ethics Archives - Right Reason

Keeping them in: The Church’s motive in marriage policy

On December 19, 2018

In Christianity, ethics, religion, theology and biblical studies

Don’t create a church’s stance on marriage in order to make people happy or stop them from leaving.

In early 2017 (when I started writing this article, since which time it has sat gathering dust) the general Synod of the Church of England voted on same-sex marriage. Well, sort of. The General Synod voted not to endorse a report by the House of Bishops on Same-sex marriage. The report affirmed the biblical and historic Christian view that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. To be specific, there are three houses in the General Synod. The House of Bishops voted in favour of the report. The House of the Laity voted in favour of the report. But the support of all three houses is required, and the House of Clergy alone voted not to endorse the report, confirming the widely-suspected reality that the clergy are the more liberal element of the Church of England.

There were many issues discussed at the time and obviously I wasn’t present. On Twitter however I encountered a speech by activist Lucy Gorman. When I saw it I raised a criticism of it, but Lucy quickly blocked me so I can no longer see the portion of the speech that was shared there. Ever the believer in dialogue, I found this a little disappointing (especially since she had initially asked me for my view on the suicide of people who felt hurt by the church, but then told me that she didn’t really want to talk about it with me and blocked me).

So let me bring the issue to you, dear reader.

You don’t matter just because I care

By Glenn

On November 28, 2018

In bioethics, ethics, social issues

We can’t erase the fact that abortion is homicide just because we aren’t as attached to the unborn as we are to other humans. The truth is that whether or not your life has value, and whether or not you are disposable, cannot be determined by how I feel about you.

There’s a view that pro-lifers (those who think it is wrong to kill unborn humans) are ignoring the reality that the death of an unborn child is less tragic than the death of somebody else. The death of an unborn is not the death of a human – not really – and actually we all know it, because we react differently to the death of an unborn child than to the death of somebody else. So wrote one blogger:

If you try to get pregnant and fail, it is frustrating. If you have a heavy menstruation slightly late, suggesting that fertilization occurred but the pregnancy failed very early on, it is even sadder. But it is not the same as managing to be pregnant for several months and then finding that the fetus has died. And that in turn is nowhere near as tragic as having your delivery date arrive and the child be stillborn.

Mothers know this. Fathers who’ve experienced any aspect of this know it too. And so how can so many people nonetheless accept the stark and unnuanced claim that “abortion is murdering babies” without a blink?

Liberal Anglicanism’s love of confusion

By Glenn

On October 11, 2018

In ethics, gender, theology and biblical studies

THE RECENT Wellington Anglican Synod provided another example of how progressive Christianity is a beneficiary of unclear and confused thinking. Brothers and sisters on the left of the theological spectrum, I love you. But this is a problem you have.

I’m Anglican. I also oppose the liberal tendency of some Anglicans to want to constantly update the theology and practice of the Church to bring it “up to date” with the progressive concerns of the day, and one of the main such concerns of the day just now is the church’s view of sexuality and marriage.

Hogging the resources: Questions for you

By Glenn

On November 16, 2017

In ethics, social issues

The following is a scenario in an imaginary world:

A seller is selling all the diamond rings in the world, and the world consists of him and ten other people. All ten potential buyers would like diamond rings, but every time a diamond ring is offered for sale and everyone makes an offer to buy a ring, two of those ten people offer more. This results in a bidding war until the other eight people can no longer afford to buy the ring. Consequently, all the diamond rings go to just two people.

But at the end of the day, these are diamond rings. Who really cares? They could never be considered essential for living the good life.

Also in this world: A seller is selling all the food in the world. In advance, we will rule out “but you can produce enough food for yourself without the seller,” by declaring, as part of the thought experiment, that this would require so much time that people could not work for a living, and it would in many cases require resources (such as suitable land) that people do not have. So this is ruled out.

Defending adulterers

By Glenn

On December 20, 2016

In Christianity, ethics

NOTE: I am about to slowly make my return to regular blogging, and I have a number of partially-written pieces that I will finish and publish first. I wrote most of this article some time ago, shortly after the Ashley Madison website, which promotes extramarital affairs, was hacked and personal details of members were leaked to the public.

I defend child molesters and adulterers. You should too, depending on what you’re defending them from.

In the past, I’ve upset people by denying that you have the moral right to kill a child molester in retribution for what they’ve done.

Some of the same people who (I think) want to see themselves in Jesus’ sandals as he stood between the adulterer and the accusers, saying “let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” have been having far too much fun in the stoner mob when this or that Christian has confessed to having an Ashley Madison account. I wonder what degree of satisfaction they will have gained from the suicide of John Gibson. Hey, you didn’t actually throw a stone, so you’re all good, right?

Lying for choice? Keeping the pro-life violence narrative alive

By Glenn

On December 3, 2015

In ethics, social issues

UPDATE: A couple of days later, this dishonest post by “Exposing Men’s Rights Activism” has been shared 470 times by people who did not check the facts. No doubt this number will continue to rise. After I pointed out the errors, they have removed the word “mass,” to their credit. This leaves them making the claim that there were three shootings on that day. Of course there were far more than three. There are more than eighty shooting deaths per day in the US. Indeed the only reason for saying that there were three mass shootings was to claim (falsely) that the high profile case in San Bernadino was not the only one. The respectable thing would clearly be to remove the false post altogether. Moreover, they have not acknowledged their initial factual error, they have deleted my comment where I point this out, and they continue to claim that the attack happened at a women’s health clinic, perpetuating a false version of events. Truth is the real casualty in all this.

Some abortion rights advocates have started fabricating mass shootings at abortion clinics.

