Instigator / Pro
1
1485
rating
11
debates
63.64%
won
Topic
#4232
Is abortion murder from the point of conception?
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 2 votes and with the same amount of points on both sides...
It's a tie!
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 4,000
- Voting period
- Two months
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
1
1420
rating
395
debates
43.8%
won
Description
This debate will cover all stages of pregnancy but will not cover cases of rape, the removal of ectopic pregnancies, or abortions performed to save the life of the mother. It will also not cover legality. Murder will be defined here in the moral sense. The burden of proof is shared.
All arguments given MUST be at least 3,500 characters to prove that both participants are committed to the debate. Failure to adhere to this will result in a loss.
Forfeiting a round will result in a loss.
Round 1
I would like to thank my opponent for engaging in this debate, and I would like to thank all of you for reading it. I also encourage you to vote afterwards.
In this debate, I will attempt to emphasize one central point: that killing a baby is a bad thing. Perhaps I will have more difficulty than I expect in establishing this point, as the killing of babies is often convenient to justify. I expect we will hear many arguments that justify murder for the purpose of economic convenience. I expect I we will also see babies and human beings referred to as something other than babies and human beings. But if we are to discuss abortion, it should be defined in simple terms, and abortion is best defined as killing a baby. When a woman goes to a clinic for an abortion, the doctor's job is to kill the baby, and if the baby is somehow alive by the end of the procedure, an abortion has not been performed.
Therefore, I hold that abortion constitutes the killing of an innocent human being. But when do human beings become human beings? The pro-choice camp does not provide us with a singular answer, but science does. In Essentials of Human Embryology, Keith Moore writes the following [1]:
Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as fertilization (conception). Fertilization is a sequence of events that begins with the contact of a sperm (spermatozoon) with a secondary oocyte (ovum) and ends with the fusion of their pronuclei (the haploid nuclei of the sperm and ovum) and the mingling of their chromosomes to form a new cell. This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being.
In Medical Embryology, Jan Langman writes:
The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.
Note that the aforementioned zygote has its own unique human DNA. A Japanese zygote implanted in a Ukranian woman will always be Japanese, not Ukranian, because the identity of a fetus is based on his or her genetic code, not that of the body they occupy. Furthermore, if the woman’s body is the only one involved in a pregnancy, then for most of the pregnancy, she must have two brains, two circulatory systems, two noses, four legs, two sets of fingerprints, and two skeletal systems. Half the time she must also have male sex organs. To deny that abortion is killing a baby, my opponent must reject the overwhelming scientific consensus that life begins at conception [2].
The most common method of abortion involves sucking the fetus out of the womb with a vacuum hose [3]. Another common method, known as D&E, involves ripping the baby's limbs off and removing them from the womb one body part at a time [4] [5]. Dr. Martin Haskell, an abortionist, states the following [6]:
The more common late-term abortion methods are the classic D&E and induction. [Induction] usually involves injecting digoxin or another substance into the fetal heart to kill it, then dilating the cervix and inducing labor...Classic D&E is accomplished by dismembering the fetus inside the uterus with instruments and removing the pieces through an adequately dilated cervix.
To argue that abortion is not killing an innocent human being, also known as murder, my opponent must establish that an unborn child is not human, that an unborn child is not innocent, or that abortion does not involve killing an unborn child.
Is abortion murder at the point of conception?
This is basically a question of where the line can be logically drawn to affect life to the point where it's extinguished.
Now what is conception?
It's when the sperm cell fertilizes the ovum. So to destroy these elements according to the opposing side constitutes as murder.
But why draw the line there?
These cells exist prior to coming together. So therefore, being that these cells can be destroyed prior, I can draw the line further back .
In fact I champion that you're not completely pro life without drawing it as far back long before conception.
That would have to do with the individual taking care of him/herself.
That would also include the act of so called birth control, contraception. We can draw the line there. Not at conception but before then.
Now it can be argued that abortion is birth control so we can include the other styles of birth prevention before heading towards the birth control that is commonly called a medical procedure in planned Parenthood.
This is a good topic because I've decided to take it far outside the box .
Which I don't commonly see people do.
When a man withdraws his genitalia , then ejaculates where none of the cells can survive, that's murder. When a man ejaculates into a rubber latex contraceptive material, the cells can't survive in there.
