Abortion is Generally Immoral.

Thanks, Pro, this has been a pleasure. I apologize if what follows seems choppy. I'm trying to get it down from 13,000 characters. Indented text is quotations, things Pro said. The point of my argument was not that a hunter would hestitate to fire upon a zygote, just that the hunter would make sure he wasn't going to kill a human. Pro makes my point for me: Hunters want to not shoot humans. But they wouldn't mind shooting zygotes, because a zygote is not a human. Why make the unborn child pay with her life for her father's crimes? Why make a gamete pay for its father's crimes? Yes, a zygote is a full human being, regardless of the fact it may twin. It's on the natural path to being two people, but he thinks it's only one? Pro equivocates. Happiness isn't valuable because we like it, If nobody liked it, it wouldn't be valuable. We do not place value on humans simply because we like them, otherwise we would be morally justified in killing anyone we don't like. Except for brain-dead guy. So it's not the humanity, it's the personhood. Murder doesn't make everyone unhappy. Allowing murder would make for a substantial net decrease in happiness. Not in the case of brain-dead guy, because he's not a person. And not in the case of zygotes, because they aren't people either. But people are protected, all of them, regardless of whether we like them. It would be just as wrong to abort a preborn Vulcan as it would be to abort a preborn human. Exactly so; but, aborting a human zygote is not wrong. I never stated that I am reconsidering my stance on aborting zygotes. Then you should have no problem with me talking about them. My point was that no surgical abortions are done on zygotes Which, as I pointed out, is false. Dilation and curettage takes whatever early product of conception is on the uterus lining. Zygote or embryo, it doesn't matter. If you think you might be pregnant, and you have a plausible justification for a D&C, then you don't have to call it an abortion to opt out of parenthood. so it seems irrelevant to argue regarding them. Pro brought zygotes up by claiming that abortion is wrong from the time of conception. there is no fundamental difference between a zygote and a toddler. They just look different. But they look exactly like a human should in that stage in its development. And gametes look exactly like a human should look at that stage of development. I don't oppose coitus interruptus You should, if your test is whether you're on the natural course towards producing a human being. I have not applied this rule to anything unrelated. Since abortion is the killing of an innocent human being, then morally it is no better than murder. As Dietrich says in Barney Miller, "It's a point of view." There is no reason to justify killing a preborn human that couldn't also be extended to justify killing an infant. The slippery-slope argument. But your logic could be extended to protecting gametes on one end and brain-dead guy on the other. If we shouldn't use my test because someone might distort and abuse it, then we shouldn't use your tests for the same reason. - If Pro wants to indulge his whim of thinking of zygotes as "whole human beings," he is free to do so; but he shouldn't go so far as to legislating immense harm on actual human beings. He shouldn't even inflict guilt on actual human beings by telling them abortion is wrong. That is itself wrong. Pro says I equivocate between human and a human. In fairness, he's right. But he equivocates too, very often. He'll say a zygote is human, which it clearly is, but then act like he's shown the zygote to be a human, which seems to me absurd. He'll even switch between human and alive which is how he misrepresented his experts. He claimed that his experts said "life" begins at conception. They would never have said that; they know gametes are alive before fertilization. Part (just part) of the reason Pro thinks I equivocate is because I have to follow him thru his twists and turns; I have to equivocate when he does. There's another way in which Pro equivocates. When he talks about whole human beings, I point out that brain-dead guy is a whole human being, so he switches to talking about potential sentience. When he talks about potential sentience, I point out that gametes have potential sentience, so he switches back to talking about human beings. Neither line of argument wins for him, so he two-steps back and forth between them. Here are his tests: 1. Does it have a species? This test fails because it protects the wrong things. It wouldn't include people without species. If Spock were a one-off, we would still protect him, though this test says we shouldn't. Hall (2001) and Schwarzenegger's character (Terminator 2) had no species, but they were people, deserving protection as much as any person with a species. 2. Is it on the natural course towards sentience? This fails because it would include gametes, but Pro doesn't believe life begins at erection. Consider also a diode on a production line, on its way to becoming Hal. Would Pro want to protect that diode as on the natural course towards sentience? I think not. So this test protects the wrong things. 3. Is it human? This test is the core of Pro's case. He repeats it over and over, only disavowing it and switching to other tests when he has to, and then he always comes back. An example of disvowal: "Not being human is irrelevant." This test fails because follicles, gametes, and brain-dead guy all human. And it fails because Pro would protect Hal and Spock even though they are not human. This test protects the wrong things. 4. Is it a human, or a full human entity? This test fails because it excludes Spock and Hal, but includes brain-dead guy. It protects the wrong things. 5. Is it alive? This test fails because Hal is not alive, and because gametes are. This test protects the wrong things. 6. Is it a new genetically distinct human organism? Newness fails because we shouldn't kill old people. Genetic distinctiveness fails because we shouldn't kill identical twins. Human organism fails because we shouldn't kill Spock but may kill brain-dead guy. This test protects the wrong things. 7. Did it result from a consensual act? This test fails because it would allow you to kill anybody who resulted from rape. Terrible test. 8. Can it talk better than a baby? For some reason, Pro introduced this in the last round, probably trying to impute it to me. But my test is different, and this test does Pro no good: It protects iPhones without protecting babies. 9. Is it innocent? Pro keeps bringing this test up, but refusing to use it himself. Are brain-dead guy and Spock and gametes innocent? Pro doesn't care. Why doesn't Pro care? Because this test protects the wrong things. So, all of Pro's tests fail. None of them survive inspection. They work so badly that Pro is forced to equivocate, to skip from one test to another as I point out problems with the last one. The only test that works is, "Is it a person?" This test is perfect. It protects exactly whom we want to protect, without protecting anything else. Pro would adopt it in a second if only it allowed him to oppose abortion. The only criticism Pro can bring against the is-it-a-person test is that people might twist and distort it to achieve bad ends. But Pro is actively twisting and distorting his own tests to achieve bad ends. He twists the is-it-alive test to exclude brain-dead guy. He distorts the is-it-a-human test to include zygotes. We have to act in good faith, and adopt the test that leads to good results when it is not distorted.