The Effect of "Abortion Rights" on the Political Landscape

[BugI02]

The largest single group of abortion users is the US is Christian women, a majority of whom report already having kids. In many cases these women use their marital finances to fund their abortion.

This seems specious ^^^

What the data says about abortion in the U.S.

The U.S. abortion rate has generally declined since the 1980s, but there have been slight upticks in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

www.pewresearch.org

The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2021 were unmarried (87%), while married women accounted for 13%, according to the CDC, which had data on this from 37 states.

The majority of these are NOT christian women, although they might go to church occasionally. There is a difference

Nearly four-in-ten women who had abortions in 2021 (39%) had no previous live births at the time they had an abortion, according to the CDC. Almost a quarter (24%) of women who had abortions in 2021 had one previous live birth, 20% had two previous live births, 10% had three, and 7% had four or more previous live births. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.

Technically, you are correct that, when considering women who had ever had any child/children, that a larger percentage had indeed had previous live births - but given that, as quoted above, 7 out of 8 of those women are unmarried the statistic that more than 1/4 of them had three or more previous children is not the moral win you think it is

I am also not aware of any data being collected on the religion of abortion recipients. Perhaps you would be good enough to cite your source, provided it isn't rectal

 

[BugI02]

I don't think there's a secular reason to say that "a ball of cells" is exactly, morally, equal to a fully formed human. In one of the other discussions, I posted a photo of a baby in the mothers arms juxtaposed with a photo of an embryo. I asked the questions, are these equal morally?

Point to the oak tree in the picture

 

[jamil]

According to NYT, you know, that radical far right news source, the typical abortion patient:

Is Already a Mother.
Is in Her Late 20s.
Attended Some College.
Has a Low Income.
Is Unmarried.
Is in Her First 6 Weeks of Pregnancy.
Is Having Her First Abortion.
Lives in a Blue State.

Who Gets Abortions in America? (Published 2021)

The typical patient is already a mother; is poor; is unmarried and in her late 20s; and has some college education.

www.nytimes.com

 

[jamil]

Point to the oak tree in the picture

View attachment 346251

Is there a moral aspect to chopping any of these down?

 

[BugI02]

Is there a moral aspect to chopping any of these down?

Stewardship of God's creation?

 

[jamil]

I suspect no one follows it to that extent.

 

[Shadow01]

We're talking about a RFRA case, and I'm establishing that Life at Fertilization (meaning a human being with legal rights) is a religious belief - not an established legal one, in any consistent manner, across the nation nor over time.

If I kill a pregnant woman in a drunken car crash, can I be charged for the death of the fetus In some states? If so, that establishes rights to the fetus to not be killed without the state seeking punishment.

 

[AndreusMaximus]

Edit:

After walking away from this for a bit, I think I may have realized a disconnect I have been having.

At first, I thought you were arguing one or both of:

1) That it is impossible for one to believe that abortion is murder without it logically following that a woman who gets an abortion should receive the death sentence, and that miscarriage is manslaughter

2) That is is impossible to devise a system of laws in which abortion is defined as murder without making it so that a woman who gets an abortion will receive the death sentence, and that a woman who miscarries will be charged with manslaughter

I think it may have finally clicked with me that you are not claiming either of those things, but merely pointing out that, with our legal definitions as they currently stand, if we legally define abortion as murder, then women who get an abortion may be given the death sentence, and women who miscarry may be charged with manslaughter.

If the above is correct, then I apologize, and will admit that you are actually right, and that is a problem that needs to be addressed and correct if the law were ever to be changed to define abortion as murder.

I don’t want to keep going around in circles about this, but I do want to try address the disconnect I am seeing between our arguments.

Murder, the crime, is specifically defined as a capital offense.

Treating abortion as murder means abortion is a capital offense…by definition.

Any and every capital offense is carries the risk of capital punishment, again…by definition.

If you support treating abortion as murder under US law, then you support capital punishment for abortion…by definition.

