I am curious about what avenues you see as appropriate to discuss and debate abortion that would give it the seriousness that it deserves. Also if you don’t think it is being discussed seriously enough now which part or why? I am not asking to argue but out of curiosity. I feel like the women discussing the looming health repercussions a…
I am curious about what avenues you see as appropriate to discuss and debate abortion that would give it the seriousness that it deserves. Also if you don’t think it is being discussed seriously enough now which part or why? I am not asking to argue but out of curiosity. I feel like the women discussing the looming health repercussions and the unequal distribution of care are very serious, but are there aspects being missed? I also feel the discussion of states rights on abortion vs gun rights is a legitimate avenue of thought. What are you thinking?
"I also feel the discussion of states rights on abortion vs gun rights is a legitimate avenue of thought. What are you thinking?"
😁 I gave serious thought to pointing out that this happened the day after the Supreme Court struck down a law restricting open carry in New York, but I didn't want to muddy the waters in the comments with gun debate.
There are a few key avenues that I see. First, and arguably most important, is the Equal Rights Amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment). Women's equality is not guaranteed by law. But writing it into law risks making some of the other legal protections that women currently have unconstitutional.
As with abortion, there is a range opinion among women about whether the trade-offs are worth it. But as I say at the beginning of this piece, I see abortion rights as an equality issue as much as a healthcare issue. Currently, women can't use the law to make the equality argument.
Then, of course, there's the issue of when life begins. There is no answer to this question. Just as there's no answer to when a person becomes mature enough to drink or join the army or buy a semi-automatic weapon. Age of consent laws are largely arbitrary, but we have them because we need them. The same is true for abortion limits. These arguments should be based on reason and scientific evidence, not religion or personal feelings or fear.
And lastly, as with almost all important issues sadly, there are the absolutists. The people who argue that anybody who sees the issue differently to the is evil or stupid or "brainwashed." This is mainly what I mean when I say "the seriousness it deserves", because these types of positions make serious discussion all but impossible.
As I said, I'm pro-choice, but I can easily see and sympathise with pro-life arguments. I understand why they're concerned. I don't think they're brainwashed. And the ability to at least see the position of the other side is the first step in being able to talk to them. Abortion rights are one of the most complex ethical problems a society needs to solve. Pretending that any answer is simple or morally unambiguous is a failure to take the issue seriously.
The issue is at what point the protection of human life begins. Most reasonable people would agree that a fetus with gills and a tail and no nervous system isn't quite there. Nobody agrees with killing babies after birth. Cotton Mather railed so passionately against woman taking their infants to bed with them that there is little doubt this was a post-parturition abortion. Infanticide in modern vernacular,
Yes I am confident that you don't believe human gametes are dead until they form a zygote. Which just makes me wonder why you used the right wing trope of *life* beginning. You're usually more precise than that.
The issue is when a fetus/baby acquires legal protection. It has been alive the entire time. If I had my druthers I would say at the onset of self-awareness, which I remember in my own life, and I was post-birth and still crawling (yes I actually do remember, thinking wordlessly, "why am I crying?") but that is a dangerous forumlation so I am content with humanity being granted at birth.
This is why I am opposed to political parties - the coupling of unrelated things under a tribal banner. I am pro-abortion though I think that at some point that it would be disingenuous to deny that it's an unemerged human and there should be a reasonable point in the pregnancy attached. I am also pro-gun. While I think that the SC ending abortion rights was a bad decision, I think that striking down NY's use of you must show us need (and we will disagree) as a way of preventing people from defending themselves was a proper one. There is no human right more fundamental that self-defense. Making these issues left/right, or whatever you wish to call the divide is without logic.
I'll not turn this into a 2nd Amendment discussion, but when you start one, you'll certainly hear from me. I only mention it in support of the idea that people's opinion of the Supreme Court depends upon their agreement with its decisions, rather than the fundamentals of a Constitutional Republic. Basing that opinion on it agreeing with a political tribe's shibboleth is daft. Ideas should walk on their own legs.
If I thought self-defense was at the heart of the gun debate I would agree with you, but it seems completely tangential to me. Someone who lives in an unsafe neighborhood should be allowed to own a gun but then I see a picture of some Texas jerkoff with 400 assault rifles or read about someone who wears three guns in the living room and, no, it is not about self defense.
