Got laughed out of the classroom during an abortion debate

[Ben_Sinner]

The OP’s analogy has been logically exploded eight ways to Sunday – just let it go. Even he’s been reduced to defending it with: But it wasn’t meant to be a TRUTHFUL statement! It was for COLOR!

Man you just don’t give up do you?

Why does it matter if it’s truthful or not?..its a fictional story that involves a VERY REAL AND VERY POSSIBLE situation in a mother having to choose either her life or the child’s…It has happened before. It happens still today. It will happen in the future.

I’m going to start using BIG letters and bolded words on my main points because you cant seem to understand my main points because your only argument is trying to bash my knowledge of airplanes and parachutes. You have yet to discredit the things I have said in bold lettering which are the most relevant parts of my argument.

You still haven’t been able to discredit the ultimate analogy…once again…you are so fixated on the facts of the plane,parachute, and science of the situation that you are missing the big picture which is the mother sacrificing her life to save her child. being my main analogy.

If its such a bad analogy…then why are so many on here agreeing with me on it?

And your putting words in my mouth that I never said

I never said the mother MUST sacrafice herself I just implied that its a flawed argument to intentionally kill the child just to spare the mother because somehow it’s justifiable if the child is inside the womb, but killing a child already birthed would be wrong to them…there are other ways a mother can save herself without aborting the baby…there are medical procedures that will intend to try to save both but most likely have the baby get the short end of the stick on the procedure…

 

[johnnyjones]

Choose what? Abort what? They are all cover up words.

 

[bitznbitez]

Man you just don’t give up do you?

Your point has been made very well, on many occasions. The choice was laid out what is the right thing for someone to do, choose to die or choose to let their kid die. If in a debate you want to make your opponent agree with you, you will rarely ever achieve that goal. If thats winning the debate you may never achieve it.

The reaction of the teacher and class is proof positive they did understand your point completely the first time. Had they not understood they would have asked for clarification, but when faced with a loosing hand they resorted to irrational behavior. As the saying goes “If you aren’t taking flak you aren’t over the target”.

People will often choose to miss the point on purpose because they don’t want something to be true. A wise man once told me, “Never try to use reason to talk a man out of a position he did not use reason to get himself into in the first place.” Or in the words of the Warden in Cool Hand Luke, “Some men you just can’t reach”.

Be content in your victory and realize that the best they can do is argue about airliner equipment never daring to tread into the moral dillema as they know its fruitless.

And don’t forget the anger is often, not always of course, strongest from those who have done what you are talking about and are living with the guilt that comes from it. “It can’t be true, i can’t let it be true, because if it is true then I am a murder and a bad mother/father and I could never face that.” Be sensitive to that.

 

[bitznbitez]

And I thought of a recent comment on the blog of the Archdiocese of Washington, by Msgr Charles Pope which seems fitting.

Pope Benedict has spoken frequently of the “tyranny of relativism.” What this means, essentially, is that when a culture decides that there is no fundamental basis of truth, (whether of Scripture or Natural Law), the result is that there is no real basis for discussion or resolution of issues. Thus who “wins the day” is not based on reason, but on who shouts the loudest, and/or who has the most power, money or political influence.
blog.adw.org/2012/07/what-do-social-radicals-really-mean-by-tolerance/

The behavior you encountered is precisely what is spoken of.

 

[Nom_the_Wise]

:slapfight::slapfight:

 

[Nom_the_Wise]

From a pro choice perspective it was a bad analogy because most pro choicers do not see a fetus as the moral equivalent of a person. If you want to win them to your side, that’s what you have to target. So saying that a mother would sacrifice herself for her child so why not a fetus isn’t going to work unless you can show that they are morally equal, or there isn’t a point to a woman sacrificing herself.

Back when my ex and I were somewhat happily married, one day she told me she was pregnant. I didn’t say to her “Now honey, don’t get your hopes up. We have no idea what might come out of your womb in 9 months. It could be a potato, a dinosaur, anything!” Of course, she was pregnant with a human being in its fetal stages: zygote, fetus, et. al. Human beings have been sprouting from the wombs of women ever since there were wombs in women.

In our country, the law recognizes unborn eagles as the moral equivalent of eagles because they are endangered. You can get a hefty fine and jail time for disturbing an eagle egg, let alone making an omelet out of one. And farmers are allowed to write off unborn cattle on their tax returns as if they were the moral equivalent of a cow. Also, when astronomers find evidence of any cellular life fossilized on any planet other than earth, they are quick to call it “Life.”

