What fallacies would you say are found in the following “pro-choice” arguments?

“I don’t personally agree with abortion, but that’s a religious question, and not everyone agrees with me on abortion being murder. So I want women to be able to have an abortion.”

“A woman should have the choice to have an abortion, because women themselves, and not politicians, should be able to dictate what a woman does with her own body.”

Hello:?

In the first paragraph:?

They try to relate abortion to religion. But this connection does not exist (at least not ?complete). There are religions where abortion is ok. So, maybe here is a kind of ?Generalization fallacy.?

Then, because not everyone agrees with them about abortion being a murder, do not ?mean it is not a murder. Here can be a Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc Fallacy. In addition to ?a lie, because the problem with abortion is not about murder, but about selfishness (How ?many I love myself to the level to kill a unborn?)?

In the second paragraph:?

There is an Either-Or type of fallacy. Ok, we can agree that politician should not be able ?to dictate what a woman makes with her own body, but this do not mean woman should. ?Maybe there is somebody else to ask, God. Anyway we must considerer that abortion has ?little to do with the woman body; it is more in relation with the baby’s body.?

I am not an expert in naming fallacies, so I will be checking for corrections?

Bye, bye

The first one is a fallacy of relativism. The person using it says, what’s true for me might not be true for you, so I have no business judging what you do. (Why have any laws at all, in that case?)

The second one is a form of Begging the Question. Boil it down and it’s just, “women should have the choice because women should have the choice.” It’s no argument at all, just an assertion.

Hey guys,

Great comments! I agree with your (Mesa Mike’s) analysis of the first fallacy. It’s little more than saying, “I think abortion is bloody murder, but not everyone else agrees with me, so we should allow it.” This is no different than saying, “I think cannibalism is a disgusting and unnatural violation of human rights, but the cannibals themselves disagree with me, so we should allow it as long as there is mutual consent.”*

I actually wrote the second argument with several fallacies in mind. Mesa Mike got the more obvious one, and Perta helpfully pointed out another fallacy in this argument: the either-or fallacy. The two I chiefly had in mind was a red herring and a straw man. Simply saying that “women should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies” is a red herring. Women already do have the legal right to do whatever they want with their bodies; that’s why we see tattooed, shaved head/mohawked/etc. and androgynous women as well as feminine and modestly dressed women. But is “women, not politicians, should dictate what they can do with their own bodies” really the point? No, it is not. If the baby in the womb is independent life (a demonstrable scientific fact), then not only is it not a part of the woman’s body, but to kill it is murder. The question of whether or not women should have a choice to an abortion should not even be considered until the question of whether or not the baby is life is decided.

The straw man is found in the implication that if the pro-life position is taken, then politicians are telling a woman how to live her life. For the information of those who take this position, politicians have been making/supporting laws that affect how we live our lives since America’s founding. That’s why murder isn’t legal, and if you want to put it this way, it’s a case of politicians telling us how to live our lives. The question of, “Should a person have the choice to murder?” does not even come up, and it should not come up. In the end, almost all pro-abortion arguments are variations on the ones I’ve just mentioned. Scientific and moral evidence is arrayed incredibly against the pro-abortion arguments.

Simply saying that “women should be able to do whatever they want with their bodies” is a red herring. Women already do have the legal right to do whatever they want with their bodies; that’s why we see tattooed, shaved head/mohawked/etc. and androgynous women as well as feminine and modestly dressed women. But is “women, not politicians, should dictate what they can do with their own bodies” really the point? No, it is not. If the baby in the womb is independent life (a demonstrable scientific fact), then not only is it not a part of the woman’s body, but to kill it is murder.

Interesting.  This part of your response, Spencer, got me to thinking that logical missteps that occur from the pro-choice thinking underdmines their own rights as women.  Bear with me: if a woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her own body, then killing a female fetus would be a violation of that right since no-one has consented with that fetus what she would like to do with her body.  That, and it would be murder.

I think there is the potential for slippery-slope thinking in the arguments of the pro-choicers.

Cheers!

?“Women already do have the legal right to do whatever they want with their bodies…”?

Do woman have really the right to do whatever they want with their bodies? I don’t know ?all the laws in USA, but for example in my country (Honduras) suicide is not legal, and if ?a person is found trying to kill her self, she/he goes to jail or to a mental hospital (if the ?intent is related to mental disabilities). ?

People have the right to do some things with their bodies, but if they had already the right ?to do whatever they want, we will not even have “pro-choice” dilemma.  ?

The Pro-life movement will be about reducing choices, as the choice of do a “legrado” ?any time she wants (baby or not baby inside) or the choice to suicide.?

I do not see a Red Hearing when they ask “woman should have the right to do whatever they want with they bodies”, that is exactly what they are want.

Bye, bye

“Do woman have really the right to do whatever they want with their bodies?”

More specifically,, what I meant is that women have the legal rights to do most normal things their bodies. I’m excluding things like suicide, though. My main point was that “women should have a right to do what they want with their bodies” is not the point, while the real point is whether or not the baby in the womb is life.

Hello Spences:

Thank you for the clarification.?

I don’t see in the initial argument a statement against the baby inside the womb having ?life. They said that there is not agreement in abortion being a murder and that is very true. ?One example:?

In Islam, the soul come to the body after 12 week of gestation, before that time, inside ?there are just a bunch of cells. They do not say there is not life, but they believe there is ?not a person. You will never convince a Muslim about removing this life before 12 ?weeks is a murder, until the person stop believing the Quran is word of God.?

Convince a woman that the life inside the womb is a person, and then convince that ?woman that there it is not right to kill just to continue having the same style of life, is the ?big problem of Pro-life movement.?

First let me state, I have not read this book, if you use terms from it, I will not know what you are talking about.

Spencer is making a strawman arguement as that arguement in that form is not likely made by many prochoicers. Especially as their arguement in complete.

Let me make a few arguements for abortion choice before two weeks.

Murder is the act of killing a sentient being. Or a person. (alot of fluidity in the definition of murder in this area)

AFAIK before 3 days the cells have yet to differentiate. That means they are exactly the same. A glob of cells with the only difference between them and a similar glob of cells of a mouse at the same stage is DNA and perhaps size.

AFAIK before two weeks there isn’t a single nerve cell. We are our thoughts. Our brains make us, us. Without a working brain, we are essentially dead. A brain is a complex bundle of nerves. Without a single nerve, we have no mind, we are not “alive” as a person yet.

Since it is brain dead and not alive as a person yet, it is not murder to destroy it.

If you speak of what it might become, then not doing it like bunny rabbits without condoms with every non pregnant girl of child bearing years you meet even if shes just a child yet and doesn’t want to, could potentially be construed as murder. Because every moment a girl is not pregnant when she could be is one more human life that could be, that isn’t. That is where such a reasoning of “future person” leads us.

Hi TruePurple,

Your definition of ‘person’ seems to based entirely on material properties and processes. Electrons going to and fro and causing ‘thoughts’ in our brains. I would argue that’s an incomplete definition of what constitutes a person. I disagree with the notion that a person must be sentient else killing him isn’t really murder.

We don’t really concern ourselves with what a blob of tissue “might become.” What matters is what it already is.

Hi Mike

What matters is what it already is

What is it then? What is a person for that matter in your opinion?

Ghost in the machine:
Lets say you could upload your sentience into a machine and have the full range of emotions thoughts and every other bit of id, that made you, you before the transfer.

Would it be murder in your opinion to delete that code?