Elective abortion should be legalized

Introduction In this round, my main focus will be to present and defend the Future-Like-Ours (FLO) argument against the moral permissibility of abortion from philosopher Don Marquis (1). Given that this is my first debating round, I’ll leave Pro’s affirmative argument for abortion (the case of bodily rights) to the next round. However, I will have to engage with his first argument regarding the morality of killing in this round, as it directly challenges my case for the moral impermissibility of abortion. The case for the moral impermissibility of abortionI’d like to start, as Pro did, by asking what makes killing in general morally wrong? What’s morally wrong with killing? To begin, I want to ask, as Pro does, what makes killing generally morally wrong. In order to determine this, following Marquis, it is necessary to provide a range of cases where the the right to life seems prima facie warranted: A) the unborn B) infant C) suicidal teenager D) temporary comatose patient E) You or me Obviously, case A above is where the dispute lies. I include it however because any general account for the wrongness of killing will have something to say about case A. The challenge this argument proposes for Pro and myself is to provide a general account for the wrongness of killing with respect to B-E that supports our view of case A. In other words, both Pro and I must give an account of the wrongness of killing which can satisfy the 4 examples that (I assume) we'd agree each has a right to life (i.e. not to be killed) and preserve our view of case A. Any view which fails this task simply cannot be a general account for the wrongness of killing. If Pro wants to deny that she has to account for cases B-E, she will have to present an argument to defend such a view, as killing in these cases is clearly prima facie morally wrong. Finally, note that while I merely have to provide a sufficient condition for the wrongness of killing for cases A-E, Pro must provide an account which is necessary. In other words, if killing can be wrong for numerous reasons, Pro has to exhaust avenues to show that none of these apply to case A. Any general account of B-E which could then apply to case A provide a potential defeater for Pro’s view, giving she seeks to exclude the unborn from the right to life. Where relevant, alternate similar examples can be used to show the general wrongness of killing. Whatever account provides the best justification for these examples will determine why killing is generally morally wrong, and in doing so, whether abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong. Pro’s account of the wrongness of killing Helpfully, Pro gives her own account of the wrongness of killing in her first post. She identifies 3 possibilities to address the challenge 1. the infliction of pain 2. The victim experiencing mortal danger and objecting to death 3. Harm to loved ones of the victim It is trivially easy to undermine the first condition. Painless murder methods, killing a CIPA patient and ending someone’s life while they’re in an altered state of consciousness are 3 obvious defeaters to the criteria of pain. As for harming the loved ones of a victim, what about cases of murder involving a hermit or an unloved orphan? Again, a general account for the wrongness of killing can’t be so precarious as to demand a third party be wronged, so this point is easily swept aside. Option 2 is somewhat better, although “mortal danger”, again is simply too narrow to apply generally. Plenty of victims do not experience this, yet it is obviously wrong to kill them. As such, the only possibility left for Pro is that the victim “objects to the death”. In other words, Pro’s account is basically desire-centred. Death robs the victim of their (most basic) desire to continue living in the most egregious way possible, therefore, it is prima facie wrong. Furthermore, the unborn do not posses such a desire and cannot object to death. As such, killing a foetus simply isn’t wrong. So how well does Pro’s account do at tackling the cases above. Well, as I’ve said, it already provides a justification for Pro’s view on killing the unborn and killing normal adults (Cases A & E). So far, so good. In the case of infants, however, Pro’s case begins to weaken dramatically. Do infants “object to death”? Given that they have no concept of life or death, how could they object to death or desire the right to life? In terms of desires, it would seem that infants only exhibit them insofar as a foetus doe: either implicitly or not at all. Whatever the case, Pro’s account would have to view infanticide as having equal moral status with abortion. As such, Pro’s account fails in the case of the infant. As for the suicidal broken-hearted teenager, it seems on Pro's view, one would have the right to kill him, as he clearly doesn’t object to death. The problem with this is that desiring suicide in this case is not necessarily a rational choice. That’s why Marquis uses the teen in his example. The thought-experiment posits an overblown reaction to a temporary, albeit painful, emotional state (depression). Given that Pro’s only surviving justification is one of desiring to live (or objecting to death), and given that a teen in such a state would momentarily desire to die, it seems that murder in this instance would be permissible on Pro’s account. As such, Pro cannot account for the wrongness of killing in this case either. As for the temporarily comatose, again, they don’t exhibit any desires. Yet we do not think killing such patients is morally permissible. Another failure of Pro’s position. Pro’s account also would not cover other similar examples. A Buddhist achieving nirvana would not have *any* desires including the desire to continue living. What about a race of sentient alien persons who outgrew desires? Would killing these highly rational non-human persons be morally permissible? On Pro’s view, it would have to be (2). Given that Pro’s account not only fails to provide a general account for the wrongness of killing in most of Marquis’ examples, but also in many similar cases, it cannot provide satisfactory justification for the moral condemnation for killing. The Future of Value (or FLO) account for the wrongness of killing Alternatively, I want to argue (following Marquis) that killing is wrong because it deprives a being of a future of value - a Future-Like-Ours (FLO). On this account, merely the act of robbing us of a potentially valuable future provides grounds for condemning killing. Before I sketch out my account, I want to make it clear what I’m not saying. I’m not arguing that a foetus has the right to life because of its potential to become a person. Such a characterisation would only serve to attack a straw-man. As Pro-Choice philosopher David Boonin points out, “The FLO argument appeals to an actual property that the fetus already has, the property of having a valuable personal future. This is an actual property it shares with us, not a potential it has to acquire a property which we already actually possess.” As such, the FLO, “cannot be defeated by pointing to the objection that undermines the more common potentiality argument.” (3) How does the FLO account handle the above cases? Well, it obviously applies to normal adults. That you or I have a future of value is obviously apparent, all else being equal. Just as clear-cut is the infant case, who also possess a FLO. As for the suicidal teenager and the coma patient, do they have futures which are, ceteris paribus, valuable? Of course! Given that their states are temporary, it is just as apparent that, given time, both will be deprived of a valuable future upon being murdered. It is obvious that this same reasoning would extend the right to life to my Buddhist and alien example on similar grounds. What implication does the Flo account have for the morality of abortion? As Marquis notes, “The future of a standard fetus includes a set of experiences, projects, activities, and which are identical with the futures of adult human beings and are identical with the futures of young children. Since the reason that is sufficient to explain why it is wrong to kill human beings after the time of birth is a reason that also applies to fetuses, it follows that abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong.”(4) Given that Flo account can address all the relevant examples and support my view in the contentious issue (case A), while Pro’s case is hugely defective, it follows that abortion is generally morally impermissible. Conclusion I want to close with the words of moral philosopher Rosalind Hursthouse, who perfectly captures the profound nature of the issue: "to think of abortion as nothing but the killing of something that does not matter . . . is to do something callous and light-minded". (5) Sources 1.,4. http://faculty.polytechnic.org... 2. Kaczor, Christopher, The Ethics of Abortion, 2011, P57-67 3. Boonin, David, A Defense of Abortion, 2003, P62 5. Hursthouse, Rosalind, "Virtue theory and Abortion", in Virtue Ethics, 1997, P230 Adapted from previous debate http://www.debate.org...