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Richard Dawkins tweets on abortion: ‘any fetus is less human than an adult pig’
Life Site News ^ | 3/15/2013 | Murray Vasser

Posted on 03/16/2013 3:59:36 AM PDT by IbJensen

March 15, 2013 (LiveActionNews.org) - It would seem the pro-life movement has acquired an unlikely supporter. On Wednesday, Richard Dawkins, a vocal proponent of atheism and the author of The God Delusion, posted a provocative tweet about abortion:

With respect to those meanings of "human" that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig.

Now, when Dawkins typed “any fetus,” he did not mean it. He was not thinking of dolphin fetuses or dog fetuses. What he really meant to say was this:

With respect to those meanings of “human” that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any human fetus is less human than an adult pig.

Of course, this is manifest nonsense. A human fetus is a human. A pig is not a human.

In the English language, the word “human” is a scientific term designating the species Homo sapiens. A human fetus is a member of the species Homo sapiens. A pig is not. Perhaps Dawkins has some private definition for the word “human,” but I am not privy to such information. Therefore, unless he reveals his secret dialect, I will have to assume he is merely speaking English – and thus speaking nonsense.

In further tweets, he tried to explain what he really meant:

“Human” features relevant to the morality of abortion include ability to feel pain…

The most important moral question in abortion debate is “Can it feel pain?”

Now, why would Dawkins identify the ability to feel pain as a “human” feature? The ability to feel pain is hardly unique to the species Homo sapiens.

Nevertheless, his view is clear: the morality of abortion is dependent upon the ability of the fetus to feel pain. This really is a strange argument. Is Dawkins suggesting that if one were to give a newborn baby anesthetics, thus removing her ability to feel pain, infanticide would be morally acceptable?

Ironically, Dawkins goes on to complain:

In the tweets following my pig / abortion opener, I’m depressed by how many people jump clean over logic straight to gut emotion.

But this is precisely what Dawkins has done in identifying pain as the “most important question in the abortion debate”! The pain experienced by the victim rightly tugs at our heartstrings, but surely on any logical analysis, the murder of a conscious pig is less problematic than the murder of a sleeping human.

Furthermore, in many late-term abortions, the fetus does of course feel tremendous pain! Dawkins recognizes this:

Woman’s rights over her own body are extremely important. So is pain.

Unlike many pro-choice friends, I think fetal pain could outweigh woman’s right to control her own body.

So there you have it. The great champion of pop atheism is now publicly against late-term abortions. This puts him at odds with the pro-choice movement in general and the Obama administration in particular.

Unfortunately, Dr. Dawkins does not yet seem to realize his own pro-life leanings. He concluded his series of tweets with this confused message:

Bizarre responses to my tweets today. I clearly expressed my strong pro-abortion views & many people decided that I must be anti-abortion!

So it would seem that Dawkins is still rather deluded when it comes to the issue of abortion.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: abortion; atheism; atheist; dawkins; deathpanels; obamacare; retroactiveabortion; unitedkingdom; zerocare
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To: Venturer

Dawkins is a microbiologist by trade...and was heralded as one of the great minds of microbiology with one of his publications early in his career. He is most famous now for his proselytizing of atheism.

An interesting note is that both he and Christopher Hitchens “reasoned” that abortion is the destruction of a human life.

One other point on Darwin: He developed his theory on the origin of species in a direct attempt to eliminate God from the equation of creation. He could not accept that his beloved father, who was an atheist, would be condemned to hell for eternity. In essence, Darwinism, as a theory, has a specific theological agenda which is to remove the possibility of a Creator of the universe.


21 posted on 03/16/2013 5:37:30 AM PDT by Bill Russell (This is good news!)
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To: IbJensen

Dawkins can’t get over the fact that Dr Who used his sonic screwdriver on his wife. (Lalla Ward was married to Tom Baker.)


22 posted on 03/16/2013 5:38:53 AM PDT by Vide
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To: IbJensen

Dawkin’s arrogance far outweighs his intelligence, and in his field, he is very bright. Unfortunately for him, his field is not philosophy! His arrogance was beyond measure, when explaining his declining of an invitation to debate William Lane Craig on the existence of God. The epitome of the stereotypical British ‘twit’!


23 posted on 03/16/2013 6:56:12 AM PDT by A Formerly Proud Canadian (I once was lost but now I'm found; blind but now I see.)
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To: IbJensen

There is a medical condition in which an individual lacks the ability to feel pain.


24 posted on 03/16/2013 7:09:42 AM PDT by Anima Mundi (Envy is just passive, lazy greed.)
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To: IbJensen

All that education - and not a lick of sense.


25 posted on 03/16/2013 7:42:20 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("Gentlemen, you can't fight in here - this is the War Room".)
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To: IbJensen

“Richard Dawkins tweets on abortion: ‘any fetus is less human than an adult pig’”

Any pig is more human than Richard Dawkins.


26 posted on 03/16/2013 7:57:38 AM PDT by Brooklyn Attitude (Obama being re-elected is the political equivalent of OJ being found not guilty.)
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To: IbJensen

Who in the heck is Richard Dawkins? (Seriously, I have no idea.) And why is this writer giving him the attention he apparently craves by going into such a hissy fit?


27 posted on 03/16/2013 8:00:16 AM PDT by Bigg Red (Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved! -Ps80)
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To: IbJensen
Dawkins is a cold chill across the nature of man who will never recognize the Soul is a gift from God & it separates us from pigs while we are still in the womb.

He's quite a hero to the libertarian left because "he be talkin' some twoof to power". The fact that he is a moron isn't an issue.

28 posted on 03/16/2013 8:05:47 AM PDT by Hacksaw
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To: IbJensen

It’s always fun when a jerk like this gets cancer and NO ONE gives such a dweeb any sympathy. They usually say, “Well, that’s the physical world we live in. You’re born then you die. See ya.”

I had the pleasure of doing that to a guy that was as bad as this jerk and when he went around telling people of his cancer in a vain attempt to get sympathy he got none. Zero. Zip. Nada. One person told him, “Well, I guess you’ll just be joining the rocks and dirt you claim we come from.” He died without a soul next to him in the hospital. The funny thing, yes, cancer for that kind of lousy human is funny to me, I’m mean like that, was that his cancer was treatable. Ironically, he also denounced medical science as “witchcraft and voodoo”.


29 posted on 03/16/2013 8:06:23 AM PDT by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off.)
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To: IbJensen

“Human” to them means self-awareness. But from an early age, the unborn human child is aware of his “host,” and iac, is profoundy affected by the environment she provides.


30 posted on 03/16/2013 8:19:43 AM PDT by RobbyS (Christus rex.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

And wrong. A pig’s dna produces a pig.


31 posted on 03/16/2013 8:21:48 AM PDT by RobbyS (Christus rex.)
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To: IbJensen

To Dawkins and his death cult, adult humans are no more than apes and human babies are pigs.

This is the root of socialized medicine in the West and Obamacare’s death panel which measures human life in terms of material value and uses that to justify harming the “valueless.”

The atheists have spread their “bio-ethics” to all of Western science.


32 posted on 03/16/2013 8:44:37 AM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: IbJensen

Richard Dawkins is less than a tuberculosis bacterium and should be treated as such.


33 posted on 03/16/2013 10:44:32 AM PDT by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (REPEAL WASHINGTON! -- Islam Delenda Est! -- I Want Constantinople Back. -- Rumble thee forth.)
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