Abortion cannot be justified logically.

"So. Before I even start I want to go on a little tangent and point out a massive hole in your argument. For the purposes of this debate, you can completely ignore it, but I‘d really like to mention it to you." If I can ignore it for the purpose of this debate, then it's not a hole in my argument. But to answer your question... First, whether or not a mother can afford the baby has no bearing on whether it's right to abort the baby or not. If that were the case, then it would be morally acceptable to kill are children if we couldn't support them financially. If a woman cannot afford to take care of a child, SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE SEX. Second, yes, I am opposed to government assistence to the poor. However, I am not against assistence to the poor. I believe it is the job of private individuals and organizations (including but not limited to churches) not the government to provide for the poor. If someone is really concerned about the well being of the poor, they should donate their own money to a charity of their choice, not force everyone else to donate through taxes. In reality, politicians that advocate welfare and the like are merely demagogues, trying to win the vote of poor people. No hypocracy there. A fertilized egg is not alive? If a fertilized egg is not alive, must be dead. So, in other words, you're saying that a fertilized egg is dead. I think you will have trouble explaining that scientifically. The fertilized egg is a cell (which is, by definition, alive), capable of cell division and the host of other cellular fuctions. Therefore, human life does indeed begin at conception. You say that the threshold for you is when the baby has a somewhat functioning central nervous system, because prior to this it couldn't think or feel pain. If that is the case, then it would be okay to kill someone in their sleep. They aren't thinking, nor would they feel pain, therefore, it's okay to kill them. The fact that a human is unaware of what is being done to them does not justify killing them. "And 88.2% of all abortions are done before twelve weeks, the week they actually do get a central nervous system. So 88.2% of abortions don't really kill anything, for the record." Excuse me? If 88.2% of abortions don't really kill anything, then what are they for? The baby's heart was pounding, many of its vital systems were already functioning, and it was growing by the day. What is it, if not alive? "And it seems as if the rest of your arguments hinge on a fetus being a person, which I have already disproved. But I'll mix it up and throw in some other arguments as well." At this point, you have disproved nothing. All humans are people. A "fetus" is a human, threfore, a fetus is a person. Granted, it is not a fully developed person, but neither is a one-year-old infant. Do you recommend that we start killing babies when they become inconvenient on the grounds that they are not fully developed, and therefore, not human? "And last time I checked, abortions weren't illegal, nor should they be because, as I stated above, fetuses are not alive." With this sentence, you contradict an earlier statement of yours that you draw the line at the point when the baby has a nervous system. "Fetus" describes a baby in the later stages of development (long after the 12th week), meaning that it has a nervous system, and therefore, by your own definition, is alive. This means that you have contradicted yourself. "I mean, infanticide?! Not that I'm trying to insult you, emotions are about the only platform pro-lifers have to stand on." What is wrong with emotion? When we see pictures of the atrocities of the holocaust, we are immediately confronted by strong emotion of outrage, horror, and sorrow. We do not have such emotions for no reason. We are justified in having these emotions, and would further be worried about someone who did not have some kind of emotional reaction to such scenes. Clearly, then, emotions are not to be disgarded, PARTICULARLY in cases of morality. Obviously we shouldn't rely on them wholly, which is why I have been presenting logical arguments. I have a few questions regarding your justification for abortion. First of all, how many of the thousands of abortions performed every day can truly be justified as a means of saving a mother's life? I suspect few, if any. The same goes for rape victims. It MAY justify SOME abortion, but certainly not the vast majority of it. Furthermore, what is wrong with the suggestion of adoption? You already suggested ealier that there are many couples unable to have kids, and go to fertility clinics to do so. Looks like you've solved your own problem. "So if someone chooses to have one, they probably have a pretty good reason." I reject this categorically. Most women abort babies because they want to have sex, but they don't want to face the consequences of sex. Their decision making process goes something like "D--n, I don't want a kid. Time to make an appointment with the abortion clinic." "The mother will likely drop out of school and ruin her future to raise it. The child will be raised by someone who never wanted it, and isn't emotionally ready for that kind of commitment. It will probably be raised in an extremely unstable one-parent household. Not a good environment to grow up in, obviously." You have just made an excellent case for abstinence. If having sex out of wedlock has so many terrible consequences, why do people do it, and why do we offer them a means to exponge the consequences of their actions so easily? The whole problem of abortion could be solved, not by legislation, not by debates like this, but by people not acting like children are just a biproduct of sex. This may be where the whole problem is. The reason that you fail to view abortion as a crime is that you view babies as some kind of unintended byproduct of sex, when it's actually the whole point of sex. How can someone justify killing something that they knowingly went through the process to make? I guess that's a completely different can of worms.