A Collection of Cells

Michelle Lundberg of Vancouver, WA made the following charge against pro-lifers in the Saturday, August 8, 2009 Columbian:

"Don Leighton's Aug.4 letter, "Electing to abort is a moral wrong", is another attempt at circular reasoning. Anyone who considers a collection of cells an actual human being is, at the very least, misinformed. Nonscientists and pseudoscientists make statements that are unverified, or verified by sources within their own belief circle. Again, religion is rearing its ugly head, trying to make a modern society adopt biblical absurdities."

Mr. Leighton stated that the

"pro-life argument can be distilled into four simple points:

1. The unborn, from the moment of conception, is a full-fledged member of the human community.

2. Intentionally killing an innocent member of the human community is a moral wrong.

3. Elective abortion is the intentional killing of a member of the human community.

4. Therefore, elective abortion is a moral wrong."

There are a number of observations regarding Mr. Leighton's argument:


a) It is a valid syllogism.


b) Premise #1 is a scientific fact. The conception between a human mother and a human father results in a genetic human being that is unique from her mother and her father. Human beings are, by definition, members of the human community.


c) Premise #2 is a philosophical view with which I doubt even Ms. Lundberg would disagree.


d) Premise #3 - The point of elective abortion is that something is alive that needs to be killed. It's alive before the abortion and dead afterwards. Therefore, elective abortion does kill. What does it kill? That which was conceived between the human mother and human father, that is, a human being which, by definition, is a member of the human community. Therfeore, this premise is true.


e) Therefore, since the Premise #1, #2, and #3 are true, the conclusion (see 4) must also be true - "Elective abortion is a moral wrong."



Notice, nowhere does Leighton appeal to religion, deity, or holy writ. Lundberg is unable to refute the pro-life argument so she just ignores it and simply reiterates the assertion that Leighton had already refuted!


Further, Lundberg makes this incredible statement:

"Anyone who considers a collection of cells an actual human being is, at the very least, misinformed."

Really?!?


Does Ms. Lundberg not realize that she, me, and every human being is a "collection of cells"? Does Lundberg consider herself a human being? Is a two-year old "collection of cells", called a toddler, less human than the 16-year old "collection of cells"?

Can we kill either because they are less of a "collection of cells" than an adult?

Eunice Kennedy Shriver 1921 - 2009

This morning Eunice Kennedy Shriver passed away. Shriver founded one of my favorite organizations, the Special Olympics.

Through Shriver's initiative, a forum was provided for those individuals that happen to have mental disabilities. Through their initiative, these individuals demonstrated to themselves and the world.

The mentally disabled have lost a powerful influence and the world has lost a person who saw an injustice and used her famous name and fortune to make a difference.

May Mrs. Shriver rest in peace and may the Lord give her family comfort in their time of grief.

For more on the legacy of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, see http://www.eunicekennedyshriver.org/

Stuff Rots

I've spent the better part of the last six weeks working on my beloved grandmother's house trying to prepare it for sale. My grandmother hasn't lived in the house for - well - we don't know how long. Her and my grandfather moved in with their oldest daughter when my grandfather's Alzheimer progressed too far for her to care for him.

Initially, she thought she would go back but then her health made it impractical for her to maneuver the steps into and in the house. So it sat empty.

Well, empty of human beings. All the furnishings were where she left them. She continued paying the power, water, heating, and phone.

She was also something of a pack rat. She collected clothing to donate which hung on a line in her basement. But she also kept everything that might be of use later. I can only guess it was a response to her going through the Depression.

There were empty boxes within empty boxes within empty boxes. Pie tins (both tin and aluminum) existed by the hundreds. Empty yogurt containers, magazines and newspapers from the 1970's, books and books and more books. Bills, marked paid and placed back in their original envelopes, existed back into the '60's. A 1950's-era floor freezer still filled with meat - no longer frozen since the compressor had stopped working.

I found a box that housed a coffee mug. Inside was the Hersey Kisses foils, all smoothed out and placed in the box. Not a few. The box was packed with the foils.

