You Want Me to Debate? Then I Will Give You a Dialogue

Eve: I hate this

adam: what?


E: where we are and what we have to do. We’re not real, we are only characters in a thread on ehealth. And he is forcing us to do the impossible: to have a dialogue on abortion

a: I disagree with all four things you said.


E: of course you do. I didn’t even know I said four things.


A: of course you didn’t

e: ok i’ll bite. What four things?


A: first, that we’re not real

e: of course we’re not real we are only characters in a thread

a: but the conclusion does not follow. In fact, just the opposite: we are real because we are characters in this thread, the writer made us real. Do you think the writer is writing this thread about dreams? Ask the writer whether we’re real people or not. He has the authority to answer it, the author’s rights.


E: metaphysical subtleties! Who cares?


A: second you said we’re forced, not free

e: so?


A: I don’t think the writer is writing this post about robots

e: ok, ok the same metaphysical subtlety.


A: third

e: this is getting tedious already

a: is it the numbers that bother you?


E: no it’s the numberer

a: third, you said its impossible to have a dialogue. But were doing it.


E: you call this a dialogue and even if it is its not on abortion

a: it wasn’t until you said the a word but it is now

e: you really think a pro choicer like me and a pro lifer like you can have a rational dialogue on abortion?


A: sure

e: you probably think that computers can speak ordinary language, or that you can find packages with the same number of hot dogs and hot dog rolls in the supermarket.


A: why do you think we cant have a dialogue on abortion?


E: because it never happens pro lifers always use words as wepons and condemn pro choicer’s, instead of listening and learning. And I suppose pro choicers do toosome of the time.


A: as a pro choicer are you bragging or complaining?


E: complaining, confessing even.


A: then why not repent and stop

e: when you stop shooting at me, i’ll stop shooting back at you

a: maybe that can happen.


E: not with you, I know you, your argument personified

a: I am not offering to forego argument, I am offering to stop shooting at you.


E: no warm-fuzzy-group feel good in for you right?


A: right! I am a truth addict, not a feel good addict

e: yeah right don’t give me that line, I know you too well from all our other so called dialogues. Your not addicted to truth, your addicted to preaching and put downs.


A: well believe it or not today I want to listen and learn, in fact I hope you do most of the talking. Because believe it or not I hope you can convince me I am wrong and that we should all live and let live and be pro choice. Because I believe it would save me a lot of hard work and trouble.


E: I would love to believe it, but you actions speak louder than words. You’ve always been an agitator and confrontational. I guess it’s a guy thing.


A: no if I were a woman I would be just as confrontational about this topic, especially if I were a mother. Do you know how confrontational animal mothers are when their children are threatened?


E: ok so you’re a hawk and I am a dove, you’re a war-mongerer and I am a pacifist. That’s just the way we are.


A: its not just personal, it’s principal. I cant see how there can be any other option but war when innocent children are threatened. How can I be a pacifist without compromising my principles?


E: let me test you, let me offer you something a principled pacifism.


A: based on what principle?


E: based on human fallibility. You pro lifers are always so dogmatic. Suppose you begin instead with the premise that humans are fallible, do you deny that principle?


A: no

e: lets and another one : your own humanity. Do you claim you are a human being?


A: this may shock you, perhaps you better sit down, the answer is…….Yes!

E: all humans are fallible adam is a human being therefore he is fallible. Is there a fallacy there?


A: no

e: so you get my point it’s a fact, not a theory that serious, inteligent people of good will can and do take opposite positions, principled positions on abortion. You don’t have to demonize you opponents to disagree with them on a contraversal issue like this.


A: I don’t demonise pro-choicers, I don’t even demonise abortionists. But I do demonise abortion. Because I don’t agree with your premise that abortion is a controversial issue at all. I say it is a very clear cut evil.


E: but your position is in fact controverted, most people don’t agree with it. So it is controversial. You’ve got your head in the clouds of principles instead of along the ground of real peoples attitudes.


A: attitudes? Attitudes don’t make morality.


E: I didn’t say they did

a: and you cant turn something clear into something controversial just be controverting it. If someone says that 2+2 is 5 does that make 2+2 = 4 a controversial issue?


