Abortion is Murder

Thanks, that closes out opening arguments. Let us now move to rebuttals.I agree with my opponent’s two fundamental questions and that this debate largely focuses on the first one.Con argues that human life begins at the moment of viability – meaning, the moment at which a fetus would likely survive if removed from the womb. There are several obstacles this definition must overcome, which I will now examine.The first obstacle is uncertainty of exactly when “viability” occurs. My opponent admits that viability is the point at which the fetus would “likely” survive outside the womb. So we are forced to infer then, that abortion is not murder as long as it is “unlikely” the fetus is human. The problem here is that we can never be sure. The earliest surviving premature baby (as of now) was born at 21 weeks [1]. Even though she survived, her chances of doing so were almost zero. So then, was this baby girl not human because it was “unlikely” she would survive outside the womb? Certainly not, but according to Con's definition that would be the case. The level of uncertainty involved in this definition greatly weakens it. If there is even the possibility that a life might be human, why kill it?Second, Con’s definition depends almost entirely on our level of technology. This means that technology, rather than essence, defines a life as human. That cannot be true. Con writes: “If a zygote were removed from the mother (or the ‘host’), it would carry no potential to become viable human life (at least not with our current medical technology).” This presents numerous problems when considering both past and future pregnancies. Centuries ago, even babies born at full term faced stiff odds of survival. Slightly premature babies, who survive routinely today thanks to technology, had even worse chances. The “moment of viability” in 1300 was likely much later than it is today. So does that mean human life now begins earlier than it did back then just because we have better technology? Surely not. Looking into the future, we must assume that medical technology will continue to improve and that babies will be able to survive earlier and earlier. Maybe there is a point at which a fetus will never survive regardless of technology, but we cannot know for sure. Once again, this exposes the uncertainty as to when the moment of viability actually occurs. Next, Con admits to the difficulty of defining human life at birth (is a baby not human 5 minutes before delivery?), but overlooks the fact that this same difficulty applies to their definition as well. Like the moment of birth, describing a “moment” at which a fetus becomes viable suggests a finite point in time. So the same question applies – was the fetus not human 30 seconds before becoming viable? 30 minutes? 3 days? Once again, as technology rapidly improves, it is almost impossible to identify exactly when such a moment occurs.Finally, my opponent says human life must be able to live independently from the mother. The problem here is that babies still cannot survive without a caregiver even after they are born. In fact, a child cannot survive on its own until many years after birth. If taken at face value then, Con’s definition says that even a 2 year old child is not human because he cannot survive without his mother/caregiver. In conclusion, my opponent’s definition exposes the huge amount of uncertainty in considering a fetus human only after passing an arbitrary point drawn in the middle of the pregnancy timeline. By Con’s own admission, this “moment of viability” is based on likelihood and not certainty. By definition then, abortions are ending the lives of things that are “probably” not human. The bottom line is that if there’s even a chance a fetus might be human, then it is inexcusable to end its life in most cases. Therefore, I propose that defining human life at conception is the most certain, accurate, and safe definition possible.[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk...