The denial of potential life is not a valid argument against abortion. The denial of life would happen at every opportunity at procreation, which makes no sense when you follow it through. Masterbation for men, denial of life. Not impregnating any female who makes herself available, you denied some baby the potential for life. Taken to the extreme, if denial of potential life is murder, isnt murder a greater crime than rape? Should the potential for life take precedence over a womens ability to consent? No, the potential for life justifies nothing, and merely masquerades as a rational argument. Its an emotional appeal, the cut off point of when the potential for life attains some sort of trump status is arbitrary and emotionally based.

I don't think that killing is obviously wrong.

The idea we are being deprived of something by being killed, makes death itself problematic because death will always deprive people of a lot of potential. But a dead person cannot be deprived of anything if they have ceased to exist.

Being alive causes deprivation anyway because there are a lot of things we would like to do but can't do when we are alive. I have never been to Disney World. I am not a poly-linguist, I can't play the Oboe, I have not been in love etc.

To me the harm of being killed is the physical suffering, if it is a painful death, the suffering of friends and relatives and the fear of death whilst facing it. But these are all things attached with being alive which involves a lot of suffering, deprivation, loss and fear.

I agree. But it is an argument against the idea that killing a fetus prevents someone having a fulfilling life because a fulfilling is not guaranteed. It opposes the claim someone is always robbed of something good by dying. — Andrew4Handel

And this could be used as a justification for killing anyone you saw as living a sad life.

It is not a justification for killing someone it is pointing out that if you believe in heaven then killing someone is giving them a better life. Many Christians believe they are going onto something much better. And they and other religions value martyrdom also. — Andrew4Handel

Yeah, again, this is all justification for killing people, which is obviously not very Christian.

I think you could undermine any interpretation of the bible by referring to another one. — Andrew4Handel

Well that scuppers your Biblical argument then.

I don't think that killing is obviously wrong. — Andrew4Handel

Well if we all make ourselves Godless self-appointed gods about the matter then I think that will be problematic for wider society.

And this could be used as a justification for killing anyone you saw as living a sad life. — AJJ

It is not a justification for anything it is just a refutation of the idea that life is an automatic good and valuable.

If life is not an automatic good then you have to come up with a different argument against abortion. It is only an argument against one reason to oppose abortion.

Nevertheless the status of the fetus is not the same as the status of someone who is much older and where you are not talking about hypothetical outcomes. Adults can choose to kill themselves having decided whether or not life is desirable for them. Some people can see ways to improve their life.

This is all diverging from the biblical stance any way which is based on what the bible claims about the quality of this life. Anyone that believes in a better afterlife has a problem justifying this quality of life.

Well that scuppers your Biblical argument then. — AJJ

No it doesn't it scuppers your complain against me. You can't claim I am using the wrong interpretation of the bible. I am arguing based on what several translations of the bible say and I don't think the but you claimed was missing changes my point anyway.

I am not using the bible as an authority by any stretch of the imagination I am saying that Christians cannot coherently use the bible to justify an anti abortion stance. But also Ecclesiastes offers a sentiment far different from the idea life is desirable and a gift etc.

If life is not an automatic good then you have to come up with a different argument against abortion. It is only an argument against one reason to oppose abortion. — Andrew4Handel

How about that life isn’t automatically bad?

Nevertheless the status of the fetus is not the same as the status of someone who is much older and where you are not talking about hypothetical outcomes. Adults can choose to kill themselves having decided whether or not life is desirable for them. Some people can see ways to improve their life. — Andrew4Handel

But as for unborn children, we’re allowed to decide for them?

Anyone that believes in a better afterlife has a problem justifying this quality of life. — Andrew4Handel

My understanding is that suffering in Christianity is intrinsically meaningless, and so can’t be used to justify ending a life. Our purpose is simply to live according to God’s will, happily or not.

I am not using the bible as an authority by any stretch of the imagination I am saying that Christians cannot coherently use the bible to justify an anti abortion stance. — Andrew4Handel

Can’t they? “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.” Killing unborn children is in stark opposition to that, for a start.

But as for unborn children, we’re allowed to decide for them? — AJJ

When someone commits suicide it is because they have suffered or are suffering immensely or predict future suffering.

A fetus has none of these statuses.

We are not deciding for them because they have no desires or knowledge (except maybe knowledge of their womb experience). There is just no comparison.

If you want to argue that a fetuses desires can be thwarted you have to show they have these long term goals.

I think that imagining what a child in the womb feels is just fantasy or speculation.

