A human being in the Zygote, Embryo and Fetal stage of their life is "a human being"

I am going to begin with a quick introduction, and I will attempt to organize this debate into its two constituent parts: philosophical/legal and biological. Three quick notes to begin: 1) My position is that fetuses are not "full human lives subject to the same rights and protections as you and I," i.e. not human beings. If I can defend this standard, I win the round. 2) Pro has the BOP in this round. His BOP is to show that a fetus IS a full human being, in the philosophical/legal sense and the biological sense. If he fails to meet either of these, he loses the round. 3) This debate will quickly devolve into a wash if we assert different, conflicting items in the status quo. Pro has made several claims, particularly legal ones, that describe the status quo. Though I will show that opinion and, indeed, law varies on these definitions, this, to some extend, need to be a debate about SHOULD, because descriptions of the status quo, and semantic games, will likely prove to be a wash. Pro needs to discuss why fetuses SHOULD receive the same protections as you and I. I. Philosophical/LegalA. Legal StatusPro has claimed that, because the Federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act, fetuses are obviously human beings because they can be found to be murder victims under this piece of legislation. Three responses: 1) Even if this was a uniform case, a piece of legislation does not make something true in any philosophical or biological sense. The United States, for some time, denied that African-Americans, or women, were full human beings. Those pieces of legislation did not make the assertions within valid or true. 2) Legislation and legal code regarding this status is mixed. The Supreme Court HAS upheld these convictions, but a reading of the rationale will dispel Pro's resultant claim:"The proposition that Smith relies upon in Roe v. Wade — that an unborn child is not a “person” within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment — is simply immaterial in the present context to whether a state can prohibit the destruction of a fetus." - Smith v. Newsome, 815 F.2d 1386 (11th Cir. 1987).So let's be clear about what the Courts (in this case, an 11th Circuit ruling that was given a stare decisis ruling by the Supreme Court) actually says. The Court has merely ruled that the state can prohibit the malicious destruction of a fetus. It did not, in any way, affirm the personhood of the fetus. I will also present a piece of legislation that supports my view:"Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or afetus, with malice aforethought." - California Penal Code, Section 187(a). [1]. Note that this piece of legislation explicitly delineates fetuses as SEPARATE FROM a human being. Finally, I would like to note that only 23 of 50 states have fetal homicide laws that extend before the point of viability [2]. Clearly not a universal standard. All I am trying to prove here is that there is legitimate debate, and that relying upon the word of a piece of politically-inspired legislation is not going to win or lose a debate. 3) As Pro has states, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act allows abortions [3], as does Roe v. Wade, which amount to a killing of the fetus in practice. The important thing to note is that it is illegal for a woman to kill her own child (a human being). This means that fetuses are not subject to the same legal protections as you and I, for, once I was born, my mother could not legally kill me for any reason. B. Philosophy of LawIn all of this semantic bickering, my opponent has completely missed the crux of my argument, that being a human being, and having rights, is specifically about having the capacity to reason, to be sentient. It is these capabilities that are meant to be protected, through rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For instance, we allow the unplugging of braindead patients, which effectively prevents them from biologically functioning. A braindead patient has several things in common with a fetus: 1) They have living human tissue, and 2) Their brain cannot support cognitive abilities. We allow families to unplug in these scenarios because the patient has nothing left to legally protect; they have ceased being human beings, just as fetuses are not yet human beings. BiologicalI. The Semantics GameHere, Pro attempts to say that a fetus has age. They don't. Age is the "the time of life at which some particular qualification, power, or capacity arises or rests." [4]. For instance, the driving age is 16. When does this clock begin to tick? When one is born. Not before. It is fun to wonder, though, about how old one is before birth. Are they -5 months? Pro's attempt to squirrel out through semantics will not work. The other example of this game we get is the idea that being = existence. Well, remember, that existence is, "reality as presented in experience" [5]. How do we get experience, "the process of doing and seeing things..." [6]? By being sentient, by having cognitive abilities. Again, Pro's attempted semantic games actually support my side. A fetus is a fetal being. Simple enough. II. Biology, Proper. I really think that my opponent and I agree on the facts of biology. We both agree that development of the fetus begins with fertilization. I have never denied this, and Pro agrees. The difference is what we call such an organism. I concede, a fetus is living. I concede, a fetus has human DNA. That does not make it a human being. Despite all of Pro's claims that I have, in some way, denied science (which, for the record, he has not once presented evidence for), I have presented evidence that a fetus does not have sufficient brain development for cognition until around the 22nd week (see earlier source). What this means is that a fetus is distinct from a human being because it has not developed to the point where it can access what it actually is to be human. Because one random abortion provider, who has been noted for performing illegal abortions [7], believes so, does not actually make it the case. Again, an egg is not a chicken, a seed is not a plant, and a fetus is not a human being. Thank you, Pro. So far, this is a clear Con ballot. Sources1. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov...2. http://www.ncsl.org...3. http://www.law.cornell.edu...4. http://www.merriam-webster.com...5. http://www.merriam-webster.com...6. http://www.merriam-webster.com...7. http://abortionwiki.org...