Conservatism does not equal anarchism. Yes, one of the legitimate tasks of the government is preservation of human right to life. Thus laws against murder are fine with all conservatives, no matter how they are against “big, intrusive government” otherwise. There is no hypocrisy in that whatsoever.
For what it’s worth, Ayn Rand was pro-choice.
I do wonder: If we give the fetus the right to use a woman’s body without her permission, who is next? A rapist? A stalker?
Or do you feel that any woman who has sex has given the fetus a right to use her body, even if she doesn’t want it there? Like the women who “deserved” to be raped because they were wearing tight clothes or walking alone at night?
And what about miscarriages? If a fetus is a person, shouldn’t they all be investigated as potential murder? Maybe the woman had some wine, coffee or medications or “thought bad thoughts.”
… because she didn’t consider the unborn as a human being. If she did, she’d be completely against abortion.
That’s the part that you and others here refuse to understand - that whether you consider the fetus a human being is the point. The other points are tangential and really irrelevant. All the arguments about “conservative values” and “privacy” and “womens’ bodies” etc. etc. are meaningless. The whole issue revolves around that one point. And on that one point you can’t just convince someone they are wrong, because it is not a scientifically-resolvable question.
Are you under the impression that the concept of treating the unborn as a human being is new and baffling, like how old people view Tinder?
Well, I agree that one won’t be able to reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into, but I’m not trying to convince you or Hiker. Despite the thread title, I suspect Robert163 was out of reach before the first reply could be written. No matter, I like the argument anyway.
Maybe it’s like the woman who agreed to babysit her sister’s kids. A woman agrees to babysit a guy’s sperm (or at least one of them) and thus she has to see it through for nine months.
There’s no slippery slope here. If we grant the fetus the right to use a woman’s body without her permission because the fetus:
- Did not deliberately choose to use her body without her permission; and
- Cannot stop using her body of its own volition; and
- Will die if it stops using her body,
then “who is next” is anyone else under these same three circumstances. Which is to say, nobody.
Again, I’m pro-choice. I think there are really, really good reasons for abortion to be legal. But there are a lot of bad reasons, too, and this slippery slope argument is one of them.
As much as I’m loath to defend Terr, his reasoning on protecting life in some but not all circumstances is not hypocritical nor inconsistent. It’s perfectly reasonable, even if I believe it’s predicated on a false premise (i.e., that embryos are moral subjects). Attacking him for hypocritical views on life is missing the point. Please stop making me defend him.
That’s giving more credit than deserved, I must say. Terr’s position, as I understand it, is more akin to “this issue is perfectly simple and if you don’t agree, you’re either disingenuous or ignorant”, when the issue is actually neither perfect nor simple.
The issue is perfectly simple because it is predicated on one point. Cannot get much simpler than that. As for “disingenuous or ignorant” - cite?
Well, one point with a lot of exceptions, which doesn’t exactly scream “integrity!” to me.
Well…
The “ignorant” part, I admit, may be more a matter of subtext.
Ah, I see, you’re taking my response to your deliberate obtuseness and generalizing it to everybody. I assure you, it’s just you. As for “refusing to understand” - no, that’s neither disingenuous nor ignorant. It’s common in arguments. Tunnel vision. Happens to everyone.
Well, everybody can take care of themselves. I just described your stance as I understood it. In fact, I think I actually said “Terr’s position, as I understand it, is more akin to…”
Well, me and Ayn Rand, apparently.
No, I think “refusing to understand” and “disingenuous” are pretty synonymous in this context (being “deliberate obtuseness” is pretty much exactly equal to “disingenuous”). Neither of them is true of course, but I wasn’t accusing you of an excess of accuracy.
Since I said “accuracy”, I feel compelled to admit that the grammar of my last post is less than ideal. That bracketed comment should read:
Ironic, of course, that I should be accused of disingenuity in a post that goes on to deny having ever accused me of disingenuity. Anyway, this is getting too personal for a GD discussion. I expect a moderator whistle in the near future.
Here’s a theoretical one for you that I’ve been mulling recently; mandatory blood and/or organ donation. Let’s say Bob across the country has a rare disorder and requires a donation or he will die (or, perhaps, requires an operation for which he’ll need blood transfusions to survive). We’ll make Bob a three year old, so we don’t have to worry about issues of innocence or choice on his part. I, among a few others, are the only people to match his rare blood type/have organs we can live without that his body won’t reject.
Whether that fits your three criteria seems to be a matter of inertia, which has come up a lot. Bob isn’t *currently *using my body. But he does not choose to use my body without my permission, he cannot stop using my body of his own volition, and he will die if he cannot use my body. Is the difference between the two situations, so far as any moral imperative might go, solely a “train track switch” question?
That’s fine, but it’s not for me. The post you quote wasn’t arguing against abortion rights; it was instead arguing against the idea that there’s a slippery slope involved that would lead to condoning rapists and stalkers.
Given the scenario you mention, I can’t tell you how folks who oppose abortion rights would rule. You’ll have to ask them. It may be that they see a slippery slope from requiring the completion of pregnancies to requiring kidney donations. I don’t know.
Well, it beats the slippery slope that runs from abortion to infanticide to hunting toddlers for sport on Mardis Gras.
You didn’t use those exact words, but you suggest that people who don’t equate abortion with infanticide are trying to “eumphemize”:
You imply that pro-choice advocates all agree that an embryo is a baby, but few are honest about it:
You suggest (incorrectly) that I’m refusing to admit that an embryo is human life:
You suggest that I define terms in particular ways in order to achieve my goal of being allowed to kill embryos:
I don’t know that you accuse people of ignorance, but accusing people of disingenuity appears to be a staple of your arguments here.
I appreciate what appears to be a turn in your argument. If you’ll stop implying that we all agree embryos are babies and that abortion is infanticide, and instead approach from the recognized divide between those who see embryos as persons/moral subjects and those who don’t, the argument will at least do a better job of illuminating the actual philosophical differences between us, instead of painting pro-choice folks as slavering infanticide fans. (FWIW, I think the converse holds true as well, which is why I defended you earlier).
The problem with the assertion that conservatives treat abortion as human life is that very, very few advocate locking up the women who get abortions as murderers. Hence, you can’t appeal to how wrong killing an innocent post-birth human is as a justification when you clearly view the different situations as different levels of being wrong.
The only real argument is to appeal to a concept of potential personhood–that you are killing a person before they exist. But then you have to establish why this is wrong–you can’t treat it the same as actual murder.
Really, it boils down to where you draw the line. The problem is, your actions aren’t consistent with the lines you claim to draw. You, like everyone else, have to draw a fuzzy line, which then gets rid of the simplicity of “it’s human life.” You have to have varying degrees of wrongness.
That’s not a slippery slope, that’s Operation Rescueland’s flagship rollercoaster.
I didn’t think you were pro-life, LHoD (I do read other people’s posts!), I just offered it since you were talking about how “there’s no slipper slope here.” I figured you were talking about pro-life positions in general, not just Annie-Xmas’s stalkers and rapists suggestion.