Abortion

Wow: thermodynamics, the existence of God, souls, and personhood all in one round. This will be fun. Firstly, I apologize to all for not citing sources verifying the fact that the braindead are considered legally dead and therefore non-persons in many jurisdictions. I will provide them now: http://www.uniformlaws.org... http://www.nature.com... My opponent speaks of the potential future of the fetus (something that is not guaranteed, by the way, considering how fragile fetal life is, often coming to an abrupt stop all on its own), but he (she?) doesn't seem to care about the future of the woman in question, who already possesses an identity and an established place in the world with goals and desires all to her own. What of her future? What of the suffering that she will inevitably endure if forced through a pregnancy? Why is the fetus' potential for sentience superior in importance to the agonies that it has the potential to inflict on those around it? If we start banking moral standards on imagined potential instead of what exists in the realm of reality, we're treading a very dangerous and foolish path. (Example: I have the potential to become the next U.S. President. Does that mean that at the current time I have the right to be treated as though I already am?) Just because a fetus has potential to become a full-fledged person doesn't mean that it ought to be regarded as though it already is. And if we're going to allow the potentiality argument to be used in favor of the fetus, why not against it as well? (Example: How do you know that any particular fetus aborted wouldn't have grown up to be the next Unabomber?) But even granting that provision to my opponent that a fetus is already a person with positive potential, let's flip the script a bit and imagine that we're talking about any other person on the planet when speaking of the fetus and study the scenario from that point. Do any of US have the right to use other human beings as mere means to ends and reduce their level of rights and their quality of life simply to sustain ourselves or achieve our potential? If not, why would the fetus get this special privilege denied to the rest of us? My opponent's claim to the existence of a soul hinges entirely on their belief in a god. (If God exists, then souls must therefore also exist.) I was so hoping that this would not turn into a theological debate, since it is going to detract from the topic a bit and likely affect the overall dialogue. But, OK. He claimed that because the existence of God is unfalsifiable that this automatically lends weight to the argument for his existence. This position has a few flaws as I hope to demonstrate. Science is a process by which we determine which ideas are true and which ones are false. If a hypothesis is unfalsifiable that means it cannot be disproved. Usually that means it cannot be tested at all. Because if there was a sure way to prove it and you tried it and it didn't work, then that would be a falsification as well. Theism is provable in theory. For instance, Zeus could reveal himself to us. The reason I don't believe in any unfalsifiable theories is because if I believed in Zeus why wouldn't I also believe in Vishnu and Thetans and UFOs and all kinds of other things that people claim with heartfelt sincerity? Remember: We have more reasonable explanations for why people choose to believe in these things, such as fear of death, ego, loneliness, need for meaning; need for leadership. And why other people would make up such things: power, mental illness, desire to be special, money, maybe even an honest desire to better the world, etc. The problem with believing in an unfalsifiable hypothesis is that you have intellectually no way out. Theists have convictions, but they can't show their gods if somebody wants to see them, they can't conjure them if they go to battle, they can't even rely on their help when a family member is ill. In short, they have to have blind faith. And if there is no god, they would never find out. Rather, they would just keep on believing anyway. They will even kill people thinking they're right. Religious people have gone so far as to skin, quarter, burn, squash, slice open, drown, impale, crush with Boeing jets and torture with methods unsurpassed in their cruelty for no reason other than that they believed some other hypothesis. That's the problem with believing in the unfalsifiable: You could be wrong and you'd never find out. As for the multiverse, so far, no, to the best of my knowledge, it's not falsifiable, so it's just a hypothesis at this point. I won't say it will be impossible to falsify it in the future, all kinds of things we thought were untestable just a few years ago, are now being observed. Examples would be things like exoplanets, we have found ways of detecting them without even actually seeing them directly yet. I agree that ability to feel pain isn't the only criteria for personhood, but it does lend a hefty amount of weight to moral conundrums. (Example: If you torture someone before killing them you are much more likely to receive the death penalty or life without parole for the crime than if you killed them painlessly.) And the example that was given of killing someone unconscious isn't terribly analogous to abortion because unlike the fetus, the unconscious individual does possess the ABILITY to suffer, though they may not be able to at the moment. The fetus does not nor has ever possessed that ability. In reference to the points given about sentience, yes, computers can process information, and at speeds dwarfing even the fastest human minds. But they have no consciousness to speak of, no identity, nor anything resembling a personality which is a trait that follows along with intelligent life. It's hard, perhaps, for the human mind to comprehend something that can process information without actually "thinking", but that is the way computers operate. Now, if we had an example of A.I., an android, perhaps, that had complete emotions and an intact, creative mind all to its own, then killing that WOULD be murder because we would be dealing with a person at that point. As for the proposed "kill whoever you can succeed in killing if you desire to kill them" standard that my opponent evidently believes I support, I haven't any idea where that came from or when I ever suggested any such ethical rule. I'm startled that my opponent is unable to see the difference between losing one's freedom and being taken into custody with losing the right to say what is done with one's own blood and organs. This is a rather disturbing revelation to me and I hope I am misunderstanding the implications of the statement that "A violation of bodily sanctity is merely a more extreme version of violation of liberty." That's like saying "Rape is merely a more extreme version of invading one's personal space." Chilling stuff. And since I've brought it up, let's examine why it is that rape is wrong in the first place: it's a violation of bodily sanctity. Women are legally justified in every jurisdiction I know of to kill someone who attempts to rape them. Even though no attempt is being made on her life, just her autonomy, she is still justified in taking another human life to protect herself. So the claim that bodily sanctity isn't considered just cause to kill another human as my opponent suggested is false. My opponent is essentially arguing for forced parenthood and forced organ donation from people for simply having a sex life. This is abominable when you consider the full ramifications of this. For one thing, how do think this is going to impact the child's life, being forcibly raised by parents who may not love eachother and never wanted it to begin with? Do you think people are going to automatically fall in love with their kids and become filled with a burning desire to raise them if you force them to reproduce against their will? Do you think it will grow up loved and cherished with happy memories of birthdays and Christmas mornings? Doubt it. Forced love is not love at all, it's abuse. And, further, if women are aware that if they happen to get pregnant they are going to be stuck taking care of this baby they didn't want for the next 18 years, you don't think we would see rates of infanticide increase as they have elsewhere in the world where abortion is banned or heavily restricted, such as EL Salvador? Pregnancy is an INVOLUNTARY condition and is often in conflict with an individual's wishes, health, and best interests. No woman in a crisis pregnancy situation CHOSE to ovulate or become pregnant. If she had had any control over those functions, she would not have found herself in this situation because she would have had a say in the matter. She should not have to suffer for her biology, particularly not to the extent of gambling her health, future, and possibly her very life. You might be respected and lauded as a hero for doing so, but you should not be compelled by force to run into a burning building to save someone, not even family. The sacrificial nature of pregnancy is a beautiful thing BECAUSE, and only when, it is voluntary. In closing, I would like for my opponent, if able, to provide me a few sample instances where born human beings are given the same level of rights over the bodies of other people in order to sustain themselves or achieve their potential as he believes the fetus has. Why are the unborn entitled to live no matter what costs their lives incur upon everyone else, but you and I are expected to have respect for certain boundaries, such as when our lives begin to impede on the lives and freedoms of others? Why do we have special permission to violate and destroy whatever may be necessary, including other people, to save a fetus, but not someone who we can actually see, hold, and speak to who wishes to live? Thank you.