Richard, I used “plurality” purposely, because it doesn’t look like we can really come up with a “majority” position on abortion. But my exact point is that people like me are certainly opposed to the Religious Right type stuff you are talking about, and we’re not losing sleep over the termination of a weird looking critter like this no bigger than a penny. However, we definitely see killing this as looking a lot more like infanticide. We’re not out to delay abortions, we’re interested in expediting them so they get taken care of poco pronto, before that weird critter from the first link starts to look more like the baby in the second link (you can call it a “fetus”, but it sure looks like a baby to me).
And the evidence suggests that our group, while not a majority, is larger than either of the ones that get all the press and do all the shouting at each other.
Shodan, I am still sensing disingenuousness here, and you did not answer my direct question: do you support the right to elective abortion (and I’m not speaking about cases of rape, incest, or threats to the mother’s life) at *any *stage of pregnancy, even early on? Or are you just against it, period?
My post was directed to Shodan. I understand your point, SlackerInc. Of course, on all issues we can lump or split the various schools of thought, and you’re probably right that it’s time to analyze abortion as something more than a two-sided issue.
So IYO “disingenuous” is a meaningless adjective, or at least not relevant?
Furthermore, I’d argue that there is a very big difference between arguing against late term abortions simply because you oppose all abortions and are trying to chip away at them wherever you see an angle (which it seems you are implicitly admitting is where you are coming from), and arguing for an absolute bedrock right to early term abortion while opposing later ones. It’s not just the abstract idea that one’s internal motivations are different; it’s that either the *actual argument *must be different, or the strictly anti-abortion arguer has to be dishonest.
ETA: Oh jeez, I can’t believe I didn’t notice my subject line typo until now. Mods, is it possible to fix that?
SlackerInc, to answer your question, Shodan is an old religious guy who hates abortion and thinks fetuses are people. That’s what colors his refusal to respond, because I dunno, maybe he thinks you’ll be less likely to listen to his BS knowing that
But that’s the point - the argument does not change. I post it, and you judge if it is valid or not. Suppose you think it is worthless. Then you find out you agree with me in general on the topic. That changes nothing about the argument, so it shouldn’t change your judgment of its worth at all.
If you are tired of seeing the extremes fight, ISTM that you should develop your ability to evaluate arguments (from either side) without trying to force the speakers into one extreme or the other.
Blah, blah, blah. Again we cannot tell what your actual position on abortion is.
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See the problem? He isn’t paying any attention to arguments or their validity. He just wants to find out what your position on abortion is. Based on that, he wants to decide whether to support you or attack, no matter what the validity of your case might be.
Or the even more extreme case of YogSosoth’s post, which simply assumes that everyone who does not agree 100% must disagree 100%.
They may be 14% in the US population, but I would bet the percentage of the more vocal Dopers who will not accept any limit on abortion is a lot more than that.
Certainly it does. “Late term abortions are wrong because all abortions are wrong, because human life begins at conception” is not the same argument as “we need to promote the availability and necessity of early term abortion, when you’re dealing with something akin to a salamander, and avoid later term abortion, when you’re dealing with someone that is essentially just an extra small baby”.
Those are not the same argument even superficially, not to mention that even the ostensibly allied elements of restriction are quite different:
(1) “You failed to abstain from sex until you were ready to become a mother, so the state should require you to go through nine months of pregnancy and birth, even if the embryo inside you is currently the size of the period at the end of this sentence and has no brain.”
vs.
(2) “You need to be provided education and access to contraception, so as to be able to be sexually active in a non-procreative way. If that doesn’t work, you need to be provided a reasonable window of time to terminate an ‘oopsie’ pregnancy. If, despite all that, you get pregnant and miss that window of time, that is unfortunate, but the baby’s human rights start to come into play at that point.”
You’re not getting me. What I meant was that once I have made an argument, that argument does not change when you find out what I think about abortion.
“Parents should be notified when their minor daughters are having an abortion, because we require such notification for things like tattoos and piercings, and abortion is a much more significant event than a tattoo”. If you think that is invalid, does it become valid when you find out it is coming from someone who is pro-choice?
Or perhaps “abortions should be illegal in the third trimester”. If proposed by someone who opposes abortion, does it become invalid?
Different arguments should assessed separately, certainly. But not the same argument, depending on who said it.