All the time the house remained unoccupied she would not sell it. The house, built in the 1920's and beautiful in its day, belonged to her parents and so she couldn't bring herself to part with it. Nor would she rent it. And so it sat. And it deteriorated.

Of course, a home unoccupied tends to invite those who didn't have Grandma's best interest at heart. The house was broken into several times and trashed. They took the glass knobs from the doors and cabinets. In some cases, they took the cabinet doors. They took the beautiful glass chandelier in the living room and many of the light fixtures.

And as thieves do, they threw everything on the floor looking for anything of value.

Then the basement flooded getting everything wet. The furnace quit working allowing everything to remain wet. And that allowed the mold to grow.

The clothing became wet and eventually the laundry line broke plunging the clothes into the water. The wet paper started to digest into a muddy pulp.

While cleaning up, I pulled up a hanger and there was only threads left stringing from the hanger. The article of clothing had rotted away. Only these few threads remained.

We found many old pictures, 80 - 100 years old that had become wet. Parts had rotted away or contained mold. These I will try to save. Others were lost.

My grandmother was devastated by the news and in many cases I didn't even tell her conditions of items she asked about. It hurt too much to see her hurt.

As I contemplate all this, it is a reminder that we should not hold too tightly to the things of this world. There comes a time when we need to let go. The stuff of this world will eventually rot.

It has been a hard lesson for my family and especially my Grandmother who is 93 and very frail.

I just wish I could shield her from the pain.

Polls Don't Reveal Right and Wrong

A same-sex marriage advocate here in Washington state made the following argument:

Remember 66% of Washington state residents support marriage equality or civil unions per the recent University of Washington poll. You are on the losing side here when it comes to saying the state must ONLY pay attention to your view point.

Notice, this says nothing about whether same-sex marriage is good!

Was slavery moral just because the majority of residents of the South supported it?

Was the Nazi regime right just because they were voted into office?

And since an election is the ultimate, binding poll what are we to make of same-sex marriage advocates after California voters chose marriage to be between one man and one woman? These self-professing tolerant people went on a character assassination rampage against anyone who supported Prop 8. Why?

Suddenly, polls no longer mattered to them.

Polls may monitor where the populace is on any given subject but they tell us zero about the legitimacy of that subject.

Coretta Scott King and Same-sex Marriage

Dr. Martin Luther King's pointed to a transcendent moral standard as the foundation for his fight against segregation. I have long argued that the principles upon which he stood argue against rights for same-sex marriage.

The other day, I was taken to task by someone who provided statements against "homophobia" by Coretta Scott King, who (the critic insisted) would know Dr. King better than anyone else, myself included.

The person provided these quotes from Mrs. King:

Coretta Scott King: “I appeal to everybody who believes in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbians and gay people.”

Coretta Scott King: “Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.”

Coretta Scott King: “Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.”

First, is this person saying that no one else but Mrs. King can tell us what Dr. King thought especially given all his writings? What do we do now that she has passed on?

Second, could Mrs. King ever be wrong about what her husband believed especially years after his death on a subject that was not predominant during his life? Could she ever read her beliefs into what he might have believed?

Third - and this is key, none of the quotes this person provided from Mrs. King address same-sex marriage! They all address homosexuality. This person was trying to equate homophobia and opposition to same-sex marriage. That two are not the same. If one claims they are the same then is the homosexual who opposes same-sex marriage a homophobe?

Martin Luther King's View on Same-sex Marriage

Dr. Martin Luther King's pointed to a transcendent moral standard as the foundation for his fight against segregation. I have long argued that the principles upon which he stood argue against rights for same-sex marriage.

The other day, I was taken to task by someone who stated that King never spoke against homosexuality.

There are several problems with this line of reasoning.

First, I have written of the principles King espoused to show that segregation was wrong. I then applied his principles to the issue of same-sex marriage. Your claim that King did not address homosexuality has nothing to do with whether I correctly I applied his principles to the same-sex marriage issue. See The Injustice of Same-sex Marriage.

Second, if King never addressed homosexuality and therefore it is wrong to reference him, then why do same-sex marriage advocates constantly call same-sex marriage a “civil rights” issue and related it to inter-racial marriage? They are clearly and illegitimately trying to bareback on the civil rights movement.

