PZ Myers: 'Abortion reduces to simple question.' Really?

PZ Myers

In a recent blog post, biologist PZ Myers argued that philosophical and scientific arguments concerning abortion are irrelevant because the matter of abortion reduces to "a simple question." I argue, as someone who identifies as pro-choice with a background in philosophy, that the matter of abortion isn't as simple as PZ makes it out to be.

Throughout my undergraduate studies in philosophy it became quite evident to me that arguments concerning many philosophical issues can be -- and are -- raised. What might appear to us to be simple or evident doesn't appear to be so following closer examination. Concerning philosophy of religion, for example, a vast array of articles inside of and outside of jornals exist on the topics of miracles, the problem of evil, faith, and theological fatalism. Competing ethical frameworks in the domain of ethics such as utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and deontology exist which merely, in many cases, start discussions while specific issues such as suicide, euthanasia, and the death penalty are often later discussed in the light of various ethical frameworks. To note that a long-debated philosophical issue is 'simple' or otherwise reduces to one question -- especially in the case of ethical matters -- seems to be quite a foolish blunder.

An example of such a blunder can be found at biologist PZ Myers' blog Pharyngula on the Freethought Blogs network. In a less than one hundred word blog post titled "The only abortion argument that counts" [the title itself should raise an immediate red flag] including a short video, PZ Myers asserts that philosophical and scientific arguments for abortion simply do not matter because the issue of abortion reduces to "a simple question." Apparently, on Myers' account, all of the debates and journal articles that have been written throughout human history on the matter of abortion are irrelevant. Myers writes:

We can make all the philosophical and scientific arguments that anyone might want, but ultimately what it all reduces to is a simple question: do women have autonomous control of their bodies or not? Even if I thought embryos were conscious, aware beings writing poetry in the womb (I don’t, and they’re not), I’d have to bow out of any say in the decision the woman bearing responsibility has to make.

Why is it the case that the issue of abortion can be reduced to "a simple question?" Myers provides no justification for this claim, but rather merely asserts that it is the case - obviously ignoring quite a vast array of the philosophical and scientific arguments (although he mentions they exist in his post). Claiming that abortion reduces to "a simple question" -- on the grounds of whether one thinks that women should have autonomous control of their bodies -- is itself, it seems, a philosophical claim which, if it were not a mere assertion, would be backed by certain philosophical and scientific arguments (and likely may be in various philosophical journal articles on the matter of abortion).

What, anyway, of the claim of abortion reduces to "a simple question" as Myers states? This seems to be news to me as a wide array of objections and concerns contrary to a pro-choice position exist. Within the realm of people who identify as pro-choice, there are even disagreements as to when abortions would be moral - this alone shows that abortion is not a matter that reduces to "a simple question." It can be the case, for example, that people believe women have autonomous control of their bodies but would be acting in an immoral fashion, for example, if they neglected to receive an abortion because of sheer laziness and only wanted to get an abortion in the fifth month of pregnancy.

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On my blog, I frequently respond to arguments for gods and arguments rebutting positions atheists hold. Personally, I find the problem of natural evil to provide a pretty solid defeater (a reason to undermine) to Christian belief. Is, though, this problem of natural evil a simple matter or does it reduce belief in the Christian god to "a simple question?" I don't think so. Many arguments exist -- which I don't find persuasive at all -- to attempt to answer the problem of natural evil ranging from 'this is a fallen world and the free will actions of humans are to blame for natural disasters' to 'we're simply not in a position to judge whether God has reasons for permitting natural evils,' but this doesn't make the matter simple or otherwise reduce Christian belief to a simple question. It takes some time to answer these objections and these objections seem to be persuasive to a vast array of people.

What is 'simple,' anyway, in the matters of ethical issues? A matter such as 'killing babies for the fun of it' seems to be quite a simple matter, for starters, because it appears to go against all of our moral intuitions (or at least those of most mentally healthy adults). Killing babies for the fun of it deprives human beings of life, inflicts unnecessary suffering, would likely lead to grieving, etc. It should also be quite uncontroversial to say that killing babies for the fun of it is always wrong in every situation. Arguments stating that it would be moral to kill babies for the fun of it would likely, and should likely, not be taken seriously.

Does it appear, then, in the light of the matter of killing babies for the fun of it (or similar issues which would be considered simple), that abortion is as simple of an issue or otherwise can be reduced to a simple question? I think not. In the case of abortion, it seems not to be the case -- even to the most ardent pro-choice persons -- that abortion is moral in all circumstances. It seems not to be the case that the moral intuitions of mentally healthy adults point to an obvious conclusion. Arguments against the morality of abortion -- although they might not be good ones -- can and are taken quite seriously by philosophers and non-philosophers alike. What, then, for curious readers, can some of the serious arguments be that would not reduce the matter of abortion to a single question?

A popular argument against abortion is known as the 'future like ours' (FLO) argument. FLO proponents argument that autonomous humans, similar to potential humans, both have a 'right to a future' that should be preserved. Another argument against abortion appeals to an agnosticism of sorts and an implementation of the precaution; persons argue that since we can't be confident of whether abortion or depriving a potential human being of a future is moral, it is best to not abort. Arguments invoking some sort of responsibility on behalf of a woman -- in which she should be morally obligated to give birth -- also exist.

Personally, I don't find any of the above counter-arguments or concerns surrounding abortion to be persuasive (although I would like for abortions to, if they must, happen quite early). I identify, then, as pro-choice. I don't, though, see the matter of abortion to be a simple issue that be reduced to "a simple question" as Myers proposes. Beware of those who assert that long-debated matters concerning complex ethical issues -- in blog posts with less than one hundred words -- can be resolved by a simple question.

My protest of "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" rally in Scranton, PA

Here I am at the "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" rally in Scranton, PA with my protest sign also promoting the NEPA Freethought Society's website. In this post, in a narrative fashion of sorts, I will provide some of my thoughts concerning the rally and recount some of my protesting experience. I can write for hours about the bad arguments (and responses to my arguments) posed to me, but I won't do this and instead focus on some tidbits of my experience. Aside from my thoughts, the end of this post includes local print media coverage of the event via reporter Rich Howells writing for Go Lackawanna in which I was interviewed.



