Abortion is ethically justifiable

holy crap, arguments ho! I'm excited. I'll try to address issues in the order that you presented them, but that may be difficult given your stylistic choices. ON MY PSYCHOLOGY: yes, I your first post angered me in its absurdity. Not that the position was absurd, but that you did present a single argument for any of your positions and did not interact with my arguments in any significant way. And, as I saw on the comments section of the debate that I met you on, what worked in getting a response was forceful language, not understatement. The fact that you're pro-life doesn't really matter to me. The fact that you did not interact with me does matter. But, you last post seems much better at advancing arguments, so I am much happier now. ONTO YOUR ARGUMENTS: I will address them in terms of the numerical form you presented. I would like to point out that I ignored a great many of them because they are irrelevant to the position I was advancing. I expected you to connect the dots for me, but it looks like I'll have to do it myself. 1) "Life is sacred and begins at conception". I did address this through my argument 1. Also, as I have pointed out, you have not provided an argument for why life begins at conception. At all, you have just fiated that the soul enters at conception and that a fertilized egg is important. But, the point of this debate is to discuss this point. More on it later. 2) "Roe is bad law and should be overturned- it is a states rights issue". Let's go back to the topic of discussion, which is "abortion is ethically justifiable". I don't care if it's states rights, federal rights or alien rights. I am arguing ethics. I take no stance on the legal status of Roe because I really don't care -- a law can be unethical, so we should argue ethics not law. 3) "babies are wanted and thus should not be killed" This argument hinges on the moral status of the fetus. My feces, hair, toenails, dinner leftovers, old scraps of paper, etc might all be wanted. Is it then incumbent upon me to give these items to others? Clearly the answer is no because we do not require altruism either legally or morally, we simply argue that altruism is a 'should' not an 'ought'. Accordingly, we should not require women to spend 9 months carrying a baby for the sake of altruism. Of course, if a fetus is a person, this may change. 4) "the death proponents are either misguided or evil." This argument hinges on the status of the fetus. Once we address this, we can address this argument. 5) "the birth mother should be incentivized (sic) to keep the baby (25-30K$) and this should be paid by the adoptive parents" RUNNING THEME: this argument depends on the status of the fetus. If it's a person then sure, if not, then why provide an incentive? 6) "being pro-abortion puts you on the side of "people are bad and there should be less of them" - which is a false position- more people = good!" The pro-abortion side argues that you cannot have a moral obligation to people who do not yet exist. Maybe more people are good, but I have no obligation to them to put them into being. Additionally, if "more people are good" then our participation in this debate is unethical -- we should instead be trying to impregnate women and create more people. In fact, under this argument, that's all we should do. Now that I've dealt with that, let's move on to my arguments and your responses. 1) I argued that we should treat a fetus like what it is, not like what it will become. "you argue that 20 weeks is when human beings should be protected from harm and not be able to be aborted? Where do you come up with that arbitary (sic) point? Why not 21 or 19 ? Are all babies the same in this regard?" I chose 20 weeks because that's a rough estimate of when a fetus gains the ability to feel pain you can research it for yourself here: http://en.wikipedia.org.... The point is, whatever that point may be, it is certainly not at conception, so abortion must be justified before this point. I want to point out that I AM NOT DEFENDING THAT I KNOW THE EXACT BRIGHTLINE. I am only defending that abortion CAN be justified. This is true even if it's justified pending further evidence. I'm not sure what the "unfair" argument is. please explain it and I will deal with it. you said: "The important point here is you DONT support infancticide (sic) nor, later term abortion- CORRECT? That means that you are, like the court tried ineffectively, to argue that at some ARBITRARY time when the baby is in the womb, life begins.BEFORE THAT , it is NOT a life, according to you. It can thus be KILLED before your arbitrary date which is impossible to enforce or really exactly determine." Again, this is why I said "Of course, I do not offer a clear bright line here, but it justifies some abortions" all I want to prove is that some abortions are fine, but let's be clear here: 'conception' is just as arbitrary. Why not say that an individual sperm and egg are morally significant? Why not say that any cell which COULD, potentially turn into a person is significant (meaning that all cells are people given the correct advancements in technology). My point concerns treating the fetus like we treat similar entities. This is not arbitrary. Treating it like a person, that is truly arbitrary. 2) ON SOULS: first, you have not demonstrated that a soul exists. To make an argument from souls, you will need to prove their existence. You say "Tibetans have sufficiently proven REINCARNATION and REBIRTH". If this is you, oh please do explain. What I was claiming is absurd is how you deal with the case of identical twins. What happen to the single soul that enters at the moment of conception. Please address this point, also, why should the soul enter at conception? Why not at birth or at some other arbitrary date. This whole argument smells like someone just made it up. 3) ON my second argument, that women are not obligated to take care of the fetus. The "similar situation" is the example that you ignored from my first round from Judith Thomson. To argue that a woman must take care of another person for 9 months is asking her to be a extremely good samaritan, which we do not require in other situations. Please go to my first point and answer the analogy. 4) ON SEXUAL REPRODUCTION BEING EVIL: This whole vein of argument is totally irrelevant. My point was that fertilized eggs die all the time in normal sexual reproduction. If pro-life is true, then this is a tragedy. Talking about sexual ethics is another debate entirely. Please stick to the topic and address my point about sexual reproduction necessarily being evil. 5) ADOPTION: I addressed this above. If a fetus is a person then incentives and adoption are decent point, if not, there's no reason to provide incentives (not to mention this is a politics, not ethics argument) and there's no reason to ask women to carry the baby for 9 months. 6) on the Hippocratic oath. People love to misuse this. Here's some excerpts on the actual Hippocratic oath: "I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygeia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant" Christians are necessarily in violation of it. "I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work." cutting is a no-no. Point is, this oath is dumb and using it as an argument is about the same.