With Due Respect: Men should not have a say in abortion!

Recently, the American state of Alabama voted to ban abortion in the state. Regardless of whatever our stand on abortion is, I feel there is always a debate and conversation to be had. Unfortunately, lots of the discussion seemed to be spend blaming white men lawmakers for making the decision.

In this post I will examine the question posted by the BBC, "should men have a say in the abortion debate?"

Arguments based on identity, not logic

The authors of this question are committing a logical fallacy in their statement. Since men do not under pregnancy or abortion, the argument is that men do not have a right to set the law.

The best form of the argument is this :

1) Men do not go through pregnancy or abortion
2) Abortion law should be only set by individuals who go through pregnancy or abortion
3) Therefore only women should set the law since it only concerns the women.

However, this line of argument is flawed.

Logical failure: Does not match reality

We would not apply this line of logic to any other circumstance. Imagine making the following statements:

"We cannot set animal rights because we are not animals."

"We cannot make laws concerning illegal immigration because we were never immigrants."

"We cannot set laws concerning burials because we were never dead or buried."

All these statements are obviously incorrect yet when it comes to abortion, we are more than happy to follow it.

Logical failure: Your identity makes you more virtuous

The argument also assumes that the identity of speaker or lawmaker is essential to the support of the argument.

Let me make this clear: arguments are valid or invalid regardless of a person's gender, race, ethnicity, eye colour, height, weight etc. An argument should be weighted on logical consistency and real-world application, rather than identity.

Allowing such shenanigans would set a dangerous precedent -- we would have no common ground of logic to reach a proper discussion.

Conclusion

It is irresponsible and rather quite disappointing that the BBC chooses to promote identity as a narrative in their articles.

With Due Respect: I know more than you!

Pitting one's authority over the other

You know how sometimes you feel that during a discussion you must object to something. For instance, my friend said that the Bible was "full of contradictions" (I will handle this argument in a future post).

The most natural comment that most people (in my position as a Christian) would make is , "no, it isn't."

But such a comment is not helpful to a discussion, is it? I would be pitting my authority against his/hers and the audience would decide who they would believe more based on personalities. Provided that it is an honest discussion, a much better answer would be "where?" or rather "can you list an example?"

In other words, it would be better to call someone's bluff (Sire, 2006).

Calling one's bluff

Most well-meaning people who make such statements in my experience actually know little about the issue. Let me be honest, such statements have a hint of the truth, but if we are intellectually honest, we cannot base our understandings on issues with one-word statements.

Most of the time, the questioner would decline to elaborate further (in other words, he/she was trolling or just plain trying to make me look bad). However, those who do really have geniune examples, most of them are really misunderstandings. And very rarely, they do have issues I struggle to answer. In that case, I would get their email and promise to engage them some time later.

Speaking authoritatively

I do not. In other words, I cannot claim to speak authoritately or professionally about philosophy/theology. I claim to speak more expertly on biology (since I am a biology graduate), but even then I do not claim to speak as an expert in biology. So although it may sound counter-productive, take what I write with a huge pinch of salt, because I have to be honest here.

Now you know why I try not pit my authority against others.

References

Sire, J.W. (2006) Why Good Effective Arguments Often Fail