This Friday, I woke early to create a sign inspired by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) that I would bring with me to protest the "Stand Up for Religious Freedom" rally in Scranton, PA. For those of you who were unaware of the event in Scranton (which had also taken place concurrently with other rallies nationwide), the rally was essentially a religious-based objection to Obama's Affordable Care Act on the grounds, at least according to many of the ralliers, that the Affordable Care act would 'trample religious freedom' because people of certain religious persuasions [namely Christians who find contraceptives and abortions to be mortal sins or some other evil] would be forced to 'violate their consciences' whether this would be dealing with funding contraceptives and abortions or Christians being forced to provide contraceptives and abortions to patients. This reasoning and objection could be phrased in various ways, but I won't go into this here because I want to focus on my protesting experience while giving my accounting concerning my thoughts surrounding the rally.



One of the first (and biggest) signs/banners I saw at the rally, pictured above, was quite interesting as it seemed to be evident that -- and my thoughts would later be validated -- there would be a contingent of people under the wide and general umbrella of 'tea partiers.' ...which is quite interesting because this rally, at least as I understood it (and the website for the event said), was supposed to be a religious objection rather than a political objection or, even more broadly, a political rally. I suppose, though, that many individuals were attracted and it needed not be the case that individuals were 'on the same page.'



As I walked around the rally with my sign -- mainly before speakers came onstage -- I ended up having some very interesting discussions with people who approached me and initiated conversation. The man pictured above, for instance, yelled "Devil come out of you!" at me and was quite hostile. There was no discussion with him... Others, though, even they didn't appear to be too learned (based on their responses to my arguments and the arguments they posed to me), seemed to be actually interested in learning about me and having a discussion.


(this glorious document was handed to me at the rally)

When blogging, I tend to tackle more serious arguments for God's existence while also responding to counter-arguments theists give to, for instance, the problem of natural evil. Here, though, the arguments and counter-arguments weren't so serious at times. 'Free will defenses' of various forms, 'Jesus died for sins,' and 'man sinned so that is why natural disasters happen in this fallen world' -- just to recall some examples -- were offered as responses to the problem of natural evil. Pascal's Wager even reared its ugly head at points. A man, after discovering that I accept evolution following my rejection of his design arguments, asked me if I ever heard of "creation science" to which I replied with a swift "did you ever hear of methodological naturalism" (after explaining what that meant because he had no idea).



One woman, although this might not be the woman in the above picture, noted that my appearance at this rally was "offensive" and "disrespectful." I asked her why she believed this and didn't really get a response other than repeated assertions. I explained that I was the only person protesting at the rally, was civil, did not interrupt anything, was not yelling at people, and had discussions with those who approached me reinforcing the idea that my appearance -- although she might not like me being there -- is a reasonable dissent and a protected right. As Peter Boghossian might say, her offense meant nothing to me. I wasn't attacking people, mocking people, being rude, or anything like that... The specter of 'respecting beliefs' is not so uncommon.



As the rally went on and speakers came to the stage, I remained still holding my sign to the right of the stage while speakers spoke and people listened. Some people got 'excited' (for lack of a better term on my behalf) and appeared to get angry with my sole dissenting sign. A woman, for instance, defiantly went in front of me thus blocking my sign. I started audibly laughing and told the women, "We can do this all day. You won't tire me out." Following this and my going in front of her (perhaps making a conga line of sorts, if you will), some other people joined in attempting to block my sign.

One man, at a point, even threatened to call police on me while claiming that I required a permit to protest. Much to his surprise, it seems, I encouraged him to call the police...and he refrained from doing so. This might have been my favorite moment of the rally.



This 'blocking attempt' -- partially by the persons holding the 'appeal to heaven' banner -- was quite hilarious and counter-intuitive for multiple reasons. I find it quite desperate and perhaps cowardly that -- at a rally with about two-hundred people (many of them holding signs) -- my sign just couldn't be tolerated. I was not going around blocking signs that I was unhappy with [and to be fair I couldn't block them all although I wouldn't do that anyway], but rather tolerated them recognizing that people ought to have the right to express their ideas on signs and be free of people trying to squelch their messages. This drew a tremendous amount of attention to me, away from the speakers, and made the religious 'blockers' look very foolish as we played a ring-around-the-rosy game of moving around.

Finally, the organizer -- Mary Ann Haas -- stepped in to interrupt the nonsense and persuade the 'blockers' to cease their maneuvering around me. She said that I seem like a nice person who was very respectful and should be left alone instead of being [this is my term and perhaps a paraphrase] harassed. We spoke for some time and she seemed very agreeable as far as free speech and openness to ideas was concerned. I explained that I see encounters like this partially as learning experiences and encourage others to do the same. It is important to face objections to one's ideas, I explained, and learning can be had from that.

After the speakers concluded, various ralliers approached me saying -- in part -- some really nasty and bizarre things. One woman, for instance, explicitly told me that she can't wait until I burn in Hell following a "I'll pray for you." I asked her how an all-loving god could possibly send people to be tortured for all eternity and the usual responses of "It's your choice" and "It's your fault, not God's. God gives you the chance" followed. Some men told me that I should join the military and fight overseas to find out "what the flag really stands for" and "what it really means to stand up for rights." I responded in part saying that, while several atheists are in foxholes, the military is not for me. I can exercise my rights in other ways and, more specifically, better utilize my talents.

One man -- in what I call a constant dismissal of intelligence and education -- told me that I needed "a course in logic" following my reasons for not believing in any gods which he asked for (I responded with problem of natural evil, inductive argument for naturalism, and a more general explanation that the reasons believers have given me aren't sufficient for belief). I told him, "I actually have a degree in philosophy and have taken logic courses. I graduated from King's College, too." He said that King's isn't "really Catholic," infested with "liberal theology," and is heretical. I explained that I had religious classes, too, and had lengthy conversations with ministers and theologians on campus. He just kept attacking King's and the 'heretical persons' there. I suppose the more educated, then, are less qualified to defend the Catholic faith or otherwise that their arguments are worse than laypersons?



As you might expect, pseudoscience also was a large part of this rally. The above woman and others told me about how 'studies show' that 'the pill' is harmful to women, causes cancer (as seen on this sign), and many other wild tales. Never mind, of course, women who use contraceptives for 'non-sex reasons' and require them in order to deal with ovarian cists and other maladies.

