Tribute to Moloch: Is Broca Only His Brain?

IN THE MUSÉE DE L'HOMME IN PARIS, atop the hill of Trocadéro overlooking the Seine valley and the Eiffel Tower can be found, Carl Sagan tells us though I have not seen it, in a jar of formalin, the brain of the French physician, anatomist, and anthropologist Pierre Paul Broca (1824-1880). How much of Paul Broca is left in this brain? Carl Sagan asks in his bestseller Broca's Brain.

Perhaps the better question is how much of Paul Broca, if any at all, was ever in his brain? Did Pierre Paul Broca exist before his brain existed?

Was there any of Paul Broca in his body? If Paul Broca's body sans his brain was preserved in a cask of Amontillado, sort of like Admiral Nelson's in a cask of brandy with traces of camphor and myrrh, how much of Paul Broca would have been left in that body without a brain? Would Paul Broca have been split into two: part of it at the Musée de l'Homme in the cask of formalin, part of it in a cask of Amontillado wherever stored? Would there be more of Paul Broca with us if we took the brain from the cask of formalin and incorporated it back into the skull preserved in the cask of Amontillado? The questions seem silly, because Paul Broca is dead, both in his brain and in his body. Taken out of the preservational fluids, the inanimate body and brain would soon spoil, putrefy, and disintegrate into its component elements.

How much of Broca is in his brain?

We cannot say the same thing in the beginning of Paul Broca's life. There was a time, in the beginning of his life, where Paul Broca had no brain, and only the rudiments of a body. He was found not preserved in a cask of formalin or of brandy, but living in an amniotic sack full of amniotic fluid. Was Paul Broca Paul Broca only when his brain waves could be detected at about six to eight weeks' gestation, and not Paul Broca before then? Was Paul Broca at six-weeks' gestation the same Paul Broca whose brain is now in formaldehyde? If not, then why would neither Paul Broca nor his brain have been here had he been aborted as a six-week-old fetus? Why would neither Paul Broca nor his brain have been here had he been aborted at the end of his third trimester? Either way, Paul Broca without a brain or with a brain would not have been, and we would be at the Musée de l'Homme looking at an empty jar that said "the Brain of Paul Broca that never was." We'd shrug our shoulders with little interest and move on to find Descartes's skull to see what we could learn from it. And Carl Sagan never would have written his book, and he would have enjoyed less royalties and less people would have been misinformed by his materialistic philosophy.

Descartes's Skull

Had we taken Paul Broca's one-celled zygote and, instead of putting it in a cask of formaldehyde, cryogenically preserved it for one hundred fifty years, and later implanted it in some willing French rent-a-womb, would we not have Pierre Paul Broca be with us today?

Pierre Paul Broca, though he had no brain, would be in the one cell of that zygote in a manner in which he never was, and never will be, in his separate brain in the Musée de l'Homme. This is because Pierre Paul Broca's zygote--without a brain, without any brain waves whatsoever--would be alive. And Broca's body and brain--without any brain waves whatsoever--is dead.

The absence of brain waves in the beginning of life is clearly different from the absence of brain waves at the end of life. Yet the vast difference between the lack of brain waves at the beginning, and the lack of brain waves at the end appears completely to elude those who suggest that human life really begins only when brain waves are detected. The absence of brain waves when a human being is alive and when their coming is foreseeable is world's apart from the absence of brain waves when a man is dead and their coming is unforeseeable, indeed, barring a miracle, physically impossible.

The brain looms large in the debate between abortionists and advocates of traditional morality. Like Carl Sagan, abortion advocates want to tag one's humanity to the presence of a brain, "brain birth" so to speak, and so they argue that since the fetus has no measurable brain activity for its first six weeks of life, it cannot be human life, and so may properly be snuffed out without qualms of conscience. Since a working brain is necessary for a normally functioning human life, the advocates of abortion argue that the absence of it allows the inference that we are not dealing with anything human. But this is to confuse categories.

While the brain is required for normal human life, and the complete absence of it spells death, the existence of a brain is not equivalent to human life.

We know this by observation: there are human beings that are profoundly and irreversibly mentally disabled: indeed there are infants who are tragically born anencephalic, without a brain, and yet what else are they but human beings? The defect from which they suffer is not unlike any other defect: of limbs, or organs, or anything else. Why should the child without a brain be treated any different from the child without legs? The child was genetically programmed to have a brain, and something has interfered with the normal progress through no fault of his own.

