The art of argument.

[sunovermountain]

I was reading another community when it occured to me I haven't had to really think about a response to pro-life arguments in a long time. The arguments about abortion I see always follow down one of a very few paths, and are easy to predict. If you've had one argument about abortion, you've had them all, it seems. I'm willing to bet pro-life

Comments

[cutout18]

I don't even think it's that, man. I can know that it's probably not gonna change my mind and still desire fresh ideas, just for the fact that it helps to further define my own. It's more aggressive than that in most cases.

A lot of people look at new ideas from the opposing side not as an opportunity to further refine their own thoughts but as a new way to embarrass them. The other thing is, a lot of people are of the mind that, why start new debates when the old ones still haven't been totally settled? And they really haven't, not in the sense that gravity or suffrage for all has been settled.

The other thing that strikes me, and this is directed more toward the original post, is that I've heard a lot of new ideas when it comes to the abortion debate, like my thought a while back that basic assumptions of bodily autonomy, private property, and responsibility sort of make it so women abortion rights imply lack of male responsibility to children that are born. Needless to say, I got cursed off the stage before I could even finish elaborating, and the dissent all came from other questions and arguments that were common. Every one of the new ideas I've heard boils down to some other, crickety arthritic old debate.

The discourse is pretty grim, and I think the only thing that could serve to enliven it is a better understanding of analysis, facts, and reasoning on both sides, because the average pro-choice person is about as dumb and debate-illiterate as the average pro-lifer.