I had a really fun time! My friendly approach seemed to really pay off as the organizer was concerned about my safety and discouraged people from giving me a hard time. We walked away after she gave me many hugs. Don't get me wrong, though, I was not pulling punches. I wore my American Atheists 2012 convention t-shirt, was very hard hitting with my arguments, stood against a crowd of two hundred, and obviously brought a sign that happened to offend people. I am really excited for a future event like this and will plan ahead so that others can accompany me.

Following the event, local newspaper Go Lackawanna covered the rally and included various comments I made to the on-scene reporter. Here is a selected portion of the article:

Justin Vacula, an atheist and co-organizer of the NEPA Freethought Society, was the lone counter-protester at the rally, holding his own sign that read “Put women’s rights over bishops’ wrongs.” 

“I want to see that religion doesn’t trump law. People want their religious beliefs to inform what the government has to do…The Constitution is explicitly godless. It’s a secular document. The government is anything but founded on religion. A lot of the founding fathers were deistic,” Vacula said. 

“They weren’t Christians, and they realized by leaving God out of the Constitution that we could have a secular government for everyone. These people are talking about religious freedom, but if they’re really for religious freedom, it wouldn’t be about their Christian beliefs…Health care is about patients, not the people who are providing it.”

Response to "Humans must embrace culture that respects life"

The Times Leader's letter to the editor section has recently been a good source of fodder for this blog because it's quite apparent that people have no idea what they are talking about and/or have simply fallen victim to religious propaganda.

One of today's letters, “Humans must embrace culture that respects life” contains several logical fallacies including but not limited to false dichotomies, strawmanning, and inappropriate appeals to emotion.

The letter reads:

Humanity is indeed at a crossroad. It must either choose to preserve human life or face a quite uncertain, unrecognizable and bleak future.

The Bible states that God abhors the shedding of all innocent blood. Yet, since the legalization of abortion in 1973, it is reported that more than 50 million abortions have occurred in our country alone. Who can be more innocent than a helpless child within the womb? God grieves.

Progressively, we have become desensitized toward the plight of the unborn. Many in the media play a major role in this desensitization. The agenda of many is clear: a war and genocide against the helpless and innocent unborn.

While I may not be able to change laws alone, as a matter of conscience, I appeal to your heart to choose life, as your mother did. I appeal to you to teach others not that abortion is so much a right, but something quite destructive to both mother and child. I implore you to embrace a culture that nurtures a respect for life from conception to natural death. Without these things, there is no future for humanity.

Nicholas Butrie

Landsford

Throughout this letter, the phrase 'preserve life' is never defined, but one could assume that this reader assumes that life begins at conception (how he has determined this, I do not know, but I suppose he gets this from his religious beliefs), therefore abortion is murder (and, of course, it is somehow the murder of a child).

The first paragraph in this letter is quite an obvious false dichotomy; the reader presents two options when there are several...and his conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from his premise. Why must it be the case that humanity either must “choose to preserve human life” or “face a quite uncertain, unrecognizable, and bleak future?” What good reasons do we have to believe that abortions will lead to a quite uncertain future? With or without abortions, it is quite possible to have an uncertain future. If no more abortions were performed, does this letter writer honestly believe that the future will suddenly be clear, certain, and recognizable?

The reader goes on to make a quite interesting claim that “The Bible states that God abhors the shedding of all innocent blood.” Never mind, of course, the fact that 'the shedding of innocent blood' [of Jesus] is the cornerstone of Christian belief. Forget, of course, all of the Old Testament sacrifices, Psalm 137:9 (Happy are those who dash their children against the stones), God commanding Amalekian genocide in 1 Samuel 15, and much more.

The reader presents a very interesting caricature of 'many in the media' who, apparently, have an “agenda” of “war and genocide against the helpless and innocent unborn.” Those who are pro-choice would never say, “I have declared war on the unborn,” but rather have quite a different stance.

Why such a focus on the 'life of the unborn' and not the life of the woman? Anti-choice persons such as this letter writer forget that we have an autonomous human being who has rights and can decide what she does or does not do with her own body. This reader, of course, defines life as beginning at conception (and thinks that a child is formed at this time), but many people see this very differently because, during the first trimester, there is little to no capacity to feel pain, no good reason to believe a 'child' is conscious, and every reason to believe that it is morally justified to abort.

Instead of 'appealing to the heart,' good arguments are needed to establish why we should believe life begins at conception, why the 'rights' of the unborn trump the rights of a woman, and why abortion (especially those that are very early, which most are) is immoral.

Christian evangelist Ray Comfort equates abortion with genocide of Jews

I published a new article on Examiner.com titled "Christian evangelist equates abortion with genocide of Jews." View this article and more content on my Examiner.com page and please subscribe for e-mail notification of new articles!

Mother Teresa

A few months ago, I gave a 50 minute Power Point presentation about Mother Teresa in my Catholicism class coupled with a clip from Penn and Teller's Bullshit! television show. I wanted to show the Christopher Hitchens documentary about Mother Teresa, but the teacher said that the caricature of Mother Teresa in the background was a "character attack" and I wasn't able to show the documentary. Anyway, I'd love to burst the bubble of many people who think Mother Teresa was an awesome individual because she possessed and advanced and twisted morality and did a tremendous amount of harm to the world. This post won't be something like an essay, but will touch on many different topics and reference several sources and quotes by Mother Teresa herself. Enjoy.

So many Catholics, people of other religions, and even many who hold no religious beliefs laud "Mother Teresa" (Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) as one of the most moral and upstanding individuals who ever walked this earth. People think that Mother Teresa's life mission was to help the poor, end poverty, and make this world a better place to live in. People think that donations to Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity group (formerly known as Nuns on the Dole) were going to help starving people in Calcutta and other poor areas in the world...but they're all wrong. Author Christopher Hitchens says that "everything you think you know about Mother Teresa is wrong" (unless, of course, you know about the stuff I'm about to post).

The idea of Mother Teresa being one of the most moral individuals who ever lived is often taken for granted. People utter statements like, "Be like Mother Teresa," "Well, I'm no Mother Teresa, but I do what I can to help people," etc. Bookstores have many, many, many books lauding Mother Teresa and putting her up on a pedestal. The facts point to a different conclusion and reveal a woman who bamboozled millions, glorified suffering, and had a life mission to fight against contraceptives and abortions.

