| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"wp123" |
| Date: |
16 Jan 2005 05:49:00 AM |
| Object: |
Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion |
Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion
by Scott Klusendorf
Pro-life advocates argue that elective abortion unjustly
takes the life of a defenseless human being. In support of
this conclusion, pro-lifers cite both scientific and
philosophic evidence. Nonetheless, some people ignore the
evidence pro-life advocates present and argue for abortion
based on self-interest. That is the lazy way out. If we care
about truth, we will courageously follow the facts wherever
they lead. But there are pitfalls. Here are five common
mistakes people make arguing for abortion
Mistake #1: Confuse objective claims with subjective ones
(or confuse claims about ice cream with claims about truth).
When pro-life advocates say that abortion is morally wrong
because it takes the life of a defenseless child, they are
making a particular type of claim. Specifically, they are
making a moral claim about the rightness or wrongness of
abortion.
Many people, however, misconstrue the kind of claim the pro-
lifer is making in order to respond to one they like better.
Consider the following responses to the statement, Abortion
is morally wrong.
"That's just your view."
On a recent edition of the television show Politically
Incorrect, super model Kathy Ireland gave a carefully
reasoned scientific and philosophic defense of the pro-life
position. The show's host, Bill Maher, shot back with,
"Kathy, that's just your view."
What's wrong with this response? Maher was confusing a moral
claim with a preference claim. But there is a difference
between disliking something (say, for example, a particular
flavor of ice cream) and thinking it is morally wrong. Put
simply, when pro-life advocates say that abortion is morally
wrong, they are not saying they personally dislike abortion
or would prefer that people not have one. Rather, they are
saying that elective abortion is objectively wrong for
everyone, regardless of how one feels about it. This is why
the popular bumper sticker "Don't like abortion? Don't have
one!" misses the point entirely. It confuses the two types
of claims. Try this: "Don't like slavery? Don't own one!"
Now it may be the case that pro-life advocates like Kathy
Ireland are mistaken about their claim. Perhaps their
evidence that abortion unjustly takes the life of a
defenseless child is weak and inconclusive. But instead of
proving this with facts and arguments, abortion advocates
like Bill Maher ignore the evidence altogether. "Well,
that's just your view." This not only relativizes the pro-
lifers claim, it is intellectually lazy. It attempts to
dismiss evidence rather than refute it.
Imagine if I were to say, "There is a pink elephant in the
corner of the room just beneath the window." How should you
respond to my claim? Perhaps I'm mistaken (and chances are I
would be), but it would do no good to say, "That's just your
view." The problem is I was not offering an opinion, I was
claiming to be right. To refute me, you must show that my
claim is false. The correct response is to say, "Your
evidence is lousy. We looked in the corner and there is no
elephant."
But again, Maher did not do that. At no point did he
challenge her facts and arguments. What he said in effect
was "Go away Kathy. You have your views and I have mine."
This was very condescending because he did not even
entertain the possibility that she had good evidence for her
claim. Nor did he acknowledge the type of claim she was
making.
To sum up, Maher was confusing a preference claim with a
distinctly moral one. Preference claims cannot be evaluated
as true or false because they are matters of personal taste.
You cannot reasonably argue that vanilla ice cream is
objectively better than chocolate.
But moral claims are different. They can be evaluated as
true or false based on the evidence. They do not say, This
is better tasting, they say, This is right. Kathy Ireland's
claim was, Abortion is wrong because it takes the life of a
defenseless child, and I think I'm right. Maher's glib
response did nothing to refute this.
In fact, one could stop Maher dead in his tracks by saying,
Bill, it's just your view that it's just my view.
"Don't force your morality on me."
A student at a Southern California college said this to me
after I made a case for the pro-life position in her
sociology class. She was in effect saying, Morality is
relative; it's up to me to decide what is right and wrong.
We call this moral relativism, the belief that there are no
objective standards of right and wrong, only personal
preferences. Therefore, we should tolerate other views as
being equal to our own.
Relativism, however, is seriously flawed for at least three
reasons. First, it is self-refuting. That is to say, it
cannot live by its own rules. Second, relativists cannot
reasonably say that anything is wrong, including
intolerance. Third, it is impossible to live as a
relativist.
1) Relativism is self-refuting--it commits intellectual
suicide. The student said it was wrong for me to force my
views on others, but she could not live with her own rule.
Although our dialogue was pleasant, she clearly tried to
force her views on me.
Student: You made some good points in your talk, but
you shouldn't force your morality on me or anyone else who
wants an abortion. It's our choice, isn't it?
Me: Are you saying I'm wrong?
Student: I'm not sure. What do you mean?
Me: Well, you think I'm wrong, don't you? If not,
why are you correcting me? And if so, then you're forcing
your morality on me, aren't you?
Student: No, I just want to know why you are telling
people what they can and cannot do with their lives.
Me: Are you saying I shouldn't do that? That it's
wrong? If so, then why are you telling me what I can and
cannot do? Why are you forcing your morality on me?
Student (regrouping): I'm confused. Look, the simple
fact is that pro-choicers are not forcing women to have
abortions, but you want to force women to be mothers. If you
don't like abortion, don't have one. But you shouldn't force
your beliefs on others. All I am saying is that pro-life
people should be tolerant of other views.
Me: Is that your view?
Student: Yes.
Me: Why are you forcing it on me? That's not very
tolerant, is it?
Student: What do you mean? I think women should have
a choice and you don't. It's your view that's intolerant,
wouldn't you say?
Me: Okay, so you think I'm wrong. What is it you
want pro-lifers like me to do?
Student: You should let women decide for themselves
and tolerate other views.
Me: Tell me, what exactly do pro-choicers believe?
Student: We believe everyone should decide for
themselves and tolerate other views.
Me: So you are demanding that pro-lifers become pro-
choicers.
Student: What?
Me: With all due respect, here's what I hear you
saying. Unless I agree with you, you will not tolerate my
view. Privately, you'll let me think whatever I want, but
you don't want me to act as if my view is true. It seems you
think tolerance is a virtue if and only if people agree with
you.
Put succinctly, her argument for tolerance was in fact a
patronizing form of intolerance. She spoke of moral
neutrality, but tried to force her views on me.
A recent editorial in the Toronto Star was similarly
intolerant of pro-life advocates. While decrying the "single-
minded moral supremacism" of those who call abortion
killing, journalist Michele Landsberg writes:
Will no priest or minister publicly resolve to stop
the indoctrination of youth to view abortion as murder? Is
none ashamed of the blood-drenched holocaust vocabulary used
so cynically (and anti-semitically) to whip up fervor for
the crusade? Where are the outspoken cries of conscience by
bishops and cardinals who should be appalled by the evidence
of links between anti-abortion fanatics and far-right
militias, neo Nazis, and white supremacists? Is there no
religious leader who regrets his church's role in feeding
this blind frenzy? Will none of them repent of their
excesses, will none call a halt to their sickeningly
manipulative campaigns of "precious little feet," their fake
"documentaries" about screaming fetuses? You'd think that
the world had enough lessons in the dangers of hate speech.
Like hers? It doesn't seem to trouble Ms. Landsberg that her
own vitriolic rhetoric could incite pro-choicers to commit
acts of violence against pro-lifers. She continues:
It was the unbridled hate speech of fundamentalist
fanatics in Israel who spurred on the "devout" murder of
then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin....We've seen how
homophobic rantings from right-wing American leaders,
notably the Senate republican leader, led to escalating gay
bashings, culminating in the heart- wrenching death of
Matthew Shepherd in Wyoming....Denominational schools
[should] begin to teach respect for the laws of our
pluralistic society, rather than preaching single-minded
moral supremacism.
Again, like her own?
Notice what is going on here. She decries "moral
supremacism," but says that anyone who disagrees with her
view on abortion is an indoctrinator of youth, a fanatic, an
anti-Semite, a neo-Nazi, a white supremacist, a manipulator
of facts, a purveyor of hate speech, homophobic, a gay-
basher, a religious bully, responsible for the death of
Matthew Shepherd, and finally, a fundamentalist fanatic like
those who murdered Yitzhak Rabin.
One can hardly imagine a finer piece of self-refuting
rhetoric. All, of course, in the name of tolerance.
While driving my sons to a recent baseball game at Dodger
Stadium, a young woman in a white pickup truck began
tailgating me. Visibly angered by a pro-life sticker on my
rear window, she stayed on my bumper for a mile or so.
Finally, she pulled beside me and extended a certain part of
her anatomy skyward as she passed. She then cut in front of
me.
At that moment, I noticed a bumper sticker on her truck. It
said, "Celebrate Diversity." The message was clear: In a
pluralistic society, we should tolerate the views of others.
Ironically, the driver saw no contradiction between her
unwillingness to tolerate (or celebrate) my point of view
and her bumper sticker that said we should tolerate all
points of view. That is what I mean when I say that
relativism is self-refuting.
2) It is impossible for a moral relativist to say that
anything is wrong, including intolerance. If morals are
relative, then who are you to say that I should be tolerant?
Perhaps my individual morality says intolerance is just
fine. Why, then, should I allow anyone to force tolerance on
me as a virtue if my preference is intolerance?
