1761
rating
31
debates
95.16%
won
Topic
#3528
THBT: On balance, the US ought to make abortion illegal.
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 10 votes and with the same amount of points on both sides...
It's a tie!
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 17,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
1724
rating
27
debates
88.89%
won
Description
THBT: On balance, the US ought to make abortion illegal
BoP:
The burden of proof is shared.
RULES:
1. No Kritik.
2. No new arguments are to be made in the final round.
3. The Burden of Proof is shared.
4. Rules are agreed upon and are not to be contested.
5. Sources can be hyperlinked or provided in the comment section.
6. Be decent.
7. A breach of the rules should result in a conduct point deduction for the offender.
Round 1
Thx Whiteflames,
THBT: On balance, abortion ought to be illegal.
I. Distinguishing the case of PRO and CON & the argument from inconsequential differences
To establish the contention between the PRO and CON, we ought to first determine commonalities between the parties. PRO’s position is that the actualization of biological humanity suffices as a criterion for ascribing personhood, whilst CON holds that only after some finite time post conception, whether it be consciousness, birth etc, personhood ought to be ascribed. The commonality can be observed in the fact that both parties hold that only beings with biological humanity can be considered (whatever CON chooses as the additional criteria [consciousness, birth etc] their additional predicate is applied on the backdrop of biological humanity) as possessing personhood, with the difference being that CON advocates that biological humanity is not the sole determiner of personhood.
The commonality and differences between the two positions is crucial and ought to be clearly understood.
- PRO holds that all beings who are humans possess personhood.
- CON holds that all beings who are humans and possess X characteristic (be it birth, self-awareness) possess personhood.
The additional burden which CON carries is clear - they must maintain that, not only must being human be fulfilled as a criteria, but also some additional predicate which they must define. PRO opines that the onus of identifying an additional predicate which does not result in logical inconsistencies is impossible. I propose three reasons for this. The first regards the logical impossibility of proposing a sound criteria for instilling personhood between conception and birth, the second observes that even if a criteria is conjured, it is subjective and ambiguous, thereby failing to satisfy the criterion of legal certainty, and the third finds that the creation of an additional predicate is itself an unnecessary ontological burden.
Impossibility of proposing a criteria from inconsequential differences
The differences between a fetus and a born baby is three fold.
- Level of development
- Environment
- Degree of dependency
I assert that these differences are insignificant in determining the moral agency of an individual.
Level of development
Children are generally less developed than adults yet this does not mean that children are morally inferior to their parents. Some people with developmental disabilities are also less developed than children, yet society never argues that these conditions are a reason for them to be executed.
Environment
The geographic location of an individual surely has nothing to do with their moral worth. Just as moving from the garage to the bedroom does not affect one's moral worth, moving from inside the womb onto the delivery room table shouldn’t either.
Degree of dependency
It is often opined that "as a fetus is reliant on a separate entity, it has no serious right to life”. This argumentation can be applied to all human beings. No person isn’t reliant on some external entity, whether it is food, water, or oxygen - it just so happens that fetuses are also dependent on their mothers. Fetuses which rely on an umbilical cord in the womb should be as human as those who rely on a feeding tube outside the womb.
Thus, it can be seen that the differences between a fetus and a newborn are nonconsequential. There is no stage between conception and birth that allows for people to soundly prescribe moral agency. Thus, if we are to pursue the notion that human beings ought to have rights, the only appropriate time to establish this is the actualization of biological humanity.
Subjectivity and ambiguity
Suppose that we compare the value of a fetus and a newborn. Ceteris paribus, a newborn, possesses more moral worth than a mere fetus. However, consider what a mother who, after countless attempts of conceiving a child and who finally succeeds, would think of their “fetus”. Surely, she would hold the moral worth of the fetus to equal, if not higher, moral regard when compared with live humans. Notice how, in the two examples, a very different moral worth has been yielded when considering the fetus’ value. Who is correct? The layman who cares little for the fetus, or the future mother who can finally fulfill her dreams of being a parent and who cares very much for the fetus? Notice that, even if one were to articulate a factor which determines moral worth, another party can simply object and propose their own criteria, thereby casting the conversation into a standstill. The fact that one being (the fetus) can be subjected to contrapositive moral treatments from differing individuals is wholly illogical - in reality, the fetus either has rights, or it doesn’t - a third option is impossible via the law of excluded middle. It seems clear, therefore, that a vehicle for determining moral worth which creates two contradictory assessments is not sufficient in prescribing personhood. Thus, even if CON can propose a criteria, it is purely speculative and merely an articulation of their personal values. Such ambiguities are wholly to contradictory to the stipulations of what makes a law, according to The Rule of the Law, subarticle, consistency.
- Introduction
- The requirement of consistency is deeply rooted in English Law. The rule of law requires that laws be applied equally without unjustifiable differentiation.
- Inconsistency is one of the most frequent manifestations of unfairness that a person is likely to meet.
As has been demonstrated via the previous arguments, the creation of an additional predicate outside of the actualization of biological humanity leads to inconsistencies which nullify the rights of born humans (those who are developmentally disabled, those who require a feeding tube etc) and thus squares perfectly to what The Rule of the Law stipulates oughtn't be in a law - unjustifiable differentiation.
Another document that ought be referred to is the principle of legal certainty, which stipulates
- The legal system needs to permit those subject to the law to regulate their conduct with certainty and to protect those subject to the law from arbitrary use of state power.
CON's position prohibits certainty - if we argue that only self-aware being ought have rights, those who are temporality unconscious would lose their rights to life. It becomes a very real possibility that people lose their lives due to "loopholes" and "legal technicalities". PRO's position, however, is congruent with the principle of certainty - there is no contradiction in the postulation that all beings who have been concepted ought to, ceteris paribus, have human rights. To contend PRO's criteria of biological humanity entails that no human, born or unborn, have rights. Our society is one which grants moral rights to humans, so we can grant that it is axiomatically true that humans have rights, and thus my position too, axiomatically follows.
Ontological burden
Even if CON can propose a criteria which evades the insurmountable burden which they face, the notion prescribing of an additional predicate (consciousness etc) is itself a mere ontological burden. The study of embryology and biology is not bettered or improved by the creation of some subjective criteria. Suppose that we adopt “consciousness” as the predicate - how does this further embryology or biology? When terms such as “life” are coined, they serve a purpose - to distinguish animals and plants from inorganic matter. Adding “consciousness” as the stage in which people get moral worth solely to permit abortion is a purely ad hoc and unnecessary maneuver.
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II. Principle of uncertainty
One fact that both pro-lifers and pro-choicers can agree on is that in order for abortion to be justified, there must be absolute certainty that it does not murder a human person. When considering the nature of abortion, there are only four possible outcomes which can arise. They are as follows (consider with ceteris paribus):
- The fetus is a person and this is known.
- The fetus is a person and this is not known.
- The fetus is not a person and this is not known.
- The fetus is not a person and this is known.
The ramification of abortion in each of these situations are:
- You have intentionally killed a human being.
- You have unintentionally killed a human being
- You have intentionally risked killing a human being.
- You have done nothing wrong.
Notice how all the above scenarios either involve criminal activity or are simply impossible. Scenario 1 is plain first-degree murder. Scenario 2 is akin to shooting toxic chemicals into a building which you believe, wrongly so, that there is no one in. Scenario 3 is comparable to fumigating a building without knowing whether there are residents inside. Scenario 4, as aforementioned is the only morally permissible situation however is impossible to recreate in reality, due to the indistinct measurements used to assess personhood. As it is there is no way to determine with absolute certainty that abortion does not kill a person, abortion at best requires its adherence to commit criminal negligence, and at worst is 1st-degree murder.
Notice how this issue of subjectivity is seamlessly resolved when adopting biological humanity as the criteria for who ought to have moral agency. When defining personhood in terms of CON's subjective metaphysical benchmark, the difficulty of the Principle of Uncertainty emerges.
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III. Comparison to unjustified killing
P1. If abortion is killing and the reason for aborting is unjustified, abortion is unjustified killing.
P2. Abortion involves killing.
P3. The reasons for aborting are unjustified.
C1. Abortion is unjustified killing.
P4. Unjustified killing ought to be illegal.
C2. Abortion ought to be illegal.
P1.
Fairly axiomatic and tautological.
P2.
To kill is to deprive of life. Thus, as 96% of biologists believe that life begins at fertilisation (additional scientific evidence can be provided if pressed), and abortion involves the depriving of said life life, abortion is killing.
P3.
Merely establishing that abortion is killing is not sufficient in ruling that it is immoral - after all, the killing of a home intruder to defend your family can be argued as being a moral imperative. Thus, we ought examine the reasons people have abortions, in order to understand whether these reasons surfice in justifying what has been established as killing.
According to the Guttmacher institute the two most common reasons for having abortions were "having a baby would dramatically change my life" and "I can't afford a baby now" (cited by 74% and 73%, respectively). Obviously, these reasons do not justify the killing of a born human lives, and thus should not be justifications for killing unborn human lives.
C1.
The conclusion is thus valid via modus ponens. The implication of the fact that abortion is unjustified killing entails that it is immoral.
P4.
Unjustified killing is, tautologically, killing of which cannot be justified and thus, it ought not to be legal.
C2.
The conclusion follows - abortion ought to be illegal.
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Conclusion
Through the three arguments proposed, the intellectual price tag of CON's position is clear - the ontological burden of manifesting an additional predicate on the backdrop of biological humanity is simply impossible and incongruent with the operation of the law. Furthermore, through the second contention, the uncertainty principle exemplifies the cumbersome burden which CON bears - not only must their position be probable, but it must be certain in order for abortion to be justified. The final contention draws a comparison to unjustified killing shows that abortion is akin to some of the most heinous crimes our society condemns. Thus, the resolution is upheld and CON's position is yielded untenable.
Thank you for inviting me to debate this, Bones.
My position is simple:
P1: Policies that inflict structural violence ought not be implemented
P2: Making abortion illegal would inflict structural violence
C1: Abortion ought not be made illegal
I) What is structural violence and why is it important? (P1)
This framework precludes all other moral considerations because it necessarily includes all affected parties in any moral calculus, drawing attention to those who would otherwise be excluded as subjectively unimportant, “becom[ing] either invisible, or demeaned… so that we do not have to acknowledge the injustice they suffer. To reduce [the] nefarious effects [of moral exclusion], we must be vigilant in noticing and listening to oppressed, invisible, outsiders. Moreover, as government policy has the greatest capacity for harm, it must be held to the highest standard as the degree of violence and the lasting effects of that violence are far greater for a government than for any individual. Particularly when those resulting harms are unavoidable and cause severe physical and psychological harms, a government ought not inflict structural violence.
II) How does a ban on abortion inflict structural violence? (P2)
A) Elimination of care
1) Miscarriage and non-viable pregnancies
In cases of miscarriage where medical intervention is required, a ban on abortion eliminates access to both trained professionals and medications, yielding bleeding and infection risks that can cost lives. Also, “doctors may hesitate to treat patients with ectopic pregnancy, inevitable miscarriage, or previability rupture of membranes when fetal cardiac activity remains.”
2) Reproductive coercion
Health centers function as “invaluable safe space[s] where providers can screen patients for reproductive coercion and intervene if necessary. They can prescribe contraception and provide abortion care. They are also important vehicles for advancing research on reproductive coercion.” They would either be shut down or rendered ineffectual, removing opportunities for potential mothers to escape abuse from their intimate partners. 34% of domestic violence survivors report that the abuse they suffered was tied to their childbearing decisions. That abuse often escalates during pregnancy and abortion provides a crucial means of escape. These abuses will be made inevitable for many when access to the most common female contraceptives is eliminated. The birth control pill and IUDs are considered “life-ending” by many because of their potential effects on implantation post-fertilization. Women will have to rely on men to prevent pregnancy during intercourse, but women will be saddled with the legal and physical consequences.
c) Patient-provider relationships
Pregnant mothers will have to delay treatments for illnesses like cancer that may kill the fetus, regardless of the health risks. Any treatments that are teratogenic or potentially abortion-inducing may become unavailable to any woman as a precautionary measure to prevent lawsuits against providers. Any basis for claiming a medical emergency will be contested in court. Patients who miscarry could be accused of having induced pregnancy loss as their physicians would be required to report them, with black and low-income patients being reported most often. Physicians could be investigated for treating miscarrying women for helping end their pregnancies. Women considering abortions would avoid doctor visits in order to hide their pregnancies, resulting in illnesses and injuries that harm the mother and fetus going untreated (e.g. higher rates of birth defects, stillbirths and perinatal deaths).
B) Destructive alternatives
1) Self-managed abortions
Medication is the safest means by which to manage an abortion. Other interventions come with additional risks, which get a lot worse in self-managed cases. An abortion ban necessarily reduces or removes access to these medications, leading “[p]atients [to] use unsafe methods… [that] may require lifesaving critical care for sepsis, hemorrhage, pelvic-organ injury, or toxic exposures.”
2) Bringing to term
a) Base risk
Those who choose to carry a child to term and deliver it accept a 14 times greater mortality rate than those who abort. Excluding unsafe abortion practices, mortality rates would increase by 7% within a year and 21% over subsequent years post-abortion ban.
b) No exceptions
No one should have unnecessary and undue suffering imposed on them. Mothers should not be required to carry non-viable pregnancies to term. They should not be required to give birth to a child with Tay-Sachs disease who will die in agony within 4 years. Pro makes no exception for these cases, so these women would be subjected to pointless suffering.
They also should not be required to continue with pregnancy when their lives are in serious jeopardy. Pregnant women should be able to give consent to make medical decisions to save their own lives, yet Pro makes no exception for them, either.
c) Overburdening the medical system
Many of the children carried to term will be born with “with substantial medical needs in infancy and beyond, whose parents might have ended their pregnancy after receiving fetal anatomical or genetic diagnoses… families of children with disabilities or complex medical needs will" have to watch their child suffer in an overcrowded medical system that will result in death and harm to children far beyond those directly affected by this ban. “The perinatal mental health needs of pregnant patients who are continuing undesired pregnancies, including those resulting from sexual assault, will undoubtedly intensify as well, further stressing an overtaxed mental health care system.”
3) Punishing miscarriages
Pro argues that the unborn ought to be treated the same under the law as any other stage of human development. A case of suspected abortion, therefore, is equivalent to a case of suspected murder or manslaughter, resulting in investigations that include obtaining access to medical records and determining whether the patient or anyone close to them was responsible, as well as investigations of their medical providers who may have aided and/or abetted.
However, pregnancy loss is not cut and dry. “[A]s many as 26% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage”, and while some of these cases have obvious causes, “[i]n most cases, it is too early to determine the exact cause”. As a result, almost every instance of miscarriage is grounds for investigation post-abortion ban. Women have already been convicted of manslaughter for miscarriage, but Pro’s case will make prosecutions far more common and widespread. “Pregnant patients who have bleeding in pregnancy or pregnancy loss may be vulnerable to reporting and criminal prosecution, whether they took measures to end the pregnancy or are having a miscarriage; spontaneous pregnancy loss and self-managed abortion with medications are virtually indistinguishable.” Given that medication-induced abortions are by far the most common form of abortion at 54% of all abortions, that’s a big problem.
Setting aside basic issues of court clog, classism will be rampant with this system. These women will be coming off of expensive, emotional health crises and may have to pay steep prices to defend against state and federal prosecution. All pregnant women will suffer; a miscarriage is already a would-be mother’s worst nightmare, but this would result in the legal system castigating her for its loss.
III) Case conclusions
Given the clear harms caused by banning abortion, it ought to remain legal. (C1) To be specific, abortion ought to remain legal for any reason up through 15 weeks (the latest point that medication-induced abortion can be used, amounting to well over 90% of all abortions in the US), with exceptions beyond that point for medical needs of both the mother and fetus and to address cases of reproductive coercion.
IV) Rebuttals
A) Policy considerations
This debate regards policy. The term “ought to” “refer[s] to a recommended future action.” As such, issues including what the action - making abortion illegal in the US - would yield and how it would be carried out are necessary considerations. Instead, Pro assumes a ban will solve. His P4 and C2 are used to convert from a purely moral issue (abortion is unjustified killing) to a policy stance (abortion ought to be illegal), yet that conversion is only meaningful if said policy is effective. Yet, both the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute have found that the number of abortions in countries with and without a ban are basically the same. Pro can stand on principle, but that dulls his impacts.
B) Principle
So, let’s talk about those principles.
1) Distinguishing our cases
Pro ties a lot of his arguments on personhood to additional burdens for me. A reminder: rule 3 of this debate is that BoP is shared. We agreed to this ahead of the debate. I don’t suddenly acquire burdens because he makes pre-rebuttals that he believes require answers, though most of it stems from incorrect predictions about my case. My position regarding the beginning of personhood is that of uncertainty - we don’t and can’t know. The beginnings of personhood do not influence my case.
2) Inconsequential differences
Pro wants to have it both ways: he acknowledges uncertainty regarding when personhood begins, but claims with absolute certainty that fertilization is the first possible moment of personhood. Any stage of development, including those that come before fertilization (e.g. the separate gametes), is only distinguished by the “inconsequential differences” Pro claims cannot determine moral agency. If they are inconsequential distinctions from later forms of human development, the same applies to those that came before. Pro appealing to popularity and authority among a vague group of “biologists” via a broken link in his syllogism’s P2 doesn’t validate his certainty. Thus, Pro bites his own critiques about arbitrary selection and using subjective criteria for personhood.
3) The principle of uncertainty
This is Pro’s only argument that links his principle to his policy. He asserts that legal abortion can only be justified if there is absolute certainty regarding the personhood status of the unborn. This is false. Abortion policy is often driven by multiple factors. See: my case. What’s more, the factor Pro banks on is uncertainty, the harms of which range from having done nothing wrong to 1st-degree murder. These are all theoretical, so all 4 scenarios are, as he puts it, “impossible to recreate in reality due to the indistinct measures used to assess personhood.” It’s similarly impossible to weigh such a wide range of potential harms.
By contrast, known harms and benefits have legitimate weight. We know what effects an abortion ban will have. Pro must weigh these known harms against the harms that result from uncertainty, yet the 4 scenarios he gives have no probabilities, yielding impacts with no probabilities. Pro has conceded that he cannot weigh his impacts at all because of the very uncertainty this point relies upon.
