Abortion is prima facie morally wrong.

As this debate draws to a close, it's important to reflect on the current state of the arguments so far. Mongeese only has one argument that he believes demonstrates the truth of his position. It relies entirely on the notion that potentials can grant a being rights. While I find this particular argument to be absurd, I still intend to deal with it as best I can. As far as I can tell, it is the most frequent objection to the pro-choice position. As such, I intend to demonstrate one final time that potentials are irrelevant in determining rights. After that, I will show that the criteria I have laid out for personhood is what's relevant in determining whether something has a right to life. So, without further adieu, let's finish this. C1: It is not always wrong to kill an innocent human being. In his last round, my opponent claims that he has not made a false analogy in setting up his argument. But I've already shown that he has. He attempts to demonstrate the validity of the first premise of his argument by arguing that a person in a coma has a right to life because they will become conscious. However, as I've pointed out earlier, this is simply not the case. A person in a coma doesn't have a serious right to life because they can potentially become conscious. They have a right to life because their brain holds the basis of their memories, personality, and desires. Moreover, if my opponent is arguing that something has a right to life because it has human DNA, then he has explicitly contradicted himself. In his first round, he rightfully admits that someone with complete upper brain death does not have a serious right to life, despite the fact that they obviously have human DNA. But, in his second round, he seems to have forgotten that he ever conceded this point. And he goes on to write, "One's DNA, however, is fully formed at the moment of conception; this seems to be a better gateway to use for determining the right to life." Clearly, it's possible for something to have human DNA and to not possess a right to life. If there were a virus that could totally and utterly reconfigure a person's neurological makeup, then that virus would be responsible for killing the people that it infected (i.e. if a virus destroys the basis of someone's personality and memory, then the people that get infected by it are essentially dead, even if their body is still alive). As such, a person that got infected with this mind-altering virus would be morally similar to a fetus, insofar as they could become a new person at a later time. So, Mongeese, this illustration isn't going to get you anywhere. It's only significant if my opponent's other arguments are valid, which they aren't. C2: A fetus is not a person and thus cannot have a serious right to life. My opponent has tentatively agreed that his prior attempt to clarify my argument was inaccurate, and he admits my real argument is structurally valid. Thankfully, he goes on to say that he isn't going to deny the truth of (P2); however, he does seem to take issue with whether or not (P1) is valid. So, for quick reference, I will put up my previous argument one final time before I defend it any further. P1: Only a person has a right to life. P2: An entity is a person if it has (1) consciousness, (2) the capacity to reason, (3) self-motivated activity, (4) the capacity to communicate messages, and (5) the presence of self-concepts. P3: A fetus does not have properties (1-5). P4: Therefore, a fetus is not a person. (from 2 and 3) C: Therefore, a fetus does not have a right to life. (from 1 and 4) Simply put, I see no logical reason to deny the truth of (P1). Things either have a right to life because of their mental properties or because of their potential mental properties. It would simply be absurd to say that things like carrots and tomatoes have a right to life. And since there are no good reasons to suppose that potentialities are important, it follows that only a person (i.e. a being with specific mental properties) has a right to life. C3: An entity's potentials cannot grant that entity rights. Let me start this section by giving some context. My opponent's only attempt to show that potentialities are important has clearly failed. Consequently, everything I add to this section is merely supplementary to the cumulative case that I have been building. Nothing in this debate really swings on whether or not a sperm is a potential person. But this argument is still worth having at any rate. In his first and second rounds, my antagonist claims that sperms cells are not potential persons. Nevertheless, this is not accurate. I'm sorry Mongeese, saying the same thing twice in a row doesn't make it valid the second time. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions; however, everyone is not entitled to their own set of facts. A sperm cell has a passive potential to become a fully conscious person. This means that there is something that could be done to a sperm cell that would allow it to develop into a fully conscious person. Michael Tooley sums up this point with traditional clarity when he writes, "[C]onsider a spermatozoon and an unfertilized human egg cell. If these are brought together, and then placed in an appropriate environment, the eventual result will be an individual with the capacity for thought and self-consciousness. The combination of a spermatozoon and an unfertilized human egg cell (plus a uterus) therefore has the potentiality of giving rise to an individual with the capacity for thought and self-consciousness. Accordingly, if it were very seriously wrong to destroy such a potentiality, it would be very seriously wrong to destroy an unfertilized human egg cell." [1] Insofar as a sperm is placed in an appropriate environment (e.g. a uterus), it has a very real potential to fertilize an egg and bring about a person. Therefore, if it were true that potentials can grant an entity rights, we should incarcerate people for masturbating. Furthermore, I don't see the point of my opponent's analysis of the analogy I used with President Obama. Merely having respect as a result of potentially being something does not grant any form of rights. I'm really unsure what my opponent is attempting to say. Perhaps he is arguing that since a fetus might have the respect of some people, it is therefore endowed with a right to life. If there is a logical chain of thought connecting all of this, I fail to see it. ::Conclusion:: My opponent has not made a single point that hasn't been thoroughly and utterly refuted. I've logically demonstrated that one's DNA cannot be a sound basis for granting it a right to life. As I have pointed out (and as my antagonist has conceded), individuals with upper brain death don't have a right to life because they lack certain key mental characteristics, even though they are distinctly human. Additionally, an advanced and self-conscious species of extraterrestrial would also have a right to life, even though they lack human DNA. Thus, isn't it obvious that mental properties are essential in determining whether something is worthy of a right to life? Having conceded this battle, my antagonist suggests that an entity's potential to develop certain psychological characteristics can grant it a right to life. But, unfortunately for my opponent, his only attempt to do this is based on a false analogy. People in a coma don't have a right to life because they can become conscious; they have a right to life because their fully developed brain stores the basis of their personality, memory, and desires. Consequently, there is simply no reason to think that a fetus has a significant right to life. Thus, there are no good reasons to suppose that abortion is prima facie morally wrong. Sources: 1. http://spot.colorado.edu... (1. Active versus Passive Potentialities)