E: of course not but look what you have done, you have assumed that abortion is like 2+4 = 4

a: yes, I have its as clear, or almost as clear as, that abortion is as wrong as 2+4=4. If abortion is not wrong, nothing is.


E: now that’s what I cant have any sympathy for. I try to generate some sympathy for everyone I disagree with (that’s my job you know, I am a psychological social worker) and frankly you’re a real hard case and I think your typical of pro lifers. Your so arrogant so self assured.


A: who is being judgemental now?

E: you are! I am only judging your judgementalism. I’m only intolorant of your intolorance.


A: have you ever heard of the law of non-contradiction?


E: look lets cut the cute rhetoric and get serious.


A: I didn’t know the law of non-contradiction was “cute rhetoric” but I am willing to get serious. How?


E: do you clearly think we pro choicers are clearly evil?


A: no but I think your clearly wrong, I judge your ideas not you.


E: then why do pro choice people who arnt terribly wicked believe such “wicked pro choice ideas” according to you?


A: that’s a good argument. I guess my answer is…

e: no wait I don’t want to argue I want to understand you and how you understand us, or misunderstand us. I want to listen. So please be honest and tell me exactly what you think and feel, instead of trying to win the argument.


A: ok here is my totally honest answer. I think a few of you are wicked. I think a lot more of you are very confused or very ignorant. And I think most of you are very sheepish and weak conformists who believe the pro abortion propaganda of the mind molders who have brainwashed you in the schools and in the media. I think you have been raped, in your mind not your body, you are victims, that’s why you will victimise babies.


E: I bet you think what you have just said is being really polite to us, more polite than we deserve.


A: to be totally honest, yes! That’s why I want to listen and learn, too, to leanr something about you that I cant understand. I don’t understand how abortion – how brutally m urd ering her own sons and daughters in her own womb could be approved of by any human being who still has her sanity, her moral common sense and her instincts intact – especially a mother.


E: they are not mothers, they have chosen not to be mothers, that is pro choice, do you say that choice is always evil? That any woman who isn’t a mother is a wicked woman?


A: but they are mothers. That’s why abortion is wrong, not because they made the wrong choice to get pregnant. Maybe some did maybe some did not but because they are making the wrong choice now: to kill their own children that they have already conceived. I don’t understand how a woman can believe that’s not a terrible act, a terribly wicked and evil act.


E: if you want to understand, ill try to tell you. But I don’t want to get into another philosophical debate about it. You’re the philosopher, I am the psychologist. Debate is your thing, but dialogue is my thing.


A: I will try to do your thing, because I really do want to understandand I believe you want to understand me. But I cant guarentee you that I wont argue because that part of whats in my head my reasons , my arguments.


E: I understand that as a philosopher you look at reasons but as a psychologist I look at motives.


A: I understand that but you cant ignore my reasons because my reasons are my motives but lets not get into this discussion today, I want to know how you an apparently sane and moral person can justify homicide ing your own children. Why dosnt that look like a clear and obvious evil to you as it does to me?


E: because you assuming all sorts of things with that judgement. You’re looking at only one thing, with tunnel vision. There are dozens of arguments, and dozens of other factors and aspects and points of view and real and deep disagreements about all of them. You ignoring nine tenths of the evidence: womens experience and womens rights, changing social structures and needs and expectations and the right to privacy and freedom and pluralism, and the relation between civil law and morality.


A: wait… let me ask you something. Would you bring all those other things in to justify slavery? Or lynching? Or genocide? Or rape? Would you not have the same simplistic tunnel vision about those things as I have about abortion?


E: I knew you would end up arguing instead of listening.


A: no, no this is listening. I really want to know

e: ok then I will tell you. I think those things are very different from abortion. They’re all clrearly wrong, as abortion is not, nobody defends them, but half the population defends abortion.


A: so you think a thing is wrong only when everyone says so? And a thing isn’t wrong when half the people defend it?


E: no I don’t think that. I don’t think right and wrong are nothing but creations of opinion polls, if that’s what your thinking.


A: then why?


E: because the victim of rape, or genocide or lynching is obviously one of us.


A: us? You mean adults? Big people? Smart people? Who do you mean by us?


E: people of course

a: oh so it all comes down to wether the victims of abortion is a person or not, then
e: no it dosnt all come down to that. That’s not the only question. The other elements have to be factored in too.


A: maybe that’s where we differ. I don’t think they do.


E: I think your right, I don’t have that simplistic tunnel vison of yours. I think about the fetus but I also think about a hundered other things especially the mother. Why don’t you?


A: I do think about them, but I don’t think even a million other things can make it right to kill your own child. I don’t think anything can

e: but even you language begs the question you call the mchildren not fetuses

a: no I call them both children and fetuses , they are fetal children, fetal humans, fetal persons. A fetus isn’t another species

e: so you think you can solve the problem just by arbitrarily choosing to use words in your way instead of my way?


A: no I think that’s what your doing. Neither of us can solve a problem just by changing the language

e: then we need to have neutral language if we’re going to have open dialogue

a: so what do you suppose to call abortion? “the final solution to the pregnancy problem”?


E: see? That’s why I hate talking to you! You said you would put your guns away and then you shoot from the hip

a: I am sorry i’ll try to button my lip but its hard to talk about an atrocity in clinical terms. It unnatural I know atrocity isn’t nutral language either I will try to neuter myself.


E: how can I believe your sincere even your apology is sarcastic

a: and you are never sarcastic with me right?


E: look lets make one desperate try to explain ourselves in nutral language without any sarcastic put down words in words that doesn’t beg the question agreed?


A: agreed

e: so will you listen with an open mind now to what I feel about all those issues you dismissed a minute ago?


A: you mean womens rights, privacy and all that?


E: “all that” yes
a: well if you want me to be perfectly honest with you, i’ll have to say no.


E: what?!


A: I wont… rather I cant listen to anything you say about those issues with an open mind not yet –not until you convince me it wont be a total waste of time , that it could possible make any difference what you say.


E: because you want to stick you head in the sand and ignore all the other issues about abortion and only think about the fetus.


A: I am not ignoring those issues I am prioritising them, I mean de-prioritising them, because they are all reletive to the issue of wether the fetus is a human being.


E: why do you insist on seeing it that way?


A: because if the fetus is a human being then killing it cant be justified for any reason. Nothing can excuse deliberate homicide. So lets not waste time with looking at excuses. We both know what I am going to say about them. I don’t think the end justifies the means even a very good end if the means is wicked. I hope you agree . I wouldn’t comit a homicide for any reason and I hope you wouldn’t either would you?


E: of course not, no not homicide.


A: so the only thing that stops me seeing it your way and you seeing it my way is weather abortion is homicide, and you must understand how I condemn it if I think it is, so we both understand each other’s principles, I think. What I don’t understand is why you think it isn’t homicide and what you don’t understand is why I think it is.


E: what I don’t understand is why you don’t understand that not everyone sees it your way.


A: I understand that they don’t, but I don’t understand *why they don’t

e: wow what a confession we should all see it your way right?


A: of course! Not because its my way but because its true.


E: wow, I cant believe what I am hearing I think I am coming to understand you better “my way” equals “true” right?


A: no, no its not true because I believe it, I believe it because its true. Look its simple logic, if the fetus is a human being, then abortion is homicide, how much simpler could it be?


E: so a woman has no rights, no rights over her body over her privacy, and….And…

a: of course women have rights over there own bodies but the fetus is someone elses body. And sure they have the right to privacy but when one person kills another , that’s not privacy. Your private when your alone, when there is no other there. homicide is a public act.


E: you arguing instead of dialoguing

a: no I am trying to explain why I think its such a simple issue. If the fetus is a human being then abortion is homicide and if its homicide no argument can justify it, no excuse can excuse it, no other issue can trump it.


E: and if its not no other argument can justify forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term and give birth against her will .


A: I agree nothing other than another human life has rights equal to her life.


E: oh that’s encouraging, you do at least understand that much of me.


A: yes and do you understand this much of me that if the fetus is a human being , it is never right to kill it?


E: I guess that’s a reasonable principle, “thou shalt not kill” you a pacifist then.


A: no I am not.


E: so you don’t totally agree with the 10 commandments then, and I thought you were a catholic?


A: I do but the 10 comandments don’t actually say “thou shall not kill” in hebrew it says “thou shall not homicide” killing the guilty is not necessarily forbidden, only killing the innocent. homicide is killing innocent persons

e: so your not a pacifist, your in favour of killing sometimes , when? What about capital punishment?


A: that’s a red herring, id dosnt change wether abortion is right or wrong. Some pro lifers are pacifists and most including myself are against capital punishment but you don’t have to agree with those two positions to be against abortion.


E: I think I understand you a little better now

a: but I don’t understand you how do you justify abortion? What do you think when you here the main pro life claim: deliberatly killing innocent people is homicide abortion kills innocent people, therefore abortion is homicide? Can you refute this?


E: of course I can

a: how? There are only three ways you know: finding an ambiguous term, a false premiseor logical fallacy

e: you don’t have to give me a lesson in logic

a: good which of the three shall it be?


E: easy: an ambigious term “human being”. You say abortion is homicide because the fetus is a human being but I say its only a human life. Of course it is biologically human not an ape but its not yet a human person . We all make that disctinction. You could clone another human being from anyone of your cells , but that one cell is not a individual person.


A: so what makes a human person? What is a human being?


E: a biologically whole individual of the human species.


A: and a fetus isn’t that?


E: ha ha, no certainly not, a zygote isn’t at theat moment, at the moment of conception its just one cell. How could you say that’s a whole human being? Do you really believe that?


A: yes

e: ha ha ha, then whats your definition of a human being?


A: exactly the same as yours: a biologically whole individual of the human species. Even a human zygote is that. Its not just one more cell in the mothers body , it’s a new body it its most primitive state.


E: so you really believe thea one cell is a complete human being

a: yes, its not completely grown, but its completely human

e: so is every cell in your body

a: but the zygote is completely individual, its completely different. It has its own genetic code, if you cloned any cell of the mothers body you would get a replica of mother but if you cloned the zygote, you would get a completely different person.


E: so you think that microscopic thing is a person?


A: yes a person is a person no matter how small

e: I find that totally ridiculous

a: that tells us something about your subjective feelings not about objective facts.


E: the mothers feelings are facts, she doesn’t feel she is killing anyone

a: sometimes she does , why else do so many feel guilty about it?


E: because you pro lifers have aborted her self esteem with your guilt trip, that why!


A: and you say she has no real reason to feel guilty right?


E: right

a: then we need to find out if she has or has not and if the fetus is a human person she has and if it is not a human person she hasn’t.


E: so the mothers feelings don’t count for you, is that it?


A: no of course not

e: then lets look at them not just the fetus

a: but we already know the mothers feeling; we need to find out what a fetus is, a human being or not?


E: you like to sepreate those two things totally don’t you?


A: to distinguish them, yes. Because what a fetus human or not is fetal facts not fetal feelings.


E: your big on logic

a: its not just ofr logical reasons but for moral reasons, human reasons, its terribly practical, you above all should know that. You own people suffered from the same logical mistake! Suppose you were living in 1860 or whenever the supreme court came out with dred scott. You’d be declared less than human, you’d be defined as property of a person rather than a human person, just because nine white judges felt that about you. Would that make you property would it make you a non-person?


E: I don’t accept that analogy, that’s false analogy and its very insulting to me and I bet you haven’t the faintest idea why?


A: no I don’t

e: and you don’t care too much about my feelings do you

a: not as much as I do your reasons because they are what justify your behaviour

e: no maybe they justify your reasons philosopher.


A: look are you saying abortion is ok and a fetus is not a person, because the mother feels ok about itand because you feel not ok about my analogy?


E: I am saying we have decended into argument

a: I don’t see how we can understand each other if we don’t undertand each others reasons.


E: I gave you my reason: abortion is ok because the fetus is not a person
a: so it has a human life but its not a human person?


E: right

a: is it a human being

e: word games! Look what your doing you’re assuming that it dosnt depend on how I feel about it emotionally, but that it does depend on how you define it logically.


A: your absolutely right. So it doesn’t depend upon anybody eleses feelings or definitions . It depends on what it is in itself. Our definitions can be right or wrong and our feelings can be right and wrong too.