4. Unjustified killing
Pro presents a syllogism for why abortion should be banned. Two additional (I’ve already addressed other points elsewhere) problems.
One, Pro claims that the most common reasons for obtaining an abortion are unjustified (his P3). Pro doesn’t explain why either of these reasons are unjustified and provides virtually no distinction between justified and unjustified reasons. Pro’s link complicates this further since the numbers indicate that surveyed women often provided multiple reasons for getting an abortion, so Pro’s decision to restrict it to these two reasons is flawed.
Two, Pro labels all abortion as unjustified killing. His P3 didn’t say “Many of the reasons for aborting are unjustified,” just as his C2 doesn’t say “Most abortions ought to be illegal.” These statements offer no exceptions, just like his case. Yet, these reasons exist, and some are even featured in the link in his P3 justification, including the health of the mother and fetus. Protecting oneself from physical harm is justified. Not all abortions kill the unborn and many result from non-viable pregnancies where the unborn would die anyway.
V. Summary
My case details many types of structural violence that an abortion ban would inflict on women in the US. A ban would severely harm women's health care, reproductive freedoms and protection from abusers, yielding increases in mortality rates, pointless suffering and subject grieving would-be mothers to legal action. Pro’s case, by contrast, never considers the impacts of his policy aims, instead focusing on an unweighted argument for uncertainty and a flawed syllogism.
Back to you, Bones.
Round 2
Thx Whiteflames,
Preliminary
- CON appears to be right about the broken link in PRO's opening which attempts to prove that human beings come into being at the moment of conception. The operating link is here and is also corroborated by the following sources, which states 95% of all biologists affirmed the biological view that a human's life begins at fertilizations (5212 out of 5502).
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Contention IV. (Additional) The narrow scope of CON's argument
Observe that the resolution of this debate emphasis the term "balance", commonly defined as a predominating amount; a preponderance and interpreted in this manner by other debaters on this cite. A large portion of CON's argument hinges on statistically acute scenarios - medical interventions, Tay-Sachs disease etc). These anomalies do not represent the spectrum of possible scenarios for an abortion to take place.
CON argues that illegalising abortion necessitates that these anomalies oughtn't be provided with abortions and thus should be taken into consideration. This mistakes the legal system as one of unwavering inconsideration. Consider, for example, theft, defined legally as the situation in which if one dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it. Would it be a reasonable to argue for the abolition of this law on the grounds that there exists scenarios in which the appropriating of someones property is morally necessary (you steal your kidnappers pistol to free your family)? Obviously, there exists reasonable exceptions in every law and thus illegalising abortion ought to be considered within that category. All laws operate with the assumption of ceteris paribus principle, that is, if all else is equal, X law ought to be abided by. The PRO position does not need to justify every possible scenario for one to find themselves in need of an abortion - they merely need to find that abortion as an act is itself, when all other factors are equal, immoral.
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Affirmations I. Distinguishing the case of PRO and CON & the argument from inconsequential differences
CON alleges PRO for burden shifting and expresses dissatisfaction at their share of the burden. The nature of this debate is such that PRO must prove biological actualization as sufficient in granting human rights, whilst CON must find some other criteria to be sufficient. PRO merely articulates that any predicate proposed necessarily falls on top of the backdrop of biological humanity (consciousness, neural activity etc are all present after biological humanity). Not establishing a criteria results in the absurd conclusion that no humans have rights.
CON then opines that their stance on personhood is uncertain, and that it is a fact we don't and can't know. I take three issues with this.
- The first is that, when CON stipulates that the beginning of personhood is an unknowable fact, they are appealing to incredulity - they are asserting that their world view does not possess the vehicle for determining personhood. The "don't and can't know" reflects only their position and oughtn't be understood as a universal difficulty which involves PRO's position, for PRO can easily prescribe a stage in which human beings possess human rights (personhood).
- Though CON alleges that the prescribing personhood is an undoable task and involves a fact which we "can't know", their case (and the doings of humanity) hinges on the notion that human beings have personhood. CON's assertion that we can't prescribe personhood (they stipulate "my position regarding the beginning of personhood is that of uncertainty - we don’t and can’t know") carries great difficulties - if it is the case that we cannot prescribe personhood, it follows that no humans have personhood, which implicates the notion that no humans have rights. Obviously, CON disagrees with this sentiment - they don't really argue that "personhood" isn't an unknowable fact, but rather that it is a vague occurrence which takes place somewhere between conception and birth. This vague and ambiguous prescription is both morally indefensible and legally unacceptable (elaborated in PRO's r1, subsection subjectivity and ambiguity.
- CON essentially concedes the entire uncertainty principle argument here - I will elaborate on the significance of this in the relavant section.
Regarding the inconsequential differences, CON argues that the principle can be applied to the PRO position and that a fertilized and nonfertilized being differs only in inconsequential ways. However, this refutation can be rendered false by axiomatically granting that human beings ought to have rights. We live in a society in which human beings (at least grown) have rights and liberties which are upheld by the law. We can thus grant that human beings have rights. As a human beings come into existence at the moment of conception, it is axiomatically the case that it is significant - for they have become what is apodictically granted as worthy of human rights. Thus the burden falls on CON to assert that, not only is the adding of an additional predicate not an ontological burden, but that it is significant in conveying personhood.
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Affirmations II. Principle of uncertainty
CON argues that, as the potential range of harm inflicted by abortion is uncertain, it thus pales when compared to the known harms of abortion. This is a disingenuous comparison on three grounds.
- CON argues the harms of abortion are uncertain by virtue of PRO's uncertainty principle. This is false - the uncertainty only arises when we adopt CON's subjective benchmark for prescribing personhood - it is an issue only for those (CON) who wish to deny biological humanity as solely sufficient in converting personhood.
- If it is accepted, as I have postulated, that the unborn are deserving of human rights, it follows the killing of them (over half a million of them) is a far more morally depraved act than any negative effect of abortion which CON has postulated.
- The helplessness of the unborn human oughtn't be compared to the unlucky "mother". Consider the following thought experiment.
- Suppose there exists a room which gives all those in it a natural spike in dopamine for a period of 20 minutes. The entrance is free, however, there is one condition - if you enter, there is a 2 percent there about's chance that you will exist with a human being, whose life is contingent upon your body, attached to you for a duration of just under a year. Now suppose that you enter this room multiple times with no repercussions, however, after a number of trips, you find a human being attached to you. Are you morally allowed to kill this human being?
- I assert that, in the thought experiment, it is a moral crime to kill the human being attached to you. Observe that the above is not some make belief scenario - it is the bedroom in which people have sex. The argument that there are risks in carrying the human (a risk which is well documented, observed and understood by any with minimal knowledge) does not hold - it is clear that these minute dangers were present before one enters a room and are implicitly accepted upon entrance.
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Affirmations III. Comparison to unjustified killing
CON provides multiple refutations. The first is that their allegedly exists a leap from the moral to the legal, in which the legal impact of abortion bans is neglected. I have two refutations.
- The alleged "leap" is merely one which assumes that "unjustified killing" (killing which is tautologically unjustifiable) ought to be illegal. CON's argument that abortion bans are not effect does not harm this argument, for if it were the case that abortion bans did not work, the fundamental immorality of unjustifiably killing a human being still remains. For example, if it were the case that slavery bans did not lower the number of slaves that were captive, it does not follow that slavery ought to be legal, for the very principle of allowing slavery is itself a terribly immoral and negligent act.
- CON's fundamental postulation that abortion bans do not work is erroneous.
- Demands for abortion among residents in Ireland was steadily declining for a decade until 2019, in which a 142% increase for the demand for an abortion was observed. Coincidently, the legalising of abortion in Ireland took place a year prior.
- Demands for abortion among residents in the UK was steadily declining for a decade until 2017, in which a 58 percent increase for the demand for an abortion was observed. Coincidently, the UK began funding abortions in the same year.
- CON's own source is problematic for its numerous extraneous variables. The study only observed similar abortion rates when comparing poor countries such as Mexico (where there is minimal sex education, low contraception use) with technologically and educationally advanced countries which are, in the article, described as the "richer" countries which "have strong health care systems". An honest comparison between these two populations is simply impossible - obviously the country where there is no education (hence leading to more unwanted pregnancies) or culture (the US for example, through education, as fostered a culture in which sex ought to take place with contraception) is going to be the one with more unwanted pregnancies and a higher number of abortions. PRO's source compares a country before and after the policy, which removes many extraneous variables.
- CON opines that the two reasons I provided which I charge as "unjustified" are not substantiated. Recall that they were "having a baby would dramatically change my life" and "I can't afford a baby". I had assumed that these were obvious - if I were to attempt to justify the killing of my hypothetical child on the grounds that the child would drastically change my life and that I don't have the money for it, these would surely be absurd. One would surely say that I could have at least with them up for adoption. But notice how the advocation is for adoption, and not killing the child. In the case of abortion, there is no third option, so the "adoption" hypothetical can be nullified. If one is not willing to allow for the killing of the child on the two reasons proposed, they oughtn't allow for the killing of the unborn on the two grounds.
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Rebuttals
Overview
I fault the second premise of CON's argument, for carrying within it implicated presuppositions which are unproven.
- P2: Making abortion illegal would inflict structural violence
The premise is complex, especially considering the implications of PRO's arguments and can be interpreted in two ways.
- The unborn are not deserving of human rights (PRO's argument that they are deserving of human rights is false), thus the net harm of terminating them is lesser than the net harm which abortion entails.
- The unborn are deserving of human rights (PRO's argument that they are deserving of human rights is true), however, the net harm of terminating them is lesser than the net harm which abortion entails .
1.
It is clear that the presupposition here (that the unborn are not deserving of human rights) is unproven, via PRO's contentions. CON has not proposed a sound predicate for instilling personhood thus currently, in their analysis, no persons have rights. The only way for CON to escape this is to propose a criteria which overcomes the plethora of difficulties highlighted in PRO's first contention (non-consequential differences, subjectivity and ambiguity, and ontological burden).
2.
If it is conceded that the unborn does indeed possess personhood and thus ought to have rights yet it remains the case that the damages of banning abortion exceed that of actual abortions, CON's position can then be rendered false by comparing the unborn to the born.
If it is conceded that the unborn has a right to life yet abortion still ought be legal, we can substitute "unborn" for "born" in order to test for CON's consistency. This shouldn't be an issue - if CON agrees that the unborn has a right to life, we can genuinely substitute "unborn" for anything which possess the same right to life.
- Unborn = human right to life
- Born = human right to life
- Unborn right to life = Born right to life
We can now return to my aforementioned "dopamine room" thought experiment and scrutinise the claims of CON - it is clear that many arguments cannot apply to born human beings ("if its not legal people will do it anyways" doesn't stick). It is clear that if it is understood that the unborn has rights, akin to it's born counterpart, then the killing of it for many of the reasons CON cited is insufficient.
Further critique
CON's analysis is deeply rooted in utilitarianism - the notion that abortion ought be legal because its negation results in X amount of decrease in suffering. A notorious difficulty of utilitarianism is that it neglects to protect individual human rights, a difficulty which CON's argument faces. Even if it were the case that banning abortion causes more harm than good (a notion which has already been disproven), it doesn't follow that we ought "abandon ship" and accept the systemic killing of human beings.
- Consider the hypothetical scenario in which 20% of the population act as slaves for any family who wishes to have their services, and that this has been a common practice for half a century. The slaves do many mundane jobs - they ensure that the streets are clean, that people get their food (some of the slaves work on farms and produce products) and that the city is liveable and safe (roads are paved etc). Now suppose that, after a while, the population begins to wonder whether the keeping of these slaves is moral. One side argues that it is wrong - the slaves are humans who ought have rights and liberties. The other side, however, argues two points - 1) the net happiness is higher than if we allow these slaves to go free and 2) as we have already had these slaves for half a century and become accustomed to their service, the removing of them will cause much harm (people will starve, driving amidst unmanaged potholes and uncleared obstructions will result in deaths and diseases will spread as no one is sanitising the streets).
Notice how both the arguments cited are, whilst technically true, morally depraved. The net utility of the hypothetical slaves is not justification for it's legality. Further, the net harms which will result from banning them isn't an argument either - the fact that the population has become reliant on an immoral practice is no justification for it's legality. Fundamentally, abortion is an act that is so morally depraved that practically no utility can justify it's legalisation.
Specific refutations
The overview sufficiently address a large number of CON's arguments, however, some of them are of an amoral nature, which I will refute in this section.
Reproductive coercion
The banning of abortion will only remove abortion clinics, and not the crucial clinics which investigate reproductive coercion.
Self-managed abortions
The continuation of a crime and subsequent harm it causes is not an argument. Making theft illegal puts many people in danger - the bank robber in a shoot out with the police harms both parties and pedestrians, yet this isn't a reason to make theft legal.
Overburdening the medical system
Argument can be made for live humans - out system is full thus we ought kill the orphans who no one really wants.
Punishing Miscarriage
CON holds that the PRO position necessitates the charging of women who undergo abortions. This is not necessarily the case. In the legal sphere, mens rea is a criterion which, in most scenarios, must be met in order for criminal charges to be made. It is unclear that this is the case regarding abortions - institutes such as PlannedParenthood often relay misinformation with euphemisms such as "it's just a cluster of cell" to downplay the severity of abortions, and thus deceive women. This is akin to if an individual invited a pedestrian to "press a button for a prize" which in actuality set off a bomb killing numerous lives. Just as how the person who pressed the button isn't in the wrong, so too, in many cases, is the mother - they are merely ignorant to all the facts.
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Conclusion
From the analysis provided, PRO has sufficiently satisfied their burden and substantiated the notion that abortion ought to be illegal. CON's case been largely exposed as incongruent, from it's ambiguous entailments and inability to render born human rights.
Thank you, Bones.
I. Setup
A. Definitions
Pro defines “balance,” severing it from its context. The term is “on balance,” defined as “taking everything into consideration”. This topic does not preclude debate over “statistically acute scenarios.” If anything, it demands their inclusion.
B. Burdens
“Rule 3: The Burden of Proof is Shared”
That is the sole burden analysis required. Pro chose to use his framing of personhood as the basis for his argument, but his choice doesn’t require that I present an alternate criteria for personhood. It also does not foist any additional burdens onto me, nor does the resolution state or imply this burden.
II. Case Frameworks
Con’s framework is unclear. He opposes unjustified killing, but never distinguishes unjustified from just reasons. He argues that personhood begins at conception, though that only emphasizes that reasons should be justified. The policy side of his case is inherently utilitarian. He even cites a number to award value to the unborn population, quantifying their loss for comparison while he simultaneously argues that utilitarianism is a flawed framework that yields terrible outcomes. Pro does state that the rights of others are comparatively irrelevant because they aren’t sufficiently “morally depraved” or are too “statistically acute” to warrant consideration, so at least his framework has clear exclusions.
My framework is simple: structural violence is bad. Contrary to Pro’s slavery hypothetical, my case isn’t “rooted in utilitarianism”. I’m not arguing that my numbers are bigger; the efforts to render people invisible in order to deem their suffering irrelevant, particularly when the cause is institutional, are the most insidious and therefore hold the greatest weight. Pro’s hypothetical validates this: both slavery and a ban on abortion inflict structural violence by making these people and their suffering invisible.
III. Case Overviews
My case examines the ways an abortion ban results in violence and the populations that would be affected. As my syllogism shows, an abortion ban subverts the needs of many to those of the unborn, so the aim of my case is to prevent the resulting imposition of structural violence that would marginalize and oppress those people.
Pro’s response is to claim that my P2 has “implications” that aren’t implied. I didn’t omit arguments regarding who is and isn’t inherently “deserving of human rights” because that is not relevant to my argument. Due to the “indistinct measurements used to assess personhood” (Pro’s quote) that make it difficult to objectively designate what personhood is or when it begins, other metrics should be used to determine what legal protections the unborn ought to have (e.g. whether those protections inflict structural violence). I also do not presuppose whether someone should terminate their pregnancy; my position is that the availability of abortion is necessary to prevent structural violence.
Pro’s case had neither stated nor implied exceptions in R1, but now Pro inserts vague caveats like “reasonable exceptions” and says that it is “not necessarily the case” that women will be charged for seeking/obtaining an abortion. The former are never clarified beyond alluding to “medical interventions” that could apply to any number of cases, nor is it clear who would be charged for violating the ban. Pro’s case is on shifting ground making it impossible to determine where and how it applies. We only know that some abortions will be banned and that someone may be held responsible if they violate the ban.
IV. Advantages/Disadvantages
A. Pro’s Advocacy
1. Pro’s Policy
This is built on a single impact: lost lives of the unborn. He quantitates this at “over half a million.” Any reliance on that number to outweigh my impacts encounters three problems:
- It relies on utilitarianism as a framework, which Pro has rejected
- My framework should be preferred (see: II)
- Lack of solvency means he can’t access it
On Pro’s solvency, my article cites two papers and neither rely on comparisons between developed and developing countries. The Lancet paper shows that the percentage of pregnancies that were aborted decreased between 1995 and 2008 (down from 36% to 26% in developed countries - see Table 3). The BMJ paper shows that Europe and North America have the lowest regional average rates of abortion (note: that excludes Mexico) between 1990 and 2019. Abortion was legalized in several of these countries over these periods. These are better indicators for how the US is likely to behave because they focus on trends among nations rather than asserting that two developed countries will behave similarly despite distinct legal structures, enforcement and population dynamics.
Meanwhile, Pro’s claims of solvency are both cherry-picked and poor comparisons. The Ireland case is a shift from illegality to legality, so it cannot show the dynamics of abortions after a ban is imposed. "Once a procedure becomes illegal, the need is still there… Women will look for services, safe or unsafe, to terminate their pregnancy." The numbers given are also questionable. Their source before 2019 is “the UK's Department of Health and Social Care”, so they exclude anyone who traveled to other countries and any instances of illegal abortions. The UK case only involves increased access, which means it is even less indicative of the effects of a ban. It also only begs the question on his solvency; Pro has provided no mechanism for his policy and thus no way to assess how effective it will be.
