In this episode of Born to Win, Ronald L. Dart explores the controversial views of Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics, on the morality of infanticide and abortion. Through a philosophical lens, Dart critiques Singer’s definition of ‘person’ and delves into the societal implications of such ethical positions. He contrasts these modern philosophical debates with biblical teachings, examining how these principles align or conflict with contemporary moral standards.
The CEM Network is pleased to present Ronald L. Dart and Born to Win.
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Is it morally permissible to kill an infant during, say, the first 48 hours after it is born? For most people, the answer comes quickly, no, absolutely not. Some people may be ready to throw rocks at me for just asking the question. But if you ever ask this question of someone who believes in abortion rights, you may get a surprise. Not that they’ll say, yeah, you can do it. They’ll tend to want to dodge the question. Peter Singer, who’s a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, seems to say that in certain circumstances, it’s quite permissible to do precisely that. You’ll find it on his own Q&A website. Questioner, you have been quoted, Dr. Singer, as saying, killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it’s not wrong at all. Is that quote accurate? Dr. Singer answers. It is accurate, but it can be misleading if read without an understanding of what I mean by the term person, which is discussed in Practical Ethics from which that quotation is taken. I use the term person to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. Now, this answer that he gives serves as a useful illustration of a very common fallacy. Singer builds his entire argument on a special definition of the word person. You’ve got to keep it in mind as I read what he said, because it underpins the entire debate. You and I may see a babe in arms as a person. He doesn’t. He says, as I have said in answer to the previous question, I think it is generally a greater wrong to kill such a being, a person, than it is to kill a being that has no sense of existing over time. Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person that is a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it’s not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is. But that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents. And to kill an infant is usually to do a wrong to its parents. Usually? Almost always? You know, it’s easy to miss the implications of this statement. The word usually is obvious, but he speaks of doing great wrong, not to the infant, but to the parents. He has defined the infant as a non-person, and therefore it cannot be wronged. The argument turns the infant into an object that, if inconvenient, we can dispose of. As for his idea that newborn human babies have no sense of their existence over time, well, newborns and babies in the womb even know when they are falling. And falling they don’t see as a good thing. They arch their backs. They thrust out their arms. Now, over time, they learn to trust their parents, and the behavior changes dramatically. which sounds an awful lot like they have a sense of their own existence, of danger to that existence. We know that they suffer pain in the womb. Going on, though, with Singer. Sometimes, perhaps because the baby has a serious disability, parents think it better that their newborn infant should die. Many doctors will accept their wishes to the extent of not giving the baby life-supporting medical treatment that will often ensure that the baby dies. I’ll have to confess, I did not realize that this was an accepted practice anywhere in this country. It came to the fore during the 2008 presidential campaign when it was said that then-Senator Obama was opposed to a law in Illinois that would stop the practice. In the case of an infant that survived a late-term abortion, should the baby be allowed to die or should it receive all reasonable medical care? You may have seen this video that was circulated on the Internet. It popped into my email box from two or three different sources in the course of a week. It was a nurse telling the story of how such a living infant who survived an intent to abort was placed in, what was it, a laundry room to be allowed to die? She found it there and sat there for 45 minutes holding this child until it died. Professor Singer went on. My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken by the parents and doctors that it is better that a baby should die… I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision not only by withholding or withdrawing life support, which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection, but also by taking active steps to end the baby’s life swiftly and humanely. Sort of like I might do with my old dog. As a vet came to my home and stuck a needle in her leg, and I held her hand while she trembled and stopped trembling and died. It was humane. In fairness to Peter Singer, I think he is talking about babies so severely handicapped that they are unlikely to survive in any case. But you know, many have taken this to include Down