Monday, May 02, 2005
Denial... It might have helped to have actually read the book. It's depressing to watch people that I agree with construct a strawman and proceed to demolish his viewpoints, all the while it remains glaringly obvious that they completely fail to understand the other side's point of view. As south park said "They're right for the wrong reasons and we're wrong for the right reasons." South park and their viewers were able to grasp that this is an ugly complicated issue with good intentions on both sides.
If you sincerely believed (not as an evil calculation aimed at consolidating your power,) that a disabled woman was being deliberately starved and dehydrated to death over the course of 2 weeks, of course you'd intervene. Just as if you sincerely believe that a 2 month developed fetus is a person, then abortion IS murder and of course you would react to it as murder. Just as if you sincerely believe that life begins at conception, then birth control pills are abortion because they cause the death of that fertilized but not yet implanted egg/person.
Now, I personally don't believe that Teri Schiavo was still in there. I don't believe that a complete set of chromosomes in one cell is morally equivalent to a third trimester fetus or a toddler. But I can see why the other side acts as they do. It's not some regressive desire to get women back barefoot in the kitchen. (Though I'm sure there are people who want that.) It's a logical consequence of different first principles that are no less sincerely held than mine and no less valid. But as long as you continue to lecture people that their beliefs are stupid or wrong even as you demonstrate that you don't understand them, you're not going to make any headway and you're going to look foolish before your own choir. Idiot. This failure to empathize is especially detrimental when the slippery slope arguments that the pro-lifers rely on may be being borne out and the only response you've ever been able to muster to their concerns is that's ridiculous. (More details here.)
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