2. Pro’s Principle
The principle-focused arguments Pro gives all have the same problem: any impacts are solely symbolic, lacking any substance. Pro uses comparisons to establish their importance, but they are all flawed.
a. Theft analogy
Like the next analogy, this argument assumes that abortion is immoral. It is broadly agreed that theft (and slavery) is immoral. The same is not true for abortion, regardless of Pro’s assertions. We cannot presume the immorality of abortion, though even if we did, that does not make a policy banning it moral. If the ban bars individuals who had morally justified reasons for seeking out an abortion, then the morality of a ban is mixed. Also, whether we’re talking about theft or abortion, if a ban failed to decrease the number of thefts and increased structural violence, then the ban is clearly flawed and the response ought be changed.
b. Slavery analogy
This argument ignores the harms of a ban and focuses solely on his lack of solvency. If banning slavery accomplished nothing and resulted in dramatic increases in structural violence, then yes, the ban would be harmful no matter the principle it upholds.
c. The Dopamine Room
This is an oversimplification, reducing all considerations to consent alone (i.e. if those who enter the room accept the consequences, then the harms of those risks cease to be important). The room isn’t comparable to conception. Pro reduces every harm down to one: “exist[ence] with a [contingent] human being… for just under a year”. Pro also lumps every other harm into the category of “the unlucky ‘mother’” as though all harms stem from that choice alone. Structural violence is an external imposition to which no one consents. Pro also doesn’t explain how consent mitigates any of the harms I’ve presented.
The “thought experiment” also assumes informed consent is a given, implying that every person who enters the room does so of their own volition, is of legal age to provide consent, is fully informed of all the potential consequences of entering the room, and fully understands those consequences. Even if we assume that risks are “well documented, observed and understood by any with minimal knowledge”, it is fallacious to assume that everyone who enters the room knowingly consents. If any of these are inaccurate, then the person in question has not provided their consent and Pro’s conclusions do not follow.
3. Burdens and Inconsequential Differences
Pro’s argument violates the latter argument, as he arbitrarily selects fertilization as the beginning of a human being. Pro believes that fertilization uniquely confers personhood, but he begs the question: what criteria for personhood does it satisfy that separate gametes do not? Pro appeals to popularity among “biologists” as vague authorities but that just begs the question of what criteria they use. Pro’s three inconsequential differences - level of development, environment, and degree of dependency - apply equally well to phases pre- and post-fertilization.
By contrast, neither argument applies to my case (see: I.A. [our burdens are equal] and III [I have no criteria for personhood]). The only responsive point Pro gives here is that conceding uncertainty regarding the beginnings of personhood somehow strips all humans of their rights. Pro calls this uncertainty “morally indefensible and legally unacceptable,” but his warrant for that point focuses on the arbitrary selection of criteria for personhood. Nowhere in any of his arguments does he explain why uncertainty is, itself, harmful. And yes, that includes the next argument.
4. Principle of Uncertainty
There are two ways that this argument could work.
He could be using it to evaluate the consequences of uncertainty in isolation, yet Pro resigns those harms themselves to uncertainty; the 4 scenarios he gives have no probabilities, yielding impacts with no probabilities. Pro also drops that known impacts that will happen outweigh unknown impacts that might happen, particularly when he concedes that one of the plausible impacts is that no harm is done. Despite this, Pro asserts that killing the unborn is “a far more depraved act than any negative effect of abortion”, providing no means to weigh depravity and dismissing the depravity of imposed structural violence.
Pro could also be weighing his certainty regarding personhood against my uncertainty. Pro turned this framing against himself, since he says that it only applies to cases that apply a “subjective benchmark for prescribing personhood.” I haven’t (see: III). Pro has: fertilization (see: IV.1.c.). Pro also concedes that uncertainty is a given since it is “impossible to recreate in reality due to the indistinct measures used to assess personhood.” Unless he has suddenly come up with a criterion to assess personhood (his “Inconsequential Differences” point rejects any such criterion), his case is the only one to which this applies.
5. Unjustified Killing
The only impact I can find here that isn’t tied to solvency is that he achieves a symbolic victory, which I covered in IV.1.b. Symbolism has no impact.
Even Pro’s symbolic victory is fraught. Pro continues to assert that the two reasons he has cited are unjustified, though his only explanation for why is that they are “absurd” and that adoption is an option.
On the former, Pro never establishes where the line is between a justified reason and an unjustified reason. He just wants voters to trust him. Even if you buy that these reasons are unjustified, Pro drops that his own source shows that women often provide multiple reasons for getting an abortion (note how the numbers don’t add up to 100%). Since Pro hasn’t demonstrated that any other reasons are unjustified, voters should assume that any of them could be justified, and since Pro’s syllogism relies on absolutes, it fails. Even if you grant that his case presumes exceptions, his syllogism does not. This is a principle argument, and the principle is absolute.
Adoption is a red herring. It remains an option for those considering abortion, and structural violence is inflicted no matter who gets the child.
B. Con’s Advocacy
1. Elimination of Care
a. Miscarriage and non-viable pregnancies
Pro’s response relies on his exceptions (see: III). Also, those exceptions don’t solve. Pro drops doctor hesitation, lack of medication and training - all these harms stem from providers’ fears of criminal prosecution.
b. Reproductive coercion
Many of these reproductive health clinics provide abortions, making them abortion clinics and ensuring that will be closed by Pro’s policy. Funding for reproductive health centers will also be in jeopardy; groups like Planned Parenthood (which operates more than 600 health centers nationwide) that play key roles in both reproductive health care and abortion services will have their funding stripped and their clinics closed. This will make emergency abortions more difficult to get, rendering Pro’s exceptions useless.
Even if these clinics stay open, Pro drops that intimate partner abuse is uniquely tied to childbearing decisions, escalates during pregnancy, and that abortion is a crucial means of escape. Pro offers no alternatives to these women. He also drops that the birth control pill and IUDs will be banned, stripping essential reproductive freedoms from women and subjecting them to greater abuses by their partners. Clinics that cannot offer abortions will not solve these problems.
c. Patient-provider relationships
Pro drops this point wholesale. Women could be subject to litigation under his ban, but even if they aren’t, their doctors will be. Any case of medical emergency will be scrutinized and doctors who perform them will be investigated. They will hesitate to give pregnant patients any treatments that could harm the unborn, regardless of the patient’s status. Treatments of cancers will be delayed. Treating miscarrying women would be fraught as every case would be investigated as they may have helped end their pregnancies. End result: doctors will let patients suffer and die, and patients won’t trust their doctors.
2. Destructive Alternatives
a. Self-managed abortions
Similar to my point about assuming abortion’s immorality (see: IV.A.2.a.), voters should not assume the criminality of abortion. The comparison to theft is also generally unwarranted, as abortion involves issues like access to health care and reproductive rights. Harms of sepsis, hemorrhage, pelvic-organ injury, or toxic exposures still apply.
b. Bringing to term
Pro drops the base risk. Extend the increase in mortality rates up to 21%.
Pro tries to dodge the no exceptions point by claiming exceptions (see: III).
Pro argues that overburdening the medical system is nonunique. Two problems. One, Pro drops that the population born as a result of this ban will have an outsized number of “fetal anatomical or genetic diagnoses… disabilities or complex medical needs” and how the burdens that forcing their families to have them impose. Two, Pro is granting new legal protections to a large set of humans who currently do not have them and, in many cases, might not even be born into the world alive. This harm is unique in that those legal protections threaten access to necessary medical interventions for those who have been born into the world alive and are already protected under the law.
3. Punishing Miscarriages
Pro continues to dodge with exceptions (see: III). Pro never says that women won’t be charged, only that they won’t “necessarily”. Pro also drops that women have already been convicted of similar crimes. Pro’s case doesn’t shift away from that; he doubles down.
Pro can’t seem to decide how much solvency his case will have. He has two options.
- Abortion is banned and law enforcement investigates widely including a many miscarriages, which yields the harms I laid out in R1
- Abortion is banned and law enforcement must establish intent (mens rea) before proceeding with investigations and bringing charges
Pro suggests the latter, so he concedes that the vast majority of abortions will go undetected. Any medication-induced abortions won’t be investigated because miscarriages and medication-induced abortions are indistinguishable. Pro provides no means by which intent can be discerned for these cases. That’s 54% of all abortions, which will increase under an abortion ban since Pro is creating a loophole through which these abortions are impossible to prosecute. And Pro helpfully provides another way to avoid prosecution, since he claims that mothers “are merely ignorant to all the facts”, which makes malice aforethought impossible to establish (this also undercuts his Dopamine Room argument - you can’t both claim that they have perfect reproductive knowledge of pregnancy and every associated risk while simultaneously claiming that they’re prone to accepting reproductive misinformation). This alone destroys most of his solvency.
V. Conclusion
Pro really wants this debate to be solely about the morality of abortion divorced from policy. Yet, this debate is about policy, which deals in real world solvency and consequences. Turning a blind eye to those consequences yields structural violence, destroying lives for some purported “greater good.” In this case, Pro does not even achieve tangible benefits as he willfully dismisses the harms his ban would cause. Pro wants to stand on symbolism, but if doing so rejects the needs of women and perverts the medical system, then his stance isn't worth the cost.
Back to Pro.
Round 3
Thanks Whiteflames for an intriguing debate.
CON's weighing off the harms of abortion on women can be considered strong only in our society - one in which the unborn are presupposed as being subhuman and whom's killing thus elicit a lesser outrage than the "pointless suffering" of "pregnant women". I ask voters to approach this debate from a purely logical ground - one in which the aforementioned presuppositions are dropped.
0. Preliminary
CON's misunderstanding of PRO's thought experiments
CON has disingenuously misrepresented my thought experiments and thus avoided their principled stipulations. I wish to highlight that my thought experiments were not all supposed to be analogous to abortion - they are merely supposed to falsify certain facets of PRO's principle. Consider,
- Theft analogy
- Intended only to prove that a law oughtn't be universal in order to be implemented
- Slavery analogy
- Intended only to prove that
- Utility is not synonymous with moral
- "Structural violence" as a result of banning X is not necessarily negative
- a racist aristocrat who dies because he no longer has slaves to get him food and himself has become reliant on slaves is not a deterring factor to banning slavery, though it is technically "structural/systemic violence".
- CON's critique is that if banning slavery resulted in "structural violence" then they would oppose it. Notice how they ignore my previous argument,
- Consider the hypothetical scenario in which 20% of the population act as slaves for any family who wishes to have their services, and that this has been a common practice for half a century. The slaves do many mundane jobs - they ensure that the streets are clean, that people get their food (some of the slaves work on farms and produce products) and that the city is liveable and safe (roads are paved etc). Now suppose that, after a while, the population begins to wonder whether the keeping of these slaves is moral. One side argues that it is wrong - the slaves are humans who ought have rights and liberties. The other side, however, argues two points - 1) the net happiness is higher than if we allow these slaves to go free and 2) as we have already had these slaves for half a century and become accustomed to their service, the removing of them will cause much harm (people will starve, driving amidst unmanaged potholes and uncleared obstructions will result in deaths and diseases will spread as no one is sanitising the streets).
- Though lengthy and already mentioned, this is extrodinarly crucial. Notice how this example results in structural/systemic violence, yet I would wager that CON would not allow, in the above scenario as opposed to their vague "structural violence" one, that allowing slavery is morally depraved. Much the same is for abortion, though there may be harms, the fundamental immorality of allowing abortion is simply unignorable.
On balance
It is evident that demanding no exceptions is incongruent with every other law. To prove this, PRO used the theft analogy - that though theft is illegal, there are still exceptions to the law. CON counters this by asserting that the comparison is disingenuous, on the grounds that it "assumes abortion is immoral". This is a clear misunderstanding on CON's part. The cogency of the analogy does not require abortion to be immoral - as highlighted above, the analogy deals with the very specific claim that a law can have exceptions. Take, for example, the non-criminal law that gives people the right to vote. Though this is a law, there are exceptions to the law - some people (specific criminal) do not have the right to vote. Does this mean that we ought abolish the law which permits a right to vote, on the grounds of some minute aberration? CON's critique is simply disingenuous.
Structuring of PRO's conclusion
Though CON does with to admit it, the debate hinges entirely on the philosophical determining of whether the unborn ought to have rights. If we do not establish whether the unborn have rights or not,
- There exists no criteria for instilling personhood, thus no humans have rights.
- It is impossible to weigh the alleged structural violence of banning abortion with the act of abortion.
Neglecting to determine a criterion for personhood and subsequently arguing about how we ought to treat the unborn is akin to arguing, prior 1868, that black people ought to have the right to drive. There is no point for discussion, for it has not, at this stage, even been decided whether a black person ought be considered human beings. If we do not know whether X being has rights, how can we decide whether violating ought to be illegal? It is clear that we ought to act differently if X has rights, compared to if X doesn't have rights, thus, the most fundamental question in this entire debate is whether the unborn ought to have rights. To understand this better, consider the following syllogism
p1. If the unborn are ought to have rights, the effects of killing them is more immoral than the effects of banning abortion.
p2. The unborn ought to have rights.
c1. The effects of killing the unborn is more immoral than the effects of banning abortion.
Though the formulation of this argument is new, the content is not, evidenced by the fact that all the substantiations of the premises are merely rebuttals and affirmations of previously made stipulations. Consider this a contextualisation of the debate thus far.
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Premise I. If the unborn are human beings, the effects of killing them is more immoral than the effects of banning abortion.
Here, I will tackle CON's structural violence arguments under the assumption that the unborn ought to have rights (moral status of the unborn will be examined in p2 [affirmations of PRO's contentions])
Case Frameworks
CON alleges that PRO "opposes unjustified killing, but never distinguishes unjustified from just reasons". PRO clearly highlighted in r2 that "if I were to attempt to justify the killing of my hypothetical child on the grounds that the child would drastically change my life and that I don't have the money for it, these would surely be absurd", thus clearly establishing a framework -in order for the justification for killing the unborn to be sound, it must also serve as sufficient for justifying the killing of a child.
CON alleges that PRO's critique of utilitarianism is hypocritical, as they use numbers to quantify the deaths which abortions cause. This conflating of soft and hard utilitarianism is disingenuous. There is a clear difference between arguing that the holocaust was wrong because of the number of people, and thus utility, it harmed/decreased, with arguing that the world ought to enslave all Australians because the number of people, and thus utility, in Australia does not compare the benefits their slave labour can bring to the world. There are obviously situations in which the utility of a given act does not justify the act, yet there are also cases in which the utility is simply too great to ignore.
Even we grant that both forms of utilitarianism are the same, CON frames my position dishonestly - my original mentioning of the utilitarian based argument from the number of humans abortion kills was a response to CON's utility argument. It was merely IF it is accepted, as CON has, that utility is the primary determinator of whether a bill ought to be a law, THEN abortion ought be illegal as the harms of killing 70 billion people far outweighs any possible harm which CON can provide, for the IF principle which CON advocates actually supports the PRO position. The PRO position is not contingent on this principle - they are merely using it as a reductio ad absurdum, whilst the CON case is entirely contingent upon it.
CON states that "my framework is simple: structural violence is bad", because banning abortion renders the suffering of people"invisible". However, it is immediately apparent that if we accept that the unborn have a right to life, the only beings who are being rendered quite literally invisible are the unborn. CON bears a cumbersome burden if they wish to pursue this line - they must find some act so morally depraved that the institutionalisation of the murder of almost a million unborn.
Case Overviews
CON's unproven implications see PRO's r2, Overview
CON asserts that they "didn’t omit arguments regarding who is and isn’t inherently “deserving of human rights” because that is not relevant to my argument". This is as close a deal breaker as voters will get - the literal concession that CON's proposition does not allow for the determining of who ought and oughtn't have have human rights entails that there exists no criteria for personhood thus no persons have rights
CON argues that the exceptions to abortion bans PRO highlights are unclear. To clarify, my standard is that the justification for abortion must be justification which suffices in allowing for the killing of a child. The mothers life being in danger, is an example which I am compelled to add only occurs 0.005 percent of times.
PRO's policy doesn't work?
Recall my foremost stipulation under this premise before engaging.
CON argues that abortion bans don't work. It is clear that this does not mitigate the immorality of abortion. If PRO were to argue that a ban on rape does not lower the number of rapes that occur, this clearly that this does not suffice, for it would mean that law enforcement could do nothing if confronted with such a case.
CON argues that there has been a decrease of abortions globally. Even if this were true, funnily enough, there has also been a "jaw dropping" global crash in children being born since 1950. CON also states that the US has far less abortions and implies that this is because the practice is legal. This is a clear example of the mistake whereby one mistakes correlation for causation, CON never shows, nor do the statistics strongly imply, that there is a causation link.
CON attacks PRO's sources for it only providing a single year after the ban was imposed. To expand
- 2018 - 2872
- 2019 - 6959 (abortion is legalised)
- 2020 - 6577
- 2021 - 4577 (a drop resulted by the pandemic)
CON's advocacy
Reproductive coercion
CON argues that Planned Parenthood would be in "jeopardy" if abortions are banned. Funnily enough, Planned Parenthood often assert that abortions accounted for 3 percent of the nearly 10.6 million total services provided by Planned Parenthood clinics in 2013, according to its annual report, so a ban would only effect minimally to their services. Planned Parenthood can still provide sexual education and psychological support to those who require it.
Patient-provider relationships
CON states: Pregnant mothers will have to delay treatments for illnesses like cancer. This can be refuted on the grounds of
- Being an acute minority
- An exception (mothers life's in danger)
Bringing to terms
CON states: extend the increase in mortality rates up to 21%. The source cites "49 additional deaths". This is incomparable to the millions of human lives killed in abortions.
Punishment
CON cites technical difficulties of punishment however, appeals to incredulity. The same reasoning can be used to legalise killing. "How could we ever determine if X killed Y, if no one was watching and there are no camera's". No one ever said this would be easy, CON ought to have more optimism in our criminal justice system.
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Premise II. The unborn ought to have rights.
Inconsequential differences
CON argues that the PRO position falls victim to uncertainty, because PRO has arbitrarily selected fertilisation as the beginning of human life. When confronted with the fact that 95 percent of biologists agree to the PRO position, CON states questions what criteria they use. CON is asking for an objective criteria. This is simply impossible, for no knowledge can be truly objective as postulated by the Munchhausen trilemma (all knowledge is either circular, regressive or axiomatic). The PRO position, however, is as "objective" as the mainstream would consider climate change is "objective" (PRO's logic would allow for one to prescribe to climate change skepticism, as all scientists fundamentally use reason, which they cannot epistemically justify).
