New Book: My Body for You, by Stephanie Gray Connors

I just returned from Ohio where I spent two days with my publisher, Emmaus Road, pre-recording videos and podcasts to promote my new book My Body for You: A Pro-Life Message for a Post-Roe World. Although it doesn't officially release until January 1, you can PRE-ORDER COPIES TODAY! The best place to order is through the St. Paul Center (although due to border shipping fees, it will be easier for Canadians to pre-order via the Canadian distributor Sunrise Marian, available at this link).

At a time when the slogan "My body, my choice!" is shouted louder than ever, the words of sacrificial love desperately need to be heard. In the book I urge everyone to reflect more deeply on who we are, what we are made for, and why living out Christ's words—“This is my body, given for you”—is the only path to victory for life.

I share my experiences and insights as a debater, and now a mother, to provide a robust defense of the pro-life message while exploring the topics of pregnancy and abortion. Part apologetics, part memoir, part sharing the Good News, the hope is that my words inspire readers to a deeper level of love. For within the story of the greatest love—which began as a pregnancy—within our own stories of embracing maternity and paternity (whether biological or spiritual), we can unlock the ethos to move us forward in this post-Roe world.

To learn more about the content of My Body for You, check out this blog I wrote, as well as this Facebook reel. Please share these links through your social media networks to help spread the pro-life message.

On Being an Incubator, by Stephanie Gray Connors

With the US Supreme Court hearing the abortion-related Dobbs case this Fall, the topic of abortion will certainly be in the news more. This makes for a great opportunity for debate, not just in a court of law but in the “courtroom” of public opinion. This means pro-lifers need to be equipped to engage in such discussions in a winsome, grace-filled, and compelling way.

  To help prepare people, Cy Kellet over at Catholic Answers selected one pro-abortion article and invited me on his show to explain how to break down abortion supporters’ flawed rhetoric and weak arguments. You can view the 30-minute exchange here, but in particular I wanted to draw attention to one point in particular.

  The article we were discussing is by Elie Mystal and titled, “The Supreme Court May Have Just Signed Roe v. Wade’s Death Warrant.” At one point, the author writes about pro-lifers (aka “Republican-controlled states”) treating a woman as a “malfunctioning incubator.” In the course of Cy’s and my discussion, this is how I responded to that (around 22:36):

  “Let’s talk about incubator. You know, I would love to have fun with that and say ‘Why is that a bad thing?’ And, I say that as a pregnant woman who delights in the fact that I have a child in my body who is dependent on me, who is bonded to me and connected to me in a way that isn’t even connected to my husband, that I have this special relationship with our child by the fact that I can incubate our baby. That’s a joy. That’s a privilege. That’s an honor, to have someone who is so needy and dependent on you. What a delight. So, I would actually say, ‘Hey, maybe that’s not such a bad thing, to be an incubator.’”

  Cy responded by observing, “Well, it does seem that the things that women can do and that are special about women have to be denigrated in order to justify abortion. You have to say, ‘Well, it’s not that important, you know, carrying a baby…’”

  And I continued,

  “Right. That’s a great point. It really is an attack on the feminine and femininity. What sets women apart from men [is] our ability to conceive new life in our very bodies and sustain that life not only before birth but even after birth through breastfeeding. To think that a newborn child [for example], their body is not designed to consume food as we consume it. You can’t just give them a banana mushed up. I mean, if you are going to provide an alternative to breast milk, it has to be formula. It’s not a bottle of water. It’s not cow’s milk. It’s not almond milk or oat milk. I mean, it’s a very specific formulation that is designed for sustaining their bodies. But their bodies really cannot be sustained with much. It is someone else’s body, the breast milk of their mother or a wet nurse, or some very specifically designed formulation that would not harm their bodies.”

  In other words, both born children and pre-born children rely on another’s body in a very unique and specialized way. Even someone who formula feeds needs to use their body to provide that nourishment to the baby through holding, bottle-feeding, and burping. Rather than look at this dependence of the youngest of our kind on us as some sort of intrusion, we should celebrate it as a unique privilege and joy.

  Finally, if you look at the dictionary definition of incubator it is as follows: “an apparatus with a chamber used to provide controlled environmental conditions especially for the cultivation of microorganisms or the care and protection of premature or sick babies.” Now obviously, on a technical level, a pregnant woman is not an incubator from the perspective of being “an apparatus.” Like our pre-born children, we are subjects and not objects. Having said that, the idea that it is our bodies that “provide controlled environmental conditions” that are all about “cultivation,” “care,” and “protection” should be hailed as a superpower, not denigrated as a burden.

