Resolved: Abortion ought not be illegal.

ScarletGhost, I am glad you were able to make it. I am very interested in this debate, and am glad we get to sharpen our ideas together. I am sorry for mistaking the resolution, but the title was relatively vague. Since abortion is technically not fully legal anywhere (abortion on demand at any stage), and since most of the community comes from the Western world, I thought this was advancing the liberalizing of abortion. In any case, my position still stands. While I may be persuaded that abortions are legitimate in extreme circumstances, I will explain why I don't think this constitutes the legalization of abortion as my opponent proposes. Rebuttal: 1. My opponent seems to think that the avoidance of suffering is a legitimate means to allow abortion. If this involved legalizing the removal of warts, I would agree. But if a fetus is in fact a human person, my opponent may believe we can kill it on these grounds, but the implications of this belief are rather scary, and fail to be lived out by proponents of abortion. If ending one person's suffering by killing another who cannot advocate for themselves is legitimate, I must maintain my disagreement. 2. It seems to me that if the fetus is a person, the fetus's body is his/her own. Now, I realize this is a weird hypothetical, but I wonder what would happen if a conjoined twin killed their other half. Would we consider that immoral? It seems to me that my opponent is simply making a fallacy here by somehow implying the fetus is less human when joined to the mother. Would my opponent say this for a 9 month old fetus? An 8 month old? 7 months? Would he say a fetus/baby still attached to the mother by the umbilical cord is able to be killed? It seems like arbitrary lines are drawn here, all under the guise of "rights." But we don't allow the murdering of children who eat parents out of house and home, whine, and ruin love lives. Why do a mothers rights supersede another human being's rights at this stage? My opponent also states that this is the mothers right to protect her own well being. While one of the circumstances I may concede the legitimacy of abortion is in protection of the mother's life, my opponent's definition of "well being" here is very shallow. It's really equivalent to comfort, lack of strife, stability, and self-image. While I don't think these are bad things or unimportant things in general, how could you use these as excuses for ending the life of a human? 3. The assertion here is that the fetus's person-hood is "almost nonexistent in the point at where it is." This is a rather bold claim. I would like to know how my opponent defines a person, as this would be conducive to our getting to the bottom of the whole issue, which I pointed out as relying on the answer to the foundational question of person-hood. My opponent obviously disagrees with my definition of person-hood, so I'll defend his rebuttals next. Defense: 1. My opponent argues that the LED of my SLED argument didn't stand because a fetus's cognitive abilities are different than the mentally handicapped who have fully developed. First, the only difference between a fetus and a mentally handicapped individual is SLED. Is my opponent arguing that because the fetus is less developed physically and mentally, then it is less of a person? But a mentally handicapped person is a valuable person because they have more atoms added to them (physical) and maybe more cognitive function (mental), depending on the age of the fetus we're talking about? I fail to see how my opponent can objectively and certainly deduce person-hood on such vague grounds, and I fail to see how he can maintain any assertions by others that the mentally handicapped should be euthanized, as they aren't people due to their mental, and sometimes physical shortcomings. 2. So in refuting the SLED argument, my opponent basically said that development is what changes the essence of a person, which seems circular to me, as he answered my question of development by saying a fetus isn't as developed. But my opponent also answers my location question/argument by saying that the fetus is attached to the mother. Of course it is, but I fail to see how dependency and location cause grounds for revoking a human's right to life. So far, all my opponent has said is that the fetus is a human, it' just not as important because of it's lack of mental/physical development, and it's dependency on others. This is a fatal flaw for most pro-choice advocates, as they detest the notion of allowing children to be murdered or mentally ill to be disposed of. That doesn't make the idea necessarily wrong, but my opponent would need to show how he can hold to this view consistently, as a whole, rather than just give lip-service to a portion of ethics he appreciates for whatever reason. 3. My opponent also states that anti-abortion laws would cause harm. This is a utilitarian argument, and does an end-around my major argument. If it's a human, how do you justify allowing murder on the grounds of comfort and security? And the belief that since we can't stop people from committing the crime, we shouldn't allow it, is utterly preposterous to me, and goes against any law we have in place at the moment. Laws aren't needed until they're broken. It's only then that they are put into effect. Sure, we won't stop all abortions, just like they won't stop all terrorists who bomb abortion clinics or slander abortion doctors. But if you believe laws should exist to punish those who will inevitably commit crimes against the rights of mothers, because you believe it's a fact that mothers have that right, why wouldn't the same hold true for protecting person-hood, if in fact fetus's are people? 4. Finally, my opponent says that I'm a hypocrite for agreeing that abortion is justified in a sense. But my opponent must then think people who value life, but agree in killing to defend their wife from rape or child from murder, are also hypocrites. The taking of a life is not a whimsical thing. It's something that is utterly valuable, and is only legitimate in a situation that is more morally weighty. If a woman's death was certain by carrying a fetus to a viable birthing age, there is a legitimate moral decision here. But removing the fetus at this point is not murder because the child dies, it's choosing between two equally valuable lives. In the Western world, this is a rare occurrence, but I do think it is legitimate, just as defending your family, donating organs which may reduce your life, etc. Conclusion: My opponent has still not addressed how person-hood is missing from a fetus. I have seen no justification for killing a person that is equal to any other justification we'd deem legitimate for any other class of human persons. I have seen utilitarian arguments that assert a standard of what should be done, but this is one viewpoint of many, none of which are objectively correct or can compel one to action. My opponent's assertions are inconsistent with his own beliefs (uphold laws for women's rights, even though we can't always stop crime, but don't do it for human persons of the fetus class). I look forward to hearing my opponent's responses. [1] Basic SLED argument: http://www.str.org... [2] Great paper highlighting internal inconsistencies in not viewing a fetus as a person: http://www.str.org...