The truth is, a moral relativist cannot legitimately say
that anything is wrong or truly evil. My colleague Greg
Koukl once challenged a relativist with this question. "Do
you think it is wrong to torture babies for fun?" She
paused, then replied, "Well, I wouldn't want to do that to
my baby." Greg responded, "That's not what I asked you. I
didn't ask if you liked torturing babies for fun, I asked if
it was wrong to torture babies for fun." The relativist was
caught and she knew it. She chuckled and went on to another
subject.
If it is up to us to decide (rather than discover) right and
wrong, then there is no difference between Mother Theresa's
morality and Adolf Hitler's morality. Hitler was not evil,
he just had preferences different from our own.
3) It is impossible to live as a moral relativist. As C.S.
Lewis points out, a person who claims there is no objective
morality will complain if you break a promise or cut in
line. And if you steal his stereo, he will protest loudly.
If I were a crook, I would reply to the relativist, Do you
think stealing stereos is wrong? Well, that's just your
view. My morality says it's perfectly acceptable. Who are
you to force your views on me? Simply put, moral relativists
espouse a view they cannot live with.
"I'm personally opposed to abortion, but I still think it
should be legal."
When people say this, I ask a simple question to clarify
things. I ask why they personally oppose abortion.
Invariably, they reply, We oppose it because it kills a
human baby. At that point, I merely repeat back their words.
"Let me see if I got this straight. You oppose abortion
because it kills babies, but you think it should be legal to
kill babies?"
Would these same people argue that while they personally
opposed slavery, they would not protest if a neighbor wanted
to own one? This was precisely what Stephen Douglas did
during his debates with Abraham Lincoln. That argument did
not work
with slavery and it will not work with abortion. Either
elective abortion kills a defenseless child or not. If it
does, we should not tolerate it. Period.
Mistake #2: Attack the person rather than refute the
argument. (Ad hominem fallacy)
Instead of defending the abortion act itself, some "pro-
choice" advocates personally attack those who do not share
their views. At a 1995 "Rock for Choice" concert in
Pensacola Florida, vocalist Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam
shrieked from the stage: "I'm usually good about my temper,
but all these men trying to control women's bodies really
***** me off. They're talking from a bubble. They're not
talking from the street, and they're not in touch with
what's real. Well, I'm f----ing mean, and I'm ugly, and my
name is reality. Music--that is my religion. I would never
force my beliefs on anyone--that's the thing."
During an HBO special, comedian Rosanne Barr told the
audience: "You know who else I can't stand is them people
that are antiabortion....I hate them. They're ugly, old,
geeky, hideous men. They just don't want nobody to have an
abortion, cause they want you to keep spitting out kids so
they can molest them."
Do you see what is happening here? Instead of defending
their views with facts and arguments, Rosanne Barr and Eddie
Vedder are attacking the character of pro-lifers. We call
this the ad hominem fallacy. It is fallacious reasoning
because even if the personal attack is true, it does nothing
to refute the pro-lifer's argument.
Let's grant, for the sake of discussion, that pro-life
advocates are hideous old men who molest children, as
Roseanne Barr contends is true. How does this in any way
refute the pro-life claim that abortion takes the life of a
defenseless child? Clearly, it does not. The attack is
therefore irrelevant to the argument the pro-life advocate
is making.
Consider also the claim that pro-lifers are hypocritical to
protest abortion unless they adopt babies they do not want
aborted. For the moment, let's assume there are not two
million American families willing to do this, as is the
case. How would the alleged reluctance of pro-lifers to
adopt babies justify the act of abortion? While it is true
that pro-life advocates should help those facing crisis
pregnancies, it is not true that abortion is justified
whenever that obligation is left unmet.
Imagine a bigot arguing, Unless you agree to marry my wife,
you have no right to oppose me beating her. Or, Unless you
are willing to adopt my three sons by noon today, I shall
execute them. If you reject his ultimatum, is he morally
justified performing acts of violence on innocent victims?
Sometimes people are attacked for their gender. Men are
told, "You can't get pregnant, so leave the abortion issue
to women." Besides its obvious sexism, the statement is
seriously flawed for several reasons.
First, arguments do not have genders, people do. Since many
pro-life women use the same arguments offered by pro-life
men, it behooves the abortion advocate to answer these
arguments without fallaciously attacking a person's gender.
Second, to be consistent with their own reasoning, abortion
advocates would have to concede that Roe v. Wade was bad law-
-after all, it was decided by nine men. They must also call
for the dismissal of all male lawyers working for Planned
Parenthood, the ACLU, etc., on abortion related issues.
Since abortion advocates are unwilling to do this, we can
restate their argument as follows: "No man can speak on
abortion--unless he agrees with us." Once again, this is a
classic case of intolerance.
Third, lesbians and post-menopausal women cannot naturally
get pregnant; must they be silent on the issue?
Finally, think of the bizarre rules we could derive from
this argument:
"Since only generals understand battle, only they
should discuss the morality of war."
"Because female sportscasters have never
experienced a groin injury, they have no right to broadcast
football games on national television."
"Only Jewish people have a right to condemn the
holocaust."
Again, abortion advocates must offer facts and arguments in
support of their position. Attacking people personally, even
if those attacks are true, will not make their case or
refute ours.
Mistake #3: Assume what you are trying to prove.
Advocates of elective abortion must show that the unborn are
not fully human or their case crumbles. But instead of
proving this conclusion with facts and arguments, many
people simply assume it within the course of their rhetoric.
We call this "begging the question" and it is a logical
fallacy that lurks behind many arguments for abortion.
A person begs the question when he assumes what he is trying
to prove. Imagine you are undergoing an IRS audit. If
federal prosecutors were to ask, Have you stopped cheating
on your taxes?, your defense lawyer would strongly object.
The reason is simple: The question assumes you have broken
the law, the very point prosecutors are trying to prove.
Your attorney would rightly demand they prove guilt with
facts and evidence, rather than assume it with rhetoric.
Arguing that abortion is justified because a woman has a
right to control her own body assumes there is only one body
involved--that of the woman. But this is precisely the point
abortion advocates try to prove. Hence, they beg the
question.
Or, take the claim that no one knows when life begins,
therefore abortion should remain legal. But to argue that no
one knows when life begins, and that abortion must remain
legal through all nine months of pregnancy, assumes that
life does not begin until birth--the exact point abortion
advocates try to prove. This is hardly a neutral position.
It is a clear case of begging the question.
So is the coat hanger argument, which states that women will
die from illegal abortions if laws are passed protecting the
unborn. But unless you begin with the assumption that the
unborn are not human, you are making the highly questionable
claim that because some people die attempting to kill
others, the state should make it safe and legal for them to
do so. Should we legalize bank robbery so it is safer for
felons?
If you think a particular argument begs the question
regarding the status of the unborn, simply ask, Would this
justification for abortion also work as a justification for
killing toddlers or other humans? If not, the argument
assumes the unborn are not fully human.
Again, it may be the case that the unborn are not fully
human and abortion is therefore justified. But this must be
proven with facts and evidence, not merely assumed by one's
rhetoric.
Mistake #4: Confuse functioning as a person with being a
person.
Abortion advocates like Mary Anne Warren claim that a
"person" is a living entity with feelings, self-awareness,
and the ability to interact with his or her environment.
Because
the fetus, she alleges, can do none of these things, it
cannot be fully human. Warren is espousing a doctrine known
as functionalism, the belief that human beings are defined
by what they can and cannot do. Functionalism, however, is
seriously flawed because it fails to make a number of
critical distinctions.
First, one can fail to function as a person and yet still be
a person. People under anesthesia or in a deep sleep cannot
feel pain, are not self-aware, and cannot reason. Neither
can those in reversible comas. But we do not call into
question their humanity because we recognize that although
they cannot function as persons, they still have the being
of persons, which is the essential thing.
Here is the key question: How many functions can I lose and
still be myself? If I lose my sight, am I still me? If my
legs and arms are lost, am I still me? If I cannot speak or
hear, am I still me? What if I can no longer play chess or
think critically? What if my IQ is less than 50? Wouldn't I
still be a person with value?
Do I, as a person, become disposable simply because I cannot
do everything you can? Do I lose the right to live because I
am helpless and dependent? Do stronger, more capable people
have more rights than others?
The answer is obviously no. No physical change or loss of
function will cause you to cease being you unless that
change ends your life. When a living thing like the unborn
human comes into being, it remains what it is regardless of
the shape of its body or present capabilities.
Second, one must be a person in order to function as one.
Non-sentient frogs do not become persons simply by acquiring
sentience (the ability to feel pain, etc.). Nor do robots
become persons by assembling cars or loading freight.
Rather, a person is one with the natural, inherent capacity
to perform personal acts, even if that capacity is currently
unrealized. One grows in the ability to perform personal
acts only because one already is the kind of thing that
grows into the ability to perform personal acts, i.e., a
person.
Third, the rights of individuals in our society are not
based on their current (actual) capacities, but on their
inherent capacities. This sounds complex, but we make this
distinction all the time. For example, no one doubts that
newborn humans have fewer actual capacities than do day-old
calves. Baby humans are rather unimpressive in terms of
environmental awareness, mobility, etc. Yet this does not
lead us to believe that the calf belongs in the nursery
while the infant can be left in the barn. To the contrary,
we understand that although the infant currently lacks many
functional abilities, it nonetheless has the inherent
capacity to function as a person. But if individual rights
are grounded in one's current capacities, calves should
enjoy a greater moral status than do newborns.
