Resolved: Abortion is morally impermissible

In this round, I'll focus exclusively on Con's response to my FLO argument for the impermissibility of abortion. Readers will remember, in my first round, I anticipated that Con would dispute P1 (the major premise of FLO) and so I gave extensive justification of the FLO account for the wrongness of killing. Surprisingly, Con tacitly concedes this by reserving all his criticism for P2, which stated the following: “Abortion is an action that foreseeably deprives a being (the unborn) of its FLO” As such, if I can justify what I take to be a fairly accepted claim, we have strong reason to conclude that abortion is morally impermissible. All Con's criticisms in his Round 2 stem from Psychological Continuity. In addressing Con's claims in this round, I will defend 3 basic contentions: Psychological Continuity, plausibly stated, is compatible with P2, thus Con's criticisms are irrelevant Con's 3 criticisms, at best, constitute a weak case against P2 Even if Con's criticisms succeed in showing FLO to be unsound, the strong Continuity view as stated by Con leads the Pro-Choice position to moral absurdity Con's denial of P2 Con attacks P2 indirectly, arguing that it assumes the animalist view of identity and proceeding to give 3 objections against animalism. Before I engage with Con's case, it seems to me that there's a huge danger here in collapsing our discussion of the issue of abortion into a meta-debate on personal identity. Indeed, Con spends most of his round explaining this terrain, rather than responding to P2, such is this danger. As such, I'm going to try and defend P2 without getting too bogged down in the philosophical dispute over identity (which would require another debate). Contention 1 The Sufficiency Objection Con asserts that the FLO advocate has to assume that the animalist view is correct, in order to justify P2. This seems to me to be false. All P2 has to deny is what I'll call the Strong Psychological Continuity Thesis (SPCT), which we can define as: Psychological Continuity is necessary for identity over time I'll show why this view is problematic in my next contention. Notice however, that if Psychological Continuity were merely sufficient for identity, this would be completely compatible with P2. One could adopt a pluralist or even a weakened Psychological Continuity view, for example. None of these would entail that we have to deny that a foetus is a human being. (1) If this option is viable, then Con's 3 indirect criticisms of P2 simply dissipate. Moreover, a sufficiency view would avoid the objections which plague Con's strong thesis that I detail below, as well as avoiding the potential problems of the animalist view. All this serves to show that P2 is, contrary to Con, modest in its assumptions, as I originally stated. Contention 2 Arguments for SPCT Even assuming an animalist position, I contend that we can easily dismiss two of Con's criticisms. Conjoined Twins Con argues that conjoined twins provide a real life defeater for the animalist view. Animalism holds that an organism is identical with its body, yet we have one body and two persons (Abigail and Brittany Hensel). As such, Con concludes this view must be false. However, the Hensel example is easily compatible with the animalist view. Abigail and Brittany are two organisms fused together. They are just organisms who are not independent of one another (i. e. “conjoined”). While the twins are joined at the hip, each twin has their own heart, stomach, brainstem and spines. (2) As Liao notes, “they have partially distinct organs that are united. ” (3) As such, Con's objection is simply misguided. Electronic and Divine Persons Con argues that animalism would exclude possible persons with a right to life if they do not have a physical body. As such, we ought to reject it. This can be dismissed as simply a misreading of animalism. As the SEP states: “(Animalism) is consistent with the existence of wholly inorganic people: gods or angels or conscious robots. ”(4) Indeed, many theists hold this kind of view, so it seems surprising Con would raise this criticism. Brain Swap Con's last argument is that if we transplant a brain into another's body, our intuition is to transfer personal identity to wherever the brain/mind ends up. I agree with Con that this example favours the continuity thesis (I'm not convinced that it favours the strong interpretation, but I'll put that aside) . However, the problems of the Continuity Thesis more than even this advantage out. On the continuity thesis, for example, an organism with Multiple Personality Disorder could be 26 persons, yet it seems just strongly intuitive that a therapist does not become a serial killer by treating and ultimately eliminating these alter egos. (5) The intuitive strength of the Brain Swap criticism of animalism seems no greater than the