Self defense would be a quiet concern, and even military marksmen will tell you to call the cops and go out back.
I don't believe in ensemble politics either. I am definitely of the left but I detest the SJWs and even found myself nodding along with Cocaine Don Jr. as he twitched and ranted about sensitivity training in the military around "they."
I have my own fanaticisms too ... legible code, precise communication, decent music. But I have never wanted to own a gun. I borrowed one for three days when I was handling a lot of money and it kept me awake.
I can respect your thought. What's at the heart of the matter depends upon who's heart. Firearms have always been in my world, and I view them as tools. All issues come with complexity. I don't want to carry a gun everywhere, been there done that, but I want to be able to when I perceive good reason for it.
I have no argument with you and don't want to start one. I have never been around guns much but I have been around a lot of gun nuts ("gonna get me a gun then don' nobody gonna fuck wit' me") and had too much exposure to Second Amendment fanatics who go from "good morning" to "so should we ban bathtubs too?!?" in four sentences, all theirs. I could never shoot a deer but there are people who shoot sleeping bears.
You sound like a reasonable guy with whom I have a mild disagreement but you know that there are millions of Americans to whom firearms are an obsessive fetish (and, yes, I do know what fetish means), and given that about 30% of adult Americans would fail a psychiatric exam, I think the 2A is grotesque in its folly.
Let's not hijack Steve's blog. I'm at cheopys@gmail.com if you'd like to chat, and Steve I would appreciate a hed zup from you as well.
I've had a gun pointed on me by a guy who wanted my cash and I just laughed and told him I was in college and didn't have a cent and he laughed too and left me alone.
I'd answer that the issue is so bound up with the off-limits of religion and with astounding hypocrisies that honest discussion between people on opposite poles of the debate is not only futile but infeasible.
Sorry, Steve, I know you want to believe that all rhetorical chasms can be bridged and I commend your idealism but can no longer share it. Not in this.
Not when the same people who regard the abortion of even the earliest pregnancy as equivalent to murder yet are every bit as absolute in opposing support after transition from fetus to baby; America is the only industrialized nation lacking a federal program for infant nutrition and you would need to search hard to find a "pro-life" advocate who would agree to using a nickel of "my money," or Elon Musk's, to assure that the baby doesn't die of starvation within a week.
I remember when these people were willing to consider exceptions in cases of rape and incest; now even the certain death of the mother as an exception is increasingly in doubt. As with so many other issues in our disintegrating epistemological universe the fanaticism and absolutism simply do not allow compromise. Not only is religion involved but the role of moral and legal views as tribal membership.
I think most people on here are pro-choice; we're not likely to have any knock-down drag-outs. Personally I am pro-abortion; not just pro-choice but in favor of anything short of murder and involuntary neutering to slow down the growth of human population. The fact that it's just as urgent to bring new lives into a world choking on its own wastes as it was when we were a few thousand hunter-gatherers shows just how intractable the issue has become.
"I'd answer that the issue is so bound up with the off-limits of religion and with astounding hypocrisies that honest discussion between people on opposite poles of the debate is not only futile but infeasible."
😁 No, I agree with you. I think conversation with people at the poles of any issue is broadly futile. My belief is just that the majority of people don't sit at the poles. Extremes are extremes precisely because they're rare.
As we've discussed before, around 80% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in some or all cases. None of these peoples are extremists. And I think they'd accept a solution that didn't 100% conform to their personal feelings, as long as it wasn't too far.
The people who won't accept *any* compromise (as in those who argue women should be able to abort until the moment of birth or that taking the morning after pill is murder) probably aren't worth talking to. But they also represent a tiny slice of public sentiment
As with the Israeli peace movement, the reasonable people don't run the show. In any of our modern issues—guns, abortion, 2020 election, environment—it's not the moderates who are the problem.
You could count me as almost in the up-to-the-onset-of-labor crowd, being perfectly comfortable with the simplicity of human rights acquired at birth, but I would much MUCH rather there was never an unplanned pregnancy, that contraception was freely and anonymously available, but the same people opposed to abortion are every bit as strident in opposing contraception.
