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[smjjames]

So Ben Carson has gone even further down the rabbit hole. The worst part is, I'm sure that he'll find a way to get even more extreme before this is all over.

I rather think he's disqualified himself from running at this point.

So, he's comparing womens right to choose (which is at the core of abortion after all) to slavery? lol. At least that's what it sounds like to me.

There's also this "that the US government should cut off funding to universities that are found to exhibit "extreme political bias"."

Define 'extreme political bias', and I can see a massive slippery slope here, and no I'm not strawmanning or slippery slope fallacy.

Edit: Also, Trump is in danger of pulling the Romney '43%' (or was it 47%?) type gaffe, though Trump embraces the fact that he is wealthy while Romney didn't really flaunt it or anything.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/donald-trump-father-loan-1-million-dollars-215154

Of course though, the usual rules for what usually kills campaigns don't seem to apply for him, as we've seen.

[Lord Shonus]

So Ben Carson has gone even further down the rabbit hole. The worst part is, I'm sure that he'll find a way to get even more extreme before this is all over.

I rather think he's disqualified himself from running at this point.

So, he's comparing womens right to choose (which is at the core of abortion after all) to slavery? lol. At least that's what it sounds like to me.

There's also this "that the US government should cut off funding to universities that are found to exhibit "extreme political bias"."

Define 'extreme political bias', and I can see a massive slippery slope here, and no I'm not strawmanning or slippery slope fallacy.

To most abortion opponents, abortion is literally killing an innocent child because you just don't want to be bothered with it.

With that context, it would be more accurate to call Carson's statement a comparison between "murdering innocents out of convenience because as a woman you have the 'right' to" and "buying, selling, and murdering innocent people because as a white person you have a 'right' to."

[Playergamer]

So Ben Carson has gone even further down the rabbit hole. The worst part is, I'm sure that he'll find a way to get even more extreme before this is all over.

I rather think he's disqualified himself from running at this point.

So, he's comparing womens right to choose (which is at the core of abortion after all) to slavery? lol. At least that's what it sounds like to me.

There's also this "that the US government should cut off funding to universities that are found to exhibit "extreme political bias"."

Define 'extreme political bias', and I can see a massive slippery slope here, and no I'm not strawmanning or slippery slope fallacy.

To most abortion opponents, abortion is literally killing an innocent child because you just don't want to be bothered with it.

With that context, it would be more accurate to call Carson's statement a comparison between "murdering innocents out of convenience because as a woman you have the 'right' to" and "buying, selling, and murdering innocent people because as a white person you have a 'right' to."

+1. You need to understand many abortion opponents see abortion as fetus-murder, and it's their right to. I mean, it honestly is not that bad a comparison from a pro-life viewpoint.

[smjjames]

There probably could be better things to use as an analogy though.....

[Culise]

Perhaps, but if you want to pick examples of dehumanization of living human beings that existed in relatively recent American political discourse, especially one with strong social and economic ramifications that have lasted to the present day, that thus have a very strong emotive appeal to a significant portion of the target audience, slavery's actually a pretty good choice.  Remember that as Playergamer noted, the biggest schtick of pro-life activists is that human life (or more generally, that ill-defined concept of humanity insofar as the "self" is concerned) begins at conception, rather than at birth, at the start of neurological activity, or at any other chronological or developmental marker.  If you accept that premise as written, it then logically follows that those who state otherwise are effectively dehumanizing the embryo or fetus. 

[RedKing]

And that's the great thing about that kind of argument. If you begin with arbitrary suppositions that bolster your argument, the argument virtually makes itself. The intellectual debate over abortion is primarily a debate over that supposition -- when does life begin?

But pro-lifers take the supposition as hard fact and argue from there, with the obvious result that it paints pro-choicers as callous murderers.

That's the real problem with American political discourse these days -- we're not arguing about the actual grey areas. We're taking the black or white view of that grey area that we already have and then arguing about the policies that should naturally unfold from our position.

[wierd]

By golly somebody gets it.  It's so damned hard being a centrist in the US these days.

The bitter arguments from both camps galvanizes the public into ideological camps, leaving more rational people that try to actually dissect the then "contrastified" (I dont think there is a proper verb to describe the forced assignment of grey area topics to either a black or white style binary topic, so I invented one here.) issues to try and actually understand them, and try to reach some actually sensible conclusion from which to make good policy, into social outcasts from the majority (the galvanized public at large, both sides, inclusive.)

This problem runs the gamut from gun control (with urban vs rural opinions and rationales), to birth control (secular vs religious opinions and rationales), to abortion (as previously stated), to all kinds of "US! vs THEM!" topics in between-- say with the 1% vs the 99% when it comes to fiscal policy.  Whatever-- take your pick, it is all the same pathology. Nobody wants to actually try to dissect the rhetoric before they just pick a side.

[smjjames]

What would arguing the grey areas look like though? On the abortion side, one could say the point where a fetus can potentially survive outside the womb, but obviously not everybody is going to accept that.

Also, I wonder if those in Europe are just as bad with the political discourse or if they are better ar arguing the grey areas somehow.

[Loud Whispers]

No we are just as bad

[Baffler]

And that's the great thing about that kind of argument. If you begin with arbitrary suppositions that bolster your argument, the argument virtually makes itself. The intellectual debate over abortion is primarily a debate over that supposition -- when does life begin?

But pro-lifers take the supposition as hard fact and argue from there, with the obvious result that it paints pro-choicers as callous murderers.

You say that like a more logical place to define the beginning of life exists. There does not. They are all equally arbitrary. One of the biggest reasons I choose to define conception as the starting point is because, if an objective truth exists (also debatable, but something needs to be decided on legally at this point so an objective truth might as well exist for our purposes), there is no possible way for me to have called it too late.

Edit: too late, not too early. How do I words?

[wierd]

The issue I see here, is that trying to assert "can survive outside the womb" as the meter stick can run into some nasty consequences later down the line.

Take for instance, if reproductive medicine is able to create genuine artificial wombs-- say, for same-sex couples, such as homosexual males.  Since this hypothetical technology is able to sustain a fetus from conception to full term, without ever even being inside a (human) womb, the pro-life crowd instantly wins. Women need not be involved in the process at all if they wish, and the fetus can still survive.

This is where the argument about "convenience" comes in-- forcing somebody to either cary or pay for the continued gestation of another human, that they really cannot afford.  The pro choice crowd would say that it is inherently immoral to force somebody into that position. The pro life crowd would say it is inherently immoral to terminate a perfectly good human life over money concerns.

Sensible policy makers should cut the bullshit-- literally-- and focus on how even in such a far off future context, the issue can be resolvable.  In this case, streamlining fetal adoption so that legal custody and authority can be quickly and readily transferred, for the benefit of the child.

Like it or not, with organ printing technology on the horizon, the prospect of a functional synthetic womb is becoming less and les science fiction. It isn't wrong to consider it in policy decisions.

[Loud Whispers]

artificial wombs will be made illegal, same as with cloning

[TheBiggerFish]

artificial wombs will be made illegal, same as with cloning

Why?
And when was cloning illegal?

[Loud Whispers]

Human cloning, and for various reasons
Feminists and fundamentalists alike don't like it

[wierd]

non-theraputic cloning (eg, reproductive cloning) is illegal in the US, the UK, and many eurozone countries.

Why?  beats the shit out of me. some argument about slippery slopes most likely.