(1) a fetus is a child
(2) it's morally wrong to have or perform an abortion in most cases
(3) it's worse to bake a child in a microwave than to kill it early in a pregnancy when it can't feel pain

The only way to make that an inconsistent set is to add some other premise, such as (4) it's not wrong to kill anything that can't feel pain or (5) something isn't a child if it can't feel pain, but such a premise would be false. I do think abortion is morally equivalent to infanticide in principle. I just don't think every case of abortion or infanticide is morally equivalent with every other case, because lots of factors affect the moral status of killing, including how much pain is caused, how long a potential life gets cut off, how good the killer's intentions are, whether any serious consequences are avoided, whether anyone has special (e.g. parental) responsibilities toward the person being killed, and so on.

I don't do my philosophical conceptual analysis by looking in a dictionary or an online encyclopedia, especially one anyone can edit, but even that definition has two options, and the second one is perfectly compatible with calling a fetus a child. There's a parental relationship between me and my unborn child, so it's my child that isn't born yet that's about to come out any day now. But the main point against the first definition is that words get their meaning because of how they're used, and people regularly use the word 'child' to refer to their unborn babies. I was watching an episode of Stargate Atlantis the other day where the character Teyla did exactly that with her unborn child. In fact, your claim is so ridiculous that it means the now more rare but once very common expression 'with child" meant that someone was carrying around a child who had already been born, which is ludicrous. The word child has a very long history of being used to describe a human being in the fetal stage of development.

What I was saying is that the law is unjust if it ignores the metaphysics entirely and tries to base its decisions on something that's a pure fiction. We ideally want the law to track morality. Even if we don't want it to track every moral issue (which would be impossible and too interfering), we do want it to track the moral issues that are morally important enough and the right sort of issue to have laws about, and that requires paying attention to metaphysical distinctions. Whether something has moral status and is the sort of thing we have responsibilities toward is surely important for figuring out what the best laws are regarding that thing.

(1) a fetus is a child
(2) it's morally wrong to have or perform an abortion in most cases
(3) it's worse to bake a child in a microwave than to kill it early in a pregnancy when it can't feel pain

The only way to make that an inconsistent set is to add some other premise, such as (4) it's not wrong to kill anything that can't feel pain or (5) something isn't a child if it can't feel pain, but such a premise would be false. I do think abortion is morally equivalent to infanticide in principle. I just don't think every case of abortion or infanticide is morally equivalent with every other case, because lots of factors affect the moral status of killing, including how much pain is caused, how long a potential life gets cut off, how good the killer's intentions are, whether any serious consequences are avoided, whether anyone has special (e.g. parental) responsibilities toward the person being killed, and so on.

I don't do my philosophical conceptual analysis by looking in a dictionary or an online encyclopedia, especially one anyone can edit, but even that definition has two options, and the second one is perfectly compatible with calling a fetus a child. There's a parental relationship between me and my unborn child, so it's my child that isn't born yet that's about to come out any day now. But the main point against the first definition is that words get their meaning because of how they're used, and people regularly use the word 'child' to refer to their unborn babies. I was watching an episode of Stargate Atlantis the other day where the character Teyla did exactly that with her unborn child. In fact, your claim is so ridiculous that it means the now more rare but once very common expression 'with child" meant that someone was carrying around a child who had already been born, which is ludicrous. The word child has a very long history of being used to describe a human being in the fetal stage of development.

What I was saying is that the law is unjust if it ignores the metaphysics entirely and tries to base its decisions on something that's a pure fiction. We ideally want the law to track morality. Even if we don't want it to track every moral issue (which would be impossible and too interfering), we do want it to track the moral issues that are morally important enough and the right sort of issue to have laws about, and that requires paying attention to metaphysical distinctions. Whether something has moral status and is the sort of thing we have responsibilities toward is surely important for figuring out what the best laws are regarding that thing.

Indeed there is. Thank you for acknowledging that. We are constantly being bombarded with the claim that "abortion is murder". The claim is that "its a child, not a choice". There is an extremist tendency to equate abortion with infanticide and some of the horrific executions of children we have heard of some deranged parents carrying out. What you said above was "I'm not willing to allow people to kill their children just because…" If you do not want to be considered an extremist of this sort, you might want to chose your words more carefully.

RE: Most pro-choice apologists among careful philosophers do in fact acknowledge that abortion is killing.

What I said was that many moral, intelligent and thoughtfully people have come to the conclusion that they are not "killing their children." I did not say they were not killing . I said they were not killing their children . I do not consider a zygote, a blastocyst, an embryo or a foetus to be a child. Neither does the consensus of the medical profession. Nor do our laws.

RE: A careful pro-choicer would say that it's a morally allowable instance of killing one's child…

I think you need to look up "child" in a dictionary. Although not a dictionary, here is a quote from the Wikipedia entry on "child":

"A child (also called bairn in Northumbria, Scotland, and parts of Northern England) is most often defined as a young human being between birth and puberty; a boy or girl. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. 'Child' may also describe a relationship with a parent or authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion…."

Then they have some pictures – Children in a doorway in Jerusalem – Children in Namibia- Girls in Xinjaing in northwestren China. Not one zygote, blastocast, embryo or foetus among them.

A careful philosopher would not characterize a zygote, blastocast, embryo or foetus as a child, especially since the term child implies the developmental, social and moral status which is the point of the dispute. A pro-choicer who did so would be incredibly stupid.

RE: We obviously disagree on the metaphysics if you think I didn't exist a few second before I was born…

I don't think I said anything about a person's existence a few seconds before birth. What I said was that the law, as a practical matter, may solve the problem of a gray area between two qualitatively different stages of development by considering all of the gray area to be within one or the other stage, whichever is more just. The whole "one second before birth" problem is avoided. Metaphysics has nothing to do with it.

Indeed there is. Thank you for acknowledging that. We are constantly being bombarded with the claim that "abortion is murder". The claim is that "its a child, not a choice". There is an extremist tendency to equate abortion with infanticide and some of the horrific executions of children we have heard of some deranged parents carrying out. What you said above was "I'm not willing to allow people to kill their children just because…" If you do not want to be considered an extremist of this sort, you might want to chose your words more carefully.

RE: Most pro-choice apologists among careful philosophers do in fact acknowledge that abortion is killing.

What I said was that many moral, intelligent and thoughtfully people have come to the conclusion that they are not "killing their children." I did not say they were not killing . I said they were not killing their children . I do not consider a zygote, a blastocyst, an embryo or a foetus to be a child. Neither does the consensus of the medical profession. Nor do our laws.

RE: A careful pro-choicer would say that it's a morally allowable instance of killing one's child…

I think you need to look up "child" in a dictionary. Although not a dictionary, here is a quote from the Wikipedia entry on "child":

"A child (also called bairn in Northumbria, Scotland, and parts of Northern England) is most often defined as a young human being between birth and puberty; a boy or girl. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. 'Child' may also describe a relationship with a parent or authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion…."

Then they have some pictures – Children in a doorway in Jerusalem – Children in Namibia- Girls in Xinjaing in northwestren China. Not one zygote, blastocast, embryo or foetus among them.

A careful philosopher would not characterize a zygote, blastocast, embryo or foetus as a child, especially since the term child implies the developmental, social and moral status which is the point of the dispute. A pro-choicer who did so would be incredibly stupid.

RE: We obviously disagree on the metaphysics if you think I didn't exist a few second before I was born…

I don't think I said anything about a person's existence a few seconds before birth. What I said was that the law, as a practical matter, may solve the problem of a gray area between two qualitatively different stages of development by considering all of the gray area to be within one or the other stage, whichever is more just. The whole "one second before birth" problem is avoided. Metaphysics has nothing to do with it.