"As with the Israeli peace movement, the reasonable people don't run the show."
I don't know enough about the Israeli peace movement to comment, but I'm confident there's no useful comparison to be made between that struggle and the abortion rights debate except that, sure, there are unreasonable people everywhere.
But again, there's a depth in the anti-abortion position that you keep trying to flatten. Some people who oppose abortion also oppose contraception. Absolutely. These people are very likely to be religious. But that doesn't mean that everybody who's pro-life is anti-contraception or a religious fundamentalist.
It's pointless to talk about an issue if you only ever address the most extreme people who disagree with you.. Exactly as pointless as the people who paint all pro-choice people as soulless baby killers. Especially because, as I said, the people at the pole aren't the majority view. The minds that can be changed are in the middle.
I'd definitely prefer that there were never any unplanned pregnancies too. But I suspect it's going to be a long time before contraception is 100% effective.
A majority of Israelis want reconciliation with the Palestinians and an end to the occupation. This majority does not run the government. The government is overwhelmingly made up of settler-born bigots,
Do I have to make the same point on every issue? When I write about software I get told what Kent Beck wrote in his stupid book, and I need to point out that nobody has read it and they work in an absurd way.
I am aware that most prolife people don't oppose contraception, They are not the ones making the laws, nor are they they public face of the movement.
I am aware that many Republicans (a minority but still about 30%) know that Trump lost the election. They are not leading the party.
It's not that I am pointing at the most extreme and saying "they're all like that," it's that I am pointing at the most extreme and saying "they are running the show." It's the Empty Greens who point at the SJWs and say they're representative of all liberals.
In software there is this exceedingly dumb fad where writing tests has been elevated over writing software. The book says that it's better to write the tests first, and that developers should write the tests before the code, ignoring that they will have the same blind spots in both. I don't think the book says developers should have *sole* testing responsibility. But most practitioners of this idiocy do believe that.
So what does it matter if the book doesn't say that? That's what people do.
What does it matter if a majority of the people who think abortion is immoral are OK with contraception? Their leaders oppose contraception. You are aware I am certain that Thomas already said contraception was an "error." They will make contraception illegal and the prolife majority won't care. They've gotten what they wanted, and it isn't about compassion for anyone.
"Do I have to make the same point on every issue?"
😅 I know the feeling. I also feel as If I've made the following point countless times. Let's go one layer deeper.
How is societal or legal change achieved? What motivates politicians to effect change? How do minority or niche issues break into the mainstream? If you answered "public opinion," you are correct.
The people "running the show" didn't want women to have the right to vote or to have abortion rights (or even what's left of them). They didn't want slavery or segregation to end. At least not initially. Abraham Lincoln forcefully put down three attempts, by his own men, to end slavery. They didn't want gay marriage to be legalised. Barack Obama had to be convinced to drop his publicly stated anti-gay marriage stance.
You can effect change without persuading the extremists. None of these injustices were resolved by unanimous agreement. But you will definitely have to persuade people who are reasonable but unconvinced. The good news is, these people, on almost every issue, are the majority.
So apologies if I mischaracterised your position by implying that you're tarring everybody with the same brush as the extremists. But what you *do* seem to be doing, is arguing that because there are insane, unreasonable people out there, some of them in positions of power, persuading those who aren't in power doesn't matter. But, in fact, it's the only strategy that does matter. And it's been proven to work time and time again.
And that is exactly why control of the narrative via control of media, both official and social, is such a big deal. If extremists can sell thier view to the majority, it is no longer fringe, it becomes mainstream. That goes to the heart of many of your commentaries.
Abortion just before birth: unless we have evidence that the almost-baby has a mind, I don’t see the immorality. It’s not the killing of the somatic fetus that I see as the sin, it’s the individual with its experience and identity. People euthanize loving pets that have thinking emotional lives because it’s cheaper than treatment.
Suppose the baby has no cerebrum. Is it murder to pull the plug? There is no person there, and never will be; just human DNA.
