The Manhattan Declaration; Part 2

So the first part of this document declares boldly and without reservation that it was Christianity and Christianity alone that was responsible for abolition, civil rights, and most laughably of all, women’s suffrage.  Ziztur and I discussed this last night, and she pointed out that such a statement could be technically true in one sense, that Christians have always constituted an overwhelming majority in America.  Thus, it wouldn’t actually be possible for any of these events to occur unless they received at least some significant support from the Christian majority.

Of course, this doesn’t say anything about whether Christianity was the force that originally championed these societal changes.  To my mind, it’s clear that if abolition, civil rights, women’s suffrage, gay rights, etc. are gates of progress that America passes through, then Christianity (as an overwhelming majority of the population) holds the key to each gate.  Yes, Christianity eventually unlocked each of these gates one by one, but the had to be dragged kicking and screaming to each one, complaining the whole time.

Obviously, Christians will strongly disagree with the conclusion that their religion seems to be intrinsically resistant to ethical, societal progress.  Here’s my honest question:  If Christianity was such a champion of these specific ethical causes, then why did they continue to exist for almost two millennium after Jesus Christ?  In contrast, The United States of America, clearly founded as a Secular Humanist nation, began seriously considering these important issues right off the bat, and beginning to accomplish these goals in less than a century.

(/rant)

In any event, the main point of the Manhattan Declaration is three issues.  The first is abortion.  I won’t ramble on about it for too long, for the simple reason that the Declaration doesn’t even attempt to defend it’s view.  I have nothing to argue against.

“A culture of death inevitably cheapens life in all its stages and conditions by promoting the belief that lives that are imperfect, immature or inconvenient are discardable.”

Basically, the Declaration simply states, over and over again, that they “affirm” that killing people is wrong, and so abortion is too.  This is often the form that arguments against abortion take.  As an aside, I freely admit that pro-choice arguments often take a similar form – people will simply assert that abortion is a woman’s reproductive right, and how dare people take that right away.  I’m not saying that such declarations, on either side of the issue, are wrong, because not everybody always speaks specifically to persuade those who disagree.  If you’re pro-choice and giving a talk to a pro-choice crowd, of course you won’t get into the details of why abortion isn’t morally evil.  In the same way, the Manhattan Declaration doesn’t exactly seem to be intended for an audience of Secular Humanists, so it’s nothing wrong with it, per se . . .

Just be aware, if you’re pro-life, and you are trying to persuade others of your opinion, it might seem obvious to you that abortion is murdering an innocent person, but you will never convince a pro-choice person of this simply by stating it.  I know it’s hard to believe, but no, really, we pro-choice folks don’t sit around talking about how it’s stupid that homicide is against the law, about how murdering innocent people should be everybody’s right.  We agree with you that killing innocent people is grossly immoral.  We don’t agree that a fetus should rationally be considered a “person” (or some variation of this argument).

There’s some other interesting bits in this first point about abortion:

“The President says that he wants to reduce the “need” for abortion – a commendable goal. But he has also pledged to make abortion more easily and widely available . . .”

I agree, yet it is exactly conservative Christians in America who are directly combating this goal by opposing contraception and science-based sex education.  Entertainingly, the Manhattan Declaration itself does exactly that, later on, in a different point.  I’ll get to that in a future post.

“As predicted by many prescient persons, the cheapening of life that began with abortion has now metastasized.”

This is the beginning of long rant about several different topics, starting with embryonic stem cells.  I’ll just comment briefly on each one.  Regarding stem cells, if you say that a late-term fetus should rationally be considered a “person,” I’ll respectfully disagree.  If you say that a just-fertilized human egg should be considered a person, . . . honestly?  I’ll probably question your sanity and basic powers of reason.  To claim that a clump of cells too small to see with the naked eye is so definitively a “person” that we should not use said clumps to save or improve countless innocent lives is bordering on certifiable.

“At the other end of life, an increasingly powerful movement to promote assisted suicide and “voluntary” euthanasia threatens the lives of vulnerable elderly and disabled persons.”

Only if, in your view, people should not have the freedom to end their life on their own terms, even if they are in extreme pain and/or have a chronic, incurable condition.  As usual, no rational explanation for this stance is provided, nor have I ever heard one.

I’ll quote the entire last paragraph, beginning with universal, humanistic morality that we can all agree with, and then degenerating into a simple restatement of previous claims:

“Our concern is not confined to our own nation.  Around the globe, we are witnessing cases of genocide and “ethnic cleansing,” the failure to assist those who are suffering as innocent victims of war, the neglect and abuse of children, the exploitation of vulnerable laborers, the sexual trafficking of girls and young women, the abandonment of the aged, racial oppression and discrimination, the persecution of believers of all faiths, and the failure to take steps necessary to halt the spread of preventable diseases like AIDS.  We see these travesties as flowing from the same loss of the sense of the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life that drives the abortion industry and the movements for assisted suicide, euthanasia, and human cloning for biomedical research.  And so ours is, as it must be, a truly consistent ethic of love and life for all humans in all circumstances.”

I would only point out that, again, conservative Christianity has been opposed to contraceptive and evidence-based sex education, which is the single greatest weapon against “preventable diseases like AIDS.”  As well, no argument is given for embryonic stem-cell research and pro-choice stances on abortion and assisted suicide being equitable to sex trafficking and racial genocide.  If there’s a connection there to make, by all means, make it.  Whatever you do, don’t simply declare it and expect it to convince people who have already considered your perspective and rejected it.

Next time, the second main point of the Declaration, out of three:  Gay Marriage is evil!  Interestingly, this point receives more text than either of the others.