Abortion is generally an immoral act

I will respond to my opponent's arguments and then make my closing statement.1. Regarding the chromosome analogy: I really don't know anyone who says humans are defined as anything that has two pairs of 23 chromosomes (46 chromosomes total). This is because there are certain ailments which would cause someone to be created with more or less than that amount of chromosomes, yet they would still be human because they were conceived by human parents. I really don't think the number of chromosomes is enough to define humanity. Under normal circumstances, a human would have 46 chromosomes, but in rare instances they would not. Humans do have the ability to reason and comprehend the universe around us. That's what makes us unique and different from animals. If you are going to exclude the unborn because they haven't reached that level of development yet, you must also exclude newborns and toddlers. The thing is, humans are rational moral agents with the natural inherent capacity to perform functions like reasoning and comprehending. Unless you are going to make the claim that the more intelligent someone is, the more valuable as a person they are, you cannot consider the unborn and newborns/toddlers as less valuable just because their brains haven't yet developed sufficiently. Identical twins are indeed two different people. Even if identical twins' DNA are exactly the same, their DNA expresses itself differently. [1] [2] For instance, identical twins have different sets of fingerprints, or one may get cancer while the other may not. However, as more research is being done, scientists are actually finding that identical twins may, in fact, have tiny differences in their DNA which are minor, but relatively common. [2]"It does not matter if the hair follicle cannot grow once it has been plucked. It is still a human. "It does matter. In order for something to be alive, it must grow. Hair follicles are not living. Humans are. Hair follicles are a part of the larger whole. There is a difference between something having human DNA and a growing, whole organism of the human species. I've never heard anyone call a hair follicle "a human" before. Cells are also a part of the whole human organism. They are not their own organism. "What? Which mother? If the birth mother decides to breast feed that has no bearing on whether or not the children can be cared for by the other mother. They still can hence my argument stands. "What other mother are you talking about? A child only has one biological mother. If a mother breastfeeds, the child is still dependent on the mother's body for survival. That's the point I was driving at. But let me ask you this: Artificial womb technology is being developed. Since the unborn depending upon the woman's body for survival is so crucial for denying her life rights, would you change your stance on abortion when artificial womb technology becomes a reality? At that point, any woman could theoretically have the unborn transplanted into her womb and continue caring for her. "That would not be moral for the reason that the fetus has passed that stage at which it is no longer dependent. It can survive without the umbilical cord hence it is not dependent. "Congratulations, you just made the environment argument. So apparently being connected or dependent upon the mother's body isn't the issue, what is the issue is that the child is still in the mother's womb. The unborn can be viable up to five months premature. If your reason is viability, then this would also exclude late-term abortions from being acceptable for any reason. Let me give you a scenario to illustrate my point: What if a couple decides a few days before delivering a healthy full-term baby girl, they really want a strapping young man. They decide to abort the girl, simply because she's a girl, and they'd rather their first born be a boy. While the girl is full-term, she is still dependent on the umbilical cord to survive. Should this procedure be legal? Almost everyone would agree it shouldn't. In fact, a 2003 Gallup poll showed that 84% of Americans oppose abortions in the third trimester [3] and most, if not all, pro-choicers I've talked have condemned sex-selection abortions.2. Now that I know my opponent's definition of sentience, my answer is pretty much the same as when I responded to the difference between the unborn and adult humans. Humans are rational moral agents with the natural inherent capacity to perform functions like reasoning and comprehending. The fact that the unborn and newborns/toddlers have not developed sufficiently yet is irrelevant. "Regarding women, blacks and Jews: They were considered property but they were still considered people. "That's simply false. Blacks were considered 3/5's of a person as a compromise on how many representatives the southern states got. They had more representatives because the Supreme Court ruled that not only would white people be counted, but all black people would be counted, they would divide that by 3/5's, and get more representatives. People back then either thought blacks were people, or they thought they were non-person humans, or sub-humans (or even animals. ) If everyone thought they were persons, slavery couldn't have been legal, because a person is a human being that's been granted basic rights. Regarding rape:Would a woman be jusitifed in killing her two-year-old son because her family is growing up in poverty, and the two-year-old would "obviously" rather be dead than live in poverty? Or perhaps because she could help feed the rest of her family if there was one less mouth to feed? "Adoption is not a possibility. Less than 1% of these types of pregnancies end in adoption. "This is probably because only 1% of abortions are done because of a pregnancy resulting from rape in the first place. [4] So of course these types of adoption will be low. However, just because most teens don't give their child up for adoption does not mean adoption isn't available. It is, and there are people willing to adopt newborns, but sadly, most teens that don't want to raise the child themselves abort the child instead of gifting it to somebody else. "What? I assume you mean a two year old child? If so the answer is no. "So let me now ask you this. Suppose you're at a public pool and you're the last to leave. You hear a splash and after investigating, you realize a toddler has just fallen in and is now drowning. There is no one else around. The toddler is now literally depending solely upon you for survival. Are you now responsible for saving this child? -Closing thoughts-I believe I have successfully proven the resolution. The unborn are most certainly living human beings, deserving of the same protection and right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the rest of us. If the unborn are living human beings, then killing them through abortion is an immoral act because they are innocent and have not committed a crime (certainly not one deserving of death). I look forward to reading the contender's rebuttal and closing thoughts. I thank the contender for debating this issue with me and I thank you, the reader, for reading and carefully considering the arguments presented here. [1] . http://www.livescience.com...[2] . http://www.livescience.com...;[3] . http://www.gallup.com...;[4] . http://www.guttmacher.org...;(p. 113)(I apologize if the links didn't translate correctly. You should be able to copy and paste them if the link is broken in some way. )