I think a combination hereditarianism and concern for suffering might resolve this dilemma handily. Assume:
1) Killing murderers is good.
2) Abortion is murder.
3) People's moral values are normally determined by genetics
4) A person's moral worth is defined by who they would be in a plausible world (ie. someone who would slice your throat for a nickel isn't redeemed by the fact that no one offered them one)
5) The only reason why we bother with examining the actual actions of a person before judging them as unworthy of life is that it serves as a functional shelling point to protect us personally. We don't actually care about a would be murder getting murdered except in as much as that precedent might be extended to us.
And you get:
6) Aborters are killing would-be murderers and doing the rest of us a favor.
Now I would be disgusted with this train of thought if I thought there was a conscious being suffering when it was being aborted. But at least for early term abortions this doesn't seem to be the case, so abortion is normally a positive good.
Obviously, most people are not thinking in these terms but I figured I'd suggest a coherent justification anyway.
I think a combination hereditarianism and concern for suffering might resolve this dilemma handily. Assume:
1) Killing murderers is good.
2) Abortion is murder.
3) People's moral values are normally determined by genetics
4) A person's moral worth is defined by who they would be in a plausible world (ie. someone who would slice your throat for a nickel isn't redeemed by the fact that no one offered them one)
5) The only reason why we bother with examining the actual actions of a person before judging them as unworthy of life is that it serves as a functional shelling point to protect us personally. We don't actually care about a would be murder getting murdered except in as much as that precedent might be extended to us.
And you get:
6) Aborters are killing would-be murderers and doing the rest of us a favor.
Now I would be disgusted with this train of thought if I thought there was a conscious being suffering when it was being aborted. But at least for early term abortions this doesn't seem to be the case, so abortion is normally a positive good.
Obviously, most people are not thinking in these terms but I figured I'd suggest a coherent justification anyway.