Given the discomfort I’ve read and heard from various pro-abortion and pro-fetal-tissue-research people over the Planned Parenthood situation, I tend towards thinking it’s malum in se.
That’s right, ellipsis. The sale of fetal tissue is illegal. Whether that’s what’s going on in the infamous Planned Parenthood video is irrelevant although it did bring the question to mind.
Since it is illegal, that means it is definitionally either malum in se (immoral) or malum prohibitum (regulatory infraction). Which is it?
Your response indicates you think such a sale wouldn’t be immoral and shouldn’t be illegal. In that case, who gets to keep the money? The person who did the “harvesting”, the person having the abortion, or some mix thereof? How about publicly auctioning off particularly desirable tissue?
Since it’s just tissue, at what point along during gestation should the sale of such tissues be prohibited? The more strident pro-abortion people believe that abortion should be legal until the child is about five years old. We’d quickly be heading towards Monty Python territory in such circumstances, but I guess that’s the cost of having extremely fashionable morality these days.
There’s also the question of whether or not it makes a difference if the fetus would self-identify as black later on, as Black Lives Matter ™. Would the sale of such black body tissue evoke unpleasant memories of slavery, or would only prohibiting such sales of black body tissue be Jim Crow-like discrimination? Someone get Ta-Neishi Coates on the line….
And if it ends up being that mostly black body fetal tissue gets sold, could black body anti-abortion activists sue to make all abortions illegal under disparate impact rules?
If I could just work Bruce Jenner into this, it would be the perfect issue for our times. (I’m assuming we’ll get Obamacare involved simply in an argument over funding.)
Well, I still don’t have ISIS, the Ukraine Crisis, or the Greek EU/IMF dispute involved, but one can’t have everything.
I haven’t been able to find a hook to start discussing that issue. Basically, he has clearly been radicalized with respect to race, i.e. he sees virtually everything through a racial prism. It doesn’t mean that it’s not true but it doesn’t mean that it’s true, either.
Depends. If you are forcing people into abortions to sell, it is mis. If people are having them voluntarily, and the tissue was just going to be tossed, mp.
It’s still a false dichotomy since the idea of things being immoral due to being illegal is itself more or less nonsense. So it is not a malum in se and the remaining category is potentially inapplicable.
If everything is a regulatory infraction, isn’t that the appropriate remedy?
Or, said another way, imprisoning somebody for homicide is an example of legislating morality. In our system we have two different sorts of law. Legislations of morality, the starkest of which is the law against murder, and regulatory infractions.
Let me give that back: if every infraction is immoral why distinguish between cases? Death penalty for speeding!
Every infraction of a law carries the penalty set by that law. Making that infraction into a morality play too is both unnecessary and, in many cases, questionable.
if every infraction is immoral why distinguish between cases?
Every infraction is not immoral. Some are (malum in se). Some aren’t (malum prohibitum). The history of the last half century is the increasing treatment of regulatory infractions (which should merely be subject to fines) as though they were violations of the moral code (for which a not unreasonable argument for imprisonment could be made).
Let’s drop this. Apparently the website I used for my definition of malum prohibitum was worded stupid. (“An act which is *immoral* because it is illegal”)
I’d say malum in se but the problem is, whose morality? My assumption would be that those who consider themselves prochoice would consider this at worst <malum prohibitum with a bit of plausible deniability for even that (since ostensibly the conversations were about shipping and handling. Though I don’t understand why those would be negotiable.)
Has anyone here even gone to a Body Worlds exhibit? Specifically, look at pages 24-25 on the above link. I did when it was held at the CA Science Center. The development of the human fetus was truly a mind-opener, IMO, as to how much prenatal life forms resemble little “people” rather than nondescript tissue, at very early embryonic stages.
Then there is the whole pre-birth memory phenomenon that has provided even more timing questions as to when life really begins. Consequently, I see the sale of fetal bodies, as having immoral attributes as well as being a regulatory infraction.
Is it moral to have sex with an aborted fetus if a law doesn’t prevent it?
Easily identified malum in se offenses are murder, bodily injury, theft, destruction of property, rape and kidnapping. The argument for “in se” is that nobody is harmed. But the opposing view would be built upon whether the act has historically been illegal, as well as the ramifications of moral philosophy and visceral reaction of society. I probably would avoid the abortion topic, beyond pointing out that abortion is considered by and large as a moral issue and the most compelling pro-choice argument is that the state should stay out of such a deeply personal decision. “Safe, legal and rare” is not an amoral framework.
Instead, I would look beyond to politically charged issues, and question whether necrophilia is immoral, or whether I should care about how the cow, whose meat I ate this evening was treated humanely, or whether a poor person should be able to sell his body to a wealth cannibal-Trump if it enriches his wife and family, or whether it matters if a funeral home removes the heads of dead bodies to ship to Rome for medical research, so long as nobody knows. I think the weight of the evidence suggests that the big questions of life and death are moral ones which require some level of respect, either because we as humans have a visceral reaction based on our own mortality, or we are disturbed by people that appear to have no respect for the dead or the gravity of choices made.
Selling fetal tissue is bonum in se, since it benefits both seller and buyer and hurts nobody. Gummint interference with the sale is malum in se as it is a violation of the property rights of the parents.
Given the discomfort I’ve read and heard from various pro-abortion and pro-fetal-tissue-research people over the Planned Parenthood situation, I tend towards thinking it’s malum in se.
If you’re talking about the current bogus kerfuffle: neither.
He’s asking a question of morality independent of the current situation, though I’m sure that’s what inspired the question.
That’s right, ellipsis. The sale of fetal tissue is illegal. Whether that’s what’s going on in the infamous Planned Parenthood video is irrelevant although it did bring the question to mind.
