1. Unspeak, naturally – he was medical director of a women’s health care clinic.
2. And usually we stand in a court of law, watching them being sentenced for a good long time.

Your attitude towards abortion will be largely determined by a single factors: your view about whether a foetus constitutes a full human person, with all the rights that go with that. If the foetus does not possess the right to life – or possesses a circumscribed right to life – then abortion may be morally acceptable. Unfortunately if you do believe that the foetus possesses a full right to life, then you’re unlikely to be convinced by somebody who doesn’t share that belief, as illustrated by a savant going by the name Diogenes¹:

I see nothing wrong with swatting flies.

Let’s say that you have a different opinion. You think the lives of flies are sacred, and therefore you think that swatting flies is grossly immoral. You hold this view with the utmost sincerity. Unfortunately for you, I’m making the rules. And I say:

* You can’t refer to fly-swatting as “murder.” That would be “hate speech,” inciting others to violence.
* You can’t interfere when I swat flies.
* You must contribute to the purchase of fly swatters.

Now, with those ground-rules established, let’s begin a civil discussion of the morality of swatting flies. There’s no need for anger, recrimination, or name-calling. We have a sincere difference of opinion. Let’s– oh, wait, excuse me a moment [thwack!]– find some common ground.

This seems straightforward enough on the face of it – clever enough for some approving comments and links from other blogs – yet the analogy exposes the most basic problem with a “pro-life” position that abortion is murder.  Let’s say that I do believe that flies are sacred, and that swatting them is essentially murder. If I was sitting in front of Diogenes trying to have this discussion, and he started to swat flies, wouldn’t I be obliged by my beliefs to stop him? Equally, if somebody proclaims that they believe that abortion is murder, and is fully aware that murders are being regularly carried out in their vicinity, don’t they have an obligation to go out and put a stop to it as soon as possible, no matter the risk to their own lives?

Yet presumably Diogenes – and the vast majority of pro-life advocates – take no such action, and in such a case, there appear to be two possibilities. The first is unpleasant to contemplate: that the person who sincerely holds this belief but fails to act on it is a coward, a hypocrite and (in their own eyes, at least) an accessory to murder. I don’t think that everybody who holds this belief is such a character, however, so the second possibility seems more likely: that they don’t actually believe that abortion is murder. If the latter is true, the inevitable conclusion is that they don’t in fact believe a foetus is a full person.

Circumstantial evidence suggests that this is the case: take for example one of the commenters on Diogenes’ post, a fellow named Exaudi nos²:

All we would have to do to end this argument about flies is to line the dead ones up on the side walk in front of the establishment that brought on their demise and after the pile gets pretty deep, I think the common ground would be found.

This is a common trope on the anti-abortion side: if only people were aware of the true nature of abortion, they’d all come out against it, and therefore it’s acceptable to publicly exhibit the process and results of abortion.³ Now I have a problem with the idea of exhibiting corpses in public, especially for political purposes, and it seems that most people share this feeling: I wouldn’t, for example, suggest that we pile up the corpses of victims of traffic accidents to make a case for more cycle paths.

Exaudi nos’ suggestion implies that either he believes that it would be acceptable to do such a thing, or that he doesn’t believe that an aborted foetus has the same status as a corpse. If it’s the former, one has to wonder why he doesn’t propose such tactics for other political campaigns – but if it’s the latter, then the only conclusion we can draw is that, if he believes that an aborted foetus does not possess the same status as a dead person, then he neither believes that a live foetus possesses the same rights as a live person.

1. I really, really hope that pseudonym is meant to be ironic.
2. ”Hear us” for those of you who skipped Latin class and/or aren’t Catholic.
3. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that anti-abortion campaigners enjoy posting videos that graphically show aborted foetuses, but some of them do seem to take a certain grim satisfaction in it. I won’t link to any videos, but they’re easy enough to find.

The other aspect of these events that stand out is the way in which each observer – however intelligent, however well-informed – is unable to escape their own perspective. Thus Butterflies and Wheels sees “horrible horrible horrible people who like hurting and killing people”, the Long War Journal sees “Foreign assault teams that likely trained and originated from outside the country infiltrated a major city to conduct multiple attacks on carefully chosen targets”, a contributor on Wikipedia states with confidence that he has”both Pakistani and Indian friends here in Toronto, they is a difference of NIGHT and DAY. All the Indians in our company are dark skinned and of short stature. The Pakistanis are always the opposite in physcial looks.”