Not so for embryonic human life. It’s so transparent as to be laughable.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Back when my ex and I were somewhat happily married, one day she told me she was pregnant. I didn’t say to her “Now honey, don’t get your hopes up. We have no idea what might come out of your womb in 9 months. It could be a potato, a dinosaur, anything!” Of course, she was pregnant with a human being in its fetal stages: zygote, fetus, et. al. Human beings have been sprouting from the wombs of women ever since there were wombs in women.

In our country, the law recognizes unborn eagles as the moral equivalent of eagles because they are endangered. You can get a hefty fine and jail time for disturbing an eagle egg, let alone making an omelet out of one. And farmers are allowed to write off unborn cattle on their tax returns as if they were the moral equivalent of a cow. Also, when astronomers find evidence of any cellular life fossilized on any planet other than earth, they are quick to call it “Life.”

Not so for embryonic human life. It’s so transparent as to be laughable.

I try not to debate abortion on CAF out of respect. But needless to say I and all the other pro choicers don’t buy that argument. It does nothing to address the moral equivalence. Eagle eggs aren’t protected because its immoral to hurt a fetal egg, they’re protected because the ecosystem needs them and for the sake of preserving biodiversity.

There is no debate that a fetus is alive. But because it is not even aware of its own existence, cannot process pain, lacks the ability to hope, dream, or love, does not have any vested interest in living, etc it is a tough sell to convince pro choicers that that being is the moral equivalent of the woman carrying it, who does have all of those characteristics. And the assertion that it is is terrifying to me and many others who don’t want to be reduced to something that can’t think, feel, or even knows that it’s alive.

 

[Lochias]

I try not to debate abortion on CAF out of respect. But needless to say I and all the other pro choicers don’t buy that argument. It does nothing to address the moral equivalence. Eagle eggs aren’t protected because its immoral to hurt a fetal egg, they’re protected because the ecosystem needs them and for the sake of preserving biodiversity.

There is no debate that a fetus is alive. But because it is not even aware of its own existence, cannot process pain, lacks the ability to hope, dream, or love, does not have any vested interest in living, etc it is a tough sell to convince pro choicers that that being is the moral equivalent of the woman carrying it, who does have all of those characteristics. And the assertion that it is is terrifying to me and many others who don’t want to be reduced to something that can’t think, feel, or even knows that it’s alive.

Fetuses are people by dint of being alive. There is no difference, no difference at all, between a fetus and a grown person save for the passage of time. There is no way that fetus will not grow to be an adult, without biological or human interference.

And forgive me, but the idea of a grown person being reduced to something that can’t think, feel or know it’s alive is utter, complete, total and unequivocal nonsense.

Humans don’t come from something that’s not human. Humans come from human fetuses.

Human fetuses. Human fetuses. Just say it a few times.

 

[Nom_the_Wise]

I try not to debate abortion on CAF out of respect. But needless to say I and all the other pro choicers don’t buy that argument. It does nothing to address the moral equivalence. Eagle eggs aren’t protected because its immoral to hurt a fetal egg, they’re protected because the ecosystem needs them and for the sake of preserving biodiversity.

There is no debate that a fetus is alive. But because it is not even aware of its own existence, cannot process pain, lacks the ability to hope, dream, or love, does not have any vested interest in living, etc it is a tough sell to convince pro choicers that that being is the moral equivalent of the woman carrying it, who does have all of those characteristics. And the assertion that it is is terrifying to me and many others who don’t want to be reduced to something that can’t think, feel, or even knows that it’s alive.

Lots of things can’t think, feel or know they’re alive but need protection regardless. How much more protection should be provided to an uncontestable human life when it is at it’s most helpless?

This thread has ceased being a healthy place for me to be. Peace to all.

 

[EasterJoy]

I try not to debate abortion on CAF out of respect. But needless to say I and all the other pro choicers don’t buy that argument. It does nothing to address the moral equivalence. Eagle eggs aren’t protected because its immoral to hurt a fetal egg, they’re protected because the ecosystem needs them and for the sake of preserving biodiversity.

