Both Abortion and Assisted Suicide Are Morally Wrong
Source
Yuill, Kevin. Assisted Suicide: The Liberal, Humanist Case Against Legalization. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
Original Reconstruction
Human life begins at conception and ends at death.
Every human life is sacred.
If every human life is sacred, every human has a right to life.
We may not remove the right to life simply because someone’s existence is a nuisance, either to themselves or to others.
Therefore, both abortion and assisted suicide are morally wrong.
Commentary
The first thing I noticed is that 3 is a conditional. According to rule L3, it should be listed first in its respective argument. So let us do that.
If every human life is sacred, every human has a right to life.
Every human life is sacred.
Human life begins at conception and ends at death.
We may not remove the right to life simply because someone’s existence is a nuisance, either to themselves or to others.
Therefore, both abortion and assisted suicide are morally wrong.
Now that we have moved the conditional up, notice that 1 and 2 should be followed by a conclusion. Let us write it out.
If every human life is sacred, every human has a right to life.
Every human life is sacred.
Therefore, every human life has a right to life. (This follows 1 and 2)
Human life begins at conception and ends at death.
We may not remove the right to life simply because someone’s existence is a nuisance, either to themselves or to others.
Therefore, both abortion and assisted suicide are morally wrong.
If we want every conclusion to follow the minimum number of necessary premises directly preceding it (per rule P1), and if we want the conclusion to be explicit, then there must be another conclusion after premise 4.
It should say this.
If every human life is sacred, every human has a right to life.
Every human life is sacred.
Therefore, every human life has a right to life. (This follows 1 and 2.)
Human life begins at conception and ends at death.
Therefore, every human life, from conception until death, has a right to life. (This follows 3 and 4.)
We may not remove the right to life simply because someone’s existence is a nuisance, either to themselves or to others.
Therefore, both abortion and assisted suicide are morally wrong.
Proposition 6 is worded in a way that makes it less consistent with the main conclusion, so I will take the liberty to reword it.
It now reads like so.
If every human life is sacred, every human has a right to life.
Every human life is sacred.
Therefore, every human life has a right to life. (This follows 1 and 2.)
Human life begins at conception and ends at death.
Therefore, every human life, from conception until death, has a right to life. (This follows 3 and 4.)
It is morally wrong to disrespect the right to life simply because someone’s existence is a nuisance, either to themselves or to others.
Therefore, both abortion and assisted suicide are morally wrong.
There are a couple of implicit premises between 6 and 7 that establish the link between abortion and assisted suicide with the disrespect of the right to life.
Let us write them out.
If every human life is sacred, every human has a right to life.
Every human life is sacred.
Therefore, every human life has a right to life. (This follows 1 and 2.)
Human life begins at conception and ends at death.
Therefore, every human life, from conception until death, has a right to life. (This follows 3 and 4.)
It is morally wrong to disrespect the right to life simply because someone’s existence is a nuisance, either to themselves or to others.
Abortion disrespects the right to life in that way.
Assisted suicide disrespects the right to life in that way.
Therefore, both abortion and assisted suicide are morally wrong. (This follows 6-8.)
Notice that I could have combined premises 7 and 8 to say “Abortion and assisted suicide disrespect the right to life in that way.” I did not do this because of C1, which says that propositions should be combined if doing so does not negatively affect flow or dialectical usefulness.
By keeping 7 and 8 separate, I made it easier to locate possible disagreements. To elaborate, if someone were to disagree with the combined proposition, we would not know if they were disagreeing with the abortion part or the assisted suicide part.
Importantly, deciding whether to combine propositions requires us to judge how likely it is for someone to disagree with one part of the proposition but not the other. Since I think it is reasonable to disagree with only one part, I believe it is dialectically useful to keep them separate.
Moving on. Note that presented as such, there are two independent arguments. We can trace the logic backward to see this (per rule P2).
9 follows 6-8
5 follows 3 and 4
3 follows 1 and 2
Neither 6, 7, or 8 follow any earlier premises.
Also, notice that the first argument is unnecessary for the main conclusion, which violates rule P2. Thus, we could eliminate the first argument entirely, but I will not do so.
We now have the final version, with two arguments presented separately.
Final Version
First Argument
If every human life is sacred, every human has a right to life.
Every human life is sacred.
Therefore, every human life has a right to life. (This follows 1 and 2.)
Human life begins at conception and ends at death.
Therefore, every human life, from conception until death, has a right to life. (This follows 3 and 4.)
Second Argument
It is morally wrong to disrespect the right to life simply because someone’s existence is a nuisance, either to themselves or to others.
Abortion disrespects the right to life in that way.
Assisted suicide disrespects the right to life in that way.
Therefore, both abortion and assisted suicide are morally wrong. (This follows 1-3.)