Essay talk:Why I oppose abortion

No one believes your horseshit
not even in Kansas    Any way you want to sum it up, ABORTION IS NOT MURDER. 20:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Nobody on either side needs either to spout platitudes. IdiosyncraticLawyer (talk) 16:10, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

The meaning of "person" or "full human being"
"(...)if your arguments are based on the premise that unborn human beings are not persons (you see, only 0,01 - 0,1 out of all abortions are done because of rape, this is a very minor issue)(...) --Earthland (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2010 (UTC)"
 * I was asking about your arguments. Why not discuss something "minor"? I thought you had something to teach us, but you don't seem to have an answer to either of those questions. I'm not sure if you believe we should value a conceived egg as much as any person. You are correct if you think I would disagree with that. Lumenos (talk) 22:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * "But what about rape" should be discussed, of course. But this discussion should be based on premise that human embryo even in its earliest stage of development is full human being, a person. If he is not a full human being, this discussion is pointless, because then we should be allowed to kill embryo for whatever reason we want to, and "cases of rape" have no importance at all. --Earthland (talk) 11:11, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
 * That is fine but in order to interpret your statement there I'm trying to ascertain the practical meaning of "person" or "full human being", in your mind. Does it mean that if the woman "negligently" causes the death of a zygote who is in the woman's body, that this woman should be guilty of manslaughter? Or does "full human being" mean that if this woman intentionally kills this zygote, she should rightly be called a murderer?
 * I hope that I have clarified why the questions in the two sections above, are relevant to understanding what your essay actually means. Thank you for your replies and your further input would be appreciated, if possible.
 * Lumenos (talk) 00:10, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Various points on a brief perusal
First up, there's a lot of spelling and grammar issues sprinkled around. They appear to be the typical errors of someone not familiar with English, in which case they're understandable, but still have an impact on comprehension. Either way, do you object to somebody editing for spelling and grammar where the intent is clear, perhaps also a dialogue to better express the less-clear points?

That said: "'Twinning is an extremely rare event - only 997 out of 1000 embryos divide into two separate individuals. Philosopher Robert Wennberg provides the following story.'" Those statistics look a little.. odd? You don't include a source or reference so it's not possible to double check. Correction on both the number and the lack of source please?

"They are defined as 'universal minimal standard of justice, tolerance and human dignity that is owed to individuals by the mere virtue of their humanity.' Human rights are universal, in that they are possessed by all by virtue of the fact that they are human, and independent in that their existence as moral standards of justification and criticism is independent whether or not they are recognized by a particular national or international legal system or government. Abortion is not a right, but a wrong under justice." 1. This presumably includes the rights of the woman to her bodily independence and to not having her life restricted by any other. One could argue of course, that perhaps the foetus' right to life supersedes these, but consider: one could use that same argument to say that for example, a bystander must risk their own discomfort (and potentially their life) to rescue a child from riptides -- I cannot think of a batter analogy, but that should suffice -- so at what point does the right to life take precedence over the right not to be put at discomfort or risk by another?

2. Please define "justice". Does it mean "that which is permissible by law" or does it mean "that which is fair and equal"? Because these are not always the same thing; in the former case, many jurisdictions indeed make a right (e.g. as determined in Roe v. Wade; various laws in my own New Zealand). In the latter, there is clearly much ongoing debate, including your own essay, so to claim this is the fallacy of petitio principii. Either way, you make a universal claim which is not sufficiently evidenced.

3. That abortion would be barred by justice in any and all forms does not eliminate the multiple potential reasons, and I explicitly note many of which are justifiable on grounds of health (psychological and physical), for which an abortion is carried out. Even excluding those performed on the basis of "I want it, therefore you must give it" your argument does not account

"... they only say that they support the 'choice' - that every woman should have the right to choose abortion. They assert that they are actually 'personally opposed' to abortion ..." This sounds suspiciously like personal anecdote. I for example would have said that most pro-choice supporters make no stance whatsoever on whether abortion is acceptable. They merely recognise that they have no right to intrude on what is fundamentally her right to privacy in, by most reports, a very stressful time and a difficult personal decision. Again, I ask you to consider: would you permit the government to decide for you which brand of butter, cereal, beef, pork is better for you? Or to determine which car you should buy, so that the safety of all those around you is maximised? Any of a myriad things which otherwise are left entirely to your whim, now part of a de jure and de facto standardised life, could be supported by argument in exactly the way you have done so for abortion.

In these cases and in your argument, the representatives of society as a whole, acting on the best information available to them -- something which is even now not really objectively applicable to abortion -- are determining what should be best for you, making the choice for you of what should benefit your well-being most, even though it may violate your privacy to some degree.

