Abortion Should Be Legal

Introduction: In the previous round my opponent changed the format so that rather than being based around individual arguments, it is simply string of quotations. As a result, I will change to mimic this style and avoid confusing. However, I would advise against doing this in the future because it makes it more confusing for voters who may wish to refer back to pints alluded to in previous rounds. "What? Please explain." This comment was made in response to my claim that "all humans should not be considered people." I clearly outlined this stance in Round 2, the first debating round, under argument one. I think it is clear enough not to require additional explanation. "This argument is invalid for this reason: An unborn baby is most certainly going to be born, you are on the other hand, are not very likely to be a presidential candidate. And unborn baby has a 99% chance of being born, while you might have a .00001 chance of being elected president. Therefore the unborn baby should have rights." Your examples vary only in degree, not in principle. The exact probability of something happening does not matter. The point is that it is a future event that has not yet happened. A child does not have the right to vote because it may someday have the right to vote. A fetus does not have the right to live just because it might gain that right at some point in the future. In fact, even if it was somehow a complete metaphysical certainty that the fetus would be born, it would STILL not have the right to life before being a person. "This argument is invalid because this is a hypothetical argument. We do not know that the child will be killed, therefore we must assume that the child will live (because the majority do). If the child will live, then we should give it the rights of a child." No, this argument is not hypothetical at all. Again, I am not talking about what the probability is. I am talking about the fact that we don't give it the rights of a child on the basis that it will someday be a child. What it will be doesn't matter because right now the fetus is not a person. Whether or not the child actually is killed is irrelevant. "A human egg has no rights because it is in step one... once the egg becomes a fetus, it is on its way to becoming human. Like with your presidential example, once the president is on his way to becoming president, (he is being inaugurated) then he should be given the rights of the president." This is all completely arbitrary. How do you know the egg is step one? Why is the oogonium (the diploid cell that produces the egg through oogenesis) not step one? Does the primary oocyte count as an egg, can it be step one? Why is the ovum step one? The ovum is further on its way to becoming a human than the oogonium. These questions, of course, are irrelevant. The designations that my opponent is trying to make are completely arbitrary. The only difference between a fetus and a gamete is that the fetus has diploid DNA from two individuals instead of haploid DNA from one individual. There are absolutely no other significant differences. Either has the potential to develop into a human given the right circumstances, but both can become a human ONLY if the circumstances are acceptable. The gamete must be fertilized, the fetus must be kept in an acceptable environment, etc. This assumption seems to be based off the fallacy that conception is the turning point in development. However, this is a completely arbitrary point to choose. The fact still remains that neither the fetus nor the gamete has the qualities of a person and this neither should be given the rights of a person. The distinctions made between the two in terms of potentiality are completely arbitrary. Furthermore, the presidential analogy is not applicable. Once the President is inaugurated, he IS President. What your logic suggests is that the President Elect should have the full powers of the presidency immediately since his chances of becoming President in the future meet some arbitrary and irrelevant cutoff. "Conclusion: Once a fetus is on its way to becoming a human is when it [should] gain rights. The if the mother was too careless to use some form of birth control that's her fault. Ask yourself this: Which would you rather have, a baby with no chance to live, or a baby that had a chance to live but couldn't because it was killed. Even both will not live, it is much more cruel to kill the baby that had the chance." This demonstrates the crux of the flaw in these argument. It suffers from two huge problems: what something will be in the future has no bearing on its current status and there is no way to define what is on it's way to being human. The fact that birth control is available does not have anything to do with to morality of killing an undeveloped human. This is a common red herring in such arguments. There could be no birth control or a birth control that worked 100% of the time. The morality of killing fetuses is unaffected. Furthermore, it is not cruel to kill the fetus because it does not even possess the desire to live. It's brain is hardly so developed as to have an concept of life or death. Conclusion: I hope voters will be able to understand what I mean to say about the argument of potentiality. The future value of something does not affect it's current value. It might be wise to keep a 10 dollar stock that will likely rise to 40 dollars, but that does not mean the 10 dollar stock can be sold for 40 dollars prior to the increase in value. Likewise, it may be pragmatically better to keep a fetus because it will become a person, but while a fetus it is not yet a person and should not be treated as such. Nowhere in either of the two rounds has my opponent contested that the fetus is not a person. I would consider it unsporting to raise this argument in the final round when I can no longer response after having withheld it thus far. We can agree that a fetus is not presently a person. I feel I have adequately demonstrated that it's potential future status of personhood does not have any effect on its present value and subsequently the principle of abortion is upheld as morally sound. Much of the opposition to abortion, I think, comes from negative social views of women. It is rarely the crux of the argument, but seldom is their a pro-life debate without a reference to whether the mother should have been using birth control or having sex at all. The decisions of the father, of course, not not brought into question as quickly. A society in which a promiscuous woman is called a "slut" and a promiscuous man is hailed as a hero is unlikely to produce positive views toward abortion. The disdain for female sexuality is an undeniably strong factor. Actual arguments concerning the rights of the fetus, as in this case, are rarely upheld successfully. They are based on logically irrational premises which survive only due to the readers prejudices. The fetus does not have rights. The argument of potentiality is not applicable to any situation, it does not work logically. It has repeated been formally disproved and is not accepted. Joel Feinberg addressed this issue in 1984 and his argument has been accepted by philosophical professors since then. Outside of poorly informed banter there is little argument over whether or not the argument of potentiality proves abortion is immoral. It doesn't, because it doesn't prove anything, because it doesn't work logically. Plain and simple. The argument of potentiality is my opponent's only argument. That argument fails. I am sorry for the long winded, repetitious round. I do not want to lose this debate because voters do not understand this concept, which for those lacking any experience judging philosophy may be very complex.