Actually, you are wrong here. When someone says they are pro gun, they mean they think it is a good thing if people own guns if they want to. When people say they are pro-gay marriage, it means they think it is a good thing if people marry someone from the same sex if they want to.
Many of us, if not most of us who are pro-choice do NOT think it is a good thing when someone has an abortion, just like we don’t think it is a good thing when someone has any kind of surgery. We think it is a good thing the surgery is available, we think it is a good thing that a person may chose to have the surgery, but we would prefer a world where there are no unwanted pregnancies, and no malformed fetuses, and no pregnancy complications threatening the life or health of the pregnant woman. Pro-gun people would not, generally, prefer a world without guns. Pro-SSM people would not, generally, prefer a world with no same sex marriages.
It’s entirely honest debate. Perhaps you should re-read what you wrote out? You said, and I quote verbatim:
This is you explicitly stating that you’re going to trust the judgment of a doctor when it comes to when and under what circumstances an abortion is allowed under the implicit assumption that doctors know more than the legislature does and would operate in the best interest of everyone involved. On it’s face, this isn’t exactly a problem; it is a problem, however, when you’re dealing with an unscrupulous doctor, or pretty much anyone, who will perform an abortion on a woman for any reason at any time, even going so far as to kill viable babies after they’re born alive, stuff them into a trash bag or even put them on display in a jar. Would you trust the decision of a doctor who does the following to do the following over, say, a legislator who would pass legislation barring abortions after a certain period of time unless there’s a medical reason for them? Apparently, you would. The point, which you missed, is that you are somehow assuming that the doctor has the best interests of everyone involved and would act act accordingly, whereas the legislator would not. This is quite false, and there are many instances which will attest to this simple fact. The whole “doctor vs. legislator” deal is a false conflict.
It’s not a failed analogy in the slightest though, since you’re operating from an extreme position, then you have no choice but to consider it an invalid response. The things is that, when it comes to abortion, location is completely inconsequential, even moreso when you consider the fact that even the vast majority of pro-choicers in virtually every country-- and quite possibly even on this site-- would never argue that the unborn can be aborted at any time during pregnancy for any reason the woman wants, solely because it’s in the woman’s body. What they generally argue is that abortion is permissible up until point XYZ as, before that time, the fetus has no rights, and that after point XYZ abortion becomes impermissible unless there is a threat to the mother’s health or a severe fetal defect. Where someone is located at the time does not dictate whether they have moral status. The fact that it’s the woman’s body doesn’t come in to play when decidimg whether here for the majority of pro-choicers, outside of empty rhetoric.
No. It’s the assertion that one has a right to act paramount to one’s right to not be acted against, which is highly ridiculous, and flatly disgusting. Most pro-choicers, at some point in time, will take issue to a woman who has wanton sex over and over without regards to the consequence, and has multiple abortions. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that said individuals tend to cause people to rethink their abortion views.
A couple of things here.
First, you’re treating “against her will” to mean against her stated wishes. This is a slight conflation. Consent to an action or an action’s consequence(s) does not need to be explicitly stated. To illustrate the point, take the following example. If a man lies down and impregnates a woman, a court of law will make him responsible for his actions even if the pregnancy which resulted as a consequence of his actions was against his stated will, because it will be deemed that the fact that he chose to engage in sex means he was consenting to potential fatherhood. The fact that he didn’t explicitly content to potentially being a father will be deemed wholely irrelevant. On the other hand, if a woman lies down and is impregnated, the same court will turn around and state that she isn’t responsible for her actions, and the fact that she chose to engage in sex doesn’t mean she was consenting to potential fatherhood. In one of these cases what’s against one’s will is decided by their actions, and in the other what’s against one’s will is decided by their explicity stated words. In other words, the personal responsibility angle would be applied against the man while it would simulaneously be refused to apply the angle of personal responsibility against the woman. This is nothing more than simply a case of picking and choosing when personal responsibility applies and when it does not, based on nothing more than gender. Unless a woman is raped, there is a choice which precedes becoming pregnant, and that choice is to engage in sex or to not engage is sex. To say that a pregnancy which results from a knowledgable choice she made is therefore “against her will” is to argue dishonestly. In the same vein, a pregnant which results from a knowledgable choice a man makes is also “against his will”, though I’m sure if ever a suggestion were to be made, he’d be received with boos, hisses and jeers.
Second, you completely ignored the whole privacy angle of my response. As I’m guessing you’re insinuating, a woman has a right to privacy which cannot be intruded upon by the government regardless of whether or not the other individual is a person or a human being or whatever, then why can I not drag someone into the privacy of my own home, do to them as I please, and then claim that my actions are protected as I have a right to privacy which cannot be infringed upon? Privacy is privacy. If you’re going to treat the two as differently, then you’re burdened with explaining when privacy matters and what’s really private and what isn’t.
I’m pretty positive I didn’t say the two were analogous.
