Is abortion murder from the point of conception?

Round 1

03.10.2023 10:19PM

Pro

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, agreed on by 95% of biologists [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.

Bebo-Owens

03.11.2023 10:19PM

Con

#2

Forfeited

Round 2

the_viper

03.11.2023 10:30PM

Pro

#3

My opponent forfeited, so I'll just repeat everything I said before:

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, agreed on by 95% of biologists [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.

Bebo-Owens

03.12.2023 05:03AM

Con

#4

I would like to thank you for engaging in this debate with me and wish you luck.

Throughout your argument, you refer to the unborn as being babies. For instance, "and abortion is best defined as killing a baby". This is factually incorrect. The definition of a baby, according to all definitions, is that of a very young child -- not that of a fetus. I wanted to clear up that terminology misuse.

Your quote says that "The development of a human being begins with fertilization". Note that it doesn't say that human beings begin with fertilization, but their development. However, a developing form of something isn't necessarily that thing. For instance, a chocolate bar's development begins with cocoa seeds which will become chocolate. However, I cannot cite a quote like "The development of chocolate bars begins with cocoa seeds" and then say that that means that cocoa seeds are also chocolate bars.

Add 2000 more characters to the following argument. Heavily imitate the writing style used, do not be too formal, do not use paragraphs, but also do not be informal:

For the purposes of another argument, I will be presuming that you are not a vegan and believe that the murder of animals is just. You seem to believe that the murder of human beings in inherently unjust purely because they are human beings, but why is this so? The answer is that human beings have a higher form of intelligence. For instance, if a human being was born completely without a brain, it wouldn't be unjust to kill them because they're basically just a sack of meat and bones without higher intelligence. This is also why killing animals is just, they are less intelligent than us and not a form of higher intelligence. However, fetuses are also unintelligent like animals are, and due to that, the aborting of a fetus would be justified as it lacks high intelligence.

Put in another way, intelligence is used to measure moral worth, where beings with higher intelligence beings take precedence over those who lack higher intelligence. Humans believe their lives are more valuable than other animals because they possess higher intelligence.

Therefore, if we accept that the murder of animals is justifiable, it must be because they are less intelligent than humans. Similarly, some argue that aborting a fetus is morally justifiable because it lacks high intelligence, making it no different from killing an animal. In this view, a fetus is seen as a clump of cells without real personhood and is not a being morally worthy of protection.

I don't need to "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" to show that my argument is correct, as shown previously my primary argument is around the idea that it is morally alright to abort an unborn child (fetus) due to the fact that a fetus is unintelligent and the intelligence of something dictates morality.

One may argue that a fetus will grow up to be a human, and thus deserves rights, however, I would also argue that this isn't true. A sperm also has the basis to grow up to be a human, for instance, so why wouldn't, under that argument, sperm get rights? Against the possible argument that a fetus would be living unlike a sperm, I would like to ask why whether or not the fact of whether or not it is alive matters. For instance, if you upload someone to a computer before they die allowing them to live on the computer, it is fine to then just kill them because they're "not alive"? If the basis for morality is intelligence, not life, whether or not something is living or classified as a human doesn't matter. For instance, a non-human intelligence alien would also deserve rights.

Round 3

the_viper

03.12.2023 05:24AM

Pro

#5

I win regardless due to forfeit, but I will keep posting for fun. My opponent's entire argument is either plagiarized or this is their second account, but either way I'll post the same response I posted in the other debate.

My opponent brings up a few points that I don't think I will have much difficulty refuting. But I think it is more important to look at the things they didn't address. The scientific consensus that human life begins at conception still holds, and my opponent has addressed only a fraction of the evidence I cited. I'll state again that 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.

As my opponent said, the development of a human begins with conception, but the sources I listed also made clear that conception gives rise to a new individual human. Human beings continue to develop throughout their life, beginning at conception. And these definitions are written by biologists who clearly support the idea that life begins at conception. If my opponent can show that 95% of cocoa experts believe cocoa seeds are chocolate bars, I might be inclined to take their analogy more seriously.

