"building" healthier families

This morning I was reading more about a (fairly typical) pro-choice initiative called the Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP). Here's some of what they had to say:

"Through training, advocacy and mentoring programs, RHAP helps family physicians and other clinicians make birth control and abortion a part of routine medical care... RHAP builds healthier families."

In other words, according to RHAP, you "build" a healthier family either by:

1. not building a family (i.e. artificially sterilizing one or both of the parents) or

2. building a family and then killing the youngest member of it (i.e. procuring an abortion).

RHAP is typical of countless other "reproductive health" organizations across this country. Why do we stand for any of them?

Vita Pro Omni!

pro-life 101

"There are more people working full-time to kill babies than there are working full-time to save them."

Stephanie Gray from the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform has a job I'd love to take on someday. Watch her video for articulate, reasoned, and unemotional pro-life apologetics.

Vita Pro Omni!

freakonomics, racism, and hot fudge

Freakonomics, Racism, and Hot Fudge

Five years after its publication, Freakonomics is still in vogue.

It’s also still a master in muddling.

The 2005 book, a collection of articles written by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner, applies economic principles to various cultural and sociological issues— an interesting marriage indeed. And America certainly ate it up.

Freakonomics peaked at number two on the New York Times Best Seller list among nonfiction and was dubbed the 2006 Book Sense Book of the Year in the Adult Nonfiction category. The authors created the Freakonomics blog in 2005 (hiring a full-time editor in 2007) in an effort to maintain the discussion— one that has been assimilated indefinitely into the New York Times website. And just this year, a documentary film adaptation of the book was produced to be released by Magnolia Pictures in the fall.

Read full article here.

doing good moral math

Doing Good Moral Math

It seems talk about early human life is everywhere. The media certainly doesn’t emphasize the fact that they are speaking about tiny human beings when they discuss this issue or that issue, but nonetheless, the talk is there.

Just last month, the Washington Post featured an article about a 30-year-old woman undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and embryo freezing to “postpone parenthood.”[1] And newspaper articles from recent years in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York have revealed each state’s lucidencouragement of embryonic stem cell research.[2]

Amidst all of this dialogue and grappling, it seems the central question is often left out of the equation: What is the moral status of early human life?

Read full article here.

[1] “Washington Post Commentary Explores Embryo Freezing”, Medical News Today, May 28, 2010.

[2] NCSL (National Conference of State Legislatures), Stem Cell Research, January 2008.

between the bookends: pro-life on porn

My newest article on Ethika Politika:

Vita Pro Omni!

Between the Bookends: Pro-Life on Porn

I’ve been thinking for some time now that pornography is an issue that ought to be addressed within the pro-life community. But I wasn’t sure why. On the surface, it appears that beginning and end of life issues (since they involve human beings at their most vulnerable and dependent stages) are what we need to be talking about; and, certainly, they are. But if being comprehensively pro-life means supporting life at every stage — from conception to natural death — it seems there’s an awful lot of life between those two bookends that we need to be concerned about. How are we defending the equally massive dignity of people who are 4, or 12, or 31, or 67?

Undoubtedly, one of the greatest predators of the middle-aged person’s dignity is the porn industry. Pornography, though a seemingly “private” issue, actually has tremendous public ramifications. It contributes exceptionally to the overall diminishing of human dignity that we see reflected in our movies, our books, our TV shows, our radio stations, and even our laws. It is poisonous to marriages, toxic to families, and detrimental to society. And it is becoming more rampant and widespread every year.

Senator Sam Brownback gathered some staggering statistics on the issue. He found that 72 million people visit Internet porn sites each year. One in five children, ages 10 to 17, has received a sexual solicitation online. Nine out of ten children, ages 8 to 16 with Internet access, have visited porn sites, usually while doing research for homework. The founder of the Center for Online Addiction reports that 65% of people who visit their site do so due to marital problems caused by cyber pornography[1]. And 2.5 billion emails every day are pornographic in nature[2].

The person who doubts that porn’s ramifications seep into all aspects of society should perhaps consider a study by Dr. Mary Anne Layden, Co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Layden reports:

"70% of hits on Internet sex sites occur between 9 and 5 on business computers. Research also indicates, and my clinical experience supports, that 40% of sex addicts will lose their spouse, 58% will suffer financial losses, and 27% to 40% will lose their job or profession."[3]

If we really think porn has no adverse influence on our lives, we are sorely kidding ourselves.

