Your link at "arguing from adverse consequences" has nothing to do with abortion or choice.

It seems unclear as to what is exactly being asked.

@NeilMeyer The question is whether the rights of the mother are relevant in this debate or if the only question that should be debated is if the fetus have rights or not.

Yuck -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question <- This is so common here it should be an official "close" reason.

I don't see this as begging the question. I disagree with his argument, but it is not circular. The failure is lack of empathy and subtlety, not of logic.

Dude, 'women should keep their existing rights', like their 4th amendment right to early abortion to protect the woman's right to unreasonable knowledge others might obtain about her sex life -- as guaranteed by Roe v Wade? Therefore "Abortion is OK" goes in that box.

@goldilocks I actually thought I'd ask this because of the rationality of the answers to other questions on here. If you think I'm begging the question, or have any other comment, please back it up to avoid just basic ad hominem.

@jobermark that is circular; I'm specifically talking about how we should discuss abortion, not the legal conclusions of it.

@RobertGrant I am objecting to your characterizing this as a right women do not have. It is manipulative to misrepresent the status quo as skewed in your favor. It is circular to assume women do not have the right you presume to take away.

@jobermark It is in so far as "if life is inviolate" is used rhetorically; "If life is inviolate, is abortion anything to do with choice?". I guess not, since the first clause rules out the second. The discussion of a foetus being life or not life (but life being unquestionably inviolate) begs a question too, since no sane person would say a foetus is not life: again, pure rhetorical ploy. I just don't see much sincerity in this. I notice that wikipedia article refers to the related ploy of the "complex [or trick] question", which might apply better/as well.

@goldilocks Yeah, but that can be deconstructed. And at least two answers took the path you declare insane, without coming off as silly. People don't think well, but not every failed argument is automatically circular. I mean, in some sense, yes, you can only believe a failed argument by wishfully thinking its flaws away. But that does not mean the intent is circular.

@jobermark Those answers don't claim a foetus is not life; they claim life is not inviolate (nb. "meaningfully human" in Rex Kerr is not the same as "not human"), which by the terms of the question make them invalid answers (I do not think we will see a checkmark there!). That adds up to the same thing I'm saying: the question is invalid because it is an attempt to rule out answers that don't conclude abortion is not about choice. If by "does not mean the intent is circular" you mean, "tries to avoid seeming circular", sure.

"everyone is entitled to there own opinion about when life starts" contests the status, not the value of the life. And Rex can add some adjectives, but it is about uncertainty, and not finite value. Be as jaundiced as you like. People are free to be forcefully wrong, and we should deconstruct them, not dismiss them. This is officially a popularity contest, but we pretend otherwise. Help us pretend??

@jobermark Point(s) taken -- although I would say the stuff about "when life starts" is a polite way of saying "when it becomes inviolate" -- it's an issue of conceptually human (better: Melody's "persons") not genetically human, because that, and "is genetically human human?" are non-starters. WRT giving the benefit of the doubt, I just don't have enough doubt here to give. Even if I seem like a jerk, I do think someone has to make the observation. I'm not saying the Q be deleted, lol, just that the Emperor is running around naked...again.

@jobermark I'm not skewing anything in my favour. Which way is that, even? And I'm not taking away any rights. Where did you read that? I'm discussing something that I believe is still an ongoing question in many countries, and even if it weren't is still a valid theoretical discussion. I'm not saying abortion is wrong; I'm positing that its validity can be entirely determined by whether or not we define a foetus as a life with the same worth as an adult's. I really did try to make it as clear as possible in the original question.

@goldilocks it's a struggle to read what you're saying, because it seems quite antagonistic. If you can refrain from the needling comments and blanket, later-corrected claims and just stick to the topic, it might avoid sapping the life out of the conversation. E.g. I haven't tried to avoid seeming circular; I genuinely am trying to put forward an observation. And of course I'm trying to rule the alternative out; that's the sum total of the point of my original thought. Who doesn't try and counter the alternatives when suggesting anything?

@RobertGrant In the direction of not considering choice relevant, maybe? In the direction of the stated OP, maybe? Come on. How can I guess what your position is, given a statement of your position?? You need to be as open-minded as you expect goldilocks to be.

@jobermark to reiterate: you're implying (or rather, stating) that I want to take away women's rights. I'd repeat: where on earth are you getting that from this theoretical question? And I'd repeat as well: if I'm specifically trying to state that something is not relevant, then why shouldn't I explain why I think that? If I said that God doesn't exist, and explained why I thought that, would you say I was skewing the argument by not considering the idea that God exists is relevant?

Stating choice is irrelevant implies American women do not have moral rights to do what they currently have as legal rights. How can you pretend that statement is not an argument to restrict their legal rights? Do you live in a world where the law is just never expected to be moral? Because democracies don't work that way. People set moral agendas and influence legal rights to fit them.

You should explain why you think that. This chart doesn't do that because you seem to be mixing apples and oranges. The domain in which women need more rights is the legal domain, not the moral one. All humans have the same moral rights. But the domain in which you are judging "OK" is clearly not the legal domain. So the framing is either just ill considered, or biased. I say ill-considered. Deductions from an ill-considered framework are circular, as adding no evidence and getting where you want to be implies you are already there. Goldilocks says biased. I am starting to agree.

@RobertGrant You claim below that my argument is equivalent to the transplant example (and then the thread gets distracting). It is not so. The difference is that your transplant example only allows the case when the child might die. What if he would definitely not die, but his life might be much harder without the liver, instead? If that matters, that admits the 'adverse consequences' argument. Many abortions are killing only to avoid adverse consequences for the child itself, not the mother. The person dying and the one suffering are just the same person instead of alternatives.