Consider the value of a precedent (pronounced prĕs′ĭ-dənt)
Yesterday I went shopping in old town tomball at a few favorite shops. At one store, I found a vintage ruffled white dress made out of pure organdy with a under-dress and crinoline, and it was only three dollars. Yes it was faded, and yes it was yellow with age, but I knew that these dresses are SO PRECIOUS on little girls and when new, years ago, were often hand made and ridiculously expensive. I was thrilled to get this dress, and have already soaked it in a mild bleach solution and watched all the faded yellow disappear, and plan to iron it when it is dry, and give it to one of the little girls coming up in our family so it can be worn for Easter Sunday.
I was thinking about the value this dress has to me, where to many it is devoid of value. Certainly the price did not reflect any value of the dress to the seller.
But to me, this dress is a perfect example of how WHAT HAS VALUE, is symbolized by different things for different people. Though a lot of people work for money, what actually has value to them at their job is the team effort, or the ability to use a talent or to make valid contributions to others.
Would it be right as a rule of thumb, to say all people who work value money the most, or in the case of the organdy dress, to say that any dress that is ripped, or yellow, or that has a price tag of only three dollars, has little or no value and should be put in the dumpster? Isn't value something so uniquely individual, that, as in the case of a job, it inspires and motivates humanity to give willingly of our talent, so that the VALUE we receive in return can delight us in a myriad of unexpected ways?
What about the value of humanity, or the value of even just one human being, the least of these?
Not only with a job or with a dress, but ESPECIALLY with human beings, there should be no court that determines value for all the people who make up humanity, except for the Final Judge, God.
As explained above, about what has value, it is logical to realize that no court can say definitively and with confidence that an entire group of people (lets use unborn infants as an example) has no value and therefore can be condemned. If there is even just ONE individual who believes that a baby has value, that contradicts a judgment to the contrary. A court ruling to allow an entire group to be condemned, would be a quantification fallacy.
“A quantification fallacy is an Error in logic where the quantifiers of the premises are in contradiction to the conclusions quantifiers.”
an example of this …
“Financial experts agree that everyone should invest in technology stocks.
This statement implies that all financial experts agree, which may not be the case.” We know that numbers do not determine what actually has value, as taught to us by the book of numbers in the bible…so even if experts agree that a preborn infant is not a human being, that does not make it so.
But what if there exists a single mother, who wants to use an argument that undermines the validity of her own baby, in order to devalue all babies just to be rid of her own, with the “protection” of the courts; wouldn’t that also be a fallacy because it would be an ad hominem argument? Yes it would be a fallacy and it would also be wrong because how can a court, which is supposed to protect the rights of ALL humanity, protect the mother’s rights and refuse to protect the baby?
“The ad hominem attack uses an accepted “fact” about a “person” to undermine their credibility”.
An example of this…
A fetus cannot live on its own therefore it is not a credible human being”. There are many babies who cannot live on their own AFTER being born, and that does not prevent them from being incredible human beings. =)
We can see that there are many examples of fallacies being used to do evil in humanity, but I have always liked that when determining what is truth and what has value, we in this country, are united UNDER GOD, and are supposed to be given the right to a trial by a jury of our peers, when accused of something.
How is it that so many MILLIONS of our dear precious babies, are condemned to death, without being given even that most basic and fundamental right of all humanity? It is the LEAST we can do and it is also supposed to be the best we can do, and so why are we not doing it? If a court can compromise or dismiss an entire population of human beings, because they are preborn (yes even if the argument is that they are not, we know babies are human because they are not dogs, cats or crickets), what is to stop the courts from compromising OTHER LEGITIMATE people or groups of humanity, because they are black, or because they are Jewish, or because they are not vaccinated?
Our courts are supposed to look at individuals, in order to establish FAIR and reliable precedents, not to establish precedents in order to AVOID looking at individuals. Is it possible that precedents are just a series of quantification fallacies? Does a precedent have value just because a court rules that it is so or does a precedent have to be established on TRUTH of all humanity, not just about isolated facts.
ALL Human beings have value, even if no court says that they do…and all human beings are worth our time and effort…no matter how torn, old or tattered they are. Today we are praying for the courts to analyze and de-legitimize precedents that call human life devoid of value because that precedent itself is then devoid of value, because it is dismissing the bigger picture of truth. The “value” of human life, once this precedent is removed, is retroactive, because humanity had never been devoid of value in spite of what a “precedent” has said otherwise. So grateful for the knowledge that God sees all humanity and is defending life at all stages and on all platforms and in spite of any precedent.
