A friend on Facebook posed a question to me that he had received from a pro-choice person. The question was, "if the unborn feel pain, should we, then, outlaw circumcision?"
Now, it's not my desire here to get into the circumcision debate. I actually don't have a firm view on it one way or the other. What I do want to comment on quickly is the inability of many people to understand what is good for a person, and/or to think critically about their arguments and reject them if they are bad. This one is a really bad argument.
I understand the person who posted this likely doesn't consider abortion to be bad. But he/she should have at least been able to understand that since my friend is pro-life, he would consider abortion to be bad. Which means that there is a difference between abortion and circumcision -- one that is meant to kill the child, and one that is meant for the child's own good. Whether or not the infant feels pain or can consent to it, since circumcision is meant for the child's good, the doctor and parent has a moral right to make that decision on behalf of the child. There might be an argument that circumcision really does not do the child good. I don't know enough about the debate to make this determination. But if circumcision does have good benefits for the child, then it is certainly moral to circumcise a child.
So there is a huge difference between a procedure meant to kill a child, abortion, and one meant for the child's own good, circumcision. The inability of many people to be able to distinguish between good and bad (or moral and immoral) is but a sad commentary on the state of our society.
I know you'll disagree, but a lot of people would say their abortion was "for the child's own good." Yes, a lot of adoptions end up wonderful and there will ALWAYS be hundreds of thousands of children available to adopt. But many times those children are neglected, abused, and end up alone. This leads to increased rates of drug use, violence, and crime. Maybe keeping someone from that is for their own good.
ReplyDeleteHi, Madison:
DeleteYes, I've heard the argument that abortion can be for the child's own good, but I don't find it convincing at all. I agree with you that keeping someone from a hard life is for their own good, but where we disagree is on what we should do about it. What you are advocating is killing someone to make sure they avoid a hard life, whereas I would say that's not a solution at all. We should take steps to avoid kids growing up with drugs, violence, etc., but we shouldn't kill them in order to do it. We can just push it back a couple of years. If there's a toddler whose parents are abusive, which could possibly lead to the child growing up to abuse drugs, a life of crime, etc., I'm sure you would agree that killing the toddler is not an acceptable solution.
This is a very uneducated blog post. Circumcision is not for the child's good at all.
ReplyDeleteHow can one protect a child's life but harm the baby 2 days after its born?
How can it be an uneducated blog post? You've missed the point of it entirely. I didn't say anything one way or the other about circumcision. I was giving a hypothetical.
DeleteThe truth of the matter if we did not come into existence we would not know the difference, non-existence is not a crime, we all did not exist before we actually did. We do not know what happens to unborn babies that die whether by abortion or miscarriage, we are not God, maybe they are re=incarnated and are born to other parents or other times, or they may go back to heaven to be with God. We really do not know, so abortion or miscarriage may not be the end of the story. We do not have all of the answers to life and death and what everything God does, remember his ways are not his ways ( I believe as a Christian) that we don't know all of the mysteries of life, so those potential children may still have life in another time or other parents. We need to stop looking at this in such a finite life and death issue.
ReplyDeleteI am a believer in Jesus Christ but I also know that as a finite human being that their is more about God eternity and death that we don't know. God is God we are not and to claim we know everything is ludicrous. So yes reincarnation is not completely off the table . If we claim to know all about God and his ways and dealings we are deluding ourselves.
ReplyDeleteYes, reincarnation is completely off the table. I agree with you that as finite human beings, we cannot know everything about God. But reincarnation contradicts clear Biblical teaching. It's not about trying to argue what we don't know. It's actually about arguing what we *do* know, and we do know that we only have one chance on Earth, then we face judgement.
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