Abortion

Okay, so, let's get started. Though he/she has stated that it is not relevant to the debate (I disagree), my opponent has stated that he/she disagrees with my definition of morality. That is, he/she does not believe that all human life forms are entitled to have their rights protected, whereas many non-human sentient life forms should have their rights protected. I cannot determine exactly what my opponent is thinking, as I am not him/her. However, to the best that I can surmise, my opponent believes that intelligence/sentience is the only truly relevant factor in determining whether an entity should have its rights protected. I apologize if this statement is incorrect; if this is not my opponent's belief, I ask that he/she correct me in his/her Round 3 argument in order to clarify what he/she believes on this matter. Thus, my opponent has raised the question of personhood, and I must respond in this debate. 1. Vegetables My opponent has stated (truthfully, I presume) that in many jurisdictions a human in a permanent vegetative state is not considered a person. There are several things to note here. First, a fetus is not in a permanent "vegetative state". That is, provided nothing goes severely wrong with the pregnancy, a fetus will almost assuredly transition into a "full", "sentient" person. Even if a fetus did not at that time have the traits that define personhood (a statement which is not an established truth, by the way), that definite potential to be a person that would almost certainly come to fruition in a matter of months should be taken into consideration. Potential does in fact matter. For instance, when you kill a "normal" person, why does that matter? Aside from ideas such as the intrinsic value of persons, that person's potential of a further future life has been snuffed out, providing grounds for charging the said killer with murder. Second, I disagree that the denial of a vegetable's right to personhood is a correct interpretation of the law under an ideal legal system. Many jurisdictions historically have permitted acts which we find absolutely abhorrent and abominable today. I believe that a person in a vegetative state should still be considered a person (something which I will elaborate on at a later point in this Round). 2. Souls According to my opponent, there is not sufficient (if any) evidence of the existence of the soul, and thus before we even take it into consideration proponents of the soul's existence (in this case, me) must prove that it does in fact exist. Actually, I think that I can do that, or at least provide strong evidence for it. My argument here revolves around the likelihood of God's existence. Let's take the Universe. It couldn't have existed infinitely long in the past if it will come to an end in the future (the scientific consensus as of May 2015 is that the Universe will eventually suffer "heat death", which is what happens when all "useful" matter is used up and can no longer be used for performing work; an alternate name for this principle is "entropy"). The Universe cannot be going through a time loop (the scientific consensus is that time travel to the past is impossible; also, such an action would violate the principle of entropy, as useful matter could be "recreated" through time travel to the past). So, if the Universe cannot be infinite, it had to have had a cause, as nothing finite is without a cause. There are two known possible explanations from here: 1. God 2. Multiverse (infinity which is not ordered, intelligent, or alive in the sense of an organism) Both of these ideas are unfalsifiable, and in a sense, "unscientific". However, one of these two is the only known option, and either one has roughly an equal chance of being true. Thus, there's a reasonable probability of God existing, meaning that it's no longer a matter of "burden of proof is entirely on those who contend God exists". So let's say for the sake of argument that God does in fact exist. Since such a being would be the highest thing that exists, it'd be all alone (not generally a favorable position among sentient beings), unless it sought out contact with lower beings. Thus, if God exists, there's a high likelihood that He/She/It made contact with lower beings (such as human beings). If so, God likely communicated with man and woman in a way that would result in lots of people following that belief in God through a certain religion(s), most likely a large one(s) that has millions of followers. Thus, it's likely that if God exists such a being communicated with us through a large religion(s). Most large religions are against abortion. Thus, there's a high likelihood that if God communicated with man, God is against abortion. Also, if God sought communion with lower beings, it's likely that God created such beings (either through direct creation or guiding their evolution). It's likely in this case that such a God gave people souls. So if God exists (and there's a reasonably high chance that this statement is true), souls likely exist and God is likely against abortion. 3. What defines a person? My opponent has raised the question of what criteria should be used to define what constitutes a person. There are multiple criteria used by various people: 1. Size (crap) 2. Ability to feel pain 3. Sentience 4. Life 4. Possessing human DNA The pain criteria doesn't make much sense, in my opinion. If I were to anaesthetize you and then kill you, it'd still be murder, wouldn't it? The sentience criteria doesn't make much sense to me either. I mean, if this were true, wouldn't the intentional destruction of a supercomputer be a crime of holocaustic (yes, I know that's not a real world) proportions? Likewise, my Kindle Fire would have a greater right to exist than my cat. Also, wouldn't this sort of thinking result in a hierarchy where smart people have a greater right to exist than dumb people? Life by itself is not a good criteria either; nobody (well, almost nobody) questions the morality of eating plants. It seems to me that the only legitimate criteria for determining personhood in a human society is humanity. A human society is, after all, here to maximize the condition of human beings. It's for us. Also, since God quite possibly exists, the human soul and divine right to life for humans has a possibility of existing which is too great to simply be ignored. But if you were to cast aside all these standards, it seems to logically apply that the only remaining standard would be "kill whoever you can succeed in killing if you desire to kill them". That's a pretty crappy standard, and I think my opponent would agree that this isn't a good standard. 4. Women vs. Babies Unless we were to further debate the issue of personhood, then the abortion debate shouldn't be an issue of "women's rights versus cluster of cells". It's more like a debate between the rights of two organisms which have the rights endowed to human beings by society, human social ideas, and/or by God. My opponent did, in passing, raise an interesting point: a fetus is not aware that it is alive. It is not aware of its own right to life. However, I do not think that this matters. To take away a right that said victim was unaware of in the first place is still wrong. Otherwise, owning a black slave who never knew what freedom was would be morally acceptable. Likewise, it'd be acceptable for me to convince a 13 year old girl into having sex with me, provided that she was not aware that she was being taken advantage of. This logic just doesn't add up. A fetus's lack of awareness does not mean that its rights cannot be violated. Next, my opponent brought up prisons. It is true that one's internal organs are (mostly) unaffected by prisons. However, regardless of whether it's on the outside or inside, it's still a violation of one's right to do with themself and their lives as they please. "Liberty", "bodily sanctity"; the difference is skin deep. A violation of bodily sanctity is merely a more extreme version of violation of liberty. What matters is the severity of the violation. Presumably, performing surgeries and medical experiments on prisoners is more severe than mere imprisonment. But under some circumstances both may be allowed (such as if a prisoner implanted a bomb inside his/her own chest). Then, my opponent denied that engaging in risky sex practices equates to signing an unspoken contract to take responsibility for the caretaking of any resulting pregnancies. True, most people would be unwilling to take responsibility and they have sex anyway. But if this is true, then a drunk driver should not have to take responsibility for any fatal crashes that his/her actions might cause. It doesn't matter if they're willing to take responsibility or not; they should have to regardless. My opponent then compares pregnancy to STDs. This analogy is inaccurate; in the case of an STD, whatever happens only the infected person dies (barring the possibility of him/her infecting others). In pregnancy, there's somebody else in the equation, and I've already shown why the baby's parents should take responsibility, even at personal cost and loss of some liberties. Finally, my opponent makes the claim that "nobody has a right to be taken care of" as children. Yes, they do, actually. My opponent has admitted that ideally children would be taken care of. Thus, it is definitely in the best interests of human beings for everyone to be guaranteed life and security as children. Thus, it should be something that everyone is entitled to, and as such it can be decidedly a right by the societal consensus. Religious and secular sources would agree that it's a right. At all stages of life before we can take care of ourselves we are entitled to life. Thank you.