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joshbrahm
It's probably hard for people to tell that you're replying to this comment: http://joshbrahm.com/9-things-i-would-ask-an-abortion-practitioner-over-coffee/#comment-2080524227
I've come to agree that the word "abortionist" is less helpful than "abortion practitioner." I've updated the post, replacing the label in every case that isn't literally encouraging people to NOT use the word "abortionist."
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Charles
Why on earth do you call those who disagree with your position "abortionists?" Good Lord, is that hideously unkind! Shame on you Josh! Do you believe that all people who are not hard-line prolife are atheists? Some of us are Christians, evangelicals, and clergy.
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joshbrahm
Wow, you're really misunderstanding what I mean with that word, Charles. Did you read this post before commenting? Because I think the context makes it really clear what I mean by the word "abortionist," but I'll still clarify here as well.
I absolutely do not call everyone who disagrees with me an "abortionist." I call them "pro-choice," something that has invited critique from several of my fellow "pro-life" colleagues.
I actually think all of the labels are somewhat unhelpful because people are more complicated than the labels we give them. I'm pretty effective at avoiding them when talking to people, but it's harder to not use any labels when writing about groups of people.
Here are a few pieces where I expand on that:
http://joshbrahm.com/accurately-describe-peoples-positions/
http://joshbrahm.com/call-anybody-pro-abortion/
In this piece, by "abortionist" I mean a doctor who physically performs abortions as a living. I'm going beyond encouraging pro-life people to have friends who are pro-choice, (http://joshbrahm.com/category/relational-apologetics) and encouraging them to actually ask questions of an abortionist if they had the opportunity.
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acyutananda
"I know that my mind could be changed about abortion legality if I was convinced that bodily rights arguments successfully accomplish what they are designed to accomplish."
Do you single out bodily-rights arguments in this way?
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joshbrahm
I assume you meant to write, "WHY do you single out bodily rights arguments this way."
That wasn't an exhaustive list of what would change my mind. I think a combination of the biblical thing and believing that the unborn are not morally relevant human beings or persons would do it as well. I think bodily rights arguments are more likely to succeed, so I used that example instead.
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Acyutananda
Ran across this old exchange while doing a search! "I assume you meant to write, 'WHY do you single out bodily rights arguments this way.'" Well, you DO single them out for treatment here, but as you say, you do not single them out (as being potentially mind-changing) in all of your thinking, and that's what I wanted to know. So I did mean "DO you [always] single out . . .?" Could your mind be changed if an identity (psychological-personhood) argument convinced you that an unborn prior to a certain level of mental development did not have the same identity (was not the same living individual) as the unborn after that level of mental development? That would mean that if you kill the earlier unborn, you are killing something that can never possibly have, say, as much mental development as an insect. (It can't possibly, because, though there is an it that will have mental development, it will not be the same it.)
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GEIxBattleRifle
Hello Josh. I hope you don't mind if I post this comment to you and hope it's not breaking the rules regarding your comments policy it is very very serious.
When will the intensive focus on species membership stop? I been debating personhood among with my brother Seth for about a full decade now and who you have talked to numerous amount of times over the phone. We started up groups in our high school talking about ET's and AI's which I still do daily and my brother graduated not to long ago. It would be good for both sides of this debate to stop what they are doing and learn what words mean before debating. This is very worrying that there is no discussion at all about ET or AI's yet. There can indeed be a huge difference between being a human and being a person. We have about 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe and last astronomer Carl Sagan estimated roughly that there are probably about one million technological civilizations in our galaxy. There is a particular science fiction show which showed what happened when humans came across a civilization that was less technologically inferior to there's and that was shown through the movie Avatar. Why is your movement josh telling us when the humans where slaughtering off all the na vi and there children that it could not have been murder since your movement placed them in the non person category? My brother Seth did a survey in our community about what happened and everyone who he polled did agree that it was murder. It is of no surprise since even you yourself among with other pro choicers and pro lifers already accepted decades worth of science fiction displaying to you persons that were not humans at all.
I do believe you said you were going to go more into ET or AI's in your new organization from what I heard from my brother. This is just a suggestion, but I would try to do extraterrestrial life first here is why,
  1. It is easier to get information on it. Facts about stars and galaxies and specific names of galaxies and plus if you want to go real deep into it, you can keep up on what NASA has to say on the matter since that is one of the bigger things they do.
  2. From what I see in my brother notebooks he has on ET's, he has various polls done on how many believe ET actually exists and from rounding it up, it is estimated that 60% of Americans do believe ET exists.
    I could go into Artificial intelligences as well since I happen to be a computer programmer who works with them daily but that will be all for this comment.
    I won't let my and my brothers work go all to waste and everyone else's work I will see what I can do to get some more talk on the matter.