We can go back further than that. See all of this is interconnected. When you're 100 percent pro life you're all the way. It's not just fertilization but the vessels that possess the ability to fertilize.
When you murder or kill a person, a grown person unjustly, you're not just killing that person. But also that person's ability to contribute to bring forth the next generation and the next and the next. See how far , how deep this gets.
Looking at the individual themselves, what are they doing to take care of themselves?
Everything, everything, everything, everything, everything that they do either is healthy or unhealthy. It will build up or tear down their body.
So thinking, speaking and or acting in favor or in opposition to the welfare of your health as a whole.
When you do a Google search online for 10 everyday habits that lower your sperm count or 7 things you do every day that destroy your sperm, you'll learn smoking, heavy alcohol drinking , heavy caffeine consumption,diet and sleep affect your health and the health of your cells.
You're in poor health, your cells are in poor health. Your health declines, your cell health declines. Do you get it?
It's your whole body. Your body as a whole.
Very, very good topic because many believe pro life is just about the care of pregnancy. Life pertains to the holistic spectrum of life , health and wellness of the unborn and the vessel carrying the unborn.
Many don't think of something heinous with birth control. We got to rethink on a larger scale.
Often people think, the so called pro lifers think contraceptive is silly to regard as anything significant. Abortion is just last minute, late stage, last resort birth prevention. It's still preventing a birth.
Different people have lines drawn in different stages. Trying to justify in one term while another term is not justified.
But it ALL boils down the same no matter the term.
At conception OR contraception , it boils down to the same regard .
So why draw the line at one term or at conception?
It is therefore logically sound and consistent to not draw the line at conception in terms of murder. Which just amounts to an immoral act as it were.
What is the end of an immoral act?
Something that is not good is not right but wrong. It not being good is bad which is adverse and harmful .
What harms us is the start of destruction to us, our bodies.
So that's all murder amounts to. The term itself is backed by legality. Which means you are told when you are breaking the law based on what you do and don't do .
See if you want to know why something is illegal, maybe the best someone has to say is the government said so. They can say that or that it's wrong.
But why , why, why?
That's why I broke it down the way I did. It's to what it amounts to. You can call it murder, criminal, detrimental, heinous, horrid, macabre, sacrilegious, malicious, unhealthy, vile, degrading, disgusting, on and on.
Once again, the term murder is a legal term but I believe in the debate description, legality will not be discussed.
Round 2
My opponent is correct that legality is not the subject of this debate. They are incorrect about everything else.
First and foremost, my opponent claims that if I believe that a sperm fertilizing an egg constitutes a human being, then I should also believe that destroying these elements individually constitutes murder. But this does not follow. A human being is made up of limbs, organs, blood, etc. but destroying a disembodied limb does not constitute murder. If we break things down further, human beings are made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons, but destroying these particles does not constitute murder unless they are arranged in the form of a human being.
It also seems that my opponent has not challenged any of my evidence that abortion constitutes the killing of an innocent person. My opponent also ignores all of the biological evidence demonstrating that life begins at conception. Therefore, the premise that abortion is killing a baby remains unchallenged.
It is clear that the line for the beginning of a human life can and should be drawn at conception. The scientific consensus provides enough evidence for this as is. If my opponent wants to reject this notion, despite providing no scientific evidence of their own, they should be able to draw a line somewhere else. The "slippery slope" that my opponent referred to fails to equate contraception to abortion, as I've already demonstrated.
But drawing a line anywhere except conception is indeed a slippery slope. Wherever a line is drawn after conception (heartbeat, "appearing human", etc.), applying the same standard to human adults leads to nonsensical conclusions, such as denying the rights of people with pacemakers. In order to challenge the evidence I've provided so far, my opponent should be able to provide an alternative starting point for when human beings become human beings. This would not begin to sufficiently counter the scientific consensus, but it is a necessary condition before my opponent can make serious claims about when life does and doesn't begin.