I am curious about what avenues you see as appropriate to discuss and debate abortion that would give it the seriousness that it deserves. Also if you don’t think it is being discussed seriously enough now which part or why? I am not asking to argue but out of curiosity. I feel like the women discussing the looming health repercussions and the unequal distribution of care are very serious, but are there aspects being missed? I also feel the discussion of states rights on abortion vs gun rights is a legitimate avenue of thought. What are you thinking?
"I also feel the discussion of states rights on abortion vs gun rights is a legitimate avenue of thought. What are you thinking?"
😁 I gave serious thought to pointing out that this happened the day after the Supreme Court struck down a law restricting open carry in New York, but I didn't want to muddy the waters in the comments with gun debate.
There are a few key avenues that I see. First, and arguably most important, is the Equal Rights Amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment). Women's equality is not guaranteed by law. But writing it into law risks making some of the other legal protections that women currently have unconstitutional.
As with abortion, there is a range opinion among women about whether the trade-offs are worth it. But as I say at the beginning of this piece, I see abortion rights as an equality issue as much as a healthcare issue. Currently, women can't use the law to make the equality argument.
Then, of course, there's the issue of when life begins. There is no answer to this question. Just as there's no answer to when a person becomes mature enough to drink or join the army or buy a semi-automatic weapon. Age of consent laws are largely arbitrary, but we have them because we need them. The same is true for abortion limits. These arguments should be based on reason and scientific evidence, not religion or personal feelings or fear.
And lastly, as with almost all important issues sadly, there are the absolutists. The people who argue that anybody who sees the issue differently to the is evil or stupid or "brainwashed." This is mainly what I mean when I say "the seriousness it deserves", because these types of positions make serious discussion all but impossible.
As I said, I'm pro-choice, but I can easily see and sympathise with pro-life arguments. I understand why they're concerned. I don't think they're brainwashed. And the ability to at least see the position of the other side is the first step in being able to talk to them. Abortion rights are one of the most complex ethical problems a society needs to solve. Pretending that any answer is simple or morally unambiguous is a failure to take the issue seriously.
"Then, of course, there's the issue of when life begins."
This is a critically inaccurate framing. Life began billions of years ago in the primordial oceans. Life does not arise from dead material (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation).
The issue is at what point the protection of human life begins. Most reasonable people would agree that a fetus with gills and a tail and no nervous system isn't quite there. Nobody agrees with killing babies after birth. Cotton Mather railed so passionately against woman taking their infants to bed with them that there is little doubt this was a post-parturition abortion. Infanticide in modern vernacular,
"Beginning of life" is a forced-birth framing.
"This is a critically inaccurate framing. Life began billions of years ago in the primordial oceans. Life does not arise from dead material "
😅 I feel quite confident you know what I meant Chris.
Yes I am confident that you don't believe human gametes are dead until they form a zygote. Which just makes me wonder why you used the right wing trope of *life* beginning. You're usually more precise than that.
The issue is when a fetus/baby acquires legal protection. It has been alive the entire time. If I had my druthers I would say at the onset of self-awareness, which I remember in my own life, and I was post-birth and still crawling (yes I actually do remember, thinking wordlessly, "why am I crying?") but that is a dangerous forumlation so I am content with humanity being granted at birth.
"𝘐 𝘨𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘢 𝘭𝘢𝘸 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘠𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘨𝘶𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘣𝘢𝘵𝘦."
This is why I am opposed to political parties - the coupling of unrelated things under a tribal banner. I am pro-abortion though I think that at some point that it would be disingenuous to deny that it's an unemerged human and there should be a reasonable point in the pregnancy attached. I am also pro-gun. While I think that the SC ending abortion rights was a bad decision, I think that striking down NY's use of you must show us need (and we will disagree) as a way of preventing people from defending themselves was a proper one. There is no human right more fundamental that self-defense. Making these issues left/right, or whatever you wish to call the divide is without logic.
I'll not turn this into a 2nd Amendment discussion, but when you start one, you'll certainly hear from me. I only mention it in support of the idea that people's opinion of the Supreme Court depends upon their agreement with its decisions, rather than the fundamentals of a Constitutional Republic. Basing that opinion on it agreeing with a political tribe's shibboleth is daft. Ideas should walk on their own legs.
