Abortion is immoral

Thanks Guidestone. I look forward to our discussion. Introduction Abortion is a very controversial and emotional topic (obviously). However, I ask the voters of this debate to put their emotions aside so they can be rational and vote based who made the most convincing arguments. In this debate I'm going to defend two contentions. First, there are no good reasons to think that abortion is immoral. And secondly, there are good reasons to think that abortion is morally permissible. With that said, let me begin. The Interest PrincipleHere I will be borrowing from the philosopher Joel Feinberg. The interest principle simply states that the sorts of beings who can have rights are those that can have interest.[1] On the interest principle, interest are based in desires. Therefore, a being with no desires can't have any rights. For example, a newspaper cannot have the right not to be torn up, because a newspaper has no desires and thus no interest in not being torn up.[2] The rights that a being can have depend on what its desires are. A cow, for instance, has the right not to be tortured, because it has a desire to not feel pain. However, a cow does not have a right to life, because it does not have a desire for its continued existence. So killing a cow painlessly would not be immoral. Only things that have self-consciousness and the ability to imagine their own future can have a desire for continued existence. Now that I have explained the interest principle, I can now formulate my argument for the moral permissibility of abortion . Premise 1) If a human fetus does not have a desire for its continued existence, then ending its life is not immoral. Premise 2) A human fetus does not have a desire for its continued existence. Conclusion) Therefore, ending the life of a human fetus is not immoral. Defense of Premise 1 Premise 1 is true given the definition of the interest principle. Interest are based in desires. If a human fetus does not have a desire for its continued existence, then you cannot frustrate its wishes, hopes, plans or intentions for the future. It has none. When ending its life you are not taking away anything that it values. Let me provide an example. When I cut my fingernails, I kill billions of cells. But no one would consider me a murderer for killing those cells. This is because the cells on my fingernails do not have a desire for continued existence. In fact, they have no desires at all. So by killing those cells I'm not doing anything immoral. The same situation should apply to the fetus. Defense of Premise 2 This is obviously true. Like I stated earlier, only things that have self-consciousness and the ability to imagine their own future can have a desire for continued existence. A fetus certainly does not have these characteristics or capacities. Since both premise 1 and 2 are true, it follows that abortion is not immoral, and instead is morally permissible. Finally, I will be using Judith Jarvis Thomson's Violinist thought experiment to argue for a woman's right to choose. The ViolinistImagine that you wake up in a hospital bed connected through a series of medical tubes to an unconscious famous violinist. The violinist is dying from a kidney disease, and the Society of Music Lovers has found that you alone have the right blood type to save his life. So last night, in your sleep, they kidnapped you and plugged you into him. If you disconnect yourself from him now, the violinist will die. But if you disconnect yourself from him in 9 months, he will live and go onto play beautiful music. Now, the question is, are you within your rights to disconnect yourself from the violinist to let him die? I would argue yes, you do have the right. This is because you are a sovereign over your own body, and nobody should have the right to use your body against your will. So if you agree that the kidnapped person in this thought experiment has the right to unhook himself from the violinist, then you should also agree that a pregnant woman should have the right to unhook herself from the fetus. Conclusion In this paper I have defended the Pro-choice position and argued that abortion is morally permissible. Therefore, we must reject the claim that abortion is immoral. Sources:http://en.wikipedia.org...http://spot.colorado.edu...