Why is it so hard to reason with pro-lifers?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yeah, if someone is against the abortion then that person should turn against their God first.

He killed ALL the kittens on the planet in a fit of pique.

[HappySkeptic]

The issue of abortion resolves to metaphysical beliefs about being human and when that begins.   It's a set of assumptions, whichever side you are on, and so is resistant to reasoned approaches.  So emotion and propaganda tend to be the tools of choice for both sides.  And given that, for the pro-life individual, the stakes are life and death, it's not surprising that it gets highly emotional and irrational.  It resolves to a political question of who can enforce their beliefs on whom.  That's bound to get heated, as any other political issue does.

I agree with your post, though to be fair, only the Pro Lifers are trying to enforce beliefs  -- on pregnant women. 

Pro Choice just want the women to have a choice -- they don't go around trying to force abortions on people.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The issue of abortion resolves to metaphysical beliefs about being human and when that begins.   It's a set of assumptions, whichever side you are on, and so is resistant to reasoned approaches.  So emotion and propaganda tend to be the tools of choice for both sides.  And given that, for the pro-life individual, the stakes are life and death, it's not surprising that it gets highly emotional and irrational.  It resolves to a political question of who can enforce their beliefs on whom.  That's bound to get heated, as any other political issue does.

I agree with your post, though to be fair, only the Pro Lifers are trying to enforce beliefs  -- on pregnant women. 

Pro Choice just want the women to have a choice -- they don't go around trying to force abortions on people.

I don't think Angrboda was implying that both sides were trying to force their beliefs on people.

[no one]

BSBIV:
If you could reason with religious people, there would BE no religious people.- Gregory House, MD.

Beat me to it.

Though, I was going to paraphrase.

69 points to Boruffindor.

[Anomalocaris]

Because pro-lifers wants to live up to the expectation of being exemplars of why abortion would have been good?

[Ranjr]

Cognitive dissonance.  Banning abortion doesn't stop it.  It only changes how and where it is done and creates a new class of criminal.  It creates a new set of problems they must ignore or pretend to like.  They want to force a religious law onto a complex situation that truly does not effect them.  Some, the Southern Baptists in my family for example, believe banning abortion will bring God's blessing on our nation, leading to prosperity and victory over our enemies.

As one issue voters, they embrace politicians like Trump, who is not Christian in his words or actions.  To help with that unsettling situation, they believe nonsense about him fighting a secret ring of pedophiles.  They ignore his history, hatefulness, and routine foolishness.  It's hard to be reasonable with such garbage in your head.

[HappySkeptic]

Some, the Southern Baptists in my family for example, believe banning abortion will bring God's blessing on our nation, leading to prosperity and victory over our enemies.

This is bat-guano crazy, but I think you are right -- this is why the religious crazies fight abortion, gay marriage, etc.  They believe that God will remove his protection from America if they don't. 

I wonder how many think that Covid-19 is a punishment for abortion or gay rights?  The worse America gets, the more their beliefs are proven true!

[GrandizerII]

Maybe there's something bad about aborting fetuses, but I feel much much more badly about violating a woman's right to be in control of their own body. And banning abortion would just make things worse anyway.

[arewethereyet]

Pro-life is simply a fuzzy way to say anti-abortion.

You can't argue with them because their stance is based on emotion - emotion that is often based on religious teachings. Some sects still don't accept birth control, much less abortion. All babies are gifts from god and blah, blah, blah.

When you deal with an issue that is fact based you have something to argue with. When dealing with someone's feels, you are fighting a losing battle.

[Pat Mustard]

I mistakenly decided to discuss abortion with a pro-lifer. I only joined the discussion due to the fact they were spreading misinformation and literal propaganda. Apparently, this individual has done their "research" through Facebook memes, as well as pro-life documentaries. Which have both been proven to be riddled with falsehoods.  I brought up instances of rape and also asked the individual if they would adopt these unwanted children people like them are forcing women to have.

However, instead of actually answering the question they did circles around the question and proceeded to accuse me of some of the most batshit things ever with no basis whatsoever. According to this individual, by posing this question I was advocating for the murder of adopted children. Like what in the actual fuck? Are these people insane? Anyways, since the discussion derailed I simply blocked the person. However, I went back to the discussion from another account I created a long long time ago to only see the other pro-life people were patting that individual on the back at apparently what a great job they did at defending the unborn. It was actually quite fascinating to observe. It was like a peacock strutting around as they had just won something, and the other peacocks strutting as well and licking their own assholes.

One of them was even advocating they call the police and report the false tip to have me arrested. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to make false police reports.  I was genuinely concerned these individuals would find out where I lived and had me swatted.

I find it discouraging this sort of behavior from pro-lifers seems to be encouraged instead of actually having a discussion. I also hope these people are just trolls or "bots". Because if these kinds of people actually exist in society, well good grief then.

First of all, never call them pro-life. They are in fact pro-death, willing to sacrifice the life of a living person for a clump of cells that only has the potential for life. Secondly, they have mastered the art of self delusion, torally buying into whatever lies their leaders tell them without taking one look at the lies so that the most easily disproved bullshit is swallowed like it was the rarest delicacy.

Oh, and they're also masters of double thing being able to rationalise away either themselves or a close relative part of the cult having an abortion while campaigning to ban all abortions. You see, it's ok for them because they're "good" christians who had a crisis, yet eberybody else is a filthy slut, if not a whore, who deserves to be saddled with the consequences of their "sins", at least so they tell themselves in the dark when reality starts creeping in.

Like with YECs or fascists, you'll never dissuade the true believers. Luckily though they're finding it incrasingly hard to pass their hatred onto future generations. There's too much access to information that they can't police their children from seeing.