jsgoddess
I’ve posted this several times, yet you always ignore it. I’ll just quote myself so I don’t have to retype it.
On your position:
Oh, I’m sure you’ll be against it for ever and ever and ever - mind you, I do wonder whether some of the often-quoted anti-choice organizations consist of more than a couple of guys and a website.
On the UK:
Saying that there exist anti-choice organizations in the UK does not refute my point that you’d be hard pressed to get a discussion going on the subject, autz.
You could email them, if you like, and ask whether abortion has any serious significance in UK politics and if they expect any UK political party ever to take up repeal as a policy.
I’m ignoring it because it’s completely irrelevant. Listening to my husband snore is “torture” but I can’t kill my husband. There are other ways to end the situation, and it doesn’t involve someone deliberately subjecting me to physical pain.
If you do things willingly, it isn’t torture, even if it’s painful. If your friend wants out of her situation, she can get out of it without killing the child. If a woman is pregnant and wants out of the situation, how would you recommend she get out of it without having an abortion?
So, there’s your answer. I consider your hypothetical to be completely irrelevant, but I’ve answered it. Now, you can explain why submitting someone to physical and mental anguish is permissable so long as it satisfies your moral idiosyncracies.
Julie
candida I’ve been wanting to say this for a while now but how exactly do the motivations of pro-lifers, be they rooted in misogynistic domination fantasies or whatnot, actually change the truth value of their statements?
I mean, lets say for arguments sake that all pro-lifers, even the female ones, all really reallyhated all women. Let’s say they made no bones about it and eschewed the label pro-life in favour of ‘whorecrushers’ or something. How would that change, or in any way discredit the biological arguments and philosophical propositions that are the foundation for pro-life thought?
If the answer is ‘they don’t’ then I’d thank you to avoid making (or at least fouling the board with) witless postulations of the pro-life mindset.
I’m not candida, but yes. It would completely discredit the arguments. It would be similar to someone from the KKK weighing in on an issue that affects African American persons, or a skinhead talking about Jews. I’m trying to think of a reasonable analogy.
Hmm.
Let’s say a member of the KKK suggests that black students should have separate schools because they face such terrible discrimination at “mixed race” schools. Ignoring what you might think of their argument, what would be the first thing you’d assume if you knew they were KKK members suggesting it? I’d assume they wanted segregation in order to keep their kids away from the black kids. There wouldn’t even be the possibility that the suggestion was meant to be positive or even neutral for the black kids.
If I had reason to believe that anti-abortion advocates, as a whole, truly hated women, I would immediately back out of any of these discussions and, frankly, spit in your general direction. Do I believe that some anti-abortion advocates hate women? Absolutely. But I don’t particularly believe it’s a feature of the whole movement.
Julie
I’m not talking about the ulterior motives behind pro-life arguments, just the truth value of pro-life statements.
In your example, a white liberal could make the exact same argument as the Klansman, word for word, and the truth value would be exactly the same. Arguments don’t become more or less truthful depending on who’s saying them. The Klansman might be exposed as trying to further a hateful agenda but if his actual argument was based on verifiable fact (ie. the result of an independent and wholly unbiased study showing that black kids suffered in mixed race schools) then his argument wouldn’t become any less truthful in its own right just because he’s a bigot.
For example, the pro-life arguments against abortion are based on the fact that, genetically, a new human life (as in a separate spatiotemporal entity) is created at fertilisation. All other pro-life arguments stem from this one empirically verifiable truth. Now, the only thing that candida’s shrill hystrionics as to the evil intent of pro-lifers accomplishes is to impugn what she believes to be the underlying motives of pro-lifers which has nothing to do with whether or not what they are saying is correct since none of our arguments make reference to our motives.
The reasonswhy pro-lifers say what they do doesn’t change whether or not what they are saying is truthful. If what we are saying is not truthful then candida should be able to tackle our arguments head on instead of pointing to misogynistic motives that aren’t there and using them to circumvent our arguments.
But the reasons why anti-abortion advocates say and believe what they do might be influenced by an underlying animosity.
Having the rights of a fetus trumping the rights of an adult woman is not a given. There are other possibilities, and we can see some of them in this thread. Just saying that anti-abortion advocates believe that human life begins at fertilization doesn’t say anything about what happens next. I believe human life begings at fertilization. It human. It’s alive.
But what comes next is where we differ. I say that it doesn’t matter that it’s human. It doesn’t matter that it’s alive. All that matters is that it is draining the resources of an unwilling host, and no amount of life or humanity can compensate that host for her pain, discomfort, and mental anguish.
So this is where ulterior motives come in. For me, it’s simple. I’m female and I’m potentially fertile. I am on very reliable birth control, but no birth control is guaranteed. I am married and have no intention of forgoing sex for the next twenty odd years. My husband is extremely sick, and my devotion and affection are for him alone. If I become pregnant, I will abort.
I can’t see wanting to keep others from something I would want available for myself. If I imagine myself with an unwanted pregnancy, it makes me physically ill.
So, when someone starts at the same point I do but comes to a completely different conclusion, I do wonder what their motives are. And since the most outspoken anti-abortion advocates on many forums are often male, I do find myself occasionally suspicious.
If we can start from the same place and end up with different conclusions, that makes me think we were trying to get to different goals in the first place.
Julie
What would that make spontanous abortions?
Sorry it put you in such a snit. I still won’t answer a loaded question, regardless of your interpretation of what the OP intended. Again, sorry that not playing by your exact rules means the debate is flawed. Good luck with the deadline.
Julie, do you understand that this is the very definition of a logical fallacy? (Which is Ben’s point, of course.)
Candida can’t tackle them head on. It’s not your arguments that are debatable, it’s your conclusion. You have decided that because a fetus is genetically human, its right to life should have government protection, and that’s really the first premise that has any relevance to pro-choicers (in my experience, at least), despite the fact that many like to argue all the ‘when does life begin’ premises anyway.
Ben starts from the same position I do. Ben comes up with a totally different conclusion. We have the same “facts.” We have the same “evidence.” We simply put the emphasis on radically different things.
Since I obviously put the emphasis on the wellbeing of the woman, that leaves Ben putting the emphasis elsewhere. His motivation for doing so may come into question for some people. Personally, so long as his morals aren’t law, his motivation is fairly irrelevant to me.
Since there are very few facts in any abortion debate, what remains is argument. If one side starts with “I hate women…” their argument will be completely and utterly ruined.
If that is a logical fallacy, then, welp, I’m fallacious.
Julie
A new human life that dies. And your point is…?
I don’t understand the “personhood begins at instant of conception” philosophy.
To attach an intrinsic value to an embryo that is equal to or greater than a grown woman does not make sense to me. Embryos are made and frozen in fertility centers often. Some are thawed and implanted, many go unused and are eventually disposed of. Do you weep over the ones that are flushed down the drain?
What about all the embryos that fail to implant on the womb and are flushed out on to sanitary napkins? Should all those maxipads be buried in a casket, accompanied by a tombstone?
If you could explain why an unthinking entity that is not self aware, and has never been self aware previously, has the right to unfettered womb access for 9 months simply because it has a unique strand of Deoxyribonucleaic Acid, maybe I could understand.
As far as I see, such a philosophy implicitly gives an embryo a “soul”. You can’t prove that it does have a soul, of course, but you are willing to push your belief on others against their will, and use the long arm of the law to punish all those who don’t follow the “every embryo is precious” philosophy.
Blalron pretty much said it for me. Should every spontanously aborted featus receive a proper burial? If they are to be considered persons from the point of conseption they should be. Never mind the fact that many spontanous abortions take place without the women even being aware of it.
Again, so? Perhaps spontaneously aborted fetuses do deserve a burial. Even if they do not though, that has no bearing on the issue at hand – namely, whether the fetus is a living being that deserves protection.
Hey, I love the ‘shrill’ bit!
And the ‘fouling’ the board!
What I ask myself and, obviously, others is why it is that this debate is largely absent in countries (as is ‘creation’, by the way)? For example, a UK anti-choicer may argue on exactly the same lines as a US anti-choicer but there is no great political movement and choice there is under no threat - the argument would be the same but the situation is entirely different.
So, what is it that is different? The absence of certain political groups would certainly seem highly significant - different political cultures, in other words.
Of course the political agendas of all anti-choicers are not the same but, in a thread about consequences the agendas of the centrally-important religio-political groups that provide so much of the impetus for the anti-choice movement certainly are.
What is inescapable is that anti-choice means control of women’s bodies and lives, whether the motivations of individual anti-choicers are benign or malign.
“absent in other countries”
(Lesson: do not post when tired)
zwaldd seems to be right for the wrong reasons (hey, it’s allowed).
No, I do not accept the premises of the argument and I do really believe that it ‘depends on what you mean by human life’. So, ask me whether a health fetus within a healthy woman should be aborted one day before birth would occur and you’d get one answer, ask me whether that holds from the very moment of conception and you’d get quite another.
Where two sides have entirely different premises, arguments become mere ritual and I have a low ritual tolerance level.
Consensual sex, by definition, means that the host is not unwilling. It’s a risk you assume by having sex.
To quote your own post:
Do you realize where that logic takes you?
Suppose your elderly mother contracts cancer. You simply do not have the emotional resources to support her during her treatment. Therefore, you have her killed.
OK. Suppose the other side begins with “I hate pro-lifers…”. Is their argument “completely and utterly ruined”?
Or do we deal with arguments from both sides on their merits?
Regards,
Shodan