But Layden’s statistics, in particular, struck me for another reason. Remember, she found that the vast majority of all porn viewing happens between 9 and 5 on business computers. This immediately confirmed what I — and likely most of us — would imagine to be true: namely, that people seek to ogle porn in private.

But why the secrecy? Aren’t 72 million other people looking at it, too? Is there really a need for the shame and embarrassment?

No woman ever stepped off a Planned Parenthood table excited to proclaim to the world that she just aborted her pre-born child. And no pornography user ever comes home to his wife and kids eager to share the news that he spent the last two hours looking at airbrushed pictures of naked women.

Why?

Because we have a natural human capacity — call it a conscience — to know the difference between right and wrong. And try as we might to convince ourselves otherwise, we know that like the decision to procure an abortion, the decision to use pornography is hardly one to be proud of.

So we begin to try to make ourselves feel better. More specifically, we begin to justify. In the same way that a mother dehumanizes the fetus to justify killing him, the porn user dehumanizes the model to justify lusting after her (or him).

The mere concept of dehumanization ought to be enough to make us shudder, as this has been the radically prejudiced idea responsible for the tragedies of Nazi Germany, for lynching in the South, and for the Rwandan Genocide.

Whenever a certain group of people is dubbed with a less-than-human status, they are made vulnerable to attack and destruction. This is as true in 2010 for the porn star and the fetus in America as it was in 1935 for the Jew in Germany or in 1955 for the Black in Tennessee. At their core, these issues — all human rights abuses — are intrinsically and intricately linked to the dignity of the human person, and for that reason ought to be the pro-lifer’s business.

If we do not make efforts to purge America of pornography, more than our jobs, our finances, and even our marriages will be at risk; our very dignity will be threatened.

Dehumanization anywhere is a peril to human dignity everywhere. As feminist Catharine MacKinnon put it:

"When pornography is […] normal, a whole population of men is primed to dehumanize women and to enjoy inflicting assault sexually […] Pornography is the perfect preparation — motivator and instruction manual in one — for […] sexual atrocities."

I’m afraid sexual atrocities — momentous as they are on their own — are not all we have to worry about if pornography continues to batter the people between the bookends.

[1] Gustafson, Rod. Online Pornography is Addictive.

[2] Family Safe Media. Pornography Statistics 2003.

[3] Gustafon.

her own worst enemy

Yesterday on Ethika Politika I discussed current feminists' ironic slams against women. You can read the article in its entirety both there and below.

Vita Pro Omni!

Her Own Worst Enemy

It is one thing when a person attempts to fortify abortion using personhood rhetoric. After all, if it is true that the fetus is not a person like us, perhaps it is permissible to take his or her life in order to serve the supposed benefit of someone else— a someone who is a person like us. Of course, this kind of abortion defense does fail on several significant scientific and philosophical accounts, but at least it’s a decent attempt; the abortion advocate is addressing the heart of the issue: namely, the moral status of the fetus.

It is another thing— quite entirely— when one defends abortion from “women’s rights” arguments. The modern feminist who often commits this perplexity is, in actuality, defending the antithesis of any kind of female liberation. To say that abortion is fundamental to a woman’s equal place in society is one of the lowest blows against my gender; for to say this is to propagate one among several discriminatory, anti-woman beliefs inherent in the pro-choice mentality.

The belief to which I am referring suggests that there is something regrettable about a woman’s natural capacity to conceive and bear children. The abortion advocate attacks the unique sexuality of a woman and squashes the sense of pride she experiences in being able to bring life into the world— a miracle no man can replicate[1]. Attempts to artificially sterilize and de-sex women by stripping their wombs of life are degrading and offensive. No woman should be made to feel by society— and have confirmed by pro-choice legislation— that something is intrinsically wrong with her body.

Yet isn’t this precisely the case for American women today? The responsible modern-day woman will go on the Pill so that her fertility does not become an undesired burden to society. Her biology is consistently high-maintenance and potentially expensive, so artificial birth control and abortion are necessary means of mastering her reproductive ability. On its own, a woman’s body just isn’t good enough.

To strip women of their distinct sexuality in the name of feminism is senseless. It suggests an underlying belief that only those qualities which are male are valuable, or worth celebrating, or deserving of respect. It propagates the lie that pregnancy is a problem up to women to prevent at any and all costs— even the cost of their own dignity.

