The Abortion Debate

[Sol--Badguy]

linaloki

Lady Sarah Eileen

You know,I have never before had sex because I believe in keeping my body pure for my future husband,so I can't tell you if I like sex or not.But that is not the point here;the point is that I never said there was anything wrong with likeing sex,I said there was something wrong with punishing someone else for your immoral mistakes.

Married couple has sex, woman gets pregnant, wants abortion.

What immoral mistake did they make, again?

At risk of sounding like some suckup fanboy, I enjoy watching loki tear s**t apart.

[CB_Young]

BlairVoyant

Reinna Astarel

linaloki

Barely_evil

oh yeah i forgot that she was speaking for you too, im 25 years old and mentally, well beyond my years, i take good care of five kids my husband and my mother........ ive dealt with things that would cause the average person to hang themselves, dont tell me you know where i stand mentally, child....... mentally??? i have the picture of your head underwater.

Yup. That's REALLY mature.

I honest to god don't have the words to describe my plummeting faith in humanity if a twenty-five year old who claims to have five kids and "possesses a mature mentality" cannot type beyond that of fifth grade level and makes idiotic insults as a sign to demonstrate her obvious maturity.

Hi Reinna I dont now if your retarded or wut but she obviusly speaks Spanish better than English

I I didn't hear much English until I was 9. Moved here from Munich, and had to learn how to deal with it.

I'm sorry if I don't think that it being a second language is a valid excuse. Spanish still has capital letters.

[BlairVoyant]

Kata Samoes

BlairVoyant

Actually, potential is entirely relevant to any decision. If I said to you, Hey, want to spend $10 for a chance to win $1million? your next question, if you are sane, will be, what are the chances? If I say I will flip a coin, of course you will suspect it of being weighted, but if it can be proven that the test is in fact random, you'd be a fool to turn it down (or really not be able to afford losing $10, or be religiously opposed, or whatever) however, if the chances are one in 10 million, then you'd be a fool to take up such low odds (that's 1/100 return risk-benefit-wise.) If the odds are, say, one in 10,000, then they are low enough that the risk isn't really easy to justify, but there is still a 10:1 payout factor. The fact that there is a 10:1 payout factor is entirely relevant to many people's decisions - the potential is such that, given 100000 tries, they would come out with roughly 10 times as much money as they spent. Some can't afford to drop $10, and some would go for it even if the payout factor was low, for whatever reason. But we're not talking about extremes, here. People who will abort no matter what even if it's illegal and people who won't abort no matter what even if their life is in danger are not the ones whose very decisions will be influenced by the legal and social climate.

Potential may be potential relevant depending on the subjecy and type of discussion, even then in passing or for personal thought. In this case, however, potential is irrelevant in this debate as it's mostly legal debate and is easily countered with negatives.

No. In the post I quoted, the argument is, specifically, "it might become a person." When you counter with the negative, "it might not become a person," you are superimposing onto the argument that abortion causes the fetus not to become a person. Under other circumstances, such as "it might become the person who saves humanity from X!" a negative such as "It might become the person who causes Y!" is required; a simple "it might not" is not sufficient.

To relink this to my analogy: if I set the buy-in at $0, instead of $10, then there is nothing to lose except a few minutes of your time. Perhaps a 1 in 10 million chance isn't worth that to you, but a 1 in 10 chance to win $1mill should be. Granted, bringing up a child is somewhat more than a few minutes' effort, but potential is still relevant either way.

Besides, the legal system is based on potential anyway; a person has x chance to do this if it's legal, a*x chance to do it if the fine is a, b*x chance to do it if there is jail time, etc.

Kata Samoes

It's a fallacy for a reason, and arguing otherwise when it has no bearing on THIS debate and debating in general is unnecessary and off-topic.

What reason is that? I have never seen "argument from potential" listed as a fallacy in any compendium I've read. There is the "slippery slope" fallacy, but that is not what is happening, here.

[BlairVoyant]

miyo_esparanza

BlairVoyant

LOL...I'm going to use some japanese word now: kanpeki!

rofl rofl

You win this round.

Yay!

Also:
kanpeki=perfect?

something like that; I don't know how to make moon-runes on this computer

[BlairVoyant]

Sol--Badguy

linaloki

Lady Sarah Eileen

You know,I have never before had sex because I believe in keeping my body pure for my future husband,so I can't tell you if I like sex or not.But that is not the point here;the point is that I never said there was anything wrong with likeing sex,I said there was something wrong with punishing someone else for your immoral mistakes.

