Abortion should be illegal ( Tournament )

I'm sorry for the late reply. I'm sure Con is busy as well.CONFirstly, the idea that a feotus is a human being. The idea of what constitutes something as being alive has been debated a lot, but there are a few problems with my opponent's definition and parameters of life. I did a look at the authors other works, and compare them to my own. The definition that is taught in the UK is MRS GREN[1]. This definition avoids the use of "ability to", because "ability to" refers to a potential to do something. This is in contrast to an actuality. The difference is important: a foetus does not have the ability to reproduce other foetuses.So you would agree to this?P1 Anything that can't make babies is deadP2 Anything dead can't be HumanC1 Children and elderly are not alive, and therefore not humanPlease correct me.However, my opponent makes a more deadly assumption: that 'alive' means the same as 'human'. If so, then I have a serious bone to pick with antibiotics, chemotherapy and surgery. This is my opponent's argument in a syllogism:P1 - foetuses are aliveP2 - foetuses are humanC - Therefore killing a foetus is murderI thought this won't be a problem.We're talking about fetuses being human. We're not talking about pigs or anything. I can't see what Con used to base this statement.... For something to be a 'person', it should be a morally responsible agent.I disagree. For it being simply a human, our only link to it being of the same species is irrelevant, even 'speicesist'.Is it a human? For it to be a person, there are more important questions to ask. Say aliens came to the planet on friday, and had a moral sense. Does this make them as good as the cow, simply to eat?This is irrelevant. Con is hinting that Person=Human="More then smart" aliens. If so aliens are humans. Please clear up. What makes a person is the moral sense. Captain Spock may not be a human, but - if he was alive - he'd be classed as a person. Mary Anne Warren, a leader in this field, came up with a solution to class something as requirements to being a moral person. That does not make you human. C. Spock is not human for the same reason I'm not a cat. Consciousness and the ability to feel pain The ability to reason. The ability to act in ways that go beyond instinct -- to have motives and goals. The capacity for complex communication. Having a sense of self. She has stated that for something to be classed as a human being, it must have a majority of these characteristics.Back to the alien thing. Could it be possible that a alein can have these traits? But it is not human. A Fetus can be said to at least have 4 of those.This means that there must be a stage where they can be able to communicate. This is the only characteristic of which a foetus may have, however I do not believe that even babies have the capacity to commune instantly. It is something one must learn, and therefore the capacity means they are capable of learning a language.Show me a foetus that can talk, and then we'll discuss this issue. If a foetus can talk, then I shall concede all foetuses have the capacity to do so as well. However, I doubt this quite a lot. Complex communication includes the ability to talk back, as well as understand the language being used and respond accordingly.Talking isn't the only way of communicate. I don't have time to give examples. If a foetus can think a thought regarding itself, then I would readily concede this point. However, there is little which can actually prove or show a sense of self, without some form of complex communication. If my opponent has an idea in which we can prove this sense of self, then I'd agree to it readily.From the lack of reason to believe a foetus has any of these properties, there is a lack of reason to believe that it holds the same right to life as a human being.It clears it self of waste and and the sorts. It has a sense of self. Foetuses do not feel pain until at least 20 weeks into the pregnancy, and a lot of specialists believe more. Mark Rosen -- director of Obstetrical Anesthesia at the University of California, San Francisco -- argued that the evidence is too weak to support the new law. His own review of evidence, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2005, suggested that fetuses are not capable of feeling pain until at least 29 weeks into pregnancy. "There are no new data to support the conclusions made by the Nebraska legislature," he said. "This is a controversial issue because the available data do not allow absolute conclusions. Unfortunately, there are considerable emotional and political issues at work here."[4]If my opponent wishes to dispute this, please come up with more modern information which contests this, rather than old studies. Older information on this issue has led to the progress to this data, not the other way around.So? Sometimes a person in a Coma cant feel pain, think, besides instinct or reason. Does this mean when you go in a coma your not a human?I want to address this claim before I finish, howerver. Abortion is murder.Pro concedes? I defined an abortion as the common medical procedure which deliberately removes a human pregancy. Secondly, I said the law shall reflect the majority of countries' view on the issue. The majority of countries allow it as a legal operation, and is agreed as legal as per the UN charter. So we can now define it as "a lawful common medical procedure...". Murder is, as my opponent so helpfully defined "the unlawful killing of one human..." So what this statement is saying is that "The lawful medical procedure is unlawful killing". This is axiomatically false: you cannot have an illegal legal action. That is becasue it should be illegal.