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They Think It's Murder

richarddawkins.com

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Re: They Think It's Murder

#71

Post by hotpotamus »

chungy wrote: post #67
hotpotamus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would you determine the intent?

What is the drug designed for and why was it taken? There are drugs designed to cause a miscarriage and commonly called "abortion pills." That would be intentful. But, say, a woman takes ibuprofen for a headache and it happens to have nasty side effects. That would not be intentful. (I don't know if ibuprofen can do this, but feel free to slot in nearly any other drug.)

Ok, let's say a woman takes an abortion pill and then has a miscarriage. How will you determine that she should be prosecuted?

Re: They Think It's Murder

#72

Post by fritztastic »

dsr_ wrote: post #43

Let's grant for the sake of this argument and this alone that fertilization signals the beginning of all rights. You cannot be forced to donate a kidney to save someone else's life: they have no claim on your body. You cannot be forced to donate blood, for the same reason. You cannot be forced into surgery. You have the right to refuse medicine. And, in general, you have the right to ingest whatever substances you wa…

I think for many of them they direct themselves to the subject passionately because it is easy to advicate for an unborn person.

The unborn don't have flaws that make their lives unworthy of advocacy- unlike the unhoused, migrants, felons, etc. whose deaths at the hands of others so-called "pro-life" advocates are silent about.

Notably, I've also heard those who are fervently anti-abortion respond to the issue of women dying from abortion with almost a sense of glee- as though women who die for lack of proper safe options deserved to lose their life.

Re: They Think It's Murder

#73

Post by mistersquid »

Bud wrote: post #23
vehemenz wrote: post #13

I strongly agree with one of Dawkins’s most important points, the effectiveness of the reductio ad absurdum as a rhetorical strategy. If you want to persuade people, then you need to meet them where they are and adopt their way of thinking. Accept their premises and worldview, and show that it leads to bizarre, false consequnces.

You think the average Glenn Beck viewer is going to sit still while you "show" this, or "show" anything, and then change their views based on what you have "shown"? If so, you have been asleep since the Reagan Administration while this fascism has slowly taken hold.

> You think the average Glenn Beck viewer is going to sit still while you "show" this, or "show" anything, and then change their views based on what you have "shown"?

From a rationalist point of view, this observation can seem mere provocation rather than an objective assertion.

From first-hand experience, at least one “Glenn beck viewer” refused to meet rational argument even halfway.

I analyzed one of Tucker Carlson’s assertions step by step, coming to an obviously absurd conclusion. My interlocutor responded that she didn’t appreciate my using “tricks” when I talked with her.

To the irrational, rationality is a repertoire of tricks.

Re: They Think It's Murder

#74

Post by vehemenz »

andrewclunn wrote: post #41

Ah Richard Dawkins... there's no such thing as a soul, but all human life has value, but not until they exit the birth canal. At some point the secular humanists are going to realize that without any metaphysical / religious justification the notions of human equality and their moral and ethical framework become completely arbitrary. The "cut flower thesis" that we're basically just running on steam as we've severed…

Given that the early Ancient Greeks were not Jews or Christians, and that most medieval theology heavily rehashes Plato and Epictetus, I'm not sure why anyone would suggest the Bible, rather than classical Greek thought, is the foundation of the West's beliefs.

Furthermore, even if there are no serious defenses of moral realism without a mystical metaphysics, that doesn't entail anything. These values were around in humanity long before monotheism and its predecessors.

Re: They Think It's Murder

#75

Post by vehemenz »

chungy wrote: post #64
kgwxd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, argument over I guess. You don't get to play the fallacy card when you start off stating your premises is irrefutable. All you've manage to argue here is "it's murder because I say so."

Then I'll make it really simple for you. Human life begins at conception. Deliberately killing other humans is murder. Killing a human being in the womb is thus murder.

Let me guess. Piracy is theft?

Re: They Think It's Murder

#76

Post by eloff »

gonzo41 wrote: post #33
brightball wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really the core of it and ultimately the decision to overturn is going to force legislators to finally codify exactly what the rules are. It’s been avoided to this point because both political sides preferred to fund raise off of the issue. Long overdue.

In the meantime, whilst there's debate on legislation, women will die from ectopic pregnancies and other women's health issues that require the termination of a non viable pregnancy. It's very grim.

Ectopic pregnancies and other medical emergencies are usually excluded from abortion laws. Law makers could always do something dumb though, there's lots of precedent for that.

Re: They Think It's Murder

#77

Post by chungy »

vehemenz wrote: post #75
chungy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I'll make it really simple for you. Human life begins at conception. Deliberately killing other humans is murder. Killing a human being in the womb is thus murder.

Let me guess. Piracy is theft?

Are you talking about the high seas or copyright infringement?

Either way, it's irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Re: They Think It's Murder

#78

Post by Beltalowda »

Nrnfkfnrn wrote: post #46
Beltalowda wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with that point of view, but I think you need to distinguish between "life" and a "human being". "Life" in general is notoriously tricky to define precisely. It is, for example, perfectly possible to amputate someone's hand an keep it alive by feeding it some type of artificial blood; not sure if it's currently possible with the state of technology, but there is nothing stopping this in principle. I think it…

The source does mention the beginning of a "human being" "Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm with a secondary oocyte and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."

At the risk of being overly pedantic and engaging on semantics, it does say "the beginning of a human being", rather than "human being". i.e. a piece of metal might be the beginning of a sword, but is not actually a sword.

This is a very tricky discussion because definitions and semantics are so important, and not everyone agrees on them. The main point I attempted to make in my previous post is that it would advance the debate to move away from these type of semantics, and rather engage on more fundamental – and harder – questions like "when are rights conferred to a (human) being?"

Re: They Think It's Murder

#79

Post by lapcat »

Beltalowda wrote: post #63
lapcat wrote: post #11

The article completely fails to mention that religious people tend to believe that humans have a "soul" and animals don't, which seems to me to be a massive oversight. Of course Dawkins doesn't believe in the soul, but it's hard to see how his arguments are going to move anyone who does believe. The other problem with the argument is that, on the other side, many vegans believe that killing animals for food is wrong.

I think the main argument that Dawkins wanted to make is that many pro-choice arguments are completely missing the point and don't engage with the pro-life arguments at all, rather than try to engage with all pro-life arguments, and do a full exploration of them.

> I think the main argument that Dawkins wanted to make is that many pro-choice arguments are completely missing the point and don't engage with the pro-life arguments at all

I agree, but I think Dawkins fell prey to the exact same problem. He ignored the religion behind the pro-life movement and tried to break it down into biological terms. Is that really engaging?

Re: They Think It's Murder

#80

Post by brightball »

gonzo41 wrote: post #33
brightball wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really the core of it and ultimately the decision to overturn is going to force legislators to finally codify exactly what the rules are. It’s been avoided to this point because both political sides preferred to fund raise off of the issue. Long overdue.

In the meantime, whilst there's debate on legislation, women will die from ectopic pregnancies and other women's health issues that require the termination of a non viable pregnancy. It's very grim.

All the more reason legislation should have been passed at some point over the last 50 years.
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