From: chrisa@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (C. G. Albone)
Subject: Re: Uniting Church
Organization: /etc/organization
Distribution: aus
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 00:58:43 GMT

In article <Simon.3.717900480@censis.utas.edu.au> Simon@censis.utas.edu.au (Simon G. Greener) writes:
>Folks, this is going to be an emotive flame so press 'D' (or whatever) if
>you don't want to read it. A more calm posting may occur some other day!
>
>In article <ricko.717837046@ee.uts.EDU.AU> ricko@ee.uts.edu.au (Rick Jelliffe) writes:
>
>>                                                 {I`ll certainly
>>agree that in abortion there are two wounded people, the mother and her
>>child, both of whom require help.}
>
>I certainly agree that they require help! But I want to make a point with
>regards this *utterly* selfish view that women have that it is only their
>choice and only an choice between their desires and their desires!

Abortion is abused as you have mentioned, this is true. But it isnt always
the case that it is desire vs. desire, but the fact that the woman could simply
not look after a child. If it were me, I would sooner choose to avoid a situation
than to get myself into one. If i could not, i would prefer not to have to drag
a child up through a life where there is inadequate money etc for it to have a
decent life. It would be preferable to adopt the child out, but is it always 
possible to do this? I do not know. I am not a woman, and i do not have enough
experience to be able to judge.
> Come 
>on you guys out their stop cowering before women's apron strings - you 
>got them pregnanat and this is an act that results from the self-
>giving action of two people. 

You read too much into sex. While it may be the case that it is a self-giving
act for you, indeed, it would be for me, but it isnt necessarily so. This is
unfortunate. I am not sure that it is the case that I am cowering before their
apron strings (which in itself is an image fraught with sexism).
>
Feminists have been complaining for a long
>time that man's society made them non-persons, now feminists (and some
>Christians - yes even in the Catholic church - agree with them) do it to
>unborn humans.

I will ask, and would like an answer, what constitutes a person? Simple..
I am not trying to predicate personhood of a foetus, and really, i am not
trying to say that you can't. But if you are going to make a positive claim
then i think it is valid that I can ask you to define your terms and show
the evidence for your case.
>
>Now I'm about to be a father and I'm utterly blown away by the whole 
>experience. I see my child in my wife's womb - through ultra-sound (18
>weeks, yes folks it's healthy but we decided long ago that come what may 
>we would have whatever God gave us and see his suffering son in that child - 
>who knows, maybe it might become another Leonard Cheshire - God rest his 
>wonderful soul - or an gold medal winner at the disabled olympics, or even a 
>druggy dying in the gutter from a lack of human love - God's face on earth - 
>who maybe still in his heart realises that this is a fallen world and that 
>God did care enough to send his son...) and it waves at me (I told you it 
>was going to be emotional), sucks its thumb, smiles and etc. 

Yes, a couple of friends of mine have just recently become parents. The smiles
still have not worn off their faces. I can appreciate what you have said, well
at least from the outside, as I am not a father.

>Science tells me it is a completely formed human being. 

Here I would beg to differ. Science will tell you nothing of the sort. It will
tell you that the foetus in its later stages may have all the physical bits and
pieces that an adult human has. It will not tell you that it is completely formed
as this is simply not the case.. Why do you think we have childhood? Because
the child still has to develop, physically as much as anything else.

More importantly, the congative sciences will tell you that the foetus is not
completely formed because it hasnt had enough experiences. It will not be able
to perceive as you and I can. I am saying that its visual systems will not
have the training to be able to see the world as we do. It will not know how
to control itself, and indeed early children have a hard enough time working
out which way is up. More than this, what is a part of a human being is their
personality, their memories, their experiences, and you are not born with these.
It may be the case that you are born with dispositions to act and feel and think
in certain ways, but these dispositions do not constitute the whole of the 
personality. If personality is a part of a completely formed human being, as
science will say it is, then a foetus that lacks this is not a completely
formed human being. 

>(the stuff on the personhood debate - that'
>s nice when you don't want to admit the consequences of what you have done 
>and created - cf Singer, Khruse et al and their arguments for infancide).

No it is not just a way of escaping blame. I for one have never caused a person
to get pregnant, but the personhood debate is of intense interest to me. It
is necessary to get one's thoughts in order when approaching issues such as these
and approaching the question of what constitutes personhood, and then the second
question of whether foetuses partake in personhood is getting down to the
metaphysics that the whole moral question lays on. 

> Go 
>stick you heads in the sand folks, people are out there choosing not to 
>loose face or income (pride), choosing their own comfort over the life of 
>another human......

Unfortunately this is most certainly the case. But then drag your head out of
the sand, many people out there choose because they simply do not have the money,
support, but materially nor emotionally nor spiritually to be able to do a child
justice. 
> Choosing life often means choosing pain, those of
>you who are christians should understand this....
>
>Psalm 139 speaks well of the unborn infant...
>
>	"For you created me in my inmost being;
>	you knit me together in my mother's womb.
>	I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
>	your works are wonderful,
>	I know that full well.
>	My frame was not hidden from you
>	when I was made in the secret place.
>	When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
>	your eyes saw my unformed body.
>	All the days ordained for me were written in your book
>	BEFORE ONE OF THEM CAME TO BE."  (my emphasis)

First of all, while that was a nice emotional ploy, it isnt applicable.
It is an open question as to what a baby, let alone a foetus knows and
thinks. It would be vastly incorrect to put such words into the minds of
foetuses. Think about it!

