With apologies to Theodosius Dobzhanksy. Amanda Marcotte describes what happens when the Gish Gallop collides with reproductive health:

Conservative: I don’t want to pay for your abortifacients!

Liberal: Look, there are two lies in there. One, you are not “paying for” my contraception. That’s just how health care plans work, where everyone pays into a pool and we draw out what we need—

Conservative: But this is abortion and abortion is evil evil evil!

Liberal: The contraception mandate does not cover abortion. It covers contraception, which prevents pregnancy—

Conservative: But contraception works by killing fertilized eggs! That is abortion!

Liberal: Look, that’s two lies again. One, there is no evidence that most hormonal contraception has any effect on fertilized eggs and even if it did, that is not abortion, because pregnancy begins at implantation, not fertilization.

Conservative: (COMPLETELY AND AGGRESSIVELY IGNORING THE FIRST POINT, LIKE A COMPLETE ASSHOLE) But killing fertilized eggs is abortion! I believe life begins at conception!

Marcotte has more, but you get the gist.

There’s really no way to engage this, especially if you’re outside the tribe. Sarah Robinson pointed out years ago that this is part of a systemic worldview, one that will usually change only through a very personal conflict or betrayal. It is refractory to evidence. At some point, they will stop, though it will take decades–the cognitive dissonance is just too great. Until then, we will waste a lot of time and energy debating and fighting for the obvious.

This gets tiresome.