Michael Tooley - Abortion

I don’t know how many of you read Michael Tooley on the matter of abortion but here’s what his general point of view is.

Abortion is not immoral.

He argues that in order to earn the natural “right to live” you first need to develop consciousness and that fetuses and young new born children because they do not yet posses consciousness do not have the artificial right to live give to self consciouss humans.
Therefore abortion is not immoral because at the time you’re not killing a self consciouss being… but only a fetus or how i put it: the possibility of a consciousness.

Mind you that such “possibilities” are everywhere. For example…
It’s a possibility that i will rape a women tomorrow and by not doing so i’m killing the “possibility of a new consciousness”.
Which is what i think happens during abortion; the only difference is you’re getting a little closer to the point where the possibility of consciousness becomes the fact of consciousness; still i think not close enough.

Also i’ve added the “possibility” argument to Michael Tooley’s work.

Michael Tooley argues that you need to have the awareness of life or non-biological will to live in order to posses the “right to live”.

Any thoughts ?

P.S. I realise this topic is a little harsh… so i ask of the emotional people here not to reply, unless they can give an objective view point.

Carp -

Darn! I have no problem with abortion, but I do possess emotions, and there is no such thing as an objective viewpoint.

Would love to have gotten in on this, but I will respect your wishes.

It’s ok to post… just don’t start bitching at me for posting this :stuck_out_tongue:
I guess i’m just trting to not hurt some peoples feelings :smiley:

Carpathian, I see nothing wrong with the question you posed.

I enjoy reading arguments based primarily on logic and reason. Nothing turns me off faster from a person’s argument when it’s based solely on emotional appeals.

Im with Singer on abortion.

When we discussed this before we had an interesting point raised about stem cell research the the ‘possibility for life’ in even the dead cells of our scalp. When cloning humans becomes a reality, the scale may slide dramatically as to what is and is not holding true potential for life.

You could, at least, have put this at the top of your post so I knew that I was wasting my time reading the rest.

Shit, this constitutes a reply, doesn’t it? What’s an emotional, non-objective-viewpoint-owning person to do?

Don’t kill fetuses or babies…but if you feel the need, for national security or any other whim, kill as many adults as you like…particularly young men between the ages or 20 and 35…War is particularly effective for their Slaughter. Fight for the rights of Fetuses that have dead Soldier Fathers!

We are prolife particularly if you haven’t been born yet…if you have…well, that’s your tough!

Decent point of view.

SIATD… How about a little decency or respect for my posts ?