Potential people, unborn children, future experience, creating life. How about this: this is a philosophy site, where we all presumably value good thinking that's well-written. Not an agenda-ridden rant site. So most of you, just stop. Try thinking about what you are writing. What is the substance? What, exactly, is the argument. How does your argument work? What are the terms you are using and what do they mean? For example, potential human being: this is a joke. What does it mean? Read this:

"Generally speaking, a sperm count of under 39 million per ejaculation or 15 million per milliliter lowers your odds of a successful conception."

For most healthy men between the ages of about twelve to fifty-five, that is around 15,000 days, that's around 45 x 10^10 sperm, or "potential human beings." Multiply that by around 3 x 10^9 to represent the number of men on the planet and you get about 1.35 x 10^21 sperm in about forty years. By comparison, the number of people alive in 2019 is about 7 x 10^9. Same calculation for women. You end up with a stupendous number of :"potential lives." So "potential human beings" is meaningless just on the arithmetic. Never mind the question as to what a potential human being, or for that matter a potential anything, is.

So just stop with the nonsense; our world at the moment has too much of it. If you want to make a reasoned argument, make it. I'll read it, and if it's any good I will appreciate it. If you cannot, then sit on your hands, read, and learn.

We are not deciding for them because they have no desires or knowledge (except maybe knowledge of their womb experience). There is just no comparison.

If you want to argue that a fetuses desires can be thwarted you have to show they have these long term goals. — Andrew4Handel

I’m not arguing that. I agree that unborn children are incapable of deciding whether they would like to live or not, and asking does that make it appropriate for us to kill them as we see fit?

Let me try and make the argument for a valuable future- there is a link above to the whole argument

1. It is immoral, without justification, to kill people like us. ( can we avoid a rabbit hole about justified here please, it is not important to the argument)

2. What one loses, when one is killed is all the experience, joys, relationships, etc that is in ones future. Let's call this a human future of value. FOV

3. Killing someone is immoral because it denies them their FOV

4. After the process of conception is completed, a new and unique organism exists

5. This organism is 100% human, and 100% alive

6. This unique, human organism is in complete possession of a fully human and unique FOV

7. It is immoral to deny a FOV

8. It is immoral to deny these organisms their unique FOV therefore abortion is immoral

Let me try and make the argument for a valuable future- there is a link above to the whole argument

1. It is immoral, without justification, to kill people like us. ( can we avoid a rabbit hole about justified here please, it is not important to the argument) — Rank Amateur

From time immemorial among the most serious of possible crimes. But who are the "people like us" that are being killed?

2. What one loses, when one is killed is all the experience, joys, relationships, etc that is in ones future. Let's call this a human future of value. FOV

When "one" is killed? The error in #1 has leaked to #2. And you don't lose what you never had, have not now, and only may have in the future - and the entire future is a maybe. Further, what is its value and how do you assess it? And you're not in any case talking about a person in any sense.

3. Killing someone is immoral because it denies them their FOV

This isn't an argument; it's a bald claim without support, in terms of, and about things and concepts about those things, that are themselves error-riddled.

4. After the process of conception is completed, a new and unique organism exists

True of any form of reproduction, with respect to the organism created. What you have not done is grounded or justified whatsoever any claim for a special status of any kind for any particular organism.

5. This organism is 100% human, and 100% alive.

So is pimple on my backside. Why do you not make clear and explicit whatever it is your argument is, and what it is for?

6. This unique, human organism is in complete possession of a fully human and unique FOV

FOV, a gee-whiz term that is supposed to mean something, but that does not.

7. It is immoral to deny a FOV

Two points here. 1) there has been no argument in support of this or any part of this. 2) the author of the essay this comes from troubled to make explicitly clear that just exactly this, he was assuming for the sake of (his) argument.

8. It is immoral to deny these organisms their unique FOV therefore abortion is immoral

Sorry, not a successful argument. I'll still read the article - maybe you've misrepresented it.

The larger lesson here is that if Rank Amateur had paid "even the cold respect of a passing glance" to what he was doing, he would not have posted, and he would have been far better off for the thinking he might have done instead. That's a loss of value, and nothing future about it - implicitly he's the immoral one here.

But Rank Amateur merely shares in the flaws that I myself have - and he tried. How about the rest of most of you? .

From time immemorial among the most serious of possible crimes. But who are the "people like us" that are being killed? — tim wood

Like you, me human beings.

