4 ms·

Why do you think that we need to agree on framing the issue when a significant minority will only agree to framing it at conception? You can't find a middle gr

by hobs 4y ago

Why do you think that we need to agree on framing the issue when a significant minority will only agree to framing it at conception? You can't find a middle ground with religious extremism.

ajmurmann 4y ago
I think it's hard to draw that line on extremism. Conversation and finding consensus are much easier if people build their world view and values on as small base assumptions as possible. If we cannot agree on base assumptions and values it's much harder to have a fruitful conversation especially if these assumptions cannot be violated because they were hand down from god. Religion generally makes numerous and very large assumptions.
bko 4y ago
I don't understand your point. If you want to convince someone that believes that the fetus becomes a life sometime in the gestation period, screaming about religion and privacy won't get you anywhere. What does this have to do with religion?
- sidlls 4y ago
  In the US? Almost everything.
- hobs 4y ago
  There was no attempt in my comment do to that, simply straight forward truth: the religious right have decided life begins at conception and will kill to enforce their rules. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion... There's no compromise available on the table.
ceilingcorner 4y ago
There are many people that aren’t religious extremists who think that abortion is, at best, extremely morally problematic. It’s fundamentally a question about the definition of life, not the adherence to certain religious beliefs.
- mediaman 4y ago
  Poll data suggests that the plurality of the population do not support third-trimester abortions, but neither do they support a prohibition on first-trimester. The reality is that what we consider a "life" is graduated, and the fetus progresses along that continuum during gestation. Most people know this intuitively, which is why popular opinion generally falls where it does. (See, for example, the Pew polls on the subject of abortion and trimesters.) We struggle to draw a bright-line to say, "this is where life begins," because there is not really a point where life "begins," merely a long series of points where it shifts by degree from "no life" to "life." As a society though we still are tasked with drawing this line and it is an arbitrary line. But it is illogical for it to begin at the very start of the continuum, or at the very end. The beginning because it is silly and unscientific to pretend as though some tiny clump of cells has any more life than a wart, and it comes at great cost to women's autonomy; the end because it is illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to birth is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after. To believe that the moment is at either end is thoughtless dogmatism. Where should the line be? Pick a point. Give the woman enough time to be able to know that she is pregnant, to plan and provide for her bodily autonomy to make her own life choices, and to deal with lead times at clinics. And then draw a line where the choice has been made. Most people believe that line is somewhere around the end of the first trimester or early part of the second.
  - tromp 4y ago
    > the end because it is illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to birth is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after. To believe that the moment is at either end is thoughtless dogmatism. > Where should the line be? Pick a point But in your own words, isn't it similarly illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to that point is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after.
- poulsbohemian 4y ago
  Actually, the way you are framing it is a significant cause of the problem. In many cases, we are talking about a strictly amoral health care concern, IE: a clump of cells that are going to kill a woman if she doesn't get the necessary health care. It has absolutely nothing to do with a baby or life and everything to do with her bleeding out. THAT is the thing the right-wing ignores and wants you to ignore too. So they show you pictures of babies, they talk about babies, they come up with fictitious terms like "third-trimester abortion" because it's the only way they can frame the issue to rile up their base.