The Pregnant Belly that Beckons, by Stephanie Gray Connors

“Can I touch your belly?” the 5-year-old boy asked.

His mom was embarrassed by his request but I was happy to oblige:

“Sure,” I said. “The baby is getting big.”

I was 7 months pregnant and my husband and I were on a road trip to Virginia where I was scheduled to give a pro-life presentation. We turned our travels into a bit of a babymoon and stopped off at the beautiful beach destination of Hilton Head, South Carolina. As we sat at a pool area, we met a vacationing family which included the inquisitive son.

The little boy’s curiosity and attraction to my child in the womb reminded me of an experience I had had a month prior. I visited a friend who has 3 children and when I was leaving, one of her daughters ran up to me and said, “Hugs!” I crouched down, assuming she wanted to hug me, but was taken aback (in a good way!) when she wrapped her tiny arms not around my shoulders, but around my pregnant belly.

She wanted to hug my pre-born child goodbye.

In our abortion-supporting world, it is the sweet gestures of these young children that teach a lesson to adults: A pregnant belly is different; it is set apart. Encountering a pregnant woman is to receive not just one person, but two.

Oh to have the eyes to see not just she who is visible, but to have awe and wonder at the precious life hidden within.

Reflections on Debating Peter Singer, Part 7, by Stephanie Gray Connors

God

Although Peter Singer and I argued our positions from non-sectarian perspectives, I couldn’t help but feel, after the debate was done, that something—Someone—was missing.

Peter is known for being an atheist, and in a conversation with Andy Bannister he points to the existence of suffering in the world as being proof of the non-existence of God.  Otherwise, he asks, how could an all-powerful, all-loving God not intervene to stop the suffering in the world?

A whole other debate would need to be had on this topic, and I point readers to the insights of philosopher Peter Kreeft as a great place for in-depth reflections on the question of God’s existence.  I would, however, like to share these few thoughts:

First, if the presence of evil in the world is a sign God doesn’t exist, how do we explain the presence of good in the world?  Couldn’t we say that the presence of good is a sign of God, and the presence of evil is a sign of an arch enemy of God, namely Satan?  As we see in The Lord of the Rings or The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, these forces of good and evil fight against each other and do battle, but the good eventually wins. 

  Second, God has intervened to stop the suffering in the world—He sent His son Jesus to take on the punishment of our sins for us.  A world of eternal life awaits we who choose it and that world is free of suffering and will have no more tears.  Why hasn’t that world come yet?  Why hasn’t the suffering on earth ended already?  I don’t have an answer for that but I do have an explanation for my ignorance: I am a mere human and I don’t know it all.  Just as a child simply cannot comprehend everything her parent does, I do not have the capability, with my limited nature, to comprehend everything God does.  I am not all-knowing and not all-seeing, but God is.  And because He is all-good, then I trust Him when I don’t understand (just as children ought to do with their loving parents).  As mentioned above, Peter would cite the ongoing presence of evil as a sign God cannot be all good.  But not everyone with that observation comes to that conclusion.

  Take, for example, an article Peter wrote in 2011 about the death penalty.  In particular, he commented on the possibility that some people who are given the death penalty may be innocent.  He cited the story of Michael Morton who was unjustly incarcerated for 25 years for a murder he didn’t commit.  I don’t know how much Peter has looked into Michael’s story beyond the bare facts, but I have studied Michael’s experience extensively, speaking and writing about it on various occasions.  Michael suffered brutally, not only losing his wife to murder, not only being put in prison for a crime someone else committed, not only being deprived of raising his only son, but he endured more than two decades of lost freedom and horrific conditions in jail.  If anyone could use the presence of suffering as grounds to say God doesn’t exist, it could be Michael. And yet, Michael doesn’t.  In fact, he does just the opposite.  In his memoir he writes, “I know three, little, simple things.  One, God exists.  Two, He is wise.  And three, He loves me.”