As long as the modern feminist continues to voluntarily reduce herself by means of artificial birth control and abortion, she will be her own worst enemy.

---

[1] David C. Reardon, Aborted Women, Silent No More

physician-euthanizer as healer-destroyer

No one should be able to stoop to the level of calling another human being a "life unworthy of life" and get away with it. I was inspired to write this article, which originally appeared on Ethika Politika, after being deeply offended by that discriminatory phrase by Dr. Alfred Hoche. You can read the full text there, or below.

Vita Pro Omni!

Physician-Euthanizer as Healer-Destroyer

In 1920, a prominent German jurist, Professor Karl Binding, alongside a well-known German psychiatrist, Dr. Alfred Hoche, advanced the destruction of what they dubbed “life unworthy of life.” They explained each killing as “purely a healing treatment” and as a “healing work”[1].

Less than a century later, Dr. Else Borst-Eilers, former politician in the Netherlands and chair of the Dutch Health Council, has declared that “there are situations in which the best way to heal the patient is to help him die peacefully and the doctor who in such a situation grants the patient’s request acts as the healer par excellence”[2].

The eerie similarity of such a statement to the kinds of statements put forth by Binding and Hoche in Nazi Germany should be enough to send chills down one’s spine. Argue, if you must, in favor of killing terminally ill persons; but at least have the decency not to pretend that it is some kind of praiseworthy “healing”[3].

I have previously discussed the question of physician-assisted suicide in relation to its discrimination against the elderly, but here I would like to discuss it as it relates (or does not relate, as the case seems to be) to the role of medicine. In order to determine the rightness or wrongness of a physician committing a certain action (namely, helping someone take his own life), it seems we first have to ask something like, “What is it that a physician is supposed to do?”

This question is weighty, but not complex. Put simply, a physician is supposed to heal. Of course, there may be situations when he is unable to do so, but his singular and noble goal remains to heal the sick. He does this by serving them and caring for them, largely in their physical needs, but often in their mental and emotional needs as well. In the words of Leon R. Kass, “The physician as physician serves only the sick. [He] does not serve the relatives or the hospital or the national debt inflated due to Medicare costs. Thus the true physician will never sacrifice the well-being of the sick to the convenience or pocketbook or feelings of the relatives or society”[4]. In this light, the “physician-euthanizer” clearly becomes a paradox as absurd as “healer-destroyer”. The physician’s aim is to heal; our focus should remain on this aim, not his potential power over life and death.

It is not only unjust, but also illogical, to eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferer. The logic fails in this way: “it is in fact impossible to compare the goodness or badness of one’s existence with the goodness or badness of one’s ‘nonexistence’, because it nonsensically requires treating ‘nonexistence’ as a condition one is able to experience and enjoy”[5]. In other words, the intent to relieve the suffering of a living patient only makes sense insofar as there is a living patient left to be relieved. As Kass puts it, “[There can be] no benefit without a beneficiary”[6].

I feel at this point that a crucial distinction should be made. I am not suggesting that one ought not cease painful treatment (like intensive chemotherapy) or withhold additional doses of life-sustaining medication if such therapies are not serving the comfort and happiness of the suffering patient in his last days. Indeed, we are finite beings and eventually each of us must embrace our own death. But allowing death is far different from causing death. While a doctor may be perfectly right in letting his patient pass free from tubes and contraptions, he is never right in killing her through any means, however seemingly peaceful. The first and most steadfast promise a physician swears to in the Hippocratic Oath remains medicine’s basic proscription: “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect… In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.” In foreswearing to never administer poison, a doctor relinquishes any trace of godlike power that he might contribute to himself in governing life and death, recognizing that “drugs can both cure and kill”[7] and understanding the mass of his responsibility.

Should doctors throw in the towel, should U.S. legislation permit them to stoop to killer rather than healer, Americans will be abandoning their loved ones in their hour of need, rejecting their duty to care for them, and subjecting them to poison by a stranger. The last days of a person’s life ought to be filled with love and encouragement; for reasons perhaps beyond our understanding, they are sometimes also filled with pain and suffering. Nonetheless, the doctor’s task remains to heal and comfort his patient as much as possible and then allow nature to take its course—whatever that course may be. For surely, “physicians cannot be serving their art or helping their patients… by making them disappear”[8].