The abortion rate will go down, the adoption rate will go up, the birth rate will go up, some women will have illegal abortions in the U.S. and some will travel elsewhere. That’s not a pretty hard question.
There’s nothing short sighted about my views. Please don’t tell me you’re going to use the whole “abortion should remain legal or else tons of women will die!” argument, as that’s quite laughable. This is also written pre-emptively, but why would that matter and how is it an argument for leaving abortion legal? Surely you’d agree that if we made theft legal, that fewer people would die each year than people who currently die as a result of being killed while in the process of trying to rob someone, yes? So would you agree that theft should be legalized in order to prevent fewer people dying yearly, or would you argue that it doesn’t matter how many people die per year, that the effects of making theft legal would negatively affect those who are stolen from?
This is simply untrue and is nothing more than you trying to redefine terms to suit you. Have you totally forgotten about the “Well, I’d never do that, but I’d never stop someone from doing that!” or the “Well, I’m personally opposed to that but…” lines that people typically like to apply to a host of activities? There are plenty of people who think that owning guns are a bad idea and that the world would be better off without guns, or that SSM’s are a bad idea and that the world would be better off without them, or who think that smoking pot is idiotic and lead to the degradation of society, who nevertheless argue that people should be able to own as many guns as they want and marry whomever they want or even smoke as much pot as they want. The pro-before the action denotes a choice, not being forced to engage in that action nor thinking that action is good idea. The fact is that you’re not pro-choice; that’s an empty euphemism, as you have to be chosing something, which could be anything. You’re pro-abortion. That doesn’t sound as pretty as pro-choice, but it is what it is.
And you think these people would call themselves pro-gun? Really?
Because it describes me pretty well. I think they should be legal and I think they are a bad idea. I wouldn’t call myself “pro-gun.” I’d say I’m not anti-gun. I am, in essence, pro-choice when it comes to guns.
Irrelevant. The question is about the usage of terms like “pro gun,” 'pro SSM" and so on.
I need to see examples (several of them, since there are supposed to be “plenty” of such people out there) of people who say something equivalent to “I’m pro gun, and I think people should not own guns” or “I’m pro SSM, and I think people should not marry people of the same sex” etc.
I’m not going to waste my time finding nitpicky examples in order to placate your inane request, when you very well know that that idea of not supporting something yourself, and even thinking it’s a bad idea, but not wanting to stop other people from engaging in that action themselves is one of the hallmarks of “tolerance”.
I know there are people who think thoughts of that form. What I don’t know is that “plenty” of those people refer to themselves as “pro-” concerning the thing the thought is about.
See the previous post by me for clarificaiton, and see jsgoddess’s post for another example of someone taking issue with your claim about the usage of the term “pro-gun”.
Being tolerant of something and being pro- something are not equivalent.
Now, unlike most, I will say that I could rightly be called “pro-abortion” under some circumstances. There are times when I don’t just think it’s an option, but I think it’s the right option–and I would say so if someone sought my advice. They rarely do, so it rarely comes up.
You are arguing that people avoid the term “pro-abortion” because they know it is wrong to allow people to have the choice to abort, and are trying to avoid coming to terms with that fact by instead calling themselves “pro-choice.”
To the objection that “pro-abortion” doesn’t mean simply “believing people should be allowed to abort whether this is good or bad” but rather “believing it is good for people to abort when they want to,” you replied by pointing out that plenty of people believe things should be allowed that they think are bad–and you claimed as well that such people label themselves “pro-” concerning these things they think should be allowed.
Your argument simply doesn’t work unless you can convince people that “plenty” of pro-gun people believe that it’s wrong to have a gun but should be allowed nevertheless, and “plenty” of pro-SSM people believe it’s wrong to marry someone of the same gender, but should be allowed nevertheless.
Of course there are people who believe these things. But your argument rests on a claim that these people often designate themselves as “pro-gun” and “pro-SSM” (or some clearly equivalent term or phrase). That is what you are being challenged on. If you can’t provide any evidence for this claim about how the terms are used, then your whole argument about the term “pro-choice” falls apart.
Once you look around and notice the usage of “pro-X” doesn’t work the way you’ve said it works, what you should be doing is re-appraising your view as to why people call htemselves pro-choice instead of pro-abortion.
Being pro-something doesn’t necessarily mean you like it or are happy about it, nor does it require you to be happy about something or like something. It means you think it should be available, allowed and/or (freely) engaged in at the individual’s discretion. It’s really that simple, and is the way the term is applied to everything else. Well, everything sans abortion because then, you know, it means you’re an advocate of forced abortions
So you said. And I asked for evidence for this claim, and you refused to give any. Repeating yourself doesn’t help.
The fact is, there is probably almost no one who says anything equivalent to “I’m pro-gun and I think people should not have guns” or “I’m pro-SSM and I think people should not marry people of the same gender.”
