Losing focus and arguing against an antichoice cult

I'm up too late and have to get up too early tomorrow. Writing fiction means a hard daily schedule.

I managed to take some time to answer the Abolition Society of Oklahoma, or as I call them, ASOs. They complained that some people weren't taking them seriously and were being snarky to them, to paraphrase.

http://is.gd/GJpD7l

I've had arguments in the past with this cult, who are trying to make antichoice a religious crusade by conflating the issue with slavery, despite several humongous differences. I can't see an underground railroad for fetuses. I just can't. I also can't see Canada going along with it . . .

Anyway, this is what I wrote:

Actually, I can see their point in not trying to engage you. I've tried. It hasn't done anything, and periodically I hear, "oh, you really said nothing to support your point."

Each time that was a lie. Fact is, you never engage in a discussion sincerely, that is, entertaining any thought that anything said can change your mind. You never ask yourself what information could do it, but instead look for things to prove yourself right, and you explain away the things that to prove your wrong. Though in these respects, you're not really different from anybody else.

However, you also make logical arguments with terms defined to bolster the conclusion you've already made, affirming the antecedent and making circular arguments regularly. You have a faith-based religion, which means you have a sworn duty to believe no matter what, and you've trained yourself to accept the weakest, flimsiest arguments and pseudoscience so you could keep your faith and not feel like idiots. Moreover, because you've connected your antichoice views to your religion you're committed to never changing your mind on it. Since you've also linked antichoice to an antislavery narrative, you've shifted the discussion from whether the fetus is actually a human being to winning rights for the fetus. Thus assures you will never say anything appropriate about abortion.

Even though I try to now and then, I guess because I'm human, I don't think there's any point in engaging any of you. It's like trying to engage the Moonies in a rational discussion about their beliefs. You are a cult, and more cultish than most Christian sects.

So, I'm pro-ridicule. If people aren't engaging you, but ridiculing you, maybe you shouldn't declare, claim and argue things that require proof of sanity.

It's fair to ask what would plausibly change my mind? Prove to me in a material way that there's something in a zygote besides a genome that makes it a human being. The reason I start with the zygote is that's where the antichoicers say "human life," or what I would call a "human being" begins.

I reject the argument out of hand that it's a human being/person just because it's human life with a complete, distinct, diploid human genome. Though a human being must have such, the arrow of inference only goes one way: because something has a complete, distinct, diploid human genome, it does not mean that its a human being, according to Bayes Law. For a zygote, there are a lot of necessary things missing. Like a brain and body, like any functional senses or emotions. No emotional or sensory life can be inferred from it.

So, what quality does it have? According to the ASOs say a zygote/fetus "possesses the Image of God." They don't say it's in God's image or that it looks like God, because that would immediately underscore how absurd their claim is. A zygote, a fetus and a middle-aged human cannot all be in God's image, if God is perfect and unchanging.

Now, in Genesis, Man was created in the image of God (and women from Man's rib, slightly less dignified.) Genesis 9:5-7 says, “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind." A zygote doesn't have blood. I don't think I'm stretching this point: a zygote, purportedly where "life begins," cannot not be what that passage is talking about. The presumption, if you're going to use it as a moral guide, is that human beings have blood and if you shed it the human being dies. If we're going to take the poetic language about "image of God" we should take the whole thing literally. If you could kill somebody without spilling blood, it shouldn't offend God or anyone else. Poisoning might be recommended.

Now, for their exact statement, nowhere does the Bible use the phrase "possess(es) the image of God." We don't say that in the English language. If somebody looks like somebody else, we never say one possesses the others' image. In fact, if we were to say that, it means one person carries a picture of the other. It means the fetus is committing blasphemy, and probably we should stone its mother. If one is made in the others' image, we say it just like that or have. Their saying that the zygote/fetus "possesses the image of God" just avoids the questions that would normally be raised if they said it the regular way. They know this.

In doing this, the ASOs cannot be using an understood definition of "image," which is where their tactic enters the Orwellian realm. It's a statement that's meant to guide opinion, not make a proper, logical argument based even on their own faith.

Using the "image of God" argument, in other words, can be rejected outright, and it still first has to be a human being, with a completed "image of God" to apply.

So, what would I accept? I would need material proof that despite all it lacks, a single-celled zygote is something that the later, developed human being could recognize as themselves, by appearance or behavior. If it's a unique, individual human being, the unique, individual human being should be able to look at videos on how it behaves along side other zygote/fetus videos and say, "That's me!" In fact, anybody should be able to study zygotes/fetuses, study the later people, and pick out which zygote/fetus is which person, just from behavior, or perhaps appearance.

Or, I would need some physical quality that proves it's as conscious in a way that the fully developed human is. A good test: does it dream yet? If it dreams, it means that it's ready to take sensory information and synthesize a narrative from it.

Or, I would need physical proof that a soul exists, that human beings have one, and the zygote/fetus possesses it, too.

"Possessing God's image" doesn't cut it.