Abortion is Immoral --- Tournament Debate, round 1

Thank You: My thanks to MasterKage for engaging in this debate with me, and to any readers who care to comment or vote. The Resolution: MasterKage has undertaken to prove that abortion is immoral. From the moment of conception, it is immoral. MasterKage has the burden of proof. The Argument - Abortion is Murder: MasterKage's argument is the claim that abortion is murder. I have pointed out murder is a legal status, not a moral status. MasterKage has never contested this. In order for a legal claim to suffice as a moral claim, morality would have to be pegged to the law like the peso is pegged to the dollar. We would have to believe that morality depends on legality. We none of us believe this. We do not believe, for instance, that smuggling slaves to freedom is immoral. We do not believe that, just because the Russians had a law against it, it was immoral to smuggle bibles into Russia. The claim that abortion is immoral because it is illegal is therefore false. Vote Con. We should also notice that abortion is not illegal. So, even if MasterKage had prevailed on the above argument illegality entails immorality, he would still have failed to prove that abortion is immoral. According to his own logic, since abortion is not illegal, it is not immoral. His argument therefore fails. Vote Con. Rape and Incest: MasterKage also claims that abortion is not immoral in the cases of rape and incest. This exception torpedoes his main claim. MasterKage would never accept the murder of, say, the six year old child of a rape or incest victim. That really would be murder, and it really would be immoral. MasterKage would emphatically not allow it. The fact that he allows for the killing of zygotes, embryos, and fetuses of rape and incest victims makes it clear that he doesn't really think abortion is murder. Vote Con. If I'm wrong about that, if MasterKage really does countenance murder in some circumstances, then this still torpedoes his main argument. If he accepts that murder is not always immoral, then his claim that abortion is murder does not even tend to show that abortion is immoral. Vote Con. Morning After: MasterKage also makes a not-very-clear argument about morning-after pills being better than abortions. In either case, though, a fertilized egg is killed. If it is murder in one case, then it is murder in the other. If it is immoral in one case, then it is immoral in the other. MasterKage has been given repeated opportunities to explain himself, but he repeatedly declined. He has undertaken to show that it is immoral to kill a fertilized egg from the moment of conception, but he sabotages that claim by saying that it is all right to kill a fertilized egg if it has not yet attached to the uterus. Vote Con. Useless: MasterKage claimed that Abortion was useless, that most people who get abortions have buyer's remorse and change their minds afterwords. This seems implausible. When I challenged him on this, MasterKage dropped the argument. Vote Con. Even if abortion were useless, that wouldn't make it immoral. Is bubblegum immoral? Is opera immoral? The people who get abortions clearly don't think it is useless. Vote Con. Minors: MasterKage also claims that abortion is bad because minors get abortions. Minors also get their cars repaired, but that doesn't make car repair immoral. MasterKage would have to show that there was something wrong with abortion before we could infer that there was something wrong with abortion for minors. It's clear that he thinks there is something wrong abortion, but he has declined to explain why he thinks that. Vote Con. Heartbeat: MasterKage made a not-very-clear argument to the effect that killing things like humans is the same as killing humans. He dismissed my examples of things with human characteristics by saying that those things don't have heartbeats. That's interesting, because zygotes (fertilized eggs) and early embryos don't have heartbeats either. MasterKage undertook to prove that abortion is immoral from the moment of conception, not just from when a heart develops and starts to beat. If abortion is not immoral before there's a heartbeat, then abortion is not immoral from the moment of conception. Therefore, MasterKage has effectively conceded this debate. Vote Con. Negative Practice: MasterKage said that any negative practice focused on minors, particularly young women, is immoral. This is a circular argument. He assumes that abortion is a negative practice, and then says it is bad because it is negative. Vote Con. No Say in the Matter: MasterKage complains that zygotes have no say in the matter of whether they shall be aborted. But zygotes have nothing to say. They have no brains, no minds, no opinions, no preference for not being aborted. It is not that their opinions are ignored, but rather that they have no opinions to ignore. Vote Con. Conclusion: Every argument raised by MasterKage has unambiguously failed. If there are good arguments against abortion, MasterKage has not raised them in this debate. Vote Con. Formatting Note: Because MasterKage is Pro, he got to go first and I got to go last. This means that he doesn't have another turn. He may post something like, "Vote Pro," rather than wait out the seventy-two hour clock, but he he doesn't get to make another substantive post. If he does let the clock run out, the automated program that runs these debates will claim that he forfeited the round. This is not to be held against him.