Sanctity of Life
The three dangers to the sanctity of life, according to the authors, are the institutions of abortion, stem cell research, and euthanasia. They object to the first two because they kill an innocent life. Here is what they have to say about euthanasia:
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. Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben (“life unworthy of life”) were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave.Their argument is that allowing assisted suicide or euthanasia will lead to something similar to the Nazi death camps where instead of putting people of a particular race in the camps, we are killing off the disabled and elderly.
It seems they cannot tell the difference between allowing someone to choose when to die and killing someone outright. Why is it that when the idea of allowing someone to die, when it conforms to their will, is brought up, cases are brought up where people have been killed when it is against their will? Clearly, these are two different situations and allowing one does not imply we will allow the other.
Also, there is an assumption that any life, no matter how unbearable, is worth living. This is clearly false. Denying this does not give any legitimacy to the Nazi death camps however.
Imagine the following situations:
1. A person is in a car accident and arrives at the hospital brain dead and in a coma. The person is still alive, thanks to the machines he is hooked up to. However, he will never be able to function again. Once the machines are disconnected, he will die.
Is this a life worth living? Clearly not, so we are not doing anything wrong in pulling the plug and letting the person die.
2. A person is in a car accident and survives. However, he is completely paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of his life.
Is this a life worth living? Suppose the person wants to end it all and just die. Suppose also this is a persistent desire, not just a spur of the moment decision. The person is not able to do the job himself since he is paralyzed. He asks his friend to give him a lethal injection to kill him.
Many people argue there is a morally relevant difference between the two situations. However, in both cases, the person is acting to end the life of someone. In the first case, the person pulls the plug, knowing this will surely kill the patient. In the second case, the person gives his friend a lethal injection, knowing he will surely die. If the first situation is not wrong, the second one cannot be either.
Also, it is important to note here that we are not ending all lives that are judged as unworthy of life. We require the consent or the implied consent of the person being killed. That is the difference between euthanasia and the Nazi death camps.
Redefining "Marriage"
The second objection the authors make is to people to threaten marriage by thinking of allowing same sex marriages or polygamous marriages. They argue the following:
It would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation and the unique character and value of acts and relationships whose meaning is shaped by their aptness for the generation, promotion and protection of life.Later on, the authors state that allowing homosexual marriages implies we should allow polygamous and incestuous marriages as well. But wait, polygamous and incestuous marriages can still procreate. One may object that in incestuous marriages, birth defects can occur. However, there are plenty of cases where we allow people to procreate even when it is likely they will create a child with some unfortunate characteristic. For example, two carriers of the cystic fibrosis gene will have a 25% chance of having a baby with cystic fibrosis. There are countless other genetic diseases that have a good chance of being passed onto the children of parents. So, one cannot object to incestuous marriages for this reason.
So, their argument here also implies that we should allow incestuous or polygamous marriages too. They must come up with an independent reason why these should not be allowed, which has nothing to do with reproductive capabilities.
But do reproductive capabilities matter? The person arguing the above would also have to argue that a couple with one infertile person should not be allowed to be married. After all, they cannot procreate. What about people over a certain age? They cannot procreate either. Should we have couples get a fertility test and create an age ceiling on when people can get married?
Also, suppose another situation. A couple gets married and has a couple of kids. The kids are grown up and move out of the house. The couple is now in their 70's. They are unable to have any more kids and clearly are not taking care of their kids anymore. This argument would seem to imply we should not allow these people to be married anymore. If marriage is only for those who can procreate and take care of children, then how can one argue that we should allow marriages to continue that are no longer involved in this function?
Or imagine a member of the marriage loses their ability to procreate at some point in the marriage. If they do not already have children, then the argument would imply the couple should no longer be allowed to maintain their marriage.
Therefore, any argument against homosexual marriage because they cannot procreate clearly does not work.
The authors state one bad thing that comes from legalizing homosexual marriage is that family life and school sex-ed programs will teach children that such unions are "marriage" even though many people believe they are wrong. However, imagine we lived in a society where many people believed interracial marriage was wrong. Imagine someone argues, "Children will be taught that interracial marriage is okay when many people clearly believe it is wrong. Therefore, we should not allow interracial marriage." Does this argument make any sense?
Also, it is argued that calling homosexual unions "marriages" disallows their religious liberty. Once again, imagine a member of a religion which vehemently opposes interracial marriages. Should we make interracial marriages illegal because this group's religious liberty is jeopardized? Clearly, not.
Protecting Religious Liberty
The third point made in the article is threats made to Christian's religious liberty. However, one must note that religious liberty is not a liberty that trumps all other concerns. If the 9/11 hijackers argued anyone who gets in their way is jeopardizing their religious liberty, we surely have reason to regard their argument as wrong. Religious liberty is only relevant when the relevant belief is not harming others. Once the religious belief is doing harm to others, we can stop people from acting on that belief.
Jehovah's Witnesses object to blood transfusions. Should we ban blood transfusions because this religious group does not agree with it? Does it harm Jehovah's Witnesses' religious liberty to give other people blood transfusions? Clearly not.
Therefore, a religious belief cannot inform the law to ban a particular act. This brings us full circle to the other two points of the article. Using the Bible to argue against particular laws should have no effect since considerations of the law should be apart from any particular religion. It does not matter if the religion is the majority one or not.
This is what protecting religious liberty really means. One should not be forced to suffer based solely on rules from another person's religion. So, the statements concerning what the Bible says or what Christians believe may well motivate Christians to object to the laws, they do not form a basis for changing the law. Any basis for the law must not be informed by Christianity or any other religion.
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