So, e.g. public health laws are just like abortion bans? When we tell people, for secular scientific reasons, that they aren’t allowed to shit in the streets, that’s just like telling someone, for religious reasons, that they have to carry a child to term?
The one is the same kind of ‘restrictions on people’s rights’ as the other?
That’s a circular argument, I think. Your religion thinks fetuses are special and have rights that trump everyone else’s, so trumping everyone else’s rights on behalf of fetuses makes logical sense.
Also, I can’t really believe you think that Christianity uniquely produces kindly people.
Yep, shitting in the streets is exactly what I was talking about. You secularists making me carry my poop to term is an equivalent overstep of rights.
I wasn’t using ‘secular’ as a synonym for ‘scientific’. I think it is quite proper that science produces some rules that restrict what people can do, in the name of public health. I don’t see in that respect that ‘science’ of that sort is the secular version of a religious conviction. Perhaps you do.
To be pedantic, though in this case necessarily so perhaps, science does not produce policies. Science produces knowledge that other people use (or don’t) to create rules. There is a fair bit of research on the problem of scientists acting as policy makers, and policy makers trying to act like scientists.
Most of us want our policy makers to consult scientists and make use of the best available knowledge about whatever the question may be that demands action. Scientists are great at, well, science, not so much at governing. The fact that the political leaders are also bad at governing doesn’t change that, though it does exacerbate it!
Care to provide either a definition or an example of what you mean by a “secular conviction” then?
I went for pandemic response because it is a recent example of government (temporarily)restricting rights to a degree that many people consider extreme. Now, I’m playing devil’s advocate here because I believe the strong reaction early in the pandemic was the way to go and found nothing onerous about mask mandates. I also don’t think even the most extreme lockdowns(outside of China welding people into their apartments) are remotely equivalent to abortion, but I thought it broadly fit the parameters you provided.
I think parents indoctrinating children in religious dogma is a kind of child abuse, but I would not make a law banning it, because I might be wrong, and because parents have some rights to raising their child as they see fit that my view must be balanced against. So I have a secular conviction that I would not impose on other people so as to restrict their rights.
Matt_W
1646
This is NOMA thinking and I’m pretty distrustful of it. I think it relies on a narrow definition of what science is and ends up basically being a tautology: i.e. “science is that area of human inquiry that can’t ask value questions.” I guess I am kind of using “science” in the way Scott isn’t; as a broad description of human inquiry that is explicitly non-religious. More accurately I should use “materialist”, but that’s not really a colloquial term which is why I avoid it. Certainly there exists three or four hundred years of human inquiry in fields like philosophy, political science, economics, ethics, sociology, etc that reject supernatural causes and also create a firm foundation on which to base moral judgements. I’d go even further and say that almost all modern values rest on these efforts and even the terms of debate are set by them. We don’t, for instance, accept arguments by authority when discussing values in culture. “God said it” is not generally sufficient, nor is that argument usually advanced by religious ideologues when discussing values outside their parochial sphere.
Timex
1647
I feel like we all understand what I’m about to say, but it seems to be intentionally misstated.
There is a legitimate reason for a human being to oppose the killing of another human being.
If you accept the premise that a fetus is a human being, then simply saying “don’t get an abortion” isn’t quite good enough.
I oppose the murder of other human beings, even if they have no direct relationship to me. I do not constrain my opposition to murder to ONLY oppose murders that I myself commit. I don’t say, “Well, murder’s not my thing, but hey, it looks good on you though!”
To be clear, I do not believe that every fetus is a human being. However, I understand that implications of that belief, and it’s wrong to simply pretend that such a belief doesn’t exist.
KevinC
1648
It exists, but it exists based on religious beliefs. I’m sure there’s exceptions like there is for any generality, but for the most part the people who believe so with such fervor are the religious nuts.
If I accept the premise that Catholics are alien lizard people, is that a good basis for laws that restrict their rights?
(Maybe just firmly believing something isn’t enough?)
Matt_W
1650
I listened to an Ezra Klein podcast during a road trip this weekend that was super frustrating because of this tendency to use analogies when talking about abortion (or really any sticky ethical problem.) These issues are thorny because of their particularities, and then we try to elucidate them by removing the particularities, which obviously doesn’t actually shed any light on the situation. There are lots of ways that abortion is different than murder and the ways it’s different are precisely the reasons it’s a thorny issue.
Timex
1651
Eh, no, that’s not accurate either.
For instance, I believe that a fetus in the 39th week of development is a person… it’s got all the parts. It is a functionally identical being compared to a baby that has just been delivered by a mother.
That belief is not at all based on religion. I don’t need a book to tell me that killing a baby is wrong, and that same secular belief applies to the fetus at that stage of development.
Matt_W
1652
…except that it is still inside and attached to its mother. That’s not a trivial difference.
It doesn’t matter. Not being an organ donor kills people, but we don’t feel we have the right to force other people to do it, even when they’re dead. Bodily autonomy is a fundamental right, and if it’s not then holy shit are we opening up a can of worms no one should want open.
Related:
Timex
1654
It is in fact a trivial difference at that stage of development.
It’s a difference of location is space. The child is no longer physiologically dependent upon the mother, and can exist on its own. It has all of the same capacity for thought and suffering that a baby does right after its born.
You do not tend to limit the rights of other humans based on their location is space.
It most definitely does.
If that fetus is a person, then it is entitled to exactly that right.
It absolutely doesn’t. I reiterate that no one, not even the most ardent “pro lifer” (what a joke) should want to go down the route of “if someone else’s life depends on it, you don’t get to control your own body.”
Matt_W
1656
I’m not sure it’s worth arguing this point, but we absolutely do all the time and I can think of a dozen examples off the top of my head.
This is all a distraction anyway. Late term abortions are rare and already heavily regulated and none of this is at stake in any political context now or in the near future. What actually is at stake are first term, pre-viability abortions, which a substantial number of people oppose, often on purely religious grounds, and that has nothing to do with whether it’s moral to force a mother to risk her life or long-term health for her late term unborn baby.
rowe33
1657
Except for things like pesky border laws I guess. Pretty sure those restrict the rights of other humans all the time based entirely on their location.
