Not really. Most of the first-wave feminists still very much believed in a certain sanctity to womens' roles as mothers and thought encouraging abortion (which was hotly debated with the factions reversed) denigrated and cheapened their place in society. Plus there is the whole "killing people" thing.

"Mere ethics?" Laws have a pretty firm basis in ethics generally. If you're arguing for eschewing ethical considerations when making laws that's going to be a really tough pill for most to swallow.

1. There is no god to take it up with.

You're making a lot of correlational arguments without demonstrating causation. It's just as likely that the lack of education and forethought that leads to unplanned pregnancy also contributes to being in poverty.

So if use of the term "murder" is hyperbolic, why then isn't it hyperbolic when that other person down the line said laws against abortion are equivalent to turning women into state-controlled broodmares? Loaded language happens, but it doesn't change the nature of the ideas being discussed.

Oh? Did he use a dictionary to begin and end his argument then?

Good for you dudette. Now maybe you can count for me how many philosophy papers start with "Websters defines ___ as. . ." and end there? Riveting dissertation that would be don't you think?

That's biology, not any construct made by man. You'll have to take it up with God.

Does the difference merit a distinction in how much respect we afford them though? Like I said with the wolf thing. There is a difference and under certain circumstances we've put the lives of wolves, spotted owls, and other endangered species over the rights of already-born people. And it is based on little more than…

Say that to a pro-life person and they'll show you pictures of mutilated fetuses. Appeals to emotion aren't really going to cut it because both sides can play that game.

Not everyone values money or power the same way. Feminism has historically been about equal rights for women and respect for them as equal members of society. In fact, most of the early first-wave feminists like Susan B. Anthony were extremely anti-abortion. Are they suddenly not feminists?

Dictionaries don't settle ethical arguments. All they are is commonly accepted definitions of words as understood by the linguists putting it together.

You say people not wanting cows to die is a subjective choice of theirs so they shouldn't be allowed to impose it on you. Right? Fine. That's like saying my preference for not killing cows is qualitatively no different from my preference for vanilla ice-cream. That was the point of the ice-cream analogy.

I agree. I still come down on the pro-choice side of things, both on ethical grounds and practical ones, but I see so many arguments that try to attribute motivations to the other side that are designed to cast them as either stupid or evil. It seems like a dishonest way of addressing a legitimate disagreement.

That is another way to think about it, but there are plenty of analogies you can make. Some favorable to one position and others favorable to another. There are absolutely situations where we would consider someone negligent, perhaps even criminally so, if they don't save a person's life while it's within their…

I'm not sure I follow your logical here. You talk about not wanting to kill cows as a personal preference analogous to preferring vanilla over chocolate ice-cream.

Okay first of all, I'm not of the opinion that life begins at conception, so you can stop using the second person and lay off the name-calling. You should, however, actually be aware of what your detractors think rather than erecting strawmen and trying to pigeonhole them into what you need to believe they think in…

You're not really understanding their position.

The reason many modern games are less replayable is precisely because of game lengthening padding. For example, every time I think about playing Mass Effect 1 again I stop and ask myself "Do I really want to tromp around on repetitive procedurally generated maps on the Mako and play round after round of simon to hack…

If you know what you're doing you could beat most of the original Mega Man games in probably about 8 hours. The Final Fantasy or Zelda type RPGs were really the only games back then that would have taken you more than 10 hours to beat and we were paying $50 to $70 (in 1990s dollars) per title. So what "contract"…