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That's a false equivalence. "Pro-life" advocates use a topic that some people find emotive purely for political ends. Gun control advocates object tto avoidabl

That's a false equivalence. "Pro-life" advocates use a topic that some people find emotive purely for political ends. Gun control advocates object tto avoidable gun massacres in schools, malls, and other public places. They're not remotely comparable. The obvious difference is that if a woman has an abortion it's fundamentally a private matter. The outcome affects a single person. Or two people at most. The outcome is not a line of ambulances and coffins and a traumatised community of teachers, parents, and neighbours. Of course they're framed as if they're equivalent freedoms, because in the US "freedom" is a master-frame that can be used to justify almost anything. And that's the real problem. One group consistently uses deceptive single-issue appeals to emotion to gain and hold political power. If there are no real issues to appeal to, they'll quite happily invent some. They fundamentally don't care what the issue is as long as it's politically useful. The other group actually cares about outcomes - not just in a negative sense of wanting certain things not to happen, but in the positive sense of expanding political access to everyone in the community for the benefit of the entire community. What's missing - in the US particularly - is a political system which makes this fundamental distinction clear and explicit. Democracies have few defences against deceptive framing used for political grift. And that's not a good way to build a better future.

efitz 4y ago
Wow, you just provided a positive data point for the article. You completely dismissed the idea that anyone pro-life or pro-2A might have any good faith reason for their beliefs. Thanks for validating the premise of the original article.
- halkony 4y ago
  Someone else in the thread pointed out this happens when political abstractions fall apart and this is a pretty good example of that haha
User23 4y ago
> That's a false equivalence. "Pro-life" advocates use a topic that some people find emotive purely for political ends. No, we think killing innocent human beings is gross and wrong in principle. There’s nothing emotional or religious about it. If you accept the premises that a fetus is an innocent human being and that intentionally killing innocent human beings is wrong, then if you have any respect for logic you must conclude that abortion is wrong. Biology tells us that at the moment of conception that single diploid cell is a human being. Therefore, in that model, in order to justify killing a fetus it must either be unintentional or the fetus must not be innocent. The intentional case can apply to procedures that are intended to help the mother that unfortunately harm the fetus. For the other case I can’t see how a fetus could be guilty of anything deserving death. However, as an counter-example, I’m given to understand that’s the case in Jewish law at least some of the time. Anyhow as you can see there is no deception, in framing or otherwise. It’s just simple premises and sound logic from them. On the other hand I rarely see logical moral reasoning with generally acceptable premises from the pro-Choice side, so you're correct that the subject is, for some people, primarily an emotional one. Anyhow I've kept this to just a simple explanation of why we're pro-Life, because I don't think HN is the right place to debate political issues, but it is the right place to correct erroneous statements.
- svnt 4y ago
  > Biology tells us that at the moment of conception that single diploid cell is a human being. Ah yes the deification. When was the last time you spoke with Biology? Because when I speak to it it says no such thing.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    There's nothing metaphysical about that. Scientifically, "a human" is an alive organism of the species "Homo sapiens." A blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is undisputedly alive, and undisputedly has human DNA. It is "a human." Now, it's a human at an early stage of human development--and that might have various ethical and moral implications--but it's scientifically unsupportable to say that it's not a human. For example, the OED defines "tadpole" as "the tailed aquatic larva of an amphibian (frog, toad, newt, or salamander) breathing through gills and lacking legs until the later stages of its development." There is nothing metaphysical about saying that a tadpole is "a frog."
    - hbrn 4y ago
      > Scientifically, "a human" is an alive organism of the species "Homo sapiens." You seem to be conflating linguistics with biology. If we agree to change the definition of a word "human", this isn't going to make pro-lifers happy, because their problem is not with words. Also, I don't think "human" means alive Homo Sapiens. Human and Homo Sapiens are synonyms. > A blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is undisputedly alive But that's exactly what is being disputed. For example a braindead person is "undisputedly" dead, yet an embryo has even less brain activity.
      - User23 4y ago
        > For example a braindead person is "undisputedly" dead No, they’re not. If they were indisputably dead we’d just say dead. The qualifier means it’s something other than actually dead. You could quibble that after medical death biological processes continue in various cells and organs for a while though. And of course there’s the old first responder’s adage that the patient isn’t dead until he’s warm and dead. Cold and dead, as in fished out of ice water, isn’t necessary dead dead.
sokoloff 4y ago
This reads to me as a perhaps unwitting but excellent demonstration of political intolerance. Is it possible that the pro-lifers have a genuine belief that a fetus is worthy of protection equal to (or similar to) a human life? If that's their initial belief, it seems reasonable that they'd conclude that 40-50x as many abortions as firearm homicides per year represents a greater problem in the former than the latter. I don't think your proposed "fundamental distinction" is anywhere near as fundamental as you seem to believe.
ghufran_syed 4y ago
that’s a very long and eloquent way of saying “the thing I want is right and the thing you want is wrong” - unless you think you can persuade the people who disagree with you to support your position, my earlier point about “live and let live” still stands, and in fact, you’re making my point for me, that many people feel that the freedoms I believe in with should be available to everyone, while the freedoms I disagree with must be forbidden.

