The Salience of Changes in Kind

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
  1. Human life has a beginning and an end.
    1. Both of these (i.e., the beginning and the end) are morally salient.
  2. Murder is the wrongful killing of one human being by another.
  3. Conception represents a change in kind, not merely in degree.
  4. Death represents a change in kind, not merely in degree.
  5. Both the beginning and the end of life are a change in kind, not merely in degree.
  6. There is no other change in kind in human life; all other changes are merely in degree.

  1. III ∧ V
    Conception, as a change in kind, represents the beginning of a human life.

  2. IV ∧ V
    Death, as a change in kind, represents the end of a human life.

  3. I ∧ II
    As life begins at conception, terminating a fetus at any point without sufficient justification is wrongful and is, therefore, murder.