People who are unconscious cannot presently function as
persons, but they still have the inherent capacity to
perform personal acts. That is why we do not kill them. From
the moment of conception, the unborn human has the natural,
inherent capacity to function as a person. What he lacks is
the current capacity to do so. That he cannot yet speak,
reason, or perform personal acts means only that he cannot
yet function as a person, not that he lacks the essential
being of a person.
This same emphasis on inherent (as opposed to actual)
capacity is underscored in the accepted bio-ethical criteria
for brain death. Say, for example, you have an automobile
accident that leaves you in a coma. Some of your friends
think your quality of life is gone and want to unplug life
support. Others, like your parents, rally to stop them. What
should be done?
The law in this case is very specific. According to the
Uniform Determination of Death Act written into the health
and safety codes of each state, the deciding factor is not
your current state of brain function, but your inherent
state of brain function. For death to occur, there must be
an "irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire
brain, including the brain stem." Hence, the reversibly
comatose are never classified as "non-persons" under our
existing legal system despite their current lack of brain
function.
Again, from the moment of conception the unborn entity has
the inherent capacity to have a functioning brain. What it
lacks is the current capacity. Hence, there is no ethical
difference between it and the reversibly comatose, the
momentarily unconscious, etc., who enjoy the protection of
law despite their current inability to function as persons.
Finally, functionalism dehumanizes not only the unborn, but
also many people outside of the womb.
Last month, an attorney friend I was debating argued that
until the 32nd week of pregnancy, the unborn's brain
resembles a fish or amphibian in its evolutionary
development. Therefore, the unborn are not fully human until
the final stages of pregnancy.
This argument is dangerous. Darwin and his followers used it
a century ago to dehumanize women. Their contention was that
women were biologically and intellectually inferior because
their brains were less developed than a man's. In The
Descent of Man in Relation to Sex, Darwin wrote:
[Man] attains a higher eminence, in whatever he
takes up, than can women--whether requiring deep thought,
reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and
hands. If two lists were made of the most eminent men and
women in poetry, history, painting, sculpture, music
(inclusive of both composition and performance), history,
science, and philosophy, the two lists would not bear
comparison. We may also infer, from the law of the deviation
from averages...[that] the average mental power in man must
be above that of women.
Ladies, it gets worse. In his book The Mismeasure of Man,
prominent paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould quotes Darwin
disciple Gustave Le Bon as follows:
[Even in] the most intelligent races [there] are
large numbers of women whose brains are closer in size to
those of gorillas than to the most developed male brains.
This inferiority is so obvious that no one can contest it
for a moment; only its degree is worth discussion..Women
represent the most inferior forms of human evolution
and...are closer to children and savages than to an adult,
civilized man. They excel in fickleness, inconstancy,
absence of thought and logic, and incapacity to reason.
Without a doubt, there exists some distinguished women, very
superior to the average man, but they are as exceptional as
the birth of any monstrosity, as for example, of a gorilla
with two heads. Consequently, we may neglect them entirely.
Ladies and gentlemen, what will it be? Will we acknowledge
the truth found in The Declaration of Independence that
human beings have value simply because they are human? Or
will we join Darwin in saying only the achievers,
intelligent, and powerful count as full human persons? Be
careful how you decide. The results could one day disqualify
you as human.
Mistake #5: Disguise your true position by appealing to the
hard cases.
Some people argue that legal abortion protects rape victims
from compulsory motherhood. They castigate pro-lifers as
cruel and insensitive toward women suffering assault.
This seems like a powerful objection. Rape is profoundly
evil. Victims deserve our best care. But there's a moral
consideration as well. Does rape involve two victims or just
one? And if the unborn entity involved is human, why should
she be forced to give up her life so that her mother can
feel better?
Put differently, can you think of any other case where,
having been victimized yourself, you can justly turn around
and victimize another completely innocent person? Say, for
example, a drunk driver plows into your parked car,
destroying it. To ease the pain of your loss, you take a
sledgehammer to your neighbor's sedan. Is this morally
permissible? If a friend protests your actions, is he
insensitive? Hardly. So again, the issue is not, Are pro-
lifers cruel?, but, What is the unborn? If the unborn is
human, it should not be killed to benefit its mother. There
is no moral complexity here.
But the appeal to hard cases is flawed in another way that
has nothing to do with one's attitude toward women or the
morality of abortion. It is flawed because it is not
entirely truthful.
Here's why. The "pro-choice" position is not that abortion
should be legal only when a woman is raped, but that
abortion is a fundamental right she can exercise for any
reason she wants during all nine months of pregnancy.
Instead of defending this position with facts and arguments,
many disguise it with an emotional appeal to rape.
But this will not make their case. The argument from rape,
if successful at all, would only justify abortion in cases
of sexual assault, not for any reason the woman deems fit.
In fact, arguing for abortion-on-demand from the hard case
of rape is like trying to argue for the elimination of all
traffic laws because a person might have to break one
rushing a loved one to the hospital. Proving an exception
does not prove a rule.
To expose their smokescreen, I ask abortion advocates the
following: "Okay, I'm going to grant for the sake of
discussion that we keep abortion legal in cases of rape.
Will you join me in supporting legal restrictions on those
abortions done for convenience which, as your own studies
show, make up the overwhelming percentage of abortions?"
The answer is almost always no, to which I reply, "Then why
did you bring rape up except to mislead us into thinking you
support abortion only in the hard cases?"
Again, if pro-choicers think abortion should be legal for
all nine months of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever,
including sex-selection and convenience, they should defend
that view with facts and arguments. Cashing in on the
tragedy of rape victims is intellectually dishonest.
VI. Summary and Conclusion:
To sum up, one must show that the unborn are not fully human
or the case for elective abortion crumbles. Scaring people
over illegal abortions or alleged invasions of privacy will
not make the case. No privacy argument is a legitimate cover
for a conspiracy to do serious harm to an innocent human
being.
The fact that some people controvert a position does not
make that position intrinsically controversial. People
argued for both sides about slavery, racism and genocide,
but that did not make them complex issues.
No, we can do better than that. Abortion is complex only for
those who, because of their own self-interest, want to make
it complex. To paraphrase what Abraham Lincoln said to
Stephen Douglas, You do not have a right to do what is
wrong.
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| Title: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part I |
16 Jan 2005 08:59:20 AM |
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DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot. From there on, **everything** he
writes can very reasonably be taken with a grain of salt the
size of the Rock of Gibralter.
Let's debunk his bigotry in a series of point-by-point posts.
1. "Moral Relativism" --- What is it, REALLY?
Klusendorf had THIS to say about it:
"Don't force your morality on me."
A student at a Southern California college said this to
me after I made a case for the pro-life position in her
sociology class. She was in effect saying, Morality is
relative; it's up to me to decide what is right and wrong.
We call this moral relativism, the belief that there are no
objective standards of right and wrong, only personal
preferences. Therefore, we should tolerate other views
as being equal to our own.
His FIRST mistake. MIS-identifying, and in effect (and
probably literally) LYING about that which can properly be
called "moral relativism."
Much of that which BIGOTS like to think are "moral
absolutes" are anything BUT. The notion that there's any-
thing at all wrong (or "immoral") about abortion is a good
example of such flawed thinking.
Scott said, in so many words, that moral relativism is "the
belief that there are no objective standards of right and wrong."
That is incorrect. People who practice moral relativism
know that the BOTTOM LINE of morality is whether or not
a person's (or group's) actions do -- or are likely to do -- overt
harm to other people. And it can be summed up very
succinctly by the Golden Rule. (Which happens even to be
Biblical, by the way. For the benefit of those to whom the
Bible in meaningful, myself included, it occurs three times in
the Bible, in various wordings. And even more importantly,
most of what the Bible teaches ALIGNS with that most basic
of all precepts.)
So much for Klusendorf's very SKEWED and narrow view
of moral relativism.
ACTUAL moral relativism is more commonly called by
different terminology: COMMON SENSE.
Let's continue, and watch Scott dig himself even deeper.
Relativism, however, is seriously flawed for at least three
reasons. First, it is self-refuting. That is to say, it cannot live
by its own rules. Second, relativists cannot reasonably say
that anything is wrong, including intolerance. Third, it is im-
possible to live as a relativist.
1) Relativism is self-refuting -- it commits intellectual
suicide. The student said it was wrong for me to
force my views on others, but she could not live
with her own rule. Although our dialogue was
pleasant, she clearly tried to force her views on me.
Wrong. She did no such thing. But the dialogue that
follows provides us with an EXCELLENT example of the weasel-
wording and conniving that the more ADEPT Anti-Choicers --
such as the RRR cult's oligarchical leaders -- employ to CON
the gullible... and sometimes even relatively-intelligent people
who either DESIRE to think they are right, or who don't
bother to scrutinize what they say carefully enough.
Student: You made some good points in your talk, but
you shouldn't force your morality on me or anyone
else who wants an abortion. It's our choice, isn't it?
Me: Are you saying I'm wrong?
