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James

You’re starting the discussion with assumptions, and that is exactly the point I am trying to show is bad. “It seems wise to assume” — right there is where you made your first very critical error. When something isn’t sure, you NEVER assume a position unless there is sufficient evidence to make that assumption. There isn’t in this case, which is why there is such a heated debate about it.

The reason “murder” is a bad word to use is because it is already a legal term with strong implications. Murder is a crime, and one of the highest crimes that exists. When you start out by defining abortion as murder, you have already drawn your line in the dirt stating that abortion is de facto a crime. Abortion is, in fact, not a crime at all, making it nothing like murder. So that is very, very intellectually dishonest. It doesn’t matter how strongly you believe that abortion *should* be murder: the fact is that abortion is NOT murder, and refusing to call it anything but murder precludes having an honest discussion.

The same goes with the word “person.” “Person” is a legal entity with very specific rights laid out. This is why there is so much stink about the Citizens United case which declares corporations to be persons. A fetus is, legally, not a person, and therefore calling it a person is dishonest. When you insist on calling a fetus a person, you are denying fact, and you are precluding an honest discussion from happening.

If someone gets upset because I am pointing out that they are wrong or being intellectually dishonest or using a logical fallacy, that is not my problem. Those are the correct terms to use, and if the person is interested in conversation, they need to get used to hearing and using those terms. Particularly if they insist on saying things like abortion is murder, they had better get used to hearing those terms!

Debating morality, of all things, specifically requires that we choose our words carefully. You are purposefully choosing emotionally charged words, and I am explaining to you how that precludes honest discussion. If you are not interested in coming to an agreement, or learning facts, then by all means go ahead and make appeals to emotion and false equivalency fallacies (look them up on Wikipedia if you don’t know the terms). But realize that means you will never have a fruitful discussion on the topic, and you will only be preaching to the choir, while making the people you actually should be talking to think you are frightfully dishonest and not want to speak with you again. Touchy subjects dealing with morality, rights, or other tender, cherished philosophies require careful selection of words, or else all you are doing is re-enforcing your own beliefs.

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