[1] R. J. Lifton, “The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide” (32-48).

[2] Quoted in A.M. Capron, “Euthanasia in the Netherlands: American Observations” (30-33).

[3] Leon R. Kass, “’I Will Give No Deadly Drug’: Why Doctors Must Not Kill.”

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

utility: prudent or prejudiced?

My latest article on Ethika Politika, the blog of the Center for Morality in Public Life:

Vita Pro Omni!

Utility: Prudent or Prejudiced?

As the communal fabrics of society continue to be ripped to shreds and autonomy, meanwhile, proceeds to be built up brick by boring brick, it is no wonder that Americans have largely placed their elderly on the back burner. Perhaps coinciding with the desire not to be burdened by them is the desire for them to be more useful. Our treatment towards them shows that we, often subconsciously, believe people are instrumental; they are valuable as a means to an end rather than as an end in themselves. Unless they can work somewhere, or make something, or contribute to society to a degree which we esteem adequate, they are not worth much of our time.

While other cultures make their aged feel venerated and appreciated, I think most American elderly would say they feel forgotten and neglected. Apparently they fall into a rather unfortunate category. They are among those kinds of people that cannot work somewhere, or make something, or contribute to society; so they are nearly no ones. To give them costly care or commitment might be nice, but it would be financially foolish. Hence, the aged are best suited for life in a mediocre nursing home where they will be out of our way and less of a bother. It’s not that we don’t like them; it just doesn’t make sense to keep them around.

This utilitarian mentality is discriminatory in nature. Actually, it is the same cap a pro-choice person puts on to rationalize abortion. If the pre-born cannot think, cannot speak, cannot do much of anything in the first days of his life, he is part of that category designated for those who are inconvenient to society: the category labeled “human, nonperson.” Sadly, it has nearly (or perhaps already) reached the point where the elderly are tagged with that label, too.

Certainly, there are major practical differences between depersonalizing the elderly and depersonalizing the pre-born. Regarding the former, those persons often decipher the label flagged on them. They begin to know they are overlooked and underloved. So although the fact that the pre-born child is oblivious to their neglect does not make their treatment (or lack thereof) any more moral, it does put the aged in an especially tragic position— especially if they are sick or dying.

Nearly any person who desires physician-assisted suicide changes his mind if he is told a doctor can and will help to alleviate his pain. He naturally wants more time to live— more days with his family and friends, more time to make peace with himself and with God. His request to die is simply a desperate and extreme means of crying out, “I am suffering so greatly that if I cannot stop suffering, I’d rather stop living.” But the “if” is so important. So often physicians are in a position where proper palliative care is available, but expensive. If they could provide it anyway, that “if” would be eliminated and the person would gratefully live a little longer.

Until the American monster Utility is beheaded, people will literally be miserable to the point of death.

hurling abortion across the room

Though this article is already available on Ethika Politika, I wanted to share it with my Vita Pro Omni friends.

Enjoy. Or don't enjoy, as the case may be. ;)

Vita Pro Omni!

Hurling Abortion Across the Room

While consensus does not prove anything in its own right (how many times have our mothers told us, “What is right is not always popular; what is popular is not always right”?), I think it is at least worth learning what consensus is, especially when it comes to contemporary moral issues. The latest poll from Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs survey, conducted May 3-6, 2010, makes American public opinion clear on at least one issue: abortion. It’s unpopular.

When asked whether they perceive abortion to be morally acceptable or morally wrong, poll takers weren’t too torn; they responded in disapproval of the procedure by a 50-38 percent margin—hardly the pro-choice majority that is often assumed to exist due to abortion’s legal status and widespread application in the U.S.

So abortion is unpopular. Most people don’t like it. Or wouldn’t choose it themselves. Or think there are better alternatives. Or all of the above. But the problem is this: while abortion is unpopular, it is not unthinkable. While it is seen as a tragedy, it is not seen as a crime. While it is grappled with considerably, tossed back and forth between one’s hands as he inspects it from multiple angles, he does not ultimately see it for what it is and hurl it across the room; he rather sets it down carefully and tiptoes away, deeming it tricky and intimidating and weighty and not wanting to examine it any longer.

