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This model falls flat for at least one important reason: Anti-abortion people believe that there is presently widespread systematic mass murder of babies. Rega

by wyager 4y ago

This model falls flat for at least one important reason: Anti-abortion people believe that there is presently widespread systematic mass murder of babies. Regardless of whether or not you agree with them, you must concede that this is a very terrible thing to believe. Certainly worse than the effects of agriculture on animals, unless you are deeply misanthropic. Anti-abortion people are not nearly as depressed as people who don't eat meat.

totoglazer 4y ago
First, curious to see that cited. Second, Anti-abortion people are ok with causing significant harm to women and see their lives as less valuable and not worth protecting.
- verisimi 4y ago
  Are latent baby lives not worth protecting?
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    Why would you prioritize a “latent” life over an actual life? Anti-choice people only seem to care about others up until birth, at which point your poverty is your own problem and you shouldn’t have had so many kids.
    - wyager 4y ago
      Do you think anti-abortion activists would be OK with state-sanctioned intentional murder of babies who have been born? That would be the prediction of your model if it was applied consistently. Being against (what you believe to be) murder should be very easily distinguishable from being in favor of whatever flavor of welfare program you're thinking about.
      - kennywinker 4y ago
        That's how anti-choice people want to frame the argument, but that's not the only "applied consistently" frame available, and frankly it's not one that I'm interested in. The decision is to carry a child to term, or to not carry a child to term - the "murder" (as some see it) is a consequence of the decision, not the decision itself. Nobody is choosing to have an abortion in order to kill. So, applying that consistently, if you believe that fetuses are people, the question would be - are you ok with people being able to make legal ("state-sanctioned") choices that result in the death of other people? And of course we all are ok with that to some degree - driving is legal (40k/year dead in the USA), as is gun ownership (30k/year), as is deregulating the EPA (unknowable but large numbers of cancer deaths), and climate inaction (unknowable and growing numbers of climate related deaths).
        verisimi 4y ago
        'My decision was whether I would pull the trigger or not to pull the trigger, not to commit a murder!'
        kennywinker 4y ago
        We're pretty happy to accept "I pulled the trigger because I thought my life was in danger" as a reason to not punish someone for killing... many are happy with "I pulled the trigger because I thought my property was in danger". Some are even happy with "I pulled the trigger because they were threatening me for pointing a gun at them". The reason for the trigger pull, it turns out, matters quite a bit to people.
        wyager 4y ago
        You seem to be mistaking me for an anti-abortion person. I don't think you are engaging in this conversation at the right (non-object) level, and are engaging in a completely unrelated argument entirely, so I'm respectfully going to cut this off here.
        kennywinker 4y ago
- wyager 4y ago
  If it wasn't true, there would have to be a Simpson's paradox of epic proportions to account for the improved mental health outcomes of anti-abortion-aligned demographics. Pro-abortion republicans would have to be the happiest people in the world by a huge margin. This isn't an argument about whether abortion is moral. Please don't bring this down to an object-level argument about abortion - I have zero interest in that. This is about the psychological states of groups who believe in the presence of an urgent moral crisis.
verisimi 4y ago
In my view, it's not comparable. Abortion is not something that you have to deal with daily, whereas food (other peoples', your own) is. But, it would make sense perhaps, if many of the empathic vegetarians would also be anti-abortion too.
- sgu999 4y ago
  > But, it would make sense perhaps, if many of the empathic vegetarians would also be anti-abortion too. Depends on where your empathy goes. You also have to consider the life of the one carrying the foetus, and the life that a being that is not yet sentient would get if it were to live. I don't see any inconsistency with being vegetarian in that respect. Refusing to eat mussels but being supportive of abortion would seem inconsistent, though... As well as being fearlessly against abortion while enjoying a piece of a cow one in a while seems very inconsistent, if you set aside religious believes.
  - verisimi 4y ago
    I basically agree, except for this bit: "and the life that a being that is not yet sentient would get if it were to live" I don't know that I think it's not sentient, nor that it is not yet alive. I recognise that might not accord with scientific opinion, but there it is.
  - aksss 4y ago
    Just a point on the logic here - let’s agree that the trade-off is not always (perhaps even infrequently) one life for the other life in any given case of a desired abortion. It’s a spectrum that goes from the mother’s at-risk life at the most grave to convenience of lifestyle / avoidance of responsibility at the most callous. All abortions are not one or the other, but all points on this spectrum are represented. The debate is often framed to highlight one extreme scenario or the other as justifying a specific policy carte blanche. But we do ourselves a disservice as wannabe rational thinkers be ceding either assumption to the passionate advocacies on each side.
    - sgu999 4y ago

by wyager 4y ago

totoglazer 4y ago

First, curious to see that cited. Second, Anti-abortion people are ok with causing significant harm to women and see their lives as less valuable and not worth protecting.