Furthermore, it remains unchallenged that abortion constitutes the action of killing this human being. As I stated in the opening, the entire purpose of an abortion is to cause the death of the human child. Abortion is most commonly performed with a vacuum hose or by ripping the child's limbs off. My opponent has defended abortion as "preventing a birth," but this statement doesn't make sense unless they believe that life starts at birth. They've made no argument for that, and I will wait for them to state where they draw the line in their next argument. But if my opponent does end up drawing the line at birth, it will mean they are fine with ripping limbs off a baby minutes before birth just because the child is geographically located inside the womb.
Recall that I promised to emphasize one central point: that killing a baby is a bad thing. My opponent has not stated that abortion is not killing a baby (this would be incompatible with the scientific consensus). My opponent has also not claimed that killing a baby is justified and not murder. Thus it seems the resolution defaults to my side given the arguments that have been presented so far.
In just the first round, my opponent presented you with a worldview that rejects the scientific consensus on the beginning of life, ignores the definition of murder, and attempts to justify the killing of innocent human beings. But I have presented you with an alternative view that recognizes the dignity of human beings and defends the rights of children. Whichever one of these views you hold personally, my opponent has failed to counter the overwhelming scientific evidence supporting my argument.
I did not say anything about what constitutes a human being. If you're going to reiterate what I say, please do it exactly.
I said nothing about a human being at the point of conception. Your view from what I understand is that at the point of conception it is murder to have an abortion.
I simply responded with those elements that exist at conception existed prior so we can logically relocate the point of murder prior.
I think you're stumbling over how you're choosing to use the word "murder". The term is a legal term. So why even use it in a discussion that omits legality?
The government or the state the government is over only enforces the law on murder at a certain point and circumstance . I'm sure it's not enforced at the point where your position is.
So you therefore are taking the term and reapplying with your view. Then you communicate for me to do the same somehow doesn't work. This is inconsistent.
Maybe the topic statement should of used the term " wrong " or " bad " instead of " murder ". The topic statement as is along with the debate description is inconsistent. So your rebuttal to this point on me using the term murder is just as incongruent.
You mentioned about me not challenging anything. I'm sorry but the first round was just my opening statement.
Your statement "It is clear that the line for the beginning of a human life can and should be drawn at conception. " is not the topic .
You are correct about the part I should be able to draw the line somewhere else as I explained.
What does contraception and abortion have in common ?
"In order to challenge the evidence I've provided so far, my opponent should be able to provide an alternative starting point for when human beings become human beings. "
This is moving the goalpost. The topic is not about at what point are we humans. It's at what point is it murder which you say is conception. You decide to call what's at the conception stage human .
At the conception stage is where the sperm cell fertilizes an ovum. You choose to call that human, doesn't really matter. You call it murder nevertheless. So it's the murder of a fertilized ovum comprised of an egg implanted of a seed.
This is your position believe it or not. You arbitrarily pick this stage to call it murder. I'm looking at the previous stages before it and can make the same case so why not draw the line further back?
Others may call it murder a day or a week or a month before the baby is born. We have all these different lines but all of these stages are interconnected. So why pick at one point in the process when they're all interrelated?
These are the questions to be answered because the answers will just show biased personal input rather than true objective reality concerning life.
Again, look at life as a whole. Any iota of an occurrence in the direction to extinguish life is what amounts to murder as you call it. I'll just say the extinguishing of life.
Life began when life began so that be with the first creature to ever exist. This is what I mean by looking on a whole scale.
"As I stated in the opening, the entire purpose of an abortion is to cause the death of the human child."
This is either more goalpost moving or you're throwing terms all over every which a way.
Is the topic on conception? So what's at conception exists a child. You don't mean a child passed 4 years old outside the womb I take it.
Are you saying abortion does not prevent birth?
What ?
I thought I made this clear . I draw the line prior to conception, prior to it.
Which means drawing it at conception is not , is not good enough and is insufficient for calling yourself pro-life.
Now this is all I need to some up my points . It's not the quantity that necessarily validates them but the quality.
You can make a several character mile long trip of an explanation. Doesn't mean you've gone to the right destination.
One word , two words, a thousand words. Folks can speak many of them all day long . A lot of verbose talk but yet talking about nothing.
My position can be summed up irrefutably in one sentence
Round 3
I will remind voters that votes should be based on arguments given and refuted in this debate, not arguments or refutations they would have made personally.
