Why are more people worried about animal rights when 1/3 of the people I could have been friends with were murdered?

This is why I am in favor of government-mandated unprotected intercourse every night, for all heterosexual couples everywhere. No birth control, no abortions. Because then, and only then, would all my friends be born.

Of course, there’s going to be some nasty problems when the woman who was supposed to bear my best friend didn’t because she was - at that moment - busy being pregnant with that jerk who dumped me in high school.

My head hurts now.

Is Shablin really that stupid? Has she bought into the “contraception doesn’t really work” argument that completely? Damn.

I don’t think she’s thought about it much.  She’s just honing in on an evocative image—-all these people having sex, and there not being any way to out them.

The “where’s my friends” tactic seems to pathetic and whiny. If you’re going to go and describe fantastic maybe-people, up the ante a little. Why not have the man who could have cured cancer be aborted? Raise the stakes, people. They’re honestly not very good at this, are they?

Aha. This is why wingnut guys can’t get a date. Liberal women have been refusing for an entire generation to bear the extra daughters who might go out with them.

“We all know college students have sex, so there’s no reason why there are no children. Where are the children?”

It’s like “Choose Your Own Story” for wingnuts.

Blame abortion, go to page 35.

Blame the homosexual agenda, go to page 52.

Blame contraception, go to page 66.

Arggh! p. 66 is the “You die and go to hell Papist conspirator” page!

Crap.

It’s long been observed, though it’s anecdotal, that there’s a lot of men in the anti-choice movement are clearly motivated by loneliness brought on by their own repulsiveness.  You see a lot of Lonely Dude behavior with male anti-choicers, who also get into the Nice Guy® rhetoric, who obsessively compare the hawtness of the 14-year-olds in youth groups that go on marches to the brazen whores on the other side, and who invariably stand around with dead fetus pictures glaring at women like we took their puppies.

“Why are more people worried about animal rights when 1/3 of the people I could have been friends with were murdered?”

For some reason, I don’t think this guy would have any more friends if abortions were illegal.

This argument makes me think of the kid I saw at Disneyland (probably 8 or 9 yrs old) wearing a t-shirt that said “I survived Roe v. Wade”.

Might as well up the ante here…if it wasn’t for abortion there could have been THREE Hitlers. Or something. So by that “logic” abortion has saved the world!

(Yes, I know I went from zero to Godwin in one post, but criminy the stupid just deserves it)

But think of all the *pets* I could have had if we had animal rights!

What I want to know is how the abortionist knows to abort the friends but leave all the assholes unharmed…how do they know that?...

It’s more than a little silly to end this post with an accusation of irrationality considering its almost entirely composed of ad hominems. 

It’s true that the quotes are inarticulate (I think this is due more to the rampant anti-intellectualism on the right than “ego problems, fantastical thinking, and hysteria”), but attacking clumsy language and argument structure while overlooking underlying content is as superficial as it gets.

I think one of the reason this issue has been so intractable is that there are so few on either side who can commit unilaterally to mature discourse.

My mind goes to eliminationist rhetoric on the left (mostly at the high school level and joking, of course), about sterilization rays and Idiocracy style abortion-as-eugenenics aspiration, that there might be an other side of this patheticness coin.

But there’s not. I just can’t stretch my brain that far.

Sorry for the half-baked nature of this comment. Also, Sarcastro! Spoon!

Snore.  You might, if you’re going to use five dollar words, look into what they mean.  “Ad hominem” doesn’t mean, as conservatives seem to think, criticizing a conservative’s argument and/or making fun of someone.  It means, and I really hate having to repeat this over and over again, substituting an irrelevant character critique for tackling the argument.  So, if I said that Shablin or random troll should be ignored because their moms wear combat boots, that’s ad hominem.  Saying that these are indicative examples of typical anti-choice arguments—-using appeals to loneliness and wacked-out attitudes about sex—-is not ad hominem.

God, I don’t even know why I bother.  I’m fairly certain wingnuts consider “ad hominem” to mean “saying anything I don’t like but can’t refute.”

Also, your incorrect assumption—-if you can be said to really be thinking hard enough to have assumptions—-is that I’m arguing with these people.  The flaws in their thinking are pretty self-evident.  I’m using these statements as examples to make a larger point.

Mark,

That’s the worst thing I’ve read in a week. It angers me when parents use their own children as billboards for their beliefs.

It’s fun to tie the two of those arguments together in a pit of weird loneliness.  First, you have the people who are angry at all this college women having sex with people who are not them, and then rage at the previous generation’s sluts who aborted their potential friends and fuckbuddies.

“We all know college students have sex, so there’s no reason why there are no children.”

There actually IS a reason, but she doesn’t like the reason. Therefore, it doesn’t exist. Infantile reasoning at its most basic.

This argument makes me think of the kid I saw at Disneyland (probably 8 or 9 yrs old) wearing a t-shirt that said “I survived Roe v. Wade”.

Wouldn’t it be cool if that kid (more to the point, his or her parents) would come face-to-face with a kid wearing one of those “My daddy’s name is Donor” shirts? The shrieks would probably tear off Mickey’s ears.

Well, that and what Ms. Shablin said is demonstrably false.  Not the part about college kids having sex, but if I recall correctly, the correlation between education and abortion rates is in fact negative.

Also, {college-educated women} =/= {college-age women}.  Could we get a Venn diagram over here?

What if the kid’s parents came face to face with a kid wearing a shirt that said “My Mommy Actually Wanted Me?”

