Word: argumentative
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...doctors who agreed to an experimental treatment for a severely disabled girl thought there were clear medical benefits to keeping her small. Autopsy the doctors' argument, and you find that they concluded they could remove Ashley's uterus and breast buds because she'd be better off without them; they could keep her short because, since she'll never have a job or a romance, she'd not suffer the social consequences of smallness. "To those who say she has a right to develop and grow," argues Dr. Daniel Gunther, "Ashley has no concept of these things...
...Gunther also understands why the case has inspired such intense feelings-but notes that "visceral reactions are not an argument for or against." This was not a girl who was ever going to grow up, he says. She was only going to grow bigger. "Some disability advocates have suggested that this course of treatment is an abuse of Ashley's ?rights' and an affront to her ?dignity.' This is a mystery to me. Is there more dignity in having to hoist a full-grown body in harness and chains from bed to bath to wheelchair? Ashley will always have...
...would Drs. Gunther and Diekema take this argument? Would they agree to amputate a child's legs to keep her lighter and more portable? Hormone treatment is nowhere near as risky and disfiguring as amputation, Diekema retorts; it just accelerates a natural process by which the body stops growing. Parents of short children give them growth hormones for social more than medical reasons, he notes. How can it be O.K. to make someone "unnaturally" taller but not smaller? To warnings of a slippery slope, Gunther tilts the logic the other way: "The argument that a beneficial treatment should...
...would make the argument, yes, that it is. Robin Dunbar wrote the book Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, about how important it was in human evolution to be able to increase group size beyond small bands of related people, important for defense. That defense was originally against predatory animals, then a growing need to defend against other primates and finally against other humans. That may well have selected for humans who had these skills and talents. Evolutionary biologists always beat their heads up against these things. Why do people do things like music? Why do they dance? These...
...Palestinian leader - elected in a race that could hardly be described as competitive - was an incorrigible autocrat, who had accumulated massive amounts of political and financial power in his own hands, bypassing the elected legislature and democratic institutions. He was running the Palestinian Authority as his personal fiefdom, the argument went, stoking militancy and blocking the emergence of a moderate consensus through his political control...