by Jason Stotts
Last May, Dr. George Tiller was gunned down by a religious fanatic in a church. The fanatic’s name was Scott Roeder and he defended his actions by saying that he was justified in the killing because Dr. Tiller was an abortion doctor who was “murdering unborn children” who could not defend themselves.
A jury, however, has reasonably concluded that Roeder’s actions were nothing less than premeditated murder. (Fox News)
This case deeply saddens me and I think that there are some very important lessons that one can learn from it.
The first is that the irrationality of faith is antagonistic to reason and civilized society as well as being a deadly danger. Faith can justify anything; literally anything. A person can have faith that they see their god and he tells him to kill a child or start a war. There can be no check on this if you admit faith as a valid method of thinking and acquiring knowledge: if you admit faith as a principle, the murderer is simply the more consistent adherent of his faith since he actually follows it. However, as Nietzsche says: “A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
A somewhat different issue is that language can influence your thoughts. To refer to the mass of cells growing inside a woman as a “fetus” (correct) as opposed to an “unborn child” (incorrect) is an epistemological error. A child is a developing human that has reached the stage where it can survive as a discrete entity. That is, a child is something that can live by itself and does not have to be fed through an umbilical cord. It would be more correct to call it an “unborn baby,” but here too the critical distinction about the ability to live as an independent existent comes into play. It’d be better to think of it as “still developing into a” baby. However, until it has independent existence, it has absolutely no moral status. This is because it is a potential human and not an actual human until it is born and gains independent existence.
Religious dogma has perverted thinking here because it needs it’s god to give the developing baby a soul in order for it to fit into their framework of understanding. This “ensoulment,” to use the catholic term, is nothing but a fiction that is necessitated by their insistence upon the Platonic eternal soul that comes from their god. There is no evidence of a soul, it is an article of faith. However, on the religious viewpoint, once a being has a soul, it is a human. That’s just nonsense. However, for a religious person it means that a fetus is a person and has full moral consideration, since it is ensouled. I think the only logical conclusion is to deny abortions to religious people and let anyone else have free access to them.
The point, though, is that failure to have clear thinking can have deadly consequences and in this case a good man was gunned down senselessly by a religious fanatic whose mind was perverted by his faith.
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For a fuller account of my position on abortion, see my essay “Truly Pro-Life: Personhood and Abortion“.
Comments
3 responses to “Dr. Tiller Was Murdered”
At what point does this at least semi-mystical transformation from 'potential human' to 'actual human' take place? If it is based upon when a child can survive independently, does that mean unborn humans (excuse me, potential humans)become actual humans faster in the US (with great neonatal centers) than in a poor nation? If there is an advance in technology allowing "potential humans" to become "actual humans" a week earlier the same day a woman aborts a *ahem* "potential human" within that window (meaning she eliminated an "actual human"), is she now a murderer? How do you feel about the fact that some people perform abortions on humans capable of living independently? Is it murder?
Also, if a person is in an accident and requires life support, do they revert to only being "potential humans" What if the requirement is temporary 9and known to be temporary) – do they lose their rights until they regain their ability to function independently?
Aquinas Dad,
Those are good questions. I recommend you read my essay "Truly Pro-Life: Personhood and Abortion" (http://erosophia.blogspot.com/2008/10/truly-pro-life-personhood-and-abortion.html) that takes on these hard questions.
Part of your error motivating these questions is an assumption in rigid categorization. Your namesake would not be pleased by this. You see, Aquinas was primarily an Aristotelian and it's clear in Aristotle that kinds do not have rigid boundaries. This is clear in his epistemological works, but unmistakable in his biological writings.
The moment that the change from potential human to actual human takes place is the moment of birth, or separate existence. However, this being is still very much undeveloped and it will grow slowly. As it does, it becomes more and more human as it develops its adult body and faculties. Think, for example of an Oak tree (to use my mentor's favorite example (Aristotle) and one which was frequently used by your namesake), the acorn is a potential Oak tree. Once it implants in the ground and starts to grow, it is a sapling (an immature Oak). Once it gets large and is fully developed, then it is an Oak. When is this "mystical moment"? There isn't one. There is no hard and rigid boundary between sapling and Oak: its a gradual process of growth and development.
Your thinking in rigid categories is obscuring the issue for you and such thinking does not work well in biological issues.
Given what I said above, your coup de grace question becomes obvious: they are still actual humans (this is only about development), but if they lack any higher cognitive function, then they are non-persons.
Please read my other essay and if you have further questions, feel free to follow up.
~Jason
It always interests me to discover a person who can determine my mode and type of thinking without asking me any questions (let alone receiving answers!).
Indeed, if we parse your response even briefly, i think that it is a simple matter to conclude that it consists of:
a valid redirect; an unsupported assumption; an emotional statement that cannot be supported; a potential appeal to authority; an unsupported assumption and ad hominem.
In other words, you asked me to read something else then made a series of unsupportable assumptions about how I think, etc.
You further appear to make mistakes concerning St. Thomas Aquinas conceptualization of human nature – i recommend re-reading the Summa Theologica, Ia 75-89 in full to have a more complete understanding of his thoughts on human nature.
Further, in Aristotle's 'Politics' that philosopher states clearly that once an unborn child can be sensed to move by the mother it should not be aborted – this is quite a bit earlier than when the child is capable of independent life, let alone "being born"! Perhaps you need to rethink your position in light of this? Or, perhaps, rethink your familiarity with your *ahem* "mentor"?
To be clear, my goal with the questions was to determine both the depth of your interest in the topic and your willingness and ability to engage in a discussion.
Good day.