  When I think of Michael’s story as it relates to God, I imagine the following: What if it didn’t take 25 years to find the actual murderer of Michael’s wife?  What if the guilty man was found within days?  What if there had been clear evidence of his guilt and he was charged with murder?  What if, when the guilty man was being sentenced to prison for life, Michael were to have stood up in the courtroom?  What if Michael had said to the judge, “Your honor, I know this man is guilty of killing my wife.  I know the just punishment for his crime is life in prison.  But I would like to take his place.  I would like to take on his punishment for him.  Send me to jail instead.”  We cannot even imagine Michael saying that.  And yet, that’s what Jesus did for us.  All of us are imperfect, and all of us have violated God’s laws.  There are consequences for doing the wrong thing (read Chapter 1 of The Bible’s Book of Genesis).  And if each of us were on trial in a courtroom for our various misdeeds, we’d be found guilty as charged.  Imagine a just judge dealing out the punishment to us that aligned with our crimes.  Then imagine Jesus entering the courtroom.  Imagine Him saying, “Excuse me, your honor.  I know that’s the consequence she deserves for the crimes she’s committed.  But I’m here to take the consequence on for her so she doesn’t have to.  Whatever her sins deserve, do it to me instead.”  What innocent person knowingly takes on the consequences of the guilty?  A Jewish rabbi named Jesus.  If you’ve ever wonder if God is all-loving, think of that.

  Third, although it takes faith to believe in God, it also takes faith to not believe in God.  For example, imagine you discover an exquisite piece of artwork and say, “Wow, who made this?” and I replied, “No one. It just appeared.”  You would think I was mad.  You would say, “Such design cannot just appear from nothing.  It couldn’t have fallen from the sky.  It must have a designer!”  To believe that art exists without an artist takes great faith, and involves believing in the stuff of leprechauns and unicorns.  I would suggest it takes less faith to believe in God.  Granted, if all design requires a designer, then eventually we will trace everything back to creation’s beginning and say, “God made it” at which point someone could fairly ask, “Well who made God?”  Because God is all powerful we can reasonably say, “Because He’s God He’s always been and always will be.  I can’t fully understand it because I’m not God.”  An atheist has to rely on faith and explain how the complexities of the human body, other species, nature, etc., came to be literally from nothing while not providing the explanation of a higher power orchestrating it.

  Fourth, when labelling things as “good” or “evil” we are implying a known standard we measure things by.  If there is no God, who, or what, determines what is evil and what is good?  Without God, we are left to humans deciding, and humanity’s long standing history of human rights violations makes us less than good authorities on this matter. 

  Peter doesn’t seem to like the idea that all humans are special because it implies a belief in God who says we are special.  So what’s the alternative?  One could not believe in God but still think humans ought to be treated kindly by their fellow humans.  This would be the assumption I mentioned in part 1 which we come to through intuition or because it is self-evident.  It is the most inclusive position for even atheists to hold, because no humans get left out by this standard.  Just as someone could be atheist and against racism, one could be atheist and against killing fellow humans (particularly believing it’s wrong for parents to kill their offspring).  Having said that, human weakness often causes us to depart from the standard that we should treat members of the human family equally and kindly.  All too often when a human gets in another human’s way, or has something we want, we come up with qualities, criteria, and features that includes ourselves and excludes those whose elimination we wish to justify.  Whether it’s ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability, cognitive level, or age—determining whether a human is protected based on qualities like these inevitably excludes some humans.

  The fifth, and final, point is this: God could have made us like robots so we were forced to choose Him and never disobey His commands.  But such choosing wouldn’t be authentic; it would be programmed.  It would therefore be meaningless.  No person wants to marry a beloved who is forced to say “I do.”  Instead, we want to know the other party, in freedom, willingly chooses a lifetime together.  The pursuer may romance his love interest, and entice her with all kinds of things like flowers, love notes, and gifts, but at the end of the day, she still must decide in freedom if she wishes to give her assent.  Likewise, God romanced humanity by blessing us with relationship and beauty of all kinds, but He still gave us the opportunity to choose Him—which meant we also could reject Him.  God had forewarned Adam and Eve of the consequences of violating His command and, as a person of integrity, was a man of His word and followed through when they rejected Him.  But at the same time, as a Father and lover, He got creative about both following what He said and giving His creatures a path of redemption—salvation.  As with Adam and Eve, we each have an unfolding story and we, like them, are given a choice—To choose God or reject Him.  And as the history of the world shows, rejecting him leads to all kinds of devastation and suffering—the very things Peter is concerned about.

To return to the start of this series, click here.

