What part of the argument is nonsense and why? Is medicine not really the treatment of disease or are you claiming pregnancy is a disease?

Also I am going to go kill some random ethopians by going on a short holiday soon(camping)...not sure how much internet access I will have so when I disappear that is why.

The following is the statement Lawdude is refers as a palor trick:

There is no palor trick or abstraction otherwise Lawdude would never then be able to claim as he does above that "it is actually clearly false".

However he does claim the premise statement, which can only be true or only be false to be false. He makes my case that the prochoice position rests on either the unborn not being human beings or that it is okay to kill human beings in the interest of gender equality(which is convience). Clearly he thinks the later by claiming "It is wrong to kill one human being to improve the comfort and happiness of another" to be false.

The question of what sorts of homicides are justifiable is a complex question that gets into the value of the lives being taken (which is why many people say that capital punishment is acceptable), the reasons given for taking them, the circumstances the taker of the life is in, the mental state of the taker, the degree of premeditation, etc. I know people love to portray it as a simple matter of "thou shalt not kill", but in fact it is a complex philosophical question.

The point is, you made a very abstract, general statement that sounds really good but which is clearly false if you give the matter some thought. That's the parlor trick.

So if June and Jane are identical twins, when did their lives begin? At conception? Both of them? Or on splitting? And which one of them was the unsplit zygote? Was it June or Jane, or someone else who died when the zygote split?

Before the zygote split you could point to one specific human organism. After the zygote split you could point to two specific human organisms. Now what you decide to name these organisms is your business and not really germain to the discussion. If there was somehow a death involved there would be some corporal remains...in the splitting of the zygote there are no remains(that I am aware of) so I think its safe to say nobody dies in that process.

So you think it is okay to sometimes kill another human being for your comfort and happiness?

There is a difference between what a doctor does within the scope of his practice and what a terrorist does with surgical instruments.

Not all of medicine is involved in the actual treating of diseases. There's preventative medicine, there's cosmetic medicine, there's forensic medicine. Your definition isn't inclusive enough.

If we are going to accept the abstraction "life begins at conception" it matters a lot. Pro-lifers are pretending that this is a bright line test for human personhood, but in fact, some persons' existence could not have begun at conception even under pro-lifers' own definition. So "conception" is not in fact a bright line-- it is as slippery as every other possible line.

Further, the naming issue highlights the difference between being what you call a human being and being an individual person. You claim that the undivided zygote is a human being, but it cannot be an individual person because if it were one you could reliably name it-- individual persons do not turn into two persons.

The notion that something has rights flows directly from its status as an individual (which is why we place the word individual before rights). An undivided zygote is not, in fact, an individual and yet you assign it the purported rights of one.

Yes. I hinted at some examples (mental state, just war, home invasion, etc.), but one big example is if you are a woman and the human being is an unwanted intruder in your uterus.

And as I said, the other big problem here is that you define one of the most important moral precepts we live by, that each of us is equal, as nothing more than comfort and convenience.

Thats my point. Just because you tie a suture or preform a D&C doesn't mean you are practicing medicine.

My definition came from dictionary.com. It is the ordinary and normal use of the word.

It's astonishing you can tell what my motives are for supporting legalised abortion but are unsure whether I think pregnancy is a disease.

Medicine is more than treating disease. (Would you call a bullet wound a disease? Or would you avoid the doctor if you'd been shot?)

Also - what on earth is a 'rational argument'? If it means (as you seem to imply) 'must be valid, with true premises' then arent you just saying "you can't be rational unless you agree with me"?
Bastard. You can spend the time framing your concession:

And I am not arguing in this thread that you are morally wrong just that you could not take a pro-choice position not thinking it is okay to sometimes kill one human being for comfort and happiness of another(except of course if you think the unborn are not human beings).

Pro choicers have a hard time swallowing the fact that is fundamental to the position.

Not as difficult a time as you seem to have with acknowledging that some who support legalised abortion do not think it's okay to sometimes kill one human being for the comfort and happiness of another and nor do they think the unborn are not human beings. Carry on.

So you are saying abortions aren't something doctors perform within the scope of their practice?

I don't care where you got the definition from (and I'm not even going to look if this is the only or best definition there or elsewhere). I named several areas of medicine not involved in the treatment of disease. Is your claim that they are not part of medicine? Either come out and say that, or admit that you're not properly defining the term.

It's not fundamental to my position as I don't believe it to be true, and I'm not the only prochoicer in this forum that feels this way.

It's not.

What you are doing is like if a pacifist were debating a neoconservative and said that it was fundamental to the neoconservative's position that it's permissible to go to war for no particular reason.

In fact, the neoconservative believes that the justifications for the wars he or she advocates are compelling and adequate.

Pro-choicers believe that it is permissible to kill a fetus because the fetus is in a woman's uterus and that the interests in gender equality and bodily autonomy outweigh any claim the fetus has to a right to life. Pro-choicers DO NOT view these justifications as merely matters of "comfort and happiness", but rather think they are far more compelling than that.

You don't get to take someone's argument, belittle the reasons that they find compelling for something, and then say that the acceptance of the belittled reasons as sufficient is "fudamental" to their position. It doesn't work that way.

It really is quite amazing to watch this unfold. The wall that he has up is thick and very, very high.

