Instigator / Pro
4
1485
rating
11
debates
63.64%
won
Topic
#4266
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 4 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...
the_viper
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Twelve hours
- Max argument characters
- 4,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
0
1522
rating
14
debates
28.57%
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.
To clarify, the first person to forfeit or break the character rule loses immediately, after that the rules no longer apply.
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, 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.
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 2
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.
"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." Yes, and? Conception does indeed give rise to a new individual human, this was not a disputed fact.
"And these definitions are written by biologists who clearly support the idea that life begins at conception." Again, I am not arguing that life doesn't begin 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." The point of my analogy was that cocoa seeds are very obviously not chocolate bars, in much the same way that the fact that the development of a human being begins with fertilization doesn't show that humans are also started at fertilization. The beginning of the creation of something doesn't have to be that thing itself, such as shown by the fact that chocolate bars begin with cocoa seeds doesn't mean that cocoa seeds are chocolate bars just because they will eventually be them.
"the only thing required to support my argument is the fact that it's wrong to kill human beings." Okay, why is it wrong to kill human beings? My argument supposes that it is based on intelligence, if you want to say it is wrong to kill human beings, you must explain why and why that definition has nothing to do with 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." I agree with this, this isn't an argument against me but a logical conclusion of my explanation.
"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." If they never wake up, then yes, their lives are completely worthless. After all, if they aren't ever going to wake up or be conscious again, why does it matter when they live or die?
"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." I would if they were as intelligent as an animal or lacked any brain capabilities.
"As I stated in my opening, killing a baby is a bad thing." Again, why? What is your basis of morality for all baby (or fetus) aborting/murdering being bad?
"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." I agree, so let's abandon the whole baby argument. Similarly, since my main argument focuses on the ethics of intelligence, I'll also abandon the argument of when human life begins as if intelligence is the basis of morality then when human life begins doesn't matter, just when higher intelligence begins.
"Perhaps one day we will find AI or aliens deserving of the same rights as humans." What would be the basis of morality of giving rights to these AI or aliens, if not intelligence?
"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." Why is the right of not be killed important for humans but not animals? If the basis, isn't intelligence then what? If humans just inherently deserve those rights in your opinion, why did you say that aliens and AI might be worthy of rights?
Thank you for responding to my points and I wish the best of luck. Also, sorry about the "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:" I wanted to ask ChatGPT to write more for me before realizing that that wouldn't be fair, but I left it in the script on accident.
Round 3
If you made it this far, I congratulate you. I said earlier that the killing of babies is often convenient to justify, and I think we've seen evidence of that in the last round. I'll address my opponent's objections in order, though they seem notably different from the objections we saw in their opening.
My opponent seems to agree that a new individual human is formed at conception. This is clearly synonymous with "human being," but my opponent then goes on to claim that a new human is not formed at conception. I'm not sure what their position is on the matter, but the evidence that an individual human is formed at conception has gone unchallenged so I think we can assume that an unborn child is a human being unless my opponent further presses the issue.
My opponent has continued to support a moral position based strictly on intelligence. I pointed out earlier that this would mean newborns and mentally handicapped people have less value than a trained monkey, and my opponent has doubled down. This would mean there's nothing wrong with experimenting on newborns and injecting them with infectious diseases, even when it puts them in grave danger. I think this moral system is self-evidently flawed, but I will entertain this line of thought in order to argue against it.
You may notice that my opponent slyly avoids the coma comparison by saying that people in comas have no value if they won't wake up. But why should it matter whether or not they will wake up? After all, my opponent is not willing to assign moral value to unborn children based on their potential ability to reason in the future. But when it comes to people in comas, my opponent bases their whole moral equation on whether the coma patient can reason and have experiences in the future. Missing that detail and then denying the rights of unintelligent people doesn't seem very self-aware.
My opponent seems to switch from saying "don't call a fetus a baby" to "killing babies isn't that bad." I think this makes their job a bit harder. We both agree that it's wrong to kill a human being in a coma, so clearly intelligence isn't the issue. As long as we're willing to agree on that point, I don't think I need to say much else about animal rights. Even the narrowest definition of murder will include killing innocent human beings; whether killing animals is also wrong isn't relevant to this debate.
My opponent asks why killing human beings is wrong. I think it's quite evident that people care about their future and don't want to have opportunities taken from them. Presumably, my opponent would object to me killing a human being painlessly, even though all I'm doing is robbing them of their future. Why should that human's "potential" matter? My opponent seems to think that a human's future does matter, and we should therefore apply the same logic to unborn children.