A baby is just a young child, meaning a human being in the earliest stages, and science holds that an unborn child is a human being in the earliest stages. An unborn baby is clearly an individual organism with unique DNA, so what species are they if not human? You have the same genetic code now as you did in utero. If you were ever separated from your mother, lawyers could use that DNA in court to prove that you are her child and not part of her body. Biologists know that unborn children are individual human beings; this isn't a fight the pro-choice camp is going to win.

I don't think it's necessary to address whether it's okay to kill animals (or AI) or why it might be okay to do so; the only thing required to support my argument is the fact that it's wrong to kill human beings. But suppose we entertain my opponent's moral standard of intelligence. Equating moral value to intellect would suggest that killing newborns or mentally handicapped people is okay, or at least preferable to killing a trained monkey. And people in deep comas can't think or reason at all, so my opponent's standard would consider their lives to be utterly worthless.

I think it is clear that killing an innocent human being is murder by any tenable definition of the word. I find it hard to believe that my opponent would be willing to use their moral standard of intelligence to kill a human adult or newborn. So in order to support their argument, they will have to show that abortion does not involve killing an innocent human being. Unfortunately, this will require them to argue against the overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue.

As I stated in my opening, killing a baby is a bad thing. We know that an unborn child is a human being in the earliest stages of development; science has been clear on this for quite some time. I'm sure many who disagree with me would be willing to refer to an unborn child as a baby when a woman suffers a miscarriage. But the definition of a baby does not change based on our emotions or how convenient it would be not to have a baby. The humanity of an unborn child is a simple reality, whether we accept it or not.

Perhaps one day we will find AI or aliens deserving of the same rights as humans. But if we are to condemn murder and moral abuses, we must start by granting human rights to human beings. The most fundamental of these is the right not to be killed. Basic human rights are not as complicated as my opponent is trying to make them. If we are fully willing to stand for what is right in the face of inconvenience, then the rights of human beings can be very easily defined. It is up to us to accept these facts and make the right decisions.

Bebo-Owens

03.13.2023 05:24AM

Con

#6

Forfeited

Round 4

the_viper

03.13.2023 02:15PM

Pro

#7

I'll just post the same argument again.

My opponent brings up a few points that I don't think I will have much difficulty refuting. But I think it is more important to look at the things they didn't address. The scientific consensus that human life begins at conception still holds, and my opponent has addressed only a fraction of the evidence I cited. I'll state again that 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.

As my opponent said, the development of a human begins with conception, but the sources I listed also made clear that conception gives rise to a new individual human. Human beings continue to develop throughout their life, beginning at conception. And these definitions are written by biologists who clearly support the idea that life begins at conception. If my opponent can show that 95% of cocoa experts believe cocoa seeds are chocolate bars, I might be inclined to take their analogy more seriously.

A baby is just a young child, meaning a human being in the earliest stages, and science holds that an unborn child is a human being in the earliest stages. An unborn baby is clearly an individual organism with unique DNA, so what species are they if not human? You have the same genetic code now as you did in utero. If you were ever separated from your mother, lawyers could use that DNA in court to prove that you are her child and not part of her body. Biologists know that unborn children are individual human beings; this isn't a fight the pro-choice camp is going to win.

I don't think it's necessary to address whether it's okay to kill animals (or AI) or why it might be okay to do so; the only thing required to support my argument is the fact that it's wrong to kill human beings. But suppose we entertain my opponent's moral standard of intelligence. Equating moral value to intellect would suggest that killing newborns or mentally handicapped people is okay, or at least preferable to killing a trained monkey. And people in deep comas can't think or reason at all, so my opponent's standard would consider their lives to be utterly worthless.

