Autocatalysis, Hammers, and How We're Defending Abortion Wrong

Started by POFP, April 17, 2017, 07:41:31 PM

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Prelate Diogenes Shandor

#90
My main problem with abortion however is the undercurrent of ableism and of paradoxially reactionary concepts about reproduction and family that underlay it. It's supporters are basically saying that 1.) People like me who have genetic disorders shouldn't exist and 2.) That a child only exists for the benefit of the parents, rather than for their own benefit or to string along the ponzi scheme that is civilization until we can find a way to stabilize it by putting a stop to death.

Also, going back to this

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on April 17, 2017, 08:05:05 PM
Well... no.

The argument that fetuses are not babies is of course made all the time. The "life begins at conception" and such ridiculousness is the anti-choice camp's counter to this argument. There will never be any successful attempt to convince them that fetuses are not babies, because anything that is sure to become a thing is as good as having become it already, at least whenever a person is inclined to believe that, which they are in this case. As far as any anti-choice person's ability to reason, there is no meaningful distinction between a fertilized egg and a baby. Even if physically they are as different as an elephant is from a ant, there is no difference morally, and that's all that matters.

Focusing the argument on the bodily autonomy of women, logically, is all that is left to the pro-choice arguer. It's unfortunate that this is one of the many, many exceptions to the conservative's crusade for "less government interference", but it is what it is. We are effectively faced with a situation where half of the country wants to rob women of their own bodily autonomy. Making it a question of bodily autonomy may not be the most effective way to settle the argument, but it's better than trying to drive some impossible wedge between "baby" and "fetus", which has been tried and proven to be completely useless.

Of course, the debate over abortion is not actually a debate over abortion. If saving lives was really the aim of anti-choice "activists", they wouldn't condemn all manner of not-fetuses to death at the slightest provocation in other areas. Their wailing over "dead babies" is just a charade they use because people are easily swayed by the idea of violence against defenseless children. There are many proven ways to materially decrease the rates of both abortion and of unwanted or underage pregnancy in general -- and if these people actually cared about eliminating abortion, they would champion these methods instead of simply calling for prohibition and punishment of abortion. But they don't like those methods, because while they are effective, they strike at the real motives behind the anti-choice crusade: they empower women, rather than constrain them to obedience and "modesty".

So I have to disagree with your assessment that the reason the abortion debate rages on is because the defenders of women's choice are doing it wrong. It rages on because there are theocratic monsters among us who are allowed to push their oppressive agenda as some kind of antidote to all the evils of the modern, liberated world. And as long as they exist, they will find ways to hate anyone who is too free for their liking, no matter what arguments are used against them.

So, we've aired the paranoid way pro-choice sees pro-life, so now let me give you a glimpse of the - perhaps equally paranoid, I don't know) way they pro-life sees pro-choice.

I don't actually believe it's really about bodily autonomy at all. The issue isn't that you don't want to be pregnant, the issue is that you don;t want to raise a child. Bodily autonomy is just a convenient excuse. Imagine, if you will, this were a paralell universe where we were reptiles and the gestation took place completely outside of you, without even any incubation needed or possible, you'd find some other excuse for why it's ok to smash eggs. You simply don't want to take responsibility, which is something I emphathize with, but I can't support your methods. Instead, why not seek out one of the many gay couples clamoring to take responsibility for you

EDIT:
In fact, forget reptiles, you'd find some excuse even if we were amphibians or fish
Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


Don't use the email address in my profile, I lost the password years ago

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on May 19, 2017, 02:12:27 AM
My main problem with abortion however is the undercurrent of ableism and of paradoxially reactionary concepts about reproduction and family that underlay it. It's supporters are basically saying that 1.) People like me who have genetic disorders shouldn't exist and 2.) That a child only exists for the benefit of the parents, rather than for their own benefit or to string along the ponzi scheme that is civilization until we can find a way to stabilize it by putting a stop to death.


By which you mean a woman's body is essentially the property of any potential offspring.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Q. G. Pennyworth


tyrannosaurus vex

So you come in here with "helpful advice" on how we can better "defend" abortion, because the left are idiots, and we are doing it wrong. Over the course of 6 dreadfully predictable pages, you (of course) wander from "here, dummies, let me help you" to "my main problem with abortion". So you out yourself as having entered the thread under false pretenses to begin with. You're not interested in improving arguments in favor of abortion rights, you are actually a pro-life fanatic. This explains why any honest attempt to enlighten you as to the reasons why certain arguments are or are not employed, fails to enlighten you. You are not here for information, you are here to preach.

