackmail. Aperson who won’t be blackmailed can’t be blackmailed. As for full disclosure probabaly not. You tell me what level of privacy you want and how will you acheive it in this age when privacy is a myth. Privacy is a legal fiction. Give me enough time and without ever meeting them I can find almost every piece of information recorded in an official capacity. (Medical records). If it is on a computer it is not truly private.
But aside from that some things are just funny
That was a good one. And logic is not gender dependent. But the abortion argument continually slops back and forth from logic to emotion in ways that make the argument one of convincing one of the point rather than proving the point. Convincing someone of something is not a step in proving that same thing.
Think of all the people that believe idiotic things. Have those things been proven or is it a belief.
But in any case I think I am generating more heat than light. I do not want to hijack this thread into a fight, so I ‘ll monitor rather than comment on this thread unless something is directed at me.