The Morality of Abortion

Thank you for coming to tonight's debate. Since the rules of the debate stipulate openings in this round, and no rebuttals, I'm writing my arguments without having read Con's opening so that I might resist the temptation to sneak in a rebuttal. If it seems like I'm bringing up points Con has already anticipated and responded to, that's why. First, let me grant a few things. I grant that from the moment of conception, a unique entity comes into existence. I grant that it's human. I grant that it's alive. But those are not sufficient conditions for being an individual human being with a right to life. After all, any human organ or appendage is also human and alive, yet cutting off one's body parts (as is sometimes done in cosmetic surgery) does not have the moral severity we ordinarily attach to taking somebody's life. What is required, in addition to being human and being alive, is that the entity be a person--a somebody, a "who." Only somebody's have rights. Unless the entity is a somebody, killing it does not deprive anybody of their right to life. A person who kills a few cancer cells or even cuts off a finger isn't killing anybody because a finger or a cancer cell, by itself, is not a person. What I am going to argue is that in spite of the entity that comes into existence upon fertilization having a unique DNA, being human, and being alive, it is not a person. In fact, it cannot be a person. And since it's not a person, it is not immoral to abort it. My argument, in a nutshell, goes like this: 1. If the entity were a person, there would be a definite answer to the question. 2. There is no definite answer to the question. 3. Therefore, the entity is not a person. By "the entity," I'm talking about the whole combination of cells from the moment of conception until some period of time during development. It's not important for the sake of my argument when the end of that period is, just that it's some interval of time. Now, let me explain what I mean by "the question." This is the crux of my argument, and it's a little hard to explain, so please read carefully. For about the first 14 days or so after conception, the embryo is capable both of twinning and of fusion. Twinning is when the clump of cells splits into two or more clumps. If they stay split, the mother will eventually have identical twins (or triplets, or whatever). Fusion is more rare. That's when a set of twins comes back together and fuses into one entity again. On the assumption that a person comes into existence at conception, twinning and fusion create an unsolvable problem of personal identity. Let's call the entity before twinning 'P1,' the two entities after twinning 'P2' and 'P3,' and the entity after fusion 'P4.' Time wise, then, we'd have P1 splitting into P2 and P3. Later, we'd have P2 and P3 fusing into P4. Presumably, if P1 is a person, then so are P2, P3, and P4. Obviously, P2 and P3 cannot be the same person. They must be distinct persons. So which one is the original? Or are either of them the original? If P1 is the same person as P2, then P3 must've just come into existence. But why not say instead that it's P2 who just came into existence, and P3 is the same person as P1? Or maybe P1 ceases to exist, and both P2 and P3 come into existence. But what happens after fusion? Do two person cease to exist while a new person comes into existence? Or is P4 the same person as either P2 or P3? These puzzles are what I meant earlier by "the question." If a clump of cells splits into two clumps of cells, there is not criteria of personal identity that makes either P2 or P3 be the same person as P1. Any claim that either P2 or P3 is the same person as P1 is completely arbitrary. Nor is there any criteria by which we can say that P4 is the same person as P2 or P3 or that P4 is a distinct person from both P2 and P3. So however we answer "the question" is arbitrary. This is no mere epistemological question, either. It isn't just that we don't know what the answers are to these questions. It's that there is no answer to these questions. This is an ontological problem, not an epistemological problem. Ontologically, there is nothing that makes P2 or P3 the same person as P1 or P4. Likewise, there is nothing that prevents either P2 or P3 from being the same person as P1 or P4. So there is no definite answer to "the question" of which person (P2 or P3) is the same person as P1 or P4. However, if P1 really is a person, there would have to be a definite answer to the question. The answer would be that P2 is the same person as P1, or that P3 is the same person as P1, or that P1 ceases to exist, and P2 and P3 are new persons who come into existence upon twinning, etc. The fact that there is no answer to the question shows that it's impossible for P1 to be a person. If P1 is not a person, then an individual human life does not come into existence at conception. That means from conception to some later time, abortion is morally permissible. It's morally permissible because ending the life of the embryo does not deprive anybody of their right to life since the embryo at that stage of development is not a "somebody." Thank you.