Abortion Before a Fetus Has a Functioning Brain is Not Wrong

The issue of abortion is controversial for good reason, as it deals with conflicting human rights. There is great tension between the rights to life of the unborn child and the rights to free agency of its mother. The only way to resolve the tension is to determine whose rights take priority. If the unborn child is determined to be non-human, then the rights of the mother take priority and abortion is to be condoned. There are several approaches to this determination, but this debate focuses squarely on brain function. I ask the readers to put aside their prejudices on this issue (either way) and vote solely on the issue herein. If I can show that it is wrong to kill a fetus based on its brain function, then pro-choice proponents should vote Con. Likewise, if I fail in this regard, pro-life proponents should vote Pro. My opponent starts by arguing that one's personhood is contained entirely within the brain. This is a conclusion drawn from presuppositions more than science. Science has certainly discovered much about the brain, but consciousness is yet to be fully explained. In fact, the human consciousness and the brain have been the subject of philosophical inquiry for centuries and neither I nor my opponent can be expected to solve the issue in a single paragraph. However, the controversial nature of the matter serves to support my first contention. 1. Brain function is inadequate in determining one's personhood. Brain activity can be useful for many determinations, but personhood is not one of them. Modern medicine can monitor the brain to diagnose anything from abnormalities to death, but personhood is another matter. The fact that science has yet to locate the conscience in the brain should raise a red flag when it comes to choosing whether or not to forfeit one's life, regardless of whether or not they are in the womb. If my opponent wishes to use brain function to determine one's humanness, then he has the burden of providing falsifiable criteria with which to make such a determination--something science has yet to do. This is a serious problem in my opponent's position. If he cannot offer these criteria, then determining the fetus to be human is nothing more than a guess, in which case the resolution should be modified to read, "Abortion before WE GUESS a fetus has a functioning brain is not wrong." 2. Brain development is too gradual to make an effective diagnosis. My opponent argues that there is no such thing as "part of a person," dismissing it as silly. He then goes on to argue that one is either a person or not a person as determined by brain function. This only makes sense if the fetus has zero brain activity one day and gobs of it the next--silly indeed. The nervous system develops gradually just like every other system in the fetus. If x amount of brain function constitutes personhood, does x - 1 constitute a non-person? The unborn child is a developing child, and as such, will always have more brain function than the day before. Even if my opponent manages to provide x, and show that anything below x is a non-person, he runs into another bind. He must concede that on the basis of brain activity alone, if a fetus is determined non-human within the womb then it must also be determined non-human outside of womb. To be consistent then, he must also concede that one who kills a wanted, prematurely born baby is guilty of nothing more than destruction of property. 3. Life emerging does not correlate with life departing. My opponent argues that if "medical death occurs when electrical activity in the brain ceases," then "medical life occurs when electrical activity in the brain STARTS." This only makes sense if you accept the absurd notion that the fetus will spontaneously become a person, having no activity one day and human-worthy activity the next. Since we know that not to be true, the correlation to brain death cannot be made. It is not immoral to pull the plug on a brain dead human because his/her life is sustained only by machine. Nor is it immoral to pull the plug on someone in irreversible organ failure. The healthy fetus is neither of these. In the case of medical death, there is no expectation the patient will live. In the case of the fetus, the expectation is that it will live. Therefore, there is no moral case to be made for killing the fetus on the grounds of insufficient brain activity. ---------- Brain activity is a gradual process, so anyone would be hard pressed to make an accurate determination of personhood. Remember, we are arguing on the merit of brain activity, not the merit of size, dependence on mother, etc. A fetus is a developing person, a person-in-progress. At best, it can be determined to be sub-human (pertinent to your worldview), in which case one must show that killing a sub-human on the basis of brain activity is generally permissible. Until my opponent makes this argument, I submit that killing even a perceived sub-human is wrong. To summarize my argument: 1. Brain function is too ambiguous a measuring stick to determine personhood. 2. Brain development is too gradual to determine exactly when a non-person becomes person. 3. Killing a fetus is not the same as pulling the plug on a patient. 4. Killing someone for being a non-person without having clear criteria on determining personhood is wrong. Therefore, abortion before a fetus has a functioning brain is wrong.