Also, you Nemo are an idiot.  This is not an ad hominem argument, however much you’d like it to be.  I’m not saying that your arguments should be discredited ahead of the time due to your idiot status.  I’m saying that your stupid statements are excellent evidence for the conclusion that you are an idiot.  If you said that you have blue eyes, it would not be ad hominem for me to conclude that you have the recessive gene for blue eyes.  Capice?

Why are more people worried about animal rights when 1/3 of the people I could have been friends with were murdered?

Howabout imagning being friends with all those Iraquis and Palestinians that are being murdered every damn day… or those Rwandans, etc.etc.

Of course those people are not white- and I’m pretty sure that most of these whackjobs only mourn the loss of potential white people anyhow.
It’s too much of a stretch to ask them to care about what’s going on that affects humans living or dying in other places in the globe other than white women’s wombs.

Also- I used to make up imaginary friends in grade school. WTF.

“We all know college students have sex, so there’s no reason why there are no children. Where are the children?”

I had more than my fair share of fun times during college, but I used two forms of birth control every time, and I never got pregnant.

Why are more people worried about animal rights when 1/3 of the people I could have been friends with were murdered?

By this logic, if all the men of my parents’ generation had just constantly raped every woman they could, there would be a lot more people that I could be friends with right now.  Won’t someone please think of the poor children who were never conceived by rape, and were therefore never born?  If a child exists as a product of rape, do they have to think that rape is a good thing and they’re glad their mother was a victim?

Also, what about all this abstinence-only education?  Shouldn’t we be encouraging young people to have sex as much as possible?  What about all those poor babies that were never born because some teens decided not to have sex?  Saying that I’m glad I wasn’t aborted is the same as saying that I’m glad my parents didn’t have sex one hour earlier or one month earlier.  Either way, I still wouldn’t exist, and I wouldn’t care.

Re: Amanda v Nemo.

I had a weird conversation Friday night with libtards who seem to think citing real world evidence to support one claim versus another is bad form, irrelevant, a fallacy. They only want to proceed logically from given assumptions everyone can agree on, which they don’t recognize that we’ve got different assumptions because of real world evidence. I think the idea is that two people can look at the same world and see different things, so the real world is too unreliable to cite in an argument.

When the fuck did this cultural idea of false equivalence between any two people with any two damn fool ideas? I seriously have no idea where this comes from.

Any ideas?

Wingnuts who know they can’t win in a fair fight appealing to liberal guilt.

It’s amazing how this all comes down, in part, to Blaming Someone Else for the fact that one’s life sucks.  Lonely?  No friends?  Not getting laid?  It’s all the fault of them horrible sluts who will neither allow you to fuck them nor allow themselves to get pregnant. 

The grapes, they are mighty sour.

As silly as either quote is, both, I think, have at their heart the genuine question that grounds the debate.

This “dwell[ing] on all the ‘missing’ people”, (I’d put the quotes around “people” instead since whether or not they are missing is less an issue as whether or not they are people, though I suppose this is debatable) is a position that could be arrived at without misunderstanding contraception (or ignoring its existence in this case) or being a lonely, hated loser. 

I should add, lest I be accused of wingnuttery, that it isn’t my position.  In ideal conditions the proper moral standing of all my missing potential friends might have some significance, but considering there are billions of beings with unquestionable moral standing who are being wronged as we speak, I don’t foresee these “missing people” arriving at any relevant point on the hierarchy anytime soon. 

Really though, what is the danger of being more generous to our opponents?  We can help the stuttering child to clear expression even while thinking her confused.

Aborting someone who can cure cancer has indeed been used by the anti-choicers before.  I heard it in the seventies as anti-contraception as well as anti-abortion.  My boyfriend’s mother said maybe we’re aborting the person who could solve the overpopulation crisis.  Hilarity ensued.

“boyfriend’s mother” = the boyfriend I had in the seventies.

Its amazing how often my argument with libtards is reduced to, “I think the lack of that or anything like it to any degree working in the entire history of human civilization is pretty much all the rebuttal I need to offer.”

It does help you feel good about yourself if you don’t have to look at the world. I just can’t believe this way of thinking seems so widespread.

Nemo, I’m not going to waste anyone’s time engaging silliness that’s been refuted millions of times before, and anyway, the commenters are happy to do that.  The only reason you could have for putting this phony rule on me is to prevent me from going forward and trying to learn more in ways that could be helpful.  The phony use of “ad hominem” is a straight up attempt to ground the conversation in a go-nowhere zone.  I’m not interested in “arguing” with someone who has no arguments.

Why not have the man who could have cured cancer be aborted? Raise the stakes, people. They’re honestly not very good at this, are they?

They have, Seebach, you probably just haven’t heard this little ditty:

“Man dies and goes to heaven. He talks to God and asks, ‘God, why is there still cancer? Where was the man who would have cured it? Why didn’t you send us a person who could create the cure for AIDS? (and then a bunch of other diseases). God looks down and replies, ‘I did. You aborted them all.’”

That’s what my religious sister told me when the subject of abortion came up, her pastor father-in-law had told it to her. I was 12 at the time and pointed out that if you honestly believed that god is omniscient then that story makes god either a total asshole or a moron, take your pick.

I got yelled at. A few years later I found out my sister had had her own abortion even before she’d told me that, and yet she still believed that bullshit.

This argument makes me think of the kid I saw at Disneyland (probably 8 or 9 yrs old) wearing a t-shirt that said “I survived Roe v. Wade”.

I saw one where a newborn was wearing a onesie that said, “Now that I’m out I’m pro-choice”. I had no idea of what to make of it.

ha I’m not clear what you are saying my mistake is?