syndrome and a host of other deformities like cleft palate, What you need to know about Peter Singer is that he is a philosopher, and thus he can safely be ignored. This is true of most of the high-ranking types in academia. Their job does not seem so much connected to the real world. In fact, nothing at all lies behind their opinions except a line of reasoning. One critic complained about Singer, and people like him know, hey, they make this stuff up as they go along. But that’s not entirely fair. They think it through as they go along. And sometimes the error in a line of thought does not become apparent to them until much later. Singer, for example, has changed his mind on some issues he has raised. The problem is that once a book is in print, it can go on misleading people indefinitely. The philosophers may not need to concern us so much, but those who attempt to apply these ideas in politics, law, and real life should concern us. Because, in fact, very few of the people who are trying to imply the stuff that they learn from men like Peter Singer have ever seriously considered the impact of these ideas on real people. There’s a superficial appearance of common sense connected to the arguments, and I can see this or that senator or congressman buying into the theory because of his education at some Ivy League university. But what if Peter Singer is wrong when he says, I use the term person to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future? How do we know that an infant at some level has no wants or desires for the future? Does the little fellow want to be fed? Does he come to learn that if he cries, he gets fed? Does he want to be warm? Does he want to be free of pain and discomfort? Does he fear falling? The little rascals can feel pain and they respond to it in the womb. What if our definition of person changes to one who is capable of coming to anticipate the future? What if our definition says that a person is one who is alive and carries human DNA and has an identity? For we know that that is true. A fetus has a human identity from the time it is an embryo. I’m going to offer into evidence a story that Peter Singer surely would not accept. But there are Christian folks who do believe the story I’m going to offer, and yet they support abortion rights. Hold on through this break, and when I come back, I’ll tell you the story.
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Asking yourself, what would Jesus do, may not be the right question. It may be more important to ask, what does Jesus tell us to do? You can be sure of that. For a free introductory CD titled, The Words of Jesus, write to Born to Win, Post Office Box 560, White House, Texas 75791. Or call toll free 1-888-BIBLE44.
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I’m departing from philosophy now and turning to an authority. In the New Testament, Luke tells us how it came to pass that John the Baptist was miraculously conceived in his parents’ old age. When Elizabeth, his mother, was six months along, an angel visited a young woman, a virgin named Mary. He announced the coming conception and birth of the Messiah. Mary then conceived of the Holy Spirit and was bearing the embryo of the one who would be called Jesus. Now, both of these new beings, developing in the womb of their mothers, were human, alive, and had distinct identities. Here’s what happened. Mary arose in those days and went to the hill country with haste into a city of Judah, and she entered into the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth. It came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she spoke out and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how is this, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For lo, as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.” It’s amazing, isn’t it? Scientifically, we know that the developing fetus has all the DNA that will make him or her into a distinct human being, different from every other human being that has ever lived. Different fingerprints, different look, different face. It’s amazing how different we all are. Thus, when we destroy that fetus, we have destroyed a distinct, identifiable human being. That’s why many Christians believe that abortion is morally wrong for any reason, and that to kill a newborn is just as wrong. I don’t think they even necessarily think it’s more wrong. They are both completely wrong. I can’t help wondering if some of the vitriol aimed at Governor Sarah Palin in the 2008 election grew out of a fear and loathing of a woman who would knowingly bring a Down syndrome child into the world. You know… A review of the literature back in 2002 of elective abortion rates found that 91% or so of pregnancies in the United States with a diagnosis of Down syndrome were terminated. Now think about that. Now they can determine with a fair degree of accuracy that the child that is developing in the womb has Down syndrome, that extra chromosome that creates what used to be called a mongoloid child. All right? Over 90% of those diagnoses, pregnancies, were aborted. A lot of physicians and ethicists are concerned about the ethical ramifications of this. Conservative commentator George Will