This morning I read of yet another important life decision for at least four people being made based on nothing beyond faith. A young mum and not so young father have concieved conjoined (otherwise known as siamese) twins. Asked about the question of abortion it seems that religion played a part. Of course I hope that they survive to have long and happy lives.... But statistically that's pretty unlikely.
The first article on the subject I came across :
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/11/23/welshman-will-be-dad-to-siamese-twins-91466-22319266/
It seems that yet again, a religious influence has valued any lives (even ones that are likely to be of poor quality) above no life at all. It reminds me of a quote by the Nobel prize winning physicist, Stephen Weinberg :-
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion."
And this is evidently a probable case in point. The parents of these kids are no doubt nice, honorable decent people, and yet they have decided to allow the pregnancy to go ahead despite medical advice, based on nothing more than religious convictions - perhaps not even *their* religious convictions.
NOTE : I *hope* I am proved wrong. Really. I do. It would please me immensely to hear in a few years that these twins had been successfully separated and were leading great lives.
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I'm with you but have the following reservation. You catageorise this case in the Weinberg pile, which is fair enough in the sense that the decision is ill advised with faith muddying the waters.
But this is more a political and legal issue surrounding where the boundaries are placed for these cases. Some seem more clear cut, but there's always a delicate balance.
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