Arguing for AI rights without even acknowledging the rights of humans seems a tad hypocritical. We can't start acknowledging the rights of hypothetical beings if we're not willing to respect the rights of the people we can already see. If we want to start denying human rights to certain humans based on notions of superiority, it's not hard. In fact, it's been done before. Doing the right thing requires us to follow the science, even if it becomes inconvenient.
As I said before, I don't think that the moral question of abortion is hard to answer. We don't ask why it's wrong to throw people into woodchippers or stomp on a baby's neck. We don't debate the pros and cons of the Holocaust. I think my opponent is accepting absurd positions to prove a point or somehow make their position on abortion more consistent. Whatever the cause, it does not seem to be a matter of dispute that abortion is killing an innocent human being. I suppose it will be up to the audience to decide whether or not that's a bad thing.
"My opponent seems to agree that a new individual human is formed at conception. This is clearly synonymous with 'human being,' but my opponent then goes on to claim that a new human is not formed at conception. I'm not sure what their position is on the matter, but the evidence that an individual human is formed at conception has gone unchallenged so I think we can assume that an unborn child is a human being unless my opponent further presses the issue." Whether or not this is the case doesn't matter as my argument is moral and not semantic. So, for the sake of argument, we can say that a new individual human is formed at conception.
"You may notice that my opponent slyly avoids the coma comparison by saying that people in comas have no value if they won't wake up. But why should it matter whether or not they will wake up? After all, my opponent is not willing to assign moral value to unborn children based on their potential ability to reason in the future." Unborn children do indeed have the potential to reason in the future, but their minds are not yet developed so that they can. On the other hand, a grown human being's mind in a coma is a form of higher intelligence just temporarily turned off. Put in another way, a person in a temporary coma has higher intelligence, they simply cannot use it temporarily, while a fetus lacks higher intelligence altogether. On the other hand, a person in a permanent coma has no actual higher intelligence because their brain cannot wake up.
"My opponent seems to switch from saying 'don't call a fetus a baby' to 'killing babies isn't that bad.' I think this makes their job a bit harder. We both agree that it's wrong to kill a human being in a coma, so clearly intelligence isn't the issue." A fetus isn't a baby by the definition of a fetus, but that isn't my argument. I was simply correcting a mistake you made. Whether or not a fetus is or isn't a baby has no bearing on my argument because it is based around intelligence. I also didn't switch my argument. The very first post I made included the argument that morality was based on intelligence, so it never switched, I was just correcting what you said.
"whether killing animals is also wrong isn't relevant to this debate" I'd beg to differ. My basis of morality is on the idea that intelligence is what dictates whether or not it is fine to kill something, and animals are an example of an unintelligent thing that is fine to kill. If you agree that animals are fine to kill, you must also agree that unintelligent beings are alright to kill, hence why they have importance. Another reason for their importance is because agreeing that animals can be killed means you now have to argue why an unintelligent being (animals) is fine to be killed but not an intelligent being (a human) without saying that the basis for the morality is intelligence.
"My opponent asks why killing human beings is wrong. I think it's quite evident that people care about their future and don't want to have opportunities taken from them." Would an unintelligent being be able to care about their future in a significant way? If so, and to the point that they deserve not to be killed when it is convenient for a being of higher intelligence, why doesn't this also apply to things like animals, which are also unintelligent? Clearly, as not all humans have the capacity to care about their future, this argument is flawed. Assuming that whether or not something can care about its future is the basis for morality, is killing animals not fine because they can care about their future?
"Arguing for AI rights without even acknowledging the rights of humans seems a tad hypocritical." I was never arguing for AI rights, so it is irrelevant here. I was arguing that if you upload a person's brain to a computer that person should still have rights even though they are alive. I did reference this as AI in my original post, and I apologize about that, I used the incorrect terminology.
Round 4
My opponent either agrees that an unborn child is a human being or at least won't argue that premise. As such, I think we can conclude that abortion is killing an innocent human being. Even the narrowest definitions of murder will include killing innocent human beings, so I don't think much else needs to be said. But at the risk of beating of dead horse, I'll address my opponent's multiple justifications for killing human beings.
My opponent argues that people in comas do have higher intelligence, it is just "turned off." But if someone's mind is "turned off," they have no intelligence at that moment and cannot reason. My opponent uses biology to argue that people in comas can reason in the future, but they have conceded all of the biological evidence that an unborn child is a human who can reason in the future. Even then, someone in a coma has the same brain structure whether or not they will wake up. My opponent seems to be defining "higher intelligence" by the ability to think and reason in the future, but that definition supports my argument.
