Abortion is a woman's right

My argument will take the form of a syllogism and will be short, sweet, and to the point. Nothing too complicated. My burden in this debate is to show that abortion, in general, is not a woman's right. My syllogism will attempt to show that a no one and by extension, women, has the right to end the life of another human person without moral justification. I will also try to show that since abortion does this, then abortion is not a right. Syllogism:Premise 1- People don't, and by extension, women, have the right to end the life of another human without moral justification. Premise 2- Abortion, in general, ends the life of another human without moral justification. Conclusion- Therefore, abortion, in general, is not a woman's right. Defense of Premise 1- To defend my first premise I must show that people, and by extension, women, don't have the right end the life of another human person without moral justification. My underlying assumptions will be that firstly, that the unborn are human persons. And, secondly that no one has the right to kill humans without moral justification. Are the unborn "humans"? There isn't much controversy as to when life begins, so I won't spend too much time on this argument. To quote an embryology text book,"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed. .. . The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity. " [O'Rahilly, Ronan and Muller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29. ]As said before, there isn't much controversy as to when life begins. It begins at fertilization. I'm sure that my opponent understands this. The more difficult part of my burden will be to show that it is generally morally wrong to kill the unborn. The FLO Argument:The FLO is an argument put forth by philosopher Don Marquis [. http://www.bbc.co.uk...].As Marquis analyzes, "The claim that the primary wrong-making feature of a killing is the loss to the victim of the value of its future has obvious consequences for the ethics of abortion. The future of a standard foetus includes a set of experiences, projects, activities, and such which are identical with the futures of adult human beings and are identical with the futures of young children. Since the reason that is sufficient to explain why it is wrong to kill human beings after the time of birth is a reason that also applies to foetuses, it follows that abortion is prima facie morally wrong. " [Don Marquis, Why Abortion is Immoral, The Journal of Philosophy, 86:4] It claims that what makes killing postnatal human beings generally morally wrong is that it deprives them of a meaningful future. The fetus that is having its life ended during an abortion is having losing any potential for having a meaningful future. The same applies to postnatal human beings. The argument is particulary appealing because it groups prenatal and postnatal human together because they have a meaningful future, not because they both have personhood. Other reasons as to why killing is generally morally wrong fail because they don't apply necessarily to all humans. The experiencing of pain fails because we don't grant that it is morally permissible to kill people who can't feel pain or are on anesthesia. It is not because their family members and friends will mourn their death because we don't grant that it is necessarily morally permissible to kill a hermit and someone who has lost contact with their friends or family. The FLO works because it applies to infants who haves diminished forms of personhood, it applies to people who experience episodic losses of conciousness. The FLO has the best explanatory power out of many other alternative theories as to why it is morally wrong to kill human beings with a meaningful future, a "future-like-ours". Thus, from this we can see that killing humans with meaningful futures is generally morally wrong and therefore, violates fundamental normative rules about what people should be allowed to do. This makes it obviously clear that killing is not a right of anyone, even women. Is there a moral justification? :I am running low on time and I feel as if moral skepticism would be necessary here. Where is the moral justification in abortion? After all, if we are to be morally skeptical, then a position of agnosticism would seem to be an appropriate attitude to have towards abortion being morally justified. I showed in my FLO argument that abortion is probably generally immoral. I would love to here from my opponent if she has one. If she decides not to give one, then I shall cover this in the next round, I would hate to forfeit. I digress and turn it over to my opponent.