This is not a straw argument...if abortion itself does not warrant capital punishment abortion itself does not rise to the level of a capital crime

There is no way around it…if you support abortion as murder you support capital punishment for abortion…by definition.

But I don't support the current legal standard. I think the death penalty should be abolished. It would be possible to make a law that says abortion is murder, and simultaneously abolish the death penalty, or at least amend the current laws regarding murder to specify that the death penalty would not be sought if the person committing the murder was the mother of the victim, and the victim was unborn. I would fully support the former, and support the latter as at least a good first step.

Your example is not logically consistent.

“If every time a child dies in utero is an act of manslaughter”

…this is only true where a legal expectation of live birth is afforded to the unborn, which does not currently occur in US law, but would be true under “Abortion is Murder”.

“then why doesn’t classifying infanticide as murder do the same thing for a child dying outside the womb.”

I don’t follow your logic here. Infanticide is most commonly defined as murder of a dependent aged less than 12 months.

Abortion is not legally defined as murder, so it cannot meet the legal definition of infanticide.

Let me try to make this clear. I do NOT support a law that says that any mother whose child dies in utero, or who miscarries live baby, is automatically guilty of manslaughter.

You keep trying to claim that "Abortion is Murder" equates to "miscarriage is manslaughter."

To refute this point, I am pointing to the fact that we currently have laws against infanticide, but they don't equate to "involuntary and uncontrollable death of an infant is manslaughter by the parents."

If it's possible for our current law to distinguish between parents whose child dies through circumstances outside their control, vs. parents whose child dies due to their negligence, vs. parents who intentionally kill their child, then it is also possible for the law to make the same distinction regarding pre-born children.

Is there another example you can use to illustrate this point? I want to avoid talking past one another on this point…it seems to be central to your position, and I want to be sure I understand the point as you intend to make it.

Okay, let's use the example of a doctor. If a doctor intentionally kills his patient, that's murder. If he does so through gross negligence, that's manslaughter. If he is just doing what a reasonable person would do and trying to help his patient, but through a lack of current medical knowledge, or a misdiagnosis, or lack of access to the right medical technology, or even just an honest mistake, then there is no guilt. Or at least there shouldn't be, and if there is, that's a problem with our current law that can and should be changed.

Intentionally killing someone can and should be distinguished from that person dying due to natural causes outside your control. We don't legalize doctors killing their patients for fear that doctors will be charged every time a patient dies.

I think you are conflating your (perfectly valid) moral perspective with the legal definition of a right to life.

I didn't know there was a legal definition of the right to life. I am only using the term colloquially.

Whatever the legal equivalent of "this person should not be murdered in cold blood, but if they die through natural causes that are completely normal and also outside of your control we're not going to come after you for it" is the principle that I think should be applied to unborn children.

Being conceived does not grant a person legal rights…being born does.

This is what I think needs to change.

I am arguing from a different perspective than you, nothing more.



Because these people exist entirely within another person, and the rights of that person take primacy.



That is probably due to an excess of ambiguity in my writing style…and I am most certainly guilty.

Legal right are an attempt to protect human rights, but are not a 1:1 analogue. The law doesn’t create human rights, it creates legal rights, and every one of those contain unintended consequences that must be addressed.

Okay, so if the primary concern is unintended consequences of extending legal rights to the unborn, then let me say this unequivocally: I do NOT support any law that would send a woman who gets an abortion to the electric chair. If defining abortion as murder under current legal definitions would cause that to be a possibility, that would need to be addressed and changed at the same time any law defining abortion as murder would be passed.

This is where politics intersects with morality, and rational arguments are only one part of this landscape. When discussing political influence emotional, spiritual, and broader social attitudes are just as valid in moving the needle, and this thread seems to be geared toward discussion of the political effects of abortion more than the underlying morality involved,

Let me also clarify this. When I say abortion is murder, I am defending what I view as a moral truth. I can understand that the current political landscape does not look very feasible for putting such a definition into law, to put it mildly.