My opponent assumes that I am fine with killing animals. They then make the unfounded assumption that the only reason to deny rights to animals is on the basis of intelligence. People oppose veganism for a myriad of reasons; some believe it is wrong for any species to kill its own kind or a being they can communicate with. Others believe in various social contracts. I won't defend any of these because I'm not here to argue against veganism. The only premise necessary to support my argument is the fact that killing innocent human beings is wrong.
Again, my opponent is willing to grant rights to people in comas, even though they cannot reason. So both of us are willing to grant rights to human beings, even the ones who are incapable of reason at the moment they are being killed. But even if my opponent was being consistent, judging people by reasoning ability is a ridiculous notion. Who decides what knowledge is important, or what methods of reasoning give you the right to live? My opponent seems to think intelligence is the only character trait that matters, and if you don't score high enough on their favorite IQ test, then tough luck.
If my opponent wants to give rights to aliens or computers with uploaded human intelligence, they're going to have to start by acknowledging human rights. If we excuse the killing of innocent human beings (the most obvious form of murder) then it will be even more difficult to protect the rights of other species. The intelligence ranking is ripe for abuse, mainly because there are different types of intelligence, and whether someone is "smart enough" is very subjective. We've seen these sorts of abuses every time humans were ranked by some intelligence measure to determine moral value.
As long as we acknowledge that killing an innocent human being is murder, which I think is very clear, then we must acknowledge that abortion is murder from the point of conception. Ranking moral value by intelligence does not lead to a better world; in fact, it justifies abusing the most vulnerable members of our society. Both my opponent and I seem to share some belief in the notion of inherent human rights that are not correlated with how useful a particular human is at the moment. The purpose of human rights is not to help only those who can help themselves; rather, we should be empathetic and not ableist.
I think the choice presented in this debate has been very clear. Protecting the rights of innocent human beings is the most straightforward and consistent method of preventing murder.
“My opponent either agrees that an unborn child is a human being or at least won't argue that premise. As such, I think we can conclude that abortion is killing an innocent human being. Even the narrowest definitions of murder will include killing innocent human beings, so I don't think much else needs to be said.” Well, the definition of murder, according to Merriam-Webster (and all other dictionaries I could find), is “the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought” (source). As the aborting of a fetus is lawful (at least in the United States), it wouldn’t be murder. Of course, if I was just going to make a semantic argument, I could say that the fact that the title is “Is abortion murder from the point of conception” would inherently mean you cannot argue your position as murder is purely a legal matter, but I won’t make that semantic argument even if it wins me the debate because it’s obvious you were talking from a moral perspective and I want to have an interesting debate on moral issues – not one where I beat you on a technicality of word-choice.
“My opponent seems to be defining ‘higher intelligence’ by the ability to think and reason in the future, but that definition supports my argument.” In what way does that definition support your argument?
“My opponent assumes that I am fine with killing animals. They then make the unfounded assumption that the only reason to deny rights to animals is on the basis of intelligence… I won't defend any of these because I'm not here to argue against veganism. The only premise necessary to support my argument is the fact that killing innocent human beings is wrong.” This is incorrect. My argument says that aborting fetuses is justified on the basis of intelligence, and thus you must prove that the basis of intelligence is not a just way to justify the aborting of fetuses. If you do not do this, you cede that my argument is moral. You have indeed said that my argument is unjust, but what you have not done is then explain why specifically it is moral to not abort fetuses and you have not explained your moral system or what position you will be taking on the matter other than that – which would involve either defending or disagreeing with veganism as whether or not animals deserve rights like you are claiming fetuses should is integral to the moral system which you will need to impose. If you refuse to give me an answer, you will be refusing to provide sufficient evidence against my moral viewpoint or towards your own moral viewpoint and thus my moral viewpoint will be accepted as the moral viewpoint going forward as you have not challenged mine.
“My opponent seems to think intelligence is the only character trait that matters, and if you don't score high enough on their favorite IQ test, then tough luck.” This is incorrect. Any human who isn’t so intellectually disabled that they are incapable of speech or basically the equivalent of an animal in intelligence deserves rights. If someone is even mentally capable of taking an IQ test, they’d deserve rights. Morality, in this way, works like a threshold. If you surpass a certain threshold of intelligence, you deserve the same rights as everybody above that threshold. On the other hand, if one falls below that threshold, that being would have no rights just like the other beings below.
“If my opponent wants to give rights to aliens or computers with uploaded human intelligence, they're going to have to start by acknowledging human rights.” I have. Most humans are capable of higher intelligence and thus these rights would apply to them.
