Abortion

Let me start by welcoming to this site, lighth0us3. I hope that you enjoy yourself here and that you have a great time debating. Let me also offer you a friendly word of advice for future debates - it is standard practice to have a resolution as the title of the debate so that everyone knows exactly what it's about, and what the participants are arguing. So for example, a suitable resolution for this debate might be: 'Abortion should not be legalised.' As I'm sure you can see, this tells us exactly what the debate is, whereas simply saying 'abortion' tells us nothing - although to be fair, it's usually fairly obvious what an abortion debate is going to be about! Anyway, on with the actual debate. I would begin by saying that I agree with your very last sentence. Abortion is sad. It's incredibly sad. I don't think that any woman who has one goes into it lightly, and I would agree that in an ideal world, it would never happen. In an ideal world, women would only fall pregnant when they're ready to have a child. But we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a flawed world, an imperfect world, where mistakes happen and bad choices are made. And I do believe that there are times when a woman does have the moral right to terminate her own pregnancy. So let me start by challenging one of your central claims. I do not agree that all abortion is murder. By your own definition, murder is defined as the killing of another human being; but I don't agree that all fetuses are human beings. I'd be happy to accept that an 8 month old fetus is a human being, for instance, but I would think it absurd to claim that an egg, ten seconds after fertilisation, is a human being. Yes, if left alone it will eventually develop into one, but there is an initial period of time where the entity within the woman's womb is not a human being; and so, during this time, I submit that the woman, who has the right of control over her own body, has every right to terminate the pregnancy if she so wishes. And so I believe abortion should be legal during this period of time. Now, in your second point, you go on to make a very strong claim, namely that "all women who have abortions are cowards, ... too afraid to fix what they have caused upon themselves." My first point would be that you are on very dangerous ground to presume to know the mindset of every single woman who has an abortion. Are some simply scared, in the way that you allege? Quite possibly. But it seems to me that this claim seems to be formed out of emotional prejudice rather than rational fact, based on evidence. Have you not considered the possibility that some women might choose to have an abortion, not because they're scared, but simply because they've come to the rational decision, based on their own individual life circumstances, that they do not wish to have a baby? Of course, to that you might well say 'Tough! They should have thought about that before they got pregnant.' But not all pregnancies are deliberate. No method of contraception is 100% effective. Furthermore, there is the obvious counterexample of those women who fall pregnant as a result of rape. Such women, obviously, do not plan their pregnancies. Are you saying that all women in this situation should be forced to bear their rapist's child? Of course, maybe you think that the following sentence: 'I believe that every human being, no matter how SMALL, deserve a fair chance in life to live' still holds, even in that terrible situation. I hope you don't, but if you do, I would ask if you have ever considered just how incredibly wasteful the human reproductive system actually is. During your life, your body will produce around 400 eggs, the vast majority of which will come to nothing. Furthermore, upon ejaculation, the human male produces millions upon millions of sperm, of which only one can fertilise an egg - dooming the rest to oblivion. Each of those sperm, had they been the one to fertilise the egg, would have produced a different human being. Think of all the potential millions of people who could have been born instead of you. Consider how all those millions will, nevertheless, never get to see, smell, taste, hear or touch. This is the biological reality of our reproductive system. And I see no reason to condemn those women who choose to add one more to the pile.