madrid@auvax.UUCP (06/30/83)
Perhaps I should have placed the quote in net.philosophy or net.politics, except that the original query came in net.religion. As I see it, the issue has little or anything to do with an afterlife, boring or otherwise. Rather, it is one of human relations. True, we cannot be certain of anything, including our personal safety. I cannot be sure that the machine I'm typing on isn't going to turn into a fire-breathing armadillo before I finish the message. But I do have a reasonable degree of probabilistic certainty that that won't happen. I cannot be sure that I won't be blown away by a colleage, envious of my Assistantship; I cannot be sure that I won't be set aflame by a spouse annoyed by my snoring. However, I do not need either religion or the hope of an afterlife to console me from fear of spouse, colleague, or fire-breathing armadillo. We have, at the most basic level, some knowledge of the way that the physical world behaves. We also have, with a lesser degree of certainty, knowledge of how our fellow travelers on Spaceship Earth will behave. This knowledge is based on assumptions which include simple human decency and compassion, and (in some cases) laws which are set up to enforce these qualities. Of course, these are not always present. I think, however, that the assumption (based, I will admit, on a certain degree of wishful thinking) that these qualities exist is at least as reasonable as the belief in an afterlife. There is sometimes a conflict between the aforementioned qualities and the desires of an individual and/or group. There is certainly no clearly defined consensus as to what constitutes compassion. To some, my wearing shoes made from the hide of an animal constitutes an almost unspeakable barbarism. To others, in the absence of a clear and visible threat to the contrary, anything goes. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We are guided by such things as experience, training, and some build-in biological urges. It is my personal opinion that, simply because these grey areas exist, we must be careful to safeguard not only ourselves, but others as well, if only to protect ourselves. I have a degree of confidence that, at present, I am safe against arbitrary homicide. Could I be as sure if there were not a convention which protected individuals who happened to be members of any particular race, religion, age, sex, etc.? Genocide has existed in the past (and, lamentably does exist in the present.) It is in my self-interest that I oppose it. Infanticide (especially of females) was, and is. And killing of the aged, the infirm, the defective, and so on and so on. To the degree that others are vulnerable, so am I. Frankly, I find it difficult to reconcile the above with another strongly-held opinion of mine which is that it is nobody's business but mine what I do with my body. Yet, for reasons of c. & h.d., I acquiesce from time to time. I do take baths; I keep my fists out of other people's faces. And it's the old self-interest thing that makes me do it. What would happen if I were to have to apply these opinions in a real decision-making situation? I have done all that I can to ensure the conflict need not arise, but would nonetheless be willing, under some extreme and hypothetical circumstance, to consider abortion. It would be with the same kind of reservations, however, that I would have in considering killing any other sentient or semi-sentient being. It seems to me that preventing rape, teratogenic substances in the environment, prejudices against pregnancy and adoption, coercively pronatal religious and marital attitudes, and ignorance about contraception would go farther in preventing abortion than any laws against it.