“We've seen these sorts of abuses every time humans were ranked by some intelligence measure to determine moral value.” As said previously, if one passes an intelligence threshold, they are treated the same. This threshold is so low that only the extremely mentally disabled would fall under it.
Round 5
I think this debate has been rather straightforward, though I'm slightly disappointed with the way my opponent continues to miss the mark in several areas. Initially, it seemed that the debate was over defining a human being, but my opponent has since dropped that point in favor of an ableist system of discrimination. I think my opponent's basis for morality is pretty weak, and even if it wasn't, it likely supports my position on abortion better than theirs.
I will remind the audience that this debate does not cover legality. It was made clear in the description that we are using the word murder in the moral sense, and even the narrowest definition of murder in that sense will include the murder of innocent human beings. if we're going to assign value to those who can reason in the future, which is the standard my opponent uses, we should include unborn children.
The only evidence I need to provide to counter my opponent's argument is that unintelligent humans have the right not to be killed. People oppose animal rights for a variety of reasons, and it hardly follows from denying rights to animals that intelligence must be the barometer for moral worth. If anything, that would be the weakest reason to oppose animal rights because it would also justify killing newborns, which most moral philosophies will frown upon.
I think it's clear that we should give rights to all human beings. My opponent values "intelligence," and not anything else that his side tends to argue for like "sentience." Arguably AI or a supercomputer could meet my opponent's threshold since it is only based on intelligence and not on feelings or the ability to feel pain. Some people have brain issues that are curable with treatment. If it's wrong to kill them because they can achieve higher reasoning in the future, then it's wrong to kill unborn children.
The intelligence metric is also pretty unsupported by the concept of human rights. My opponent seems to think that we should just accept that moral worth is defined by intelligence even if it leads to erroneous results. For example, how can education be a right if rights are only afforded to smart people? Those with the least intellect need education the most. It's the same with medical treatment for those with mental issues if we think that should be a right. I think we should prefer moral systems that lead us to do moral things—for example, not kill babies.
Between the two systems presented, it's pretty clear that mine makes more sense. I'm not trying to justify the killing of babies or mentally handicapped people. In fact, my position remains consistent whether or not you wish to extend rights to other species. My opponent can't seem to decide whether the ability to reason in the future matters or not—their failure to be consistent on that point pokes a pretty big hole in an already fragile argument.
We've seen very few reasons to accept this intelligence metric for morality and a lot of reasons not to. My opponent's argument has basically devolved into "be a sociopath," and mine is more consistent with defining obvious examples of murder. And even if we accept my opponent's system, their argument for the "potential intelligence" of people in comas would also protect unborn children.
I think it's been made clear that abortion is killing an innocent human being; science is very clear on this point, and my opponent does not dispute it. To avoid the charge of supporting murder, my opponent proposes a moral system that would protect the rights of aliens, uploaded intelligence, and perhaps even trained monkeys—but not the most vulnerable human beings. If we are to accept the most fundamental human rights and grant them to humans, then it is clear that abortion is murder from the point of conception.
"I will remind the audience that this debate does not cover legality. It was made clear in the description that we are using the word murder in the moral sense, and even the narrowest definition of murder in that sense will include the murder of innocent human beings." You're right, the description does cover that it is in the moral sense, I made a mistake in correcting you there although since that wasn't part of my argument it doesn't go towards showing I am wrong in any way.
"If we're going to assign value to those who can reason in the future, which is the standard my opponent uses, we should include unborn children." I do not assign value to those who can reason in the future, which means fetuses wouldn't have value. I do for those who are capable of reason but just temporarily can't (like when sleeping or in a temporary coma) but this is not one of those instances.
"The only evidence I need to provide to counter my opponent's argument is that unintelligent humans have the right not to be killed. People oppose animal rights for a variety of reasons, and it hardly follows from denying rights to animals that intelligence must be the barometer for moral worth. If anything, that would be the weakest reason to oppose animal rights because it would also justify killing newborns, which most moral philosophies will frown upon." You baselessly say that the only thing you need to counter my argument is to say that that unintelligent being have a right not to be killed. It is partially true that you need to say that, but you also must then provide evidence for it or support it with a moral system. You do not do this. I have, throughout the entirety of the debate, explained this to you and yet to continue to baselessly insist that you can assert what is just or unjust without proper evidence. You then say most moral philosophies will frown upon this, but that isn't supporting a moral system and is just an obvious fact. So what if most moral philosophies frown upon it, it doesn't matter if you never challenge my moral philosophy that it is moral. By never challenging my moral philosophy with actual evidence, it becomes obvious that I can assert my moral philosophy. Under that, the aborting of fetuses is moral, something which you have failed to counter with your own moral philosophy.
