So Tavarish published his “last reply” defending failed pro-choice rhetoric (at his blog ironically called The Usual Rhetoric), tackling my recent response to his five so-called counter-arguments against the pro-life stance. Since his arguments have not changed in any way, and my response already confronted them head-on, there is very little for me to add to this dialogue. This will be, then, a very brief summation.

First, he attempts to characterize his view as pro-choice but anti-abortion. And there is something about this which does not add up, because that is precisely what it means to be pro-life—the very side Tavarish distances himself from! His characterization nicely encapsulates the pro-life view, which is exactly ‘pro-choice but anti-abortion’; namely, the advocating of women’s reproductive choices, excluding abortion from among them. As the pro-life side consistently champions, a woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her own body (pro-choice); however, those rights stop when they come up against someone else’s body (anti-abortion). So Tavarish is not anti-abortion, since we have observed him insisting that a woman can do whatever she pleases with her own body, including jeopardizing the life or safety of another body if it lies within hers.

Second, he fails to discern any connection between moral sense and common law, those two things I indicated as the building blocks of civilized society, such that he cannot see why something that is immoral should be addressed by jurisprudence. Maybe he can’t see the forest for all the trees, being so focused on this issue that it has escaped his notice that we legislate morality all the time. There is perhaps no clearer example of this than the issue of civil rights, where things like slavery and the inferior treatment of women were proscribed in our laws for the very reason that they were morally wrong. From morals come laws, as our great moral reformers know. Why should our laws proscribe against immoral things? The answer is so plainly evident that his asking the question simply defies comprehension. We impose morality on others because we want to live in a civilized society, not anarchistic chaos.

Third, he again erects his moral relativism, completely ignoring my rebuttal against his previous attempt. Let me make the issue very clear. The argument I presented was self-evidently valid, which leaves the question of whether or not it is sound. (If you will remember, I pointed out that a valid argument is said to be unsound when its premises are false.) So does Tavarish think either one my premises are false? Yes, he thinks that the first premise is false; that is, “the deliberate killing of innocent humans is morally wrong” only for those people who think it is—which follows only if morality is relative, the truth of which he simply begs against my argument. But as anyone familiar with the logical rules of inference knows, begging the question is a basic fallacy. P is false only if some ¬P is true, which to simply assume is question-begging.

As I said previously, he can assume the truth of his position to reject my premise. There is nothing wrong with that, rationally speaking. But to reject a premise is not the same as defeating it. If he is content to simply reject the argument, I am pleased with having it stand undefeated.

(Where he did try to defeat the first premise, it actually failed because neither case was an example of ‘innocent humans’; e.g., killing someone in self-defense presupposes that person constituting a physical or mortal threat, as does killing someone in combat. The same goes for his other attempted defeaters, such as a woman falling down a staircase, which does not constitute ‘deliberate killing’. Again, the premise states, “The deliberate killing of innocent humans is morally wrong.” In order for a defeater to work, it must demonstrate the (a) deliberate killing of (b) an innocent human that is (c) not morally wrong. In our argument, those that are constituted by either moral wrongdoing or a physical or mortal threat are not “innocent humans.”)

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