The Works of God

Related to Tuesday’s post, I found another journal dedicated to philosophy and medicine, appropriately titled Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine.  Kudos to them for making their content freely available online.

And even more happily, I found an article supporting a philosophical defense of the unborn, Revisiting the argument from fetal potential, by Bertha Alvarez Manninen:

One of the most famous, and most derided, arguments against the morality of abortion is the argument from potential, which maintains that the fetus’ potential to become a person and enjoy the valuable life common to persons, entails that its destruction is prima facie morally impermissible.  In this paper, I will revisit and offer a defense of the argument from potential.

A defense of an argument that abortion is morally impermissible – great start!

Unfortunately, all moral high ground is completely ceded when the topic of disability, particularly cognitive disability, enters the discussion.  In fact, the article serves the cause of those who would kill our unborn children with disabilities:

The fact that we usually regard the killing of healthy infants as murder, and the fact that we seem to have no moral qualms or objections against bestowing medical treatment upon infants so that they can continue living their lives and realizing their potential, illustrates that potential does matter. At least when it comes to infants, their potential to become persons certainly influences their current welfare interest in continued existence, which, in turn, grounds an interest in medical care and leads to the moral (and legal) judgment of infanticide as a form of murder.

Notice the qualifier of ‘healthy’ before infants in the first sentence.  Dr. Manninen is arguing that there is a difference between the ‘normally’ developing or healthy child and the one who may have a serious medical issue.

But she clarifies in a horrible way what she means, as a parenthetical statement (emphases in bold are mine):

(There does seem to be a problem with this claim (that infants are potential persons) when we consider whether or not a mentally disabled infant, who will never really grow to have the robust mental capacities of a person, has an interest in continued existence. My claim does seem to, prima facie, entail that they lack such an interest, and this may indeed pose a problem given that mentally disabled individuals who are not persons, nevertheless, may experience a life of subjective, although perhaps rudimentary, pleasures. The best response I have for this problem, at the moment, is the following. It is the case that mental disabilities come in degrees, and some individuals with mental disabilities approximate personhood more than others. The strength of the interest in continued existence that a disabled infant possesses may run parallel to how closely she can approximate personhood in the future. As abovementioned, if she has a disease that rendered her unable to ever surpass the mental age of a few months old, her interest in continued existence would seem to be much weaker than the interest in continued existence that a healthy infant possesses. . . )

Remember, the writer of this article supports a pro-life position.  But not for a baby with a cognitive disability that is one degree short of personhood or the ability to approximate personhood.  Whatever that is, of course.

I saw this coming, though I hoped it would not.  The warning about how she thinks about disability was in the very first paragraph:

It is important to note here that the term “person” is used here in the strict philosophical sense; it is not meant to denote any and all human beings, as it is normatively used, but rather any being, human or nonhuman, that has the mental capacity to be rational, self-conscious, autonomous, and a moral agent.

These qualifiers as to who is and who is not a person mirror the strategy of abortionists who refuse to identify a fetus as a human being.

In the end, her position is barely discernible from those who support abortion.  At least those who argue that a mother has greater rights than her unborn child have the intellectual integrity to acknowledge there are two parties with rights.  Dr. Manninen will not even grant ‘personhood’ on these children with cognitive disabilities.

If you are tempted to believe that the strong and intelligent have the authority and right to destroy the weak – no matter the reason – consider these words from God:

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;  God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 1 Corinthians 1:25-29

God not only has special care for the weak and foolish, God chooses them to bring down the strong and wise of this world.

And consider Christ’s example:

For he (Christ) was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God. 2 Corinthians 13:4

And God has power beyond the ability of any person:

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28

There is no one stronger or wiser than God.  In terms of intelligence and capacity, the smartest person in the world is equal with the most profoundly cognitively-impaired human when compared to the infinite measure of God’s strength and wisdom.

Yet Christ was crucified in weakness – and those ‘strong,’ pride-filled, hard-hearted sinners who have been called from death to life by God into faith in Jesus have been counted as righteous because of Jesus.  Amazing!

And that same God has said,“Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” (Exodus 4:11)

This God made those babies with cognitive disabilities for his glory and for our good.  Let them live.

And don’t, under the banner of making an argument against abortion, give the enemies of unborn babies another reason to kill them.  Any of them.