Bad arguments your side makes

I hate how my side just won't ****ing admit that they are killing a developing human being or child in utero. It is as if they are assuaging their guilt. As if it matters to the woman's rights. It is a baby. Get the **** over it.

I support the killing of a baby in utero.

MrWonka said:

I am pro-choice. I think trying to convince pro-lifers that a fetus isn't a life is a waste of time, .

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Josie said:

A fetus isn't a life? Someone slept through Biology 101, I see.

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See my post above?

This is what I am talking about... a fetus isn't a life? Of course it is. I am pro-choice and know that the fetus is a life. Why don't you Mr W?

Skeptic Bob said:

What are some abortion arguments that your side makes that you disagree with or think do a bad job at making the case? Please also state if you are pro-choice (elective abortion should be legal) or pro-life (elective abortion should be illegal). I'll go first.

I am pro-choice. I hate it when fellow pro-choicers say something along the lines of "If you don't like abortion then don't have one, but don't make it illegal for everyone else." It completely ignores the fact that most pro-lifers believe the fetus is an actual person/baby. So to them it is like saying, "If you think murdering people is wrong then don't murder people, but don't make it illegal for everyone else."

Remember, this is about critiquing arguments your own side makes.

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Interesting thread. A few things I can think of...

1. Not relying enough on the viability argument. That bypasses the back-and-forth "It's a baby!/It's a fetus!" silliness.

2. Not recognizing that economic reasons dominate the list of reasons for women's seeking abortions. Josie alluded to this. Rape and disabilities do show up but for the purposes of abortions, they are rare.

Bodhisattva said:

I hate how my side just won't ****ing admit that they are killing a developing human being or child in utero.

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FACTS ARE FACTS. A "developing" human being or child or baby is not the same thing as an actual human being or child or baby. And that's a negative claim that both can be proved, and I'm willing to offer the proof.
1) With respect to the word "being", it is synonymous with "person". A human being is a human person. While the word "being" CAN be used to reference existence, Common Usage clearly indicates that the "person" definition is intended, and not the "existence" definition. That's because rabbits exist, yet no one call them "rabbit beings", and toads exist, yet no one calls them "toad beings", and so on. Only humans get routinely called "human beings".

2) Personhood is a label that refers to certain characteristics that ordinary animals lack. It is well-known and widely accepted that it is possible for non-human entities to qualify as persons; humans have been imagining such entities, from angels to elves, for thousands of years, and haven't stopped such imaginings in the modern era (extraterrestrial and True Artificial Intelligences). We have a variety of tests which can be performed to detect the characteristics of personhood, and it is impossible for any unborn human to pass any of those tests. Therefore every unborn human is only "a human" and not "a human person/being".

3) The main thing that distinguishes an unborn human from a born human is its placenta. For most of a pregnancy the placenta is a vital organ that it cannot survive without --but no normal born human needs a placenta, which is discarded at birth. The unborn human is a "baby or child under construction", as different from an ordinary baby or child as a house-under-construction is different from an ordinary house that can be lived-in.

4) It can actually be unethical to call the unborn human "a baby" or "a child". That's because of the Natural miscarriage rate. Consider two pregnant women, one of whom is told, "you are having a baby!", while the other is told, "you are hosting a biological construction project that Naturally tends to have a 1/6 chance of failure" --if both women miscarry, which one will be the more disappointed and the more emotionally devastated? The one who was in-essence told a LIE, implying a 100%-guaranteed successful outcome of the pregnancy, equating the unborn human with a baby.

Bodhisattva said:

I hate how my side just won't ****ing admit that they are killing a developing human being or child in utero. It is as if they are assuaging their guilt. As if it matters to the woman's rights. It is a baby. Get the **** over it.

I support the killing of a baby in utero.

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It is a matter of perspective. RvW is a legal issue. So many wish to speak in more legal terms.

A child or a human being to many equates with a person...is legally someone who has been born alive.

On the other hand, I do not know of any prochoicer that would disagree with the fact that abortion kills either a fetus or an embryo or that the embryo or fetus is human.

You can't be a liberal and be prolife .... or you can't be a conservative and be prochoice. :roll: The political argument regarding abortion is used far too often by both sides to define what party you should vote for. Absolutely ridiculous!

I hate when members who claim or label themselves to be on one side or the other of the abortion argument, who, by evidence of their posts, clearly are not what they claim.

