a response to tim, which became too long for a comment

Nate says A. You think B logically follows from A, therefore Nate believes B.

i do have a habit of doing this, and it is an unfortunate one. the habit tends to be exaggerated in formats like these, where there is the necessary immediacy of in-person speech without the ability granted by in-person speech to take a sidebar and get points clarified. (text is limiting, too, because means of emphasising certain ideas is limited. i used caps to add emphasis, because italics are devoted to quoting the words of others. unfortunately, caps scan as yelling, also. i tried to mix things up by using bold tags, but those scan as yelling and throw off my eyes in reading, because they look like delinations in text where delinations shouldn't be. i was angry, but i didn't mean to be as yelly as i probably looked.)

partly, i think, it's an attempt to keep arguments straight in my own head, as my thought patterns are... not always linear, precisely. partly, it has something to do with my conflating nate's arguments with those i have often heard others of nate's apparent viewpoint (i say 'apparent' because, frankly, i don't know every particular of nate's belief system, any more than he knows mine). i try to anticipate arguments i think him likely to make - arguments i have seen those in the pro-life-no-exceptions camp make time and again. i try to cut off those arguments, and in doing so perhaps overgeneralise, or get certain things flat wrong, thus doing him an injustice. so for that, i apologise.

it is very difficult for this sort of debate not to turn personal, though, because a substantial part of the conflict is the very ugly truth that there's ultimately not much room for compromise. no matter how i may try to divorce myself from any prejudice i might hold, to me, those who would ban abortion believe that their religious/personal beliefs are ultimately more important than my life, or the life of any other woman. i am sure - if to say that i am 'sure' about such a thing is not to put words in the mouth of another - that as strongly as i believe the foregoing, nate believes that the potentiality of life that is a human fetus ultimately trumps all. if i interpret correctly, he has clearly said as much.

to be told that i'm of less value than another person's idea is, i am afraid, no matter how reasonable i try to be, always going to insult me on a personal level. it's not an imagined slight - it's not a personal slight, either, and i do try not to read it as one. i could be better at that last bit, but i've done a lot of reading lately on the topic of abortion rights, and the anger i directed at nate was, in large part, stoked by that reading. it should more properly have been used as material for a post on my own blog, not pointed at a specific person on someone else's blog.

it is interesting you raise the idea of 'selection bias' - i've been trying to convince myself to stop reading pro-ban blogs and sources and pundits, because i was far less worried about a ban before i started reading them. i honestly didn't think it was something i ever needed to worry about. the more i learn, the more i realise that it is something i need to worry about. those who are trying to legislate bans rely on the continued sanguinity of the population, and various creeping bits of legislation and redirection of funding have effectively made roe v. wade moot in a lot of places in this country. which is scary as all hell, and something worth fighting over for its own sake, but particularly worthy of attention given the religious and politcal climate of the country at present. i too once believed that abortion was too good a rallying issue to ever be settled. i'm no longer sure of that. i become less sure as time passes and as i learn more.

i began research in the attempt to 'study' those of different viewpoints, and after a bit of time doing so intensively, i found myself... really wanting to kick a lot of them. hard. in the shins. learning that rather a lot of people with rather a lot of voting clout regard you as subhuman tends to inspire that reaction. i had a similar reaction to my first real interaction with Real Live Sexism, which i didn't actually believe existed, since i'd never seen it in all my twentythree years. in my defence, i think i responded better to this dustup than i responded then. (i responded by punching a very large man in the face, repeatedly.)

i don't mean to 'drive nate away', but i also dislike feeling as though i have to stay silent on issues meaningful to me. i try to 'ignore' these arguments often. sometimes it boils over. likely, if i had refrained from responding on moss's blog, and rather responded here on my own blog in a reasoned fashion, all of this would have been avoided. i'll try to do that in the future, and probably people will avoid saying anything to keep the peace, and if that's the prerogative, that's okay. it probably will be, because, as you say, it tends to be an ugly and depressing conversation to have. i really don't mind if people get yelly on my blog, though.

this discussion really isn't intended to make people uncomfortable, and i wish people wouldn't apologise. conflict != bad. my intent here is to encourage people to speak at liberty on the topic.