Michael

If by "right" you mean "morally acceptable", then yes. Having an abortion is morally acceptable.

I've already explained to you in past posts why it isn't wrong to kill a zygote or embryo or early stage foetus. I only interjected now to explain tha...

Should she run over the apple or the orange? There is no right or wrong decision. I have said, many times. It is acceptable to have an abortion and it...

The more appropriate comparison is: There’s a trolly coming down the track, about to split in different directions. A woman stands at the lever and ca...

Neither. It's a false dichotomy. Is English not your first language? I'll try to teach you something: 1. She should have toast for breakfast tomorrow ...

She neither should nor she shouldn't. She just may if she wants. What is so difficult to understand?

What were you even asking when you asked "assuming that it is optional, the mother has every right, and no one would intervene, should she kill her of...

When "intelligence" is taken to be a general term covering such things as a sufficient degree of self-awareness/consciousness, yes. That's why it's ac...

Yes. It would be wrong to kill sufficiently intelligent extra-terrestrial life, even though they are not human. And the reason it would be wrong to ki...

That's true of every organism regardless of whether we call it "zygote", "human", or "cow". Labels have no moral relevance.

Yes. "it is wrong to kill X if and only if X is a human" is not a tautology. For some X it might be wrong to kill it even if it isn't human and for so...

You can if you want. That's your choice, and it certainly has no moral relevance. An organism just is the physical stuff that it's made of, and that p...

If you want to know what kind of animal it is then look at it and put it under a microscope. Its physical nature has nothing to do with the convention...

I've addressed it. The question makes no sense in context. The term "human being" isn't like the term "bachelor" with an explicit set of necessary and...

You claimed that we derive moral principles from the question "what is actually good?". We don't, because we can't derive propositions from questions.

I haven't said that. These are two different questions: 1. Are zygotes human? 2. Is it wrong kill zygotes? The two are not the same. It can be wrong t...

When it's a zygote call it a zygote. When it's an embryo call it an embryo. When it's a foetus call it a foetus. When it's a baby call it a baby. The ...

You can't derive a proposition from a question.

That is a fundamental problem with all moral claims. I say that it is right to kill annoying children and you say that it is wrong to kill annoying ch...

You might as well ask when an embryo pops into existence. It doesn't. There's a single-celled organism which we label "zygote" that gradually develops...

Some people might use the word "human" to mean any living organism with genetics like you and me, and so include zygotes. Some people might use the wo...

It is not the case that we all agree on what the word "human being" means and just disagree on whether or not zygotes satisfy the required criteria. R...

You have said that rights are not properties of objects; that all that can be said is that we either do or don't grant rights to something. If whether...

Two zygotes can fuse into one, creating a chimera. One zygote can split into two, creating twins. The origin and persistence of a personal identity do...

You're not making any sense. You claim that moral worth (and rights) are not properties of objects but "a status we afford or ascribe to them" but the...

I think this is the simplest explanation.

Then what is there to argue? Pro-lifers ascribe moral worth to zygotes and pro-choicers don't. There is no objective fact-of-the-matter that determine...

There is no purpose. There is no design. I fail to see why this is morally relevant. In every case you are performing some action which kills the zygo...

This is the comment in question. Even two pro-lifers accept that we ought kill the zygotes to save the baby (notice in particular that we kill five to...

That is precisely why I think the trolley problem I suggested works well; because it isn't intractable. It's self-evident what one should do. Even NOS...

The "innocent" was implicit there. I didn't say that they deserve to die. I have only said that we ought kill zygotes if it saves babies and that it i...

This a strange distinction. Let's say there are two tracks. On one there is a box containing one living baby and on another there's a box containing f...

It's not clear what you mean by teleology. If you just mean that a zygote is highly likely to naturally develop a rational will whereas a cow developi...

In that quote you explicitly say that things without a rational will are not persons. In previous comments you said that it is wrong to kill zygotes b...

Well, zygotes don't have a rational will, therefore by your own logic they aren't persons.

That does not address my point. I'm not interested in sentiment (unless you want to argue that morality is sentiment). You claim that all humans deser...

It's no less disgusting business than weighing the moral worth of non-human organisms. Is it wrong to kill plants? Flies? Cows? Dogs? E.T. the Extra-T...

As established by the trolley problem, the moral worth of a human-as-zygote is less than the moral worth of a human-as-baby (and in fact, the moral wo...

To the extent that one can ask "should I or should I not kill the weeds in my garden".

She can do what she wants. There's no "should" either way.

I think it's not wrong, or at least negligibly wrong, or at least less wrong than forcing the mother to carry the child to term and birth it (much lik...

I didn't say it's right. I said it's neutral. The moral worth of a zygote is negligible, as shown by the trolley problem. I misread and thought you we...

And as shown by the trolley problem killing five zygotes is less wrong than allowing one baby to die. Killing ten million zygotes is less wrong than a...

So? You were suggesting that killing all zygotes is wrong because it would mean the end of the species. I am simply showing that "it is wrong because ...

Yes, as would happen if everybody alive refused to procreate.

If it's the mothers' desires, yes.

It's neither right nor wrong. It's morally neutral. We've established from the trolley problem that five zygotes deserve less moral consideration than...

Develop into human beings. Interesting that you now phrase it that way. But also, why does it matter? Why is it wrong to kill something that develops ...

And? It's not the biological stuff that's morally relevant. Ants are biological. Flies are biological. So what? We're talking about whether or not it ...

There are 46 DNA molecules, each coiled around proteins, contained within cytoplasm and a cell membrane. We're considering a variation of the trolley ...