Why aren't pro-lifers killing abortionists?

[stormie]

Now I d n't h e enou h! I f el li e suc fo l'

[C2H5OH]

I notice now, that our OP troll, @George Kaplin, can''t be bothered to come back and respond to the response he demanded of me. Could it be because I was right about his OP being nothing but a troll? Or was it because I was right about him being stupid? Or was it BOTH!!???? HMMM???

I gave you what you demanded of me. Ball's in your court, asshole.

[Ludovic]

I am agnostic on the trolliness of the OPoster but I don't see what's so weird about the Opost per se. I don't see why more of the 10% of Americans who are hardcore antiabortion aren't more militant, or at least do not vote against those who accept abortion in the case of rape or incest. If I thought that there were literally tens of thousands of babby murders in America per year, I might not be one of the ones who went postal against it, but I definitely wouldn't say "hey, sure, it's literally murdering a person, but if someone raped you, sure, it gives you free reign to murder someone!"

[C2H5OH]

Originally Posted by Ludovic

"hey, sure, it's literally murdering a person, but if someone raped you, sure, it gives you free reign to murder someone!"

That's just a "Politics is the Art of the Possible" position. They'd outlaw all of them if they had their way, but they know that's not politically palatable to most people, so the idea is to get the 'outlaw with exceptions' law passed, then up the ante from there.

[Baker]

Do not feed the OP.

[C2H5OH]

Originally Posted by Baker

Do not feed the OP.

OP was on-line the evening I posted #52, for at least an hour, sometime after I posted it, and was still on when I went to bed, so he certainly saw the PM telling him about my 'call-out' mention-tag. I assumed he was taking his time to write a reasoned long-winded but retarded response. Nope. No response at all.

All the dismissive shit he got when everyone was just calling him a troll didn't make him go away. It only fed him. He only went away when I answered his bullshit in #48. Turned out to be something he couldn't answer, because he's both a troll, and a bloody idiot .

He's still welcome to respond to #48, but he won't, because he can't. Because he's a bloody idiot.

Notice how I reverse the "Won't/Can't" distinction he made about me? I'm smarter than him... Oh wait. I'm damning myself with faint praise...

[McNutty]

Originally Posted by C2H5OH

It gave me an opportunity to gratuitously insult him

Those insults were not gratuitous.

[George Kaplin]

Originally Posted by C2H5OH

Look, you stupid putz. I normally have a rule: "Never try to wise up a dummy. It never takes." But I'm going to make an exception for you once.

To recap, you barged into the thread with a random insult which I was magnanimous enough to ignore. You then accused me of strawmanning the pro-life position. When I cited a sample argument written by a pro-lifer and published in an online news source, you just insulted me again and flounced out of the thread. Can you really blame me for assuming you were just trolling? My deepest apologies for the late response. The salty tears of my contrition are unbearably bitter. I would have responded sooner. It's just that, given the content of your post, I thought it best to wait until I had literally nothing better to do in the world.

The strawman you're making is when you contend that "If they believe it's murder, they would kill abortionists. They don't kill them, therefore they are lying about believing that it's murder." You are attributing to them a 'secret position' that they are lying about. Classic 'Strawman Argument', asshole.

You have gotten two things wrong:

1) What you have presented isn't a straw man. A straw man is when someone misrepresents the premises of an argument. I'll give you an example:

Me: C2H5OH is so retarded he should be sold to a vivisectionist, because he's really too stupid to be of any other use.

Other poster: It's not correct that people with IQ's lower than 60 are of no use. They can still serve as walking examples of the dangers of drinking lead paint while pregnant, and at a pinch they can be trained to work for the TSA.

Now, in the above example, the other poster has created a straw man of my (very reasonable) position by conflating you with people who have IQs below 60. This misrepresents my initial premise because, of course, you are much, much dumber than that.

What you are calling a straw man is a conclusion, not a premise. I'll lay it out for you:

Premise A: Pro-lifers say the unborn are fully human. - Self-evidently true. They say so all the time.

Premise B: Pro-lifers also say abortion is murder - Also, self-evidently true. Again, they say so all the time.

Premise C: Pro-lifers say abortionists are murderers. - This follows on from A and B. You can't believe abortion is murder and simultaneously believe that the person performing the abortion isn't a murderer. It's just not possible. Also, yet again, they say so all the time.

Premise D: It is morally impermissible to allow a murder to take place if you have the means to prevent it. - This is basically the bedrock premise of every moral code ever devised.

Premise E: Killing a murderer to prevent him from murdering is not, morally speaking, a murder. Morally speaking, the closest legal analog is justifiable homicide. - This follows on from the above premises.

Premise F: Pro-lifers would be able to drastically and immediately cut down on the number of abortions (murders, as per premise B) by killing abortionists (murderers, as per premise C) because (a) those dead abortionists wouldn't be able to perform any abortions and (b) fewer people would want to become abortionists in the first place.

Premise G: Pro-lifers have the means to prevent abortions today (guns, bombs, etc...), but they instead choose to avail themselves of far slower, less effective means of preventing abortions. This directly contradicts premise D.

Proposed conclusion: Pro-lifers don't really believe premises A, or, B, or C, or some combination of all three.

Now, here's the tricky bit. Brace yourself, because I'm about to ask you to step out of your comfort zone and concentrate. Worse, I want you to concentrate on something completely unrelated to your chosen vocation of huffing drano fumes out of a dented bucket. You might want to try sitting. Are you? Are you sitting? Right...here goes

JUST BECAUSE YOU DISAGREE WITH MY CONCLUSION DOESN'T MEAN I'M CREATING A STRAW MAN.

You get that, you thick fuck? The worst you can accuse me of is drawing a false conclusion. And guess what? The question of whether the conclusion is false is the entire fucking point of the entire fucking thread!

2) I never said that pro-lifers are lying about abortion being murder. I just said they didn't really believe it. There's a whole ocean of nuance between the two. For instance, they could be self-deluded and may just subconsciously consider the unborn to possess less intrinsic worth than the born. In fact, I consider that to be the most likely explanation. Ironically, you strawmanned me.

It's only moral to kill in defense of others if a) the threat of murder is imminent, and b) no less-drastic means are available to prevent the murder. In other words, it would only be morally justified if the abortionist was about to actually perform an abortion. Killing someone because they might perform an abortion tomorrow would, itself, be murder, and therefore just as evil as abortion.

Two points:

1) What you've just said is unmitigated horse shit and you should be embarrassed for yourself. People have committed seppuku under the burden of lesser shame than you should be feeling right now. If you think a person is going to commit not just one, but several murders tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and every day henceforth until they retire then killing them today is nowhere near as bad letting them live.

Imagine if, somehow, you got wind of the 9/11 plot a week before the attacks. Imagine, too, that, for whatever reason you care to conjecture, the only way you could stop them was to kill Mohammed Atta. By your reasoning, killing him at any point before he got to the airport would be "just as evil" as letting him carry on his merry way.

"But...but...that was terrorism! 3000 people! Straw man! STRAAAWMAAN!"

Save it, moron. From the perspective of someone who believes abortion is truly murder, the difference is one of degree, not kind.

2) Even if we were to grant, purely for the sake of argument, that the drivel you insist on inflicting on us had some sort of merit, why not just kill the abortionist on his way to work? Problem solved.

Now, they could conceivably try to get into the room while he's doing his work, but if they succeeded, all they would have to do is stand in his way to prevent the abortion (less drastic means), and so, again, killing him would be murder.

So, why don't they try to get in there and stop it? Some of them do. But, all that does is delay, but not stop, one abortion, and it gets them arrested and jailed for no good effect. Same as the few who do murder abortionists.

Two points:

1) The first bolded section flatly contradicts the second. If physically getting in the way doesn't do any good then....drumroll....it doesn't do any fucking good and it's just useless showboating and therefore shouldn't even be a fucking option!

2) You're out of your depth, and much less intelligent than a deranged laboratory chimp specifically bred to test the effects of pistol whippings on posting ability. This is incidental, but worth stating for the record nonetheless.

Some people just have an overwhelming urge to 'sacrifice themselves for the cause', even when it does no good.

Why this insistence on sacrificing themselves? Forgetting, for the moment, the fact that pro-lifers don't logically have reason to consider the killing of an abortionist to be murder, roughly 1/3 of people who commit murder actually get away with it. You act as though people who might decide to kill abortionists would definitely get caught. That's far from certain. It's not a certainty at all. It's merely a calculated risk.

And on what basis do you say such a crime would do no good? From a pro-lifer's point of view, it would do the good of preventing an unspecified number of abortions (murders, as they allegedly see them), and create a chilling effect among the medical establishment, making it less likely that anyone else would take his place.

Consequently, what your strawman logically comes out to is 'People who believe murder is wrong, but won't commit murder to prevent potential future murders, must therefore not really believe murder is wrong.' Your strawman is almost as stupid as you.

Every time you use the word logic, Bertrand Russell's coffin spins that little bit closer to the centre of the Earth. Put simply (because that clearly works best for you), my argument is as follows:

Pro-lifers say that the unborn are equal to the born and, therefore, abortion is murder. They use this as justification for restricting women's bodily autonomy because, if the unborn are fully human, keeping them alive is more important than giving women full control over their bodies.

However, they don't do the one thing which would be absolutely guaranteed to reduce the number of abortions in America, almost overnight: kill abortionists and/or provide cover for those who do.

Why not? That's the question. Here is my answer:

Pro-lifers (perhaps unconsciously) believe there are 'tiers' of value to different forms of human life and that the unborn occupy a lower tier than the born. If that is true, their justification for restricting women's bodily autonomy is greatly weakened.

Also, you're an utter fuckwit who I would gladly leave in a burning building to save a pig.

Regards,

George.

[George Kaplin]

Originally Posted by Ludovic

I am agnostic on the trolliness of the OPoster but I don't see what's so weird about the Opost per se. I don't see why more of the 10% of Americans who are hardcore antiabortion aren't more militant, or at least do not vote against those who accept abortion in the case of rape or incest. If I thought that there were literally tens of thousands of babby murders in America per year, I might not be one of the ones who went postal against it, but I definitely wouldn't say "hey, sure, it's literally murdering a person, but if someone raped you, sure, it gives you free reign to murder someone!"

This guy gets it.

[Jaglavak]

So... are you advocating a position here or what?

[Darmund]

Why do hyoo-mons not logic? Does not compute.

[George Kaplin]

Originally Posted by Jaglavak

So... are you advocating a position here or what?

My position is that the pro-life position is untenable.

The way I see it, the most fundamental right is the right to life, and the second most fundamental right is the right to decide what you do with your own body. The right to life is the more important of the two because without the right to life, you don't really have bodily autonomy anyway. But, apart from the right to life, there is no right more important than the right to decide what to do with your own body. This is a fundamental axiom. To accept my argument, you need to accept that this is true.

Pro-lifers argue that the unborn are fully human, that the fact of their humanity means that abortion is murder, and that our moral obligation to prevent murder is so strong that it overrides a woman's right to choose.

The question is: If abortion is murder, why aren't pro-lifers doing the one thing which would guarantee a sharp drop in the number of abortions? There are, as I see it, two possible answers:

1) They do believe abortion is murder, but they value their own personal freedom over the lives of the unborn.

2) They don't really believe that abortion is murder.

I don't think option 1 really works. Firstly, from a strictly moral point of view, forgetting about the law for a moment, if abortion is murder, it follows that killing abortionists isn't murder. It's justifiable homicide on behalf of the unborn. Pro-lifers have no reason to feel bad, given what they believe they're preventing. Yeah, it's sad for the abortionists' families and whatever, but so what? Concentration camp guards and terrorists have families too.

Secondly, there's no guarantee they'll even get caught. Indeed, if killing abortionists is morally justifiable, it's also morally justifiable to provide cover for the killers. If you're a pro-lifer and you believe abortion is murder, and a fellow pro-lifer confesses to having just murdered an abortionist, what, specifically, is morally objectionable about, say, providing them with a false alibi, or letting them stay in your attic until the heat is off? Nothing, as far as I can see.

Thirdly, if they value their own liberty over the lives of the unborn, by what right do they expect women to sacrifice their own bodily autonomy for the lives of the unborn?

So that's why I think explanation 1 is a non-starter. That leaves explanation 2.

I think explanation 2 is a lot more plausible. Pro-lifers don't really believe abortion is murder. They implicitly believe that there are 'tiers' of value to different forms of human life and that the unborn occupy a lower tier than the born. In other words, there is a contradiction between what they say they believe, and what their inaction implies they actually do believe. The existence of this contradiction explains why they are generally so reluctant to kill abortionists, even though doing so would get them what they want pretty much overnight.

Now, it's important to understand that, when I say pro-lifers don't really believe abortion is murder I'm not accusing them of lying. I'm just saying there's an unexamined contradiction in their thinking. However, their refusal to recognise this contradiction has serious, real-world consequences. If they can be made to see that they don't really believe the unborn are worth as much as the born, then it becomes much harder for them to argue that a woman's right to choose should be subordinated to a fetuses right to life, and their entire position basically collapses under its own weight.

Asking them why they don't kill abortionists is, IMO, a useful a way to get them to examine this contradiction.

My position, in a nutshell, is we should ask them this question and press them for serious answers. Doing so will help them see their position is untenable.

[C2H5OH]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

To recap, ...

<blah blah moronic drivel expanding on his already disproven bulllshit snipped>

Retards,

George.

See, folks? I told you he was to dumb to get it.

[George Kaplin]

Originally Posted by C2H5OH

See, folks? I told you he was to dumb to get it.

Go suck an exhaust pipe, you stunted cunt.

[Khampelf]

You need a debate club, George. we are obviously not up to your fine standards of a unique logic. Very sorry no one fell down and worshiped your superior argument. We are unworthy of you, go away and find better people to worship your golden calf.

[George Kaplin]

Originally Posted by Khampelf

You need a debate club, George. we are obviously not up to your fine standards of a unique logic. Very sorry no one fell down and worshiped your superior argument. We are unworthy of you, go away and find better people to worship your golden calf.

What I need is for scum like you and C2H5OH to stop dropping trou and taking giant Atkins diet shits all over my fucking threads. Do you think you can do that, you fucking waste of syphilitic junkie spunk? Do you think you can just fuck off to another thread and leave this one for people who might actually be interested in having a fucking conversation? Or are you just going to hang around talking shit, even though your input is less welcome than a pedophile barbershop quartet at an orphanage Christmas party?

New rule, cunt. When I want your input I'll give you a special signal, which'll be me cutting my own head off with a fucking chainsaw. Until then, fuck off.

Oh, and you can take that cunt Plumbean with you, as well. You're all wastes of fucking space.

Fuck it. That was the last fucking straw. You fucking win. I'm done.

[Khampelf]

Ummm, no. No can do. Gonna post what I went, when I want. We aren't preventing others from chiming in, it's just that no one is interested, and you have earned ridicule, mostly for taking yourself too seriously.

Scum? Gosh that cut me to quick. You were better off with 'cunt'. That one's a board tradition at least. Anyway, your feckless impotent rage reminds me of a toddler told he can't have the green sippy cup.

[George Kaplin]

I said I'm done. You trolled me out of my own thread. Still, if nothing else it was an interesting example of how things are done around here. Feel free to have the last word.

[Khampelf]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

I said I'm done. You trolled me out of my own thread. Still, if nothing else it was an interesting example of how things are done around here.

And yet you are still here. It's not our fault your so called argument doesn't hold up. You love the attention, and you show a psychopathic desire to have the last word.

If you're going away, go. But you don't get a mic drop.

[C2H5OH]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

Go suck an exhaust pipe, you stunted cunt.

Awrite, folks, remember that rule I mentioned about "Don't try to wise up a dummy, because it never takes"? This is a perfect illustration of it 'not taking'. I'm gonna violate the rule for our illustrious OP a second time, but I bet it still won't take. I won't bother to do it a third time.

Let me explain it to you a second time why you're 'strawmanning' those 'pro-lifers'. You are probably too dense to get it, even when I try a different way of explaining, but here goes:

You say they don't really believe it's 'murder', because they refuse to kill the fucking abortionists. The problem is that you don't (you even willfully refuse to) understand what they mean by the word "murder". You keep saying that whacking an abortionist would be "Justifiable Homicide". It's not. Not to the people you keep attributing that position to [There's that goddamned Strawman!!!]. It's really simple. In order to be 'Justifiable Homicide' you need 2 conditions.

1) Imminent harm. The fact that the abortionist is going to go to work tomorrow, and perform a few abortions does NOT fulfill that. Therefore, whacking him the day before is murder. The very thing you are strawmanning them into not actually believing in.

2) You also need to not have "Less drastic means ". Guess what, moron! It DOES NOT MATTER that shooting him today will prevent tomorrow's abortion. The only thing that matters is that standing in front of him tomorrow will prevent him from doing the abortion. So they have to stand in front of him tomorrow, when he's about to do the abortion. Doesn't fucking help, TODAY!

You are truly an idiot. I'm done with trying to wise you up. You're impervious to anything even remotely resembling "wisdom". Or reason. Or logic. You're a bloody moron, and no one can help you, because it's bloody willful.

ETA: I forgot to call you a bloody wanker. Here you go: You're a boody wanker. You're also an asshole. And a troll. Fuck off, asshole.

[stormie]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

. . . we should ask them this question and press them for serious answers. Doing so will help them see their position is untenable.

I've never seen this actually work.

[George Kaplin]

CH25O5 - As soon as I saw your username I stopped reading. As I said to your fellow troll, I'm done. Congratulations on wasting your time, stupid cunt.

[C2H5OH]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

CH25O5 -

Typical Bloody Wanker...


I got in the last word. I WIN!!!!

[Clothahump]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

I doubt there are that many pro-lifers here, but just on the off-chance...

Your terminology is incorrect. Those people are not pro-life, they are anti-abortion.

[C2H5OH]

Originally Posted by Clothahump

Your terminology is incorrect. Those people are not pro-life, they are anti-abortion.

Awww, look at the cute turtle!!!! Such an awesome hat!!!! OOOOOHHHH! So Kawai!!!!!

[Jaglavak]

Originally Posted by Clothahump

Your terminology is incorrect. Those people are not pro-life, they are anti-abortion.

True.

[McNutty]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

What I need is for scum like you and C2H5OH to stop dropping trou and taking giant Atkins diet shits all over my fucking threads.

The problem is that your thread sucks and is based on a stupid premise and hardly anyone thinks explaining that to you is more fun than calling you a moron.

[Glazer]

What's up Nuts? I only clicked on this thread cuz I saw you posted. Ain't seen you in a while. How ya be?

[McNutty]

Originally Posted by Glazer

What's up Nuts? I only clicked on this thread cuz I saw you posted. Ain't seen you in a while. How ya be?

Been good. Life has settled down somewhat. I've debated posting an update about my crazy life changes as opposed to mere allusions to it, but I would expect most people would just roll their eyes and say "get a blog."

[Khampelf]

Originally Posted by McNutty

Been good. Life has settled down somewhat. I've debated posting an update about my crazy life changes as opposed to mere allusions to it, but I would expect most people would just roll their eyes and say "get a blog."

Oh, hell's no! I for one would wait with abated breath for tales of you latest doings, it's been a while, for sure. Even if I'm the only one, dare to be boring!
If Giraffe can spare the bandwidth I use about nothing, we have room for ya.

[Glazer]

You got the boat out yet this year?

[stormie]

Originally Posted by McNutty

Been good. Life has settled down somewhat. I've debated posting an update about my crazy life changes as opposed to mere allusions to it, but I would expect most people would just roll their eyes and say "get a blog."

Enquiring minds want to know!

[Inna Minnit]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

Yes. I know you're trying to make it sound silly, but you haven't really thought it through. Killing and murder aren't the same thing, and killing to save innocent life isn't legally murder. Therefore, since pro-lifers say they view the unborn as fully human, they have no philosophical reason to consider killing an abortionist to be murder. So why don't they do it?

Nice strawman. We don't condone vigilantism. One person, deciding on their own, to kill another person is murder. And before you ask, self defense is not something that is premeditated. You plan it out, it is murder.

[Shmiogenes]

Originally Posted by Radical Edward

So you're saying that people who think that people shouldn't murder other people should murder people to stop them from murdering people?

If you saw somebody about to stab a baby, would it be murder to shoot them before they did it?

[Shmiogenes]

Originally Posted by Inna Minnit

Nice strawman. We don't condone vigilantism. One person, deciding on their own, to kill another person is murder. And before you ask, self defense is not something that is premeditated. You plan it out, it is murder.

Planning to save babies from being murdered is murder?

[Shmiogenes]

I used to think anti-choicers were just too chickenshit to follow the logic of their own demagoguery. They want to call it murder, but they don't want to sacrifice anything to stop it. Now I think I was giving them too much credit in assuming their beliefs were sincere. The truth is, they really DON'T think it's murder. Deep down inside they know that. They know that cum is not a baby, and they don't give a shit about babies after they're born anyway. Especially if they aren't white. All the "unborn child" language is just cynical polemic designed to serve motivations that are essentially misogynistic. It's all about controlling women not saving imaginary babies. They know damn well there isn't any baby.

[C2H5OH]

Looks like a pig wants to wrestle in the mud. Doesn't seem to be too many takers.

[Shmiogenes]

I assume everybody agrees with me. Did I say anything controversial?

[C2H5OH]

No, just something stupid, that's already been repeatedly addressed and refuted.

[Shmiogenes]

What was refuted?

[George Kaplin]

Don't bother, dude. Talking sense to C2H5O5 is like showing a card trick to a dog. All you do is baffle it and rile it up. He's literally shat this thread to death. You're unlikely to get anything productive or interesting out of it now.

