I affirm the resolution: On balance, abortion is immoral. This is obviously going to be a philosophical and ethical debate surrounding the ethics of abortion and the value of the unborn. The value premise that I want to uphold is the value of human dignity. Human dignity "is the recognition that human beings possess a special value intrinsic to their humanity and as such are worthy of respect simply because they are human beings". Indeed, as the UN Declaration of Human Rights reads:
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world...
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person...
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
So when does this value of dignity begin? The criteria for which I weigh this value of universalism: this value of dignity applies wholesale to every human being from the moment of conception to the time of death. Because it is fundamentally immoral to murder any human being and this applies globaly down to the fetus level. Cross-examination question 1: At what point does taking human life become impermissible? What is the reason for that criteria?
C1) Abortion is prima facie immoral
In Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, Francis J. Beckwith lays out the argument in a syllogism form:
P2 is obviously true and P3 is true by definition. The real debate will be over premise 1.
Beckwith defines full-fledged members of the human community as a "bearer of rights as any human being whose rights-bearing status is uncontroversial, for example, her mother, you, or me". He then further notes:
Second, when I say that killing a member of the human community is prima facie morally wrong I mean to say that in ordinary circumstances no one is morally justified in killing another human being. However, this does not mean that it is always wrong in every circumstance to kill someone who is fully human. There could be circumstances in which killing is justified, such as in cases of self-defense or just war. In the case of abortion, the killing of an unborn entity is justified if her presence in her mother’s womb poses a significant threat to her mother’s life...The specific intention is not to kill the unborn entity but to save the life of the mother. The child’s death is an unfortunate, though anticipated, consequence that cannot be avoided unless one is willing to let both mother and child die. Such a decision is the result of applying pro-life principles: it is prima facie a higher good that one human being should live rather than two die if one cannot save both.
So there are a few important points in play:
So why think premise 1 is true? P1 is true because there is no real distinguishments between a fetus and a post-birth human that doesn't collapse into absudrity or question begging and the value of dignity is best applied gloablly (more on this later).
The next question is if abortion can sometimes be justified then why should we affirm the resolution that abortion is, on balance, immoral? Because the vast majority of abortions are not cases like saving a life, severe fetal abnormalities, rape, and other extreme cases. The vast majority of abortions are done for things like socioeconomic reasons and convenience and those cases abortion is unjustified
C2: Human Life Begins At Conception
Subpoint A: The Scientific Consensus:
Central to this debate is the question on when human value begins and whether or not a fetus can truly be considered life. So when does life acutally begin? I contend that it begins at fertilization. This is the scientific consensus. Peter Singer, a philosopher who is known for their pro-choice views, admits this (page 85-86):
It is possible to give ‘human being’ a precise meaning. We can use it as equivalent to ‘member of the species Homo sapiens’. Whether a being is a member of a given species is something that can be determined scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and eggs is a human being; and the same is true of the most profoundly and irreparably intellectually disabled human being, even of an infant who is born anencephalic - literally, without a brain...
To be fair to Singer, he does continue on to argue why they are not morally or legally persons. We will critique his criteria later.
Further, a 2021 paper by Steven Andrew Jacobs found:
Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions around the world assessed survey items on when a human's life begins and, overall, 96% (5337 out of 5577) affirmed the fertilization view. The founding principles of the field Science Communication suggest that scientists have an ethical and professional obligation to inform Americans, as well as people around the world, about scientific developments so members of the public can be empowered to make life decisions that are consistent with the best information available. Given that perspective-and a recent study's finding that a majority of Americans believe they deserve to know when a human's life begins in order to make informed reproductive decisions-science communicators should work to increase the level of science awareness on the fertilization view, as it stands alone as the leading biological perspective on when a human's life begins.