called it, quite accurately, eugenics by abortion. I’m afraid it’s true. Unfortunately, the birth of a child with Down syndrome is considered by many people to be a tragedy. Someone even said that the ghost of the biologist Sir Francis Galton, he’s the fellow that founded the eugenics movement back in 1885, that that ghost stalks the corridors of many a teaching hospital. Dr. David Mortimer has argued in Ethics in Medicine that Down syndrome infants have long been disparaged by some doctors and government bean counters. Why? Well, because they cost money. They cost medical treatment. They put a burden on people. Some members of the disability rights movement believe that public support for prenatal diagnosis and abortion based on disability contravenes their basic philosophy and goals. And I would think they would think that exactly, because many of those disabled people would simply not be alive today if their parents had followed that line. Now in case you don’t understand what eugenics means, eugenics is a science that deals with the improvement, as by the control of human mating, of hereditary qualities of a race or breed. Now we have long since seen where this philosophy takes us. Hitler’s idea of a master race and the destruction of the Jews arose from the soil of eugenics. Anytime you hear that, it comes from the Greek word. It means good and genetics, which means, you know, what we’re born with. This is where this comes from. There are people who believe that inferior people should be disposed of. They should be at very least neutered. That is sterilized. It’s been one of the most destructive ideas of human life ever introduced as a philosophy in our world. Meanwhile, birth rates in the civilized nations around the world are declining. Abortion has cost the United States some 45 million citizens who never were. Citizens who will not be in the workforce, who will not be paying taxes, and who by their absence will lead to the failure of Social Security. You know, it isn’t just handicapped babies who are being aborted. The sheer number of abortions puts the lie to that. A number of perfectly healthy young infants are being aborted because it’s a form of birth control. They are simply not wanted. Every time I hear that phrase, unwanted children, it puts a chill up my spine. There is also the selecting of the gender of the newborns, where the aborting of female infants is skewing the population far to the male side. With consequences no one has adequately weighed. I don’t know how much that’s done in this country, but it certainly has been done in India, and I think also in China. When men start playing God, they screw up everything. As far out as it sounds, you know, there have been primitive societies that would put a female newborn out on the ice or in the desert sands to die while continuing to care for and bring up a boy. In those societies, a girl child was a liability and a burden while a boy could hunt and fish and care for his aging parents. Is this the kind of society we want to be? Now that we can determine a child’s gender long before birth, we are now finding in India girl babies are being aborted to such an extent that there is a serious shortage of young women on the horizon for all of the young men who are being born. Where are the women’s rights groups on this issue? Conflicted, I suppose. Our values are royally screwed up because they aren’t rooted in anything beyond philosophy, which is nothing but sifting sands and opinion. The problem in our society is not just abortion. It’s the loss of the very idea of family and the value of children. And what lies at the root of that is a generalized loss of moral values that due to the loss of any kind of authoritative standard. Even Christian people no longer read their Bibles like they once did. And as a consequence, even among Christian people, the Bible is no longer informing their conscience. The Bible was the moral authority upon which this society that we enjoy was once built. There was a time, for example, when we shared the values spoken of in the Psalms. For example, Psalm 127. Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. Children weren’t conceived as a burden. They were a reward, something to be treasured. Psalm 128. Blessed is everyone that fears the Lord and walks in his ways. For you shall eat the labor of your hands. Happy shall you be. It will be well with you. Your wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of your house. Your children like olive plants round about your table. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that fears the Lord. How have we turned the blessing of the Lord into an unwanted child? And if women don’t want children in this day and age, why do they allow themselves to get pregnant? There are ways and top of ways to prevent it from ever happening. And we have probably suffered greater loss from the prevention of children, from not wanting children, than the aborting of children. It’s a tragic thing that we see developing in our society, and it comes about because we have slowly but surely divorced ourselves from God and anything having to do with God. Think about that for a moment. Grab a pencil and a pad. I’ll be right back.
