Creationists Debating Abortion

Back we trudge to the bottomless pit of stupidity that is the Origins Research Association’s Facebook page, as run by Pete 'Dickey' Fiske.

A thread started by an evolution supporter asked:

Do you think abortion should be illegal? Being against abortion is fine and dandy, but are suggesting people should be charged with murder for performing abortions, and mothers be locked up for conspiring to kill someone?

The first reply came from Peter Erbacher, another example of an intellectually stunted simpleton. He said:

Of Course mudering babies should be illegal! What an illogical question!?

Another post by Peter, cited the case of a rape victim falling pregnant and asked why it is always the child made to suffer.

Catherine Stevens, another evolution supporter responded with this:

Because the emotional trauma felt by the mother can be so unbearable it would be inhumane to enforce her suffering any longer. Please don't respond to say it's inhumane to kill the baby, you're simply demoting the place of women in society to baby factories that way.

Condemnation of abortion because of scripture is just the same as condemnation of homosexuality; you take away the right of the individual, stigmatise them and subject them to even more suffering and hardship but that's ok, because God said so. Pffft.

A fairly concise argument but one to which Peter Erbacher has this to say:

Catherine, let's expand your theory out further:-

"Condemnation of RAPISTS, CHILD ABUSERS, PEADOPHILES, BEASTIALITY participants, MURDERERS, WIFE BASHERS, THIEFS, FALSE ACCUSERS, etc, because of scripture, is WRONG. You take away the right of the individual, stigmatise them and subject them to even more suffering and hardship".

Are you starting to see how ridiculous your assumptions are? That's because it stems from your silly religious Darwinian faith - Which is shipwrecked on the rock of logic.

Scroll back and read that again. Yes, he really did just compare abortion with rape, child abuse, paedophilia, bestiality, murderer, wife abuse, theft and bearing false witness! Insensitive hardly covers this man’s delusional whitterings.

When Catherine Stevens responded to say she wasn’t prepared to debate with such an idiotic person, Peter Erbacher brainburped forth this:

:D Can't defeat logic, can you? That's why you and your kind are so angry all of the time. It's very exhausting trying to flog a dead horse . . .Or a fish that dies on land before it develops lungs, legs and stuff like that :D

The last sentence alone betrays what little knowledge this man has of evolution. It’s entirely misrepresentative of evolutionary science or what we know happened. He is, in short, an ignoramus.

Still it goes on.

Further into the discussion, this time debating with the original poster, Peter Erbacher had this to say:

Let's just say, hypothetically of course, your wife becomes pregnant via rape. However, she chooses not to tell you about the rape. When the child is two years old, you find out the truth. Would you demand the death of that child? If not, why not? If it's ok to pass the death sentence on an unborn baby for being a product of rape, why wouldn't you also want to kill the same baby if it lived to be 2yo? After all, it Is "guilty" of the same crime . . . in your eyes . . .

Clearly the man is clinically insane as he now equates an abortion with the murder of a two year old child. Abortions aren’t illegal, infanticide is – there’s a reason for that!

Then Peter Erbacher decided to show his true stupidity by posting this:

Just like Hitler using similar propaganda to dehumanise the Jewish people to justify their murder, modern day evolutionists Try to dehumanise babies

Catherine Stevens countered with:

I call Godwin's law!

Hitler and evolution/Darwin is a real bad argument, Peter, it allows Darwinists to introduce all manner of historic evidence that shows Hitler was not an evolutionist, quite the opposite.

Peter, you fail on every single level. You are the missing link, goodbye ;)

It should be explained that Godwin’s Law states that those losing an online debate will inevitably invoke Hitler as a counter argument, however irrelevant he may be.

Peter Erbacher’s reply?

What rot! See ya! :D

So, no actually counter argument at all? Well yes and no, because he changed tact and instead started quoting Charles Darwin’s admittance that he could not answer all of the problems his Theory of Evolution posed whilst writing Origin of Species. This is another trump card creationists like to pull out of their sleeve when they’re losing an argument. It’s utter hogwash because you’re basically attacking a scientist for following correct scientific procedure, calling attention to deficiencies in their work – deficiencies that have been resolved and refined in the subsequent 150 years since it was first published! Find me any scientific work from even 100 years ago, especially in the biological sciences, where everything stands exactly as it is written and has not been remotely amended. Science does not work that way, if it did we’d never get anywhere!

Anyway, back to the original point of abortions.

I’m a man, I will never be raped and find myself pregnant but I’m pretty sure it’s slightly worse than being stolen from or wrongfully accused of something, as Peter Erbacher clearly implies. Nor does being the victim of theft, for instance, condemn you to nine months of suffering whilst you carry a constant reminder of that rape and then the trauma of giving birth.

Now, fine, not all abortions are because of rape, thankfully. However, that is not the point. A woman’s body is her own to do with as she sees fit. I’m no great supporter of abortion myself and in an ideal world it wouldn’t be necessary, but this is not an ideal world. What if the woman would be unable to continue working and unable to support herself? There are plenty of reasons that a woman might find herself in a position where an abortion is her only viable option, even if she would otherwise want to keep the baby.

You need also consider this; if you follow through the logic of enforcing a no-abortion law, as creationists would demand, you will end up with emotionally damaged women and so many babies given up for adoption the system would doubtless break down. So do we force the mothers to keep a baby they don’t love and didn’t want? How well would that work out? The mother may not be able to support her baby, so the baby suffers. The mother may resent the baby, again the baby suffers. The mother may be in an abusive relationship herself, hardly an ideal environment for a bay - and what if that abusive partner demands access to that child if the parents separate? Like I say, far too many scenarios where an abortion, however regretful, is the only option.

The bottom line here is that those opposing abortion, certainly the likes of Peter Erbacher and Pete Fiske, who also chimed in with his God bothering opinions, are generally basing their view on scripture. What if the woman concerned isn’t Christian? Doesn’t matter to them, all must bow down before the Law of God! Even if God doesn’t actually exist.

Creationists consistently display bigoted, divisive tendencies. They are happy to condemn others if scripture disagrees with their actions without a thought to the consequences. They care little or nothing of the suffering and stigmatism they cause in making these pronouncements and hide behind their archaic myths when it is pointed out to them. This is just another reason I despise fundamentalism.