Third, King spoke on the legitimacy of interracial marriage. Why did he not also argue for the legitimacy of same-sex marriage? Could it be because the concept was so far outside the pail as to be rendered inconceivable to him?

Fourth, why has no culture nor any of the greatest thinkers, secular or religious, throughout history never - never - advocated same-sex marriage? Because they could knew it was an absurd concept. Same-sex marriage advocates are saying they know better than any of these individuals or cultures. That, at the very least, is arrogant. Capital A.

The Injustice of Same-sex Marriage

On April 15th, the Washington state Legislature passed the “Everything But Marriage” bill that gives same-sex couples all the rights of marriage. Governor Christine Gregoire has stated she will sign the bill into law.

The bill’s prime sponsor, Rep. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, stated, “This bill is about justice." [1]

A right is a just claim to something. How does one determine whether a claim is just or unjust and thus, by extension, whether the laws based upon that claim are just or unjust?

To explain the foundation upon which he and the civil rights movement opposed segregation, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote:

“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality (i.e. the dignity and worth of man who is made in the image of God) is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” [2]

"This idea of the dignity and worth of human personality is expressed eloquently and unequivocally in the Declaration of Independence. ‘All men,’ it says, ‘are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ ” [3]

King, as did Abraham Lincoln and the Founders before that, recognized that man’s dignity derives from the Creator’s design. Skin color, in all its varied hues, is part of being human and therefore inconsequential. One’s character, not their skin color, reveals God’s image.

King concluded, “All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the (dignity and worth of man who is made in the image of God)” thereby “relegating persons to the status of things.” [4]

Same-sex marriage advocates claim marriage is a right that justly belongs to two people of the same sex as well as to two people of opposite sexes.

The same voice, which tells us that skin color is inconsequential, tells us the Creator designed sexual organs for the opposite sex. When used otherwise the “eternal and natural law” is violated, debasing God’s image within us.

Advocates claim that sexual orientation is part of a homosexual’s nature; that they are born this way.

A homosexual sexual orientation is a sexual desire toward a member of the same sex.[5] A desire, no matter how strong, is a subjective feeling. Yet, the homosexual’s physical sexual organs are made for the opposite sex. Therefore a homosexual union, by definition, cannot unite the human being’s sexual nature - for the sexual desire they have for the same sex conflicts with the sexual organs they have for the opposite sex.

Marriage between a male and a female unites both parts of a human being’s sexual nature – the physical sexual organs match the sexual desire for the opposite sex. The right of marriage between a man and a woman is rooted in the natural law and therefore is just. Same-sex marriage is unjust.

Homosexuals have always had the exact same rights to marry as all citizens. Everyone can marry a person of the opposite sex thereby entering into a relationship that fulfills, rather than degrades, their dignity and worth as human beings.

Claiming a right based on an inherent contradiction forces upon society “a human law that is not rooted in the eternal law and natural law” thereby rejecting the civil rights movement’s very foundation. It degrades the dignity and worth of the human being and destroys the very notion – “inalienable rights” which are endowed upon us by a Creator – that founded this nation.


References:

[1] Chris Grygiel, “Lawmakers pass extended domestic partner rights: Opponents fear measure will lead to legalized gay marriage”, seattlepi.com, referenced 4/16/2009.

[2] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, reprinted in “A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.”, edited by James M. Washington, First HarperCollins, 1986, pp. 293.

[3] Martin Luther King Jr., “The Ethical Demands of Integration,” Dec 27, 1962, reprinted in “A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.”, edited by James M. Washington, First HarperCollins, 1986, pp. 119.

[4] Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, reprinted in “A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.”, edited by James M. Washington, First HarperCollins, 1986, pp. 293.

[5] Merriam-Webster Online Medical defines sexual orientation as “the inclination of an individual with respect to heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual behavior”. Inclination is defined as “a deviation from the true vertical or horizontal; especially: the deviation of the long axis of a tooth or of the slope of a cusp from the vertical” .