Loss of Life
From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Fri, 2007-06-01 11:06
A quote from Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh, 31 May 2007
In those 40 years [since abortion was legalised in Scotland] the loss of life has been staggering. Around 7 million lives have been ended as a consequence of that one piece of legislation […] the scale of the killing is beyond our grasp. In Scotland we kill the equivalent of a classroom full of school children every day.
No valid 'argument'....
Submitted by marcfrans on Sat, 2007-06-02 18:54.
...could be detected in your "reply" to Mr O'Brien.
@ Kapitein A
Yes, it would be reasonable to assume that he is "concerned" about such deaths in the Middle Ages. After all, he is a major office holder in his church, and that church has publicly expressed regret about them. It is probably NOT reasonable to expect him to be "EQUALLY" concerned about those deaths of many centuries ago than about the current deaths. After all, he is addressing a contemporary moral dilemma, and not 'historical guilt'. The latter concept is a very dubious one if one takes the individual as the core subject of human morality. To me, it seems pretty silly for some people or individuals in the 21st century to be apologising (and to whom?) for the actions of other individuals many centuries ago. I am well aware of the impact of groups and 'culture' on the behavior or actions of individuals, but I remain convinced that moral guilt only attaches to concrete individuals, not to abstract notions as 'christians, communists, fascists, muslims, French, Belgians, Americans, naive-lefties, racist extreme-rightists', etc... .
Why God "allows" anything to happen is a great mystery. If we knew, we would be "God".
The definition of "human life" will always remain tricky, due to our limited understanding of anything and everything. But, your examples of "wasted" sperm and eggs are not exactly comparable to an embryo, and even less to a fetus. There is no actual nor potential human life in a sperm, nor in an egg. But there is in an embryo and/or a fetus.
In short, there are infinite ways of "preventing human life from entering the world", whereas abortion is one way of ending existing human life. It's a moral dilemma, that hinges on (1) the definition of where a human life begins and on the (2) validity of the real 'justification' for ending one.
In Reply to Mr. O'Brien
Submitted by Kapitein Andre on Sat, 2007-06-02 10:56.
I am sure that Mr. O'Brien is equally concerned about the deaths attributed to the Roman Catholic Church as it combated heresy, paganism and the occult throughout the early and late medieval era. Had those people (many of which were women) lived, their impact on current demographics could have been quite striking. I wonder why God then allows for miscarriages to happen?
Theoretically, every time a male wastes his sperm or a female wastes her egg, they are preventing human life from entering into the world.