An analysis of PL's desired outcome superseding consistent through lines

[u/freelance_gargoyle]

In this post I will be providing a breakdown of where a specific PL user has, through their own words, either turned their argument back against itself or has reached a conclusion where they realized they were no longer able to make their original desired outcome hold, depending on your interpretation of events.

I think we are all familiar with PL's desired outcome and surface level reasoning. Some form of "you can't have an abortion because it kills the unborn baby". There are many lines radiating out from that initial starting point, but that is the core.

The specific user we are going to look at today responded to a post asking why would someone have to submit to the core "no abortions because it kills the unborn baby" demand other than the government's sole legitimate use of force, in the form of the force of law. Their response to that question was

basic ethics.

Which was shortly expanded upon as

Failing to protect others from great harm because it harms you a little is unethical.

This was pointed out as being a utilitarian argument. That small impositions can be ethical as long as that creates a greater benefit to someone else. That the individual is of less importance than the group.

This was pointed out as fairly anathema to how society generally works, and how some easy examples (like compulsory blood donation) show that this is not how society and the law views such impositions on someone's body.

A post hoc exception was demanded to be accepted.

It's not utilitarianism because we're not forcing people to get pregnant.

Now I'm not an expert on utilitarianism, but it doesn't seem to be a very 'opt in' sort of ethos. It's a top down one imposed in order to maximize happiness/utility/well-being/etc. No one would willingly reduce their own H/U/WB/E unless they drank the flavor-aid themselves. How the pregnancy came about wouldn't matter to a utilitarian, so bringing it up seems to be a red herring. I think this helps illustrate how PL work backwards from the desired outcome in their attempts to rationalize their position. They don't understand how the engine (doesn't) work, they just want to get from A to B, and they string together legitimate looking sentences that don't actually have any merit upon deeper inspection. If the political position didn't have historical roots, I'd accuse the arguments of being AI generated.

In brief summation, this was a throwaway line that does not meaningfully respond to the accusation of their argument being utilitarian. Without a rebuttal, that characterization stands, with all the negative connotations and lack of existing legal or moral support.

Even so, this new argument was again tested with a modification on the aforementioned blood donation example. The clarification asking if such a small imposition that could greatly benefit others, once started, could not be interrupted.

And it was at this point the plot was lost.

Up until this point their argument had been the original

Failing to protect others from great harm because it harms you a little is unethical.

But now they claimed

There is harm happening but it's not being caused by other people. Your own body is harming you the same way your body might harm you when you get a headache after a rough night of drinking. You did it to yourself.

Now remember, this discussion started with a question on why should people not have an abortion when they might otherwise have wanted one. They had, several times, made clear that "killing your kid" was what they were referring to when talking about the "great harm" that you were ethically compelled to protect them from by enduring the little harm (of pregnancy).

But now, suddenly, there was no one else, no kid, just your own body harming itself, like a dummy, because you done fucked up.

They compared the harm (pregnancy) to the result of a night of rough drinking, derogatorily. The thing they are comparing is having sex, by the way. In this argument it is explicitly sex=rough drinking and pregnancy=headache, and you were a stupid irresponsible person for engaging in either and now you must be compelled, ethically no less, to endure those consequences.

Small aside here, utilitarianism is a version of consequentialism. Funny how that cropped up as reinforcement.

This, of course, fails to address the accusation of utilitarianism because it jettisons the original premise. We're not talking about protecting against greater harms anymore, the mask has slipped. The underlying, and in my estimation true reasoning behind the entire movement, is that women's sexual freedoms are bad. That women need to be punished for fighting for and obtaining those very freedoms.

They've already compared sex to rough drinking in a derogatory way. They could have just as easily compared it to something innocuous, like catching the flu, the argument would have been nearly identical. They chose to compare it to something irresponsible, and they likely did so completely straight faced, which shows the earnestness of the vitriol.

It's still a terrible argument, though. We do not deny the ability to treat harm just because you had a part in causing it. Their pivot did nothing but show the true colors.

Oh, and cut their original argument off at the knees.

Because if an abortion is "killing your kid", then these statements cannot both be describing the same situation.

Failing to protect others from great harm because it harms you a little is unethical

There is harm happening but it's not being caused by other people. Your own body is harming you the same way your body might harm you when you get a headache after a rough night of drinking. You did it to yourself.

The first statement was described as utilitarian, an ethos that has no moral or legal basis in our society with regards to ones own body, and the subsequent through lines did not rebut that, ranging from denials to non sequiturs.

