Debate: Are you against Abortion? Or do you Support it?
Side: Against Abortion

It's not a baby yet. A cluster of cells is incapable of innocence or guilt so your premise is incorrect.It is a developing human being. If you give it time and nutrition, the zygote will go through all phases attributed to the human species - from a zygote to a fetus, from a fetus to an infant, from an infant to an adult etc. That process ends with death. Calling it a cluster of cells is just a euphemism. Like I said, we're all clusters of cells.That would be, if that were what this was. It is not though. You are saying something which is not a person is a person. You might as well say my stapler deserves all of the rights of a conscious self-aware person.No, I did not say they were persons. I said they were human being just like embryology has said that for decades. I don't care about some socially constructed criterions for rights like personhood, I care about empirical and measurable traits and that is exactly what embryology gives me. The zygote can be considered a distinct human being due to having different DNA from both the mother and the father. The genetic information is complete already since conception. Nothing is added to it.People asleep or drugged or in a coma are people with the capacity to feel. A feotus is not. It is not self-aware, only potentially so. You're arguing potential human life, not human life.Okay, so you say I'm arguing from potentiality and then you make an argument.... from potentiality.No, sleeping people and especially drugged people have no capacity to feel at that given moment. If you're drugged, I can do whatever the hell I want with you and you would be non the wiser. Hell, I could hit in the head with the sledgehammer and you'd never know because you would be dead.Capacity to feel is an inherent trait - you either have that capacity or you don't. Just because sleeping/drugged people will wake up somewhere in the future and regain their capacity to feel - that doesn't mean they are beings with the capacity to feel right now.By your argument each drop of sperm should be saved and injected directly into an egg, less some innocent potential life be lost.No, clearly you've never heard of cogito ergo sum.For a life to be lost, that life must first exist. A sperm is not new, distinct human life - your sperm shares with you identical DNA. The genetic material in the sperm is in no way distinct from your DNA. Only the zygote has new, distinct DNA. From a biological view, every new human being begins their life as a fertilized egg - this is because this is the moment when a truly unique organism comes into existence, an organism distinct from both the mother and the father. Therefore, before conception has happened, we can't speak of lives lost. It is the exact same thing. Exactly. You have no argument outside of theological dogma otherwise.Really? What theological dogma have I alluded to? I'm really curious about this one.The sperm has the exact same potential as any zygote. The only difference between the two is the stage of development. You are knit-picking when you think something is "human" and it is inconsistent. Since this potential exists and not allowed to develop by nature, potential cannot be a measure of the morality of abortion. If potential cannot be a measure of morality then something else has to be.No, the stage of development is not the only difference. You forgot to mention that:1. The sperm has identical DNA with its host (the father) - The zygote has unique DNA that differs from both the mother and the father.2. A zygote will develop into an adult human being if given the time and nutrition - a sperm will never do so no matter how much time and nutrition you give it.So yeah, there is no potentiality according to what modern biology has to say. The zygote is an actual human. A zygote developing into a baby is mechanically no different from a baby developing into an adult. Do you know why? Because both are the same organisms at a different stage of development. Because both organisms need the same things to develop - a suitable environment and nutrition. Because both organisms share identical DNA. They are the same.More important than any of that, abortion laws don't work. People who want one don't buy into your bullshit morality argument anyway, and so when they cannot get an abortion legally they get one illegally.How interesting that you seem to forget to apply the same argument for guns. In any case, it's the women's own risk to get a back alley abortion. If we accept the premise that the unborn are human beings (as we should on the basis of embryology), then the women are effectively criminals. None of your imaginary baby friends are saved when you outlaw abortion. Real women do die though, because they can no longer go to a doctor for the procedure and so go elsewhere.And it is their risk. If abortion is illegal, then it is illegal for a reason. We aren't going to legalize an illegal activity because people continue to break the law. You are not the one getting an abortion, and no one is forcing you to get one. Why then do you feel you have the right to force others?Because I see abortion to be murder and a violation of the most basic human rights. You could just as well say - Well, you don't have to kill people, nobody's forcing you but don't stand in my way if I want to kill people. It is my right. If your god truly doesn't like it, let him say so. You have no more knowledge of what is or is not moral in this case than anyone else, including those who don't have a problem with abortion at all.What god do you keep talking about?