Welcome to Gaia! ::

I meant your statement "Just as I would not call people like that pro-life, I think it is clear why you should not want to call them pro-life either. They don't believe a fetus has a right to life, or at least if they do it is a sickening view where that right is solely contingent upon the consent of the sex act or the crime of the father."

It was offensive enough that I've been asked several times why you're in the guild because it was said with such certainty that these people are not pro-life. If you make a statement like this, however, in a place where people hold this view, people are going to get defensive. I didn't mean to phrase it like that, I mean hiding in that you make a statement that attacks a group without giving them any means of defense by pulling in the no-debating rule. I certainly don't think you're crazy, but the way you phrased that comment made it sound like you were definitively right and anyone who disagreed with you was crazy. I understand you don't want to cause trouble here and I appreciate that very much, but saying something like that will cause just as much hostility as debating will. I enjoy our discussions very much and have always advocated giving a pro-choice viewpoint a spot in here, but your posts tend to be a bit abbrasive.

I would take it to PM but I have PMed you before and have not receieved a response, so for now lets leave it in ED. For the sake of not debating, I wont respond directly to your post in argument...as Ive been over the topic many times in the abortion topic in ED anyways. But I will say in my defense you are probably right about the article...its been a long time since Ive read it and I do not have it on hand. I was more posting from memory...memory about the concept and how I argued against it at the time coupled with how I argue using it now. I still do not think I am using the analogy incorrectly for my purposes, but most definitely incorrectly from her purposes. I guess my assumption that the analogy was used for rape only is based on my original critiques of the analogy that it fails to adequately represent pregnancy resulting from consenting sex, because it frames the pregnancy as a strict "kidnapping."

I will say, not to get the last word since I am not giving any support to my statement (that would be giving the last word to argue my point, not just state it) that I believe consent is an extremely important part of understanding fundamental rights, as you can waive them. I wont go into detail, but PM me if youre interested. I might PM you or just bring up the idea again in the ED thread. And by god I hope you are as informative and gracious as you are here in the ED thread because I and my wife are getting sick of the overly agressive responses from many pro-choicers there. And I will say that as much as Digital Lucifer has some great responses, I would not want to be against him either based on his agression as well. I suppose that since the idea is so heated, everyone gets very anrgy...so I hope that you are as composed as you are here. I think having an open mind and being calm are important to a productive debate.

Back on topic however, I would like to reiterate that your philosophical ideas or anyone elses are as important if not more important than a respected philosophers because otherwise we would be confining our beliefs into specific philosophies outlined by people. Remember that before they were published and respected philosophers they were also just young adults with ideas they wanted to express.

Using your own philosophy, based on other philosophers and on your own original ideas is crucial to a debate of any sort.