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Arguments Against Abortion |
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The Overall Argument |
Premise 1) Legality, where possible, should line up with morality. Premise 2) Abortion-on-demand is immoral yet can banned. Conclusion) Therefore abortion-on-demand should be banned. |
Comments |
| a) Exceptions can be made, as needed, for tubal pregnancies, rape, incest, etc. | ||
| 1) Objectifies Humans | P1) Human beings should be treated as subjects, not objects. P2) Abortion treats human beings as objects Conc.) Therefore abortion is wrong. |
a) The objectification is as instrumentally inconvenient human life. b) See Kant’s Categorical Imperative |
| 2) Death Penalty | P1) It is immoral to issue a death penalty in cases of a morally innocent or neutral party. P2) Abortion is a death penalty to morally innocent/neutral parties. Conc.) Therefore abortion is immoral. |
a) Neutral on whether the actual death penalty is ethical or not. b) The preborn could be non-moral (like rocks or cats), and this still works. |
| 3) Animal Abuse | P1) It is immoral to abuse higher-order animal life for convenience. P2) Abortion abuses higher order animal life. Conc.) Therefore abortion is immoral. |
a) Ex., Endangered species and pets b) Even animals for consumption are protected by abuse laws. |
| 4) Right to Life (see, #9) |
P1) Human rights, including right to life, extend to every “member of the human family” from creation onward (i.e., conception). P2) Abortion militates against human life from conception to birth. Conc.) Therefore, abortion militates against a human right.* |
a) See preamble of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); Decl. of Indep. (1776); and Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959). |
| 5) Life Dilemma | P1) The right to life should be honored except in cases of a moral dilemma where an equal or greater moral value is at stake. P2) Liberty is not an equal or higher moral value than life. Conc.) Therefore the life should be honored above liberty. |
a) Moral dilemmas must have only evil options, even if one is considered “less evil” than the other. |
| 6) Liberty/Bodily Sovereignty Dilemma | P1) Only in certain dilemma contexts can someone morally and rightfully infringe on another human being’s body/bodily sovereignty. P2) Most abortions are not such dilemmas. Conc.) Therefore, most abortions are immoral. |
a) Moral dilemmas must have only evil options, even if one is considered “less evil” than the other. |
| 7) Baby Lottery | P1) Contracts are morally binding. P2) In cases of pregnancy from consensual sex, the mother has implicitly agreed to a natural contract by entering the baby lottery even if she did not know she’d “win” that lottery. Conc.) Therefore, such mothers are morally bound not to abort. |
a) Knowingly, willingly entered, not concerning illegal/immoral such as aid and abet a criminal, lie under oath, etc. b) Refers to a “natural” contracted, once pregnant, to bring that child to term insofar as she’s capable. |
| 8) Unwanted Baby | P1) It is conventional wisdom that a pregnant woman who is planning to bring that child to term is carrying a baby. P2) One’s natural status doesn’t change simply by the desires/beliefs of another. Conc.) Therefore, lacking a desire to be pregnant/”keep the baby” does not change the fact that it is a baby. |
a) Ex.: if I don’t think you’re American, that has no affect on your citizenship. b) Imply’s that (1) Intentionally killing babies for the sake of convenience is immoral. (2) Abortion does that. (3)Therefore, abortion is immoral. |
| 9) Created Equal | P1) The Declaration of Independence recognizes that “all men are created equal” and they are “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights . . . Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” P2) Conception is the point of creation for every human being. Conc.) Therefore, all men are “equal” and “endowed” with the right to “life” from conception onward. |
a) Draws on the founding documents for legal/judicial support. b) The laws of the land however are largely phrased towards legal citizens (and preborns are not that). |
| 10)Discrimination | P1) Abortion discriminates (a) against a defenseless class of people for (b) the convenience of another class of people (c) on the basis of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependence. P2) Discrimination on such bases is immoral. Conc.) Therefore abortion is immoral. |
a) Not all discrimination is evil, but that which involves a basic right to life and selects between preferred sizes, handicaps, and convenience is evil. |
| 11)Ownership Objection (see also, Obj. 2) |
P1) It is unethical for one human being to own another. P2) Abortion, in treating the fetus as the mother’s bodily property, constitutes ownership of one human being by another. Conc.) Therefore, abortion is unethical. |
a) Ownership is a kind of objectification, and thereby unethical. b) Parent-child relations are not ownership but wardship. |
| 12)Irresponsibility /Consistency Check | P1) If abortion is ethical, then so is a pregnant mother who knowingly drinks alcohol, smokes, or misuses prescription. P2) Those acts are not ethical for a pregnant mother. Conc.) Therefore, neither is abortion ethical. |
a)The pro-choicer who affirms abortion on grounds of “privacy” must also affirm any mother’s right to harm her own body, child included. |
| 13)BurdenAnalogy | P1) If children can be aborted strictly because they’re burdens, then so can born infants (or teenagers, or adults) be aborted. P2) Infants cannot rightfully be killed for being burdensome, Conc.) so children in utero should not be aborted for that reason either |
a) The “burden” argument works equally well for any other people group that’s burdensome. |
| 14) Parental Duty | P1) Parents have a natural right and duty to care for their children. P2) The conceptus is a “child in utero.” Conc.) Therefore parents have natural right to care for the conceptus. |
a)Most family law on child abuse/neglect hinges on this innate duty of parents to the children and children to their parents. |
| 15) Slippery Slope | P1) Defining morally relevant “personhood” as starting at birth is arbitrary when distinct human life had already begun at conception. P2) Arbitrary definitions are susceptible to the “slippery slope” of a thing are interchangeable (i.e., birth/ adolescence, 18 years old, etc. is when personhood begins, etc.). Conc.) Therefore, defining morally relevant “personhood” as starting at birth is interchangeable with other definitions (i.e., birth, adolescence, 18 years old, etc.). |
a) Points out the trouble w/ various starting points for human life after conception.b) R. Reagan, “I should like to know if taking this old Decl. of Indep. , which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it, where will it stop.” (Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, Thomas Nelson, 1984), 28. |
Abortion History Museum 