re: #646 Obdicut

Not all attention is good attention. In this case, especially, when you’re trying to make a point about the biological reality of a fetus, you’re using a term that has biological connontations, but is wrong. So, it’s serving to miseducate.

Why? Is using the term ‘parasite’ suddenly going to make them go “Oh wow, you’re right?” Isn’t it more likely that they’re going to think “Huh, I didn’t think of my fetus as a parasite, not at all, so this person is saying something I can’t connect with in the least.”?

I think you overestimate the benefit of being jarring. I think the way to ensure safe and legal abortion access is through the dual tactic of making the practical and legal argument, as Reine has done, and educating people about biology so they understand how limited the capacity of a fetus actually is, and the severe effects that it has on the woman carrying it.

Now, there is a logically good argument, that windsagio often presents, about how the decision to terminate a pregnancy on a woman’s part is not an immoral action, but I’ve never seen it actually convince anyone.

I could be wrong. Maybe all the jarring stuff and the strict moral logic arguments are the way to go. I just don’t think so. I think education and respect for the way the world actual works is better.

I’m not trying to “make a point about the biological reality of a fetus.” I’m trying to make a point that it’s not a person yet. That may sound solipsist and to some extent it is. It is, however, key.

Jarring works in situations where the argument has become a mindless mantra. It forces conversation. It is not my preference, but in my experience it has frequently been the only thing that gets the conversation out of the echoing of Operation Rescue Talking Points.

It doesn’t always work. I’d be delighted to find something that worked more often, or even AS often that wasn’t as confrontational.

But I haven’t.

Using it, I can progress to the fact that the fetus cannot survive without the mother but the mother can survive without the fetus; that to ensure the fetus progresses to become a baby we have to remove rights from (enslave is the other ‘shock’ word I use - and it is worth noting that different audiences respond to different shock words) the woman.

It is an emotional argument. My experience is that if you use intellect and the other is using emotion, you fail. If you both use emotion, provided you can prevent pushing it to total rage, you can persuade. I might be wrong, but that is my experience.