This debate defines murder in the moral sense, as stated in the description. For example, killing slaves was legal but still murder by the moral definition of killing an innocent human being. Governments killing people legally is murder. Drowning someone in international waters is murder. Throwing a baby into a meat grinder is murder. Pretty much every example you can give fits my definition. My opponent defines murder as killing any living thing, but chopping down a tree is not murder. Killing bacteria is not murder. Therefore, my definition makes the most sense.
Abortion is killing an innocent human being. My opponent does not seem to dispute this. Abortion is killing a baby. My opponent does not dispute this. Contraception isn't relevant to this debate, as this debate covers all stages of pregnancy, and ejaculation is not a stage of pregnancy. This debate only covers the point of conception onwards. After the point of conception, there is an innocent human being in the womb who can be murdered.
My opponent agrees that they must draw a line, but they have failed to do so. They state that the line must be drawn before conception, which is easily debunked by the evidence in my opening which they have not responded to. (If my opponent wants me to repeat this evidence, I can. Or they can just scroll back to the top of the page.) Even then, they never state when, at exactly what point in time, this line should be drawn.
So far, my opponent's position relies on the assumption that if something prevents a birth, it can't be murder. If this were true, throwing a pregnant woman in a volcano wouldn't be murder, because it prevents a birth. Murder isn't based on whether an action prevents a birth, it's based on whether it kills an innocent human being. Abortion kills an innocent human being.
My opponent goes on several tangents about the nature of morality, but the purpose of this debate is not to answer every moral question, it's to determine whether abortion is murder, which it is. I have focused on proving this, while my opponent has gone off-topic and addressed several moral questions about topics unrelated to this debate, such as contraception, killing bacteria, etc. I think it's clear that they're unwilling to give an alternative definition of murder with any sort of justification, so again, my definition should be preferred.
In my opening, I stated something that has since gone unchallenged: "To argue that abortion is not killing an innocent human being, also known as murder, my opponent must establish that an unborn child is not human, that an unborn child is not innocent, or that abortion does not involve killing an unborn child." My opponent has established none of these things. At most they've argued that the beginning of life is ambiguous, but this does not provide any support for their definition. I will remind voters that the burden of proof in this debate is shared.
It's quite clear that my opponent is unwilling or unable to counter my definition of murder. My opponent is also unwilling or unable to show that abortion does not kill an innocent human being. They've asked rhetorical questions and made analogies, none of which demonstrate that abortion does not kill an innocent human being. At the beginning of this debate, I made the point that killing babies is a bad thing. Murderous, in fact. Since this point has gone unchallenged, it seems to go without saying that abortion is a premeditated, immoral killing. I hope you're paying attention to this point, because my opponent clearly isn't.
My opponent has failed to summarize his position in one sentence, but I will summarize mine: Killing a baby is a bad thing.
I'm not going to go in circles. I'm not going to argue over definitions and semantics. People choose to use terms how they use them. As long as we can understand one another, we'll be fine.
When you use a term not in it's general sense to hijack it and reroute it in a confused manner , it adds complexity nobody needs unless one wants to sound fancy having a way with words.
Here in lies the rug and epicenter. The opposing side is picking and choosing a stage to call it murder when abortion is performed.
Others do the same picking another stage perhaps later, much later. Even to the point of actual birth before they call it murder.
To them it's justified to be called murder . To the opposing side in this debate it's justified long before birth but at fertilization or conception.
We run into a paradoxical problem when arguing that it shouldn't be called murder before the stage of conception.
Due to this paradoxical problem, we have to draw the line where there's no conflict.
This is why we have this controversy over abortion and pro life. On the one hand , the argument is not to perform an abortion on what's called a cluster of cells. On the other side, perform one on a cluster of cells as the stage hasn't been reached to look at the cells any different.
So we have an arbitrary tug of opinion between which stage is viewed the most significant.
One week into the first trimester, 12 weeks into it, it just changes from view to view. Someone calls it just a cluster of cells at 4 weeks. You don't . Someone calls it a cluster at conception, you don't. Ok fine. But you are that someone that will call it less than a cluster prior to conception just as those other folks that views this organic process to life as less than .
So it's not objective but a subjective arbitrary input on what someone sees as value to life to then label what would be murder if that value is extinguished.
