Thursday, April 18, 2019

What does "abortion is murder" mean?


What exactly is packed into the idea of murder is interesting. For example, if you do not believe that the things whose life you are taking is a person, is it still murder? Is manslaughter murder?

 What if you deceive yourself into believing that some being who clearly are persons are not persons---Jews, for example? In cases like that my intuition support the use of the word “murder” because the perpetrators clearly and unmistakably ought to believe in the personhood of their victims, even if they do not. Is abortion murder in that sense? Is the full and complete personhood of the fetus so clearly true that to deny is to, to use Paul's phrase, "suppress the truth in unrighteousness?"

What if you take the life of a person for reasons that you morally justify taking the life of a person, but sub specie aeternitatis, they do not justify the homicide? Are you then a murderer? 

 The word homicide does not carry the negative connotations of the word murder. Should the word murder be used for all homicides that lack moral justification? 

It looks as if the term "murder" in the context of abortion, even if appropriate, needs some parsing. 

13 comments:

bmiller said...

Or maybe like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water a lot of Christians have forgotten what has been recognized as "so clearly true" for millenia.

Now we ask, as Pilot asked, "What is Truth"?

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...




arumemt for The religious a priori


The religious a priori is the idea that region is a disciplined itself it is not a derivation of some other thing like psychology or magic or primitive failed science. It has it;s own form of salience and must be taken on it;s own terms and not be be judged by the criteria of other disciplines such as science,

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

I want to ask my ultimate question of RTL people again: If pregnancy is negated before the sperm hook up to cell wall thus negating not destroyer , then how can one assume",murder" has taken place?

If you that is true then RU486, or something like it, will solve the problem. so why isn't the RTL movement pushing that?

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Or maybe like a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water a lot of Christians have forgotten what has been recognized as "so clearly true" for millenia.

good point b. Let's see what has been held so dear for millenia. let;see that blacks are inferior? That war is glorious?, that left handed people are villein?, the earth is flat?

bmiller said...

Joe,

Christianity has always held abortion is immoral. It has never held the other beliefs you listed. You should be ashamed.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

No bit if your argent is truth due to age of belief,

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

It wouldn't make sense ti expect pro choice from a society where there was no democracy and women weren't considered full citizens, conversely it makes no sense to expect to cancel those things just because "it;s always been valued" not to have them.

SomeRandomGuy said...

Murder is the intentional, unjustified killing of another human.
So the key distinctions are what constitutes proper justification, intentional, and what does it mean to be human?
- There is a reason why we have a category called manslaughter. Murder is an intentional act meant to end the life of another person.
- Abortion to save the life of the mother would not be unjustified as in the absence of the abortion both the mother and child would likely die. This is pretty standard in the pro-life position. It is also no different than the idea that killing in self defense is not murder.
- There is some amount of debate over exactly where human life begins, but scientifically, once the two sets of genes merge, you have a life form that directs its own growth separate from the mother and has a unique set of human chromosomes. It is very difficult to define that as not a human being without making arbitrary distinctions that would cause groups of post birth humans to also be classified as not human.

It seems to me the definition fits. Beyond that, as medical science gets better, the survival rate of premature births will get higher. It used to be that a 20 week birth was a death sentence, but now some of those babies survive. Some day we may have the technology to nurture a fertilized egg to full term outside of a woman's body. It seems to me that a standard of personhood that has to be constantly updated as technology improves is very arbitrary and capricious.

bmiller said...

Joe,

No bit if your argent is truth due to age of belief,

Like I said, you should be ashamed, as a Christian, since you know my position and I know your's.

And please, stop bringing up RU-486. Planned Parenthood marketed RU-486 as "the abortion pill" since it is intended to cause an abortion, not to stop conception.

bmiller said...

SomeRandomGuy,

I agree with most of your thoughts. But there is a distinction I would like to point out in this particular instance:

- Abortion to save the life of the mother would not be unjustified as in the absence of the abortion both the mother and child would likely die. This is pretty standard in the pro-life position. It is also no different than the idea that killing in self defense is not murder.

I disagree that this is "pretty standard" if you mean the intent is the willful destruction of the innocent child instead of the intent being the preservation of the life of the mother. AKA The Principle of double effect.

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...



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Out of discussions of the Euthepho Dilemma questions arise. Is or ability to love predicated upon God's love for us? about God's love and the nature of the Good. Does God ee love us? Screw us does God love me?