MomoXenosaga 4y ago
Yep. And if people think that fundamentalists will only try to enforce this in the South... No man these people want the whole country.
- poulsbohemian 4y ago
  This is something I wonder about... do they really want the whole country or do they want to make things so unpalatable that the country balkanizes and disintegrates? It's frankly really hard to get a read on what these extremists want, because if you play it out far enough, it looks pretty ridiculous, IE: be careful what you wish for as a lot of those right-wing states are going to be even poorer and more backward than they are now.
SubiculumCode 4y ago
The rhetoric each side adopts precludes/ignores the other side's arguments, and thus there is no communication. Moreover, whatever your opinion of abortion rights, Roe vs Wade was not based on solid legal reasoning and it was foolish for liberals to depend on it over the last half century instead of explicitly codifying it into law or the Constitution.
- brewdad 4y ago
  > The rhetoric each side adopts precludes/ignores the other side's arguments, and thus there is no communication. This is the blue dress vs gold dress of politics. There is no communication because the two sides see the world in fundamentally different ways.
  - SubiculumCode 4y ago
    It is not just that they see the world differently, their language does not even try to counter the opposing side's argument.
  - DangitBobby 4y ago
    I have to disagree. I more or less understand the pro-life point of view, which is that a fetus is a precious life. Since I'm not religious, it's clear to me that the fetus is alive, but I don't see it's life as important until it is capable of thought, emotion, and sentience, in general. I would say this is the essential difference between most pro-life and pro-choice philosophy. After that, I switch to a much more consistent version of "pro-life" which includes a moral imperitive not to cause undue (frivolous, even) suffering or harm to any living thing.
- BackBlast 4y ago
  > The rhetoric each side adopts precludes/ignores the other side's arguments, and thus there is no communication. This is the general case on most topics. Accepting the other side's framing is tantamount to "losing the argument" to most people. Often that framing defines the other side as essentially evil and thus not worth listening to or reasoning with. There are precious few places where actual debates where primary arguments are understood and rebutted by mutually respecting parties.
jtdev 4y ago
cehlen 4y ago
This is not a religious argument. The 14th amendment prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The first question is when does a fetus become a person. I don’t know the answer to that for absolute certainty and pretty sure everyone else commenting on this does not either. If we can agree that no single person can identify when a fetus becomes a person, keeping in mind lots of people think they know everything about all things. The ultimate question that needs be answered is what number of people need to agree when life begins? Only one person decides when life begin i.e. the mother, nine i.e. the Supreme Court, or thousands i.e. we the people vote on it. I would argue we in U.S. tend lean more towards the more significant the issue the more people are required for consensus.
- hobs 4y ago
  It's been the religious right stated strategy for decades, I don't know how I could take any of your argument as credible without acknowledging that fact.
  - cehlen 4y ago
    My friend, two things can be true at the same time. The religious right can have a strategy to end abortion for their own reasons and the 14th amendment can be an essential right that must be protected.
swat535 4y ago
> You can't find a middle ground with religious extremism. Neither can you with liberal extremists, we have people in this thread who literally advocate for abortion less than 24 hours before delivery. Unless you are going to pretend that there is no such thing as liberal extremists, in which case I am not sure how to respond.
- hobs 4y ago
  When that's a possibility that's actually on the table we can talk about it - today we have the opposite problem.