Multiple Personality Objection against Continuity. So, we're left with either a stand-off or at the very most, a weak evidential against P2, at least before I give a more full justification of it below. More likely though, it seems to me we're left with a motivation to find a pluralist view identity, which I outlined previously. Again, such a view would actually be compatible with P2. Justification of P2 Was I a foetus? Philosophers typically distinguish between human being and persons (where only the latter have moral value), to argue for abortion choice. I don't have any sympathy for this view, but it is defensible. Con makes the much stronger (and consequently much less defensible) claim, denying that we were ever a foetus/embryo. Instead, he holds that we begin to exist “at a late stage in pregnancy”, in order to deny that the unborn have a FLO. This seems to be to be completely at odds with the scientific community, who hold that whatever value we place upon a foetus, it most certainly is a human being: “Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being – a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. ” (6) This is scientifically incontestable. Fertilisation results in the formation of a distinct, living organism “whose cells work together in a coordinated effort of self-development” culminating, eventually, in a newborn. (7) Indeed, the fact that Con's view denies this obvious fact is one of the main objections to it in the philosophical literature. Moreover, denying that we are a foetus would lead to the vexing question of where does the foetus go when we come to be? As such, insofar as the SPCT contests P2, it is implausible. Contention 3 Even if the SPCT somehow defeats the FLO argument, it saddles the Pro-Choicer with 2 moral objections against their view arguably even more powerful than original FLO. The Permissibility of Foetal Harm Con holds that a human does not exist (in the relevant sense) until “a late stage of pregnancy”. This is why, on his view, a foetus does not have a FLO. However, it stands to reason that if Con's view legitimises abortion because, prior to consciousness, there is no being to harm, it follows all sorts of things become permissible, until the later stages of pregnancy. Take Jenny, a 4 month foetus. Imagine Jenny's mother knowingly ingested Thalidomide (which causes babies to be born absent limbs) or continued taking drugs just before Con's late stage of pregnancy, resulting in a drug-addicted baby. Or take Penny, a 4 week old embryo. Suppose a sadistic IVF doctor maliciously manipulates Penny's DNA, ensuring that Penny's body is riddled with cancer when she is 5 years old. On Con's view, it seems he cannot argue that these are morally grotesque. After all, if Jenny the foetus or Penny the Embryo do not “exist” when these actions occur, who is wronged? Neither Jenny nor Penny “exist” at that point, so how can they be harmed? Of course, on a normal bodily rights view (absent the SPCT), these problems are arguably escapable. But if we assert that abortion prior to consciousness harms no-one, how can we consistently prohibit these harms to the unborn? I fail to see how this can be done. Con is caught in a dilemma: either these actions above are permissible (which is morally obscene) or consciousness is not a necessary condition for harm, which would diffuse his claim that the unborn do not have a FLO. Infanticide Con's view on its face looks as if it would at least arguably support infanticide in every case, given he cashes out plausibility in terms of higher mind states like “. .. beliefs, desires, and intentions. ” In any case, it is very easy to give an example for which Con will be forced to hold, on the SPCT, that infanticide is morally permissible. Suppose at the embryonic stage, Derek has easily treatable ailment X. Moreover, stipulate that a side effect of the treatment for X is that it completely blocks consciousness until 5 weeks after Derek is born. It seems, on Con's view, that newborn Derek will not have a right to life and it would be permissible to kill him, even after birth. As Con holds consciousness as necessary for a being to exist, it seems there would be no being harmed if Derek were killed at 4 weeks after birth. The problem is that embracing the permissiblility of infanticide is morally untenable (particularly if we're valuing intuitions in our moral deliberations). Thus, the Pro-Choice response to FLO may be even more deadly for this position than the original Pro-Life argument. Conclusion In short, we are rationally compelled to reject Con's response to FLO for 3 different kinds of reasons. Indeed, from a purely pragmatic point of view, the Pro-Choicer ought to reject Con's response to FLO. Sources 1- . https://plato.stanford.edu... 2, 3 Liao, cited in Kaczor, P114 5 – Kaczor P115 6 – Alcorn, cited in Kaczor, P104 7 – Kaczor, P104-5