Pro-Life

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chrys Stevenson on October 16, 2008 at 7:57pm

Thank you Felch! That's the best laugh I've had in weeks. I have tears running down my cheeks right now. You are the Greek Chorus in the Jim Ashby roadshow.

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Permalink Reply by George Kane on October 16, 2008 at 11:11pm

Deleted, as edits created limitations in length.

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Permalink Reply by George Kane on October 16, 2008 at 11:24pm

Jim Ashby wrote on October 16 Jim Ashby's position supported and repeated by Sen. Obama in final presidential debate (see below)! Even the future President, who supports abortion, recognizes the common sense of my own argument repeated, ad nauseam, here.

The REASON others have tried (unsuccessfully) to misrepresent my position is precisely because it's reasonable and common sense -- there's nothing there to criticize, so they twist the message into something they CAN criticize. Things like denying women their abortions, or a hateful, misogynistic view of women, or there's something wrong with the word responsibility.

Jim, it is true that Obama has a solid pro-choice record, and asserts that “We should try to prevent unintended pregnancies by providing appropriate education to our youth,” and that sexuality … should not be engaged in cavalier activity.” But no one on these boards has ever contested these points. There was no reason to comment on them, as everyone here favors education as a means of reducing irresponsible sexual conduct that results in undesired and harmful pregnancies.

Your position that provokes my sharp rebuke for its renunciation of personal responsibility is that “responsibility is proactive -- NOT after the fact.” You have stated in other posts that your focus is on women who became pregnant because of “irresponsible sex.” That irresponsibility is to risk giving birth when they are not prepared to accept the responsibilities of parenting, women whose future may be ruined by their lost opportunity for education and to pursue a career, women who cannot give to their child a secure and loving home because they have no life-partner nor family support.

I think that each woman, when she makes her first prenatal visit to the doctor, should be given a survey to fill out, with questions such as “Are you married?” and “Do you have secure and adequate income to provide for a child?” They should be given a key for self-scoring the survey to learn if they are not able at the present time to provide a home environment that is likely to lead to a successful parenting outcome. They should be told where they can receive counseling and abortion services. This is the best measure that I can suggest to promote a responsible abortion decision. I would not include in the survey a question “Did you become pregnant through irresponsible sex?” That would add no information of consequence to the decision.

Jim Ashby continued The sanctity of human life is not absolute but it should be respected and preserved to the extent possible. A cavalier attitude to abortion is just as wrong as a cavalier attitude to war or the death penalty.

You are also quite presumptuous, Jim, to accuse anyone on this board of a “cavalier attitude to abortion.” I’ve done what I could to show you that the value that you find in fetal life is not objective, but your individual moral preference. I realize that you think that fetal value is a prori, so that there must be some defect in people who do not see it as clearly as you. I wish that there were broader participation on this board, so that you can see that most people consider the position that an amorphous, microscopic mass of undifferentiated cells is completely daft.

I do not hold that position. Most people hold fervently to an equally strong moral intuition that truly late term abortion is murder, when the only difference between the fetus and a newborn is its “address,” inside or outside the womb. And so they look for some medically definable point to affix the protections of “personhood.” Indeed, this is even the position taken by the leading groups lobbying for legal abortion.

My own contribution to such discussions is to point out the confusion between medical facts and the act of valuation. As I see it, whether people argue that the “right to life” should be fixed at conception or brain waves or heartbeat or responsiveness to stimulus or viability or some calendar-defined date, they are engaging in an argument over personal moral preferences. That is not an argument that anyone can ever win. It is like arguing for Pepsi or Coke.

I don’t think that if we restrict the discussion to the medical attributes of the fetus that we can ever overcome the gap between fact and value. We can perhaps reach a social agreement on a time we call “personhood,” but that is just a personal preference becoming a social preference,. In order to turn the discussion to objective facts we have to look beyond the intrinsic attributes of the fetus to extrinsic effects on others.

I believe that my argument is unique, but at least it’s rare. I have enjoyed a few discussions with pro-choice opponents, that were thought-provoking and enjoyable. But you, Jim, have never raised the discussion. Rather, you repeat the same points that have already been rebutted, never showing any development in your argument.

Jim Ashby continued Abortions are legal and they should stay legal. But that doesn't mean they should be routine. From the very beginning of this debate, I've advocated education/counseling to ameliorate "irresponsible abortions" (abortions due to the intentional disregard of contraception). And, surprise, surprise . . . so does staunch pro-choicer Barack Obama.

Why do you keep bringing up Barack Obama? Do you think we will be impressed by his position on this question? Atheists have no leaders, and Obama’ promise to expand the Office of Community and Faith-based Initiative show that he is not a reliable advocate of separation of Church and State.

Bill Clinton also campaigned on the slogan that abortions should be legal, available and rare. I think that it is completely wrong to set a decline in the number of abortions performed as a goal. It is not evidence that the quality of life has gotten better or worse. A decline in abortions may mean nothing more than that in 15 years we should expect a crime wave.

Jim Ashby continued Some of the dishonest debaters here have relied on safety in numbers instead of reasonable, rational, honest argments. That's too bad, it would have been interesting to go somewhere other than circles.

You’ve been given many invitations to expand the discussion into new areas, but have always chosen instead to repeat a circle of previously rebutted arguments. I have never called you a bonehead, or replied to you with guffaws rather than reasoned arguments. I’m sure that you’ve scoured this folder for any instances of me misrepresenting your positions, or posting dishonestly. If there were any such instances, you would have posted them by now.

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on October 17, 2008 at 12:47am

Jim Ashby:

Hi Felch,

Finally, you write more than a paragraph.

My position has been steadfast from the beginning. It easy to hurl criticisms when you don't even participate. Now, if only you could provide actual examples. It should be easy, since I've written so much.

