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Don't lump abortion in with those other issues that involve denial of either rational thought or scientific evidence. It's an issue where rational people can di

by curun1r 10y ago

Don't lump abortion in with those other issues that involve denial of either rational thought or scientific evidence. It's an issue where rational people can disagree. The only way that it verges on that is in the fact that people will try to do it anyways, in ways that are historically very dangerous. In that way, it becomes like prohibition of drugs and legalization becomes a harm-reduction strategy. But, like drugs, that doesn't mean that it's a fundamentally good thing. FYI...I say this as someone who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue of abortion. Had abortion been safe, legal and reliable in 1940, I would not be alive to write this since my mother would have never been born. And yet my grandmother would have never been forced to marry her rapist, which basically ruined the majority of her life. In confronting the issue of abortion, I'm forced to weigh my grandmother's life against that of my mother and I. I haven't figured out a way of doing that yet. But it really bothers me when people like you who've likely never had any personal connection to the issue imply that only one side of the debate is rational. Personal nit...life does start at inception, since that's a tautology. The beginning is the beginning. It's life starting at conception that's usually debated.

EdHominem 10y ago
The "but then I wouldn't have been born" argument misses that you have billions of potential first-cousins who never were born. Your grandmother would have had a less assuredly bad life (no idea if it would have been better, but we can only hope...) and someone else would be having this anthropic discussion. > But it really bothers me when people like you who've likely never had any personal connection to the issue Cough. > imply that only one side of the debate is rational. Well, look around at those who believe what you do. Most of them do so because of religion, which by definition is irrational. As an opinion, you're welcome to yours. As policy, it comes with all the rest of the baggage of the religious. > But, like drugs, that doesn't mean that it's a fundamentally good thing. But, like TV, that doesn't mean we should ban it. Control, control, control. Why the need to control?
- curun1r 10y ago
  > Well, look around at those who believe what you do I've yet to meet another person who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue, so I can't exactly do that. I'm neither pro-choice nor pro-life. I've chosen to remain neutral on the issue and allow others to make the decision since both sides of the debate seem wrong to me and I can deal with either outcome. But I can see both sides of this argument and both sides feel irrefutable to me. That's not to say that the religious origins of many pro-life viewpoints aren't irrational or that it isn't hypocritical to oppose abortion and support war, the death penalty or any of the other anti-life policies often advocated by pro-life supporters. But just because someone arrived at a correct conclusion by specious reasoning or impure motives doesn't make that conclusion wrong. I recognize that many people aren't as conflicted as I am on this issue. I'm happy for them. But to suggest that this issue is one where science and logic makes one position definitively correct and the other incorrect is wrong. It is an issue of morality and philosophical beliefs and, as such, science cannot decide it any more so than religion can.
  - EdHominem 10y ago
    > I've yet to meet another person who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue I can see why circumstances make you feel that there's a special something about a fertilized egg, but we're really all in the same situation - but for a tiny difference someone else would have been born. If your grandmother had a weapon she might have been able to prevent being raped, which would have been a positive spin on the same result as an abortion - you not being born. > I'm neither pro-choice nor pro-life. I've chosen to remain neutral on the issue Neutral is pro-choice. No law. To justify a law, present a reason and a rationale. Otherwise why pass it, right? > But to suggest that this issue is one where science and logic makes one position definitively correct and the other incorrect is wrong. It is an issue of morality and philosophical beliefs and, as such, science cannot decide it any more so than religion can. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. There's no reason you can't apply science to religion. If there were gods, and they had an impact on us, it'd be scientists who noticed it and performed experiments to quantify it. We'd even be doing cohort studies to see if the gods disapproved of being monitored, etc.
    - 10y ago

by curun1r 10y ago

EdHominem 10y ago

The "but then I wouldn't have been born" argument misses that you have billions of potential first-cousins who never were born. Your grandmother would have had a less assuredly bad life (no idea if it would have been better, but we can only hope...) and someone else would be having this anthropic discussion. > But it really bothers me when people like you who've likely never had any personal connection to the issue Cough. > imply that only one side of the debate is rational. Well, look around at those who believe what you do. Most of them do so because of religion, which by definition is irrational. As an opinion, you're welcome to yours. As policy, it comes with all the rest of the baggage of the religious. > But, like drugs, that doesn't mean that it's a fundamentally good thing. But, like TV, that doesn't mean we should ban it. Control, control, control. Why the need to control?

curun1r 10y ago
> Well, look around at those who believe what you do I've yet to meet another person who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue, so I can't exactly do that. I'm neither pro-choice nor pro-life. I've chosen to remain neutral on the issue and allow others to make the decision since both sides of the debate seem wrong to me and I can deal with either outcome. But I can see both sides of this argument and both sides feel irrefutable to me. That's not to say that the religious origins of many pro-life viewpoints aren't irrational or that it isn't hypocritical to oppose abortion and support war, the death penalty or any of the other anti-life policies often advocated by pro-life supporters. But just because someone arrived at a correct conclusion by specious reasoning or impure motives doesn't make that conclusion wrong. I recognize that many people aren't as conflicted as I am on this issue. I'm happy for them. But to suggest that this issue is one where science and logic makes one position definitively correct and the other incorrect is wrong. It is an issue of morality and philosophical beliefs and, as such, science cannot decide it any more so than religion can.
- EdHominem 10y ago
  > I've yet to meet another person who is intentionally ambivalent on the issue I can see why circumstances make you feel that there's a special something about a fertilized egg, but we're really all in the same situation - but for a tiny difference someone else would have been born. If your grandmother had a weapon she might have been able to prevent being raped, which would have been a positive spin on the same result as an abortion - you not being born. > I'm neither pro-choice nor pro-life. I've chosen to remain neutral on the issue Neutral is pro-choice. No law. To justify a law, present a reason and a rationale. Otherwise why pass it, right? > But to suggest that this issue is one where science and logic makes one position definitively correct and the other incorrect is wrong. It is an issue of morality and philosophical beliefs and, as such, science cannot decide it any more so than religion can. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. There's no reason you can't apply science to religion. If there were gods, and they had an impact on us, it'd be scientists who noticed it and performed experiments to quantify it. We'd even be doing cohort studies to see if the gods disapproved of being monitored, etc.
  - 10y ago