 

[AndreusMaximus]

I get that. I'm thinking through the reply on the keyboard. So it becomes a thought stream instead of thinking it, then parsing it into a short answer. I just cut out the middle man.


I'm going to assume you wanted me to give an example of objectively false given the second line. Also, we agreed on my definition of objectively true. My definition of objectively false just flips the bit.

I gave you examples of subjectively true. To you, I'm sure you believe in "thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vein." But that's a subjective truth. It's only true for religious people. Consider unknown truths. A claim of truth where the truth value is actually unknowable, that's always going to be a subjective truth. Subjective truths can actually turn out to be true. Should I really not take the Lord's name in vein? I suspect you're sure of the answer to the affirmative. I suspect not, but it's not testable; not falsifiable, so one can't know. It's subjective.

Some more thought stream here. Morals usually are based on some form of harm to others or self. Bearing false witness is wrong. Deception for the purpose of harm, or personal gain without regard to harm of others, is morally wrong. It's universally true. So I think that to explain subjective morals within this context would be a moral statement that asserts some kind of harm that isn't apparent universally. It's not apparent to me that taking the Lord's name in vein is actually causing harm. I would have to believe in the religion to think that it does.


Is this not a reason we both would call it a subjective moral? It's only true for the people who think that. Believing that one's left hand is inherently unclean (and I don't know enough about this belief to say "inherently" applies) fulfills the purpose of morals. It prevents self-harm by its adherents. It's what I call "accidentally true". But, the underlying premise is incomplete; outdated. It's one way to avoid ingesting harmful bacteria. Is there something sacred about cleanliness? A lot of religions have that concept.



Now do the first few of the 10 commandments, which relate to your moral commitment to God. Those presume facts not falsifiable. If you believe in a "truth" that is unfalsifiable, it doesn't mean the thing you believe is false. It means you can't test it to prove it's false, so by definition it is a subjective moral.

Take the rest of the 10 commandments. Those are objective morals. Disobeying those morals objectively causes harm to others or yourself. It's testable.


But it is subjectively true for the reasons I stated above. It meets the definition of subjective truth. Which, wouldn't you use the same reasoning to determine whether we should legislate not taking the Lord's name in vein to abortion then? You believe it's true, but because secular reasoning alone cannot perceive the harm, should you legislate that?


Sure. Take "argument from authority". It's a logical fallacy. It doesn't mean that the conclusion isn't true. It just means that it's faulty because the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. If you say 97% of scientists say global warming is a problem that must be solved right away, therefore we should endure every hardship to stop it. The conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premise that 97% of scientists claim it. Scientific consensus can be wrong. But. The fallacy used doesn't make the conclusion wrong. It's that this conclusion, to be logical, depends on a better argument.




I admit that wording was clunky and imprecise. I think it's better stated as understanding of morals evolve as we apply them to new things. For example, I've said morals really deal with harming self or others in a malicious or careless way. Probably could use some other adjectives that explain the point better. For example, if humans had seen clearly that enslaving people causes harm, capturing people and selling them into slavery wouldn't have happened. But for most of human history, people enslaved other people. The thing that evolved wasn't the no-harm moral from which other morals sort of drill down into specificity. It was the specificity that evolved. A moral prinicple of individual liberty has always been there. But it took human social evolution a long time to derive language around it.


Don't we need to discover those as humans evolve socially? Mutilating children for gender ideology is immoral as ****, but 10 years ago most people didn't even know it existed. It would always be immoral, but now we have to recognize it.


This is how I should have stated it, except that it's more like layers of abstraction. So as morals evolve the applications become more fine grained. So golden rule, and maybe that gets applied to not maliciously killing people, not lying about people, not stealing people's stuff, etcetera.


