Okay, he’'s not, but in political banter, yes he is. In politics, it’s okay to call your opponents idiots when you think they’re wrong— she thinks Bush is an idiot. Here’'s my vision of that idiocy spectrum:
Brilliant--------Smart-------Idiot-------Can't Participate
DaVinci---------Churchill------Bush---------Ron Reagan
Hawking---------Twain--------Kerry---------Embryos
My friend wondered if I’d heard Ron Reagan's speech at the DNC. I hadn'’t, so I found it and read it. I was not disappointed to find his case ever so easily shattered.
Ron Reagan is perfectly entitled to disagree with the pro-life argument, but I don’'t think he understands it. He dismisses it as “the theology of a few” , ”an article of faith”, a “mere ideology”. But he is participating in the decision to define life. Whether your religion or lack of it informs your decision, it’s still an article of faith. In other words, I can’t prove an embryo is a person, but he can’t prove it’s not. Please don'’t misinterpret this as Ron does, smugly implying that I don'’t recognize the moral difference between a clump of cells and a diabetic 13-year old girl. Of course, I can make the distinction. The question is, what should I do with that. He says “it is a hallmark of human intelligence that we are able to make distinctions”. That's 100% wrong! My cats make distinctions! A truer hallmark of human intelligence is imagination. If he has imagination, he knows that the complexity of the discussion lies in the morality of defining person-hood, and where we draw lines.
Here are some applicable excerpts from his lack-luster speech:
... even one [embryo] that will never he implanted in a womb and will never develop into an actual fetus, By the way, no fetal tissue is involved in this process. No fetuses are created, none destroyed. This all happens in the laboratory at the cellular level . . . these cells could theoretically have the potential, under very different circumstances, to develop into human beings -- that potential is where their magic lies. But they are not, in and of themselves, human beings. They have no fingers and toes, no brain or spinal cord. They have no thoughts, no fears. They feel no pain. Surely we can distinguish between these undifferentiated cells multiplying in a tissue culture and a living, breathing person -- parent, a spouse, a child.
He limits the discussion by only comparing cell clumps and suffering loved ones. He never engages other incredibly important questions. For instance, at what point does it become not okay to harvest humans? At what point is person-hood a fact and not “an article of faith”? Which is more arrogant: killing someone based on your belief of when life begins; or telling someone they don’t have the right to kill someone based on their belief of when life begins? Is it morally okay to require people to pay for what they find morally repugnant? Is it a violation of church and state to take my money for a practice that is against my religion? How much money should you take from more promising research to give to less promising research? I could go on and on, but Ron Reagan can’t—actually I think he can, he just doesn’t. He prefers to be sophomoric and insulting.
So where does this leave us? Mengele experimented on Jews. Robespierre slaughtered the enemies of the Republic. The Confederacy enslaved Blacks. They all rationalized how their work created a better world, sublimating the issue of human rights. But human rights are inalienable. They’re not a gift of the government or the will of the people. The question is what is human? As Ron Reagan himself says, the magic lies in the potential.
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