There is no debate that a fetus is alive. But because it is not even aware of its own existence, cannot process pain, lacks the ability to hope, dream, or love, does not have any vested interest in living, etc it is a tough sell to convince pro choicers that that being is the moral equivalent of the woman carrying it, who does have all of those characteristics. And the assertion that it is is terrifying to me and many others who don’t want to be reduced to something that can’t think, feel, or even knows that it’s alive.

Do you mean you’re terrified of going into a coma and having someone perform euthanasia on you?

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I try not to debate abortion on CAF out of respect. But needless to say I and all the other pro choicers don’t buy that argument. It does nothing to address the moral equivalence. ** Eagle eggs aren’t protected because its immoral to hurt a fetal egg, they’re protected because the ecosystem needs them and for the sake of preserving biodiversity.**

Completely false statement. Eagle eggs are in no way needed by the ecosystem and do nothing for biodiversity any more than any other inanimate object. I had a friend make the exact same argument against me and when pressed to show how it did either, all he could come up with was that the egg is an eagle and, therefore, needs to be protected. So how does it not address the moral equivalence?

To say there’s no argument about a fetus being alive is also a fallacy since one of the main arguments from the pro-abort side is that that baby is nothing more than a lump of tissue and part of the mother’s body. Granted this ignores some glaring facts, such as the actual appearance of the baby and the fact that it’s genetically distinct from its mother. The lump of flesh argument is also one of the primary reasons pro-aborts are so adamantly opposed to allowing ultrasounds before an abortion since that would contradict the lie.

Also, studies have shown that a fetal human can respond to touch as early as 8 weeks and sound as early as 17 weeks. While pain is subjective, they respond violently to stimuli you and I would consider painful. From personal experience, I can tell you that by 30 weeks at the latest, our kids were all responding to me and my voice differently than they responded to my wife’s. I’d say it’s patently false to say they don’t feel pain and naive at best to say that they’re any less capable of thoughts and emotions than a newborn.

Getting back to the OP, this was a Critical Thinking class. Regardless of his example, how on earth does stifling an opposing view foster critical thinking? I understand that shouting down opposing views is standard procedure in a lot of academia now, but I don’t find it acceptable and believe that any educators who behave this way should be reported.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I try not to debate abortion on CAF out of respect. But needless to say I and all the other pro choicers don’t buy that argument. It does nothing to address the moral equivalence. Eagle eggs aren’t protected because its immoral to hurt a fetal egg, they’re protected because the ecosystem needs them and for the sake of preserving biodiversity.

There is no debate that a fetus is alive. But because it is not even aware of its own existence, cannot process pain, lacks the ability to hope, dream, or love, does not have any vested interest in living, etc it is a tough sell to convince pro choicers that that being is the moral equivalent of the woman carrying it, who does have all of those characteristics. And the assertion that it is is terrifying to me and many others who don’t want to be reduced to something that can’t think, feel, or even knows that it’s alive.

The pro-choice side tends to change their justification of why abortion is moral.

Sonograms have ended the excuse that the preborn is a “lump of cells”. Cell differentiation happens very early, by 8 weeks gestation (circa 6 weeks after conception) my daughter had a heart-beat, a head with a face, eyes, spinal column, leg and arm buds. So obviously, she was not a lump of cells, but a pretty complicated organism. A small human being.

The lump of cells argument doesn’t convince anymore.

So what argument is used now? That the small human being is not really sentient, so it can be destroyed at whim. The problem is that many born individuals have limited self awareness, limited intelligence, limited abilities. Who gets to decide what is sentient enough to be given the right to life?

I know my daughter at about 18 weeks recognized her brother’s voice. She turned he head toward him when he spoke during a sonogram. Other people were speaking in the room, but she turned toward him.

18 week fetuses can be legally aborted.

 

[styrgwillidar]

…One of the arguments the Pro-Choice side used was “it’s okay to do it if the mother will die giving birth to the child”…

I won’t address your particular analogy or the teacher’s reaction, since it’s been addressed in detail. Your best response to that argument has been given to you, competent Drs. in study after study have stated the situation doesn’t occur.

This is where I agree with Guernica. The pro-abortion side prefers to frame the debate in terms of life of the mother, rape, incest, reproductive rights to avoid trying to defend what abortion, at least in the US, predominantly is… killing for the convenience of the mother or the pedophile or abusive or disinterested father- depending on your point of view and opinion.

You should minimize discussion on their point, and ask them to address the far more commonplace situation. To put it in perspective for my CCD students who are 16, I have them guess the ratio of life births to abortions when they were born. That ratio, according to the Center for Disease Control (ironic that pregnancy is a disease) was 1 abortion for every three live births. That is far more than can be accounted to rape, incest, or as we already know the dubious at best, 'life of the mother." They faced worse odds than most US combat troops in just being born in this country. In surveys of women having abortion 3/4s state because it will interfere with their school, work, or relationships- convenience.

Abortion occurs far more frequently in the poorer populations, in the US it is particularly prevalent among the black population. Remember Margaret Sanger’s goal and purpose was genocide and elimination of the lower classes through control/reduction of their breeding. Although even she was opposed to abortion. She saw birth control as a way of preventing abortion.

*** [It is] the most barbaric method [of family planning], the killing of babies — infanticide — abortion.
My Fight for Birth Control, 1931.

• It is apparent that nothing short of contraceptives can put an end to the horrors of abortion and infanticide.
  Woman and the New Race, Chapter 2.
• While there are cases where even the law recognizes an abortion as justifiable if recommended by a physician, I assert that the hundreds of thousands of abortions performed in America each year are a disgrace to civilization.
  Woman and the New Race, Chapter 10.
  
  …we explained simply what contraception was; that abortion was the wrong way — no matter how early it was performed it was taking a life; that contraception was the better way, the safer way — it took a little time, a little trouble, but was well worth while in the long run, because life had not yet begun.
  An Autobiography, 1938***

You are positing a situation based on a moral premise they don’t share. In fact that society has conditioned them to reject. That people have moral obligations to others that may be greater than their own self interest. And that one has to uphold obligations and deal with the consequences of ones actions. That in fact, they should be able to carry on however they like and not be bound to consequences or obligations. It’s a world of no-fault divorce where one can just quit out of convenience. Where promiscuity is encouraged despite it’s logical results with their consequences. And people rationalize ending life because they’ve been led to believe that one should be shielded from consequences. Alevda King said:

"Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness."
Alveda King

Continued…

 

[styrgwillidar]

Part 2

Ironically, your view of the dedication of a mother to her child, your assumption of her willingness to die for her, to not kill the child for her own sake was shared by the original seekers of women’s rights in the US. They saw abortion as the ultimate subjugation of women. They viewed it as something forced on them by men who ran society. (Kind of like planned parenthood helping out pedophiles by the no-questions-asked abortions performed on minor girls). Something which occurred as a result of men viewing them as simply sex objects vice respected mothers and partners. Because that is what abortion does, it is the ultimate way of turning women into sex objects. Toys to be used vice the cherished and respected partners and mothers of our children. It’s why Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt were ardent supporters of abortion-- it enables consequence free sex (for the man) with women’s main role being the sex partner/object.

A far difference in treating a woman thinking, eh if anything happens she’ll just kill it and thinking this woman will be my partner and mother to my sons and daughters.

***"
We are aware that many women attempt to excuse themselves for procuring abortions, upon the ground that it is not murder. But the fact of resort to so weak an argument only shows the more palpably that they fully realize the enormity of the crime. Is it not equally destroying the would-be future oak to crush the sprout before it pushes its head above the sod, as to cut down the sapling, or cut down the tree? Is it not equally to destroy life, to crush it in the very germ, and to take it when the germ has evolved to any given point in its line of development?
Victoria Woodhull and Tennessee Claflin, Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly (June 20, 1874).

Men must no longer insult all womanhood by saying that freedom means the degradation of woman. Every woman knows if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.
    Victoria Woodhull, first woman to run for U.S. President, member of the Equal Rights Party, in The Evening Standard (Wheeling, WV) (November 17, 1875).

The prosecutions on our courts for breach of promise, divorce, adultery, bigamy, seduction, rape; the newspaper reports every day of every year of scandals and outrages, of wife murders and paramour shooting, of abortions and infanticides, are perpetual reminders of men’s incapacity to cope successfully with this monster evil of society.

Susan B. Anthony, women's suffrage movement leader, in "Social Purity", a speech about social ills impacting women.

The murder of children, either before or after birth, has become so frightfully prevalent that physicians… have declared that were it not for immigration the white population of the United States would actually fall off! In a populous quarter of a certain large Western city it is asserted, on medical authority, that not a single Anglo-Saxon child has been born alive for the past three years… it is plain enough that the murder of infants is a common thing among American women.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women’s suffrage leader, in “Infanticide and Prostitution” published in the The Revolution, 2/5/1868 [53].

