Any Good Atheistic Pro-Life Arguments?

[johnny karate]

The question here is whether a difficult and horrible life is better than death.

And the fact that many people have willingly died trying to escape a horrible life establishes that, at least to them, death was a preferable choice.

To me its quite clear by the way most people do not committ suicide in these types of situations that indeed life is better than no life.

And yet some people do, which undercuts your point.

 

[gumboot]

What does Godwined mean? Hitler killing Jews and less fit classes is history not religion.

Godwin's Law:


As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

You just tried to poison the well by associating people who support abortion with Nazis.

ETA. To be precise, it's the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy.

 

[X]

I said Abortion has its roots in Eugenics not the other way around. At least I thought I did. Let me check.

Yep that's what I said.

Oops. My bad. I have no idea if eugenics started abortion or not.
I don't see that it matters, ultimately. At least, not in determining the relative morality of abortion.

The Jeep was developed for use in war. Therefore Jeeps are evil?

Germany modelled their eugenics program on the one in California. Therefore Californians are evil?

The logic doesn't work for me.



Regarding "planned parenthood", well, as I've never had sex (I wouldn't say no to the right lady, mind...), I will decline comment, citing lack of involvement.


ETA: What the hell? Why am I arguing for abortion? I can see myself argunig against banning it, but in support of it? I've surprised myself. Oh well. Maybe I just prefer different arguments.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Note that Godwin's Law doesn't state whether comparisons to Hitler or the Nazis are right or wrong, just that the probability that it will happen increases as the discussion progresses. Sometimes there are valid arguments to be made using an analogy or comparison to Hitler.

This, however, is not one of them. An unmerited analogy to Hitler, sometimes referred to as the ad nazium fallacy, is an attempt at well poisoning or an ad hominem attack (a form of red herring) to discredit the opposing side of the debate. Everyone knows Hitler and the Nazis were evil, so all you gotta do is compare an opposing point of view to Hitler (since anything can be compared to Hitler) and you win by default!

For a random example of how stupid these arguments are:

"People shouldn't use toothbrushes because toothbrushes resemble Hitler's mustache, and everyone knows how evil Hitler was. The ADA is a bunch of Nazis!"

 

[truethat]

Godwin's Law:


As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

You just tried to poison the well by associating people who support abortion with Nazis.

ETA. To be precise, it's the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy.

FALLACY being the operative word. If you were educated about Eugenics you would recognize that this is not a fallacy. Its quite true and accepted.

But I have heard of Godwin's Law. However does that relate to actual times when Hitler most certainly IS related to the dialogue?

SilentKnight, you insisting that Eugenics isn't related to Hitlers approach to genocide doesn't make it so. It most certainly is so. This isn't TOOTH BRUSHES this is genocide based on the "Less fit" argument.

Its absolutely related. Not a fallacy at all.

 

[truethat]

And the fact that many people have willingly died trying to escape a horrible life establishes that, at least to them, death was a preferable choice.



And yet some people do, which undercuts your point.

In what form of logic does the small minority represent the general point? Oh wait, in the abortion logic. That's why we are always discussing rape victims when the vast majority of women who have abortions are NOT rape victims.

 

[johnny karate]

In what form of logic does the small minority represent the general point?

It doesn't. Nor did I make that claim. But it certainly refutes this sweeping generalization:

To me its quite clear by the way most people do not committ suicide in these types of situations that indeed life is better than no life.

Obviously there is an argument to be made that death is preferable to a horrible life as made evident by the examples I have provided.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

FALLACY being the operative word. If you were educated about Eugenics you would recognize that this is not a fallacy. Its quite true and accepted.

Do you have any evidence to support your claims, other than ad hominem attacks such as this, or red herrings such as, "Go travel around the world and see"?

But I have heard of Godwin's Law. However does that relate to actual times when Hitler most certainly IS related to the dialogue?

SilentKnight, you insisting that Eugenics isn't related to Hitlers approach to genocide doesn't make it so. It most certainly is so. This isn't TOOTH BRUSHES this is genocide based on the "Less fit" argument.

Its absolutely related. Not a fallacy at all.

Nice job misreading what I said. Do you understand what a strawman is? I never insisted that Hitler didn't use eugenics. In fact, I used the Nazi practice of eugenics as a premise in a previous post of mine (which you obviously did not read). I said that your equating of women who have abortions, which is what this topic is about, with the Nazi practice of eugenics, does in fact commit the Hitler fallacy. You are attempting to poison the well and use guilt by association to discredit a point of view you disagree with. Never mind that you have yet to prove that all abortions, especially the ones being discussed here, are motivated by the "less fit" argument that you brought up.

