Abortion should be illegal ( Tournament )

I shall create my own arguments, and address my opponent inside them, as the clash points are more obvious.Firstly, the idea that a feotus is a human being. The idea of what constitutes something as being alive has been debated a lot, but there are a few problems with my opponent's definition and parameters of life. I did a look at the authors other works, and compare them to my own. The definition that is taught in the UK is MRS GREN[1]. This definition avoids the use of "ability to", because "ability to" refers to a potential to do something. This is in contrast to an actuality. The difference is important: a foetus does not have the ability to reproduce other foetuses.However, my opponent makes a more deadly assumption: that 'alive' means the same as 'human'. If so, then I have a serious bone to pick with antibiotics, chemotherapy and surgery. This is my opponent's argument in a syllogism:P1 - foetuses are aliveP2 - foetuses are humanC - Therefore killing a foetus is murderThe second premise is completely unfounded, and needs to be proved before anything goes further. This premise is the one that I strongly disagree with. Are feotuses human?Well, to state whether something is human is to say it has the characteristic of 'personhood'. When we say something is human, we mean is it a person? For taxanomically, the entire debate becomes incredibly confused and riddled with problems which do not hold any value to begin with. For something to be a 'person', it should be a morally responsible agent. For it being simply a human, our only link to it being of the same species is irrelevant, even 'speicesist'. For it to be a person, there are more important questions to ask. Say aliens came to the planet on friday, and had a moral sense. Does this make them as good as the cow, simply to eat? What makes a person is the moral sense. Captain Spock may not be a human, but - if he was alive - he'd be classed as a person. Mary Anne Warren, a leader in this field, came up with a solution to class something as requirements to being a moral person[3]. Consciousness and the ability to feel pain The ability to reason. The ability to act in ways that go beyond instinct -- to have motives and goals. The capacity for complex communication. Having a sense of self. She has stated that for something to be classed as a human being, it must have a majority of these characteristics.Feeling PainFoetuses do not feel pain until at least 20 weeks into the pregnancy, and a lot of specialists believe more. Mark Rosen -- director of Obstetrical Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco -- argued that the evidence is too weak to support the new law. His own review of evidence, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2005, suggested that fetuses are not capable of feeling pain until at least 29 weeks into pregnancy. "There are no new data to support the conclusions made by the Nebraska legislature," he said. "This is a controversial issue because the available data do not allow absolute conclusions. Unfortunately, there are considerable emotional and political issues at work here."[4]If my opponent wishes to dispute this, please come up with more modern information which contests this, rather than old studies. Older information on this issue has led to the progress to this data, not the other way around.The ability to reason, to act in ways that go beyong instinct, and to have motives and goals It is unreasonable to assume that foetuses can reason, or act outside of instinct, until the very end of the pregnancy - that is, until the "5-minutes-before" situations. Even babies can realise that by crying they can achieve their motives or goals -- a telltale sign or reason. However, a foetus cannot. This is because everything is constantly provided by their host, and they do not have to act in any way, nor have any motives nor goals to be achieved that are not instinctual.The capacity for complex communicationThis means that there must be a stage where they can be able to communicate. This is the only characteristic of which a foetus may have, however I do not believe that even babies have the capacity to commune instantly. It is something one must learn, and therefore the capacity means they are capable of learning a language.Show me a foetus that can talk, and then we'll discuss this issue. If a foetus can talk, then I shall concede all foetuses have the capacity to do so as well. However, I doubt this quite a lot. Complex communication includes the ability to talk back, as well as understand the language being used and respond accordingly.Having a sense of self If a foetus can think a thought regarding itself, then I would readily concede this point. However, there is little which can actually prove or show a sense of self, without some form of complex communication. If my opponent has an idea in which we can prove this sense of self, then I'd agree to it readily.From the lack of reason to believe a foetus has any of these properties, there is a lack of reason to believe that it holds the same right to life as a human being.Abortion is murderI want to address this claim before I finish, howerver. Abortion is murder. I defined an abortion as the common medical procedure which deliberately removes a human pregancy. Secondly, I said the law shall reflect the majority of countries' view on the issue. The majority of countries allow it as a legal operation, and is agreed as legal as per the UN charter. So we can now define it as "a lawful common medical procedure...". Murder is, as my opponent so helpfully defined "the unlawful killing of one human..." So what this statement is saying is that "The lawful medical procedure is unlawful killing". This is axiomatically false: you cannot have an illegal legal action.Also, my opponent stated that it is not self defence. What about cases such as when a hysterectomy needs performance in order to save the mother, but a foetus would be killed as a result of the surgery. In this situation, is it not self defence, but more importantly, is it not justifiable to have an abortion? Thank you for reading, and I await my opponent's response.1 - http://www.bbc.co.uk...;2 - http://stairs.umd.edu...;3 - http://news.discovery.com...;4 - Ibid 5 - http://www.johnstonsarchive.net...;