Posted on 03/11/2011 10:44:37 AM PST by wagglebee
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 9, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Pro-abortion activists sought, unsuccessfully, to disrupt a debate on abortion at Dalhousie University Tuesday night by ripping down ads, setting off stink-bombs, and covering the ceiling with helium balloons featuring pro-abortion slogans. In the end, they even turned on the pro-abortion speaker.
Representing the pro-life side of the debate was Stephanie Gray, co-founder and executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform. Facing Gray was Dr. Mark Mercer, chairperson of the philosophy department at Halifax’s St. Mary’s University, who has in the past won the ire of pro-abortion activists for defending the rights of pro-lifers to express their opinions on university campuses.
While Gray argued that the unborn should be protected in law because abortion is the violent killing of innocent human life, Mercer argued that there is nothing ethically troubling about abortion, at one point suggesting that a baby isn’t a “person” until around 18 months of age.
The event, which was organized by the new student group Pro-Life at Dal, attracted about 150 students and members of the public.
In her remarks, Gray pointed out that the scientific community is unanimous that life begins at fertilization. At fertilization, she explained, the child “has everything she needs within herself to direct her growth and to move to the next more mature stage of her development.”
Mercer agreed that the unborn are human beings, and that abortion is the deliberate killing of a human being, but argued that the notion of “human being” is not a “morally relevant concept.” Individuals are not special by virtue of their “species membership,” he said, but become “persons” and worthy of protection because they possess certain “ethically salient properties” such as the ability to experience pain or pleasure, self-consciousness, and rationality.
Gray, however, maintained that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights deliberately speaks of ‘human’ and not ‘person’ rights because the powerful have often sought to subjugate or kill the vulnerable by claiming they are not persons. She pointed to examples like the Holocaust and the enslavement of African Americans.
“We have a nasty history as human beings of denying our fellow human beings the right to live because we divorce the concept of human and person as to treat them as two separate things,” she said.
She said the criteria used to define personhood come down to non-essential differences - namely size, level of development, environment, and dependency - and that these criteria are constantly changing for an individual. “Human is an objective term that we can determine scientifically,” she explained. “Person is a philosophical or legal term which has had a changing definition throughout history.”
“Our humanity, our right to life, should be based on that which is unchanging, which is our human nature - rather than that which is changing, which is our functions and abilities,” she added.
Gray argued that all humans carry intrinsic worth because of our common human nature, by which we are “moral, rational agents.” If an individual doesn’t exhibit signs of rationality, such as a developing baby or a disabled person, they nevertheless have the “inherent ability,” even if they don’t have the “current ability.”
“I don’t understand what this thing humanity is or the property of being human,” retorted Mercer, “such that an anancephalic infant is a rational being just as the rest of us. ... Here’s a creature who doesn’t have a capability and yet it’s still in the essence of that creature that it has that capability. That makes no sense to me.”
Gray said, however, “just because some humans are damaged, so to speak, I would say that doesn’t mean that we can end their lives because they’re not as developed or ‘perfect’ as we are.”
According to Mercer, a child likely only gains personhood at around 18 months to two years of age, and he also suggested at one point that adult pigs might be persons. Though he said he couldn’t imagine a reason to justify killing a born child given the availability of adoption, he said upon further questioning that “if the child isn’t a person, it’s not an offense against the child to kill it.”
A principled vegetarian, he agreed that it could be wrong to kill a pig even though he believes it’s acceptable to kill a child in the womb.
Asked by Gray how he justified defining a person based on his list of properties, Mercer responded, “Why should I take humanity to be ... a morally salient property?”
The most vocal pro-abortion voices at the event were obviously displeased with Mercer’s presentation, slamming him in the open forum at the end of the evening. “You didn’t even attempt to make any arguments that would convince anybody of anything,” said one activist. “You did not represent the pro-choice position at all.”
Though inviting them to e-mail him better arguments, Mercer nevertheless defended his view as the only cogent approach. He dismissed arguments based on “women’s struggle for equality” saying that that they fail to address the “moral status of the fetus,” and disagreed with approaches that claim a woman’s “right to choose” outweighs the unborn child’s “right to life,” saying that these only come into conflict in a “narrow range of cases,” such as rape.