When "one" is killed? The error in #1 has leaked to #2. And you don't lose what you never had, have not now, and only may have in the future - and the entire future is a maybe. Further, what is its value and how do you assess it? And you're not in any case talking about a person in any sense. — tim wood

Do you not value your future Tim, are you looking forward to dinner tonight? Looking forward to the next good movie you will watch, time spent with folks you love. Are you indifferent if these things happen or not? Would it be moral for me to shoot you in the head, and deny these future events?
lack of certainty in what your exact future is, does not make you still desire it to happen

3. Killing someone is immoral because it denies them their FOV
This isn't an argument; it's a bald claim without support, in terms of, and about things and concepts about those things, that are themselves error-riddled. — tim wood

It is not an argument, it is a proposition, I pro port as true, Based on 1 murder is immoral, denying a FOV is murder, therefore denying FOV is immoral

5. This organism is 100% human, and 100% alive.
So is pimple on my backside. Why do you not make clear and explicit whatever it is your argument is, and what it is for? — tim wood

Your pimple is not an organism, it is a word with meaning

FOV, a gee-whiz term that is supposed to mean something, but that does not. — tim wood

I defined it,

7. It is immoral to deny a FOV
Two points here. 1) there has been no argument in support of this or any part of this. 2) the author of the essay this comes from troubled to make explicitly clear that just exactly this, he was assuming for the sake of (his) argument. — tim wood

Just flatly disagree with 1. And you still have not understood your first error about his assumption that I corrected you on earlier

The larger lesson here is that if Rank Amateur had paid "even the cold respect of a passing glance" to what he was doing, he would not have posted, and he would have been far better off for the thinking he might have done instead. That's a loss of value, and nothing future about it - implicitly he's the immoral one here. — tim wood

Thank you for the comments. All of your comments to the argument posted were flippant and near thoughless. Much more aimed at inflating your quite developed ego, them meaningfully answer what may well be my feeble attempt at summarizing a rather respected philosophical argument.

Anyone can uses references [whilst] misrepresenting the findings of studies and selecting a few studies out of thousands. — Andrew4Handel

Ah, ha! Lives in the UK, "whilst" he posts on TPF.

It isn't clear to me HOW abortion came to be the hot issue it has become. I am familiar with the 20th /21st century history, going back at least a century. I am (I think) aware that abortion was disapproved of in the ancient world, but NOT on account of the fetus--rather it was on account of the parent, or patriarch of the tribe/community. At the same time as there was concern about women denying someone a child, the ancient world was quite willing to get rid of inconvenient live births. Unwanted babies were thrown out with the bath water -- left outside to die.

So, sometime after the demise of the Empire in the west, and before contemporary time, a religious-led objection to abortion and infanticide arose. (I'm guessing the objection to abortion was as present in Islam as Christian teaching and practice.)

Who, what, when, where and why did the drive to fervently foster full-term fetuses develop?

All arguments against abortion that I've encountered are exercises in begging the question. — tim wood

I guess the problem boils down to when a fetus becomes a person, then raising the question of possible murder. That is crucial information we lack to make a good judgment.

Religion and science are head-to-head on the matter.

Science sees it as an issue of fetal viability ex utero at more than 23 weeks while religion believes in a soul that comes into existence at a time before that. As is obvious the two sides don't agree on when exactly a fetus becomes a person.

Religion has lost credibility these days and the vote of the people swing towards the scientific analysis of fetal viability.

However, science and religion will come to agree at some point in the future because of the rapid progress in medical technology allowing fetuses even younger than 23 weeks to survive ex utero. What about scenes from science fiction movies where babies are cloned in incubation chambers right from the zygote stage? Don't you think that religion will win the debate with the help of science, as odd as that sounds?

I guess the problem boils down to when a fetus becomes a person, then raising the question of possible murder. That is crucial information we lack to make a good judgment. — TheMadFool

Personhood is a quagmire. It is completely arbitrary, pick the criteria that you like, draw the arbitrary line and anything on one side is and anything on the other side is not. What is or is not a person has been a time honored ploy to cleave off a group of people and to do thinks to you can't do to real people

Science sees it as an issue of fetal viability ex utero at more than 23 weeks while religion believes in a soul that comes into existence at a time before that. As is obvious the two sides don't agree on when exactly a fetus becomes a person.

Religion has lost credibility these days and the vote of the people swing towards the scientific analysis of fetal viability.

However, science and religion will come to agree at some point in the future because of the rapid progress in medical technology allowing fetuses even younger than 23 weeks to survive ex utero. What about scenes from science fiction movies where babies are cloned in incubation chambers right from the zygote stage? Don't you think that religion will win the debate with the help of science, as odd as that sounds? — TheMadFool

There is no conflict at all between science and religion on abortion. Science is clear when human life begins, religion, at least my religion agrees. When a fetus is or is not viable is a matter of science, using as a criteria for abortion is not a matter of science. It is just one more arbitrary and as you note variable line we draw to justify what we want to do.