Anyone who actually looks into the phenomenon of violence against abortion clinic staff, carried out by those who think abortion is wrong, knows that the reality is much smaller than the perception. Such incidents are rare and in severe decline, the facts show. Obviously whether or not abortion is morally permissible is quite independent of incidents like this, but still, some proponents of abortion rights do try to silence the vocal critics of abortion because of such incidents, as I mentioned recently. Unfortunately, however, whether or not the allegations about these incidents are even true is starting to matter less, it seems.

Perhaps noticing the lack of actual widespread violence against people who work at abortion clinics and trying to boost the numbers, or perhaps just trying to link the opponents of abortion to the recent terrible mass shooting in San Bernadino California, or heck, more likely just using somebody else’s tragedy to further your own social and political cause (no, not a crass thing to do at all….), the Facebook group “Exposing Men’s Rights Activism” today shared a tweet from Jamie Kilstein, reading “F**k. Not seeing this on the news cause they are covering another mass shooting. #america.” If I read this correctly, it means “Oh no. The news isn’t covering this mass shooting because they are covering a different one.” Kilstein in turn was sharing a tweet from Houston Feminist: “There has been a shooting in #houston at Clinica Hispana, a women’s health clinic. #hounews.”

Using the fear of violence to end the condemnation of abortion

By Glenn

On December 1, 2015

In ethics, social issues

By now many or most readers will know about the shooting in Colorado Springs at a Planned Parenthood Clinic.

Capitalising on the violence (say I), proponents of abortion rights are using the incident to maintain that abortion opponents must stop publicly making strong claims against abortion. Some of the complaint is simple misinformation (denying that Planned Parenthood traded in any sense in the parts of unborn babies). But there is also the claim, echoed by many, that strongly condemning the killing of unborn children has consequences. It inspires shooters like this guy, so it has to stop. We can think abortion is wrong (if we must be so benighted, but we mustn’t call it a horrendous evil.

This is wrong. You may not tell people to keep this opinion to themselves because of the actions of this or any other shooter.

We understand this principle most of the time. Here are a couple of examples that help us to see this.

Abortion is so hot right now

By Glenn

On September 26, 2015

In bioethics, ethics, social issues

I don’t know the cause, perhaps it’s the current political climate in the US with political hopefuls vying to be their party’s candidate for President. But just now it seems the issue of abortion has exploded in my social media feeds, replete with (rather unwelcome) grizzly images of dismembered unborn babies. For what it’s worth, please be considerate of people who might not actually want to see such horrible things when they log in to catch up with friends or discuss other things. Do you want to be bombarded with unexpected and very graphic images of beheading victims, stabbing victims, crash victims and so on? But abortion is so hot right now, it seems.

Abortion is one of those issues where people just seem entrenched (the related issue of stem cell therapy is somewhat similar in this regard). No amount of pleading seems to get people to move – usually, at least. There are people who assume (quite wrongly, I say) that it’s simply a religious issue. You would never oppose abortion unless you were religious, they think. There are those (like presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders) who think (again, very wrongly, I say) opposition to abortion is an attack on women and their reproductive rights. I don’t think any comments like this have any merit, and I think they are evidence that many defenders of abortion rights are not seriously listening, or they don’t really want to know why people oppose abortion (or they do, but they are willing to misrepresent the opponents of abortion, which is a hallmark of partisanship).

In spite of my fear that very few people are really open to listening to the evil “other side” of the abortion issue, I know that some people do, and some people even change their mind about it once they’ve listened. It’s hard to predict what might give someone that little nudge across the line, but if it’s possible that something I say might help do the job then I don’t want to miss the opportunity. There is nothing new here.

Love is not for the worthy (That video about the shopkeeper and the homeless man)

By Glenn

On August 30, 2015

In ethics, theology and biblical studies

You might have seen this video being circulated on social media lately, about a shopkeeper and a homeless man:

This does not sit right with me. In fact as far as reasons go for treating homeless people better, this is terrible.

Denial is not an option: Planned Parenthood and the sale of body parts

By Glenn

On August 1, 2015

In bioethics, ethics, social issues

There is already plenty of exposure to the now infamous undercover videos of staff at Planned Parenthood where it is clear that they engage in the practice of selling the parts of aborted babies. After viewing them, I do not believe there is any way to dismiss the footage as a distortion, as misleading, or as taking things out of context in a way that only makes it appear that this is what the staff are offering to do, when in reality they are not. That sort of denial is not plausible, and yet that is the sort of thing we are seeing. Having seen this sort of denial a couple of times now, the most charitable conclusion I can draw is that the people who would make this claim are simply believing the best of Planned Parenthood and have not actually viewed the footage for themselves.

For that reason alone, here are the videos that I have seen, and you are invited to watch them for yourselves. There may be others, but these are the ones I have personally watched. You might want to argue that there is nothing wrong with what is happening here. You might want to argue that the law should allow the trade of unborn baby parts. You would be pretty consistent in doing so, I think, once you accept that unborn babies can be dismembered and killed. But I am just gathering together what I have seen, as others are doing, so that we can stamp out the claim (the hope, perhaps) that trade in unborn baby parts is not happening. It is. Deal with it.

Please be aware that some of the footage is very disturbing, dealing with abortion and the sale of parts of dead babies. You will see body parts if you watch the first video.

Fuller footage is available for those who allege that these videos have been creatively edited to give a misleading impression. This is not difficult to find for yourself and is available at Youtube. Watching the full, unedited footage is a prerequisite for anyone who wants to imply that these videos have been edited to give a misleading impression.