Student: I'm not sure. What do you mean?
Me: Well, you think I'm wrong, don't you? If not,
why are you correcting me? And if so, then you're
forcing your morality on me, aren't you?
Student: No, I just want to know why you are telling
people what they can and cannot do with their lives.
Me: Are you saying I shouldn't do that? That it's
wrong? If so, then why are you telling me what I
can and cannot do? Why are you forcing your
morality on me?
Student (regrouping): I'm confused. Look, the simple
fact is that pro-choicers are not
forcing women to have abortions, but you want
to force women to be mothers. If you don't like
abortion, don't have one. But you shouldn't force
your beliefs on others. All I am saying is that pro-life
people should be tolerant of other views.
Me: Is that your view?
Student: Yes.
Me: Why are you forcing it on me? That's not very
tolerant, is it?
Student: What do you mean? I think women should
have a choice and you don't. It's your view that's
intolerant, wouldn't you say?
Me: Okay, so you think I'm wrong. What is it you
want pro-lifers like me to do?
Student: You should let women decide for themselves
and tolerate other views.
Me: Tell me, what exactly do pro-choicers believe?
Student: We believe everyone should decide for them-
selves and tolerate other views.
Me: So you are demanding that pro-lifers become
pro-choicers.
NOTICE that tactic! She had done NO such thing. A
Pro-Choicer defends women's right to access **either** the
option of gestating-to-term OR the option of obtaining an
abortion, FREE of outside interference or coercion in either
direction. She was not even remotely asking him to do that.
She was doing no more than asking him NOT to interfere
with others as they make that personal and PRIVATE (as in,
NONE of his business) decision.
Around 1/3 of all Americans in their teens and older disagree
with abortion. But only 5% of them are actually Anti-Choice in
their actions. Using those figures (of which I've documented
the accuracy in many other posts) that's around 73,000,000
people who are sensible enough to mind their own business
while disagreeing with abortion, and 4,000,000 actual Anti-
Choice busybodies.
The student was simply asking him to have enough
common sense NOT to be a busybody.
Student: What?
Me: With all due respect, here's what I hear you
saying. Unless I agree with you, you will not
tolerate my view.
See that? She said NO such thing. She was simply
asking him NOT to be publicly intolerant of the rights of
others. A very legitimate request. The same thing that the
blacks (and their allies from other races) had to say to the
active segregationists, 40+ years ago.
Privately, you'll let me think whatever I want, but you
don't want me to act as if my view is true. It seems you
think tolerance is a virtue if and only if people agree with
you.
No. She clearly regarded INtolerance of the rights of
others NOT to be a virtue. And she was right!
One more example of this tactic of TWISTING fair-mind-
edness to make it look like intolerance:
While driving my sons to a recent baseball game at Dodger
Stadium, a young woman in a white pickup truck began
tailgating me. Visibly angered by a pro-life sticker on my
rear window, she stayed on my bumper for a mile or so.
Finally, she pulled beside me and extended a certain part of
her anatomy skyward as she passed. She then cut in front
of me.
At that moment, I noticed a bumper sticker on her truck. It
said, "Celebrate Diversity." The message was clear: In a
pluralistic society, we should tolerate the views of others.
Ironically, the driver saw no contradiction between her
unwillingness to tolerate (or celebrate) my point of view
and her bumper sticker that said we should tolerate all
points of view. That is what I mean when I say that
relativism is self-refuting.
Celebrating diversity does not mean accepting hatefulness
as a portion of that which comprises diversity, any more than it
would mean accepting Nazism or the Ku Klux Klan. Her bumper
sticker defended the right of people NOT to be subjected to
discrimination and intolerance, and *yours* advocated INtoler-
ance, and supported an agenda that overtly seeks to FORCE
millions of women to gestate-to-term against their will. So you got
the Fickle Finger of Fate Award from her for that. You deserved it.
It was as though a black person in Alabama in 1958 had
had a bumper sticker that read, "Fairness Now!" and a
segregationist had a bumper sticker that said, "Keep Ni***rs
in their Place!"
Would the black person have been wrong for opposing
bigotry? Would the segregationist have been right for seeking
to continue the bigotry? Of course not. And it was the same
with that woman's liberty-defending sticker, and your bigoted one.
You're one very CLEVER cookie, Klusendorf. But not
nearly clever enough, when your arguments are subjected to
scrutiny. NOR are the RRR cult's leaders.
The only problem is that **not enough** people are looking
that closely at their weasel-worded but vacous rhetoric. And
hopefully, that is changing.
[[[ The writer of the above article may never see my
rebuttals of it. But that's not important. What IS
important is that many people can see a bright
spotlight being shined on the unscrupulous con-
artist tactics that are employed by people who
are -- unfortunately -- both astute, but bigoted. ]]]
Scott Klusendorf is Director of Bio-Ethics
at "Stand to Reason." www.str.org
-- Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com>
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Every time a person supports bigotry in public, and presents NO
relevant FACTS to back his/her stance in behalf of a loathsome
agenda against individual liberties and human rights, that person
has -- ironically -- further **damaged** the cause he/she supports.
And every time a fair-minded and sensible egalitarian opposes
such a bigot, publicly, and **presents** relevant FACTS that are
damaging to the bigot's agenda, that TOO is an additional nail in
the coffin lid of the agenda, and a push of that casket CLOSER
to the Drain of Extinction -- its well-deserved ultimate destination.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
(E-Mail address is valid when removing _ from it.)
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| User: "Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie! Forever!!" |
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| Title: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 2. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 2 |
16 Jan 2005 10:46:59 AM |
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DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 2
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot. From there on, **everything** he
writes can very reasonably be taken with a grain of salt the
size of the Rock of Gibralter.
Let's debunk his bigotry in a series of point-by-point posts.
2. "Moral Relativism" vs. MIS-perceived "Moral Absolutes"
Klusendorf said:
When pro-life advocates say that abortion is morally wrong
because it takes the life of a defenseless child, they are
making a particular type of claim. Specifically, they are
making a moral claim about the rightness or wrongness of
abortion.
No -- they are merely stating an OPINION of what they
THINK is a moral claim. In reality, abortion has NO effect
on *any* children -- "defenseless" or otherwise.
(Note Klusendorf's employment of a widely-used tactic
of the Anti-Choicers: a lame attempt to elicit an emothional
response from the gullibel people that their propaganda
targets. In this case twofold -- referring to a mere, NON-
sentient fetus that couldn't care less about anything any more
than could the embryo, zygote, or gametes that preceded it,
one, two, and three stages earlier, respectively... as being
"defenseless" and a "child.")
And when it comes to the "rightness" and 'wrongness"
of abortion, the reality is that there is NOTHING wrong with
it. Abortion is nothing more than a harmless, but hugely-
beneficial REMEDY for the unwanted medical condition of
ill-timed pregnancy for all girls and women who CHOOSE to
access it.
FACT: Gametes are the entities that comprise Stage One
of the reproductive process. Each is human (adj.),
and alive.* Each represents a unique person who will never
be born if it dies. And the other three stages of the repro-
ductive process -- zygotes, embryoes, and fetuses -- share
those SAME characteristics. But Anti-Choicers selectively
defend around 4,000 potential people of the later three
stages (per day, in the USA) that are aborted -- while
hypocritically IGNORING the more than **quadrillion**
potential people at Stage One that are electively aborted
daily, worldwide, by men. Can the gametes BE defended?
Of course not. SHOULD unwanted zygotes, embryoes,
and fetuses be defended? Of course not. NOT at the
the expense of the well-being, rights, and future oppor-
tunities of the millions of women that Anti-Choicers seek
to FORCE full-term gestation upon. That would be tanta-
mount to an agonizingly-prolonged, 9-month-long form of
**rape.**
* So much for the oft-spoken but incorrect notion
that "life begins at fertilization." Not unless one
can bring about a LIVE zygote by combining
DEAD gametes. And if any given living person is
mentally reverse-engineered, we find that there
was a period of time when the entities that ultimately
became him was a pair of gametes that hadn't yet
met. Whose DNA, **summed**, was the SAME as
his own DNA as a person.
For those to whom the Bible is meaningful (myself included),
it NEVER defends reproductive-process entities as "people,"
and does so just *once*, as PROPERTY. In a passage that
**condones** SLAVERY. (Ex. 21:20-25).
ALL human entities that the Bible defends have been BORN.
And the Bible makes it clear that **personhood** begins at
*birth* in its passages dealing with "first-BORNS" and "BIRTH-
rights."
Moral claims ... can be evaluated as true or false based
on the evidence.
They most certainly CAN, Scott. And while NO relevant
FACTS support **forcing** women to gestate-to-term against their
will, the facts that support the ensuring that they will forevermore
NEVER be denied ACCESS to the remedy of safe & legal abortion,
upon request, are ABUNDANT! As can be seen in the outline,
below ---
ANALYZING ABORTION-ON-REQUEST* in the USA
*(Abortion Rights as they have existed since 1-22-73)
Abortion terminates entities (z/e/fs: zygotes, embryoes &
fetuses, up until the 7th month of gestation) which have ALL
of these characteristics in common with sperm and ova:
-- Human
-- Unique
-- As a stage of development, indispensible to future birth
-- Have NEVER experienced conscious awareness
-- Alive
...which makes it hypocritical when abortion opponents
try to defend z/e/fs but NOT sperm and ova.
