Defense of the abortion/Discussion about Ethics

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Nonatheist

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As a pro-choice supporter, l would like to discuss/debate the ethics of abortion, mostly focusing on what l perceive to be two strongest arguments in favor of it, person/life distinction and the The Violinist Analogy.
 
That makes sense, looking at how those two are the strongest ones
 
There are two ways to approach that question.
First there is a legal definition, and there is commonly understood/philosophical definition.
Those two tend to overlap,
Legal definition would be ‘any being that is given human rights’, which doesn’t help at all as it’s not something set in stone.
Personhood is commonly understood to be the highest form of sentience, including such things as
ability to feel pain, self awareness, awareness of death, and unique to humans the ability to reason.
To my knowlage, this is also how most philosophers define it
 
Nonatheist said:
Personhood is commonly understood to be the highest form of sentience, including such things as
ability to feel pain, self awareness, awareness of death, and unique to humans the ability to reason.
Click to expand...
So if something doesn’t have all of those charisterics it’s not a person and it’s OK to kill it?
 
Nonatheist said:
Personhood is commonly understood to be the highest form of sentience, including such things as
ability to feel pain, self awareness, awareness of death, and unique to humans the ability to reason.
Click to expand...
We know A fetus can feel touch at 8 weeks , and science will probably push this back earlier with medical advances in imaging.
 
No, but the more characteristics one being has the more moral value it has.
Bug has less moral value than dog, dog has lass value than dolphin and dolphin has less value than a human person.
Braindead(totaly braindead) human would by that logic have less moral value than a dog.
As dog has much higher sentience than a braindead human.
Fetus has similar level of sentience to a braindead human
 
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l wouldn’t place feeling touch as one of the important characteristics for someones moral worth, all animals on earth have the sense of touch
 
Nonatheist said:
No, but the more characteristics one being has the more moral value it has.
Bug has less moral value than dog, dog has lass value than dolphin and dolphin has less value than a human person.
Braindead(totaly braindead) human would by that logic have less moral value than a dog.
As dog has much higher sentience than a braindead human.
Fetus has similar level of sentience to a braindead human
Click to expand...
What gives something the right to life?
 
Therefore and following your logic. It is OK to kill a braindead human at any stage of his/her life.
Peace!
 
It’s morally permissible yes. But keep in mind, that l am not talking about people in vegetative state or in coma. People who are braindead stay braindead.
 
Right to life is a legal concept.

How evil the killing of one being to me depends on two factors,
how sentient that being is, and what reason was there to kill it.
Human killing human to stay alive wouldn’t be immoral.
Also, person having enough food to survive and choosing to kill the pig because they want to eat pork would be immoral to me.
 
Just to clerify, when l say human l mean human person.

Self-defense and survival would be the two reasons l can think of
 
What is it about birth that makes a person human? Do you support killing babies that have been born?
 
There would be cases where action would still be immoral, just person wouldn’t be guilty of it.
Killing while intoxicated wouldn’t make person morally guilty, as person had no/limited control over the act.
Also, any action that results in killing but killing wasn’t the end-goal of.
Only two instances in which person can deliberately kill someone while not being immoral would be killing to survive(food) and killing as a result of self defense
 
No, because non-human animals are driven by instincts alone. The ability to reason(which includes knowing right from wrong) gives us more moral worth than any other animal.
 
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