Arguments in favour of abortion
Taken directly from a philosophy essay I recently submitted.
Argument 4: God is morally bad?!?
Consider again, the problem mentioned previously with defining when it is that a zygote becomes a foetus and when in the developmental stage of a foetus it becomes morally wrong to kill it. We came to the conclusion that any boundary we may draw is entirely arbitrary. But then, one could argue that it is also somewhat arbitrary that we should morally abhor the killing of a potential person (i.e. the foetus) and not the killing of potential potential persons (i.e. the sperm). If we are to take it back that far, then we can say that contraception is morally bad (something which the church firmly believes in anyway). But then, we must also say that the people responsible for making contraceptive devices are morally bad, since they are facilitating the killing of potential potential persons. But then, under the potentiality argument, the parents of the people who designed contraceptives are also morally bad since (rather ironically) in giving birth to their children, there was always the potential that they would cause ‘harm’ to the very fabric of society. But why stop there? Why not also say that the grandparents of the people who designed contraceptives, and the great grandparents, and the great great grandparents are also all morally bad people? And if we are to continue this chain, we eventually come to the incredibly ironic conclusion that the creator of human kind (i.e. God, the Big Bang, or which ever religious figurehead one happens to believe in) is morally bad. Firstly, this is just intuitively wrong. Secondly, we are left with an interesting paradox. How can it be that in upholding the moral values of a spiritual being (i.e. not encroaching on the right to life of another being) we are in fact saying that the spiritual being lacks the very moral values we are defending? If the being then lacks these values, there will be no values to defend, in which case abortion then becomes okay again, in which case the being is no longer immoral. If the being is no longer immoral, then we must uphold the values. In neither case are we then obliged to morally support nor morally abhor the act of abortion.
Argument 4: God is morally bad?!?
Consider again, the problem mentioned previously with defining when it is that a zygote becomes a foetus and when in the developmental stage of a foetus it becomes morally wrong to kill it. We came to the conclusion that any boundary we may draw is entirely arbitrary. But then, one could argue that it is also somewhat arbitrary that we should morally abhor the killing of a potential person (i.e. the foetus) and not the killing of potential potential persons (i.e. the sperm). If we are to take it back that far, then we can say that contraception is morally bad (something which the church firmly believes in anyway). But then, we must also say that the people responsible for making contraceptive devices are morally bad, since they are facilitating the killing of potential potential persons. But then, under the potentiality argument, the parents of the people who designed contraceptives are also morally bad since (rather ironically) in giving birth to their children, there was always the potential that they would cause ‘harm’ to the very fabric of society. But why stop there? Why not also say that the grandparents of the people who designed contraceptives, and the great grandparents, and the great great grandparents are also all morally bad people? And if we are to continue this chain, we eventually come to the incredibly ironic conclusion that the creator of human kind (i.e. God, the Big Bang, or which ever religious figurehead one happens to believe in) is morally bad. Firstly, this is just intuitively wrong. Secondly, we are left with an interesting paradox. How can it be that in upholding the moral values of a spiritual being (i.e. not encroaching on the right to life of another being) we are in fact saying that the spiritual being lacks the very moral values we are defending? If the being then lacks these values, there will be no values to defend, in which case abortion then becomes okay again, in which case the being is no longer immoral. If the being is no longer immoral, then we must uphold the values. In neither case are we then obliged to morally support nor morally abhor the act of abortion.
posted by Yuki at
8:41 PM
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