Mother Teresa wasn't interested in helping the poor and ending poverty, but rather wanted to experience suffering like Jesus did and revel in it; suffering is being touched by God and being kissed by Jesus in the eyes of Mother Teresa. What many people thought were houses to help the homeless and dying that Mother Teresa established were nothing more than crude hospices with terrible living conditions. People were forced to shave their heads, sleep on military style cots, weren't given much medical attention at all save injections from needles that weren't cleaned after use, and even had to give up their children if they wanted to stay. Millions of dollars were donated to Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity group...people probably thought that hospitals were being funded, schools were being built, and people were actually being helped, but this wasn't the case.

A 1994 journal of The Lancet focused on the conditions of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity building,

There are doctors who call in from time to time but usually the sisters and volunteers (some of whom have medical knowledge) make decisions as best they can. I saw a young man who had been admitted in poor shape with high fever, and the drugs prescribed had been tetracycline and paracetamol. Later a visiting doctor diagnosed probable malaria and substituted chloroquine. Could not someone have looked at a blood film? Investigations, I was told, are seldom permissible. How about simple algorithms that might help the sisters and volunteers distinguish the curable from the incurable? Again no. Such systematic approaches are alien to the ethos of the home. Mother Teresa prefers providence to planning; her rules are designed to prevent any drift toward materialism: the sisters must remain on equal terms with the poor...Finally, how competent are the sisters at managing pain? On a short visit, I could not judge the power of their spiritual approach, but I was disturbed to learn that the formulary includes no strong analgesics. Along with the neglect of diagnosis, the lack of good analgesia marks Mother Teresa's approach as clearly separate from the hospice movement. I know which I prefer (Hitchens 38-39).

Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity group had tremendous amounts of funds to build hospitals, buy painkillers, and get competent medical authorities to help the sick, but this wasn't done. Mother Teresa, though, had heart problems and many complications due to her old age and sought medical attention in well-financed hospitals. In a filmed interview, Mother Teresa spoke of a person who was tremendously suffering with cancer. She said, "You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you" (Hitchens 41).

In a San Francisco outlet of the Missionaries of Charity named "The Gift of Love," Mother Teresa housed homeless men with HIV. A reporter from the San Francisco Review of Books had the following to say about MT's place,

I found a dozen or so very sick men; but those who weren't very sick were exceptionally depressed, because they were not allowed to watch TV or smoke or drink or have friends over. Even when they are dying, close friends are not allowed. They are never allowed to drink, even (or especially) at the funerals of their friends and roommates and some have been thrown out for coming home in drag! When I mentioned the Olympics to them, they looked even more depressed. 'We are not watching the Olympics,' said a sister from Bombay, 'because we are making our Lenten sacrifice.' When they're very sick and very religious (which is often the case...) this doesn't matter, but with brighter men it seems intolerable.

A Guatemalan writer that I befriended there was desperate to get out, so a friend of mine who also cooks there (an African American who is a practicing Catholic) adopted him for as long as she could. He became much sicker and when she begged him to go back because she couldn't mind him, he begged her to keep him because he knew they didn't medicate enough, or properly, and was afraid he would have to die without morphine ... I am now cooking occasionally for the homeless men at the Franciscans where one of the patients, Bruce, is an ex-Mother Teresa and neither he nor the priest have a good word to say for the Sisters at 'The Gift of Love' (Hitchens 43).

In the early 90s and late 80s, Mother Teresa befriended an anti-pornography crusader and a loan tycoon named Charles Keating. He was convicted of multiple counts of fraud and various charges because he stole money and swindled over $252 million from people. Keating gave MT over one million dollars that was stolen from investors and allowed her to use his private jet. MT testified as a witness in court on behalf of Keating who was easily convicted. After the trial, the court sent a letter to Mother Teresa and asked her to return this money that Keating gave MT. The money was never returned.

MT also met with a dictator and his wife in Haiti who was hated by the poor. MT accepted the Legion of Honor award from "Baby Doc" Duvalier and his wife Michele and said that she had "never seen the poor people being so familiar with their head of state as they were with her. It was a beautiful lesson for me" (Hitchens 5). She also had the following to say, "Madame President is someone who feels, who knows, who wishes to demonstrate her love not only with words but also with concrete and tangible actions" (Hitchens 4).

According to this link,

Between 1964 and 1986 Haiti was ruled by the corrupt and oppressive Duvalier family. Loans incurred during this period alone are estimated to account for approximately 40% of Haiti's debt. These funds were used to strengthen the Duvaliers control over Haiti and for various fraudulent schemes. Large amounts were simply stolen by the Duvaliers. Although donor countries and institutions were aware of the misappropriation of funds, it was tolerated so long as the Duvaliers stayed in the anti-communist camp.

In addition to the documentary linked above, Christopher Hitchens also authored a book about Mother Teresa called "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice." Mother Teresa once met Hilary Clinton in Washington in a poor ghetto known as Anacostia. Mother Teresa wanted to build a Missionaries of Charity headquarters, but the people were upset. Here is a quote from one of Mother Teresa's assistants,

They [The men] told Mother Teresa that Anacostia needed decent jobs, housing, and security - not charity. Mother didn't argue with them; she just listened. Finally, one of them asked her what she was going to do here. Mother said: 'First we must learn to love one another.' They didn't know what to say to that (Hitchens 10).

Mother Teresa later had a press conference about what she intended to do in the ghetto. Here are some words from the conference:

[person asking a question] "Mother Teresa, what do you hope to accomplish here?"

[MT] The joy of loving and being loved."

[person] "That takes a lot of money, doesn't it?"

[MT] "It takes a lot of sacrifice."

[person] "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?"

[MT] "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people" (Hitchens 11).

You might think that quotes like this are quite out of place. Perhaps you might think I'm "taking them out of context, but this isn't the case." Here are some more:

“We are misunderstood, we are misrepresented, we are misreported. We are not nurses, we are not doctors, we are not teachers, we are not social workers. We are religious, we are religious, we are religious.” - Mother Teresa

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“Many people are very very concerned with the children of India, with the children of Africa where quite a few die of hunger, and so on. Many people are also concerned about all the violence in this great country of the United States. These concerns are very good. But often these same people are not concerned with the millions who are killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today - abortion which brings people to such blindness.” -Mother Teresa National Prayer Breakfast, Washington DC, 3 February 1994 [So, after everything she has seen in the world, she thinks abortion is the "greatest destroyer of peace?]

