Abortion cannot be justified logically.

I'll admit, no one's ever bothered teaching me debate etiquette and besides, opening statements are rather pointless and in my opinion only really serve to waste time. So I'm just going to skip to the argument. So. Before I even start I want to go on a little tangent and point out a massive hole in your argument. For the purposes of this debate, you can completely ignore it, but I‘d really like to mention it to you. I noticed on your profile that you're against government assistance for the poor. Now, most abortions are done because the mother is too poor or otherwise can't take care of a child. So, if the whole country lived by your morals, she would be forced to have the child, and then, unless some private organization jumps in to help, she would have to raise it herself. Which would probably drive both her and the child into the ground, and since the child was raised in poverty and probably off begging in the streets or whatever, there's no way the child's life can be any better. (S)He wouldn't have gotten an education and is probably too busy living day to day and trying not to starve to get one once (s)he's old enough. And in this day and age, it's hard enough to get a job with a college degree, let alone as a high-school dropout. So you'd really be encouraging this self-perpetuating poverty. Social Darwinism. That's one thing that's always annoyed me about you libertarian pro-lifers. You care about a fetus until it's born. Then you don't want to finance any programs to help out the kid. A bit hypocritical, maybe? And for that matter you're probably going to make the argument that a church group or something will help the mother. But they'd probably deny help unless she accepts Jesus Christ as her savior or whatever you crazy kids are doing nowadays and denying people help based on religion is generally not a very good thing. So on to the arguments. The first is that if killing a fertilized egg is murder, then every fertility clinic in the country ought to be shut down, because those places are absolutely full of unused fetuses that they eventually just throw out. And these clinics are for people who wouldn't have children otherwise. So you'd be against allowing people who can't have kids otherwise starting a family. And if you want to go with a pro-life argument, the one fetus out of however many were killed (and I use ‘killed' liberally here, as you'll see later) wouldn't have survived if they hadn't gone to the clinic. So you're either arguing against life, or you're selectively pro-life. And isn't the whole basis of a pro-life argument is that all life is sacred, no matter what? So your argument, when taken and applied to the rest of the world, is somewhat contradictory. Just a point that I thought needed to be mentioned. And in response to your little opening statement, I give you my second argument. A fertilized egg is not alive. I tend to draw the line at the fetus being able to survive outside the womb. If it can reasonably be expected to survive on its own and not be brain-dead for the rest of its existence, then it's alive. But I don't think something like that is going to satisfy you. So I'm going to make the argument that a fetus is not alive until at least eleven weeks, a full week before it goes through a "magical transformation" and actually develops a somewhat functioning central nervous system. Without a central nervous system it can't feel pain. At this stage, it can't think either. And it's no use saying there's no real way to know that. If it hasn't got a brain, then it's physically impossible for it to think. End of story. I mean, at this point, it's just a lump of cells and has all the mental capacity of the average houseplant. And 88.2% of all abortions are done before twelve weeks, the week they actually do get a central nervous system. So 88.2% of abortions don't really kill anything, for the record. And it seems as if the rest of your arguments hinge on a fetus being a person, which I have already disproved. But I'll mix it up and throw in some other arguments as well. About this "right to choose". You're the one quibbling about what people can and cannot choose. The general rule is that you can choose whatever you like, as long as you're not violating any laws. And last time I checked, abortions weren't illegal, nor should they be because, as I stated above, fetuses are not alive. What you're really doing by writing that paragraph is downplaying the whole "what is or isn't life" argument, which is sad because it's what your argument really has to boil down to, anyway. Actually, if you look at your entire argument, it's really more of the same fare. I mean, infanticide?! Not that I'm trying to insult you, emotions are about the only platform pro-lifers have to stand on. And again a fetus does not have constitutional rights because it is not a person. Plain and simple. But I'd say that the right to an abortion falls under the right to pursuit of happiness. (Oh! Curveball! I bet you thought I was going to stick to the Constitution!) And for the record, this "right to choose" you mention in the last line doesn't cover medical abortions or abortions for rape victims, does it? What would you do in those cases? And since your first statement is about justifications for abortion, here are a few of them: 1. Health. If the mother's sick and carrying the child to term may kill her (or possibly both of them), which life is really more important? 2. Rape. That one's simple. Is it fair or legal for someone to be forced to carry a child they never wanted to term? I didn't think so. Besides, if you did force them to, you run into the same problems I mention in the third reason. People who aren't emotionally ready for kids. 3. Situation. Now this is the gray area. But think of it this way: having an abortion is not an easy decision to make by any stretch of the imagination. So if someone chooses to have one, they probably have a pretty good reason. And forcing someone to raise a child they never wanted in the first place is bad for all parties involved. Having a child is a life-altering experience. The mother will likely drop out of school and ruin her future to raise it. The child will be raised by someone who never wanted it, and isn't emotionally ready for that kind of commitment. It will probably be raised in an extremely unstable one-parent household. Not a good environment to grow up in, obviously. And don't suggest adopting it out, because right now there are literally thousands of kids rotting in abusive foster homes all over this country and adding more unwanted children to the mix is only going to make things worse. I mean, what's really worse, living a life like that or not living at all? It's easy to be sentimental and say that life is important, no matter what. But actually take some time to consider the issue. Kids in unstable families or in foster homes usually end up maladjusted and miserable for the rest of their lives, and end up doing the same things when they reach their parents' age, perpetuating the cycle. And it's not like I'm suggesting we kill babies, I want to get rid of them before they even exist.