[Vision2020] Compassion for All Life

[Nick Gier]

Greetings:

Thanks, Tom, for your post.  The number of U.S. abortions has 
decreased since the 1970s and they would go down even more if 
so-called pro-lifers would not place so many obstacles in the path of 
women who want them.  The earlier they have them, the safer they are.

European countries have much lower abortion rates than we do 
primarily because of good (some would say "graphic") sex education, 
the absence of a Religious Right, supportive social services, and 
free health care.  European countries also have lower teen pregnancy 
rates, and much, much lower STD rates.

With regard to our founding documents, I would say that even ETs 
would be protected under our Constitution.  The premise of the movie 
ET is that ET was a person, and the corollary was that it was the 
children, not the adults, who recognized this basic moral fact.

This hypothetical clearly shows that there are persons who are not 
humans (ETs and God), and human beings who are not persons (Terri 
Schiavo and fetuses up to 25 weeks).  Our visionary down the hill has 
recently defined God as cosmic intelligence so even he has to agree 
with this, after evading the question in an earlier 
exchange.  Therefore, the person/nonperson is the only relevant moral 
distinction to make on this topic.

By the way, my rant about militant vegetarianism was simply a 
demonstration that most pro-lifers are not morally consistent.

Soy Burgers Forever (touche, Paul!)

Nick


"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to 
human affairs."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings who 
represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."
  --Mohandas Gandhi

"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be 
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each 
part by itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole 
and on the interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our 
intellectual life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between 
science, religion, and art. The whole is never equal simply to the 
sum of its various parts." --Max Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm

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