Here's an analogy for you Stu Pidasso:

Some people believe that the TOE relies on a whole string of vanishingly unlikely events. They conclude that the chance of this explaining the complexity of life is so remotely, almost impossibly unlikely that 'God' is a much better explanation. It is true to say that a misunderstanding of the theory of evolution is fundamental to their position. It is not correct to say that a misunderstanding of the TOE is fundamental to the theist position as some theists have come to believe in God for completely different reasons - considerations of the TOE havent factored into their thinking at all (eg all the believers prior to Darwin). It is incorrect to say "Theism rests on a rejection of the TOE" just as it is incorrect to say "Supporting abortion rests on a belief that it is okay to kill some human beings for the convenience of another".

Even if I want to say "Theism logically requires one to reject the TOE" I can only do so if I'm willing to become dogmatic about the TOE. If what I mean by TOE is that it's fundamentally based on random, unguided processes which result in minor changes which are then selected for - then I can indeed make the claim. However, the theistic evolutionist will just dispute my account of what the TOE actually is - he will not accept that 'unguided' is a part of the theory.

You are doing the same - some people form a view which supports legalised abortion without ever considering whether a fetus is a human or whether it is right or wrong to kill another human for the convenience of another. You are manifestly incorrect to suggest that support for abortion rests on these positions as many who hold that view have not factored these questions into their calculations at all - your conclusion cannot rest on premises which arent present in your argument. I have less of a problem with you deeming it a consequence of the belief - however the same route is open to me as to the theistic evolutionist. I can dispute what you mean by human or similar (this is the line you keep assuming I am doing) more fundamentally - I can dispute what you mean by morality this is my actual point. When you declare a conclusion I 'must' hold regarding morality, you are implicitly assuming a definition of morality - it's not just about what a fetus is, what a human is, etcetera.

In your various 'prochoicers believe xyz' comments you use the words 'okay' or 'acceptable' meaning 'morally justified'. I suspect that you and I have very different understandings of what consitutes morality, but it's difficult to resolve where our actual disagreement lies because you continue to refuse to address it. The only response you've made to: "What kinds of entities are entitled to be considered in moral questions?" is to say that you think it will involve potential personhood. However you didnt expand on that, nor say whether that's the sole principle, nor say what constraints you would place on it. You just went right back to declaring what I must be concluding, even though I've repeatedly told you I'm not. Or saying what my position rests on, even though I've repeatedly told you it doesnt.

You are opposed to abortion because you are a misogynist.
My proof: Supporters of abortion cite the bible as their source of morality and the bible is misogynistic. QED.

See how annoying that is?

We can now launch off into a great discussion where I past passages from the bible telling you how misogynistic they are and go on for days arguing about a position that neither of us hold. What's the point? Why not find the source of disagreement (ie - "What kinds of entities are entitled to be considered in moral questions?") and discuss that?

I don't think it's a wall - I think it's a rhetorical trap. Force us to implicitly accept his definitions of morality whilst quibbling over definitions of biology so that he can 'deduce' claims which appear to be immoral - because they are based on fallacious, unstated premises.

Right, but the wall I was referring to is what prevents him from understanding this^^ is what he's doing.

Ah, I misunderstood. Maybe. I think it's possible that 'human beings deserve moral consideration' is just so deeply ingrained that he can't imagine debating it. Perhaps it feels to him I'm demanding he "define definition" or something equally spurious. He's accused me of being scared of confronting his charge, of obfuscating, nitpicking, avoiding the issue...Nowhere have I seen him acknowledge that perhaps he's thinking about something completely different than a supporter of legalised abortion might be.

Bunny, I think it's more pernicious than that.

As I mentioned, Kristen Luker's surveys showed that most pro-lifers were anti-feminists who rejected the sexual revolution. And when you press Stu on this, you get hints that he is in this group too (calling equality an issue of convenience).

The pro-life movement takes the rhetorical tack of arguing this issue on a purely abstract level as a deliberate strategy. They know that talking about their actual views about sexuality is a political loser for them-- the rest of the country simply doesn't believe that women aren't entitled to reproductive freedom and should submit to their husbands and that all sex outside of a marital and procreative context is wrong. And they also know that arguing their religious views will make it look like they are trying to impose them on people who don't agree with them.

This is a purposeful rhetorical strategy, intended to obscure the fact that pro-lifers actually believe that the modern world is terrible for all sorts of reasons, not simply because it permits abortions.

I think your abilities to know stu pidasso's motivations and intent are as reliable as his claim to know mine. I also think you're making the same mistake he is by generalizing a common trait and elevating it almost to the status of a logical consequence.

I'm saying abortion is not a medical procedure. The fact that a doctor preforms them doesn't make it a medical procedure. If a jealous surgeon decides to give her perfectly healthy husband a penectomy because the husband was cheating on her does that make her actions the practice of medicine?

The definition of medicine is not in dispute. The fact that some doctors use the word improperly doesn't change its meaning.

I guess I should have taken the hint from Bunny, but somehow I'm still surprised that you refused to directly address my question.

"I named several areas of medicine not involved in the treatment of disease. Is your claim that they are not part of medicine? Either come out and say that, or admit that you're not properly defining the term."

Any reason you feel you can't do this?