End of the Lie
ElectricFetus said:
Yet I would likely have to go though thousands of guesses to guess what is in your hand, assuming you even want to tell me, you could just keep me guessing forever in fact.
And that is the point.
You wanted to know what was wrong with demanding proof of negative? Why it is important to have an affirmative assertion of personhood?
You just answered your question.
There is nothing stoping you from discribing why you beleive a fetus is not a person, stating when you beleive a fetus becomes a baby, what rights you think a fetus deserves, when and why.
Again, this is dishonest. In the first place, those statements are scattered all over the thread.
To skip out of order for a moment:
It's an interesting point, especially coupled with your earlier lie that I haven't posted my position. Consider
your example:
"Here I'll do it again explicitily: a fetus becomes a baby at birth... how is that so hard?"
Just for the sake of consistency, where is the
why in that statement?
Now, in the two simple statements I noted, the
why is actually included:
• As is well-known, in questions of pregnancy and termination, I assert a dry-foot policy; as long as an organism exists inside another person, it is that other person's jurisdiction.
• Indeed, it's why I have a dry-foot policy; my resolution is to simply assert that what takes place inside a woman's body is her own business.
But setting aside your dishonesty, yes, one might suggest the question of
why pushes beyond that.
Why is what takes place inside a woman's body her own business?
"Because there is another person involved."
―How is there another person involved?
"The child is a person from conception (fertilization)."
―And how does that work? The way the laws are structured, personhood creates a bureaucratic and law enforcement nightmare.
"No it doesn't."
―Then what does it do?
"You need to prove that a fetus isn't a person."
―Well, given the historical, existential, ontological, and legal paradigms, fetal personhood is the extraordinary, new assertion.
"A fetus is a person! You won't even say why it isn't!"
There comes a point where the routine seems so stupid it must be deliberate.
As we begin the review:
•
Topic Proposition: As is well-known, in questions of pregnancy and termination, I assert a dry-foot policy; as long as an organism exists inside another person, it is that other person's jurisdiction.
•
#14: Indeed, it's why I have a dry-foot policy; my resolution is to simply assert that what takes place inside a woman's body is her own business.
After the early posts, the thread moved onto other aspects. There are, of course, reiterations of parts of that:
•
#58: For me, it's a dry-foot policy:
Growing from fertilized ovum into a functional human being capable of existing without the umbilical attachment.
Sure, the
why is slightly more implied than the prior two statements, but it's still more substantial than your example.
The point comes up in other ways, too:
•
#126: I'll take what I can get, but since it's not ever going to be
my body, I don't know how much say I should get, merely for being part of the society, in setting the standard. Hence, my dry-foot policy.
•
ibid: I have a dry-foot policy because it's
not me. The very least I can do, as an American, is trust my female neighbors to be able to make decisions for themselves.
I would note the following because it is an early version of the cycle you're trying to run us around here:
•
#168: For instance, I have a dry-foot policy distinguishing the fetus in the womb from the person in the world. I have expressed this many times in abortion discussions at Sciforums. I have made that point in this thread, including my reasons why (1, 2, 3, 4). You might disagree, and, indeed, have expressed your puzzlement at the idea that there is a difference between existing inside another person's body and existing independently of that body.
And all of this takes place before you started your odd digression five hundred posts ago. Then again, these issues you claim absent from my posts were discussed even then:
•
#463: That personhood is asserted by others, not the "person", without rational merit, and entirely for sentiment. Of
course the fetuses get shafted.
They exist entirely inside and are wholly dependent on a living, independent person.
And that living, independent personhood is no more or less than what we recognize of
any human being. It is already established, defined in its own existential context. The personhood asserted on behalf of fetuses extends that condition to something that exists in a
different context.
•
#475: The burden is on the extension of this condition called personhood. It is attempting to assign an ontological attribute to a different existential condition.
•
#489: That's at the heart of this discussion; assigning a new context of personhood to the fetus would trump a woman's right to govern what takes place in her own body.
•
ibid: True, but there is also the point that zygote personhood is a new phenomenon.
•
#605: The difference between the Negro and the fetus as such is the observable independent physical reality; the black man lynched was generally
not still attached to his mother by a biologically-generated feeding tube.
•
#677: It's a bogus juxtaposition, beacuse your question ignores the laws pertaining to the disposition of the dead, and also the fact that a fetus is only a person according to an unsupported aesthetic appeal.
•
ibid: As I have noted, there are existential, ontological, and medical differences between the fetus in utero and the person standing on their own two feet, especially as there's really no way I would fit back up in there even if I knew who she was.
•
#840: I have reviewed my position regarding the historical, ontological, existential, and scientific considerations of why a fertilized egg isn't a person. This is the standing paradigm. Life at fertilization is a very recent innovation compared to the history of willfully terminating pregnancies. Even the theological justifications I have encountered explaining why this is a religious issue don't quite work; it's an
ad hoc article of faith that is only true because the believer says it is true.
•
ibid: It would be one thing if you would address the points already on the record, explain why they are insufficient, and then making your demand that the standing paradigm be viewed as what you say it is. Functionally, historically, statistically, and in any scientific way you can describe reality, the assertion of fertilization personhood has
not been the working paradigm.
•
#914: The problem is this:
Compared to the historical and anthropological record, the Life at Conception Personhood argument is new, germinating over the last several decades. In the thousands of years of human society, LACP is a
new assertion, and it has never endured any real scrutiny in the public discourse since its introduction to the abortion debate.
•
ibid: In the end, it is a discussion that I have had many times before; sure, we get that one is not a bigot, it's just that one needs or will accept bigoted outcomes as right. In this case, the question of bigotry is complicated by the assertion of a second person, the organism inside the female person referred to as the "mother". But this assertion is, historically, ontologically, philosophically
new. And the lack of an
affirmative argument on its behalf leaves it nothing more than an article of faith.
•
#931: Or, as I have noted, in history, philosophy, and medicine life at conception is the
extraordinary assertion.
And what is it we get from you?
"This explains nothing, how is it not possible to state when a fetus becomes a baby? I can, I have, but you refuse to, why?" (#937)
And your example?
"Here I'll do it again explicitily: a fetus becomes a baby at birth... how is that so hard?"
(#939)
And your complaint?
"and I asked why!" (#954)
Now, then:
(1) You have made a false assertion of fact.
(2) You have willfully extended this false assertion of fact by attempting to sleight your own criteria.
(3) You have been caught in these acts.
Let me be clear, then:
I will not continue to accommodate liars.
When you are ready to be honest, I'm sure there is plenty of ground we can cover. But as long as you continue to lie, there's nothing left to talk about.
But thank you for making the point about the fundamental dishonesty of the anti-abortion argument. That, much, at least, has some instructive value.