I don't think we're all that far on what an objective moral is. Can we agree on this? That the underlying truth statement that establishes an objective moral should be falsifiable. If it's based on faith, then whose faith prevails? Yours? Well, everyone thinks their faith is true. You're no more convinced about yours than a Muslim is about his.


No, I think objective morals are generally obvious, which I think is why those are the ones that are widespread. Though the applications are not always obvious. That's why they became morals. Even subjective morals.


I think first you need to define murder so we understand it the same way. I say murder is the unjustified killing of a person. So there are really three things in that which make it less objective than you'd like it to be. "unjustified" and "person" are two. "Harm" is the third, which is implied by calling it a moral. Is it harm to end the exact beginning of what will become a person? It's unique human dna. Is it person? I think because of your underlying religious beliefs you view it as more absolute than it is, just like you view not taking the Lord's name in vein as more absolute than it is. From my perspective, as a moral, that puts it in the subjective category.



I thought I had explained the highlighted, that this is not my position and yet it's still in the discussion. Again, the history is an indicator of an objective moral. Lack of history is not proof that it's not. I'm not saying we should adjust our morals to align with history. I'm saying that if our morals do align with history, that confirms it's an objective moral.

I think my position is logically consistent the way I've laid it out. So I do think logical consistency matters. I think your faith is strong and you believe it to be the same as objectively true. So you're having a difficult time seeing the other perspective. But you're free to pinpoint exactly where you believe the logical inconsistencies are. Maybe I've overlooked something.


I can't believe we're still hung up on this point.


You can be logically consistent and still be wrong.


Yes, like I've said above and in other posts, I think morals drill down to greater specificity. The golden rule for example is probably at the pinnacle. Think of all the moral principles that do, and could flow from that.


Again, I'm using it as a test to determine if a moral is absolute. If it's universal across time and religions/cultures; something everyone recognizes, that's obviously not a subjective local opinion. It's true for pretty much everyone. It had some common thing that connects it to everyone. I think that should answer the question.


It was non-surgical. So they'd engage in activities that would often cause miscarriages. That's my recollection of the reading.


No, I used it as evidence that it's not historically, universally considered immoral. Even the catholic church was down with abortion in very specific circumstances in the middle ages.






I'd state it more that I'm saying that outright banning abortion as it looks to me is morally relative to a subset of society. Basically Christians, Jews, and some secular conservatives. So that's why I've been asking you to make the case that it is morally absolute. If it were morally absolute, it should be more obvious to society. But as it is today, it's considered extreme by the mainstream. It's outside of Overton's window. Society is just not at the same place with the law you want. And to the topic of this thread, there are political consequences. It can cost elections. I suspect it had a lot to do with the petered out red wave of 2022.



I kinda explained it in the section above. If it's objectively right, it should be more obvious that it's wrong. And I think more people would be in a place where they would not consider outright bans extreme. If it's only "wrong" for a subset of the population, that's not the basis for policies that people will tolerate. For years the policy was first trimester. And people were mostly okay with that, except the extremists. And about that, abortion on demand up to birth is considered extreme by the mainstream according to polls. So the extreme policies are, outright banning of it, and on demand anytime up to birth.

Thank you for the thorough reply. My words are recharging right now, but just wanted to let you know that I'm not ignoring you, and I'll rply as son a I thy rchrg...

 

[KLB]

Talk about TL/DR. You two need to get a room.

 

[BugI02]

But I don't support the current legal standard. I think the death penalty should be abolished. It would be possible to make a law that says abortion is murder, and simultaneously abolish the death penalty, or at least amend the current laws regarding murder to specify that the death penalty would not be sought if the person committing the murder was the mother of the victim, and the victim was unborn. I would fully support the former, and support the latter as at least a good first step.

 

[JTScribe]

BTW, whether you agree with his positions on the issue or not, everyone should be thanking @jamil for his well-thought out discourse.

I don't write that much without charging for it.

 

[jamil]

Talk about TL/DR. You two need to get a room.

Taking too long to scroll past?