Photo by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash

Reflections on Debating Peter Singer, Part 6, by Stephanie Gray Connors

Lessons from Little Wang Yu

In a TED Talk Peter Singer gave, he told the story of 2-year-old Wang Yu, a little girl in China who was killed after being struck by a van.  He shared horrifying details, namely that the driver did not get out of the vehicle and that various passersby disregarded the child’s plight.  During the cross examination portion of our debate, I asked Peter if Wang Yu had been a little younger, namely 6 months old (the age, according to him, when an infant wouldn’t have moral standing) if it would have been immoral to kill her then.  His response was that yes, it would be, because her mother wanted her.

  His reply is troubling because it does not place the value of Wang Yu in Wang Yu herself.  Instead, it places her worth on the feelings and interests of others.  That creates a problem; after all, what if her mother didn’t want her?  Would that make killing her moral?

  In fact, I asked him to imagine the mother wasn’t alive and the father had wanted a male child, not a female one.  Would it have been immoral for her to be struck dead if those were the circumstances?  And all he could say was that he thought disregarding someone because of their sex was wrong.  It is.  I agree, but I would add this: So is disregarding someone because of their level of development—which is what he does by denying the pre-born, and some born, their right to life if they aren’t currently manifesting human skill to the level he’s decided is satisfactory. You cannot control your sex and you cannot control your level of development (in other words, your age).

Age Discrimination

On several occasions I suggested that Peter’s view makes him guilty of age discrimination, because the only reason the pre-born and newborns are not manifesting desires, thoughts, etc., like us, is that they haven’t lived long enough to adequately develop the physical structures necessary for such intellectual development.  Peter said that my charge was false because if someone was born and allowed to grow up to age 50 but was extremely disabled so that their capabilities were those of, say, a pre-born child, that he would be okay with that individual’s life being ended.  So he said it’s therefore not about age but is instead about having certain capacities and qualities.  While I realize that, on the surface, it doesn’t appear he is picking on the pre-born because of their age, a closer look reveals that he is.

  If we ask why the pre-born do not manifest desires, thoughts, pain, etc. (at least early in pregnancy) it is not due to a developmental disability but rather simply because they are too young.  The criteria he has selected is, in their case, qualities tied into how old they are; so, at least for the group of pre-born humans and infants, it is a type of age discrimination.  Sure, his criteria also includes some older humans, but when it applies to younger humans it’s because of their age. 

  By way of analogy, imagine if someone said this: “You are a person if you don’t have a uterus.”  Men do not have a uterus and generally women do, so one could say that such a definition of personhood is sex-discrimination.  Imagine if someone responded, “Actually, sometimes there are women who don’t have a uterus, so while that definition includes all men, it includes some women so it’s not sex-discrimination.”  Although a few women would be protected if they lack a uterus, the reality is most women, by virtue of their femininity, do have a uterus and would therefore be excluded.  In those cases, the criteria is tied into a female feature, and one could fairly label that sex-discrimination.

Wrapping it all Up

In short, Peter didn’t deny my claims of the humanity of the pre-born; instead, he questioned the foundational standard of all civil societies and the United Nations and rejected the assumptions I laid out at the beginning: He rejected the idea that all humans are equal and that all innocent humans have a right to life, and that parents ought never to kill their children.  As I mentioned at the beginning when quoting his 1972 essay, a position like his, to use his word, should be disregarded as “eccentric.”  The tragedy, however, is that someone who holds such eccentric views is an individual of great prominence and influence.  I can only hope the analysis provided in this series sheds light on how, even though in many ways Peter is a kindly man who I think cares deeply for suffering souls, when it comes to abortion, infanticide, euthanasia and his view on my two basic assumptions, he is off the mark.

To read Part 7, click here.

Reflections on Debating Peter Singer, Part 5, by Stephanie Gray Connors

On Our Human Capacity to Love

After the debate, an audience member e-mailed me saying, “I've been wrestling with the sentiments Peter shared around suffering and humans with compromised capacities. Some of what he said greatly troubled me. What occurred to me this evening is that I think killing humans who present profound suffering or need profound care is not only an assault on that person, but one on our very selves. What I think many, including Peter, miss is that without these people calling forth love and care from us, we ourselves are diminished and hurt. I suppose like all great evils, it's masquerading as a good, a kind of cruelty clothed in false mercy, which makes it all the more difficult to unmask.”