We also know this because a zygote without brain waves is something entirely different than a corpse without brain waves. So the analogy between "brain death" and "brain birth" fails for lack of parallelism. As Professor Raymond J. Devetterre* observes in his book Practical Decisions in Health Care Ethics: Cases and Concepts:

There is a significant difference between a fetus without brain life and a human being who has lost brain life and is brain dead. The fetus is alive and the brain-dead patient is dead. The brain-dad patient is dead because he has suffered the irreversible loss of all brain functions. The fetus has not suffered any such loss and therefore is not dead. A brain cannot be considered dead if it never lived--death always follows life. True, neither the six-week fetus nor the brain-dead individual has brain life, but the former is alive . . . and the latter is dead. The fundamental difference between life and death undermines the analogy between an early fetus and a brain-dead patient.

For these reasons, comparing an early fetus with a whole-brain-dead patient does not seem to be a bad idea. The early fetus is not dead but alive; it simply has not yet developed awareness. . . . A patient declared dead by the whole-brain-death criterion is dead; a developing fetus, or even an embryo for that matter, is living.

Deveterre, 145.

Brain activity it would seem is an inadequate measure of human life in its incipient stages of development. To recruit it in the abortion debate is to ignore the lack of parallelism between "brain death" and "brain birth." It is to ignore the difference between Pierre Paul Broca as a living zygote in his Huguenot mother Annette Broca née Thomas's womb in 1823 and Pierre Paul Broca as a lifeless brain in a jar at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris in 2010.

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*Raymond J. Devettere, Practical Decision Making in Health Care Ethics: Cases and Concepts (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2010) (3rd ed.). I disagree with Devettere's "one of us" test of human life, but his observations on the lack of parallelism between the lack of brain activity at the beginning of life and the lack of brain activity at the end seems accurate and concisely stated. That is the only reason for which he is cited, and no agreement with any of his other views ought to be inferred.

Obama's Speech: "Repent and Deny the Gospel"

President Obama's speech at the University of Notre Dame was masterful and politically adept. There is much in the speech that simply is unimpeacheable, and what is impeachable is dressed, as it were, in velvet words of tolerance, pluralism, and peace and goodwill. When a popular politician's words float about as rich and luscious honey, mellifluous to the ear, and balmish to the soul, the critic is at a disadvantage. Anyone who complains at President Obama's grandiose eloquence seems but an extreme and crotchety misanthrope, a Debby downer, a grumpy pharisee. And the press was sure that it appeared that way.

Since the essential controversy surrounding Obama's invitation to Notre Dame involved his view on abortion and stem cell research, and the propriety of Notre Dame's honoring a President with such views with a doctorate of laws, I want to focus on that. It is interesting to see what, with respect to those issues, Obama's words really say.

On the life issues, Obama's approach is essentially to take, as given, a pluralistic society, with "soldiers" "lawyers," "gay activists," and "evangelical pastors" all going about doing good in their way incommensurably. In Obama's theory of political relativism, all values are relative and thus equally valid; thus, the activities of a "gay activist" cannot be measured unfavorably against the activites of a "pro-lifer." These folks play their role in a pluralistic society where there are no moral absolutes, and so serve equivalent and noble offices. They contribute, presumably, equally to the common good; perhaps some "invisible hand" results in the greatest freedom for the greatest number. In this sort of world, there must be no suggestion that the "gay activist," or for that matter a pro-choicer, is promoting vice, or that the pro-lifer or anti-gay marriage advocate is promoting virtue. To Obama, there is no such thing as "vice" and "virtue" in any classical or Christian sense. The only "vice" and "virtue" relate to whether a person is willing to abide by the rules of engagement in a secular political process that refuses to consider absolutes (unless they are liberal, secular absolutes). Rid yourself of your religious robes, strip yourself of the suit of a universal law, and don instead the freeing Bermuda shorts of relativism and secularism if you want to play in the rough-and-tumble of American political life. Shelve your moral absolutes; otherwise, you will be sidelined, ostracized. Absolutes are outside the rules of the game.

That is why Obama's apparent magnanimity and open mindedness is only just that: apparent. What is wrong with this magnanimity and open-mindedness? Why is this call, despite its humanitarian and civilized veneer, actually barbarian in substance? You have to wave past the smoke-screen to see what Obama is really proposing, and why his proposal is really just the silencing of the pro-lifers, or, for that matter, any other person who believes in moral absolutes. President Obama equates those "who speak out against stem cell research" with "the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved" and so press for that research. This is a false opposition. (One may put aside for the moment, the mischaracterization of the stem cell research debate.) In Obama's world, all politics, like all morality, is consequential, utilitarian, i.e., teleological. Good is measured by results, and, in a situation where there are goods in competition, some sort of social calculus has to be undertaken through the political process. Since all we are dealing with are the balancing of moral relatives, harsh language is unjustified and interferes with the process, and there is always room for compromise in political conflict because there is nothing that cannot be compromised. The end justifies the means.