C3: Moral disqualifiers leads to absurdity
Pro-choice advocates are forced to answer the question why do post-birth humans count but the unborn do not? To answer that question, many have proposed disqualifiers on moral personhood. Going back to Singer, he argues:
This use of 'person' is itself, unfortunately, liable to mislead, since 'person' is often used as if it meant the same as 'human being'. Yet the terms are not equivalent; there could be a person who is not a member of our species. There could also be members of our species who are not persons. The word 'person' has its origin in the Latin term for a mask worn by an actor in classical drama. By putting on masks the actors signified that they were acting a role. Subsequently 'person' came to mean one who plays a role in life, one who is an agent. According to the Oxford Dictionary, one of the current meanings of the term is 'a self-conscious or rational being'. This sense has impeccable philosophical precedents. John Locke defines a person as 'A thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places.'
Singer ultimately argues two things:
We then must force the question: what distinguishes a person from a non-person? What are the qualifications and disqualifications for personhood and why? Going back to my previous thesis: There is no real distinction between a post-birth human and a fetus. To illlustrate I will present the "SLED" test:
S: Size
It is true that fetus is a lot smaller than even an infant. But why would the size of a human disqualify it from the right to life? If the negative wants to use size as a disqualifier then they are forced to answer what is the height / weight requirement to be a person and why?
L: Level of Development
Also true is the fact that a fetus is still developing yet at the same time so are infants, teenagers, and young adults. If the negative wants to use development as a qualifier then they are forced to answer and what level of development does something become a person?
E: Environment
"Where one is is irrelevant to who one is.... The fact that a child may be in her mother's womb is a geographical fact not a moral judgement." Personhood cannot be attributed to ones geographic location.
D: Degree of Dependency
It is true that a fetus is significantly more depended than even an infant, but then that again begs the question: What degree of dependency is required to become a person? Futhermore, if a person ages or becomes disabled and is no longer indpendent then do they suddenly lose their personhood?
Outside the SLED test there are a few other qualifiers / disqualifiers I want to address
A. Level of Consciousness
Some have argued that because fetuses lack self-awareness they are not persons and abortion is permitted. The issue with this is that it forces the question what level of consciousness is required for personhood? Indeed, if someone becomes unconscious via a coma or a vegetative state then do they lose their rights?
B. Just a clump of cells
Another common argument is that a fetus is just a clump of cells and thus has no serious right. But then again, isn't that what all life is? Doesn't all life boil down to a clump of cells?
Conclusion
On balance, abortion is immoral because in most circumstances it unjustly takes the life of a person.
I am out of space. Over to con!
Personhood:
I am willing to work with the definition of personhood Pro provided as a starting point with the following caveat: to be a person, a human must have current or past consciousness. In the vast majority of cases, individuals in a coma or vegetative state had consciousness in the past, so this standard would not exclude them as persons, while it would exclude fetuses. As Pro does not specifically address this potential moral disqualifier, I will address it below.
Property Analogy:
If someone were to build a house on an unused plot of land, they would be reasonable in asserting that it is “theirs” and that we ought not to trespass on their property. However, if someone has never encountered this plot of land, it would be absurd to say that we are infringing on their rights by using this land just because they might desire it in the future. Someone could have a legitimate claim to something now or even down the line, but for the claim to exist, they must have a desire for the thing in the first place. As a fetus has no desires, it stakes no claim to anything. This doesn’t require voicing said desire (the person on the property might not be able to voice a desire), but this is clearly a step above not having a desire for the thing in the first place. These claims would carry into the future as well; if someone claimed property and then went unconscious, this would not suddenly give us a right to steal their property.
Body Analogy:
Morally speaking, we give individuals distinct rights over their own body that we wouldn’t give them over random arbitrary objects. I argue that my proposed standard of desires is necessary to draw this line in the first place. For most humans, the line is quite clear since the “mind” actually exists and has a clear connection to the body that it doesn’t have to other arbitrary objects. For an unconscious fetus, with no thoughts or conscious control of its cells, while we could draw a “biological” line between the mother’s body begins and the fetus’ body ends, its body behaves for all practical purposes as an extension of the woman. The woman might feel pain if something affects the unconscious fetus, but the fetus will not. The woman has control over the fetus’ body to largely the same extent as her own.