No shit ?

Like you said, people usually back up their claims with some sort of support.

OK, you've made me waste 2 hours of my life. Grepping words used in your posts in this thread -

apologist - 8
b.s. / bull / crap - 27
consistent(ly) - 29
conviction(s) - 31
denial(s) / deny - 54
dishonest - 18
disrespect - 5
distortion(s) / distorted / distorting - 53
fact(s) - 81
fallacy - 10
immoral - 10
irresponsible / irresponsibility - 153
misogynist(ic) - 17
misrepresentation(s) / misrepresent - 59
moral(s)(ity) - 256 (!)
out of context - 11
politically correct - 6
pro-choice - 75
responsibility / responsible - 301 (!)
ridiculous - 13
right to life - 26
spin - 59
strawman - 14
value(s) - 169

I gave up after those. I have to cook dinner.

Circular ? Dogmatic ? Pedantic ? Relentless ? Impenetrable ?

Were I to fully participate, they are the words that would pop up in a search of my responses.

You've missed your calling Jim. You shoulda been a preacher or a Republican speech writer.

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Permalink Reply by George Kane on October 17, 2008 at 8:49pm

I just thought of an analogy to my discussion with Jim Ashby. He is like a politician who has said that we should not have invaded Iraq, but now that we are there, we should stay until we win. His opponent criticizes him for supporting an expensive, brutal and futile war, so he responds indignantly that he has said all along that we should not be in Iraq in the first place. He denounces his opponent for misrepresenting his position by focusing on the question of whether we should withdraw troops now. When his opponent challenges him to state that he will bring the troops home, he responds with a long list of quotes from his earlier speeches showing that he has consistently stated that we should never have invaded in the first place.

Does this sound right to everyone?

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Permalink Reply by Chrys Stevenson on October 17, 2008 at 9:52pm

Sounds spot on to me, but you know damn well he's gonna come back and tell you you're a liar and you're twisting his words and misrepresenting his case and taking his quotes out of context. You're a patient man, George but I think Jim's not open to intelligent discussion. As soon as he finds his position's unpopular, he tries to wiggle out of the unpopular bit without retracting anything that he's said. It's actually rather fun to watch - a bit like those contortionists you see in the circus. Frankly, it takes talent to be that obtuse.

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Permalink Reply by George Kane on October 17, 2008 at 10:47pm

Thank you, Kristy, I am afraid that you are right. Jim is inflexible to the slightest degree. It would be simple for him to ammend his points to accommodate your objections and recognize the ethical responsibility of men in unplanned pregnancies. But it seems that he is not willing to do so because it would require stating things differently than he has in the past

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on October 18, 2008 at 3:50am

George Kane: I just thought of an analogy to my discussion with Jim Ashby. He is like a politician who has said that we should not have invaded Iraq, but now that we are there, we should stay until we win. His opponent criticizes him for supporting an expensive, brutal and futile war, so he responds indignantly that he has said all along that we should not be in Iraq in the first place. He denounces his opponent for misrepresenting his position by focusing on the question of whether we should withdraw troops now. When his opponent challenges him to state that he will bring the troops home, he responds with a long list of quotes from his earlier speeches showing that he has consistently stated that we should never have invaded in the first place.

Quoted in entirety. You are precisely right. Jim is a Right Man, master manipulator of linguistics, rampant abuser of semantics, semiotics, syntactics, and advanced propagandist extraordinaire. Admitting error is seppuku. The conundrum is that I would bet my right testicle he knows nothing whatsoever of the above. He is an idiot savant to which it comes naturally. One wonders where history would have taken him if he was around in Germany when the Weimar Republic collapsed. Scary.

Kristy Vensson: Sounds spot on to me, but you know damn well he's gonna come back and tell you you're a liar and you're twisting his words and misrepresenting his case and taking his quotes out of context. You're a patient man, George but I think Jim's not open to intelligent discussion. As soon as he finds his position's unpopular, he tries to wiggle out of the unpopular bit without retracting anything that he's said. It's actually rather fun to watch - a bit like those contortionists you see in the circus. Frankly, it takes talent to be that obtuse.

I addressed this surgically. He has more in common with a door-to-door mormon than he'd care to admit. If that realisation ever penetrates the brutish consciousness, I expect a complete meltdown would occur.

I feel soiled merely sharing the same forum. I will never address his arguments, but I will continue this game of rubbing his nose in his own doo-doo. My list of his language useage has seemed to shut him up. For now. As for people in the forum, I just say "don't go there. Trust me. Its not worth it"

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Permalink Reply by George Kane on October 18, 2008 at 7:52am

Thanks, Felch, for linking to that excellent article on "The Right Man." Most of the frustration dealing with Jim is that he cannot discuss ideas, but only insist that he is right.

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on October 18, 2008 at 9:09am

Jim is silent. Maybe he's reading the links. Maybe he's killed himsellf. Maybe his long suffering wife did it for him.

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on October 19, 2008 at 1:40am

Jim,

I won't argue with you. Period.

When your are capable of constructing an argument that does not involve cheap manipulation of language in lieu of clear, concise, uncharged language, then maybe I'll respond.

In the meantime, I won't let your crimes against clear, honest communication go unchallenged. You are a semantic terrorist. Nothing is to low. Infinity falls short of how often you can recycle the same garbage. Hubris is your substitute for pride, shame and self-respect: you cling to it with white knuckles. Your abuses of dialectic are beyond your capacity to comprehend.

You bring shame to Atheist Nexus.

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Permalink Reply by Фелч Гроган on October 24, 2008 at 5:35am

"LoL" like "OMG" is the true sign of a reetard.

You're not in a position to call anyone "stupid", unless they're about to get life support pulled through brain death.

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