# Abortion: Why don't pro-choicers just say, "It kills a person, but it's a unique circumstance?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2020, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228 "2020-01-30T16:43:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2020, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228/281 "2020-02-17T22:20:12Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > My writing skills seems to be declining. Perhaps I was unclear. I suspect making justifications for killing is almost always self-serving and morally suspect. We kill people. That is our nature. Trying to say it was justified in the special moral situation we find ourselves in seems to be just a way to convince ourselves. > Kill who you must. Spare us the justifications. Presuming you’re talking about abortions, I maintain that abortions aren’t killing anybody. So any explanations aren’t justifications of murder, it’s an attempt to explain why the person is just flat wrong about their perception of reality. You could tell somebody that eating a cake is murder. (No, really, nobody can stop you.) If that person then tried to explain to you that no, eating a cake isn’t murder, that person isn’t trying to justify murder. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228/282 "2020-02-18T02:57:47Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Then there’s nothing objective about personhood at all Exacty. I’ve been consistently pointing out that personhood is a social construct that we as a society undertake to define via arbitrarily chosen characteristics, rather than an objective scientific fact. > [@begbert2](#): > > and your entire argument and position is nonsensical. Uh, no, there’s nothing nonsensical about recognizing that how we as a society choose to define personhood is not objective. > [@begbert2](#): > > Whether or not something qualifies as a person has _always_ been a matter of arbitrary definition, and if you can’t accept that arbitrary definitions can be objective …then you understand the difference between a **social consensus** , such as the consensus we as a society have arrived at concerning the arbitrary definition of what we choose to consider “personhood”, and an **objective scientific fact**. > [@begbert2](#): > > then there is no such thing as objective personhood. Correct. There isn’t. I mean, maybe you’re choosing to interpret the term “objective” in some other sense, and that’s fine too. But if you mean “objective” in the sense of factual, impersonal, non-human-determined reality, as in _“of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind”_, then the social construct of “personhood” does not qualify. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228/283 "2020-02-18T23:31:13Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I mean, maybe you’re choosing to interpret the term “objective” in some other sense, and that’s fine too. But if you mean “objective” in the sense of factual, impersonal, non-human-determined reality, as in _“of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind”_, then the social construct of “personhood” does not qualify. In the sense of factual, impersonal, non-human-determined reality, words have definitions. It is an objective fact that in standard english the word “red” refers to a color. Absent the context the arrangement of lines and curves forming “red” has no objective meaning, but if the context is included in the analysis then objective statements can be made about the lines and curves’ meaning within the context. In this discussion the context of standard english is assumed, and thus the term “person” can, and _does_, have objective meaning. There is just disagreement about whether certain things meet the criteria, and much of that disagreement is based on people arguing from a conclusion and bending whatever they need to to reach the conclusion they’re arguing from. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228/284 "2020-02-18T23:37:33Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > In the sense of factual, impersonal, non-human-determined reality, words have definitions. Human words have no definitions outside of human-determined reality. Or are you referring to the magical theory of True Names? > [@begbert2](#): > > It is an objective fact that in standard english the word “red” refers to a color. 1. Depending on context, even when it refers to a color, it can refer to significantly different colors. “Red” hair is objectively not the same color as a “red” stop sign. 2. It also refers to a political position. In fact, it refers to two different political positions, which claim to be opposed to each other. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228/285 "2020-02-18T23:49:32Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Because, while there is _some_ murder of abortion doctors and bombing of abortion clinics, the vast majority of anti-choicers do little more than tut. They do not react to persons who have gotten abortions the same way that they react to actual murderers. And of course there are those who get abortions themselves (or demand that their lovers get abortions) when they’re suddenly in that situation; you could argue that these sorts of folks would also murder somebody if the situation ever came up, but I don’t think that that’s how that plays out in reality. With many political causes, you have a tiny minority who truly feel it in their bones and guts that something is right/wrong, and then you have the majority who only intellectually sense that something is so. So, as you point out, most pro-lifers don’t go around bombing clinics (or hold funerals for miscarriages) because a fetus doesn’t feel the same, on a visceral level, to them, as a born person. It’s similar to how many people believe or claim climate change is going to destroy the planet, but don’t actually do anything violent or drastic to stop that impending doom. Brain knowledge vs. visceral feeling. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2020, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228/286 "2020-02-18T23:55:03Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Human words have no definitions outside of human-determined reality. Or are you referring to the magical theory of True Names? I’m referring to the magical theory of _we’re talking about an english word_. This is not magic and claiming that there are no objective facts about things in context is false. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > 1. Depending on context, Snip. Yes. Context matters. And contexts do in fact exist. > [@Velocity](#): > > With many political causes, you have a tiny minority who truly feel it in their bones and guts that something is right/wrong, and then you have the majority who only intellectually sense that something is so. > > So, as you point out, most pro-lifers don’t go around bombing clinics (or hold funerals for miscarriages) because a fetus doesn’t feel the same, on a visceral level, to them, as a born person. It’s similar to how many people believe or claim climate change is going to destroy the planet, but don’t actually do anything violent or drastic to stop that impending doom. Brain knowledge vs. visceral feeling. Yep. It demonstrates pretty clearly that they don’t in fact believe that fetuses are people, no matter what they are willing to claim for the sake of argument. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228/287 "2020-02-19T00:03:42Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Yep. It demonstrates pretty clearly that they don’t in fact believe that fetuses are people, no matter what they are willing to claim for the sake of argument. They believe, but don’t feel - or believe, but the costs of acting on it are too great. Even if you’re someone who does truly viscerally feel that abortion is murder, the fact that you’ll face life imprisonment or execution for bombing a clinic is still a deterrent. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2020, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228/288 "2020-02-19T00:27:18Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > They believe, but don’t feel - or believe, but the costs of acting on it are too great. Even if you’re someone who does truly viscerally feel that abortion is murder, the fact that you’ll face life imprisonment or execution for bombing a clinic is still a deterrent. I don’t believe that there’s a cognitive separation between your actual beliefs and how you feel about the things you actually believe. If you ever find that your reactions do not align with how you cognitively think your beliefs would lead you to react, it’s time to reassess. And there’s certainly a sliding scale of reactions, but the vast majority of them don’t rise to even the _least_ sort of reaction I’d expect if, say, _actual babies_ were being killed at the rate abortions are performed. So they clearly believe that abortions are not great, but they are not as bad as, say, bashing in a baby’s head with a rock. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-why-dont-pro-choicers-just-say-it-kills-a-person-but-its-a-unique-circumstance/847228.md?page=14)