 

[AndreusMaximus]

I don’t want to keep going around in circles about this, but I do want to try address the disconnect I am seeing between our arguments.

Murder, the crime, is specifically defined as a capital offense.

Treating abortion as murder means abortion is a capital offense…by definition.

Any and every capital offense is carries the risk of capital punishment, again…by definition.

If you support treating abortion as murder under US law, then you support capital punishment for abortion…by definition.

This is not a straw argument...if abortion itself does not warrant capital punishment abortion itself does not rise to the level of a capital crime

There is no way around it…if you support abortion as murder you support capital punishment for abortion…by definition.



Your example is not logically consistent.

“If every time a child dies in utero is an act of manslaughter”

…this is only true where a legal expectation of live birth is afforded to the unborn, which does not currently occur in US law, but would be true under “Abortion is Murder”.

“then why doesn’t classifying infanticide as murder do the same thing for a child dying outside the womb.”

I don’t follow your logic here. Infanticide is most commonly defined as murder of a dependent aged less than 12 months.

Abortion is not legally defined as murder, so it cannot meet the legal definition of infanticide.

Is there another example you can use to illustrate this point? I want to avoid talking past one another on this point…it seems to be central to your position, and I want to be sure I understand the point as you intend to make it.



I think you are conflating your (perfectly valid) moral perspective with the legal definition of a right to life.

Being conceived does not grant a person legal rights…being born does.



I am arguing from a different perspective than you, nothing more.



Because these people exist entirely within another person, and the rights of that person take primacy.



That is probably due to an excess of ambiguity in my writing style…and I am most certainly guilty.

Legal right are an attempt to protect human rights, but are not a 1:1 analogue. The law doesn’t create human rights, it creates legal rights, and every one of those contain unintended consequences that must be addressed.



This is where politics intersects with morality, and rational arguments are only one part of this landscape. When discussing political influence emotional, spiritual, and broader social attitudes are just as valid in moving the needle, and this thread seems to be geared toward discussion of the political effects of abortion more than the underlying morality involved,

New reply below, also added as an edit to my previous reply:

After walking away from this for a bit, I think I may have realized a disconnect I have been having.

At first, I thought you were arguing one or both of:

1) That it is impossible for one to believe that abortion is murder without it logically following that a woman who gets an abortion should receive the death sentence, and that miscarriage is manslaughter

2) That is is impossible to devise a system of laws in which abortion is defined as murder without making it so that a woman who gets an abortion will receive the death sentence, and that a woman who miscarries will be charged with manslaughter

I think it may have finally clicked with me that you are not claiming either of those things, but merely pointing out that, with our legal definitions as they currently stand, if we legally define abortion as murder, then women who get an abortion may be given the death sentence, and women who miscarry may be charged with manslaughter.

If the above is correct, then I apologize, and will admit that you are actually right, and that is a problem that needs to be addressed and corrected if the law were ever to be changed to define abortion as murder.

 

[jamil]

BTW, whether you agree with his positions on the issue or not, everyone should be thanking @jamil for his well-thought out discourse.

I don't write that much without charging for it.

Thanks. Writing helps us think things through. That’s the payoff.

 

[AndreusMaximus]

I get that. I'm thinking through the reply on the keyboard. So it becomes a thought stream instead of thinking it, then parsing it into a short answer. I just cut out the middle man.


I'm going to assume you wanted me to give an example of objectively false given the second line. Also, we agreed on my definition of objectively true. My definition of objectively false just flips the bit.

I gave you examples of subjectively true. To you, I'm sure you believe in "thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vein." But that's a subjective truth. It's only true for religious people. Consider unknown truths. A claim of truth where the truth value is actually unknowable, that's always going to be a subjective truth. Subjective truths can actually turn out to be true. Should I really not take the Lord's name in vein? I suspect you're sure of the answer to the affirmative. I suspect not, but it's not testable; not falsifiable, so one can't know. It's subjective.

