-"The Bitter Bread," p. 91.
"So deep is the universe."
-Poul Anderson, "The Ways of Love" IN Anderson, Explorations (New York, 1981), pp. 117-147 AT p. 117.
These are two very different ways of saying the same thing. The narrator of "The Ways of Love" is not human and refers only to the physical size of the universe whereas the speaker in "The Bitter Bread" is a human representative of a state that illegalizes fornication, adultery and homosexuality. His "God made..." is not a traditional mythologically derived phrase but a state-endorsed doctrine:
"'...would you want lads and lasses free to fornicate?'"
-"The Bitter Bread," p. 89.
Yes! (We are also told that women's modes of dress are restricted.)
People do many things with that word, "God." They might take the Name in vain without realizing it. One thing that the Protectorate needs is encounters with many different inhabitants of "God"'s big universe. For inter-species religious contact and conflict, read Poul Anderson's "The Problem of Pain."
This post changed direction when I remembered those young people forbidden to have sex and women told what not to wear.
11 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Some things, like abortion, should be illegalized. Others, like homosexuality, are pathetic and revolting, but should not be criminalized if practiced by consenting adults. Simple fornication between men and women, also should not be legally penalized, but I'm not sure if that's the case in the Protectorate of "The Bitter Bread."
Ad astra! Sean
It is. I quoted the passage.
Kaor, Paul!
One thing is dead certain, many men and women will have sex, no matter what the State, any State, says. Prohibition (of alcoholic drinks) failed in the US for similar reasons. Some things, not all of them vices, are simply too popular to be successfully banned.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I think the Mafia wanted Prohibition?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Criminals and gangsters certainly took advantage of what the idiocy of Prohibition gave them! But my vague recollection is that organized crime on a really large scale only became possible when Prohibition opened vast new markets to them.
The law of unintended consequences strikes again! (Snorts)
Ad astra! Sean
"The law of unintended consequences strikes again!"
See also the effects of outlawing abortion.
Kaor, Jim!
There can be no excuse or justification for the cold blooded murder of the unborn or exposure of new born infants. It needs to be banned.
Ada astra! Sean
In practice, where there are not restrictions on abortion, an abortion is done either as soon as the woman who does not wish a child knows she is pregnant, or when a wanted pregnancy goes badly wrong and threatens the health of the mother, or simply there is a foetus which is either dead already or will only live for a few hours after birth in great pain.
Laws against abortion all too often lead to cases like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar
or prosectutions of women who have had naturally occuring miscariages.
Kaor, Jim!
I disagree. The unborn child has as equal a right to life as the mother. To deliberately and knowingly attack the life of either remains murder.
The vast majority of abortions perpetrated in the US before the "Dobbs" decision, averaging one million, had no complications in the pregnancies. No "rare" complications!
Removing a child which died in utero is not abortion. And I agree it is wrong to prosecute women for miscarriages. A miscarriage is an accidental, unintended abortion and is not a crime.
Ad astra! Sean
I am aware of two main objections to 'The unborn child has as equal a right to life as the mother'.
1) By analogy 'an acorn is not an oak tree'. Early on the fertilized ovum is merely one cell or a few cells with no nervous system, not a person. As the ovum develops to become a fetus and eventually viable outside the womb, it becomes more reasonable to consider it a person, and the more extreme the reasons needed to justify aborting it. So 'I don't want a child now' is reason to take mifepristone to stop the pregnancy in the 1st few months. Later on real threat to the mother's health would be needed to justify abortion. This later situation would amount to killing in self-defense.
2) Suppose instead that we regard the fetus as a person from conception. Does one person have the right to use another person's body to keep itself alive?
https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
I will also note that many cultures have considered 'ensoulment' to occur at first breath. My understanding is that many parts of the Bible at least imply that idea. If we accept the idea that one becomes a person only at birth, then right to life starts at birth.
Kaor, Jim!
Point 1 errs because its advocates seem to ignore how the acorn was an oak acorn from the beginning and can only develop into an oak tree, not anything else. That same reasoning invalidates the argument against the humanity of a recently fertilized human ovum. That new life is human from the beginning because humans created it. And the disgusting drugs used to destroy that ovum sickens me!
The defenders of your Point 2 overlook an obvious fact: the unborn child did not ask to be conceived, and had done nothing to be conceived. But, once conceived that new human life has as much right to life as either parent.
Even in times when "delayed ensoulment" was thought possible the Catholic Church opposed and condemned abortion because the unborn child was at least a potential human life.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment