How To Finally Resolve the Abortion Debate

Note, I intend to set up a Ranked Vote for this, not simply a mere Plurality vote.
After which we will have a good understanding of where the consensus position is, at least among politicalforum members.
To foster consensus among a wider audience would require further effort. So consider finding consensus here then to be just a first step.
And of course, people who wish to remain firmly entrenched at either extreme of the issue will no doubt continue to argue with each other.
But I reckon that even when taken as a combined group, such people will become an ever-shrinking minority as those willing to listen
to reason shift towards a central position and outnumber them after being shown a winning argument. That is my hope at least.
And I remain optimistic.

-Meta

 

If you're asking what the purpose of this thread is, there are two main goals:

a) To try and get people to start using better arguments for justifying their positions. As mentioned before in the OP, a lot of the arguments that tend to get made on this subject are not very good. "Abortion should be outlawed starting at week 0 because that's when life begins", "abortion should be allowed at anytime before birth because a woman's interests are the only ones that matter", "abortion should be allowed only up to week 24 because that's what the law says",... these are not good arguments when speaking of what we want the law to be... They are flawed, and based on a foundation of logically fallacious reasoning. If this thread can get folks off of using those types of arguments and onto using more sound justifications, then this thread has certainly done some good.

b) The second goal here is to identify for us all a good logically-based consensus position. Personally I think that the observation of mental life and or the point at which pain perception becomes possible are good standards to use. But we will see what others think during the vote.

I will set up a Ranked Vote a bit latter on and we will vote on which arguments/options are most preferred.

Like I was telling Doofenshmirtz...
I think its hard to say that the debate itself has really been adequately resolved when there is still such wide-spread and passionate disagreement over the matter, not to mention a number of state governments who regularly attempt to find ways to surreptitiously skirt around the current laws.

Basically, even if we have laws regarding the matter, if its still significant enough of an issue to divide us so and contribute to the discord, then I think its still an issue worth talking about and attempting to come to consensus on... even if in the end, that consensus isn't much different from the laws we currently have. Regardless of whether laws are changed, I want that when people talk about the issue, that they discuss it in terms that make more sense/using better arguments than they do now...

....because part of the divide you see, is due to highly flawed arguments being used on either side. When one tries to justify their view using what to someone on the opposite end of the spectrum is a clearly flawed argument, that doesn't change anyone's mind or help to foster understanding, it merely cements them further into their current position, even if their original justification for being in that position is likewise just as flawed as the first person's...

...and eventually these mutually bad arguments lead to everyone viewing everyone else as irrational, and not worth attempting to reason with... which itself leads to an inability and or an unwillingness for one to regularly reason through their own arguments, in turn leading to scores of people being stuck in positions of often flimsy logical backing, and in some cases, ultimately an assumption that anyone with a different view than your own (regardless of what it is) is part of the previously noted irrational group deemed not worth reasoning with.

We, imo, should do whatever we can to stop such cycles. I think asking people to review the justifications for their own strongly held positions and to consider other perhaps more logically sound justifications is a good place to start. And btw, I feel like you might want to calm down and take it down a notch yourself. I understand the passion, but similar to how assuming that anyone who disagrees with you must be irrational instead of closely examine the logical backings of both their and your own positions is not a good way to convince anyone of anything, so to is the taking of an overly adversarial or even hostile approach to things not particularly effective at convincing people to come to your side.

Like I was saying before, morally speaking, setting/having a legally defined cutoff point for abortions is no more a denial of rights than is tossing in jail one who takes the belongings of others. Again, the issue here is about balancing the rights of one individual against the rights of another when the two conflict.

But just like not all taking of things should count as theft, its my view that not all abortions should be against the law.
If no conflict between the rights of two individuals exists, then abortion should be allowed. So the question here then
is when exactly does a developing fetus gain rights? The right to life as it were, or the right not to be subjected to suffering?
Again, just as we wouldn't call it theft when one takes an apple from a random tree in the forest, clearly here to in thinking about when rights should be bestowed upon an unborn child, a reasonable threshold must be set based on some reasonable and logically-based criteria.

-Meta

 

Oh and btw, for anyone interested:
Last Chance to Vote in the Back-room Dealing Thread!
Ranked Vote: What To Do To Stop Back-room Dealing In Politics

-Meta