“I do think that there are a lot of untoward consequences involved in the prohibition of abortion. These considerations could be set aside if we could prove the right to life with some degree of certainty. Because we aren't clear on what it is like to be a fetus, we may have to put up with we may have to up with legal abortion, even though consideration from what I call the deer hunter argument give us a good moral case against most abortion.”
This claim involves the unquestioned assumption that an unborn baby must meet some threshold to justify its continued existence. But why is that where we should affix the burden of proof?
Why the presumption that an unborn baby is not entitled to life unless it can pass some test? Why not the presumption that an unborn baby is entitled to life unless there is some compelling reason to the contrary?
More generally, why must any human being overcome a presumption that its life can be taken with impunity? Why place the onus on preservation of life rather than the taking of life?
This is a perfectly legitimate argument, which I think works in a moral context. In fact, you don't read DI as often as I thought you did. Otherwise, you would have seen this post on the Deer Hunter Argument. This is the kind of argument I would probably use if one of my daughters came to me and told me that she was facing a troublesome pregnancy and was considering an abortion.
ReplyDeletehttp://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2010/02/best-anti-abortion-argument-deer-hunter.html
However, in a legal context, where we are considering bringing in the long arm of the criminal law and forcibly preventing abortions, this kind of argument doesn't seem quite so strong.
VICTOR REPPERT SAID:
ReplyDelete“This is a perfectly legitimate argument, which I think works in a moral context. In fact, you don't read DI as often as I thought you did. Otherwise, you would have seen this post on the Deer Hunter Argument.”
Irrelevant. The question at issue is not the legitimacy of the Deer Hunter Argument, in its own right, but the way you frame the abortion debate in the first place–as if the unborn baby must meet must burden of proof (like the Dear Hunter Argument) to justify its continued existence.
Why do consider it OK to kill deer? Because they don't possess whatever it takes to be persons. But of course they could have the rich inner life of persons. It just looks as if they don't.
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