Abortion

Introduction I'm not going to be responding to the various objections that were put forth to the arguments I advanced last round. I will leave that for the next round. Instead I will be responding to my opponent's opening statements. With that said, let me begin. The Desire View of Personhood My opponent's defense of abortion is essentially the same as Peter Singer and Michael Tooley. Under this view, what makes killing individuals like you or me wrong is that it frustrates our desire to continue living. One can have a desire to continue living if they have the concept of oneself as a continuing subject of experience. In other words, one must possess self-awareness. This defense of abortion also entails that infanticide is morally permissible. To quote Singer: "If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee is to the nonhuman animal. " [1]For those unfamiliar with the philosophical literature on abortion, this view may sound very shocking and seem extremely counterintuitive. Most people who are Pro-Choice will think that it's morally permissible to kill the fetus but not the newborn. On this defense of abortion provided by Tooley and Singer, abortion is morally permissible throughout all 9 months of pregnancy and infanticide up until a week after birth (Tooley) or a month (Singer). I believe there are good reasons to reject this argument exploited by my opponent, and below I have provided 6 objections to it. The Suicidal Teenager Objection So if we take the view that killing is wrong because it frustrates our desire to continue living, then we are committed to the view that it's not morally wrong to kill a suicidal teenager. Such a human being does not desire to preserve his life, and thus we have no moral obligation to refrain from killing him. But surely this doesn't seem right. Just because someone doesn't desire that their life continue mean it's okay to end their life. Imagine you heard about this suicidal teenager and had just finished reading Tooley and Singer's account of the wrongness of killing. You then decide to go kill this young man and you say to yourself "well, what I did was not wrong since he didn't desire to live. " However, clearly you did something seriously wrong by killing him. You deprived him of his future of value and took advantage of him while he was vulnerable. The Religious Martyr Objection The desire view of the wrongness of killing also would not explain why it would be wrong to kill a religious martyr. That is a person who believes they will go to paradise if they end their own life or someone kills them. Surely most of us would think that such a person is delusional and it would be seriously wrong to end their life. But under the desire view, it's not explained why killing this human being would be wrong. The Temporarily Comatose Adult Objection Adults in a temporary coma also don't desire to continuing living. They are completely unconscious and thus lack this important desire. The Indoctrinated Slave Objection Suppose that I am a slave owner and that I indoctrinate my slaves from birth and make them believe that they have no desire or interest in continuing to live. Even though they lack the desire to live and take no interest in their own welfare, it still seems wrong to kill these humans beings even though they don't fit into Tooley and Singer's standard for being wronged by certain things. The Creation of Brainless Human Beings Objection Imagine that I am a mad scientist and I find the part of the brain that is responsible for desire in human beings. Now suppose that a pregnant woman allows me to alter the brain of her fetus while it's in the early stages of its development. The alter will be such that when this human being is finally born it will have no desires at all. It will grow into an adult and become my slave along with all the other human beings that I altered to have no desires while they were in utero. Suppose further that I performed this same kind of procedure on female fetuses and when they were born and grew into adults I turned them into sex dolls. However, after doing all of these things I'm quite confident that I have done nothing wrong. This is because I have not frustrated any desires and thus, according to my opponent's line of argument, not violated them. But surely what I have been doing is morally wrong. I deprived these human beings of their future of value and failed to respect them. The Buddhist Master and Divine Persons Objection Humans beings who follow Buddhism believe that the extinguishing of all desire is possible. If a Buddhist ever reached the point of perfection, he would lose all his desires and thus no longer have a right to life under Pro's line of argument. The same would be true of divine persons who, if they existed, would lack all desires. Since desires are viewed as a lack of perfection and weakness. But surely if these beings actually existed, they would be worthy of respect and consideration. In fact, these beings would probably be worthy of more respect than average human beings. Since they would possess qualities that are vastly superior to our’s. Conclusion Pro's desire or preference view of the wrongness of killing suffers from many difficulties and his defense of abortion should therefore be rejected. Sources: (1)Peter Singer. Practical Ethics P160-161(2) Christopher Kaczor. The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice (Routledge Annals of Bioethics) P59