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Good & Evil, Right & Wrong
- Metaethics (18) : Ethical Systems
- Applied Ethics (13) : Ethical Issues + Questions
- Human Rights (9) : Liberty and Justice for all
- Christian Ethics (10) : Biblically Inspired Ethics
- Love (20) : What is Love
- In/Justice (5) : Seeking Justice
Rev. Jesse Jackson on Abortion said...
Right to Life News (January 1977)
There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of [a] higher
order than the right to life ... that was the premise of slavery. You
could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the
plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to
be concerned. ¶
...In the abortion debate, one of the crucial
questions is when does life begin. Anything growing is living.
Therefore human life begins when the sperm and egg join... and the
pulsation of life takes place. From that point, life may be described
differently (as an egg, embryo, fetus, baby, child, teen-ager, adult),
but the essence is the same. ¶
...What happens to the mind of a
person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of
the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person
and what kind of a society will we have 20 years hence if life can be
taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude,
our value system, and our mind-set with regard to the nature and worth
of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind.
Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell
right here on earth.
Robin Le Poidevin on Ethics said...
Arguing for Atheism, (New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 85.
If God is the basis of moral values, then such values must be objective, and we are, therefore, faced with the following questions: (1) How do we come to be aware of these moral values, if they exist entirely independently of us? (2) Why do moral facts supervene on natural facts? (3) How can the existence of objective moral values be reconciled with the existence of different conceptions of what is right. These difficulties are not faced by the atheist.
