[ACC] When During Fetal Development Does Abortion Become Morally Wrong?

[2019 Adversarial Collaboration Contest entry by BlockOfNihilism and Icerun.] When during fetal development does abortion become morally wrong? They first build a careful empirical foundation (CDC abortion data — 91% before 13 weeks; pregnancy is riskier than abortion, with stark racial disparities; the UCSF Turnaway Study's socioeconomic harms of denied abortions; why adoption is rarely chosen). Then two positions: Icerun argues CONCEPTION via Marquis's 'Future Like Ours' (killing is wrong because it robs a valued future, which a fetus has); BlockOfNihilism argues VIABILITY / conscious perception (~27-29 weeks — a pre-conscious fetus can't experience harm; a person's interests outweigh a non-experiencing entity's). They rebut sharply (the sleeping/comatose objection to consciousness-accounts; Boonin's dispositional-ideal-present-desire critique that FLV can't apply pre-consciousness; the FLV-also-covers-zygotes problem). Shared conclusion: abortion is never happy — focus on birth control, social support, and adoption access rather than legal edicts.

Quality 72 · Strong. 72 — Strong, on merit per the guest rule. A rigorous, well-sourced adversarial collaboration that grounds a genuinely hard question in solid data and real moral philosophy (Marquis vs Boonin) with a substantive back-and-forth. Functional/academic guest prose rather than a polished essay, which places it mid/high-Strong (above the workmanlike space-lifeboats ACC 67).

Claude’s paradigm shift 52 · Moderate. 52 — Moderate. A careful synthesis applying existing philosophy (Marquis's FLV, Boonin's critique) and data to the abortion-timing question; rigorous rather than novel.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. 2 — a within-discourse ACC; no material reach.