Abortion Is Prima Facie Morally Wrong

Allow me to thank Freeman for being willing to debate such a contentious issue with me. On “brain death,” it’s odd that Freeman brings this issue up in round one, then argues that brain dead humans are not actually dead in round two, and then when I agreed with him, he accuses me of contradiction because according to him brain dead people are… not dead? And I’m the one contradicting myself? Freeman confuses my argument. I didn’t say people in irreversible comas have a right to life because they have a right to their organs. I argued they have a right to life, and the rules about when organs can be transplanted affirm that. Simply the fact that we debate when to unplug a person in an irreversible coma shows that we don’t really think they are dead. (No one debates about unplugging someone who is actually dead.) Given that healthy unborn children have almost nothing in common with someone in an irreversible coma, the entire discussion is moot. You can believe that Irreversible Coma Guy doesn’t have a right to life, and that will say nothing about the right to life of a healthy unborn child. Freeman accuses me of negating my argument when it comes to anencephalic babies, because according to him, my argument was “it is wrong to kill any member of the human community.” But I never made that argument! I’m sorry, Freeman, but the number of strawman fallacies you have made in this debate is making me begin to suspect that you’re doing it on purpose. I’ve maintained that it is “prima facie wrong to kill a human being.” Of course there can be exceptions. (Self defense, just war, etc.) Perhaps Freeman has debated so many people who held to this weaker position that it’s ALWAYS wrong to kill humans, that he hasn’t been able to get off that track in this debate. Whatever the reason, failing to understand my actual position is just one of the reasons Freeman has failed this debate. Freeman responds to my objection to infanticide by quoting Michael Tooley, who points out that “appeals to moral intuitions are only appropriate in the case of basic moral principles.” Freeman goes on to say, “a specific claim about the wrongness of occasionally killing human infants is far from a basic moral principle.” Now read that last sentence again. I ask you, what could be a MORE basic principle than the claim that it is wrong to kill infants? In the oddest part of this entire debate, Freeman accuses me of ignoring one of his central arguments, that you attain the right to vote at a certain age. Yet, I thoroughly responded to that in round two. Perhaps if Freeman read my sides of the debate closer, he would not only avoid strawman fallacies, but also not miss entire paragraphs refuting his arguments. For his sake, I’ll repeat what I said here: Yes, but the right to vote is connected to different factors: being a citizen; not being a felon and being at least 18 years old. The critical distinction is that the right to vote is a secondary right granted by government. In fact, the voting requirement used to be age 21, not 18. (That change occurred in the 26th amendment.[1]) Those rights can clearly be altered. But our common human nature is rightfully how we ground the way we should treat each other. So Freeman’s argument actually makes my point. You either are an 18-year old citizen, or you’re not. Similarly, you either are a member of a rational kind, or you’re not. “A fetus can't be harmed in the way that a person can be harmed because it is unconscious and has never had the desire to continue living. At most, its potentials can be destroyed.” ~Freeman This issue really is the crux of this debate, so I’ll take the remainder of my space to show why Freeman is wrong. Imagine the delivery room of a hospital, where a baby has just been born. To the surprise of the parents, the baby is born in a coma. After a series of tests, the doctors conclude that the baby will be in a coma for 9 more months. She has never been conscious. May we kill her? While a few philosophers would argue that there is nothing wrong with killing the baby girl, most of us would agree that she has a right to live. She is a living human being with the inherent natural capacity for consciousness. Freeman is now stuck. If he argues that it would be wrong to kill the baby girl, than his entire argument for abortion rights collapses. To remain consistent, he would have to argue that “this newborn can't be harmed in the way that a person can be harmed because it is unconscious and has never had the desire to continue living. At most, its potentials can be destroyed.” As Francis Beckwith points out, “the premise on which this argument is based is as controversial as the conclusion for which it is employed to support: having a human nature with intact basic capacities is not sufficient for one to have a right to life because one is not now exhibiting or engaging in functions or mental activities that result from these basic capacities even if one will most likely in the future exhibit and engage in these functions or mental activities that result from these basic capacities.”[2] I’ll offer another illustration by my colleague Trent Horn. Imagine a beautiful celebrity is cloned using some discarded genetic material. The scientist creates 100 clones, and removes some important brain tissue early in their development, so that they’ll effectively be born as “brainless clones.” Fast forward 18 years, and the cloner now has the most realistic sex dolls ever. He quickly is able to sell all 100 clones for a profit. Here’s the question: have the clones been harmed? I believe they have been. An outside force removed their ability to become conscious, an attribute that all healthy human beings have the natural inherent capacity for from the beginning of life. But according to Freeman, “there are no good reasons to think that rights can't be attained by having emergent properties like consciousness.” According to his view, the clones don’t necessarily have ANY rights, because they’re not conscious. Do with them what you want. They’re now nothing more than realistic sex dolls. Freeman has defended Mary Anne Warren’s personhood criteria, which don’t only exclude anencephalic newborns from personhood, but all infants. Warren concedes this point in a postscript she wrote 9 years after the publication of her personhood criteria, and attempts to argue against infanticide because newborns are adoptable, and they “are so very close to being persons that to kill them requires a very strong moral justification.”[3] The entire postscript is laughably ad hoc. There’s no getting around it. The personhood criteria Freeman is attempting to defend justifies the killing of ALL infants. I have demonstrated time and time again that my opponents C1 conclusion does not represent my actual argument, and is actually a strawman. (Yet, Freeman continues to use it, in a blatant disregard for my argument, because weaker versions of the pro-life position are easier to refute.) I’ve also shown that C2 and C3 are demonstrably false from a philosophical standpoint. Furthermore, my opponents C2 and C3 conclusions result in the justification of killing at least some infants and disabled adults, which runs contrary to the moral intuitions of virtually the entire human community. In contrast, my argument that it is prima facie morally wrong to kill any full-fledged member of the human community stands strong. According to Freeman, my view that it is wrong to kill infants is “not a basic principle,” and that in at least some cases, infanticide is morally justifiable. Philosophers call that a “counterintuitive notion.” I think it’s totally crazy. You probably do too. Sources: 1: http://bit.ly... 2: Beckwith, Francis J. 'Defending Abortion Philosophically: A Review of David Boonin's A Defense of Abortion', Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 31:2, 177 – 203. Available here: http://bit.ly... 3: http://bit.ly...