Abortion

Introduction In this rebuttal I will defend my objections to my opponents arguments.The Traditional Pro-Life ArgumentCon mixed this headline with the next one which probably resulted in missing out the defence. My opponent will probably add his response in the subsequent round.The Future-Like-Ours ArgumentP1) Intentionally killing an innocent being with a future-like-ours (FLO) is morally wrong.P2) A human being in utero is an innocent being with FLO. P3) Abortion intentionally kills the human being in utero. C) Abortion is morally wrong. Premise 1Con defends this premise with his objections from the last round. However it is worth mentioning that they were not actual objections to my ethics, but rather objections to supposed implications of my ethics which is something completely different.If one is to criticize preference utilitarianism (PU) he cannot do it by objecting to the implications, but rather to the foundations. Even if it was true that PU commits us to all the things my opponent mentioned in the preceding round -which is not the case, as I have shown- then he has only described a disagreement between some intuitions and PU. In case one cannot object to the basic principles of PU, he also cannot give reason to reject PU or in other words, if there is nothing wrong with the basic principles, then there is nothing with the implications. If anything this shows that we should reject intuitions since they do not lead to a perfect state of affairs. All that these "objections" now express is something along the lines of "I don't like abortion", but at this point they are not objections to an ethical theory anymore.In the end I debilitated the objections my opponent refers to in the last round, leaving even less reason to accept this defence. Hence the argument still fails.Premise 2 Firstly, I thank my opponent for clearing up any misunderstandings concerning this argument.Secondly I will rise a different objections instead: Peter Singers' The totipotent Cell Objection (1), put in premise-conclusion form by me.P1. A fertilized ovum has a FLO.P2. If one single cell that can develop into a person (fertilized ovum) has a FLO, any single cell that can develop into a person has a FLO.P3. Denying such a cell a FLO is immoral.P4. Abortion denies FLO'sC1. Abortion is immoral.P5. A fetus consist at some point of totipotent cells (TC).P6. All TC's can develop into persons if separated.C2. All TC's have a FLO.C3. Not separating TC's is denying them a FLO.C4. Not separating TC's is immoral.This shows why accepting Marquis' argument commits us to the view that not extracting every embryo to split it up and implant each cell into a new womb is immoral. Why this is an absurdity should not be hard to recognize.The Substance ViewP1) It is morally wrong to intentionally kill an innocent adult human being because they are members of an intrinsically valuable kind of being.P2) Human beings in utero are members of an intrinsically valuable kind of being.C1) Therefore, it is morally wrong to intentionally kill human beings in utero.P3) Abortion intentionally kills human beings in utero.C2) Abortion is morally wrong. My opponent insists that a fetus is a being of rational nature, which he did not mention in his original defence: "that what makes human beings bearers of rights is [...] an intrinsic property they have as rational animals."Claiming that humans as rational animals posses a valuable property is not the same as claiming that their rational nature is valuable.He goes on and says:"According to the substance view, even if a human person cannot immediately exercise person-like attributes (such as rational thought) because they are disabled or too young to exercise them, they are still persons because they are the same kind of intrinsically valuable being throughout their entire existence."And he mentions this in his latter defence:"not all human beings possess the immediate exercisable capacity [...]"This means that rationality is not something a fetus actually possess, but rather something that it has the potential to posses, I agree, but now we can ask ourselves whether he potential to do something is in any way equal to actually being able to do/be something.Does a potential surgeon have the right to perform surgery?Does a potential pilot have the right to fly a passenger plane?The answer is in any case "No".The Constitutive Property ArgumentP1) If an individual being has a constitutive property at one point in time, then it has that property at every in its existence. P2) You are the same individual living being or organism as the fetus from which you developed. P3) You are a human person constitutively. C) The zygote from which you developed was a human person.Con points out that I misunderstood premise 2, hence I will explain my reasoning:Recall that a constitutive property is a property a being has at every point in its existence. To claim that I am "a human person constitutively." is to claim that personhood is constitutive. But personhood was not defined by my opponent. It certainly does not refer to the definition I gave in the beginning (we agreed in chat that using a different definition is fine).I can grant that a zygote is a human person (if I don't insist on my definition), but then reject that killing a someone on the grounds of being a person is wrong. That is the crux of all forms of utilitarianism; something is not valuable just because of some philosophical construct like personhood. Now I can quite simply alter my opening statement to fit this definition of person and remove the distinction between "human being" and "person". Instead I can replace these terms with "human person" and "individual that is able to have preferences". In this case the argument neither refutes nor supports the pro-choice position.Premise 3My opponent here defines a person again as a being with rational nature. I presented the problems of this definition in my objections to the substance view argument.Moreover this definition is not as progressive as Con portrays it to be, since intelligent beings from outer space would be valuable even for late 18th century utilitarians.ConclusionI have conclusively refuted all pro-life arguments put forward by my opponent and await his following rebuttal.(1)Peter Singer, Practical Ethics P143