Since the beginning of human science and democractic societies, there have been clear distinctions created about the various stages of human life from legal, scientific, even moral disciplines, which are 100% necessary. There has to be some mechanisms in place in order establish unique distinguishable and understandable facts about all facets of humanity, including reproduction. "EMPIRICAL FACTS, WHICH ARE GLOBALLY KNOWN".

It's obvious that there are groups of people who find it hard to accept the biological, legislative labels, judicial labels, and procedures/protocols established over untold decades, which have been developed by more advanced nations over time - to delineate the various the different stages of human life, which are necessary for a variety of social and medical reasons. Some of those reasons have helped to develop what some people hate the most - and that is the establishment of a value factor for each stage - without malice. These value factors are one of the by-products of modern societies learning and understanding more about various components of being human.

I know there are groups who will disagree, but if "value factors weren't inadvertently created" for each stage of the yet to be born, there would be individual and social impacts that would create extreme, draconian consequences, which would be decided outside the rule of law.

year2late said:

It is a matter of perspective. RvW is a legal issue. So many wish to speak in more legal terms.

A child or a human being to many equates with a person...is legally someone who has been born alive.

On the other hand, I do not know of any prochoicer that would disagree with the fact that abortion kills either a fetus or an embryo or that the embryo or fetus is human.

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I've spoken to several pro-choicers who say exactly that. When I ask what species the fetus is, they'll say something like "That doesn't matter!!!!!1111"

Josie said:

When I ask what species the fetus is, they'll say something like "That doesn't matter!!!!!1111"

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IF YOU THINK IT MATTERS, WHY NOT OFFER SOME EVIDENCE? After all, the claim that "human life matters" is exactly the sort of Positive Claim where the Burden of Proof falls upon the claimant. And while you are assembling your evidence, remember that cuticle cells killed during manicures and pedicures are "human life", that human cancer cells and human hydatidiform moles are "human life", and that even a brain-dead adult on life support counts as "human life" (while simultaneously counting as a corpse).

For pro-choicers, **persons** matter, in accordance with the US Constitution. Not "human life".

Josie said:

I've spoken to several pro-choicers who say exactly that. When I ask what species the fetus is, they'll say something like "That doesn't matter!!!!!1111"

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I have never seen a pro-choicer deny that a fetus gestating in a human is human.

Can you link me up with examples?

Now, we may see a difference between a human fetus and a human being. But the fetus is human. Not a person. But the fetus is emphatically human. But yes, I would be interested to see what prochoicer disagrees that a fetus is human.

year2late said:

I have never seen a pro-choicer deny that a fetus gestating in a human is human.

Can you link me up with examples?

Now, we may see a difference between a human fetus and a human being. But the fetus is human. Not a person. But the fetus is emphatically human. But yes, I would be interested to see what prochoicer disagrees that a fetus is human.

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This was from talking about abortion on twitter. People have said it here too, but not nearly as many as on Twitter.

A few months ago I was talking to Objective Voice on this forum about abortion. He said that a fetus isn't even "alive" until birth. I mean ---- what? LOL! He also said something like "a fetus continues to develop until gestation". LOL!

Josie said:

This was from talking about abortion on twitter. People have said it here too, but not nearly as many as on Twitter.

A few months ago I was talking to Objective Voice on this forum about abortion. He said that a fetus isn't even "alive" until birth. I mean ---- what? LOL! He also said something like "a fetus continues to develop until gestation". LOL!

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Josie,

I'd say that your experiences are further proof that there's a lot of dumbasses everywhere.

Removable Mind said:

Josie,

I'd say that your experiences are further proof that there's a lot of dumbasses everywhere.

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I'd agree.

Skeptic Bob said:

What are some abortion arguments that your side makes that you disagree with or think do a bad job at making the case? Please also state if you are pro-choice (elective abortion should be legal) or pro-life (elective abortion should be illegal). I'll go first.

I am pro-choice. I hate it when fellow pro-choicers say something along the lines of "If you don't like abortion then don't have one, but don't make it illegal for everyone else." It completely ignores the fact that most pro-lifers believe the fetus is an actual person/baby. So to them it is like saying, "If you think murdering people is wrong then don't murder people, but don't make it illegal for everyone else."

Remember, this is about critiquing arguments your own side makes.

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I am neither pro-legalized abortion or anti-legalized abortion, but I like the premise of this thread, so I'll join in and state some of what I dislike from both sides.

- I hate the example you give above. Like you say, it ignores the fact that people on the other side view abortion as murder, and if you wouldn't murder a 2 day old born baby, then you certainly wouldn't approve of murdering an as-yet unborn baby.

- "Making a medical decision is between a patient and his or her own doctor." Sorry, but no. We elect politicians to represent us precisely because people are simply not capable of self-governing. We elect politicians to establish standards to keep rogue commercial entities in line. In any and all subjects, not just medical.

- "I approve of a woman's ability to have an abortion, but *I* would never have one." Oh, aren't you just the shining example of fairness and nobility. If you would never have one, then you obviously think it's wrong on some level. Stop straddling the fence.

- "Pro choice". I am pro-choice, too... wait a minute, what are we choosing? It's too vague to actually mean anything. If you have to use a euphemism to make it sounds less offensive then you are admitting there are moral issues involved, and that said moral issues are uncomfortable for you.. The procedure has a name, and the name is "abortion". If it's so unoffensive, as you claim, then suck it up and use it.

- "Pro Life". While a tad closer to being accurate, you're no more noble than the "pro choicers", regardless of the euphemism you choose. Your actions and opinions regarding life after birth betray your stated concern.

- "Pro-Lifers are hypocrites because they're also pro-death penalty." Are you really so dense that you cannot see the difference between the two? In abortion, the baby/fetus/whatever has no say in the matter. They didn't do anything wrong. They didn't do anything to earn their fate. In the case of the death penalty, the person is at that place because of their own choices and actions.

- Prosecuting the killing of a pregnant woman as a double-murder. No. If the baby/fetus/whatever is not worthy of legal protection, then we need to be consistent in that. If the baby/fetus/whatever IS worthy of legal protection, then we need to be consistent there. Pick one.

- Similar to the above point, "...except in cases of incest or rape." This is just a bone to toss to people to make it more politically palatable. If it's a life, it's a life, regardless of the circumstances. Is it a life, or isn't it? Again, pick one.

- Pro-Lifers acting all pious regarding abortion, but having no plan or concern for what happens after birth. Hell, some openly want to offer no help whatsoever. For some of these births it's going to be abject poverty? That's good?!?

- Political pandering. President Clinton once said, smugly, that abortions should be, "...safe, legal, and rare." Oh, do shut up, Mr President. That's never going to happen, all three of those together.

- "Men should have no say over a woman's body." Ok, fine. If the man has no say then he should also have no responsibility, financial or otherwise. It should be treated like a parent surrendering their parental rights in an adoption... it's done and finished and irrevocable.

- "If health insurance won't pay for abortion or birth control, then it shouldn't pay for Viagra." Health insurance should pay for birth control, and it should pay for Viagra. The purpose of medicine, actually, is to heal and not do damage, or IOW not "break" things. Thwarting a pregnancy from even happening via birth control is not breaking anything. Viagra is an attempt to heal something that is broken. Abortion is taking something that is working as it is designed to perform, and breaking it.

I think you got about six legitimate on-topic responses. *sigh*

FutureIncoming said:

FACTS ARE FACTS. A "developing" human being or child or baby is not the same thing as an actual human being or child or baby. And that's a negative claim that both can be proved, and I'm willing to offer the proof.
1) With respect to the word "being", it is synonymous with "person". A human being is a human person. While the word "being" CAN be used to reference existence, Common Usage clearly indicates that the "person" definition is intended, and not the "existence" definition. That's because rabbits exist, yet no one call them "rabbit beings", and toads exist, yet no one calls them "toad beings", and so on. Only humans get routinely called "human beings".

2) Personhood is a label that refers to certain characteristics that ordinary animals lack. It is well-known and widely accepted that it is possible for non-human entities to qualify as persons; humans have been imagining such entities, from angels to elves, for thousands of years, and haven't stopped such imaginings in the modern era (extraterrestrial and True Artificial Intelligences). We have a variety of tests which can be performed to detect the characteristics of personhood, and it is impossible for any unborn human to pass any of those tests. Therefore every unborn human is only "a human" and not "a human person/being".

3) The main thing that distinguishes an unborn human from a born human is its placenta. For most of a pregnancy the placenta is a vital organ that it cannot survive without --but no normal born human needs a placenta, which is discarded at birth. The unborn human is a "baby or child under construction", as different from an ordinary baby or child as a house-under-construction is different from an ordinary house that can be lived-in.