Since it's always possible to find situations where the consequences make it necessary or allowable to kill a human, e.g. in a just war, with just cases of capital punishment, in defense of an innocent, and so on, I'm not making this an absolute claim. There will be allowable cases of abortion, but they will be parallel to the allowable cases of killing you. This means consequences are relevant to when it's ok or wrong to kill a human (even though I'm no consequentialist; I'm a moderate deontologist). It's usually wrong, and factors need to be a great moment for that to be outweighed. But another kind of equality that a fetus and infant don't have, that an adult and fetus don't have, is that the consequences are also different. For example, if I have to choose between my wife and the unborn child in her womb right now, I don't think that's a straightforward choice, but it is relevant that our other three children need her, and I have a responsibility to them. That doesn't mean she has a higher moral status. It just means consequences might tip the scale in one direction or the other. The same goes for the tragedy of losing a child at a few months of development. It is a tragedy, and anyone who denies that is callous. But it's not as much of a tragedy as losing a newborn or a ten-year-old, because the consequences aren't as bad for anyone. Those concerns are morally relevant. They just aren't what gives moral status.

Marquis gives an argument that abortion is wrong. It's also wrong to let someone die when you can prevent it. But in cases when both are present, you need some means of deciding. Maybe he'd rely on the do/allow distinction to favor allowing the mother to die and not killing the child. I don't know. But I could easily see him going the other way. His general argument is compatible with either approach. So I'm not sure what you're getting at. This certainly isn't a criticism of his argument, just an issue that he further needs to deal with.

As for the political issue, you also wrongly assume that I would favor treating abortion as murder, as if (1) there's only one kind of murder on the law books and (2) the only way to outlaw abortion is to treat it as any of those to begin with. Lots of pro-life people want to hold doctors responsible if they perform abortions but not the mother (or at least not at the same level). There are a lot of different pro-life positions on how to handle making abortion illegal. Some of them surely would simply make it equivalent to murder legally, but that's not the only option, and a lot of pro-life people favor other options.

Alan, I think I've already said enough to show that your charge is extremely unfair. There's a huge difference between a ten-week abortion and putting a newborn in the microwave. The latter causes much more pain, for instance. Anyone who thinks that's irrelevant is morally confused. Nevertheless, thinking that factor must be the only relevant factor is logically confused. It need not be. Moral status may well be independent of factors such as how much pain is caused or whether any pain is caused. Marquis thinks it has to do with robbing someone of a future. I think there's more than that to moral status having to do with the image of God, but I don't have a philosophical argument for that. I do think Marquis has given an adequate philosophical argument for the immorality of abortion in most cases, certainly most actual cases, and his argument rests absolutely nothing on factors like how much pain is caused.

As for the legality of abortion and killing their children, you make a lot of false assumptions. Most pro-choice apologists among careful philosophers do in fact acknowledge that abortion is killing. It would be biologically insane to think otherwise. Most pro-choice apologists among careful philosophers also acknowledge that abortion, when sanctioned by a parent, is the killing of biological offspring of that parent, a fully human organism with its own DNA. They might deny moral status to the fetus, whether by denying its personhood or by some other means, but they cannot plausibly claim that it's not killing one's biological offspring. A careful pro-choicer would say that it's a morally allowable instance of killing one's child, not that it's not the killing of one's child. Merely citing that many people are ok with its being legal does not amount to showing even that those people think abortion is not killing one's child, never mind showing that it simply isn't killing one's child (which is what you did, a real howler of a non sequitur if I've ever seen one).

We obviously disagree on the metaphysics if you think I didn't exist a few second before I was born, when it would have been completely legal in some states for my mom to kill me (and still would today). That conclusion is so radically removed from reality, indeed so immoral, that I consider it a reductio of your position. Moderate pro-choicers get some sympathy from me when they recognize obvious facts and don't stray too far from obvious moral truths. Judith Jarvis Thomson is one such philosopher. But ridiculous views deserve nothing but contempt and moral condemnation, and the consequences of your position are pretty awful.

Since it's always possible to find situations where the consequences make it necessary or allowable to kill a human, e.g. in a just war, with just cases of capital punishment, in defense of an innocent, and so on, I'm not making this an absolute claim. There will be allowable cases of abortion, but they will be parallel to the allowable cases of killing you. This means consequences are relevant to when it's ok or wrong to kill a human (even though I'm no consequentialist; I'm a moderate deontologist). It's usually wrong, and factors need to be a great moment for that to be outweighed. But another kind of equality that a fetus and infant don't have, that an adult and fetus don't have, is that the consequences are also different. For example, if I have to choose between my wife and the unborn child in her womb right now, I don't think that's a straightforward choice, but it is relevant that our other three children need her, and I have a responsibility to them. That doesn't mean she has a higher moral status. It just means consequences might tip the scale in one direction or the other. The same goes for the tragedy of losing a child at a few months of development. It is a tragedy, and anyone who denies that is callous. But it's not as much of a tragedy as losing a newborn or a ten-year-old, because the consequences aren't as bad for anyone. Those concerns are morally relevant. They just aren't what gives moral status.

Marquis gives an argument that abortion is wrong. It's also wrong to let someone die when you can prevent it. But in cases when both are present, you need some means of deciding. Maybe he'd rely on the do/allow distinction to favor allowing the mother to die and not killing the child. I don't know. But I could easily see him going the other way. His general argument is compatible with either approach. So I'm not sure what you're getting at. This certainly isn't a criticism of his argument, just an issue that he further needs to deal with.

As for the political issue, you also wrongly assume that I would favor treating abortion as murder, as if (1) there's only one kind of murder on the law books and (2) the only way to outlaw abortion is to treat it as any of those to begin with. Lots of pro-life people want to hold doctors responsible if they perform abortions but not the mother (or at least not at the same level). There are a lot of different pro-life positions on how to handle making abortion illegal. Some of them surely would simply make it equivalent to murder legally, but that's not the only option, and a lot of pro-life people favor other options.

Alan, I think I've already said enough to show that your charge is extremely unfair. There's a huge difference between a ten-week abortion and putting a newborn in the microwave. The latter causes much more pain, for instance. Anyone who thinks that's irrelevant is morally confused. Nevertheless, thinking that factor must be the only relevant factor is logically confused. It need not be. Moral status may well be independent of factors such as how much pain is caused or whether any pain is caused. Marquis thinks it has to do with robbing someone of a future. I think there's more than that to moral status having to do with the image of God, but I don't have a philosophical argument for that. I do think Marquis has given an adequate philosophical argument for the immorality of abortion in most cases, certainly most actual cases, and his argument rests absolutely nothing on factors like how much pain is caused.

As for the legality of abortion and killing their children, you make a lot of false assumptions. Most pro-choice apologists among careful philosophers do in fact acknowledge that abortion is killing. It would be biologically insane to think otherwise. Most pro-choice apologists among careful philosophers also acknowledge that abortion, when sanctioned by a parent, is the killing of biological offspring of that parent, a fully human organism with its own DNA. They might deny moral status to the fetus, whether by denying its personhood or by some other means, but they cannot plausibly claim that it's not killing one's biological offspring. A careful pro-choicer would say that it's a morally allowable instance of killing one's child, not that it's not the killing of one's child. Merely citing that many people are ok with its being legal does not amount to showing even that those people think abortion is not killing one's child, never mind showing that it simply isn't killing one's child (which is what you did, a real howler of a non sequitur if I've ever seen one).

We obviously disagree on the metaphysics if you think I didn't exist a few second before I was born, when it would have been completely legal in some states for my mom to kill me (and still would today). That conclusion is so radically removed from reality, indeed so immoral, that I consider it a reductio of your position. Moderate pro-choicers get some sympathy from me when they recognize obvious facts and don't stray too far from obvious moral truths. Judith Jarvis Thomson is one such philosopher. But ridiculous views deserve nothing but contempt and moral condemnation, and the consequences of your position are pretty awful.