Transformation Analogy:
Similarly to the previous point, suppose you had a good reason to get your appendix removed, but due to some hex or spell, you knew with 100% certainty that if you didn’t get it removed, it would turn into a sentient human in nine months. Would this make it suddenly immoral to remove your appendix? It seems like it obviously would not be. Perhaps you could argue that the appendix isn’t a member of the homo sapiens species, but effectively the difference seems pretty minimal; it’s an entity composed of human cells developing into the same thing as a fetus is developing into. At that point, it makes as much sense for our practical understanding of “human species” to include the magic appendix as much as a fetus.
Cells Analogy:
We can define a “human being” as “member of the species Homo sapiens,” but is there any reason that this particular distinction should be more morally significant than any other? If we’re going to afford personhood on the basis of some biological distinction, I argue it would be no less arbitrary to define a person as “any entity composed of human cells.” After all, we can note that the people we encounter are all composed of human cells. Yet, even by identifying a biological category that includes persons, we incidentally end up including entities that are clearly not persons (such as sperm and eggs). Additionally, instead of “human being,” we could instead use the category of “a human being at least 20 weeks old” or “a human being that has been born” and include most entities that most of us agree are people. Basically, there’s no particular reason to draw the line at the place Pro is drawing it, as it’s a mostly arbitrary place.
Kidney Analogy:
Even if a fetus were a person, it would not follow that there is no justification for abortion. As Pro points out, this only means that killing this entity is wrong prima facie. However, abortion is a case of revoking bodily support, refusing to keep another being alive with one’s own body. Hence, ceasing this support would be akin to refusing to donate a kidney, or ceasing to donate blood to someone. Even though that human may be a person, this does not imply a moral obligation to continue supporting them with your body.
In response to the opening case for human dignity from conception ([3b]), the opponent ([3e]) concedes that personhood cannot require present consciousness (since that would allow killing people who are asleep or in a reversible coma), and instead proposes a modified criterion: "to be a person, a human must have current or past consciousness." The opponent then advances five analogies—the Property Analogy, Body Analogy, Transformation (Magic Appendix) Analogy, Cells Analogy, and Kidney Analogy—to defend abortion. Below, I demonstrate that the "past consciousness" caveat is an ad hoc gerrymander that gets the temporal direction of moral value entirely backward, and I refute all five analogies point by point.
First, consider why it is wrong to kill someone in a temporary coma, yet permissible to withdraw life support from a permanently brain-dead or irreversibly comatose patient. Notice that both the reversibly comatose patient and the irreversibly comatose patient possess past consciousness! Both had desires, memories, and experiences in the past. Why, then, does the reversibly comatose patient retain a stringent right not to be killed while the permanently brain-dead body does not? As Don Marquis (1989) and Francis Beckwith (2007) point out, the difference has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the future: the reversibly comatose patient has a future life of conscious experience ahead of them if not killed, whereas the irreversibly comatose patient does not. Since the fetus also has an entire future of conscious experience ahead of it, it is future capacity—not past consciousness—that grounds the wrongness of killing.
This also refutes the opponent’s Property Analogy (claiming that just as you must encounter and desire a plot of land before you can claim it as property, you must first desire life before you have a right to life). First, human life is not an external piece of real estate waiting to be homesteaded; your life is constitutive of who you are. Second, suppose an infant is born in a temporary coma induced by birth trauma or heavy maternal anesthesia, so that it has never yet had a single moment of conscious desire, and will wake up for the first time in 48 hours. Under the opponent's Property Analogy and "past consciousness" rule, that newborn infant has never staked a conscious desire for life, so a doctor could lethally inject it in the nursery without violating any rights! That is manifestly absurd.
Let us examine the opponent’s three biological analogies:
Finally, the opponent argues that abortion is merely "revoking bodily support, akin to refusing to donate a kidney." First, as established in the critique of Judith Jarvis Thomson, refusing to donate a kidney to a stranger who is dying of renal disease is passively letting someone die of a pathology you did not cause. In abortion, the fetus is not dying of any disease; surgical and chemical abortions actively attack and terminate a healthy organism. Second, you did not bring the kidney patient into existence inside your body through your own voluntary action, nor are you that patient's biological parent. Therefore, none of the five analogies succeed in overriding the unborn child's right to life.