And the Bible, which is the primary moral authority for the
majority of Americans:
-- In NO way condemns abortion
-- Doesn't even MENTION abortion
-- By Jesus' day, abortion had been around for 1,000 yrs.
-- Contains NO defenses of s/o/z/e/fs
-- Reserves ALL of its protection for already-BORN people
-- That the Bible regards personhood to begin at BIRTH is
made clear by it's immense emphasis on the importance
of BIRTH order, and BIRTHrights.
-- In certain cases, condemned BABIES to horrible deaths
-- Never indicates that there is anything "special" about
fertilization
-- Thus making z/e/f and sperm & ova of EQUAL worth
Abortion-on-request enables women to:
-- Put their lives back on track immediately
-- Restore their well-being to pre-unplanned pregnancy levels
-- Vast majority of women are happy with this decision
-- Most women have no regrets
-- Restore their full range of future opportunities
-- Avoid physical difficulties of a 9-month pregnancy
-- Especially important for young girls, ~12-16
-- Statistically 6-10 times safer than carrying-to-term
-- Avoid the trauma of adopting-out, and wondering later
-- Avoid possibility of changing mind about adopting-out
-- Reduce likelihood of long-term economic deprivation
-- Avoid bringing child into less-loving home
-- Avoid bringing child into unstable environment
-- Wait until timing is better before having children
-- Who then are MORE likely to be loved
-- Who then are MORE likely to be in stable home
-- And thus are LESS like to have troubled childhoods
-- And therefore more likely NOT to become criminals
-- And thus are MORE likely to become successful
Legal abortion-on-request:
-- Is exponentially safer than illegal abortions
-- Thus saving the lives of hundreds or thousands of women/yr.
-- Has been available throughout the USA since early 1973
-- Between 1973 and 2000, 30 million women have had them
-- Between 1973 and 2000, 40 million abortions have been done
Other related facts include:
-- MOST women who have abortions go on to HAVE kids later,
when the timing is better
-- Those children would NOT have been born if the abortions
had not taken place earlier, because the same sperm and
ova would not have matched up.
-- Those "2nd-round" kids STARTED reaching age 13 in
significant numbers by 1988. By the early 1990s, millions
of those "2nd-round" kids were in their mid-teens by the
early 1990s.
-- Mid-teens is the highest risk age for crime, and this
continues into the early 20s.
-- As pointed out above, wanted and loved children are
LESS prone to criminal behavior.
-- By 1995, millions of "2nd-round kids" were entering the
workforce. Perhaps a million-plus MORE have entered it
every year SINCE. By 2000, the oldest ones had reached
the age where they could be getting quite successful.
-- Since the early 1990s, the rate of violent crime in the USA
has declined dramatically, and by 2000 was at 40-year
lows in many categories.
-- The decade of the 1990s, and the year 2002 to date, in
the USA, has been the most economically-dynamic of
any nation in the entire history of the world.
Although the exact figures may be impossible to derive, the
probability that abortion-on-request has SIGNIFICANTLY benefitted
all of America's society in terms of the crime rate and the economy
is QUITE strong, despite the temporary anomaly caused by the attack
on Sept. 11, 2001. And a strong U.S. economy benefits the entire
world.
"Moral relativism" is actually better defined as being COMMON
SENSE, Scott. And it's based on the Golden Rule -- which is the
underlying theme of the bible. No relevant facts argue against
ready access to safe & legal abortion upon request.
[[[ The writer of the above article may never see my
rebuttals of it. But that's not important. What IS
important is that many people can see a bright
spotlight being shined on the unscrupulous con-
artist tactics that are employed by people who
are -- unfortunately -- both astute, but callously
bigoted. ]]]
Scott Klusendorf is Director of Bio-Ethics
at "Stand to Reason." www.str.org
-- Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com>
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| User: "Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie! Forever!!" |
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| Title: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 3. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 3 |
16 Jan 2005 09:53:54 PM |
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DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
3. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 3
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot. From there on, **everything** he
writes can very reasonably be taken with a grain of salt the
size of the Rock of Gibralter.
Let's debunk his bigotry in a series of point-by-point posts.
This is the concluding portion of my debunking of his arguments
against moral relativism. In his article Klusendorf said:
It is impossible for a moral relativist to say that anything
is wrong, including intolerance.
WRONG. Instantly and immediately, right out of the gate!
God didn't create us as a race of automatons. He made it
possible for MOST people to be born with pretty effective cognitive
abilities. Thus, based upon what the Bible says, it's a good bet that
He wanted His race of human beings to use their heads for more
than hat racks. And THAT means weighing a complex range of
factors all the time, and making the best decisions that we can.
There ARE some moral absolutes, and those are detailed in the
Ten Commandments. Most of those are still relevant today, with the
possible exception of the one about the Sabbath -- which *may* be
applicable to only the Jews. And most of those deal specifically with
the way that people interact with each other in society.
But all of *those* Commandments have a very distict common
denominator, that can be paraphrased thusly: "Don't mistreat your
neighbor, any more than you would like to be mistreated by him."
In other words -- the Golden Rule.
And THAT is the underpinning of the "moral relativity" that most
people practice. Some better than others. But MOST try to live by
it. Keep that in mind as we proceed.
If morals are relative, then who are you to say that I should
be tolerant?
All sensible moral relativists function in accordance with the
Golden Rule. Those who don't are not moral relativists; they are
renegades. Moral relativism, which is both honorable and sensible,
should never be wrongly painted by the brush that only the rene-
gades deserve.
Perhaps my individual morality says intolerance is just
fine. Why, then, should I allow anyone to force tolerance on
me as a virtue if my preference is intolerance?
A person whose preference would be for intolerance
would not be a moral relativist. He would be a renegade.
And you, as an Anti-Choicer, have first-hand, up-close-and-
personal experience with being one of those. Because as
much as you may try to deny it, your stance against abortion
is supported by NO facts. NO "absolutes." (If you think the
Bible supports yo on that, check out Part 2 of my response
to you with respect to moral relativism.) Thus, you are
Anti-Choice on your OWN hook. Which makes you a giant
step worse that the "moral relativists" you criticize. Because
your Anti-Choice stance, UNsupported by relevant facts,
makes you a renegade. A sociopathic renegade whose
agenda seeks to FORCE women to gestate-to-term whether
they want to or not.
The truth is, a moral relativist cannot legitimately say
that anything is wrong or truly evil.
Wrong again. He certainly can. If he regards actions that
do intentional and overt harm to others to be wrong, and actions
that defend others from being harmed to be right, and acts
accordingly, he will be a valuable contribution to the human
race pretty much ALL of the time.
If it is up to us to decide (rather than discover) right and
wrong, then there is no difference between Mother Theresa's
morality and Adolf Hitler's morality. Hitler was not evil,
he just had preferences different from our own.
Adolf Hitler was not a moral relativist. He lived in violation of
the Golden Rule most of the time, almost with impunity, thanks
to his bodyguards. He was the diametric OPPOSITE of a moral
relativist: an IMmoral relativist. An extremist renegade.
It is impossible to live as a moral relativist.
Wrong. MOST people are, and they survive just fine.
As C.S. Lewis points out, a person who claims there
is no objective morality will complain if you break a promise
or cut in line. And if you steal his stereo, he will protest loudly.
If I were a crook, I would reply to the relativist, Do you
think stealing stereos is wrong? Well, that's just your
view. My morality says it's perfectly acceptable. Who are
you to force your views on me? Simply put, moral relativists
espouse a view they cannot live with.
You (and apparently C.S. Lewis did as well) have Golden
Rule-based moral relativists confused with renegades.
Apples and oranges. Neither renegades nor purposeful
outlaws are anything at all like moral relativists. Golden Rule-
based moral relativism, you see, is popularly known by a
MUCH more easily-recognized term:
COMMON SENSE.
Ever heard of "what goes around comes around?"
People having common sense don't SEND something
around that will come back later to bite them in the butt.
-- Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com>
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Every time a person supports bigotry in public, and presents NO
relevant FACTS to back his/her stance in behalf of a loathsome
agenda against individual liberties and human rights, that person
has -- ironically -- further **damaged** the cause he/she supports.
And every time a fair-minded and sensible egalitarian opposes
such a bigot, publicly, and **presents** relevant FACTS that are
damaging to the bigot's agenda, that TOO is an additional nail in
the coffin lid of the agenda, and a push of that casket CLOSER
to the Drain of Extinction -- its well-deserved ultimate destination.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
(E-Mail address is valid when removing _ from it.)
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| User: "Johnny" |
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| Title: Re: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part I |
16 Jan 2005 10:45:05 AM |
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"Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie!
Forever!!" <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:41ed7a29.38480276@netnews.mchsi.com...
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot.
Are you a Choice bigot?
It sure seems so.
[snip]
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| User: "Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie! Forever!!" |
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| Title: Re: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part I |
16 Jan 2005 10:53:24 AM |
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On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:45:05 -0500,
"Johnny" <wxpprofessional@msn.com> wrote:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot.
Are you a Choice bigot?
It sure seems so.
