Debate: Abortion is a selfish action to alleviate an undesirable consequence
Side: False

A fertilized egg is already a human being by the virtue of belonging to the Homo Sapien species.A chopped off arm belonged to the Homo Sapien species, does this make it a human? Generally I agree with you about eggs being human, but not being human beings, not being a person. Secondly, I have never argued that fetuses should have a right to life because they will eventually become humans. I have argued that they have always been human beings from conception.Well then this brings us back to the chicken and the egg; you believe something is what it may become because it may become that thing. I really don't know how to address this delusion except with my tried and true example that you would have a bitch of a time finding some breasts to cut off of an egg and serve for dinner. If we treat people as they are, then certainly we must treat a fetus as a human being - because a human is what it is, not some appendage to be removed.A fetus is human but it is not a human, the same way an egg is Gallus gallus domesticus, just like the chicken, but it's not a chicken yet. Similarly, some removed appendage is human, but it, also, is not a human. You are missing the point. In both cases there is no sentience to speak of. We both have the potential capacity to gain sentience, either by waking up or by reaching the required stage of developement. The difference is simply time and time is arbitrary.Why is time arbitrary? You said yourself earlier in regard to children buying whiskey that time is a determining factor. We have to wait to give a child the rights of an adult.If you were sleeping I could wake you up at that second and you would be sentient. If I were to remove a fetus from its host, I would be looking at a lump of blood and flesh. Think of it this way, a patient is in a coma and has no sentience but the doctors say that there’s a good chance that in 9 months he will recover. It would be absurd to pull the plug on him if he might get better after 9 months.I think oftentimes in this situation it is up to the family to decide if they want to keep him on life support or pull the plug. And that's what I'm advocating, here: choice. Yes, sentience needs to be defined because we have to determine whether newborn children, sleeping people and people with mental disorders can be considered sentient.Why? Your unwillingness to define sentience shows that either you don’t know it yourself or you just don’t care or that you are simply dishonest. Sentience, to you, means whatever it needs to mean in the context of abortions, as long as it fits your ends. It’s a blanket statement - you haven’t really said and explained anything if you don’t define sentience.Here's the first definition of sentience I could find online, from thefreedictionary.com, as it turns out: 1. The quality or state of being sentient; consciousness.2. Feeling as distinguished from perception or thought.So please point out to me where I have either broken this definition down to suit my own needs for this debate, or otherwise defined it as something other than this definition. If you can't then your pointless, abrasive speculation was all for naught, save for making you look like an ass. Again, science doesn’t really care what you think.You calling yourself "science," now? I can go with that. A zygote, fetus, baby, infant, adult - they are all human beings at a certain stage of development. I don’t know why you resist this point so muchI don't know, science, where did I resist that point? Perhaps I have done a poor job of making my position clear, but I am against the notion that a zygote is an infant, or a fetus is an adult, not that babies and zygotes are different stages of human development. And don’t come talking to me about sentience until you give me a definition of sentience.Woah, science, calm down. First of all I didn't mention sentience in the bit you're addressing, secondly if you've got such a stick up your ass about a definition why don't you try defining it yourself? I don't really give a damn because I know what you're trying to get at by defining sentience; you gave it away in your examples. And I don't think that argument holds water, so instead I'm trying to stick to the obvious and not the tricky word games. They can’t.They why did you say otherwise, science?But what you can’t understand is that your brain doesn’t simply give the human a mind. It also controls muscle movement, heartbeats, breathing, seeing etc. The brainactivity you see in fetuses may have nothing to do with sentience - these brainwaves may just be somatic impulses that regulate heartbeats for example. Your brain does a whole lot more than just let you think.No, science, what you can't understand is that I knew all of this before you started lecturing me on it! I'm just waiting for you to tie it into your argument so it becomes relevant. Since you implied that killing fetuses is okay because they cannot be harmed due to their inability to feel painSource, science?I'll save you the time: I never implied that. This is a straw man argument, similar to the one you complained about earlier and even more similar to the one you're trying to concoct by getting me to define sentience. Answer my question then. If I shoot Whitaker while he is sleeping - did I harm him? You have to deny harm if you are intellectually consistent with your reasoning.You're very pushy, science. Yes. I do deny harm. He can't feel pain, so you didn't put him in pain. Is this so complicated? How can my disputes be insulting.It is not the disputes I find insulting, science, but the notion that because you are not personally satisfied with the arguments against you the debaters that posted them must be deliberately and arrogantly trying to dismiss and ignore your posts while themselves asserting absolutely no justification for their own arguments. That, science, is what I find insulting. You can’t throw out a bunch of definitions and criterions and think that you can get away with not explaining them.Okay, my welcoming you to CreateDebate was clearly a bit premature; Welcome to the Internet, science! Leave your righteous indignation at the door, please.