Your turn: what is the purpose of the universe?
The purpose of the universe is to glorify God. “And He saw that it was good.”
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"If you can’t help yourself, help somebody else. All you got is the rest of this life, make it wonderful or make someelse’s better."
your fundamental values are as I thought they would be, your self first - as all you have is the rest of your life. You try to write yourself out of existence already becoming more irrelevant by the minute.
How are my fundamental values different from your’s?
mine is to make it wonderful by making someone else’s better and that makes a substantial difference. It makes you particularly realise that you live in sin is you make your life better on the cost of the life of others.
What did you say was your stance on abortion?
Mine is the same.
I disagree. I don’t live in sin. I don;t live to make my life better at the expense of others. It is not a zero sum game. I work hard to make mine and my families lives better. I also try to help others who I don’t know to have a better life. And work to make the world a little better now so that my children’s children and your children’s children children have a better life.
My stance on abortion is very simple. The Government should not be interfering with any woman’s health and medical decisions.
[quote=“Patrick, post:60, topic:2535”]
Mine is the same.
marvin:
[/quote]not at all by what you said and what you state below. “If you make your life better on the cost of the lives of others” applies in particular to abortion.
[quote=“Patrick, post:60, topic:2535”]
My stance on abortion is very simple.
[/quote] rings true in as far as simple means the lack of applying intelligence to the problem at hand. Abortion on medical grounds is permissible as the unborn human being a threat to the life of its mother would lead to 2 dead humans if medical intervention did not take place.
The sanctity of human life is as fundamental as morality can get
Science itself is a method to analyse reality in anorganised fashion. it makes progress based on human faith in the causal nature of reality and the belief that there is a cause for an observed event. Science itself does not improve living conditions but humans can do by applying science. They do so based on their worldview, their God which stands for the ideal that makes them act. You might be encouraged to help out of a feeling of love towards the people in need or because you see them as potential customers. Both may lead to their survival but science cant evaluate the reason for your action.
How do you distinguish between morality and ethics? If we put logic in biology at the core of the name if this group we will not be able to avoid the debate of reproduction as it is the central issue of biology and the logic of it. The conflict between emotional and rational decision making is what separates us from God as having been given rational capacity makes us responsible for our actions, thus liable to justification. The question for this is the point of reference for this judgement. Is it from our peers or from a higher instance. Is morality or truth a matter of democracy or the faith in an ultimate reason?
it was just the comment that discussion about ethics were outside the normal areas discussed on biologos whilst the thread is about morality. Thus I wondered why that would not fit here.
Otherwise I agree that Patrick avoided answering his moral standpoint on this perhaps being aware of the problem of giving a coherent argument if he wants to claim that caring for others than himself would be his priority. From his comments it would look like the opposite.
In that context it is interesting that he claims abortion to be an issue of women only. Whilst men and women are killed by abortion (albeit not necessarily in equal proportions) it would indicate that the protection of the life of the unborn child is only the mothers responsibility. So who is the owner of the unborn child by his standards?
I certainly haven’t sidestep the ethical question regarding abortion. My position is based on personal experience, during one of the most difficult times in my life.
Perhaps it is why I feel so strong about it as well, so we were lucky that the baby turned out to be healthy. I would not attribute that to the prayers being heard and my wishes be fulfilled but it told me what to wish for, not reality to conform to my wishes but for the strength to accept reality, particularly as I was even part of creating this part of reality.
Ok, I will answer it from my own personal experience. I have written about this before and the experience has been published several times. But it is always hard for me to write about it even after 23 years. But it continues to make me steadfast in my position which is pro-life and pro-choice with absolutely no Government or religious intrusions.
The context here is Christmas 1991 in central New Jersey. I was 33 years old, had wonderful wife and a 2.5 year old son who I adored. Parents, Parents-in-law, large extended family, big house, fantastically successful scientific career. That Christmas we announced that my wife was pregnant with our second child. Life was good. Furthest thing on my mind was abortion debate. Frankly couldn’t care less, it was somebody else’s issue, certainly not mine. Wasn’t much of a Catholic then and really didn’t care to know what all the controversy was about. I lived in a state that didn’t meddle into this area, or so it thought.
In January 1992, I received at 5 am from my frantic mother, that my father won’t wake up. My father was died at age 66 from a heart attack during the night. Turned my world upside. Within a week after the funeral, my wife was having difficulty with the pregnancy. After many doctor visits, all kinds of tests, including genetic tests, it was concluded that the baby (a boy) was developing normally (a little smaller than normal) but in the normal ranges for everything tested. But it was my wife that all of the concern was on. The long labor and vaginal delivery of our first son really took it toll on my wife’s uterus. The high risk pregnancy doctors told us that it was going to be very difficult to reach term with the baby. They recommended one of two courses of action - terminate the pregnancy or go into a high-risk pregnancy hospital that day and they would do everything possible to prolong the pregnancy. For my wife it was an easy decision. So we packed up my son to let him live with my wife’s sisters family for several months. My wife went into the high risk pregnancy hospital and I continued to work and see her every evening.