If I thought self-defense was at the heart of the gun debate I would agree with you, but it seems completely tangential to me. Someone who lives in an unsafe neighborhood should be allowed to own a gun but then I see a picture of some Texas jerkoff with 400 assault rifles or read about someone who wears three guns in the living room and, no, it is not about self defense.
Self defense would be a quiet concern, and even military marksmen will tell you to call the cops and go out back.
I don't believe in ensemble politics either. I am definitely of the left but I detest the SJWs and even found myself nodding along with Cocaine Don Jr. as he twitched and ranted about sensitivity training in the military around "they."
I have my own fanaticisms too ... legible code, precise communication, decent music. But I have never wanted to own a gun. I borrowed one for three days when I was handling a lot of money and it kept me awake.
I can respect your thought. What's at the heart of the matter depends upon who's heart. Firearms have always been in my world, and I view them as tools. All issues come with complexity. I don't want to carry a gun everywhere, been there done that, but I want to be able to when I perceive good reason for it.
I have no argument with you and don't want to start one. I have never been around guns much but I have been around a lot of gun nuts ("gonna get me a gun then don' nobody gonna fuck wit' me") and had too much exposure to Second Amendment fanatics who go from "good morning" to "so should we ban bathtubs too?!?" in four sentences, all theirs. I could never shoot a deer but there are people who shoot sleeping bears.
You sound like a reasonable guy with whom I have a mild disagreement but you know that there are millions of Americans to whom firearms are an obsessive fetish (and, yes, I do know what fetish means), and given that about 30% of adult Americans would fail a psychiatric exam, I think the 2A is grotesque in its folly.
Let's not hijack Steve's blog. I'm at cheopys@gmail.com if you'd like to chat, and Steve I would appreciate a hed zup from you as well.
I've had a gun pointed on me by a guy who wanted my cash and I just laughed and told him I was in college and didn't have a cent and he laughed too and left me alone.
I'd answer that the issue is so bound up with the off-limits of religion and with astounding hypocrisies that honest discussion between people on opposite poles of the debate is not only futile but infeasible.
Sorry, Steve, I know you want to believe that all rhetorical chasms can be bridged and I commend your idealism but can no longer share it. Not in this.
Not when the same people who regard the abortion of even the earliest pregnancy as equivalent to murder yet are every bit as absolute in opposing support after transition from fetus to baby; America is the only industrialized nation lacking a federal program for infant nutrition and you would need to search hard to find a "pro-life" advocate who would agree to using a nickel of "my money," or Elon Musk's, to assure that the baby doesn't die of starvation within a week.
I remember when these people were willing to consider exceptions in cases of rape and incest; now even the certain death of the mother as an exception is increasingly in doubt. As with so many other issues in our disintegrating epistemological universe the fanaticism and absolutism simply do not allow compromise. Not only is religion involved but the role of moral and legal views as tribal membership.
I think most people on here are pro-choice; we're not likely to have any knock-down drag-outs. Personally I am pro-abortion; not just pro-choice but in favor of anything short of murder and involuntary neutering to slow down the growth of human population. The fact that it's just as urgent to bring new lives into a world choking on its own wastes as it was when we were a few thousand hunter-gatherers shows just how intractable the issue has become.
"I'd answer that the issue is so bound up with the off-limits of religion and with astounding hypocrisies that honest discussion between people on opposite poles of the debate is not only futile but infeasible."
😁 No, I agree with you. I think conversation with people at the poles of any issue is broadly futile. My belief is just that the majority of people don't sit at the poles. Extremes are extremes precisely because they're rare.
As we've discussed before, around 80% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in some or all cases. None of these peoples are extremists. And I think they'd accept a solution that didn't 100% conform to their personal feelings, as long as it wasn't too far.
The people who won't accept *any* compromise (as in those who argue women should be able to abort until the moment of birth or that taking the morning after pill is murder) probably aren't worth talking to. But they also represent a tiny slice of public sentiment
As with the Israeli peace movement, the reasonable people don't run the show. In any of our modern issues—guns, abortion, 2020 election, environment—it's not the moderates who are the problem.