What, do you think that women who go in for abortions are invariably thinking, "Oh hey, I'd better be mindful of what Hitler's eugenics says about fitness and get this baby aborted"?

 

[gumboot]

FALLACY being the operative word. If you were educated about Eugenics you would recognize that this is not a fallacy. Its quite true and accepted.

But I have heard of Godwin's Law. However does that relate to actual times when Hitler most certainly IS related to the dialogue?

SilentKnight, you insisting that Eugenics isn't related to Hitlers approach to genocide doesn't make it so. It most certainly is so. This isn't TOOTH BRUSHES this is genocide based on the "Less fit" argument.

Its absolutely related. Not a fallacy at all.

You're essentially saying people who support abortion are Nazis. That's a fallacy. The actual fallacious step is the association between Eugenics and abortion.

Here's how it works:

Let's assign a moral value of "bad" to Eugenics and "evil" to Nazism (because I think most people would agree that Nazism is far worse than any non-implemented theory, and Eugenics wasn't so much the motivator of a lot of Nazi practises as it was the justification)

"Abortion comes from Eugenics" establishes the fallacy "pro-choice people are bad".

(This is a fallacy for numerous reasons, one of which is that Margaret Sanger's support for birth control (at a time when speaking publicly about birth control was illegal) was not a product of her support of Eugenics)

"Eugenics led to Nazism" establishes the fallacy "pro-choice people are evil"

(This step in itself is somewhat a fallacy because the linking point - people like Margaret Sanger - did not support what the Nazis did, and were generally opposed to State-enforced Eugenic practices, rather they saw it as a philosophy that individual people would adopt (and indeed the reality is that by and large people are driven by a biological imperative that amounts to an Eugenic philosophy))

Thus we have a two-stage reductio ad Hitlerum.

ETA. For what it's worth Margaret Sanger was opposed to abortion (which pretty much entirely destroys your argument).

 

[Pardalis]

To me it depends how badly off the mentally disabled person is, and how young the child is,

So the mentally disabled and young children aren't worthy of keeping their lives?

although in both cases there's a strong case for drawing the line well past the point at which I personally stop caring, just to make sure we don't put anything we should care about on the wrong side of the line.

Good thing this issue is not about how you care or not about these people. The issue is how life is an amazing chance to have and everyone has the right to live it.

I'd call feeling pain a sufficient condition for moral consideration, but not a necessary condition.

What does that even mean?

Substitute "national interest" or "manifest destiny" or "natural rights" or "the dignity of man" or any other fine-sounding abstraction. If it doesn't cash out in terms of harm or benefit to concrete beings, I don't care in the least if you "affront" it.

"Concrete" beings... I'm not even going to ask you what that is.

Well I answered the OP, which asked for good atheist arguments for pro-life. Too bad I got stuck with you to respond to it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So the mentally disabled and young children aren't worthy of keeping their lives?

Put it this way. If an entity has as much going on between its ears as a chicken does, to me it's got the moral status of a chicken regardless of what's going on outside the ears. They can have a chicken-shaped body or a human-shaped body and it's all the same to me, I'm not speciesist.

In the same way if an alien landed tomorrow with as much (or more) of a mental life as I have, I'd accord it equal moral status even if we had nothing else in common.

Good thing this issue is not about how you care or not about these people. The issue is how life is an amazing chance to have and everyone has the right to live it.

That's your assertion. My assertion is that you just pulled that "right" out of your backside, and that you apply that right solely to an arbitrary subset of morally relevant entities.

What does that even mean?

Sorry, I used long words. It means that I consider absolutely everything than can consciously experience pain morally important to at least some extent, but that I also consider some things that can't experience pain (like people with wacky nervous systems) morally important.

"Concrete" beings... I'm not even going to ask you what that is.

Meaty things you can poke with a stick, with mental lives going on between their ears. As opposed to abstractions people pull out of their backside with no concrete existence.

Well I answered the OP, which asked for good atheist arguments for pro-life. Too bad I got stuck with you to respond to it.

Okay, you win, well done. Have a gold star and run along.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I wonder how many people are aware that their precious Planned Parenthood centeres were actually the inspiration for Hitler's genocide of the Jews and "less fit" classes.

So what?

By which I mean, even if we assume for a crazy minute that this is absolutely true in every important way, what on Earth do you think follows from this? Explain your thought process.

 

[Pardalis]

Put it this way. If an entity has as much going on between its ears as a chicken does, to me it's got the moral status of a chicken regardless of what's going on outside the ears.

