Editor:

In his column entitled "Right to life must start at conception" published Feb. 7, John Keisling claimed that a human being's right to life begins at conception. He claimed that this position is the result of "honest and rigorous moral reasoning." Instead, it seems that it is the result of a simple-minded fallacy (one which anyone would learn about in a Philosophy 110 course). I will not attempt to defend a so-called "pro-choice" argument here; instead I will merely attempt to point to some of the crucial mistakes in Keisling's column.

Keisling bodly claims that "honest and rigorous moral reasoning shows that if (the right to life) holds just after birth, then it must hold from conception." He then refers to various scientific sources which claim that human life begins at conception, and develops gradually from that point (with, presumably, no clear cut-off points during that development). In essence, this is the most plausible interpretation of the argument he only hints at: 1) Adult humans have a right to life (unless, some will say, they have forfeited their right to life by committing some crime); 2) humans gain the right to life at some time, either at conception or some time after that; 3) since the development of human beings is "seamless," it is arbitrary to pick some point after conception; 4) thus, humans gain the right to life at conception.

This is a really bad argument, and this type of mistake is so well known that it even has a name in formal philosophical circles: Slippery-slope fallacy.

Consider an analogous situation. Think of a heap of sand. This heap has 1000 grains of sand in it. Now, take away one grain of sand. It's still a heap, right? After all, one grain of sand doesn't make a difference. A heap of sand grows gradually, and it would be "arbitrary" to say that 1000 grains of sand make a heap, but not 999. Well, keep taking away one grain of sand at a time. Using this principle, each time you remove just one grain, you still have a heap. Well, imagine you keep doing this all day, until you are down to one grain of sand. You still have a heap, right? No! Of course not. But when did it cease being a heap? Hard to say. But just because it is hard to say - just because it would be "arbitrary" to pick a particular number below which one no longer has a heap € does not mean that a single grain of sand is a heap of sand.

Similarly, if adult humans have a (fallible) right to life AND the development of humans is gradual, with no "cut-offs" (both claims, by the way, are not at all obvious), then that does not by itself imply that zygotes have a right to life. It is a fallacy to think otherwise.

Indeed, Keisling mentions (and quickly dismisses) one potential "point" where we may draw a cut-off: Sentience. He claims that this point is either arbitrary or "immediately justifies infanticide." Neither is true, and now I will show why.

Sentience is not an arbitrary point for this reason: Zygotes are not sentient. They have no brain, and, thus, no brain activity. Of course, merely having a brain probably is not sufficient for having a right to life. Many creatures have brains, but philosophers have argued that to have a right to something, one must be able to conceive of it and desire it (see, for example, Peter Singer's paper, "Abortion and Infanticide"). Thus, for something to have a right to life, it must be able to conceive of its own life, and also it must be able to desire the continuation of that life (of course, none of this is sufficient to grant one a right, but plausibly it is necessary). The point at which humans develop such conceptual capacities is not clear, but it is probably some time after birth, and it is not an "arbitrary" point. It is an empirical fact when one develops such conceptual capacities (and may indeed be different for different individuals).

Identifying sentience as the point where the right to life begins does not "immediately justify infanticide" either. Just because newly born infants do not have a right to life, there may be other moral considerations for not killing them. Not everything which we should not kill has a right to life. For instance, there are moral considerations against destroying large areas of rainforest, yet we do not think they have a right to life. On the other hand, if one did decide to kill a newly born infant (say, if that infant has some seriously debilitating disease and won't be able to live a minimally decent life), then one would not be violating its right to life.

In conclusion, there is something right about Keisling's claim that the right to life has something to do with conception. It is just that he had the wrong "conception" in mind.

Mark Patterson
philosophy graduate student and instructor