Secondly, if predestination and the like is the case, the foetus was to be
aborted anyway. You stumble into the problem of demonstrating that there 
actually is free will. It again is not up to me to show there isnt, I am not
making any positive claims about the world. 

>A friend of mine remembers the days when Bertram Wayner started his 
>little money making venture in a house across the road from his 
>flat. He often used to tell me of the days he watched people going in and it 
>still makes him angry to think of those guys who used to pull up outside in 
>their cars, give their girlfriends the money and then SIT OUTSIDE whilst she 
>went and enacted her right to choose..........

It would make me angry to, but would you prefer it all to happen in the 
backyard? While i would prefer it not to happen at all, if it is to happen,
I would prefer to limit the damage.
>
>Think about this... this society is all about freedom without responsibility
>and this is typified in our sexual attitudes....

Unfortunately this is true, though with the advent of AIDS, responsibility is
being enforced again. But then the case about sexual attitudes is an interesting
one. Much of the drive for sexual freedom was a reaction to the very unhealthy
attitudes to and about sex that were to be found in christian thought. This
is not to say that all christian thought was unhealthy, nor is it to justify
all that has come since.
>
>A theologian, philosopher friend of mine once tried to persuade me that the 
>modern world has lost the sense of true fatherhood and that one of the 
>mistakes feminists have made is to accentuate this....

What does fatherhood mean? Alot of feminism these days is interested in the roles
of both parents in the upbringing of children. Yes, there are aspects of father-
hood that they would prefer to forget, and i would agree with them, but there
are many aspects that they would keep, and many that they would change.

> Now as I watch the
>decline in christian belief in christianity as a revealed religion, the
>loss of moral reference points, and now an attempt to replace the Trinity
>by a collection of functions - Creator, Saviour and Sanctifier - (all this is
>evidenced by the writings of both protestant and catholic theologians)..
>and after reading - last night - C.S Lewis' 1948 essay against the 
>ordination of women I now can't help thinking that maybe, just 
>maybe she (my theologian, philosopher friend) was right...
>
WHile it is the case that the belief in christianity is a revealed religion is
true, I again think that there is a certain burden upon the adherants of such
a view to demonstrate that christianity IS INDEED a revealed religion.

With respect to the trinity, so what, the trinity is not a part of Jesus'
teaching in the bible. Indeed, it is not supportable by argument directly from
the bible. It was not until later in christianity, with the influence of greek
philosophy , that such a doctrine could come to exist anyway.

I had a lecture on christology recently. The lecturer said quite simply that
the early  christians didnt have the intellectual machinery to understand Jesus
as being God incarnate in the way we do. For them, Jesus was a part of God in
a functional sense. I can't remember exactly how to describe this. It was not
until later that they could make the ontological claim that Jesus and God shared
the same substance, were the same being. 

>The backyard abortion debate... since when did two wrongs make a right... 
>Again I agree with all those who say that the problem goes deeper.....
>Many of these problems are well addressed in a book on abortion "Abotion 
>Australia" by Jane Buckingham and Anthony Fisher,Dove Collins (about 1982).
>
>Tasmania and its homosexual laws.... well I live here... I have many 
>homosexual friends (priests included)... and I believe that the law should
>be struck down... but then this takes us into deeper issues of how socitey
>should decide its moral laws (and it has to... cf smoking debate!)... but
>then if I know that this will then help legitimate the push to teach 
>homosexuality as a natural and valid alternative sexuality in schools what
>should my response be then?

Maybe it is. Ever thought of the issue from that side? Part of the fear of
teaching about homosexuality, or allowing gays and lesbians to teach is that
they will cause the kiddies to _choose_ to be queer. While it is the case that
some people do choose and go against their nature for whatever reason, i think
you will find that most gays and lesbians will tell you that they had no more
choise as to their homosexuality than you did your heterosexulity, or the colour
of their skin. The only choises they have are whether they should face their
sexuality or try to hide it, whether they should be celibate or not, whether they
should live the lie of acting straight or come out. This presupposition of choise
is a major problem.

> But we have do do something to reduce 
>homo-phobia that is in our society. This question of legislation takes us
>into deeper issues of how society sdould decide its moral laws (it has
>to and does cf smoking debate...).... Again another book.... D'Sousa (a
>Canadian philosopher, I think) has written a book on this problem especially
>in light of the US experiences with pressure groups... I'll find the title
>for anyone who is interested....
>
>To end on a positive note, thank God that some people are doing something
>*positive* (Uniting Church and others take note..).... The "Missionaries of 
>God's Love", based in Sydney, don't do Operation Rescue style things, they 
>have simply dug into their pockets and hearts and opened a house for 
>pregnant girls who feel trapped, alienated and have no-one else to turn to; 
>they offer them a caring environment, prayer (not judgement or preaching - 
>like I'm doing now) and a positive alternative! Pregnancy Action also offers 
>support services in Melbourne...... Anyone know of others?

One wishes that there was more support like this. Indeed one wishes that society
were structured in such a way as the support was there. Unfortunately people
dont want a restructuring as it will affect them. This, sadly, includes 
christians. Hmm it is a case that many christians have a tendancy to think that
the only thing to do is spiritualise the problem. There is the physical world 
that has to be dealt with, indeed it may be the case that there is only the
physical world to deal with. Was it Barth that said that a good christian was
one that had a newspaper in one hand and the bible in the other?

>
>In Christ
>Simon

---
Chris.
Newsgroups: aus.religion