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There’s a chapter in the book of Deuteronomy that outlines what the future will look like for nations in two different veins. One, where they have chosen to listen carefully to the voice of God and to follow the lead, and one where they have chosen to go another way. The chapter is Deuteronomy 28. It begins by saying, It shall come to pass, if you will listen diligently to the voice of your God, if you will do all of his commandments that I command you this day, that the Lord your God will set you on high above all the nations of the earth. Here are the blessings that will come upon you. They’ll catch up with you. If you hearken to the voice of the Lord your God, they’ll overtake you. Blessed shall you be in the city. Blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your kind, the flocks of sheep. In other words, he’s talking about fertility of the ground, of your own body, of your cattle. You’ll have a population that is growing by leaps and bounds. But then there is the other side of the coin. There is the society that will not listen. Deuteronomy 28, verse 15. It shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and statutes, these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Now, mind you, It isn’t just that God will hit us with a curse. They will catch up with us. It basically says the way you’re living your life is going to catch up with you. Cursed shall you be in the city. Cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket in your store. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body. Who would ever have imagined that we would become our own curse? that the curse upon the fruit of our body would be inflicted by ourselves. You know, one of the prophets, Hosea, spoke of a time to come in their society, what had already happened in his society. Sex was everywhere. Lots and lots of sex. Women were playing the harlot. They were sleeping with anybody around. And Hosea, as a sign, had to go out and marry a harlot. But they weren’t having children. It was a declining population. A declining population means a weakened nation. If you really want to look for the source of our economic problems right here, right now, look no further than the decline of the family. But that may not be the worst of it. Years ago, I passed a used book cartel at a local airport. I saw a book titled The Clowns of God by Morris West. It’s an apocalyptic novel of sort, and the title refers to Down syndrome children, whom Morris West calls the clowns of God because they are so loving and so able to make us smile. And I think he sees them as a test from God to see how exactly we will treat them. In the novel, there is a poem called, The resurrected Christ is found at a school in the Alps, sitting, holding a beautiful little Down syndrome girl on his lap. And everyone has just realized who he is. He speaks. I know what you are thinking. You need a sign. What better one could I give than to make this little one whole and new? I could do it, but I will not. I am the Lord and not a conjurer. I give this might a gift I denied to all of you, eternal innocence. To you she looks imperfect, but to me she is flawless, like the bud that dies unopened or the fledglings that fall from the nest to be devoured by ants. She never offended me as all of you have done. She never perverted the work of my Father’s hands. She is necessary to you. She will evoke the kindness that will prompt you to gratitude for your own good fortune. More, she will remind you every day that I am who I am, that my ways are not yours, and the smallest dust mite, world and darkness space, does not fall out of my hand. I have chosen you. You have not chosen me. This little one is my sign to you. Treasure her. And yet, among the 45 to 50 million abortions there are, how many Down syndrome infants are destroyed, killed, never given a chance to show and receive love and to let us learn the lessons that God wants us to learn from taking care of people who have trouble taking care of themselves. George Will says, remarked that just 25 years ago, the life expectancy of Down syndrome people was 25. Today, because of better health care, better mental stimulation in schools and homes, better community acceptance, their life expectancy is 56. Writing about John Will, George Will remarked further, John experiences life’s three elemental enjoyments, loving, being loved, and ESPN. It’s heartbreaking somehow to see handicapped children. We would like to live in a world where there are no handicapped children. And it makes sense to cure through medicine and surgery any handicapped child we encounter and to do whatever it is that we can do for them. But does it make sense to solve the problem of the handicapped children by killing them off? What kind of people would do that? Well, what kind of people are we coming to be? And what kind of Christians might we be when we no longer govern our lives by the words of Jesus? The road ahead is long and dangerous, and our educational system has given us a generation who are governed by what? What informs us about right and wrong? Experience? Well, experience is a hard teacher, but it’s effective. Philosophy? It is too often wrong by its own admission. In a way, when we read the Bible, we are learning from the experiences of generations past, so we don’t have to repeat their mistakes all over again. My people, said God, are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.
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We could do better. You have heard Ronald L. Dart. If you would like more information, or if you have any questions, write to Born to Win. Post Office Box 560. White House, Texas 75791. In the U.S. and Canada, call toll-free 1-888-BIBLE-44. And visit our website at borntowin.net.
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Christian Educational Ministries is happy to announce a new full-color Born to Win monthly newsletter with articles and free offers from Ronald L. Dart. Call us today at 1-888-BIBLE44 to sign up or visit us at born2win.net.