That’s the fact. If you can show otherwise, I’m open to it, but so far you’re just refusing and repeating–not a good sign.
No, I said people shy away from the term pro-abortion because they consider it to be in the same vein as something such as, say, pro-rape or even pro-slavery.
This is quite frankly not what happened. I pointed out that equating pro-abortion to mean that you’re an advocate of forced abortions when people who are pro-guns or pro-gay marriage aren’t taken to mean that they believe that everyone should be forced to own a gun, or forced into a SSM, to not make much sense. And to that, someone tried chiming in with something amount to “liking something vs. disliking something”, which is a complete non-factor and is simple straw grasping.
And yet again, this isn’t something you have to prove, because the implication behind being pro-anything is that you agree it should be legal/allowed, not that you necessarily like it or even personally agree with it. Again, you’re conflating two very different issues for reasons unknown to me.
Just no. See my response above.
Except, guess what? It does. The only place the rules become changed is in reference to abortion. As it relates to abortion, pro-choicers aren’t deemed as pro-abortion (in the media, anyway), because pro-choice sounds a hell of a lot better than pro-abortion. It’s the same reason why abortion advocates shy away from using the word abortion in public, rather hiding behind terms such as “reproductive health care”, “social justice” or, my personal favorite, “women’s health”. Abortion is a dirty word, and people don’t like it, so they avoid using it, instead hiding behind flowery terms and euphemisms. That’s just a fact of life.
Apparently, that whole “personally-opposed-to-but-letting-others-make-their-own-decisions” line has never been uttered around you. What’s funny to me, is that you’re trying to make such a line only reference ‘pro-choice’. But this, as I pointed out in some earlier post which went ignored, doesn’t mean anything, as you can’t just be ‘pro-choice’. Someone from, say, another world who has no idea what the abortion debate is about would have no idea what that means, as they’d instantly ask you “what choice?”, to which you’d respond the choice to have an abortion. The fact is that you have to be pro-a-choice, not just ‘pro-choice’ in general, which in this case is abortion. And instead of pro-the-choice-to-have-an-abortion, that can just be shorted to be pro-abortion, much like pro-the-choice-to-own-a-gun is shortened to pro-gun. You really, really have no argument here, and I’m actually not so sure why I’m arguing this, as it’s wholly a waste of time.
(On a slightly related note, I find it funny how pro-lifers can be anti-abortion, but pro-choicers can’t be pro-abortion and how pro-lifers can be anti-choice, but pro-choicers can’t be anti-life. Funny how that works, isn’t it? I’m sure you’ll come up with a reason why that’s okay as well.)
Edit: And before I forget, the line would probably look something like this: “I consider myself pro-gun. While I personally wouldn’t own a gun, and while I personally believe that the world would be better off without them, I wouldn’t want to take away anyone else’s guns.” Sounds familiar, right?
Just dropping in to say that I’ll cop to at least two of those three.
I’d be in favor of a gun-free planet, I have never owned a gun, and I think that most people in most situations are better off not owning them; but I think in the actual world we live in, banning ownership of them is a very bad idea.
I don’t do drugs, wish other people didn’t either, and have advised freinds to stop; nonetheless in the actual world we live in, I think drugs should be legal.
So there’s a data point, FWIW.
Throughout both of your posts you continue to use this as the cornerstone of your defense against the claim that you should provide cites.
I’ll say it one more time:
No one disputes that people say they are personally opposed to things yet think they should be allowed.
What I and at least one other poster have disputed, rather, is that such people call themselves “pro-” concerning whatever the thing in question may be.
I claim that almost no one calls themselves pro-SSM and also says they think it would be best if gay people did not marry each other.
Again: I know there are people who say gay people shouldn’t marry each other but should be allowed to marry nevertheless. What is false is that there are “plenty” of people who think that and who adopt the label “pro-SSM”.
This is an important point for you to defend, because it is based on your claims aobut what “pro-X” means that you argue those who call themselves ‘pro-choice’ are actually ‘pro-abortion’. If you can’t defend this point, then that argument is out the window.
More precisely, I would say “Owning guns is (often) a bad idea and the world would be better off without guns, and that smoking pot is a bad idea and harms society, but I nevertheless argue that people should be able to own as many guns as they want or even smoke as much pot as they want.”
That’s a slightly-amended version of what you asked for a cite for. I am an anecdote.
And you can dispute it all you want. As I said, I’m not going to waste my time trying to find you multiple examples of people calling themselves “pro-something” while claiming they are personally opposed to it. Even moreso since the crux of your entire opposition to what I wrote out seems to be you fixated on the word “plenty”, which is nothing more than senseless nitpicking to the nth degree. At this point, you’ve just diverted attention away from everything I’ve actually written out to debate whether or not there are “plenty” of people who do something which, was a pretty small part of my post. And with that, I’m done responding to that, so if you want to continue then by all means go ahead. I won’t respond to it.