This went on for several months, the pregnancy was progressing but my wife was getting weaker and weaker, and sicker and sicker. Each time I would go see her, she was more and more in real difficulty and was even more and more determined to get to term with this baby. A priest (who we didn’t know) would visit my wife but it never went well. He was always blessing my wife and telling her how wonderful she was for continuing the pregnancy and not terminating it. On a Friday Afternoon in May when I was there, my wife throw the priest out of her room. He came out and saw me talking to my wife’s doctor. He tried to talk with me but I told him to please leave as I was talking to the doctor in private about serious matters. What I was talking to the doctor about was how far are we going to let this pregnancy continue. My wife getting sicker and sicker (BP 90/40) My statement to the doctor was “I have a 2.5 year old who needs a mother much more than he needs a brother.” The doctor said that he was in up state NY for the weekend but his partner would take good care of my wife over the weekend.
Sunday morning I received a phone call (pre-cell phone days) from the partner doctor. My wife took a major turn for the worse, temperature spiking, she was being prepped for surgery, her live was in danger. Baby’s heartrate was 200. I got there in minutes, my wife was in the operating room and the doctor was scrubbing up for surgury. The hospital medical examiner was there asking the chief OB/GYN of the hospital why they were terminating this pregancy. I told the hospital chief to leave so that I could talk to my wife’s doctor. There was no time for reflection, no time for prayer, no time for philosophical/moral discussions. The doctor said to me that my wife was dying and he was going to do everything possible to save her life. He said the baby wasn’t viable and certainly wouldn’t survive a vaginal procedure. He said that he could do a C-section to allow the neonatology team a chance to resuscitate the baby. I said do the C-section. He then turned to me as he was entering the operating room and said, “I can do a vertical C-section (instead of horizontal), it might give the baby a better chance but your wife could never have children any longer.” I said do the vertical C-section. There was no moral discussions. It was instinct and reasoning. Unclouded by beliefs.
Within 10 minutes, I heard a loud voice "baby’s out - 3:26 pm May 17, male. A few minutes later, my wife’s doctor came out and said “she is going to be okay but she was pulled from the edge and will need to stay in the hospital for a while” I thanked him. He said “you want to see you son, he is over there”. Here was 10 people working on him. (we were at a level 1 neonatology hospital - only two in the state at the time.) They was ready to rush my son upstairs but stopped for me to see him. He was 12 inches long, 417 grams. His skin was translucent, his eye slits were partially opened with yellow eyes, he had a light beard of cillia on his face. He look more marcipial than human. As they were rushing by I did get a chance to talk with the lead neonatologist - a young magnificant doctor. He said that my son was born long before any chance of viability, he said that he had about a 10% chance to live 72 hours but I was to be very proud of him because he was breathing on his own with no respirator. At that point I said that I was his father and I was proud of him and that every thing possible should be done for him.
About 48 hours later, I was in the level 1 neonatology area, my son was stable with a lot of tubes running in and out of him. He looked like a Borg baby of Star Trek. My wife hadn’t seen him, she was still too sick. A nun came up to me and started talking to me. She asked if she could Baptize the baby. I said sure, “but make sure you use sterilized holy water and you don’t touch him as he didn’t have an active immune system and an infection would kill him” She baptized him. A few minutes later, that priest who my wife throw out her room a few days earlier came by. He looked at my son. He then said to me the most shocking things I could possibly here, “you don’t have to use extraordinary means to keep this baby alive.” This was the same person who just three days before was blessing us for keeping the pregnancy going. I turned to him and said, “We are going to use every technology, every treatment possible to give my son the best chance possible to live.” He left and I never saw him ever again.
My son stay in the level 1 hospital for 4 months. My wife got to hold him for the first time when he was 4 months old. I didn’t hold him until he was six months old. His first year birthday he was 8 pounds, and didn’t quite sit up. He is still the smallest, most premature boy to survive in NJ history.
He is now 23 and in graduate school studying Cybersecurity.
So the question is then why you are afraid of the interference from the state? The obligation of the state is to protect the life of mother and child. Clearly delivery of a baby is the valid option to high risk pregnancies as failing to do so risks the life of mother and child and the consequence of a dead mother is a dead child. Thus the early delivery of the baby is the recognized procedure in such cases in an attempt to save both lives, nothing to do with pro choice.
That you had a problem with the priest is obvious but why that is I don’t know. I understand from his comment that he tried to tell you that you should allow the child to die if it was to happen without having to feel guilty as you had already done more than others would have. Why you held that against him I don’t know but to accept death is difficult for many as they think they can be in control. I would have found comfort in that recognition but then it obviously depends on the motives you implied behind his comment that got you so enraged about it, but if the doctors would have told you that there was a limit to the technology that could be applied you would have needed to be prepared to accept it as well. To do so needs trust in others and that if what faith is all about.
How can I talk about anybody’s else ethics when I have experienced what I experienced?
Definitely not true. In 1992 when my son was born, it was an individual doctor’s decision. In fact, the neonatologist that was on the prior shift when my son was born, would not resuscitate a pre-viable baby. Just won’t do it, baby put on a tray to die. The neonatologist who was on the shift when my son was born, had a policy of resuscitating every baby and see what happens. So at that particular time and place, it was who was on that particular time that was the difference between life and death.
Today, it is much different. NJ State law says that you can’t resuscitate a baby that pre-mature. The State argues that the risks of serious disabilities as so great and the cost of care so extraordinary that extraordinary means used on my son are not legal at the Level 1 centers.