Merely Human

Season 3 Episode 3

This episode starts out with a discussion of the diabolical behavior of roosters as highlighted in an old Scientific American article. Segment two disucsses Herman Melville, his posthumously published book Billy Budd the Sailor, and the attraction of art produced by people in spiritual crisis or flux. Segment three focuses on Vice-President Kamala Harris visiting an abortion facility, and asks the question, “If abortion is so great, why didn’t we get a complete tour of the facility and see it in all of its glory?”

The final segment addresses a family of arguments by those who support abortion. The idea that as the unborn age through the embryonic and fetal stages they progress toward full membership in the human family through the acquisition of multiple new capacities. There is no one single ability or capacity that is value giving, rather there is a constellation which cumulatively change the nature of unborn life to something fully human. To give the discussion focus and structure, we rely on highlights from Christopher Kaczor’s responses in his book The Ethics of Abortion.

After discussing his deep dislike for chimpanzees, this episode focuses on the recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court determining that under Alabama law the human embryo in vitro (in glass) is considered a child just as a human embryo in vivo (in the living) is under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.

 

The ruling is addressed with a focus on three main points:

 

1)    The Supreme Court of Alabama did not declare the embryo is a child. Alabama law already does that. It declared in vitro embryos could not be excluded from recognition by virtue of their location. Whether in vitro or in vivo, a human embryo is a human child.

2)    The definition of human child offered in the decision is not unclear. Immediate human progeny is a child at every stage of its development. Unlike the term baby, this isn’t confusing or emotional. The case offers multiple definitions to clarify what it means when the law states an embryo is a child.

3)    One concurring opinion discusses the sanctity of life in theological terms. The majority decision does not mention religious reasons for the decision. The headlines and handwringing over religious interference is misplaced.

 

In short, before people get hysterical online and panic, they ought to actually read the legal decisions the press is doing such a shoddy job describing.

Season 3 kicks off with Jay speaking about Taylor Swift and The Godfather.

2023 Christmas Special by Jay Watts

The Final Episode of Season 2: Despair in our World

Jim Trotti, a professional counselor for young people, joins the show to discuss despair and the roots of despair in young people. His insight is surprisingly practical.

In segment one, Jay makes the claim Roy Orbison’s vocal performance in the song Crying is possibly the greatest vocal performance in contemporary. If you know a better one, please make your case.

Segment two explores the idea that musicians and many of the people who create culture are nowhere near as snobby about their tastes as those who gatekeep their music are. Dave Grohl loves disco and funk drumbeats. Martin Scorcese knows every line from every movie, good and bad, because he loves movies. The point is don’t be a snob, just like what you like.

Segment three, Christmas music starts in November. Mariah Carey conquered the contemporary Christmas music world. If you hate the song All I Want for Christmas, you live in a conquered world. Act accordingly.

The last topic before Jim Trotti joins the show, happiness is discussed. Happiness isn’t a legitimate central life goal, but it is great. And the first part of the sow is for Jay, to remind him that being silly and happy is an important part of being a whole human being.

Jim Trotti joins the show and discusses the three things he sees missing in the lives of young people the lack of which leads to despair. Three things that are lacking in the lives of young people today:

1) Foundation of Family Values

2) Emotional Control

3) Depth of Thinking

Introduction to Opposite Day, the day we discuss issues surrounding abortion and not the moral case against abortion. I usually stick to a disciplined approach to defending the dignity of human life, keep the main thing the main thing. Today we venture out from those things to discuss the book Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing by Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis.

Before that I discuss a very particular aspect of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, some actions have no moral context. Some actions, the murder of innocent children and intentional targeting of civilians, are simply evil. There is context to the greater conflict, but no action by one party can ever morally justify the murder of families while they sleep. I also explain how I try not to speak publicly about things I don’t fully understand. People claiming to be experts of what is happening on the ground when reliable information is impossible to have. Humility requires me to not feel compelled to share my every thought about world events. Neither God nor the leadership of Israel are taking advice from Jay Watts, and ranting about such things on social media don’t make me a hero. They make me reckless.

I asked my daughter if’s he could get challenges and questions from her peers at Kennesaw State University, and she delivered in person. MJ Watts joins us to discuss questions surrounding life of the mother, the foster care system, abortion in cases of rape, and many others.

This Episode was lost between the cracks of editing and starts off declaring itself a Barbie free zone, an announcement that made more sense when it was recorded.

Otters are predators revisited. The jokes about them stealing surf boards and paddleboards is updated with a serious story about women attacked by otters on a river in Montana. A reminder that is needed that wild animals are exactly that; wild.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/12/us/woman-otter-attack-jefferson-river-montana-trnd/index.html

This segment reassesses the financial status of the Weasley family in the Harry Potter series as a family who feels less poor and more kid poor. Also, Jay’s recent discovery that The Ministry of Magig underwrote the tuition for every student at Hogwarts sheds a new light on the repeated claims from characters in the books and movies that the Ministry is meddling in Hogwarts business. Of course, they are involved! They are paying for it!

