Conjoined Twins: A Response and a Question [Serge]

Daniel states in the comments:

While it's true my biological formulations may be undersophisticated, I nevertheless feel like you have failed to address my primary question, so let me see if I can 'tweak' the conjoined twins scenario to better bring out my question.

I believe I did, but I'm happy to clarify.

As you probably know, fetal development can really go wrong. While some conjoined twins are conjoined at the hips, or the liver, or whatever, others are almost entirely fused (e.g. up to their upper-torso). I'll have this be case A.

Agreed. There are sometimes two human organisms that have their bodies fused together.

You probably also know that in some cases, one of the twins can be underdevelopped--to the point of lacking a heart, a brain, or simply being underweight. In some cases, a baby can be born with odd extra limbs (e.g. a leg sticking out of the side, or teeth in the back of the neck), even though the second 'twin' has been subsumed back into the first (or never really developed in the first place). Let's have this be case B.

OK. You are speaking of the (horribly titled) parasitic twin or rare inclusion twin. I need some more information to address this, but you state that the dependent twin "never really developed in the first place". Let's go on.

Since you seem to be more up-to-date on your biology than me, make whatever modifications to the two above scenarios for them to be medically plausible.

So far, so good.

In case A, I affirm that it is morally wrong to cut off the second twin's head. This is murder.

Agreed. It is wrong to cut off the head in case A because that action would result in the death of a human organism. The same would apply if you poisoned the twin. Performing an action that results in the death of a human being without justification would be morally wrong.

In case B, I affirm that it is morally acceptable to cut off the second twin's limbs (the leg sticking out of the first twin's torso).

Generally you are correct if the second "twin" is not a human organism. If the "twin" is unable to guide its own development and to integrate its bodily functions as a biological organism, then there is no moral qualms about its removal even though it is made up of human cells. Human organisms and teratomas begin as a single totipotent cell. However, there are distinct differences which maked the former a human organism and the latter not. Robert George mentions one:

If the embryo were not a complete organism, then what could it be? Unlike the spermatozoa and the oocytes, it is not a part of the mother or of the father. Nor is it a disordered growth such as a hydatidiform mole or teratoma. (Such entities lack the internal resources to actively develop themselves to the next more mature stage of the life of a human being.)

The former develops and integrates its own bodily systems, the latter does not. It is immoral to kill the former and not immoral to remove (and kill the individual cells of) the latter. This is true whether they are fused together or not.

Now, what accounts for this difference in ethical decision making? Both case A and case B are fused human organisms (two or one depending on how you look at it).

I think I covered this, but you are wrong here. Case A involves two human organisms fused together. Case B involves one human organism. Just like a human being with a teratoma that is removed, the fact that the extra part was once a totipotent cell makes no moral difference. If there was another human organism fused in case B, it would be immoral to kill it.

If killing a human organism is always wrong (which is what I understand you and Scott to be saying), then chopping off limbs in case B is murder.

Nope. Chopping off limbs in case B would be immoral if and only if it resulted in the death of a human organism. It does not. My logic is consistent.

To me, this is counterintuitive. Which is why I'll stick with my view: destroying a functional brain is murder, because the brain is the seat of the soul (they go hand in hand).

I hope I answered your questions, for I have one of my own. My example is a realistic one that could happen. Lets say there are two xiphopagus conjoined twins that are born. This means they are joined by the xiphoid cartilage in the ribcage and thus can be easily and safely separated surgically. However, as the twins are being delivered, one of them suffers head trauma and is born comatose. We have no way to determine when , if ever, the one twin will come out the coma, and what lasting effect the coma will have on his future development.

Question: should we perform a separation procedure on the twins or simply kill the one in the coma?

Using my analysis, it would be wrong to kill the comatose twin because he is a living human organism, albeit one who has suffered an injury. However, under your view, I don't see why it would be wrong to kill the other twin off. It has never experienced consciousness, and does have a "functional brain" (using your terminology). It seems to lack the working neural structures that would otherwise enable it to have moral value in your view.

