Photograph by “cherylholt” (10-16-15) [Pixabay / Pixabay license]
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This discussion took place underneath one of my blog posts. Erinys Trace is an atheist. Her words will be in blue.
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I thought you liked to debate in “good faith”, at least that is what you claimed before. Calling pro-choice position “pro-abort” is NOT good faith argumentation. Besides the fact that it is a total lie made up by anti-abortion activists (Pro-forced birthers since you already threw good faith out the window)
Hint, if there was a true “pro-abort” movement in the US, they would be going for a lot more in the lawbooks then “abortion is legal”. They would be, you know, actually promoting abortion and forcing it upon women who might choose otherwise. No current pro-choice position involves any more than allowing women to choose what to do with their own bodies.
And, yes, i saw your “discussion” with cjaym earlier [link], so here’s how it works:
A) pro-forced birth (current anti-abortion movement) – all women forced to give birth, damn the consequences.
B) pro-choice (current pro-choice movement) – every women chooses whether to give birth or abort the fetus
C) pro-abort (non existent in the US) – force women to have abortions under whatever circumstances they can get into law, not caring what the woman would choose to do.
Labeling pro-choice as “pro-abort” is really just completely wrong and done solely to make yourself feel more righteous. Fine and dandy, if that’s what you need to feel good, I guess, but it goes against whatever demands you might try to make on us atheists for “good faith” and non-judgemental attitude. You ever stop to think that the attitudes you ascribe to atheists might really just be your own reflected back?
“No current pro-choice position involves any more than allowing women to choose what to do with their own bodies.”
How can the offspring of a woman be her “own” body? The premise you start with is absolutely absurd, morally and scientifically, from the get-go.
For example, if a male child is “her body” then that means that she has a penis. At the moment of conception, the DNA is in place, and will remain the same from that instant to the person’s death. That is not “the woman’s body.”
That’s the sort of categorical / scientific / moral insanity that is entailed in the word games of “pro-choice” and the pro-abortion mindset, and why I refuse to play the game.
Moreover, no human being owns another human being. We got rid of that madness back in 1865 when we outlawed slavery. About a hundred years later, however, it came back in even worse form.
Instinctively realizing that such rhetoric would never be accepted by the public, the pro-abortion forces decided to play the game of talking about “choice” rather than “pro-abortion.” And they decided to dehumanize the child by using the term “fetus” (which was simply Latin for “little one”) — not to mention the famous “blob of tissue”.
We must never use “child” because that would give up the game right away and would highlight the fact that a human child and person: with complete DNA, a beating heart (18 days) and brain waves (six weeks) is murdered whenever an abortion occurs.
Your very butchery of language and categories and sane science betrays the fact that your moral position is monstrous and outrageous. The first thing done in any revolution is to co-opt the language for its purposes, so as to start changing the opinions of the populace at large.
You accuse me of a double standard in language, yet you do the same exact thing that you claim I have done. You refuse throughout your entire comment to use the chosen term that we pro-lifers use for ourselves: “pro-life.” And you do because it highlights what is going on: the ending of the life of a human child in every abortion. And so you use the terms “anti-abortion” and “pro-forced birth.”
I have argued for many years that the only sensible terminology that is fair to both sides is to use the parallel descriptions of “anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion.” I am willing to accept the term “anti-abortion” for myself because it is basically accurate: we oppose abortion as murder. So go ahead and use that. We don’t play silly word games with our position.
As a compromise, however, I’d be willing to call your position “pro-choice” if you will call mine “pro-life.” Then that would be using each side’s chosen description of itself. But almost all on your side refuse to do that. Very well, then, I won’t bow to any double standard. If you won’t call me what I want to be called, I will return the favor: especially since I think your term is fundamentally dishonest or evasive as to what it really holds.
You should admit that the accurate term for your position is “pro-abortion.” We’re against it; you’re obviously for it. You want legal abortion, so folks can engage in free sex without consequence. When absolutely “free” sex is desired, one has to figure out how to dispose of the babies that will result. And so we have abortion. The outrage had to have the legal sanction of law, in order to have “respectability.” And so we have legal abortion: that is, legal childkilling.
But instead, we get the double standard: you refuse to use our chosen term for our position, yet insist that we use your term for yours. It’s fundamentally unfair. I’m willing to accept “anti-abortion”. But you will not accept any term except for “pro-choice”: lest your fundamental position become exposed for the monstrosity that it is. You have to pretend that you’re not “for” abortion: only the choice for abortion, which is the same thing anyway, but sounds so much better, since “choice” is a good democratic, American word that everyone loves.
So, sorry. I refuse to play that game. You have the double standard here. The neutral sociological / fair terminology is “anti-abortion” and “pro-abortion.” The sensible compromise is to call each side what it prefers to be called. We don’t say “pro-choice” for anything else. If one is in favor of, for example, same-sex “marriage” they say so, rather than play the silly game of saying, “I’m in favor of pro-choice”. Asked what they mean; what choice?, they then say, “choice to marry whomever one wants, of whatever gender.” Then why bother with the “choice” schtick? Just say, “pro-same-sex marriage” or “pro-‘gay marriage.'”
But as I said, the corruption of language is a testimony that the pro-abortion crowd is quite uncomfortable with the morality of what they stand for in the first place. Otherwise, the language would be open and honest and unashamed, rather than pretentious and [implied] morally ashamed of one’s own position: much in the same way as the term “liberal” is now a term which its proponents are reluctant to use for themselves. No one wants to be called a “liberal” anymore. If abortion is such a wonderful, desirable thing, then be proudly in favor of it and don’t run from every honest, open, adult discussion of what it actually is. Conversely, if it’s not such a wonderful thing, then why in the world would you want it to be legal for anyone?
You can call me a “conservative” or “anti-abortion” all day long. I’m proud of those things. But if I was in favor of the legal dismemberment, torture, and wanton, heartless murder of innocent, helpless human children, I suppose I would play word games, too. At least you still have some shred of conscience about it and there is a dim hope that you will, one day, see the outrage and the holocaust for what it is.
Dude, I didn’t read all of your long screed, but I started with calling you anti-abortion and pro-forced birth because you started out with “pro-abort”. I knew it would make you angry, just as you admit and know that your terminology is wrong. Fetus is the scientific term, a fetus is not a person, abortion does not kill anything. if it’s inside my body using my nutrients and destroying my health in the process and can’t live on it’s own, then it is still part of my body – and as such I can choose what to do about it. That is it. [the six words bolded and italicized were in all caps in her original]
Of course you were an evangelical and are now a catholic, you know all about controlling women and not allowing them to make their own choices. Quite frankly, accusing me of playing word games, when you start out playing the very game, is the pot calling the kettle black.
Thanks for the textbook display. There is virtually not a single sentence above that is not playbook, talking-points, regurgitated sloganism (not to mention rank bigotry and lying). And to top it off, you didn’t even read my piece before “replying” to it. Thanks at least for the helpful demonstration of the hyper-irrational liberal / secularist / pro-abortion mindset.
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