Abortion is Morally Permissible/Ethical

Introduction: I apologize for my use of the word legal. I previously had a debate over the legality of abortion (not the ethics) and got into the habit of using the word. It was my intent to say ethical instead. Moving on... Argument 1: Let me clarify what I meant by this explanation: I do not necessarily believe that abortion must be ethical up until the moment of birth in order to be ethical at all or that the separation of the mother from the child is the significant turning point in the development of the child. I am willing to accept that abortion my be unethical after a certain point prior to birth as the fetus becomes increasing indistinguishable from an infant. However, this would not change the fact that abortion is at some point ethical after fertilization. My intent in using the driving analogy was thus: driving may be unethical under certain circumstances (the driver is intoxicated and poses a risk to others) but this does not make the overall act of driving unethical. Abortion may be illegal under certain circumstances (the fetus's mind has developed sufficiently to qualify it as a person) but that does not mean abortion under any circumstances is unethical. In other words, I am willing to grant that abortion may be unethical under certain conditions, but the act itself can be considered ethical. How late or if at all abortion must be considered unethical depending on the stage of the pregnancy is a subject for another debate; here we are only discussing if it is ethical at all. Now, when I say that the cognitive difference between a late fetus and a very young infant is significant, that should be taken to mean that it may not be ethical to abort a very late fetus. This does not, however, make all abortions unethical. I'm not going to go through my opponent's paragraph and refute each misunderstanding on a point by point basis as they all return to the fact that this initial analogy may not have been entirely clear. However, there are some points that are worth addressing: "Since very young infants also fail to meet Grape's proposed burden for defining sentient humans, they are [sic] equivelent to fetuses and animals." This is an interesting contention. A very young infant possesses self motivation (though not goal-driven behavior) and it possesses self concepts (that is, it is aware of its own existence), and is conscious. It certainly does not possess the ability to communicate or to reason. At around the age of one month the ability to reason (understanding of cause and effect) and communicate (forming the mouth into word-shapes) is typically present. These traits may be displayed earlier or later. I would say that it is very difficult to say whether a newborn could be considered a person, but by a few weeks after birth it likely will be. In the interest of ambiguity it would not be safe to say that an infant more than a few days out can be killed ethically without further understanding of infant cognition. However, the subject of infanticide is for another debate. Rest assured any infant not considered a person under my definition would be very, very young. As stated above, I would be willing to consider even very late fetuses people simply due to the ambiguity of exactly what can be considered communication and rationality. However, immature fetuses do not even come close to meeting any of these standards and within the first two trimesters there is absolutely no ambiguity surrounding this issue. I will also note that certain animals may be on the border of being considered people due to the slightly ambiguous nature of what is meant by rationality, communication, and self-concepts. It may have been a mistake to lump all non-human animals in this group, but once again that is the subject for another debate. I would like to stress that I do not mean for the status of "personhood" to be terribly exclusive, it needs not be because immature fetuses do not come close to meeting any of the standards. Argument 2: There is a relevant distinction between protecting the individual rights of an already existing fetus and planning ahead for the abstraction that is the future. This argument seems to arise from a very common misunderstanding of the difference between reasoning based on potentiality (which often leads to logical mistakes) and simply planning ahead. Planning ahead means that we take actions based on what we expect the future to be or take actions to alter the future that extend beyond our immediate and direct understanding of cause and effect. I don't think many people will contest that this is a logical mode of reasoning, much less my opponent who has provided many great (but irrelevant) examples of how we should plan ahead. Planning ahead with regards to a pregnancy would be buying infant-care products in anticipation of the birth of the child (or not buying them in anticipation of an abortion as the case may be). However, potentiality is quite different. Potentiality (as it applies to abortion) means granting the fetus the rights it will have as a child. However, treating the infant like a child (as it may be in the future) in any other regard would seem hopelessly insane. You would not try to but diapers on a fetus or feed it. This may seem like an insane analogy, but the use of potentiality as an argument in this way is truly that illogical. For the point of whether or not planning ahead ethical (that is, contributes to the freedom and pleasure of existing persons) will argue that the point of it is not to benefit future generations. We only perceive this to be the point. It is ethically because people derive satisfaction from knowing that they have provided for well-being of future generations, which may be considered important for other reasons. The actual helping of future generations is indeed ethically irrelevant. If no one wanted to plan for the future than I would argue it would not be unethical to wantonly disregard the consequences of our actions (however I would disagree with this course of action or other reasons that are not strictly moral). Conclusion: Much of my opponents arguments did not really apply due to some misunderstandings, but I feel I have adequately addressed those that did. Regardless of any ambiguities regarding late fetuses or very young infants, an immature fetus is clearly not a person. How to handle the ambiguities is the subject of another debate, but for the purpose of this debate I will argue that we can safely assume late fetuses and young infants are people, just to be on the safe side. This will not change the fact that many fetuses are not people and do not have the rights thereof. The fact that they may one day become people is not strictly relevant: they are not presently people. The argument of potentiality is a logical fallacy that was disproven nearly undisputedly almost 30 years ago by Joel Feinberg in his famous article "Potentiality, Development, and Rights." There is a significant difference between arguing via potentiality and simply planning for the future. In light of all of this, the resolution has been successfully defended. Sources: I had frequent use of the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, as well as Mentalhelp.net's article on infant cognitive development. http://www.mentalhelp.net... http://www.iep.utm.edu...