consistency?

[cellio]

For the last few days there has been a story in the news about a baby that was born with two heads (twins gone wrong). Or, more precisely, about the surgery that was being done to remove one of them. Some of the reported facts got me to wondering about something.

The second head had brain activity. (I understood it to be activity independent of the other brain.) The additional head had eyes, a mouth, and other features that moved and apparently reacted to environment. If the head remained it was certainly going to become a serious hardship for the child, both physically and mentally. It was not clear to me that its presence was directly life-threatening.

So, the doctors removed an entity that was developed enough to have a working brain and body parts, which was infringing on a host entity through no fault of its own, to preserve the health but not necessarily the life of said host.

Now, I have absolutely no problem with that decision. But I wonder how those who are anti-abortion see it. I did not hear of any protests outside the hospital, and I would be somewhat surprised if a significant number of anti-abortion folks actually objected to this surgery. You'd have to be pretty hard-hearted to object to this, I think.

But I wonder about the reasoning. What are the salient differences between this case and abortion that make the former acceptable and the latter not? Is it just that a suffering child tugs on the heart-strings more than a suffering adult? Or is there a real difference? The analogous abortion case would seem to be an unintended, risky pregnancy resulting in a fetus with a serious not-immediately-fatal defect, like Down's. While many anti-abortion people make exceptions for cases like that, many others do not. They're the ones I'm curious about.

Comments

sex and reproduction

[cellio]

So... the obligation is not so much to.... have babies.... as.... not have sex that can't lead to having babies.

Good point.

I assume the ban is on active barriers to fertilization (e.g. most birth control), and not that people who are incapable of having kids are forbidden to have sex anyway. There is life after menopause, after all. :-)

More interfaith anthropology: In Catholicism, birth control is forbidden but choosing to have sex during times of the month when the woman is not fertile is permitted. In Judaism, birth control is permitted (sex for pleasure is fine -- commanded, even) but sex during the infertile part of the month is forbidden. The origins of the practices are probably completely unrelated, but the juxtaposition struck me as interesting.

Re: sex and reproduction

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

I assume the ban is on active barriers to fertilization (e.g. most birth control), and not that people who are incapable of having kids are forbidden to have sex anyway. There is life after menopause, after all. :-)

Exactly :)

Re: sex and reproduction

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

In Judaism, birth control is permitted (sex for pleasure is fine -- commanded, even)

I hadn't known that..


Is there a particular time period when that teaching first recognizably developed?

Re: sex and reproduction

[cellio]

It's recorded in the talmud, so it's at least that old. (I mean the part about sex for pleasure. I don't know when discussions of birth control first appeared.)

Re: sex and reproduction

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Ok.... since I'm realizing I may have some incorrect assumptions here....

What's the relationship between the Talmud and what Christians call the 'Old Testament'?

Re: sex and reproduction

[cellio]

What Christians call the "old testament" (approximately) we call the "tanach", or "bible" -- Torah (5 books), prophets, and writings (the other books -- things like Psalms, the histories, etc) (list). I said "approximately" because there are a couple books that the Christians include that we don't and maybe vice-versa. Anyway, all of that is scripture, and the Torah within that is the written law.

The talmud compiles the "oral law" (yes, it eventually got written down -- fear of loss during Roman persecutions and the like). The traditional view is that the oral law was given at Sinai along with the written law, and passed unfailingly in a direct line until it was written down. (Some of us quibble with that. :-) )

The talmud consists of two major parts. The mishna was the original attempt to write down the oral law; it was written down sometime around 200 CE by Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasi. The gemara came later (completed around 500 CE, I think), and further expands on the points in the mishna, sometimes bringing in other oral teachings not included in the mishna. Almost every statement in the mishna and gemara is of the form "Rabbi So-and-So taught...", where Rabbi So-and-So is an ancient sage.

The talmud has been further augmented through the centuries by later scholars, so you can't just look something up in the talmud to get the current law. (And anyway, there's no index. This is an area where computers really help...) It's the foundation, though, and at about 5000 pages of dense Hebrew (and Aramaic), there's a lot there.

talmud

[dmnsqrl.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhh.....

Catholicism has stuff like that.... (Something that many Christian denominations take issue with)

I think the current average feeling in the Catholic church is that "knowing that stuff is really nice if someone wants to go to the effort but otherwise just listen to your priest who's supposed to know that stuff and he'll steer you the right way"

But writings of the Church Fathers, Encyclicals... those are all that same sort of idea...