It is completely rational to take one life in order to save thousands.The death of a abortion doctor could save the lives of thousands.
Part A: Let's see if I get this right and understand your argument. I don't wan to misrepresent you.
1. From the above, you state it's ok to kill the abortion doctor because he will kill more fetuses later. The quantity of lives saved outweighs the death of his life. Essentially, this argument is Utilitarian in nature, but its hidden premises also stem from the "Doctrine of the Sanctity of Human Life."
For the sake of argument, I will assume your definition of personhood and premises, but let's simplify it. Since the argument is based on Utility, all that matters is the net gain. As long as more fetuses are saved than people killed to save them, and if that's the only way to do it, it is moral. However, let's reduce the number. Instead of saving thousands by killing one, you still save more, but it's drastically reduced--you save 2 for every 1. I do this because if killing 1 doctor will save 50 fetuses, it also will give net reward to kill 1 doctor for +1 utils. Let's move on from there.
If the above is true, then you believe a fetus is of equal value to an adult human instrinsically--that is, you equate the life of the fetus and the life of the adult. If you didn't, it wouldn't make sense to kill the adult to save +1 fetuses. I am assuming it is due to the fact that it is biologically human (DNA confirms it) and has potential for a future life value. However, when following from "Sanctity Theory" plus the above, it would follow that you also believe that an embryo is of equal value and shouldn't be killed because it is:
A: Human
B. Possessing a form of potential for personhood.
Again, if the above assumptions are true, you are equating non-sentient, and more importantly, non-sapient life, with that of sentient and sapient life. Regardless, they are equally valuable because they are technically human with a future potential. Since your argument exudes utilitarian reasoning, the following thought experiment is an obvious no-brainer for you. If a fetus is equal to an adult because of X, and an fertalized embryo also has X, then an embryo is equal to an adult in value as well as the fetus. Let's apply that to a thought experiment.
B: As a thought experiment, since the argument for a fetus and an embryo are not much different (lets assume it's a fertilized embryo in a jar), you would feel it appropriate to save the life of 120 fertilized embryos over 1 fourteen year old boy if you had to make the decision. If you didn't, 120 humans and future subjects of a life will die. Similarly, if you don't kill the abortion doctor, 2+ fetuses will die. Following from your premises, you must do this based on the requirements of utliity (which you assumed in your post) as well as your interesting equation of adults and fetus (sentient and non-sentient/sapient life). It would only follow that to kill a doctor to save a non-sapient/sentient organism is moral if you actually equate the two. You cannot equate sapient and non-sentient (or even non-sapient) life. The former is of vastly lesser value.
Very intersting indeed.
PS: Needless to say, I don't equate fertalized embryo's and fetues to adult humans. The latter are of vastly more value, so I don't consider killing a doctor to save the life of non-sapient biomass as a morally balanced equation when all relevant preferences and utils are considered. A fetus and an embryo are in a totally different category of moral worth, since they are not subjects of a life, do not possess rational attributes, and are not sapient in any form. This doesn't mean, however, that I feel they are without any moral value.
Rat nazis dehumanized innocent human beings in order to justify killing them,abortionist are no different.
Godwin's Law already? Pity. Anyway, the comparison of abortion to nazi killings is a fun one, but a false analogy nonetheless, since the two are so totally unrelated. Foremost, the targets of the Nazis were people who were subjects of a life, did not want to die, or had people who didn't want them to die. They had preferences for continued life and in possession of personhood. Quite often, the Nazis killed sapient, sentient organisms. Abortion on the former doesn't. Ever. Sometimes on the latter.
equating abortion to the nazi holocaust is like what those PETA crazies do when they equate eating chickens to the Nazi holocaust. It's ineffective and only serves to degrade the actual horrors of teh holocaust. You should know better than to make pithy, emotional argumentum ad hitlerums.
