Voluntary Abortion is Immoral - 2nd Attempt

Conclusion: This debate is about whether abortion is immoral. Pro has failed to meet his burden of proof. Vote Con. ====== Notes and asides: Murder: Pro claims that abortion is murder, and explains that murder is when you kill a human being. 1. I don't grant that zygotes are human beings. Proto-humans, or reproductive organs, more like. But this question isn't truth apt; neither true nor false, because it is a viewpoint question. It's a matter of how you think about it. Consider a flying boat. To the harbormaster, it is a boat; but to the air traffic controller, it is a plane. Both are right to the extent that their preferred definitions serve their purposes. Pro has not shown any purpose that is served by treating zygotes as human beings. But there are good reasons not to do so. If a zygote were sick, would it make sense to take extreme measures, to put it on life support for the duration of its natural life? If a nurse dropped a bottle of frozen zygotes, should she be charged with homicide? If people want to make private and personal decisions about whether and when to have children, should a cruel and indifferent state (as in China) require them to abort, or (as sometimes in the USA) require them not to abort? Either way, this arbitrary abuse of authority can ruin lives. Either way is a breach of freedom. And there's no upside to it. Certainly Pro has offered us no upside, no moral benefit of his proposed rule. He repeats, "Abortion is murder," "Abortion is murder," like a fetish, but offers no moral justification. If we asked him why it is morally wrong to kill a six year old, he could probably answer. But, even when he starts a debate on the topic, he can offer no moral objection to the killing of zygotes. 2. Even if we did grant‒-which I do not‒-that zygotes were human beings, that doesn't prove that killing them is always murder, or that murder is always wrong. Let me point out again that Pro has undertaken to prove that all abortions are morally wrong. That includes the abortion of zygotes, which is why my focus is on zygotes. They clearly aren't people, clearly aren't human beings. How does Pro define murder? A murder is, apparently, any time you kill a human being. "When you perform this operation [abortion]," he writes, "a human must die. " In support(! ) of this notion, he cherry-picks definitions from dictionary. com, which definitions say that murder is killing of a human being contrary to law. In other words, not even his chosen source agrees with him. Where abortion is legal, it is not murder, and is not then, according to Pro's implicit logic, immoral. But we don't have to settle for Pro's source; we can ask Pro himself whether killing human beings is always wrong. A baby born without a head? Clearly a human being, but Pro would kill it: And your statement about headless babies- I agree with. Obviously, it could serve no purpose and it should be humanely killed. It gives me a chill if Pro thinks it's okay to kill people if you think they serve no purpose, but that's as may be. The point here is that Pro hasn't made a case. He says that all zygotes are human beings, and that all killing of human beings are murders, but that some killings of human beings are morally acceptable. This does not begin to establish that all abortions are morally unacceptable. Life: Pro writes, "Why isn't a zygote living? " but clearly that's not the issue. Zygotes are alive, obviously, but so are sperm cells and unfertilized eggs. And so are tonsils. If it isn't immoral to kill living tonsils or living sperm cells, then clearly life is not the determinative issue. Potential personhood. Pro writes, "How do you know the zygote won't become a person"? But, an egg and sperm might become a person, and Pro has no problem with assuring their deaths by wearing a condom. So potential personhood isn't Pro's real concern. It's as if he doesn't know why he's against abortion, so he's firing at random, tossing out tangential arguments that he doesn't even agree with himself. The Argument From Alluding to NonExistent Prior Proofs: When asked why he thinks abortion is immoral, Pro wrote, "I have already covered why a zygote, embryo, or fetus is a human being. " But when we look up thru his arguments, we find nothing explaining this, only the irrelevant claim, unsupported, that abortion is murder. (This claim is irrelevant because Pro wrote the resolution, which is about morality, not legality. In our prior debate attempt, which he forfeited, Pro clarified: "Should abortion be MORALLY accepted? (This is not a debate over whether or not abortion should be legal). ") The Argument from Shared Characteristics: Pro writes that killing sperm cells is moral because a sperm cell, "is not yet fertilized and so it is not a human being because it does not share any characteristics of a human. " This is so clearly not the case. A sperm cell has a lot more in common with a zygote than a zygote has with a six year old. A zygote actually has more in common with a skin cell on the end of your nose, or a tonsil cell, than it does with an actual person. A Further Note About Cherry Picked Definitions: Dictionary. com, Pro's chosen authority, defines murder as killing a human being contrary to law. If we look up "human being" at dictionary. com, we find no mention of zygotes. Rather, we find that human beings are persons, such as men, women, and children; self conscious and rational beings; one with an actual self, or personality. We are even given an exemplary sentence, "This table seats four persons," which would absurdly understate the case if zygotes were persons. Deserving: Pro asks why zygotes deserve death. "Why does the zygote, embryo, or fetus deserve death? It doesn't. " As the Clint Eastwood character in Unforgiven said, "Deserving don't come into it. " Pro is right that zygotes don't deserve death any more than they deserve life. They don't have opinions or desires or fears. They don't have virtues or vices. They aren't people. When you move a rock so that you won't stumble over it, does the rock deserve it? No. When you cut down a tree for firewood, does the tree deserve it? No. Trees and rocks and zygotes are unthinking non-persons. They don't deserve anything. What are we teaching? Pro writes, "If we let abortion continue, we are just teaching our people to kill to get what they want. " But killing is okay in some circumstances, as Pro would presumably concede if he were faced with a garden of carrots and lettuce when he was armed with avocado bacon ranch dressing. And he has already conceded that killing is moral in the cases of the headless baby and the frustrated sperm cells. And getting what we want is a virtue when it doesn't involve hurting other people. That's why we educate people, so they can get things that they want. That's why we teach people to vote, so they'll be able to vote for what they want. We have assertiveness classes, because not trying for what you want can be a failing, a disability, a weakness. Conclusion Again: Pro undertook to persuade us that abortion is immoral. He has claimed that abortion is murder, but his only source doesn't actually back him up on that, and he specifically didn't want this debate to be about law anyway, and anyway he says it is morally acceptable to murder humans who are of no use,. Maybe that's not fair. That's probably not his actual opinion. Maybe he just didn't express himself well. But here's another thing he didn't express well: He never explained his moral objection to abortion. He never really tried. He has the burden of proof, but he made no significant attempt to carry it.