President Obama invited the Notre Dame graduate to "open his mind" and "open his heart" to this siren call of the secular goddess, Moloch's bride. This is something intolerable to a person raised in the classical moral and Judaeo-Christian traditions. The disciple of Christ, like the virtuous Roman republican, or Socrates before the Boule, is called to have one mind and one heart, not listen to the voices that are legion. He must insist that the government whose authority over him comes from God must stay under God. And he is obliged to advance this cause, even at the cost of his life. To consent to the suggestion that civil society, and the rules of engagement of debate in the political process, should be based upon a relativistic ethic, one that fears no God nor knows no moral absolutes, is a call to commit spiritual suicide. It is, in fact, a call to the Christian to give up his faith and his God if he expects access to the annals of governmental power or legal debate. It is the exact opposite of what a Notre Dame graduate ought to be told. Instead of opening his heart and his mind to this relativistic sop, the Christian ought to be told to behave like Odysseus and his crew; he ought to tie himself to the mast, stuff his ears full of wax, batten down the hatches, hold steady the rudder, and steer past the call of the secular sirens towards the image of Christ, where, as Pope Benedict XVI recently reiterated: "[W]e must always remember that 'freedom itself needs to be set free. It is Christ who sets it free.'"

Moreover, Obama's opposition of those against stem cell research with parents of diabetic children is a false opposition. First, pro-lifers are not against helping, with whatever moral means are available, the concerns of anyone suffering from any medical malady. The implied suggestion that they are is offensive. Second, the Church is not opposed to stem cell research per se, but is opposed to how that stem cell research is conducted. It insists that the research must respect human life. Accordingly, the Church opposes embryonic stem cell research, as distinguished from stem cell research on stem cells properly obtained from adults or from umbilical cords. In these latter instances, there is no destruction of human life. (See "Bioethics and the Catholic Church" and "On Embryonic Stem-Cell Research: A Statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.") The reason for the Church's opposition to embryonic stem cell research is because it involves the direct destruction of a human embryo, an embryo who has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and whose life the State has the fundamental duty to defend and protect. Already, Obama has not used fair-minded words. He says we shouldn't "caricature" the opponents, but me thinks he speaks with a forked tongue.

There is no doubt that there is conflict, and there ever will be, between those who advocate a deontological ethic, and those who preach utilitarianism. There will always be conflict between Christ and Antichrist, between good and evil, between the politics of truth, and the politics of expediency. Now I agree that in areas where prudence carries the day, there ought to be no demonization of opponents, and there must be civility and room for compromise. But when your opponent expects you to hang up your well-founded moral absolutes (and is there any better founding that the ex cathedra pronouncement of the Church?), to "doubt" them, it may be time for demonization. Politically, should we embrace and be willing to compromise with "open hearts" and "open minds" an Aryan supremacist who advocates that non-Aryans should be enslaved? Politically, should we embrace and be willing to compromise with "open hearts" and "open mind" an anti-Semite who advocates the slaughter of Jews? There are some things simply beyond bargaining, beyond negotiation, beyond the political process, because the political process, like the State, and like each one of us, is under God. Abortion and embryonic stem cell research are just some of those moral absolutes. In light of the clear guidance of the Church, the natural law, and science, someone's sincere opinion that life does not begin at conception deserves as much respect as someone who opines that a Jew or an African-American is a non-person.



Listen well to Obama's recipe for working through the conflict:

The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

"Nowhere" President Obama observes, "do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion." Obama continues:

As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called The Audacity of Hope. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an email from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that's not what was preventing him from voting for me.
What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website - an entry that said I would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, "I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."

Fair-minded words.

After I read the doctor's letter, I wrote back to him and thanked him. I didn't change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that - when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do - that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.
That's when we begin to say, "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.

Maybe I'm missing something, but is Obama saying that he'll quit calling pro-lifers right-wing ideologues if they surrender the battle, if they give up the ghost? What kind of trade off is that? If that's the opening offer, let me offer to President Obama that I'll quit calling him a left wing supporter of infanticide, if he'll appoint a strict constructionist on the Supreme Court, sponsor a federal law making abortion illegal in all 50 states, with prospective criminal penalties for any abortionist who violates the law, and earmarks in the billions of dollars to teach our youth about responsible, non-contraceptive sex and provide better social and medical services for those women facing unwanted pregnancy so they don't have to turn to illegal abortionists. What say you Mr. Obama?