  This viewer’s sentiment expresses my observation too.  Regarding his last point about cruelty clothed in false mercy, as I prepared for my debate against Peter, one of the things I found most challenging was that Peter doesn’t come across as monstrous the way some of his views are, which then makes his views that are monstrous appear as not so bad.

  Peter and I had a private Skype call in advance of the debate, just to get to know each other as people without discussing contentious topics, a practice I’ve developed for my various debates in the last several years.  We discovered a number of things in common, including our love of travel and hiking.  He is an avid surfer and I have no doubt that my husband and he would have a smashing good time riding waves together.  When my parents watched the debate, my mom observed that Peter seemed like a friendly and calm type of person (his soothing Australian accent is certainly to his advantage), and someone she could have an enjoyable conversation with, if she were to overlook his views on abortion and euthanasia.  Moreover, Peter promotes “effective altruism” where he encourages people to share their wealth with the world’s poor; in fact, Peter himself is known for doing that with significant percentages of his income.

  I don’t deny he has good qualities, and this is where there is an important lesson for we who disagree with him: Peter is no different than any of us; every single one of us is a flawed human being.  We all have good sides, and corresponding bad sides.  We all have qualities, beliefs, and behaviors worthy of emulating, and those that are not.  The challenge is to have the discernment to not overlook the bad when someone demonstrates a good.

  For example, Peter is known for propagating the drowning child thought experiment.  If you see a child drowning in a pond, but in order to save the child you’d have to wade into the water and ruin your expensive shoes, should you do so?  The obvious answer is yes, and Peter’s perspective here that we should rescue the child at personal inconvenience is a good one.  On that, Peter and I agree.  But just because he’s right about that doesn’t mean he’s right about abortion.  In fact, his support of abortion would be analogous to having a child and then seeing a pond and subsequently intentionally placing the child into the pond to drown.  If it’s wrong to leave a child to drown because you don’t want to ruin your shoes in rescuing the child, all the more it should be wrong to intentionally create a situation where you drown a child!

  Of course, Peter would point out that if the child is aware and would suffer, then that should stop us from drowning the child.  He would then point out that since pre-born children do not suffer from abortion (at least early abortion), then it is permissible.  As mentioned previously in this series, something can be wrong even when it doesn’t inflict suffering.  But I would also add this:

  Holocaust-survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl once said, “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”  He also said, “The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is…”

  How can one be “more” human?  Aren’t you either of the species homo sapiens or not?  I think what Frankl is getting at here is, in a sense, what Peter Singer is getting at—that there are qualities or features that go beyond the physical reality of us.  Peter focuses a lot on whether a being is rational, aware, has desires, or suffers.  But even a psychopath can demonstrate all of those qualities.  I would say there is something more to us humans than just those qualities.  What that “more” is, is our capacity to love.  And the more we love, the more we live up to our nature, the more we reach the fullness of what it means to be human (hence we would associate the word “inhumane” with cruel, unloving acts). 

  So what of those who are not developed enough to love?  What of the child in the womb, or the newborn infant?  Their inability to currently manifest love (or interests and consciousness to the level we know it) shouldn’t make them candidates for destruction.  On the contrary, their immaturity in this regard should make we who are already mature be candidates for helping form them, for showing them what love is.  And once someone comes to know love through receiving it, they can return love.  Of course, even if someone doesn’t live long enough to develop the awareness needed to love back, it doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to love them, to treat them with kindness, not cruelty.

Peter would perhaps consider this view utopian, but I fully recognize we live in an imperfect world and our call to love will not always be lived out properly. I am merely suggesting that while acknowledging that, it doesn’t justify intentionally inflicting (or promoting, or justifying) homicide on the youngest of our kind.

To read Part 6, click here.

Photo by Steve Halama on Unsplash

Reflections on Debating Peter Singer, Part 4, by Stephanie Gray Connors

Should Doctors be Killers?

