Abortion: right or wrong.

OK, so I guess I'm starting. For those of you who aren't aware, Stashu18 commented on a debate of mine, and basically started a case against me. Since my current opponent is a no- show, I decided to debate stashu18. So, part of this post is going to be responses to her comment. I'll start with the framework we should be working under and go on to the debate! OK, so first of all this really is a question of legality. You are asking whether or not abortion is right or wrong, the only concrete way to determine what is right or wrong anywhere, are the laws created in that society. Since we're both American I hope I can use U.S law. If we decide to go with an entirely morality based debate, there is no paradigm by which to determine whose arguments, or system of morality is more important. In short the debate becomes a contest to dish out sob stories to entice public empathy, an inferior way to intellectually discuss a topic. If you still disagree, I'll place in some moral balances as well. First, starting with the classification of abortion as murder. I personally think a fetus should be valued as something at least similar to a human life. This is because the competency of western medicine is at he point, that doctors can basically guarantee you, from the moment of conception, that they can deliver your child. So my rationale for why a fetus is valuable, is because the fetus WILL be a life. My opponent said this: "the way you classify Murder is all wrong its not that the being will attain life or even that it has life but if its to be considered human and attained life and has had it taken from it. and since there is no way to tell if a small clump of cells is going to be human or just another failed pregnancy 100% you can not classify that fetus and or embryo as human until it is out of the mother and alive. Otherwise every time i go hunting and kill something it would be considered murder and i should be incarcerated for it. So your whole its murder theory is wrong for that reason because murder is defined as taking a human life and a fetus and or embryo has not yet been classified as human life." OK, I obviously haven't been clear enough. 1) As far as the definition of murder goes, we don't even have to call killing a fetus murder. If you really want to get into technicalities, this debate will get very boring. This is what I am referring to, there is a being that has a high chance of becoming a full fledged human life, when an abortion is done, there is now a being with no chance of becoming a human life. This means that, just like murder, one less life, is or will be, in this world. Call it what you will. 2) Even if a fetus is not directly classified as a human life, it is certainly valuable. The fact that it WILL be human makes it a being of value, even if not equal to the value of a full human life. Therefore, "fetus- killing" is a detrimental action. To engage in a detrimental action, one must have sufficient enough reason to. I argue, that contraceptive reasons to not supersede the negative impact of "fetus- killing". 3) Your argument about hunting, really has no effect on abortion, because you give no link or importance of an animal's life. OK, so I'll just summarize my stance really quickly. a fetus is a valuable being, therefore, killing it is a bad thing to do. However, as with any less preferable action, if one has sufficient enough reason to do it, they can. I argue that any reason that the pro can come up with is either not good enough, or should be the exception to any law banning abortion for legally accepted reasons. I will address these more specifically when they are presented. Here's the rest of my opponents arguments: "Next onto the consenting argument that if a woman consents to sex she consents to a possible baby that is just a very wrong thing to even consider and then to only blame woman for it is also a very very distasteful way to approach this because then it represents woman as unequal to men and in our society my friend we are all equal under the law so as you have said if woman have to have the baby it is only right that the biological fathers of those babies should be put through the same experience and that is where we reach our problem we as men cannot do that but we can donate our sperm which is our part of the whole baby making process so i feel if men can simply discard what could potentially be a human life at will why not woman as well. The way you have put it its the robbing of life whether it has been attained or not that is the backbone of your argument and if this is what you hold true to then men can no longer masturbate and woman must be either having a child or being impregnated because if they aren't they are killing a possible life. Also just so i know i have made a good point ill toss in the fact our planet is over populated and it is in our best interest to have as few children as possible." OK, so first the inequality argument. It is true that men cannot experience childbirth, that is a fact of nature. However, I do not think we should simply hold women culpable for the action of sex, it takes 2 to tango. Men are already held responsible for childcare if the child is born. Now, the same process could be applied to when a child is conceived. The father could be found and proven through genetic testing, and forced to pay for the medical bills or provide some sort of compensation. But, women will still suffer more for the birth than the men, short of physically punishing the man, I cannot help that. It does not mean, however that the law placed on abortion is unequal. I am only advocating for a law that bans contraceptive abortion. The law can easily say that neither men nor women can have abortions and it is equal. There are plenty of laws that seem unequal in application, but do not violate equality. Next, I'd like to address the attempt to equate masturbation to abortion. OK, if a man was to masturbate, that sperm has 0% chance of becoming a human life. If a woman could somehow fire out unfertilized eggs, those eggs have 0% chance of becoming a life. If two people were to have sex, each sperm would have a one in several thousand chance of becoming a life. The sperm that fertilizes the egg, now has a very good chance of becoming a human life, this combination is called a fetus. That is the difference between masturbation and abortion. But I've always wondered what you'd do if your opponent said that you were right and we shouldn't be allowed to masturbate. Lately, the argument that we should kill off people because the world is too overpopulated is a horrible thing to say. I mean I respect it as an extreme last resort, but I really think you'd lose voters if that's what you are reduced to. To combat this, I'll say that we should stop treating various lethal diseases to stop overpopulation. It would be cost-saving, and we would only be killing people who have had some life already, and will only doe slowly anyway. I know it is horrible, but I say it is less horrible than killing off fetuses for the cause. "i have to say it leave your religions at home on this topic because the church should have no influence over law making" I whole heartedly agree with you. I hate it when people who bring religion into a logical or legal discussion. I will never use it, I hope you won't either.