Abortion is morally wrong

[Angrboda]

Because it doesn't exist, he's missing an undeclared assumption (which he's made in the thread but ommitted this go round)- I'd just like to see him put it all together again - so that I don't have to pitch straw.

OK giggles here we go in the simplest terms and smallest words

Prereq: A fetus is a subject (NOT DEBATING THIS ISSUES IN THIS ARGUEMENT)

1) Responsibility for the consequences of your voluntary actions is moral
2) Sex is a voluntary action and pregnancy is a consequence
3) Abortion is by definition a FAILURE to be responsible to the fetus (subject of action for that action
4) THERE FORE (a word I have used MULTIPLE TIMES) abortion is not moral.

WHERE IS THE CIRCLE {i just noticed your cussing, didn't realize that was allowed here so } dipsh*t?

I don't offhand see where your circularity is, but allow me to point out a couple things.

First, you seem to be guilty of the fallacy of equivocation regarding the term responsibility here. If in #1 you mean that you have an obligation (responsibility) regarding the consequences of your actions, then this is an unfounded premise. Having an obligation is neither moral nor immoral; I have obligations attached to some of my voluntary actions (such as driving) but not attached to others (such as thinking about apple pie or wiping my nose). If in #1 you mean responsibility in the form of culpability, then you've equivocated, because the responsibility in #3 is in the sense of an obligation.

Second is the whole issue of diminished responsibility. If my mechanic tells me that the brakes on my car need fixing, and I do nothing, if the brakes fail and I get in an accident, then I face considerable responsibility for any harm done. However, if I get the brakes fixed and they fail anyway, I'm held to a lesser standard of responsibility for any harm done than if I had done nothing. This is a principle of law, but it's also an ethical principle. It would be immoral to hold the person who did his best to prevent consequences to the same standard as the person who does nothing at all to minimize harm. As you've stated your argument, the couple who takes steps to prevent conception is held to the same standard as a couple who does nothing to prevent pregnancy. Given this, it would seem that there is something hinky with your standard. The only way I can see to rectify this would be to make a person responsible for bearing and caring for the child no matter how much care they took to mitigate the risk; in other words, you'd have to assume the error so heinous that, even with diminished responsibility, the couple are still responsible for the pregnancy (in both senses). We do that for heinous acts like murder, but I think applying that level of responsibility to sex and pregnancy is unjustified. Thus, I would argue that an ethic of diminished responsibility should be applied in this case, and that any other view is simply inconsistent with the ethics of personal responsibility involved, and is likely simply fitting the moral to your desired end of making all abortions immoral.

There's a parallel question concerning the moral significance of the life of the fetus at each stage of pregnancy. And in that, too, it seems unethical to apply an absolute standard and that those who place the moral significance of any embryo post-conception at the same bar as an autonomous human being are manipulating the equation of values with a particular goal in mind, namely outlawing abortion.