<html>
<body>
Hi Roger:<br><br>
State medical authorities, not me, are in charge of setting the time
tables for enforcing Roe v. Wade. Legislators should trust
them.<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Thanks for the dialogue,<br><br>
Nick<br><br>
chose 24 weeksAt 10:09 AM 9/2/2008, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Nick<br>
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.<br>
Roger<br>
-----Original message-----<br>
From: nickgier@adelphia.net<br>
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:47:44 -0700<br>
To: lfalen lfalen@turbonet.com<br>
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Credibility: Roger's and Mine<br><br>
> Hi Roger,<br>
> <br>
> 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.<br>
> <br>
> 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."<br>
> 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."<br>
> <br>
> 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.<br>
> <br>
> 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.<br>
> <br>
> 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.<br>
> <br>
> Thanks for the dialogue,<br>
> <br>
> Nick<br>
> <br>
> Nick <br>
> You state that legal and religious traditions have held that a fetus
is not a <br>
> person until late in pregnancy. I dont think that Catholics and
Evangelicals <br>
> would agree with that. By saying late in pregnancy you still
have not set an <br>
> exact demarcation point. This can be somewhat of a sliding
scale. For myself I <br>
> do not know what the correct answer is. I may be somewhat in
agreement with <br>
> Obama on that narrow point. At least the Catholics and Evangelicals
have a clear <br>
> demarcation point. <br>
> You still run the risk of killing the innocent and sparing the
guilty. If <br>
> anybody deserves the death penalty it is Duncan. <br>
> On a related issue why would California what him extradited to try
him there. He <br>
> has already been sentenced to death, they should save the expense.
The same <br>
> holds for the guy who killed a Moscow student, some one in Boise and
in Nevada. <br>
> Boise can keep him. Latah does not need the expense. <br>
> Roger <br>
> <br>
> <br>
> You also need to read my article to see that I <br><br>
=======================================================<br>
List services made available by First Step Internet, <br>
serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
<br>
<a href="http://www.fsr.net /" eudora="autourl">
http://www.fsr.net
</a> <br>
<a href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" eudora="autourl">
mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>
=======================================================</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=2>"Truth is the summit of being; justice is the
application of it to human affairs."<br>
--Ralph Waldo Emerson<br><br>
"Abstract truth has no value unless it incarnates in human beings
who represent it, by proving their readiness to die for it."<br>
--Mohandas Gandhi<br><br>
"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." --Ma</font><font size=1>x Planck<br><br>
</font>Nicholas F. Gier<br>
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho<br>
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843<br>
<a href="http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/home.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/home.htm<br>
</a>208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950<br>
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO<br>
<a href="http://www.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ift.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ift.htm<br><br>
</a></body>
</html>