But abortion has always been that way, hasn’t it? Out of sight, out of mind? If I don’t think about it unless I absolutely have to, don’t talk about it unless someone else brings it up, don’t see it because it happens behind clinic walls, and don’t hear about it because it is not a pretty topic, then maybe it will just go away. Maybe I will only have to make up my mind when a Gallup poll asks me my opinion. Perhaps I will just admit that I’m against it on this anonymous survey and then never say a word about it to others. After all, I don’t want to offend anyone. I don’t want to push my beliefs on someone else. I don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable.

Being pro-life has become private and passive. Indeed it is just that: a being, not a doing. It is something we believe and do not proclaim, think and do not effectuate. We are too fearful.

If the 50% of Americans who oppose abortion would all lift it high over their shoulders and hurl it across the room as far and as hard as they could, essentially proclaiming and effectuating their reasonable stance on the issue, then public opinion just might change public policy.

Until then, consensus really does mean nothing.

the two lists

If you are pro-choice, please read this. If you are pro-life, please read this. If you are unsure where you stand, please read this.

Up until a few years ago, 33-year-old Jennifer Fulwiler was "militantly pro-choice." But not anymore. In this article, she bravely and effectively weaves together the common threads between contraception and abortion, and explains why her view of sex changed. In order to address the abortion issue, Fulwiler suggests (and I agree) that we must address sex and contraception as well- perhaps even first.

If you don't read anything else on this blog, read this.

Vita Pro Omni!

The Two Lists

By Jennifer Fulwiler

Of all the things I remember about the Texas March for Life in Austin last January, the memory that stands out the most is the look on the faces of the counter-protesters who followed us along Congress Avenue and down to the capitol that frosty morning. When I glanced over to see the source of the epithets that were being screamed at us, I met the eyes of one young woman wearing a black bandana over the bottom half of her face. She happened to look over and meet my gaze, and in her eyes I saw one thing: hatred.

I was caught off guard when my gut response to her rage-filled glare was one of sympathy. In fact, I realized as she turned away to continue yelling angry pro-choice slogans that I knew the source of the rage behind her eyes and had even felt it recently.

Until a couple of years ago, I was militantly pro-choice. When I heard people make anti-abortion statements, it filled me with a white-hot anger that I could barely contain. Behind my views was a buried but unspoken sense that there was something inherently unfair about being a woman, and abortion was a key to maintaining any semblance of a level playing field in the world.

My peers and I were taught not that sex creates babies, but that unprotected sex creates babies. We absorbed through cultural osmosis the idea that every normal person will have sex at some point in his or her life, and that the sexual act, by default, has no significance outside the relationship between the two people involved. In this worldview, when unexpected pregnancies came up, it was seen as a sort of betrayal by the woman's body. My friends and I lamented the awful position every woman was in: Unexpected pregnancies were like lightning strikes, and when one of these unpredictable events did occur, there were no good options for dealing with them. Abortion wasn't ideal -- even we acknowledged that it was a violating procedure that was hard on a woman's body -- but what choice did anyone have? To not have the option of terminating surprise pregnancies when they came up out of nowhere would mean being a slave to one's biology.

My staunch support of these views did not soften until a few years ago, when a religious conversion after a life of atheism led me to the Catholic Church. I began researching the ancient Judeo-Christian understanding of human sexuality, in which the sexual act is seen as being inextricably entwined with its potential for creating new human life. The more I considered this point of view, the more I questioned my long-held views. In fact, I started to see the catastrophic mistake our society had made when we started believing that the life-giving potential of the sexual act could be safely forgotten about as long as people use contraception. It would be like saying that guns could be used as toys as long as long as there are blanks in the chamber. Teaching people to use something with tremendous power nonchalantly, as a casual plaything, had set women up for disaster.

The gravity of this error became clear to me when I came across research that Time magazine published in 2007, citing data from the Guttmacher Institute that showed the most common reasons women have abortions. It immediately struck me that none of the factors on the list -- not feeling capable of parenting, not being able to afford a baby, not being in a relationship stable enough to raise a child -- were conditions that we encourage women to consider before engaging in sexual activity.