How is my side objective? No matter the stage, it's all a cluster of cells.
Prior to conception, there are cells yet to be mingled or clustered so why would they have less value?
That's why the weight , the WEIGHT of murder still weighs the same.
If I have a house, the house is valuable put together just as the individual parts used to put it together were as separated.
Each of those parts make it up. Without one part or more or several, the value of the house is compromised.
I think the opposing side has no refutation for my case because they only thought about and was prepared for someone to be for abortion.
The topic raises a question about a point in time.
No where in the debate description does it say my case , the con side must be on the side of murder just because the opposing side is calling abortion murder .
You're not just calling abortion murder but you are calling it that at a particular stage.
See you weren't ready for somebody to take an unconventional position.
I explained and I thought I asked a question what does abortion have in common with contraception?
Yes they both prevent births. Abortion is a form of contraception. That's how pro choice folks look at it anyway. It has the same result. No birth.
I'm saying your position of calling it murder at that stage of conception drawing the line there is not correct.
You didn't say I can only argue from your drawn line to birth. You said the debate will cover all stages of pregnancy. But what it will cover and where I can only argue from are two different things.
Bottom line, my position is opposed to yours because I call it murder before conception, you don't.
You say burden of proof is shared. You didn't get much specific than that other than giving a pseudo quantitative value for the length of points.
To answer the topic question is abortion murder from the point of conception?
I say no, it's earlier.
By the way I'm not asking rhetorical questions. Feel free to actually answer the questions unless you feel they'll refute your points.
You say it is bad to abort from conception. You're using the terms bad and murder interchangeably here. I don't know what it is about the term "murder". Maybe the word carries a lot of conviction to those that perform the deed , I don't know.
You say it is bad to abort from conception, killing a baby and what not. That's your position towards the topic is a question. That's your answer to it.
I've proved it's an arbitrary answer and stance as it's no different than anyone else picking a stage to call it bad when aborting.
Your argument, it's a human life so it has value so it is bad to abort.
The individual life forms that come together to progress that human life have value as there would be no "human life" without them and it would disrupt the process for "human life" to demolish those life forms just as it would be to do so at conception, why is it only bad from your point?
Round 4
I will remind voters to cast their vote based on which side better argued for their side of the question, 'Is abortion murder from the point of conception?' Votes should be based on arguments presented in the debate and whether they were refuted by the opposing side, not based on the voter's personal opinion.
I'm happy to stop going over semantics since I think I've settled the issue already. My opponent says that others object to my definition of murder but has failed to defend these objections with evidence. This debate probably should have been shorter, since my opponent doesn't really have much to say in response to my arguments.
My opponent has ignored all the evidence for life starting at conception, essentially ceding that point entirely. My opponent's house analogy proves my point, since building materials aren't a house unless they are arranged in that form. Again, protons, electrons, and neutrons make up pretty much everything, but we wouldn't say that a human and a tree have the same moral value just because they're both made up of particles.
We've already been over the contraception issue, but my opponent states again that because both contraception and abortion prevent birth, abortion can't be murder. Again, I'm not sure how my opponent is defining murder, but contraception does not involve harming an innocent human being, as I've already explained several times. The "preventing birth" standard is just as arbitrary as saying that contraception is the same as killing a four-year-old because both of them prevent a child from having a fifth birthday. Two things having a similar effect does not make them morally equivalent.
My opponent does not seem interested in defining murder, which is odd because they accepted a debate about whether abortion is murder. Again, I won't argue this point any further since my opponent hasn't given me any definition to argue against. But my opponent either doesn't know what the term means or is being intentionally dishonest, and we should reject their claims in either case.
In the previous round, my opponent said they would draw a line but never drew one. "Prior to conception" is not a line. It is a period of time, but drawing a line requires them to be specific. They've essentially ceded this point.
Even if contraception is immoral or evil, it does not pertain to this debate, which argues about the morality of abortion from conception onwards. Before conception, abortion wouldn't even be possible because abortion requires ending a pregnancy, not preventing one. So my opponent's line of argument about abortion before the point of conception is both nonsensical and irrelevant to this debate.