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A Message For The World Conference On Women, Beijing, China

(Read By Mercedes Wilson of The Family Of The Americas)

by Mother Teresa

Humanitarian/Nobel Peace Prize 1971

“That special power of loving that belongs to a woman is seen most clearly when she becomes a mother. Motherhood is the gift of God to women. How grateful we must be to God for this wonderful gift that brings such joy to the whole world, women and men alike! Yet we can destroy this gift of motherhood, especially by the evil of abortion, but also by thinking that other things like jobs or positions are more important than loving, than giving oneself to others.”

“No job, no plans, no possessions, no idea of "freedom" can take the place of love. So anything that destroys God's gift of motherhood destroys His most precious gift to women - the ability to love as a woman.”

“Those who deny the beautiful differences between men and women are not accepting themselves as God has made them, and so cannot love the neighbour. They will only bring division, unhappiness and destruction of peace to the world.”

“For example, as I have often said, abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace in the world today, and those who want to make women and men the same are all in favour of abortion.”

Aroup Chetterjee is an Indian-born physician who is now working in England. He is the author of his eight-year project, the book Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict. He uses various recorded conversations, media outlets, hard data, and personal experience cited in his book. I'll cite some examples of Mother Teresa's failures and bad policies from his book.

On 30 August 1996, at around 5 p.m., a 'very poor' woman, Noor Jehan (name slightly changed at her own request), was wailing at the top of her voice. She had with her, her two children, both girls, the younger one about 10 months and the older about 2 years old. The 10 month old was obviously suffering with diarrhoea and was ill; the 2 year old was miserable and fed up and was lying on the pavement, screaming.

Noor Jehan's entreaties for help were not entertained by the nuns - the door remained firmly shut in her face. The baby's hungry wails were ignored. The local shopkeepers took pity on the woman and gave her some tea and bread; somebody brought some milk for the children.

By the time that I arrived at 5 p.m., a small crowd of about a dozen people had gathered and had turned quite hostile towards the nuns. After a lot of loud banging, a nun appeared at the door.

I asked her why they would not give the woman and her children some food, and shelter for that night only. The nun explained that they could do that, but only after the mother had handed over the absolute rights of her children to the Missionaries of Charity. In other words, the 'form of renunciation' had to be signed, or in this case, had to be imprinted with the impression of Noor Jehan's left thumb.

Noor Jehan became hysterical at the mention of 'signing over' her children, and told the nun what she thought of her, which is untranslatable and unprintable. About 7 p.m., Noor Jehan left Shishu Bhavan, disappearing into an uncertain Calcutta night, probably to go back to her violent husband.

(Chatterjee)

(Chapter 2 Pages 16-17)

“They [the people in the Home for the Dying in Calcutta] are forced to defaecate and urinate communally.

They are given only the simplest possible treatments, such as simple painkillers for the intractable pain of terminally ill residents.

Gloves and more importantly, needles are routinely re-used when deadly diseases are rife within this population.

It has to be borne in mind that the home for the dying in Calcutta is a very small operation, catering to less than 100 people -- is it not legitimate to expect a minimum decent standard for these few people?”

(Chatterjee)

(Deposition Page 3)

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Later in life, Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize and gave a short speech to many people in an audience. The speech contained various awkward and alarming statements:

“These are things that break peace, but I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself."

“And today the greatest means - the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion.”

“Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today."

“And these are people who maybe have nothing to eat, maybe they have not a home where to live, but they are great people....”

“One evening we went out and we picked up four people from the street. And one of them was in a most terrible condition - and I told the Sisters: You take care of the other three, I take of this one that looked worse. So I did for her all that my love can do. I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, as she said one word only: Thank you - and she died.”

“There is so much suffering, so much hatred, so much misery, and we with our prayer, with our sacrifice are beginning at home. Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the action that we do.”

“It is to God Almighty - how much we do it does not matter, because He is infinite, but how much love we put in that action. How much we do to Him in the person that we are serving.”

“... a little boy of four years old, Hindu boy, went home and told his parents: I will not eat sugar for three days, I will give my sugar to Mother Teresa for her children. After three days his father and mother brought him to our home. I had never met them before, and this little one could scarcely pronounce my name, but he knew exactly what he had come to do. He knew that he wanted to share his love.”

“A gentleman came to our house and said: Mother Teresa, there is a family with eight children, they had not eaten for so long - do something. So I took some rice and I went there immediately. And I saw the children - their eyes shinning with hunger - I don't know if you have ever seen hunger...”

“I didn't bring more rice that evening because I wanted them to enjoy the joy of sharing. But there were those children, radiating joy, sharing the joy with their mother because she had the love to give. And you see this is where love begins - at home.”

“We have a home for the dying in Calcutta, where we have picked up more than 36,000 people only from the streets of Calcutta, and out of that big number more than 18,000 have died a beautiful death. They have just gone home to God; and they came to our house and we talked of love, of compassion, and then one of them asked me: Say, Mother, please tell us something that we will remember, and I said to them: Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family."

Chatterjee disagrees with Mother Teresa's "big number" of "more than 18,000" people.

“Mother Teresa frequently said that her nuns 'pick[ed] up' people from the streets of Calcutta. She said it in her acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize.”

“Mother's 'big number' was wrong, but more importantly, her basic premise of 'picking up' people is entirely false. If the situation demanded, Mother put it more poignantly: 'Maybe if I had not picked up that one person dying on the street, I would not have picked up the thousands.”

“The sad truth is, Mother Teresa's organisation does not pick up people from the streets of Calcutta - no, not beggars, not lepers, not destitutes, not the poorest of the poor who she loved so much; they do not even pick up the babies and children of these people. They do possess the resources to remove destitutes from the streets, but they do not utilise them.”

“The Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta possess a small fleet of 'ambulances', many of them donated by businesses and individuals. These vehicles are painted to appear as ambulances and are fitted with red beacons; they are exempt from traffic regulations. But their main or sole function is to provide a taxi service for the nuns.”

“In my time, I have never seen an 'ambulance' carry a patient or a destitute. Indeed, most of them do not have the provision to carry a stretcher, for the rails on the floor have been removed. The seats on the sides have been replaced by patterned sofas for the nuns to sit on.”

(Chatterjee)

(Chapter 2 Page 6-7)

“Apart from the myth of regularly 'picking up' people from the streets, the other serious misinformation she spread in her Nobel speech was about the number of babies born less because of her programme of natural contraception.”

“She claimed that 61,273 fewer babies were born in Calcutta in the previous six years because she was promoting natural contraception among the poor and the slum-dwellers. This figure was pure invention. The figure of 61,273 became 134,000 in June 1981 in Washington D.C.”

“In 1982, during the Ian Gall interview for Scottish Television, when Mr Gall pinned her down (albeit with great deference) on her views on artificial contraception and an absolute opposition to abortion, she blithely came out with the monstrous lie: 'In last 10 years we had 1 million babies less in Calcutta [due to my method].‘”

(Chatterjee)

(Chapter 2 Page 12)

Mother Teresa lied about many figures and practices as Chatterjee mentioned.

“Many people tell me that Mother Teresa should be left alone because she did 'something' for the underprivileged. I do not deny that she did. However her reputation, which was to a good extent carefully built up by herself, was not on a 'something' scale. More importantly, that 'something', at least in Calcutta, was quite little...”

“Even more importantly, she had turned away many many more than she had helped - although she had claimed throughout her life that she was doing everything for everybody.”

“There was a stupendous discrepancy between her image and her work, between her words and her deeds; that she, helped by others of course, engaged in a culture of deception.”

(Chatterjee)

(Introduction Page 4)

Chatterjee sums up his "final verdict" on Mother Teresa quite nicely. People have a tremendously flawed view of Mother Teresa and she really didn't do much at all to help the poor. She made conditions for the poor worse and reveled in others' suffering. Why didn't Mother Teresa set up a program to actually fight poverty, educate people, provide food to the masses, build hospitals, etc? She had millions of dollars that were mainly used to educate nuns, fill the coffers of the Vatican, and travel around the world to shake hands with dictators, presidents, queens, denigrate women, and try to stop abortions and contraceptives in Ireland.

As a last defense for Mother Teresa, people might try to cast her as a misguided victim who knew no better, but this doesn't excuse her behavior and twisted morality. She surely had doubts about her faith as evidenced near the end of her life, so she was certainly capable of thinking about her faith and her actions. She certainly wasn't ignorant of other perspectives if she wrote about how she doubted God. Let's not laud Mother Teresa as the greatest human being who ever existed because she clearly wasn't.

More Abortion Arguments

In addition to previous arguments on abortion, I've written more for my philosophy essay. I dealt extensively with "is a potential human a life or not" in my previous arguments. To up the ante, for the sake of argument, I'll grant the premise that a potential life is a life and still argue that abortion is morally permissible in almost all cases.

Abortion, the willful termination of a pregnancy, is a very controversial issue in which almost every adult has a strong stance. Amongst many religious groups, churches, activist groups, and even “everyday voters,” abortion is a heavily politicized issue that often leads people to harass women, filibuster bills, ostracize people who disagree, or only vote for political candidates who are pro-life. Some people tend to obfuscate the facts, insist that their opinions are facts, appeal to emotion by holding signs with pictures of aborted fetuses, and condemn people who perform abortions in order to save lives. It is important to understand and take a clear and rational stance on the issue of abortion's morality because beliefs may often have disastrous consequences when they inform actions, politics, and worldviews.

Some philosophers argue that abortion is immoral in most circumstances. This includes Don Marquis who advances the “Future Like Ours” (FLO) position which is one of the most formidable arguments against the morality of abortion. Marquis argues that “one reason that it is morally wrong to kill an adult is because you are robbing that adult of their future experiences." From this premise, Marquis argues that abortions deprive fetuses of a future; according to Marquis, willful abortion, except in the case of protecting the life of the mother, is morally wrong.

Other philosophers argue that abortion is moral in most circumstances. This includes Judith Jarvis Thomson, who argues that abortion is morally permissible and says that the fetus's FLO does not supersede the rights of women to choose what they want to do with their own bodies. Thomson argues that a woman must give consent in order for others to have the right to use her body. Without such consent, no one or no thing may use a woman's body.

I will argue that abortion is moral in most circumstances, but is not moral in others, such as a situation in which a woman agrees to birth a child, grants consent for the unborn to use her body, and makes a promise with the father of the unborn stipulating that she will let the pregnancy take its course unless her life is threatened. To defend my conclusion, I will show that abortion is morally permissible in almost all situations because a woman must give consent in order for others to use her body; regardless of whether or not sex is protected or unprotected, abortion is morally permissible because women are not required to “pay the consequences” in a situation where there is no contract or obligation; and in the situation of rape, abortion is morally permissible because a woman is being forced into having sex, does not want to become pregnant with the child of the rapist, and does not give consent to either the unborn or the man who raped her.

Abortion is morally permissible in almost all situations because a woman must give consent in order for others to use her body. For the sake of argument, I can grant that life starts at conception (like Marquis and Thomson do) and still argue that abortion is morally justified. If someone or something wants to use the resources of a woman's body, a woman must not automatically consent to this; the woman has the option to not allow someone or something to use her body. If a woman does not give someone or something the consent to use the resources of her body, she may end the usage of these resources. The woman's right to choose what she wants to happen to her body trumps the FLO of the unborn if she wants this to be the case. Although this argument alone should be sufficient to defend abortion in almost all cases, I will bolster my previous argument with more arguments regarding specific situations where abortion is an option.

In addition to previous arguments, abortion is morally permissible for women who have protected or unprotected sex because they should not be forced to “pay the consequences” of bearing a child when they made no agreement to do so; sex is no contract in which a woman is morally obligated to have a child if she happens to become pregnant. In other cases of taking risks where there may be dire consequences, such as playing games of chance and skill like Blackjack, the person taking the risk agrees to “pay for the consequences” when he/she sits down at the table, but this clearly is not the case with sex.

In the case of protected sex, the argument is even easier to make because a woman is taking precautions to avoid becoming pregnant and clearly does not want to become pregnant. Although there is a slight risk of becoming pregnant, this does not entail that a woman would have to “pay for the consequences” when all precautions had been taken to avoid pregnancy.

