Debate analysis: Elective abortion is immoral

[ArthurWilborn]

You should have really read through the whole debate, because I addressed this aspect, although only fleetingly. The arrow of time only goes in one direction. It is meaningless to make absolute and specific claims of the future based on the past or present, because the potential paths of that arrow are infinite or close enough to it. The point is that there's a line from an embryo to an adult, but that line can only be traced once the adult exists. You can't start from the embryo and claim that you know anything about the potential adult at the end of the line, because that line only goes from the adult back into the past.

The "person-shaped hole in the world" is nonsense, because that person never actually existed. If I take an acorn and crush it before it can start becoming a tree, there is no "tree-shaped hole in the world." The confusion comes in mistaking hindsight for foresight. What we can see looking at what DID happen is nothing like what we can see looking forward at what MIGHT happen.

Oh, no, I quite understand. An observer that had my perspective would be something like a god, that observed from outside of our reality. Since such observation is impossible for humans, you don't agree that any speculation based on such an observer has any validity. The absence of a person who has been killed is no more meaningful then the absence of dragons or of an extinct species.

 

[Ibis3]

Oh, no, I quite understand. An observer that had my perspective would be something like a god, that observed from outside of our reality. Since such observation is impossible for humans, you don't agree that any speculation based on such an observer has any validity. The absence of a person who has been killed is no more meaningful then the absence of dragons or of an extinct species.

I haven't been following this thread and skipped to the last post just out of curiosity. But I can tell you have it wrong.

The absence of a never-existent (not "killed") person is identical to the absence of every other non-existent person, whether that non-existence occurred because the parents never met, or because they never copulated, or because the parents used contraception, or because the fertilised egg never implanted, or because the egg was fertilised by a different sperm, or because the mother miscarried, or because a twin got absorbed into its twin's foetus. There was no person to be killed, only potential people that never were. This whole equation of possible people to real, actual people is absurd. It's like looking at a bushel of apples and calling it deforestation. Failing to plant an acorn is not the same thing as cutting down an oak tree.

 

[ArthurWilborn]

I haven't been following this thread and skipped to the last post just out of curiosity. But I can tell you have it wrong.

The absence of a never-existent (not "killed") person is identical to the absence of every other non-existent person, whether that non-existence occurred because the parents never met, or because they never copulated, or because the parents used contraception, or because the fertilised egg never implanted, or because the egg was fertilised by a different sperm, or because the mother miscarried, or because a twin got absorbed into its twin's foetus. There was no person to be killed, only potential people that never were. This whole equation of possible people to real, actual people is absurd. It's like looking at a bushel of apples and calling it deforestation. Failing to plant an acorn is not the same thing as cutting down an oak tree.

Not quite. In the case of abortion, the probability wave was collapsed by a deliberate act of will, not simply by random chance. But for the intervention of a third party, the life would have (most likely) occurred.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Running away? I think you realize how feeble your arguments are, insisting to debate one single person at once, knowing that you've studied (or learnt, which is a different part of the spectrum) every argument and counterargument and that your opponent probably don't; your condescendence in both debates, and in your general messages, is obvious. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a problem to address every issue properly, in a general discussion instead of a formal debate. Specially when you've already failed to make your point in a previous debate. Or are you asking for a "bis" of your debate with IJ? Which would be the point of that?

Don't worry about it... he only has a couple of points, and they are all bad ones. There's no reason to discuss anything with him further, is there? He also doesn't seem to understand the difference between someone rejecting his points and someone failing to discuss his points. He made one point over and over, and I guess he thought I should address that one point each time he repeated it. When I moved on, he claimed victory on that point... a common dishonest tactic from people like him.

 

[Ibis3]

I haven't been following this thread and skipped to the last post just out of curiosity. But I can tell you have it wrong.

The absence of a never-existent (not "killed") person is identical to the absence of every other non-existent person, whether that non-existence occurred because the parents never met, or because they never copulated, or because the parents used contraception, or because the fertilised egg never implanted, or because the egg was fertilised by a different sperm, or because the mother miscarried, or because a twin got absorbed into its twin's foetus. There was no person to be killed, only potential people that never were. This whole equation of possible people to real, actual people is absurd. It's like looking at a bushel of apples and calling it deforestation. Failing to plant an acorn is not the same thing as cutting down an oak tree.

