Abortion debate: A Logical Analysis

Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, you need to decide if your stance is based on emotion or logic. If your beliefs are driven primarily by emotion, then stop reading this article. This is not for you. If your beliefs are based on logic, then you need to make sure that your stance on the abortion debate is logically consistent otherwise you must concede that you are wrong.

 

For the sake of clarity and unambiguity, let us assume that I am talking about early term abortion whenever I mention abortion (i.e. The developing embryo has had no chance to develop a conscious mind).

 

If you are pro-choice, then you believe that abortion is not murder. If abortion is not murder, then a man who assaults a pregnant woman and causes a miscarriage is not guilty of murdering the unborn embryo. He is guilty of assault. If you insist on charging him with murder, then you must also charge the mother with murder if she decides to terminate the pregnancy. Either abortion is murder or it is not. If it is not murder, then it's not murder when the mother does it, and it's not murder when the man does it. Don't squirm when the opposition grills you on this. That makes you look weak and unsure of yourself, and it betrays the fact that you do, at some level, believe that abortion is murder.

 

If you are pro-life, then you believe that abortion is murder. There are three degrees of murder. Abortion falls under the category of first degree murder. Abortion is premeditated, and it is done with full knowledge of the consequences. The embryo will die. Therefore, if you believe that abortion is murder, you must prosecute any mother who aborts her pregnancy with first degree murder. When the opposition grills you on this, do not squirm and shift responsibility over to the doctor. That's a cowardly and weasily move. If I hire an assassin, I am just as guilty as the assassin. The analogy applies to abortion. If abortion is murder, then the mother who aborts her pregnancy is just as guilty as the doctor who performs the abortion. Do not white-knight the mother and be lenient on her. You must prosecute her just the same as a man who kills another human being in cold blood. She must face the full weight of the penalty that comes with first degree murder. If you try and squirm your way out of this, then you are betraying that you don't actually believe that abortion is the same as murder.

 

Now that I've held you to the standard of logical consistency, what is your answer? Is abortion murder or is it not? Whatever your answer, you must be prepared to accept the logical consequence of your decision. I will offer you my personal thoughts on the subject in the following paragraphs:

 

If the embryo does not have a conscious mind, then it does not have, for lack of a better word, a soul. For me, a soul is defined as the capacity for moral reasoning. You cannot have moral reasoning without a brain. Thus, we do not extend moral protections to plants, most insectoid lifeforms, and bacteria because they either have no brains or their brains are incapable of moral reasoning. The problem with my argument is that a newborn infant also has no capacity for moral reasoning, or at least it has a very limited capacity. If I wish to extend moral protections to the newborn infant, I must re-define the 'soul' to mean the potential for moral reasoning. Under this new definition, the newborn infant will now have moral protections because it has the potential for moral reasoning. However, it also means that moral protections now extend to the undeveloped embryo, for the embryo also has the potential for moral reasoning.

 

Thus, I find myself in a dilemma. If the soul is defined as the capacity for moral reasoning, then it is morally permissible to murder newborn infants who have not had the chance to develop their minds. If the soul is defined as the potential for moral reasoning, then embryos have souls, and any mother who aborts her pregnancy has murdered her child's soul and should be charged with first degree murder.

 

Emotionally, it is difficult to accept either position. It is difficult to accept that it is morally permissible to murder newborn infants. At the same time, it is difficult to accept that mothers should be prosecuted for aborting their pregnancies, especially since I am a man who argues that death is the penalty for murder. I will repeat my motto: What you do unto others, others may do unto you.

 

I don't know how the soul should be defined, but I do know that however it is defined, the consequences are grave.

 

Perhaps the answer lies within my motto: what you do unto others, others may do unto you. If we are talking about an early-term abortion, what has the mother actually done to the embryo? Has she snuffed out a conscious mind? Has she caused it pain? Has she denied it a life that it desires? The answer is no to all three questions. The embryo has no conscious mind, no perception of pain, and no desires. Therefore, by killing it, it has not lost anything except a couple of cells. If killing the embryo is murder, then the mother may be punished by executing her under the same conditions that she killed her unborn embryo. Specifically, she may only be executed when she has no consciousness, no perception of pain, and no desire. In other words, she may be executed if and when she falls into a deep coma.

 

After going through this thought process, I will conclude with my final stance on the matter. A soul is defined as the potential for moral reasoning. Embryos have souls. Aborting the embryo is murder of the first degree. The mother who performs the abortion is guilty of first degree murder. Her punishment is immediate execution when the following conditions are met: 1) she falls into a deep coma, 2) has no consciousness, 3) has no perception of pain, and 4) has no desires.

 

This is a logically consistent stance. It clearly defines what is a soul, and therefore what should have moral protections. It prescribes a clear punishment for mothers who abort their pregnancies. For most who do choose to abort their pregnancies, they will never be punished for it unless they are unfortunate enough to fall into a deep coma. Not a very strong deterrent, yes, but then  murdering an embryo is not the same as murdering a fully formed human being. It is objectively worse to murder a fully formed human being, hence, the punishment for murdering an embryo should not carry the same weight.

 

I am content with this outcome. Are you?

 

And to those moralists who baulk at the idea of prescribing punishments for moral crimes, I will call out your cowardice. If you label something as immoral, you'd better be prepared to prescribe an appropriate punishment for it, and stand firm when others attack you for it. To say that something is immoral while being too cowardly to issue an appropriate punishment is to betray your own lack of confidence in your beliefs.