Abortion is a form of murder

== DEFINITION CONTESTION == Con's expansion on his meaning of "malice aforethought" dodged my questions of whether someone need malice (murderous hatred in my personal vocabulary definitions) in their motive or heart for an act of killing to be murder. Questions of legal standing are irrelevant for debates, as abortion in the United States is currently not legally considered murder. The question is not whether or not abortion is considered murder, but whether or not it should be; I hope this, at least, is in concurrence with Con. I hope Con is not attempting here to claim that abortions are "accidents" and not intentionally carried out. Considering an abortion requires special permissions, requests and actions on the part of the mother and doctor (presuming the abortion was not something somehow forced on a mother, something that while possible I hope Con agrees is not the intention of this debate), it is premeditated, planned and willfully carried out. If Con agrees the contention of this debate on abortion (and the vast majority of abortion arguments) is primarily, if not solely, on the point of whether or not a fetus is a human being deserving of the same protections on its life as a post-born human being. I consider this attempt to contest the other component of murder -- willful intent and action -- is ridiculous to claim is absent or below the legal definition of intent/motive that determines whether a death is the result of pre-meditated intent to achieve the intended result of "death" / "termination" of a life, as I cannot see how the requisite decision by the mother, her request to the abortionist and the abortionist's actions resulting in the termination of the pregnancy could be construed as non-intentional actions. == IS THE FETUS A HUMAN BEING? REBUTTALS == I do not recall and would appreciate Con pointing out that I accepted his definition that a human fetus is not a human being. I believe I quite clearly stated, in fact, that a living human fetus is a living human being in my book, and whatever mis-understandings I have made on the subject, I have not wavered in this belief and assertion. Once again, so it is not unclear, from my perspective: A LIVING HUMAN FETUS IS A LIVING HUMAN BEING. Ugly, un-Internet-civil all caps, I certainly hope any confusion Con may have had on whether or not I consider a fetus to be a human being should, I hope, be clear by that line. Please let me know, Con, if you are still confused on whether or not I consider a human fetus to be a human being worthy of the same right-to-life we grant to post-birth human beings. Possibility a) Con asserts that if there is contention on whether or not a fetus is a human being, that abortion is not murder by some law of default. I highly contest this -- if there is uncertainty beyond reasonable doubt as to whether or not X is a living human being, does Con truly assert that it is safe to take action to ensure X is not a living human being by terminating any semblance of life within X? I have serious questions as to the morality of that. Applied to a seemingly unrelated hypothetical situation involving the same question (If there is an unknown possibility of human life existing in a situation, is it okay to take action that would kill any human life present?) I draw on this hypothetical situation: Say there appears to be someone laying by the side of the road. There is reason to question whether or not the person is alive. Would it then be okay to shoot the person, since you do not know for certain whether or not they are alive? Shooting a corpse would certainly not be murder. Shooting a body, not knowing whether or not it is alive, Con considers to be the same lack-of-murder-status as shooting a body you know to not be alive. Does Con continue to assert that, in the absence of certainty as to the status of a living human fetus as a human being, that it is safe to terminate its life and the term murder is not applicable? (b) i) Conscious thought and memory -- To determine that only a person with provable conscious thought and memory qualifies as a human being (and anything else can be killed without fitting the bill of murder) is again ridiculous. A person in a long-term coma (but for whom there remains a reasonable chance of eventually coming out of it and recovering) fails both at having conscious thought and memory. An amnesiac fails at having memory. The two people fail Con's explicit requisites to determine whether or not something is a living human being, and if one considers the premeditated and intentional killing of a person in a coma (even if they are not in a vegetative state and there is no reason to determine they could not, at some point, recover and lead an otherwise normal life) or a person suffering amnesia as being MURDER, then Con's defining characteristics of what a human being is cannot be considered reasonable, applicable nor relevant. ii, iii, iv) I am confused as to Con's statements here. Con specified "conscious thought and memory" as being requisites for someone to be considered human. I make no profession of being word-perfect, but the conjunction "and" means both the items before and after the "and" conjunction must be true for the evaluation to work. If this was not the intention, and Con meant "and/or" in place of merely "and," I assert that I have still successfully countered his definition, in that I reasoned both components as being untrue. Con actually cast a good image of the problem. Con says "I argue that for A to equal B, X and Y must be true." Pro: "X is not true because of K, Y is not true because of J; therefore Con's argument fails." Con: "You should take my points collectively, not seperately." Does anyone else sense my confusion on this on how Con's arguments could be considered successful in this fashion? Even when I disprove constituent points, Con asserts his conclusion still stands ... that rather defies logic and reason to me, so I would appreciate further explanation. As to my declaration of "COULD BE" ... that is rather what this whole debate is about, and I could sum up Con's remaining argument as "It is absurd to consider the possibility that a fetus is a living human being, because a fetus is legally determined to not be a living human being, therefore it should not have the possibility to acquire the determination of being a human being in the future." The other claims and gripes about fetuses getting rights minority-age children do not have are equally absurd to me. With regret, I fail to grasp Con's arguments here and would ask him to explain them further, in detailed reasoning, that I might better understand his position in the next round. Thank you for your ongoing participation!