Abortion - Right or Wrong? - The No Difference Argument

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Abortion - Right or Wrong? - The No Difference Argument

I have considered three main hypotheses used by defenders of abortion to try to justify it: One, that there is a line to be drawn, before which there is no person or only a potential person, after which there is a person. Two, that no one knows when a person comes into being, the agnostic position. And three, the gradualist position; that what is in the womb starts out being a nonperson but gradually becomes a person, a smooth transition from the impersonal to the personal. Now, underlying all these is a simple fact. That there is a being in the womb, distinct from his mother, who grows and develops, and is then born: a newborn baby.

Suppose we kill this newborn baby. For one thing, we cut short his life; we deprive him of his entire future. We deprive him of the most basic thing he has, which is presupposed for everything else: his life. Surely this is a great moral evil.

Suppose we kill this being shortly before birth. We deprive him of his whole future. Suppose it is earlier, and then earlier still. The same applies. The crucial point is this: no matter when we destroy the being in the womb, we deprive him of his entire future. From this all-important perspective, what difference does it make whether it is earlier or later? Either way, the being in the womb (regardless of how his status is now designated) is robbed of his entire future.

This makes the whole debate about where to draw the line, or whether we can know what the proper place is, or whether there is not perhaps a smooth transition from nonperson to person, totally irrelevant. For the being in the womb, it makes no difference (apart from pain) whether she is robbed of her entire future at an earlier or later date. The effect is the same: she is deprived of her future, and that is a terrible moral evil.
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Whether I kill a sleeping person (painlessly) five minutes after he falls asleep at night, or five minutes before the alarm goes off in the morning makes no difference to him. Either way I cut short his whole future life; I deny him his existence as an awakened being. The being in the womb is in a "sleep," relative to the "awakened" state of his later life. What is the difference, for him, whether he is killed early or late in this "sleep"? Either way, his existence is ended.

Penalties

Consistent with justice, the penalty ...

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