Another pro-abortion advocate even suggested that the pro-life group had deliberately brought in a poor representative for their side, while flying Gray in from Calgary. Yet Mercer noted that he has published his arguments in national newspapers, and local pro-life advocates insist he’s been the only one willing to even debate the issue, despite efforts to find a representative through local university pro-abortion groups.
“Just want until the children are 13 or 14 years old, or so. Then you can choose the handsomest, smartest, strongest, etc., and eliminate the rest. You know, the culls: the ones with freckles, giggles, and shy smiles. Of course, you'd want to do away with any who limp or need braces. Why guess about which babies to keep when you can wait and be sure.”
I wonder if he was influenced by Peter Singer. They seem similar.
Couldn’t see that one coming........
God help us.....
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They never met an 18 month old like my son. At twelve months he had an over 50 word vocabulary (I wrote them down one day) At 18 months, he could talk in complete, grammatically correct sentences. You could carry on a conversation with him; ask him questions and he would answer.
You want to know what an 18 month old is capable of, meet one like that. It will blow you away. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen him (and lived with him) myself.
None of you even so much as DARE to tell me to be kind to these monsters. If you child contracts cancer do you act kindly towards the cancer cells? If your 18 month old gets the flu do you act kindly towards the virus? Do you tell each other that hand-washing is murder? Likewise, the destruction of leftist vermin is not murder but our civil duty.
The leftists are the enemy of humanity and they need to be exterminated. I carry around a small knife whenever I go out in public. In the event I walk into a leftist, the worthless thing will be instantly mutilated alive. A gathering of leftist protesters will be butchered wholesale.
I will show nothing but absolute viciousness, cruelty, and destruction towards these worthless viral agents. They should not even be granted the rights of an insect let alone a human being.
We knew this was coming.. next the handicapped will be found to be non personas and then elderly that require care ...
A youtube video conversation between a mother and a toddler child.
A Q & A about what month it is. If they know what month they were born in, how old they are and what they think about younger children. What is in a pregnant woman's belly.
“Well mom I'm only a year and a half old but clearly that professor is a liberal hack and a fool...but I repeat myself.”
He’s 21 now.
And still talking.
There’s some sick freaks in this old world.
People who think this way are not human beings, they are barbarians. I think of them the same way I think of child molesters.
I put these “people” in the same category as child molesters and child pornographers.
Its going to get to the point where they will say if you don’t abort it, you can rape it
Deadly force is justified by law to protect human life. That is currently defined as outside the womb. I hope they try to change that law, because then we will be one step close to ignoring the now totally useless ballot boxes and start opening the cartridge boxes.
How well I remember the child of an acquaintance of mine. The little guy's first 5-word sentence was "How does this work, Mommy?" uttered at 17 months. His mother taught him to identify colors at 4 months, he started speaking at 7 months, and could identify the numbers and alphabet by 14 months. He self-started reading at age 3, was tested at genius level at age 8, and has grown into productive adulthood with a PhD that he earned himself.
In view that this child's father left home at age 2, such a Canadian state may well have decided at that time that he wouldn't turn out to be "person" enough for them.
They are just moving their argument forward. It starts out like this with all of their ideas. Gays coming out of the closet. Now gays want to marry. Next it will be a brother and sister. Nambla’s the same. They slowly try to desensitize the populace to accept any abnormal and/or evil idea. It’s part of any effort to destroy Western civilization and so far they are doing a great job.
I would parenthetically add that the only non-persons that I would defend killing are the “people” who have forfeited their personhood by virtue of having committed and been convicted of certain crimes that I think we can all agree upon. Manson, Bin Laden and the like. However, it’s these people that the left so vigorously defend. Up is down, down is up, black is white, and so on. (See my tagline).
Thanks 2 Kool and I definitely agree with you on capital punishment and your tagline. I don’t believe that every laymen leftist and/or Dem that supports these ideas is knowingly trying to destroy our country, but by their participation, they are moving that agenda forward.
I’m reminded of the Yuri Bezmenov quote once again:
“Exposure to true information does not matter any more. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures. Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him concentration camps, he will refuse to believe it until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom.”—Yuri Bezmenov 1984, regarding communist propaganda in the United States and how to brainwash a nation
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