Abortion Is Wrong

I'd like to start with an introduction and a presentation of my basic arguments for the pro-life movement before I begin to counter your points. Abortion, I believe, is completely permissible. A woman should have a right to choose what to do with the fetus since it's inside and attached to her body. There's no point in me, or anyone on the pro-life side of things, to argue about this- it should be simply assumed. If. If what? If the unborn are 1) not alive, and 2) not human. If the unborn aren't human and they aren't alive, why shouldn't we be able to do with them whatever we like? Why would we treat them any differently than a headache or anything else that could hinder our personal happiness? But, if the unborn are human and alive, why should we treat them any differently, or give them any less value than you or me? I believe there are good scientific and philisophical reasons to believe the unborn match both criteria of being alive and human. First: Are the unborn alive? Oxford dictionary defines 'life' as the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. So let's take a look at a fetus and see if it fits the definition. A fetus, according to the definition, must have ". .. the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change. .. " Out of all of the requirements to be alive, the fetus is already doing three in the womb. Not only does it have the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change, the fetus is currently doing all three of them from the moment of conception. It's not reproducing, but, fulfilling the requirement, it has the capacity to reproduce. So we know that a fetus is alive. Second: Are the unborn human? From the moment of conception, the fetus is, according to Jan Langman in Medical Embryology, "The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote. "Furthermore, in the textbook, Human Embryology& Teratology, it says, "Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. .. " At fertilization, a distinct, living and whole human being exists. Yes, it is immature and still developing, but it is a human nonetheless. So, we see that the unborn are human and alive, and we need to treat them as such. They should have the same value you and I have, and they should be given the rights all men have: the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Chiefly, the right that provides the gateway to all others: the right to life. RebuttalsYou may have agreed with all that I mentioned above, seeing as your arguments weren't contingent on the fetus' life or humanity, but I wanted to lay my foundation. In response to your first argument: A person needs the desire to live in order to have a right to life. Very well. What action then, do we take when a 1-year old, who has no more desire to live than does the fetus- neither are even self aware- has suddenly become a nuissance to the mother? Does she have the right to kill it simply because it has no desire to live? If you're going to hold to this stance, you're going to have to condone abortion until the age of 2, when an average child gains the ability of self-awareness, and with it the desire to preserve that self. Afterall, how can you desire for yourself to live, if you don't know you exist. So, if you insist on not giving the right to life to those without a desire to live will mean that any parent should legally be allowed to kill their child until the age of 2. And I believe, if I'm not thinking of another pro-choice advocate, Michael Tooley, the one you quoted, does in fact hold this position. Is this the position you hold? I'd like to address your next argument, the violinist analogy, first by noting that your analogy doesn't fit very well with pregnancy. The vast majority of pregnancies are with women who consented to have sex. So, the whole kidnapping thing doesn't work. Now pleas look at this sister analogy: You're at a shooting range, and you're aimed at a target when someone comes and stands in front of the barrel of your gun. In response you lower your gun so as not to shoot him. Now like you said, "you are a sovereign over your own body. .. " so, now if he wouldn't have stepped in front of your barrell, in another second you would've practiced your sovereignity over your own body and pulled the trigger. So why should the person change your action to pull the trigger when you are sovereign of whether you flex your finger muscles or not? There should be no reason, according to your logic that you don't go and pull the trigger just like you'd planned to and kill him. Then look all around you, if everyone is sovereign over their own body (which I believe they are) and have no responsibility to other humans (which like I pointed out a fetus is) why can't anyone go and kill anyone they please, or anyone that annoys them? After all, aren't they just excercizing their sovereignty when they pull the trigger? You see, you look over an essential part of humanity: The fact that we have a moral responsibility to help and preserve the lives of others. So I would absolutely say that the person should remain hooked up to the person whether he was a famous violinist or a homeless bum, one person's life is astronomically much more important than your own personal 9 months of independency. So, I find your arguments to be flawed and insufficient to provide good reason to kill the lives of the unborn. Therefore, seeing that the unborn are both alive and human, and it would be wrong not to give them every right you and I have, meaning, abortion would be wrong. Sources:Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3] [O'Rahilly, Ronan and MA533;ller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. This textbook lists "pre-embryo" among "discarded and replaced terms" in modern embryology, describing it as "ill-defined and inaccurate" (p. 12} (. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com...)