Unintended consequences of a myopic viewpoint
The myopic, bleeding-heart, science-backed(?), anti-abortion folks are stirring the pot again. There is a wing of people who want to redefine personhood at fertilisation. The problem with this is two-fold: Unintended consequences and a religious fallacy.
Let's attack the latter issue first.
The religious Right use their conservative fundamentalist dogma to say that life, supported by scientific evidence (rather than faith?) begins at fertilisation. Yet the Bible, which they strictly adhere to in other themes that fit their agenda (gay marriage (American Christians), slavery (past American/European Christians), brutalising women (current Christian and Muslim diaspora)) doesn't agree. According to many passages in the Bible, it explicitly couples life with breath:
Genesis 1:30
New International Version (NIV)
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground-everything that has the breath of life in it-I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Genesis 2:7
New International Version (NIV)
7 Then the LORD God formed a mana]">[a] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Genesis 6:17
American Standard Version (ASV)
17 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon this earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is in the earth shall die.
Job 33:4
New Living Translation (NLT)
4 For the Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
According to the Judeo-Christo-Muslim faith, breath gives life, not sperm. And don't tell me I nitpicked, because everyone cherrypicks the bible, that's the point I'm making. I didn't actually cherrypick, I just did a search for 'breath life' on biblegateway.com, and voila, plenty. So, with that, I will assert that life begins at first breath, and that breath doesn't happen until the umbilical cord is cut and until the child is ex utero and viable as a breather. That is when the bible determines that life has begun.
I will also use interpretation to say that this makes sense. God is life-force, energy, spirit, consciousness. Any of that requires breath. It requires living, which requires combustion, which requires energy/fuel and air/breath. That living leads to consciousness (or maybe the converse is true... or maybe they're the same thing... a different post altogether). And awareness is godliness.
Secondly, now let's address the unintended consequences:
When it comes down to it, more people isn't a good thing. And to me, a rich life is one where you have relationships and help people. If I were aborted, I wouldn't have had any relationships, any consciousness, any breath, any life. To me, murder is when you take life away from someone. And while I can understand the compassion that these people have for the unborn, I think it is misdirected. When it comes down to it, too many people on the earth results in the killing of those people anyway. And Freakonomics supports my claim as well. (Of course, this doesn't mean that abortion is a crime solution, what it means is that too many people in a place causes problems.)
I do find it ironic that religious people are trying to use science to back their claims. These are the same people that don't believe in evolution. When it comes down to it, they'll scrape at anything to fit into their myopic, ideological worldview: They should be able to have as many babies as they want, and you shouldn't have the option to have sex and not breed, because children are awesome.
While that may be a sentiment shared by many, forcing your worldview on others is, well, dictatorial and mean. And I find it ironic that the people who ideologically want everyone to share in the 'miracle of childbirth' are the first to throw their children away to the spoils of war in the name of nationalism and tribalism.
It is a simplistic viewpoint and glosses over thousands of dimensions of reality. And yet, I understand and have compassion for where they're coming from. They see potential humans as humans, and that has merit. It's just not realistic and ends up being draconian in practice. It creates the situations they supposedly do not want, which is the basis for their faith in a higher power. Faith is supposed to lead to world peace, to stability. But misplaced faith leads to war, famine, strife. It is incredibly sad, really, that the simple path just doesn't deliver all the time.
Blessings (however you take that) to all of you.
Let's attack the latter issue first.
The religious Right use their conservative fundamentalist dogma to say that life, supported by scientific evidence (rather than faith?) begins at fertilisation. Yet the Bible, which they strictly adhere to in other themes that fit their agenda (gay marriage (American Christians), slavery (past American/European Christians), brutalising women (current Christian and Muslim diaspora)) doesn't agree. According to many passages in the Bible, it explicitly couples life with breath:
Genesis 1:30
New International Version (NIV)
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground-everything that has the breath of life in it-I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Genesis 2:7
New International Version (NIV)
7 Then the LORD God formed a mana]">[a] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Genesis 6:17
American Standard Version (ASV)
17 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon this earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is in the earth shall die.
Job 33:4
New Living Translation (NLT)
4 For the Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
According to the Judeo-Christo-Muslim faith, breath gives life, not sperm. And don't tell me I nitpicked, because everyone cherrypicks the bible, that's the point I'm making. I didn't actually cherrypick, I just did a search for 'breath life' on biblegateway.com, and voila, plenty. So, with that, I will assert that life begins at first breath, and that breath doesn't happen until the umbilical cord is cut and until the child is ex utero and viable as a breather. That is when the bible determines that life has begun.
I will also use interpretation to say that this makes sense. God is life-force, energy, spirit, consciousness. Any of that requires breath. It requires living, which requires combustion, which requires energy/fuel and air/breath. That living leads to consciousness (or maybe the converse is true... or maybe they're the same thing... a different post altogether). And awareness is godliness.
Secondly, now let's address the unintended consequences:
- Lack of family planning/birth control
- An overrun of humans on the planet, devouring resources and everything it their path
- War (over water or resources)
- Famine (due to a lack of food)
- War (due to overpopulation and need for more land)
- Poverty (those who abort usually can't afford more children or aren't ready)
- Social decay (unwanted babies aren't generally the most well taken care of people)
- Crime (due to a lack of resources and jobs. You think unemployement is bad now? Try having 14 brothers and sisters and fighting for a job with 7X as many people on the planet!)
- Lack of choice for people/families--lives will be dictated as to what you can and can't do based on religious philosophy. That's no way to run a government nor a heterogeneous society.
- War (there will be too many people, so there will be so much poverty that the poor will voluntarily join the military)
When it comes down to it, more people isn't a good thing. And to me, a rich life is one where you have relationships and help people. If I were aborted, I wouldn't have had any relationships, any consciousness, any breath, any life. To me, murder is when you take life away from someone. And while I can understand the compassion that these people have for the unborn, I think it is misdirected. When it comes down to it, too many people on the earth results in the killing of those people anyway. And Freakonomics supports my claim as well. (Of course, this doesn't mean that abortion is a crime solution, what it means is that too many people in a place causes problems.)
I do find it ironic that religious people are trying to use science to back their claims. These are the same people that don't believe in evolution. When it comes down to it, they'll scrape at anything to fit into their myopic, ideological worldview: They should be able to have as many babies as they want, and you shouldn't have the option to have sex and not breed, because children are awesome.
While that may be a sentiment shared by many, forcing your worldview on others is, well, dictatorial and mean. And I find it ironic that the people who ideologically want everyone to share in the 'miracle of childbirth' are the first to throw their children away to the spoils of war in the name of nationalism and tribalism.
It is a simplistic viewpoint and glosses over thousands of dimensions of reality. And yet, I understand and have compassion for where they're coming from. They see potential humans as humans, and that has merit. It's just not realistic and ends up being draconian in practice. It creates the situations they supposedly do not want, which is the basis for their faith in a higher power. Faith is supposed to lead to world peace, to stability. But misplaced faith leads to war, famine, strife. It is incredibly sad, really, that the simple path just doesn't deliver all the time.
Blessings (however you take that) to all of you.