Friend

With all the discussions about abortion, contraception, and all the other arguments about life, I had a few questions I hope someone could shed some light on.

1. Is there a historically held definition to life, or when life began?

2. Is there a modern definition held about life (biologically, religiously, etc)?

3. What is it that people find wrong with abortion and the Catholic Church finds wrong with contraception?

IF you have any imput or sources I could research, please respond.

Thanks

~ Friend ~

Alonzo Fyfe

The abortion question does not truly concern when "life" begins -- nobody doubts that the conceptus is a living cell. The question actually concerns "personhood". When does the conceptus become a distinct being with an independent moral worth? At what point does abortion change from an instance of removing a living organ with no independent worth, to the killing of a person with independent worth?

No, there are no universally agreed upon principles regarding this issue.

The wrongness of abortion typically hinges on claims that the conceptus is an distinct person with its own unique independent worth. As such, it cannot be sacrificed for the benefit of the mother, any more than you can be sacrificed for my benefit.

The counter-claim to this is that the conceptus does not have the true qualities necessary to call it a distinct person. Only when it can live a life truly independent of its mother does it make sense to call the conceptus (or fetus, or whatever stage we are talking about) a being with its own independent worth.

This is a very rough description. Very rough. Extremely rough.

As for the wrongness of conception, this hinges upon a "natural purpose" argument. The purpose of sex is for procreation. Anything that goes against or thwarts a natural purpose is an affront to God. We are using things (e.g., sex) for ends other than those that He intended.

One does not need to believe in God to hold a "natural purpose" argument. Evolutionists hold something similar -- that the only "right acts" are acts that are in accordance with evolutionary function, and anything that thwarts evolution (e.g., an interest in things other than the replication of one's own gene's) violates a moral 'natural law.'

This, again, is a very rough description of the ground that the various camps hold. It is not a presentation of the merits or demerits of these or other alternative ideas. I assume that will follow.

meritocrat

There is no absolute or definitive definition of life.

However, biologists (rather crudely) state that a lifeform feeds, excretes, respirates, grows and reproduces.

Loren Pechtel

But this excludes viruses.

meritocrat

As I stated, it's a crude definition.

Pyrrho

I think there are quite a few who believe in evolution who would find your characterization objectionable. The idea of a "natural purpose" is teleological, and many evolutionists regard evolution as a 'blind' process, not one involving "purpose". Indeed, almost no one who is not religious objects to the use of birth control (and, as far as that goes, most religious people do not object to it either). I myself feel no need to pass on my genes, and plan on never passing them on. And I don't believe that most people believe that it is "immoral" for me to not produce children.

Furthermore, even if one believes in teleology in nature, one can easily believe that sex may serve a different function, or multiple functions, rather than just for the sake of producing children. One may say it is for pleasure, or for helping to promote a social bond between two (or more) persons. Certainly, sexual activity really does things other than producing children.

Alonzo Fyfe

I agree. I am one of them. But I said in my conclusion that this was a survey of the positions that people sometimes take -- which is what the original question asked for. It was not a discussion of the merits and demerits of each.


The original question asked, "What reasons do people offer for objecting to these things?" That is the question that I answered. The fact that there are others who do not object says nothing against the answer I provided about the reasons which are offered about those who DO object.


I agree with you, but those who hold the view you are objecting to have an answer to this. "I am not saying that evolution is teleological; I know it is nothing but blind chance. However, it is still the only natural good. It is still the only natural measure of success or failure. You or I may care nothing about our own genetic future, but that simply shows that we are evolutionary failures."

Pyrrho

I think your original response to the first two questions was quite good. And your response to the third question was also good, though less clearly answering it. All that I object to is stuff that goes beyond responding to the questions themselves, and adding a teleological approach to evolution. When you stated:

"Evolutionists hold something similar -- that the only "right acts" are acts that are in accordance with evolutionary function, and anything that thwarts evolution (e.g., an interest in things other than the replication of one's own gene's) violates a moral 'natural law.'"

