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Notes -
I do think it's possible for sizable groups of people to be systematically mistaken about certain object-level facts, and to hold their positions on the basis of these mistaken claims. I also think it's possible for sizable groups of people to be systematically inaccurate about their own beliefs, both through wilful dishonesty and through unconscious error. I don't want to debate the validity of any particular example, but I do think that such things are at least possible, and therefore these are legitimate claims that people should be allowed to defend here.
Do the mods agree? If no, why not? If yes, what is the preferred mode of presentation for these sorts of claims? (If we need to work with a particular example, let's say that someone really does believe that pro-life advocates are systematically mistaken about certain biological facts about fetuses - what is the best way to present that claim in a way that doesn't violate the rules?)
I think there's an important distinction between "I think your beliefs are founded on faulty premises you haven't considered" and "you don't actually believe what you claim to believe." There are times when it is appropriate to call someone a liar to their face, but they demand a heck of a lot more work than DBDr put in. If you're going to accuse your opponents of being manipulative liars, you need to bring receipts.
I do think there is a more nuanced middle ground like you're hinting at, where large groups of people believe a comforting lie in order to protect their self images from their own selfishness or greed. And there is value in examining those situations, but you need to be really careful that you're not just building up strawmen to attack. Generally, I think extraordinary circumstances should be required before one breaks their charitable assumptions about others' beliefs.
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Effortfully, charitably, and with evidence. The way to not violate the rules is, tautologically, to not violate the rules.
To your specific question, if you can find a pro-lifer on Twitter who obviously "has no real concept of what a fetus is," that's likely insufficient. If you can find and link three or five examples of recognized and respected pro-life organizations repeating a specific factually-wrong claim you want to specifically challenge, that's much more interesting. Even a poll of pro-lifers demonstrating widespread acceptance of some clearly false claim might suffice, though it would need to be framed carefully and with epistemic humility (if "most people are stupid" is just as good an explanation of the evidence as "these particular people are stupid," then you might just be engaged in a kind of roundabout isolated demand for rigor).
I've seen articles explaining how conservatives underestimate COVID risks, or how progressives overestimate police brutality or gender wage gaps. Those kinds of trends in group thinking are interesting and worth discussing--but not when they are just stated, without evidence or argument, as a dig on one's outgroup.
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It looks to me like nara is explicitly saying that you can make those claims, you just have to A) provide evidence, and B) frame it in a way that is less antagonistic, dismissive, and strawmanny.
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