Abortion is generally immoral

Cliff and I are in agreement about the definitions of the terms "abortion" and "immoral." No semantic games here. I also do accept burden of proof. Since abortion-on-demand is currently legal, I bear the burden of proof as to why it should be illegal.More specifically, my debate is that we are full human beings from conception to natural birth, and as such at all stages of development we should be protected. There is no reason why a human being inside the womb should not be considered a person, since the human inside the womb is the same human that comes out of the womb.Cliff is right, that I did not have a debate on morality itself in mind, since that could take up a whole other debate on its own. As he has posed the question "according to what," I would say according to basic human intuition. Not only are there laws protecting innocent people, but no person, who does not suffer from a neurological disorder, would believe that killing an innocent person without just cause is right. Most of the reasons given for abortion would never be acceptable reason to kill someone outside the womb. Therefore, since the human inside the womb is the same human that comes out of it, those reasons should not be acceptable to kill someone inside the womb.I agree with Cliff that I fully intend to justify abortion being immoral. I brought up those possible objections because in my many dealings with pro-choicers, those are common objections I have faced. I see that those whom I will debate on this site are more educated on the issue than the common pro-choicer who really hasn't given it much thought.I do, indeed, reject Evolution as a valid answer for where humanity comes from, but let's assume for the sake of this argument that macro-Evolution has happened. Human evolution can take hundreds of thousands of years, meaning that we still have a very, very long time until the next stage in human evolution. Humans are reproducing after each other now and have been for a long time. So even if you accept Evolution, there is no reason to believe that a child you're aborting would be the "next stage in human evolution," and therefore it should be acceptable to kill because it's really not human. On top of that, from what I understand of evolution, the change from species to species is very gradual, so even if the unborn did carry a change that was about to start the change in species, it would still be human because the change wouldn't affect its humanity.DNA are the building blocks of life. [1] While DNA, alone, may not be accurate representation of what a human is, they're a good place to start. Humans generally have two pairs of 23 chromosomes, unless they have a disease like Down's Syndrome, in which case they would have an extra chromosome. So obviously chromosomes, alone, are also not enough. Humans are unique on Earth (and possibly in the universe) in that we also have the ability to become better than we are, develop new and better technologies, reason amongst ourselves, question our place in the universe, etc. And while, of course, the unborn cannot do this (and neither can newborns or toddlers), humans are rational moral agents with the natural inherent capacity to perform functions like reasoning and comprehending.Substance ViewPro-life apologists Francis Beckwith and Patrick Lee advance this view that when humans come into existence, they are intrinsically valuable by their very being. Personhood is not an attribute one gains by becoming more developed, it is an attribute all humans get by their very nature of existing. There are not degrees of personhood; either you are a person or you're not. Blacks, women, and Jews have all been discriminated against in the past and not considered persons; this easily allowed their basic human rights to be trampled on. The same is happening to the unborn.Humans never stop developing. It starts when they are first conceived and stops when their body dies far into the future. In order to claim that it is okay to kill the unborn but not an adult, you must ask yourself why. Is it because they're less developed? Toddlers are less developed than adults, but they have the same right to life that adults do. The fact that the unborn are more vulnerable means they should be given more protection, not less.I think it's unreasonable to consider the unborn as anything less than human. After all, if they're not human, then what are they? Do humans have the inherent capacity to change species in the early stages of their development? If the unborn is human, then why are they not persons? Shouldn't all humans be considered persons, even the youngest members of our species? If they should not be considered persons, then you would bear the burden of proof in showing otherwise. If I have value because I'm a human and I'm protected by law from murder and other violations of rights, then why should we not afford these same rights to all humans, including those still developing in the womb?So far, I have shown that the unborn are full human persons. We know they are alive because they grow, we know they are human because they have human DNA and human parents, and species' reproduce after their own kind. I have also shown that humans, just be virtue of being human, are valuable and should be protected. As much, there is no reason to deny the unborn personhood as they are, indeed, fully human. If the unborn should not be granted personhood, then Cliff must show why.[1] http://www.dna.gov...;