  At one point in the debate, Peter Singer branched from abortion to euthanasia.  He mentioned that there are some health conditions after birth where he thinks parents, in consultation with physicians, should be able to euthanize their disabled infant.  Euthanasia is a topic that needs its own debate to be adequately addressed.  Because I have already blogged extensively about it here and am releasing a book on the topic at the end of 2020, I will keep my remarks here brief so as to stay focused on abortion.  I will say this, though:

  I suppose to give Peter credit, he was being consistent—but consistently wrong.  Beyond the aforementioned point that parents shouldn’t kill their children, I would suggest that physicians also shouldn’t kill their patients.  I am reminded of a quote by a physician of Quebec’s Jewish General Hospital, Dr. Michael Bouhadana, who said, “A doctor’s job is to cure sometimes, relieve often, comfort always, kill never.”   Or consider the drug company Pfizer: They didn’t want their pharmaceuticals being used in the death penalty.  These reasonable perspectives make their way back to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates who declared, “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, no[r] will I make a suggestion to this effect.”

When writing about this Hippocratic Oath, which became commonplace for physicians to publicly declare, anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “For the first time in our tradition there was a complete separation between killing and curing… With the Greeks, the distinction was made clear. One profession… dedicated completely to life under all circumstances… the life of a slave, the life of the Emperor… the life of a defective child. … This is a priceless possession which we cannot afford to tarnish…”

  So what happens, then, when there isn’t a complete separation between killing and curing?  Well, what’s happened historically when those charged with curing become those involved with killing?  In short, the Holocaust, which, as a matter of tragic fact, ended the lives of three of Peter Singer’s grandparents. 

  Holocaust-survivor Elie Wiesel wrote an essay titled, “Without Conscience,” which was published in 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine and read by medical students at UBC in Canada.  Wiesel wrote about the role of doctors in killing, saying,

  “[I]nstead of doing their job, instead of bringing assistance and comfort to the sick people who needed them most, instead of helping the mutilated and the handicapped to live, eat, and hope one more day, one more hour, doctors became their executioners…Why did some know how to bring honor to humankind, while others renounced humankind with hatred?  It is a question of choice.  A choice that even now belongs to us—to uniformed soldiers, but even more so to doctors.  The killers could have decided not to kill.”

  It’s truly bewildering when you have someone, like Peter, who is so close to the brutality and loss that was inflicted by the Nazis who nonetheless holds a view that is similar; namely, that there are human lives unworthy of life.  Lawyer Wesley J. Smith pointed this out in a lecture he gave.  He noted (around 8:22) how the Nazis would kill disabled children.  He mentions how a father of a disabled child wrote Hitler and asked Hitler if his child, who had defective limbs and other difficulties, could be euthanized.  Smith describes how Hitler responded by sending his personal physician Karl Brandt to the father:

  “Dr. Brandt explained to me [said the father] that the Fuhrer had personally sent him and that my son's case interested The Fuhrer very, very much. The Fuhrer wanted to explore the problem of people who had no future, those whose life was worthless.  From then on we wouldn't have to suffer from this terrible misfortune, because The Fuhrer had granted the mercy killing of our son.  Later we could have other children, handsome and healthy, of whom The Reich could be proud.”

  Smith then paralleled the above with an almost identical sentiment written by Peter Singer himself in his book Practical Ethics: “When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed.  The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second.  Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.”

  Peter Singer is right to want to reduce suffering and produce a better life for people than they are already experiencing.  Those are goals.  But he is wrong about the means to achieve those goals.  In the debate I made an analogy to someone who wants to go to university to become a scientist to do a great thing like find a cure for cancer.  We can all agree that that is a good goal.  But what if the means the person used to achieve the goal was to bribe a university with money in order to be accepted?  We can all agree that means is not ethical.  So I am not questioning Peter’s desire to reduce suffering.  I am questioning his means to achieve that; namely, allowing homicide.

To read Part 5, click here.

Photo by Online Marketing on Unsplash

Reflections on Debating Peter Singer, Part 3, by Stephanie Gray Connors

On the Subject of Animal Rights

One of the things Peter Singer expressed dismay about me, was that I eat meat.  The subject of the debate, however, was not “Eating animals is immoral.”  Instead, it was, “Abortion is immoral.”  One could be a vegan, or one could be a meat eater, but both types of people could still come to the conclusion that abortion is immoral because we ought not kill innocent humans, particularly our own offspring. 

  Further, on a technical level, when someone says, “Human lives matter,” it doesn’t follow that “Animal lives don’t matter.”  By way of analogy, if someone says, “Black lives matter,” it doesn’t follow that that person is declaring, “Latino lives don’t matter.”

