tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) (09/14/85)
I was heartened to hear the response to my comment that abortion is a question of values, not just facts. Perhaps we can now get somewhere. How about some ground rules for a new discussion? I would suggest the following, and hope that some of the pro-lifers will take me up. 1) No arguments about whether the fetus is human, alive, a person, a non-person, etc. I will agree ahead of time that the fetus is alive. I will also agree that a human fetus is human. Discussion about whether the fetus is a human being or merely a potential human being is purely semantic and pointless. We all know what a fetus really is. The labels don't matter. We can avoid the above by rephrasing the question of the legality of abortion as follows. "What legal rights should a human embryo or fetus have at each state of development?" 2) No arguments based on God or religious faith. VALUES stemming from religion are O.K. as long as argued on their own merits. As a confirmed skeptic, I will toss all "God says X, therefore we must do X" arguments into the wastebasket. 3) Discussion of special cases, such as rape victims and fetuses with incurable fatal diseases, is permitted. 4) An agreement that what happens to the aborted fetus AFTER it is dead is irrelevant. Arguments about what the fetus goes through DURING an abortion while it is still alive are O.K. 5) No name calling or ad-hominem attacks. If you MUST use words like stupid, say "That's a stupid idea" and then explain why. Don't say "You're stupid." I will follow this shortly with some arguments presenting my pro-choice case within the above guidelines. I promise that I will not define away the problem by defining the fetus to be worthless. I hope I get some pro-lifers to answer my forthcoming questions to them within the above guidelines. Come on, Matt Rosenblatt, etc. Who likes the above guidelines? Pro-choicers are welcome too. I may need help! -- Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan
rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (09/14/85)
> I was heartened to hear the response to my comment that abortion > is a question of values, not just facts. Perhaps we can now get somewhere. > How about some ground rules for a new discussion? I would suggest the > following, and hope that some of the pro-lifers will take me up. [TANENBAUM] It is the FACT that some sets of values are not based on facts to beging with that is the crux of the argument here. How do judge two differing sets of values if not by their veracity? It most certainly does get right back to facts. > 1) No arguments about whether the fetus is human, alive, a person, > a non-person, etc. I will agree ahead of time that the fetus is > alive. I will also agree that a human fetus is human. Discussion > about whether the fetus is a human being or merely a potential human > being is purely semantic and pointless. We all know what a fetus > really is. The labels don't matter. > We can avoid the above by rephrasing the question of the legality > of abortion as follows. > "What legal rights should a human embryo or fetus have at each state > of development?" Then let's start another newsgroup: net.rock-right-to-life. There will be no arguments about whether rocks are human, alive, etc. I will agree to these axioms that say that they are all these things, in advance. Sorry, I don't buy it for a minute. > 2) No arguments based on God or religious faith. VALUES stemming > from religion are O.K. as long as argued on their own merits. As > a confirmed skeptic, I will toss all "God says X, therefore we > must do X" arguments into the wastebasket. So what you're saying in this case, "judge on their own merits". Meaning how factual they are. Back to the crux. > 4) An agreement that what happens to the aborted fetus AFTER it is dead is > irrelevant. Arguments about what the fetus goes through DURING an abortion > while it is still alive are O.K. The first sentence should rid us of Samuelsonesque rambling about "but they're using human fetuses in consumer products because it doesn't say they're not" The second goes back to the problems with point (1) above. > 5) No name calling or ad-hominem attacks. If you MUST use words like stupid, > say "That's a stupid idea" and then explain why. Don't say "You're stupid." I would hope you would reserve the right to point out when someone is abusing the rules of cogent argument deliberately for purposes of branching around the need for reasoning to get to their conclusion. -- "I was walking down the street. A man came up to me and asked me what was the capital of Bolivia. I hesitated. Three sailors jumped me. The next thing I knew I was making chicken salad." "I don't believe that for a minute. Everyone knows the capital of Bolivia is La Paz." Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr
charli@cylixd.UUCP (Charli Phillips) (09/16/85)
In article <1247@ihlpg.UUCP> tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) writes: >How about some ground rules for a new discussion? I would suggest the >following, and hope that some of the pro-lifers will take me up. > >1) No arguments about whether the fetus is human, alive, a person, >a non-person, etc. > >2) No arguments based on God or religious faith. > >3) Discussion of special cases, such as rape victims and >fetuses with incurable fatal diseases, is permitted. > >4) An agreement that what happens to the aborted fetus AFTER it is dead is >irrelevant. > >5) No name calling or ad-hominem attacks. >-- >Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan Not only do I *like* the above rules, I would like to see some way of making them automatically appear every time someone starts into this newsgroup! (Let's hear it for *civilized discourse*!) charli