Furthermore, using the inconsequential differences on conception was already refuted preemptively in the first round
- To contend PRO's criteria of biological humanity entails that no human, born or unborn, have rights. Our society is one which grants moral rights to humans, so we can grant that it is axiomatically true that humans have rights, and thus my position too, axiomatically follows.
The above quotation truly highlights the intellectual necessity for CON to propose a criteria - if there is no criteria, then it follows that no human beings have rights. As CON has not stipulated any criteria, their position entails no human rights. PRO, however, prescribes a clear line for when humans ought to gain rights, a line which is immutable and ultimately the only sound criteria.
Principle of Uncertainty
CON again misunderstands the uncertainty principle. The subjective metaphysical benchmark only exists if we deny the scientifically established criteria for the beginning of life. In the PRO worldview, there exists clear and absolute harms from abortion. The confusion and ambiguity only exists in CON's postulation.
PRO asserts that CON "concedes that uncertainty is a given since it is “impossible to recreate in reality due to the indistinct measures used to assess personhood.”. This again misrepresents PRO's argument - PRO was referring to the impossibility of CON to propose a criteria because their criteria is inevitably indistinct. It is clear that PRO's methods for measuring personhood are absolute and unwavering - for all beings that have been through conception, they are prescribed human rights.
Thus, we can observe that, as CON concedes that his understanding of personhood "is that of uncertainty - we don’t and can’t know", there institutionalising of abortion is essentially the legalising of a roulette, in which thousands of human beings (CON concedes that at least some of these will be human beings worthy of human rights) are institutionally murdered. Such a position is wholly untenable, from both a legal and moral perspective.
Unjustified Killing
CON argues that there is no line between justified and unjustified. See CON's unproven implications. CON does not accept that the reasons (huge impact on life and I can't afford it) and argues that labelling them as "absurd" is unacceptable. I hand this to voters, for I maintain that it is an axiomatic bedrock to hold that killing a child for those two reasons ought not be legal.
CON again brings up the 1 percent (literally 1 percent) scenario regarding why people have abortions. This is wholly impudent and would be akin to me crafting my entire case around third trimester, 8 month and 30 day abortions. I have not done so, despite such an argument being essentially unfalsifiable, because such would render PRO unsportsmanlike and be an argument from an extrodinarly minute aberration. CON states that PRO never mentions these exceptions in their opening statement. PRO can similarly say that they have not defended third trimester abortions anywhere in their case. Just as how literally every other law that exists has exceptions, we ought to allow for minute exceptions to a ban on abortion.
Fundamentally, CON has complicated this argument. It was initially very simple - the reasons (having a child is too big of a commitment and I don't have the money) for killing what is scientifically understood as a human being are unsatisfactory and thus abortion is unjustified. CON never engages with the reasons and instead opts to focus on the literal 1 percent.
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Conclusion I. The effects of killing the unborn is more immoral than the effects of banning abortion.
The conclusion clearly follows. The CON position fails on the grounds that it does not prescribe human rights to anyone and essentially institutionalises the killing of what has been scientifically and philosophically determined as being human. The so called harms of banning abortion pales in comparison to the genocide which it allows. CON wishes that the debate regards only the legal aspect, however, overlooks the impossibility of such without first understanding whether the unborn ought to have rights.
Thank you, Bones.
A couple of overviews to start.
OV1: New Arguments
“Rule 2. No new arguments are to be made in the final round.”
Pro has clearly violated this rule. Every response to my structural violence framework is new. Pro quotes those words once in R2 in the context of my syllogism, but never addresses them. He also presented a new syllogism that relies on those responses. Voters, this warrants a conduct violation, and these points should not factor into your decision.
OV2: Pro’s Shifting Case and Framework
Pro’s Case
In R1, Pro’s argued for banning abortion, providing no exceptions. In R2, he provided vague exceptions for “medical interventions”, arguing that “there exists reasonable exceptions in every law”. In R3, he clarified what some of those medical interventions could be.
I don’t have a problem with Pro’s case having exceptions; he could have presented every plank of his plan up front, exceptions included, and I would have accepted them. Instead, Pro presented those exceptions after the first round to evade harms that applied to the ban he argued for in R1, and then repeated that trick in R3. These tactics are clearly abusive, and voters should reject them. Do not reward him for recognizing his omissions too late.
Pro’s Framework
Pro added utility to his impact calculus, arguing that the number of unborn deaths outweighs my case. Regardless of whether said utility is soft or hard, regardless of the size of the impact, it violates his critique: “neglect[ing] to protect individual human rights” in favor of a net positive. Pro’s whole argument may not be contingent on utility, but this impact absolutely is, and it is the only impact Pro has with any substance. Voters, you should buy Pro’s critique, which aligns well with my framework as neglect is a tool for inflicting structural violence and dismiss Pro’s own utility-based impacts as “morally depraved” (his words) for rejecting consideration of individual human rights.
This debate breaks down to three questions.
1) What is structural violence and why is it important?
Yes, this is my P1 from R1. It's still crucial to this debate, and Pro decided it was worth addressing here in R3.
A) What is structural violence?
“Structural violence occurs whenever people are disadvantaged by political, legal, economic or cultural traditions,” resulting in those people being “morally excluded… so that we do not have to acknowledge the injustice they suffer... produc[ing] suffering and death as often as direct violence does.” This shows that there are three factors required to qualify as structural violence:
1. Someone(s) be morally excluded from consideration
2. Some external imposition, e.g. a new law
3. Said external imposition inflicts lasting trauma/death upon those affected
Taking all three factors into consideration, structural violence is always harmful. Pro claims that positive structural violence exists, but his examples don’t qualify.
The racist aristocrat fails to satisfy #1 and #3. They are an aristocrat so, by definition, they are part of a ruling class that is not morally excluded. They are also included by virtue of their wealth, which also grants them influence. That purchasing power also means that the loss of slaves does not inflict lasting trauma. If he dies because he doesn’t have slaves anymore, then the aristocrat has made the choice not to pay for the help he needs despite having the resources. They inflict that trauma on themselves.
The slavery hypothetical has the same problems. Slaveholders are not rendered invisible (they are active participants in determining whether slavery should remain in place, often by virtue of their wealth and social placement) and reduced “net happiness” does not qualify as lasting trauma.
The unborn are not rendered invisible just because abortions happen, as they are central to any discussion of reproduction and abortion policy. They also fail to satisfy #2. Structural violence requires that the system impose these harms. Refusing to implement a ban cannot cause structural violence because it does not impose anything. Any infliction of harm is done by individuals, not an institution.
Pro also places these cases in a vacuum, excluding their context and, thus, ignoring the net effects of structural violence. Slavery yields substantial, pernicious and long-lasting marginalization that persists well after slavery ends. We must address those instances of imposed structural violence that mete out the worst harms. Even if we accept that some structural violence is inevitable, preventing the most egregious forms of it should still be preferred.
B) Why is structural violence important?
This framework precludes all other moral considerations because it necessarily includes all affected parties in any moral calculus, drawing attention to those who would otherwise be excluded as subjectively unimportant. “To reduce [the] nefarious effects [of moral exclusion], we must be vigilant in noticing and listening to oppressed, invisible, outsiders.”
Unlike utilitarianism, my argument doesn’t blindly favor majorities: it draws attention to those who are marginalized regardless of their numbers. Governments have a greater capacity for inflicting structural violence, and when those resulting harms are unavoidable and cause severe physical and psychological harms, a government ought not inflict structural violence. The harms a government can cause via structural violence are massive, regardless of who they directly impact. These function as independent reasons to prefer my framework to Pro’s, as his argument explicitly furthers the very mentality that expands and entrenches structural violence.
II. Can we determine the beginning of personhood and is it necessary to do so?
Pro argues that personhood begins at fertilization under the assumption that all stages of human development are human. This view stemmed from his position that there are no consequential differences between any stages of human development after fertilization. That only begs the question: what distinguishes the steps that come before the zygote from the zygote itself and those that come after? Pro relies on fallacies, appealing to a “scientifically established criteria for the beginning of life” that he never provides and appealing to popularity among an assumed authority of vague “biologists.” Pro even concedes that there can be no objective criteria for personhood, which also precludes any scientific validation. The Munchhausen trilemma doesn’t help him, either; we can accept that certainty is impossible but still seek the truth objectively by considering the available evidence as we do with climate change, but Pro refuses to do so. Pro’s decision to eschew objectivity when establishing his criteria for personhood is an abdication of this self-assigned burden.
Failing to meet this burden is a big problem for Pro. In R1, Pro argued that a lack of certainty borne of subjective criteria for personhood “entails that no human, born or unborn, have rights.” Pro made clear that any degree of uncertainty at any point along human development yields this result, yet he has conceded that his own position lacks objectivity and therefore certainty, and thus concedes that his view of personhood would also entail the revocation of human rights from all humans.
Pro’s personal certainty does not render his argument immune to his own critiques. Pro’s position on the beginning of personhood is subjective, making his position subject to his principle of uncertainty argument. This means that every single one of Pro’s impacts on the lives of the unborn are relegated to uncertainty, as the degree of harm caused by their loss is entirely unclear. Pro even dropped the sole weighing mechanism he put on this point – based on the Dopamine Room thought experiment – because he knows that issues like the consent of the mother have no bearing on this debate.
Pro’s impacts are the only ones that require certainty with regards to the beginnings of personhood. Mine simply apply the existing legal standard for granting rights to persons and examine the consequences of extending it to all the unborn. That still applies in the face of philosophical uncertainty, and it is the only non-contradictory means of assessing arguments that either of us has presented.
III. What would an abortion ban achieve/cause?
A. Pro’s solvency
Pro keeps claiming increasingly large numbers of the unborn killed by abortion, and though none of them are cited, the biggest question hanging over his case is whether or not a ban reduce them. To that end, Pro presented two sources. Their relevance rests on a correlation between Ireland, the UK, and the US that Pro has not established in the face of distinct legal structures, enforcement, and population dynamics. Pro also claims that the imposition of a ban (his case), Ireland’s removal of a ban, and the UK’s expanded access to abortion produce correlatable results, though he never supports this and he ignores my source that cites demand as the key factor that does not change if abortion becomes illegal. Both sources also exclude pertinent data, including abortions that took place in other countries and instances of illegal abortion.
My data shows that, as a percentage of all pregnancies in developed countries, abortions have declined. As percentages, they aren’t affected by the raw number of children being born, which is a non-sequitur. Remember: this is about Pro’s solvency. He needs to show a causative link between a ban and a reduction in abortions. This data demonstrates that the number of abortions decline even as the number of countries that legalize abortions increase, which suggests that Pro’s link is unclear at best, reversed at worst. Pro also drops that data trends are more applicable to the US.
Pro has also undercut his own solvency. By invoking mens rea, Pro has effectively hamstrung his case, reducing its effectiveness to 7% of all abortions at best, since 93% of abortions occur during the first 13 weeks. Abortions that occur during these 13 weeks will become more common due to this loophole, so his solvency will be far less than 7%. The lack of distinction between a miscarriage and an early-stage abortion is an unsolvable impediment to enforcing Pro’s ban. By contrast, forensic investigators are trained to determine causes of death in developed human beings, whether it happens on camera or not. Pro is neither adding new expertise nor affording them magical tools to solve this problem, so incredulity necessarily follows when Pro claims it can somehow be done regardless. His optimism is severely misplaced.
B. Unjust killings
Pro’s syllogism is absolute: “The reasons for aborting are unjustified”, “Abortion is unjustified killing”. These statements don’t leave room for exceptions, even if you grant that his case does. Pro’s choice to add those planks functions as a concession that some reasons are justified and, therefore, that not all abortions are unjustified killings.
Pro also undercuts his syllogism by reducing all reasons to the two he asserts are “absurd”. If you buy that assertion, it only tells us that these two reasons are unjustified. That’s a problem, as Pro’s own source shows that women often give multiple reasons for getting abortions. Voters should assume that all these reasons are justified, including: relationship problems (48%), completed childbearing (38%), physical harms to the mother (12%), health of the fetus (13%). These numbers reveal that Pro’s analysis excludes most abortions since his argument applies solely to people who give these two and only these two reasons; each of these could be second, third or fourth reasons for getting an abortion, and each independently justifies that abortion.
Finally, the only impact here is symbolic. If the ban does nothing to reduce the numbers of abortions, then its impact is similarly negligible. If the ban inflicts structural violence to achieve a symbolic victory, then it is a pyrrhic victory that only causes harm.
C. Consequences
Given the predictable harms of his plan, Pro can only try to mitigate their impacts. Pro keeps referring to a phantom "1 percent", reducing the harms his ban would cause to a minute number to then dismiss them as “aberrations”. This is the definition of marginalization, and an effort to subvert the needs of these groups that Pro relegates to a small minority to his unborn majority. Setting aside the obvious contradiction (Pro’s own slavery hypothetical critiques this calculus), these groups are worthy of consideration, and Pro’s efforts to lump them into this “1 percent” undervalue and even demonize their suffering.
1. Effect on patients
Mothers would be subjected to investigations, trials and jail time. To avoid those harms, they will hide their pregnancies, resulting in illnesses and injuries to the mother and fetus. But even setting that aside, all pregnant women will suffer from this ban; a miscarriage is already a would-be mother’s worst nightmare, but this would result in the legal system castigating her for its loss. Anyone considering pregnancy will live in fear of what the system will inflict on them if they miscarry.
2. Effect on providers
Providers would also fear prosecution. Any case of claimed medical emergency will be scrutinized and the doctors who perform them will be investigated. They will hesitate to give pregnant patients any treatments that could harm the unborn, regardless of the patient’s status. Treatments of cancers, even if they eventually receive them during pregnancy, will be delayed, facilitating metastasis and other harms. Treating miscarrying women would be fraught as every case would be investigated as they may have helped end their pregnancies. Anyone going through or considering pregnancy will have to face a new reality: they could suffer and die while their providers are legally barred from helping them. Those providers would also lack the tools, treatments, and capability to help them, as they will not receive training for abortions or have access to abortion medications for treating miscarriages, so even if they don’t hesitate, doctors will still be unable to help their patients.
3. Diminished resources
No matter how many clinics remain standing after the ban, reproductive coercion will continue in the absence of abortion. Abortion serves as a crucial means of escape that can never be replaced. 34% of domestic abuse victims have their suffering tied to childbearing decisions; that suffering will only increase due to the concomitant ban on birth control pills and IUDs, which will place more power over their reproductive choices in their abusers’ hands. Pro’s ban also uniquely overburdens their families (particularly the poor) and the healthcare system as a whole with medically fragile patients and perinatal mental health crises. This could result in countless lost lives under the stresses of rationed care as the system struggles to address this influx, harming many who depend on the medical system.
4. Actual violence
Pro cherry-picks the wrong number when assessing loss of life from these additional pregnancies: a 21% increase is 140 new deaths per year, not 49. That only represents those who die during pregnancy; many more will suffer medical complications. Add the harms of sepsis, hemorrhage, pelvic-organ injury and toxic exposures still result from a lack of legal access to safe abortions, since this paper doesn’t include these deaths. Add the threat of violence that these cases pose, since every pregnant woman is now subjected these risks without recourse.
Conclusion
This is the group over which Pro plasters his "1 percent" statistic, a group he renders faceless and nameless to obscure their suffering, considering it "wholly impudent" to focus on their concerns. These are each deeply and broadly affecting instances of structural violence. Pro’s ban would pervert the medical system and subject pregnant mothers to extensive physical and mental trauma. These harms cannot be ignored or marginalized by society without abdicating moral responsibility entirely. We cannot claim to be acting morally in a world where we inflict these harms without due consideration of the many people who will suffer from it. We cannot claim any moral high ground these consequences take a backseat to a philosophical question that we may never be able to answer objectively, or to a ban that is ill-conceived, vague, and achieves nothing more than a symbolic, pyrrhic victory over a practice that will remain common.
Voters, the harms that this ban will inflict are clear. Pro is willing to accept or ignore these losses in a vain attempt to seek a greater good but has never acknowledged their scope and depth, and instead doubled down on the very mentalities that make structural violence so insidious and damaging.
Vote Con.
I have changed my mind greatly on this issue. Used to be pro life. Now strongly in favor of choice when its about early pregnancy.
Whiteflame: "Persons are those who have reached the point of viability, i.e. the ability to live outside the mother’s womb. I fully admit it’s arbitrary, though my basis for selecting that isn’t for any acquisition of traits or personhood, but rather due to the legal, social, and medical realities inherent to reproduction as it relates to society. Pre-viability runs aground of these problems, post-viability does not.
This is 100% correct.
Potentiality =/= Actuality.
No human being comes into existence at the moment of conception.
And before you start into it, yes, I see the later portion where you cite a website and state your own opinion on chromosomes and new arrangements of DNA as a basis for stating that this is the beginning of a person. I get that that is your opinion and even that it is broadly shared. I’m trying to understand how someone who clearly rejects using traits as a basis for awarding personhood is doing just that. I’m also trying to understand how, if this is the view of most scientists, they justify that view on the basis of certain traits, especially when you agreed that science lacks that capacity.
I started a long response, then I saw this:
"To you, the question of its humanity is up for debate, although science places the start of a new, distinct individual human being at conception and fertilization.”
We just agreed that this isn’t true. It’s the reason we had that whole beginning argument, the reason I kept pressing you. Your answer to it was the reason I finally was willing to move on and give my full position so that we could discuss it in detail. If science hasn’t designated which traits are necessary to the beginning of “a new, distinct individual human being,” then science cannot determine when that human being/person starts. If we are no longer agreed on this, then tell me what those traits are that distinguish what is a human being/person from anything else. I'll delay any other responses until we rectify this, one way or the other.
YOU: "Persons are those who have reached the point of viability, i.e. the ability to live outside the mother’s womb. I fully admit it’s arbitrary, though my basis for selecting that isn’t for any acquisition of traits or personhood, but rather due to the legal, social, and medical realities inherent to reproduction as it relates to society. Pre-viability runs aground of these problems, post-viability does not.