It’s not so much a question of validity, as of honesty and forthrightness. “Abortions should be illegal in the third trimester”, coming from someone who believes that abortions should be illegal in *all *trimesters, contains within it a deceptive implication (that at some earlier point, abortions should not be illegal).
Imagine if it were flipped around, and someone levelled the following accusation:
“**Shodan **wants to pass a law prohibiting black women from getting abortions.”
Would you consider that a fair and honest statement about your views? It’s technically true in the same way as your “abortions should be illegal in the third trimester” assertion. But there’s a reason the oath you take in court includes an avowal that you will tell “the *whole *truth”.
And it is valid when coming from someone who believes that abortions ought to be legal in the first trimester? Why?
If someone is pro-abortion, and comes in and tells you it is raining outside, and shows you a wet umbrella and the hem of his pant legs are wet, do you change your mind about wearing a raincoat when you find out he is anti-abortion? Why would you - the evidence is the same in both cases.
I tried to explain it to you with the point about how “**Shodan **wants to prohibit black women from getting abortions”, but you conveniently elided that issue. I am detecting a pattern, so I have nothing further to say to you about it, unless and until you respond specifically to that and stop playing dodgeball.
What? That’s totally irrelevant, and SlackerInc’s illustrative point “Shodan wants to pass a law prohibiting black women from getting abortions,” is very good. What he (or she) meant, was that “If Shodan wants to pass a law prohibiting all woman from getting abortions, included in that proposition is the prohibition of black women getting abortions, but when you phrase it the way it was phrased, it seems implicit that Shodan wants to allow white women to get abortions, and prohibit only black women from getting them.”
Someone who wants to prohibit all abortions of course wants to prohibit late-term abortions, but if someone says to “I want a law that prohibits late-term abortions,” it seems implicit that the speaker wants to allow early-term abortions. Is this the case with you?
See Shodan? If you try to deceive people by omitting where you’re coming from and trying to sound reasonable, its really not the same as actually being reasonable. Maybe just be honest from now on, I know your religion kinda has a thing about that, right? The same one you use to justify putting clumps of cells above actual people
Thank you! I kind of fist-pumped when I thought of it, because I post all kinds of stuff day after day but I too thought that was especially noteworthy, so I appreciate that feedback.
The idea that you need to determine what a person’s position is on abortion before you evaluate the validity of his arguments is a logical error. One may certainly debate whether or not black women should be prevented from aborting, but preventing abortion for blacks does not become a good idea if one is black or a bad one if one is white.
Same for abortion. Why should third-trimester abortion become a good idea because some of thos advocating against them are anti-abortion? The argument for or against third-trimester abortion stands or falls on its own.This is at the base of something you complained about in your OP - pro-abortion extremists discount all arguments coming from anyone with any reservations on the topic.
All of those trying desperately to get me to tell them whether to accept or reject my arguments based on my position are making a fundamental logical mistake.
You sort of seem to be trying to engage, so I’ll give it another shot.
Certain kinds of phrasing are generally understood to carry with them implicit, unsaid components. If you are an insurance adjuster sent to Elm Street to assess the damage after a wildfire, and you say “101 Elm and 104 Elm were destroyed”, and your boss later finds out that 102 and 103 were *also *destroyed, is she going to say to herself, “well, **Shodan **did tell the truth–my fault for assuming that was all he meant”? C’mon.
So getting back to the specific matter: if you say “I believe third trimester abortion should be banned”, your use of the qualification “third trimester” will generally be understood as meaning that you do not believe *all *abortions should be banned. So you are being misleading, and most likely intentionally so.
If (to anticipate a possible response) there is some concrete proposal to ban late term abortions, and you support it because half a loaf is better than none, that’s fine–but it’s still dishonest if you imply that you are supporting it because it is the lateness that you object to. Just say “I oppose all abortions, but reducing them in any way is some progress, so we can band together on this”. I will join you in supporting a late term ban, while I will join absolutist pro-choicers on protections for early term abortions. There’s no call for either of us to be disingenuous.
You are still missing the point. Trying to find out what I feel otherwise on abortion so you can assume you know what I am implying is a waste of time. That’s one of the things you complained about in your OP. You objected to people doing to you exactly what you are trying to do here.
The pro-choice stalwarts pay no attention to your arguments because you don’t agree with them 100%. In the same way, you are trying to find out if I agree with you 100% so you can decide whether or not to pay attention to my arguments.
That’s a logical fallacy as well as a tactical mistake.