THANKS for once again making a public ***** of yourself,
Wentzky. It's very helpful for the fence-sitters to see these
constant reminders of just how very **clueless** and hateful
people like you really are.
<Previous post RESTORED, below.>
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot. From there on, **everything** he
writes can very reasonably be taken with a grain of salt the
size of the Rock of Gibralter.
Let's debunk his bigotry in a series of point-by-point posts.
1. "Moral Relativism" --- What is it, REALLY?
Klusendorf had THIS to say about it:
"Don't force your morality on me."
A student at a Southern California college said this to
me after I made a case for the pro-life position in her
sociology class. She was in effect saying, Morality is
relative; it's up to me to decide what is right and wrong.
We call this moral relativism, the belief that there are no
objective standards of right and wrong, only personal
preferences. Therefore, we should tolerate other views
as being equal to our own.
His FIRST mistake. MIS-identifying, and in effect (and
probably literally) LYING about that which can properly be
called "moral relativism."
Much of that which BIGOTS like to think are "moral
absolutes" are anything BUT. The notion that there's any-
thing at all wrong (or "immoral") about abortion is a good
example of such flawed thinking.
Scott said, in so many words, that moral relativism is "the
belief that there are no objective standards of right and wrong."
That is incorrect. People who practice moral relativism
know that the BOTTOM LINE of morality is whether or not
a person's (or group's) actions do -- or are likely to do -- overt
harm to other people. And it can be summed up very
succinctly by the Golden Rule. (Which happens even to be
Biblical, by the way. For the benefit of those to whom the
Bible in meaningful, myself included, it occurs three times in
the Bible, in various wordings. And even more importantly,
most of what the Bible teaches ALIGNS with that most basic
of all precepts.)
So much for Klusendorf's very SKEWED and narrow view
of moral relativism.
ACTUAL moral relativism is more commonly called by
different terminology: COMMON SENSE.
Let's continue, and watch Scott dig himself even deeper.
Relativism, however, is seriously flawed for at least three
reasons. First, it is self-refuting. That is to say, it cannot live
by its own rules. Second, relativists cannot reasonably say
that anything is wrong, including intolerance. Third, it is im-
possible to live as a relativist.
1) Relativism is self-refuting -- it commits intellectual
suicide. The student said it was wrong for me to
force my views on others, but she could not live
with her own rule. Although our dialogue was
pleasant, she clearly tried to force her views on me.
Wrong. She did no such thing. But the dialogue that
follows provides us with an EXCELLENT example of the weasel-
wording and conniving that the more ADEPT Anti-Choicers --
such as the RRR cult's oligarchical leaders -- employ to CON
the gullible... and sometimes even relatively-intelligent people
who either DESIRE to think they are right, or who don't
bother to scrutinize what they say carefully enough.
Student: You made some good points in your talk, but
you shouldn't force your morality on me or anyone
else who wants an abortion. It's our choice, isn't it?
Me: Are you saying I'm wrong?
Student: I'm not sure. What do you mean?
Me: Well, you think I'm wrong, don't you? If not,
why are you correcting me? And if so, then you're
forcing your morality on me, aren't you?
Student: No, I just want to know why you are telling
people what they can and cannot do with their lives.
Me: Are you saying I shouldn't do that? That it's
wrong? If so, then why are you telling me what I
can and cannot do? Why are you forcing your
morality on me?
Student (regrouping): I'm confused. Look, the simple
fact is that pro-choicers are not
forcing women to have abortions, but you want
to force women to be mothers. If you don't like
abortion, don't have one. But you shouldn't force
your beliefs on others. All I am saying is that pro-life
people should be tolerant of other views.
Me: Is that your view?
Student: Yes.
Me: Why are you forcing it on me? That's not very
tolerant, is it?
Student: What do you mean? I think women should
have a choice and you don't. It's your view that's
intolerant, wouldn't you say?
Me: Okay, so you think I'm wrong. What is it you
want pro-lifers like me to do?
Student: You should let women decide for themselves
and tolerate other views.
Me: Tell me, what exactly do pro-choicers believe?
Student: We believe everyone should decide for them-
selves and tolerate other views.
Me: So you are demanding that pro-lifers become
pro-choicers.
NOTICE that tactic! She had done NO such thing. A
Pro-Choicer defends women's right to access **either** the
option of gestating-to-term OR the option of obtaining an
abortion, FREE of outside interference or coercion in either
direction. She was not even remotely asking him to do that.
She was doing no more than asking him NOT to interfere
with others as they make that personal and PRIVATE (as in,
NONE of his business) decision.
Around 1/3 of all Americans in their teens and older disagree
with abortion. But only 5% of them are actually Anti-Choice in
their actions. Using those figures (of which I've documented
the accuracy in many other posts) that's around 73,000,000
people who are sensible enough to mind their own business
while disagreeing with abortion, and 4,000,000 actual Anti-
Choice busybodies.
The student was simply asking him to have enough
common sense NOT to be a busybody.
Student: What?
Me: With all due respect, here's what I hear you
saying. Unless I agree with you, you will not
tolerate my view.
See that? She said NO such thing. She was simply
asking him NOT to be publicly intolerant of the rights of
others. A very legitimate request. The same thing that the
blacks (and their allies from other races) had to say to the
active segregationists, 40+ years ago.
Privately, you'll let me think whatever I want, but you
don't want me to act as if my view is true. It seems you
think tolerance is a virtue if and only if people agree with
you.
No. She clearly regarded INtolerance of the rights of
others NOT to be a virtue. And she was right!
One more example of this tactic of TWISTING fair-mind-
edness to make it look like intolerance:
While driving my sons to a recent baseball game at Dodger
Stadium, a young woman in a white pickup truck began
tailgating me. Visibly angered by a pro-life sticker on my
rear window, she stayed on my bumper for a mile or so.
Finally, she pulled beside me and extended a certain part of
her anatomy skyward as she passed. She then cut in front
of me.
At that moment, I noticed a bumper sticker on her truck. It
said, "Celebrate Diversity." The message was clear: In a
pluralistic society, we should tolerate the views of others.
Ironically, the driver saw no contradiction between her
unwillingness to tolerate (or celebrate) my point of view
and her bumper sticker that said we should tolerate all
points of view. That is what I mean when I say that
relativism is self-refuting.
Celebrating diversity does not mean accepting hatefulness
as a portion of that which comprises diversity, any more than it
would mean accepting Nazism or the Ku Klux Klan. Her bumper
sticker defended the right of people NOT to be subjected to
discrimination and intolerance, and *yours* advocated INtoler-
ance, and supported an agenda that overtly seeks to FORCE
millions of women to gestate-to-term against their will. So you got
the Fickle Finger of Fate Award from her for that. You deserved it.
It was as though a black person in Alabama in 1958 had
had a bumper sticker that read, "Fairness Now!" and a
segregationist had a bumper sticker that said, "Keep Ni***rs
in their Place!"
Would the black person have been wrong for opposing
bigotry? Would the segregationist have been right for seeking
to continue the bigotry? Of course not. And it was the same
with that woman's liberty-defending sticker, and your bigoted one.
You're one very CLEVER cookie, Klusendorf. But not
nearly clever enough, when your arguments are subjected to
scrutiny. NOR are the RRR cult's leaders.
The only problem is that **not enough** people are looking
that closely at their weasel-worded but vacous rhetoric. And
hopefully, that is changing.
[[[ The writer of the above article may never see my
rebuttals of it. But that's not important. What IS
important is that many people can see a bright
spotlight being shined on the unscrupulous con-
artist tactics that are employed by people who
are -- unfortunately -- both astute, but bigoted. ]]]
Scott Klusendorf is Director of Bio-Ethics
at "Stand to Reason." www.str.org
-- Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com>
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Every time a person supports bigotry in public, and presents NO
relevant FACTS to back his/her stance in behalf of a loathsome
agenda against individual liberties and human rights, that person
has -- ironically -- further **damaged** the cause he/she supports.
And every time a fair-minded and sensible egalitarian opposes
such a bigot, publicly, and **presents** relevant FACTS that are
damaging to the bigot's agenda, that TOO is an additional nail in
the coffin lid of the agenda, and a push of that casket CLOSER
to the Drain of Extinction -- its well-deserved ultimate destination.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
(E-Mail address is valid when removing _ from it.)
.
|
|
|
| User: "Johnny" |
|
| Title: Re: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part I |
16 Jan 2005 10:56:06 AM |
|
|
"Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie!
Forever!!" <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:41ed9ad5.3739506@netnews.mchsi.com...
On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:45:05 -0500,
"Johnny" <wxpprofessional@msn.com> wrote:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot.
Are you a Choice bigot?
It sure seems so.
THANKS for once again making a public ***** of yourself,
Wentzky. It's very helpful for the fence-sitters to see these
constant reminders of just how very **clueless** and hateful
people like you really are.
They can not see that in me.
They can see your hate and bigotry and insulting manner.
[snip] the unnecessary part.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie! Forever!!" |
|
| Title: Re: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part I |
16 Jan 2005 11:19:36 AM |
|
|
On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:56:06 -0500,
Mindless Bigot, John Wentzky spewed:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
Mindless Bigot, John Wentzky spewed:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot.
Are you a Choice bigot?
It sure seems so.