Some more thought stream here. Morals usually are based on some form of harm to others or self. Bearing false witness is wrong. Deception for the purpose of harm, or personal gain without regard to harm of others, is morally wrong. It's universally true. So I think that to explain subjective morals within this context would be a moral statement that asserts some kind of harm that isn't apparent universally. It's not apparent to me that taking the Lord's name in vein is actually causing harm. I would have to believe in the religion to think that it does.


Is this not a reason we both would call it a subjective moral? It's only true for the people who think that. Believing that one's left hand is inherently unclean (and I don't know enough about this belief to say "inherently" applies) fulfills the purpose of morals. It prevents self-harm by its adherents. It's what I call "accidentally true". But, the underlying premise is incomplete; outdated. It's one way to avoid ingesting harmful bacteria. Is there something sacred about cleanliness? A lot of religions have that concept.



Now do the first few of the 10 commandments, which relate to your moral commitment to God. Those presume facts not falsifiable. If you believe in a "truth" that is unfalsifiable, it doesn't mean the thing you believe is false. It means you can't test it to prove it's false, so by definition it is a subjective moral.

Take the rest of the 10 commandments. Those are objective morals. Disobeying those morals objectively causes harm to others or yourself. It's testable.


But it is subjectively true for the reasons I stated above. It meets the definition of subjective truth. Which, wouldn't you use the same reasoning to determine whether we should legislate not taking the Lord's name in vein to abortion then? You believe it's true, but because secular reasoning alone cannot perceive the harm, should you legislate that?


Sure. Take "argument from authority". It's a logical fallacy. It doesn't mean that the conclusion isn't true. It just means that it's faulty because the conclusion doesn't follow from the premise. If you say 97% of scientists say global warming is a problem that must be solved right away, therefore we should endure every hardship to stop it. The conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premise that 97% of scientists claim it. Scientific consensus can be wrong. But. The fallacy used doesn't make the conclusion wrong. It's that this conclusion, to be logical, depends on a better argument.




I admit that wording was clunky and imprecise. I think it's better stated as understanding of morals evolve as we apply them to new things. For example, I've said morals really deal with harming self or others in a malicious or careless way. Probably could use some other adjectives that explain the point better. For example, if humans had seen clearly that enslaving people causes harm, capturing people and selling them into slavery wouldn't have happened. But for most of human history, people enslaved other people. The thing that evolved wasn't the no-harm moral from which other morals sort of drill down into specificity. It was the specificity that evolved. A moral prinicple of individual liberty has always been there. But it took human social evolution a long time to derive language around it.


Don't we need to discover those as humans evolve socially? Mutilating children for gender ideology is immoral as ****, but 10 years ago most people didn't even know it existed. It would always be immoral, but now we have to recognize it.


This is how I should have stated it, except that it's more like layers of abstraction. So as morals evolve the applications become more fine grained. So golden rule, and maybe that gets applied to not maliciously killing people, not lying about people, not stealing people's stuff, etcetera.


I don't think we're all that far on what an objective moral is. Can we agree on this? That the underlying truth statement that establishes an objective moral should be falsifiable. If it's based on faith, then whose faith prevails? Yours? Well, everyone thinks their faith is true. You're no more convinced about yours than a Muslim is about his.


No, I think objective morals are generally obvious, which I think is why those are the ones that are widespread. Though the applications are not always obvious. That's why they became morals. Even subjective morals.


I think first you need to define murder so we understand it the same way. I say murder is the unjustified killing of a person. So there are really three things in that which make it less objective than you'd like it to be. "unjustified" and "person" are two. "Harm" is the third, which is implied by calling it a moral. Is it harm to end the exact beginning of what will become a person? It's unique human dna. Is it person? I think because of your underlying religious beliefs you view it as more absolute than it is, just like you view not taking the Lord's name in vein as more absolute than it is. From my perspective, as a moral, that puts it in the subjective category.



