Liz Winstead
Actually, she spells it Lizz. Lets try to respect her name choices.
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To add to your discussion of (basically) āthere are always more than two sides to an issueā, when it comes to this particular one I think it is painfully obvious there is a spectrum of opinion. I donāt think there are two sides, or six sides, but 600 sides :).
However in some cases broad labels are appropriate. I believe Anti-Choice is appropriate, and for the fuckwits that attack clinics and hospitals āCriminalā is also appropriate. Homicidal Maniac may be uttered, if youāve had a scotch or two.
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While the latest attack is fresh in our minds, really, there were like 7 lethal attacks in the late 22 years. With 8 other attempts in the last 33 years, That is pretty damn uncommon. So the number of nuts actually taking lethal action is very, very small, even among the most hard-line of believers.
I honestly do not think someone like Rush talking about abortion is prompting people to go out and do bad things. Just like studies have shown video games, movies, and TV arenāt more likely to make you go out and hurt others either.
Though to be clear, this doesnāt excuse any misinformation. Nor anyone who actually promotes violence.
The problem with this issue is that it isnāt a black/white one, but many, many shades of grey. People for and against it both exaggerate and distort the other sideās perspectives to the point everyone is a cartoon.
There are fewer things in this world that require more delicacy and thought when dealing with.
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One side shouts. The other kills people.
There is no moral equivalence here.
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I know you probably didnāt intend to, but your statement could apply to either side.
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japhroaig was right - you are a voice of reason.
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Iām not sure this is a fair comparison, though. The reason video games, movies and TV donāt make people violent is because the vast majority of people compartmentalize reality from fiction. The idea that they would make people more violent is based on the idea that the rush of killing the bad guys in the videogame would make you seek that rush in reality, but most people who enjoy playing a game wouldnāt at all enjoy shooting at real people. The argument that Rush is prompting people to action is different - misinformation really does cause people to act badly all the time. but Iām going to go with Voltaire here, āCertainly any one who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.ā
That doesnāt mean this explanation is sufficient, but at least the mechanism by which false information could lead to violence and injustice is a real thing, whereas the videogame-to-rea-violence was just a made up.
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Arenāt you doing so right now? If not, why not?
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Perhaps. But whether anyone on the pro-life side kills for their beliefs is inarguable. Whether anyone on the pro-choice side kills for their beliefs is quite arguable indeed: typically, abortions arenāt performed for ideological but for pragmatic reasons, whereas the killings by the pro-choice side are undeniably ideological. And, of course, there is some question of whether fetuses should count as āpeopleā. If they donāt, then the pro-choice side doesnāt kill any people at all.
At any rate, itās clear the equivalence youāre proposing falls apart the second we look at it more than superficially.
Perhaps most importantly, pro-life/anti-choice* positions are necessarily predicated on metaphysical premises. This means that the assumptions which lead pro-life/anti-choice folks to believe that abortion is murder are neither falsifiable nor verifiable.
So to the extent that pro-choice folks kill āpeopleā, they do so for pragmatic reasons. To the extent that pro-life people kill folks, they do so for purely ideological, unfalsifiable reasons.
*I donāt understand whatās wrong with āanti-choiceā. They donāt want abortion to be a choice. āPro-lifeā folks also tend to be pro-war and pro-death penalty, so it seems to me that āpro-lifeā is actually misleading whereas āanti-choiceā correctly describes their position on the issue.
@Chesterfield: suppose āpro-lifeā folks wanted to call themselves as a group āthe only moral human beingsā. Should I be constrained to use that label?
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Because itās not fair if we donāt use his preferred terminology, doncha know. He refuses to discuss anything with people who donāt share his premises apparently.
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Uh, ohā¦ there you said it.
They may have committed these crimes with our with out prodding or with or with out misinformation. There is also a difference between exposure and being actually groomed for something. That is me reading articles or listening to the radio would have a different affect on me if someone talked to me one and one prompting me to do things.
And some people are not stable, engross themselves in a subject, and let it take them over. In which case maybe they are influenced by outside forces, but they were messed up to begin with.
But I think if the power of Rush is mostly to raise local temperatures slightly when talking. Otherwise I think we would see a lot more violence if he and his ilk were as dangerous as people want to paint them as. It is possible that things like that could affect already unstable people.
Consider there are actual Islamic leaders who arenāt saying, āThis is terrible, someone should do something.ā but literally saying, āThis is terrible, you should literally kill the people doing these things.ā and yet the amount of Muslim violence (for the most part) is very low.
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Discordant allies are nothing new in the world. But there is still a binary distinction: those who respect each and every womanās body sovereignty, and those who believe there are any conditions under which she should be deprived of her body sovereignty. An unborn fetus is not a sentient being. Even if it were, which itās not, to use the violence of the state to forcibly enslave one being to another would be an unconscionable act. To enslave someone to an un-seperated part of her own body simply because it can potentially become one is nothing short of tyrannical.
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http://cursor.org/stories/fascismintroduction.php
Itās also possible that things like that could have a slow, cumulative effect by normalizing extremist rhetoric until what was once considered āfringeā or āextremistā becomes considered āmainstreamā. Those that were once part of the āfringeā, upon unexpectedly finding themselves in the mainstream, may believe they have their fellow travelersā tacit support in putting their more extreme beliefs into action.
