Monday 27 August 2012

Debating Delusion

The longer I follow the ravings of fetus fetishists, the more I'm convinced their photos should illustrate the encyclopedia entry for magical thinking.

They want to believe something so badly they can twist anything to their purpose.

Today's example: over at Big Blue Batshittery, SHE links to this profile of the guy who thinks violated vaginas produce spermicide.

http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2012/08/the-toronto-star-profiles-pro-life-hero.html

Here is the entire post.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Jack Willke two years ago at a pro-life conference.

One of the things that he said that surprised me the most was that when [he] studied medicine way back in the 1950's, he did not know whether a fetus was a human life.

He had to investigate the question and come to his own conclusion on the matter, because it was not taught in medical school.

I think this ignorance of the unborn was what led to the legalization of abortion.

Henry Morgentaler would have studied medicine at about the same period. The two men are about the same age.

It could explain why Morgentaler had no qualms about performing abortions.
Willke had to 'investigate' the question of whether a fetus is human.

When he was in medical school.

'Way back' in the 1950s.

When, you know, medical knowledge was so feeble that scientists managed only to develop the polio vaccine, medical ultrasonography, heart-lung machine, pacemaker, kidney transplants, and in vitro fertilization.

Oh, and they were working on the first oral contraceptive, which was approved in 1960.

Yup. Benighted times.

And medical schools were teaching We Really Aren't Sure What's in Those Big Bellies.

Which led to Willke's heroic investigation and Morgentaler's continuing ignorance.

And people who can believe that want to form a parliamentary committee, bring in 'experts', and debate When the State Takes Charge of Women's Uteruses.

This is why sane people say: We don't debate delusional nutbars.

6 comments:

Námo Mandos said...

How does a medical school teach what is and isn't "a human life"? It's a medical school---essentially a glorified plumber/mechanic school---not a philosophy department.

Anonymous said...

Not a very good researcher I'd say, as he should have discovered in the course of his investigation that women were human too.

The Dissenting Futilitarian said...

Can you say why identifying 'a human life' is a job for philosophy? A lot of people drop this sort of comment but I don't think I have ever seen anyone make the case. Is there a good post or article on this somewhere?

fern hill said...

*Sigh*. 'Human life' has different meanings in different contexts. M312 is deliberately and dishonestly conflating biological 'human' with legal 'human'.

Try wiki disabiguation page for a clue.

The Dissenting Futilitarian said...

Well, first, this doesn't answer the question asked: is there any credible argument that 'identifying human life is a job for philosophy'. Now I am curious: do you have no source you can point to?

And, second, the 'dishonest conflating' business you mention looks to be quite false. I have looked carefully at this here: http://dissentingfutilitarian.blogspot.ca/2012/08/issue-10-broadsheet-format.html

fern hill said...

I allowed this, but now we're done. I am bored with this and with you.

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