Abortion Is Morally Permissible

I would just like to point out that if I have failed to address any of his points, it is simply because he has offered so many arguments that to properly address them all would require more characters than I have allotted to me. Sanctity of Life1) The substance view does not entail that the irreversibly unconscious have a right to life. The substance view entails that all humans have an inherent right to life, so that if one were to take that person's life, one would need a morally justifiable reason to do it. Pulling the plug on a brain dead person, for example, is morally permissible because the person they were is gone. They will not be coming back. This is different from an embryo who has the inherent capacity for consciousness, she just hasn't developed it yet. She has a future-like-ours, which the brain dead person doesn't. The Future Like Ours and Substance Views are not mutually exclusive. They can work in tandem, such as used by pro-life apologist Trent Horn in a debate against Freeman. [1] Freeman's objection has failed. While a brain dead person may have human rights, there is a morally justifiable reason for pulling the plug on this unfortunate human.2) I have not begged the question. I could not be more clear. Racism and sexism are human rights violations. They unfairly discriminate against humans based on gender or nationality. We all belong to the same human race, and therefore deserve the same fundamental human rights, the most fundamental being the right to life. Without this right, no other rights can be had or enjoyed.3) Freeman's conclusion here is a non sequitur. Just because humans are intrinsically valuable in the actual world does not entail they are intrinsically valuable in all possible worlds. What makes humans valuable is their inherent capacity as moral, rational beings. If there are any possible worlds in which humans don't have this capacity, then they would not be inherently valuable as we are in the actual world.4) Freeman claims that I am simply assuming that the new cerebrum will develop a natural capacity for self-awareness. However it is inescapable that the conclusion Freeman draws is also an assumption. Since it is currently impossible to switch cerebrums with someone else, anything we say on the topic will be pure speculation. As such, this point cannot be proven and should be discarded. One does not need to be conscious in order to enjoy a right to life. Otherwise it would be morally justifiable to kill someone while they are asleep, sedated, or in a reversible coma. The right to life does not come in degrees. You either have it or you don't. There is no reason to assume that one must be conscious to have your life protected. I should point out here that Josh is a good friend of mine, and I know how he feels about anencephalic fetuses. The reality is that any reasonable person, when reading the debate in question, would see that Josh was only accepting those abortions for the sake of argument, because they are so rare. He wanted to concentrate on the other multitude of abortions. It is dishonest to use someone's words out of context, especially in an argument contrary to the one he holds. Freeman still has not offered compelling reason that the unborn should not possess a right to life. Fetuses are not peopleA "person" can be labeled any way you so choose. It doesn't matter what it means philosophically, it matters how our country uses it. Otherwise you would have to agree that when blacks were not considered persons and kept as slaves, the whites were morally justified in killing them for no reason because philosophically, only "people" enjoy a right to life and blacks were not considered people. This is absurd and morally repugnant. We can use "person" to discriminate against any group of humans, as it is used to discriminate against the unborn.1) Freeman seems confused by my argument. I am stating that infanticide is wrong for the same reason abortion is wrong: the infant is a human being with an inherent capacity as a moral, rational agent. Freeman's argument would entail that infanticide is morally permissible because infants don't fit the description of Warren's view of personhood. Her reason for rejecting infanticide is ad hoc. Warren argues that moral intuition is why infanticide should not be allowed (which is ad hoc), so Freeman has effectively argued against Warren's criteria for personhood. Freeman must accept infanticide as morally justified or reject Warren's criteria for personhood. Secondly, Singer's argument is also ad hoc. He is essentially stating that the only reason infants should be protected is because we have a visible line drawn. But what about fertilization? That has an obvious line between non-existence and existence (Freeman recognizes that the unborn are living humans). So what justification do we have that birth should be the dividing line and not fertilization?2) I have already shown that the Substance View and Future-Like-Ours arguments are not mutually exclusive. This is simply silly to believe that they are. Even pro-lifers realize that not all killing is wrong, such as killing in self defense or in justified war. All humans having a right to life does not entail that it is always wrong to kill another human being. It just entails that a morally justifiable reason is needed. We have one in pulling the plug on a brain dead patient. We would also need a morally justifiable reason to abort an unborn child, one in which Freeman has thus far failed to supply. Furthermore, the existence of "ideal desires" is not a defeater. David Boonin would argue that one would need actual desires to have ideal desires. But why is this so? Why can't we assume that the unborn have ideal desires? After all, couldn't it be stated that an unborn child's ideal desire would be to live if it could have an actual desire to live, as well? This is also why an indoctrinated slave, who has been indoctrinated to believe he has no right to life, would still have a right to life despite his indoctrination. He would never have an actual desire to live, yet he would still have an ideal desire to live. Additionally, Freeman has trapped himself. Now he says that people who are asleep or in temporary comas have enjoyed self-consciousness in the past, and that makes depriving them of continued existence seriously wrong. But now Freeman must admit that pulling the plug on a brain dead patient would be seriously wrong, since that brain dead patient, too, has enjoyed self-consciousness in the past. If Freeman can claim that certain people have a right to life, but not others, why must it necessarily entail that those who hold to the Substance View cannot possibly believe that pulling the plug on a brain dead person is morally justifiable?3) Freeman admits that the Substance View offers a species free account of personhood, so this point is moot. However, if a robot could ever be self-aware, then there is no reason to deny it a right to live. If it contains the same qualities that make humans or other intelligent species' valuable, then it would be valuable, as well.4) Conjoined twins are two separate individuals, even though possibly sharing organs. They are not part of the same organism, their egg simply failed to separate completely. They are still two independent organisms, as two twins who are completely separate are.5) Freeman's response to the indoctrinated slave is ad hoc and does nothing to promote abortion. As the indoctrinated slave would have an ideal desire to live though not having that actual desire, the same can be said of unborn humans. Freeman hasn't explained why one needs actual desires in order to have ideal desires.