Whose legal standard, whose social standard? Who gets to decide, and WHY are they right? If you can't answer these questions, your argument is morally deficient and irresponsible. Based on such views, how can you deem Hitler's Germany wrong? The social standard permitted the killing of around 12-13 million undesirables that the top end, the elites, viewed as subhuman or deficient, just like you and the elites of your society view the unborn human being as deficient; therefore, according to your thinking, it is okay to kill it just like Hitler viewed it okay to kill Jews, or mentally challenged, or even those who did not hold the same ideology as the Third Reich.
Do you not see the inconsistency of your views on this topic??? If not, we need to go deeper into your justifications. Provide your ultimate moral standard for judging such matters and why it is right. So far, you have given the legal system and society. Laws change. Why is the current law a just law? Societies change. One hundred years ago, abortion was considered wrong because it was the killing of an innocent unborn child. Which is the right view (you're not telling me they are both the right view, are you? No, you are arguing that your view, the okay to kill the unborn, is the right view [without justification] - at least to a particular stage of development - thus, you use two arguments here, its environment and its development).
1. Environment: You are saying that personhood is only acceptable by the individual's ability to live outside the womb. I.e., "the ability to live outside the mother’s womb."
2. Level of Development: You say that only at viability does it start to show the signs of personhood. I.e., "Persons are those who have reached the point of viability." Again, you admit that this is an arbitrary standard, so why not include it at some other point in development, like others who view personhood differently do and justify by such thinking that it is permissible to kill the HUMAN BEING after birth, or when it so suits them?
Again, your arguments make little sense. You are basing the killing of the human being on two criteria, its level of development and its ability to survive outside the womb by itself, when in fact, it cannot survive outside the womb by itself. SHOULD EITHER of these two factors apply? I say no, based on what kind of being it is, unless you want to explain that it is okay to kill human beings based on their level of development or the environment in which they live. Please go ahead.
YOU: "I'd call all this the short version. There's a good deal of reasoning that I haven't included, though I'm presenting this as a basis for discussion that will likely last a while, so I open it up for your consideration."
Thank you, I did!
YOU: "Branching off of that, you’ve made the point that we should essentially give all stages of life along this line the benefit of the doubt. I have two problems with this."
YOU: "One, I’m not sure why you start at fertilization. What is it about that particular step that makes it the definitive “first”? We’ve already agreed that there are no empirically defined traits that confer any stage of development with personhood, so what is it about the zygote that renders it a person, while the separate sperm and ovum is not? They are part of that through-line leading to a personal being, right? I’m not sure why they’re cut out of this."
That is when the new individual human being starts, and it is reasonable to believe so. The twenty-three chromosomes from the sperm and twenty-three from the egg form the components of the being that will retain this genetic makeup throughout its life, separate from the genetic makeup of either parent..
"Based on these criteria, the joining (or fusion) of sperm and egg CLEARLY produces a new cell type, the zygote or one-cell embryo. Cell fusion is a well studied and very rapid event, occurring in LESS THAN a second. Because the zygote arises from the fusion of two different cells, it contains all the components of both sperm and egg, and therefore this new cell has a UNIQUE molecular composition that is distinct from either gamete. Thus the zygote that comes into existence at the moment of sperm-egg fusion meets the first scientific criterion for being a new cell type: its molecular make-up is clearly different from that of the cells that gave rise to it."
https://lozierinstitute.org/a-scientific-view-of-when-life-begins/
YOU: "Two, and connected to the first, what happens when this process is interrupted? Your argument was that someone who is a personal being has always been one, but we can only verify that for people who have incontrovertibly become personal beings. Anyone who doesn’t reach that point, i.e. the point of self-consciousness, cannot be verified in the same sense. For that matter, I’d say it’s at least unclear whether someone has always been a personal being or became a personal being over the course of their development, which renders the assertion that one who is a person has always been a person from conception."
Again, your criteria for verification cannot be determined as to when its personhood begins. It does not have the means to do so. You place here the point of consciousness, but does that make it something that is within the human being that is growing or outside such a being? That is an important position to consider. Either personhood is a natural part (part of its nature) of what it means to be a human being, built into the human being, or personhood is acquired by external traits or things outside the human being. If so, what is or are those things? Where does this thing originate from? Again, your scientific view is absolutely pathetic in answering such questions, yet with the pro-choice stance, the okay is given to kill something you don't even know is a person, or perhaps even a human being or not. So absurdly ridiculous, IMO.
YOU: "The result is that I don’t assign personhood to the unborn. We can and must assign personhood to humans, so I simply don’t do it developmentally."
So, who are you to make this determination??? So what? Does that change what is being killed? You don't know, and yet you say, "Kill it. Who cares." Can you apply that same standard to yourself or your loved ones? No, you apply a different standard. Thus, hypocrisy and double standards are being used. The share inconsistency of your view is what makes it so morally indefensible. You can't justify your position, nor did you do so in the debate.
On balance, abortion should be illegal.
YOU: "I don’t think the question of personhood and when it begins is productive."
I disagree. With respect to human beings, if "you" don't know what you are killing, you SHOULD NOT kill it unless it is threatening your life or the life of your family. What you are basically saying is, "I don't know what I am killing. Therefore, it is okay to kill it." Now apply this to yourself. Suppose another human being is not recognizing your personhood, as Hitler did with the Jews. Does that make it okay to kill you? I'm sure, or at least I hope you would say it is not. Otherwise, the killing of human beings becomes a subjective, relative preference. That could mean if I don't like you, I can class you as a subhuman or not worthy of life, or you could do the same with me, and it boils down to who holds power will determine who lives and who dies. Do you think that is just, and how do you ever arrive at justice outside of an objective, absolute, unchanging reference point? Do you have such a point of reference? If you do, I want to hear about what it is and how you justify it as such. If not, why is your "opinion" any better than any other, and how can you have a "better" without a "best?" Do you arbitrarily choose the better by a matter of opinion? Without a fixed best, how are moral measurements made? Better than what?
These are questions you need to explain, or else how do you justify taking an innocent human life that you don't even know is a personal being? That is the glaring weakness of your side of the debate. It is pathetic that you keep side-stepping this most crucial point. "I don't know what it is; just kill it."
YOU: "If you’re placing it based on religion, then it depends whose religious beliefs are correct. Determining whether your religion is the right one, or at least more accurate, would require having another, separate debate that I’m honestly not interested in having."
It is a shame if you take no interest in testing the ultimate questions of life, the questions of WHAT are we, WHO are we, HOW we got here, or WHY it matters and what happens to us when we die. Those are religious or philosophical questions in that science cannot determine them. Science does not have the answers for them, as you have so rightly pointed out. And since each religious view (and your view as a scientist also attempts to answer the exact same questions that religions address) states different things, it means only one, if any, can be true. Again, which is the most reasonable to believe? That can only be examined by dissecting the truth claims of each one and finding out how consistent they are with what is, in which case science fails miserably.
To you, the question of its humanity is up for debate, although science places the start of a new, distinct individual human being at conception and fertilization. Something new begins to grow when the sperm penetrates the egg. Chromosomes from the sperm and egg combine to create a new organism, a human being, if the sperm and egg are also human, NOT JUST A CLUMP OF CELLS.
YOU: "The other perspective is largely based on a through-line, typified by this quote of yours:
(ME) “Within the nature of human beings, if allowed to live and develop, that first cell at fertilization will emerge as a human being and, therefore, a personal being.”
Scientific texts verify that human life begins at fertilization. If you doubt this, show the evidence it is not the case. You did not do that in the debate; you just claimed things to be so.
I don’t think the question of personhood and when it begins is productive. If you’re placing it based on religion, then it depends whose religious beliefs are correct. Determining whether your religion is the right one, or at least more accurate, would require having another, separate debate that I’m honestly not interested in having. The other perspective is largely based on a through-line, typified by this quote of yours:
“Within the nature of human beings, if allowed to live and develop, that first cell at fertilization will emerge as a human being and, therefore, a personal being.”
Branching off of that, you’ve made the point that we should essentially give all stages of life along this line the benefit of the doubt. I have two problems with this.
One, I’m not sure why you start at fertilization. What is it about that particular step that makes it the definitive “first”? We’ve already agreed that there are no empirically defined traits that confer any stage of development with personhood, so what is it about the zygote that renders it a person, while the separate sperm and ovum is not? They are part of that through-line leading to a personal being, right? I’m not sure why they’re cut out of this.
Two, and connected to the first, what happens when this process is interrupted? Your argument was that someone who is a personal being has always been one, but we can only verify that for people who have incontrovertibly become personal beings. Anyone who doesn’t reach that point, i.e. the point of self-consciousness, cannot be verified in the same sense. For that matter, I’d say it’s at least unclear whether someone has always been a personal being or became a personal being over the course of their development, which renders the assertion that one who is a person has always been a person from conception.
The result is that I don’t assign personhood to the unborn. We can and must assign personhood to humans, so I simply don’t do it developmentally. Persons are those who have reached the point of viability, i.e. the ability to live outside the mother’s womb. I fully admit it’s arbitrary, though my basis for selecting that isn’t for any acquisition of traits or personhood, but rather due to the legal, social, and medical realities inherent to reproduction as it relates to society. Pre-viability runs aground of these problems, post-viability does not.
I'd call all this the short version. There's a good deal of reasoning that I haven't included, though I'm presenting this as a basis for discussion that will likely last a while, so I open it up for your consideration.
YOU: "I appreciate that you’ve addressed the point, and as such will end this portion of our discussion and focus on the bigger picture of why I hold my views, as well as what they are, since you and I appear to see them differently. When I get home, I’ll write up a breakdown of my perspective on the issue."
Thank you, Whiteflame! That was easy. (^8
YOU: "Is the beginning of personhood empirically, scientifically defined, and if so, what traits/criteria define it?"
I say no, not scientifically and not empirically. Thus, the Unborn should be given the benefit of the doubt by science and by law. Science and the law should not assume it is not a personal being, not as human as other human beings. The traits we recognize as personal are not outwardly present at conception, neither are its limbs, arms, legs and other features we recognize are evident of its human nature, except that dot we can say is an individual human being. It is not some other kind of being. It is not a potential being. It actually is a human being, and with its humanity comes its personhood. If you believe otherwise, give me good reasons that you believe personal traits are acquired, not provided due to their nature but by an outside factor or factors.
Human nature or its humanity is acknowledged by science at conception as verifiable. A new individual human begins at fertilization.
I appreciate that you’ve addressed the point, and as such will end this portion of our discussion and focus on the bigger picture of why I hold my views, as well as what they are, since you and I appear to see them differently. When I get home, I’ll write up a breakdown of my perspective on the issue.
YOU: "It’s been my point since the start that personhood isn’t defined biologically, and that it’s starting point is therefore not empirically derived. You seem to be agreeing with this to some extent now because you are saying that science can’t determine what is moral. I agree. The problem is, has been, and will continue to be (until you address it clearly in some way, shape or form) that you (not me) have argued that there is an empirically defined starting point for personhood. You have somewhat vaguely kept affirming this by arguing that the scientific community has some consensus on the issue, one you have yet to clearly define."
I agree that science does not give an exact time when personhood starts, scientists do, and the opinions are not consistent, so from a scientific perspective, there is much argument and disagreement. I concede that point to you that science does not know based on biology or empiricism. Does that mean that we cannot know? It depends on what you consider your highest authority. To which I say, when the human being begins to be, so does a personal being, per my highest authority (not science) and by reason (not mine). I argue that if science (scientists) does not know that a human being is a personal being, there is something wrong with such thinking. It is a self-evident truth. Within the nature of human beings, if allowed to live and develop, that first cell at fertilization will emerge as a human being and, therefore, a personal being. It has a point of when it is a human being (conception), and human beings are personal beings. Do you believe human beings are personal beings? If so, when do you recognize their personhood and how do you distinguish what is a person?
In your response, I’m still seeing you dance around the question. Statements like this:
“The currently held belief on the question of personhood may include consciousness, or reasoning, or the ability to communicate”
Don’t tell me that there is or isn’t an empirically derived threshold for personhood. They tell me what you disagree with that some people believe should be the threshold for personhood, which we already have agreed is arbitrary. So, I’ll ask again and note that I’m not looking for a drawn out answer where you tell me how else it should be defined. I’m aware that this is not your preferred way of defining the beginning of personhood, but again, you have said multiple times that it is scientifically (meaning empirically) defined. I keep asking this question open-ended and you keep moving onto other subjects instead of answering it directly, so please, I’m begging you, provide a short answer for the following question:
Is the beginning of personhood empirically, scientifically defined, and if so, what traits/criteria define it?
YOU: "And even in those, I'm still unclear about a lot of factors. You're now arguing that artificial attempts to generate a person don't preclude ascribing the result personhood, so an embryo that is grown outside of the womb is a person because, eventually, it will be transplanted. What if it isn't? Should we count it as a person all the same? And, if and when we do create an artificial womb that can be used to gestate in vitro fertilized embryos, will the result still be a person? I'm honestly asking because you made this delineation - you included a delineation between artificial methods and natural methods, not me. So I'm curious [about] when something is not a person because of artificial impositions. Where's the cutoff?"
I'm curious as to when you think this is too. When can you say, for sure??? I believe, as I have stated before, that a personal being begins when it begins to live based on the Bible, which claims to be the word of God. That is reasonable to believe. It is an authority that claims to be our highest authority and has many justifications as to why that makes sense.
Now, you have to tell me what constitutes a person in your opinion and by your appeal and justification to an authority, you believe as meriting belief, besides yourself, and whether that personhood can be inside the womb or strictly outside because the law defends personhood outside the womb but not inside the womb.
I can argue that outside the womb, personhood would begin from Day 1. Surely you know whether Personghood begins inside or outside, or do you only grant it outside, and how far outside the womb (Location/environment)? Do you want to include others (i.e., the newborn, those in a coma, etc.) as not being persons? Outside the womb would mean that even by artificial means that start an individual human life produce personhood because the essence or nature of the being in question starts where the law ascribes personhood unless, of course, not all those outside the womb are persons. Which would you say may qualify as not being persons? Please delineate which you believe are and are not. Rights are applied, from what I see, to those outside the womb. So, IF the individual has to meet the criteria of "being a person" by "being outside the womb," then the artificially inseminated sperm with the egg must be considered a person. So, when it is placed back inside the womb (location/environment), say three weeks later, does it cease being a person and once again lose its rights until it is again outside the womb?
YOU: "The rest of this response is moving past the issue, and again, I don't think I even have a clear answer from you yet. If there's a scientific consensus regarding personhood and when it starts, don't just tell me that one exists and send me a bunch of links, tell me how they arrived at it. A consensus in the scientific community doesn't just spring up from personal opinion, it comes from clear delineations and broad agreement about those delineations. If you want to argue that I'm wrong to believe how I do, we can get to that after we've passed what I thought would be a simple baseline of understanding that I still don't believe we have. Honestly, I thought I'd get a clear answer by now and just be done with this part. I also don't appreciate having my position continually mischaracterized, though again, I'll come back to that after we've cleared this portion of the discussion."
The currently held belief on the question of personhood may include consciousness, or reasoning, or the ability to communicate, but the question is whether that comes from the nature or essence of the being, like flying to a bird, or by some acquired trait picked up after conception or birth. It is in the nature of a bird to fly by itself without artificial means, but not so in the nature of a human. It is in the nature of a fish to survive underwater because of its natural ability. If you think the trait is acquired, how many babies are you going to drop into the deep end of a pool trying to demonstrate that the trait will eventually be acquired? It is not in the nature of a human unless it is done via an artificial environment or mechanism foreign to its natural ability in itself. I argue it is in the natural ability of the human to be a person. That said, some humans cannot grow fully into their natures (two arms, two legs, a nose, mouth, the ability to communicate openly, a personality) because their lives are taken before the signs or traits we ascribe to personhood become apparent. That does not mean they are not there within the individual, just not seen or understood yet. And on this very point, it is you who is seen by the ultrasound at two months or eight months, not some other being. You say to yourself, "That is me!" You have an identity even while forming in the womb.
You’re mistaking my focus on a single point with rejection of all other possibilities. I’ve said (now several times) that it is my aim to establish a baseline of agreement in some way, shape or form before proceeding onto other issues. That’s not a rejection of non-empirical reasoning, that’s simply an attempt to address one key issue that’s rather important for understanding my perspective. It’s what I’ve been trying to do since we started discussing this in the comments of this debate. Again, you keep trying to move past this issue without giving me a straight answer, so yes, I’m pretty stuck on this.
It’s been my point since the start that personhood isn’t defined biologically, and that it’s starting point is therefore not empirically derived. You seem to be agreeing with this to some extent now because you are saying that science can’t determine what is moral. I agree. The problem is, has been, and will continue to be (until you address it clearly in some way, shape or form) that you (not me) have argued that there is an empirically defined starting point for personhood. You have somewhat vaguely kept affirming this by arguing that the scientific community has some consensus on the issue, one you have yet to clearly define.
If you want me to answer your questions regarding how I view the unborn and the ethics of the issue, I need a clear answer on this, otherwise we’ll just keep returning to this issue over and over again. I think I’ve already given some of those answers in the context of the debate, and perhaps that’s why you keep turning to it, but I’ll be straight up: I’m not going there until we resolve this. When we discussed this via PM, I was willing to go down every possible road and just keep branching on the topic. I want to keep this focused so that we can make some headway. If you want me to give a breakdown of my position, I can, but it requires this as a baseline and I’d rather know how much or how little agreement we have here. I still don’t know, and we’ve been doing this for days.
So, please, I’m asking you to give me a straightforward answer on whether there exist empirically proven biological criteria for the beginning of personhood. Either way, if you answer that, we can finally move on.
YOU: "I have, however, argued that being human as ascribed by traits is in many cases distinct from being a human being/person. You've agreed to that over the course of this discussion since you agree that not all cells that are clearly human are themselves individual human beings. You've given me a set of traits that you believe delineate between a human person and a human non-person, though so far, you haven't committed to arguing that science ascribes these traits as the beginning of personhood. You've said now that "Its "being" or "essence" starts at conception. That is a consensus of science.", though that's another dodge around my question. Science doesn't engage in concepts of "being" or "essence" - it uses empirical evidence (in this case, some marked traits) to distinguish organisms. If science has determined what those traits are that make a person, please, present them. So far, what I've seen from you are your personal views of what those traits should be."
