Rape and Abortion

I thank Grape for his swift response. I agree, of course, that the right to exist can either exist or it can not. However, perhaps an instructive analogy can be drawn - monetary worth. Something is either worth money or it is not. However, this does not damn us to the proposition that everything is either worth ï¿½10000 or nothing. How much something is worth is based on a number of factors such as rarity, functionality and so on. So while it is true that something is either worth money or not, the amount something is worth increases or decreases depending on its attributes. So, while I am not trying to 'find a third possibility between having the right to life and not having the right to life', this is irrelevant. What I am saying is that a person's right to life increases or decreases based on a number of important attributes. I am happy to accept Warren's criteria. My only point of disagreement is whether falling slightly short of these criteria instantly removes all the rights of the person in question. I contend this is absurd, and as you have already conceded, it would immediately remove the rights to life of all humans with significant mental impairment who don't quite meet the criteria - there is nothing wrong with butchering the lot of them merely to cut down on costs. This position is obviously rejected by the entirety of the civilised world today - the law certainly doesn't agree with my opponent's position. To push the point a little with animals - many animals are highly intelligent. They have nervous systems as complex as ours; they can reason through scenarios that require abstract thought; they can communicate with one another using complex communication methods. Are we to deny them all any right to life just because they don't have certain types of self-awareness? Why? If I accidentally damage a car so its radio permanently ceases to function, does the car instantly lose all its value? Of course not. In the same way, while not having particular type of cognition might decrease the rights of an individual, to claim that it removes them entirely is absurd. My opponent should also remember that his first round obligates him to defend the proposition that rape isn't a relevant factor when determining the ethics of an abortion. This is a blanket statement applying to all abortions, and pointing out that foetus' have little mental development in early stages isn't relevant - I am obviously referring to late term abortions as the exception. My opponent is quite right that I can't quite determine the exact point where the rights of the foetus begin to outweigh those of the mother. However, I can be quite sure that early in the pregnancy when the foetus has virtually no cognitive ability its right to life would be virtually nothing as well and rape could be a significant reason for aborting the foetus. I can also be quite sure that when the foetus' cognitive ability is fairly advanced its right to life would also be, and the mother's psychological problems from conceiving a child from rape would be outweighed by this. This isn't really a pressing problem for my position - after all the problem of having to include arbitrary cut-off points is one numerous in philosophy and linguistics. Think of the term 'heap', for example, or the evolution of one species to another. Remember, all I am defending is the position that rape is a relevant consideration - I don't have to pinpoint exactly how relevant, or how the ethical considerations do, in fact, stack up. Just that when we are determining if an abortion is ethical or not, rape should be included in the discussion. Grape's conception of the right to life is extremely non-inclusive. I see no reason why the right to life should be suddenly acquired once a particular standard is met. The criteria listed for personhood develop gradually in a foetus, they exist in various levels in different animals. Why do individuals sudden get a right to life when they reach human-level cognition? It seems to me my opponent is the one arbitrarily setting a standard. If we met an alien race with vastly superior minds to ours, what would be to stop them concluding that only individuals who had reached their level of intelligence have a right to life? Why not set the standard at dolphin level intelligence or mouse level intelligence? Whereas I scale the right to life of an individual to its mental capabilities, Grape attempts to claim that only those with a particular standard get any rights to life at all - slamming the door on those who approach our capabilities, or have different mental capabilities. I see no reason to do this. I think this standard is contrived and absurd, excluding the rights of the mentally damaged and intelligent animals.