In the case of rape, abortion is morally permissible because a woman is being forced into having sex, does not want to become pregnant with the child of the rapist, and does not give consent to either the unborn or the man who raped her. It is clear that we have no moral obligations to bear the burdens of situations that we do not consent to participate in. The case of rape is almost certainly the most obvious situation of all potential situations in which a woman is morally justified in having an abortion.

A plausible example of a situation in which abortion would not be morally permissible occurs when a woman agrees to have a child if she becomes pregnant, grants consent for the unborn to use her body, and makes a promise with the father of the unborn stipulating that she will let the pregnancy take its course unless her life is threatened. In a case like this, moral flip-flopping would not be permissible because a very clear agreement was made.

My Take on Abortion

I've been meaning to author an extensive post on abortion...and this is finally it. I've touched on the topic in the past in several posts of mine and more extensively on Facebook. Unfortunately, the Facebook post was deleted and I didn't feel like typing a large piece again.

I hold the pro-choice position on abortion. This doesn't mean that I "like" abortion (do pro-choice people like abortions? I think not.) This means that I think that abortions are acceptable and I agree with the right of a female to have an abortion; I support the females. This position is different than pro-life people who support the rights, but don't agree with the pro-choice stance on abortion. I feel that I need to make this distinction because pro-choice people have told me that I "like" abortions.

Is abortion murder? Are potential human beings human beings?

Another common argument from pro-lifers is that abortion is "killing babies." It's quite easy to dismiss the "killing babies" argument when abortions happen very early. Michael Shermer, in his book "The Science of Good and Evil" discusses about how we can use science to inform morality. He writes

[S]ince virtually no abortions are performed after the second trimester, and before there is no scientific evidence that the fetus is a thinking human individual, it is reasonable for us to provisionally agree that abortion is not murder and to offer our provisional assent that abortions within the first two trimesters are not immoral because the evidence confirms that during this time the fetus is not a fully functioning human being. Therefore, although one may oppose abortion on a personal level, there is no scientific justification to shift the abortion issue from a personal and moral one to a social and political one (Shermer 204-205).

We see here that life doesn't begin at conception. It's important to note that human beings aren't human beings before they are human beings. Developing cells are simply potential human beings who don't have the mechanism for thought, will feel no pain, etc. The main thrust of the pro-life position is that these potential human beings are human beings that have a right to life or a "future like ours," but we can see clearly that potential human beings aren't human beings; fertilized eggs simply represent potential, not actual human beings.

Fetuses, even with some degree of life, are distinct from human beings. Fetuses are dependent on the mother to live and must reside within a body to live. The pro-life person may argue that babies also must depend on mothers to live, but there is a key difference: a month-old baby can survive with the aid of any mother/caregiver and is not isolated to a specific body. Human beings are separate individuals and don't gain this quality of autonomy by being fully dependent on being inside of a specific woman.

Joyce Arthur notes that potential human beings aren't even stable,

Zygotes, blastocysts, and embryos have a high failure rate, which throws cold water on the anti-choice claim that every fertilized egg is sacred. Scientists estimate that 55 to 65% of all conceptions are spontaneously aborted in the first few days or weeks of a pregnancy, usually without the woman ever knowing she was pregnant. It's called "fetal wastage." Another 10 to 15% of pregnancies are miscarried in the months to come. Fetal wastage occurs because early embryonic forms have a high defect rate—most early miscarriages are caused by genetic defects in the fertilized egg.

Shermer writes,

A human is a member of the species Homo Sapiens. A person is a member of a social group or society with legal rights and responsibilities and with moral values. Even if one could justify a fetus as being a human, that still does not make it a person. What makes it a person is the granting of legal rights and responsibilities and moral value by the rules governing that society (206).

Potential humans don't even have legal rights to life. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for example, says that "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Potential human beings, as previously noted, aren't human beings...and they certainly aren't born yet. The 14th amendment to the US Constitution gives American citizenship to those who are born or naturalized in the United States. If potential human beings were human beings, all fertilized eggs would need to be counted in censuses and would enjoy the general freedoms that citizens of countries would have. If you regard potential human beings as human beings, would you say that potential human beings have the right to freedom of the press, the right to bear arms, etc? Since potential human beings literally can't physically exercise these freedoms, they can't be said to have them*. Potential human beings are obviously in a different position/category in respect to human beings.

Michael Shermer writes,

[F]rom a scientific perspective, life is a continuum from sperm, to egg, to zygote, to blastocyst, to embryo, to fetus, to newborn infant. Neither egg nor sperm is a human individual, nor is the zygote or blastocyst because they might split to become twins or develop into less than one individual and naturally abort. The eight-week-old fetus fetus has recognizable human features...but neuronal synaptic connections are still being made, so thinking is not possible. Only after eight weeks do embryos begin to show primitive response movements, but between eight and twenty-four weeks (six months) the fetus could not exist on its own because some critical organs...do not mature before than time. For example, air sac development sufficient for gas exchange does not occur until at least twenty-three weeks after gestation, and often later.

Not until twenty-eight weeks, at 77 percent of full-term development, does the fetus acquire sufficient neocortical complexity to exhibit some of the cognitive capacity to exhibit... cognitive capacities typically found in newborns. [...] In other words, the capacity for human thought does not exist until just weeks before birth (204).

Right now, I could be having unprotected sex and impregnating women. I'm denying the life to potential human beings. Should I be arrested for murder or preventing human beings from being born? Of course not. This is a simple reductio of a part of the pro-life position. Stepping on an acorn isn't killing a tree - it's preventing a future tree from being formed. You also wouldn't consider stepping on an acorn to be killing a tree...so why call abortions killing?

It's very clear that a potential human being is not a human being, this abortion is not considered murder. If you still want to believe that it is, the evidence simply is not on your side (unless you have some that I'm not aware of). We shouldn't honestly take an important position that is contrary to the evidence or without evidence when evidence is clearly pointing in one direction.

The woman's choice is more important than the "rights" of the potential human.

