Absent overriding reasons, we have reasons against the active destruction of the capacity for rationality as instantiated in the human genome. Let's define our terms: Rational nature: Possessing a radical capacity for rationality rooted in the human genome. Rational agent: A being whose rationality necessarily provides it with binding reasons. My position depends on two premises: 1. It is irrational to will the destruction of something while depending upon that same thing. 2. No one could become a rational agent without first possessing a rational nature. Therefore, rational agents have reasons against willing the destruction of rational nature. Let's evaluate these premises. 1. Dependence and dispensability Unless we regard the thing upon which we depend as indispensable, it is irrational to treat it as entirely dispensable. We have reason to preserve what is necessary for the existence of something we value. If rational nature is indispensable to rational agency, then treating rational nature as wholly dispensable conflicts with our commitment to rational agency itself. We have reasons to value rational agency because it is the source of our reasons. Rational agency is not merely another object of evaluation; it is the faculty through which we recognize and respond to reasons in the first place. If something is necessary for reasons, it transitively provides reasons itself. In other words, oughts derive from oughts. Thus, absent overriding reasons, we have reason not to will the destruction of the rational nature upon which our rational agency depends. 2. Rational nature as the precondition of rational agency This premise is quite straightforward. One could become a rational agent only if one possessed the underlying capacity for rationality in the first place. Rational agency does not arise independently of the capacities that make it possible. The relevant point is not that every individual with a particular genome will necessarily become a rational agent, but that possessing the relevant radical capacity is a necessary precondition for its development. Different genomes can ground different capacities and developmental possibilities; without the capacity for rationality, one could not develop into a rational agent.

My opponent equates between legal and moral law. Furthermore, my position doesn't depend on rational nature being equivalent to rational agency. Rather, that it's the precondition for our rational agency. The opposing side misrepresents my premises. The FOR side has to establish reasons against the destruction of rational nature, which I have explained previously, and has yet to be sufficiently addressed. My opponent strawmans my position in implying I need to, "grant the fetus some moral status." I wholeheartedly agree that, "Nobody is morally required to lend their body to keep someone else alive, not even after birth." Rather, we have reasons against the active termination of rational nature, as layed out previously. "I don't see the immorality," is merely an argument from incredulity and is a reflection of their sore misunderstanding of the argument that's happening.

The hospital-fire scenario is disanalogous to the argument at hand because my argument does not depend on rational nature and rational agency being equivalent, a distinction my opponent continuously ignores. My opponent equates moral intuition with truth and raises baseless objections without addressing the arguments I have provided. They also conflate opposing the active deprivation of something with advocating an obligation to provide it. Bodily autonomy in the latter case does not, by itself, establish overriding reasons in the former. To be consistent, we must recognize that our own rational nature cannot be treated as wholly dispensable. We are bound by our rational agency to value rational nature because, as I explained more previously, oughts derive from oughts. Yet this point has been ignored. The statement, “A foundation is necessary for a house, but not every foundation is a house,” misrepresents my position. I am well aware that rational agency and rational nature are distinct concepts—I am the one who defined them. My opponent concludes with yet another argument from incredulity, reflecting an inability to engage with or accurately track the argument.