What do you think? Thanks again for the interaction.

Busy January [SK]

Life Training Institute will waste no time getting our pro-life message in front of both students and adults in 2007. In January alone, I will speak at a variety of venues in Ohio, California, Michigan, and Florida. Here’s what’s scheduled so far:

1/6 "Making Abortion Unthinkable," training seminar, Celina, OH
1/7 "In His Image: A Biblical Case for Human Value," worship services, Celina, OH
1/13 "Reaching Hearts and Minds on Abortion," training seminar, St. Johns, MI
1/14 "What Students Can Do to Stop Abortion," youth service, St. Johns, MI
1/14 "In His Image: A Biblical Case for Human Value," worship services, St. Johns, MI
1/14 "Equipping Students to Engage Culture," evening service, St. Johns, MI
1/16 "Reaching Hearts and Minds on Abortion," student chapel, Cedarville University, Cedarville, OH
1/16 "How Pastors can be Leaders on Abortion," clergy lunch, Cedarville University, Cedarville, OH
1/16 "Reaching Hearts and Minds," evening seminar, Cedarville University, Cedarville, OH
1/17 "Harvesting the Unborn: The Ethics of Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Cedarville U, OH
1/17-18 National broadcast on D. James Kennedy's "Truths that Transform," Ft. Lauderdale, FL
1/20 "Reaching Hearts and Minds on Abortion," CPC training seminar, Canton, OH
1/20 "In His Image: A Biblical Case for Human Value," evening service, Canton, OH
1/21 "In His Image: A Biblical Case for Human Value," a.m. worship services, Canton, OH
1/21 "Pro-Life 101: Making Abortion Unthinkable," evening service, Canton, OH
1/22 "Equipped to Engage: Reaching Hearts and Minds," chapel, Malone College, Canton, OH
1/28 "A Biblical Case for Human Value," a.m. worship services, Sacramento, CA
1/29 "How Students can Stop Abortion," Valley Christian High School, San Jose, CA
1/29 "Pro-Life 101: Making Abortion Unthinkable Part 1," Hume Lake Christian Camps, Hume, CA
1/30 "Pro-Life 101: Making Abortion Unthinkable Part 2," Hume Lake Christian Camps, Hume, CA
1/30 "Equipped to Engage,” Hume Lake Christian Camps, Hume, CA
1/31 "Reaching Hearts and Minds on Abortion," chapel, Fresno Pacific University, Fresno, CA

On January 17 and 18, you can hear my talk from Gordon College on Dr. D. James Kennedy’s syndicated radio broadcast, Truths That Transform. This thirty minute program is carried by 744 radio stations across the nation, reaching over 1 million people each day.

At Cedarville University, I will be speaking to 3,000 students and faculty at two chapel services. I’m also looking forward to persuasively communicating the pro-life message during chapels at Malone College and Fresno Pacific University. In total, I will speak to over 6,000 students in just the month of January, including 1,100 students at Valley Christian High School in San Jose.

I am scheduled to speak during church worship services during all four weekends in January. It starts with Grace Missionary Church in Celina, Ohio, then First Baptist Church in St. Johns, Michigan, followed by RiverTree Christian Church in Canton, Ohio, and the last Sunday of the month at Trinity Life Center in Sacramento, California. Almost 5,000 people are expected to attend worship services at these churches.

All of this is part of the busiest January schedule that I have ever had, the beginning of what promises to be an event-filled year.

If you are the praying type, pray for my health. Last January, I got so ill on the road I was forced to cancel a nationally syndicated radio interview and a school presentation. Though I completed the remainder of my January schedule, the sickness lingered until early April.

Second, pray that schools will allow me to show visual depictions of abortion during my talks. Most of the time, I'm allowed to do so, but some schools resist. Pray these schools will see the need to present truth accurately to their students. Abortion is real, and the visual evidence against abortion is indeed compelling. As Gregg Cunningham of The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform has said, “Until abortion is seen, it will never be understood.”

