Facticity

We hear the term pro-life used quite a bit, especially by the right-wing (in the United States) as a claiming of high moral ground in staking out of their position against those who are pro-choice. But what does it mean to be pro-life? There are many, such as the GOP, who narrowly define this term to mean anti-abortion, which leaves them free to support unnecessary or “preemptive” wars, capital punishment, government operations that are likely to kill civilians and support of other nations (e.g. Israel) of  Can you really be pro-life if you be Politically, If those using the term in political discourse are to be

Can you be pro-life if you define as worthy of protection and support only such life as conforms to your idea of life worth protecting? Can you exclude humans with a different skin color, belief system, or nationality from your definition of life worth supporting and still reasonably claim to be pro-life? Can you exclude animals from your class of life worth protecting and still be pro-life? What about plant life?

There are a lot of questions here. Over time, I will attempt to give my answer to at least some of them. The current political use of the term pro-life by the right-wing in the United States is almost laughably inconsistent and unreasonable, but where does the boundary between  consistency and inconsistency, reasonableness and unreasonableness lie? Do you have to support a diversity of life to truly be pro-life? Can you never support death (i.e. killing) as an action? Must you encourage all lifestyles compatible with life, and what are these lifestyles?  Animals are certainly alive, and many are capable of empathy, intelligence, and other human qualities. Some animals are much closer to humans in their intelligence and social behavior than most of us realized only a few years ago. All animals above a certain level of complexity can be said to suffer. Does the capacity to suffer enter into the discussion of what is pro-life?

As I said, lots of questions. But disambiguation of a topic, defining and asking the right questions, is the first step to getting the right answers.  I’ll come back to this when I get time and give my (tentative) answers to some of these questions.