I'm not exposing anything everyone hasn't already seen here, of course. But maybe this will help you understand why no one is taking you seriously. You know, besides the fact that your "arguments" are stupid and not worth real consideration.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Prelate Diogenes Shandor

#94
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 19, 2017, 02:50:39 AM
So you come in here with "helpful advice" on how we can better "defend" abortion,

I never said that.

I came here to try and sway you. That said I believe the standard jesus freak pro-lifers are morons too, so I'll give you something that may be helpful specifically against them. Try quoting Ecclesiastes 4:3 to them, "[/i]But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.[/i]"
Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


Don't use the email address in my profile, I lost the password years ago

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on May 19, 2017, 02:12:27 AM

I don't actually believe it's really about bodily autonomy at all. The issue isn't that you don't want to be pregnant, the issue is that you don;t want to raise a child. Bodily autonomy is just a convenient excuse.

This is what is known on PD as a "Babylon Horuv moment."
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

00.dusk

Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 19, 2017, 02:50:39 AM
So you come in here with "helpful advice" on how we can better "defend" abortion, because the left are idiots, and we are doing it wrong. Over the course of 6 dreadfully predictable pages, you (of course) wander from "here, dummies, let me help you" to "my main problem with abortion". So you out yourself as having entered the thread under false pretenses to begin with. You're not interested in improving arguments in favor of abortion rights, you are actually a pro-life fanatic. This explains why any honest attempt to enlighten you as to the reasons why certain arguments are or are not employed, fails to enlighten you. You are not here for information, you are here to preach.

I'm not exposing anything everyone hasn't already seen here, of course. But maybe this will help you understand why no one is taking you seriously. You know, besides the fact that your "arguments" are stupid and not worth real consideration.

You've mistaken PoFP (original poster, bipedal) for PDS (this guy, screeches on knuckles).

00.dusk

Now's my turn to quite possibly get my monkey on, but I think that the current raving lunatic believes in traditional family ties and maybe even the concept of a nuclear family, judging by this:

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on May 19, 2017, 02:12:27 AMparadoxially reactionary concepts about reproduction and family

Personally, I think family ties are a convenient screen for hiding abuse and the foremost enabler of things like nepotism and us vs them thinking, and the "nuclear family" concept has only made this worse. Anti-abortion rhetoric is used, in some cases, to further this specific agenda: essentially using the concept of "family" to beat innocent humans with.

Also, particularly the "reproductive" bit of our neighborhood moron's above quoted bit makes me think that he believes motherhood is an essential part of being a woman. Which, if true, has a ton of fun domino-effect aspects that force him to believe a host of other stupid things or modify his bullshit. They aren't even slippery slope fallacy, they're logical consequences of that belief.

tyrannosaurus vex

Quote from: 00.dusk on May 19, 2017, 06:37:22 AM
Quote from: tyrannosaurus vex on May 19, 2017, 02:50:39 AM
So you come in here with "helpful advice" on how we can better "defend" abortion, because the left are idiots, and we are doing it wrong. Over the course of 6 dreadfully predictable pages, you (of course) wander from "here, dummies, let me help you" to "my main problem with abortion". So you out yourself as having entered the thread under false pretenses to begin with. You're not interested in improving arguments in favor of abortion rights, you are actually a pro-life fanatic. This explains why any honest attempt to enlighten you as to the reasons why certain arguments are or are not employed, fails to enlighten you. You are not here for information, you are here to preach.

I'm not exposing anything everyone hasn't already seen here, of course. But maybe this will help you understand why no one is taking you seriously. You know, besides the fact that your "arguments" are stupid and not worth real consideration.

You've mistaken PoFP (original poster, bipedal) for PDS (this guy, screeches on knuckles).

so I have. oh well.
Evil and Unfeeling Arse-Flenser From The City of the Damned.

Prelate Diogenes Shandor

#99
Quote from: 00.dusk on May 19, 2017, 06:50:16 AM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on May 19, 2017, 02:12:27 AMparadoxially reactionary concepts about reproduction and family

Personally, I think family ties are a convenient screen for hiding abuse and the foremost enabler of things like nepotism and us vs them thinking, and the "nuclear family" concept has only made this worse. Anti-abortion rhetoric is used, in some cases, to further this specific agenda: essentially using the concept of "family" to beat innocent humans with.

