{"id":277712,"date":"2022-10-14T16:39:26","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T21:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=277712"},"modified":"2022-10-12T23:30:36","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T04:30:36","slug":"la-times-op-ed-medieval-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/la-times-op-ed-medieval-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"Faulty logic drives LA Times op-ed challenging the humanity of the preborn"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While there are many different pro-abortion arguments that defend the taking of a preborn life while attacking the pro-life position, an <\/span>op-ed<\/span><\/a> published in the <\/span>Los Angeles Times<\/span> takes a less-than-typical approach: claiming that pro-lifers\u2019 beliefs in the human dignity and rights of the preborn baby are rooted in obscure medieval theological ideas. But the argument turns out to be incoherent, inconsistent, and just plain wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n

A fundamentally ableist philosophical foundation<\/b><\/p>\n

Science writer and artist Margaret Wertheim attempts to claim that pregnant women cannot be neatly categorized, and she searches for a way to tackle the \u201cproblem\u201d of whether a \u201cclump of cells\u201d can be a person or a distinct human being. Using Descartes\u2019 famous \u201cI think, therefore I am\u201d proposition as an example of the modern Western understanding of a human person, Wertheim defines a \u201cdistinct human being\u201d as an independent agent capable of making moral judgments.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA small bunch of cells clearly doesn\u2019t have free will. It doesn\u2019t have a will at all. It can\u2019t make moral or intellectual choices. It doesn\u2019t yet have a brain, let alone a mind,\u201d Wertheim concludes. \u201cIf, as Christianity and modern Western philosophy predicate, humanness requires mental agency, in what sense is a cluster of cells a human being?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

URGENT:\u00a0<\/b>For every dollar given, 34 more people can be reached with the truth about abortion. Will you join us in this life-saving work as a monthly donor today?<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The implication is clear: preborn babies are not aware of themselves, lack mental agency, and therefore cannot be distinct human beings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But Wertheim\u2019s misconception of the human person is a fundamentally <\/span>ableist<\/span><\/a> position. She attempts to defend her position by alluding to her understanding of Catholicism and its emphasis on the importance of making moral decisions. Yet the reality is that Catholicism has never<\/em> had an ableist understanding of human dignity. Personhood, and a human\u2019s inherent dignity, for the Catholic Church, is dependent not on agency or cognitive abilities but on the fact that every human person is made in the image and likeness of God \u2013 something held since the very earliest days of Christianity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Like other <\/span>ableist-based positions<\/span><\/a>, Wertheim\u2019s view of personhood ultimately has drastic implications. Making personhood dependent on mental agency and one\u2019s ability to make moral decisions would, as Secular Pro-Life <\/span>points out<\/span><\/a>, \u201cif applied consistently[,] deny personhood to already born groups of humans we universally recognize as morally relevant and worthy of protection, such as newborns, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dismissing the science of fetal development as a medieval obsession with bodies<\/b><\/p>\n

Wertheim claims pro-lifers are animated by a \u201cfanatical desire to draw irrevocable distinctions around personhood and bodies,\u201d like medieval Christians engaging in esoteric theological distinctions. To Wertheim, \u201cWe might all agree that at some point the fetus becomes an independent being. But when does this differentiation occur? Certainly not at conception.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Wertheim\u2019s denigration of pro-lifers as obsessed with bodies allows her to ignore the physical evidence of the preborn baby\u2019s body \u2013 clear from the moment of conception \u2013 by waving it off as a medieval theological obsession.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:<\/strong>\u00a0The Supreme Court declines to hear case regarding personhood of preborn children<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Far from being rooted in medieval theology, however, pro-lifers base their belief in the humanity of the preborn baby on the <\/span>science of fetal development<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Scientific observation<\/span><\/a> shows that <\/span>fertilization<\/span><\/a> is precisely the moment a preborn baby becomes an independent being. At the moment of fertilization, a human person\u2019s ethnicity, hair color, gender, eye color, and other distinctly individual traits have been written in a unique genome. A mere <\/span>three weeks after fertilization<\/span><\/a>, a heart begins to beat, and organs begin to develop.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the author\u2019s ideology leads her to dismiss <\/span>scientific evidence<\/span><\/a> as medieval theological speculation, the pro-life take is fundamentally pro-science. Pro-lifers respect what scientific study of the body at its earliest stages of development can tell us about the origins of human life. The preborn baby\u2019s body \u2013 at the fetal, embryonic, or any other stage of development \u2013 gives <\/span>irrefutable proof<\/span><\/a> that a genetically distinct human being is present in the womb.<\/span><\/p>\n