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Pro-choice arguments (Part 1) - The naive pro-choice argument

This series of posts will be dedicated to examining various pro-choice arguments. I'm gonna start from the weakest arguments and move on to stronger ones. Enjoy!

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Usually the typical pro-choice argument goes something like this:

--1. Fetuses are not human life at conception or in the weeks following.

--2. Therefore it is morally permissible to kill a fetus

The first part of the argument (1) asserts that a fetus isn’t human life--it's more like a ‘clump of cells,’ ‘material,’ ‘a blood clot,’ ‘a part of the woman’s body,’ etc. In any case, whatever “it” is that is developing inside the mother’s body, it ain’t human life according to (1). The benefit of (1) is that it eases any emotional guilt associated with killing a fetus, since if the doctor is only "killing" a clump of cells then there is no reason to feel guilty– it is not as though the doctor is killing a REAL human. And this leads naturally to (2): It is morally permissible for us to kill a fetus since it isn’t human life. That is, the reason why it is moral permissible to kill a fetus is just because it isn't human life.

I call this argument “naïve” for two reasons: Firstly, it completely ignores the scientific consensus that human life begins at conception. There are a whole slew of facts out there regarding this issue, but I’ll save that for a different post. Needless to say, I don’t think there is any reason for us to wrestle over whether a fetus is human life or not. Secondly—and this is the point I’ll elaborate on—the conclusion clearly doesn’t follow, and the argument as a whole is pretty weak. Clearly it doesn’t follow from something’s being non-human life, to the conclusion that it is morally permissible for us to kill it. Say, for example, I get a new puppy. Armed with the naïve pro-choice argument, above I decide to make the following argument:

--1. Dogs are not human life at conception, or at any point following conception

--2. Since my puppy is a dog, and since dogs are not human life, it is morally permissible for me to kill her right now.

Clearly there would be something wrong here. What right would I have to kill my new found companion? Well, according to the naïve pro-choice argument presented above, the right to kill an unborn baby comes merely from the fact that unborn babies are not human life. That is, the fetus' status as non-human grants the moral permissibility for it to be killed . But by that logic, we have a license to kill ANYTHING that happens to be non-human life—including my new puppy.

But clearly something’s amiss here. Our society doesn’t take lightly to people who think they have the right to kill any non-human life. And with good reason too. Most of us intuitively know there is something wrong with the idea of it being permissible to terminate a life just because that life happens not to be human life. Those who don’t share this common intuition are fined, or have their movement restricted to a 10X10 cell. In any case, there is clearly something wrong with the naïve pro-choice argument.

…up next: the pro-choice response, and how we can make the pro-choice argument stronger.