4) It can actually be unethical to call the unborn human "a baby" or "a child". That's because of the Natural miscarriage rate. Consider two pregnant women, one of whom is told, "you are having a baby!", while the other is told, "you are hosting a biological construction project that Naturally tends to have a 1/6 chance of failure" --if both women miscarry, which one will be the more disappointed and the more emotionally devastated? The one who was in-essence told a LIE, implying a 100%-guaranteed successful outcome of the pregnancy, equating the unborn human with a baby.

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That is why I said "developing human being"...

year2late said:

It is a matter of perspective. RvW is a legal issue. So many wish to speak in more legal terms.

A child or a human being to many equates with a person...is legally someone who has been born alive.

On the other hand, I do not know of any prochoicer that would disagree with the fact that abortion kills either a fetus or an embryo or that the embryo or fetus is human.

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Biologically speaking an unborn baby two days before birth is as much of a person as one that was born 12 seconds ago...

That is honesty and not trying to hide behind legal jargon...

I read your whole post fairly carefully, but am going to reply to only two parts of it (because semi-related).

radcen said:

In abortion, the baby/fetus/whatever has no say in the matter. They didn't do anything wrong. They didn't do anything to earn their fate. In the case of the death penalty, the person is at that place because of their own choices and actions.

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THAT IS AN INACCURATE CLAIM. While an unborn human does not technically qualify for the label of "parasite", it most certainly does **act** worse than any typical parasite. And we kill ordinary parasites routinely, entirely because their actions don't have to be tolerated! The ONLY rationale a woman needs, if she desires to seek an abortion, is "self defense".

radcen said:

If the man has no say then he should also have no responsibility, financial or otherwise.

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EXCEPT HE HAS ALREADY COMMITTED AN ACTION FOR WHICH HE IS RESPONSIBLE. Child-support is basically a Legal Penalty for acting as stupid as a bank robber. He chose to get involved with a woman who had some interest in carrying a pregnancy to term. If he had no desire for offspring he should have been more careful about his choices, including his birth-control choices. For example, why not only pick women who have had full hysterectomies? It is literally impossible for them to get pregnant from ordinary sex!

Bodhisattva said:

That is why I said "developing human being"...

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AND THEREFORE it should be entirely okay for anyone to call an unborn human a zygote or a morula or a blastocyst or an embryo or a fetus. They are entirely appropriate and accurate terms for various stages of a developing human body.

ONE MORE THING: Even a fully-developed human body is not what makes a human a person, an entity that has measurably superior mind-power, compared to ordinary animals. The development of that mind-power only happens after birth, and is a consequence of Nurture, not Nature. Per Nature only, the final state of human physical development is just a clever animal, typically known as "a feral child". What I am pointing out is that it is still inaccurate to call an unborn human "a developing human being", because at birth it still completely lacks all Objectively Measurable characteristics of personhood! The unborn is only "a developing human body", and is nothing more than that.

FutureIncoming said:

I read your whole post fairly carefully, but am going to reply to only two parts of it (because semi-related).

THAT IS AN INACCURATE CLAIM. While an unborn human does not technically qualify for the label of "parasite", it most certainly does **act** worse than any typical parasite. And we kill ordinary parasites routinely, entirely because their actions don't have to be tolerated! The ONLY rationale a woman needs, if she desires to seek an abortion, is "self defense".


EXCEPT HE HAS ALREADY COMMITTED AN ACTION FOR WHICH HE IS RESPONSIBLE. Child-support is basically a Legal Penalty for acting as stupid as a bank robber. He chose to get involved with a woman who had some interest in carrying a pregnancy to term. If he had no desire for offspring he should have been more careful about his choices, including his birth-control choices. For example, why not only pick women who have had full hysterectomies? It is literally impossible for them to get pregnant from ordinary sex!

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Translation: You disagree with a couple items. That's fine.

radcen said:

Translation: You disagree with a couple items. That's fine.

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MORE THAN JUST THAT; I explained how a couple of your items were invalid. If you think they were actually valid, you should be able to present better arguments than you actually did. Regardless of your chosen stance in the Overall Abortion Debate, if you get Facts wrong, or if you ignore relevant Facts, you deserve to be corrected (I'm being consistent with something generic that I implied in #80 and #107).

FutureIncoming said:

The development of that mind-power only happens after birth, and is a consequence of Nurture, not Nature. Per Nature only, the final state of human physical development is just a clever animal, typically known as "a feral child".

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Wrong. Babies in utero learn things.