Even if you say you did not mean all evolutionists, I still think it is very misleading, as I suspect that most evolutionists would disagree with that statement. I suspect that most evolutionists would say that morality has nothing to do with the processes of nature; it would only be a matter of morality if we were speaking of willful human intervention in the process, such as if people were conducting a eugenics program with people (i.e., breeding people for their "desirable" genetic characteristics). I also object to the use of the word "function", as it is a teleologically loaded word, as it entails a purpose of the thing in question. Speaking of the "function" of evolution is like speaking of the "function" of gravity. Both involve imposing a purpose on nature.



Again, I think most evolutionists would not regard this as an accurate description, as there is no reason to suppose that the processes of evolution involve a natural "good". They just happen, and "goodness" has nothing to do with it. Furthermore, individuals are, in a sense, irrelevant to evolutionary processes; a species that continues to exist is "successful", regardless of how many individual members fail to reproduce. And even if one does reproduce (naturally; not considering cloning), one does not pass on all of one's genes when one produces children. If I do something to help a sibling reproduce, I am passing on part of my genes, so even if I do not have children, some of my genes may be passed on anyway (not to mention the fact that all humans are, genetically, mostly the same anyway). An individual is never an evolutionary "failure"; it is only species that can "fail". Individuals will die no matter what, so as an individual, the end is the same no matter what one does, and no matter what happens to one's species. What may continue is the species, and, genetically speaking, we are all extremely similar to each other.

Additionally, speaking of "success" or "failure" always entails teleology; there must be a purpose or goal, otherwise there can be nothing that is "success" or "failure". When someone speaks of a species being "successful", they are presupposing that the continuation of the species is a goal. And if evolution is truly 'blind', there can be no goals at all. Things simply happen. Some species continue to exist, and others die out. Only when you impose a teleological view on this can one be judged to be "successful" and the other a "failure".


To bring this back to the original questions, I don't think anyone objects to birth control or abortion based upon a belief in evolution. There is always something else behind the objection, such as the belief that a fetus is a "person" (which you aptly mentioned in your original post). Certainly, one can believe that without having a belief in a god, and while one believes in evolution. But the belief in evolution is beside the point. The belief in evolution is irrelevant to the belief that abortion is wrong (or right, for that matter).

the_cave

Historically held definitions it seems to me tended to be definitions of "creature-hood". That is, living things were self-powered, autonomous, natural objects that replicated (or at least tried to). They had wills, drives, and purposes.

And it seems to me that most mythologies place the origin of life rather close to the origin of the world.

None that's universal. Although as you can see above, some definitions rule out things like viruses, I don't in fact think that viruses are alive! They're something else. But I go back and forth on this.

The modern definitions are not altogether unlike the historical ones, except that they analyze things on a smaller scale. We're now talking about autonomous, self-replicating _molecules_. (I use "autonomous" to rule out crystals, which cannot be said to have natural boundaries to themselves, as they are uniform. Living beings have distinct boundaries to their forms, I would argue, as a DNA molecule is its own molecule, and not anything else.)

Interesting to note that modern biology now places the origins of life very close to the origins of the earth itself (or, perhaps, prior to the earth itself--i.e. in intersellar space, or another planet.)

See the comments by others above on personhood for an answer to your question about abortion, as well as contraception. To make things more clear, the Catholic Church believes that every sex act must be as open as possible to the possibility of procreation. They believe this from scriptural admonition and traditional belief. As far as ethical demonstration goes, they base their argument on a preference for what is natural--i.e., God-created. We were created to procreate, and sex exists as the method of procreation. We should not subvert what God has ordained; therefore, birth control is wrong.

In a nutshell, anyway. Hope this helps to answer your questions.

IF you have any imput or sources I could research, please respond.

Thanks

~ Friend ~ [/B][/QUOTE]