Currently Online 
JuliusHackebeil said:
The abortion example was a bit of a gamble, but with your response that gamble sure paid off. You said: "Saying I support abortion can not be said to be hateful, toxic, or demeaning to anyone who might be reading that post." Let's put that to the test and substitute one category of people with another. Instead of preborn humans, let's talk about the Sami people from Scandinavia. How does that sound to you: I support the genocide of the Sami people. Yikes. You might disagree of course, saying that abortion is not a genocide. But it is 73 million people murdered per year. To many, a way bigger crime against humanity than the holocaust. Still can't be hateful, toxic or demeaning? |
Hmmmm. Abortion is worse than the holocaust. Ok then.
Your initial point was that someone might be offended if they had an abortion and regretted it. You're now moving the goalposts, but I'll chase them for a moment.
The reason I'm posting this is because it is designed to parody the silly position you are trying to argue. You are arguing that it is hateful... to whom? Do you think that I hate fetuses? Like, I just wake up thinking "grrrrr... those damn fetuses are ruinging everything"? Ffs
The group of people who are or were preborn humans is all the humans. Do you genuinely think that there are any people significant number of people who think that all fetuses should be destroyed? Or that we need to kick all of the fetuses out of America so that we can be an all post-born society? Does anyone believe that fetuses are genetically inferior and need to be removed from the gene pool? Arguing that "preborn humans" is a category of humans in the same way Jewish, Sami, or Japanese is is either dishonest or stupid. A more apt analogy would be to ageism, but even that is pretty dumb.
Supporting genocide, whether of Jewish people or Sami people, is hateful because it is saying that groups of people, members of which still exist incidentally, ought to be put to death. May be an interesting discussion of whether saying like, whether the genocide of the Amolokites was justified is hateful, but I think we are primarily concerned with extant peoples.
On the other hand, people who support a woman's right to abort a fetus (interesting you are using the term preborn human when we have one that already means that) are not saying they want every fetus destroyed, that they think fetuses are somehow bad or need to be punished, or that they want fetuses to die. It is not demeaning fetuses or hating them. It is simply saying that they are growing in a woman's body and if a woman wants to terminate that pregnancy she ought to be able to. I would say most supporters of abortion would prefer for virtually every fetus to be born. We just don't think it's right to make that decision on behalf of the person doing the birthing.
Just to clarify, in case there is any doubt, I have nothing against fetuses. They're cool with me. I actually prefer them in general to the post-born because a fetus has literally never done anything to piss me off while the post porn are always doing obnoxious shit.
I will though edit my statement on tolerance though to add the word unnecessarily. As in I am not tolerant of things that unnecessarily harm people. There are of course situations where it may be the best course of action to harm someone. For example, if someone were trying to attack you, harming them in self defense would be justified. And since you're clearly trying to be nitpicky, that is not a full summary of my morality, which would probably take more than a forum post to explain, so it's not going to be an airtight definition.
As for abortion, my stance is that first I think up to a certain point, a fetus is not a conscious being that can not experience harm. Up to this point, I don't have any particular qualm about abortion.
At a certain point, I would probably say there is a conscious being that can be harmed. However, I still would not support a ban on abortion. I believe strongly in bodily autonomy. I think the government telling you what you can do in or to your body is an extreme measure and something we should almost never allow. I don't think there is a coherent way to protect bodily autonomy if we hold that abortion is murder. Should the government be allowed to prevent a pregnant woman from smoking? Drinking? Eating fish? Taking antidepressants? Taking a vaccine? Running on a treadmill? Drinking coffee? If the child is born an needs a kidney should the father be obligated to donate if he can? What about blood? If I get into a car accident with a woman and she miscarries, did I commit mansalughter? If a woman accidentally eats something that can be harmful to the fetus is she criminally liabile? Suppose a Jehovah's witness who is pregnant needs a blood transfusion or she and the child will die. Should the government force her to take one? If a woman believes in holistic medicine and the government thinks that is harmful to the fetus should they force her into a traditional hospital?