If I’m confused in the same way as the libtards you reference, maybe explain how?

“I survived Roe v. Wade”

...and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

I’ll add that the point of the post is that pro-lifers aren’t making arguments that can’t engaged or refuted.  They lie—-if you follow the first link, you’ll find that it’s full of made-up stats that the anti-choicer won’t drop no matter what—-engage in intellectual dishonesty, prey on people’s perversities, and use nonsensical claims like implying that you don’t have friends because of abortion.  Exposing tactics is not “ad hominem”.  It wasn’t ad hominem to point out that the Bush administration was willing to lie if that’s what it took to invade Iraq, and it’s not ad hominem now. 

You sent up the wingnut flag when you did something that tends to be traded on heavily in wingnut circles, which is the incorrect use of the term “ad hominem” as a bluster to shut down conversation.

If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.  Maybe you can provide a list of what other words can only be used to “ground the conversation in a go-nowhere zone” so I don’t run into the same problem in the future. 

I’m genuinely interested in discussing how to respond to people like those you quote in the op, but obviously I can’t make anyone believe this who doesn’t want to.

You are right that there may be no explicit ad hominem in the op, but I hope you can at least see how implicit ones might be read into it.  Maybe I’m wrong in seeing them, and having never really read this blog regularly may have trouble finding the intended tone.

Why are more people worried about animal rights when 1/3 of the people I could have been friends with were murdered by each other because they were neglected and impoverished and turned violent?

Fixed! I implemented an alternate universe by fiat and the results were the same!

Gee, maybe I’ll take that “I survived roe v. wade” line and put it under the herring that graces the annual herring run rescue shirt.

The rescue takes place each year when the herring run up the river to spawn. People wade into the river at the dam, net the fish, and then carry them up to the causeway for introduction to the upper portion of the waterway.  No wade, no roe.

ha - you might try some clearer method of expressing yourself. Three comments and the only point I seem to be finding is that you feel yourself a sophisticated soul awash in the sea of illiterate peasants. I can’t even tell if “libtard” is supposed to be from “liberal” or “libertarian”, though I would suspect the former, since you seem to be aiming your immense ennui at Amanda.

I’m so tired of ennui, empty manners and nihilism subbing for sophistication.

Really, you guys should learn the name of another logical fallacy that you don’t understand so that you can whip it out randomly and try to intimidate people into shutting up.  There’s a lot of them, and even more so if you don’t feel constrained by trying to make sense.  Here’s a list, and you’ll find that many of them have Latin names, so you can sound really smart without having to do anymore work than memorizing another phrase you don’t understand.  Hell, I don’t even see why you should limit yourself to the names of actual fallacies.  Just make shit up that sounds Latin.

It worked for Harry Potter, after all.

Classic case of emptius threatus (continuing a discussion after promising not to).

Better yet, you can create your own latin sounding words by moving the opening consonant/combination to the end and adding “ay”, like so:

Emonay isay othingnay utbay a olltray.  Oray ersusvay Adeway isay oodgay.

Nemo, I was addressing other zombie ideas more than yours, which is why I didn’t build an argument connecting you to the same kind of delusion.

Me (who really fucked up this sentence, in rhetrospect): “When the fuck did this cultural idea of false equivalence between any two people with any two damn fool ideas?” Don’t assume everyone comes to the table any level of intellectual integrity.

What connected my mind to the libtards, though, is that you saw an ad hominem where one didn’t exist. “Yeah, we you people killed Jesus” is ad hominem, among other things. “Chris Hitchens’ drinking problem seems to be affecting his work,” is not. Its an independent argument about Chris Hitchens, not a rejoinder to any of Chris Hitchens’ arguments (though, takedowns of those arguments is going to come into the conversation, as evidence that his drinking is effecting his work).

Further, I don’t think pointing out how creepy and addled so many of the folks in this movement are is “superficial.” In fact, I think it’s only slightly less important than pointing out that “from my cold dead hand” is starting to be taken literally by a creepy, addled individual whose fits into a much larger creepy, addled population.

Also: “I think one of the reason this issue has been so intractable is that there are so few on either side who can commit unilaterally to mature discourse.” I agree completely.

Tapetum, I am properly chastised.

Clearly, my writing this morning is absolute crap. On the other hand, I’m not getting ennui (I’m pissed off, not disaffected), empty manners (sorry if sincerity doesn’t come through in my clumsy attempts at politeness), and nihilism? I thought I was pushing for more rationalism in discourse?

As for an attempt at sophistication… I’m not sure who you’re mad at, but I don’t think it’s me. I’ll pass on an attempt at false modesty here, since you’ve clearly got me pegged.

They have, Seebach, you probably just haven’t heard this little ditty

Ah, thanks. Still, that wasn’t effective, so they then go to “I don’t have any friends now”?

Hm.

Orrysae, Ahae isae a olltrae.  adae ominemha andae ibtardae inae ethae amesae entancesae???

You sent up the wingnut flag when you did something that tends to be traded on heavily in wingnut circles, which is the incorrect use of the term “ad hominem” as a bluster to shut down conversation.

Just a note, this isn’t just wingnuts. This is also a common tactic among e-lawyers, along with threatening to “sue you for libel and theft of my intellectual property.”

basically, anyone with unwarranted self-importance. Which their refusal to acknowledge privilege means includes wingnuts, but they aren’t alone in the vain, vapid world of internet communities.

It gets infuriating pretty quick.

I saw one where a newborn was wearing a onesie that said, “Now that I’m out I’m pro-choice”.

That’s actually amusing.

