jack@rlgvax.UUCP (Jack Waugh) (03/09/84)
I'm pretty sure it's S. I. Hiakawa's book (I'm not sure if I have his name spelled right -- the Senator from Hawaii) *Language in Thought and Action* that gives the example of the squirrel. The question is: if a man walks around a tree and a squirrel climbs around the trunk of the tree, keeping always on the side opposite the man, has the man walked around the squirrel? Some people will argue vehemently that the answer is yes, others that it is no. Both camps will think they are arguing about a squirrel, a tree, and a man. In fact, all they are arguing about is what "around" means, which has no importance at all. In fact, I would say not only no importance, but no meaning. This is how I see the question, posed in this forum by anti- abortion arguers, of whether the fetus is human. You can call it (or her, if you please) human or not, but so what? I believe in taking its life if that's what the mother chooses. You seem to hold human life sacred. I beleive, rather, that the correct action is that that leads to the greater Good (which is to say, less Evil). In most of the possible sets of circumstances, different people will disagree on which route is correct on even that basis, because different people will place different valuations on the evils and advantages of the alternatives.
pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (03/13/84)
from Jack Waugh >This is how I see the question, posed in this forum by anti- >abortion arguers, of whether the fetus is human. You can >call it (or her, if you please) human or not, but so what? I >believe in taking its life if that's what the mother chooses. >You seem to hold human life sacred. I beleive, rather, that >the correct action is that that leads to the greater Good >(which is to say, less Evil). In most of the possible sets >of circumstances, different people will disagree on which >route is correct on even that basis, because different people >will place different valuations on the evils and advantages >of the alternatives. So what is this really saying as far as who can be killed and who can't? From whose perspective is the choice involving the "lesser evil" to be determined? You seem to be saying that one person may decide whether or not to kill something, and it doesn't matter whether or not that something is a human being. Can this ethic be applied consistently? Is the mother also justified in killing her 1 year old if, from her perspective, it seems to involve a lesser evil than any alternatives? I think that proscription of killing must be rooted in the *identity* of the victim (i.e. human being), not in someone else's judgment of whether or not the victim should live. What is to prevent such subjective judgement from being applied in an arbitrary manner? When would we be justified in interfering in a person's attempts to kill another? (usurping their judgement as to what is the "lesser evil"). The question of whether or not the fetus is a human is not irrelevant to whether or not the mother has the right to kill it. If it is, then whether or not you or I are humans is also irrelevant to one who may wish to kill us. Paul Dubuc