We Can Be Reasonably Confident that Abortion Entails the Killing of a Human Being

Again, my thanks to Rasputin for being a gracious opponent. I realize now I should have specified in the format that round 4 would be for rebuttal only, not new arguments, because now I must respond to Rasputin’s new arguments from round 4, or else it will be seen as a concession. It seems to me that Rasputin was wanting to get to his main point gradually, instead of laying his cards out on the table in round 1, which would have allowed us to have a more standard debate. So with this last round I will summarize the debate, and then rebut Rasputin’s round 4 argument. Let’s catch everybody up. Rasputin challenged me to a debate, saying he doesn’t think anybody can know that abortion entails the killing of a human being. I started the debate with definitions and a syllogism for my argument. (A syllogism that hasn’t been mentioned once by Rasputin since.) Rasputin responded that no one can know with any confidence that List A (of what material constructs a human being) is better than List B. I responded that we can judge between both lists if we can look at both lists. I said it’s not enough to be a skeptic, but that actual evidence must be offered so that we can weigh it. Rasputin responded with more questions about whether we can objectively judge between two lists. He also said that biologists are limited when they attempt to determine if something is human. I responded that we can judge between two lists, and then provided ample evidence from embryologists and pro-abortion-choice philosophers all attesting to the humanity of the unborn. I also provided evidence from Forensic Science International that biologists are not as limited as Rasputin thought in their methods to determine species membership. Rasputin, instead of responding to any of the evidence I provided, simply asked two questions, one about whether the 1950’s definition of a planet was objectively wrong, and whether the assignment of matter into categories is merely a matter of convention, or a practice in the discovery of objective truth. I responded to both questions in round 4, and now I’ll rebut Rasputin’s newest arguments. Ultimately, Rasputin is making a version of the continuum, or beard fallacy. “If you can’t prove scientifically how many millimeters long stubble must be before there is a beard, there is no way to be reasonably sure that a beard exists.” Tolerance in Description In your world, Rasputin, I don’t know how any simple task could be accomplished. How could I make an “apple pie” when different recipes exist and the concept of an “apple pie” is simply a subjective construct? How many apples does an apple pie need to have in it to be an apple pie? Would one gram of apple suffice? One milligram? Since we don’t know where to draw this line, we must give up on the concept of apple pies, because we can never be reasonably sure we’re looking at one! But we realize that in our descriptions of objects we see there can be some tolerance in a definition to allow for variation within an object or being that possesses a particular type of essence. Philosophy of Language I believe that words are tokens, meant to communicate meaning to somebody else. Miscommunications happen often, for at least two reasons. First, some words change meaning over time. Some great examples here: http://bit.ly.... Secondly, some people think of different things when they hear certain words, based on their life experiences. For example, someone who has survived the severe flood in New Orleans may be confused or even annoyed when hearing somebody else describe the two inches of water in their basement as “a flood.” What’s the point? The point is that hopefully we can come to a mutual understanding of the important terms used in a given discussion. When I say “human,” I mean somebody like you, and President Obama, and the other 6 billion of those entities all over the planet. What do they have in common? We are the same kind of thing: human. We all have the same DNA fingerprint that forensic scientists can quickly identify as homo sapiens sapiens. As my colleague Steve Wagner has commented, "Isn't it reasonable to say that generally, all life comes from pre-existing life; and that generally, living things reproduce after their own kind? If so, when we don't know what kind of thing something is, isn't it reasonable to ask, 'what kind of parents' does it have?" Again, mutations can occur eventually, but those would simply be sub-species, theoretically with some kind of beneficial physical characteristic. The mutant would not be an animal, but would be a member of the genus, homo. If a case is brought up of something that has one or two percent less human DNA than everybody else, as a pro-life speaker, I’d want to give the benefit of the doubt to life. I’d encourage all possible sub-species of humans to not abort their offspring. In fact, I’d be open to making it illegal for humans to cause the abortion of offspring for all higher mammals, if it’s not deemed necessary to save the life of the mother. I honestly don’t know exactly what percentage of genetic variation would need to exist to disqualify someone from the human family, but I think it’s extremely reasonable to assume that if you could take a blood sample of any of the 1.2 million fetuses that will be aborted this year in America,[1] you’d find that they all have human DNA. And that would make sense, because they came from human parents. ConclusionNote again the title of this debate: “We Can Be Reasonably Confident that Abortion Entails the Killing of a Human Being.” I never said we can be positive that abortion kills a human being. I said we can reasonably confident that it does. According to the CDC, there were 4,131,019 births in 2009.[2] Can I be 100% positive about the exact percentage differentiation those 4.1 million babies would have if their DNA was compared to Angelina Jolie? No. Can I be reasonably confident that there were 4,131,019 human beings born in 2009? Yes I can. And if I can be reasonably confident that everyone being born is of the human species, than I can be equally confident that all the beings being aborted before they could be born are also of the human species. Thanks for an interesting discussion, Rasputin. I wish you luck, but also encourage our readers to vote Pro, because I have successfully argued for the title of this debate. We indeed CAN be reasonably confident that abortion entails the killing of a human being. Sources:1: http://www.guttmacher.org...2: http://www.cdc.gov...