This segment uses an internet question about a vampire police officer to contrast two views of rights, natural rights and legal rights. Can a vampire police officer with a legal warrant enter a premise without permission from the homeowner?

Let the analogies begin! Avoiding the mic drop culture of online debating and embracing deeper reflection, this episode focuses on strange analogies, what they are intended to demonstrate for the abortion advocate, and their deficiencies in justifying abortion.

Analogy #1: The Acorn Analogy: An acorn is not a tree in the same way and embryo is not a human.

Analogy #2: Michael Tooley’s Rational Cats. To have moral value a being must have an immediate practicable capacity to rational reflection. If cats could receive an injection of serum which gave them the rational capacities of an adult human, it would mean neither that we are morally required to give the serum to every cat ensuring they become rational nor that cats under normal circumstances should be morally treated like human beings simply because they now have the capacity to rational agency. In this way, a cat is no different than an embryo, fetus, or newborn.

Martian Oysters. What if it was discovered that oysters are actually a very early developmental stage of a rational alien life form from Mars. If they could be returned to Mars, they would naturally mature toward rationality. Unlike Tooley’s cats, these oysters have a natural and active capacity for rationality. Does that solve the problem of Tooley’s cats?

Now we evaluate analogies from Judith Jarvis Thomson’s 1971 article, A Defense of Abortion.

First, we revisit the most famous analogy from this article, The Violinist. This is the article that launched bodily autonomy arguments and The Violinist is the mac daddy of them all. This leads us to…

Analogy #4: The Giant Growing Child. If a woman were trapped in a house with a giant growing child whose out of control growth threatened to crush her to death, then she would not be morally required to allow the child’s growth to kill her. She could take lethal action against the growing child to save her life.

Analogy #5: Henry Fonda’s Cooling Hands. If Thomson were dying of a high fever and actor Henry Fonda had the ability to heal her with the touch of his cooling hand upon her forehead he would not be required to do so. Though he has the capacity to heal her, she has no claim upon his healing abilities.

Analogy #6: The Burglar Analogy and Analogy #7: The People Seeds Analogy.

The Way of Medicine

00:00 Intro

01:50 Joe Versus the Volcano and How God Can Use Crisis to Focus Us

After embarrassingly forgetting that Joe Banks had a brain cloud, this segment focuses on Joe Versus the Volcano and how it offers a wonderful reminder of how God can take someone consumed with trivial worries and fears and wake them up through true crisis.

10:22 Claim: If brain death is the end of life, then brain function is the beginning of life.

We discuss this issue and clarify that early human life does not require a brain to coordinate the first stages of human development. That does not demonstrate it isn’t a living human. Only after the development of the human life crosses over to the point that the organism’s function is coordinated through the brain does it make sense to say without a brain the organism cannot exist.

18:10 Dr. Christopher Tollefsen joins the show to discuss his book The Way of Medicine, co-authored with Farr Curlin. The book addresses the questions of what the practice of medicine is and how can it best serve both the practitioners of medicine and the patients. A pure patient service model reduces medical practitioners to servants of the whims of the patient and has negative implications for treatment across a variety of medical fields. A balanced approach centered on attending the health and flourishing of patients with respect to the vocational calling of medical professionals restores sanity to field struggling to find answers about how to best provide medical care.

Guest is Tina Whittington, Executive VP Students for Life of America

00:01:30 | Episode 5 of Season 2 begins with more of the animal revolution. Elephants are stealing sugar cane, Orcas are attacking sailboat rudders, and now…an otter is stealing paddle boards! A multi-agency effort has been launched by fish and Wildlife to capture a rogue otter who steals surfboards and paddle boards.

00:07:13 | Segment two consider Harold Ramis’s masterpiece Groundhog Day as an examination of a man coming to grips with is place in the universe over a much longer period than immediately obvious upon watching the film. This is a discussion about how God uses suffering and trials to come to the end of ourselves and properly order our lives.

00:18:00 | Segment three reprises a brief discussion of the subject of personhood vs mere humanity as the standard for human dignity and human rights.

00:24:00 | Segment four discusses at length serious claims that birth is the bright line for human personhood. It is more than a magical birth canal argument. Defenders claim birth is a cataclysmic event which brings genuine biological transformation and introduces early human life into the range of those uncontroversially accepted as full members of the human family.

00:56:00 | Our interview this episode is with the Executive Vice President of Students for Life of America, Tina Whittington. Tina shares her expertise and wisdom about how students can impact their campus for life and find a voice in our culture on the issue of abortion. Her experience in building student action groups is invaluable.