Instigator / Pro
0
1500
rating
5
debates
10.0%
won
Topic
#4527
Abortion Should Be Legal
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 1 vote and with 1 point ahead, the winner is...
Bella3sp
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Two weeks
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
1
1524
rating
53
debates
75.47%
won
Description
No information
Round 1
Abortion is not murder
Thanks,
Point
Case
The following will be talked about:
- Abortion is murder, which is contradicting the law, meaning it should not be legal
This is all.
Burden
The burden is shared between both users, pro and con.
Definitions:
Murder:
Kill (a person) unlawfully and with malice.
Abortion:
Abortion is when a pregnancy is ended so that it doesn't result in the birth of a child.
Malice:
: desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another
Fetus:
An offspring of a human or other mammal in the stages of prenatal development that follow the embryo stage (in humans taken as beginning eight weeks after conception)
I. An embryo is still a person- we have connections.
Idea of "clump of cells"
This will be talked about a little bit later on in the next section of this contention. But as of right now, I will be providing that they are not just a clump of cells, they are human beings as well.
This is quite long:
In sum, a mature human sperm and a mature human oocyte are products of gametogenesis each has only 23 chromosomes. They each have only half of the required number of chromosomes for a human being. They cannot singly develop further into human beings. They produce only "gamete" proteins and enzymes. They do not direct their own growth and development. And they are not individuals, i.e., members of the human species. They are only parts each one a part of a human being. On the other hand, a human being is the immediate product of fertilization. As such he/she is a single-cell embryonic zygote, an organism with 46 chromosomes, the number required of a member of the human species. This human being immediately produces specifically human proteins and enzymes, directs his/her own further growth and development as human, and is a new, genetically unique, newly existing, live human individual.
After fertilization the single-cell human embryo doesn't become another kind of thing. It simply divides and grows bigger and bigger, developing through several stages as an embryo over an 8-week period. Several of these developmental stages of the growing embryo are given special names, e.g., a morula (about 4 days), a blastocyst (5-7 days), a bilaminar (two layer) embryo (during the second week), and a trilaminar (3-layer) embryo (during the third week).
...
.. Quoting Carlson:
"... Through the mingling of maternal and paternal chromosomes, the zygote is a genetically unique product of chromosomal reassortment, which is important for the viability of any species."
I thought this would be better than me explaining the entire thing. However, in a summary, a human being is the immediate product of fertilization. While it is true that sperm and oocyte are not a human being, as said, a human being is the immediate product of fertilization. Which is further supported above.
Every person was born as an embryo
Not a single person was born without being an embryo once in their life. This is the major connection. Nobody has skipped this process.
The problem here is some people view them as not a person because they are not fully developed. This is the wrong idea. Children are not fully matured yet, are they? They are still growing. This doesn't mean they should be killed because they still are still growing. Same thing goes with an embryo. It's just as animals, they aren't viewed as not animals anymore because they are still in the animals (stomach). You don't just change race because of your development process.
An embryo has distinctive DNA from both biological parents
Once at fertilization, the embryo and above has distinctive DNA from both parents. This is distinctive from an animal, an object, or a plant. They are not a completely different race. They have DNA that ONLY humans have. We cannot categorize them as anything else. Do they have animal cells? Or plant cells? No, they do not. They have human cells, DNA cells.
There is no (to an extent) limit of being a person
Embryo as I have provided above, have distinct things that prove they are a human being. Just because we have no evidence of them feeling pain does not mean, first off, that they don't feel pain. And second off, that they aren't human beings.
People with disabilities are not like the majority of people, but that does not mean they are not human beings. Some people don't have arms or legs, that does not mean they are not human beings. But also with embryos, they are NOT in any way different from ANY other human being. Why? Because ALL human beings were once an embryo. All humans once acted that exact way.
Not all doctors proceed abortion on embryo
Many people fail to recognize that many of the con-side choices are restricted to one part of the development process. Otherwise it contradicts themselves.
A fetus does have a brain, and more features that distinguish itself. Some people get the misconception that abortion is always on an embryo. That is wrong. Fetuses are also jumbled in the mix.
III. Malice is done the moment you wish for the unborn to die.
I'm unsure if I am using malice in the wrong context, so, we'll see.
Malice is done with the intent when you ask to have an abortion. Why? It does not matter what the case is, that you want abortion, you still have the overall thought of wanting abortion. You have a choice to keep them, or seek intentional permeant harm on them. This is a choice. The idea of all this is, for their own personal interests such as their own personal self, they choose to kill the person. That is malice.
Yes, abortion is murder.
Sources:
Round 2
First off, apologies for not being as detailed, but here's my argument.
Abortion is stated as "the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion by an embryo or fetus."
An embryo is not a person until born into the world, therefore termination of pregnancy, or abortion, is not murder.
You make the point that children are not fully matured yet, so embryos should be treated as living because they are not fully developed yet. This is untrue and irrelevant. Embryos are, well, embryos. They are not living until they are born into the world by the bearer.
You also forget that murder is the act of snuffing out a life. But murder is only constituted as murder if it is a living thing that is killed. Embryos are not living until born into the world, therefore are not a live human being. You wouldn't call smashing a phone, or another non-living object, murder, right?
I think you are also forgetting forced pregnancy, i.e, the act of rape. Some people are forced to get pregnant, either by their choice to have intercourse but have an accident with protection (an accidental pregnancy) or by force (rape). The former have little to no choice in what their body is used for, and if either don't want the baby, they have the right to abort it.
Thank you.
Abortion (no date) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion (Accessed: 14 June 2023).
Abortion is stated as "the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion by an embryo or fetus."An embryo is not a person until born into the world, therefore termination of pregnancy, or abortion, is not murder.
Yes, it is.. As proven in my contentions.
You make the point that children are not fully matured yet, so embryos should be treated as living because they are not fully developed yet. This is untrue and irrelevant. Embryos are, well, embryos. They are not living until they are born into the world by the bearer.
Your close. I make the point that children are not fully matured yet such as embryos, meaning they are no difference from humans. It's just a development process.
You also forget that murder is the act of snuffing out a life. But murder is only constituted as murder if it is a living thing that is killed. Embryos are not living until born into the world, therefore are not a live human being. You wouldn't call smashing a phone, or another non-living object, murder, right?
I mention the definition of murder. If you want to contest it, sure. Same thing applies.
An embryo is living and is human. You have no evidence to them not being living. I expected you to say their not a human, but saying their not living is completely different. Embryo are not an object, they are living person.
I don't know how your comparing a phone to an embryo, a person.
My contentions also mention they have distinctive DNA, do non-living things have DNA?
I think you are also forgetting forced pregnancy, i.e, the act of rape. Some people are forced to get pregnant, either by their choice to have intercourse but have an accident with protection (an accidental pregnancy) or by force (rape). The former have little to no choice in what their body is used for, and if either don't want the baby, they have the right to abort it.
To confirm, I would not forget this fact. What i'm doing here is devil's advocate for the sake of it. But you never mentioned it, so why bring it up at the time?
Though, with that said, I think your forgetting that, that is murder. We have a choice to do ANYTHING with our bodies, yes, and woman have the choice to do ANYTHING with their bodies. But does that mean it should be legal? No. We have the choice to use our bodies to stab or poison someone, but should it be legal? This debate is about if it should be legal not what we can do with our bodies. To the real point: And as of what your saying, we should not be allowed (it should be illegal) to murder someone regardless of what you want.
Round 3
For this argument I will focus on this, which you wrote:
Though, with that said, I think your forgetting that, that is murder. We have a choice to do ANYTHING with our bodies, yes, and woman have the choice to do ANYTHING with their bodies. But does that mean it should be legal? No. We have the choice to use our bodies to stab or poison someone, but should it be legal? This debate is about if it should be legal not what we can do with our bodies. To the real point: And as of what your saying, we should not be allowed (it should be illegal) to murder someone regardless of what you want.
Yes, absolutely, it is illegal to murder people. I'm not arguing that. But if what we want, as you stated, is to not have a child, it is that person's choice to not have a child. Another option is to adopt out the baby, but you would still be a parent. People who abort their children are not, in any circumstance, murderers.
Extending all my contentions.
Rebuttals:
Yes, absolutely, it is illegal to murder people. I'm not arguing that. But if what we want, as you stated, is to not have a child, it is that person's choice to not have a child. Another option is to adopt out the baby, but you would still be a parent. People who abort their children are not, in any circumstance, murderers.
I think you missed my point a little bit. But as you say: "it is illegal to murder people". And for a good reason it is illegal. We should not make expections because it is an inconvenience.
Just because they have the choice does not mean it should be legal.
This debates resolution: "Abortion Should Be Legal" - not "Woman should should and do have the right to have an abortion". See the difference?
In terms of if it should be legal killing a person just because they are an inconvenience, or unwanted, the no, it should not be legal. That's the point.
Such as if I killed another human being, a teacher, with poison because they are an inconvenience to me.
They are murders, and I have proven it with my evidence in round one. You never contended it.
Conclusion:
Abortion is killing another human being. As murder is illegal, for a good reason, nobody should kill another person because they are inconvenienced or just want to discard of them. Abortion as I have proved is tied in with abortion, for this reason, abortion should be illegal.
