[Vision2020] Credibility: Roger's and Mine

lfalen lfalen at turbonet.com
Tue Sep 2 13:04:47 PDT 2008


Nick
Thanks for trying to be on the safe side. Conception would be even safer. As I said before don't think legality or religion are valid criteria. My daughter is a vegetarian, she might appreciate your recipe's. As for me I advocate a diet high in fruits an vegetables along with some meat. I make a distinction between humans and animals Your trying to make them the same is a jump in logic. That is not to say that animals should not be treated kindly. 
Roger
-----Original message-----
From: Nick Gier ngier at uidaho.edu
Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:43:11 -0700
To: lfalen lfalen at turbonet.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Credibility: Roger's and Mine

> Hi Roger:
> 
> State medical authorities, not me, are in charge of setting the time 
> tables for enforcing Roe v. Wade.  Legislators should trust them.
> 
> Given the lack of brain development in the fetus (the brain cells are 
> even connected, Roger!), I could have chosen 27-29 weeks, but I chose 
> to be on the safe side with 24 weeks.  But again I'm not the one to 
> decide this.
> 
> If the Supreme Court had used my personhood argument rather than 
> their weak viability criterion, it would be medical authorities, not 
> me, who would decide the cut-off point.  The history of law shows us 
> that philosophers and jurists have propose and legislators and 
> experts dispose and fix the specifics of the law.
> 
> You seem to ignore the problems with conception.  The possibilities 
> of twinning and cloning make it equally ambiguous.  Besides there is 
> no qualities that the early fetus has that all animal fetuses do not 
> also have.  I have some really good vegetarian recipes for you, 
> Roger, if you choose to be logically consistent pro-life.
> 
> Thanks for the dialogue,
> 
> Nick
> 
> chose 24 weeksAt 10:09 AM 9/2/2008, you wrote:
> >Nick
> >You hinted at medical opinion at being a basis for when a a fetus 
> >becomes a person. You are on somewhat more solid ground there than 
> >you are with religion or legality. Killing the jews was legal under 
> >the Nazis and religion is oll over the place. You site 24 weeks a 
> >being the cutoff point. Is that set in stone.  Could it be 165 days 
> >170 days 168 days or 167 days, 12 hours 10 minutes and 37 seconds.
> >Roger
> >-----Original message-----
> >From: nickgier at adelphia.net
> >Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:47:44 -0700
> >To: lfalen lfalen at turbonet.com
> >Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Credibility: Roger's and Mine
> >
> > > Hi Roger,
> > >
> > > You need to read my article to see the documentation on the 
> > historical position of the Catholic and Protestant churches. My 
> > claim was based on tradition, not what current thinkers 
> > believe.  Many of them are flaming liberals in changing a 
> > traditional position on abortion that has solid scientific foundation.
> > >
> > > Neither Calvin nor Luther said anything about abortion, and 
> > Thomas Aquinas' position was that the fetus becomes a person "at 
> > the completion of man's coming into being."
> > > The great Catholic theologian Jacques Maritain agrees with 
> > Aquinas: "To admit that the human fetus receives the intellectual 
> > soul from the moment of its conception, when matter is in no way 
> > ready for it, sounds to me like a philosophical absurdity. It is as 
> > absurd as to call a fertilized ovum a baby."
> > >
> > > And if you had followed the Vision discussion between Ted and 
> > myself, you would have remembered that I set 24 weeks as the 
> > cut-off point for abortion, which is pretty much how state medical 
> > boards are interpreting the 1973 Supreme Court decision.
> > >
> > > Conception is not your "clear demarcation" point, because 
> > twinning can happen up to 16 days, and what was once a conceptus 
> > with one genetic identity is now two individuals with the same 
> > genetic identity.  That, and the possibility of cloning every 
> > somatic cell, proves the absurdity of identifying genetic and 
> > personal identity.
> > >
> > > My stand on favoring abortion before 24 weeks and rejecting the 
> > death penalty at all times is morally and legally 
> > consistent.  Executing Duncan, a moral and legal person, or anyone 
> > else is state sanctioned murder, but taking the life of a 
> > non-person is not.  You continue to speak of "innocence" but cows 
> > and pigs are just as innocent as early fetuses, and yet you have no 
> > compunction about having them killed.
> > >
> > > Thanks for the dialogue,
> > >
> > > Nick
> > >
> > > Nick
> > > You state that legal and religious traditions have held that a 
> > fetus is not a
> > > person until late in pregnancy. I dont think that Catholics and 
> > Evangelicals
> > > would agree with that.  By saying late in pregnancy you still 
> > have not set an
> > > exact demarcation point. This  can be somewhat of a sliding 
> > scale.  For myself I
> > > do not know what the correct answer is. I may be somewhat in 
> > agreement with
> > > Obama on that narrow point. At least the Catholics and 
> > Evangelicals have a clear
> > > demarcation point.
> > > You still run the risk of killing the innocent and sparing the guilty. If
> > > anybody deserves the death penalty it is Duncan.
> > > On a related issue why would California what him extradited to 
> > try him there. He
> > > has already been sentenced to death, they should save the 
> > expense. The same
> > > holds for the guy who killed a Moscow student, some one in Boise 
> > and in Nevada.
> > > Boise can keep him. Latah does not need the expense.
> > > Roger
> > >
> > >
> > > You also need to read my article to see that I
> >
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> 
> "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://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/home.htm
> 208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
> President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
> http://www.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ift.htm
> 
> 
> 



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