I’ve heard people say, “What if Jesus’s mom had had an abortion?”, and then I say, “What if Hitler’s mom had had an abortion?” 

If every murderer’s mom had had an abortion, I would have a lot more friends right now, because those murderers wouldn’t be around to kill off a bunch of living people.  Also, what if all the mothers of bad drivers had had abortions?  Not only would there be fewer fatal accidents, there would be a lot less road rage.

It’s ridiculous to accuse me of e-thuggery in any of its forms: unwarranted self-importance, using “5 dollar words” to intimidate” etc.  Really, what a low standard it is that “ad hominem” is considered a sophisticated word that can only be used with pretension by those seeking to end conversation. 

Whether the op trades on personal attacks to discredit what are obviously superficial claims (in the sense that they do not bear on the central position) while ignoring the clearly formulated foundational arguments is an open question.

Whether I understand the term ad hominem is not.

I understand that interactions come in kinds, but why let rote response deprive us of discernment?

Nemo, see my Chris Hitchens example. Amanda’s point was ABOUT THE PEOPLE making the arguments, not about their arguments themselves.

Which is fair game. And not ad hominem.

I’ve heard people say, “What if Jesus’s mom had had an abortion?”

When the pro-lies were in Montreal and the CLAC and other groups (including anarfems and anarqueer collectives) went on to protest them, one slogan was more or less “If Mary had known about abortion, we wouldn’t have to waste time protesting you guys today” (though the French was a lot more slogany than that).

We never said we were good at building bridges.

I find Shablin’s quote appalling mostly because she’s admitting that she wants to see more college-aged women saddled with babies. And the other quote is just the standard “Fetuses-without-brainstems-are-more-important-than-living-breathing-feeling-animals” that we see all the time from these folks.

“My Mommy Actually Wanted Me”

I’m going to make T-shirts that say this for my future babies.

Maybe a little off-topic, but have you seen this shit yet?

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/04/and-now-a-safer-sex-message.html

please God let it be parody

I find it hard to believe that college-educated women have the highest rate of abortions, unless the rate is defined as abortions per thousand pregnant women instead of abortions per thousand women.  Sometimes the worry about so many college educated women aborting is a worry that too many white and honorary white kids are being aborted. 

I treat anti-choicers with respect but I won’t have any respect for their views unless I hear them vocally support easier access to birth control, for single as well as for married women, and adoption rights for gay couples. 

BTW, the Feminists for Life have no official position on non-abortifacient contraception:

“What is Feminists for Life’s position on contraception?
  Feminists for Life’s mission is to address the unmet needs of women who are pregnant or parenting. Preconception issues including abstinence and contraception are outside of our mission.”

Nemo, serioiusly, this essay is one on the left you criticize for ad hominem attacks?

One of the things I find particularly interesting is the underlying assumption that if abortion (or the pill, or condoms, etc) were to be made illegal, that women would automatically start having huge numbers of children.  A quick glance into the anthropological record (ok, I realize these people are probably not interested in empirical data) demonstrates the myriad ways in which people control their fertility.  For example, people intentionally space children with extended breastfeeding, abstinence from intercourse (even within marriage, horror of horrors), contraception (herbal as well as pharmaceutical), even (though relatively rarely) infanticide (of actual born children).  Without medical-surgical or chemical abortion procedures, women have been known to induce or attempt to induce abortions with a whole host of procedures—chemical, herbal, physical—as we are all familiar with already.  It almost goes without saying that many of the alternatives to medical abortion are often very risky, and are most prevalent in societies without safer options.

In sum—those of us who attempt to base our knowledge on facts are aware that legal abortion is not the only thing standing in the way of 1/3 more potential friends.  Chances are, if those hypothetical people hadn’t been aborted in a safe, legal procedure, their mothers would most likely have attempted some other way of preventing their existences.

What exactly constitutes abortifacient contraception?

I find the “but if X people had been born and not aborted a) cancer would be cured b) I’d have friends c) we’d all sneeze chocolate bunnies*” argument especially intriguing.  One part of my addled mind automatically goes to Soylent Green, where there’s billions of people packed onto the planet with diminishing resources because we’ve got too many goddamn people as it is…and because I like inserting “Soylent Green is PEOPLE” into practically every other thread.

Another, of course, wanders to consider the plight of these non-aborted children, born to resentful and/or possibly impoverished parents (or parent) and what sort of adults they’d make.

And finally my brain finds itself in the blind alley of counter-factual history - you know, the Hitler-got-run-over-by-a-trolleycar-in-1922 stories - and the fascination many people have with alternative worlds were things would be SO MUCH BETTER if decision (a) or decision (b) hadn’t or had been made.  The only reason I can think of for these “what-ifs” is to induce guilt - “you killed the next Albert Schweitzer” - coupled with a nice whiny undertone.

*In honor of Easter.

I’ve heard people say, “What if Jesus’s mom had had an abortion?”, and then I say, “What if Hitler’s mom had had an abortion?”

If every murderer’s mom had had an abortion, I would have a lot more friends right now, because those murderers wouldn’t be around to kill off a bunch of living people.  Also, what if all the mothers of bad drivers had had abortions?  Not only would there be fewer fatal accidents, there would be a lot less road rage.

catgirl

catgirl- I think this - and many more “What if…?” statements RE: abortion deserves to be made into a post somewhere. Just so I can laminate it and give it out to the next dolt who uses that line of reasoning.
I could save so much wasted breath!

Llelldorin: if I had the slightest interest in having children, I would be hitting on you now.

