Does anyone want to discuss Thomson?
utdallas.edu/~jfg021000/thomson.html
While I think that it admits too much, I think that it does offer a very different way of framing the debate and considering the angles of the debate.
Ironically, I have more trouble unplugging the violinist than I do with abortion! But, if one accepts the full personhood of fertilized embryo, then I think it provides an interesting alternative to the situation.
Thompson’s opening paragraph reads as follows:
"{47} Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception. The premise is argued for, but, as I think, not well. Take, for example, the most common argument. We are asked to notice that the development of a human being from conception through birth into childhood is continuous; then it is said that to draw a line, to choose a point in this development and say “before this point the thing is not a person, after this point it is a person” is to make an arbitrary choice, a choice for which in the nature of things no good reason can be given. It is concluded that the fetus is, or anyway that we had better say it is, a person from the moment of conception. But this conclusion does not follow. Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak tree, and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that we had better say they are. Arguments of this form are sometimes called “slippery slope arguments"—the phrase is perhaps self-explanatory—and it is dismaying that opponents of abortion rely on them so heavily and uncritically.”
In her very first paragraph she commits an error of analogy.
She contrasts acorns to oak trees, saying that they are not the same in the same way that a conception is not a human being.
But she errors in her conclusion by virtue of the use of the word “trees”.
No one who is saying that a conception is a human being is saying that a conception is a more mature baby or adult.
So no one should be rationally saying that an acorn is a more mature tree.
Yet, she does, simply by making the comparison, which she then states is false “like a conception isn’t a human being”. But her apples to oranges comparison renders her analogy inapplicable and in error.
An acorn is an oak, just not a more mature “tree” yet.
Just like a conception is a human being, just not a more mature “baby” or “adult” yet.
Acorn and tree are growth stages of the oak.
Conception and baby and adult are growth stages of the human being.
Thus, a conception is most certainly a human being, a person, and indeed a conception is the beginning of that person.
Though it is impossible to tell for 100% certainty that she deliberately presented in an intentionally misleading manner, commiting an outright lie, all things considered, I would say it’s highly likely that someone of her level of intelligence would know better, and so it is highly likely that she indeed presented intentionally to be misleading, in effect, lying.
That is indeed the nature of the pro-choice denial mechanism in this issue: to commit outright errors of fact but intentionally phrase those errors in a way so that the lie they are attempting to tell is “whitened” and their error is “subtly” hidden.
Thus I have no desire to read the rest of her very likely error-strewn and purposely misleading presentation.
It’s likely laced with other similar and intentionally made errors of fact.
She has already concluded that she wants abortion, so she contrives in support of it, contrivances that are abviously based on false claims.
And thus her entire report is truly meaningless with respect to the truth of the matter.
Edit: Upon further reflection, I made a false claim in this post. Mick in England.
And once again, we see that you have totally and completely missed the forests for the trees.
The Master admonished a pupil for thinking three times before he acted, joking that twice was quite enough. But you’ve failed to think even once.
The article, if you bothered to actually read any of it (which you clearly didn’t) is about how to go about justifying abortion while admitting that birth begins at conception. She admits at the beginning (it is called a preamble, perhaps you are familiar with this term?) that she does not hold this view. Declaring biases and whatnot, you know, good, sound things that one ought do at the start of an argument. She goes on to say what one would do if they were to accept that life does, indeed, begin at the moment of conception.
I don’t think I’ve ever called anyone on ILP stupid before. Misguided, yes. Horribly incorrect . . . more times than I can count. Closed-minded? Oh, lord yes. Flawed in their logic? Ha! Nearly everyday. Terribly uniformed? Oh . . . at least twice a week. I should like to think that you aren’t stupid.
But I will leave you with this parting thought:
“Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever.” - Aristophanes
???
Meaningless.
There was nothing here to miss.
You are now obviously fabricating.
What you are really saying is that I appropriately debunked this report from the get-go and that bothers you.
I suppose you have your reasons.
I obviously read the first paragraph.
You appear to have a tendency to miss the obvious.
No it’s not.
The spirit of her report is to end up concluding that a human being does not begin to live at conception.
And your phrase “birth begins at conception” needs some work.
If you are saying that “she admits at the beginning that she does not hold the view that a person begins at conception”, yes, that’s obvious from her opening paragraph that I quoted.
If you are saying that “she admits at the beginning that she does not hold the view that a person doesn’t begin at conception”, that is an obviously false statement.
Her opening paragraph that I quoted is not a “preamble” and it is nothing special with respect to the rest of the article.
She doesn’t “declare” biases, as if to point out what is a bias and what isn’t.
