Early abortion should be legal

As a quick side note, this has been a good debate. Though in this last round I will likely come off as a little annoyed, I promise that this is not the case. It would be false to say that I did not thoroughly enjoy this debate. Now to the rest of my rebuttal. Con's Main Contention: Just to clarify, I'm saying that abortion is murder, therefore it should be treated accordingly. Negative Utilitarianism: I will explain this one more time. The world is an ugly place. When faced with two ugly choices, one should make the least ugly choice, therefore promoting a less ugly world. What is a Person: A person is an organism with human DNA. The Right to Life: My opponent said this: "Con them self admits abortion is not murder in at least one situation." This is just a straight up lie. Intentional or no, I never said that. I said that there are situations in which abortion will end in less death, and that those situations are acceptable, nothing else. The right to life is the absolute moral imperative. Without life, there is nothing. Therefore it must be the first thing to be saved. Liberty is cool, but, without life, it doesn't exist. Bodily Autonomy: When I said that the flood gates were not open, I meant that "flood gates" was a hyperbole that didn't truly apply. There are many willing organ donors in this world. The only organs that would not be touched are those organs which are absolutely necessary for the life of an individual. Also, considering recent advancements in technology, it will not be too long before organ donation will be less necessary than before (I'm not going to provide a source, otherwise this crosses the line from rebuttal to new point). I'm also going to drive home the rights of those embryos. They also have rights to bodily autonomy. To ignore the rights of embryos, but not to ignore the rights of women is a logical contradiction. However, in abortion you ignore both bodily autonomy and life rights. In giving birth, you, at worst, can only ignore bodily autonomy (and not always that). No Conflict of Rights: "Recall here that rights more plausibly derive from our interests/desires, such interests don't exist in the embryonic period of the human organism." FIrst off, this isn't true. The writers of the constitution believed in "God given" rights. I too believe in this. And, for the sake of argument and argument alone, if the founders were wrong, there is still one massive issue with this statement. What about people who are sleeping? They don't have interests or desires. What about this guy [1]? Unjust Burden: I'm not going to engage on the red herring that is found in the billionaire argument. That is a different debate for a different time. I'm going to make myself clear. There is no "vague notion" that protecting life is the supreme moral objective. It clearly is. Should my opponent declare my continued pushing for this notion, than they should also point out that morality is a vague notion. Unequal Moral Equivalence: (5 yr v 100 embryo) This analogy is dumb. I can't continue to work in the constraints of a nonexistent magical world. (Mom v Fetus) My opponent failed to address the fact that a scenario where it's mom vs a fetus doesn't really exist today. It's cool if fetuses can live outside the womb. That is a c-section type scenario, not abortion. Since a mom v fetus scenario doesn't exist, than we can safely rule that this is an irrelevant point. (Spontaneous abortion of zygotes/blastocysts) I'm afraid that I don't understand what my opponent is trying to say. From what I understood from their first argument, I can conclude that this is when a zygote dies on its own and is than removed. If this is not the case, oh well. I can't argue any more here. However, I will state that the same rules apply to all human organisms. If they are killed by another human, than it is murder. If Abortion is Murder: This argument is based on an underlying assumption put forth by Pro. They assume that we should shape our ethics based on our world. This is false. We should shape our world based on our ethics. Should we do otherwise, ethics can not exist. Con's Neg Util: 1) Bodily Autonomy - Previously Covered 2) Prevention of Suffering and Risks/Death - Stopping death does justify anything and everything (except causing more death to do so). 3) Prevention of Suffering of People Born Into the World With Various Diseases/Conditions - As has been mentioned previously, murder is murder. It's even worse to kill somebody who can't say no and can't stand up for themselves. 4) Making Abortion Illegal Doesn't Stop Abortions - The counter here will be addressed later. 5) Unwanted Babies and Children - Already covered in 3). Personhood: 1) Consciousness 2) Reasoning 3) Self-motivated activity 4) The capacity to communicate 5) The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness My opponent says that a seahorse does not meet these criteria, and is, therefore, not a person. A seahorse is conscious. It can think. It does move of its own will. It can't communicate in the same way people do, but not all people can communicate the same way as other people. A seahorse is aware of its own existence. It may not be as capable of using that knowledge as humans are, but it still has that knowledge. Therefore, a seahorse qualifies as a person. If my criteria isn't established, neither is yours. Yes, you offered another opinion that agreed with yours, but that is all you offered. That is not proof, therefore you haven't established your criteria. So, you can operate on the assumption that both of us assumed, or you can operate on the assumption that both of us established. When you say that science points out that your criteria has problems in practice, which is self admitted, you point out a fatal flaw. In a hypothetical world, I can fly by jumping off of a cliff with feathers glued to my arms. That idea doesn't work in practice. My opponent says that I am wrong because usage of science, which cares not for morality, means that I can't prove that I am moral, but I can prove that abortion is the act of a human killing a human. My opponent has blatantly admitted that I can in fact prove that this is the case. They make an interesting distinction between a human killing a human and murder. According to Oxford Dictionaries, this is the definition of murder: "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another: ". That sounds an awful lot like abortion. As for the assumption that I can't have science alongside my argument and still have morality, this is false. There is no reason that the two should be separated. In fact, I can say that the two are intertwined, but that is a discussion of personal philosophy that is inappropriate for this debate venue. When my opponent says that I don't deny that aliens are people, this is flawed on two counts. Firstly, I doubt that aliens actually exist. Secondarily, my definition of people is directly contrasting to this so much that I need not expressly deny it. I am surprised that my opponent brought this up at all. My opponent says "I maintain that the 1-5 personhood criteria is at least superior to Cons criteria". I love that they have an opinion, but it is just that. I'm going to seize the opportunity to make an argument for my definition of person because it is not a new argument by my opponents admission ("This is especially important considering Con has yet to make much of an argument"). My criteria is the superior criteria because it actually shows that not everything is a person, it is based on a rational/empirical view of the world, rather than the vague, science denying notions of my opponent, and it actually includes people who are sleeping as people (people sleeping don't tick off any boxes in that 1-5 checklist). Final Thought: Considering the overwhelming amount of evidence on Con's side, Con is the only way to vote. Sources: 1)