Then I should point out that you made the transition from responding to me to responding to Lobohan (the author of post 1024) without any indication of doing so.
I have a small problem with this, but no big deal.
Oh, I see what happened. My post #1073 was confusing, in that I intended the first half to be specifically talking to you, with the second half as a parenthetical comment about the thread as a whole, but nothing in my post so indicated… sorry about that.
Yes, I do. More religious overall, but more Christian specifically, since they are the dominant religion. And my reasoning has to do with what I said before, that I think anti-abortion arguments stem mainly from religion and not logic. I feel that is wrong and have no desire to move the country towards that path
Well, I’d say practically speaking, it would be hard to get a completely baseless law, even one seen as harmful, passed. And given that there are bound to be people who want to paint their house differently, I would say that it would reach the courts and it may very well be a free speech/1st Amendment issue. And aren’t you forgetting something? Its not just about the law, but also the punishment. What’s the punishment for having a blue house? Jail time? A fine? You can bet somebody’s going to challenge that and, I think, they’ll win. So yes, I think even such a law needs to be logically supported
There could be some people, not speaking of just abortion but in general, who are both religious but don’t use religious arguments. I accept that they exist. But why can’t we look at the facts and then make a logical determination? Why is that bad in this case? Hell, I’m ready to do that right now, list all the facts and then see which side’s more logical, I’m all for that. And I don’t think that’s much different from your 2nd part, where you look at both sides and come to a compromise. However, the problems is highlighted when one side wants to enforce their views on everyone and the other side simply wants the option for people to make their own choices. Lets be clear here, there is no equivalency between one side who says “no one should have an abortion” and the side that says “people can choose to have them or not”. The argument has never been equal. The direct opposition to the pro-life side is “everyone should have an abortion”. Given that one side refuses to have the debate honestly, I don’t see theirs as logical at all, and that’s when they fall back on religion
In which case, reasons need to be offered for why the law should be the way you/he/I/they want it to be.
Religious reasons are tricky, because they vary by faith. In the U.S., religious reasons are also tricky, because of the First Amendment.
The reasons usually given by the pro-choice side involve individual liberty, freedom, self-determination, privacy, and individual bodily sovereignty. Bonuses include the social advantages of aborting unwanted children, rather than having them become burdens on society, and the reduction of injuries from improper abortions.
The reason (singular) usually given by the pro-life side is “It’s a person.” Since this assumes what is at the heart of the disagreement, it is less than convincing as a reason.
Well, if you mean* purely and exclusively religious in nature,* that’s one thing. Problem is that some arguments align with a religious doctrine and have non-relgious arguments supporting them.
I’d agree that is a valid position if you could ignore them completely and judge the other arguments by themselves. A particular non-religious argument for or against something, say abortion, is not weakened one iota by the existence of a religious argument which supports the same position. I could be wrong, but you seem to want to penalize a particular position simply because there also exists a religious argument that agrees with it.
You’re right, some have both and it may be impossible to separate the two. What I would consider valid, however, is if an argument can be made without a religious basis. Does it have a secular component? In the example of abortion, saying “a soul is created at conception” is an invalid religious argument. Saying “human life is intrinsically valuable and that value begins at conception” isn’t, though practically it may be the same. But I think that the vast majority of people who use the 2nd argument do so not because its secular, but because of religion. And when you attack that argument, they fall back into the religious backing, revealing their inherent ignorance and religiosity. If they can’t make the 2nd argument without resorting to the first, then they’re simply wrong and deserve to be ignored
Partly true, because I see many non-religious arguments starting out secularly, but end up religiously. Take the argument against gay marriage. There are lots of, on the surface, secular arguments against it such as its unnatural, its against tradition, its harmful. But if you peel away those arguments and start poking holes in them, people end up defaulting to religious reasons to support those supposedly secular arguments. Unnatural because its against god, untraditional so it offends our Judeo-Christian roots, and harmful because Sodom and Gomorrah. Therefore, I would scrutinize a position more closely if it has an obvious religious component because those always seem to go down the same path.
Take many of the issues that seem secular on its face but has a huge religious contingent supporting them. You often cannot separate the two. So I am not penalizing their position, they penalize themselves by associating with such people.
But I will say this, the great thing about arguing against a religious position is that its so simple. For everything they support, the obvious and clear response should be “well my god says differently”.
I really want to agree with you here in totality, but can’t. You seem to want to take a pure and principled position, but you allow the mere existence of a religious argument to color your thinking. That makes your position neither pure nor principled. I do agree that an argument for something societal needs to be made on secular grounds. And if, as you say, a person then switches to a religious argument, then they’ve abandoned the secular argument. I think the fair think to do is to keep both separate. They same we you’d rather not want an entwining of the secular and religious, I think it is incumbent upon you to not make the same mistake yourself. If not, the demands you make on others (which I probably agree with) are not only unfair and hypocritical, but unhelpful in exploring if any agreement might exist or revealing where the specific points of disagreements might be.
The debate Bricker is carrying is illustrative. He showed that even while his position does have some roots sprouting from his Catholicism, that his religion is not a necessary ingredient for one to have to hold the position. He gave plenty of cites proving that. Still, some want to beat him over the head with the Papal Staff, insisting that just because there is religious reasoning for his position, that his position is necessarily tied to religion. That’s just really bad logic embraced by Lobohan, et al. I’m not sure you intend to subscribe to that line of thinking, but it appears so. At least from your last sentence above.
For what it’s worth,Yog, I don’t see anything particularly “colored”, let alone impure or unprincipled in your position; magellan’s just chooing to not get it. A religion-based reason is crap, and a secular reason that relies on unproven principles is crap, and if an argument has just one or both, it’s crap. If there’s a secular reason based on proven (or at least provable) principles, then we can examine it to see if it’s crap, and ignore whatever parallel religious or unproven reasons there might be.
Thing is, he’s found a way to rationalize dismissing you, and thus can close his ears to anything else you might say. Join the club.
Because “let’s list the facts and see which side is more logical” is not how a democracy works. Nor how a representative republic works. Nor how a country with a supreme court works. Reasonable and intelligent people can disagree on what facts are. And how logic applies to them. And, most importantly, on what kind of tradeoffs they are or are not willing to make. I think we should raise taxes to improve our national parks. Someone else doesn’t. What do facts have to do with that issue? And if part of my motivation is that one of the national parks contains a grove of sacred cedar trees that is important to my Wiccan rituals, how does that affect the debate? You seem to have a position of “well, if we all just used SCIENCE and FACTS and RATIONALITY then we would inevitably prove that abortion should be legal… so why aren’t we using science?” when (a) I don’t think that facts and logic frequently lead to a clear recommendation on divisive social issues, and (b) there’s no reason to think that that’s how the country is or should be run.
I’m sympathetic to that view, and I certainly would say precisely the same thing with respect to gay marriage. The problem, of course, is that IF a fetus is a human being (and I can’t dismiss that proposition as prima facie ridiculous) then you’re using an argument that could be used to justify legal murder… I mean, you’re not trying to force everyone to commit murder, just ensuring that they have that right if they want it. Of course, this is ground we’ve all gone over a zillion times, and remember that I am, in fact, strongly pro-choice. I just think that the pro-choice argument isn’t a clean and compelling one that starts with observations and uses science to lead to an inevitable and compelling conclusion. Rather it’s one that takes various tradeoffs and views lots of things (including the humanity of a fetus) as gray areas, and ends up concluding that society is probably better off with abortion legal… but not without reservations.
So what IS the proper approach to laws about entities whose humanity is debatable? Embryos/fetuses aren’t quite human beings… but they’re also not quite NOT human beings. I don’t see how “it’s a person” is assuming what is at the heart of the disagreement any more than “it’s NOT a person” would be assuming what is at the heart of the disagreement. Why is the null hypothesis NOT personhood?
That’s the thing. We don’t even agree on what the null hypothesis is. We don’t agree.
That’s why I retreat to the meta-argument. Since we don’t agree, it’s wrong for you to declare that your opinion should be enshrined in law. Instead, since we don’t agree, you go do your thing, and I’ll go do mine.
If there were a “mandatory abortion” faction in this debate – people advocating some sort of Red Chinese “one child per family” law – then I would be in opposition to them for the same reason. They can have only one child if they want, but compelling others to follow their views is wrong.
I’m determinedly disinterested in the finer points of fetal personhood, but I do have some academic training in statistical analysis, and if I may…
A null hypothesis of “a fetus is a person” (or “a fetus is not a person”) has a fundamental flaw in that the “is a person” is not a measurable concept. Typical statistical analyses rely on measurable and comparable data, i.e. “Null Hypothesis: Candidate A will get more votes than Candidate B” or “Null Hypothesis: The amount of rainfall in this area is significantly higher this year than last year.” Once such a hypothesis is established, a Decision Rule (i.e. a test) can be designed, with (ideally) unambiguous results. We might take samples (i.e. randomly phone a bunch of a people in the electorate and ask them how they intend to vote, or look at records of rainfall for this year and last year) and see if they support or disprove the hypothesis.
I don’t know what kind of sampling or testing one could do to test “personhood” (or nonpersonhood, for that matter). It is not a concept that lends itself to null-hypothesis testing, and there’s no reason to take offense if a proposed null hypothesis is “a fetus is not a person” as opposed to “a fetus is a person”. Even if we take the latter (perhaps because it sounds better to someone already inclined to view a fetus as a person), there’s nothing we can do to test it, or at least nothing I’m aware of. At best, I guess, we could select arbitrary characteristics of personhood and see if a random sample of fetuses meets them. Human DNA? Unique DNA? Brainwaves? Heartbeat? I don’t know. Could the measuring process determine that some fetuses have a higher “personhood” level than others?
I’m at a loss to see how this issue can be usefully studied statistically.
That said, there are potential statistical analyses one can do regarding abortion. Perhaps a null hypothesis is “societies with strict abortion laws have higher per-capita GDP than those that lack such laws.” This can be tested to some extent - establish a metric for how strict a society’s abortion laws are (i.e. 100 being no abortions ever, 0 being no restrictions at all) and see if the value correlates with per-capita GDP. It’s probably not a good test (correlation doesn’t prove causation, after all) but it’s something we can test.
In any case, all the test does (indeed all it can do) is either tend to support or tend to disprove our null hypothesis. What we should do with such results (if anything) is another matter entirely.
Well, bearing in mind that my actual opinion is that abortion should be legal, I still don’t find this “well, by default…” argument compelling. In fact, frankly, the opposite. If there’s some action X that might or might really be killing innocent humans, the default should be NOT to allow X until we’ve sorted it out, because killing innocent humans is REALLY BAD. But I’m really really sick of somehow ending up arguing for a position I don’t actually support at all, so I’m just as happy to bow out of this thread.
Agreed. But there is no scientific test to answer this question. It is only a difference of people’s private opinions. The “might or might not” has never been demonstrated in any objective or empirical way. Some say yes, and others say no, and in forty years (and, of course, more than that) no one has presented any such argument.
Can’t blame you! Devil’s advocacy is sometimes necessary, but it is very rarely any fun. FWIW, it is well to point out the errors in any argument, even ones you might otherwise agree with.
Well, can we all agree that “pregnancy crisis centers,” especially those funded by the state (in this case, Virginia), should not be lying to women? They’re not only anti-abortion, they’re also anti-birth control. WTF?
State-Funded Crisis Pregnancy Centers Talk Women Out Of Birth Control, Condoms: Report
The headline should read “Centers LIE Women Out of Birth Control.” This is so wrong on so many levels. There is nothing in the Bible that says abortion is bad (it even gives a method to CAUSE an abortion) but there’s LOTS about lying being an abomination unto the Lord, so it can’t be religion doing this. Just blatant, unremitting stupidity, maybe?
But I am very glad you did – because it defanged the ad hominem responses having to do with establishing a Catholic theocracy.
That’s the kind of statement that Bryan Ekers has suggested is quasi-religious. He seems to argue that your bedrock argument cannot be that killing innocent humans is bad.
No, I doubt it’s stupidity. To the extent that the lies being told are that condoms don’t prevent STDs, I am certain that’s a deliberate lie. (I’m also sure that their mental gymnastics allow the lie because “It’s for a good cause.”) And I absolutely agree it’s reprehensible.
Other statements being made, such as psychological damage, are more likely a result of a defensible difference of opinion over what constitutes psychological damage, combined with a desire to closely examine and refute contrary data while accepting credulously affirming data. (And you wouldn’t be wrong to call that “stupidity,” if seeking a shorthand description of the process.)
But in that same vein, I think it’s fair to point out a deceptive element of the report: “state funded.”
In Virginia, virtually ANY organization can get a custom license plate approved, as long as they can show a threshold number of patrons that would order it, and that organization then gets a portion of the proceeds from the plates.
For example, if I could gather 800 Straight Dope Message Board fans in Virginia willing to shell out a premium price for a license plate that said “SDMB Poster,” it’s virtually certain I could get the same deal for the SDMB that the “Choose Life” guys are getting. It would deceptive to say the SDMB was “state funded” as a result, though; the money comes from the purchasers to the plates, passes through the state, which takes its cut, and then goes on to the organization.
Do you agree that’s deceptive – to call this scheme “state funding?”
Yes, it is wrong to heap such calumny on a public spirited organization selflessly dedicated to spreading lies and bullshit. I renounce, denounce and condemn, being convinced to such change of mind by Bricker’s solidly based argument.
We might consider such a term as “state approved”, since it appears likely that these sonogram requirements will have the effect of funneling women into locations where they can benefit from lies, bullshit and propaganda.
And we should thank friend Bricker for, once again, drawing our attention away from trivial and insignificant issues to focus on the harm being done to a blameless purveyor of ignorance.
Well, it’s quasi-religious in the same sense as “forcing a woman to see an unwanted pregnancy to term is bad”, i.e. you’re just defining something as “bad” with no supporting evidence or clarification or even comparison to something that is presumably not-bad. One could as easily say “evil” or “sinful” or whatever.
Can you challenge the claim of “forcing a woman to see an unwanted pregnancy to term is bad”? If so, on what grounds?
But let’s grant axiomatically the premise of “killing innocent humans is bad.” I gather if innocent humans are indeed killed, some “bad” results would be evident - a religious or quasi-religious premise would describe the results in ethereal terms, i.e. “God will be angry” / “We as a society will be judged” / “Human life is important” / “Our society will be less moral”, etc.
Can you describe non-ethereal results? I hope this doesn’t seem like a stupid question asked as a way to stall for time - my goal is ultimately to suss out actual societal effects of abortion laws. Will this Wisconcin law, for example, improve the lives of Wisconsin citizens? Will negative effects (if any) be offset by the intended increase in population (a population, I should point out, will be at greater risk of resentful or economically disadvantaged parents).
Perhaps you have done some calculations in which X number of unaborted fetuses (i.e. X babies born who would not have been otherwise) is worth the costs imposed on the greater number Y of women affected negatively by the Wisconsin law. I have no objection to this, as long as some kind of calculation was actually done, some kind of recognition of the real-world conditions involved, an not just a reflexive response stemming from “save the babies!”
My own calculations have led me to conclude that more X is not worth the imposition on Y, and barring a major change in conditions and/or the revelation of dramatic new information, I don’t expect to change that position anytime soon. I recognize the possibility, though.
As a default principle, I have no problem with “killing innocent humans is bad.” There are, however, specific elements to abortion that require a more nuanced, more adult analysis. I’m happy to give one to the best of my ability. Are you?