efitz 4y ago

Wow, you just provided a positive data point for the article. You completely dismissed the idea that anyone pro-life or pro-2A might have any good faith reason for their beliefs. Thanks for validating the premise of the original article.

halkony 4y ago
Someone else in the thread pointed out this happens when political abstractions fall apart and this is a pretty good example of that haha

User23 4y ago

> That's a false equivalence. "Pro-life" advocates use a topic that some people find emotive purely for political ends. No, we think killing innocent human beings is gross and wrong in principle. There’s nothing emotional or religious about it. If you accept the premises that a fetus is an innocent human being and that intentionally killing innocent human beings is wrong, then if you have any respect for logic you must conclude that abortion is wrong. Biology tells us that at the moment of conception that single diploid cell is a human being. Therefore, in that model, in order to justify killing a fetus it must either be unintentional or the fetus must not be innocent. The intentional case can apply to procedures that are intended to help the mother that unfortunately harm the fetus. For the other case I can’t see how a fetus could be guilty of anything deserving death. However, as an counter-example, I’m given to understand that’s the case in Jewish law at least some of the time. Anyhow as you can see there is no deception, in framing or otherwise. It’s just simple premises and sound logic from them. On the other hand I rarely see logical moral reasoning with generally acceptable premises from the pro-Choice side, so you're correct that the subject is, for some people, primarily an emotional one. Anyhow I've kept this to just a simple explanation of why we're pro-Life, because I don't think HN is the right place to debate political issues, but it is the right place to correct erroneous statements.

svnt 4y ago
> Biology tells us that at the moment of conception that single diploid cell is a human being. Ah yes the deification. When was the last time you spoke with Biology? Because when I speak to it it says no such thing.
- rayiner 4y ago
  There's nothing metaphysical about that. Scientifically, "a human" is an alive organism of the species "Homo sapiens." A blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is undisputedly alive, and undisputedly has human DNA. It is "a human." Now, it's a human at an early stage of human development--and that might have various ethical and moral implications--but it's scientifically unsupportable to say that it's not a human. For example, the OED defines "tadpole" as "the tailed aquatic larva of an amphibian (frog, toad, newt, or salamander) breathing through gills and lacking legs until the later stages of its development." There is nothing metaphysical about saying that a tadpole is "a frog."
  - hbrn 4y ago
    > Scientifically, "a human" is an alive organism of the species "Homo sapiens." You seem to be conflating linguistics with biology. If we agree to change the definition of a word "human", this isn't going to make pro-lifers happy, because their problem is not with words. Also, I don't think "human" means alive Homo Sapiens. Human and Homo Sapiens are synonyms. > A blastocyst, embryo, or fetus is undisputedly alive But that's exactly what is being disputed. For example a braindead person is "undisputedly" dead, yet an embryo has even less brain activity.
    - User23 4y ago
      > For example a braindead person is "undisputedly" dead No, they’re not. If they were indisputably dead we’d just say dead. The qualifier means it’s something other than actually dead. You could quibble that after medical death biological processes continue in various cells and organs for a while though. And of course there’s the old first responder’s adage that the patient isn’t dead until he’s warm and dead. Cold and dead, as in fished out of ice water, isn’t necessary dead dead.

sokoloff 4y ago

This reads to me as a perhaps unwitting but excellent demonstration of political intolerance. Is it possible that the pro-lifers have a genuine belief that a fetus is worthy of protection equal to (or similar to) a human life? If that's their initial belief, it seems reasonable that they'd conclude that 40-50x as many abortions as firearm homicides per year represents a greater problem in the former than the latter. I don't think your proposed "fundamental distinction" is anywhere near as fundamental as you seem to believe.

ghufran_syed 4y ago

that’s a very long and eloquent way of saying “the thing I want is right and the thing you want is wrong” - unless you think you can persuade the people who disagree with you to support your position, my earlier point about “live and let live” still stands, and in fact, you’re making my point for me, that many people feel that the freedoms I believe in with should be available to everyone, while the freedoms I disagree with must be forbidden.