Obviously, my posting will be light for the next couple of weeks but Serge will be back in command of the blog just as soon as his newborn daughter gets settled at home....and he gets some sleep!

I probably will not respond to comments from any current post for at least three weeks, but I'll do my best to catch up after that.

Proof, Please [SK]

Note: The following was posted earlier before the LTI Blog was accidentally deleted on December 22. We're reposting it as a foundation for future discussion.

James Spurgeon claims that Evangelicals are spending too much effort reforming culture and not enough preaching the Gospel. He writes:

Here's a test question: for what was Paul known in the city of Corinth? What was the thrust of his mission? If it is true that we are known by our fruit, then why is it we are known by the world today more as political activists than as gospel heralds? I think you know why.

In that same post, Spurgeon quotes favorably from Phillip Yancey:

Once Christians were ignored or scorned; now they are courted by every savvy politician. Evangelicals especially are identified with a certain political stance, so much so that the news media use the terms “evangelical” and “religious right” interchangeably. When I ask a stranger, “What is an evangelical Christian?” I get an answer something like this: “Someone who supports family values and opposes homosexual rights and abortion.”

This trend troubles me because the gospel of Jesus was not primarily a political platform. The issues that confront Christians in a secular society must be faced and addressed and legislated, and a democracy gives Christians every right to express themselves. But we dare not invest so much in the kingdom of this world that we neglect our main task of introducing people to a different kind of kingdom, one based solely on God’s grace and forgiveness. Passing laws to enforce morality serves a necessary function, to dam up evil, but it never solves human problems. If a century from now all that historians can say about evangelicals in the 1990s is that they stood for family values, then we will have failed the mission Jesus gave us to accomplish: to communicate God’s reconciling love to sinners. - Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, Zondervan, 1995, pp. 246-247

Question: How does it follow from the fact that unchurched people think of Evangelicals as "political" that Evangelicals are spending too much effort focused on Washington? True, it's very cliche to claim that E's are spending more time on abortion, etc., than they are on the gospel, but Mr. Spurgeon presents no proof for his claim whatsoever.

In short, I'm curious how he knows that it's true.

I'll have more to say about this later, but for now, Evangelicals, like Catholics, are defined largely by a hostile liberal media that want's them out of politics altogether. Mr. Spurgeon does not factor that into his assertion. (John MacArthur is sometimes characterized as a fundmamentalist preacher who denies modern science--but I hardly think that's a fair way to sum up his ministry.)

Nor does Spurgeon present any evidence to show:

1. that Evangelicals as a whole are spending more money on political campaigns than they are on world missions and evangelism
2. that Evangelicals as a whole are spending more time lobbying their Congressmen than sharing Christ with friends at work
3. that Evangelicals as a whole are talking with their friends more about George W. Bush than they are Jesus Christ
4. that a majority of Evangelicals are politically savvy enough to know how a bill gets introduced in Congress and how to either defeat it or affirm it with coordinated lobbying efforts
5. that a majority of Evangelicals could tell you the current political state of affairs on key issues like abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and cloning (for example, what does Roe v. Wade and it's companion case Doe v. Bolton really say? What are the two competing cloning bills before Congress for the last three years and how do they differ?)
6. that a majority of Evangelicals could convey the moral logic of the pro-life position to friends and neighbors
7. that a majority of Evangelicals could name their Congressman, two federal Senators, State Senator, and State Representative.
8. that a majority of Evangelicals actually vote in most elections
9. that even 1 percent of Evangelical churches with 500 members or more are equipping their people to persuasively defend a pro-life worldview in the secular marketplace of ideas

And that's just for starters. Without some data on those basic questions, it's far from obvious that Evangelicals are spending too much time and effort on politics--unless, of course, you judge the entire movement by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.

Spurgeon is a fine writer and perhaps he's right about all this--but we really do need to see some evidence.