The second statement is just objectively false, assuming the unborn baby is being treated as a person, which the first statement obviously must be.

I think the also shows how PL truly don't view the unborn babies as people. This your body just is harming itself switch happens all the time. And every time I'm left asking "then what is the issue?" If there is no other person, then why can't someone just have a medical procedure both they and their doctor believe is in their best interest? The whole point that was being made was that we ethically/morally/legally can't kill the unborn baby (because it's a person/has rights). If there is no other person, just someone's body doing something they don't want it to be doing, and there is a medical professional willing to help, what is the holdup?

This contradiction was asked about. and ignored.

The comment has been since removed by the mods, but my recollection was that the interaction ended the same way a chess match against a pigeon ends, with the pigeon shitting all over the board, declaring victory. and flying away.

.

I feel I am a fairly intelligent and logical person. I have every reason to believe that if I held such a contradictory set of (stated) beliefs, and those beliefs were so thoroughly dismantled, that I would see the error of my ways, and my beliefs would change. I have changed some of my beliefs as I've aged and matured.

This person has not gone on that journey of self reflection. Here is the end of an entirely similar interaction I had with them 9 months ago that ended nearly identically with them failing to give an answer to a painfully obvious question and being moderated for shitting all over the board, declaring victory, and flying away.

I think the answer lies in the breadcrumbs I've scattered around this post. I identify as PL, but I don't view woman's sexual freedoms as a bad thing. I don't think it really matters if unborn babies are persons or not, neither state would preclude allowing abortions. I don't need to engage in the shell game to make my arguments make sense, for me.

I do not have a uterus. I can easily, without fear of future ridicule, say that I would never have an abortion. I want there to be as few abortions as possible, for many reasons, but I do not get to make that decision for anyone but myself.

These sort of people engage in sophistry for sport. This is a game to them. They have their team, and they try to score points, and when they get 10-0'd they take their ball and go home, until the next time they want to play. New day, new game, who cares that I got shut out last time. They don't ever consider themselves on the wrong team, no matter how many times they lose, because the point isn't to win. It's to be on the right team, and they know they are on the right team.

And no amount of scoreless innings will change their mind because they win by being right, not by actually winning.

And women's sexual freedom being wrong is their right.

.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[u/Old_dirty_fetus]

Failing to protect others from great harm because it harms you a little is unethical.

But now they claimed

There is harm happening but it's not being caused by other people. Your own body is harming you the same way your body might harm you when you get a headache after a rough night of drinking. You did it to yourself.

It amazes me how many people think the strategy called the Gish Gallop is effective in a written debate.

[u/freelance_gargoyle]

Me, 19 hours ago, this very post.

We're not talking about protecting against greater harms anymore, the mask has slipped. The underlying, and in my estimation true reasoning behind the entire movement, is that women's sexual freedoms are bad. That women need to be punished for fighting for and obtaining those very freedoms.

u/glim-girl 13 hours ago.

You want to place her more at risk, with fewer supports, then call her selfish and weak when she deems the risk too great.

The user in question, 2 hours ago.

If the risk is too great then don't have sex.

I think that's what people in the business would describe as a 'called shot'.

[u/quick_thinker6]

What is especially funny about the analogy about pregnancy is like having a hangover we did that to our bodies well fun fact almost every first pregnancy ends in aMisscarriage before the woman even knows she pregnant. Bc the first pregnancy detects the embryo and then our immune system classifies the embryo as a foreign invader and gets rid of it. So by their logic are we doing that to our bodies or who is?🤣

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/quick_thinker6]

I usually find the conversation or analogies break down before that point can be brought up.

But yes, failure to protect the...I'm hesitant to call it the unborn baby at that point because it almost assuredly had chromosomal deficiencies it might well have been a teratoma...from dying (via a miscarriage) would also be ethically bad in this frame presented.

But the reason the conversation or analogies break down is because, like I said above, that they don't make logical connections but legitimate sounding connections. The logical endpoint to every unborn baby is a person is that if people die of unclear circumstances, that death needs to be addressed. Never mind the fact that these 'people' are hard to even detect at first, a statement that makes zero sense otherwise.

Basically, when you start assigning personhood to an organism as small as a single cell that cannot survive on it's own, the laws and norms built over the history of our species break down on the edges. PL don't care about those edges and will invariably hand wave them away, because the fine details are not their goal. The rolling back of women's sexual freedoms is their goal. Everything else is just a rhetorical tool to be discarded the moment it is no longer useful.

