Abortion is generally immoral

Pro's argumentPremise 2: Pro argues that there are four factors that distinguish pre-birth humans from post-birth humans that do not nullify pre-birth humans' intrinsic value. However, the issue here is not whether pre-birth humans' intrinsic value, which we have established is enjoyed by post-birth humans, are nullified by these or any other factors. The issue is whether pre-birth humans have this value in the first place. This cannot be established merely by appealing to the value of post-birth humans. The burden is Pro's, not mine.Moreover, I did demonstrate in my LOH argument a characteristic that post-birth humans have that pre-birth humans do not: the capacity for ideal desires.Premise 3: For the argument thus far to be valid, Pro must show a logical contradiction between the following statements:* This is an organism of the species homo sapiens.* This organism has intrinsic value.* It is not immoral for me to kill this organism or allow it to die.Pro has not done this. Premise 3a and/or 3b may be true by virtue of 1 and 2, but Pro has the burden to show this.Premise 4a: The fact that other methods of terminating pregnancy other than abortion does not establish that abortion has the primary effect of killing the fetus. Establishing what primary effect abortion has is achieved by asking what abortion does. This is addressed below.Lack of harms argumentPremise 1: Pro argues that abortion is an overriding harm, and attempts to give a reason. However, premise 1 does not state that abortion is not an overriding harm. This is stated by premise 2. Premise 1 states something else, and remains unaddressed.Premise 2 - Values: Pro argues that the 100 embryos will not necessarily survive if removed from the house as they may not survive implantation or be used for research. This can be answered by modifying the scenario to stipulate that all 100 embryos are earmarked for implantation, and that the procedure that would be used has a high success rate. Not all 100 may survive, but many will; almost certainly more than one. I continue to submit that any non-sociopath would rescue the girl rather than the canister.Pro also argues, via his child vs. stranger analogy, that it is our familiarity with the child that would cause us to save her rather than the canister. That is fine. As I have said, it does not matter what rationale the AAR proponent uses to save the child rather than the canister; the fact would remain that he does, and thus values a single post-birth human more than a multitude of post-birth humans.Premise 2 - Desires: Like Marquis, Pro fails to make the distinction between actual and ideal desires. In his example of the slave, the slave would desire to be alive if not for the cognitive distortion caused by his brainwashing: this is an ideal desire.In his example of the cloned, brain-dead human, we must be careful to ask whether the neural capacity to have desires was grown and then removed, or was never grown in the first place. If the former, then the clone would desire to live and prosper if not for the cognitive distortion of having part of his brain removed: this is an ideal desire. If the latter, then the clone has no ideal desires, as it never had the capacity to form ideal desires, and thus there is no overriding harm in terminating its life. (The morality of human cloning itself is not germane to the instant argument.)Finally, as for Uncle Bob, if the damage he suffered was really such that all of his memories were destroyed and his neuronic structure altered, then the question of whether Uncle Bob has the right to life is moot. Uncle Bob is already dead. The person that he was, the sum of his memories and experiences and personality, has ceased to exist. There's no bringing him back. If the brain can still function, then a new person will have come to be; he will have different personality traits, and will form new memories and experiences. This person has a right to live, but he will not be Uncle Bob.In addition to the above, Pro argued in his response to premise 1, where it did not belong, that abortion is an overriding harm because the right to life trumps a woman's right to convenience. This is circular, however, because whether a pre-birth human has such a right is precisely what is at issue in the instant argument, and he has not yet established it elsewhere.Moral obligations argumentPremise 1: Pro argues that carrying a fetus to term meets, rather than exceeds, a mother's moral obligations. However, premise 1 does not state that carrying a fetus to term exceeds a mother's moral obligations. This is stated in premise 3. Premise 1 again states something else, and again remains unaddressed.Premise 2: Conceded by Pro.Premise 3: Pro contends that there is a morally relevant dissimilarity (hereafter MRD) between the violinist analogy and pregnancy, in that in the former, the woman is the victim of violence, whereas most pregnancies result from consensual sex. Since Pro argues that this is a morally relevant point, Pro has made the concession, contra his construal of the resolution[5], that abortion is moral in the event of rape. Pro must therefore either change his construal, or concede the debate.To rebut this argument on the merits, however, consider a modification to the violinist analogy (hereafter V):V1) The woman, rather than being kidnapped, checks herself into the hospital for an elective surgery. She is aware that there is a solar storm happening that day, that there is a small chance that this may cause the computers to malfunction and give her a different procedure, and that there is a small chance that, if this happens, she may be plugged into the violinist while unconscious.[6]By checking herself into the hospital, does the woman thereby consent to being plugged into the violinist? Of course not. Likewise, a woman who has sex knowing that it carries a small chance of pregnancy does not thereby consent to pregnancy.Pro contends that by consensually taking the act she did, a pregnant woman is responsible for the both the existence of the pre-birth human, and for the fact that, given it exists, it is needy. The former may be true but is not relevant, since abortion does not deprive an organism of existence, only of what it needs to survive. In response to the latter, consider a modification of Pro's own "pleasure machine" analogy.C1) There is a cellist in an unrecoverable coma, who is about to die. The pleasure machine, rather than popping out a baby, releases a gas that has two effects on the cellist. First, it prevents his imminent death and extends his life by a few weeks. Second, it makes it possible for him to come out of his coma, provided that you agree to hook your kidneys up to him for nine months.[7]If you press the button, the cellist will exist and need your kidneys. If you don't, the cellist will not exist. You do not have the option to cause the cellist to exist and not be needy. It follows that if you press the button, then you are responsible for the cellist's existence, but not for his neediness. Likewise, there is no action that the woman could have taken such that the fetus would exist but not need her body. She is not responsible for the fetus's neediness.Finally, Pro proposes his own modification to V:V2) Same as V, but in order to unplug herself, the woman must stab the violinist in the heart.Pro argues that this is more morally similar to abortion than V. But this would only be the case if, prior to extracting the pre-birth human from the woman's body, it is killed. In the vast majority of abortions, this is not the case. Most abortions, especially before week 16 when 95% of all abortions take place[8], are performed by aspirating or chemically evacuating the uterus[9]; no direct interaction takes place. (This also addresses Pro's premise 4a, above.)[5] Pro's statement, round 1.[6] Boonin, p. 162.[7] Boonin, pp. 196-197[8] http://bit.ly... - note that this is an AAR site.[9] http://bit.ly...