THANKS for once again making a public ***** of yourself,
Wentzky. It's very helpful for the fence-sitters to see these
constant reminders of just how very **clueless** and hateful
people like you really are.
They can not see that in me.
ROTFL!!!! There's nothing about you that is more OBVIOUS!
They can see your hate and bigotry and insulting manner.
Fair-minded and sensible egalitarians who DEFEND personal
liberties against hate-filled and bigoted louts like you are the
**opposite** of hateful. Which is obvious to everyone but the
tunnel-visioned and ignorant bigots, themselves.
And what *you* call "insults" are merely ACCURATE descriptors
that you EARN for yourself in almost every swill-filled post that you
put up.
<Previous post RESTORED, below.>
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot. From there on, **everything** he
writes can very reasonably be taken with a grain of salt the
size of the Rock of Gibralter.
Let's debunk his bigotry in a series of point-by-point posts.
1. "Moral Relativism" --- What is it, REALLY?
Klusendorf had THIS to say about it:
"Don't force your morality on me."
A student at a Southern California college said this to
me after I made a case for the pro-life position in her
sociology class. She was in effect saying, Morality is
relative; it's up to me to decide what is right and wrong.
We call this moral relativism, the belief that there are no
objective standards of right and wrong, only personal
preferences. Therefore, we should tolerate other views
as being equal to our own.
His FIRST mistake. MIS-identifying, and in effect (and
probably literally) LYING about that which can properly be
called "moral relativism."
Much of that which BIGOTS like to think are "moral
absolutes" are anything BUT. The notion that there's any-
thing at all wrong (or "immoral") about abortion is a good
example of such flawed thinking.
Scott said, in so many words, that moral relativism is "the
belief that there are no objective standards of right and wrong."
That is incorrect. People who practice moral relativism
know that the BOTTOM LINE of morality is whether or not
a person's (or group's) actions do -- or are likely to do -- overt
harm to other people. And it can be summed up very
succinctly by the Golden Rule. (Which happens even to be
Biblical, by the way. For the benefit of those to whom the
Bible in meaningful, myself included, it occurs three times in
the Bible, in various wordings. And even more importantly,
most of what the Bible teaches ALIGNS with that most basic
of all precepts.)
So much for Klusendorf's very SKEWED and narrow view
of moral relativism.
ACTUAL moral relativism is more commonly called by
different terminology: COMMON SENSE.
Let's continue, and watch Scott dig himself even deeper.
Relativism, however, is seriously flawed for at least three
reasons. First, it is self-refuting. That is to say, it cannot live
by its own rules. Second, relativists cannot reasonably say
that anything is wrong, including intolerance. Third, it is im-
possible to live as a relativist.
1) Relativism is self-refuting -- it commits intellectual
suicide. The student said it was wrong for me to
force my views on others, but she could not live
with her own rule. Although our dialogue was
pleasant, she clearly tried to force her views on me.
Wrong. She did no such thing. But the dialogue that
follows provides us with an EXCELLENT example of the weasel-
wording and conniving that the more ADEPT Anti-Choicers --
such as the RRR cult's oligarchical leaders -- employ to CON
the gullible... and sometimes even relatively-intelligent people
who either DESIRE to think they are right, or who don't
bother to scrutinize what they say carefully enough.
Student: You made some good points in your talk, but
you shouldn't force your morality on me or anyone
else who wants an abortion. It's our choice, isn't it?
Me: Are you saying I'm wrong?
Student: I'm not sure. What do you mean?
Me: Well, you think I'm wrong, don't you? If not,
why are you correcting me? And if so, then you're
forcing your morality on me, aren't you?
Student: No, I just want to know why you are telling
people what they can and cannot do with their lives.
Me: Are you saying I shouldn't do that? That it's
wrong? If so, then why are you telling me what I
can and cannot do? Why are you forcing your
morality on me?
Student (regrouping): I'm confused. Look, the simple
fact is that pro-choicers are not
forcing women to have abortions, but you want
to force women to be mothers. If you don't like
abortion, don't have one. But you shouldn't force
your beliefs on others. All I am saying is that pro-life
people should be tolerant of other views.
Me: Is that your view?
Student: Yes.
Me: Why are you forcing it on me? That's not very
tolerant, is it?
Student: What do you mean? I think women should
have a choice and you don't. It's your view that's
intolerant, wouldn't you say?
Me: Okay, so you think I'm wrong. What is it you
want pro-lifers like me to do?
Student: You should let women decide for themselves
and tolerate other views.
Me: Tell me, what exactly do pro-choicers believe?
Student: We believe everyone should decide for them-
selves and tolerate other views.
Me: So you are demanding that pro-lifers become
pro-choicers.
NOTICE that tactic! She had done NO such thing. A
Pro-Choicer defends women's right to access **either** the
option of gestating-to-term OR the option of obtaining an
abortion, FREE of outside interference or coercion in either
direction. She was not even remotely asking him to do that.
She was doing no more than asking him NOT to interfere
with others as they make that personal and PRIVATE (as in,
NONE of his business) decision.
Around 1/3 of all Americans in their teens and older disagree
with abortion. But only 5% of them are actually Anti-Choice in
their actions. Using those figures (of which I've documented
the accuracy in many other posts) that's around 73,000,000
people who are sensible enough to mind their own business
while disagreeing with abortion, and 4,000,000 actual Anti-
Choice busybodies.
The student was simply asking him to have enough
common sense NOT to be a busybody.
Student: What?
Me: With all due respect, here's what I hear you
saying. Unless I agree with you, you will not
tolerate my view.
See that? She said NO such thing. She was simply
asking him NOT to be publicly intolerant of the rights of
others. A very legitimate request. The same thing that the
blacks (and their allies from other races) had to say to the
active segregationists, 40+ years ago.
Privately, you'll let me think whatever I want, but you
don't want me to act as if my view is true. It seems you
think tolerance is a virtue if and only if people agree with
you.
No. She clearly regarded INtolerance of the rights of
others NOT to be a virtue. And she was right!
One more example of this tactic of TWISTING fair-mind-
edness to make it look like intolerance:
While driving my sons to a recent baseball game at Dodger
Stadium, a young woman in a white pickup truck began
tailgating me. Visibly angered by a pro-life sticker on my
rear window, she stayed on my bumper for a mile or so.
Finally, she pulled beside me and extended a certain part of
her anatomy skyward as she passed. She then cut in front
of me.
At that moment, I noticed a bumper sticker on her truck. It
said, "Celebrate Diversity." The message was clear: In a
pluralistic society, we should tolerate the views of others.
Ironically, the driver saw no contradiction between her
unwillingness to tolerate (or celebrate) my point of view
and her bumper sticker that said we should tolerate all
points of view. That is what I mean when I say that
relativism is self-refuting.
Celebrating diversity does not mean accepting hatefulness
as a portion of that which comprises diversity, any more than it
would mean accepting Nazism or the Ku Klux Klan. Her bumper
sticker defended the right of people NOT to be subjected to
discrimination and intolerance, and *yours* advocated INtoler-
ance, and supported an agenda that overtly seeks to FORCE
millions of women to gestate-to-term against their will. So you got
the Fickle Finger of Fate Award from her for that. You deserved it.
It was as though a black person in Alabama in 1958 had
had a bumper sticker that read, "Fairness Now!" and a
segregationist had a bumper sticker that said, "Keep Ni***rs
in their Place!"
Would the black person have been wrong for opposing
bigotry? Would the segregationist have been right for seeking
to continue the bigotry? Of course not. And it was the same
with that woman's liberty-defending sticker, and your bigoted one.
You're one very CLEVER cookie, Klusendorf. But not
nearly clever enough, when your arguments are subjected to
scrutiny. NOR are the RRR cult's leaders.
The only problem is that **not enough** people are looking
that closely at their weasel-worded but vacous rhetoric. And
hopefully, that is changing.
[[[ The writer of the above article may never see my
rebuttals of it. But that's not important. What IS
important is that many people can see a bright
spotlight being shined on the unscrupulous con-
artist tactics that are employed by people who
are -- unfortunately -- both astute, but bigoted. ]]]
Scott Klusendorf is Director of Bio-Ethics
at "Stand to Reason." www.str.org
-- Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com>
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Every time a person supports bigotry in public, and presents NO
relevant FACTS to back his/her stance in behalf of a loathsome
agenda against individual liberties and human rights, that person
has -- ironically -- further **damaged** the cause he/she supports.
And every time a fair-minded and sensible egalitarian opposes
such a bigot, publicly, and **presents** relevant FACTS that are
damaging to the bigot's agenda, that TOO is an additional nail in
the coffin lid of the agenda, and a push of that casket CLOSER
to the Drain of Extinction -- its well-deserved ultimate destination.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
(E-Mail address is valid when removing _ from it.)
.
|
|
|
| User: "Johnny" |
|
| Title: Re: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part I |
16 Jan 2005 11:23:38 AM |
|
|
"Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie!
Forever!!" <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:41f0a03f.5125322@netnews.mchsi.com...
On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:56:06 -0500,
Mindless Bigot, John Wentzky spewed:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
Mindless Bigot, John Wentzky spewed:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot.
Are you a Choice bigot?
It sure seems so.
