Resolved: Unwanted Pregnancy Abortions are unjust and should be banned in the US.

>>Ok, the debate comes down to this: Is the fetus alive? No, no it doesn't. My entire objection was personhood I made a point of spelling out that a fetus is alive... repeatedly. However alive doesn't mean 'has rights'. Rights come with responsibility, with being a part of society, with reasoning to your own ends, with being a citizen of the world, of BEing a human, sentient existence in a moral landscape filled with other sentient existers. >>He says the life is not the only characteristic of being alive. No. I said that life isn't the only criteria for having rights, if it were plants would have rights. Life is the only criteria for being alive. -------------------------------------------- Further had I not repeatedly explained this concept in my first and second arguments you would still not be permitted to "drop that attack". Even had I not spelled it out in every argument the objection that "fetuses aren't people" is sufficient to establish that your argument does not meet the burden of proof. Your argument doesn't stand. I don't care to refute the sources, even though I find their names repeatedly plastered on many pro-life site across the internet (probably a good way to get a phone call from a pro-life senator). Rather, my own scientific knowledge suffices to say that they are wrong. Implantation is not the demarcation point between life and non-life. Prior to implantation the zygote is alive, the ovum, the sperm... there's no non-life in the process anywhere in recorded history. >>He keeps on saying that he agrees the fetus/embryo is alive. YOU CAN AFFIRM RIGHT HERE, SINCE HE NEVER CLAIMS ANY OTHER WAY TO DETERMINE LIFE. I repeatedly stated that a fetus/embryo is alive. I have maintained this position from the first round to this round. My entire argument is predicated on the point that life is not the sole criteria needed to say something is a person or is sentient or has rights. >>He essentially agrees with my whole case. The only thing I disagreed with is the unstated problem. Fetuses aren't people. This isn't to say that fetuses aren't alive but rather to say that they aren't a living breathing thinking knowing feeling existing sentient human being. >>Ok, he essentially argues that living doesn't give you rights. He believes that rights come when you are "born". This marks the first time you've even grasped my argument. Living doesn't equate to "has rights". >>This is completely false. By him agreeing that its living, then we need to give him/her right to life. My opponent misses one key issues and part of what encompasses the right to life. No. I agree that plants are alive and do not need to give it rights. I agree that a cow is living and has no rights. >>The right to life is: The right to a life, right to be BORN, the right o not have your life shortened, and the right to die naturally. You have no right to be born. I have a right to life. However I have no right to be born. I was born. I'm thankful to my mother for putting up with me then and now, however you're simply trying to define it into existence. A fetus doesn't have rights. You needed to have established that at some point. >>For this reason, you can drop my opponents whole argument on the fact the right to life includes the right to be born. No it doesn't. That has been my entire point. >>Genocide is a systematic extermination, abortion is just that. Genocide is systematic against a race, ethnicity or nationality and fetuses are neither people nor people of a specific race, abortion, or nationality. My primary objection: fetus != people takes primacy in this instance. I only point out your flawed use of inflammatory language for the sake of accuracy. -------------------------------------------- >>1) Since murder is the taking away of life, and abortion does this, then abortion is murder. My opponent agrees to the taking away of life. A fetus isn't a person. Murder violates the right to life, it doesn't "take it away". >>2) Abortion prevents the right to be born, a sub-sect of the right to life. Therefore, it's murder. There is no such right. You are pulling things out of your a-s-s. >>3) Since my opponent agreed with my VS, I have made a profound objection to your entire set of arguments. Fetuses aren't people. This objection alone shows that every argument you tried is unsound. I made a point to concede such obvious points as "murdering people is wrong" and "the state allowing you to be murdered is wrong" simply to get those out of the picture and allow people to focus on the core objection: fetuses aren't people. -------------------------------------------- My opponent never actually addressed my argument. He constantly focused on points which were not in contention and probably still thinks I somehow view fetuses as "not alive" when I was very clear about my position. Further, he never addressed my point that there is a woman involved in this issue who does have rights. That ultimately we are talking about her and her rights. She is the important part of this and it is her rights we are respecting by allowing her to make medical and life decisions about her rights. Fetuses aren't people. To succeed my opponent needed to have established that fetuses are people and have rights. He insisted that proving that they were alive sufficed as evidence that they have rights; it is not. His only argument concerning rights was that of the social contract. The moral theory establishes that rights are possessed by all peoples and the rights of the government are given by the people by their consent to be governed. By this, and most other theories, fetuses do not have rights as they are neither people nor consenting to anything. They simply do not fit into the equation. The mother however, fits into the equation, and is, as far as rights are concerned, our primary concern.