I never got the impression they thought of a fetus as a person, but rather they thought of it as a baby, which is a distinct concept from a person. A person is some legal entity that can talk and vote and such, while a “baby” is a concept of pure innocence and helplessness.
All the more reason, I figure, to not bother with arguments about what a fetus is or is not. It’s a waste of time.
So you say that as a pro-lifer, if am not vigorous enough in my opposition to abortion, I must not really oppose abortion. That argument is a non sequitor.
I am not a law unto myself. Not being a vigilante, I lack the power of the state necessary to enforce my belief that abortion equals murder. If I think abortion equals murder, and I do, that doesn’t make any difference until and unless that position gets enacted into law. What constitutes murder is a political question that my position is in the minority of at the moment. If my behavior isn’t sufficiently wild-eyed to satisfy abortionists, then so what?
You certainly do see more coverage of this on television than any anti-abortion march. Both occur yearly, both draw large crowds, but beyond that, the comparison folds. The G20 crowd pushes beyond any reasonable measure of “civil” while the anti-abortion crowd might be violating a local open flame ordinance with all those candles. (I guess they both meet up when it comes to efficacy, though.) Churches were one of the great organizers during the Civil Rights Movement - when did they lose their teeth and willingness to really affect change?
Summary: There was a 6 point shift of people who think abortion should be illegal in all cases. This shift was from 17% to 23%. There clearly remains a great deal of work left for those who believe abortion = murder - I’d start with getting your ranks above a quarter of the populace.
Organizers, not combatants, then, and now. I think the religious opposition on abortion is going about things just about the same way the churches did back then – and they didn’t get immediate success either. And when did the G20 clowns became the gold standard for the “sincere” way to protest? One could just as readily argue that they are more aggressive and flamboyant in their tactics because they’re more heavily populated with on-the-dole yobs than with suburban housewives.
“Murder” means something and has real connotations.
Answer the question: A mile from you is a place that takes (born) babies and kills them. They do this a few thousand times a year.
Murder? Sounds like it to me.
So, if abortion = murder then how is it different?
Either the equivalence being drawn by pro-lifers is bullshit or they believe it. If they believe that then yes, I would expect dramatically more effort to stop the murderers.
I simply cannot believe that if there was a baby murdering place in your town (as I described in the hypothetical above) you’d just content yourself with writing your congresscritters and having a candle vigil once in awhile.
But hey…maybe murder just does not really concern you overly much. I certainly cannot speak for you. Just in my experience everyone I know gets pretty bent out of shape over murders.
I did forget that one, consider it incorporated by reference. Thanks.
Enjoy,
Steven
“Sincere”? Who said anything about “sincere”? I believe I put them in the category of “ineffective”, same as the anti-abortion lot.
I’ll take that as a clever attempt to hide that you’ve got nothing.
If you wish. It won’t make the observations about your fallacies untrue. Defining the positions of the pro-life movement as you did is using strawmen. Saying there is only one response to a percieved act of murder is excluding other alternatives. Assuming a hidden motive is begging the question. And applying this to everyone in the pro-life movement is a Non Sequitor. Especially since you have no proof of any of this, only your assertions.
Enjoy,
Steven
It is not a strawman because it is about the logic.
I am not saying there is only one response. I am saying given the premise of “murder” the current response is decidedly underwhelming. Maybe they do not see murder, real honest-to-god murder, as that big of a deal but somehow I doubt it.
I do not think the motive is hidden at all. Using “murder” is an attempt to demonize the other side…nothing new there. But this shows it for the bullshit rhetoric it is. Clearly some few have the courage of their convictions but most self described pro-lifers simply cannot hold “abortion is murder” and be casual about it if they really believed that.
I never said this applies to “everyone”. I was repeating language frequently used by the pro-life movement but I am not silly enough to think everyone who would describe themselves as “pro-life” would all be of one mind. At issue is “abortion = murder” and how those who hold that view can be logically consistent about it.