I have also argued that we have a human nature that includes such traits as personhood, and the human being is so because of what they are, not what they become; the essence/nature, not the distinct parts.
YOU: "You've agreed to that over the course of this discussion since you agree that not all cells that are clearly human are themselves individual human beings."
The difference between a human hair cell and a human skin cell differs from the overall organism, the human being, so what?
YOU: "You've given me a set of traits that you believe delineate between a human person and a human non-person, though so far, you haven't committed to arguing that science ascribes these traits as the beginning of personhood. You've said now that "Its "being" or "essence" starts at conception. That is a consensus of science.", though that's another dodge around my question. Science doesn't engage in concepts of "being" or "essence" - it uses empirical evidence (in this case, some marked traits) to distinguish organisms. If science has determined what those traits are that make a person, please, present them. So far, what I've seen from you are your personal views of what those traits should be."
Yes, I have given you some reasons but also base my reason on what the biblical God has revealed, not so much my own opinion. I have questioned your primary authority used (science) as sufficient in determining Personhood. Such findings would be based on scientism, not science. I have asked you why you think that your view is any better than mine (the Unborn is not worthy of life based on the choice of the mother). Science also, being empirical, describes, not prescribes, yet you use it for justification throughout most of the debate. It is the highest authority you appeal to, yet you admit to not knowing when personhood begins. Thus, I conclude that your highest appeal (yourself or science) cannot determine personhood as a fact. Thus, I claim it is not as reasonable as mine. It claims it can't know based on what information is available to it. Mine has the necessary to know; yours does not. My personal view, just like yours, appeals to a higher authority than myself.
YOU: "I also don't know why you keep delineating between science and scientism, or for that matter, why you keep responding to points I'm not making. If you see scientism in my argument, feel free to point it out, but my point to date has only been that no individual trait or set of traits delineates between a human and a human being/person. That doesn't involve separating "a human being and a person via some stage of growth and development" - in fact, I've continually argued that doing so is arbitrary. I have, however, argued that being human as ascribed by traits is in many cases distinct from being a human being/person. You've agreed to that over the course of this discussion since you agree that not all cells that are clearly human are themselves individual human beings. You've given me a set of traits that you believe delineate between a human person and a human non-person, though so far, you haven't committed to arguing that science ascribes these traits as the beginning of personhood. You've said now that "Its "being" or "essence" starts at conception. That is a consensus of science.", though that's another dodge around my question. Science doesn't engage in concepts of "being" or "essence" - it uses empirical evidence (in this case, some marked traits) to distinguish organisms. If science has determined what those traits are that make a person, please, present them. So far, what I've seen from you are your personal views of what those traits should be."
On the first point, there is a difference between science and scientism. The origins of so many things are not known by science. Thus, in determining whether the Unborn is a person is not science, as you have pointed out, but scientism for anyone scientist who claims to know. Also, with the problem of ethics and science, science does not determine ethics, nor can it. It just determines the is, not the ought. There must be a better standard than science in determining what ought to be. It also can't be the relative, subjective opinion of a person or group because that begs, "why are they RIGHT?" Because they say so? The standard cannot be relative, or else it is constantly changing. How can something that is constantly changing be considered right in the moral sense? Before Roe v. Wade, the opinion on abortion was overwhelmingly negative. People believed it was wrong, and the law prohibited it on most occasions. When abortion became the law of the land, what was once considered wrong was now considered right. So which is the actual case - the RIGHT? How can you tell? More to the point, which is better, then or now? How do you determine better if there is no "BEST" or fixed standard? Relativism has no fixed standard. So justify why your position, on these grounds, is more reasonable, or point to a fixed, ultimate standard that can explain morality.
YOU: "I asked you at the start whether this was an open discussion of our positions on the issue or whether you wanted to dig into the debate. Up until now, it's been the former. Now, you're making it the latter. I'm not going to try to do both simultaneously, so if you have responses to my points from the debate, we can either drop the issues we've been discussing up until now and get into my points from the debate in more detail, or we can continue along the lines on which we already started. Your choice."
Both are beneficial in understanding and considering what is happening here and whether it should or should not be legal, IMO. I am taking examples from the debate to query whether your stance is morally justifiable and reasonably acceptable. My aim is to turn this to the heart of the issue, what is being missed and forgotten in trying to justify the woman alone or, more so, in the case of the law of the land and the legality of abortion. To my mind, abortion should only be granted in extremely narrow cases, not an open free-for-all for whoever chooses, based on their bodily rights alone. What about the Unborn's bodily rights? That would depend on what it is. What is more reasonable to believe it is?
I already understand that you don't know when personhood begins. What is more reasonable to believe? Is it more reasonable to believe that personhood is a trait or attribute of being human, or is it an acquired trait foreign to humanness that we somehow acquire from somewhere other than ourselves as human beings, somewhere along the growth period of being a human being? And if we somehow miraculously acquire this trait from something external to ourselves (i.e., not built into our own human nature), where does it come from?
The same goes for being human. If you don't know when humanness begins, how can you support or advocate for the Pro-choice position? Surely you should give the Unborn the benefit of the doubt, as Bones pointed out. And if you do know, how can you advocate for the Pro-choice position? If you know and are willing to give your nod for its death still, then you do not value every human life as morally intrinsic or worth saving. Therefore, when it comes to your own life or someone you love, and someone deems your humanness worthless (or that of your loved one), has the power to take it, and decides to kill you (and is permitted by law), how can you be outraged or try to justify your position as anything other than your opinion because you do not recognize the moral (the rightness) value of human life?
What I am looking for is for you to show me that your reasoning is better or more reasonable than mine, or Bones, in the position taken. I don't think you did that in the debate, although I also don't think Bones pushed you into a corner as much as I would have liked to show the unreasonableness of your Pro-choice position because that is what it boils down to - pro-life as opposed to pro-choice.
We have bearly touched on the subject of ethics and how we know what we know to be right and true. Is it all done on the subjective opinions we hold, or do you see moral value as needing a stronger, more secure and objective standard and measure? In other words, is this all relative, or is there an ultimate standard and reference point of appeal? The gall to say, "This is right because I say so," or "This is right because the majority says so." As if that makes something right. It only makes it doable.
YOU: "Wow, I clearly have been bad at communicating this if that's your take-away.
It's never been my argument (either in this debate or elsewhere) that one cannot know anything that cannot be empirically proven, and while I have problems with the claim that God or any other entity has provided us with this specific knowledge of when a person begins, I haven't actually made that argument yet in this discussion. My sole point is and has been that there is no way to empirically determine when a person begins scientifically, and therefore that no one can know based solely on empirical evidence when a person begins. It's not a dichotomy because I'm not setting scientific evidence at odds with faith-based knowledge or any other kind of reasoning. I haven't even made any points about why this specific mode of acquiring knowledge should be preferred, so I'm not sure where you're getting a dichotomy in this."
I'm glad to hear that. To my mind, you seem to be doing so by only granting or taking into account empirical evidence, and you even admit that you have problems with the claim "that God" has given us proof. I continually claim that it reflects on your worldview and where your ultimate authority lies. Do you not grant that?
Personhood is a self-evident truth, is it not? Are not human beings personal beings? Is that not their nature? Is it not the substance of what it means to be a human being?
noun
any individual of the genus Homo, especially a member of the species Homo sapiens.
a person, especially as distinguished from other animals or as representing the human species:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/human%20being
***
hu·man
1
: of, relating to, or characteristic of humans
3
a
: having human form or attributes
b
: representative of or susceptible to the sympathies and frailties of human nature
noun
: a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens) : a person
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/human
YOU: "My sole point is and has been that there is no way to empirically determine when a person begins scientifically, and therefore that no one can know based solely on empirical evidence when a person begins."
Thus, there needs to be another way of determining this, or else how will you not know whether you discriminate against the Unborn human being in your stance when you don't even know, nor can you prove your point? Your only point is it is not empirically justifiable. My point is that science cannot morally justify anything. Your point, "I don't know; therefore, it cannot be settled." My point is, "Then why kill the Unborn on such grounds as to its personhood as a reason, or lack thereof if that point is undeterminable by you or those who think the way you do?"
That is why I brought up the question of whether all human beings are intrinsically valuable. If you think so, then why are you NOT defending the rights of the Unborn? If not all humans, then which are intrinsically valuable to you? Can you just pick and choose based on your preference because of your one-sided evidence base (what you presented in your debate stance - the woman, the woman, the woman - while forgetting that the Unborn is also a human being)? You do pick and choose all through this debate which has intrinsic value - the woman. You did not acknowledge the Unborn, except to advocate for its lesser position.
So, once again, we circle around to the important question, and I can't overemphasize this enough, "What is the Unborn?" "Is it human?" "If it is human, why are you ignoring its humanness?" "If it is not human, when does it become human?"
If you don't know, and even science tends to present the Unborn as human, then you should give it the benefit of the doubt rather than sanctioning a vote against its existence if the woman so chooses. That is exactly what you are doing with your stance, but you are trying to justify your words by hiding the implications behind them.
If you do know it is human, then are you not promoting its murder, an accomplice? If you don't know, then what makes you any better than Hitler in what he did to your own people, granting that he did not know they were human beings but thought of them as subhuman (like hell he did not know)? That should be a consideration. I know it is a hard point, and one I don't like bringing up but do so that the implication may be seen for what it is. What are you doing that is different from what Hitler and the Nazi machine did in that you are ignoring, devaluing, discriminating, and dehumanizing a class of people to death by supporting such a vile law that is not just.
I asked you at the start whether this was an open discussion of our positions on the issue or whether you wanted to dig into the debate. Up until now, it's been the former. Now, you're making it the latter. I'm not going to try to do both simultaneously, so if you have responses to my points from the debate, we can either drop the issues we've been discussing up until now and get into my points from the debate in more detail, or we can continue along the lines on which we already started. Your choice.
YOU: "Adoption is a red herring. It remains an option for those considering abortion, and structural violence is inflicted no matter who gets the child."
Adoption as opposed to killing the Unborn? Your premise here works on the idea that two wrongs make a right. Yes, it is wrong to inflict unwarranted structural damage on the woman, but it is also wrong to inflict unwarranted structural damage on the Unborn, especially since it has done NOTHING wrong. Your arguments neglect or ignore the Unborn. That human being is forgotten unless you can prove it is not a human being and also show that human beings are not intrinsically valuable.
***
YOU: "V. Conclusion
Pro really wants this debate to be solely about the morality of abortion divorced from policy. Yet, this debate is about policy, which deals in real world solvency and consequences. Turning a blind eye to those consequences yields structural violence, destroying lives for some purported “greater good.” In this case, Pro does not even achieve tangible benefits as he willfully dismisses the harms his ban would cause. Pro wants to stand on symbolism, but if doing so rejects the needs of women and perverts the medical system, then his stance isn't worth the cost."
Again, your whole argument takes no account of the irretrievable harms of what is being done to the Unborn. It is all a one-sided concern. It takes no thought, not a one, for the Unborn and what is being done to it.
YOU: "c. The Dopamine Room
This is an oversimplification, reducing all considerations to consent alone (i.e. if those who enter the room accept the consequences, then the harms of those risks cease to be important). The room isn’t comparable to conception."
I think the example or analogy is very clear, comparing the analogy to consent and responsibility. The two people (assuming they are within the biological timeframe) know there is a chance of pregnancy when intercourse takes place and, with it, a responsibility as the person entering the room knows there is a chance they will be saddled with another person for a year (as opposed to nine months).
The "structural violence" (presumably rape or non-consent of the woman) still does not consider the worth of the Unborn. Likewise, the unborn did not consent to the structural violence to itself either, the taking of its life. WHY IS THIS FORGOTTEN about by the Pro-choice side, or when it is acknowledged (very seldom, IMO), it is sloughed off as unimportant?
***
YOU: "Pro’s argument violates the latter argument, as he arbitrarily selects fertilization as the beginning of a human being. Pro believes that fertilization uniquely confers personhood, but he begs the question: what criteria for personhood does it satisfy that separate gametes do not? Pro appeals to popularity among “biologists” as vague authorities but that just begs the question of what criteria they use. Pro’s three inconsequential differences - level of development, environment, and degree of dependency - apply equally well to phases pre- and post-fertilization."
I don't understand how it violates the latter argument unless you ignore that the Unborn is also a human being who is suffering irretrievable structural damage, the loss of its life. As for fertilization, what evidence did you provide that this was not the case, the beginning of its humanity?
Your argument is weak because you cannot determine when personhood begins. If that is the case, you SHOULD favour the side of caution and allow it its human existence. It also begs the question of what criteria you are using. Logically, I find the three arguments - level of development, degree of dependency, and the environment extremely effective arguments. I can explain more regarding those three later if you so desire.
YOU: "Pro calls this uncertainty “morally indefensible and legally unacceptable,” but his warrant for that point focuses on the arbitrary selection of criteria for personhood. Nowhere in any of his arguments does he explain why uncertainty is, itself, harmful. And yes, that includes the next argument."
Uncertainty from your stance point seems to ignore or does not consider what is being killed. I believe he does take that into account, just not as forcefully as I am doing. He establishes that the Unborn is a human being. He explains that it should be morally wrong to kill human beings by using abortion because abortion is not a "just" law. Abortion(my belief), on balance, is not justified, except for a few exceptions. Those exceptions are perfectly acceptable, but the large majority are not; thus, on balance, it should be illegal.
YOU, R3: "Like the next analogy, this argument assumes that abortion is immoral. It is broadly agreed that theft (and slavery) is immoral. The same is not true for abortion, regardless of Pro’s assertions. We cannot presume the immorality of abortion, though even if we did, that does not make a policy banning it moral. If the ban bars individuals who had morally justified reasons for seeking out an abortion, then the morality of a ban is mixed. Also, whether we’re talking about theft or abortion, if a ban failed to decrease the number of thefts and increased structural violence, then the ban is clearly flawed and the response ought be changed."
The killing of an innocent human being without just cause is immoral, yes? Again, we have a dehumanizing and devaluation of a human being, the Unborn, by saying that abortion is not immoral, while theft and slavery are immoral, and that the murder of an innocent human being cannot be considered immoral - really? How is a policy banning murder (killing the innocent) not moral? I think you should obtain for yourself the book, "Dehumanizing the Vulnerable, When Word Games Take Lives," by William Brennan.
Back cover: "This hard-hitting study shows how dehumanizing language was and is being used to justify violent acts against victim, past and present...He explores a commonly neglected linkage: language used against the unborn and born today is often identical with language used to revile some of history's most victimized - and innocent - peoples."
https://www.amazon.ca/Dehumanizing-Vulnerable-When-Games-Lives/dp/0919225195
If you don't find that convincing, may I suggest reading "Less than human, Why we demean, enslave, and exterminate others" by David Livingstone Smith.
https://www.amazon.ca/Less-Than-Human-Enslave-Exterminate/dp/1250003830/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3OPZ8UELSI5A2&keywords=less+than+human+why+we+demean&qid=1668883930&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjEzIiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ%3D%3D&s=books&sprefix=less+than+human+why+we+demean%2Cstripbooks%2C78&sr=1-1
YOU: "b. Slavery analogy
This argument ignores the harms of a ban and focuses solely on his lack of solvency. If banning slavery accomplished nothing and resulted in dramatic increases in structural violence, then yes, the ban would be harmful no matter the principle it upholds."
I think this is a poor argument on your behalf.
The question is not what the harm of the ban accomplished but whether it is morally justifiable or not. We are speaking of whether abortion should be legal based on whether it is right or not. The outcome (increase in crime, breaking the law) does not always reflect the "rightness" of something. For example, when nothing is done, as in so many US Democrat-run cities and on border States, people feel free to lawbreaker to a larger degree, as is witnessed by these two examples because laws are NOT enforced.
Wow, I clearly have been bad at communicating this if that's your take-away.
It's never been my argument (either in this debate or elsewhere) that one cannot know anything that cannot be empirically proven, and while I have problems with the claim that God or any other entity has provided us with this specific knowledge of when a person begins, I haven't actually made that argument yet in this discussion. My sole point is and has been that there is no way to empirically determine when a person begins scientifically, and therefore that no one can know based solely on empirical evidence when a person begins. It's not a dichotomy because I'm not setting scientific evidence at odds with faith-based knowledge or any other kind of reasoning. I haven't even made any points about why this specific mode of acquiring knowledge should be preferred, so I'm not sure where you're getting a dichotomy in this.
I also don't know why you keep delineating between science and scientism, or for that matter, why you keep responding to points I'm not making. If you see scientism in my argument, feel free to point it out, but my point to date has only been that no individual trait or set of traits delineates between a human and a human being/person. That doesn't involve separating "a human being and a person via some stage of growth and development" - in fact, I've continually argued that doing so is arbitrary. I have, however, argued that being human as ascribed by traits is in many cases distinct from being a human being/person. You've agreed to that over the course of this discussion since you agree that not all cells that are clearly human are themselves individual human beings. You've given me a set of traits that you believe delineate between a human person and a human non-person, though so far, you haven't committed to arguing that science ascribes these traits as the beginning of personhood. You've said now that "Its "being" or "essence" starts at conception. That is a consensus of science.", though that's another dodge around my question. Science doesn't engage in concepts of "being" or "essence" - it uses empirical evidence (in this case, some marked traits) to distinguish organisms. If science has determined what those traits are that make a person, please, present them. So far, what I've seen from you are your personal views of what those traits should be.
And even in those, I'm still unclear about a lot of factors. You're now arguing that artificial attempts to generate a person don't preclude ascribing the result personhood, so an embryo that is grown outside of the womb is a person because, eventually, it will be transplanted. What if it isn't? Should we count it as a person all the same? And, if and when we do create an artificial womb that can be used to gestate in vitro fertilized embryos, will the result still be a person? I'm honestly asking because you made this delineation - you included a delineation between artificial methods and natural methods, not me. So I'm curious as to when something is not a person because of artificial impositions. Where's the cutoff?
