Most Abortion is Murder

1 Human NamesMy distinction of using the name to begin human life can work if you consider "human" vs "human life". A human corpse is human, since it still has 46 chromosomes (you can get DNA from hair and other dead cells), but it's not "human life". Interestingly a human corpse still has living cells [1]. So if I refine my definition of human life, incorporating pro's, then I could propose "human life" is:A - a collection of living cells with 46 chromosomes and human DNAB - an organism with a human nameC - an organism with developed or undeveloped potential for consciousness and sentienceIf a collection of atoms has all 3 of these characteristics, then I would consider it "human life". Refining my definition like this deals with the issue of a fish named Larry, because Larry the fish does not meet all 3 of these criteria. And abortion of an unnamed fetus would not be considered murder under this definition.What about feral children or nameless orphans? I suppose orphans could name each other if they wanted. Humans are social creatures and generally come in packs, so there's always another human around to name you. As for the feral child, it's a sad reality no doubt, and opens up a troubling philosophy. If no one knows about the feral child, is it "human life"? No one knows whether the feral child exists or not, it's merely a possibility. It's sort of like "if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?". I could adjust my definition, by adding on "D - is possibly a feral child", but that topic seems like it's very tangential to "is abortion murder?" so I won't get into feral children. If it troubles you, then add D to the above criteria.So the above 3 criteria (plus more if you wish) I will use for the definition of "human life". Picking Apart Pro's DefinitionI will humbly attempt to pick apart pro's definition.Since a corpse can have living cells with DNA in them, this part of pro's definition "A collection of living cells containing all 46 human chromosomes and complete human DNA" is not enough to define a human life. So the best definition for human life will be either what my opponent or I tack on to that statement.For this part of the definition, "if kept alive and healthy, will eventually develop into a mature human", the unavoidablee question is "what is maturity?". What about the morbid case when a baby develops cancer? I'm not sure what age would be considered the point for "maturity", but whatever age it is it's possible for terminal cancer to develop before that point. Terminal cancer could develop, despite all efforts to keep a baby alive and healthy. It might be argued "well the baby clearly wasn't alive and healthy if it got cancer". Cancer risk can be reduced but it can't be eliminated [2] so a baby could be kept alive and healthy and still fail to mature. A baby with terminal cancer will not develop into a mature human; this is just one example of when the above statement is false.The phrase "capable of reproducing with other humans" is not enough to define human life, because suppose the baby makes it to maturity but is infertile. This human life doesn't fit this criteria.So to summarize, assume there are 3 people, Albert, Bill and Charles. Albert is dead. Bill is a 6 month old baby who developed terminal cancer and won't make it past age 1. Charles is infertile. None of these people satisfy all of the criteria in pro's definition of being "alive and human". Yet Bill and Charles satisfy all 3 of my criteria above, as one would intuit. If Bill or Charles were arguing for their human rights, they would want to use my definition of "human life", not pro's.Human ConsciousnessI think I fixed all the issues by saying "human life" doesn't have to be conscious, but has the potential to be conscious. For the sake of completion assume a baby enters a coma, on the day it is born, before it gains consciousness and memory. You could keep it on life support until came out of the coma, in which case it would eventually develop consciousness.For the man who woke up at a coma at age 40, with no memory of his previous life, I'd argue he's living his second life. The atoms that make up your current consciousness and memories used to make up other peoples' memories and consciousness. It's the same thing with this 40 year old man waking up with amnesia, more or less. I've never heard of anything like this actually happening before though, so it's pure philosophy as far as I am aware.ConclusionAlbert, Bill, and Charles are considered "human life" under my criteria, but not under pro's criteria. If you use their definition, killing Bill or Charles wouldn't be considered murder; if you used my definition it would be. Additionally, with my definition, not all abortion is murder.I thank sengejri for an interesting and thought-provoking debate.[1] http : // www (dot) huffingtonpost (dot) com/2012/06/13/stem-cells-corpses_n_1592935 (dot) html[2] http : // www (dot)cancerresearchuk (dot) org/cancer-info/healthyliving/introducingcancerprevention/can-cancer-be-prevented