It was then that I could finally articulate the source of the anger I'd felt all these years. In every society, there are two critical lists: acceptable conditions for having a baby, and acceptable conditions for having sex. From time immemorial, the one thing that almost every society had in common is that their two lists matched up. It was only with the widespread acceptance of contraception in the middle of the 20th century, creating an upheaval in the public psyche in which sex and babies no longer went hand-in-hand, that the two lists began to diverge. And now, in 21st-century America, they look something like this:

Conditions under which it is acceptable to have sex:

• If you're in a stable relationship • If you feel emotionally ready • If you're free of sexually transmitted diseases • If you have access to contraception

Conditions under which it is acceptable to have a baby:

• If you can afford it • If you've finished your education • If you feel emotionally ready to parent a child • If your partner would make a good parent • If you're ready for all the lifestyle changes that would be involved with parenthood

As long as those two lists do not match, we will live in a culture where abortion is common and where women are at war with their own bodies.

Considering the disparity between the two lists made me begin to see the level of damage that contraception and the mentality it produces have done to women as individuals and as a group. I thought of the several friends whom I'd helped procure abortions, how each was scared and caught off guard, overwhelmed with a feeling of "I never signed up for a pregnancy," angry at a faceless enemy. They had followed all of society's rules, yet still ended up in a gut-wrenching position. We hated the anti-abortion zealots because we thought they tried to take away women's freedom; what we didn't understand is that women's freedom had already been taken, when society bought the lie that sex is primarily about bonding and pleasure, and that its life-giving potential is tangential and optional.

In an article published by the Guttmacher Institute's Family Planning Perspectives, John A. Ross estimates that a woman using contraception with a 1 percent risk of failure has a 70 percent chance of experiencing an unwanted pregnancy over the course of 10 years. Guttmacher also reports that more than half of women seeking abortions were using a contraceptive method when they got pregnant. As soon as we as a society accepted contraception, a large-scale game of Russian roulette began, with women and their unexpected children as the players with the guns to their heads.

Austin's March for Life was this past Saturday; I wonder if the girl with the black bandana was there again this year. I wish I could offer to buy her a cup of coffee and tell her that I think she's right to sense that something deeply unfair is afoot in our society, and that nothing less than women's freedom is at stake.

I have republished this article from LifeSiteNews.com in compliance with their copyright conditions.

moral relativism: "feet firmly planted in mid-air"* (part 2)

Back in March, I promised to complete at a later date a two-part post presenting and then refuting the view of moral relativism. Looks like that later date is today.

Just to recap, in part one, Francis J. Beckwith shared with us a couple of things. First, he explicated what moral relativism is in the first place. In his words, it is "the view that when it comes to questions of morality, there is no absolute or objective right or wrong; moral rules are merely personal preferences and/or the result of one's cultural, sexual, or ethnic orientation"[1]. He went on to present several arguments used to support it; namely those "from cultural and individual differences." The basic contention among these arguments is that, because there are so many diverse cultures and such a vast array of moral beliefs among individuals, there can't possibly be such a thing as universal morality. Beckwith responded to this false claim with two arguments which he delineated in detail: relativism does not follow from disagreement, and disagreement counts against relativism. Click here to read those arguments.

But there is a second genre of arguments used to support moral relativism; they can be summarized as coming "from tolerance." These are probably the arguments I hear the most, and I suspect my friends who are moral absolutists encounter them often, too. Arguments from tolerance are wildly popular in America today, utilized to defend all kinds of moral atrocities, but especially abortion.

Beckwith writes:

Argument from Tolerance

Many people see relativism as necessary for promoting tolerance, non-judgmentalism, and inclusiveness, for they think if you believe your moral position is correct and others' incorrect you are closed-minded and intolerant. They usually base this premise on the well-known differences of opinion on morality between cultures and individuals. So, the moral relativist embraces the view that one should not judge other cultures and individuals, for to do so would be intolerant. There are at least four problems with this argument, all of which maintain that tolerance (rightly understood) and relativism are actually incompatible with each other.

Tolerance supports objective morality, not relativism

Ironically, the call to tolerance by relativists presupposes the existence of at least one nonrelative, universal, and objective norm: tolerance... [I]f everyone ought to be tolerant, then tolerance is an objective moral norm. And therefore, moral relativism is false. Also, tolerance presupposes that there is something good about being tolerant, such as being able to learn from others with whom one disagrees or impart knowledge and wisdom to that person. But that presupposes objective moral values, namely, that knowledge and wisdom are good things. Moreover, tolerance presupposes that someone may be correct about his or her moral perspective. That is to say, it seems that part of the motivation for advocating tolerance is to encourage people to be open to the possibility that one may be able to gain truth and insight (including moral truth and insight) from another who may possess it. If that is the case, then there are objective moral truths one can learn.

