Abortion should be legal

First of all, as opinion on sex, whether regarding pre-marital, pleasure or procreating varies in such a wide spectrum, your argument is not supported by anything else than opinion, and you also very well say that this is just your own. Everyone is entitled to their own, of course; However, regarding a national view, you cannot claim that sex is exclusively for creating life and that pre-martial sex is a mistake without any evidence to support this as an argument. You refer now to Exodus 20:13 as your argument, stating indeed that God said that one must not murder. This I wholly agree with. When we deal with abortion, however, I disagree to calling it murder. Firstly, to respond to you with a biblical reasoning: In the book of Exodus, (chapter 21:22-23) it is, in fact, also indicated that a fetus is of a lesser status than a human being. It states that if a man pushes a pregnant woman and she miscarries, he is required to only pay a fine - Which is much less than what the punishment would have been if the fetus were considered a 'full' person, so to say. We can look up the noun 'murder' in a dictionary. "Murder: The killing of another person without justification or excuse, especially the crime of killing a person with malice aforethought or with recklessness manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life. " Now, we can break this into bits. Firstly, a part of the definition for murder is to kill another person without justification or excuse. This, abortion does not do. Abortion is a medical procedure that is taken when a woman does not wish to have a child; She is the host, you could say, the carrier. The fetus is unable to support itself without the woman in mention and it is not independent. If it is inflicting harm upon her or exists within her body (over which only she has the full control and right), she also has every right to have it removed. It is not without reason that this happens. In fact, it is with very good reason and I would say that the justification is perfectly in place. It can be justified by the fact that it is HER body. Not the fetuses. Without creating a misunderstanding that I am comparing an unborn child to a stranger, the example can be having someone walk into your house without you knowing. It is your property - You decide whether they can stay or have to leave and if it is someone uninvited -alas someone you have not allowed to be there from the start - it is in your right to ask them to go if you would wish it. Secondly, abortion is not done as an evil deed. It is of one of protection towards the woman from something unwanted. There is a significant difference between a fetus and a child. Take this example: Imagine that you stand with an egg in one hand, and a chicken in the other. Now, picture that you have no choice but to drop one of them to the floor. Which one did you save? My guess is the chicken. You see, I understand that one cannot point to an exact time and say 'now the fetus is alive'. But that is not the factor in question. Once again using the egg and chicken: A chicken inside of an egg will still be considered an egg until it hatches and the chick is indepentently existing. It is the same for a fetus. One cannot consider it an independent, living, conscious human if it cannot exist without the woman. However, instead of continuing on this argument, I will stop it here and my reason is this: Biology, science, chemistry nor society as a whole has come to an agreed point in which a fetus can be considered living. This means that you cannot scientifically prove that a fetus is alive from the moment of consumption and I am thus not required to prove the opposite. Regarding this particular part of the discussion, it is more moral than scientific and it can depend from person to person. What I will tell you instead is this: Who are you to deny women safe abortions? This debate is about whether it should be legal or not in the US. The fact is, that no matter what the moral view is, women will continue to have abortions when they have no other choice, whether it is legal or not. As I said in my starting argument, the only difference is, that if it is legal, it is safe and we are not risking any more lives or unnecessary medical complications towards the woman getting an abortion. "When you have sex, there is a risk of pregnancy. " This, I can hardly deny. What you forget to take into consideration, is that there are many sorts of sex. For instance - What will you tell rape victims? Is it their own fault that they are sexually assaulted and become pregnant in that process? People who use protection can be failed by this. Condoms can break, putting the two people in a great dilemma if it results in unwanted pregnancy. Despite your own opinion, other people do have sex for their own pleasure and sadly, this can go wrong even it is obviously not intended and especially if the people are young, this can be a big problem. Are you going to force a 16 year old who goes to school and tries to educate herself to drop out to be the mother of a child she did not wish to have? And even if it is the plan to have a child, there is such a thing called regret. It is unfortunate, but things can change much within one pregnancy. Complications within family, health, living conditions and many other factors contributes to the conditions a child needs, and the parents can offer. And truly, I said 'it is not a person yet'. I see that this can be misunderstood - What I meant is that there is no scientific support that it is an independent being that is aware of its surroundings. I beg to differ to your statement that my arguments falter under science, for there is more to support it than it just seems. Yes, as soon as human sperm penetrates the egg, there will be a new entity. However, claiming this to be a full human being, I disagree with. Just because I argue for abortions to be legal, does not mean it is without limits. An abortion can be made within 24 weeks of pregnancy, but ideally 12 weeks into it. The brain does not start to develop until week 3-4 and it takes much longer to fully be created. By week 12, the fetus is only starting to look like a little human: However, the neural circuits that gives the fetus conscious awareness are yet to develop. We can also find that conscious responses to, for instance, pain will not develop until around the 30th week of pregnancy: By which the time for abortion has already passed in the majority of cases. (1) "Not a person" is a decidedly unscientific argument, that is true: But I will point out to you that "It is a person" is equally unscientific. It is a being - But it is not conscious enough to be qualified as an independent Homo Sapiens. An unborn child in the stages as a fetus, where it is acceptable for the already legal abortions to happen, is still technically the property of the mother. Since the fetus is 100% dependent on the host to exist, it is the host's choice what should happen to it, until it has the ability to decide on its own. I would also like to add that I am personally pro-choice. This means that I am for the idea of women being able to have the ability to decide what is the best for themselves, their families and their lives and not have to risk unsafe procedures. By the end of all of this, I have one more thing to add: This is a debate discussing the legalization of abortion and while I have contributed arguments to it, it is not regarding the topic of whether a fetus can be considered a human being. Therefor, voters may ignore these arguments as relevant for the topic. I now pass over the debate to my opponent! (1) . http://thebrainbank.scienceblog.com...