Ironically, this would ultimately lead to the removal of independece and uniqueness from society and humanity, one of the beginning points you used to support the biological argument against abortion previously. It also leads to an interesting quandary: what if government decides that on the basis of examining all the arguments and data available, abortion is legal, exactly as it is now in many states?

"However, abortion does not always include the intention to kill innocent human being. Firstly, many people simply don't know abortion results in death of innocent human being (this goes for women who want abortion, because every competent doctor knows that abortion results in someone's death" Here, your argument against abortion here relies on your earlier argument against abortion in the passages dealing with the point at which life begins. This has issues as shown previously, so commenting seems pointless without a basis to work from. I also note that it is not the first section to use a previous argument as the basis for a new one; you have already used the assumption (per logic, a starting point for argument) of a foetus being alive to support that government should protect it at all costs. Now is currently not a good time to think over this, but it appears that many of your later points are all circular in reasoning, each lending support to and receiving it from the others (as well as from your original argument that foetuses should be considered alive). Thus considering each on its own merit weakens them by a large amount.

Nevertheless: to state that "every competent doctor knows that abortion results in someone's death" is quite projective, to say the least. As your own quotes demonstrate, there are doctors who do not consider the foetus to be alive, and therefore "know" that they are not causing the death of someone by any means. Otherwise you imply that a doctor not thinking as you do is not competent, something you have little if any judgement over and thus a heavyhanded ad hominem attack on your opposition (alternatively, a 'poisoning the wells' fallacy -- regardless, it is a gravely personal attack on pro-choice supports). As it stands, you would be best removing this statement from the essay entirely, as it does not support your argument at all.

"Secondly, there are cases when mother's life is at risk. In such case, abortion is a regrettable secondary subject not the intention itself." This makes no sense. The woman's life is endangered by the pregnancy, therefore the explicit solution is to remove said pregnancy. In other words, abortion is quite clearly the intended outcome; it is impossible to end the pregnancy deliberately in order to preserve the woman's health, without abortion being the sole intention (unless one is describing forced labour and/or surgical birth which are acknowledged, but are not within context here). It seems you are in fact arguing against something which would help your cause here, to nil effect.

"Therefore, it is wrong to call every abortion a murder. But abortion is and always will be direct killing of the innocent human being, always regrettable and never morally justifiable." Here you restate a prior conclusion which is entirely disjoint from the section you are answering here. Doing so makes this section appear less like part of your argument, less of an aside discussion, and more of a mere vehicle to repeat the claim, and is thus highly unattractive to a critical viewer. Consider: why would the writer continue to say something, even without relation to the point at hand, if they are secure in that argument's logical basis? One could only think that they are not confident in such an argument and must resort to simply hammering it until the audience agrees.

This is not a complete list of points, but should be enough for now.
 * Just a heads-up: AFAIK, User:Earthland has retired from the wiki, so you are arguing with a ghost. :) --ZooGuard (talk) 13:10, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Sexistischer Müll
Ich habe diese Post auf deine Kameradsprache geschrieben.

Dieser Aufsatz ist nur sexistischer Pferdscheiß. Deine Behauptung über Abtreibung ist gleich wie eine Behauptung dass, Frauen nicht Wahlrecht haben sollen. –Александр(а) Ehrenstein (Talk | Contribs | Ragebox) 05:09, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Judy Ferris
Anti-choice activists on the internet are fond of citing the article written by Ferris about being a "pro-life" atheist, as this piece does repeatedly. (I believe it was first published at a now-defunct website called Rightgrrl.)

In fact, Ferris became a fundamentalist Christian very shortly after writing that article. I had considerable contact with her on line in the late 1990s in the personas she was then writing under, as which she did not disclose her name and previous claim to being an anti-choice atheist, and as which she stalked from from site to site and made very serious false allegations about me that exposed me to potential danger.

She can be reached here for verification of her present views and beliefs: http://www.geneseeexpress.com/PopUp.aspx?id=21

Yes, ultimately, the only way that I and another of her stalking victims were able to stop the problematic behaviour was by determining and threatening to expose the real identity of the persona engaging in it, which of course we did not do; upon realizing she had been caught, through strong hints given to her making it plain that we knew who she was, she immediately desisted.

She is still an anti-choice activist under her own name, of course, e.g.: http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/doc/records/legislative/legislativeminutes/1995/house/judiciary_sub_civil/hJUD041395civi.txt

It is hardly honest, these many years later, to be citing the writing of an individual who is now a fundamentalist Christian as authority for the view that efforts to deny reproductive rights are consistent with atheism. They may well be -- misogyny crosses all lines -- but Ferris is not a good choice for making that argument.

Disclosure of her real views and beliefs is essential. =edit= oops, I see I am speaking to a ghost. ;) I suppose someone else can do the editing?