Thanks for your detailed position. You make some good points.
But the "Fetus Fairy" sounds less like a pro-choice argument and
more like pro-life name-calling. If that's your example of a
religious argument of pro-choice, then whatever I call someone
makes them so. That's got to be some kind of logical fallacy, but
I don't know the name. The claim that there's no reason that
parturition should impart personhood is a creation of the
pro-life camp, as is the strawman conclusion "therefore they must
believe in a fetus fairy". It's simply a variation of this: "Herb
is crazy. Why is Herb crazy? Because anyone who believes in
evolution MUST be crazy."
There are plenty of huge transformations that take place during
parturition to explain initiation into personhood. Of course the
pro-life camp is heavily invested in under-emphasizing
parturition. Apparently is has worked to some degree.
Pro-life: "What's so special about parturition that it imparts
personhood?"
Pro-choice: "Gosh, I don't know...maybe it's the many major
biological changes that take place: loss of mothers nutrient
supply through umbilical cord; first breath of air in lungs;
first sound through vocal chords; first meal through alimentary
tract; first defecation & urination; first fart; first burp;
first vomit; first sight(?); organs and systems start to function
fully/independently; desires and objections obviously start to
function fully/independently; I could go on."
Apparently the pro-lifers have convinced pro-choicers that these
mean nothing and something more has to be demonstrated. It's
funny that most of the time the pro-lifers call parturition "the
miracle of birth", but when it comes to abortion, they drop the
religious reference, do a 180 and ask what's so special about
birth and accuse pro-choicers of believing in the Fetus Fairy.
What's a scientific mind to do: minimize the significance of
parturition, abandon systems classifications, and go hunting for
something that will appease the witch hunters (as they most
certainly are, because I just said so - LOL)??
-Mark
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--------------
Mark,
> 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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