I’ve heard people say, “What if Jesus’s mom had had an abortion?”, and then I say, “What if Hitler’s mom had had an abortion?”

And never mind that, even.  What if (Einstein’s/St. Augustine’s/Ronald Reagan’s, etc.) parents had practiced abstinence?

Thanks, and I appreciate the sentiment, but I already have two. Any more would exceed my number of available hands, which strikes me as an incredibly bad idea.

This argument extends also to the optimal number of sexual partners, IMO.

I’ve heard people say, “What if Jesus’s mom had had an abortion?”, and then I say, “What if Hitler’s mom had had an abortion?”

Ask them, “What if every hippie’s mom had had an abortion?”, and stand back as the synapses blow.

What exactly constitutes abortifacient contraception?

Absolutely nothing.  The phrase is entirely meaningless.  You can’t have an abortion unless you’re pregnant, at which point it’s too late for contraception.

What I suspect they mean is a contraceptive that works by preventing the implantation of a blastocyst.  However, since there are not, to my knowledge, any contraceptives that actually work this way*, it’s anybody’s guess what the fuck they’re talking about.

*No, not the pill, and no, not EC.

What exactly constitutes abortifacient contraception?

Nothing.  This phrase is a combination of two time-honored wingnut tactics: a) burying the lede and b)begging the question.

I’m genuinely interested in discussing how to respond to people like those you quote in the op, but obviously I can’t make anyone believe this who doesn’t want to.

The 2nd part of this sentence is the key.  If people say things like this that are patently ridiculous, then there’s no response.  There’s no mature (or immature) discourse possible that would change anybody’s mind.  The only thing you can do is laugh at it.  It still won’t change anyone’s mind, but it sure feels good.

I’ve heard people say, “What if Jesus’s mom had had an abortion?”

Have they read the Bible?  Wasn’t there that whole dealio about Mary being told ahead of time and being given the choice (more or less) whether she wants to be the mother of the son of God?  I guess saying “no” to God is a little difficult especially for someone who’s practically a child*, but come on.  What a dumb argument.

*The Holy Ghost is a statutory rapist!

Why are more people worried about animal rights when 1/3 of the people I could have been friends with were murdered?

I think I’ve posted this here before, but since we’re playing the “What if?” game…What if my grandmother did not have a couple of abortions when she was young (which she did.)?  Well, she likely wouldn’t have met my grandfather, and given birth to my mother.  Which would have obliterated any chance of my existence.

Which is why the “What if?” scenario used by the forced birth crowd is so asinine.

As for why I’m worried about animal rights…  I care more (much more) about real, living, feeling beings, than I do your imaginary friends.

To add to the above about the term “abortifacient contraception”:

By saying that they don’t focus on any “non-abortifacient” contraception, they are basically leaving the door open to support bans on contraception* once they’ve succeeded in getting abortion outlawed.  Given the popular pro-life myth that contraception works by preventing implantation or inducing miscarriage, they are essentially defining all hormonal BC as abortifacients on some level, but they want to maintain some plausible deniability that their aim is to “help” women, not punish them for sex.

* maybe with the exception of condoms and the rhythm method or NFP—we have to give the poor menz the option not to become fathers, after all

Thanks for the responses!  I do know that the fetus people use ‘abortifacient contraception’ to describe hormonal contraceptives and intra-uterine devices as a smokescreen for their attempts at banning contraceptives altogether.  I was just curious what Middleageliberal’s answer would be, given the straining-at-gnats credulity he gives other right-wing bullshittery.

This argument extends also to the optimal number of sexual partners, IMO.

Presumably you mean at once.

What if Adam and Eve had practiced abstinence?  Nobody would have any cool friends and sharks would rule the world!  Thank FSM our Biblical ancestors felt horny.

Nemo, now you’ve resorted to misrepresenting me.  Cute, but won’t work. It’s technically possible for ad hominem fallacies to exist and be called out by liberals, but it never happens, because liberal blogs pretty much only link conservative arguments to make fun of the argument.  You just happened not to know what the phrase meant, happened to forget that only wingnuts ever use it the way you do, and therefore your attempt to coyly play the moderate was accidentally exposed by your own incompetence.

Everyone seems to love the potential child and not be so fond of the real one.  I wonder if this isn’t the deal with most religous types, they love the potential heaven but don’t care much about the life they have.  They love the potential life they could have if not for all those pesky government regs Etc Etc

Why not have the man who could have cured cancer be aborted? Raise the stakes, people. They’re honestly not very good at this, are they?
Seebach on 04/06 at 10:29 AM

Yeah, well, it’s 2009—where’s my flying car, huh? Where’s the Moonbase with the Moon babes with purple hair? Gerry Anderson promised me the Moonbase by <blink><u>1980</u></blink>, dammit! It’s all because the inventors of flying cars and jet fighters that launch from submarines and shoot down weird UFOs made from combustable spotlights and space fighters that shoot BB gun CO2 cartridges at the UFOs and the purple hair fashions got aborted, that’s why!

Ok, at least they also got the fashionistas who would have invented the unisex jumpsuit too.

And apparently the flesh-stealing aliens as well.

So it’s a wash I guess.
——
PS—either blink code got aborted too, or I forgot how to encode it. Again, all things are for the best in this, the best of all possible worlds.

But those of you who get any of my references will understand why I wanted to throw restraint to the winds and use it for once…so l let the tags stand.

maybe with the exception of condoms and the rhythm method or NFP

It’s actually been shown that those methods are MORE likely to cause an egg to not implant than BC (which prevents ovulation, so no egg is released at all). This is because if an egg is fertilized at a bad time, like at the beginning or end of it’s cycle, it won’t implant.