If you want to say abortion is murder, then how do you justify abortions to protect the life of a mother, which even most anti-abortion people support? There is no other circumstance where you are allowed to commit murder to save someone else. Can a woman abort an ectopic pregnancy? The fetus will be unviable, and the woman will definitely be killed, but if you take the position that the fertilized egg is already a human being then there is no way to justify ending its life such that it is. If you do support abortion in cases where the mother's life is threatened, which is not a consistent position, who determines when the mother's life is at risk? Any pregnancy involves some degree of risk to the mother, so when is the risk sufficient to end a pregnancy? If a woman's risk of death from a pregnancy is 10% and she decides she does not want to take that risk, can we force her to? 25%? 50%?
Suppose a fetus is going to be born with anencephaly? Meaning a large part of the brain is missing. The baby is almost certainly going to either be stillborn or die very soon after birth. Is it morally justifiable to force a woman to carry a baby like that to full term, go through the process of birthing it, only to have it die shortly thereafter? If you think abortion is murder, that's what you would have to do to be consistent. But, I would argue that terminating the pregnancy is the most humane thing you can do for all involved.
If a 10 year old girl becomes pregnant due to sexual abuse, is it moral to force her to carry a child to term? Again, if you think abortion is murder, the answer would have to be yes.
Suppose a woman who needs anti-seizure medications becomes pregnant. Those medications can cause birth defects or the death of the fetus. Should she be allowed to take the medication? Who would decide? Does a doctor need to weigh the risks of the seizures vs the risks of the medication to the fetus? Do we need to get the court system involved?
Point is, there are lots of difficult questions that come up with abortion. And I don't think the government should be answering those. I think that a woman who is pregnant is the best person to decide, with the help of whatever medical professionals she chooses to help.
And that is why I support abortion. It's certainly not because I just fucking hate fetuses and want them to suffer, but assuming you have common sense, you already knew that. I'm not interested in defending that position any further, so don't bother arguing it point by point, unless you can show how anything I said demonstrates that I am hateful or demeaning to any group of people.
Now granted, abortion may still be upsetting to someone. And I get why. And if the forum rules were about not doing anything that may upset anyone, then you may have a point. But they're not.
Oh, and some important context. When I was a mod, do you know how many topics derailed into arguments about abortions? Zero. Absolutely none that I am aware of. Literally never came up. If you were someone who felt strongly about abortion one way or another, you could probably browse the forums fine without worrying about it. So there never has been a reason for mods to seriously consider what is acceptable to discuss in terms of abortion. Meanwhile, there are tons of threads which have nothing inherently to do gender, lbgtq issues, etc., but certain people will bring it up at every possible opportunity. Which is part of the reason why it was moderated so severely, and IMO should be moderated much moreseo. Because we knew that no productive conversation was ever going to come out of it, and it was actively preventing people from talking about videogames. It has now gotten to the point where we can't even discuss the GTA VI trailer without it being a topic about wokeness. Say what you want about resetera, but damn is it refreshing to see a topic where they actually talk about a game rather than arguing about who made the game, if it had too many gay characters in it (which for a lot of people seems to be 1), or whether it was somehow undermining American democracy because the female characters aren't fuckable enough. And of course if there is a trans person who is in the game, involved in making the game, or if a trans person just played the game, obviously nothing else is going to be discussed. And it was virtually never the left wing people bringing it up. So a large part of the moderation policy, when I was involved was just about enabling people to actually talk about videogames.
Say what you want about Resetera, but it is refreshing to see a thread about Wolverine where people just like talk about the gameplay and story and stuff without some incel weirdo ranting about how Lady Deathstrike isn't fuckable enough which is an attempt to destroy the American family.
So there's my stance. I was a sport and answered your questions, so here are mine.
Based on the above, what specific group of people do I hate? Who am I demeaning? Who will read my post and think that I am saying anything negative about them?
And one last question.
Suppose poster A says, "I believe a woman should be allowed to have an abortion if she chooses." Suppose poster B says "I think all Japanese fetuses should be forcibly aborted". Are those statements comparable? Which one do you think is more hateful and demeaning? I would hope that contrary to your initial post, you understand that those are very different things one of which actually indicates hatred of a particular group and one of which doesn't.
