Abortion

I at no point denied you provided a definition to life, I have however repeatedly shown and explained why the definition is hardly applicable. At no point have i claimed extraterrestrial life relevant to the topic of abortion. Mind you extraterrestrial life was brought up while explaining the lack of a definition of life, as there are too many gray areas to define all things and CLASSIFY them as either living or non-living. The perfect example of GRAY AREA in CLASSIFICATION is Elysia Chlorotica. Again, I never argued Elysia chlorotica determined the "living v. non-living" argument. The Merriam-Webster dictionary will not hurt my argument. However, if i must use your definition, I shall, though not without my own. Abortion: "A medical procedure used to end a pregnancy and cause the death of the fetus". ( http://www.merriam-webster.com... ) However, I do suggest you look at these as well. Abortion: "Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy". ( http://dictionary.reference.com... ) Note it nowhere contains the word "death" Abortion: "In medicine, an abortion is the premature exit of the products of conception (the fetus, fetal membranes, and placenta) from the uterus. It is the loss of a pregnancy and does not refer to why that pregnancy was lost". ( http://www.medicinenet.com... ) Again, the word "death" is not mentioned. Abortion: "Induced termination of a pregnancy with destruction of the embryo or fetus". ( http://www.thefreedictionary.com... ) This simply says the destruction of the fetus, and clearly something does not need to be alive for it to be destroyed. Abortion: "The intentional ending of a pregnancy". ( http://dictionary.cambridge.org... ) Cambridge only says it ends a pregnancy. I do hope you now realize I have provided 4 cited definitions, in which the word "death" was not used. Thus proving, the word "death" is not necessary in the definition, seeing as it is not in all defintions. One must, at this point, also ask why it is not used. Perhaps because the fetus was not considered previously living, despite having the characteristics of a living thing, much like a virus, which also has the characteristics, yet is not considered living. If you believe that the characteristic that makes a human a human is simply DNA, then you must also believe that a zygote, fertilized outside the uterus, and remaining outside the uterus until implantation, is also a human. Here is a link to an image of a zygote. By your definition, this fertilized egg, has the same rights as you or I. Though, as the zygote has not yet been born in any given country, it is not yet a citizen of that country. So why should it have the same rights as one? ( http://f.tqn.com... ) So now i ask you, what to you, makes something human? Should I receive no answer, i shall take it as you having no adequate definition, and then proceed accordingly. Gorillas most certainly have free will. i shall now prove that. Free Will: "The ability to act and make choices independent of any outside influence". ( http://dictionary.cambridge.org... ) If you would like to argue that there will always be an outside influence in a gorillas decision, then there I can argue there is always an outside influence in our decision, such as weather, popular opinion, someone else's command even. They simply do not have the mental capacity to function like we do. That is not to say they don't have free will. If that is your argument, then you argue a baby has newborn has no free will, and a toddler has no free will, as they can not yet function on the same plateau as an adult. Who is to say a gorilla doesn't know it's a gorilla? Certainly not I. A gorilla can certainly tell it's not like us, this is evident in the way they interact with us in the wild as opposed to their interaction with each other. An hour old baby is already developing an ability to reason. If it cries, it gets attention. It will use that reasoning until it is better able to communicate. At no point have i claimed the fetus "deserves to be killed". So please, don't frame such hateful words with my mouth. However, by definition, the fetus is a parasite. So if you'd like to argue the definition of "parasite" and "parasitism" you must believe it is wrong. If you believe that the definition is wrong, you must also question your definition of "life" as they are from the SAME SOURCE. Nowhere have i said a fetus can only cause harm. You'll notice the previous definition I gave you on this topic was "parasitism". But let's take it a step further. Parasite: "An organism that obtains nourishment and shelter on another organism". ( http://www.biology-online.org... ) Also from the same source as your definition of "life" As you can see, "harm" is not in this definition. Let it also be known, that in the definition of "parasitism" it states injury "may" occur, not "will" occur. While punching a woman in the uterus would be a less than honorable action, in order to remove what is, by definition, a parasite, it is the woman's body. She has the right to do with it as she likes. If consent was given, she has the right to allow whatever she'd like happen to her body, or not happen to it. If she would like to drink to kill the parasite, and that is her intention, it is her body to do with it as she would like. As for your "double murder clause", was it not you who stated "Laws can be wrong...". I now rest my case on this point. And now on to your "slaves and morality" argument. The majority of people in the south actually were slaves. Slaves would have certainly opposed slavery. In fact, a total of 76% of the south's population (in 1860 ( http://civilwarcauses.org... )) were slaves (not including border states). On top of that, less than 1/3 of southern families owned slaves, leaving a little over 2/3 without. As slaves were against the abuses of slavery, that meant they had the majority rule. So those who, in addition, were opposed to slavery, were in fact, moral, as their morals were held by the majority of the population. Thus, because it was the majority, the greater good could be achieved. Ahh the genocide argument. Let's pretend all of Germany and Austria were Nazi in WWII. So in 1939, the year the war started, the German population was approximately 76 million. So lets take the population of some of the major countries that would soon commence fighting in the war. (To keep things proportional for our purposes, the entire population of the other countries are not Nazi). United Kingdom- approximately 47 million France- approximately 41 million The USSR- approximately 190 million (note the United States had not yet entered WWII, but were still against the Nazis). The United States- approximately 132 million ( http://www.euronet.nl... ) So the total number of people (for our sake) of those who are not Nazis, is 410 million. This would mean that only 18.53 percent of the populations listed we listed were Nazi. That is most certainly a minority. Thus the vast majority were against the mass genocides of Hitler, and he was then able to be stopped. And laws. How is a bill turned into a law? It is voted upon. With a majority rules approach. While the president may veto a law, the law can still be put into action if the majority of people who vote still believe it is a good idea. Would it not be accurate to say that a law is reformed as morals change? This is, in fact, perfectly true. When a law is made, people with similar morals vote for it, people with different, vote against it. The same goes for when a law is reformed. Furthermore, who is one person to claim that their morals MUST apply to someone else? I will ignore, as should the voters, the continuation of this debate that flows into the comments. We are given a character limit to fit our arguments within. That is more than enough room to state, argue, and reaffirm multiple points. If one cannot fit their argument in the given space, then they should post the most important, relevant information. In an order to keep things professional, I ask we refrain from posting more of a debate you cannot fit in the comments. So i now ask the voters to only consider that which is within the debate column.