DDO Tournament Debate: Zygotes Should be Recognized as Persons

IntroductionA major unresolved issue in western law is the true legal standing of the unborn. As such we hope to debate whether the unborn should be legally recognized as people. It is my intention to show why the unborn should be recognized as the people they are. Arguments1. Human BeingThere really is only one argument to be made. The unborn child is a person because they are an individual member of the Homo Sapiens species. The modern understanding of early human life as shown through biology and embryology is conclusive in that from the zygote onwards an individual organism exists. There are a large variety experts, texts, testimonies and logical deductions that could be used to describe this, but in this round I will use 2 proofs.a. RegressionIf I were to rewind your life second by second, I would find that you were always the very same organism until I get to the point where the male and female gametes are about to merge. If any other egg and any other sperm had combined at your conception you would not be you. You would be someone else. There is a continuity of life from the joining of the gametes onward. The normal development and lifespan of a single human organism (provided nothing goes wrong) is:zygote -> embryo -> fetus -> baby -> toddler -> youth -> teenager -> adult -> elderlyb. Sexual ReproductionI will use fish as an example of sexual reproduction. Unlike humans, a female fish will lay her unfertilized eggs in the water and the males fertilize them by releasing their seed over the eggs. [2]These fertilized eggs generally settle to the floor of the body of water. From these fertilized eggs, fish develop and eventually grow to adulthood with no further genetic material or physical aid from the parents. Now this method of sexual reproduction produces many offspring at once. A Chinook Salmon will produce between 2,500 and 7,000 eggs! [3]. This large number of offspring is necessary because the death rate is so high. The eggs are unprotected and the fish are fed on by predators at every stage of life. Mammals on the other hand have an advantage for their young. Mammals protect the young inside the mother until a much greater stage of development is reached. While this results in far fewer offspring per mother, the odds of survival is drastically enhanced. Additionally, it provides a means for more advanced organisms.Thus we share the same means of reproduction as fish. If fish are individual organisms at the zygote stage (which they must logically be), then we too must be unique individual organisms at the zygote stage of development. Nature/God/Evolution (take your pick which one(s)) has merely given human beings a more advanced way of protecting the youngest members of our species.2. EqualityA fundamental aspect of law is that, for it to be just, all people must be equal before the law. This comes from an understanding that though people are not equal in ability they are equal in human dignity and fundamental value. This concept comes from a long philosophical tradition in the west:St. Thomas Aquinas:“Nature made all men equal in liberty, though not in their natural perfections” [4]St. Bellarmine:“All men are equal, not in wisdom or grace, but in the essence and nature of mankind” [4]Declaration of Independence:"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." [5]Now, allowing for the classical use of man: The human race; mankind [6]It can be shown that this understanding of the equality of all members of the human race is critical to the fundamentals of law. It is equally important to know that this unalienable right is not granted by government, but belongs to every member of the species by right. If something is an inherent right to each and every member of the human race, then it is illogical that every human organism would not possess this right from the very moment of their existence. Thus, this right must clearly be held by every member of the species from conception through to death.If one argues that the government has the authority to grant personhood, and thus the associated fundamental rights that are guaranteed with it, then you logically have given the government the authority to rescind the right of personhood. The only means of preventing the eventual abuse of this power by government is to recognize that every member of the human species is a person.3. SupersetPersonhood is a superset of humanity, not a subset. I will provide several examples to illustrate this.a. GodNow the concept of God (whether you believe or not) would be that He is a Person - or 3 Persons if you have a Christian view of God. Thus, if there is a God, we would certainly acknowledge Him being a person(s).b. AngelsCarrying on with the above theme, we would agree that angels are persons too.c. Space AliensNow if a spacecraft visited Earth we would acknowledge that this race of highly intelligent aliens are persons before the law.d. Super-Duper ComputersLet's say for argument's sake that one day we manage to create a computer with real self-directed thought, self-awareness, etc... We would have to acknowledge that it and its progeny are a race of persons as well.4. DiscriminationThe general refusal to acknowledge the unborn as persons before the law is, in fact, a form of discrimination of the powerful over the faceless, voiceless and powerless. Every form of discrimination uses some arbitrary metric to enable the discrimination. In the context of this debate, you have to be "human AND" in order to have your rights acknowledged.This form of discrimination has been used before to commit great wrongs and atrocities:You had to be human AND white in the American South.You had to be human AND not Jewish in Nazi Germany.Now I'm sure that some will object to my comparing the unborn to slaves. And yet that is exactly how they are treated. A slave does what a slave is commanded to do because, if she does not, then the owner will kill her as is within his right - because he owns her. Thus a slave is one who is denied the rights of personhood. Likewise, without their fundamental rights as persons being respected, the unborn children are, for all intents and purposes, the property of the mother to do with as she pleases.ConclusionsIn this round I have clearly established that the unborn are human beings, and that it is necessary for all member of the human race to be treated equally before the law. It has additionally been shown that Personhood is a superset of humanity and not a subset. Finally I have shown that the means that people employ to deny the unborn children their rights is simply a form of discrimination of the powerful against the powerless.Thus the resolution that Zygotes Should be Recognized as Persons is upheld.I look forward to Con's opening arguments, and invite her to now present them.SourcesIn my sources I do not renumber them at the beginning of every round. This is done so as to be able to reuse a source previously listed without having to re-enter it again in every round that it may be used.[2] http://www.ecomare.nl...[3] http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov...[4] http://www.catholiceducation.org...[5] http://www.archives.gov...[6] http://www.thefreedictionary.com...