> For someone who is not arguing abortion, your recent post history
> appears very misleading. But I think I understand your motive a
> little better now; it sounds kind of reasonable. But why would a
> "nominal pro-lifer" want to improve the arguments of
> pro-choicers?
First and foremost, because there are always going to be pro-choice
libertarians, and there are always going to be pro-life libertarians.
I'm more than happy to work with libertarians of both opinions on
issues we agree on -- and I don't much care to work on, or debate, the
abortion issue at all, since there's simply no large constituency for
EITHER libertarian conclusion on it -- but I realize it is going to
come up whether I want it to or not. And when it does come up, I don't
like to see EITHER group embarrass libertarianism generally with poor
arguments.
In reality, the "pro-choice" side has the advantage of position:
- The "pro-life" position has the burden of proof to prove that a) the
fetus is a "person" with rights, and b) that those rights are violated
in an abortion.
- The "pro-choice" position automatically prevails (in a libertarian
context) if the "pro-life" position doesn't meet that burden of proof.
At the point we are at in the debate this time around, the ultimate,
solid, "pro-choice" argument is: "Prove that the fetus is a 'person'
with rights, and that abortion violates those rights." That's the end
of it unless the "pro-life" side delivers on the demand.
Retreating into the demonstrably false claim that the fetus isn't a
"human being" immediately damages the "pro-choice" side's credibility,
which makes it easier for the "pro-life" side to fudge on meeting its
own burden of proof.
Whether you are "pro-choice" or "pro-life," making bad arguments makes
you look bad. And if you are doing so as a proclaimed libertarian,
then it makes libertarianism look bad. I don't want libertarianism to
look bad, so I want both sides to make good arguments.
> What is the "fetus fairy" argument?
The "fetus fairy" argument is that the embryo isn't a "person," and
the fetus isn't a "person," but that at the moment it emerges from the
womb (or some time in the preceding milliseconds), it becomes a
"person" just in time for the doctor to pull said "person" out, slap
it on the ass and tell the mother its gender.
This presumably involves magic -- the "fetus fairy" swoops down,
steals the fetus, and replaces it with a "person" -- or else some
unexplained source of "personhood which" beams rays of "personhood"
around the cosmos ... rays which can penetrate leadlined shelters 20
stories below the earth, but which are stopped cold by a uterine wall.
What I am basically saying is that in the absence of some reasoned
argument as to how or why the instant of birth is the moment of
transformation to "personhood," there's no particular reason to
believe that that transformation occurs at that particular time rather
than at some earlier or later point.
> And isn't the pro-choice argument already vastly more scientific
> than the pro-life/anti-abortion one?
That remains to be seen.
So far in this particular thread, the "pro-life" side as represented
by me has been rigorously scientific on the sole point being argued,
while the "pro-choice" side has not been scientific at all.
Usually, that changes once the "pro-choice" side realizes that it's
anti-scientific, counter-factual arguments that human beings are not,
in fact, human beings, aren't going to work.
Once it gets past that point and into arguments on the nature of
"personhood," then the "pro-life" side often derails itself with
religious arguments about souls and such, while the "pro-choice" side
tends to start looking into things like the time of
commencement/quality of brain activity and such.
What converted me from a hardcore "pro-choice" position to a nominal
"pro-life" position was an argument from indeterminacy and comparative
cost. The reason that position is only nominal is that I still haven't
seen the "pro-life" side make the ultimately dispositive proof.
Tom Knapp
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