I've been watching with some interest the news coming from Alabama about the pause being enforced on IVF due to a court decision that fertilised embryos are considered children:
Pause in IVF in Alabama due to court decision
I'm sure u think I have a osition on this... particularly given I have spiritual leanings. I do of course but I like to position myself in an Israel-like stance of nuclear ambiguity. However my post today is not taking a direct position on this. Instead, I want to take the opportunity to talk about how it is a microcosm of a wider human behaviour that I'm unhappy about.
I'm deeply uncomfortable with the human habit of treating things as "movable feasts".
What do I mean by this? Well it's my concern about people shifting their positions (be they theological, ethical or moral), on nothing more than whim and emotion.
To use the matter at hand as an example... I respect people who have ariived at a position based on experience, teaching or debate... even when those views differ to my own. I'm not comfortable when people chop and changethir views based on how the ourtcome makes them feel.
I'm remindedof a time when an acquaintance was in a place where their marraige was breaking down and it was apparrent to me that their was a very strong argument that they were the belligerent party. Marriages occassionally break down and that is a sad and unfortunate fact of life. It's deeply sad when it happems, but I must say that I lost respect for peoplewhen they huddle round that person and caim out with trite nonsesne like "he obviously wasn't the one".
Why are eople so swift to swap out people like stickers or trading cards? Shouldn't their be a pperiod of reflection or contemplation before jumping n from one lily pad to another?
Nobody is denying that there are difficult questions asked of all of us... but all I am saying is that when we are faced with them... we should acknolwedge them for what they are. Whatever position you arrive at in these situtions you should take time and give them the respect these matters deserve.
I have friends who have lost children at an early age, and it's only a few tears ago after a deceased baby was found in a local river. So to the catalyst question at hand, I can very much understand why prospective parents would feel the need to take a view on th status of unborn children? Would you really deny parents the right to grieve an unborn child because you view life bginning at birth. You cannot deny that their grief is real and tey have that right to express those emotions.
In principle my issue is with the disposable nature of things and how little respect we treat the people and thing we exncounter as disposable nappies. It isn't right. I would point out that our understanding of when human life begins has been coloured by science as well as religion. Theologically there is a view that life begins at birth and it could be argued that science at least generated the doubt. There are arguments from both camps that go either way... and I think whatver your personal position is, you should treat the matter with resect.
Maybe you could level critcisim of me and say that mt perspective is coloured by the fact I haven't experienced much of these things.. That isn't an issue of me lacking perspective... it just means that I have a different one
No comments:
Post a Comment