Abortion is wrong

R3. Rebuttals"The majority cases of abortion do not matter because we are just arguing whether or not an embryo is a person. The time when most people get abortions says nothing about whether a zygote deserves protection or not." This is incorrect. The statistics "matter" because they specify whether what is being aborted is a cell, cells, or indeed a fetus. There are distinctions to be made with all three. Pro's original contention was that "persons" are aborted, but this has been proved wrong by the statistics and additional explanations that I've provided. If the majority of abortions occurred after the first trimester or during the mid-late fetal stage of pregnancy, Pro's argument may have some validity, but they do not. Thus, there is no validity to the argument that Pro has presented."You're saying "most people get abortions in the first trimester" and trying to relate that to "therefore a zygote is not a person." Those two claims are not related, if you want to prove an embryo is not a person then you can do that on its own without bringing in the stats."The two claims are related by Pro's contention that persons are aborted. Due to the fact that it is generally the zygote or embryo that is aborted, this is not the case. A cell or small collection of subdivided cells are not persons. An example of this can be found in the imagery that I included in R.2. (see link 3). A zygote is a cell, whereas a person is a living human. Likewise, an embryo (collection of cells) is also not a human and therefore not a person."If most people got abortions in the second or third trimester would that all of a sudden make an embryo a person?" Again, this is a non sequitur. The embryo becomes a fetus in the second trimester. "A newborn baby also consists of "developing cells," like an embryo, as you said, are newborns not people?" A newborn infant is not a developing cell or developing cells, it is a human who can survive independently (I.e, without living in its mother's womb). "You may have outlined the criteria for personhood but I refuted those criteria."Pro has not refuted any criteria. The definition of a person is: "a human being regarded as an individual."A zygote, an embryo and an early-stage fetus are not regarded as "individuals" because they do not fulfill the criteria, which is (first and foremost) to have been born. "You said a person has to be sentient/conscious, be able to live on its own, and be born already. Well if someone is sleeping they are not conscious, but they're still people."Sentience was introduced to the topic when Pro attempted to argue for similarities between a zygote, an embryo and a human. The former do not have sentience, whereas a human does. Pro is also incorrect in his assertion that we are not conscious whilst we sleep, as we are. It is merely an altered state of consciousness. However, this is not a debate on our levels of consciousness whilst we sleep, but as to whether abortion is "wrong". Pro's argument for abortion being wrong was that what is aborted is a person, which it is not. Thus, we can conclude that it is not wrong. This reflects back to my point regarding the ethics of cell removal. The fact is that on a biological basis, a zygote or an embryo are not persons -- they are cell(s). "If somebody needs kidney dialysis they cannot live on their own, they're still people." Indeed. They are not a zygote or an embryo or a fetus during its early stages, they are "people". Regardless of whether they require medical assistance or not, they can still live independently of their mother. However, a zygote, an embryo or fetus cannot. They are biologically dependant on the female carrying them, as they cannot survive or develop without her. This is primarily why the female is granted medical autonomy with regard to abortion."If I walk out of this room, would I stop being a person?" No. This is because you have been born and have already reached personhood. "Like what exactly makes you not a person if you're inside somebody else?"If you are a cell or small collection of cells, then clearly, you are not a person. Example: let's assume that you were in a biology class and you were presented with a human zygote and a person. You would immediately be able to differentiate between this zygote and person, because the zygote would be one cell (see picture in R.2), whereas the person would be a fully-developed and functioning human being. The person can see, hear, smell, touch, taste, think, talk, move, etc. whereas the cell would be inanimate and without any capacity for the above-mentioned senses and abilities."So a baby on life support cannot live independently and is not fully-developed, is it not a person?"A newborn infant receiving life support is able to live without existing within its mother womb. Thus, its life is independent of its mother's."Just because CIP is rare, that doesn't mean people afflicted by it are not people." Where did I claim that (the 20) people who have ever been diagnosed with CIP are not "people"? In fact, I said: "regardless of their inability to feel physical pain, they are still sentient beings". They are indeed people who are alive and conscious."You claim that the difference between you and an embryo is that you are sentient, fully-developed, and can survive independently. By that logic, a newborn baby on life support is not a person because they are not capable of thought, as you admit, they are not fully-developed, and they cannot survive independently."The difference between a newborn infant and a zygote, an embryo or an early-stage fetus is that the former can survive without the internal support of its mother. "You say babies will "gradually begin to develop thought" but you can say that about an embryo too; given enough time, an embryo will become a thinking being."An embryo cannot develop thought. Only a person who has been born can achieve thought, because you need to be "alive" and functioning in order to think. An embryo, when removed from its biological environment, will not develop into a fetus and will thus not develop into a human being -- which is what you "need" to be in order to think. A newborn infant, when taken out of its environment, will be able to develop thought as it has reached the stage necessary to survive without its mother's body and be brought into this world. Its life begins at this point."You keep trying to bring the frequency of abortions in this argument. Let's say nobody gets an abortion ever again, you could still argue whether or not zygotes are people, and if every single person got an abortion, you can still have that personhood debate. So the frequency of something happening to an entity does not determine if that entity is a person or not, do you understand?"I have not once referenced the frequency of abortions. If I had referenced their frequency, I would've included statistics relating to how many abortions are performed each year, which I have not done. I have only referenced when it is in a pregnancy that abortions occur -- not how many times they occur. Here, I will highlight again why it is important that we define when they take place and at what stage during the pregnancy:Pro originally stated in R.1: "they're still people."To which I responded in R.1: "it is usually the zygote or embryo that is aborted, as opposed to the fetus." Thus, I have shown that the cell(s) being aborted are indeed only cells, and not persons. This argument, though, does not relate to the actual frequency of abortions -- this is something that only Pro has referenced -- likely because he is unable to adequately comprehend my arguments.