Abortion Is Wrong

Introduction Firstly, I will begin by attacking my opponent's arguments for the impermissibility of abortion. Secondly, I will be defending my original arguments for the moral permissibility of abortion. With that said, let me begin. DefinitionStraw man fallacy: "The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. " [1] Pro states that the killing of the human in the permanent coma is different than the killing of the fetus. In the first case, the human in the permanent coma will never regain consciousness, and thus will spend the rest of his life in a deep sleep. While the fetus, on the other hand, will have consciousness one day, and have valuable experiences like us. As Pro puts it: "The comatose person has nothing to look forward to but death, the child has everything to look forward to in life. "This is why we can be against the killing of the fetus, but not the permanently comatose. However, my opponent is now appealing to something other than species membership in order to have a right to life. And is instead pointing to the capacity of the fetus to have a future of value. He is essentially taking my stance now. Namely, what matters is the characteristics and capacities a being has, not the species it is a member of. The reason why I criticized my opponent's criteria of having to life earlier is precisely because it leads to silly conclusions. Example: the permanently comatose having a right to life because they are human. Let's now look at his new reason for why killing the fetus through abortion is wrong. A Future of ValueThis view on the wrongness of killing that my opponent has adopted comes from the philosopher Don Marquis. In short this view says killing individuals is morally wrong, because it deprives them of a valuable future. Therefore, since a fetus could have a valuable future it would be wrong to kill them. This view seems plausible at first, but once one looks at it critically, I believe it falls apart. Allow me to demonstrate. The Horny Teenager Objection It seems that if the future of value argument is true, it would be murder for a teenage boy were to masturbate since the sperm he ejaculated could have been used to develop into individuals that would have lived out valuable futures. However, even those that think masturbation is wrong, would not think that it is like murder. Therefore, Marquis' argument must be false. Now, it may be objected by my opponent that a sperm in and of itself will never live out a valuable future. While this is true it's also worth pointing out that an embryo in and of itself without 9 months in womb will also not live out a valuable future. So if we agree that the sperm itself does not have a future of value, then we must also accept that the embryo itself does not have one either. A Personal Identity Objection The future of value argument is based on the somatic approach of personal identity, a view that has not been defended by my opponent. If he wants us to believe that the future of value argument applies to the fetus, he must convince us of the somatic approach to personal identity. Defending My Original ArgumentsHere Pro commits the straw man fallacy, because he misrepresents what speciesism is. If one is anti-speciesist, like one should be, one is not committed to the idea that nonhuman animals and human animals are equal. By equal I mean having the exact same rights like the right to vote, and the right to run for office. Rather, what it means is where human desires and animal desires are similar, one ought to give equal weight to those desires. Let me provide an example for why one cannot maintain a speciesist view that only members of the human species can have a right to life. Imagine that one day in the future we come across other life forms on another planet. The beings on this planet are exactly like us. They are rational, self-conscious and have a developed language and system of mathematics like us. Yet, they are not members of the human species. However, don't all of us want to say that these beings have a right to life? I believe we do. Even Francis Beckwith an anti-abortion apologist who my opponent quoted earlier, agrees with this. He says: "if we were to come across in our space travel an alien race of "persons" (e. g. , Klingons or Romulans of Star Trek lore) that are not human beings, we would have to rethink and amend the meaning of our prohibition of killing persons with-out justification (a considered judgment) to include more than just human beings but the members of this alien race as well, for such beings would have the moral properties that make human beings valuable (another considered judgment). " [2] So as we can see, Pro's arguments against killing are speciesist, and should therefore be rejected. Pro asked me if I thought it would be wrong if a mother drowned her one year old in the bathtub. Obviously, I do think that would be wrong. The mother has assumed guardianship over the child, consented to take care of it, taken it home from the hospital, and has fed and clothed it. So she has a duty to ensure its well-being. She also caused her child to suffer greatly, due to the fact that she drowned it. And under my desire view of rights, she will have violated that child's right not to feel pain. This, I think, was an extremely silly question Pro asked me. I am not for mothers drowning their one year olds. Pro also wants to know why it's the desire to live that gives us the right to life. I would answer this question by saying that I think it provides the best reason for why we think killing other individuals is wrong. We enjoy our lives, and therefore desire for them to continue. Pro asked me to imagine a situation where he gets in a terrible car wreck in which he is placed in a coma for 9 months. This wreck was so severe that all his mental states have been wiped clean. Is it permissible to kill him? No. Under my desire view of rights, only things that have conscious desires now, or who have had them at some time in the past, can have rights. So given the fact that you had a conscious desire to continue living in the past, we ought to respect that desire you had by giving you the right to life. Defending The Violinist Pro puts forth 3 objections to the violinist analogy. They are the stranger versus offspring objection, the killing versus letting die objection, and the responsibility objection. In regards to the first objection, there are two things I would like to say to this. The first is that I could simply change the violinist thought experiment around to fit this objection. Let’s say you're about to unhook yourself, and the doctors rush into your room to say "don't unplug! We just found out that the violinist is your long lost son! " Are you now obliged to stay hooked up, even though you weren't before? I would still say that you are not obliged. Yes, it's true that you are biologically related to this person, but you haven't assumed guardianship and consented to take care of them. The second thing I would like to say is that there are some cases where a woman is NOT biologically related to the fetus. For example, a woman at a fertility clinic in Japan found out that an egg inserted into her uterus was not her own, nor was it fertilized by her husband's sperm. In this accidental case, it seems like Pro would have no objections to this woman getting an abortion, since the fetus is not biologically her offspring. However, it looks inconsistent to say that abortion is immoral when there is a biological relationship, but not immoral when there is no biological relationship. In regards to the second objection, this still doesn't defeat the violinist. This is because there are abortions where the fetus is not poisoned, crushed, or dismembered at all, and is instead removed from the womb and placed on a table to die. In those kinds of abortions, it really is like the withdrawal of life support. In regards to the last objection I, technically speaking, don't even have respond to this objection. This is because the responsibility objection only applies to cases when the woman had consensual sex, and rape cases are excluded. However, if you remember correctly, my opponent took the stance that abortion even in the case of rape is morally wrong. So, that means if there are times when abortion can be shown not to be wrong in the case of rape, he loses. Given the fact that he will not have filled his burden of proof. However, even though I don't have to, I will still respond to this objection by him. First of all, I want to acknowledge that there are cases when doing a particular action means you have a responsibility to sustain the life of another person who is needy. One example of this would be when you poison my food, and make me needy. In that kind of case I would say that you have a responsibility to take care of me because 1) you harmed me, and 2) you made me worse off. However, I don't think this kind of responsibility occurs in the case of pregnancy. While it may be true that a woman who engages in voluntary sex causes the fetus to be needy, it is not a needy that is bad. This because 1) by bringing the fetus into existence she has not harmed it, and 2) by bringing the fetus into existence she has not made it worse off. Therefore, I would say, in the first case you have a responsibility to take care of me, while in the pregnancy case you do not. Lastly, I will respond to this question of thalidomide. I don’t think this is a good objection to the violinist. This is because the violinist analogy does not say one can do whatever they want with their own body. Rather, what it really says, is that one cannot force another to use your body against your will. This is very different than the claim you can do whatever you want. Sources in comments