All your replies to me for about two years have been condescending ad hominems masquerading as logic; you are no authority on formal argument.


Isaacs (not Rolands) hypothetical was that fetuses are indisputably children; discussing the proposition invites, almost demands, discussing its consequences: Killing people for any reason but saving life is murder, justifying anything necessary to prevent it, including lethal force. It is just like the NYPD killing the Empire State Building shooter. Calling that old idea my creation denies its documented history.

Isaac then asserted that any mental trauma sufficient to justify abortion makes a woman incompetent to decide that. I noted that many people experience great mental (and other) trauma without being incompetent to make decisions about it (e.g. parents of critically ill children are not legally incompetent to decide their care.) He ignored that rebuttal to simply reiterate his assertion, so I reiterated the rebuttal; that exchange occurred several times, yet he never addressed the rebuttal. Under formal debate rules, where does that leave his assertion...?

Finally, he asserted that since any woman motivated to request abortion is legally incompetent to do so, doctors deserve no legal protection for killing at the request of someone mentally incompetent. Isaac noted in passing that those possessing mental competence an abortion seeker lacks might have authority to decide whether she receives an abortion, and I responded that doctors have that mental competence and the necessary professional training; he again ignored the wholly relevant rebuttal. Of course, saying abortion doctors have no legal protection leads right back where we started: If they have no legal protection, killing them to prevent abortions is legally valid (which was the principal reason I brought it up in the first place.)

Dismissing the inevitable conclusions of ones logic as tangential just because they are distasteful is arguing in bad faith. So is opposing arguments one accepts, solely due to disliking their articulator. This is not about how you, me or Isaac feel about each other personally.