E: of course

a: so lets look at what it is

e: ok lets look at this thing you call a person, it has no brain, no nervous system, no organs of any kind. It cant do a single one of all the things everyone calls human. It cant think, feel, choose, see, love, play the guitar or surf.


A: if I find one thing it can do, and does that only a human person can do, would that convince you it’s a human person?


E: I guess so, if it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck and layes duck eggs, I guess it’s a duck.


A: it can do one thing only a human person can do

e: the zygote? What? It cant do anything yet?


A: it can grow into itself

e: it’s a human life I admit but its not a human person only human persons have rights do you deny that?


A: no but I believe all human beings are persons. Do you think there is another kind of human being that isn’t a person? Whom do you put into that category apart from the unborn and why? The handicapped? The mentally handicapped? Pro lifers?


E: I am having second thoughts about one pro lifer

a: stop being cute and answer the question eve!


E: stop playing god and telling me what to do, adam!


A: I am not playing god, I am playing equal human being, playing by the goldenrule

e: which is the personal act self conscience, love, choice, empathy that defines a person?
A: they are all personal acts.


E: and the fetus cant do any of them, therefore not a person.


A: no because its not any one act on the list, but the relation of the personal acts to the actor that makes for a person

e: what do you mean by that?



A: let me put it in a form of a choice, which do you choose?


1.A person is one who is presently performing some of these personal acts.


If you choose that answer , then sleeping persons stop being persons so they don’t have rights and is ok to kill them

2.A person is one with a present capacity to perform personal acts. That would include sleepers but no those in a coma as persons, is it ok to kill them?


3.A person is someone with a past history of performing acts, that means a 20year old who was born in a coma and is about to come out of it two minutes from now is not a person and is ok to kill him as long as you did it before he came out of the coma.


4.A person is someone who has a present capacity for future personal acts.


But that would mean the dying persons are not persons.


5.A person is someone with an inherent capacity, a natural capacity for performing personal acts, given the right conditions, including time and growth . A person with a certain nature, a essence, that by that nature can perform personal acts like thinking and loving.



E: we don’t need a definition of a person to know that a microscopic cell isn’t a person.


A: now your tailoring your definition to your assumption about abortion.


E: do you really believe that most people think a zygote is a person.


A: it does not matter what people think, it what it is that counts but if they know enough science, yes because you were once a zygote, every person was.


E: that’s only a potential person, its not a thinker, a lover or a chooser, only potential thinker, lover, chooser

a: but what is it actually? There has to be something actually there, in the human zygote that accounts for the potential to love, choose etc and that something is its nature, its essence, from its very beginning; its not added to it later from outside , it is already a fully programmed individual human being, every thing from arm hair to sex to eye color, its all there . And if those accidental qualities are already there, the essence must be too.


E: it dosnt have a brain, organs how can it be a person, its just not logical

a: just the opposite… you have to be a human being to grow a human brain. Whats not logical is something that is not a human being naturally growing a human brain.


E sure it will have a human brain and will think and be a human person, but its not doing anything yet

a: it is its growing a human brain and the rest of a human body

e: so what is it if its not a human body?


A: it is a human body. What else could it be? Its human and it’s a body.


E: so you feel that killing it is homicide

a: no, I don’t feel it, I think it, I believe it, we obviously don’t feel the kind of bond with an embryo that we feel with a fully formed born baby.


E: and you want to discount feeling altogether mister philosopher?


A: no, I recognise that most people let their feelings move them more than their thought. That’s why I think women who have abortions are not as evil as nazi’s who homicide jews or whites who kill blacks and its why most people feel ambivalent about abortion but the act itself is just as intrinsically evil as the other things, just the women themselves are less accountable. But feelings cant be the standard for what the thing isand what rights it has, most people don’t have the same bond with deformed people as with able bodied people, does that mean deformed people arnt human?


E: no

a: you don’t believe infanticide is ok do you?


E: of course not

a: why not? What justifies abortion that does not justify abortion? What makes infanticide wrong that dosnt make abortion wrong?


E: I guess I will have to think about that one.


A: lets take a break for a while.