So President of these United States Barack Obama infamously said that knowing when life begins is above his pay grade. Then how come the guy he hired knows so much about it?
Patterico writes:
John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Obama’s top science adviser, co-authored a 1973 book that said a newborn child “will ultimately develop into a human being” if he or she is properly fed and socialized:
“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.
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The specific passage expressing the authors’ view that a baby “will ultimately develop into a human being” is on page 235 in chapter 8 of the book, which is titled “Population Limitation.”
We can’t be shocked anymore by anything this guy says. (Holdren, not Patterico.)
But I just have to ask about the hubris of making such a statement. On what philosophical grounding do you make such a statement? None that I can decipher. It’s whim. And worse, it’s whim masquerading as compassionate social planning.
If we had too many babies in America, according to Holdren, the moment where life began would assuredly be slid over to the third trimester of second grade. If we didn’t have enough babies according to Holdren, then we’d limit open season on children to kindergarten or maybe even Pre-K.
Aren’t these supposed to be thinking people? His intellectual pontifications are essentially okaying a Holocaust. And this guy’s working in the White House for the man’s who’s unsure when life begins.
Patterico asks:
Would the authors object to a mother killing her two month old baby if they really believe life begins after a child is socialized? I’m sure they would for PC reasons, but I don’t see how they could and be philosophically consistent.
I’m honestly not sure they would. Or perhaps they would in public but in private they’d have no problem with it.
But let’s face it, the entire “above my pay grade” is just the public face of a monstrous agenda.
July 30, 2009 at 4:41 am
Getting vested with human rights seems to get harder. The earlier criterion was when the baby starts to breath through the mouth, now it's socialization. Is there no objective standard for being human that people can simply make up the rules? There are standards and they are self-evident and intuitive.
But if one wants to hash this out in a rational way, then one needs to go beyond science because science deals with immediate causation only. One needs to go to philosophy and understand the root causes when determining the basis of humanity.
But philosophy is easily dismissed. The law is what has power. It appears that they are taking "Roe V. Wade" as a baseline and pushing the envelope from there.
But Roe V. Wade is not settled even if Sotomayor considers it so. It is as settled as the slavery laws of the past. So, judges must not be like mindless automatons who excuse themselves as saying, "We just followed the law." A rule based program can do the same.
July 30, 2009 at 12:28 pm
To Anonymous @ 1:21, 3:31, and 3:45 (I’m guessing that you’re all the same person):
There is ample evidence on the Internet as to what Holdren and the Ehrlichs believe: see this post at zombietime. Granted it’s a different book, written four years later, but it is entirely consistent with the quote given by Patterico.
July 30, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Wait, socialization is a factor? What if they're homeschooled? /sarc
July 30, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I would like him to clarify his current view of what makes a "human", as well as whether he still supports government-sanctioned redistribution of wealth and "de-development" of countries. He wrote about that in a book about the problem with "technologist" societies like the US and West Germany.