Aborting someone who can cure cancer has indeed been used by the anti-choicers before.

One of my teachers in grade school cut to the chase and told the story of a girl who prayed and asked god, “why haven’t you sent the person who will end all abortions?” with “because he was aborted” being the reply.

I’m still trying to get my brain around the disgustingly evil, anti-child, anti-life worldview that would think “I survived Roe v. Wade” was a knock on abortion. Because in a sane world it would mean exactly the same thing as “My mother wanted me.” But in this world it apparently means “My mother didn’t want me, but she gave birth anyway, and just to twist the knife she dressed me in this stupid tee shirt.”

hilarious! really though, I think it’s all a distraction (the illogical although really fucking funny “missing people” argument) either you think people have a fundamental right to control their own bodies or you think they should be physically threatened or restrained (imprisoned) for the physical act of ingesting pills or voluntarily having someone put a plastic tube in them and empty the contents of their uterus.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything like blaming abortion for one’s not having friends. I just don’t know anyone in real life, male or female, whose self-loathing manifests this outwardly. Lonely, depressed people almost always seem to conclude that they have no friends because there’s something wrong with them, not with the rest of the world. Maybe the anonymity of the internet brings out even more weirdness than I thought.

  Any more would exceed my number of available hands, which strikes me as an incredibly bad idea.

This argument extends also to the optimal number of sexual partners, IMO

‘Well, on the one hand - um, sorry, I’ll wipe that off.”

It’s going on right behind closed doors, and you can practically feel the evil, but due to the evil conspiracy of activist judges and feminists, the evidence is well-hidden under a sea of condoms and birth control pills.

.

Holy freakin’ Dogs**t.  Ms. Marcotte, you just wrote the synopsis for a supremely paranoid & deliciously deviant fundie-funded (read: tax-subsidized) horror thriller about what really goes on in those sinister secular humanist/pagan institutions.

Moo Hoo Hoo Haa Haa Haa Haa!

It’s too bad I’ve been read as intentionally disruptive; I really haven’t meant it.

Whether I used ad hominem correctly isn’t as big an issue as you all make it out to be, I could have told you the specific definition of ad hominem at anytime in the last ten years, and could have (at one time) listed most of the other logical fallacies from memory, but were this not the case it still wouldn’t warrant the response I’ve gotten.

My reading of the op was this:
1.Various levels of ego problems, fantastical thinking, and hysteria [drives] the anti-choice movement.
2. Quote 1 exhibits hysteria/ fantastical thinking regarding contraception. [From 1, sorta]
3. Quote 2 exhibits ego problems (something like loneliness, need for attention). [From 1, sorta]
∴4. Neither quote contains a rational position.

Amanda has already stated she wasn’t arguing against these positions, which means there really could have been no fallacy at all.  I read the op as containing an argument so this is my mistake.

I think one of the reason the far right ends up with such ridiculous arguments is the need to keep their core position, that fertilization marks moral standing, from being exposed.  I think that the public plainly disagree with this moral theory. 

Since you folks have such commitment to philosophy, you should already know that the most meaningful way to discredit your opponent is to represent their position as generously as possible before showing its ultimate failing. 

I thought that focusing on the inarticulateness of the quotes in question (which in the first rises to confusion about basic empirical fact) while ignoring their ground, was a less than generous reading that qualified as ad hominem implicitly.

But, as was already mentioned, an argument is a necessary condition for a fallacious argument.  It was my mistake to think that the mocking amounted to anything more than just itself.

CF Freakonomics, there is reason to believe that the high crime rate of the 1980’s dropped precipitiously because a large number of the criminals were aborted.

Given that being raised by a mother who did not want you would seem to have a good chance of screwing people in the head, I can see a point to this.

Also, “why haven’t we cured cancer yet?” “because the woman who was going to do it was raped in college, and her pro-life beliefs caused her to have the baby, which forced her to drop out of college, and now she works as a short-order cook in a diner instead of saving millions of lives.” Just as legitimate as “because the person who would have done it was aborted.” Children are incredibly costly in terms of time and energy, and our fucked up patriarchal society puts most of the cost on women, so women who have kids are almost certainly sacrificing many other things they could have done instead, and women who have kids they don’t *want* or kids they are not prepared to have, at a time of life when they’re not ready for kids, sacrifice far more. These fuckers should be getting on their hands and knees and giving thanks to their Mother, their real-life flesh and blood mother that bore them, for the sacrifices she endured that they might exist, not assuming that women just owe it to humanity in general to make those sacrifices and that the role of the mother is not nearly as important as the role of the coincidentally male, invisible entity they believe is responsible for their existence.

(Just for the record, I have kids. That I chose to have. I’m very conscious of what it’s cost me and I’d do it again. My objection is not to women choosing to bear the cost of having kids, but to *forcing* women to bear that cost, and treating it as if it is to be taken for granted and in fact demanded of women, rather than the great sacrifice that deserves gratitude that it is.)

Why doesn’t God just fucking stop with the cancer shit himself and cut out the middleman scheme, hmmm?

Or is God Microsoft, which wants to string you along and sell you new stuff rather than prevent the whole malware problem?

Why are more people worried about animal rights when 1/3 of the people I could have been friends with were murdered?

Well damn dude, try a stick of deodorant and a personality and you may be able to make a few friends from among the 6 billion people who already exist.

“Whether the op trades on personal attacks to discredit what are obviously superficial claims (in the sense that they do not bear on the central position) while ignoring the clearly formulated foundational arguments is an open question.”