-Infanticide is on the increase to an extent inconceivable. Nor is it confined to the cities by any means. Androscoggin County in Maine is largely a rural district, but a recent Medical Convention there unfolded a fearful condition of society in relation to this subject. Dr. Oaks made the remark that, according to the best estimate he could make, there were four hundred murders annually produced by abortion in that county alone…There must be a remedy for such a crying evil as this. But where shall it be found, at least where begin, if not in the complete enfranchisement and elevation of woman? Forced maternity, not out of legal marriage but within it, must lie at the bottom of a vast proportion of such revolting outrages against the laws of nature and our common humanity.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1 The Revolution 10, 146-7 (March 12, 1868).

When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's suffrage movement leader, in a letter to Julia Ward Howe recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library (October 16, 1873).***

 

[In_Training]

The whole class laughed at me and the teacher wouldn’t even let me finish because she said that was a horrible analogy and the whole class just started mocking me and acting like I was an idiot…some fellow catholics in the class joined in the mockery too…

Fellow Catholics behaving poorly? Get out… No way… Unbelievable…

One class does not represent the whole world. Plus you have other devout Catholics who say that when a child is conceived, God’s plan is for the child to be raised by his/her biological parents and no one else. Going by that logic it would be selfish of the mother or father to die… because allowing someone else to raise your children would be against God’s plan… Therefore there’s no right answer because according to each answer, the other answer is wrong.

Not everyone is like that though. I hate the Catholic religion and I would have never laughed at someone who felt passionately about something. In my world, not everyone has to agree, but in the Catholic world, everyone has to agree, which creates undue judgment, tension and conflict.

If I was a girl and learned that I had an ectopic pregnancy and doctors told me I had to terminate the pregnancy or it would kill me and the baby both, I wouldn’t care about what others thought about my decision.

 

[Ben_Sinner]

Fellow Catholics behaving poorly? Get out… No way… Unbelievable…

One class does not represent the whole world. Plus you have other devout Catholics who say that when a child is conceived, God’s plan is for the child to be raised by his/her biological parents and no one else. Going by that logic it would be selfish of the mother or father to die… because allowing someone else to raise your children would be against God’s plan… Therefore there’s no right answer because according to each answer, the other answer is wrong.

Not everyone is like that though. I hate the Catholic religion and I would have never laughed at someone who felt passionately about something. In my world, not everyone has to agree, but in the Catholic world, everyone has to agree, which creates undue judgment, tension and conflict.

If I was a girl and learned that I had an ectopic pregnancy and doctors told me I had to terminate the pregnancy or it would kill me and the baby both, I wouldn’t care about what others thought about my decision.

All I have to say is…your popcorn animation makes me hungry

 

[lonelypetunia]

That is a very beautiful story about your mother. Your mother wanted you. My biggest fear and I admit this, if abortion were to become illegal babies would be treated as punishment and forced to live a horrific life. Never an easy debate.

 

[lonelypetunia]

Lots of things can’t think, feel or know they’re alive but need protection regardless. How much more protection should be provided to an uncontestable human life when it is at it’s most helpless?

This thread has ceased being a healthy place for me to be. Peace to all.

They should be protected after they are born. I sat in a theology class and asked the prof if abortion were to become illegal what about the babies born. He looked me in the eye and said thats on her meaning the mother. I really believe that a child should never be a punishment. Living a young life with parents who did not want them and see them as punishment can be severely damaging. I know adoption. But adoption is selfless, those people who wanted a quiet abortion so no one would know of their little accident, wouldn’t exactly qualify as being selfless. I really do worry about the babies and young children that would be forced to live with such people.

 

[Nom_the_Wise]

They should be protected after they are born.

They should be protected from the moment they are alive: CONCEPTION.

 

[lonelypetunia]

They should be protected from the moment they are alive: CONCEPTION.

ok from the moment they are alive till born? Do we get to walk away after birth saying wow we’re great people that baby lived and it’s because we made abortion illegal. It’s all sunshine and rainbows, everyone is a happy family so much love for the new little bundle of joy. Never any abuse, never any thought that that precious sweet lovely baby is punishment.