That's it. I'm moving when I get my degree.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Icu

"all" is a very strong word. I think this is not true.

Imagine a veteran who had a horrible experience in a war. He would have a strong personal conviction that the war is terrible and all that. But what if objectively the war ended up saving millions of lives and improving standard of living etc. Then I would gladly take the opinion of an informed outsider who has studied the matter thoroughly over the opinion of the veteran who, although he/she may have more experience, may be blinded from the big picture by his/her own experience.

Likewise for a veteran who never saw anything traumatic yet saw a number of positive results. He/she might report that the war was justified yet an outsider might observe that it cost far more money than it was worth and ended up negatively affecting countless more lives than it helped. Does the veteran's experience count as a better opinion on the matter JUST because of what he/she saw, even if it was only at best one side of the picture?

I say absolutely not.

But this is what you're doing. You went and experienced one aspect of it and now are trying to claim that anyone who didn't experience what you did, or something equivalent to it, can't have a real opinion on the matter compared to you, even though there are FAR more ways to get better, more well rounded information than your experience.

EXACTLY. You do not need to have been IN something to know about it, and I find the premise of that assumption insulting.
Woodsprite - your "Oh, I know someone who has had one" as an attempt to gain some kind of logical superiority in your own mind was completely pointless and added nothing, but you did it anyway just to attempt an argument from (presumed, in your mind) authority, which, I would say, is in the absence of an honestly considered viewpoint.

Are you interested in 'validly supported'?

MYTH: Many women come to regret their abortions later.
Research indicates that relief is the most common emotional response following abortion, and that psychological distress appears to be greatest before, rather than after, an abortion.

There are undoubtedly some women who, in hindsight, wish that they had made different choices, and the majority would prefer never to have become pregnant when the circumstances were not right for them. When a wanted pregnancy is ended (for medical reasons, for example) women may experience a sense of loss and grief. As with any major change or decision involving loss, a crisis later in life sometimes leads to a temporary resurfacing of sad feelings surrounding the abortion. Women at risk for poor post-abortion adjustment are those who do not get the support they need, or whose abortion decisions are actively opposed by people who are important to them.

There.

Your claim that only someone with first hand experience can have an opinion on anything is both insulting and patronising, and purely a method to invalidate other opinions in your own mind. History, or general consensus anywhere, does not agree with you.
It's perfectly understandable that, as in your war analogy, personally experiencing something does give added perspective, you your attempt to mentally write off everyone else is a simple equivalent of when a six year old goes "Well, I don't want to hear it, so I'm not listening lalalalalalala"

Originally Posted by Banefull

Very well, I will concede that point.

However, I should also point out that thought is not a biological requirement for life.

But it is the criteria for sentience, which is the criteria that humans judge life on for a different level of respect (along with near-sentience) - average people will destroy millions of bacteria in a single day. Almost everyone thinks nothing of killing pest animals, or of eating nonsentient animals for food. Plants are alive, and nobody disputes that - yet even people who refuse to use animals for resources will eat those.

Baneful, I replied to that point earlier:
That's false logic, because someone who can not feel pain as a living person is still a sentient being - the point was that an autonomic response to pain does not necessarily make a being sentient, that does not mean that lacking one precludes that condition.

It has nerve cells, yes, but can it process the input from them? No. There have been cases of pregnancies with severe genetic or birth defects who essentially have no actual brain, who still autonomously respond to touch. All they are capable of doing is regulating the basic biological functions. They have literally zero capacity for thought - they don't survive long even if they remain alive throughout the pregnancy, but they can still respond in an autonomic manner. Animals respond to sensory input to a far greater degree, and are not automatically equal to a human. Even some plants can, several species even move based on touch. Does that make them sentient? Should killing and eating of plants be banned? Of course not, or at least I hope not.