NEW MEXICO HOUSE BILL 51 An Infant Is Not A Styrofoam Cup
By Bill McCarthy The 19th century philosopher, John Stewart Mill, is credited with coining a new principle of ethics or moral code. Utilitarianism, basically boils down to the principle of “utility;” that is an action may be justified if it promotes the overall good. According to Mill, pain is to be avoided and pleasure is to be pursued. So moral decisions should be made according to the consequences of an action. Should I do this or do that... will it cause me more pain, or less pain, more pleasure, or less pleasure? We can break this principle down (so our heads don’t start hurting). A couple of examples may help. I have a nice Styrofoam cup in my car carrying coffee. I hit it against my keys and it springs a small leak that runs down my shirt. The cup no longer serves me in the capacity for which it was made, to hold my coffee. The purpose of the cup no longer has value (according to Mill). It is no longer useful, but useless...it no longer has “utility.” So what should I do? Throw it away! My tires have 40,000 miles on them. I am taking a road trip. The tires are balding on the outside. I am going to be driving at higher speeds. The tires have become dangerous to me, and anyone who rides in my car, and to others on the road, especially if I have a blow out and lose control. The tires are obsolete— they cease to have value. They no longer function well. They no longer serve their purpose. They cease to be useful. I junk them. Not to be too simplistic, but we can apply this principle to any decision we make great or small. Does this action help me and make me feel good, make my life easier, or does it cause me trouble, inconvenience, hassle, or pain? Does it serve MY purpose? Let us hold that thought and put Mill aside for a second. Let us look at another
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document that should be important to every American, The Declaration of Independence. This document is essentially important, not only because it is our founding document, and the foundational corner stone for our laws, it is a classic statement on human rights that has become accepted and revered in every generation and all over most of the civilized world: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This has been called “one of the best-known sentences in the English language,” containing “the most potent and consequential words in American history.” The passage came to represent a moral standard to which the United States would strive. We as Americans should reflect and rejoice because, (although the application of this ideal has been inconsistent), the ideal is profound and comforting. It provides us rights and protections fleshed out in most of the underpinnings of our legal system going back to the Magna Carta. We have rights because of who we are. We are human beings, endowed by our Creator with “unalienable” rights. We are equal in our humanity (although not in our circumstances). What an incredible and beautiful thing it is. Someone may take these rights away from us in the abstract or in real human events, but all of us should recognize they have no right to take away these “rights”....they are “unalienable.” So, as understood by Jefferson, why do we have these rights? Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness? It is because of who we “are.” We are human beings.
We have human life. All of us. We are “created” and given this dignity. We are not Styrofoam cups or old tires, or even computers. We are flesh and blood with minds and hearts. We are rational animals. Human beings. And because of this fact, we have “certain unalienable rights,” the first being the right to “life.” For without that, obviously we can’t have liberty or the pursuit of happiness. So, what does this all have to do with John Stewart Mill and Utilitarianism? Well, for some time now—and this is not deniable by anyone seriously looking at the evidence and objectively and honestly looking at the facts—we have seen more and more in our country applying the principle of “utility” to human life. Is it convenient in my career to have this baby? “Ouch, no....you just touched a raw nerve!” Fair enough. Bear with me... please don’t shut me out quite yet. If we look at human life not as what we “are,” but how “convenient” we are, or how well we “function,” it throws the Declaration out the window. Our relatively new “throw away” culture provides abilities to cast off “inconveniences.” We don’t want them; we don’t need them....they are just in my way—Gone! Well, in being consistent with this utilitarian ethical view and application of human life, if we can have an inconvenient child at full gestation, we can have an inconvenient grandmother? If we can easily dispatch human life because it is inconvenient, lots of us are in trouble. You can have an “inconvenient” two-month-old. I know a lot of parents who have, and have had, inconvenient teenagers. Well the baby is not going to be a boy; it is going be a girl, so it is inconvenient. The baby won’t have blond hair and blues eyes. Grandpa is losing his mental faculties. He is no longer the man he