verisimi 4y ago
Are latent baby lives not worth protecting?
- kennywinker 4y ago
  Why would you prioritize a “latent” life over an actual life? Anti-choice people only seem to care about others up until birth, at which point your poverty is your own problem and you shouldn’t have had so many kids.
  - wyager 4y ago
    Do you think anti-abortion activists would be OK with state-sanctioned intentional murder of babies who have been born? That would be the prediction of your model if it was applied consistently. Being against (what you believe to be) murder should be very easily distinguishable from being in favor of whatever flavor of welfare program you're thinking about.
    - kennywinker 4y ago
      That's how anti-choice people want to frame the argument, but that's not the only "applied consistently" frame available, and frankly it's not one that I'm interested in. The decision is to carry a child to term, or to not carry a child to term - the "murder" (as some see it) is a consequence of the decision, not the decision itself. Nobody is choosing to have an abortion in order to kill. So, applying that consistently, if you believe that fetuses are people, the question would be - are you ok with people being able to make legal ("state-sanctioned") choices that result in the death of other people? And of course we all are ok with that to some degree - driving is legal (40k/year dead in the USA), as is gun ownership (30k/year), as is deregulating the EPA (unknowable but large numbers of cancer deaths), and climate inaction (unknowable and growing numbers of climate related deaths).
      - verisimi 4y ago
        'My decision was whether I would pull the trigger or not to pull the trigger, not to commit a murder!'
        kennywinker 4y ago
        We're pretty happy to accept "I pulled the trigger because I thought my life was in danger" as a reason to not punish someone for killing... many are happy with "I pulled the trigger because I thought my property was in danger". Some are even happy with "I pulled the trigger because they were threatening me for pointing a gun at them". The reason for the trigger pull, it turns out, matters quite a bit to people.
      - wyager 4y ago
        You seem to be mistaking me for an anti-abortion person. I don't think you are engaging in this conversation at the right (non-object) level, and are engaging in a completely unrelated argument entirely, so I'm respectfully going to cut this off here.
        kennywinker 4y ago
wyager 4y ago
If it wasn't true, there would have to be a Simpson's paradox of epic proportions to account for the improved mental health outcomes of anti-abortion-aligned demographics. Pro-abortion republicans would have to be the happiest people in the world by a huge margin. This isn't an argument about whether abortion is moral. Please don't bring this down to an object-level argument about abortion - I have zero interest in that. This is about the psychological states of groups who believe in the presence of an urgent moral crisis.

verisimi 4y ago

In my view, it's not comparable. Abortion is not something that you have to deal with daily, whereas food (other peoples', your own) is. But, it would make sense perhaps, if many of the empathic vegetarians would also be anti-abortion too.

sgu999 4y ago
> But, it would make sense perhaps, if many of the empathic vegetarians would also be anti-abortion too. Depends on where your empathy goes. You also have to consider the life of the one carrying the foetus, and the life that a being that is not yet sentient would get if it were to live. I don't see any inconsistency with being vegetarian in that respect. Refusing to eat mussels but being supportive of abortion would seem inconsistent, though... As well as being fearlessly against abortion while enjoying a piece of a cow one in a while seems very inconsistent, if you set aside religious believes.
- verisimi 4y ago
  I basically agree, except for this bit: "and the life that a being that is not yet sentient would get if it were to live" I don't know that I think it's not sentient, nor that it is not yet alive. I recognise that might not accord with scientific opinion, but there it is.
- aksss 4y ago
  Just a point on the logic here - let’s agree that the trade-off is not always (perhaps even infrequently) one life for the other life in any given case of a desired abortion. It’s a spectrum that goes from the mother’s at-risk life at the most grave to convenience of lifestyle / avoidance of responsibility at the most callous. All abortions are not one or the other, but all points on this spectrum are represented. The debate is often framed to highlight one extreme scenario or the other as justifying a specific policy carte blanche. But we do ourselves a disservice as wannabe rational thinkers be ceding either assumption to the passionate advocacies on each side.
  - sgu999 4y ago