The rest of this response is moving past the issue, and again, I don't think I even have a clear answer from you yet. If there's a scientific consensus regarding personhood and when it starts, don't just tell me that one exists and send me a bunch of links, tell me how they arrived at it. A consensus in the scientific community doesn't just spring up from personal opinion, it comes from clear delineations and broad agreement about those delineations. If you want to argue that I'm wrong to believe how I do, we can get to that after we've passed what I thought would be a simple baseline of understanding that I still don't believe we have. Honestly, I thought I'd get a clear answer by now and just be done with this part. I also don't appreciate having my position continually mischaracterized, though again, I'll come back to that after we've cleared this portion of the discussion.
YOU: "The problem I'm having with your characterization of human nature is that you're reducing it to the biological, i.e. those things that "can be known and verified." They are derived from a sperm and ovum, they go through conception, they generate an individual and separate living organism. Those are all verifiable steps with specific traits that we can identify. Distinguishing a human sperm from a gorilla sperm is also about traits, mainly DNA. But then you go on to say that there's some nebulous "nature" that you cannot define, something distinct from these elements, a part of the ontological aspect. I don't even know what Haeckel's embryos are, and I'm not separating different stages of growth, so I don't know what you think I'm doing here."
ME: "Yes, you identify them as persons correctly. Human male sperm and human female egg are the prerequisites for producing a human being. Yes, that can be done artificially now. That was not the case centuries ago and it is not natural but artificial."
YOU: "...But doesn't this run contrary to what you just said about what distinguishes persons from non-persons?"
"YOU: "3) Must do so in the absence of any artificial means."
ME: "By any intelligent attempts or means to alter its nature since God deemed it what it is."
YOU: "If this generates a person, then #3 must be an inaccurate characterization of your position."
We can know because God has spoken and told us as much. Science is just a confirmation of His word.
What happens when a sperm and egg are artificially fertilized (in-vitro fertilization) is that mating is replaced by an artificial means, yet at the point of fertilization, a unique and different human being still starts to grow. It is not part of the woman's body (the uterus), but the newly growing individual still needs the woman's body to aid in its development. It can only last so long before it dies apart from living in the uterus.
***
ME: "Do you believe you are killing a human being? Please answer that. You seem to skip by that time and again."
YOU: "Pretty sure I clarified this in the debate numerous times, hence I didn't feel that it was necessary to clarify it again here after you read this debate. But fine, I'll give you the same answer I gave Bones: since I can't determine that it is a person, my answer is that I am uncertain. Is the unborn at all stages of development a human being? I don't know."
You are uncertain it is a human being - "I don't know."
I believe that uncertainty could reflect on your own personal bias on the issue, not the consensus from science, because of the implications the Unborn definitely being a human being from conception imposes on your stance and the Pro-choice stance. Pro-choice is killing (consenting to murder) an innocent human being. It would mean that the Pro-choice stance is no better morally than that of Hitler in the way that it supports marginalizing and discriminating against a class of human beings as he did, basically on the whim of the woman. If she decides it dies, it dies. And declassifying it to a potential human being (i.e., not sure) DEHUMANIZES and DEVALUES what it is - its true identity. Classifying it as such makes it something other than what it is. If you are not sure, THEN you should give it the benefit of the doubt, shouldn't you??? Yet that is not what you are advocating for in your debate. You are advocating for its legal killing on the whim of the pregnant woman.
To me, that is appalling. The significance of such a stance is that it opens the door wide for more marginalizing of human beings on preference rather than moral grounds instead of defending them on the basis of what they are. It leads to all kinds of human atrocities, the greatest of which is the killing of over 1.5 billion unborn human beings since Roe V. Wade. How can that be so cavalierly done? Can you imagine the moral outrage or the moral silence if 1.5 billion Chinese, Caucasians, Indians, or a specific class of people were killed because they were deemed not as fit or not as human as others? I hope you can because that is what is being done to the unborn human being, the most defenceless and vulnerable of all human beings. How can human beings do that so indiscriminately to other human beings, yet they do? That is why highlighting the point is so important. It is something that SHOULD NOT be done.
It is also something that brings us to the next topic of conversation, do you think that all human beings should have intrinsic value?
Regarding Haeckel: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/haeckels-embryos-the-images-that-would-not-go-away
YOU: "I'm not dichotomizing. I'm focusing in on the first, and leaving the second for later discussion. As I recall, we had a habit of going off in a few different directions in our discussions about abortion, which inevitably resulted in long, rambling posts (I'm particularly guilty of that) and having to revisit points over and over. My goal is to get this particular portion of the discussion behind us so that we can focus in on other concerns."
I think you are dichotomizing between science and faith, and physical and non-physical, that only through one means can anything be known or proven. You have already admitted several times that you can't know when personhood begins, nor do you believe anyone else can because if science can't tell you or prove something, you believe you can't have certainty. I, on the contrary, am saying that God is the necessary being in determining some things (I would argue all truths stem from Him), things regarding origins or beginnings, not science. God makes no distinction between when a person begins in the womb (and they begin in the womb), as the author of Psalm 139 points out. He says,
13. "For You created my innermost parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to You, because [a]I am awesomely and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
The author talks about himself as a person, not a blob of matter, but when he is in his mother's womb. The same can be said about John the Baptist, as revealed by the messenger or angel of the Lord, Gabriel when speaking to Zechariah,
"15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit [m]while still in his mother’s womb."
"He" signifies personhood. (The third PERSON, singular pronoun)
So, as I said before, your knowledge relies on authority, but it seems you cannot accept that the biblical God is the greatest authority. It SEEMS anathema to you, in my eyes, because you seem to place science above God with respect to authority. Thus, the dichotomy. For me, science (not scientism) works in conjunction with God to confirm His words of truth, and to me, God has revealed things that science cannot prove, as you point out. Because science cannot give you an exact date or time on when a human being becomes a person, you question whether it can be known. God treats the unborn as completely human without a stage. Scientism dissects it into a human being and a person via some stage of growth and development. Not only this, it is reasonable to believe that personhood is an attribute of being human. As witnessed by the growth of human beings, their nature conforms to an identity; no matter how developed, they are humans, not some other kind of being. You are losing the identity of the thing, a human being, when you fail to recognize or grant it is human from the moment it becomes a separate, unique, individual organism - fertilization/conception. If you want to call that a process, that is fine, yet when the sperm penetrates the ovum, a new life BEGINS to exist.
Human beings have a specific identity. That is why your comment below is so disconcerting and alarming:
YOU: "But fine, I'll give you the same answer I gave Bones: since I can't determine that it is a person, my answer is that I am uncertain. Is the unborn AT ALL STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT A HUMAN BEING? I DON'T KNOW."
If it is not a human being at all stages of development, what kind of being is it? Its "being" or "essence" starts at conception. That is a consensus of science.
https://acpeds.org/position-statements/when-human-life-begins
https://evolutionnews.org/2020/02/when-does-human-life-begin/
https://intellectualtakeout.org/2021/12/what-science-says-about-when-life-begins/
https://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Mar/8/scientists-attest-life-beginning-conception/
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/scientifically-when-does-human-life-begin/
"I'm just making a point that understanding what the unborn is requires more than biology and science. That only takes you so far, then you plead ignorance and uncertainty."
Technically incorrect. I argued that we are all ignorant on this issue when it comes to issues of biology and science, not just that I personally am ignorant and therefore uncertain, though I agree insofar as uncertainty is an accurate characterization of my position.
"Yes, I do want to hear your justification for when personhood begins, among other things, because it plays a central part in most debates on abortion, including this one and Roe V. Wade. The legalization of abortion, except in rare instances, was made possible in part by the court's understanding of personhood. You admitted you don't know when personhood begins, but I want to hear when you believe and the reasons for that belief."
I haven't given one and I don't plan to do so. I don't believe it's possible to determine precisely when personhood begins, I think I made that abundantly clear. My belief falls in line with that uncertainty, so I don't know why you're expecting a distinct answer to that request. I agree that if we had that answer, it should be central to the debate on abortion. I don't agree that we have it.
"My stance on personhood is from a self-evident perspective and common sense. From a scientific perspective, we know what a human being is, and that it is different from other types of beings. We know that a human being's nature is a personal nature. It deals with what the Unborn is - a human being and the nature of human beings. It also seeks to find out, how from a biological perspective how such a thing can be known and if there is a better or more reasonable explanation. I think I conveyed that."
You conveyed that, but you haven't answered my question, at least not in any form that I can nail down. Do you believe that science has empirically proven when personhood begins? Your position appears to be ontological and derived (at least in part) from the scientific definition of what a human is, but that's not the same thing. Do you believe that science has deduced the exact set of traits necessary for an entity to be designated a person?
I'm not dichotomizing. I'm focusing in on the first, and leaving the second for later discussion. As I recall, we had a habit of going off in a few different directions in our discussions about abortion, which inevitably resulted in long, rambling posts (I'm particularly guilty of that) and having to revisit points over and over. My goal is to get this particular portion of the discussion behind us so that we can focus in on other concerns.
The problem I'm having with your characterization of human nature is that you're reducing it to the biological, i.e. those things that "can be known and verified." They are derived from a sperm and ovum, they go through conception, they generate an individual and separate living organism. Those are all verifiable steps with specific traits that we can identify. Distinguishing a human sperm from a gorilla sperm is also about traits, mainly DNA. But then you go on to say that there's some nebulous "nature" that you cannot define, something distinct from these elements, a part of the ontological aspect. I don't even know what Haeckel's embryos are, and I'm not separating different stages of growth, so I don't know what you think I'm doing here.
"Yes, you identify them as persons correctly. Human male sperm and human female egg are the prerequisites for producing a human being. Yes, that can be done artificially now. That was not the case centuries ago nd it is not natural but artificial."
...But doesn't this run contrary to what you just said about what distinguishes persons from non-persons?
"YOU: "3) Must do so in the absence of any artificial means."
By any intelligent attempts or means to alter its nature since God deemed it what it is."
If this generates a person, then #3 must be an inaccurate characterization of your position.
"Do you believe you are killing a human being? Please answer that. You seem to skip by that time and again."
Pretty sure I clarified this in the debate numerous times, hence I didn't feel that it was necessary to clarify it again here after you read this debate. But fine, I'll give you the same answer I gave Bones: since I can't determine that it is a person, my answer is that I am uncertain. Is the unborn at all stages of development a human being? I don't know.
YOU: "You seem to have downshifted into a religious stance on the issue, and while I'm not going to challenge you on that basis, that is your perspective and rather distinct from mine. My impression was that you wanted to understand what leads me to my views on abortion, and you initially challenged me (several times in that first set of posts) on the basis that you believe that there is a scientific basis for the start of personhood. You're right, my perspective on personhood is largely driven by what we can empirically prove. It's fine if you think other issues should be paramount, but that's going beyond the issues we've been discussing and I'd like to get past this first. So, forgive me if I'm coming off as stubborn on this, but again, it was your perspective (unless I misread it) that there is a scientifically proven point at which personhood begins. If I'm wrong on that, if we're on the same page that there is no empirical means by which we can determine when personhood begins, then we can count the issue as agreed and move on with that as a baseline. If we can't, then I'd like to wrap that up before we move onto other issues."
I'm just making a point that understanding what the unborn is requires more than biology and science. That only takes you so far, then you plead ignorance and uncertainty.
YOU: "My impression was that you wanted to understand what leads me to my views on abortion, and you initially challenged me (several times in that first set of posts) on the basis that you believe that there is a scientific basis for the start of personhood."
Yes, I do want to hear your justification for when personhood begins, among other things, because it plays a central part in most debates on abortion, including this one and Roe V. Wade. The legalization of abortion, except in rare instances, was made possible in part by the court's understanding of personhood. You admitted you don't know when personhood begins, but I want to hear when you believe and the reasons for that belief.
My stance on personhood is from a self-evident perspective and common sense. From a scientific perspective, we know what a human being is, and that it is different from other types of beings. We know that a human being's nature is a personal nature. It deals with what the Unborn is - a human being and the nature of human beings. It also seeks to find out, how from a biological perspective how such a thing can be known and if there is a better or more reasonable explanation. I think I conveyed that.
YOU: "PGA, there's a reason I'm focusing on biological differences. Once we get into ontology and natures, we're dealing in non-empirical spheres. Biological distinction is typified by things like "characteristics, traits, qualities, [and] abilities", distinct natures are far more nebulous. What defines human nature? How can we determine that a zygote has human nature? If your response is that at some point, that zygote will become a full grown human, what about all those zygotes that don't make it that far? How can we determine that for them? You talk about a human male and female mating (which, again, is biological), though there are a multitude of circumstances where zygotes are made via other methods, e.g. in vitro fertilization. They are still persons despite the absence of mating. Clearly, mating is not a prerequisite for personhood."
You dichotomized biological (physical) and ontological (non-empirical) as if the first is the only way in which something can be known and verified.
YOU: "...distinct natures are far more nebulous. What defines human nature? How can we determine that a zygote has human nature?"
Human nature, or being human, is defined by the type of being something is. It is not hard to understand. A human zygote derives its existence from other human beings, from the fertilization of human sperm and human egg; the process known as conception, the beginning of a new, individual, separate, living organism. You can't get a human being by trying to fertilize gorilla sperm with a human egg or visa versa.
YOU: " If your response is that at some point, that zygote will become a full-grown human, what about all those zygotes that don't make it that far? How can we determine that for them?"
It can only be what its biological nature deems it to be. A human does not change into another being so no matter what stage of growth the Unborn dies, if its biological parents are human, it will be human. It can't be anything other than human. For zygotes that don't make it further, that does not change what they are because they derive their nature from the type of beings that produce them and, ultimately, from God. I hope you are not separating the different stages of growth, as did Haeckel’s embryos.
YOU: "They are still persons despite the absence of mating. Clearly, mating is not a prerequisite for personhood."
Yes, you identify them as persons correctly. Human male sperm and human female egg are the prerequisites for producing a human being. Yes, that can be done artificially now. That was not the case centuries ago nd it is not natural but artificial.
YOU: "Beyond that, you're just slipping into other subjects, e.g. what imparts value, which is a secondary question."
It is the most important issue or subject in the debate, regarding abortion and the legalization of abortion, to know what you are killing.
Do you believe you are killing a human being? Please answer that. You seem to skip by that time and again.
That is the question because if you believe that (yes, it is a human being that is killed), then the moral question is, what gives you the right to kill another innocent human being? Please answer that.
You seem to have downshifted into a religious stance on the issue, and while I'm not going to challenge you on that basis, that is your perspective and rather distinct from mine. My impression was that you wanted to understand what leads me to my views on abortion, and you initially challenged me (several times in that first set of posts) on the basis that you believe that there is a scientific basis for the start of personhood. You're right, my perspective on personhood is largely driven by what we can empirically prove. It's fine if you think other issues should be paramount, but that's going beyond the issues we've been discussing and I'd like to get past this first. So, forgive me if I'm coming off as stubborn on this, but again, it was your perspective (unless I misread it) that there is a scientifically proven point at which personhood begins. If I'm wrong on that, if we're on the same page that there is no empirical means by which we can determine when personhood begins, then we can count the issue as agreed and move on with that as a baseline. If we can't, then I'd like to wrap that up before we move onto other issues.
The biblical God is described as a personal being, which means, in part, belonging to a particular being rather than anyone else and having certain qualities and characteristics. As a person, He is able to reason and love as well as have the ability to express Himself, be known and know, create and do things that relate to His distinct being, as well as judge and have compassion and mercy; the Almighty, unlimited in power and majesty. Those are just a few of His personal attributes. By nature, He is also different from us in His abilities, presence, knowledge, power, and eternal being. So if I demonstrate my personality, my presence would also be particular to me, different in distinction from anyone else yet operating from within the confines of what I am as a human being, having a human nature. I too, like God, can reason, love, create, and express myself as well as know others and be known because I bear the image and likeness of God to a small degree, a very limited degree. I understand I also share in some of His attributes because He has revealed as much by His written word to me. There are some things, expressions, mannerisms, and habits I do that are peculiar and unique to me alone that other people see and understand about me. My personality can be very stubborn, but it expresses itself by trying to be kind and look out for the self-interests of others above myself much of the time. I seek after truth and want to understand why I am and who made me. That drives me along, along with a desire to be loved and love others, especially a special someone to share life with.
Psalm 139:13-14 (NASB)
13 For You created my innermost parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to You, because [a]I am awesomely and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well.
Since we are created with minds and bodies, or souls and bodies, or spirits, souls and bodies, I believe there are at least two aspects to knowing, physical verification and non-physical abstractness or the non-physical, of which logic plays its part in understanding or proving anything.
Many things are not empirical by nature, yet a natural worldview requires a material or empirical nature of all things. Empiricism cannot meet its own standard. Show me the empirical without using logic and show me that the laws of logic exist empirically. By the laws, I mean the Law of Excluded Middles, the Law of Identity, and the Law of Contradiction. I do not believe you can show me personality empirically, just aspects of it exhibited in traits, just like I don't believe you can show me these laws of logic or beginnings or intentionality and uniformity in something that is not mindful.
YOU: "You're saying that unique DNA and the somewhat nebulous aspect of embodying the entirety of a human are both necessary and sufficient for one to be considered a person? When I refer to the latter (and I'll try to break this down as you have, forgive me for any errors), you're arguing that the stage of development must have:
1) The capacity to divide and differentiate into numerous tissue types in and of itself,"
I'm saying it does.
YOU: "2) The capability to do so in the absence of any intervention beyond affording it nutrition and an appropriate environment,"
Other than by something you seem not to recognize, the hand of God in determining what it is and its functions, rather than blind indifference chance factors causing its consistency and uniformity.
YOU: "3) Must do so in the absence of any artificial means."
By any intelligent attempts or means to alter its nature since God deemed it what it is.
YOU: "Please, modify this as you see fit, but I'd like a clear statement about what separates a person, in your estimation, from what is simply considered biologically human. I did note that you included "God 'breathing' into them the breath of life", though as that is not an empirical claim, I'm leaving it out of this. I'm seeking a purely scientific reason why the unborn at all stages of development must be considered a person, so adding in religious statements like this detracts from the issue."
Thanks! I think the best I can do is give you examples.