Married couple has sex, woman gets pregnant, wants abortion.

What immoral mistake did they make, again?

At risk of sounding like some suckup fanboy, I enjoy watching loki tear s**t apart.

I don't, usually. He has different standards and ideals from mine and while I respect him and what he does, watching him do it makes me cringe.

[linaloki]

BlairVoyant

Sol--Badguy

linaloki

Lady Sarah Eileen

You know,I have never before had sex because I believe in keeping my body pure for my future husband,so I can't tell you if I like sex or not.But that is not the point here;the point is that I never said there was anything wrong with likeing sex,I said there was something wrong with punishing someone else for your immoral mistakes.

Married couple has sex, woman gets pregnant, wants abortion.

What immoral mistake did they make, again?

At risk of sounding like some suckup fanboy, I enjoy watching loki tear s**t apart.

I don't, usually. He has different standards and ideals from mine and while I respect him and what he does, watching him do it makes me cringe.

crying

Seriously.

Total crying here.

[Sol--Badguy]

BlairVoyant

miyo_esparanza

BlairVoyant

Reinna Astarel

linaloki

Barely_evil

oh yeah i forgot that she was speaking for you too, im 25 years old and mentally, well beyond my years, i take good care of five kids my husband and my mother........ ive dealt with things that would cause the average person to hang themselves, dont tell me you know where i stand mentally, child....... mentally??? i have the picture of your head underwater.

Yup. That's REALLY mature.

I honest to god don't have the words to describe my plummeting faith in humanity if a twenty-five year old who claims to have five kids and "possesses a mature mentality" cannot type beyond that of fifth grade level and makes idiotic insults as a sign to demonstrate her obvious maturity.

Hi Reinna I dont now if your retarded or wut but she obviusly speaks Spanish better than English

Are you trying to tell us that they don't use spaces, punctuation or capitals in Spanish?

That is correct. Look it up on wikipedia; you can tell that it's accurate because the history page doesn't have any edits from me in the past 5 minutes.

Also: that or she spends a fair amount of time chatting with English-speaking people in netspeak, in order to improve her language skills, and as a result her English becomes easier for her to recall but more broken.

Oh, fine, I'll spell it out: Don't discount people as stupid just bcuz the cant tipe

Allright fine. Ill discount her on the idiocy of what she's actually said. How about that.

[Sol--Badguy]

BlairVoyant

Sol--Badguy

linaloki

Lady Sarah Eileen

You know,I have never before had sex because I believe in keeping my body pure for my future husband,so I can't tell you if I like sex or not.But that is not the point here;the point is that I never said there was anything wrong with likeing sex,I said there was something wrong with punishing someone else for your immoral mistakes.

Married couple has sex, woman gets pregnant, wants abortion.

What immoral mistake did they make, again?

At risk of sounding like some suckup fanboy, I enjoy watching loki tear s**t apart.

I don't, usually. He has different standards and ideals from mine and while I respect him and what he does, watching him do it makes me cringe.

Yes yes I've head those pessimistic degrading ideals regarding humanity and wasn't impressed. I prefer to belive that people aren't complete morons.

[BlairVoyant]

linaloki

BlairVoyant

Sol--Badguy

linaloki

Lady Sarah Eileen

You know,I have never before had sex because I believe in keeping my body pure for my future husband,so I can't tell you if I like sex or not.But that is not the point here;the point is that I never said there was anything wrong with likeing sex,I said there was something wrong with punishing someone else for your immoral mistakes.

Married couple has sex, woman gets pregnant, wants abortion.

What immoral mistake did they make, again?

At risk of sounding like some suckup fanboy, I enjoy watching loki tear s**t apart.

I don't, usually. He has different standards and ideals from mine and while I respect him and what he does, watching him do it makes me cringe.

crying

Seriously.

Total crying here.

It's ok, Loki... I know I do the same for you crying

Quote:

Yes yes I've head those pessimistic degrading ideals regarding humanity and wasn't impressed. I prefer to belive that people aren't complete morons.

/facepalm

[Lady Miyo]

BlairVoyant

miyo_esparanza

BlairVoyant

LOL...I'm going to use some japanese word now: kanpeki!

rofl rofl

You win this round.

Yay!

Also:
kanpeki=perfect?

something like that; I don't know how to make moon-runes on this computer

Lol, I don't have Japanese 'til next year when I go back to school after the baby, and I was trying to remember my vocab from first year XD
I thought that was approx. what it meant, but I just had to check, hahah.