Greg Koukl on ESCR [SK]

From his Townhall piece:

If abortion itself is morally acceptable—if it’s legitimate to destroy fully-formed human children right up to the point of birth (and even during delivery, in the case of partial-birth abortion)—why would anyone flinch at the idea of carving up a week-old embryo? Why the compulsion to defend destroying a lump of cells the size of a pinhead for medical benefit when it’s completely legal and acceptable to destroy a fully-formed human fetus for any reason what so ever?

Equally incomprehensible to me, a stunning number of pro-lifers have rallied in support of ESCR for the very same reasons pro-choicers classically have justified abortion: It doesn’t look human; it’s in the wrong location (a petri dish, not a uterus); it’s too small to be of moral consequence; it’s alive, but not a life; it’s human, but not a human being; it’s a human being, but not a person; others will gain tremendous benefit.

When pro-lifers embrace a pro-choice rationale in support of ESCR, they undermine their entire moral enterprise.

Senator Hatch, read this column!

PS--Because pro-ESCR types love to play the tolerance card, you should also see Greg's Townhall piece on The Intolerance of Tolerance.

Pelosi Doesn't Have the Votes [SK]

...to override the President and force American tax-payers to fund destructive research on human embryos.

In fact, ESCR advocates picked up only 15 House votes in the November elections. (That's because a bunch of liberal Republicans got beat that support killing embryos just like most Democrats do.) But that hasn't stopped Pelosi and company from insisting they have a mandate to fund the unethical research.

Well, some mandate: A whole 15 votes.

For more on the dishonesty of the pro-destructive research side,
see these articles by Maureen Condic and Yuval Levin.

Mr. Calvin Goes to Washington [Mark Allen]

Note: What follows was published earlier on the LTI blog. However, because the blog was accidently deleted on December 22, we are reposting important entries that are foundational for future posts.

Scott,
I enjoyed your piece regarding the proper role for Christians in the public square. I wonder if you can imagine a foreign preacher coming to a city known for its carnal and libertine atmosphere. Suppose the preacher became involved in politics. He lobbied to make the city more moral. Surprisingly, in addition, he became involved in foreign affairs, establishing businesses, developing a welfare system, developing a sanitation system and reforming the political process. Such an intrusion into public affairs would today seem, at best, unseemly. Yet such a preacher did exist.

His name was John Calvin.

I find it ironic that preachers like John MacArthur honor Calvin’s theology but disparage his life’s work. Calvin spent the greater part of his life engaging in the hurly burly of the political process of Geneva. As the City’s chief pastor, he was an influential voice but held no official position. In fact, he was not even a citizen of Geneva until shortly before he died. Instead, he advocated to the City Council, directly and through the laity of the church for all sorts of reforms. These included rewriting the entire criminal code of Geneva to make it more humane, government reorganization, developing a sanitation system, corporal works of mercy for those less fortunate, and even negotiating treaties and trade agreements. Calvin did not think he should simply preach the gospel while society went to hell. To the contrary, he thought it the duty of every Christian to bring Christ’s dominion to every area of endeavor.

Calvin understood that the Bible, and particularly, the New Testament, was not directed at kings but at ordinary people. Ordinary people at the time had little influence over public policy. On the other hand, Old Testament kings and New Testament rulers were always judged on the way in which they ruled: Were they honest? Were the reforms good? Did they encourage moral societies?

As Calvin recognized, once Christians actually had the power to be kings, even in some little way, they took on the responsibility that goes with kingship. Christian responsibility towards government is discussed in but a few places in the New Testament. The most notable example is in Romans 13. Romans 13 begins with the instruction to submit to governing authorities (13:1). The purpose of such authorities is to punish evil from verse 4 and to promote social order and good. (verse 3.) It follows, then, that if Christians are part of the governing authorities—as indeed every Christian in the United States is—they must fulfill God’s will for government by punishing evil and promoting good. Calvin saw no basis for the view that the Christian who is in a position to change society and laws can shirk that responsibility.

