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What is the fallacy used in the following passage? "No one can prove that a fetus is not a person from the moment of conception. So, a fetus must be accorded full moral rights as soon as it is conceived."

a.appeal to ignorance
b.slippery slope
c.appeal to the person
d.faulty analogy

User Cemafor
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Final answer:

The fallacy in the given passage is an appeal to ignorance, which concludes a fetus's personhood based on the absence of evidence to the contrary. The debate on abortion is complex, involving various philosophical arguments about personhood and moral status.

Step-by-step explanation:

The fallacy used in the passage "No one can prove that a fetus is not a person from the moment of conception. So, a fetus must be accorded full moral rights as soon as it is conceived" is an appeal to ignorance. This type of fallacy occurs when a conclusion is based on the absence of evidence rather than on evidence itself. In this case, the argument concludes that a fetus is a person with full moral rights because it has not been proven otherwise. The assertion neglects the burden of proof which should lie in asserting what a fetus is, rather than what it is not.

The abortion debate often pivots around the concept of personhood. One perspective suggests that a fetus's potential to become a person grants it full moral rights, whereas others argue that personhood is linked to certain capacities like rationality, which a fetus does not possess. Philosophers like Judith Jarvis Thomson and Ronald Dworkin have contributed significantly to the discourse on the moral status of a fetus and the principle of bodily autonomy for those pregnant, bringing in sophisticated ethical reasoning that goes beyond simple fallacies.

User Icebreaker
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