Not quite. In the case of abortion, the probability wave was collapsed by a deliberate act of will, not simply by random chance. But for the intervention of a third party, the life would have (most likely) occurred.

How is that different from someone deliberately using a condom?

 

[Giliell]

Hi Folks, long time no see, I know, but I'm very busy at the moment
I hope my input is still welcome
First of all, let me congratulate you, and this is not meant ironically: For a bunch of guys (mostly) who have little medical knowledge about that topic, you did quite well.

I have one point to make and one problem for the viewpoint "only if and when the mother's life is at risk.

The first thing is that I think that Philosopher revealed his lack of consideration for the mother when he tried to debunk JOe's "car factory analogy". Joe claimed that the embryonic/fetal developement was comparabale to the construction of a car.
Philosopher objected that a car is an inanimte thing that needs an external force.
Generally correct, that's why the stupid clockmaker analogy is crap.
BUT: In this special case, an outside force is needed, too. It's called mother. If the fetus could get out and get itself a hamburger, we wouldn't be discussing this

OK, and here's the problem I pose for "life at risk", because life isn't easy

There's something called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HELLP_syndromeHELLP-Syndrome, that can occur during pregnancy. Basically, your blood-pressuse goes up, your liver fails, you can die. Only treatment is delivery of the baby, usually via C-section.

Now some basic facts:
A premature baby is any baby delivered before a full 37 weeks pf gestation are over, meassured from the last period
Age of viability (50% chance) is currently about 24 weeks of gestation. Every day in the womb increases the baby's chances of survival AND reduces the danger of heavy damage.
Now I'll present 3 cases. All three of them are real because they happened to friends of mine.

Case 1: HELLP set in in week 40. Emergency C-section 4 days before the due date, healthy boy
Case 2: HELLP set in 6 weeks before due date. Emergency C-section. Premature baby, long stay in hospital. The child has some developemental issues and a lot of allergies (common in premature kids)
Case 3: Very early onset, the baby is delivered in the 25th week. After several surgeries and weeks in hospital, the parents decide to stop the treatment. The boy is only given morphium so he doesn't feel pain until he dies.
Now, where is the line that should be drawn? How long should doctors wait until they perform the C-section that harms the child? How much damage should the mother have to take, have to risk?

 

[borrofburi]

Now, none of you have understood the response to the acorn-tree analogy that I gave

I always find the recourse to this "you don't understand me" tactic to be... odd. Does the person really think none of us gets it? I guess they do, somehow. I run into this all the time from creationists, who basically say "evolution is wrong you just don't understand my arguments"; so what, I and all the scientists "just don't get it"? Do they think an entire group of scientists is just too stupid to understand this creationist? I'm running into this with realisoph right now as well; apparently none of us on this forum understand his insights into why generaly relativity is wrong; it's still wrong, we're just unable to see how wrong it is (as are all the scientists). I run into this with alt med ALL THE TIME, because I obviously just don't get homeopathy, or the natural diet cancer cures, or generally speaking the naturalistic fallacy.

This and arguments from incredulity; I just don't understand how anyone thinks either of them are valid.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Now, none of you have understood the response to the acorn-tree analogy that I gave

I always find the recourse to this "you don't understand me" tactic to be... odd. Does the person really think none of us gets it? I guess they do, somehow. I run into this all the time from creationists, who basically say "evolution is wrong you just don't understand my arguments"; so what, I and all the scientists "just don't get it"? Do they think an entire group of scientists is just too stupid to understand this creationist? I'm running into this with realisoph right now as well; apparently none of us on this forum understand his insights into why generaly relativity is wrong; it's still wrong, we're just unable to see how wrong it is (as are all the scientists). I run into this with alt med ALL THE TIME, because I obviously just don't get homeopathy, or the natural diet cancer cures, or generally speaking the naturalistic fallacy.

This and arguments from incredulity; I just don't understand how anyone thinks either of them are valid.

In a debate, wouldn't you agree that if no one understands a debater's point, he has lost on that point? Not the whole debate, mind you... but the acorn thing was a big loser for Phil.