Yes, I was making a point by including God. You seek a purely scientific reason because that seems to be where you place your ultimate source of authority. You are looking to the natural world, the physical, and the material for your explanation of all things, an empirical verification. How does that work with morality? And how does that work with beginnings? You don't know when personhood begins. Science can't tell you. So how do you make sense of it? You appeal to what you THINK can be known and verified while at the same time making judgements about something you don't know and can't verify, at least not empirically. We are trying to determine in such instances if your reasoning is better or worse off than mine or the Pro-life position since you are defending the other side.
PGA, there's a reason I'm focusing on biological differences. Once we get into ontology and natures, we're dealing in non-empirical spheres. Biological distinction is typified by things like "characteristics, traits, qualities, [and] abilities", distinct natures are far more nebulous. What defines human nature? How can we determine that a zygote has human nature? If your response is that at some point, that zygote will become a full grown human, what about all those zygotes that don't make it that far? How can we determine that for them? You talk about a human male and female mating (which, again, is biological), though there are a multitude of circumstances where zygotes are made via other methods, e.g. in vitro fertilization. They are still persons despite the absence of mating. Clearly, mating is not a prerequisite for personhood.
Beyond that, you're just slipping into other subjects, e.g. what imparts value, which is a secondary question.
YOU: "Saying it’s by nature punts the question unless you’re no longer arguing that personhood is a empirically established. Nature isn’t something that can be measured in a lab. It’s not a trait we can use to differentiate one organism from another. If it’s not based on traits in your estimation, then we agree to that extent. If it is based on traits, then reducing it to “nature” is too non-specific."
Do you not recognize that ontologically, a human being has a specific type of nature different from a frog, cat, or bird? It is not only biologically distinct from those, but it has characteristics, traits, qualities, abilities, and some limits that differ from a frog, cat, or bird. Human nature is the essence of what it means to be a human being. Also, you maintain the same identity throughout your life. You still are you, and still human, even though you have experienced many physical changes and circumstances in life change. You came into being, not someone else, and you don't change from being you, a distinct individual human and person, throughout your life. You have your own identity, your own personality. You are or should be valuable in and of yourself, not because you acquire traits or are better functioning than someone else. To be otherwise is a licence to discriminate and dehumanize those who are "not as good" or consequentially marginalize you into that camp.
When a biological human male and female mate, is there any other type of being other than a human being that can be produced??? By nature, the answer is obvious. Where do you see otherwise? The offspring of human beings take on the nature of a human being, which includes personhood. The human being does not take on another identity. It is what it is.
So, let's just clarify this before we move onto your other questions, because I feel this is rather fundamental to my view and we need to have a clear distinction here before we can get down to the other issues you've presented:
You're saying that unique DNA and the somewhat nebulous aspect of embodying the entirety of a human are both necessary and sufficient for one to be considered a person? When I refer to the latter (and I'll try to break this down as you have, forgive me for any errors), you're arguing that the stage of development must have:
1) The capacity to divide and differentiate into numerous tissue types in and of itself,
2) The capability to do so in the absence of any intervention beyond affording it nutrition and an appropriate environment,
3) Must do so in the absence of any artificial means.
Please, modify this as you see fit, but I'd like a clear statement about what separates a person, in your estimation, from what is simply considered biologically human. I did note that you included "God 'breathing' into them the breath of life", though as that is not an empirical claim, I'm leaving it out of this. I'm seeking a purely scientific reason why the unborn at all stages of development must be considered a person, so adding in religious statements like this detracts from the issue.
YOU: "You’re not talking about a single cell or “an entity that isn’t “more than one type of cell”, but you would designate a zygote as a person. I don’t understand that distinction. I also don’t understand why having more than one cell is what makes a human being. Isn’t that just a stage of development? Why isn’t that similarly arbitrary?"
The zygote is the first stage, or earliest stage, of the growth of a new individual, living being. It has the information (Its DNA) to direct the new individual organism from its most basic developmental stage to the next stage of growth and beyond. I'm saying a skin cell is a specific type of cell and not the whole but a part of the organism. A skin cell is not a whole living individual but just a part of it. A zygote, as a whole, is the first stage or beginning of a human being's growth and development.
YOU: "To that end, as well, if I take an arm off of a person, I’m not separating one person from another despite the fact that both have differentiated human cells. Maybe this was meant to be a response to that:
“entity that is directing the growth and functioning from within itself of its ENTIRE LIVING BEING”
Again, an arm is not the whole but a part of an individual. An arm is not a person. It does not determine the person. The person still is who he/she is, regardless of whether he/she is missing or has lost an arm. He/she still knows who they are. Although the "zygote" does not yet know who it is (self-aware), it has within the structure of its being the ABILITY to develop into what IT IS, a personal being. Can you say human beings are NOT personal beings? What you need to do is demonstrate that the Unborn does not naturally have such ability of personhood or grant that you don't know and give it the benefit of your doubt.
YOU: "But I’m unclear because a developing embryo doesn’t direct its own growth, at least not in its entirety. If I were to grow an organ in the lab, I would not be growing a new human, despite the fact that the stem cells I’m using to grow it are able to partially direct their own growth. I’m imposing external growth factors on it to make it grow a specific way. The same is true with an embryo."
Are you saying that its DNA does not direct its growth, but some external factor does? Of course, I realize it needs nourishment from outside itself, just like every other human being or being, because that is within the nature of the design. DNA determines its humanness because it descends from a male and female human and carries human traits, but within itself, the nourishment is directed and utilized in a NATURAL course of events. I'm not speaking of something artificial or forced upon it in which an intelligent being alters that natural course as they play God. As you say, "I AM IMPOSING EXTERNAL GROWTH FACTOR ON IT." You, in such a case, would be interfering with its natural progression to cause a specific pattern or reaction.
YOU: "So, I ask again: what traits make a person distinct from just being human? You acknowledge that the two are distinct by saying that a skin cell is not a person, but I have yet to see something that differentiates all persons from non-person human cells and tissues."
Their personal, distinct DNA makes them different from other human beings, plus God "breathing" into them the breath of life.
Since you are a biologist, what is the difference between a rock and a living being if everything comes from a material start or beginning, how does that process take place and play out? And God is not taught in science as being responsible in any way for beginnings? I'm asking how something impersonal (a rock or material object) takes on personhood strictly through a biological function (evolving); something that is not alive and material in nature somehow eventually acquires life and consciousness, the latter differences that are hard to verify empirically as to how and when they happened. You seem to look for all your answers strictly from a scientific perspective or at least explain them strictly from such a perspective. That suggests to me what your ultimate authority seems to be, empiricism and scientism because neither is capable of supplying you with the truth of what actually happened in such fields. It is speculation. You are speculating. You speculate about personhood (as you admit), and if science is your ultimate authority, you speculate about beginnings. That is what you do with the Unborn, you speculate about when they become human, and you speculate about when they become persons, and you speculate on what is right and what is wrong because it is relative and subjective unless you can point to a source that is otherwise. I'm still waiting for that one.
Saying it’s by nature punts the question unless you’re no longer arguing that personhood is a empirically established. Nature isn’t something that can be measured in a lab. It’s not a trait we can use to differentiate one organism from another. If it’s not based on traits in your estimation, then we agree to that extent. If it is based on traits, then reducing it to “nature” is too non-specific.
You’re not talking about a single cell or “an entity that isn’t “more than one type of cell”, but you would designate a zygote as a person. I don’t understand that distinction. I also don’t understand why having more than one cell is what makes a human being. Isn’t that just a stage of development? Why isn’t that similarly arbitrary?
To that end, as well, if I take an arm off of a person, I’m not separating one person from another despite the fact that both have differentiated human cells. Maybe this was meant to be a response to that:
“entity that is directing the growth and functioning from within itself of its ENTIRE LIVING BEING”
But I’m unclear because a developing embryo doesn’t direct its own growth, at least not in its entirety. If I were to grow an organ in the lab, I would not be growing a new human, despite the fact that the stem cells I’m using to grow it are able to partially direct their own growth. I’m imposing external growth factors on it to make it grow a specific way. The same is true with an embryo.
So, I ask again: what traits make a person distinct from just being human? You acknowledge that the two are distinct by saying that a skin cell is not a person, but I have yet to see something that differentiates all persons from non-person human cells and tissues.
Human beings are personal beings by nature.
So its personality is a part of its nature.
YOU: "What you’re talking about is personhood, specifically its beginnings. You would likely not argue that any cell that has human DNA is, itself, a person. A skin cell is not a person. If I injected a pig with human DNA, it does not become a person. And, presumably, you would argue that gametes aren’t persons. These would all be designated as human in some way, shape or form, yet they are not persons. Hence, the issue is the distinction: when does something that is human under biological definitions become a person? I haven’t heard a satisfying answer to this question yet, so I invite you to address it instead of just punting back to me with more questions."
You are confusing two different things. Yes, a skin cell is not a person. I'm not talking about an individual cell, whether that be a skin cell or not, but about a complete or whole living organism or entity that is directing the growth and functioning from within itself of its ENTIRE LIVING BEING that is more than one type of cell or another because of what it is. You are separating the two distinctions and trying to make the PARTS the WHOLE.
If the distinct LIVING whole organism has a human nature, what does that entail? It entails the traits that make up a human being, one of which is personhood comes from within its own being, not outside.
It is not a different kind of being but its own human being, growing and developing into what it is. That is part of its natural human development. You seem to think that it acquires human traits that are not from its own human nature but from somewhere else that it picks up at some point. Of so, prove that. You don't seem to know where these traits come from because you seem to think they CAN NOT be part of the individual unborn's distinct human nature.
We are talking about two different things. Scientists can determine whether an organism, tissue or cell is human. We do that by taking a set of traits (DNA most often, since it covers all of them), and noting genes that are indicative of what is human. We can also track the development of specific traits. That’s how science is used to make these determinations.
What you’re talking about is personhood, specifically its beginnings. You would likely not argue that any cell that has human DNA is, itself, a person. A skin cell is not a person. If I injected a pig with human DNA, it does not become a person. And, presumably, you would argue that gametes aren’t persons. These would all be designated as human in some way, shape or form, yet they are not persons. Hence, the issue is the distinction: when does something that is human under biological definitions become a person? I haven’t heard a satisfying answer to this question yet, so I invite you to address it instead of just punting back to me with more questions.
ME: "Can he say that the Unborn is not a PERSON? (He has admitted he can't)."
YOU: "In general, I think a lot of what you've posted here comes down to "personhood matters." I agree that it does, but I disagree that we can accurately designate when personhood begins. To do so empirically requires assigning a specific trait or set of traits as the definitive beginning of personhood. Absent that, it becomes a philosophical question, and different philosophies can and will disagree for a variety of reasons. Frankly, much of my opinion on the beginnings of personhood and how much it should factor into the issue of abortion stems from this: greater uncertainty should render this portion of the issue a minor one when considering policy. That's not a dismissal of personhood as an issue, that just recognizes that our policy shouldn't be dictated by an arbitrary answer to a question we have no means to adequately answer."
Personal matters? Does that mean you can't know?
Again, because you don't know, why do you think no one else can know? That is your assumption, perhaps. Do you believe some things are innately known or self-evident? Do you discount God's revealing or putting the difference between right and wrong within the human consciousness? Is there such a thing as a self-evident truth? All I see here is an appeal to science as your ultimate authority on the matter. Your answer seems to be saying because science cannot determine a specific "trait," then that makes it official, it cannot be known. Yes, it is a philosophical issue, but also a moral one. How do scientists decide what is and is not moral? It is not me who believes it is uncertain what the human Unborn is; it is you. It boils down to your ultimate authority. Therefore how can you say what SHOULD and SHOULD NOT be if your authority is not ultimate or absolute? Yet you are. So, once again, your subjective position on abortion comes up wanting and is inconsistent.
It is inconsistent, isn't it? You don't know it is a person, yet you advocate for a Pro-choice position and support the taking of its life on the woman's decision without knowing what is being killed. You appear not to recognize that all human beings are personal beings and intrinsically valuable and deserve life because of the position you advocate for and that you can't justify it (you don't know and admit it). Are you also saying you don't know the approximate timeline for when human life begins??? Does it take fifteen days or more to determine this, and who says and why? If the Unborn has the genetic makeup of a human being, can it be another kind of being? When it comes into being (starts to live), does it not have a human nature, which would include personhood? Is that not reasonable??? So, even if you want to concede no one can know and nothing else can be determined about its personhood, your position is less reasonable than PRO's because you are not giving the benefit of the doubt to the Unborn. "Kill it; we don't know what it is!" Do we know a one-day-old-born human is a person? Does it have the traits of personhood? You don't seem to know what are these specific traits or at least when they are ASSIGNED. "We don't know; kill it!"
YOU: "...but I disagree that we can accurately designate when personhood begins. To do so empirically requires assigning a specific trait or set of traits as the definitive beginning of personhood."
Thanks for engaging. Hopefully, others will pipe up too.
ME: "Can Con say that the Unborn is NOT a human being? (I do not believe he can reasonably do this, nor has he)."
YOU: "I didn't say that, and I'm not saying that now. I was pretty blatant about my position."
No, I did not charge you with saying the Unborn is not a human being. I said, "nor has he," but I wanted you to clarify your thoughts. That is why the following sentence is so puzzling.
YOU: "Regarding what science can do, if you're talking about empirically showing that a given form of life is a human being, that depends on the criteria."
What kind of scientific criterion are you speaking about, and do you actually believe them? Are you telling me that some scientists CAN'T tell whether the product of a human male and female is human, that science has no clue, it is up in the air, and it can just manipulate the data to say whatever it wants to state depending on who is saying it? It is a pretty pitiful authority if the truth changes or cannot be determined with this matter. A given life form resulting from two biological human beings can be something other than human??? The scientists who think this way have lost their common sense and collective minds.
YOU: "I'll note that Bones himself said that selecting specific criteria for what a human being is problematic, mainly because it's arbitrary. So, since we cannot answer that scientifically because we cannot define what specific physical aspects make a human being, I think that relegates the question of whether the unborn is a person to philosophy."
If it has male and female parents, genes, it shares 23 chromosomes from each, and they can't say it is a human being. This is so absurd, only in scientism.
And, IMO, the problem with such a worldview that lifts science above all else as its ultimate authority (and to some, only empirical data that science cannot even conform to) is that it is subject to subjective human beings who are often wrong because of their lack of understanding.
You admitted that you don't know where personhood begins. Are you saying you don't know when its human nature begins, either? When a person does not know such things, should they not give the benefit of the doubt in favour of the Unborn, as Pro pointed out? IMO, there should be DIGNITY given to every innocent human being, that includes the Unborn, not just the select or the elect. The problem so often is the Pro-choice side neglects to do so because it fails to distinguish or they mask the difference between right and wrong, human and non-human, and person and non-person. Because of the Pro-life ultimate authority (usually science or personal subjective or group choice without consideration for God or an ultimate reference point), it can't make sense of morality or distinguish what is and is not human or a person, and yet decides if it lives or dies. When a person does not know the TRUTH of the situation and does not believe anyone can, then advocates for the woman killing the Unborn and dictates what should and should not be and how we should understand the situation, there is a serious deficiency here and many assumptions.
In general, I think a lot of what you've posted here comes down to "personhood matters." I agree that it does, but I disagree that we can accurately designate when personhood begins. To do so empirically requires assigning a specific trait or set of traits as the definitive beginning of personhood. Absent that, it becomes a philosophical question, and different philosophies can and will disagree for a variety of reasons. Frankly, much of my opinion on the beginnings of personhood and how much it should factor into the issue of abortion stems from this: greater uncertainty should render this portion of the issue a minor one when considering policy. That's not a dismissal of personhood as an issue, that just recognizes that our policy shouldn't be dictated by an arbitrary answer to a question we have no means to adequately answer.
Alright, I can at least address your questions.
Can Con say that the Unborn is NOT a human being? (I do not believe he can reasonably do this, nor has he. What is the consensus from Science?).
I didn't say that, and I'm not saying that now. I was pretty blatant about my position. Regarding what science can do, if you're talking about empirically showing that a given form of life is a human being, that depends on the criteria. I'll note that Bones himself said that selecting specific criteria for what is a human being is problematic, mainly because it's arbitrary. So, since we cannot answer that scientifically because we cannot define what specific physical aspects make a human being, I think that relegates the question of whether the unborn is a person to philosophy.
Can he say that the Unborn is not a PERSON? (He has admitted he can't).
That's repetitious with the above question. I treat "human being" and "person" identically.
Can Con say the Unborn is only a blob of tissue? (Not according to science).
I didn't, and I don't.
Can Con say it is okay to kill human beings without just cause? (Not unless he believes human beings are not intrinsically valuable).
I didn't, and I don't.
Does Con believe innocent human beings such as the Unborn are worthless? (If he does, and he appears to, he also places little to zero worth on his own life or that of his family. Is he willing to do that? Can anybody just take those lives without reprecussion? Where is the justice there? There is none. Yet he permits it in the case of the Unborn. Where is the justice there?).
I didn't, and I don't. At no point in this debate did I make any statement to that effect.
Is the Unborn an innocent human being? (What has it done wrong? Nothing. Did it choose its circumstances. No, generally speaking, the woman and man consented to sexual intercourse knowing that it could lead to pregnancy. Does she have a responsibility in engaging in sex? She now thinks not).
I have argued and will continue to argue that determining that the unborn is a human being is a philosophical question. As such, I push back on the notion that the unborn is empirically defined as a human being.
Is the woman consenting to kill another innocent human being? (Yes, she is if she agrees to end the life in her womb without just cause).
See above.
I think Bones and I share much of the same views; at least, he advocated for them in the debate. I don't think your answers were adequate, so yes, I want to engage in a learning and justification discussion/session for both sides. I think you had many valid points, but I believe you also skipped over some vital issues that Bones could have expanded upon more.
Whiteflame: "I appreciate the extensive thoughts on the topic, but I'm a bit lost on what you're looking to get from all this."
First, I wanted to critique your position as the weaker of the two.
Second, I want to hear why you think abortion is okay regarding the comments I have brought up. You know my bias, and I know yours. I know we have covered this extensively in private conversations, and I did not agree with your position then on this position, nor do I now. I think it would make an interesting discussion that others can engage in. It is a subject that I think we can all learn from by discussing it because it is usually ignored in abortion debates and by abortion advocates. These are crucial issues, and abortion was a hot topic during your elections that ignited much of the Gen Z and academic vote, from people who seem blind to these issues.