D. Dying hurts. This isn’t necessarily true, and even if it was, dying hurts a heck of a lot less than living. This objection is rarely explicitly voiced, because it’s very weak.
Oddly enough, my boyfriend, who is the only person I’ve ever heard seriously attack abortion, uses this as one of his main arguments. According to some research (this was a verbal argument, and we allow each other not to provide citations in such a context) the neural architecture that allows humans to tolerate pain is not as sophisticated in developing fetuses, and so they are capable of feeling pain much more acutely.
On the other side of that argument, a fetus does not have the higher brain function or consciousness that would allow it to experience pain. When an adult is put under general anesthesia for surgery we do not generally consider them to be “experiencing pain” even though the body is still reacting the damage as though they were conscious. They still have brain function, they temporarily lack the higher brain function required for the meaningful experience of pain. A very similar argument could be applied to a fetus.
Oddly enough, my boyfriend, who is the only person I’ve ever heard seriously attack abortion, uses this as one of his main arguments. According to some research (this was a verbal argument, and we allow each other not to provide citations in such a context) the neural architecture that allows humans to tolerate pain is not as sophisticated in developing fetuses, and so they are capable of feeling pain much more acutely.
On the other side of that argument, a fetus does not have the higher brain function or consciousness that would allow it to experience pain. When an adult is put under general anesthesia for surgery we do not generally consider them to be “experiencing pain” even though the body is still reacting the damage as though they were conscious. They still have brain function, they temporarily lack the higher brain function required for the meaningful experience of pain. A very similar argument could be applied to a fetus.