Abortion under most circumstances is immoral.

Con has conceded that the unborn is a human being biologically, which is all my argument needs to succeed. There is no equivocation in my argument, since in all cases of the term “human community” I mean in a biological sense. It can also be shown that they are full-fledged members of the “human community” in a philosophical sense, which I will show below.Human life begins at fertilization. This is scientific fact, in which I supported in my opening argument. I also showed, in my opening argument, why the unborn entity is different from a mere skin cell or sperm cell. I would urge Con to re-read my opening argument. I will not waste space arguing for it again.The pro-life view does not entail that the fetus’ rights supercede the woman’s rights, but there is a hierarchy of rights. For example, the right to life is the most fundamental of all basic human rights. Without it you can’t enjoy any other rights. It makes no sense to speak of a right to free speech if you are not alive to enjoy that right. The right to life supercedes the right to bodily autonomy. Your right to bodily autonomy does not entail the right to kill me without strong moral justification.Identical twins are certainly members of the human community. They are separate organisms in their own right. Even though they share DNA, their DNA expresses itself differently (for example, there have been cases in which one twin is right-handed and the other left-handed -- one might develop an interest in music and the other in math).A fetus is definitely a member of the human community. One thing that Con and I can both agree on is that it is wrong to kill an adult human unjustly. The one thing we all have in common is our common human nature, that is, our intrinsic value as rational, moral agents. We all differ in hair color, eye color, height, weight, nationality, etc. It’s our common human nature that makes it as wrong to kill me as it is to kill any other human being, and that’s a nature that the unborn, from fertilization, share.The relationship between mother and child is not a parasitic one. In fact, it is symbiotic. Research has indicated that during pregnancy, the mother and child exchange cells in a process called microchimerism. This has several possible benefits to the mother, including tissue repair and even helping to prevent cancer. [1]Con has not disproven my first premise. It continues to stand soundly.Con asserts, without evidence, that the qualifications for personhood are a capacity for complex thought and autonomy. But the unborn do have these capacities -- they just have not actualized them yet. As per their human nature, they are the kind of entities that will develop the presently exercisable capacity to fulfill these functions. They have the inherent capacity to fulfill these functions, which is all that is necessary. If the presently-exercisable capacity to fulfill them were required, then you would lose personhood whenever you stopped exhibiting these functions (e.g. whenever you fall asleep, enter a reversible coma, or go under general anesthesia before surgery).Con also mentions that the zygote (the early human embryo) does not exhibit human features. However, he neglects to consider that this is exactly how a human should look at this stage in her development. Additionally, human features are not a necessary condition for personhood. Otherwise Joseph Merrick (more commonly known as the Elephant Man) would not have been a person, and it would have been moral to kill him without just cause.I agree with Con that potential can’t be the fact that determines rights. But my case is not dependent on potential. My case is that the unborn are actual humans, and actual persons, and therefore deserving of the same moral respect as you and me.Con tries to rely on a ridiculous analogy of an acorn being implanted into a woman that would somehow magically transform into a human at some point. However, this analogy is too different from pregnancy to be useful in determining our intuitions. Zygotes are not acorns, they are humans at a very early stage in her development (just as an acorn may not be an adult oak tree, they are still an “oak,” as a zygote is still a human (though not being an adult)).Rape is definitely a traumatic event, and I don’t wish to belittle it. I feel that rapists are not punished severely enough for their crimes, and they’re certainly not punished frequently enough. But why should the child pay for her life for the crimes of her father? In reality, it may not be inhumane at all to prevent a woman who conceived a child in rape from aborting. As abortionist Dr. Warren Hern has written,“Victims of sexual abuse and rape deserve special care. However, the abortion counselor should recognize that the emotional trauma experienced by the rape or incest victim cannot be treated adequately, if at all, in the abortion clinic setting. All rape and incest victims, as well as victims of physical abuse, should be referred for appropriate psychological counseling and support.” [2]According to Feminists for Life’s president Serrin Foster, some women have even indicated that the abortion was worse than the rape, and that a woman she spoke to who ended up gifting the child out for adoption, her child was the only good thing to come out of the rape. [3]Even aside from this, it would be morally wrong for a woman to have an abortion (as lousy as the situation is). To borrow an example from pro-life philosopher Tony George, suppose you’re out at sea on your boat for a few days. A day into your journey you discover a stowaway. You would not be morally justified in casting that person off your boat into the water to drown or be devoured by sharks, even though that person will be consuming your resources. You must wait until you get back to land to cast him off, and possibly call the authorities.Con now asserts more qualifications for personhood (it seems he doesn’t even have a good idea of what a “person” should be defined as): The capacity for consciousness, the ability to feel pain, and some degree of autonomy (so it can survive outside the woman -- essentially, viability). Again, he doesn’t argue for why these qualifications are necessary, he just asserts them without evidence. They fall prey to the same problems I mentioned earlier -- if the presently-exercisable capacity were necessary, then you would lose your personhood whenever you lost these functions (such as when you fall asleep, etc.). The capacity to feel pain? That would mean we could kill other human beings for any reason we want, as long as we did it painlessly (or when they were asleep and wouldn’t feel it). Personhood criteria based on function simply doesn’t work.I’m running short on space, but I’ll mention that Con has presented a dilemma for himself. He has spent the first half of his argument arguing that the unborn are not “persons,” and now he argues from bodily rights via Thomson’s bodily rights argument. However, if you argue from bodily rights, the unborn’s personhood is presupposed. So Con must either reject his earlier argument and concede the unborn are full persons from fertilization, or drop the bodily rights argument he is making from Thomson’s violinist scenario. I will wait until his next argument to see which path he will follow.So I will briefly address Con’s various scenarios.I have already addressed the case of rape (which includes a case against incest).Would Con approve of killing a two-year-old child who is destined to live a life of starvation? Why can we justify abortion in this situation but not infanticide or killing a toddler?I am out of space. I am not dropping the remaining scenarios, I will address them in my next argument. I look forward to our next round.[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com...[2] Dr. Warren Hern, Abortion Practice, p. 84[3] http://www.feministsforlife.org...