LogFAQs > #965862706

DirtBasedSoap posted...

yeah its definitely Jen and not the guys writing fucking novels because she disagrees with you

I mean, I write a lot normally.

I'm not angry - more just confused as to why Jen is continually attacking people who agree with her stance on abortion (because they apparently aren't agreeing the right way, or something?). It's honestly kind of sad to see her just continually tossing insults around at people who aren't even really engaging her.

Far-Queue posted...

Having a less valid opinion is not a wholesale dismissal of said opinion. Put your ego on pause for a moment and absorb that.

I don't think anyone's suggested otherwise.

Also, to clarify, this is not a matter of ego. adjl doesn't strike me as the egotistical type; I can tell you I'm not. Accept or reject that as you please, but it's the truth. The reason I'm pushing back on what you've been saying in this topic so far has nothing to do with a bruised ego or anything of the sort; it's because I find dismissing, belittling, or otherwise invalidating (in part or in whole) people's views because of immutable properties of their identity (their sex, their race, their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, so on and so forth) to be extremely dangerous. The "you can't possibly understand, you're not white enough/male enough/*insert characteristic here* enough" excuse has been used to justify some of humanity's most horrific actions, from segregation to voting exclusion to genocide. I know that's not what you're trying to do here, but I inherently tend to recoil from lines of logic that tie a viewpoint to physical attributes of whoever is saying it.

I don't feel "threatened" or belittled by your views; I just think they're wrong.

Far-Queue posted...

Someone who has extensively studied something, even earned a degree on the matter, should certainly have a certain weight behind their opinion over some rando with an "uneducated" opinion.

Same can be said for the lived experience.

So far I'm in agreement.

Far-Queue posted...

Should an academic be given more credit when voicing an opinion on something that they've studied? Sure. But at the end of the day, the affected individual's opinion should have the most consideration.

OK. Why?

Because here's the thing - your experiences, however valid they are, are still unique to you. There is no guarantee that someone else in the same circumstances will have the same experience. Someone might have an abortion and say that it was a huge relief, that it removed from them the anxiety of having to see through a difficult pregnancy with all the risks and life complications that it presented. They might use that experience to say that they firmly believe safe, legal abortions are essential. Someone else might have an abortion at the same age, the same clinic, the same doctor, and say it was an emotionally traumatic experience that they never fully came to terms with and that they are still haunted by thoughts of the baby they never had. That person might use that experience to say that they firmly believe that abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, save for a few exceptions for the usual reasons (rape, incest, health of the mother).

Neither of those experiences are "wrong" and both are totally valid. Yet, despite those experiences having taken place in nearly identical circumstances, they draw completely opposite conclusions.

That's the problem with personal experience - it's extremely subjective. That doesn't make it meaningless, but, to my eye, it does not elevate it to the level of dispassionate analysis which, in part, tends to try and aggregate all those experiences and make some sense of them by analyzing trends and patterns ("How many women had good experiences? How many had bad ones? Which group is larger and by how much? How many didn't get an abortion despite wanting one and what was their outcome?" So on and so forth).

That analysis is typically undertaken by academics or observed by people actually performing the procedure, which is why I tend to rate their viewpoints more heavily. Or, to put it another way, a woman might have experience with one abortion; her doctor probably has experience with hundreds, if not thousands.

Far-Queue posted...

I'll keep explaining it if I have to.

I am legitimately interested in continuing this discussion.

That's not sarcasm, in case it comes across that way. You did a good job of laying out the logic for your views, which is what I was asking for. I still disagree and you're not likely to change my mind, but I still think the discussion is worthwhile.