Abortion should be illegal

After your acceptance I went over and glanced at your profile and saw a couple of the other debates you are currently engaged in and I was pleased to see you arguing in favor of Android over iOS. I too prefer Android. Now for the debate, I will start by rebutting your first points in order and then I will rebut your rebuttals and prove that my arguments still stand. On your first point you claim that only fetuses in their third trimester feel pain, though doctor say they can feel it at 20 weeks which is about halfway through the second trimester. Regardless though, one's ability to feel pain does not confer personhood or human rights. If someone were to kill someone else while they were on painkillers that doesn't make the murder more moral. There are people born with conditions that do not allow them to feel pain. Does that mean that murdering them is less immoral? Of course not. Additionally third trimester abortions are not federally illegal and 11 states don't have state laws preventing it. Next, you state that they cannot choose for themselves whether or not they want to be killed so it should be the mother's decision. Technically according to consent laws in the US a child could be killed at any point the mother chooses after birth until they are 18 and have a legal right to make decisions for themselves under this logic. This logic also supports elective suicide or euthanasia because it allows the mother (as proxy for the embryo) to decide whether or not the person/embryo wants to be killed. Your third argument is that unborn babies aren't intelligent enough (though you fail to define how intelligent one would need to be) to be granted human rights. Though in your argument you say it takes a year for a baby to understand that objects out of sight exists. I have a 1 year old sister and she understood this before that time but regardless under this logic killing a one year-old should be acceptable because they didn't develop certain cognitive functions as quickly as chickens. Most people who eat chicken eggs eat them unfertilized which do not meat the criteria for life. Some eat fertilized eggs (mostly in other countries) and although I wouldn't because it seems gross, I don't believe chickens deserve human rights. There are studies show pigs have better memories than 3 year-olds should mother be able to kill 3 year-olds for convenience? Should there be a litmus test to determine who is worthy of human rights? Should the severely mentally ill not be considered sub-human because they lack sufficient cognitive brain function? The answers to all these questions are no. Intelligence does not confer personhood and should not be a prerequisite to human rights. Now to your rebuttals, you seek to refute my definition of human by saying bananas and apes have similar DNA to that of humans. Similar does not equal same. If a scientist finds ape tissue he can test it and determine that it is ape, and if the scientist find human tissue he can test it and determine that it is human. There is an objective scientific definition of what DNA is human and what isn't. Next you claim an embryo is not an individual because it depends on the mother for survival. This is similar to your third argument because it too can be applied to infants, toddlers, and even children. Babies depend on mothers well after birth for food, warmth, and various other things that are necessary for life. Mentally and physically handicapped individual can sometimes depend on these things from another for their whole lives. An embryo needs a mother live just as a baby post-birth still needs a parent to live. Just because someone is dependent on someone else does not mean they are not individual human beings deserving of human rights. Therefore it is not just between the mother and doctor because it is not the woman's body. Dependency on the mother's body does not equal part of the mother's body. I personally don't know/haven't considered the governments role in requiring pregnant women to not drink alcohol while pregnant but I will say that it does not have the same inherent intent to kill or harm the fetus. It is certainly still wrong though, just as it is wrong for parents who smoke to expose their children to second-hand smoke which can also cause health problems and even death. Lastly, I would like to briefly reiterate my overall argument. Scientific fact dictates that upon conception, a zygote is human life with human DNA. It meets all the criteria of a living organism and contains genetic proof of its humanity. The embryo/ fetus/zygote is dependent on the mother just as children are dependent on their mother for survival but both the unborn and born child have the qualifications of a living organism on their own. Therefore to terminate pregnancy is to destroy an individual human life. This makes abortion is murder. Pregnant women should not have the right to murder another individual because their existence makes life harder for her. It is not for individuals to decide what is and isn't a human being based on subjective feeling or convenience. There is an objective, factual, scientific definition for a human individual and the government ought to guarantee constitutional/human rights to all who fall under that definition. One way the government ought to be ensuring this is through making the intentional termination of a viable pregnancy (abortion) illegal and punishable as any other form of murder. Thanks for the debate! I look forward to hearing your next response. I have never thought about the role of government as far as second hand smoke and drinking while pregnant it seems like it could lead to a slippery slope argument where the government determines what is and isn't healthy for individuals which I am opposed to but it is interesting. Have a good one debatojenvo! :)