There is a wide gulf between the Christian and the pagan. Oftentimes a far wider gulf than we think. A wide gulf between the culture of ‘made in the image of God’ and ‘‘free-floating purposeless atoms”.
Thus when one Christians says something to another Christian, about a Christian issue, or one in at least a culturally Christian context, the pagan can be quite confused and upset about the dialogue.
I posted the following quote from Doug Wilson. In it he says nothing particularly novel or controversial, although he does put it clearer than most. This same argument was made, years and years ago, by Peter Kreeft in his book ‘The Unaborted Socrates’ (which I cannot more highly recommend):
Politicians who adopt the “rape, incest, and life of the mother” exceptions are showing us all one of two things. There are two, and only two possibilities. Either they don’t know that the position they have adopted is incoherent, or they do know. Those are the only options, and certain things follow from each.
The issue in the abortion debate is whether or not the child is a person, created in the image of God. If a person, then that child should have the protections that God’s law secures for persons. The law should recognize the personhood of the unborn child. If not a person, then we need not bother. So that is the issue, and that is the only issue.
I quickly got a response to the quote, which was amazing both in its initial stages, and in the depth to which it went.
Nonsense.
Abortion rights, regardless of the framing, comes down to a question of whose life and/or rights takes primacy when two lives come into conflict, and under what circumstances.
You know, like most laws do.
Arguments about “personhood” are [] promulgated by both sides to avoid the simple fact that mother’s interests are sometimes at odds with the interests of the babies they gestate.
J Daniel Sawyer [edited for decency and spelling]
What is She?
That was the beginning of the exchange and, in response, I jotted down a few notes about responses. Our exchange continued, which I post below, but the conversation changed so dramatically that I decided to break this post into two parts; this first part dealing with some of the issues he raises in this first response.
Age of child
Doug Wilson stated, “That is the issue, and that is the only issue.” J Daniel says that this is ‘nonsense’. In his further comments below he expands on why he thinks it is nonsense, but in so doing he leaves out the current state of the law. In the current law the age of the child is very much an issue of concern to the law. Or, if you will, the location of the child. Whether she is born or pre-born.
Our current law differentiates the location of the child and, whether J. Daniel likes it or not, for the vast majority of voting citizens this represents their view on whether the child is a living human being or not. For the vast majority, if it was made absolutely clear to them that the two week or two month old child was a human being, they would be opposed to her murder.
And abortion supporters, in general, recognise this. This is why they block TV advertisements that show the child in the womb or, worse, that show the child in the womb being torn apart by abortion. It is why they oppose signs which graphically show the torn apart child. It is why they speak of ‘fetus’, a ‘blob of tissue’ and ‘potential human’.
The Audience
Which brings us to the most fundamental misunderstanding of J. Daniel. Doug Wilson’s quote was a quote to Christians about Christians. Or, at the very least, to ‘pro-life’ people about ‘pro-life politicians’. He was speaking of the ‘pro-life’ politician who would listen and nod his head at ‘pro-life’ speakers talking about the personhood of the unborn child, the importance of the un-born child, and applauding the work of rescuers who counsel women against murdering their un-born child… and then vote in favour of ‘rape, incest, and life-of-the-mother’ exceptions to laws against abortion.
Doug Wilson was pointing out that these things were inconsistent, and insisting that there could only be two types of such politicians: those too foolish to realise that they were inconsistent, and those who knew they were inconsistent and voted for them anyway. In other words, fools and liars.
Saying the Quiet Part
As I was busy writing down notes for the first part of this post, the discussion continued, and resulted in the following response from J. Daniel:
Ugh. Not sure I want to. But since I opened the ball…
The compromise that most countries have reached—that abortion is legal within the first 1-1.5 trimesters excepting for extraordinary medical reasons—seems to me about the best possible hair-split. I’m very much a pro-natalist, but I’ve also seen too much about what birth is actually like to be at all comfortable with the state having a say in the matter at all. To put it in the crassest terms possible, of course the gestating fetus is a human life, but so [] what? Humans have always practiced infanticide and birth control because the load of raising a child is incredibly large, and the risk-of-death in normal childbirth is astonishingly high. Modern medicine—both because of its advances in pre-natal care and obstetrics, and because of how it locks anything medical behind a screen (just as we do with death) has created a Disney-romantic vision of childbirth and parenthood. Both are dangerous, to both children and parents, and there are some birth defects that are so horrific they should be euthanized as soon as they are born. The reality of how life fucntions when it doesn’t work right is quite bracing, and NOTHING in our stupid conversation on this topic takes any of that seriously:
“Babies are beautiful, life is beautiful!” Yup, they are. And essential. And the same isn’t true of a Harlequin baby or a micro/hydrocephallic or even the more severe cases of Downs. People who wish to volunteer to care for such children (a lifelong commitment in many cases) should certainly be allowed to do so, and even lauded for it, but there is a long way to go from there to “humans are brothers and are all obligated to care for one another.”
