Abortion Is Generally Morally Reprehensible

However, I am surprised to see that he is mistaken on what the resolution asks for, thus rendering most of his points irrelevant to the debate. In this round I will give my criticisms thereby showing that his points are either fallacious or do not lead to negation of the resolution. Rebuttal: Shifting the goalposts The resolution of the debate is: ‘Abortion is generally morally reprehensible’. In other words: abortion is in most cases immoral. The word ‘generally’ applies unambiguously to abortion; it is there to stipulate that abortion is referred to in a way that is ‘not detailed or specific’. In Round 1 I said that in this debate I will defend the view that it is generally morally impermissible to deliberately terminate the pregnancy two weeks after the moment of fertilization; I further specified which cases should be excluded. Somehow my opponent misinterpreted the resolution as though it meant something like: ‘Most people in the world regard abortion as generally morally reprehensible’. He thus straw manned my position so that I would be defending the view that most people think abortion is morally impermissible, and asks of me to provide even more “substantial evidence”, but that of course makes no sense. In no way does the resolution imply that the moral majority is in favor of prohibiting abortion. Yet, most of my opponent’s case rests upon this mistaken assumption, rendering most of his claims moot. His case further rests upon some logical fallacies making it so that his premises do not lead to his conclusion. Appeal to law fallacy [18] Throughout his affirmative case my opponent frequently engages in an equivocation between legality with morality. He claims: “I will only have to provide evidence that in most of or the majority of cases, the act of abortion is permissible. ”Appeal to law fallacy is where one believes an act is either immoral or moral based on the laws or lack of laws in reference to the act. My opponent argues that abortion is moral because there is no law against it. This is like arguing that when it was illegal for a slave to escape, it was immoral for him to escape. Or like, because marijuana is illegal it is therefore immoral. Because my opponent’s argument relies on fallacious reasoning, his argument can be dismissed. My opponent seems to subscribe to legal positivism, i. e. the controversial view that law and morality are essentially the same. Under this view there is no such thing as an unjust law, which seems rather absurd. My opponent needs to defend this proposition, instead of simply asserting it. Just because the law is this way does not mean it should be that way. And I made an excellent argument, indeed I gave actual reasons, why I think the law is mistaken on the subject of abortion. My opponent is talking about legal rights, while the resolution asks him to address moral rights. The fatal flaw in my opponent’s premise is that he does not establish that abortion is morally justified; he has given us no reason why we should think that abortion is morally permissible. My argument thus greatly outweighs my opponent’s unsupported assertion. Argumentum ad populum [19] My opponent argues along the line of the following when he claims that the immorality does not reflect reality: P1: If most people approve of abortion then abortion is not immoral. P2: Most people approve of abortion. C: Therefore, abortion is not immoral. CP1: My opponent argues abortion is not immoral simply because most other people approve of it. It is clearly fallacious to accept the approval of the majority as evidence for a claim. At one time most people approved of slavery, evidently this does not mean that slavery then was not immoral. Since my opponent offers no further support to affirm that abortion is not immoral, his reasoning is fallacious. CP2: My opponent claims: “Anti-abortion sentiment is espoused by some who hold various strangely constructed moralities not held by most other people. ” But is this actually true? If we take the USA as reference, a majority of 50% to 41% is actually pro-life! So his claim is flat-out false. [20] If we take the US to be loosely representative of global attitude, then I have shown that there absolutely is a lack of consensus and that abortion is still controversial, for a good reason I would say. As I have argued earlier, nobody has to surrender the right to life, simply because value preferences’ are allegedly not shared by the majority. Therefore, my opponent has practically conceded his loss when he claimed: ““If abortion was morally reprehensible then most people would think so. ” One possible explanation of why abortion is legal in the US is that only one in six registered voters (17%) say they will vote only for candidates for major office who share their own views on abortion. [21] Hereby I have shown that the law does not necessarily represent the moral majority on abortion. But do not blame my opponent, actually most Americans misjudge U. S. abortion views, thinking that the pro-choice position dominates. [22] Furthermore, recall that we are talking about abortion in general, so when we exclude the ‘hard’ cases we see that only a small minority of 39% is favor of complete legality of abortion and that the actual majority of 57% is in favor of only in a few circumstances! [23] So, not only have I invalidated my opponent's argument, but moreover his claims are based on falsehood. Therefore his argument can be disregarded. Appeal to Common Practice [19] My opponent claims: “Acts that are generally morally reprehensible do not take place this generally”. His reasoning is as follows: Most people do X, therefore X is morally correct. This is a non sequitur. Analogous to abortion, if everyone stole things that did not belong to them, then it does not logically follow that stealing would be acceptable. My opponent offers no further support for his claim so it is a non-argument. Straw man fallacy My opponent claims that I argue that “people who have abortions or approve of abortions should be harassed”. I have no idea where he gets this idea from. In fact, I despise the radical pro-life movement that resorts to violence. We should only ‘rebuke, censure or strongly criticize’ by engaging in civil moral discourse, informed by reason. Also, nowhere did I argue for the legal prohibition of abortion, because it is irrelevant to the debate. Again, my opponent failed to show that the fetus lacks the right to life, therefore my affirming argument stands undisputed, urging a vote for the affirmative. Conclusion In summary then, I have argued that the fetus and normal human children and adults are morally equivalent. As we can conclude, my opponent has failed to show otherwise. Therefore if killing postnatal human beings is morally reprehensible, than so is killing fetuses. In this round I have shown that my opponent has not met his burden of proof in any reasonable way. His case relies on appeals to law, popularity and common practice rather than moral analysis. He failed to point to a moral significant difference between the fetus and mature humans. My opponent has to show that the ‘Future-Like-Ours’ theory and all my objections are invalid or unsound. Thereafter, he needs to rebuild his own case that affirms that abortion is morally permissible. Until and unless he does so, I think we can conclude that abortion is generally morally reprehensible. Sources [18] . http://logical-critical-thinking.com... [19] . http://www.nizkor.org...; [20] . http://www.gallup.com... [21] . http://www.gallup.com... [22] . http://www.gallup.com... [23] . http://www.gallup.com...