Word: argumentative
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...Every practical and economic argument suggests that we need to continue to build high," says Alice Rawsthorn, director of London's Design Museum...
...difficulty with this argument, however, is that every definition of personhood—save the basic biological one—breaks down upon careful inspection. An embryo isn’t self-aware, sure, but neither is a 13-year-old boy in a coma. Can we kill him without qualm or sanction? An embryo can’t feel pain, admittedly—but if you give me enough drugs, neither can I. Do we excuse a murderer who first administers a merciful dose of morphine? An embryo can’t survive on its own, doubtless?...
This is not a slippery slope argument. Cloning embryos only to kill them is not wrong because it might lead to infanticide. It is wrong in and of itself, because it establishes a vast and invisible class of human beings who will be manufactured, dissected and slaughtered in the hopes of extending our own, safely non-embryonic lives. It is wrong because it is barbaric, brutal and inhuman. It is wrong for all the reasons that murder is wrong and more—and should be just as illegal...
...accounts of the bloodbath annotated with uncomfortable and unanswered questions in London's Independent. And in line with the growing British calls for an inquiry into the events, that paper's fiercely anti-war columnist Robert Fisk accuses the U.S. and Britain of complicity in a war crime. His argument is echoed in The Guardian where Isabel Hilton argues that the involvement of American and British personnel alongside General Dostum's men necessitates an investigation. "Were they fighting by Dostum's rules or by their own?" she writes. "Or do we no longer bother with the distinction...
...much more importantly, what this argument obscures and conceals is that any kind of peace plan must be understood in terms of its effects on the actual lives of the two populations involved, rather than in terms of the psychology of their leaders...