  If someone wants to protect animals as well as humans, they can.  I think, for example, of Bindi Irwin, the daughter of the late “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin.  Bindi is known as a “wildlife warrior” who works at the Australian Zoo.  Her love for animals is strong, but so is her love for her pre-born child.  Bindi announced her pregnancy in the first trimester and has made various posts on social media about how much she loves her yet-to-be-born daughter.

  So if Peter Singer wants to protect animals as well as humans, fine.  What is troubling, however, is that he protects animals but not all humans.

  Moreover, Peter argues that to protect humans because they’re human, and to not protect animals, is to be guilty of speciesism, which is, to him, as morally troubling as, for example, racism.

  First, consider that the non-human species that Peter protects can be guilty of speciesism.  Many species prioritize their own over another (think, for example, of the cougar mentioned previously in this series who prioritized her own babies over a human, or consider that a whale eats fish and that chimpanzees eat meat).  Is Peter going to lecture these beings for their consumption of other animals?

  Second, Peter protects beings (whether humans or not) that are conscious, rational, self-aware, and have desires.  Notice that his criteria is not limitless; it is still exclusive.  Plus, while his criteria of who gets protection may extend beyond some humans, it nonetheless is criteria that humans have.  He’s therefore picking qualities for “moral standing” or “personhood” that are present in our species (and some others, but not all others) so he’s guilty of a degree of speciesism, too.  By selecting criteria that involves intellectual capabilities but not, for example, something like having alligator skin, is to be guilty of speciesism (he just favors a number of species over others, instead of one over others).

  Third, the criteria Peter has selected for personhood are actually qualities pre-born humans do have—they just cannot act on those qualities yet due to their age.  By way of analogy, consider one way a dog is different from a cat: The canine nature involves barking and the feline nature involves meowing.  And yet, it’s possible to have a dog that cannot bark or a cat that cannot meow.  If the dog cannot bark, is it not a dog?  It is obviously still a dog, and it has the inherent capacity, by virtue of its canine nature, to bark; however, due to developmental problems or some intentional intervention, the dog simply cannot manifest a bark.  Likewise, pre-born humans, by virtue of their human nature, have the inherent capacity to be conscious, rational, self-aware, and have desires; however, because they haven’t lived long enough they haven’t yet manifested those capacities to their fullness. 

  The same could be said, by the way, about newborn children—they have the inherent capacities an adult manifests, but due to their age they cannot yet act on them.  If you ask an adult, “May I kill you?” the person will shout “No!”  If you ask an infant that same question, the child will have no comprehension of what you’ve asked; that, however, is not license to kill the child.  And yet, by Peter’s own admission, newborn infants aren’t persons of moral standing.  He estimated that it isn’t until a child is six or nine months old, post birth, that they adequately meet his criteria of personhood.  The implications, by his worldview, that such an infant could be killed as a result, should be very troubling to people.  On the contrary, the position I hold is that we ought to treat our children kindly, no matter how developed their inherent capacities are or are not.  

  Fourth, when non-human animals are found to have higher-functioning and this prompts humans to want to protect them, it is the entirety of the other species that is protected—not just the adults. I think, for example, of the sperm whale.  Several years ago, Readers Digest Canada published an article entitled “Why Whales Are People Too.”  In it, it cites a group of scientists and ethicists who met in Vancouver, Canada, which led to the creation of the “Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans: Whales and Dolphins.”  That declaration isn’t protecting only adult whales; instead, it’s protecting all the animals which fall into the category of cetaceans, which includes the itty-bitty pre-born embryonic and fetal cetacean babies.  Proof of that is with Article 1 which doesn’t discriminate based on age or developmental level and instead says, “Every individual cetacean has the right to life.”  This shows that where certain characteristics or qualities are valued, it is the inherent capacity for such qualities, not a current capacity, that result in a species being protected.  By that logic, then, since pre-born humans have the inherent capacities Peter has chosen to prioritize, pre-born humans ought to be protected.

To read Part 4, click here.

Reflections on Debating Peter Singer, Part 2, by Stephanie Gray Connors

Something Can be Wrong Even if it Doesn’t Cause Suffering

  One of the things Peter Singer was particularly focused on was the wrongness of inflicting suffering/harm on others.  As a result, if something, such as an abortion, doesn’t inflict suffering because the pre-born child is not conscious and cannot feel pain, then, according to him, it is not wrong to do.