In addition, tolerance presupposes a moral judgment of another's viewpoint. That is to say, I can only be tolerant of those ideas that I think are mistaken. I am not tolerant of that with which I agree; I embrace it. And I am not tolerant of that for which I have no interest (e.g., European professional soccer); I merely have benign neglect for it. (That is, I don't care one way or another.)

Relativism is itself a closed-minded and intolerant position

After all, the relativist dogmatically asserts that there is no moral truth. To illustrate this, consider a dialogue (based loosely on a real-life exchange) between a high school teacher and her student Elizabeth. The teacher instructs her class, "Welcome, students. This is the first day of class, and so I want to lay down some ground rules. First, because no one has the truth about morality, you should be open-minded to the opinions of your fellow students." The teacher recognizes the raised hand of Elizabeth who asks, "If nobody has the truth, isn't that a good reason for me not to listen to my fellow students? After all, if nobody has the truth, why should I waste my time listening to other people and their opinions? What's the point? Only if somebody has the truth does it make sense to be open-minded. Don't you agree?"

"No, I don't. Are you claiming to know the truth? Isn't that a bit arrogant and dogmatic?"

"Not at all. Rather I think it's dogmatic, as well as arrogant, to assert that no single person on earth knows the truth. After all, have you met every single person in the world and quizzed them exhaustively? If not, how can you make such a claim? Also, I believe it is actually quite the opposite of arrogance to say that I will alter my opinions to fit the truth whenever and wherever I find it. And if I happen to think I have good reason to believe I do know the truth and would like to share it with you, why wouldn't you listen to me? Why would you automatically discredit my opinion before it is even uttered? I thought we were supposed to listen to everyone's opinion."

Relativism is judgmental, exclusivist, and partisan

This may seem like an odd thing to say as the relativist would like you to think his viewpoint is nonjudgmental, inclusivist, and neutral when it comes to moral beliefs. But consider the following.

First, the relativist says if you believe in objective moral truth, you are wrong. Hence, relativism is judgmental. Second, it follows from this that relativism is excluding your beliefs from the realm of legitimate options. Thus, relativism is exclusivist. And third, because relativism is exclusivist, all nonrelativists are automatically not members of the "correct thinking" party. So, relativism is partisan.

Tolerance only makes sense within the framework of a moral order, for it is within such a framework that one can morally justify tolerating some things while not tolerating others. For tolerance without a moral framework, or absolute tolerance, leads to a dogmatic relativism, and thus to an intolerance of any viewpoint that does not embrace relativism. It is no wonder that in such a climate of "tolerance" any person who maintains that there is an objective moral order to which society ought to subscribe is greeted with contempt.

The "tolerance" of moral relativism either condones barbarism or is self-refuting.

As I pointed out above, some moral relativists embrace tolerance because they believe that such a posture is appropriate given the diversity of moral and cultural traditions in the world today. Humanist author Xiaorong Li points out the fallacy in this reasoning:

But the existence of moral diversity does no more to justify that we ought to respect different moral values than the existence of disease, hunger, torture, and slavery do to justify that we ought to value them. Empirical claims thus are not suitable as the basis for developing moral principles such as "Never judge other cultures" or "We ought to tolerate different values." ...

What if the respected or tolerated culture disrespects and advocates violence against individuals who dissent? When a girl fights to escape female genital circumcision or foot-binding or arranged marriage, or when a widow does not want to be burned to death to honor her dead husband, the relativist is obligated to "respect" the cultural or traditional customs from which the individuals are trying to escape. In doing so, the relativist is not merely disrespecting the individual but effectively endorsing the moral ground for rape, torture, and murder. On moral issues, ethical relativists cannot possibly remain neutral- they are committed either to the individual or to the dominant force within the culture.

Relativists have made explicit one central value- equal respect and tolerance of other ways of life, which they insist to be absolute and universal. Ethical relativism is thus repudiated by itself.

Let's be intellectually honest when it comes to evaluating moral relativism. If it is what one is using to justify abortion, but meanwhile it doesn't make sense, there is too much at stake in the debate to hold onto it for the sake of holding onto it. If a viewpoint is flawed, give it up.

Vita Pro Omni!

* Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl wrote an insightful book on this topic that I would recommend called Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air

[1] Francis J. Beckwith, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (p. 3)