[MD] Morality, Abortion and the MoQ

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Michael]
IMO you would do well to consider why you reacted that way.

[Arlo]
Right. As I had said, because I've been down the path of "activist 
judges" and laments about the breech to the Constitution so many 
times I border on nauseous when I hear the term. Take this on the 
heels of your initial reply to my first response which basically 
dissected everything into "I agree with you in all places where you 
say the MOQ would find this immoral" and something akin to "You're 
confused, or not seeing clearly, or missing the boat, or whatever..." 
whenever I suggest the MOQ may find such and such an instance moral. 
Everyone and their brother has a "boogeyman" that they feel the rest 
of us should be up in arms about, and everyone and their brother 
thinks those who disagree about the potential devastation of said 
boogeyman is trapped in some "static" view, incapable of seeing their 
profound message.

[Michael]
Law written through democratic representative process is dynamic.
Law written through judicial fiat is static.

[Arlo]
I don't even know what to say this, except it reveals such a profound 
misuse of MOQ terminology, and to set up a "good/bad" dichotomy as 
well. Just horrible. Better you just use the proper terms, good and 
bad. Indeed, I'd say RvW was a very profound example of DQ since it 
represented a response to a situation that did not rely on old 
analogues, but paved new ground. You think that direction was/is 
"bad". But it was hardly "static". All "law", by the way, is by 
nature a "static pattern of value". You may argue, of course, that 
RvW sets up a law that places of static pattern of social value OVER 
a static intellectual patterns. This would get back to your dichotomy 
above. Laws by democratic representation evidence intellectual 
control of society, laws by fiat evidence social control of 
intellect. THAT would be appropriate MOQ terminology.

[Michael]
Is this an accurate reckoning of MoQ's understanding of the 
"evolution" of a human life, and more importantly how that human life 
compares to other life during its "evolution"?

[Arlo]
I think its ultimately problematic to consider "pre-social" human 
organisms to be nothing more than biological patterns. They are, of 
course, I'm not disputing that. What I am concerned about is law that 
is based on this notion alone. For example, if we abort "pre-birth" 
using the argument that the zygote or whatever is nothing more than a 
biological pattern, isn't this also what it is for quite a while 
after its birth? How is a newborn any less "just a biological 
pattern" than it was three days prior in the womb? If we draw the 
line where we *legally* consider the organism a "person" only after 
it becomes "social", then the moment of birth is arbitrary and must 
be tossed aside in that formulation.

Indeed, many argue socialization begins in utero, and the developing 
fetus begins responding to social input early on. Is THIS the target 
then for moral abortions? Others have argued that socialization does 
not occur until significantly later in the post-birth organism. My 
point here is not WHEN socialization occurs (people have been 
debating that for decades), but whether or not this is what is being 
suggested as the "measuring line" between when ending the life of the 
organism is moral and when it is not. If so, we need to define that 
line based on that line's merits, and "birth" is not it.