Not only “no,” but “hell no,” and in fact, not only “hell no,” but “hell no, not even close.” Genocide has a pattern, and it’s done by one group of people to another with the purpose of exterminating the victim group. Abortions aren’t targeted at a specific group and they are not intended to exterminate all fetuses. Abortions end individual pregnancies.
If a group of people were being forced into having abortions you could say that was an act of genocide, but it’s an unlikely type because it’s so inefficient. Compare to forced sterilization, for example - and that’s been done to several groups in history.
Stopping the cycle of life is just the same as stopping a whole group of people from living because you don’t want them to continue on Earth.
Even if she had ten billion kids. Let them fend for themselves if she can’t afford them A.K.A. giving them up for adoption.
Hey, if a person wants to sterilized themselves for whatever reason. They weren’t destine to have children and pass on their genes. They would probably make horrible parents because they are selfish anyway, because they got sterilized so they wouldn’t get pregnant and have organisms. You can’t blame them.
I know. It is distressing to me. “Nazi” is a very powerful word but it is being bandied about so often that how truly horrible a thing it was is starting to lose its impact. Using it in jest is one thing. Using it like this is stupidity.
You have provided skant evidence of the first part of this sentence (stopping the cycle of life). What, short of a cataclysmic nuclear holocast, do you think is capable of this? You’re equating “17 year old girl having an abortion” with “termination of all life as we know it”?!
Look, even “stopping a whole group of people from living” isn’t necessarily genocide. Far more often, it’s mass murder. There’s a reason we have different words for different things: they’re different.
If you’re anti-abortion, you can just say so. You don’t make your case any stronger by trying to equate it with something it’s utterly not.
I think what he’s trying to say is something like this:
Pretending the Bible is literally true for a second, just because it makes it easier, if Abraham (well, okay, Sarah) had aborted Isaac he/she would have committed preemptive genocide against an entire people, specifically Israel/Jews (keep in mind that I’m merely trying to grasp HIS argument and I’m not arguing anything). I think what he’s attempting to say (poorly, I might add) is that aborting someone is bad because they may be the one that gives birth to the line which eventually becomes the precursors of a new racial group, and, as such, you are potentially committing genocide against that unnamed, unspecified, possibly non-existent (after all, the kid could just end up getting hit by a car and dying) racial group.
Ah, but you have not grasped the subtle genius of SSSN’s strategy. You see, once you’ve accepted that abortion and genocide are equivalent you must either endorse genocide or reject abortion. You can’t possibly win!
…you’re willing to accept the equivalence of those two things, right? I mean, the whole case pretty much rests on that point. Be a pal, willya?
I have heard the argument forwarded before. “What if you’re aborting the scientist that cures cancer?!” I usually respond with What if I’m aborting the next Jeffry Dahmer? It’s ridiculous to forward a theory about what a child might be based solely on its genetics.
As a couple of other people have said, if you’re against abortion - for whatever reason - just say so. Until you make such a statement, you’re still wrong. Genocide requires an element of intent, specifically the intent to eradicate a specific group of people. Having an abortion, as has been explained to you, is not equivalent, since it doesn’t preclude the same woman (or couple, for that matter) from having reproduced previously or from reproducing later.
There are these neat things called “dictionaries.” You might find these discussions more satisfying if you familiarized yourself with one before formulating your next post.
You think “letting them fend for themselves” is equivalent to “adoption?” I think it’s more equivalent to “abandoning them in the woods.” Adoption, by definition, means that a child ends up with a family to take care of it - not exactly “fending for itself.” Once again, this word does not mean what you think it means.
So tell me, how do you know that a sterilized person was “destined” not to be a parent? For that matter, how do you know that such a person is motivated by selfishness? Heck, if some Prime Mover has destined that Jane Schmo is not destined to have children, then how can you ascribe her desire for sterilization to something as mundane as “selfishness?” After all, she’s simply carrying out the will of something far greater than any of us mere mortals. Finally, what exactly is wrong with wanting to have sex that results in orgasms* instead of organisms**?
You are missing the point, if he fails to convince us all that one woman having an abortion is exactly the same as killing all the jews then how is he ever going to get abortion banned!
Hey, if a person wants to abort their pregnancy for whatever reason, they weren’t destined to have children and pass on their genes. They would probably make horrible parents because they are selfish anyway, because they got an abortion so they wouldn’t get pregnant and have organisms. You can’t blame them. (Except for the fact they have committed genocide, of course. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:)
Genocide is a poor word choice because the only thing the dead have in common is not being born, which isn’t as rigid a grouping as the word suggests. Massacre comes closer to the mark, being as there is no implication that the people “intentionally killing of a considerable number of human beings” are a distinct group from those who are killed.
I’m not agreeing with you in any way, shape, or form. I’m basically nitpicking Belrix said, and I’ll elaborate below in response to Skald’s comment.
Captain Marvel could do it, yeah. I’m not saying that this is something that has happened in the real world. But if a single person killed off a significant portion of a given population with the intention of reducing or removing that population from the world or an area, yeah, I’d call that genocide.
At the risk of Godwinizing the thread, I might accuse Adolf Hitler personally with the crime of genocide. I will admit to not knowing the history well enough to be sure of that accusation, but it seems to me that without his impetus, the Holocaust might not have happened, or at least not in such an extreme way.
After this and SSSN’s other thread, I’ve come to set of semi-related theories:
(S)he’s young
or trolling
or deliberately obtuse (see 2.)
or unintentionally obtuse.
Either way, (s)he seems to have abandoned the other thread as to the cruelty and selfishness of all humans (which makes me think of a young, gothic, the-whole-world-sucks-and-we’re-doomed teen) and, I suspect, will abandon this thread, too.
I think the abortion==genocide argument is at the heart of SSSN’s premise, though. Good interpretation, IMO.