[CB_Young]

miyo_esparanza

BlairVoyant

miyo_esparanza

BlairVoyant

LOL...I'm going to use some japanese word now: kanpeki!

rofl rofl

You win this round.

Yay!

Also:
kanpeki=perfect?

something like that; I don't know how to make moon-runes on this computer

Lol, I don't have Japanese 'til next year when I go back to school after the baby, and I was trying to remember my vocab from first year XD
I thought that was approx. what it meant, but I just had to check, hahah.

Does language have anything to do with it?

[Lady Miyo]

Rylioun Cage

Does language have anything to do with it?

Do with ...?

Using capitals? No, not really.

[Rpdqxyn]

Okay so I think there are enough people in the world already.
BUT
I dont think the goverment should have control over people's bodys.
anyones body!

[Lady Miyo]

Rpdqxyn

Okay so I think there are enough people in the world already.
BUT
I dont think the goverment should have control over people's bodys.
anyones body!

Am I the only one failing to see the connection between overpopulation and the gov't having control over your body(unless you're in China, of course)?

I mean, shouldn't the 'but' have been an 'and'? Maybe I'm just nitpicking because the thread has died again....

[Kata Samoes]

BlairVoyant

Kata Samoes

BlairVoyant

Actually, potential is entirely relevant to any decision. If I said to you, Hey, want to spend $10 for a chance to win $1million? your next question, if you are sane, will be, what are the chances? If I say I will flip a coin, of course you will suspect it of being weighted, but if it can be proven that the test is in fact random, you'd be a fool to turn it down (or really not be able to afford losing $10, or be religiously opposed, or whatever) however, if the chances are one in 10 million, then you'd be a fool to take up such low odds (that's 1/100 return risk-benefit-wise.) If the odds are, say, one in 10,000, then they are low enough that the risk isn't really easy to justify, but there is still a 10:1 payout factor. The fact that there is a 10:1 payout factor is entirely relevant to many people's decisions - the potential is such that, given 100000 tries, they would come out with roughly 10 times as much money as they spent. Some can't afford to drop $10, and some would go for it even if the payout factor was low, for whatever reason. But we're not talking about extremes, here. People who will abort no matter what even if it's illegal and people who won't abort no matter what even if their life is in danger are not the ones whose very decisions will be influenced by the legal and social climate.

Potential may be potential relevant depending on the subjecy and type of discussion, even then in passing or for personal thought. In this case, however, potential is irrelevant in this debate as it's mostly legal debate and is easily countered with negatives.

No. In the post I quoted, the argument is, specifically, "it might become a person." When you counter with the negative, "it might not become a person," you are superimposing onto the argument that abortion causes the fetus not to become a person. Under other circumstances, such as "it might become the person who saves humanity from X!" a negative such as "It might become the person who causes Y!" is required; a simple "it might not" is not sufficient.

Are you arguing potential is relevant only if the counter argument is not a direct statement, claim or argument? You sound like you're ignoring impact of the counter argument, when the impact can be fully relevant to the original claim.

"It can be a person!" vs "Or it could be Hitler, or a murderer." The counter argument is a negative and discouraging, where the original argument is positive and insistent for reasoning. How does this not counter?

Weak arguments never are sufficient, but is that what you're arguing against or are you bringing in this subject for no real need?

BlairVoyant

To relink this to my analogy: if I set the buy-in at $0, instead of $10, then there is nothing to lose except a few minutes of your time. Perhaps a 1 in 10 million chance isn't worth that to you, but a 1 in 10 chance to win $1mill should be. Granted, bringing up a child is somewhat more than a few minutes' effort, but potential is still relevant either way.

Besides, the legal system is based on potential anyway; a person has x chance to do this if it's legal, a*x chance to do it if the fine is a, b*x chance to do it if there is jail time, etc.

No, the legal system works on possibility, risk, and social norm/culture as well as the people defining the law through government authority..

Besides, possibility =/= potential.

BlairVoyant

Kata Samoes

It's a fallacy for a reason, and arguing otherwise when it has no bearing on THIS debate and debating in general is unnecessary and off-topic.

What reason is that? I have never seen "argument from potential" listed as a fallacy in any compendium I've read. There is the "slippery slope" fallacy, but that is not what is happening, here.

Never? Hm.

Potential: Objections
The Argument from Potential
Capability and Potentiality

You're right, I can't find it as a listed fallacy but it's been regarded as such by some reputable sources I would suppose. It's a logical fallacy, but as I said, depending mostly on the topic and use. In the case of abortion, it's not used well and so it's a pretty weak argument in general.