Free Speech on Campus

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Asher
I really do want to see a protest involving gay pornography with graphic images right across from Ben's little exhibit. Hell, let's throw in audio too for good measure.

I think it would be incredible to see him justify his graphic exhibit but take issue with the other.

I'll be there

[mrmitchell]

Actually, the comparisons are valid, and there are many parallels with the holocaust and with abortion.

I was trying to be reasonable and unbiased in my last post, Ben, but honestly, you're just being a troll, and a bad one at that.

You got some responses, but the few worth anything (like Laz) was just repetition, just like everything else you ever drag abortion into.

Ben: "Abortion is like the Holocaust!"
Everyone else: "[refutation] Now explain why it's like it?"
Ben: "Abortion is like the Holocaust! [repeats self]"
Everyone else: "no, [qoute], explain"
Ben: "Abortion is LIKE the HOLOCAUST! [pete and pete]"

[:) Smiley]

In programming we call that an infinite loop. This eventually uses up all the memory and causes a crash.

[Agathon]

How many protests have ever changed your mind?

Quite a few. The anti-apartheid protests in New Zealand in 1981 opened me up to all sorts of new ideas.

The 1999 WTO protest was also an eye-opener.

How many conversations over a meal and a beer have opened you up to thinking differently?

Thousands... but it has to do with drinking with other philosophers.

[Ben Kenobi]

I really do want to see a protest involving gay pornography with graphic images right across from Ben's little exhibit. Hell, let's throw in audio too for good measure.

I think it would be incredible to see him justify his graphic exhibit but take issue with the other.

Go ahead and try such an exhibit.

I won't stop you.

[Ben Kenobi]

You got some responses, but the few worth anything (like Laz) was just repetition, just like everything else you ever drag abortion into.

I already answered Lazarus' question, and my answer has been ignored.

So what do you want me to do?

[Ben Kenobi]

Why does life have to begin at conception?

Good question.

Human life begins at conception, because genetically that is when an entity distinct from the parents forms in the womb of the mother.

Biologically, what makes this entity living, is that what comes afterwards, the infant, is also living, and what comes before, the sperm and egg, are also living.

Living things can only come from living things. They cannot come from dead objects.

So if the infant is living, and so is sperm, then so must the unborn child in between.

Now, this living entity is human, because all species replicate after their kind. If the parents providing the genetic material are human, than so will be the offspring.

So, with all of this forming at conception, it makes sense to say that conception is when human life begins.

[Ben Kenobi]

People just can't follow the commons sense rule of being polite anymore. Aparently if I can't advocate a cause by screaming then it shouldn't be worth my time. Of course the cause is usually not the reason their screaming.

Who's screaming? Certainly not our volunteers.

Our opponents may try to shout over us, but will we just have to get closer to the people who are trying to have a conversation, so that they can hear us.

Or if you're like me, you ignore the noise, and try to help the other person who's having more trouble hearing you, than I am to him.

If you went to one of our displays, you'd understand.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Right- let's bust this thing wide open.

Ben, by his own tacit admission, accepts that some terminations are medically justified- such as ectopics.

Therefore he has just accepted that there are circumstances in which medical action is justified to intervene, by means of weighing the rights of the foetus against the rights of the mother and concluding that the termination of the pregnancy is acceptable.

Once you cross that boundary, you're now on the sliding scale of discussing not if it's acceptable but when it;s acceptable. Here goes....

Is it justified when the mother faces a 100% certainty of death if the pregnancy continues?

What about 99%?

What about 95?

What about 65%?

What about 25%?

What about 5%

At what point do you say to the mother "The risk of your death is sufficiently small that we're going to force you to go through with it."?

Then don't stop there. What about non-lethal consequences? What about severe mental illness? Not just severe depression, but something like Hebrephenia or permanent Catatonia? Death with a pulse? Is it justified when there's a 100% likelihood of that happening? Or a 50%? Or a 10%?

What about complex cumulative factors? How about if there's a 30% chance that the baby's anencephalic, combined with a 10% chance that eclampsia will cause severe health risks to the mothere and a 15% chance that she'll be depressed for several years after?

Let's have some precise answers, please. Then explain to me why your position on this sliding scale of value calls bears the weight of God, Allah, Buddha and/or the bloke down the pub whereas mine doesn't?

Then, just to cap things off, explain to me the sliding scale of circumstances under which you consider the Holocaust to be ustified.

[Ben Kenobi]

Did you manage to present valid arguments in defense of your stance, or did you just conveniently forget to answer any of their questions like you usually do?

Well, back then, I was a pro-abort, so I went to cheer on my cousin who was debating on the other side. She's an accomplished debater. Her partner was the Erin Kaiser already mentioned.

The prolife club brought in a doctor and a lawyer, both practicing, and both active members of the club. The lawyer kept baiting Erin, who got so angry she started shouting at the lawyer.

It was so embarrassing, that 5 years later, they still refuse to debate our club.

I'd think that there wouldn't be any debate on the subject if it were such a simple question, and/or that the Emperor's statement could have been crushed to smithereens by a counterargument rather than having it be painfully whittled away with the Socratic method.

Well, I have presented the argument below, and I think it's a strong case. Notice the Emperor, rather than offering a defense of his own position as to why birth ought to be considered the beginning of human life, chooses to make me justify my view.

That alone should be enough to convince you that the Emperor Fabulous has nothing to back up his statements.

[Wernazuma III]

posted by AzazelI never said it did. All I claim is that it's weird to claim that abortion is ok at any stage of the pregnancy, except risk of life, or stuff like that. I am for the morning-after pill. I am for abortion the first month or two of pregnancy, if a pregnancy occured despite the precautions, or if a severe developmental or genetic disability was shown. However, I do not think that a fetus' life is something that can be dismissed by a wave of a hand. Because if that is the case, it's ok to kill newborns, as well. There is no difference between ending the life of an 8-month fetus, or a newborn.

Signed.
The morning-after pill is how my son Daniel was NOT prevented. He was stronger than the condom and stronger than the morning-after pill. He still is a very strong-willed child. And no, BK, I don't feel we'd have killed DANIEL if the pill had worked, we'd have simply prevented him from coming into existence, like we do every month with the pill or condoms. (As someone stated, everyone draws the line at another point.)


And Ben, I really fail to understand how you partitioned my quotes. When you ask:

So you do not believe that an unborn child feels any pain during an abortion?

and add

Why then do abortion doctors choose to use anaestetics?

you find my disclaimer right in the next quote

Now please, spare me the details, I accept whatever you say it suffers

, meaning I accept for the sake of not getting more into it whatever you say it suffers. The point is that holocaust was meant to eradicate jews as a collective and abortion is not meant to eradicate fetuses as a collective, people in the holocaust suffered for years, fetuses, even if for now in the argument I grant them full humanity, suffer, under anaestetics, a few minutes.

I don't see any accusation of the unborn, unlike Nazi propaganda against the jews. I have never in my life heard anyone call a fetus a "parasite", actually I never see pro-choice propaganda that would make a hate statement against the unborn. But very often, when I go downtown, I have to pass these guys wearing posters with pictures of dead unborn. I really wonder on which side the propaganda is.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Incidentally, returning to the subject matter of this thread, here's my advice to anyone bothered by pro-lifers using graphic medical imagery in protests.

Don't get angry. Get subversive.

Make big posters graphically detailing medical processes in bloody detail. Ideally have enough of these that you'll outnumber the pro-life posters by about 20 to 1. Then just crowd around so that they are ablut two thirds of the way along the line. Ensure that the really gruesome ones are at the ends and middle, like a hemorrhoidectomy or something. Talk, in visceral detail, about the blood and gristle resulting.

By the process of overkill, you have exercised your freedom of speech. Rather than turning a protest into a drama that will get people into trouble, you will have turned it into performance art.

And any sane person, faced with performance art, will just walk away.

[Agathon]

Back when I first started teaching abortion ethics I had a woman in tutorials who said that her sister just couldn't stop getting pregnant. It was ridiculous, apparently she'd tried everything short of sterilization and it still hadn't worked. So she decided that she was destined to have a lot of children and aimed to enjoy herself.

I liked her style.

[:) Smiley]

*coredump*

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

And now, just to keep Ben happy.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Do you concede that in the vast majority of cases, that there is a valid analogy between abortion and the holocaust?

No. Not even remotely. I also think the comparison is an insult to holocaust survivors.

Your Holocaust comparison is flawed.