And, non-trivially, none of the above gives a man (or a baby) the right to enslave a woman (or a 9-year-old-girl, a case I encountered once) to childbirth and motherhood, and all the risks that entails, through forcible impregnation. If someone breaks into my house, I have the right to kill them because they have attacked my sphere of defense, within which I have the authority to do violence.
“My body, my choice!” Yes, absolutely. But that doesn’t give you the right to demand financial subsidization and medical care because your body is carrying out a natural function. It doesn’t mean that when you choose to terminate a pregnancy, you aren’t ending a human life. Don’t pretend otherwise.
All this [] is easy when you stick to idealism. In real life, it’s complicated, messy, ugly, nasty, and often there are no “good” answers. When I posted the note that started this thread, I had hit my tolerance limit for mendacious ideological moralism for the day. Probably shouldn’t have done so. But you asked, and apparently in good faith, so that’s what I got :-)
J. Daniel Sawyer [edited for decency']
Now, this comment has some facts rather wrong. There has been no ‘compromise reached’. The state of child murder is very much in flux all over the world. The Netherlands, for example, has moved way past merely murdering children in the womb, and has moved into murdering them in their cribs and beds.
And at least in the United States most of the laws concerning child murder are more honoured in their breach than their letter.
But that is a very minor part of the importance of this response. In saying the quiet part out loud, J. Daniel shows that, for a certain subset of the community, Pastor Wilson is wrong. They are perfectly willing to acknowledge that unborn humans and ‘defective’ humans are humans… and call for their death anyway.
Infanticide
…of course the gestating fetus is a human life, but so [] what? Humans have always practiced infanticide…
J. Daniel Sawyer
There it is. There is the quiet part said out loud. When the child murder movement started in the United States, at least, the entire establishment said, frequently, that ‘abortion’ was not infanticide, and could not lead to infanticide. We have now reached the point where some of them, at least, are willing to admit that what we call ‘abortion’ is, and always was, infanticide. The deliberate murder of a human being.
Who Broke In?
If someone breaks into my house, I have the right to kill them because they have attacked my sphere of defense, within which I have the authority to do violence.
J. Daniel Sawyer
Ironically, as a theonomist, I largely agree here. According to Scripture it would make a difference if it was during the day or at night, and if they were armed. But the point is very real: you have the authority to defend your home, your family, your neighbors and, indeed, yourself.
However the application here is backwards. I firmly believe that rapists should be executed (given the two witnesses required). But what J. Daniel is calling for here is not the execution of the rapist, but his child.
Let us make the metaphor clear. Suppose a burglar were to break into a house, and were to be carrying his child on his back. And, during the burglary, he were to drop the child… or lay her down and forget her-… or lay her down and abandon her when he was forced to flee. And the householder can’t shoot the burglar, because he has fled or the law doesn’t allow it, so decides to kill his child instead. That, under any law, is murder. Murder most foul.
Because the child is not the burglar. She is another victim of the burglar.
Her child
And, non-trivially, none of the above gives a man (or a baby) the right to enslave a woman (or a 9-year-old-girl, a case I encountered once) to childbirth and motherhood
J. Daniel Sawyer
And the child is also… her child. It is a hard thought but, when a woman is raped (to say nothing of a consensual incestuous relationship)1 The resulting child is hers. Biologically speaking she is half of the mother’s genes. She is a grandchild, a niece, a sister… she belongs to her mother, if not her husband.
