Michael Tooley's article, "Abortion and Infanticide" raised some points about the morality of abortion. He discussed the conservatives' ethical objection against abortion which states that fetuses and infants have a right to life. The conservatives believe that early abortion is immoral. In his article, he made a case against the conservative position on abortion. His case boils down to two claims:
(i) We should accept that early abortion is immoral only if we accept the "potentiality principle".
(ii) We should not accept this "potentiality principle".
In this essay, I will first discuss Tooley's arguments for these claims. After discussing the arguments, I will attempt to show that claim (i) is reasonable but claim (ii) is not. I will then propose a better argument for (ii) to strengthen Tooley's claims. To conclude, I will describe a typical objection to my argument and explain why this objection is invalid.
Tooley's Argument for Claim (i)
Tooley's argument for claim (i)......
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