The internet is no cure for a lack of imagination, which appears to be the single biggest stumbling block in combating terrorism. We all want the enemy to be clearly visible, to be clearly distinguishable, although most of all we want the enemy not to be us.¹ Yet for most outsiders, ignorant of the history of Kashmir, blind to the intersection of crime and communalism (so brilliantly sketched in Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City), unconcerned by the legacy of partition in all its forms, these attacks are an opportunity mainly to entertain their own prescriptions. It’s understandable; but it’s not enough.

My thoughts are with the victims of these attacks, rich and poor; but my concern is for the future victims. India has a terrible track record of communal violence triggered by key events, and these attacks are likely to have the opposite effect that the terrorists wanted – (Hindu) mob vengeance against innocent (Muslim) citizens. The question is not whether India can combat terrorism, but whether it can combat the communal tensions that provide continual fuel for that terrorism.

1. Most interesting blog post so far: a transcript of India TV’s interview with one of the terrorists at How I Learned to Stop Worrying.

But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you– when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.

Proverbs 1:24-27

While struggling through the more dense corners of the web I found this gem, deployed by a Monopolist Christian. It’s really hard to work out what lesson they hope the heathen Other will draw from it, isn’t it? If somebody did this in real life, you’d think that they were a callous dick – but apparently it’s all good if God does it. Luckily I refuse to let this prevent me from recognising that most Christians don’t follow this particular bible passage especially closely.

The mere cessation of existence is no evil to any one: the idea is only formidable through the illusion of imagination which makes one conceive oneself as if one were alive and feeling oneself dead. What is odious in death is not death itself, but the act of dying, and its lugubrious accompaniments: all of which must be equally undergone by the believer in immortality. Nor can I perceive that the skeptic loses by his skepticism any real and valuable consolation except one; the hope of reunion with those dear to him who have ended their earthly life before him. That loss, indeed, is neither to be denied nor extenuated.

- J.S. Mill, The Utility of Religion

(HT: Adam Gopnik)

Also worth your time: You’re A Good Man, John Stuart Mill.

But what I want to be cautious of in a way that I don’t think Paul and Maher are, entirely, is conflating “religion” and “faith”… I agree with Maher that an intellectual grasp of religions is not sufficient to fully understand what it means to live a life of faith.

Caution is always to be recommended on the Web, and I agree completely that a purely “academic” (in the derogatory sense) approach will never lead to true understanding of something so deeply felt.

While we agree on that, I think we disagree quite fundamentally on how religion and sport look from the outside – although as Jennine says, she occupies an ambiguous position with regards to both activities due to her upbringing (which is partly my point, I think).

However, knowing people of faith who live their faith – as expressed through religion – deeply and beautifully, there is something there that I just don’t see captured in sport.  And that is the relationship between a person and the divinity that they engage with.  Although supporting a sports team can offer a sense of identity and community, I hope at least, that most fans understand that the team is not invested in their wellbeing.  And that, at least in the Christian traditions I grew up in, is exactly what I was taught about God – that God is concerned with each person’s wellbeing, that God loves each individual and wants them to live a good life.

That may well be what people believe about God – but, just like their favourite sports team, God does appear to keep on letting them down. And yet those people keep going back for more, just like sports fans who follow their teams despite persistent losses and consistent mismanagement. It’s all about feeling connected to a higher power – whether that higher power is Yahweh or Nike.

In this fascinating article, Ryan Maher is talking about American football rather than real football, but I think the principles are the same. In fact he’s talking about how to discuss faith in a meaningful way with those of other faiths, in the context of his work in Doha.

This template for discussing religion and faith is fundamentally flawed. It presumes that different groups of faithful people approach their religions in the same way football fans approach their favorite teams: I cheer passionately for mine, you cheer passionately for yours, and we all agree to play by the rules and exhibit good sportsmanship. For people of faith, religion isn’t like that.

Actually, football isn’t like that either. That’s a very strange view of sport – a matter of etiquette rather than passion. I don’t believe that Chelsea are any good, not on the basis of the empirical evidence but because I don’t like Chelsea. I don’t believe that Crystal Palace are any good, but if people ask I’ll still say I support them. I don’t think that England are much good, but I’ll still be jumping out of my chair whenever they win a match with a goal in the last two minutes.

Good sportsmanship has its place on the pitch; off the pitch, the barracking that opposing supporters give each other is seldom good-natured and sometimes spills over into violence. So perhaps it would be more useful to see religion as exactly like sport – pursued by different people for different ends and in different ways, and occasionally with more agreement between people of different faiths than with those of their co-religionists?