I'm not sure why my opponent is continuing to reject all the biological evidence I've provided that life begins at conception. They've essentially refused to acknowledge most of my opening argument because it hurts their case. I'm happy to continue pointing this out, but I don't think my opponent is going to say anything in the last two rounds that we haven't heard already.
The bottom line here is that abortion requires, by definition, the killing of an innocent person. My definition for murder has also gone unchallenged, so I don't think anything more needs to be said in that regard. My opponent has continually relied on faulty analogies, strawman attacks, and diversions from the central point of this debate. Regardless of whatever mental gymnastics my opponent attempts in the following rounds, it should be very clear from the arguments you've seen so far that abortion is murder from the point of conception.
Everything has become circular at this point. I understand when you're in a debate both sides are defensive and tend to not really communicate with one another.
I would like to have a live debate with you folks and see how that works. Maybe I'll have a breakthrough then.
There's a question of where I draw the line from the opposing side then I'm told it's irrelevant.
Well I'll just stand by my position. I mean what do you expect?
I'll just make this nice and simple and I mean no ways to insult anybody's intelligence. I just figured the plainer I make this the more easier to comprehend.
The topic question, not topic statement, the topic question is asking is abortion murder from the point of conception ?
Then the opposing side uses the word "bad" interchangeably. Whatever, I understand where they stand. Is abortion bad from the point of conception?
When you say "from the point" that's descriptive of time or itinerary of events.
Like this point in time or this point in the process or at this point on the grid concerning latitude etc . It's a specific location in a progress of events. So the question is when? Well at this particular event or stage. At this particular stage this is when this particular event occurs.
I say it's bad to extinguish that which is conducive to bringing about life earlier than the point of conception.
How does this logically follow?
I think both sides agree what bad is . It's something not wanted , not preserving life like murder. So it's something that would extinguish life like abortion.
Where do I draw the line?
I draw the line at life itself. Why?
It's because everything pertaining to life is all interconnected so why pick one point over another when they're all interrelated?
Remember, this is why I say WHOLE SCALE. There are many things I say that indicate the answers people are looking for but are glossed over.
Also I gave an analogy of a house now you can say it doesn't mean anything. You can say it's irrelevant but when we're honest in telling the truth about it, it's clear why the example was given.
I don't see any rebuttal for it. That's not surprising as we know any part of that house is missing to make it a house wouldn't be a fully functional dwelling.
Any part, any part of that foundation or the roof is missing, the thing can and will collapse to its destruction.
It's the same with all of us. When I say life itself, it's anything that happens to our health to diminish it extinguishing the next generation along with it.
I don't know what's not to get about this. There are those that are just not getting it. The opposing side is saying or communicating I'm not responding or ignoring their sources, data, studies, whatever.
I distinctly recall giving information about things people do that diminish their reproductive abilities . Which once that occurs, how's that any different of an effect than performing abortion?
It's not just what's in the vessel carrying the living being, it's also the vessel itself.
We keep ourselves in poor health, shorten our lifespans , slowly decimating ourselves, that would include the reproductive system.
So anything that is unhealthy period is drawing the line. That's what makes all the difference. You can't get no worse or anything surpassing as bad as that.
We're either healthy, fruitful and thriving or killing ourselves slow through unhealthy habits which would include, include, include looking at it on a whole inclusive scale, preventing to have babies.
That's really it in a nutshell. To wipe out a whole next generation of people is done on today's massacres and genocides.
There was a film " Deep Cover" that had a message about crack babies. People on drugs, very unhealthy habits that kill their babies before they're born.
Even Greater example to my point, the film "Boyz in the Hood". The message of destroying a people taking away their ability to reproduce.
We have to stop thinking at a small level. We can't excuse the other things that are to our detriment or what you call "bad".
Round 5
At the beginning of this debate, I answered the question, 'Is abortion murder from the point of conception?' by citing biological evidence, defining murder as the killing of an innocent human being, and describing how abortions are performed. It seems that my opponent has avoided the question entirely. I've explained this already, but this debate does not cover contraception, "being unhealthy," or most of the things my opponent is talking about. They could be right about all of those things, and it wouldn't change the fact that abortion requires, by definition, the murder of an innocent human being. I'm not even sure that these whataboutisms even help my opponent's case. If everything they're listing is murder, then abortion is definitely also murder since it involves killing a living being.