Abortion has been a historical fact over many hundreds, even thousands of years. It has been legal, illegal, supported, discouraged and ignored but it has never been treated as the moral equivalent of infanticide or murder. Apparently you think that a poor, unmarried, 16 year old girl who terminates an unintended pregnency so that she and her future children can enjoy a decent life is the moral equivalent of (to cite a recent example) a woman who puts her child in the microwave oven and turns it on. I'd say that your moral sentiments are severely out of whack.

The legality of abortion means that many very intelligent, thoughtful, moral and concerned people have come to the conclusion that they are not killing their children. The considered opinions of the supreme court; medical professional organizations; governments of multiple states; of multiple countries; many, many religious organizations and theologians are not to be lightly dismissed, and citing legality is a legitimate way of making that point.

RE: I've heard that claim, but the only evidence I've ever seen backing it up has relied on misuse of statistics

The relationship between restrictions on abortion and the incidence of abortion comes from a synthesis put together by the Guttmacher Institute: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.pdf.

"Legal restrictions on abortion do not affect its incidence. For example, the abortion rate is 29 in Africa, where abortion is illegal in many circumstances in most countries, and it is 28 in Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad grounds. The lowest rates in the world are in Western and Northern Europe, where abortion is accessible with few restrictions."

RE: As for the law, laws can always be changed.

The law is evolving towards greater sympathy for the plight of the living, breathing, real person whose actual life will be affected, not towards the mere potential of an undeveloped embryo or foetus. Between 1995 and 2005, 17 countries liberalized their laws to increase access to safe abortion while three countries tightened restrictions.

RE: There are also people who think moral status develops gradually as the organism's complexity increases, but I think that view has some really disturbing implications

The law deals with this problem all the time, and has been since the beginning of time. You pick a developmental stage that is early enough to be clearly not infanticide, and late enough that the woman who is making the decision is not being treated unjustly. This is what the supreme court did. Problem solved.

RE: If my mom had aborted me, it would have been me she was killing.

As one philosopher to another, I'd say that is definitely not true.

Abortion has been a historical fact over many hundreds, even thousands of years. It has been legal, illegal, supported, discouraged and ignored but it has never been treated as the moral equivalent of infanticide or murder. Apparently you think that a poor, unmarried, 16 year old girl who terminates an unintended pregnency so that she and her future children can enjoy a decent life is the moral equivalent of (to cite a recent example) a woman who puts her child in the microwave oven and turns it on. I'd say that your moral sentiments are severely out of whack.

The legality of abortion means that many very intelligent, thoughtful, moral and concerned people have come to the conclusion that they are not killing their children. The considered opinions of the supreme court; medical professional organizations; governments of multiple states; of multiple countries; many, many religious organizations and theologians are not to be lightly dismissed, and citing legality is a legitimate way of making that point.

RE: I've heard that claim, but the only evidence I've ever seen backing it up has relied on misuse of statistics

The relationship between restrictions on abortion and the incidence of abortion comes from a synthesis put together by the Guttmacher Institute: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.pdf.

"Legal restrictions on abortion do not affect its incidence. For example, the abortion rate is 29 in Africa, where abortion is illegal in many circumstances in most countries, and it is 28 in Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad grounds. The lowest rates in the world are in Western and Northern Europe, where abortion is accessible with few restrictions."

RE: As for the law, laws can always be changed.

The law is evolving towards greater sympathy for the plight of the living, breathing, real person whose actual life will be affected, not towards the mere potential of an undeveloped embryo or foetus. Between 1995 and 2005, 17 countries liberalized their laws to increase access to safe abortion while three countries tightened restrictions.

RE: There are also people who think moral status develops gradually as the organism's complexity increases, but I think that view has some really disturbing implications

The law deals with this problem all the time, and has been since the beginning of time. You pick a developmental stage that is early enough to be clearly not infanticide, and late enough that the woman who is making the decision is not being treated unjustly. This is what the supreme court did. Problem solved.

RE: If my mom had aborted me, it would have been me she was killing.

As one philosopher to another, I'd say that is definitely not true.