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Comment by riskable | Hacker News Reader

First of all: What a terribly-made PDF... It's so compressed I can't even read the text at the top.

Secondly, it's just from an awful source: The Family Research Council (FRC) is designated as a hate group (for good reason!) by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/grou...

Even after all that it has yet another problem: It uses loaded terms like, "unborn children" to cover the entire gamut of zygote, embryo, fetus, etc. Is it really that impossible for the anti-choice movement to make a reasoned argument? To cite legitimate science? To present a clear (readable, haha) basis for this position that doesn't involve religion or tradition?

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So you dispute the information about abortion laws by country, or are you just going to devolve into a argumentum ad verecundiam fallacy?

FWIW, the SPLC is an extremist hate group from my perspective.

But neither of these things changes the fact that the USA has extraordinarily permissive abortion laws.

I thought the PDF had been linked as a source for the claim regarding abortion laws between countries.

The problem is the OP's claim of "legal extremism" is (apparently) founded in the Family Research Council's definition of "extreme" which is... Extreme. It'd be like a Confederate citing the reason for the Civil War as the North's "extreme" laws regarding slavery.

This argument works both ways: Believing that the FRC is a hate group just because the SPLC says so is like believing the Union is a hate group just because the Confederacy says so.

That analogy would hold if the North's anti-slavery position were held by a tiny minority of countries, if I'm understanding your argument.

I wasn't aware that unborn children was a loaded term... It seems to me that they may be using that term to refer to "the entire gamut of zygote, embryo, fetus, etc.". I know, it's crazy we wrap up ideas like this into a pithy little phrase. It's almost as if the English language has short phrases that are useful to discuss things at a broader level. Crazy right?

> Is it really that impossible for the anti-choice movement to make a reasoned argument?

Well what is a reasoned argument? Google says that reason is "a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.". So it seems to me that if somebody offers any explanation, that fulfills a reasoned argument. But perhaps you mean well-reasoned. And that is a subjective argument contingent on what you mean by well.

> To cite legitimate science?

Yes you can argue pro life and cite legitimate science [1]. But like this article says, you'll probably pull out your prejudice and immediately dismiss any scientific evidence that supports pro life. In addition to that, science is funded by people with agendas. Like the article also says:

>> As often as not, scientists dive into the debate, taking funding from pro-life or pro-choice organizations or openly advancing an ideological position. This, too, has consequences: It casts doubt on the validity and integrity of any researcher in bioethics-related fields. “Anybody with money can get a scientist to say what they want them to say,” Largent says. “That’s not because scientists are whores. It’s because the world is a really complex place, and there are ways that you can craft a scientific investigation to lend credence to one side or another.”

So claiming illegitimate science is just a No True Scotsman's fallacy. A true scientist would never come to a pro life conclusion, therefore you must be a false scientist.

> that doesn't involve religion or tradition?

An atheist's point of view seems like it would not involve either religion or tradition [0].

[0]: https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2017/10/19/...

[1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/pro-lif...

I read those two articles: The first one is along the lines of, "I'm here! I exist!" and doesn't make any arguments at all. The second one is much more interesting! However, it isn't making any case at all one way or the other.

Though I will say this: The Atlantic article does a pretty good job summing up the stance of the pro-life scientists:

> “There had been, a long time ago, this mantra from our friends on the other side of this issue that, while a little one is developing in its mother’s womb, it’s not a baby,” she says. “It’s really hard to make that argument when you see and hear a heartbeat and watch little hands moving around.”

If the entire basis of their argument is, "this is a baby!" then it's not going to win over very many pro-choice folks because they know it's a baby. It's a developing human life. Absolutely! But then again: So what? Why is that special? It certainly hasn't been born yet. It can't even feel pain until about 29-30 weeks.

Sooner or later we'll have completely artificial wombs and when that day comes the folks (or AIs) operating them will probably regularly discard fetuses that aren't growing how they'd like. They'll also probably have machines that can produce (or manufacture!) eggs and sperm with whatever genetics are desired. At that point a fertilized egg will be viable the moment it's fertilized. Does that mean we have to give it a social security number and treat it like it's complete human? Absolutely not!

Being anti-choice doesn't have a basis in science or reason: It's a moral position. That's what's wrong with debate from that side: They pretend it's not and it comes off as super disingenuous. You can make a well-reasoned, logical argument from that premise of, "here's why we think it's morally wrong" but that's never where it goes. It's always about heartbeats or sucking of thumbs or whatever a developing human can do at various stages.

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