[Vision2020] Interfaith Panel Thurs. May 15

[Chasuk]

On Sat, May 17, 2008 at 12:11 AM, Donovan Arnold
<donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think the Death Penalty is wrong. But I understand it is still necessary
> in some instances. I think as a society we should work to eliminate it from
> being necessary.

Intellectually, I think the death penalty is always wrong.
Emotionally, if I were the aggrieved survivor of certain heinous
crimes against my loved ones,  then I will probably want my vengeance.
 Does this justify the death penalty?  No.  Does it mean that I feel
empathy for those whose lives have been destroyed by human monsters?
Yes.  Should they become self-appointed executioners?  No.  Do I
condemn them if they do?  No.  My emotions and my intellect frequently
reside on different spheres, so this debate is especially difficult.




> I don't think that people that support abortion are
> necessarily anti-Christian or murderers. I think to be a murderer you have
> to deliberately take an innocent human life with a soul. Since nobody can
> know with evidence that a fetus has a soul, it cannot be deliberate talking
> of a life.

I think that you are arguing that only the deliberate killing of the
unambiguously ensouled qualifies as murder.  Is this correct?

> But it is still wrong. And we as a society should work to
> eliminate it by giving women real alternatives to abortion. Society allows
> women to fall easily into unwanted pregnancies, they only allows them three
> painful alternatives of adoption, abortion or poverty.

I agree and disagree.  Maybe, abortion shouldn't be a primary means of
birth control, if only because it leads -- arguably --  to an
increased risk of future infertility.  As for society allowing "women
to fall easily into unwanted pregnancies," getting pregnant isn't that
easy.  A woman is fertile only 5 -  6 days a month, and most acts of
sexual congress do not result in pregnancy.  Statistically, the odds
of getting pregnant from any single sexual encounter is 3% - 5%.
Contraception is inexpensive and widely available.  "Unwanted"
pregnancies are oftentimes willful, as contradictory as that seems.
Becoming a mommy magically turns you into an adult, an aspirational
state for many girls, but especially those girls who are members of
lower socioeconomic status.  When you are an adult, all of your
problems go away.

I haven't needed to avail myself of contraceptives in years, so my
information may be old, but I recommend Depo-Provera, Norplant, or
something similar being made freely available to all teenage girls.
This seems like a sensible solution to me, although unfortunately it
wouldn't prevent STDs.

Chas