Also, particularly the "reproductive" bit of our neighborhood moron's above quoted bit makes me think that he believes motherhood is an essential part of being a woman.

Where the hell did you get that interpretation from?

I think you're reactively trying to pigeonhole me into a preconceived notion (no pun intended) of a pro-life person. As strange as it may seem to you, and as admittedly rare as they seem to be nowadays, there are a greater range of possible political opinions out there than just cookiecutter Democrat and cookiecutter Republican.

My statement was if anything anti-traditional family. It was a statement against family ties and traditional family roles and specifically against parental control and authority.

And furthermore I've argued several times elsewhere on this board in favor of the idea that we'd all be a lot better off if all gender roles and expression were comprehensively suppressed across the board and we had a single range of acceptable forms of dress, speech, conduct, etc for all members of society to the point where it would be impossible to even speculate whether a given person was male or female.

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on May 19, 2017, 02:47:00 AM
A BABY IS NOT PUNISHMENT FOR SEX.

Are you insinuating that I insinuated that? At most I insinuated that it's something that happens. I didn't even say that you have to deal with it; in fact I explicitly said that someone else would. Again, I think you all are trying to pigeonhole me.
Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


Don't use the email address in my profile, I lost the password years ago

Q. G. Pennyworth

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on May 19, 2017, 02:12:27 AM

I don't actually believe it's really about bodily autonomy at all. The issue isn't that you don't want to be pregnant, the issue is that you don;t want to raise a child. Bodily autonomy is just a convenient excuse. Imagine, if you will, this were a paralell universe where we were reptiles and the gestation took place completely outside of you, without even any incubation needed or possible, you'd find some other excuse for why it's ok to smash eggs. You simply don't want to take responsibility, which is something I emphathize with, but I can't support your methods. Instead, why not seek out one of the many gay couples clamoring to take responsibility for you

EDIT:
In fact, forget reptiles, you'd find some excuse even if we were amphibians or fish

Everything here is horseshit.

Abortions end unwanted, dangerous, or non-viable pregnancies. Criticizing people for "not wanting to take responsibility" is the epitome of BABIES ARE PUNISHMENT FOR SEX thinking. Proposing a hypothetical scenario in which pregnancy is removed from the equation so you don't have to talk about bodily autonomy is fucking stupid, and then you go on to assume that women would get off on smashing eggs/incubators anyway.

Eat seven diseased dicks. I hope you get severe gout and unpleasant rashes.

The Good Reverend Roger

Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on May 19, 2017, 12:57:14 PM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on May 19, 2017, 02:12:27 AM

I don't actually believe it's really about bodily autonomy at all. The issue isn't that you don't want to be pregnant, the issue is that you don;t want to raise a child. Bodily autonomy is just a convenient excuse. Imagine, if you will, this were a paralell universe where we were reptiles and the gestation took place completely outside of you, without even any incubation needed or possible, you'd find some other excuse for why it's ok to smash eggs. You simply don't want to take responsibility, which is something I emphathize with, but I can't support your methods. Instead, why not seek out one of the many gay couples clamoring to take responsibility for you

EDIT:
In fact, forget reptiles, you'd find some excuse even if we were amphibians or fish

Everything here is horseshit.

Abortions end unwanted, dangerous, or non-viable pregnancies. Criticizing people for "not wanting to take responsibility" is the epitome of BABIES ARE PUNISHMENT FOR SEX thinking. Proposing a hypothetical scenario in which pregnancy is removed from the equation so you don't have to talk about bodily autonomy is fucking stupid, and then you go on to assume that women would get off on smashing eggs/incubators anyway.

Eat seven diseased dicks. I hope you get severe gout and unpleasant rashes.

All of the above.  And the "BABIES ARE PUNISHMENT FOR SEX" thing is bog-standard for incels all over the world.
" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

Prelate Diogenes Shandor

#102
Quote from: Q. G. Pennyworth on May 19, 2017, 12:57:14 PM
Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on May 19, 2017, 02:12:27 AM

I don't actually believe it's really about bodily autonomy at all. The issue isn't that you don't want to be pregnant, the issue is that you don;t want to raise a child. Bodily autonomy is just a convenient excuse. Imagine, if you will, this were a paralell universe where we were reptiles and the gestation took place completely outside of you, without even any incubation needed or possible, you'd find some other excuse for why it's ok to smash eggs. You simply don't want to take responsibility, which is something I emphathize with, but I can't support your methods. Instead, why not seek out one of the many gay couples clamoring to take responsibility for you

EDIT:
In fact, forget reptiles, you'd find some excuse even if we were amphibians or fish

Everything here is horseshit.

