The Tebow ad, Continued…
So here it is, as it aired:
Not much controversial material there (viewers were told to visit Focus on the Family’s website for the full story, including Christian references and anti-abortion argument), but we’ve all heard plenty about the ad’s intent by this point.
But there’s more to debate here than the ad’s propriety – what about the validity of the argument? The argument being made is a version of the famous “Beethoven example” used by the pro-life community:
“About the terminating of pregnancy, I want your opinion. The father was syphilitic. The mother tuberculous. Of the four children born, the first was blind, the second died, the third was deaf and dumb, the fourth was also tuberculous. What would you have done?”
“I would have terminated the pregnancy.”
“Then you would have murdered Beethoven.”
Convincing, eh? Had Tebow’s mother made what many pro-choice advocates suggest is the “right decision,” we wouldn’t have her successful son Tim. Richard Dawkins rebuts this logic, reminding us that by the same reasoning, we should equally condemn each act of abstinence; after all, every decision NOT to have procreative sex deprives the world of a potential genius. Also, in order for Tim to exist, some 40 million rival sperm lost out in the race to an egg. One of those sperm could have grown up to cure cancer. Is Tim Tebow the man who prevented that cure? These thought experiments are quite interesting, and worth thinking about if we want to get our logic straight on abortion.
(That’s setting aside the factual inaccuracies of the example, as Beethoven was the eldest child, none of his siblings were blind, deaf, or dumb, and his father did not have syphilis).
-Colin
Related posts:
- Yes, we are glad Tim Tebow is here
- More on Tim Tebow
- Burqa continued…
- Public philosophy 4 kidz, continued
- Is the Right pro-family or anti-abortion?
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