Quote from: theymos on May 03, 2022, 08:34:15 PM

Your "between doctor and patient" point is why I said in my previous post that pro-abortion people are bad at messaging.

I think "pro-abortion" is a deliberately misleading and emotive title. In an ideal world there would be zero abortions - everyone agrees on that. But removing bodily autonomy and forcing unwanted pregnancies on women and families is not a price worth paying.

Quote from: theymos on May 03, 2022, 08:34:15 PM

That comes across as being utterly dismissive toward an act that anti-abortion people honestly see as downright murder.

Except lawmakers don't believe that. They are quite happy to get abortions themselves or for their mistresses while trying to limit everyone else's rights.

If they did truly believe that all life was sacrosanct, then they would be up in arms about the millions of children we have living in poverty, about our crumbling foster care system, about our horrendous healthcare system. But they aren't. They play on the "abortion is murder" nonsense because it easy to rally people to that cause, not because it is true or because they believe it.

Quote from: David Barnhart

"The unborn" are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.

Quote from: theymos on May 03, 2022, 08:34:15 PM

- Give arguments for why abortion is not murder even in the 2nd trimester (eg. data on brain development).

The cortex does not develop until between 24 and 26 weeks (the lower range of which also happens to be the limit of viability). The cortex is responsible for consciousness, for thought, for feeling, for sensation, for pain. Without a cortex, none of these things are possible. Therefore, before 24 weeks, you do not have a life, but simply a collection of cells and tissues.

Quote from: theymos on May 03, 2022, 08:34:15 PM

- Give stories of people whose lives were in some way saved from tragedy because they could have an abortion.
- Give stories of people who died or whose lives were ruined because they were prevented from having an abortion.

Pointing to individual stories is not useful; you can find a single story to back up pretty much any stance you want to take. Better to look at the data. The data show, unequivocally, that banning abortion does not stop abortions. Every society which has banned abortions still has abortions, particularly for the rich and powerful. All it does is push the average person from hospitals and clinics to kitchens and back alleys, increase the likelihood of complications, and increase the likelihood of death of the women and girls involved - girls as young as 11 or 12.

Quote from: PrimeNumber7 on Today at 08:25:49 AM

(along with what is very likely to be future violence on the part of the left)

Yeah, it isn't the left who bomb Planned Parenthoods and shoot doctors, so you can save your faux outrage.

Quote from: PrimeNumber7 on Today at 08:25:49 AM

Although I am generally in favor of a free market, I don't believe there is any tangible benefit to society to allowing the selling of organs.

Talking about organs, I'll quote myself:

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on April 28, 2018, 01:15:55 PM

If a person dies, you cannot legally take their organs for transplant unless they gave their explicit consent prior to death. Even though they are now a corpse. Even if it would save the lives of 10 other people. Even if the person in question was a mass shooter, and shot a number of people in the liver, kidneys, heart and lungs, and we could use the shooter's organs to directly save the lives of the people he shot. The right of his mass murdering corpse to bodily autonomy overrides the right of all his victims to not die.

If you believe the rights of an unborn fetus (which does not have a neurological system capable of feeling pain, sensing its environment or even thinking until at around 26 weeks) supersedes the rights of a woman to not undergo a lengthy, unwanted, life changing and life threatening experience, you are affording her less rights than we do to a corpse.