I thought I had explained the highlighted, that this is not my position and yet it's still in the discussion. Again, the history is an indicator of an objective moral. Lack of history is not proof that it's not. I'm not saying we should adjust our morals to align with history. I'm saying that if our morals do align with history, that confirms it's an objective moral.

I think my position is logically consistent the way I've laid it out. So I do think logical consistency matters. I think your faith is strong and you believe it to be the same as objectively true. So you're having a difficult time seeing the other perspective. But you're free to pinpoint exactly where you believe the logical inconsistencies are. Maybe I've overlooked something.


I can't believe we're still hung up on this point.


You can be logically consistent and still be wrong.


Yes, like I've said above and in other posts, I think morals drill down to greater specificity. The golden rule for example is probably at the pinnacle. Think of all the moral principles that do, and could flow from that.


Again, I'm using it as a test to determine if a moral is absolute. If it's universal across time and religions/cultures; something everyone recognizes, that's obviously not a subjective local opinion. It's true for pretty much everyone. It had some common thing that connects it to everyone. I think that should answer the question.


It was non-surgical. So they'd engage in activities that would often cause miscarriages. That's my recollection of the reading.


No, I used it as evidence that it's not historically, universally considered immoral. Even the catholic church was down with abortion in very specific circumstances in the middle ages.






I'd state it more that I'm saying that outright banning abortion as it looks to me is morally relative to a subset of society. Basically Christians, Jews, and some secular conservatives. So that's why I've been asking you to make the case that it is morally absolute. If it were morally absolute, it should be more obvious to society. But as it is today, it's considered extreme by the mainstream. It's outside of Overton's window. Society is just not at the same place with the law you want. And to the topic of this thread, there are political consequences. It can cost elections. I suspect it had a lot to do with the petered out red wave of 2022.



I kinda explained it in the section above. If it's objectively right, it should be more obvious that it's wrong. And I think more people would be in a place where they would not consider outright bans extreme. If it's only "wrong" for a subset of the population, that's not the basis for policies that people will tolerate. For years the policy was first trimester. And people were mostly okay with that, except the extremists. And about that, abortion on demand up to birth is considered extreme by the mainstream according to polls. So the extreme policies are, outright banning of it, and on demand anytime up to birth.

Okay, I've got a few words back from the charger now, but I'm still gonna try to keep this relatively brief before I run out again, lol.

So if you don't mind, I'll try to repeat back to you what your position is, as I understand it, and you tell me what I got right and what I got wrong.

jamil believes that:

"True" means that something matches reality; something that is, in fact, the case, regardless of what people think about it

"Objectively true" means that something is true, but ALSO that it can be demonstrated to be true with evidence; it is falsifiable and verifiable

"Subjectively true" means that something is believed to be true by some, and it may or may not happen to be true, but it cannot be proven to be true or false

"False", "Objectively false", and "Subjective false" are of course the same as the above, just opposite.

A subjective moral, therefore, is a moral that some people believe in, but their reasons for believing in it are things that cannot be proven or disproven, like their religion. The moral may or may not actually align with truth, but it can't be proven either way.

An objective moral is a moral that can be proven to be true.

Objective morals should have some sort of widespread acceptance across multiple societies and/or time periods, that's one of the ways we know they're objective.

If something has not seen widespread acceptance across multiple societies/time periods, that is evidence that it is not an objective moral. However, the inverse is not true. Just because something has seen widespread acceptance across societies/cultures, is not to be taken as proof that it is an objective moral.

As humanity's understanding of objective morals grows and fleshes out, things that were previously only subjective morals, or were even entirely unknown, may become objective morals once enough evidence is built for them.

 

[jamil]

Mostly true.

If something has not seen widespread acceptance across multiple societies/time periods, that is evidence that it is not an objective moral. However, the inverse is not true. Just because something has seen widespread acceptance across societies/cultures, is not to be taken as proof that it is an objective moral.