"Anyone can uses references [whilst] misrepresenting"

Ah, ha! Lives in the UK, "whilst" he posts on TPF. — Bitter Crank

There's another one here:

the suffering of friends and relatives and the fear of death whilst facing it. — Andrew4Handel

Don't you just love "whilst"? :heart:

I am going to train myself to use it.

I guess the problem boils down to when a fetus becomes a person — TheMadFool

Yes, my perception is that it's exactly that, and the more cool-headed analyses on both sides of the argument approach it that way.

Religion and science are head-to-head on the matter. — TheMadFool

I don't think science has a position on that question. Nor, for that matter, do most religions. 'Personhood' is a strictly philosophical concept. It involves (philosophical, ie qualia-based) consciousness, about which science says nothing.

I was simply pointing out that future medical technology could eventually make the zygote itself viable ex utero, closing the gap (if personhood is the issue) between religion and medical science.

We have sperm banks which means we've found a way to keep sperm alive, in different words sperm are viable. It's strange that the viability spectrum has a gap between sperm and a 23 week fetus.

One more thing is that if sperm are viable and the medical community uses the criterion of viability to justify abortion then they should be protecting sperm from being murdered.

Do you not value your future Tim, are you looking forward to dinner tonight? — Rank Amateur

This goes to the elusive 'is death a deprivation?' question, that has respectable supporters of both sides, eg Shelley Kagan and Epicurus say No, while Thomas Nagel and (unless my memory is tricking me) Bernard Williams say Yes. It is usually raised in the context of the 'is there any reason to fear one's own death?' discussion.

Perhaps its a feeling rather than something that can be logically argued. I don't feel it would be a deprivation for me if I were to suddenly die or be killed, because I wouldn't be around to experience the deprivation - no matter how much I were looking forward to dinner.

But somebody's sudden death would in most cases be a deprivation for their friends and others that know them and like their company, because it is depriving those people of the society of the deceased, not to mention upsetting them greatly. Sudden, unexpected death is also usually a negative experience for anybody else that witnesses it, regardless of whether they know the deceased.

Another thing I want to point out is a very relevant discrepancy. It concerns both religion and the secular faction. We don't afford full rights to children until the age of 18. Doesn't this imply personhood comes in stages. Why do some people have an issue with defining a fetus as a non-person? Do such people let their children drink alcohol at age 6?

The two rights that come immediately to my mind are the right to drink and the right to vote. I don't see those as related to personhood. I imagine the intent of the first prohibition is to protect children from the harmful effects of ingesting alcohol, while the second is perhaps to protect society from having its government elected by people who have no understanding of what they're voting for (Yes I've left that gate wide open. Charge in if you must)

Like you, me human beings. — Rank Amateur

But not candidates for abortion, yes? I thought the issue was abortion, not whether murder was good or bad, or moral or immoral.

Do you not value your future Tim, are you looking forward to dinner tonight? — Rank Amateur

Who are you talking about? Me?

denying a FOV is murder, therefore denying FOV is immoral — Rank Amateur

Maybe you ought to define "murder," because since when is "denying an FOV" murder.?

5. This organism is 100% human, and 100% alive.
So is pimple on my backside. Why do you not make clear and explicit whatever it is your argument is, and what it is for?
— tim wood

Your pimple is not an organism, it is a word with meaning — Rank Amateur

I assure you it is 100% human and 100% alive. Your criteria. Are you withdrawing your criteria?

2) the author of the essay this comes from troubled to make explicitly clear that just exactly this, he was assuming for the sake of (his) argument.
— tim wood

Just flatly disagree with 1. And you still have not understood your first error about his assumption that I corrected you on earlier — Rank Amateur

Here is what he wrote: "The argument is based on a major assumption.... that whether or not abortion is morally permissible stands or falls on whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end. The argument of this essay will assume, but not argue, that [this is] correct.

And "seriously wrong"? What about just wrong? Or maybe wrong sometimes? Or never? Or because this group of people says so?

All of your comments to the argument posted were flippant and near thoughtless. Much more aimed at inflating your quite developed ego, — Rank Amateur

You flatter yourself that you could be anything that would enlarge my ego. But you could educate me, if you read, and thought about what you read, before you wrote. My remarks aren't flippant, they're to you about your understanding of your own argument - or that you have presented. And you have not answered them. So I'm done. If you post more, I'll read. If it's worthwhile, I'll respond. But why not take to heart that someone has advised you that something you have read and apparently "bought," isn't what you apparently think it is.

I do not think anyone gladly has an abortion. Generally abortion is undertaken for unwanted pregnancy and pregnancies may be unwanted for many reasons, inability to care for the child, unpreparedness in life, etc.

