On Emotivism In Combatting Abortion

[Sojourner]

There is an interesting post on [url="http://www.mirrorofjustice.coim"]Mirror of Justice[/url] that brings out the question of how much pro-lifers should rely on the gruesome details of abortion in arguing against abortion.

The writer posits that the decision today might in actuality spark a move toward more "humane" procedures with the same end result. The entire post is worth reading, but I'll post a few tidbits here:
[quote]And might that move towards the sanitary be itself a social anesthetic we apply to ourselves to deaden the moral pain of killing that human life? It seems to me that a social move toward more “humane” procedures may have very little to do with lessening the suffering of the one to whom they are applied, and much more to do with anesthetizing our moral and social feelings of pain in carrying out our decisions.[/quote][quote]No doubt we can all cheer the result today; but the reasoning of many against PBA, focusing upon the gruesome nature of the procedure, might be part of the broad social problem we face. Any invasive medical procedure will typically appear gruesome to most people. Think of open heart surgery, or colectomy. But we don’t, and we shouldn’t take our sense of disgust at the gruesomeness of the procedures to be constitutive of their moral or legal status. If we did, our moral and legal reasoning would express the kind of emotivism that Alasdair MacIntryre diagnosed in After Virtue as the dominant paradigm of moral and social reasoning characteristic of advanced capitalist society, where values and interests replace goods. The great medieval historian of philosophy Etienne Gilson, echoing Nietzsche, wrote somewhere that “values are what goods become in a world in which God is dead.” And insofar as we adopt the language of “values” and emotivist type reasoning, even if only provisionally, in order to win a tactical victory, we run the risk of contributing to the larger loss.[/quote]
[quote]We think the procedure is morally abhorrent because it destroys a good, a human life. Does the Court’s decision today allow the doctor to “humanely” give the unborn child a lethal injection of some pain killer, and then, upon the judgment that it is now deceased, allow for the very same procedure to be performed upon the now dead child? Sadly, if it does, we have not advanced very far today. Presumably a less invasive and medically gruesome procedure shares just as much in the evil of killing an innocent human life as PBA does, if our moral reasoning is more than emotivist.[/quote]

[Socrates]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1248177' date='Apr 18 2007, 04:07 PM']There is an interesting post on [url="http://www.mirrorofjustice.coim"]Mirror of Justice[/url] that brings out the question of how much pro-lifers should rely on the gruesome details of abortion in arguing against abortion.

The writer posits that the decision today might in actuality spark a move toward more "humane" procedures with the same end result. The entire post is worth reading, but I'll post a few tidbits here:[/quote]
It's not clear exactly what you mean by "emotivism," but, like it or not, appeal to the emotions is necessary to change most minds about abortion. This includes (in its place) showing the gruesome reality of abortion. And this is not just because it is "icky" as is, say, open-heart surgery, but it helps show specifically that it is the gruesome [i]killing of an innocent human being[/i].

This is not to say that pro-lifers should abandon appeals to reason and logic, but if we avoid any "emotional" arguments whatsoever, our arguments will be lost on most people. It's an unfortunate fact that, especially in our modern media-driven world, most people are influenced more by appeals to emotion that to pure logic.

I've heard of an old veteran pro-life activist who said that originally, they relied mostly on the solid logic of the pro-life position to argue, but that most people ignored these arguments, and that "touchy-feely" emotional appeals proved more effective in winning people over.

I think for many people, if they were not aware of the "gruesome details" of procedures such as PBA, would not give the evil of abortion much thought at all. It is better to have such a ban, than to have any and all abortions legal and unrestricted.

[Sojourner]

yeah I agree that it is important to share the details of PBA and other abortion procedures. I gotta say, we went through the details of it twice in class today and I know there were people there who hadn't given it much serious consideration in the past. Hopefully they will be shocked into taking action against abortion. We need good lawyers who are shocked into taking action against abortion.

[cmotherofpirl]

Its a bit like copying St Paul. Some require logic and some require emotion.

To the people who think its a bit of tissue, they need to see its a little baby.

You need to say to a woman considering an abortion that this time next year, you would be taking the baby on a spring walk, or picking out Christmas presents or whatever season is appropriate - so they can see beyond the scary present.

To the people screaming hatred you ask why? did they kill they own child and feel the weight of guilt on their soul? To them you offer the chance of forgiveness in Christ and peace.

To the logical you offer science - how can you be anti-capital punishment[ they usually are] and want to slice and dice a human being, for their convenience?

To the legal you ask why the rights of one distinct human take presidence over another. How can they justify killing children? How can a baby born at 25 weeks have legal rights, when you can still murder another child [because its in the womb] until birth?

[Sojourner]

agreed.

great post, cmom

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