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An old poster arguing against women's suffrage. I'm particularly fascinated by outdated arguments for things we today consider completely beyond dispute - arguments for slavery, child beating, genocide, racism, etc. I feel like I'm doing "argument archaeology" or something.

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Aella

@Aella_Girl

Nov 10, 2019

Not really? My mind doesn't change, but it does freak me out a little bit how good people were at rationalizing things then (and by extension, probably today too)

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Like, pro-slavery arguments were 'sane'-sounding. Most of what I've read relies on two main points - 1., if you're gonna be anti-slavery you have to change how you treat women/children/animals which is absurd, and 2., we're actively helping the enslaved, this is best for them

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Maybe it is killing a baby, but if killing a fetus = killing a baby then i'm fine with mothers killing their babies.

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ok since people are getting mad at this, what I mean is: I don't care what language we use. Whatever "growth in mother at e.g., 3 months" is, I'm ok with the mother ending that, calling it a baby or not isn't the issue at hand.

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E.g., I'm ok with killing in self defense. If you want to call it "BRUTAL SLAUGHTERR", that's annoying but like, the label you slap on it, however sensationalist, doesn't change the underlying thing I'm discussing. If you wanna call it BRUTAL SLAUGHTERR then ok sure whatever

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While I appreciate the honesty... It's almost never medically necessary. Almost always elective. Almost always never self defense. So are you okay with killing an innocent someone (your own child in-utero) intentionally when there is no immediate danger or threat to your life?

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I didn't mean to say abortion is self defense, I was using that as an example for the way we use words - that I don't care what label we use - baby, fetus, little monster, etc., Because the thing we're talking about doesn't change regardless of the label we use.

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and

That was my point with the original tweet - that I'm ok with ending "collection of early cells in the womb" and that doesn't change if you attach the fetus or baby label, or any other label, because the label isn't the thing.

6:31 PM · Nov 11, 2019

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That makes more sense, I see what you're saying. However, the entity in question is not merely a collection of cells. There's quite a bit more going on here for this whole human organism. A new unique human individual at their earliest stage of development has begun their life.

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Thanks for understanding! And I mean to be fair I think I myself am simply a collection of cells. I think killing people is bad because it feels bad and I have empathy. But I can't really imagine it feeling bad for an early stage fetus, I assume it's not very aware.

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