You could count me as almost in the up-to-the-onset-of-labor crowd, being perfectly comfortable with the simplicity of human rights acquired at birth, but I would much MUCH rather there was never an unplanned pregnancy, that contraception was freely and anonymously available, but the same people opposed to abortion are every bit as strident in opposing contraception.
And they are the people at that pole.
"As with the Israeli peace movement, the reasonable people don't run the show."
I don't know enough about the Israeli peace movement to comment, but I'm confident there's no useful comparison to be made between that struggle and the abortion rights debate except that, sure, there are unreasonable people everywhere.
But again, there's a depth in the anti-abortion position that you keep trying to flatten. Some people who oppose abortion also oppose contraception. Absolutely. These people are very likely to be religious. But that doesn't mean that everybody who's pro-life is anti-contraception or a religious fundamentalist.
It's pointless to talk about an issue if you only ever address the most extreme people who disagree with you.. Exactly as pointless as the people who paint all pro-choice people as soulless baby killers. Especially because, as I said, the people at the pole aren't the majority view. The minds that can be changed are in the middle.
I'd definitely prefer that there were never any unplanned pregnancies too. But I suspect it's going to be a long time before contraception is 100% effective.
A majority of Israelis want reconciliation with the Palestinians and an end to the occupation. This majority does not run the government. The government is overwhelmingly made up of settler-born bigots,
Do I have to make the same point on every issue? When I write about software I get told what Kent Beck wrote in his stupid book, and I need to point out that nobody has read it and they work in an absurd way.
I am aware that most prolife people don't oppose contraception, They are not the ones making the laws, nor are they they public face of the movement.
I am aware that many Republicans (a minority but still about 30%) know that Trump lost the election. They are not leading the party.
It's not that I am pointing at the most extreme and saying "they're all like that," it's that I am pointing at the most extreme and saying "they are running the show." It's the Empty Greens who point at the SJWs and say they're representative of all liberals.
In software there is this exceedingly dumb fad where writing tests has been elevated over writing software. The book says that it's better to write the tests first, and that developers should write the tests before the code, ignoring that they will have the same blind spots in both. I don't think the book says developers should have *sole* testing responsibility. But most practitioners of this idiocy do believe that.
So what does it matter if the book doesn't say that? That's what people do.
What does it matter if a majority of the people who think abortion is immoral are OK with contraception? Their leaders oppose contraception. You are aware I am certain that Thomas already said contraception was an "error." They will make contraception illegal and the prolife majority won't care. They've gotten what they wanted, and it isn't about compassion for anyone.
"Do I have to make the same point on every issue?"
😅 I know the feeling. I also feel as If I've made the following point countless times. Let's go one layer deeper.
How is societal or legal change achieved? What motivates politicians to effect change? How do minority or niche issues break into the mainstream? If you answered "public opinion," you are correct.
The people "running the show" didn't want women to have the right to vote or to have abortion rights (or even what's left of them). They didn't want slavery or segregation to end. At least not initially. Abraham Lincoln forcefully put down three attempts, by his own men, to end slavery. They didn't want gay marriage to be legalised. Barack Obama had to be convinced to drop his publicly stated anti-gay marriage stance.
You can effect change without persuading the extremists. None of these injustices were resolved by unanimous agreement. But you will definitely have to persuade people who are reasonable but unconvinced. The good news is, these people, on almost every issue, are the majority.
So apologies if I mischaracterised your position by implying that you're tarring everybody with the same brush as the extremists. But what you *do* seem to be doing, is arguing that because there are insane, unreasonable people out there, some of them in positions of power, persuading those who aren't in power doesn't matter. But, in fact, it's the only strategy that does matter. And it's been proven to work time and time again.
And that is exactly why control of the narrative via control of media, both official and social, is such a big deal. If extremists can sell thier view to the majority, it is no longer fringe, it becomes mainstream. That goes to the heart of many of your commentaries.
Abortion just before birth: unless we have evidence that the almost-baby has a mind, I don’t see the immorality. It’s not the killing of the somatic fetus that I see as the sin, it’s the individual with its experience and identity. People euthanize loving pets that have thinking emotional lives because it’s cheaper than treatment.
Suppose the baby has no cerebrum. Is it murder to pull the plug? There is no person there, and never will be; just human DNA.