Abortion is morally acceptable.

My argument will break down into two segments. First, I will defend my value that the determinant of personhood should hinge on rationality. Then, I will refute my opponent's three reasons and thus uphold my position. ==================== Determining personhood ==================== My opponent attacks the foundations of my argument, that personhood is hinged upon rationality, but he never defends his own definition of personhood. If our values are in conflict, which presumably is so, then he has failed to show why we should believe personhood is based on something else. So first, I will defend my proposed qualification of personhood and then critique his proposed qualification. I apologize for solely using the word "rationality" so crudely - a more encompassing word is "consciousness". However, I don't mean any degree of consciousness, but rather a certain "level" of consciousness. A level in which abilities such as temporal awareness, self-awareness, and definitely rationality bear fruit. I argue that indeed there are organisms more deserving of rights, and that it's based on their level of brain development. Humans have a complex cerebral cortex, and this allows for our rationality. Do we value a body without a brain - do we call that a person? Of course not, that's ludicrous. Similarly, if someone's brain was entirely wiped and they were a mindless zombie, we would similarly not call them a person. Human persons (not to be confused with human beings) have personalities that are a product of this cognitive development, and which is vital to their personhood. This is why we still value those who are sleeping - it's not the active manifestation of your personality but the mere existence of it. Rationality, self-awareness, and such allow for this. And yes, one can say animals have a personality (it's much more limited), but they have limitations on their cognitive abilities as well. Simply put, it's our brain development. ==================== My opponent's 3 reasons against abortion ==================== 1. As I stated before, there are organisms with more rights than others. While animals don't have as much rights as humans, they certainly don't have no rights at all (animal abuse, for example). Their ability to feel pain is a form of cognitive development, and this confers some rights unto them. This means your cases of mentally disable/comatose people bear no harm. If they don't have the sufficient cognitive abilities, then it must be so. However, do realize that they can very well have unconscious mental states, meaning they shouldn't be ruled out so easily. At best, your argument reduces to an appeal to emotion - so what if they are not persons? Do you have a substantive argument to say otherwise? 2. Yes, you are correct. Some people have different degrees of rights than others - like children! Even though they are capable of rudimentary displays of rationality, they are still not fully developed. Of course, once they mature they are equipped with a full inventory as the rest of us. It should be noted that this doesn't mean stupid people have less rights than smart people. It's just the capacity to reason that is the determinant of personhood, not how effective you use it. A group of farmers may not use reason a lot in his job compared to a professor, but you don't see us advocate that professors are deserving of more rights than farmers. 3. When a fetus becomes a person is unclear waters due to knowledge in cognitive science. Some like Peter Singer would argue that an infant that reaches 3 months of age is finally a person, since it retains self-awareness and other important cognitive faculties[1]. Simply put, this reason is not a substantial argument against abortion. Even though we don't know exactly when a human being becomes a human person (it ranges from 8 week year old infant to a 3 month year old infant), it's known that a fetus certainly is not rational. And I know what you are thinking - can infanticide be permitted? In certain cases, I would argue yes. And I implore of my opponent - besides the cute faces of sleeping babies, what substantive argument do you against it? ==================== Conclusion ==================== I've defended my definition of personhood, and refuted my opponent's 3 reasons against abortion. There really isn't much left to say except for a request that voters have an objective review of our arguments. Also, I want to remind my opponent to not include any new arguments in his last round since I have no opportunity to refute them. Thanks for the debate. ---References--- 1. . http://en.wikipedia.org...