Nemo, IIm just a foreigner lost in the woods of the english language, so you have to explain this to me. I didn’t read any “clearly formulated foundational arguments”. I did read a very cheap rhetorical ploy and some wild assumptions about college educated women. Amanda them mocked them. What was there to debate? Help me. Perhaps it is a cultural thing, I tend to believe “Auf einen groben Klotz gehört ein grober Keil” or like you would say, fighting fire with fire. Do you really want to set up a rule that one side of the argument has always to stay calm, rational and civil and the other can use polemics to their hearts delight?

Abortion of X: My pastor in the eighties used the example of Beethoven.

“Why doesn’t God just fucking stop with the cancer shit himself and cut out the middleman scheme, hmmm?”

I think Dave Gahan summed it up: I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God has a sick sense of humor…

Thanks for the responses!  I do know that the fetus people use ‘abortifacient contraception’ to describe hormonal contraceptives and intra-uterine devices as a smokescreen for their attempts at banning contraceptives altogether.  I was just curious what Middleageliberal’s answer would be, given the straining-at-gnats credulity he gives other right-wing bullshittery.
kaninchen

Ah, I didn’t realize you were trying to call me out.  Since others explained the term for you I didn’t bother.  I was just quoting the Feminists for Life site.  I went there after reading the main post to see if they were really about reducing the number of abortions performed, since it appears the best way to do that is to better prevent pregnancies with contraception.  Suspicions confirmed, they are not about that at all.  I though it useful to the discussion to quote their response to the “Frequently Asked Question”. 

You can put away your sharp knives now, not that you would try to stop the discussion or my participation in it for being insufficiently pure ideologically.

_IM_

The “missing ‘people’ issue” is the seed of their argument.  That they are formulated so absurdly atop this ground doesn’t invalidate the ground itself.  Neither does mocking this second-order absurdity discredit their central claim. 

And yes, “a rule that one side of the argument has always to stay calm, rational and civil and the other can use polemics to their hearts delight” is exactly what I suggest.

One of the purveyors of this blog has already seen, rightly or wrongly, how easy it is for tone to inhibit content from being fairly assessed.

What if (Einstein’s/St. Augustine’s/Ronald Reagan’s, etc.) parents had practiced abstinence?

This is my new argument.  Thank you.

This argument extends also to the optimal number of sexual partners, IMO.

Presumably you mean at once.

Obviously… As for the ‘boring’ people, that would be X <= 2, so even if you have 0 or 1 partner, you’re still well within optimal range.

“What if Adam and Eve had practiced abstinence?”

Well, what if Adam and Eve’s kids hadn’t practiced incest?

Meanwhile, there’s something a bit disturbing with the construct of “since college girls are having all these abortions, I don’t have any of the friends I should have.”

I know (I hope) he means that the girls who was in college when he was born were having abortions, but the way he expresses it sounds very much as though he’s put out that he doesn’t have a large supply of toddlers to hang out with. And that’s just creepy.

Has it ever occurred to these people bemoaning the missing friends or geniuses that the chances an unwanted, unaborted child is born will grown up to kill them or their family members is much higher than the chances of that child benefiting them?

If mockery was the only objective in the OP, there is no issue here of being right while leaving aside nice; it’s simply an issue of not being nice.  Which is fine in itself, but expecting to elicit only approval and refusing to even hear another view is petty and beneath the seriousness of the subject.

And you’re right, people who are interested more with being right than with being convincing do steamroll; and their ability to attract allies is limited only to those who want to fall behind a mindless machine that leaves the ground safe and flat behind.  We wouldn’t want to be strained with the responsibility of choosing a direction and finding safe footing ourselves, would we?

Nemo, I have raised similar issues with style of argument here (my pet peeve is demonizing the opposition) but you’re rather belaboring the point besides pissing in the wind.  Everything you’re saying here is about style. Part of the answer is that it is simply more fun and entertaining to mock stupidity of political opponents.  I do it too.  And when the comment being mocked is as stupid as Shablin’s it begs mocking.  In this case I don’t agree with you that it should not be mocked. 

Is there something in the mission of Feminists for Life that you find valuable or worth discussing?  Fire away and stop complaining about the mocking already.

Thanks for a reasonable response. I’ve noticed the pissing in the wind part.  My persistence hasn’t been about convincing the wicked to play nice as much as it has been an attempt to show that from the start my intention was constructive, not personal, and not in defense of the quotes in question.  I simply mistook to OP to have a point beyond simple mockery, and after offering a reasoned view was accused of everything from wingnuttery and idiocy to concern trolling.  That the major response has been focused on shutting me up without any real dialogue is pretty disappointing.  I’ve not brought my complaint about mockery to any other post, and obviously won’t bother again.

What else can I say?  You’re right Dan, Grand High Emperor of Bananas Foster.  Any observer would see that I, a raging narcissist, posted with the malevolent intentions of disruption and conversion, and was foiled by my own sheer wrongness, all the while believing my endeavor a smashing success. 

I can only hope that you are representative of all commentors here; you’ve shown the most earnest effort to understand me and have been genuinely welcoming. If only the world were filled with your ilk. 

(another notch on the post of the concern troll patrol)

Jeez, this reminds me of the running gag in the film “Big Trouble”, where a radio sports guy has a topic he challenges Florida U. “Gator” fans to call in about:

Caller: I’m a Gator fan and I’m calling.

Radio Host: And what do you have to say?

Caller: You said we didn’t have the guts to call, so I’m calling.

Radio Host: Yeah, OK, and so what do you have to say?

