Abortion is wrong

R.4 Rebuttals:"So this is your argument: "embryos are not humans," right? You keep saying that as if it is a premise we agree on, but we don't, that is what this debate is about."As to whether Pro agrees with this premise is irrelevant. The point is that it is based on fact. For example, an embryo is defined as: "a thing at a rudimentary stage that shows potential for development." A human, however, has already developed all the necessary organs and fulfilled the biological criteria that is required to be a "human". An embryo cannot be a human, hence why it is only defined as a "thing at a rudimentary stage that shows potential for development." The agreement of Pro to this is not needed, as it is a statement of fact."You are begging the question here. I have refuted all of your criteria for a person (sentience, full development, living independently of someone else) you just clearly have not read them."Pro hasn't refuted any criteria. I will remind Pro what the "criteria" actually are: That in order to be a person, you need to a.) not be one single cell, and b.) not be a small collection of cells. Thus, you need to have passed the zygote-embryo stage of your mother's pregnancy to be a person. Pro is yet to refute my argument on living independently, as he has not shown how a zygote or an embryo can live without the female carrying them. I will ask Pro one simple question: Can a zygote or an embryo survive without living in the mother's womb?If his answer to this question is "no" (which would be the correct answer), then he will have conceded the "independent living" argument. "If somebody is in a coma, they cannot respond to stimuli and they cannot think, and by your logic somebody who cannot feel or think is not a person, but that logic would not apply to a comatose person, right?"A state of comatose is a not natural, so it does not negate my argument on consciousness. Humans are born with the ability to think and thus achieve sentience. In scenarios in which this ability isn't fully realized or is incapacitated, they are still persons, because they have been born. An individual in a coma has all the necessary tools to think and feel (the issue is that these tools have been damaged and have thus lost, either temporally or permanently, their capacity to function). A zygote and embryo do not have all the necessary tools for thinking and feeling because they are only cell(s). They have never been able to experience thought or emotion, which is to the contrary of a person in a coma. "After that you say, "but a comatose person has already been born and is fully-developed," but again, a kid is not fully-developed, but kids are still people." Children are people because they exist within this world as individuals, as opposed to existing in their mother's womb as non-individuals, or rather "cell(s)". A child, as with any other human, will have its own distinguishable features and characteristics. A zygote and an embryo has no distinguishable features or characteristics (that separate it from other zygotic or embryonic cells). It will only begin to develop its genetic identity when it reaches mid-term fetal stage, by which point, abortions generally do not occur."You have not described how passing the birth canal makes somebody a person. Not being able to live independently of someone else doesn't mean you are not a person (back to the conjoined twins example)."Rather simply, it makes someone a person because that is when they have left the environment they've developed in for (what should be) nine months. Upon this, they are granted legal rights -- as persons. "What you are doing, is not even trying to understand my argument, and that means you are not honest about debating this. Because at least I try and understand where you're coming from, that's why I ask for clarification. You're purposely making your arguments as long and wordy as possible so I won't have time to refute them all. You need to be succinct if you actually want to have an honest debate."The debate pertains to this question: is abortion wrong? In showing that it is either a cell or cells that are aborted, not a "person", I have demonstrated that it is not wrong. This argument stands as Pro's premise was that abortion is "wrong" because it is persons who are aborted -- which is incorrect. They are not aborted, thus, it cannot be wrong."The statistics do not prove anything "wrong" because my claim that embryos are people has not been proven wrong by you." An embryo is a small collection of cells, a "person" is: "a human being regarded as an individual." Therefore, Pro's assertion that an embryo is a person is very easily shown to be erroneous. To further highlight how he is incorrect, though, I will include an additional definition of "person": "A person is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility."Pro may attempt to argue that an infant or a child cannot fulfil any of the above criteria, but as they have brains that will develop (without the "life-support" which is essentially their mother's womb), they will. A child, even if it is taken away from its mother, will continue to grow and develop without her. A zygote and an embryo cannot achieve this.