Abortions end unwanted, dangerous, or non-viable pregnancies. Criticizing people for "not wanting to take responsibility" is the epitome of BABIES ARE PUNISHMENT FOR SEX thinking. Proposing a hypothetical scenario in which pregnancy is removed from the equation so you don't have to talk about bodily autonomy is fucking stupid, and then you go on to assume that women would get off on smashing eggs/incubators anyway.

I was not criticizing, I was empathizing. I think I may fear serious responsibility more than death itself. I am anti responsibility, anti-duty and certainly opposed to traditional sexual social mores and Abrahamic prudishness that says that you need to be a married couple or something to have sex and that you can't have sex if you're an unmarried couple, or a random hookup from the craigslist or Tinder, or an Eyes Wide Shut type situation (and just because I've phrased that last thing in a humorous way I don't want you to take that as me not being serious about it; I am, and I really meant those last two parts). And furthermore I explicitly suggested to still avoid it but find some other way; put it up for adoption or leave it on someone's doorstep and I am 100% serious about that you should do that (though maybe try the first one first because, and only because, the second could get you into trouble). Responsibility should be dodged and slack restored but without violence when possible.

As for the lizard parable, fine, I suppose that's a little outlandish. Let's consider another more realistic one then:
Suppose, in the future, that there are medical advances such that with treatment a fetus is viable as of the second month, and furthermore suppose that wherever this is taking place has a functional amply funded single-payer health system; Is there, in this situation, any excuse for leaving the fetus to die after extracting it?

EDIT:
And for clarification I'm all for medically necessary abortions and abortions of non-viable pregnancies (though the latter seems a bit of a redundant step when there's not overlap with the former). Hell, when its medically necessary it ought to be sponsored by the government just like any medically necessary procedure ought to; it's only the elective ones I take issue with.

Quote from: 00.dusk on May 19, 2017, 06:50:16 AM
Now's my turn to quite possibly get my monkey on, but I think that the current raving lunatic believes in traditional family ties and maybe even the concept of a nuclear family, judging by this:

Quote from: Prelate Diogenes Shandor on May 19, 2017, 02:12:27 AMparadoxially reactionary concepts about reproduction and family

Personally, I think family ties are a convenient screen for hiding abuse and the foremost enabler of things like nepotism and us vs them thinking, and the "nuclear family" concept has only made this worse. Anti-abortion rhetoric is used, in some cases, to further this specific agenda: essentially using the concept of "family" to beat innocent humans with.

Also, particularly the "reproductive" bit of our neighborhood moron's above quoted bit makes me think that he believes motherhood is an essential part of being a woman. Which, if true, has a ton of fun domino-effect aspects that force him to believe a host of other stupid things or modify his bullshit. They aren't even slippery slope fallacy, they're logical consequences of that belief.

I wanna go back to this and say that I'm actually borderline anti-family. And partly because of abortion. If everyone was raised by the state or something it would scale back elective abortions to only the true bodily autonomy cases that have issue with pregnancy itself. Furthermore, the traditional family has become a false idol; in whose name progress is stifled, in whose name gays are discouraged from getting married and everyone else is badgered into it, in whose name people fight and are miserable for years because they don't want to get divorced, in whose name we have excessive censorship, in whose name many children endure negligance and abuse because there's no one other than their blood relatives to raise them and their blood relatives are all negligent, in whose name avoidable public health crisises occur because parents are given the authority to choose not to have their kids vaccinated
Praise NHGH! For the tribulation of all sentient beings.


a plague on both your houses -Mercutio


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrTGgpWmdZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVWd7nPjJH8


It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would plunge us back into the darkness -H.P.Lovecraft


He who fights with monsters must take care lest he thereby become a monster -Nietzsche


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHhrZgojY1Q


You are a fluke of the universe, and whether you can hear it of not the universe is laughing behind your back -Deteriorata


Don't use the email address in my profile, I lost the password years ago

Q. G. Pennyworth

Dicknuts, lemme all caps again for you:

YOUR HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO IS SIDESTEPPING THE ACTUAL ISSUE.

We do not live in a world where abortions happen absent a pregnancy. We do not live in a world where pregnancy is not an imposition upon the body of a living human person. Get your head out of your own colon.

The Good Reverend Roger

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."
- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."
- TGRR, raising the bar at work.