Abortion is a form of murder

Thank you for a spirited debate. I will resummarize my case and general philosophy in this last post. Some of you readers might be going: "Con has conducted a 5-round debate without even defining a human being!" I did so intentionally, because conventional definitions of a human being reveal so little. Consider Pro's definition that he brought up in R5: "A living being genetically identifiable as belonging to the species homo sapien".... er, that doesn't really tell us much. First, the definition is sort of circular ("species homo sapien"), and second, it does not really answer the everyday questions we would ask to identify a human being. Instead of a definition of a human being, I have merely offered a list of criteria that a human being must satisfy in at least one instance. There are, of course, additional requirements to be a human person that I omitted because I thought them obvious: one must have human DNA in most of your cells; one must physically be comparable to a human, etc. I merely listed all the criteria that would be relevant to this abortion debate. As such, Pro's argument in the last round argument that I define a dolphin as a human benig is again... a strawman! I never ever claimed to provide a definition for human beings, but merely furnished a list of criteria that any human being must satisfy at least partially. To quote myself: "I argued that a fetus is not a human being because it satisfies none of the following conditions..." [In technical term, I gave a SUFFICIENT cause, not a NECESSARY cause]. So, no, I'm not saying dolphins are human. Pro has frequently taken the most uncharitable and downright contrary interpretation of my arguments. He doesn't respond to my strawman accusations except to tell you that I'm a "whiner"... but a strawman is a serious fallacy [1] that erodes the very foundations of debate. Newsflash: Debate requires 2 people to argue each other's opinions, not to argue imaginary attributed strawmen! Pro takes great delight in pointing out my "and/or" error, so let me return the favor! Here's one of Pro's sentences from R3: "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." 'Arr, methinks I've caught the Moby Dick the Run-off Sentences! Pro claims that "hypothetically", a fetus could feel pain. I fail to understand why the "hypothetical" matters, since I provided non-hypothetical evidence in my last post that fetuses do not feel pain. Pro provides only 1 relevant rebuttal to my argument. He gives the unlikely example of a man in a coma who allegedly would satisfy all my conditions. However, even comatose patient have the ability to breathe, possess some traces of memory, possess some ability to feel pain, and/or possess an individual identity, although it might just be a residue of the patient's earlier life. =========== Pro, finally, brings up a positive argument as to why fetuses are human being: because they are alive, have unique human DNA, have separate identities, and will eventually develop into conscious human beings. I concede that fetuses are alive and have human DNAs. However, fetuses lack separate identities. They are merely a clump of cells inside the woman; they exist entirely inside her and depend solely on her for sustenance. Fetuses have as much an individual identity as a kidney or a virus has an individual identity. Let me give 2 common definitions of identity: "Identity is an umbrella term used throughout the social sciences to describe an individual's comprehension of him or herself as a discrete, separate entity."[2] "the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity."[3] I will leave it to the readers to decide whether a fetus can have either a "comprehension of him or herself" or a "personality" of any sort, let alone a "distinct" one. ==================== REASONS TO VOTE FOR ME: (a) If fetuses are not human beings: I argued that fetuses are not human beings because they fail to satisfy even one of a list of intuitive criteria. They lack the ability to breathe, lack all memory and thought, lack the ability to feel pain, lack any social or individual identity. My argument for why fetuses aren't human beings was left unattacked because Pro burned strawmen. Admittedly, my R1 argument was unclear, but I made it sufficiently clear in later posts, such that Pro lacks excuses. Given that my argument about fetuses as not being a human being stands, abortion is not murder. (b) If fetuses have indeterminate status: Even if you reject my argument about fetuses as NOT being human persons, remember that apart from an attempt in R4 that I have rebutted, Pro has failed to show you why fetuses ARE human beings. Thus, the fetus is left with an indeterminate status, in which case I have demonstrated that abortion is not murder, until some later date where you may find out that the fetus is a human being. Furthermore, Pro himself labels the killing in such cases as "manslaughter", not murder. I thank Pro for a courteous and enjoyable debate. Though we got off to several false starts, perhaps it is to be expected if this is our first debate on abortion. I look forward to debating you in the future too! SOURCES: [1] A primer on strawmen: http://www.nizkor.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org...(social_science) [3] http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu...