{"id":20140,"date":"2012-08-17T18:25:31","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T22:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=20140"},"modified":"2013-04-03T23:45:54","modified_gmt":"2013-04-04T03:45:54","slug":"the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/","title":{"rendered":"The most common logical fallacies that pro-choice advocates make"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

This is a clip from an episode of Life Report<\/strong><\/a><\/em> called “Recognizing and Defeating Logical Fallacies<\/a>.” In this clip, I asked Trent Horn\u00a0about the most common logical fallacies that pro-choice advocates make. I followed this up with the same question about pro-life advocates, but you’ll have to watch the full interview<\/a> for that.<\/p>\n

Here’s Trent on the most common pro-choice logical fallacies:<\/p>\n

[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rpVfq9xan88&version=3&hl=en_US]<\/p>\n

If you don’t want to watch the 4-minute video, you can read the full transcript below.<\/p>\n

Transcript:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, there\u2019s many kinds of fallacies that exist, I think there\u2019s probably over 50 of them, and you can look up various lists of them online<\/a>. So, there\u2019s two kinds of fallacies that can occur in an argument: a formal fallacy and an informal fallacy. A formal fallacy occurs when there\u2019s a problem with the structure in the argument, that can be represented with letters.<\/p>\n

\"\"For example, one fallacy that I see frequently in the pro-choice side is the fallacy of the undistributed middle<\/a>. It can be represented in a syllogism this way. Now, remember, a syllogism is just a fancy word for an argument like, \u201cAll men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal.\u201d Your standard argument.\u00a0The fallacy of the undistributed middle goes like this: \u201cAll A<\/em>s are C<\/em>s, all B<\/em>s are C<\/em>s, therefore all A<\/em>s are B<\/em>s.\u201d Now, your listeners might think, \u201cWell, I don\u2019t see what\u2019s wrong with that,\u201d and pro-choice people will put it this way: \u201cAll body parts can\u2019t survive outside of my body. All fetuses can\u2019t survive outside of my body. Therefore a fetus is a body part.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0necessarily work. Because I might say that \u201call pro-lifers are mammals and all dolphins are mammals. Therefore all pro-lifers are actually dolphins.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the phrase I use to describe this to\u00a0people is that just because two things have something in common\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0mean it\u2019s the same thing. Now if this formal fallacy occurs, the middle \u2013 what it means by the undistributed middle \u2013 in a categorical syllogism like the \u201cAll men are mortal. Socrates is a man,\u201d there are three terms, and there is a term that is referred to twice. In the case with Socrates, it\u2019s \u201cman.\u201d\u00a0And the thing is, though, in this argument, the undistributed middle, the term isn’t fully distributed. So, no, there are other beings that are neither pro-lifers nor dolphins that are mammals.<\/p>\n

And, you know, just because two things have something in common\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0mean they\u2019re the same thing. Just because a fetus and a body part both can\u2019t survive outside of the body doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re the same thing cause a fetus is a human organism and human organisms \u2013 we treat them differently than body parts. So that\u2019s a formal fallacy.<\/p>\n

Then there are many, many, many, many informal fallacies that occur. An informal fallacy, it\u2019s not the structure of the argument, the problem is that there\u2019s an ambiguity in human language and so\u2026actually, if you just think of a lot of pro-choice arguments, I could probably spot what\u2019s wrong with that, I mean what fallacy might occur.<\/p>\n

Josh Brahm: OK: “so we need abortion because of poverty and we need to make it so that there are less poor people in the world. This is cruel to force a woman to remain pregnant if-if she\u2019s poor.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trent Horn: Right. That\u2019s called \u201cargumentum ad misericordiam\u201d – the appeal to pity<\/a>. It\u2019s the idea that \u201cX is in a pitiful situation, therefore X is right.\u201d That doesn\u2019t follow at all.<\/p>\n

An example I\u2019ve seen used in writing to elaborate this is someone who said, “It\u2019s morally wrong to draft young men because my son\u2019s gonna be drafted, Mr. President, and he\u2019s gonna get married to this great girl and he has his whole life ahead of him and, you know, why do you want to take that away from him, and me as a mother, he\u2019s my, you know, I\u2019ve only got one other son that\u2019s just a screwball, and he\u2019s my good son. Don\u2019t draft my son, Mr. President, the draft is wrong.\u201d Well, yes, that\u2019s a very sad situation, but it doesn\u2019t prove that a draft is wrong, and you haven\u2019t given a reason, like maybe it\u2019s wrong to use human beings against their will in combat.<\/p>\n

You haven\u2019t made an argument; you just said, “Well, you know, feel bad for me,” or \u201cOfficer, I don\u2019t deserve this parking ticket because – look, I needed to get down here, down to the courthouse, and I have to deal with this custody case and my wife\u2019s going to take my kid and half my stuff, and I just don\u2019t deserve this ticket today.\u201d Well, yes, you\u2019re in a pitiful situation, but that\u2019s not an argument why you don\u2019t deserve a parking ticket if you\u2019re parked improperly. So just because it\u2019s a pitiful situation\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0mean the situation\u00a0isn’t\u00a0justified.<\/p>\n

So, yes, keeping abortion illegal may make it more difficult for women and men in economic hardship, but at the same time, keeping abortion legal would violate the principle that it\u2019s wrong to kill human beings because of hardship. So that\u2019s one fallacy. And then there are lots of others, too.<\/p>\n

Life Report<\/a><\/strong> trains pro-life people to communicate their views more effectively. Through round-table discussions and interviews with the top experts on the subject, Life Report provides real-world answers to the toughest questions regarding abortion in the 21st<\/sup> century. Follow them on Facebook<\/a> or Twitter<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Special thanks to Bonnie Byrd for the transcription.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not like they’re hard to find!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe most common logical fallacies that pro-choice advocates make - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The most common logical fallacies that pro-choice advocates make - Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It's not like they're hard to find!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-17T22:25:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-04-04T03:45:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/brain-logical.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"389\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"292\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Brahm\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@josh-brahm\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Josh Brahm\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Josh Brahm\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/0ad5e6820d90e3781cae6febe5fc5439\"},\"headline\":\"The most common logical fallacies that pro-choice advocates make\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-17T22:25:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-04-04T03:45:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/\"},\"wordCount\":991,\"commentCount\":8,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Analysis\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/the-most-common-logical-fallacies-that-pro-choice-advocates-make\/\",\"name\":\"The most common logical fallacies that pro-choice advocates make - 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