Does Abortion Harm the Preborn?

In my last article, I gave a discussion of various arguments against fetal personhood, including the Functionalist view. I presented a detailed analysis of why presently exercising self-awareness does not make one inherently valuable. This will be a follow-up to my last article, presenting a detailed analysis on whether the ability to feel pain or exhibit consciousness makes an entity inherently valuable, followed by a discussion on whether the unborn is actually harmed by being aborted.

Some More Appearances

Recently I made two more appearances on podcasts. First, I returned to the Razor Swift podcast to have a debate/discussion on abortion with pro-choice person Chet Gaines. I was definitely in debate mode, but he just wanted a discussion. So I do wish I had discussed more.

Arguments Against Fetal Personhood

In my previous article on Personhood, I explained that what makes us “persons” (if you must use the term) is our inherent nature as rational, moral agents. While I tend not to focus on personhood arguments unless the topic is broached by the other person, I can only see one reason for disqualifying the preborn from personhood: in order to justify killing them. Any definition for personhood given by a pro-choice advocate works equally well to disqualify some born people from that same status (most notably, infants). But most pro-choice people would not follow their definitions to the logical conclusion and support infanticide.

The Ultimate Euphemism

This post is written as part of the Ask Them What They Mean by Choice Day, which is, itself, a response to the pro-choice event Blog for Choice Day. Today is the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and its sister case Doe v. Bolton. On January 22nd, 1973, abortion was essentially legalized in the United States for all 40 weeks of pregnancy, for essentially any reason.

Personhood USA

So my recent article I wrote for the Secular Pro-Life blog on fetal personhood was picked up by Personhood USA and linked to on their blog.

Jill Stanek

Pro-life advocate Jill Stanek has blogged about two of my blog entries at Secular Pro-Life (which you can likewise find on this blog): my examinations of Frank Beckwith's Substance View, and Don Marquis' Future-Like-Ours arguments. You can find the buzz in question here.

On Personhood

It’s an uncontroversial fact of science that the preborn conceived of a human male and human female are human beings (biologically) from fertilization. But does this mean that just because they’re human beings we can’t kill them? There are times when it’s almost universally accepted that it’s acceptable to kill a human being, such as in self-defense. But what if they are innocent of any wrong-doing deserving of being killed? Science can show us that something is human (e.g. you, me, infants, the preborn, etc.), but it can’t show us whether it’s wrong to kill humans. That’s where philosophy steps in.