### Three Views
1. Never permissible because the unborn is human
2. Always permissible because the mother is autonomous
3. Sometimes permissible, sometimes impermissible
### Thesis
Although secular thinkers believe opposition to abortion is a symptom of religion, abortion is in almost every case seriously immoral because killing a human fetus deprives it of its future.
### Arguments
1. Anti-life & anti-abortion positions are symmetrical: both appear plausible, appear "obvious", rest on basic truths such as the right to life and the right to bodily autonomy.
2. Fetus is not non-human... it is human (not a possum), so is it a human being, a human person, human cells?
3. If it's acceptable to kill human fetuses because they lack consciousness, rationality, will, decisions, etc., then it is acceptable to kill the elderly, disabled, or comatose who lack those traits.
4. If it's unacceptable to kill human fetuses, then it is unacceptable for mothers to determine their sexual choices, what happens in their own bodies and in their wombs.
### Arguments
5. It is wrong to kill _us_ because killing deprives us of our future: experiences, projects, activities, etc.
6. This principle explains why might be wrong to kill non-human animals too
7. It explains why it might be acceptable to euthanize the elderly who do not have much future
8. It explains why it is especially unacceptable to kill infants and young children
9. A fetus has a "future [with] a standard set of experiences, projects, activities and such which are identical with the futures of adult human beings... and young children."
### Arguments
1. "Since it is wrong to kill persons, it is wrong to kill potential persons also."
2. Compare to the argument against torturing animals: what's wrong with inflicting wanton pain? Simply that it causes suffering.
3. What makes it wrong to hurt humans is that it causes suffering, and so likewise what makes it wrong to hurt animals is that it causes suffering.
### Objections
1. Maybe abortion is only prima facie wrong, not wrong in all circumstances. Response: yes, just as killing another is only acceptable in very rare circumstances (war, self-defense, death penalty)
2. Maybe it's just wrong to discontinue the life of someone who already enjoys life or who has strong desires. Response: it's still wrong to kill people who don't have strong desires, or the unconscious, or suicidal.
### My opinion: Five justifications
1. Sexual liberation -- Any sexual activity that leads to pregnancy is justified, but pregnancy may not be desirable, so abortion is permissible to protect reproductive sexuality activity.
2. "Clump of cells" -- Fetus are not human beings/human persons
3. Bodily Autonomy -- Whatever is done to a woman's womb is not subject to legal or social oversight.
4. Emotional Trauma -- a baby conceived in rape or incest would cause intolerable ongoing trauma to the mother
4. Bodily Safety -- killing the fetus to save the mother's life
### Three responses
1. Sexual liberation -- some sexual practices are immoral; others are moral but the consequences cannot be avoided.
2. "Clump of cells" -- a fetus is a human being
3. Bodily Autonomy -- it is wrong to drink or do drugs while pregnant. So bodily autonomy is compatible with oversight.
4. Emotional trauma -- the child conceived can and [often is a good that redeems the trauma](https://www.thoughtco.com/with-love-all-things-are-possible-3534137), rather continues it.
5. Bodily safety -- it is permissible sometimes to kill an innocent human being to save another innocent human being; but this is true of any case including abortion.
### Life begins at conception
>“The life cycle of mammals begins when a sperm enters an egg.”
Okada et al., A role for the elongator complex in zygotic paternal genome demethylation, NATURE 463:554 (Jan. 28, 2010)
>“Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.” (Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, CELL TISSUE RES. 349(3):765 (Mar. 20, 2012)
### Discussion
* Is killing wrong because it deprives a person of his future?
### Question:
Supposing abortion is killing a human person, is abortion every permissible?
### Thesis:
Abortion is sometimes permissible, even if abortion is killing of an innocent human being, its right to life does not trump the mother's right to her own body; carrying the baby to term would be an extraordinary good deed, commendable but not obligatory, like helping a stranger in need.
### Arguments 1
1. Assume a fetus is a human person. Persons have a right to life. And mothers have a right to their body, but the right to life trumps. Therefore aborting the fetus is wrong.
2. Can this argument be overcome?
### Arguments 2
2. If the mother will die by bringing the child to full term, abortion is justifiable self-defense.
2. If the mother would die by bringing the child to full term, a doctor can perform the abortion because the woman has a right to her own body ("house")
3. Having a right to life does not entail having a right to be kept alive by another.
### Arguments 3
4. Even if I engage in pregnancy-causing activity, I do not owe the fetus my body. If I do not consent to its presence in my body, and work to prevent it, but it nevertheless takes root in my body, its right to life does not trump my right to my body.
5. The violinist who only needs one hour of your time should be accommodated. If a fetus only needed an hour of gestation, abortion would be decent, but still not obligatory. That is, it is minimally decent to give someone an hour, but not obligatory.
### Arguments 4
6. The Good Samaritan goes far out of his way to help another. The law does not require that we be Good Samaritans. Minimally Decent Samaritan laws are good (what it would be wrong _not_ to do) but Good Samaritan laws are not (what it would be _good to do_).
### Objection
- Perhaps a fetus is a person for whom the woman has a "special kind of responsibility issuing from the fact that she is its mother".
- Response: "Surely we do not have any such 'special responsibility' for a person unless we have assumed it, explicitly or implicitly." If a set of parents have "taken all reasonable precautions against having a child, they do not simply by virtue of their biological relationship to the child who comes into existence have a special responsibility for it." They may refuse responsibility, but that would be the act of a Splendid Samaritan.
### Objection 1
- Perhaps abortion is wrong if bringing the baby to term requires only Minimal Decency.
- She concedes that yes, then abortion is not permissible.
### Objection 2
- Also, the mother has the right to expel the fetus from her body, but has no right to insist on the fetus' _death_.
### Main Points
1. **Killing vs. letting die.** The mother has a right to let the fetus die, though not to kill it.
2. **Ownership of the body.** The mother has rights to her body even if the baby has a right to life.
3. **Choice vs. force.** The mother should not be forced to get pregnant (rape), forced to avoid pregnancy (abstinence), or forced to carry to term (outlawing abortion).
### Analogies: The Violinist
>You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own … [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you.
### Analogies: "Peopleseeds"
>Peopleseeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don’t want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective; and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the personplant who now develops have a right to the use of your house?
### Analogies: Acorns
>A very early abortion is surely not the killing of a person, and so is not dealt with by anything I have said here.
### Babies are not Acorns but Saplings
- Acorns:oak trees :: fetuses (blastocysts, embryos) : human persons.
- The correct analogies would be:
- (a) Acorns:oak trees :: sperm cells: human persons, or
- (b) oak saplings:oak trees:: fetus: adult.
- In other words, both are human beings.
### Violinist
- People choose to have sex, and 99% of abortions are done on babies who were conceived in an intentional, consensual sexual act.
- In 99% of abortions, the reasons the mother cites are that the baby would dramatically change her life, that she cannot afford the baby, don't want to be a single mother, or don't want people to know she was pregnant.
### Peopleseeds
- "Peopleseeds" float around the world, and float even through barred windows
- Abstinence:avoiding pregnancy :: having a hysterectomy: avoiding pregnancy
- Abstinence:avoiding pregnancy :: having a bodyguard: avoiding rape
- The best contraceptions are only effective in the ~90% range with normal (imperfect) use
- Abstinence is 100% effective
### Discussion
* Your questions?