Yes. I have stopped being 'polite' and tactful when faced with insane positions held by seemingly rational people.
I was at a Church function, and was seated at a table with I guy I sort of knew. The topic of abortion came up, and he said that was a matter between the woman and her doctor. I told him no, it was a matter between the woman and God. I asked him, What part of 'Thou shall not murder' don't you understand? The program then just started. He ran away right when it ended.
For years, my stance on abortion was that, if a cell had been fertilized and divided once and been aborted, that was of no concern and was okay.
And if a fully formed baby was a minute away from being born, that was not okay.
And I assumed that somewhere along that continuum from two cells to a fully formed baby, there might be a point you could place a stake at and say “an abortion on that side is bad, and an abortion on that side is good”.
I know. It is a simplistic way of looking at it, but...that was how I looked at it.
I suspect there are tens of millions of people who, thinking themselves ethically minded, might view it the same way that I did, which over time, I came to realize...was wrong.
What I came to realize as I grew older was...people cannot be trusted to make judgement calls in certain things.
When the PATRIOT Act was passed I barely blinked, as I saw us as being at war. Certainly our men in uniform were. But over time, I have come to be embarrassed and chagrined that I supported it at any time.
What I didn’t realize, but fully do now, is that human beings cannot be trusted with the responsibility. We are too corrupt to be trusted. We rationalize too easily, and are to easily swayed to abuse power in order to get money, and more power.
The power assigned in many things ranging from war and governance to abortion is monumental, and in many of those things, there were (and are) many, many safeguards in place to keep lines from being crossed.
And then I realized that in the same way criminals are not deterred by laws regarding gun ownership and many other things (ESPECIALLY when they are not prosecuted uniformly or at all) politicians are not deterred by laws and safeguards. And now, they have seen they can simply side-step the laws and safeguards in everything up to and including elections, and...there are no consequences.
What is not punished is allowed.
And so it is with abortion. On that grayscale I set out that ranges from two cells to a fully formed baby, to enable people to have the power of life and death by placing the choice in their hands and choose where on that continuum to place the stake and say that is okay there, and that is bad there is...fatally flawed. People will almost always choose in their own self-interest if given the room to rationalize, because...
Rationalizing is one of the things we humans do best to make difficult choices easier to live with.