by hobs 4y ago

Why do you think that we need to agree on framing the issue when a significant minority will only agree to framing it at conception? You can't find a middle ground with religious extremism.

ajmurmann 4y ago

I think it's hard to draw that line on extremism. Conversation and finding consensus are much easier if people build their world view and values on as small base assumptions as possible. If we cannot agree on base assumptions and values it's much harder to have a fruitful conversation especially if these assumptions cannot be violated because they were hand down from god. Religion generally makes numerous and very large assumptions.

bko 4y ago

I don't understand your point. If you want to convince someone that believes that the fetus becomes a life sometime in the gestation period, screaming about religion and privacy won't get you anywhere. What does this have to do with religion?

sidlls 4y ago
In the US? Almost everything.
hobs 4y ago
There was no attempt in my comment do to that, simply straight forward truth: the religious right have decided life begins at conception and will kill to enforce their rules. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion... There's no compromise available on the table.

ceilingcorner 4y ago

There are many people that aren’t religious extremists who think that abortion is, at best, extremely morally problematic. It’s fundamentally a question about the definition of life, not the adherence to certain religious beliefs.

mediaman 4y ago
Poll data suggests that the plurality of the population do not support third-trimester abortions, but neither do they support a prohibition on first-trimester. The reality is that what we consider a "life" is graduated, and the fetus progresses along that continuum during gestation. Most people know this intuitively, which is why popular opinion generally falls where it does. (See, for example, the Pew polls on the subject of abortion and trimesters.) We struggle to draw a bright-line to say, "this is where life begins," because there is not really a point where life "begins," merely a long series of points where it shifts by degree from "no life" to "life." As a society though we still are tasked with drawing this line and it is an arbitrary line. But it is illogical for it to begin at the very start of the continuum, or at the very end. The beginning because it is silly and unscientific to pretend as though some tiny clump of cells has any more life than a wart, and it comes at great cost to women's autonomy; the end because it is illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to birth is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after. To believe that the moment is at either end is thoughtless dogmatism. Where should the line be? Pick a point. Give the woman enough time to be able to know that she is pregnant, to plan and provide for her bodily autonomy to make her own life choices, and to deal with lead times at clinics. And then draw a line where the choice has been made. Most people believe that line is somewhere around the end of the first trimester or early part of the second.
- tromp 4y ago
  > the end because it is illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to birth is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after. To believe that the moment is at either end is thoughtless dogmatism. > Where should the line be? Pick a point But in your own words, isn't it similarly illogical to believe that a baby the moment prior to that point is a fundamentally different being than at the moment after.
poulsbohemian 4y ago
Actually, the way you are framing it is a significant cause of the problem. In many cases, we are talking about a strictly amoral health care concern, IE: a clump of cells that are going to kill a woman if she doesn't get the necessary health care. It has absolutely nothing to do with a baby or life and everything to do with her bleeding out. THAT is the thing the right-wing ignores and wants you to ignore too. So they show you pictures of babies, they talk about babies, they come up with fictitious terms like "third-trimester abortion" because it's the only way they can frame the issue to rile up their base.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

Yep. And if people think that fundamentalists will only try to enforce this in the South... No man these people want the whole country.

poulsbohemian 4y ago
This is something I wonder about... do they really want the whole country or do they want to make things so unpalatable that the country balkanizes and disintegrates? It's frankly really hard to get a read on what these extremists want, because if you play it out far enough, it looks pretty ridiculous, IE: be careful what you wish for as a lot of those right-wing states are going to be even poorer and more backward than they are now.

SubiculumCode 4y ago

The rhetoric each side adopts precludes/ignores the other side's arguments, and thus there is no communication. Moreover, whatever your opinion of abortion rights, Roe vs Wade was not based on solid legal reasoning and it was foolish for liberals to depend on it over the last half century instead of explicitly codifying it into law or the Constitution.

brewdad 4y ago
> The rhetoric each side adopts precludes/ignores the other side's arguments, and thus there is no communication. This is the blue dress vs gold dress of politics. There is no communication because the two sides see the world in fundamentally different ways.
- SubiculumCode 4y ago
  It is not just that they see the world differently, their language does not even try to counter the opposing side's argument.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  I have to disagree. I more or less understand the pro-life point of view, which is that a fetus is a precious life. Since I'm not religious, it's clear to me that the fetus is alive, but I don't see it's life as important until it is capable of thought, emotion, and sentience, in general. I would say this is the essential difference between most pro-life and pro-choice philosophy. After that, I switch to a much more consistent version of "pro-life" which includes a moral imperitive not to cause undue (frivolous, even) suffering or harm to any living thing.
BackBlast 4y ago
> The rhetoric each side adopts precludes/ignores the other side's arguments, and thus there is no communication. This is the general case on most topics. Accepting the other side's framing is tantamount to "losing the argument" to most people. Often that framing defines the other side as essentially evil and thus not worth listening to or reasoning with. There are precious few places where actual debates where primary arguments are understood and rebutted by mutually respecting parties.

jtdev 4y ago

cehlen 4y ago

This is not a religious argument. The 14th amendment prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The first question is when does a fetus become a person. I don’t know the answer to that for absolute certainty and pretty sure everyone else commenting on this does not either. If we can agree that no single person can identify when a fetus becomes a person, keeping in mind lots of people think they know everything about all things. The ultimate question that needs be answered is what number of people need to agree when life begins? Only one person decides when life begin i.e. the mother, nine i.e. the Supreme Court, or thousands i.e. we the people vote on it. I would argue we in U.S. tend lean more towards the more significant the issue the more people are required for consensus.

hobs 4y ago
It's been the religious right stated strategy for decades, I don't know how I could take any of your argument as credible without acknowledging that fact.
- cehlen 4y ago
  My friend, two things can be true at the same time. The religious right can have a strategy to end abortion for their own reasons and the 14th amendment can be an essential right that must be protected.

swat535 4y ago

> You can't find a middle ground with religious extremism. Neither can you with liberal extremists, we have people in this thread who literally advocate for abortion less than 24 hours before delivery. Unless you are going to pretend that there is no such thing as liberal extremists, in which case I am not sure how to respond.

hobs 4y ago
When that's a possibility that's actually on the table we can talk about it - today we have the opposite problem.