THANKS for once again making a public ***** of yourself,
Wentzky. It's very helpful for the fence-sitters to see these
constant reminders of just how very **clueless** and hateful
people like you really are.
They can not see that in me.
ROTFL!!!! There's nothing about you that is more OBVIOUS!
You are black, right?
How many abortions you got on your record already?
And, that is not a racist question.
They can see your hate and bigotry and insulting manner.
Fair-minded and sensible egalitarians who DEFEND personal
liberties against hate-filled and bigoted louts
That is what I do.
[snip]
.
|
|
|
| User: "The Ghost In The Machine" |
|
| Title: Re: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part I |
16 Jan 2005 02:01:43 PM |
|
|
In talk.abortion, Johnny
<wxpprofessional@msn.com>
wrote
on Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:23:38 -0500
<rpxGd.18752$tF.16471@bignews6.bellsouth.net>:
"Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie!
Forever!!" <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:41f0a03f.5125322@netnews.mchsi.com...
On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:56:06 -0500,
Mindless Bigot, John Wentzky spewed:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
Mindless Bigot, John Wentzky spewed:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot.
Are you a Choice bigot?
It sure seems so.
THANKS for once again making a public ***** of yourself,
Wentzky. It's very helpful for the fence-sitters to see these
constant reminders of just how very **clueless** and hateful
people like you really are.
They can not see that in me.
ROTFL!!!! There's nothing about you that is more OBVIOUS!
You are black, right?
How many abortions you got on your record already?
And, that is not a racist question.
How many dead women denied abortions are on yours? :-)
Fair play and all that.
If there is a secular requirement that all women be required
to provide sustenance to a part of themselves that might,
Universe and woman willing, become a bouncing baby boy or girl,
I for one would like to see it.
They can see your hate and bigotry and insulting manner.
Fair-minded and sensible egalitarians who DEFEND personal
liberties against hate-filled and bigoted louts
That is what I do.
Well OK, but IMO, judging from what's left of this thread,
you're not doing all that well. :-)
For the record, Google shows that Scott Klusendorf is a
pro-life speaker who, among other things, points out the
following rather interesting argument:
A couple of students walk by and he asks them why they
aren't having more pizza.
"It'll make you fat," they said.
"And we know that fat people are less human than thin
people, right?" he responds. [-]
"That's just your view," they reply.
"See they're getting the point already," Klusendorf
said.
(from http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/1999/1101/scottklusendorf110199.shtml )
An interesting argument, but it doesn't appear all
that relevant. For starters, every dead skin cell is a
potential human; it need only be implanted in a neutered
egg and then the result implanted in the body of a woman,
as far as I understand biology at this time (I'm not all
that expert therein). Have you scratched or bathed today?
For shame.
One can then go into "naturalist defense mode": sex is
natural; cloning via insertion of genetic material into
a denatured egg is not. The only subargment that makes
any sense at all here is the unusualness of the latter;
hundreds of millions of sex acts are performed each year
in the United States alone. Even then, there are no
violations of physical laws -- assuming one can violate
a physical law anyway, since the situation is that humans
write the law based on observations, not what the humans
want to enforce.
Perhaps we should enforce anti-abortion notions for a
while, given this sort of logic; if so, I see dead people
-- about 60-80 women in the US, given current mortality
rates, and far more in other parts of the world with
medical care that's, to put it gently, not quite as good.
What's the exchange rate of dead people for live unborn
babies? How is this defined? Does it depend on location
(of the mother, that is, not the baby!)?
The other logical extension is that contraception denies
the right for sperm to meet egg (the ones that deny the
zygote the right to meet the uterine lining being generally
no longer in use, AFAIK). Should we ban it?
How about when a man gets an erection? Even during
urination, a few sperm are lost; given different
circumstances, they might very well have formed half
of a union with an egg which leads to a baby. No way
for me to know, and I for one need to ***** sometime.
Or should every male use dialysis instead of his kidneys?
Can't be too careful.
And of course for every sperm that successfully makes
its mark, a very large number of other sperm lose out.
My understanding is that it's in the quintillions (10^18).
Considering that we're straining the Earth's resources
now with 6.3 billion *born* people, that's an awful lot
of half-babies to put in the orphanage. [*] [+]
To a far lesser extent a woman's eggs have the same
problem.
One can tread even further afield; a man and a woman meet
in a bar/street corner/in her apartment, and one thing
leads to another and she winds up pregnant. Another man
and a woman go the more moral route, as he proposes his
undying love with a bouquet and a box of chocolates and a
ring, she accepts, and gets to wear white at her wedding
ceremony [%] in a proper church/synagogue/mosque/etc. and
throws the bouquet to one of her friends/sisters/cousins.
She gets pregnant some time later. Which baby's more
important to save? Who decides, and when?
And then there's the seccy who, for whatever reason,
flirts with her boss. Hopefully that's rare, but she
could get pregnant, too. Not to mention the poor woman who
happens to pass by the wrong dark alley at the wrong time.
Depending on country, the rapist might get away with it,
too; apparently in Italy there's at least one case of
an acquittal because the woman was wearing an outfit
(a pair of tight jeans, apparently) which could not have
been removed without her consent -- presumably obtained
under duress with a knife or a gun:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,3604,312284,00.html
Were I a young woman I'd not want to travel to Italy,
at least not without a large escort. :-) And even
then, there might be problems if they decide to get
frisky.
In all cases, the woman should apparently be forced
to carry for 8 1/2 months a reminder of her encounter;
apparently, that's the "moral" thing to do, whether the
baby was conceived "morally" (after marriage, with the
lights down low, and a romantic evening at home/in a hotel
with one's loved one), or "immorally" (before marriage, in
the alleyway, in the bar, in the dance club's restroom, in
a number of other places considered improper by so-called
"bluenoses" -- if not outright illegal by current law).
I personally would question that logic, strawman or no.
[snip]
[-] This gets tricky to attack or defend properly. Given a
"normal" human being (say, 75 Kg male, 60 Kg female; the
actual values are highly age-dependent, admittedly:
http://www.diet-and-health.net/Nutrients/rdas.html
and there are a number of issues not addressed, such
as physical appearance [bust/waist/hip size?!], hair,
voice accents, general cleanliness), those that are
grotesquely obese -- they do exist! -- are considered
weird, and may not be able to participate in normal
human activities (such as actually getting out of
the house!). Also, if someone is not considered
"normal", they may not be invited to participate
in some of those activities. Some of them involve
sex. :-) Of course a z/e/f doesn't exactly have the
wits to understand an invitation; they just grow.
But there is an implicit metric.
As one radio spot amusingly put it: "there is a
term for those people who can't tie their shoelaces
properly, are unable to feed themselves, and wouldn't
function at all without our help -- they're called
children". (Or something like that; it's been awhile.)
[*] I am not sure what to recommend in cutting down population growth.
From a moral standpoint, eugenics is repugnant. The best
solution apparently is to decrease the death rate and educate
women on how best they can decrease their birth rate by giving
them tools, both physical (contraceptives) and non-physical
(instruction/self-esteem boosting). The rest is up to them,
and maybe their partners and the economy in general.
[+] If all of them were to line up, 0.5 meter per person, at the
equator, the resulting queue would stretch around the world
over 75 times.
[%] Modify as necessary for other customs.
--
#191,
It's still legal to go .sigless.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Johnny" |
|
| Title: Re: DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf: 1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part I |
16 Jan 2005 03:09:34 PM |
|
|
"The Ghost In The Machine" <ewill@sirius.athghost7038suus.net> wrote in
message news:eqqqb2-6l8.ln1@sirius.athghost7038suus.net...
In talk.abortion, Johnny
<wxpprofessional@msn.com>
wrote
on Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:23:38 -0500
<rpxGd.18752$tF.16471@bignews6.bellsouth.net>:
"Craig Chilton -- Countdown to 1/20/09: 1,469 days to BYE-BYE Bushie!
Forever!!" <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:41f0a03f.5125322@netnews.mchsi.com...
On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 11:56:06 -0500,
Mindless Bigot, John Wentzky spewed:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
Mindless Bigot, John Wentzky spewed:
Craig Chilton <xanadu222_@mchsi.com> wrote:
DEBUNKING Scott Klusendorf
1. "Moral Relativism" -- Part 1
Taking Klusendorf to task on his article:
"Five Bad Ways to Argue About Abortion"
by Scott Klusendorf
The FIRST bad way to do that is to put quotation marks
around the term, Pro-Choice, but NOT put them around the
term, pro-life.
Right off the bat, that IDENTIFIES the person doing that
as an ANTI-Choice bigot.
Are you a Choice bigot?
It sure seems so.
THANKS for once again making a public ***** of yourself,
Wentzky. It's very helpful for the fence-sitters to see these
constant reminders of just how very **clueless** and hateful
people like you really are.
They can not see that in me.
ROTFL!!!! There's nothing about you that is more OBVIOUS!
You are black, right?
How many abortions you got on your record already?
And, that is not a racist question.
How many dead women denied abortions are on yours? :-)
None.
Fair play and all that.
Zero.
If there is a secular requirement that all women be required
to provide sustenance to a part of themselves that might,
Universe and woman willing, become a bouncing baby boy or girl,
I for | | | | | | | | |