I think it is clear that killing an innocent human being is murder by any tenable definition of the word. I find it hard to believe that my opponent would be willing to use their moral standard of intelligence to kill a human adult or newborn. So in order to support their argument, they will have to show that abortion does not involve killing an innocent human being. Unfortunately, this will require them to argue against the overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue.

As I stated in my opening, killing a baby is a bad thing. We know that an unborn child is a human being in the earliest stages of development; science has been clear on this for quite some time. I'm sure many who disagree with me would be willing to refer to an unborn child as a baby when a woman suffers a miscarriage. But the definition of a baby does not change based on our emotions or how convenient it would be not to have a baby. The humanity of an unborn child is a simple reality, whether we accept it or not.

Perhaps one day we will find AI or aliens deserving of the same rights as humans. But if we are to condemn murder and moral abuses, we must start by granting human rights to human beings. The most fundamental of these is the right not to be killed. Basic human rights are not as complicated as my opponent is trying to make them. If we are fully willing to stand for what is right in the face of inconvenience, then the rights of human beings can be very easily defined. It is up to us to accept these facts and make the right decisions.

Bebo-Owens

03.14.2023 02:15PM

Con

#8

Forfeited

Round 5

the_viper

03.14.2023 02:17PM

Pro

#9

I'll just post the same argument again.

My opponent brings up a few points that I don't think I will have much difficulty refuting. But I think it is more important to look at the things they didn't address. The scientific consensus that human life begins at conception still holds, and my opponent has addressed only a fraction of the evidence I cited. I'll state again that 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.

As my opponent said, the development of a human begins with conception, but the sources I listed also made clear that conception gives rise to a new individual human. Human beings continue to develop throughout their life, beginning at conception. And these definitions are written by biologists who clearly support the idea that life begins at conception. If my opponent can show that 95% of cocoa experts believe cocoa seeds are chocolate bars, I might be inclined to take their analogy more seriously.

A baby is just a young child, meaning a human being in the earliest stages, and science holds that an unborn child is a human being in the earliest stages. An unborn baby is clearly an individual organism with unique DNA, so what species are they if not human? You have the same genetic code now as you did in utero. If you were ever separated from your mother, lawyers could use that DNA in court to prove that you are her child and not part of her body. Biologists know that unborn children are individual human beings; this isn't a fight the pro-choice camp is going to win.

I don't think it's necessary to address whether it's okay to kill animals (or AI) or why it might be okay to do so; the only thing required to support my argument is the fact that it's wrong to kill human beings. But suppose we entertain my opponent's moral standard of intelligence. Equating moral value to intellect would suggest that killing newborns or mentally handicapped people is okay, or at least preferable to killing a trained monkey. And people in deep comas can't think or reason at all, so my opponent's standard would consider their lives to be utterly worthless.

I think it is clear that killing an innocent human being is murder by any tenable definition of the word. I find it hard to believe that my opponent would be willing to use their moral standard of intelligence to kill a human adult or newborn. So in order to support their argument, they will have to show that abortion does not involve killing an innocent human being. Unfortunately, this will require them to argue against the overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue.

As I stated in my opening, killing a baby is a bad thing. We know that an unborn child is a human being in the earliest stages of development; science has been clear on this for quite some time. I'm sure many who disagree with me would be willing to refer to an unborn child as a baby when a woman suffers a miscarriage. But the definition of a baby does not change based on our emotions or how convenient it would be not to have a baby. The humanity of an unborn child is a simple reality, whether we accept it or not.

Perhaps one day we will find AI or aliens deserving of the same rights as humans. But if we are to condemn murder and moral abuses, we must start by granting human rights to human beings. The most fundamental of these is the right not to be killed. Basic human rights are not as complicated as my opponent is trying to make them. If we are fully willing to stand for what is right in the face of inconvenience, then the rights of human beings can be very easily defined. It is up to us to accept these facts and make the right decisions.

Bebo-Owens

03.15.2023 02:17PM

Con

#10

Forfeited