This question pretty much never gets a straight answer from the anti-abortion crowd, and it’s no mystery why. The only possible answer is that we must prohibit abortions even in cases of rape. After all, the fetus isn’t guilty of any crime that would warrant the death penalty. The upshot of this, of course, is that we’d be forcing a woman to carry to term the product of a violent assault, which would be cruel in the extreme.
A thought that’s only tangentially related… Have you noticed that the most virulent anti-abortion people, the real “scream at the woman going into the clinic, shoot the doctor” types, are almost exclusively men? I find this, shall we say, instructive.
Come off it. That’s precisely what you’re saying. You’ve been claiming that it is necessary to kill doctors who perform abortions in order to honestly claim to be pro-life. This is completely absurd.
I’m as pro-choice as they come, but this has to be the worst argument against the anti-choice position I’ve ever encountered.
No.
It is about their equating abortion with murder.
What does “murder” mean to you?
Is there a difference, legally or morally, between murdering a 12-year-old or a 30-year-old? If there isn’t then why would there be a difference between murdering a 12-year-old and a fetus (assuming the fetus is a human and terminating it is murder)?
If someone in your community was shooting people and killing hundreds (aka murdering them) and the police cannot stop it convince me your community’s response would be to content themselves with writing their Congresscritters for a new law and an occasional candle light vigil.
Clearly some few think this way and yet most pro-lifers distance themselves from someone who would murder an abortion doctor. Why are they not hailing the abortion doctor killer as a hero? Who wouldn’t be happy to see someone stop what they view as the murderer of thousands of humans?
If abortion is murder then abortion is a literal holocaust. Worse! Since Roe near 50 million abortions have been performed in the US alone. Does that not demand a wee bit more righteous indignation?
So far in all this thread those questions have been studiously avoided. Where is the logical consistency in truly thinking abortion is murder yet being semi-casual about 50 million deaths and counting?
I’ve wondered this myself in a slightly different manner. If pro-lifers truly believe abortion is killing innocent babies they’d not only be lobbying to end abortion but also to legally hold women and providers as murderers. If they don’t see them as real murderers as in the equivalent of killing an infant, then somewhere ion their head they must not really see a fetus as a baby.
Good point.
In Canada at least “infanticide” is treated as a different (and lesser) crime than murder of a non-infant.
http://www.canadiancrc.com/killing_children.aspx
Does this mean that, in Canada, somewhere in our heads we must not really see a baby as a person?
Edit: note that, while “infanticide” is a species of “culpable homicide” it is not “murder”.
Generally in law the surrounding circumstances may mitigate a crime. For instance murder as a crime of passion is not punished as harshly as premeditated murder.
I presume they assume some mental issues (severe depression or what have you) as a role in infanticide making it a “lesser” crime than casually murdering someone.
Note however that it is still a crime.
An abortion clinic opened many years ago just a few miles from my home. Every day there were protest groups there pacing in front of the door, making a scene, pleading with the staff and their clients to not perform the abortions. Eventually the clinic got a bond of some kind to keep protesters a certain distance from the clinic. The pro-life groups tried to stop what was going on. They were there every day the clinic was open. They were passionate about it. But they haven’t been allowed near the place for a long time. I have to drive by that clinic twice a day. If I ever glance over at it, it makes me feel ill to think how many lives have been taken in there.
We’re already at the point on that slippery slope where the value of an old person’s life is now being debated. I can understand why people would prefer to end their own lives with their own consent if they are dying in pain, but the Netherlands has proven to us that far too many lives have been taken without consent. But, hey, it’s all medically necessary or something like it, so that’s okay. Whoops, sorry.
So if a clinic opened up down the street where anyone over 60 is hauled in for a lethal injection, would you do anything to stop it?
Who has the right to determine when a life isn’t worth anything?
I think a slightly more useful thought experiment is the Burning Lab one:
You find yourself in a hospital and you notice smoke coming under a door marked ‘Fertility Lab’. You open the door to find the room substantially aflame. In one corner of the room, there’s a box marked ‘Contains 10,000 frozen human embryos’, in another corner, there is an unconscious child of age maybe ten or so.
You can’t carry both at once and the room looks set to collapse at any moment - do you rescue one unconscious person, or ten thousand frozen ‘people’?