Caller: I’m sayin’ here I am and I’m calling.

Radio Host: That’s it? You’re calling to say you’re calling?

Caller: You said we didn’t have the guts.

Nemo, if you didn’t have anything substantive to say you could have saved a few of us some time and energy by saying so a few posts ago.  I give up.

Here is some ammunition for debating anti-choicers:

http://wingnutwatch.typepad.com/wingnutwatch/2009/02/why-i-am-prochoice.html

this thread has been really amusing and representative of why i avoid political blogs

let me disclose who i am:
i know nemo from other parts of the internet
we’ve had a few conversations about philosophical topics which were in general very reasonable
i’m sort of known around those parts for being level headed
he contacted me today and said that he was getting really frustrated by some interactions on political blogs and sent me this address, asking for suggestions as to how to better represent himself
he didn’t ask me to comment, and in fact he might be mad at me for stepping in, i hope it’s okay

my political stance:
i oscillate between left anarchist and “too depressed for politics”
i might be a wingnut of some sort, but probably not the type you’re concerned about (i’m definitely pro abortion. i’ve supported vhemt in the past.)

what i know about nemo:
i would associate him with the left or far left, i haven’t grilled him on his political beliefs exactly, but i’ve heard him take up for animal rights before, i think he’s a vegan
i think he’s being totally sincere throughout this thread (except for the one obvious, sarcastic post where he lost his calm)
and i think his continued participation is due to the fact that his feelings are hurt and he sees himself as being impugned, he’s trying to recover some pride

how i see this thread:
nemo criticized the OP
people took his criticism as coming from a right wing standpoint, thereby making him The Enemy
he was therefore attacked mercilessly, and his argument picked apart
he attempted to defend himself, but because people had already categorized him as The Enemy (a group who are always irrational and attempting to ruin discourse by clever trolling, as we all know) everything he said was interpreted as an attempt to troll

i would suggest that it’s surprisingly easy to see almost anything as an attempt to troll, if that is what you’re looking for.

so what i want to ask the people criticizing nemo to do, is perform an experiment:
attempt to suspend any opinions you’ve formed about nemo
go back through this thread, read it as though his posts are coming from a reasonable person who is actually trying to communicate.

i came into this thread with the preconception of nemo as a reasonable person because i’ve interacted with him in the past.  from my point of view, he was immediately treated in a totally vicious manner, as though you all already hated him and already thought he was an idiot, because of who you thought he was.

you can do better than that; this is the kind of thing you (rightly) criticize the right for.

to nemo:
this is why i don’t participate in political discussions very often: not only do opposing sides not treat each other with respect, anyone suspected of opposition is often immediately blacklisted.
what i suggest is that you drop it, because i don’t think i’ll be taken seriously, if simply for my association with you.  you’ll get more mad and less reasonable if you reply any more. this isn’t worth your time.
something like this happened to anita in the forum where we met.  now, absolutely, she has some very strange beliefs, and she isn’t very good (to say the least) about presenting them neutrally.  but some behavior really early on that was misinterpreted by others who lacked some information about her motivations caused about half the board to think of her as a “crazy bitch” and now she can’t live it down and anything she says gets interpreted in the worst/dumbest possible way.
perhaps i am being cynical but let’s pay attention to how my post is received.
i predict i’m accused of being a sockpuppet (i’m not, folks can check my IP)
or that i’m also trolling to cause more grief (i’m not, i’m trying to get you to give up, which is roughly aligned with what your commentators are doing)
i also predict that people won’t try my little experiment, though some might do it just out of spite, and claim that there’s no way to read your posts as coming from someone essentially trying to be reasonable.  i think people’s pride will prevent them from honestly reevaluating their view of you.
and to be honest, i don’t think i can really blame them. this is just how people work.

come and join me in the land where we look at pictures of beautiful badgers instead of arguing with strangers.

I should add, lest I be accused of wingnuttery, that it isn’t my position.

Oh, so you’re a troll. Thanks.

Look, if you say something fucking stupid, I’m not a jerk for stepping outside the bounds of polite conversation to say, hey, you said something fucking stupid. Try not, you know, being fucking stupid.

1. Say something stupid and/or rediculous
2. Claim that’s not really what you were saying. You were misinterpreted.
3. Ask for clarification of terms
4. Repeat #2.
5. Claim you were wronged, ignoring logical arguments against #2.

Repeat ad nauseum.

Look, as a real live Person (legal definition), women have the right to determine what does or does not come out of their bodies. Their human rights trump any other consideration. When you make arguments against this, you will be soundly told to STFU by real live (woman) persons. If you disagree with this, I suggest you stop reading feminist blogs now. Because it’s not going to fucking change, ever. Nobody feels unicorns about abortion, but it’s a matter of human rights.

ridiculous. sorry.

nemo is not and has not at any point in this discussion been arguing against abortion.

the question he asked was essentially “is it really productive to simply mock those who disagree with us?”
what he didn’t know is that the purpose of this site, so far as i can tell, is to mock those who disagree with us (and yes i mean us, everyone here agrees on this stuff!) so this question probably gets raised a lot by trolls who actually disagree.  so everyone’s spent this entire conversation trying to out him as a troll, which is extremely confusing and frustrating for him.

Also, “why haven’t we cured cancer yet?” “because the woman who was going to do it was raped in college, and her pro-life beliefs caused her to have the baby, which forced her to drop out of college, and now she works as a short-order cook in a diner instead of saving millions of lives.”

Brilliant.

(Oh, and Brian has a great takedown of Shablin’s spiel over at City of Ladies.)