AND THEREFORE it should be entirely okay for anyone to call an unborn human a zygote or a morula or a blastocyst or an embryo or a fetus. They are entirely appropriate and accurate terms for various stages of a developing human body.

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OF course it is OK to call it those things... but it is not OK to deny that it is a developing human being.

ONE MORE THING: Even a fully-developed human body is not what makes a human a person, an entity that has measurably superior mind-power, compared to ordinary animals.

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Right... so an infant is not a person. A person in a coma is not a person. Suuuuure...

What I am pointing out is that it is still inaccurate to call an unborn human "a developing human being", because at birth it still completely lacks all Objectively Measurable characteristics of personhood! The unborn is only "a developing human body", and is nothing more than that.

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It is a developing human being... not a developed human being. Thems just the facts...

I am not really interested in getting into anymore of your personal opinions.

Bodhisattva said:

That is why I said "developing human being"...

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The U.S. government disagrees. So does science.

A developing human fetus is a developing human fetus.

Human fetuses shares the label of Homo sapiens with human beings.

A developing human being starts the moment it exists the womb.

Removable Mind said:

The U.S. government disagrees. So does science.

A developing human fetus is a developing human fetus.

Human fetuses shares the label of Homo sapiens with human beings.

A developing human being starts the moment it exists the womb.

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Wrong. A developing human being is not a person. A developing human beings beginning stages are that of Zygote, Embryo and fetus. It then moves to Infant, Toddler, etc. What the US Government thinks is irrelevant to fact.

Bodhisattva said:

Wrong. A developing human being is not a person. A developing human beings beginning stages are that of Zygote, Embryo and fetus. It then moves to Infant, Toddler, etc. What the US Government thinks is irrelevant to fact.

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Your opinion is noted, but completely wrong.

The United States of America is a nation ruled by law. That is a fact. So the laws created in the United States that define "Human Being", "Person", "Individual", "Child (as in "born" infant) are extremely relevant.

And I'm not even going to bring science into this. Science wouldn't agree with you either based on how they've established the various labels of human development, both for the born and yet to be born.

But I'm sure Jay and Ramfel agree with you, and we already know that they do and they're just as wrong as you are.

Bodhisattva said:

Wrong. Babies in utero learn things.

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SO CAN ORDINARY ANIMALS IN UTERO. Personhood is associated with characteristics that ordinary animals cannot match.

Bodhisattva said:

OF course it is OK to call it those things...

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THANK YOU.

Bodhisattva said:

but it is not OK to deny that it is a developing human being.

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FALSE (unless only talking about the Law, instead of the science). A human being is a human person, and the development of human personhood is entirely distinct from the development of the human body. It is a process that does not and can not happen without the Active External Help of Nurture. The body, meanwhile, did not need Active External Help to develop; for example, when it implants into a womb, it generates hormones that command the woman's body to construct part of the overall placenta (a shared organ). Therefore, inside the womb the only thing that is happening is that the body is developing. No aspect of human personhood (or "being-ness") is developing at that time.

Bodhisattva said:

Right... so an infant is not a person.

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PER THE SCIENTIFIC DATA, that is absolutely correct. It is only Arbitrary Law that assigns "legal person" status to the infant (which is technically OK because the Law existed long before the scientists discovered the relevant Objective Facts about personhood).

Bodhisattva said:

A person in a coma is not a person. Suuuuure...

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FALSE. A person in a coma is someone having difficulty accessing the capabilities of personhood --and they wake up often enough to prove that they had retained those capabilities all along. A newborn infant entirely lacks those capabilities in the first place. A brain-dead adult has utterly lost the capabilities of personhood.

Bodhisattva said:

It is a developing human being...

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NOPE; see above. Only Arbitrary Law declares it to be a person at birth, not Objective Fact. We can respect the Law, but in a Debate about Objective Facts, we don't have to agree with the Law. And since Objectively, at birth, any human is still just an animal, and lacks the capabilties of personhood that allow persons to declare themselves superior to ordinary animals, the only thing developing in the womb is a human animal body, not a human person/being.

Bodhisattva said:

not a developed human being.

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NEITHER OF US MADE THAT SORT OF CLAIM.

Bodhisattva said:

Thems just the facts...

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NOPE; not entirely. As explained above!

Bodhisattva said:

I am not really interested in getting into anymore of your personal opinions.

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FACTS ARE FACTS, not opinions. Of course, if you want to exhibit the stupidity of Fact Denial, which typically is a problem associated with abortion opponents more often than pro-choicers, that's your choice.