  My mentor Scott Klusendorf had given me a good response, which I ended up using in the debate: Imagine you die and someone comes to your funeral and gives a speech saying all kinds of falsehoods about you.  Imagine they brutally tear down your character with one lie after another.  Because you are dead, you technically are not harmed by such calumny and detraction; you aren’t even aware of it.  You therefore could not claim you’ve “suffered” by the person’s words.  And yet, wouldn’t we still believe the person did something wrong?  Moreover, wouldn’t we say that they wronged you in so far as tearing down your good character and misleading others as to what kind of person you had been?

  Likewise, rather than get into a debate about the precise moment pre-born children feel pain (because at some point they don’t and abortion is still wrong), I wanted to impart that abortion is wrong not because the victim feels pain but because the victim is a human child.

  Further, think about the implications of his view on the born: When someone is sleeping they aren’t aware.  When someone is under anesthetic they aren’t aware.  Surely it would be wrong to kill an individual who is sleeping or under anesthetic.  If so, then that is proof one does not have to be aware, or even suffer, at the time of death for the infliction of homicide to still be wrong.  Moreover, if someone were to say that sleeping individuals or those in surgery will come out of their unconscious state and subsequently be able to pursue a happy life—then the same could be said about pre-born children.

What We Expect of Moms and Dads

In January of 2020, I wrote this blog about a father, son, and friend who almost drowned in the ocean off the coast of Australia.  The father’s love for his son is not something specific to that man, but is built into the nature of what it means to be father—or mother.  In other words, all parents are meant to love, protect, and care for their offspring, not harm or kill them.  That is why there is universal outrage when parents fail in this responsibility and inflict abuse on, and even end the lives of, their own children.

  Abortion, in whatever form, ends the life of not just anyone, but of one’s own child, therefore violating the nature of the parent-child relationship.  Whether abortion starves (early chemical abortion), dismembers (first-trimester suction abortion), decapitates and disembowels (second-trimester D & E abortion), or sucks out the child’s brain (D & X abortion), the method does not determine the morality.   In all situations, one’s offspring is destroyed.

  Peter Singer is known for being an animal rights activist, and given that he often puts humans and animals on the same level, it is worth pointing out that typically animals that are more like humans (e.g., other mammals) have mothers who go to great lengths to protect their offspring.  In fact, in the debate I referenced a recent viral video of a runner in Utah who was stalked by a cougar for 6 minutes. Why did the cougar follow and threaten the runner for so long?  Because the runner had been approaching the cougar’s two babies and the momma cougar thought he was a threat to her children.  It seems to me that we humans should take a page out of this momma’s playbook—protect your offspring.

To read Part 3, click here.

Header Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Reflections on Debating Peter Singer, Part 1, by Stephanie Gray Connors

We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident

Some principles are so obvious they should not have to be defended.  Instead, they can be universally known through intuition and should merely be accepted.  That’s why, when the United States’ The Declaration of Independence declares, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” it precedes the statement with, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”

In preparation for my debate against Peter Singer, I discovered that he, like the Declaration of Independence, believes that some truths are self-evident. In his 1972 essay, Famine, Affluence, and Morality he wrote,

  “I begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. I think most people will agree about this...I shall not argue for this view. People can hold all sorts of eccentric positions, and perhaps from some of them it would not follow that death by starvation is in itself bad. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to refute such positions, and so for brevity I will henceforth take this assumption as accepted. Those who disagree need read no further.”

  Notice what Peter does here: He makes a claim and then expressly refuses to defend it. Why? Because it is self-evident; although there are a minority who might disagree, he does not engage them and instead labels such thinking as being an “eccentric” position.

  As the saying goes, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”  I therefore chose to follow in Peter’s footsteps in my opening remarks and I, too, decided to make claims that I would not defend but instead take as assumed (knowing that if a minority disagreed, such a view could fairly be labelled as “eccentric”).  My positions were as follows:

1)     All humans are equal and it is wrong to intentionally end the life of an innocent human.

2)     Parents have a responsibility to care for their children, not kill them.

  These are not controversial claims.  They are nearly universally accepted.  My task was not to defend these, but to defend their applicability to the pre-born and make the case that one can conclude abortion is wrong based on evidence I provide that abortion violates these two well-established principles.

  Of course, Peter had a thing or two to say about my position (disagreeing with the assumptions); hence, I’ve created this multi-part series reflecting on my debate with the man who cites journalists as calling him the “world’s most influential living philosopher.”

To read Part 2, click here.