[C2H5OH]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

Don't bother, dude. Talking sense to C2H5O5 is like showing a card trick to a dog. All you do is baffle it and rile it up. He's literally shat this thread to death. You're unlikely to get anything productive or interesting out of it now.

Still can't get over your stupidity being carefully explained to you, so you declare victory by Pigeon Chess rules, eh?

[George Kaplin]

Shut up, punchbag.

[Shmiogenes]

Originally Posted by C2H5OH

Still can't get over your stupidity being carefully explained to you, so you declare victory by Pigeon Chess rules, eh?

Yeah, nothing was "explained" to me. I think you're just triggered by truth. I can say this with certainty, I do not believe for a second that anti-choicers really believe abortion is murder. They can SAY they really mean it all they want, but I am not obligated to believe them and my personal disbelief is not something that can be refuted. Not only do I have no obligation to believe them, I don't even have any ability to believe them. Belief is a dependent variable. If you really thought abortion was murder, you'd have no moral problem with assassinating doctors. Talking about the rule of law is just an excuse. Would you have had a problem with someone shooting Mengele to stop him from vivisecting children, or would you call it unacceptable "vigilantism?"

[George Kaplin]

According to C2H5OH, anyone who had a problem with Mengele vivisecting children would need to postpone any sort of physical intervention until the good doctor was standing over his victim, scalpel in hand. Even then, they couldn't kill him unless standing in front of him was a remotely viable option, even if that viability was only temporary and/or entirely theoretical. And if they didn't do both these things then they'd be just as bad. Like, there would literally be no moral difference between them and Mengele.

[Jaglavak]

Shut the fuck up you vacuous braindead ego stroking monkey.

[George Kaplin]

No.

[C2H5OH]

Originally Posted by George Kaplin

According to C2H5OH, anyone who had a problem with Mengele vivisecting children would need to postpone any sort of physical intervention until the good doctor was standing over his victim, scalpel in hand. Even then, they couldn't kill him unless standing in front of him was a remotely viable option, even if that viability was only temporary and/or entirely theoretical. And if they didn't do both these things then they'd be just as bad. Like, there would literally be no moral difference between them and Mengele.

You incredibly stupid, stupid moron. I was explaining pro-lifers' moral beliefs, not advocating for them. I assumed correctly that you were too dense to understand, but I figured I'd give you a chance, anyway. Do try to read for comprehension, you stupid fuck.

[George Kaplin]

Originally Posted by C2H5OH

You incredibly stupid, stupid moron. I was explaining pro-lifers' moral beliefs, not advocating for them. I assumed correctly that you were too dense to understand, but I figured I'd give you a chance, anyway. Do try to read for comprehension, you stupid fuck.

So...it would be correct to say that according to pro-lifers if you kill Mengele to prevent him from vivisecting children you're just as bad as Mengele?

You wanna run that by some actual pro-lifers? Because I think they'd be pretty insulted.

P.S. - You're so cataclysmically dumb that you have to whistle when you go to the toilet to remind yourself which end to shit through, so being called stupid by you isn't the insult you seem to think it is. The day you ever have a coherent thought your head will collapse in on itself like a neglected shed.

[SisterCoyote]

Originally Posted by Shmiogenes

If you saw somebody about to stab a baby, would it be murder to shoot them before they did it?

Yes. Arguably, but not definitively, "justifiable homicide". Still murder.

When you compare those 11 persons to the number of abortion providers in the US, it's a much more significant number. If you add the number of attempted murders, attempted bombings, etc. of providers and clinics, it also, IIRC, goes up significantly.

If I saw someone about to throw a baby in the river, I have a number of choices other than killing the guy (which, btw, in your example is a stupid choice because the guy's likely to drop the damn baby in the river, at which point I have caused the loss of not one life but two). I can try to talk him out of it. Try to find out his reasons. Try to get him to give me the damn baby. I can stall him until the police or other law enforcement arrive. I can (depending, of course, on the height of the water and other considerations) dive into the water myself, prepared to catch the baby.

Also, there are laws in place against murder. But even if there weren't, if I honestly believe abortion is murder, then I try to change the laws rather than committing murder myself for three reasons (in rough order of importance):

1) The Sixth (or Seventh, depending on whether or not I'm Catholic) Commandment: You will not murder.

2) Love each other as I have loved you.

3) Judge not, unless you want to be judged using the same standard.

There's also some stuff about the kind of society I want to live in, regardless of my feelings on abortion, but you don't care about that.

You don't care about any of this. None of it is what you want to hear, so get the fuck off my side of this debate.