“it doesn’t share any of the characteristics that make you object to murder of the usual sort.” I disagree—it shares the most salient aspect of murder, namely the harm it does to the future of the human being being murdered. The other features are also objectionable, but a case of murder that doesn’t have any of those features (say, the painless murder of a baby with no close acquaintances, friends or family) is still rightfully considered murder.
This is why most abortion advocates (unlike the author of this article) do not consider a fetus a “human being” at all. If they did, they would have to confront this argument head on.
“it doesn’t share any of the characteristics that make you object to murder of the usual sort.” I disagree—it shares the most salient aspect of murder, namely the harm it does to the future of the human being being murdered. The other features are also objectionable, but a case of murder that doesn’t have any of those features (say, the painless murder of a baby with no close acquaintances, friends or family) is still rightfully considered murder. This is why most abortion advocates (unlike the author of this article) do not consider a fetus a “human being” at all. If they did, they would have to confront this argument head on.
Or, in some cases, we consider it to be definitely human—just not a person.