At this point, there's not much else to say. My opponent insists that "before conception" is a line. (Or perhaps "all living things." It wasn't quite clear.) But regardless of whether they're being facetious in their comparison to contraception, the fact remains that they have failed to draw a morally consistent line between conception and birth. So it follows, with no challenge from the opposition, that killing a newborn is morally equivalent to abortion from conception.
I already explained why contraception and abortion aren't the same thing, but my opponent ignores this point and talks about how often sperm are destroyed or sperm count is reduced. It doesn't help their case if they keep going on about something that's very clearly different from the subject of this debate. Destroying part of a house constitutes property damage just like cutting someone's hand off is assault, but the "house part" has to be part of someone's house. Otherwise, it may as well be a part for something else. A sperm doesn't become part of someone's body until conception when a human being is actually formed.
The morally consistent thing is to treat killing an innocent human being as murder. And it seems to go entirely unchallenged that human beings are formed at conception. You can look at any proton, electron, or nucleus in the universe and say "that could have been part of a human," but that doesn't justify killing human beings. My opponent keeps asking "what if" about ridiculous situations, but the contraception argument isn't one that should be taken seriously. We know that killing four-year-olds is murder. We know that killing babies is murder. I've already established that abortion is killing a baby, which makes all of these weird tangents pretty much irrelevant.
Again, all I can really do here is summarize things that have already been said. My opponent has had four chances already to counter the science supporting my position, and I don't think we can expect much more from them in the conclusion. They can keep repeating things that I've already countered, such as arguing that anything that prevents a birth can't be murder, but they continually fail to get around the fact that abortion involves killing an innocent human being.
Science is very clear about when life begins. The zygote, formed at conception, is the first stage of human life. From the moment of conception, abortion constitutes the murder of an innocent human being. What people "consider" to be the starting point for human life does not constitute evidence. They are entitled to their own opinions but not to their own facts.
Note that my opponent does not directly dispute any of this, and as such my central point remains unchallenged: abortion is killing a baby, and killing a baby is a bad thing.
I certainly want to thank the opposing side for providing the opportunity in this exchange. For the record, I extend that to all of you on this site. I don't mean to fall short of that.
Like the opposing side says, I think we've completed and exhausted our points. They believe what they believe as do I. They weren't ready for an unconventional or rare position.
To those in the comments, I see what you're trying to say but you really don't know what you're talking about.
The truth is I believe my position steps on toes. People can digest avoiding abortion after sex . But can they live with sexual abstinence? Nobody genuinely ordinarily is trying to vote for that or champion that .
I have the unconventional and minority set of views on this site. That's awesome as some of the biggest figures in history were that.
I understand it's a difference of view. I view life , preserving it as a whole. We know it's murder to do the opposite to deliberately unjustifiably not preserve it.
The other side only applies the value of preserving life once fertilization happens. Only applies preserving the race upon fertilization and not as a whole to all that we do and don't do to preserve it. That's what killing or abortion is. It's an act not to preserve life.
I just hold the consistency especially in this topic. To kill , abort or murder a sperm cell fused with an ovum(conception), being that this is the case, how is it any different in doing this to these elements prior to contact?
This is the argument the pro abortion individuals will use in rebuttal. But my position would refute that. My opposer's position isn't strong enough because of the arbitrary line-drawing nature of it.
By calling abortion murder, you've not only opened up what abortion amounts to, you've offered up the reality that we're looking at unjust killing, destruction, the non-preservation of life by using the term murder .
So the point of murder starts before conception when choosing to live life unhealthy, shortening the life span and avoiding to reproduce genetics.
I wonder if the population reduces and the next generation isn't looking to have families, will that be bad or detrimental.
Just stand to reason that we eliminate our chance at growth in numbers obviously before abortions at conceptions as people are preventing conceptions. How is that not adverse?
I thought about it and I used to have the position that it's only wrong to prevent pregnancies. No let's back up. It's wrong to prevent conceptions.
If you're against abortion, be consistent and be against all of birth control. We shouldn't even have a hard time understanding the relationship between abortion and birth control. They both, BOTH prevent birth.
As the old slang saying use to go "you better recognize".
But this was a good topic. I really appreciate the way it was framed. It was from the way it was put that I seen the chance to point out this point of view, no pun intentional.