 

[borrofburi]

I always find the recourse to this "you don't understand me" tactic to be... odd. Does the person really think none of us gets it? I guess they do, somehow. I run into this all the time from creationists, who basically say "evolution is wrong you just don't understand my arguments"; so what, I and all the scientists "just don't get it"? Do they think an entire group of scientists is just too stupid to understand this creationist? I'm running into this with realisoph right now as well; apparently none of us on this forum understand his insights into why generaly relativity is wrong; it's still wrong, we're just unable to see how wrong it is (as are all the scientists). I run into this with alt med ALL THE TIME, because I obviously just don't get homeopathy, or the natural diet cancer cures, or generally speaking the naturalistic fallacy.

This and arguments from incredulity; I just don't understand how anyone thinks either of them are valid.

In a debate, wouldn't you agree that if no one understands a debater's point, he has lost on that point? Not the whole debate, mind you... but the acorn thing was a big loser for Phil.

Yes.... and no. On the one hand, it's the debater's job to do a good job explaining something; on the other hand the debatee might simply be too dumb to get it. Imagine, for instance, an algebra student trying to argue with a professor of advanced mathematics about differential equations: really, the algebra student simply knows too little. I know that's an extreme example, but a broad statement of where the responsibility lies bothers me. On the other hand I imagine a professor would be wise enough to tell the algebra student to get an education first.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Yes.... and no. On the one hand, it's the debater's job to do a good job explaining something; on the other hand the debatee might simply be too dumb to get it. Imagine, for instance, an algebra student trying to argue with a professor of advanced mathematics about differential equations: really, the algebra student simply knows too little. I know that's an extreme example, but a broad statement of where the responsibility lies bothers me. On the other hand I imagine a professor would be wise enough to tell the algebra student to get an education first.

Yeah, that example IS pretty extreme. But on the other hand, the point of a debate is to get ideas across clearly and convincingly. To claim that everyone including the folks observing the debate "just don't get it" means a couple of things. One is that they are unable to understand, as you mentioned. The second is that the debater failed to present his point in a clear enough manner, which is what my last post suggested.

The third option, the one that I think is probably closest to the truth, is that everyone understood just fine and just disagreed with the point made. I think that Philosopher did a good job explaining his position, I just think his position is dead wrong. The reason I think the debate ended the way it did was that Philosopher didn't seem to understand that "understand but disagree" is a part of debating. He made his acorn analogy, I disagreed and told him why, and that should have been the end of it. Instead, he insisted that I should keep responding to rewordings of the same point until I agreed with him, and refused to move on until I did.

And maybe that seemed necessary to him, if the rest of his argument was based on that point... but if so I would have preferred to have seen the rest of his position, rather than rehashing his first two posts over and over again.

 

[TheFlyingBastard]

Between all the great posts you guys make, I come in and ruin it all by saying:

3. I once was a fetus, that is why abortion is wrong

Wait, that's why it's wrong?

 

[borrofburi]

Yes.... and no. On the one hand, it's the debater's job to do a good job explaining something; on the other hand the debatee might simply be too dumb to get it. Imagine, for instance, an algebra student trying to argue with a professor of advanced mathematics about differential equations: really, the algebra student simply knows too little. I know that's an extreme example, but a broad statement of where the responsibility lies bothers me. On the other hand I imagine a professor would be wise enough to tell the algebra student to get an education first.

Yeah, that example IS pretty extreme. But on the other hand, the point of a debate is to get ideas across clearly and convincingly. To claim that everyone including the folks observing the debate "just don't get it" means a couple of things. One is that they are unable to understand, as you mentioned. The second is that the debater failed to present his point in a clear enough manner, which is what my last post suggested.

The third option, the one that I think is probably closest to the truth, is that everyone understood just fine and just disagreed with the point made. I think that Philosopher did a good job explaining his position, I just think his position is dead wrong. The reason I think the debate ended the way it did was that Philosopher didn't seem to understand that "understand but disagree" is a part of debating. He made his acorn analogy, I disagreed and told him why, and that should have been the end of it. Instead, he insisted that I should keep responding to rewordings of the same point until I agreed with him, and refused to move on until I did.

And maybe that seemed necessary to him, if the rest of his argument was based on that point... but if so I would have preferred to have seen the rest of his position, rather than rehashing his first two posts over and over again.

I run into these things with creationists fairly often though, where I am fairly certain none of them understand something. Of course, those aren't debates so much as they are instructional sessions, and "I understand reality, but I disagree" isn't really valid.

