Abortion and the Argument from Inhuman Sociopathy

Earlier today I noted how some pro-choice advocates are horrified at the logic of the abortion absolutists . But most of those advocates are merely following the logic of “choice.” If you really want to see where the depths of such thinking can lead, you have to turn to atheist materialists like PZ Myers.

Myers is an associate professor of biology the University of Minnesota (Morris). His inexplicably popular science blog, Pharyngula, and his willingness to talk about subjects about which he is completely ignorant have propelled him to the top of the list of influential New Atheists. Like most people who have had dealings with Myers, I have absolutely no respect for him as a scientist, thinker, or rhetor. He is a nasty, brutish, and dim, which is forgivable, but also a complete bore, which is not.

But Myers recently made a comment that is anything but boring. A reader of his blog sent him an email noting that abortion is more than a “procedure” and included a link to a Web site that contained photos of aborted fetuses. The opening to his response —”Sarah Dillon is an ignorant hysteric, and she’s awesomely stupid”—is typical of Myers rhetoric: ignorantly hysterical and awesomely stupid. But it’s later in his post that he reveals not only the depths of his own amorality, but how atheist materialism affects thinking on public policy issues like abortion:

First, never quote Mother Teresa at me — she was an evil hag who worshipped poverty, who did not help people except to encourage them to suffer more for her faith, while she lived in comfort and traveled far and wide to receive the accolades of the gullible. I would never find the words of that wicked woman persuasive.

Secondly, the standard bullying tactics of waving bloody fetuses might cow the squeamish, but I’m a biologist. I’ve guillotined rats. I’ve held eyeballs in my hand and peeled them apart with a pair of scissors. I’ve used a wet-vac to clean up a lake of half-clotted blood from an exsanguinated dog. I’ve opened bodies and watched the intestines do their slow writhing dance, I’ve been elbow deep in blood, I’ve split open cats and stabbed them in the heart with a perfusion needle. I’ve extracted the brains of mice . . . with a pair of pliers. I’ve scooped brains out of buckets, I’ve counted dendrites in slices cut from the brains of dead babies.

You want to make me back down by trying to inspire revulsion with dead baby pictures? I look at them unflinchingly and see meat. And meat does not frighten me.

Vox Day calls this the ” argument from inhuman sociopathy ” in defense of abortion. That about sums it up.

Oh, and did I mention that in 2009 Myers was named the American Humanist Association’s “Humanist of the Year”? Apparently, being a humanist no longer requires having a respect for humanity.