This implies that one way to reduce the number of abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancy through sex education, ready access to birth control and other methods. Ironically many people opposed to abortion are also opposed to sex education and medical interventions to prevent pregnancy.

Does potential life (embryo, fetus) have the same moral or ethical value as established life (a four year old child, or adult)? I think not and anyone confronted with a fire in a fertilization clinic would easily save the children there instead of the frozen embryos. Potentials are not actualities or existents.

At some point the state does develop an interest in developing life and the religious (eager to count God on their side) always have an interest in other peoples moral and ethical decisions. Technology allows us to prevent pregnancy easily and conveniently, to detect pregnancy at an ever earlier stage and to terminate unwanted pregnancies more safely, and earlier making the health and ethical considerations less fraught all (in my mind) desirable goals.

I do not think old white men in the legislature or in religious trapping should be telling young women confronted with unwanted pregnancy that they must carry the pregnancy to term and raise an unwanted child. The social consequences of unwanted children are another thing to be considered and debated.
Even in an ideal world, where unwanted pregnancies were not a reality, nature would still confront us with fetal malformations, in utero deaths, genetic diseases, threats to the life and health of the mother and other difficult medical and ethical choices. These choices are best left to the individuals affected, their counselors and their medical providers.

Like you, me human beings.
— Rank Amateur
But not candidates for abortion, yes? I thought the issue was abortion, not whether murder was good or bad, or moral or immoral. — tim wood

The first few premises are establishing murder, defined as taking away a future of value for human beings like us is immoral - he wants to establish it is immoral for us before moving on to fetuses

— Rank Amateur
Who are you talking about? Me? — tim wood

Yes, you. You made the point you can't posses a future. I was asking if you value your future

I assure you it is 100% human and 100% alive. Your criteria. Are you withdrawing your criteria? — tim wood

My point was a pimple, while on a human is human, is not an organism - I told you an organism has a specific meaning- a pimple does not meet the criteria

— Rank Amateur
Here is what he wrote: "The argument is based on a major assumption.... that whether or not abortion is morally permissible stands or falls on whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end. The argument of this essay will assume, but not argue, that [this is] correct. — tim wood

And again he was not making any assumption about the nature of a fetus. He is saying that abortion can or can not be morally permissible depending on the nature of what a fetus is. What he is asking you to assume is the nature of what a fetus is, will bear on the morality of killing it. It does not ask you to assume any thing else. It is the first thing in his argument because, if the nature of the fetus has no bearing on morality of abortion there is no need for him to make an argument about the nature of a fetus.

I will pass on the snide remarks this time

I will avoid the social arguments concerning abortion on this forum, because I do not consider them philosophical. But the philosophical question is, shouldn't we agree on the morality or immorality of the act, before we consider the social issues

I am going to train myself to use it. — andrewk

We all might as well.

The 'st' on the end of 'whilst' is called an 'excrescence'. Apparently philologists don't like it. There are several excrescent words:

whilst, amongst, amidst, against, and unbeknownst

betwixt seems to be the most disliked excrescent word. It goes back to Old English, betweox.

Swingeing (pron. swinjing, rhymes with singeing) deserves more usage. It's British;, meaning a sweeping change..

Unbeknownst to me whilst I was living amidst the Gaulois, a plot against Ceasar was being hatched amongst his soldiers.

I will avoid the social arguments concerning abortion on this forum, because I do not consider them philosophical. But the philosophical question is, shouldn't we agree on the morality or immorality of the act, before we consider the social issues — Rank Amateur

Which act are we talking about?
The prevention of pregnancy through birth control pills or contraceptive?
The discarding of unused embryos in the fertilization clinics?
The morning after pill?
RU-486 in the first few weeks of pregnancy?
Medical (drug) abortions in the first ten weeks of pregnancy?
Aspiration in the first trimester?
Termination after rape or incest?
Young teens?
Late term abortions for severe fetal malformations (anencephaly, in utero fetal death, etc)?
Just what act are you talking about, and what moral or ethical criteria or system are you using to decide for everyone?

Perhaps in this media, we can keep the question more true to the biological aspects and philosophical aspects of the subject.

What i would primary like to discuss here is, in which state of the process of creation of life, would you consider as an acceptable form of life that should fit into the equation of what we decide that fits into the judgement of our moral part when we make the decision to perform an abortion or not? — EpicTyrant

I'm fine with abortion up to the end of the second trimester. After that, it's murder. But that's just based on my feelings. What are the philosophical aspects of that?

The philology in this thread is far more valuable than the philosophy.