"Between the two systems presented, it's pretty clear that mine makes more sense." In what way? Never, throughout this entire debate, have you ever provided evidence for your moral system or even what your moral system was. Without that, how can you expect to claim my moral system is wrong or that yours makes more sense? The cannot assert something, refuse to elaborate on what you mean, not provide any evidence, and when I prompt you to do those things continue to not do so.
"My opponent's argument has basically devolved into 'be a sociopath,' and mine is more consistent with defining obvious examples of murder." Not in the slightest. My argument supports the rights of those who have higher intelligence, and sociopathy means caring about nobody. Obviously, as my moral system provides care for beings of higher intelligence, which would include you and anyone capable of reading this debate, it isn't sociopathic.
"their argument for the 'potential intelligence' of people in comas would also protect unborn children." Again, it would not. I have already explained this, but it is not about potential intelligence but if one's intelligence is temporarily turned off. A person in a coma has their intelligence temporarily turned off but is still a being of higher intelligence. A fetus has no higher intelligence at all. I have already explained this multiple times and find it frustrating that you are not arguing against my counterexamples but instead asserting the same thing you said previously without addressing my response at all.
Either way, that’s respectable.
I lack the fortitude to do that.
First it was one, then a clone of it with an extra round… it just kinda spiraled with being able to hold pro’s arguments in my head and see the different ways people tried to refute them. I will not be making a habit of this.
You must have a lot of patience to read all these same debates and vote.
I plan on voting before time has run out.
Saw your vote. Will be interested to see what arguments you use.
Only 4 days left to vote!
Push
Sounds good
Can't promise it, but I should be able to get a vote up before the end of the voting period.
Push, only 5 days left
Plz vote! Deadline is quick.
This isn’t a Rated debate, so I wouldn’t worry anyway.
But fear not, I’ll vote before the deadline. Even if I slack off till the last minute.
Plz vote! Voting period is only one week.
You have a lot of confidence for a reply guy who can't defend his arguments.
Bwahaahaaahaaa!!!
Your delusions of grandeur are hilarious.
And your obnoxious pomposity is duly noted.
LoL 😂
False. I am less intelligent for having read your arguments. Perhaps you can present your opinions in a formal debate, where I can correct them.
No, you did NOt tell me anything that I didn’t already know.
I know everything about the issues of abortion. Everything. You and your ilk do not.
Just a moment ago you defended your position with a legal statute. So does the reply you linked to. So it appears I did tell you something you didn't know.
I invite you to read my recent reply to another clown arguing against abortion here: #8
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/9047/posts/378916
No shit sherlock. Tell me something that I do not already know. FFS! *facepalm*
Abortion was around long before the US legal system. Besides, immoral things are legal all the time.
Abortion and the law are not mutually exclusive; they are tightly wound with one another. You cannot argue one without the other.
This debate isn't over legality, so I'm not sure why you're citing a legal statute. But I'd be happy to debate you on the same topic once this one is over.
"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..."
~ There is only one mammalian species on this planet that possesses the level of sentience that human beings do, and that species is homo sapiens. As such, homo sapiens - i.e., human beings - are the only ones having debates/discussions about "abortion" rights of female human beings. Not any other species. To levy such a demand demonstrates that the one making said demand knows less than they think they know about the topic at hand.
You're also conflating a pregnancy with being [a] human being, which it is not; not for the legal purposes of establishing the legal felonious crime of murder. A pregnancy has NO legal rights under law. The personal liberty rights of the girl/female take precedence over any internal matter. What is in and of her body is under the auspices of her control and none other.
Murder requires an already born human being taking the life of another already born human being for it to be, "murder."
"...that an unborn child is not innocent..."
~ "innocence" is completely and utterly irrelevant in this debate/discussion. It has absolutely nothing to do with guilt, innocence, spirts, souls, or religion.
"... or that abortion does not involve killing an unborn child."
~ Using the term "child" is a flagrant misnomer. A pregnancy =/= [a] child. Potentiality =/= Actuality. Never has. Never will.
A pregnancy has ZERO rights. 1 USC 8: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/1/8
As this statute makes perfectly clear (predicated on the 14th Amendment), one must be born before they are bestowed all the rights, privileges and equal protection of the laws.
Pretty sure an abortion is not a flock of crows. 🙃