Abortion

Abortion is "Murder"."Still, even if abortion is legal, does killing an innocent fetus make it right?"Not necessarily; in order to determine if terminating an unwanted pregnancy is morally right or wrong, we must delve deeper than legislation. I was merely pointing out that your argument was wrong on the face of it before explaining why it was wrong at the core, too."A sperm cell is not a future human, it may help produce a future human, but it is not a future human."A sperm cell is not necessarily a future human being, but as I stated previously, neither is a fetus. A fetus is still in the developing stages to become a human being. The point was: if you consider it morally wrong to kill anything which has the potential to become a human being, then you must also consider it morally wrong to kill a sperm cell (as it, too, has the potential of becoming a human being)."If you put it that way, abortion would make it unable become a human being."That's the idea, yes. Just like wearing a condom prevents my sperm cells from becoming human beings. This is inherently wrong, why?"If you kill a fetus, it is technically killing a human being because it stops the fetus from becoming one."No, if you kill a fetus, "technically" it is killing a fetus, not a human being. As you've already conceded, a fetus will eventually become a human being, not is one. And you have failed to explain why a fetus should be considered a human being, and therefore granted the same rights as human beings."For example, if George Washington was aborted when he was a fetus, he would not have existed as a human."This only reiterates the fact that fetuses only eventually become human beings, and still offers no logical reason why they should be considered human beings.She just shouldn't have gotten pregnant."My argument is that if contraceptives failing is common knowledge, the people having intercourse should consider that possibility first."Many people do consider that possibility and act responsibly in accordance; however, it is impossible to decrease your chances of becoming pregnant to zero percent without getting fixed or practicing abstinence. The former can be far too expensive for some people, and latter is also nonviable as any non-virgin can tell you sex is far too awesome to pass up."What?" I hear you gasp, "Thrill-seeking hooligans who only want to perform the holy sacrament of intercourse for their own pleasure? How detestable!"But tell me, Con, if someone wants to go sky-diving and takes all the necessary precautions and pulls his chute at 10,000 feet to find the string failed, do you really blame that person saying "He should have thought of that first?" It's not necessarily the person's fault for his/her equipment failing, as some accidents simply cannot be foreseen."Woman is capable of being fertilized only 3 days of a 30-day period."I find it disturbing when a man tries to say what a woman should and should not be allowed to do with her body when said man knows virtually nothing about the female body in the first place. In all actuality, the reverse of your statement more accurate to the truth: a woman is incapable of becoming pregnant during about three days out of her menstrual cycle, her period. However, some sperm cells can survive in the uterus for a few days and still join with a new egg when it becomes available.I think what my opponent meant to say is that a woman's chances of becoming pregnant increase during about three days out of her menstrual cycle, directly preceding and during ovulation, but she is still very much capable of becoming pregnant during the rest of the time."Also, I would like to add, that only 1% if abortions are because of rape."It would hardly matter if this number were .001%. The fact is there are instances where a woman is raped and becomes pregnant. Abortive methods should be available to her and it should not be considered morally wrong to utilize them.It's not the tumors' fault. Er, I mean fetus."So you are saying that if a cat was trapped in your house, it should be killed?"This is just about the most ineffectual and off-the-wall strawman I have ever encountered in my entire (unpaid) debating career. How in the world did you come to this conclusion based on what I've said, Con? A cat is not a parasite and a house is not a womb; the two scenarios are consequentially far too incomparable."Well first of all, a tumor has no brain. It cannot become a human or benefit society."A fetus certainly does not contribute to society at all, either."But it is morally incorrect to kill an innocent person. The fetus is innocent."I must say, I find it amusing whenever a pro-lifer insinuates that a fetus is "innocent". Innocent of what, Con? Breaking any laws? Tumors are technically innocent as well since they don't break any laws. But they do cause harm, discomfort, and, potentially, death to their hosts.Childbirth and even pregnancy itself are relatively dangerous processes in our species and could result in multiple complications and possibly death in the mother. For instance, women with weak hearts will suffer a dangerously high risk of heart attack and/or stroke when the fetus grows in the third trimester.Abortion is not just a means of terminating the possibility of a future human being, but also a means of saving the life of a human being that already exists.It can feel pain."Scientific study has found that a fetus can feel pain at 8 months."There are many things that need to be said about this. Firstly, I will assume my opponent meant "weeks" not "months".Secondly, as it is technically impossible to know for sure what a fetus can and cannot feel, and it is a heated controversy in the medical field, there is no conclusive evidence that a fetus can feel pain so early in its development despite whatever my opponent's highly biased sources claim. Instead, any stimuli the fetus shows in response to its environment is more than likely a reflex and not an actual avoidance of pain.Thirdly, if the avoidance of pain is the ultimate goal here, then we should unquestionably terminate the pregnancy as childbirth is one of the most painful experiences a human being can suffer in the realm of physical possibility (or so I hear). My opponent's own argument defeats itself.A human is good for the economy.This is a double-edged sword. First of all, no matter how many people are in a society, the job market will naturally adjust itself to suit the population; the ratio between employers and employees and between producers and consumers will remain relatively the same. Furthermore, overpopulation is becoming an increasingly critical problem in the world, and seeing as the rock we live on does not have an infinite amount of resources to go around, I would argue less people is better at this stage in our species' history.Sources?All information I have relayed in my arguments are based off of prior knowledge and, admittedly, I am too lazy to look up sources. However, your sources vote should still go to me as my non-existent sources are still far more reliable than Con's highly biased sources. Plus, he admits 16kadams helped him.