Rex Murphy: In Justin Trudeau's world, Christians need not apply

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bowserthedog said:

It's not a religious issue. Everyone agrees that murder is wrong. It's a matter of science on when life begins.

It isn't a matter of science at all because you can always scientifically justify the moment of the "beginning of life". The moment of conception can be justified as the beginning of life because at that moment you have a complete, but not formed, human. The basic needs of that single cell are the same as any other human at whatever age: nutrition, shelter and elimination of waste. That's one extreme. Then at the other extreme are those who say life doesn't begin until there is conscious self awareness, and therefore killing a baby after birth up to X weeks/months of age should not be regarded as murder and be a matter of personal choice. And there is a very mechanical scientific justification for that position. You could even argue that for as long as a child is fully dependant on someone else to live that child has no rights and no recognition as a human, which could allow infanticide to be legal up to perhaps 2 or 3 years of age. And it could allow involuntary euthenasia for any severely disabled person at any age. Then you have considerations like the capacity to suffer or experience pain, irrespective of whether there is self-awareness.

Ultimately the decision about a right to life of the unborn/newborn is a moral one that must be determined by a moral consensus. It is not possible for pure science to determine the answer to this question. And that is why the question of abortion is not a straightforward one. Even among people who are pro-choice there are different views about how far a pregnancy can progress before abortion should be restricted from being free choice to purely medical necessity.

One of the advantages of religion is that it sets moral boundaries and therefore establishes parameters for the operation of society. Ultimately that's what all laws are, but the problem with laws of a moral nature (the age at which you can have sex, the age of marriage, abortion, same-sex marriage) there is an inherent acceptance, among the believers that God knows best and therefore His moral boundaries are the ideal ones. Wheras when parliament or congress sets moral laws they are just a collective of people who are hopelessly flawed, often corrupt, pandering to the public or worse to comercial interests and mostly less intelligent than me. Why should I cede moral decisions to a bunch of people who are mostly morally questionable? Ceding decisions on moral boundaries to a divine higher power makes a helluva lot more sense. But then the argument becomes one of whether there is such a higher power. So in the last couple of centuries we have been facing that previously non-existent connundrum of how (or whether) to establish moral social boundaries in the absence of an all powerful central point of authority. It's a bloody minefield and I'm damned glad it's not my job. I have sympathy for people who have chosen to make it their job, but at the same time I think they're fools to choosing to put themselves in that position.