It's not just killing/murdering a person is bad because it's a human being. That's what I believe I been trying to stress . It is maybe what the opposing side has not received the emphasis on .
Killing a person, killing off a people.
A person doesn't have value just from breathing, seeing, touching and feeling. That's another shallow argument. The abortion supporters will come up with the common comatose scenario in response to that .
How can I not or anybody that is against the decimation not be opposed to the break in surviving ourselves?
We don't survive by having "protected sex". I know it may cut against the grain. People that are always on the so called pro life side just look at killing babies in the womb not even looking at what'll happen to the welfare after birth .
You say we don't survive by having abortions, that's where it starts. No, we don't survive by using contraception.
"He wrote a lot of stupid shit that made me laugh."
~ Indeed.
I wish Viper were still around.
He wrote a lot of stupid shit that made me laugh.
"In this debate, I will attempt to emphasize one central point: that killing a baby is a bad thing."
Had I seen this before voting was done, I would have voted against you.
Using the term baby in this context is both a misnomer and an appeal to emotion fallacy.
There is NO "baby" involved in an abortion, only zygotes, blastocysts, embryos and fetuses. That's it.
By legal, social, psychological, and cultural dictate...a pregnancy doesn't become 'a person' (ie. - a baby) until birth.
Vote for the truth. Do you believe there was life that caused conception?
Yeah ik
The voting period is over 50 days on this one. There’s no rush.
Push for votes
Anyone interested in voting?
Push for votes
Okay, thanks =)
I'll vote on this right after I finish my vote for AleutianTexan and Sir.Lancelot's debate.
Push
all rounds characters have been counted both sides used more than 3500 consistently.
I'll vote later on, I have a few things to finish up but other than that i'll vote afterwards.
Viper sounds good here. Used a point of conception at the two male and female cells joining. At that point, a child has started it's journey in the womb. Mall seemed to go on about "outside the box" theories about self care and such things which weren't relevant to the debate. Viper said it right that a conscious decision to terminate a pregnancy without any physical challenges to the mother and child is purely murder. We allow capital punishment (death penalty) for people that are a danger to society, but we will abhor a person for killing/hurting another for the sake of convenience (I.E. muggings, road rage, child molester, etc). Stopping a pregnancy just for convenience is just like the mugger, road rager, and pedophile.
Ah ok, sounds good!
I can't do rated because my account is new. Once I can I'll debate you under those conditions.
Would you be willing to recreate this debate with a 2-3 days' response time and making it Rated instead of Standard?
I'll vote, regardless of the answer.
Please vote!
Please vote!
which neither side did.
in a debate, confrontation against an idea you oppose will happen, but its not the main focus of a debate. This was an arguement, not a debate. a focus that is pointedly decided on proving the opposition is incorrect that few to no facts or truths are made. That being said, it should be noted that this is not a truism debate because morality and law were not appropriately defined or agreed upon.
here is the thing. murder is a legal term. it goes all the way back to being established as a word to describe unlawful killing.
the semantics and morality of this debate are therefore confused in the approach of both viper and mall.
you cannot seperate legality and morality from the precept of murder, you have to define both legality and morality before doing that. and thats another debate in its self.
one stresses the concept of murder via morality of societal law, while the other stresses the morality and semantics of murder via conscience/godly law.
however, because this website allots points based on logic pertaining to societal and supposedly unbiased reasoning. viper will end up winning this one.
the only thing worth observing in this debate is mall and viper's view of morality. otherwise this is a waste of space unless one or both reconcile the application and source of morality/law as i showed above.
It’s not about defining [a] human being when it comes to this debate. The ONLY issue of any relevance is fetal viability.
I am willing to debate you next if you are interested.
I'm using wordcounter.net to count characters, totals may be a bit off if you're using a different software (spaces, enter, etc.)
Defining a human being is quite complex. We just can't reduce it to a bunch of cells growing and multiplying. Hope you both come up with all the dimensions involved in human nature that really make us human beings.
Stupid debate. Get a damn law and layman’s dictionary. Abortion isn’t murder. Never has been. Never will be.
Okay.
Plz vote when this debate is finished!
I might do this debate if you can increase the characters?
Good luck!