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Youāre never constrained to use any label.
It seems to me though that anybody that would call themselves the only moral human beings arenāt looking for a reasonable discussion so I would probably not engage them. Itās a pretty strong signal. I think applying the anti-choice label is also sending a signal.
Your first ā and, so far, only ā point on this comment thread was to complain that people are using the term āanti-choiceā instead of the āpreferredā label, so donāt be disingenuous. Answer my question in the context in which it was asked.
How about āpro-lifeā? Isnāt that choice implying that the other side is āanti-lifeā? Is that a reasonable thing to do?
It could be sending one or more of any number of signals, including the following (I think reasonable) signals:
- āPro-lifeā is a self-serving but inaccurate label as most āpro-lifeā folks are pro-death penalty and pro-war
- āPro-lifeā unfairly implies anyone who disagrees is āpro-deathā or āanti-lifeā
Edit: So āpro-lifeā implies unfair things about the opponents of āpro-lifeā. Does āpro-choiceā? Is there anything about āanti-choiceā that unfairly characterizes the beliefs of āpro-lifeā folks the way āanti-lifeā or āpro-deathā unfairly characterizes the beliefs of āpro-choiceā folks? If so, what is it about āanti-choiceā that unfairly characterizes the beliefs of those who think that abortion should not be a choice?
Iām also curious if youāre ever going to be able to get past this pointless semantic discussion and onto the rather more interesting object level question of whether abortion really is murder and whether vigilante killings against abortion clinic workers are justified.
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it isnāt binary, just as any surgery isnāt binary. but it should be covered by the same governance all surgeries are covered by. basically i think roe v. wade established a sane, reasonable way to approach the issue, and it has been devastatingly eroded. (but it aināt binary 
(I expect noogies for being a pedant))
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[quote=āwysinwyg, post:49, topic:70667ā]
Perhaps most importantly, pro-life/anti-choice* positions are necessarily predicated on metaphysical premises. This means that the assumptions which lead pro-life/anti-choice folks to believe that abortion is murder are neither falsifiable nor verifiable. [/quote]
Mmm yes and no. I think metaphysics can play a role, but there are many who come to a conclusion on what is right or wrong trying to apply logic and reasoning. The Catholic churchās position is pretty rational and it is hard, I think, to really completely disagree with their view.
First off - is life sacred? It is worth protecting? Most of us would say yes. Most of us would agree that it would be wrong to murder someone or enslave them. We should have a basic human right to life.
OK, if you can agree with that statement, then the you have to ask āWhat is life? When does it start?ā There is both the sort of metaphysics cropping up, but also the pragmatic scientific answer. I had a nephew born too soon and only lived a day. But he was alive for that day. While he didnāt live, there had been babies that little who did live. Since science canāt really give us a hard answer though on when life starts, they Catholics just roll it back to the earliest point - conception. And even if you disagree with that, it is a logical conclusion.
Of course not every conception results in life. 101 things can go wrong. And I donāt agree with things like their aversion to the birth control pill - though to be fair - they ARE being consistent in their reasoning.
Yes, I think you are right - pragmatic vs ideological. But does that matter? John Brown killed people to end Slavery. Now killing is wrong, but so is slavery. Were his actions for the greater good? Were they excusable? Are there cases where killing is excusable? Itās very hard to draw a line though sometimes, isnāt it?
For the record I am 100% killing or hurting abortion providers. I also think anyone who is pro-life needs to also be pro-welfare and the like.
I concede that point.
The Catholic churchās position is predicated on a metaphysical belief in a soul, and furthermore the metaphysical belief that the soul is created at the moment of conception.
That could be ārationalā, depending on your definition of ārationalā, but it is also most certainly metaphysical and therefore neither falsifiable nor verifiable.
Sacred ā this word literally just means āimportant for metaphysical reasonsā. āright to lifeā ā rights are metaphysical constructs, and from my perspective, almost certainly just figments.
Is life worth protecting? Maybe, but consider the notion that cows have souls. This is every bit as defensible as the premise that human beings have souls (i.e. not at all). But if itās true, it means that essentially all Americans are literally worse than Hitler. We believe some life is worth protecting, and that some isnāt, but not in principled ways (so pro-life folks think itās perfectly OK to invade foreign countries and inevitably kill thousands of human beings, including pregnant women and babies).
Restrictions on slavery seem to be fairly new to the human experience; similar for aversion to murder.
The scientific answer isnāt especially pragmatic in this case: both the egg cell and sperm cell are alive before the moment of conception, but frequently fertilized eggs die before transplantation. Thereās no obvious point where a ānew lifeā begins, or where a discrete entity comes into existence. Biology is under no obligation to play nice with our ontological schemas. In this case, it doesnāt.
Which is why I like to approach the question this way: āshould abortion be legal?ā My premise is that the purpose of law is to provide social stability, not enforce morality. Based on evidence, abortion does not undermine social stability whereas murder of adult human beings does. If anything, evidence seems to suggest that abortion promotes social stability to a small degree. Thus, it should be legal.
Thatās logical and does not rely on metaphysics. (In fact, it denies a role for metaphysics in the law.)
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I think you are being deliberately obtuse. The pro-life and pro-choice camps have selected those labels because they describe well what that particular group values the most.
