Unborn human beings should have a legal right to live.

The basic pro-life position has two contentions and a natural conclusion from those contentions. Contention 1. All human beings should have a legal right to live. Now I admit that this is a moral position, and not necessarily a scientific one. However it is a moral position that people of all faiths and no faith can hold. It is based in the classical liberal notion that our rights are natural or inalienable and that the first of those rights is the right to life. It is based in the non-aggression principle, which prohibits the initiation of violence (including homicide) against other human beings. It is based in the idea of equality under the law, which prohibits legalizing the initiation of homicide against certain segments of the population, especially homicide based on primary characteristics of the victim. These are all moral concepts that are not exclusively religious. They are, in fact, considered pillars of enlightenment thinking and we do strive to write them into secular law (though we don’t always succeed in doing so. ) It is from these concepts that we conclude that every human being should have a legal right to live. Contention 2. The prenatal offspring (zygote, embryo, fetus) of two human parents is a human being. While often mistakenly thought of as merely a religious doctrine, the humanity of prenatal offspring is a scientific fact. This is because species hood is hereditary and the fetus is the offspring of two human parents. This makes it scientifically impossible for the fetus to be anything else but a human being. Both embryologists and even pro-choice philosophers admit this contention. "[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being. "-Keith L. Moore,Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2 "Although life is a continuous process, fertilization (which, incidentally, is not a 'moment') is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte. "-Ronan O'Rahilly and Fabiola Müller,Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 2001. p. 8. “It is possible to give ‘human being’ a precise meaning. We can use it as equivalent to ‘member of the species Homo sapiens’. Whether a being is a member of a given species is something that can be determined scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and eggs is a human being.4” –Peter Singer, Pro-choice philosopher, from his book Practical Ethics While there are differences between fetuses and other human beings such as size, level of development, environment and degree of dependency, these differences are irrelevant in regards to the right to live. Midgets are of a different size than the typical NBA player, but that does not mean that midgets should have less of a legal right to live. Toddlers are less developed than teenagers, but that does not mean that toddlers should have less of a legal right to live. Living in a different environment than someone else should not lessen one’s legal right to live. Newborns are more dependent than adults, but that does not mean that newborns should have less of a legal right to live. All the differences between the fetus and born people are differences that born people already have between each other (albeit in less degree. ) Thus the humanity of the unborn is a concept that people of all faiths and no faith can and should accept. Since the fetus is a human being, initiating death against him or her is an initiation of homicide (note: I use the word “homicide” instead of “murder” due to the fact that murder is technically defined as the premeditated, illegal killing of another human being. “Homicide”, however, is a broader term that is defined as one human being killing another, whether legal or illegal. ) These contentions lead us to the conclusion that is the subject of this debate. Since all human beings should have a legal right to live and the unborn are human beings, then…… Conclusion: Unborn human beings should have a legal right to live. I humbly await my opponent’s contentions.