Christians are called to be ambassadors to the world (that is what the word “apostle” means, those who are “sent out”). It seems to me we can’t be very good ambassadors if all we do is yell at people from the second floor of the embassy window.

Keep up the good work.

Mark C. Allen III is on the Board of Directors of the National Lawyers Association--a pro life national organization for lawyers. He's with the law firm of Laquer, Urban, Clifford & Hodge.

Are Christians Wrong to "Moralize" Culture? [SK]

Note: What follows was published earlier on the LTI blog. However, because the blog was accidently deleted on December 22, we are reposting important entries that are foundational for future posts.
-------

Steve Hays has point by point replies to the oft-heard claims that 1) "Making abortion a crime won’t make America a more ‘Christian’ country," and 2) "Evangelicals should stop trying to moralize the culture through political involvement." In this case, Hays responds specifically to statements made by Samuel Ross:

(Replies from Hays are in italics.)

“During the early 1940s the Nazis were fond of saying, “Deutschland uber alles!” which translated means “Germany over all!” There is a striking similarity of this popular Nazi chant and the desire that many evangelicals possess today to make the rest of American culture conform to their moral template of success for America.”

This is a breathtaking comparison. At the risk of stating the obvious, someone’s moral template is going to govern public policy. And in a republic, why shouldn’t evangelicals use the democratic process to promote their moral template? I certainly prefer that moral template to George Soros and the New York Times. For his own part, Ross thinks that we should conform to an Anabaptist template. Brother, can you pass the template?

“As a Christian, I oppose abortion too, but ironically, making abortion a crime again won’t make America a more ‘Christian’ country.”

No, it won’t make America more Christian. It will simply save innocent babies from the dumpster. Isn’t that reason enough?

“What it will do, however, is broadcast to the culture at large that Christians in general and evangelicals in particular are more interested in law than grace.”

What it will broadcast to the culture at large is that murder is murder, that adults should defend the young, not murder the young. I rather like that message myself. Also, it’s very sloppy to introduce a law/grace antithesis at this point. The Pauline law/grace antithesis has nothing to do with crime or civil law. It isn’t about the social function of the law. Rather, the antithesis is about the inability of sinners to by justified before God by law-keeping. Ross is intoning the traditional slogan after having forgotten, if he ever knew, what the slogan stood for.

“Civil laws may change behavior, but only God can truly change people’s desire, their motivation, or why they believe what they believe.”

How is that an argument against banning abortion? The fact that sinners are ill-motivated is a presupposition of civil law, not an argument against it. Since we can’t appeal to their conscience, we resort to the force of law to restrain immorality. If it’s all right to have laws against murder in general, what’s wrong with having laws against murder in particular?

“Most Christians are very comfortable with their pro-life position, but they are often guilty of making it the ONLY issue. They are not unlike single-issue politicians.”

Given a choice, I’d rather that Christians focus on at least one great moral issue than abdicate the public square entirely. Of course, there is an alternative to single-issue politics. You can go the theonomic route. But I rather doubt that Ross would favor that alternative.

“His real goal, and that of many evangelical Christians, is to attain a Christian majority and overthrow Roe v. Wade once and for all.”

This is a gross oversimplification of the culture wars, but even if it were accurate, defeating Roe v. Wade would be a great cultural achievement. You might as well blame single issue politicians like Churchill and FDR for the “inordinate amount of time, money, and energy, and manpower” they threw into defeating the Nazis, to the neglect of “all other issues.”

“Christianity works better as a minority movement than a monolithic majority.”

When Christianity is a minority movement, it should do what it can as a minority movement, and when Christianity is a majority movement, it should do what it can as a majority movement.

“If evangelical Christians in America want to have a voice in the culture, they must accept their minority role…”

Minority relative to what, exactly? We may be in the minority of the total adult population, but we outnumber the liberal elite.