Fri
11
Aug '06
I’ve just made my own Cafepress shop at http://www.cafepress.com/speakoutstore. I’m featuring two messages on many different shirts, aprons, and even mousepads. The messages look like this:
One of the t-shirts looks like this:
So please, go check it out. Also, any suggestions about the messages would be appreciated. Are they easily understood? Is there a way they can be improved?
I am an eighteen-year-old college freshman at UC Berkeley who became interested in politics at a young age. Besides being part of the Berkeley College Republicans, Berkeley Students for Life, and KALX, I enjoy reading, singing, and playing guitar. One of my main interests is sharing my opinion at my personal blog and at the ACYU, of which I am a co-founder. Email me: 
August 18th, 2006 at 6:16 am
Regarding the abortion/slavery shirt …
I do agree that in both the case of abortion and slavery, as well as many other social issues involving “personal liberty,” proponents have tried to poo-poo the issue by saying, “Don’t like it? Don’t do it.” So yes, I think the comparison has merit. And it’s been made many times, by many pro-life advocates, in many forums. (For instance, when I was in college a few years ago, I wrote an editorial in the campus paper making the comparison.)
However, I’d actually like to caution you against promoting this argument in T-shirt form.
First and most importantly, because I have found that it’s not a very effective argument, even if it’s true. That is to say, if your goal is to change people’s minds about abortion, I’m doubtful this is going to do it. In fact, it may do more harm than good. It’s a difficult concept to digest: “How can the truth ever be not effective?” But the problem is context. Just as you (likely) can’t convert someone to Christianity using only one line of the Bible — True though it may be — I think you’ll find it very tough to change people’s minds about something like abortion using what amounts to a bumper-sticker slogan.
Which brings me to my second reason for cautioning you against promoting this message in T-shirt form. Like I said, the abortion/slavery argument been made many times, by many pro-life advocates, in many forums. Some of those forums are more apt than others. As part of a very well defined philosophical dialog, or in an academic debate, perhaps it might be appropriate. But printed on a CafePress product — please tell me you’re not going to sell abortion/slavery thongs — is probably not the most suitable medium.
August 18th, 2006 at 8:42 am
Thanks for the feedback, Shaun.
My goal is not make people pro-life just by reading my shirt. I doubt any t-shirt can do that. The real goal was to simply counter a stupid, yet popular slogan.
Secondly, the shirt is not meant to compare abortion and slavery totally. Obviously, you would either need to have a very large t-shirt, or another type of forum for that. But as I said, it is only meant to counter the pro-abortion slogan. Just now I looked on several different pro-life websites, and their counter to that particular abortion argument was as succinct as mine.
So, as you can see, the shirt is not meant to totally change someone’s mind on abortion, if indeed any shirt can do that. It is not meant to explain all the similarities between the arguments for abortion and slavery. It is only meant to counter a pro-abortion bumper sticker. Therefore, a similar format, such as a t-shirt, is actually the best place to confront the statement.
(And no, I won’t put it on a thong
)
August 18th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Wow, you would not believe the grief I got from making that exact comparison in the past.
August 18th, 2006 at 9:09 am
Just curious: Why was that? Did they think you were advocating slavery?
August 20th, 2006 at 10:33 am
Both the argument “If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one” and yours don’t work. The problem is that both assume that abortion is objectively moral or immoral, but within a discussion between an abortion advocate and an anti-abortion advocate, the objective morality of abortion can’t be assumed to exist. Both these t-shirts and the bumper stickers reading “If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one” serve only to identify the bearer as for or against abortion, in my opinion.
August 20th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Travis, do you believe that other issues, such as slavery, are able to be objectively immoral (or moral)?
August 20th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Yes, of course. But if you were arguing with a slaveholder, you couldn’t say “Slavery is wrong because it is immoral.” That wouldn’t make sense to a person that believes slavery to be objectively moral. I wasn’t arguing for or against abortion in my comment- I was simply pointing out that both arguments are rather pointless.
August 20th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Travis,
As Katelyn said before, you cannot convert someone based on a T-shirt or bumper-sticker. If you can, the political consulting firm I am interning for would like to talk to you
The point is to get people to think. And the shirt most certainly may force people to think about the similarities in the arguments used by slavery advocates in the 1800’s and pro-abortion advocates today.
BTW, there are many people out there who personally think abortion is wrong but want to leave it as an individual choice. Perhaps more than anyone, this will make them rethink their position.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:04 am
The comparison is perfectly valid and effective in that even though a pro-abortionist will try to rationalize it away with fallacious “apples-and-oranges” arguments, it will add to the pile of the already enormous amounts of cognitive dissonance in their heads.
August 24th, 2006 at 5:55 am
Except for the catch. I think the phrase “Great argument, isn’t it?” is too rhetorical, which might be confusing. More direct might be something like, “Two great evils, the same lousy argument.”
August 24th, 2006 at 11:29 am
I am an extremely conservative person, yet I do not think the comparison is in any way valid. In fact, I do think it is ‘apples and oranges’. There is no effective comparison between involuntary servitude and the murder of an innocent human being.
August 24th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
Scott, I had the same thought, so I changed the shirts a while back. They now say, “A bad argument then, and now.”
August 24th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Could you explain a little more, Luke?
August 24th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Luke,
No one is saying abortion and slavery are equivalent. What is being said is that the pro-abortion ARGUMENT is fallacious because it is inconsistent when put under scrutiny and making a valid comparison. Much of the Southern apologies for slavery included appeals that Northerners were trying to impose their culture on them. Essentially saying, don’t like slaves? Don’t have them. What does that have to do with us?
Of course it is a bogus argument. Plug just about anything in there: Don’t like murder? Don’t kill people. Don’t like pedophilia? Don’t molest little boys. It does not work because slavery, pedophilia and abortion are objectively evil and the pro-abortion slogan is a sad, self-contradicting appeal to moral relativism.
September 21st, 2006 at 6:49 pm
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