But I guess I should stop being surprised at this phenomena; it really is a very natural outcropping of "I am right, even if everyone else disagrees": if you're right and everyone disagrees with your argument, either your argument is wrong (you can be right even if your argument isn't), or no one else gets it. It's the same with the "all the scientists must be dumb" argument: you're convinced the scientists are so obviously wrong, that means the scientists must either not realize they're wrong (be dumb), or realize it and be lying.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I run into these things with creationists fairly often though, where I am fairly certain none of them understand something. Of course, those aren't debates so much as they are instructional sessions, and "I understand reality, but I disagree" isn't really valid.

But I guess I should stop being surprised at this phenomena; it really is a very natural outcropping of "I am right, even if everyone else disagrees": if you're right and everyone disagrees with your argument, either your argument is wrong (you can be right even if your argument isn't), or no one else gets it. It's the same with the "all the scientists must be dumb" argument: you're convinced the scientists are so obviously wrong, that means the scientists must either not realize they're wrong (be dumb), or realize it and be lying.

To be fair to Philosopher, at least in this instance we WERE debating something that is in some ways opinion-based. So his "I am right, even if everyone else disagrees" position wasn't anywhere near as egregious as what creationists do. He might be a creationist (I don't know his view on the subject), but he wasn't debating like one in this instance. We aren't entitled to our own facts, the way creationists claim, but we are entitled to our own opinions. Philosopher was defending his opinion, and he didn't resort to the sort of bullshit hand-waving and appeals to the obvious fallacies the creationists are so fond of.

I'd prefer if you'd avoid the creationist comparisons and comparisons to other science-deniers, truth be told. Phil conducted himself honestly and honorably in the debate (beside the misunderstanding vs disagreement part, which is relatively minor), and the comparison with creationists implies a level of dishonesty and illogic that simply doesn't apply to this situation.

 

[nemesiss]

2 points i'd like to make;


1 - have philosypher and improbablyJoe forgotten that this is the debate analysis topic and not the actual debate topic?
SERIOUSLY! WTF, have you guys gone Altzheimer are you guys just being plain stupid!?

2 - perhaps i missed the part, but it seems to me that both parties made the mistake of thinking that morals are absolute instead of subjective, making it an opinion which makes it an argument about that abortion is not an opinion.
which makes it a completely different debate then both parties are making it.

 

[borrofburi]

I run into these things with creationists fairly often though, where I am fairly certain none of them understand something. Of course, those aren't debates so much as they are instructional sessions, and "I understand reality, but I disagree" isn't really valid.

But I guess I should stop being surprised at this phenomena; it really is a very natural outcropping of "I am right, even if everyone else disagrees": if you're right and everyone disagrees with your argument, either your argument is wrong (you can be right even if your argument isn't), or no one else gets it. It's the same with the "all the scientists must be dumb" argument: you're convinced the scientists are so obviously wrong, that means the scientists must either not realize they're wrong (be dumb), or realize it and be lying.

To be fair to Philosopher, at least in this instance we WERE debating something that is in some ways opinion-based. So his "I am right, even if everyone else disagrees" position wasn't anywhere near as egregious as what creationists do. He might be a creationist (I don't know his view on the subject), but he wasn't debating like one in this instance. We aren't entitled to our own facts, the way creationists claim, but we are entitled to our own opinions. Philosopher was defending his opinion, and he didn't resort to the sort of bullshit hand-waving and appeals to the obvious fallacies the creationists are so fond of.

I'd prefer if you'd avoid the creationist comparisons and comparisons to other science-deniers, truth be told. Phil conducted himself honestly and honorably in the debate (beside the misunderstanding vs disagreement part, which is relatively minor), and the comparison with creationists implies a level of dishonesty and illogic that simply doesn't apply to this situation.

Oh no, I'm not saying he at all acted like a creationist, I'm just seeing an emerging theme, and most of my experience with said theme involves science deniers; thus when I try to discuss the theme I must use science deniers as examples.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Oh no, I'm not saying he at all acted like a creationist, I'm just seeing an emerging theme, and most of my experience with said theme involves science deniers; thus when I try to discuss the theme I must use science deniers as examples.

OK, I just wanted to be absolutely clear that we're not bashing him because we might disagree with him. I was pretty harsh with him at the end of the debate, and my criticism stands, but I would hate to see anyone go beyond the real flaws in his argument and debate style and start making unfair comparisons.