Maximizing Moral Virtue

[bennyboy]

Not if the opponent's terms are themselves dishonest.

I'm perfectly capable of detailing a pro-lifer's argument in their terms.  However, since pro-lifers' terms are, in my estimation, couched to bypass rational argument rather than to engage in it, then accepting them at face value means either carrying on a farcical debate, or choosing not to have one at all.

I guess we've heard different arguments.

Fine.  I shall demonstrate.

Pro-choice: "Abortionists want to kill innocent babies.  How cruel this is-- this baby has as much right to life as anyone else.  Nobody forced a girl to get pregnant, and she should have thought about pregnancy instead of having sex.  And EVEN IF she was forced, aka raped, how cruel it is to murder an innocent little baby instead of just carrying it for a few months and giving it up for adoption to parents who will treat it with the love it deserves."

This is, "in my estimation, couched to bypass rational argument rather than to engage in it," because it uses very deliberate symbolism (specifically, the repeated use of the word "baby") to conflate this:


with this:


The important difference is that the first picture represents a developing human body with no capacity for suffering and no conscious awareness.  The second is a young human being with a name who has bonded with other people, cries when it's scared (because it can process and form ideas about its environment), and is busy formulating a network of ideas about the things it interacts with.

So why do pro-lifers do this? Because if your position is "I cannot tolerate the destruction of a group of cells with no capacity for suffering and no conscious awareness," you do not trigger the "Squeeeeeee" response that brings people over to your cause.

I would argue that deliberately triggering people's instinctive responses to X, by invoking imagined images of Not-X, is immoral.