Slippery Slope. Your conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. You aren't following the argument to it's logical conclusion, you're following your position to its preconceived conclusions. Which is not only a slippery slope, but now becomes a straw man.
...No. It's actually a correct-form deductive argument.
In the condition of a morally questionable act, if the safety for the most people can be insured by legalizing it justifies legalizing it, then it follows that the same rule should apply to all analogous situations.
The original statement(s) had no qualifiers, and no means of distinguishing situations beyond contention (wisp is trying) have yet been produced. So in effect, it is a "treat all spades equally" argument, and is logically proper.
Ummm... let's go through these fallacies, then, shall we? Maybe my understanding of them is wrong. *shrug*
You can't possibly believe that people are arguing that theft be legalized because it's 'safer,' that way, are you? You must be being sarcastic.
That is what people saying "abortions should be legal because they're safer" are saying, though. Theft and abortion are both morally reprehensible crimes (in most cases). Allowing something evil to be legal to protect the well being of the criminals is a terrible argument. Taken to its logical conclusion, you would have to legalise all crime so that people don't get hurt as much, a clearly ridiculous state of affairs. Reductio ad absurdum - allow legal abortions just to reduce injured people, you must perforce allow legal murder, rape, theft, etc.
First of all, a slippery slope fallacy is defined as such: "
The Slippery Slope is a fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between one event and the one in question and no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed. This "argument" has the following form:"
- Event X has occurred (or will or might occur). [In this case, the legalization of abortion.]
- Therefore, event Y will inevitably happen. [In this case, the legalization of all crimes.]
There are a few problems with this. Firstly, Egann, the distinction you are looking for is just this: in an abortion case, malice is not any part of it. Protection is. (This is why we've all been bringing up the emotional state of the mother, and CFS's argument of "There's always a story." But you guys who are "Pro-Life," have been ignoring those issues. I'll come back to this.) With things like murder, theft, etc. Malice is the intent - it is not a win-win situation by any means, but it is also not a win-lose scenario either. Someone dies, someone gets their shit fucked up, someone gets their shit stolen. Their stuff.
The distinction is that if abortion is banned, what's going to happen to those mothers who are not ready to burden their responsibilities of being a mother? Even if they want to, some women aren't ready. And they're very responsible about it, too. They didn't really go out and get knocked up. Ever heard of a roofie? What about rape by force? What about peer pressure? What about society?
The point we've all been trying to drive home is that if someone has their mind set on abortion: they're going to have an abortion. The concept of coat hanger abortions wasn't invented by liberals - that shit actually happens!! Not only does it kill the fetus, it infects the mother... The sun doesn't shine out of the United States, dude. Granted, we are more well off and clean than most other countries, but that only strengthens my point - that stuff happens here! Imagine how bad it is over in some other country.
Secondly it is a straw man, because a straw man is defined as: "
The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:"
- Person A has Position X. [In this case, Person A is the "pro-choice," position. The position is that Abortion should be legal because it at least keeps the mother safer while her vagina is being sliced the fuck up for a few cells that cannot think, breathe, have children, go to school, or have penises and vaginas. If abortion is legal, her vagina gets sliced the fuck up with a nice sterile, clean, harmless whatever by a doctor with a degree in "not killing people." If it is not, her vagina gets sliced the fuck up with something sharp, clumsy, dirty, and dangerous by someone who is desperate and untrained in "not killing people."]
- Person B presents Position Y, which is a distorted version of X. [That would be you, insisting that the "pro-choice" position is that Abortion should be legal because the mother is clearly an irresponsible, deranged murderer, and we like to keep murderers safe. (this is where the Slippery Slope branches off - If we like to keep murderers safe, what the hell? Why not just legalize murder? And stealing too! It's the same thing!)]
- Person B attacks Position Y. [Evidenced in Showsni's post quoted above, and numerous others by yourself, and Raien, in various forms, believing that the few harmful cells of the parasite in question are more important than the 100 Trillion cells that make up a rational, thinking, emotive, efficient human being.]
- Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed. [Therefore, Abortion should be banned, because abortion supports murderers.]
See how ridiculous this is? It's all about what you value, really. But not about our arguments. You call yourselves "pro-life," as if the opposition is "anti-life," but you see, it's just not that simple and anyone who says it is is naive, or selling something. Or they're part of the religious right, which frankly doesn't need any arguments made against them, because they make them all themselves.
To be honest, you're not arguing against us, you're arguing against murder. Which is not abortion. Abortion is removing a harmful parasite, for all intents and purposes. If I wanted to employ your argument against you, here, I might argue that because you want abortion to be banned, you also want to ban every medicine that treats worms, fleas, ticks, and bacteria. But, that would be a slippery slope fallacy, and a straw man, wouldn't it?
There is a reason why the Pro-Choice position is capped off at the second trimester. Need I evoke Roe v. Wade? It's not murder if there is no life. There is no life until there is a heartbeat. Or independant respiratory function. Until then, the only thing you can classify a fetus as is a parasite. Because it has more in common with the definition of a parasite than with the definition of a human being, regardless of whose cells they are.
And in any case, I doubt there's a person on the planet (except for the pro-life crowd, who thrive on attacking other positions instead of actually looking at how they affect people) who believe that abortion is only, only, ONLY a last resort, and should be nothing other than a last resort.
Edited by Reflectionist, 31 January 2009 - 05:09 AM.
