Let’s talk about abortion, a topic that is personal and uncomfortable. Often the topic is framed in the context of a person against women’s rights or a person for killing kids. The issue is that generally, people on either side of this debate don’t think of themselves as against women’s rights or for killing kids. In light of all the accusations, we should wonder why there is such a gulf of understanding.
Whether abortion is permissible or impermissible comes down to the question if the fetus is a life of moral value. There are lives that don’t hold moral value — cells are easy example of this. They are the basic unit of life, but not lives of moral value. Perhaps insects also are lives without moral value, at least not intrinsic moral value (See below for an explanation of “intrinsic value”).The problem is that pro-life people assume the fetus is a life of moral value without usually arguing for and pro-choice often don’t recognize this as a possibility. Both approaches are quite flawed. In later posts, I will explain the reasons one might think a fetus is a life of moral value. For now, I only wished to show the problem from a bird’s eye view.
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“Intrinsic value” Means that something holds value in of itself. This is in contrast with “instrumental value” where an item only holds value for what it can do or give. Money is a clear example of something that is instrumentally valuable. It is merely a piece of paper on its own, but because society has agreed to give it power it has power.
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