Good for you. I hope you'll never have to deal with someone with Alzheimer's disease.

and that you apply that right solely to an arbitrary subset of morally relevant entities.

And where do you take your moral from? At one point you said people who can do crossword puzzles have a higher moral right for existence, then you back-paddle and said it depends on the level of mental illness, then you talked about people with projects for their future, but then again most children don't usually have any "plans" until their late teens, so you back-tracked there again. And then you put the line at "people who feel pain", which leaves people with CIPA without any rights... but then you add this:

but that I also consider some things that can't experience pain (like people with wacky nervous systems) morally important.

Seems to me you're the one with arbitrary morals. You can't seem to make up your mind.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Good for you. I hope you'll never have to deal with someone with Alzheimer's disease.



And where do you take your moral from? At one point you said people who can do crossword puzzles have a higher moral right for existence, then you back-paddle and said it depends on the level of mental illness, then you talked about people with projects for their future, but then again most children don't usually have any "plans" until their late teens, so you back-tracked there again. And then you put the line at "people who feel pain", which leaves people with CIPA without any rights... but then you add this:

Seems to me you're the one with arbitrary morals. You can't seem to make up your mind.

I'm guessing lots of things seem very confusing to you.

 

[Mark Felt]

... Not all gay men have anal sex doggy style, or even have anal sex for that matter.

I am employing Socratic Irony. I am aware that there are gay men who do not have anal sex. I am trying to find out what makes gumboot believe that missionary style vaginal sex superior to all other forms of interaction as far as emotional bonding goes by questioning him about things that don't seem to jibe with his theory.

Oh yes, because the woman risking her life to carry the pregnancy to term and then endure the pain of childbirth is so much easier than the man shelling out a few dollars. Do you have evidence, such as studies, statistics, or legal testimony, of your claim that "many ignorant women have children on purpose" just to entrap men?

And if men were forcing women to keep the pregnancy, then you would have a point here. But, as is amply demonstrated, we're not. Abortion is legal. If this hypothetical female knows that she won't be getting any child support fromt the father and chooses to continue with the pregnancy regardless, why is it at all reasonable or ethical to force the father into a financial relationship with this woman for 18 years?

Obviously there is an argument to be made that death is preferable to a horrible life as made evident by the examples I have provided.

I can't think of a situation where it would be in any way moral to make that judgement for someone else.

 

[martu]

Right... except I think I missed the part where you explained why. Why, having gained the knowledge that she will not be recieving any child support from the potential father, and given plenty of time to get an abortion, why, why is it reasonable to expect the father to pay child support until the kid dies or hits 18? You haven't argued it, you haven't given an explanation, you've just said that this is how it is. Why should this be how it is?

Because in most cases if the father doesn’t pay child support the child suffers. I have argued this.

I think I see what you’re missing though, this outcome is merely a consequence of the initial position. No one can be forced to provide life support for another human being. Therefore we can’t force mothers to carry to term children they don’t want to and we can’t, for the closest equivalent example I can think of, force men to donate organs to those that need them.

The consequence of this is that men have no say in whether their child will be aborted. This isn’t fair but who are you going to complain to about that, evolution?

As a society we have a responsibility to look after our children for very obvious reasons. So we insist that a child that is born is looked after to the best of our abilities. One way we do that is to ensure that both parents provide what the child needs, this includes the father who didn’t want the child.

The only other option is for all of us to provide for that child’s care, do you think that’s a better solution?

 

[gumboot]

I am employing Socratic Irony. I am aware that there are gay men who do not have anal sex. I am trying to find out what makes gumboot believe that missionary style vaginal sex superior to all other forms of interaction as far as emotional bonding goes by questioning him about things that don't seem to jibe with his theory.

Pretending for a moment that's what I said, how does that not jibe with my theory?

 

[gumboot]

The only other option is for all of us to provide for that child’s care, do you think that’s a better solution?

Yes.

 

[Hokulele]

To the OP: There was a very good thread on this topic just a few months ago.

The main problem I see with all of the arguments presented on this thread is that many people lose sight of the fact that every pregnancy is different. Every person involved (including both partners) is different. There is no sweeping statement that can be applied to something that is such a personal issue that can affect those involved, and even those involved only peripherally.

I know anecdotes rarely equate to evidence, but in this case, I think someone's personal experience carries weight. Here is a post from the thread I mentioned that shows why I believe abortion should never be seen as a black and white moral issue.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3568242#post3568242

 

[martu]

It's not "life". It's the law. Laws are required to be non discriminatory. And laws can be changed.

Your argument falls well short of being convincing.

Why?