Traditional morality, and what we see in nature, says that it is the mother who should sacrifice for the child (and the father for both of them); not the child for the mother. In light of traditional morality it is absolute nonsense to speak of a mother being ‘enslaved’ to childbirth and motherhood.
Transitive Verb
A transitive verb is a verb which has a subject takes an object. The verb ‘enslave’ is such a verb.
none of the above gives a man (or a baby) the right to enslave a woman (or a 9-year-old-girl, a case I encountered once) to childbirth and motherhood
When we look at this sentence we see the transitive verb ‘enslave’. The subject proposed is a man (or a baby) and the object is a woman. But let us be clear, it isn’t the man, and still less the baby, which is doing any enslaving. It happens, especially in the middle east, that a man will kidnap a woman (or buy her on the black market), impregnate her, and keep her and her child enslaved. But that isn’t what is happening here.
What is happening here is rape (for which, yes, the death penalty should ensue)… and obligation. The mother of a child is obligated not by the father and still less by his child, to carry that child and be her mother. But it isn’t the father, or his daughter, which create that obligation.
Who Creates Obligations?
Thou shalt not kill.
Exodus 20:13
That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Titus 2:4-5
This entire debate is filled with calls to ‘rights’ and ‘obligations’ and ‘duties’ and the like. But as the gulf between Pastor Wilson and J. Daniel Sawyer makes clear, it matters a good deal from Who we believe the source of our rights, obligations, and duties comes. Who lays obligations on us.
The proper relationship between a mother and her child is that the mother should be ready to die for her child; not that the child should die for the convenience of the mother.
Conclusion
Both are dangerous, to both children and parents, and there are some birth defects that are so horrific they should be euthanized as soon as they are born.
J. Daniel Sawyer
Again, we have the quiet part out loud. And here we reach the conclusion of the gulf between the pagan and the Christian. Christians recognise that the creator created all human life, even those with horrific birth defects, as made in the image of God. Thus we recognise all acts of murder as being blasphemy against God.
It was telling that the Wikipedia article on the legalisation of child ‘euthanasia’ mentioned that the Netherlands was the first country ‘since Nazi Germany’ to legalise infanticide (which they call ‘child euthanasia’). It was, as J. Daniel points out, incorrect, but it was certainly telling.
Child murder is amongst the most blasphemous of all murder. The child was given to you, by God, to care for. Choosing to kill her instead is a slap in His face. Which is, perhaps, not wise.
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
Links
The first part of this podcast speaks to the foundation of these issues.
Since I posted this, I found another pro-infanticide post. It’s behind a paywall, but the title says enough:
AATX is my local organisation dedicated to treating unborn children with the same laws as other children, and all human beings as created by God.
If the incestuous relationship was that of rape, there would be no need for an ‘and incest’ clause to the law… it would already be covered by ‘rape’.
Well written article on a subject I have thought about deeply for years now. I am approaching 60 and 40 years ago my college girl friend had an abortion. It seemed the right thing to do at the time but now it haunts me on a frequent basis. I have written several articles on fate and believe God blessed us with free will. But I cannot, nor will I ever, understand why things in this world work out the way they do. In many ways my life has worked out well, at least from a worldly understanding, as I went on to marry another woman and have three wonderful kids. But, in the moment, 40 years ago, I took fate into my own hands and tried to play the part of God. I have asked for forgiveness ever since. We simply cannot understand what God's grand plan is and deciding to end the life of the unborn is not accepting the fate God had for us.
When I was twenty years old, a good friend of mine got pregnant. She wasn’t ready for a child; becoming a mother would have torn her life apart.
We were young, and had been taught all our lives that abortion was okay in situations like this. It wasn’t even a question. She needed an abortion. I went with her to the doctor.
I don’t think the gravity of what had happened struck either of us right away. Our friendship was never quite the same; my friend, already suffering from depression and fractured identity, only got worse.
Years later, I heard her question her choice. “I had to do it, right?”
I think about it a lot, and wonder whether having that baby, while the most difficult thing she’d ever done, would’ve changed her life for the better.
It’s a difficult situation. I’m hesitant to call for bans for everyone. But at the very least, the mainstream liberal narrative that dismisses it as a simple ‘do-over,’ a minor thing that means nothing—this needs to change.