Abortion and infanticide are morally equivalent.

Nonsense. "being a person in the moral or mental sense means more than brain activity." Possibly, but brain activity is definitely a requirement for personhood. an embryo does not have brain activity, therefore it is impossible for it to be a person. An infant does have brain activity, therefore it is possible for an infant to be a person with FLO. "Just because something ends because of occurrence x does not mean it begins because of the opposite of occurrence x." "Take this analogy: I have a dollar. I lose the dollar when I buy some fries from McDonald's" Flawed analogy. allow me to modify it to make it more clear. Given FACT 1: I have a dollar and some fries from McDonald's. Given FACT 2: If I lose the dollar then I will not have the fries from McDonald's. LOGICAL CONCLUSION (based on given facts): Therefore, in order to get the fries from McDonalds's I must have the dollar. And there is no way I can get the fries from McDonalds without having the dollar. Substitute "dollar" for brain activity, and substitute "fries from McDonald's" for "being a person" And here is what you get: Given FACT1: I have brain activity and I am a person Given FACT2: If I loose my brain activity, then I am not a person. LOGICAL CONCLUSION (based on given facts) : Therefore, in order to be a person I must have brain activity, and there is no way I can be a person without having brain activity. Therefore, brain activity is a requirement for being a person, (even if the person is retarded, there is still brain activity.) My argument still stands. "personhood is not humanhood," This is true, however one can not have personhood without humanhood, if something is not human life, it can't be a person. We know an embryo is not human life because At a conference held over a decade ago to discuss the issue of personhood, leading scientists, legal experts, and theologians concluded that, if brain death is viewed medically as the end of human life (which it is), then no beginning of human life is logically possible before brain life. (1) Therefore, an embryo can't be a person, while an infant can. "mentally unstable individuals are allowed to plead innocent by way of insanity. This is because we feel they are not responsible for their actions. They are not mentally persons" Just because someone is mentally unstable or not responsible for his actions does not mean that he/she is not a person. They still have the right to life, just like you and me. However, if their brain activity stopped (brain died) then they would not be a "person." this fit's in perfectly with my stance. Killing and letting die are not morally equivalent. If we kill, we directly cause the death. If we let die, death is foreseen but not directly caused. "my actions or inaction led to the child's death, as the result is the same, their immorality is the same." This is a huge flaw in your argument. Just because the result is the same does not mean the morality is the same . For example, say person A saw a car speeding down the street near a pedestrian, upon seeing this person A concludes that the car will crash into the pedestrian, so he attempts to shove the pedestrian out of the way in order to save him. Person A is quite off in his calculations and actually causes the death of the pedestrian by pushing him into the car. Person B sees a car zooming near a pedestrian, and concludes that the car will miss the pedestrian. Upon seeing this, person B pushes the pedestrian into the car with the intention to kill him. The pedestrian dies. In both of these cases, the outcome was the same, however it is clear that person B was much more immoral than person A. this is because person B's intentions were worse. The mother does not have the same intention for getting an abortion than killing her infant, since she is doing it because she does not want to endure the pain and thus, Your objection fails. "Pregnancy cannot cause enough pain to warrant the destruction of a FLO. While some extreme situations in life may warrant killing, pregnancy is not one of them." Out of all the things you said in this debate, this is quite possibly the worst. Who are you to determine that pain causes by pregnancy/labor is "not enough"? Pain is all relative, some women experience more pain than others. It is the individual woman's right to determine how much pain she is in, NOT you. My argument still stands. "I listed other criterion as well, maybe you didn't see them, but to be a person, an individual must meet all of them, and neither fetuses nor infants meet all of the criteria." No, in order to be a person, only 1 definition be fulfilled. If any of the definitive terms of personhood are filled, than the individual in question is a person. Pain happens to be one of them, show me an example of a human that can feel pain that is not a person. Show me an example of a human that has Open-ended reasoning ability, and yet is still not a person. If a human is numb and can't feel pain, yet he still has Open-ended reasoning ability, than by your logic, that human is not a person. Your logic is twisted indeed. My argument still stands. " You didn't read the whole definition, there is more than feeling pain to being a person." There may be more to being a person, but that doesn't mean someone must possess all those other traits to be a person. If someone is numb and can't feel pain, yet has the ability to communicate with people, he is still a person, regardless of his inability to feel pain. The reverse is also true, if someone is able to feel pain, yet does not have The capacity to communicate in an open-ended way, than he is still a person. All it takes is one definitive term fulfilled. Once again, my argument still stands. "I just showed brain activity is insufficient." Brain activity is a key requirement to being a person as I have explained above. Since an embryo does not have brain activity it is impossible for it to be a person, since a infant does have brain activity, it is possible for it to be a person. And since an infant can feel pain it fulfills one of the definitive terms of personhood. Therefore a infant is a person, FLO, future life, whatever you want to call it, an infant a person with just as much rights as you, the same does not hold true with embryos, they can't feel pain, and they don't have brain activity. Therefore, unlike an infant, an embryo does not have any definitive terms of personhood fulfilled. So it's not a person. And the morality is not equivalent. "you said that pain is important. I'll say it again, life is more important, only huge amounts of pain outweigh life." Once again, pain is all relative. Some woman have less pain, some woman have more pain, and some woman have tremendous amounts of pain. It is up to the individual woman to determine how much pain she is in, NOT YOU "Although the bone marrow transplant is not something I desire, it is effectively killing the other man to refuse my marrow." If it were really true that letting someone die was just as immoral as actively killing someone, than everyone in the US that refused to donate bone marrow to patients that needed it should be charged with murder. Seeing as how my opponent favors the death penalty, then in order to make his position consistent, he must advocate the executions of anyone that did not donate their bone marrow to patients that needed it. It is quite clear to that my opponents position; that not donating bone marrow is equivalent to murder is ridiculous! I didn't donate any kidneys or bone marrow, should I be put on death row? Did my opponent donate bone marrow/kidneys to patients that needed it? No? let's execute him too! and while we're at it, let's take all the women that aborted their embryos and execute them as well. How should we go about practicing our righteous moral justice? Lethal injection? Hanging? Fire squad? Oh the possibilities!