Orthodox podcasting in our time

You and Frederica, in your separate podcasts, were very thought-provoking. And I appreciated your mutual ability to juggle your profound pro-life beliefs with a realistic assessment of law, politics and culture.

As someone very much pro-choice, I would throw a couple of thoughts back.

I think the gulf between us is far more than whether life begins at conception and that's that, or whether life evolves in the womb to a point of survivability outside. (I have stated on this blog that the trimester structure is outmoded and countenances the possibility of infanticide even for the most ardent pro-choicer; and that I am against partial-birth abortion, but really any late-term abortion not needed to save the life or vital organs/limbs of the mother.)

Fr. Chris spoke of the "sacred gift of life" and "the sanctity of life." He seemed to think they are identical, but I would say they are very different.

"The sanctity of life" is the pro-life issue overall -- abortion, but also euthanasia, the death penalty, ESCR, etc. (I come down as pro-choice and pro-stem call research but very much against euthanasia and the death penalty. You might say I don't agree with hard and fast legal rules to outright guard life when "viability" is not possible, but I certainly am hard and fast about guarding life when everyone agrees a born human being's life is at stake.)

But "the sacred gift of life," as I heard it in the conversation, is the moral, ethical, religious and one might even argue legal responsibility to PROPAGATE THE SPECIES. It's as if Charles Darwin dropped in to the middle of a religious broadcast.

And it's what unites the hatred of birth control and gays. (Even though I agree with the Rev. Al Mohler that there is an innate tendency toward homosexuality -- that gays are born and not made.)

There was so much talk in both of Fr. Chris' shows about being "pro-responsibility" in an age where those in their 20s and 30s were raised by parents without a great sense of it.

So why isn't it "pro-responsibility" for someone from such a dysfunctional background to, well, CHOOSE, "Enough is enough, no more dysfunction -- I won't have kids?" (Well, I guess unless one takes up a religious vocation, of course, if you catch my drift.)

That, Rod, might be a clue why the argument that one must be pro-life to be "responsible" falls on so many deaf ears. And not that those who suffered the consequences of lack of responsibility, of all people, are automatically allergic to it. (Just not "responsibility," perhaps, the way you and other ultra-traditionalists define it so narrowly.)

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/01/games-people-play.php

Razib at Gene Expression blogs about Rod and Reza Aslan's disagreement on bloggingsheads.tv.

Larry, I come from a dysfunctional background. What I chose was not to be dysfunctional, and to have children.

It's one thing to say, I can't overcome the dysfunction, so I'm not going to have (conceive) children. That's maybe defeatist, maybe realistic, but it's responsible. But if you have conceived a child/embryo/fetus and you can't overcome the dysfunction, why not place the child for adoption? That's responsible, and it's responsible to the child, which abortion never will be.

We told our son from about 5 years old on that a daddy has to take care of his children. As he grew, the message morphed to "if you get a girl pregnant and she wants to keep the baby, your dreams take a back seat to the needs of your child."

I don't recall being told about such things as a child, but it was made necessary for us by the culture. Our boy was in school with a gazillion peers whose dads were MIA and we didn't want him to think for one minute that it was an acceptable thing for a man to do.