She presents biasedLY, with a very apparent intentional desire to mislead.
Here is the closing paragraph of her report:
“At this place, however, it should be remembered that we have only been pretending throughout that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. A very early abortion is surely not the killing of a person, and so is not dealt with by anything I have said here.”
Any attempts she may have made to “unjustify abortion on the grounds that a human being begins with conception” are likely loaded with errors of logic, subject analogy, etc. so that she hopes the reader will conclude for herself that such arguments are obviously flawed.
Then she finishes with her final paragraph to climax the reader in the conclusion that a human being doesn’t begin to live at conception.
Clearly Thompson is trying to mentally masturbate the reader’s mind.
Her presentation is laced with sophism.
She is clearly pro-choice and in denial that a human being, a person, begins to live at conception, and the entire point of her article is to rebut the pro-life and anti-abortion perspective.
End of story.
Mirror, mirror, on the wall. 
And, you appear easily seduced by people like Thompson.
And well you unconsiously know the truth of it … that you project unto me.
Read the whole thing.
Get back to me, eh?
It is honestly comical how you prove my point while trying to refute it. This is the second time you’ve done it unambiguously.
coughs
So, if one decides not to get horribly stuck in the preamble, one sees this:
“I propose, then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. How does the argument go from here? Something like this, I take it. Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body; everyone would grant that. But surely a person’s right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother’s right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed.”
Honestly. That paragraph was visible on my computer screen when I loaded the page. If it were buried somewhere way down, I could see missing it (I skim too from time-to-time). But it is the third paragraph! Come on!
THINK!
I scanned it.
It is as I presented it.
There’s no need to read the entire thing in detail.
If you think it’s something other than what I’ve presented, you have been duped.
Given that you were unable to present the basic argument given in the article, any of them actually since there were several, and instead attacked minutae in the preamble, I am pretty certain that you didn’t scan it.
Since this isn’t a face-to-face conversation, I will pretend that you won’t re-click that link as you give me an actual critique beyond the preamble.
How about that?
“THINK!”?
You should take your own advice.
Thompson sets up that strawman simply to knock it down with flawed “supporting” arguments.
Her final paragraph which I previously quoted appears to be something you didn’t read … or grasp its relationship to her entire presentaiton.
Enough of this thread for now.
I’ll leave you to your fantasies.
There is that whole middle bit ya missed.
Eh?
I was more interested in the first argument anyway, you know, the violinist that I talked about?
I’ll make it easier for you:
Here comes the airplane!
The rest is teasing details out of that situation.
Xunzain, I didn’t read the whole thing…yet, but i have two comments on the first few paragraphs.
The oak and acorn argument is one I use myself, only against abortion. I merely add the premise that we hold oaks as sacred and ask what then is the value to us of a fertilised sprouting acorn.
The analogy of the sinister music lovers falls flat since procreation (in the vast majority of cases) is done by choice – sometines in the hope of cheating nature of it’s end, but the act itself is voluntary.
Now, back to reading…
First argument, abortion to save the life of the mother. I’ve heard it argued by a fellow pro-lifer that the woman in this position has a heroic choice to make, but that we also expect heroic actions from men in the military.
Fifth argument, considering duration of time. I think is is still unjust to ask someone to use their body even for an hour, but it may be merciful for them to allow it – and that seems almost a part of civic virtue.
Seventh argument, that there is no social responsibility for the child from the mother. I have argued above in point (2) that there is an explicit or implicit assumption of responsibility.
I could make other points, but those ones stand out as problems.
The argument of the Minimally Decent Samaritan was interesting – I’m not sure I’d heard issues of mercy and justice put that way before.
Done.
Would it matter for #2 if the person were an organ donor?
Then they would have certainly expressed interest in having their body used by another, just not right now.
I could certainly argue that everytime you get behind the wheel of car, you are engaging in an activity where your organs might get harvested. So, because she (presumably) drives a car, she has consented to have the violinist use her organs.
It’s important to notice that she does not try to claim that all abortion is permissible. She merely claims that some is, and that the specifics are hairy. She ends up addressing most unwanted prgnancies, because her argument covers failed contraception, rape, drunken debauchery, etc. I suppose I don’t know the statistics, but given the trauma and expense of abortion, I imgaine that a significant percentage of abortions are pardonned by her argument.
I find it interesting that she ends up supporting repeatedly the idea that people are worse people for having an abortion, that it is a mean thing to do. I don’t agree with it, but it seems to be inescapable if it is granted that life begins at conception.
But it is not the purpose of driving a car to crash it.
The analogy doesn’t hold true.