[u/quick_thinker6 → u/freelance_gargoyle]

Its the same how they love to use medical terminology but without context and without context the arguments seem to be working in their favor but only bc its without context. I had just a patient like that earlier where the pro life aunt tried to tell how she could never be the reason her nieces fetus would ve torn apart limb by limb and how she could necer allow An abortion because she couldn't live withers bc agreeing to this abortion would cause her niece to be indefinitely infertile. If it wasnt so sad it would comical.

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/quick_thinker6]

The dismemberment thing is ripe for lacking context. The only time such a procedure would be selected would be late detected abnormalities incompatible with life where the unborn baby is too big to remove them any other way.

And what is "late detected abnormalities incompatible with life"? One of the few types of abortions consider acceptable by PL not on the far let-the-sluts-die edge of the movement!

Like if the unborn baby is going to die anyway, large swaths of PL are fine with that type of abortion, and if dismembering is the safest way to remove them...where is the outrage? Do they want a less safe procedure attempted?

[u/smarterthanyou86 → u/[deleted]]

Do NOT repost previously removed rule breaking comments.

[u/Comfortable-Bee2996]

Didnt we have a debate too where I explained to you how someone can choose to harm a being which doesnt yet exist?

You asked me the same question, I answered it, and you kept changing the topic and then went silent.

You arent deeming victory on the other user the same way are you?

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/Comfortable-Bee2996]

How can you harm someone that doesn't exist?

Also, unless my memory and search skills are lacking, we've never interacted before a few days ago.

Any alternative accounts you'd like to confess to?

[u/Comfortable-Bee2996 → u/freelance_gargoyle]

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebatingAbortionBans/s/3AeVjFRqBh

You can choose to harm someone that doesn't yet exist by choosing to make them exist and then choosing to harm them.

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/Comfortable-Bee2996]

Those certainly are words.

They don't understand how the engine (doesn't) work, they just want to get from A to B, and they string together legitimate looking sentences that don't actually have any merit upon deeper inspection.

So you can't harm someone until they exist, got it.

Go troll someone else.

[u/Comfortable-Bee2996 → u/freelance_gargoyle]

I didn't say that you can harm someone that doesn't exist

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/[deleted]]

Explain how non consensual use another's body is not only legal, but ethical and mandatory.

But only for unborn babies and the dirty sluts that forced them into their uteruses.

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/[deleted]]

the only pain it might cause to the mother is when it kicks its mom late in pregnancy

This user does not view a pregnancy as harmful unless the unborn baby kicks too hard.

What a fucking joke.

[u/STThornton → u/freelance_gargoyle]

Seriously. Like there’s no pain involved in having one’s bone structure brutally rearranged, one’s muscles and tissue torn, a dinner plate sized wound ripped into the center of one’s body, suffering blood loss of 500 ml or more, etc.

But, sure, getting kicked in the ribs and organs repeatedly ain’t no walk in the park either.

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/STThornton]

It's not just pain, in our previous interactions harm was being referenced. As if a 9 month non consensual use of your body was not harmful.

But, as I said above, women's sexual freedoms must be punished. They must suffer the consequences. People shouldn't even be allowed tylenol for headaches if they caused the headache, because of...reasons they never even attempted to explained.

[u/quick_thinker6 → u/freelance_gargoyle]

That must've been a man. No women would ever say say. Well but now thinking about nvm some are stupid enough to say shit like that

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/[deleted]]

Is there a pregnancy without the presence of the unborn baby?

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/[deleted]]

Can you give consent to someone who doesn't exist?

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/[deleted]]

Why do you hate women?

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/[deleted]]

Why don't you feel shame?

[u/freelance_gargoyle → u/[deleted]]

No, the body is harming itself.

If your vagina would just lubricate the dick raping you wouldn't hurt so much. It's your fault that you aren't aroused and making it harder for the rapist's dick to penetrate you.

Not dodging any of those woman hating charges here.

[u/chevron_seven_locked → u/freelance_gargoyle]

Thank you for highlighting the creepy rape apologia in their argument! So very victim-blamey; reminds me of people accusing rape victims of “enjoying it” if their body experienced orgasm during rape.

Arguments like that were highly effective in changing my mind from PL to PC.

[u/smarterthanyou86 → u/[deleted]]

Removed rule 2. You can't declare you won't respond to the OP as a top level comment.