Despite the widespread, perpetual debate over abortion, rational arguments are rare. Pure pro-choicers, pure pro-lifers and those advocating mixed approaches all typically present arguments that are logically flawed.

Pro-choice advocates often skirt the critical question of whether or not an embryo/fetus in a person, relying instead on arguments of personal freedom, economic hardship, birth defects, etc., none of which are valid if the embryo/fetus is a person. You can't "choose" to kill a person, except in self-defense (which, in this case, would be to save the life of the mother). For all the typical pro-choice arguments, ask a simple question: Under the same circumstances, would it be moral and should it be legal for a mother to kill a baby? If the answer is “no”, then, unless one is contending that the embryo/fetus is not a person, he/she is contradicting himself/herself. That is not opinion, but rather logic. If it’s ok to kill “A”, but not ok to kill “B”, than “A” must not be the same as “B”.

For example, should a poor woman have the right to abort a embryo/fetus if she cannot afford to raise a child? Well, if you’re not defining the embryo/fetus as a non-person, you are supposedly extending that right to murdering any other children she may already have. Wouldn’t a ban on abortion result in unsafe, back-alley abortions? Well, if the embryo/fetus is a person, then abortion is murder, and we don't make murder legal to make it safer for the murderer. Even the “my body” argument does not hold up to this scrutiny if the embryo/fetus is a person: Imagine if you or someone else, rather than the embryo/fetus, were attached to that woman’s umbilical cord and dependent on it to survive for the next several months. Assuming this condition is no threat to the life of the woman, does the “my body, my choice” argument hold water now? And so on. For any such arguments, simply replace "embryo” or “fetus" with "baby" or "child" and ask if the argument still holds. To be internally consistent -- i.e., logical -- one has to either assert that the embryo/fetus is not a person or that one should have the right to kill a person under the circumstances presented.

Pro-life advocates do focus on the central question of whether or not an embryo/fetus is a person, but they either refuse to admit that religious doctrine is the sole basis for their belief that an embryo -- or even a fertilized egg -- is a person, or they don't recognize that, as long as the U.S. is not a theocracy, their religious beliefs alone are an inadequate justification for denying choices to other Americans, particularly when such choices involve such heavy personal matters. By what possible criteria outside of scripture can a fertilized egg be considered a person, entitled to the same right to life as you and I? Some pro-lifers argue (correctly) that an embryo is human (by virtue of its DNA) and is obviously alive and is a separate organism, making it undeniably human life, but human life in itself does not equal personhood (more on that later).  

Some pro-lifers add the argument that what makes abortion morally wrong and why it should be  illegal is because abortion eliminates the future of a person (i.e., potential personhood), regardless of whether or not the embryo/fetus is itself a person yet. Yes, it could be said that what makes any murder immoral is that it eliminates the future of a person. But if one accepts this argument that preventing future lives from emerging is the moral and legal equivalent to murder, than any of us who have practiced birth control – or, for that matter, any of us who do not literally do everything possible to maximize births in the world – is guilty of mass murder. The argument is then made that the case of a pre-personhood embryo/fetus is different because it would develop into a person if left alone rather than actively killed. Of course, by this principle an embryo in a lab has no right to life, because, if left alone it will not develop into a person. Moreover, it strains the concept of fairness to bestow upon a non-person organism such as a zygote the same right to life as you and I enjoy merely because it has the potential to be a person, and to, in turn, use the power of the state to very significantly infringe upon the individual liberty of the woman as well as impose upon her potentially great negative practical and emotional consequences.

A bizarre hybrid position, obviously derived more from politics than principle, is advocacy of banning abortion with an exclusion for rape. Holders of this illogical position contend that the embryo/fetus is a person and therefore abortion is murder, but if this person were conceived via rape, then murdering this person should be legal. If this embryo/fetus is, as they contend, as much a person before birth as after, would these people give the mother the right to murder her child at any age due to the emotional pain of the rape that produced the child? Obviously not. This position is internally inconsistent, i.e., illogical.

Some take the seemingly convenient position of being pro-choice up to the point at which the fetus is viable outside the womb, and pro-life thereafter. This position, too, ignores the central question of whether or not the fetus is a person. To illustrate the absurdity of this position, if technology enables us to extract a fertilized egg or early embryo from a pregnant woman and implant it into another willing woman, and if the supply of would-be surragate mothers were abundant, would these people then favor a total ban on abortion? Conversely, if viability were not possible at any point in a pregnancy, would these people favor legality of any abortion well into the ninth month of pregnancy, even though the brain activity (the “mind”) of a fetus a day before birth is not substantially different from that of a newborn baby?

Which leads to the question: what makes a person a person? What are the criteria for personhood? Clearly, it is the level and nature of our thoughts and emotions (specifically either current thoughts and emotions or, in the case of a person in a vegetative state, past thoughts and emotins – i.e., having already established personhood – combined with some potential for regaining this capacity in the future). Therefore, a more rational approach to abortion law would ask at what point in fetal development the level and nature of brain activity is sufficient to qualify the embryo/fetus as a person. Before that point in development, a non-theocratic government would protect abortion rights absolutely. Beyond that point, abortion would, by definition, be murder (with the possible self-defense exception of saving the life of the mother). A rational debate would focus on what point should be chosen using that general criterion.

There would still be legitimate, perhaps heated debate, but at least it would be rational, and at least it could be bracketed. For example, obviously an embryo with no brain activity would not qualify as a person (whether or not arms, legs, or other non-cognitive features are distinguishable), and, I assume that the brain activity of a fetus at some point toward the end of a pregnancy is not substantially different from that of a newborn baby, making it clearly a person with a right to life. The debate should focus on the most appropriate point between those extremes: What level and type of brain activity constitute person-like thought and emotion, and at what point in fetal development can such activity be reached? In balancing the rights and interests of the woman with the moral imperative to prevent the killing of persons, we should generally err on the side of the latter wherever we lack precision in measuring and interpreting the level and nature of brain activity, but we can use the criterion of cognition (person-like thoughts and emotions) and our current capabilities in measurement and interpretation to at least determine the point at which there is the possibility of the onset of personhood and its inherent right to life. 

Let the rational debate begin.