I don't know what other people presume. I presume motivation behind the gender quality movement is to increase the comfort and happiness of women. I also presume most people agree with me on my presumption.

Unless you are willing to make a case that my presumption is flawed I think you are being intellectually dishonest with this tact that somehow I am claiming mystical powers. Either dispute my presumption or accept it but don't come on here saying I don't have the ability to make presumptions.

We can't have a rational discussion with being able to presume.

Whats the point? If all human beings are not worthy of moral consideration then it would be okay to kill the ones who aren't worthy of moral consideration for any reason. Do you dispute this?

Assuming you do not it then follows if a fetus is a human being then taking the pro-choice position means you think it is okay to allow one human being to kill another for convience because taking the pro choice position means you want to give women the right to terminate their fetuses for convience issues.

Your question about what moral entities are worthy of moral consideration is a red-herring. It might be germain to the discussion about the morality of abortion....but it isn't germain to the discussion about the accuracy of my characterization of beliefs which allow one to logically be prochoice.

To be pro-choice one must either
A)believe a fetus is not a human being
B)believe a fetus is a human being but not worthy of moral consideration.

Bunny I challenge you to come up with an argument that makes the pro-choice position a rational to hold that doesn't include A or B.

Yes. Maybe killing them has an impact on entities which are worthy of consideration.
And yet some advocates of legalized abortion do not think it's okay. We have many responses to this fact - one involves making many baseless assumptions about the group based on our interpretations of what some of them say.
How do you know? You don't know the logical consequences of my position, nor my definition of human being.

So why did you say "People who seek gender equality presumes it add comfort and happiness"?
Sure. And your presumptions are constantly shown to be wrong, so why not stop making them and ask people why?
You do have the ability, they're just often wrong and when people tell you that you press on insisting that they believe the things you presumed they did.

Anyhow I can easily make the case. The presumption is wrong, since I'm one of the people you're presuming to understand.

Nice insult though. You forget to preface it with "no offense but..."
This is true, but not terribly important. I have all kinds of presumptions about you. As you imply, I can't help it. What I can avoid is telling you what you think. I can leave that to you.

"What kinds of entities are entitled to be considered in moral questions?"

premise one: people should be free to determine what medical procedures are performed on them
Premise two: an abortion is a medical procedure
Conclusion: abortion should be legal

Unrelated belief: the humanity of a fetus is undetermined.

Are you going to now provide an argument against abortion which doesn't rest on implicitly answering:

"What kinds of entities are entitled to be considered in moral questions?"

You are nit picking again...fine.... If all human beings are not worthy of moral consideration then it would be okay to kill the ones who aren't worthy of moral consideration and whose death would not impact another entity. Do you dispute it okay to kill these human beings for any reason?

Yeah I have heard people say to the effect "I don't think abortion is moral but I don't want to pry into their private affairs so it should stay legal". It would be one thing if they took no position on abortion but to then take the pro-choice position is a contradiction. If they really thought abortion was wrong they would take steps to stop it....not take a position to allow it. I presume Sklansky would agree with me here.

I'm not sure what your position is because you keep trying to obsfuscate the issue.
A)Do you believe all human beings are worthy of moral consideration?
B)Do you believe a zygote or embryo is a human being?

Your argument is not rational because of a flawed premise two. Let me explain.

Medicine is the science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. Pregnancy is not a disease. Therefore the termination of a pregnancy(i.e. an abortion) is not a medical procedure.

Try again.

I thought we were arguing the accuracy of my characterization of the beliefs which allow one to be pro-choice.

I'd need to think about it. I dispute it at first glance but that might be an emotive response.

My nitpicking has a point, btw, I'm not just being difficult. You are framing your interrogation and making presumptions about answers from a perspective of someone who believes both that we have a moral obligation to respect the rights of all human beings and that fetuses are human beings. My point is not to challenge these views directly (I'm more sympathetic to both of them than you'd think). My point is that some people form their views and evaluate moral consequences based on a completely different metric.

This is why your "prochoice advocates must believe..." is so often flawed, in my view. It's also why "Which entities are entitled to be considered in moral questions?" is a good place to begin. To understand one another's views.
I don't fully understand this, but if DS would agree with you I'm comfortable to reject it for now.
There we go again. More imputation of motive. This time (astonishingly) in direct contradiction to the reason I've already spelt out as to why I won't (yet) answer.
Not dead ones. (funny, huh?)
I only just noticed this point. Throughout these various debates I've been using the term "fetus" incorrectly. My previous comments have all been referring to the unborn as a group (embryo through to looking-for-the-exit).

I don't think a zygote or embryo is a human being, no. (but i might still be using the terms wrong, if it matters).

I have to go soon, I'm afraid. I enjoyed tonight far more than usual, cheers.

Btw, I think you're far better at arguing the "big universe = designer" case than the anti-abortion one. Despite thinking that you are more likely to be correct about the abortion issue by an enormous margin.

Are you sure you're arguing this rationally and not emotively?

Do you think it is not a human being because it is not an individual organism which is a member of the species homosapien or because its not worthy of moral considerations? I am asking if you think being worthy of moral consideration is a necessary quality of being a human being.

I haven't really focused on arguing against abortion but rather on the thinking which underlies the prochoice position. If you look at my exchange with Lawdude or Gangsta I never said they were wrong(that I can recall) about abortion being moral(or at least not immoral). I'm hoping that they come to that conclusion on their own.

Have a good night!

No, you are very wrong. As a doctor, I can assure you that abortions are medical procedures. What do you think obstetricians do if not medicine in their dealings with pregnancy?

It doesn't matter what you think of my views, I still hold thrm. I am against killing except in self defense and I am prochoice. You can't just dismiss the existence of people like me!

Nonsense. Nonetheless delete both instances of medical.

Is this you showing me how not to nitpick?

What do you mean by a "rational argument"?

Sure we are. My point here is that my question is actually relevant to ones attitude to abortion. Your question is not necessarily relevant.

That's why we'd do better to start with mine.

I think it is a necessary quality. I don't think your definition of human being is correct (being has more significance to me than human does).

If you're hoping that and providing them with an argument you hope will cause them to reject the prochoice position as immoral...aren't you trying to persuade them? Seems a slim distinction to me.

Stu seems to be saying that everything that is immoral should be illegal - people should not be free to do immoral things. I doubt that DS would agree. And for the record, I doubt that Stu does, either.

if the queen had certain organs she would be king.

Your 1 is a parlor trick. It sounds, in the abstract, like something people might support. But it is so general that when you actually give the matter some concrete thought and look at particulars, it is actually clearly false.

Thank you for making my argument for me. This is the real difference between pro-lifers and pro-choicers. Pro-choicers believe in gender equality, pro-lifers do not.

I still wonder when Stu thinks an identical twin's life begins, and whether an unsplit zygote is one life or two, and whether that zygote was one twin, the other twin, or a third person who was killed when the zygote split.

An unsplit zygote is one human being. When it splits it becomes 2 human beings.

It is a surgical practice preformed by medical professionals but unless it is done to actually treat a disease...it ain't medicine. There is talk that Al Queda doctors are sewing bombs up in people....do you consider such surgery the practice of medicine too?