Since it is illegal, that means it is definitionally either malum in se (immoral) or malum prohibitum (regulatory infraction). Which is it?
Your response indicates you think such a sale wouldn’t be immoral and shouldn’t be illegal. In that case, who gets to keep the money? The person who did the “harvesting”, the person having the abortion, or some mix thereof? How about publicly auctioning off particularly desirable tissue?
Since it’s just tissue, at what point along during gestation should the sale of such tissues be prohibited? The more strident pro-abortion people believe that abortion should be legal until the child is about five years old. We’d quickly be heading towards Monty Python territory in such circumstances, but I guess that’s the cost of having extremely fashionable morality these days.
There’s also the question of whether or not it makes a difference if the fetus would self-identify as black later on, as Black Lives Matter ™. Would the sale of such black body tissue evoke unpleasant memories of slavery, or would only prohibiting such sales of black body tissue be Jim Crow-like discrimination? Someone get Ta-Neishi Coates on the line….
And if it ends up being that mostly black body fetal tissue gets sold, could black body anti-abortion activists sue to make all abortions illegal under disparate impact rules?
If I could just work Bruce Jenner into this, it would be the perfect issue for our times. (I’m assuming we’ll get Obamacare involved simply in an argument over funding.)
Well, I still don’t have ISIS, the Ukraine Crisis, or the Greek EU/IMF dispute involved, but one can’t have everything.
You forgot to cite Soylent Green, ice.
Isn’t the distinction a purely legal concept?
I haven’t been able to find a hook to start discussing that issue. Basically, he has clearly been radicalized with respect to race, i.e. he sees virtually everything through a racial prism. It doesn’t mean that it’s not true but it doesn’t mean that it’s true, either.
Depends. If you are forcing people into abortions to sell, it is mis. If people are having them voluntarily, and the tissue was just going to be tossed, mp.
You forgot to cite Soylent Green, ice.
You think so, but only because you don’t know that Monsanto wants the tissue for its GMO crop research.
Steve, that misses the concept of people getting pregnant to have an abortion specifically to sell the tissue.
It’s still a false dichotomy since the idea of things being immoral due to being illegal is itself more or less nonsense. So it is not a malum in se and the remaining category is potentially inapplicable.
Our system of law is based on the distinction. You’re disputing the indisputable. We have a common law system and it’s likely to stay that way.
Well I don’t ;-).
And mixing morality and law and a quick way into insanity imho.
So, you’d prefer a legal system like the old gothic system? Kill somebody—pay a fine?
How did you get from “law equals morality” to “kill somebody pay a fine”?
If everything is a regulatory infraction, isn’t that the appropriate remedy?
Or, said another way, imprisoning somebody for homicide is an example of legislating morality. In our system we have two different sorts of law. Legislations of morality, the starkest of which is the law against murder, and regulatory infractions.
Let me give that back: if every infraction is immoral why distinguish between cases? Death penalty for speeding!
Every infraction of a law carries the penalty set by that law. Making that infraction into a morality play too is both unnecessary and, in many cases, questionable.
Every infraction is not immoral. Some are (malum in se). Some aren’t (malum prohibitum). The history of the last half century is the increasing treatment of regulatory infractions (which should merely be subject to fines) as though they were violations of the moral code (for which a not unreasonable argument for imprisonment could be made).
Let’s drop this. Apparently the website I used for my definition of malum prohibitum was worded stupid. (“An act which is *immoral* because it is illegal”)
You’d think you could trust http://www.law.cornell.edu 😛
I’d say malum in se but the problem is, whose morality? My assumption would be that those who consider themselves prochoice would consider this at worst <malum prohibitum with a bit of plausible deniability for even that (since ostensibly the conversations were about shipping and handling. Though I don’t understand why those would be negotiable.)
Well if you want to judge morality you have to go by an absolute definition of morality. Otherwise the concept becomes pretty much nonsensical.
But yes, I would call it (at best) a malum prohibitum. It can be a malum in se but that would not be a question of sale but one of acquisition.
Has anyone here even gone to a Body Worlds exhibit? Specifically, look at pages 24-25 on the above link. I did when it was held at the CA Science Center. The development of the human fetus was truly a mind-opener, IMO, as to how much prenatal life forms resemble little “people” rather than nondescript tissue, at very early embryonic stages.
Then there is the whole pre-birth memory phenomenon that has provided even more timing questions as to when life really begins. Consequently, I see the sale of fetal bodies, as having immoral attributes as well as being a regulatory infraction.
Is it moral to have sex with an aborted fetus if a law doesn’t prevent it?
Easily identified malum in se offenses are murder, bodily injury, theft, destruction of property, rape and kidnapping. The argument for “in se” is that nobody is harmed. But the opposing view would be built upon whether the act has historically been illegal, as well as the ramifications of moral philosophy and visceral reaction of society. I probably would avoid the abortion topic, beyond pointing out that abortion is considered by and large as a moral issue and the most compelling pro-choice argument is that the state should stay out of such a deeply personal decision. “Safe, legal and rare” is not an amoral framework.
Instead, I would look beyond to politically charged issues, and question whether necrophilia is immoral, or whether I should care about how the cow, whose meat I ate this evening was treated humanely, or whether a poor person should be able to sell his body to a wealth cannibal-Trump if it enriches his wife and family, or whether it matters if a funeral home removes the heads of dead bodies to ship to Rome for medical research, so long as nobody knows. I think the weight of the evidence suggests that the big questions of life and death are moral ones which require some level of respect, either because we as humans have a visceral reaction based on our own mortality, or we are disturbed by people that appear to have no respect for the dead or the gravity of choices made.
Selling fetal tissue is bonum in se, since it benefits both seller and buyer and hurts nobody. Gummint interference with the sale is malum in se as it is a violation of the property rights of the parents.