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R.M.'s avatar

Humans are masters of self-delusion. Never casually discount a suggestion people are lying to themselves.

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Adrian Salustri's avatar

I always joke that humans don't actually have a theory mind, since they seem to behave as if everyone sees the world exactly the same as them and are just being irrational. This is why hard core pro-lifers think that libs are "evil baby killers who just want to have irresponsible sex" (my local Christian radio station), and hard core pro-choicers think that conservatives don't actually care about children and it's just a proxy war on women's rights.

Folks don't recognize that it's a vague, complicated moral issue with multiple valid perspectives, all of which lead to different policies.

In this less extreme case, I come on here and see people claim that large portions of genz are lying to themselves, arguing that it's just "normal behavior" and the trends are just cuz identity politics and SDB, but "normal" isn't very meaningful here. As noted, the threshold for classification is vague and we live in a different regime of social pressure.

My point is its a complicated self identity problem with multiple valid perspectives. There are genuine cases where people deceive themselves, but we should avoid crying wolf and save them for, like, holocausts and stuff.

Thoughts? Bridging worldviews rn is important and worth my time.

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Deoxy's avatar

"Folks don't recognize that [abortion]'s a vague, complicated moral issue with multiple valid perspectives, all of which lead to different policies."

No, it really isn't. Let me help you out:

Is the person a fetus or not?

And done. All moral standings fall from that, easily, and within normal morality, no special rules needed.

"But what about..."

-"life of the mother" - when you can only save one person, you save that person. This is boringly true in all kinds of normal situations. It also touches on similar issues as people declining medical care (most common example: chemotherapy) and dying of something that might have lived through. If the fetus is not a person, remove that clump of cells like any other unwanted lump.

-"rape" - if the mother did not consent, she has no moral obligation to put herself at risk for the fetus. Full stop, nothing to talk about. If you really want to be a stickler, you could even charge the rapist with murder. That's how the morality works out... if the fetus is a person. Otherwise, it doesn't matter.

-"incest" - the only kind of incest people talk about in these cases is "statutory rape". See "rape", above.

The fetus is not a moral actor at the time of conception. It is not at fault for anything.

Now, morally speaking, if the fetus is not a person, have the clump of cells removed like any other "not a person" clump of cells. Nobody cares if you remove your spleen. THAT is the point of contention - "when does personhood begin"? Everything else is downstream from there.

Our society can't come to an agreement on abortion because we disagree on the foundation but we argue over the color of the walls.

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Larry Siegel's avatar

Or we realize that we live in a complex society with many different points of view, but *we have to obey one set of laws*. So we compromise. Abortion on demand up to some point, which can be politically determined; then, only in dire circumstances. Late in pregnancy, the circumstances have to be dire indeed.

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LV's avatar

Your тАЬjokeтАЭ is very insightful

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Kenny Easwaran's avatar

I'm pretty sure that's the hypothesis of the people who say this is all just people finally coming out. Even Millennials and Gen X are full of people lying to themselves, and perhaps Gen Z is too, but some future generation will finally reveal the true level of different sexualities in the population.

(Or at least, so goes one theory that completely agrees with the comment you left, but probably has the opposite view about the underlying facts.)

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