Editor’s Note: This is a piece from Arrias on the nature of life, and some of the real and emotional issues that come with it. We are in a transitional place in our society. This is an example of why it is so profound. In it, I discovered I was an Aristotilian. Arrias approaches from a slightly different perspective. I have a few issues on my plate that I prefer not to touch. Arrias does.

– Vic

Losing Our Souls – For the Moment

The President having performed his Constitutional role and nominated someone to fill the vacant slot on the Supreme Court, consider the major issue: abortion. And for a moment, consider the question of abortion without regard to religion (and apologies to R.E.M.)

Abortion has become the litmus test for the Democrats. The question we might ask is: Why? But back to that later.

The specific issue of abortion rests on one question: Is there a soul? It’s really a simple question and there are, objectively, only two possible answers: yes, or no.

If there’s a soul, the question further breaks down to: “when does the soul inhabit the body?” St. Thomas Aquinas, one of mankind’s great minds, thought the soul didn’t inhabit the body until 40 days after conception, for males, or 80 days for females. This was, in fact, based on his understanding of the science involved, which was in turn based on Aristotle, who believed conception didn’t yield an actual human fetus until 40, or 80, days. At that point, Aquinas said, the soul now being present, to abort the child was murder.

Science has long since shown Aristotle to be wrong in his biology, conception takes place on day one, and thus the soul is present immediately. Returning to Aquinas’s real point, once the soul is present, you can’t abort the child. Since the soul is present immediately, you can’t abort the child.

If you believe in the soul.

But what if you don’t?

If there is no soul, the fetus is just a mass of cells, cells that are utterly dependent on someone else to live. And the state – and virtually every country on the planet for that matter – provides for the right to eliminate the fetus. There are time limits that vary between legal jurisdictions, in some cases as little as 15 weeks and in some cases right up the point of birth. Many states, and nations, now have laws in effect that reflect on the “viability” of the fetus, that is, the ability of the fetus to live outside the womb.

But this is the part that’s difficult to understand. Why is viability an issue? If the fetus is “viable” and is removed from the womb, can it survive without a mother? No. Hmmm… Viable… Interesting word. Viable means (per the Oxford English Dictionary) “capable of living; able to maintain a separate existence.” Living, life, separate existence…

And therein lies a real problem with abortion. What is happening right before our eyes is the manipulation of the meaning of the word “life.”

The Declaration of Independence lists our unalienable rights as “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That Life is listed first is not happenstance; the right to life is our first right; if you are deprived of it, the others are pretty much meaningless.

But what if you start adjusting the legal meaning of the word “life?” The fetus is a mass of living, growing cells, it is organized as separate from the mother. But it’s not “viable.” Until some point where science has managed to remove it from the womb and keep it growing (a constantly changing number), and that is then defined as “viable.” But it’s not really living a separate existence.

In fact, it’s not capable of living a separate existence until it’s 3 or 4 years old. Maybe 7 or 8. And what about when it’s old? Or sick? Or severely injured? Or in some way developmentally disabled? Is it viable then?

From the perspective of the modern state, yes, but only because the state so defines it.

Already we’ve seen how “viable” has been modified; “terminally ill” patients with less than 6 months to live (a prognostication that has been found to be wrong about 80% of the time), face depression and a low “quality of life” are eligible for assisted suicide. The individual is “viable,” but the quality of life is “low” and therefore “life” can be terminated by the individual. And in some countries, if the individual is no longer capable of communicating, the individual’s family and doctors can decide that the low “quality of life” warrants terminating it.

So, what you have are courts and legislatures around the country and the world redefining life. Life, plain and simple has become “viable life.” And viable in some countries has already morphed into “better quality.”

Consider that between 2008 and 2012 not one Downs Syndrome baby was born in Iceland. Statistically, with 4,200 births every year, there should have been about 20. There were none. That’s because they were all aborted. Iceland isn’t alone; 98% of fetuses identified with Downs Syndrome in Denmark are aborted; France 77%, US 67%.

In 2018, a test was developed to identify autism in a fetus. How many years before the incident of autism in Iceland drops to zero?

Meanwhile, courts, and health-care bureaucracies, continue to redefine “life” and “viability.” How many years, assuming the trend continues, before parents can choose to let a child die after birth, if it’s born with some physical defect? The governor of Virginia, himself a pediatrician, has said that whether a child who somehow survived an attempted abortion is allowed to survive should be a matter decided by the doctor and the mother.

When does that translate into care of elderly who are having difficulty communicating and also can’t survive on their own? What about someone in a long-term care facility, with no family? Start with the unpleasant people: he’s unpleasant, elderly, and an extreme bigot? He’s not independently viable, he’s not loved, he’s not contributing to society. Why can’t the state just let him die?

If you believe in a soul, that’s an easy answer. If you don’t, you need to ask yourself this question: what happens to you if you lose your family, get old, and then someone defines you as unpleasant and bigoted?

Words are important; definitions are important. This power is the real answer to the “Why” asked above, the issue behind the litmus test of abortion; it’s about ceding “life” to the courts and ultimately to government. That’s what is at stake in our courts today…

Copyright 2020 Arrias
www.vicsocotra.com