Listen next to these honeyed words, which, to my chagrin, elicited hearty applause from the Notre Dame graduates there assembled.

So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women.

Applause? Did no one recognize the code words? Obama was advocating that we "work together" to reduce "unintended pregnancies," "as well as respect for the equality of women." Of course, this means we must promote contraception (which frequently is abortion under another name) and continue to allow for abortion rights. And what's this? How can we even "make sure that all our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science," when the sine qua non of cooperation is that we yield on our anti-abortion stance, one which, by the way is (Obama's suggestion to the contrary notwithstanding) really based upon "clear ethics and sound science." But this is all part of what Obama--in his one slip of the tongue--wants to do. He admits that he wants to do all he can to "fudge" the terms of the debate. (Who else can he have in mind when he says "No matter how much we may want to fudge it [the debate surrounding abortion]"? Certainly, the pro-lifers aren't known for fudging things. In my experience, they call a spade a spade, and the liberal world always winces.)

Obama wants "fair-minded" words. Well here's some fair-minded words:

[B]y the authority which Christ conferred upon Peter and his Successors, in communion with the Bishops--who on various occasions have condemned abortion and who in the aforementioned consultation, albeit dispersed throughout the world, have shown unanimous agreement concerning this doctrine--I declare that direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. This doctrine is based upon the natural law and upon the written Word of God, is transmitted by the Church's Tradition and taught by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.

No circumstance, no purpose, no law whatsoever can ever make licit an act which is intrinsically illicit, since it is contrary to the Law of God which is written in every human heart, knowable by reason itself, and proclaimed by the Church.

Evangelium Vitae, No. 62.

Obama should not have received an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame. It was a disservice to him, to Notre Dame, to the Catholic faithful, and to the United States. What he should have received is a copy of Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, perhaps one bound in Moroccan leather of Madonna blue and papal gold. That may have done him and Notre Dame and our country some good. That would have made Notre Dame both a "lighthouse" and a "crossroads." That would have been "shining in the Catholic tradition," amidst the "differences of culture and religion and conviction" co-existing. And if I may not be presumptuous, I think it may be fair to say, that that would have made God--Benedictum Nomen Sanctum eius--well pleased.

Bully for Burke

On May 8, 2009, the Most Reverend Raymond Leo Burke, Archbishop-Emeritus of St. Louis, and the current Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, gave the Keynote Address at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. We must give thanks when our shepherds challenge those who wield the secular sword. Some of Archbishop Burke's comments bear repeating, and repeating, and repeating.

Under Obama's administration, the few hard-fought restrictions against abortion have unraveled. The Obama administration has exercised a moral choice, and it is against the Natural Law. It has according to Archbishop Burke chosen "a path which more completely denies any legal guarantee of the most fundamental human right, the right to life, to the innocent and defenseless unborn. Our nation, which had its beginning in the commitment to safeguard and promote the inalienable right to 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness' for all, without boundary, is more and more setting arbitrary limits to her commitment .... Those in power now determine who will or will not be accorded the legal protection of the most fundamental right to life." The right to life, a fundamental natural right, is trumped by a fictitious "right" to privacy which is construed in such a manner as to prevent the state from interfering with a woman's right to kill a fetus. But recent events show an even more ominous turn. "With unparalleled arrogance," Archbishop Burke notes, "our nation is choosing to renounce its foundation upon the faithful, indissoluble, and inherently procreative love of a man and a woman in marriage, and, in violation of what nature itself teaches us, to replace it with a so-called marital relationship, according to the definition of those who exercise the greatest power in our society." It is the arrogance of believing that it can define fundamental human institutions that pre-date it, and are more fundamental than it. In trying to re-define the family, the state acts with as much hubris as if it were going to re-define God, or re-define the law of gravity.

The Archbishop gives specific examples or recent events, and, in his mind, these betray "a consistent pattern of decisions ... which is taking our nation down a path which denies the fundamental right to life to the innocent and defenseless unborn and violates the fundamental integrity of the marital union and the family."