The woman's right to choose and right to her life is more important than the "right to life" or a "future like ours" that many pro-lifers claim. A woman is a developed human being that is fully autonomous who is able to make choices about her life and her body. Women may, of course, pierce their bodies, get tattoos, wear what they want, eat what they want, smoke cigarettes, etc...so why can't she choose to abort a potential human being that is completely dependent on her specific body?

If a women was raped and would have a child, many pro-lifers would "permit" the woman to have an abortion and support this abortion. If a woman would die because she would give birth, many pro-lifers would clearly support the woman's choice. This clearly shows that the "right to life" is negotiable, but maybe because a good reason were accompanied with the action...but why ought a reason be coupled with the abortion that would be accepted? What if her reason were "I can't afford to have a child?" What if her reason were "I am too young and can't possibly give birth?" Would the pro-lifer then say, "Well, your reason isn't good enough! Don't have an abortion, that's immoral!" This doesn't seem to be a justified position at all. Reason or not, the woman who is pregnant should be ultimately able to decide what she wants to do with her body.

The issue of sex is often a barrier to the plausibility of abortion. Pro-lifers might say, "Well, you chose to have sex, so now you should give birth to the child!" Why is this? Is sex a contract that forces a woman to have a child if she becomes pregnant? If I had sex with all of the women who read this blog -- a completely lawful action -- and we took measures to prevent pregnancy [or not], should they feel obligated and required to have the child? I think not. This attitude seems to punish and burden the women for her choices to have sex and is something akin to, "Well, you got pregnant and didn't want to be! Too bad! Your fault! Deal with it!"

Imagine that I visited a beach, put sunscreen on [or didn't], and got a sunburn. I don't want to have the burden of dealing with the sunburn, so I go to my doctor and get a prescription to ebb my pain. Should I be forced to deal with the sunburn and "wait or out" or do you think that I should be able to put a quick end to my sunburn by using a prescription? I feel that this analogy is very close to the above situation of arriving at pregnancy. We shouldn't have to incur responsibility and deal with a state of our body that we don't want to deal with if we aren't breaking the law. I have no obligation to wait out my sunburn and the woman has no obligation to have the child.

Another reason (although women don't really need one) to have an abortion is knowledge that the potential child would live a terrible life either due to factors of low income, a missing father, a birth defect, etc.

It's very important that women have the right to have an abortion...and to take away that right would be a HUGE step backward in the history of womens' rights. Women should have reproductive freedom and we all should be able to do what we want with our own bodies provided that we're not breaking the law (We can't go running around naked, for example).

Unfortunately, as usual, religion often provides a tremendous barrier to critical thinking. The position of the Catholic Church is "no abortions, no matter what!" Pro-Life centers claim, "every life is precious!" Some Catholics would prefer that women die even if the potential human being would also die because abortion is immoral...even if abortion would save the life of the mother. Some Catholics, such as Knights of Columbus members, go to Planned Parenthood and pray the rosary and harass women. Beliefs do have consequences.

If we're going to hold a stalwart position of being pro-life (or really any important position), we should care about reading the arguments against our positions...and this should be the case will all important positions. I'm concerned about being right and have my beliefs reflect reality as much a possible. We should all be willing to modify our beliefs when new information comes in...and I'm quite ready to revise my pro-choice position if someone convinces me that my position is flawed.

* In this case and some others, pro-lifers may say, "What about people in comas or those who are already born and are unable to act?" This is a special exception to the rule because these people are considered to be human beings and are no longer potential human beings.

"...but there are two sides to the argument!"

Another deflection tactic that people employ when they have lost discussions is uttering the phrase similar to "there are two sides of every story," "well, it's just a different perspective/that's how I see it," or something similar.

Just because there are two (or more than two sides) to an argument does not entail that both sides are somehow valid. We can gather evidence to support each side of an issue and discover a resolution to many issues.

Earlier today, I had a discussion about abortion.

I was called a person who supports killing babies and I asked how he arrived at this conclusion.

"You like abortions."

"Well, no, I don't like abortions, I said, but I support the rights of women who want to have abortions...and I'm pro-choice...that's much different than liking abortions.

I then asked, "What about women who get abortions early before there is any consciousness or fetus and the life is cellular... is that "killing a baby? That's killing cells and a potential human being."

He said, "Well, it's still a baby, that's how I see it."

"No," I said, that's not a baby."

I asked how it's a baby.... and he claimed "Well, that's just how I see it. There are two sides to the argument." I asked for clarification and the conversation about abortion ceased with "I don't want to talk about it."

Other times I hear the "It's my view/there are two sides" objection is in discussion about an objective reality. People make claims such as "Everything in existence is so complex that it needs a designer and everything shows some sort of design." When asked about this claim, people will use the objection and cease conversation.

We can't just make claims about objective reality and assume that they are true just because you believe them to be true. Facts need to be backed up with argument, evidence, and reason. Truthiness just doesn't fly.

After the abortion discussion, there was a short discussion about miracles in which I said that I already debunked his previous claim (from months ago) that Padre Pio was a miracle worker when I linked him information from the internet.

9/11 somehow came up and the person asked me if I were a "9/11 truther." I replied that I wasn't and he said, "Well, there are people on the internet who say that 9/11 was an inside job by the government - two sides to every story."

"Great," I said, "But just because the information is out there doesn't mean that the position is valid. Anyone can come up with information, but what matters is the evidence and argument that is put forth."

"Well, these people are on the internet," he said, "and they give the information just like you did."

"No," I replied, "Their claims are not reputable, but my information is. Anyway, the burden of proof is on the person claiming a miracle happened and they haven't produced the evidence."

This position of "Well, that's the way I see it" or "There are two sides" fails if you use this as the justification for your position. It's not even answering the question of "Why do you hold this position" because you're essentially just saying "I believe this just because I believe this."

If you make a claim about reality, you ought to defend the claim when you're asked to give reasons for your position. Even if my "opponent" were to say something like, "Well, I believe in souls and souls are part of a human being..." I would certainly ask for proof of souls, but at least at this point we're getting somewhere other than a "I believe it is true, so it is true and I won't defend it" position.

It's quite telling when people start discussions by provoking me into discussions and then they don't want to defend their own claims. I suppose the situation might be different if I started the conversation with people and they simply didn't want to chat, but backing down with stupid excuses when you started the discussion is dishonest.

For more discussion of a similar claim, "I have the right to my own opinion," read my post here.