If something has not seen universal belief as a moral standard, I’ll say it this way, its signal suggests the moral is relative. In contrast the universality of a moral gives a strong signal that a moral is objective.

We’re saying that an objective moral is always objectively true, always has been always will be, whether people recognize it or not. So then there should be evidence of that across time and cultures/religions. At least as far as we can tell. So then such evidence tends to prove there is a commonality to it that wouldn’t exist if it were subjective.

So one could say, eating pizza with pineapple is objectively immoral. I can go to the google machine, and yes. I see all through the results, across time, all the cultures have shunned people who ruin a good pizza with pineapples, since the beginning of time. In fact the ancient Minoans on Crete used to stone people for ruining pizza by sneaking slimy pineapples on it.

 

[LeftyGunner]

New reply below, also added as an edit to my previous reply:

After walking away from this for a bit, I think I may have realized a disconnect I have been having.

At first, I thought you were arguing one or both of:

1) That it is impossible for one to believe that abortion is murder without it logically following that a woman who gets an abortion should receive the death sentence, and that miscarriage is manslaughter

2) That is is impossible to devise a system of laws in which abortion is defined as murder without making it so that a woman who gets an abortion will receive the death sentence, and that a woman who miscarries will be charged with manslaughter

I think it may have finally clicked with me that you are not claiming either of those things, but merely pointing out that, with our legal definitions as they currently stand, if we legally define abortion as murder, then women who get an abortion may be given the death sentence, and women who miscarry may be charged with manslaughter.

If the above is correct, then I apologize, and will admit that you are actually right, and that is a problem that needs to be addressed and corrected if the law were ever to be changed to define abortion as murder.

Okay, this is good…I like this…I don’t expect you to agree with my point, but I am certain that you understand the argument I was making. I really appreciate the follow-up response. I felt like I was making a solid argument, but I could see it was just not landing.

I run into this problem with Jamil from time to time, and with IngoMike fairly regularly…we end up having a misunderstanding because I am defining a base term differently from them, and I don’t always do a good enough job of making that clear in my writing.

I think it’s a problem in broader mass communication as well. Since we are so free to choose information we like, and to ignore information we don’t like, we risk giving over to our own biases in ways we don’t necessarily understand and cannot well guard against. I think this creates a massive risk of groupthink and narrative truth overwhelming fact-based truths in our base assumptions…we literally start using the same terms to mean different things, and it only furthers the divide between us by breaking down our ability to communicate our ideas with one another effectively.

You see it here on INGO all the time, too…people make great points, but they don’t address the points made elsewhere in the thread, and we end up with two groups each making well-reasoned and passionate arguments that have absolutely nothing to do with the posts they are replying to…I know I am guilty of that, as well.

It’s this sort of thing that keeps me coming back here, I think there is more common ground between our perspectives than we often want to admit, or maybe even realize, and discussions like this can help to get us closer to common ground.

 

[Shadow01]

GOP's do enjoy losing elections, and getting their abortion ban reversed. Win/win for the left in the long run.

Abortion and weed are the two traps the conservatives would fall without failure.

Just because a large group supports robbing banks doesn’t mean it’s a moral position to run on.

 

[jamil]

My only interest in the "murder" subtopic is to explore the logical consequences.

If abortion is murder, then it's logical and realistic to assume that she and the practitioner should be charged as any murderer would be charged. If you say, I think it's murder, but I don't want the mother penalty to be as harsh as it is for any other murderer (outside of blue states, because they think murder is cool). If you call it murder, and you don't want the same penalties that murderers get, it seems logically inconsistent with believing abortion is murder.

Okay, so let's get accurate. If you believe abortion is murder, what is a fair penalty for the mother? The practitioner? How would that work in the legal system? Would you want to create a special class of murder?

We're of course talking about theoretical policies in red states because blue ones will celebrate the mother's "choice", throw money and fame at her, have marches. Show their boobies. Wear pink hats shaped like ****ies. And that's just the "men".