Abortion Is Morally Permissible

Opening Argument Let me begin by saying that I am excited to be debating such a well-read and sophisticated opponent as Freeman. In this debate I will advance two arguments to show that abortion is, in general, morally impermissible. In the abortion documentary Lake of Fire, bioethicist Peter Singer explains the central question lying behind the abortion debate. He says “Ultimately, of course, the whole decision is based on what you think makes killing wrong.”[i] Therefore, in order to argue that abortion is wrong, I must show why it is generally wrong to kill human beings, and then why it is wrong to kill a human embryo or fetus. (Who I shall refer to as “the unborn”) The Substance View The first argument I will present is the substance view of the human person. This argument is advanced by pro-life advocates such as Francis Beckwith and Patrick Lee and proposes that what makes humans valuable and the subjects of rights is not an acquired property, but an intrinsic property of their very being. To begin, let us start with the fairly uncontroversial premise that normal, adult humans have a right-to-life. We must now ask why it is generally wrong to kill normal, adult humans. We might say that they want to live and that killing them frustrates their desires or future plans. But that wouldn’t explain why it is generally considered wrong to kill human infants but not wrong to kill squirrels (both of which probably have the same “plans” or “desires” to continue living). Instead, there must be something that creates continuity between our infant selves and our adult selves. Under the substance view, human beings come into existence as intrinsically valuable beings and do not acquire personhood in the same way they acquire other accidental properties.[ii] Instead, their personhood, or right-to-life, is the same kind of property as their humanity or their ability to occupy space and time. That is, a human being’s personhood is an essential property. As members of a rational kind, or human substances, human beings have an intrinsic right throughout their life to not be killed unjustly. According to the substance view, even if a human person cannot immediately exercise person-like attributes (such as rational thought) because they are disabled or too young to exercise them, they are still persons because they are the same kind of intrinsically valuable being throughout their entire existence.[iii] They are not like an object that acquires properties through the addition of parts. They are instead a substance that unveils intrinsic properties throughout their development. We can put the argument this way It is prima facie wrong to kill a normal, adult human being because they are members of an intrinsically valuable kind of being. The unborn do not undergo any substantial change in their development to become members of a rational kind and therefore possess the same intrinsic value as adult members of our species. Therefore, it is prima facie wrong to kill the unborn. But perhaps you are unconvinced that humans are a “substance” or that their “value” or “rights” persist through change. I would like to propose then a second argument, which is not mutually exclusive with the first argument, to believe that it is wrong to kill the unborn. The Future-Like-Ours Argument Let us return to the case of a normal, adult human being. What reason do we give for why it is wrong to kill them? I gave one example (infants who lack human-specific desires) to refute the idea that our desire to live is the reason killing humans is wrong. “The desire theory” also wouldn’t explain why it’s wrong to kill someone committing suicide (such as the case of me using a sniper rifle to pick off people who just jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge). After all, if their only desire is to die, then killing them won’t frustrate that desire and can’t be wrong for that reason. Instead, let us consider what is often said when a human, especially a young human like a child, suddenly dies or is killed. People usually say, “They had so much to live for . . .” or “He took away our daughter’s life from her.” In these contexts, it seems that the wrongness of killing is focused on how killing deprives us of certain things. According to University of Kansas philosopher Don Marquis, killing not only deprives someone of what they currently desire (like a six-year-old’s desire to see her parents), it also deprives them of everything they would have desired if they continued living (such as the six year old’s future desire to get married and have a family). Marquis writes, “Therefore, when I die, I am deprived of all the value of my future. Inflicting this loss on me is ultimately what makes killing wrong. This being the case it would seem that what makes killing any adult human being prima facie seriously wrong is the loss of his future.”[iv] We can formulate Marquis’s argument this way: Killing something with a future-like-ours (FLO) is prima facie wrong A fetus or embryo possesses a FLO Therefore, killing a fetus or embryo is prima facie wrong David Boonin, a pro-choice philosopher from CU-Boulder, writes of premise two, “The future-like-ours argument appeals to an actual property that the fetus already has, the property of having a valuable personal future. This is an actual property it shares with us, not a potential it has to acquire which we already actually possess.”[v] Under FLO, adult humans, infants, suicidal people, and the unborn, which have a right-to-life under the substance view, would also have a FLO thus making it doubly wrong to kill them. Furthermore, the FLO account of killing undercuts most objections to the substance view. Some defenders of abortion try to rebut the substance view by claiming that it grants the right-to-life to humans that don’t seem to deserve it such as the brain-dead, the irreversibly comatose, or anencephalic infants (infants whose brains are defective and will die shortly after birth). I will respond more to this objection in my rebuttal, but I would note that the FLO account of killing explains the intuitions some people have that the previous examples of humans do not possess a right-to-life. That is because in each of these cases these humans no longer have the possibility of having a “future-like-ours” and therefore FLO adherents would say killing them is not seriously wrong. However, normal embryos and fetuses do have a FLO and are closer in kind to a sleeping infant than a brain-dead adult. It’s important to note that Marquis only argues that the FLO is a sufficient condition for the wrongness of killing, not a necessary condition. Marquis admits that some people, like the terminally ill, may not have a FLO, but that it may still be wrong to kill them for other reasons (one of which I would argue is the substance view).[vi] Conclusion In closing, I believe that humans are the kind of being that maintain their identity and intrinsic value through developmental change. Even though I don’t share any of the same memories, and only 10% of the same bodily material[vii], with my newborn, infant self, I can confidently say “I (not a thing that later became me) was born on such and such day/year” and “it was wrong to kill me (not the thing that became me) when I was an infant.” I argued that this continuity of value and identity is best explained in the view that human beings are a substance that persists throughout their whole existence. Therefore, it was wrong to kill my infant self because he either had the same intrinsic right-to-life that I possess now (the substance view), or because killing him would deprive him of a future-like-ours. Likewise, it is generally wrong to kill the unborn because they have an intrinsic right-to-life that is possessed throughout their whole existence (the substance view), and/or they possess a future-like-ours that abortion deprives them of (the FLO account). Sources: http://www.debate.org...