Archbishop Burke reminds us of "the most serious responsibility of Catholics to uphold the natural moral law." It is part of our duty as Catholic citizens, and demanded as part of the virtue of patriotism. The natural law "is the irreplaceable foundation of just relationships among the citizens of our nation." If the Natural Law is ignored or contradicted by our politics or our positive law, our politics and our positive law must be denounced.

President Obama speaks a lot about hope, and it was perhaps this to which Archbishop was alluding when he stated: "Let us say once again: we need the greater and lesser hopes that keep us going day by day." But the hope that Obama offers is of limited value with the "great hope." "This great hope can only be God, who encompasses the whole of reality and who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. The fact that it comes to us as a gift is actually part of hope. God is the foundation of hope: not any god, but the God who has a human face and who has loved us to the end, each one of us and humanity in its entirety. His Kingdom is not an imaginary hereafter, situated in a future that will never arrive; his Kingdom is present wherever he is loved and wherever his love reaches us."

The Archbishop continues: "The change which brings hope can only be the renewal of our nation in the divine love which respects the inviolable dignity of every human life, from the moment of its inception to the moment of natural death, and which creates and gives growth to new human life through the love of man and woman in marriage. Any hope which is incoherent with the great hope is truly illusory and can never bring forth justice and its fruit, peace, for our nation and world."

Archbishop Burke is well aware that we must dialogue with those who do not share our faith, and we must respect those different than we are. However, "[d]ialogue and respect for differences are not promoted by the compromise and even violation of the natural moral law." We need not accede to the validity of a murder's crime to speak with him, nor can we consent to any group that promotes abortion or un-natural unions. Opposing the current culture is burdensome; it is not always pleasant for those with peaceful dispositions not prone to being belligerent. "If we as individuals or our Catholic institutions are not willing to accept the burdens and the suffering necessarily involved in calling our culture to reform, then we are not worthy of the name Catholic."

"In a nation set so firmly on a path of violation of the most fundamental moral norms, Catholics and others who adhere to the natural moral law are pressured to think that their religious commitment to the moral law as the way of seeking the good of all is a merely confessional matter which cannot have any application in public life. ... On the contrary, the common good depends upon the active engagement of religious faith in the public forum."

As patriotic Catholics, must be "simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just." It is our duty, in "addressing the critical issues of our nation," that both "the Church and we, as her faithful sons and daughters, intervene on the basis of reason and natural law, namely, on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being." This is what the God of Love commands. And it is not a matter of promoting a confessional state, or of violating the establishment clause. Archbishop Burke explains:

"Our uncompromising commitment to protect the inviolable dignity of innocent human life and to safeguard the integrity of marriage and the family are not based on peculiar confessional beliefs or practices but on the natural moral law, written on every heart and, therefore, a fundamental part of the Church's moral teaching. At the same time, what is always and everywhere evil cannot be called good for the sake of accomplishing some other good end. All of us must be concerned about a wide range of goods which are important to the life of our nation, but the concern for those goods can never justify the betrayal of the fundamental goods of life itself and the family. We must take care to uproot from our moral thinking any form of relativism, consequentialism and proportionalism, which would lead us into the error of thinking that it is sometimes right to do what is always and everywhere evil."

Though there are many issues which confront us, and with which we must take sides, there are some that are clearly preeminent. With respect to these, which are the right to life and the right to the integrity of marriage and the family, "there is no element of the common good, no morally good practice, which a candidate may promote and to which a voter may be dedicated, which could justify voting for a candidate who also endorses and supports the deliberate killing of the unborn, euthanasia or the recognition of a same-sex relationship as a legal marriage. The respect for the inviolable dignity of innocent human life and for the integrity of marriage and the family are so fundamental to the common good that they cannot be subordinated to any other cause, no matter how good it may be."

"As Catholics, we can never cease to work for the correction of gravely unjust laws. Law is a fundamental expression of our culture and implicitly teaches citizens what is morally acceptable. Our efforts to assist those who are tempted to do what is always and everywhere wrong or are suffering from the effects of having committed a gravely immoral act, which are essential expressions of the charity which unites us as citizens of the nation, ultimately make little sense, if we remain idle regarding unjust laws and decisions of the courts regarding the same intrinsic evils. We are never justified in abandoning the work of changing legislation and of reversing decisions of the courts which are anti-life and anti-family."

"The most treasured gift which we as citizens of the United States of America can offer to our country is a faithful Catholic life." If that is so, then any watering down of the Catholic life, and any refusal to shoulder the burden of confronting a culture of death and family attack, is an act that betrays God, the Church, and our country.

The speech is worth a read:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/2009/05/full-text-archbishop-raymond-b.html