Prologue
Ultimately I aim to show that my opponent's refutation is predicated on a cherry picked definition of 'person' and that his implications regarding consciousness ultimately do not affirm the resolution.
== Aff ==
What constitutes a person?
Here, Pro strawmans the moral premise behind the argument by using a cherrypicked definition of 'person' to deem the unborn as inhuman. He asserts 'person' to be defined as:
"A person is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such
as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a
part of a culturally established form of social relations such as
kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility."
I argue that this doesn't successfully refute my affirmation.
Firstly, it is interesting that Pro chooses to use this defintion, because from the source he cited 'person' is actually defined as:
"a human being regarded as an individual"
which wouldn't really affirm his stance at all. However, analysing his definition it is clear that this definition has poor veracity in the context of this debate. There are many definitions for human, person, humankind, personhood etc. however nothing superscedes the biological definition of human, which I cite from the New World Encyclopedia to be:
"In biological terms, a human being, or human, is any member of the mammalian species Homo sapiens" [1]
Here, this definition would better suit the discussion for a variety of reasons. Analysing Pro's definition there are a series of problems. Firstly, Pro's definition asserts it is requiste that each 'person' have the ability to reason. I argue newborn babies cannot 'reason'. Reason can be defined as: 'a statement offered in explanation or justification' [2]. It is evident newborn babies, like their unborn counterparts cannot 'reason'. Further demonstrations of this would also prevent many people with mental disablement from being considered people, as people with late stages of Alzheimer's "lose the ability to respond appropriately and are unable to converse with others" [3]. For the same reasons it is not okay to exterminate the newborns and the mentally impaired, it should likewise not be okay to exterminate the unborn. Hence, the property of reasoning is inapt for defining a person. Moreover, the definition presupposes all people to have a legal and cultural framework. This further demonstrates that this definition of 'person' has no scientific basis as it is scientifically proven human beings have existed long before a solid legal framework was synthesized.
Pro concludes this argument with:
"If a person is defined in such a manner, then a fetus most certainly does not fit that definition. It is the potentiality of life, but at the moment it itself is not an actual person."
I agree, per Pro's cherrypicked definition it would not; but with my cited definition it would be. Pro and I can debate semantics but I commend this is useless. I can choose definitions which will allow unborns to be considered people, and Pro can contend with other definitions that show it is not. Hence, the most objective ground Pro and I should compromise with is scientific consensus, to which I have provided in preponderance to corroborate that human life begins at conception.
Pro even agrees with the scientific consensus, but asserts that:
"this does not mean that the individual human life is the same thing has a human being person, functioning person capable of interacting with the world"
I have already shown 'human being person' to be an arbitrary definition cherrypicked by Pro. Moreover, he implies that the unborn are inhuman because they are not capable of interacting with the world. This is rather untrue, albeit it may not be the outside world, but unborn children directly interact inside the mother's womb. Even at conception the unborn zygote are living cells which divide at their own accord [4], quite similar to bacteria which are also considered to be living organisms. Moreover, it is a bare assertion to assume people should only be considered if they are capable of interacting with the world.
Ultimately, this argument falls short for the following reasons:
1. Pro's argument is purely semantic and holds no moral or utilitarian affirmation
2. You cannot deduce something as inhuman because it lacks, or is absent of the ability to interact
1.
In Pro's refutation, he concedes that scientifically a human's life begins at conception, but asserts that this is different to a "human being person". This is illogical as if abortion were to be legalized Pro would knowingly be exterminating human lives, but just because these human lives can't function similar to the average person, it is okay to kill them. Moreover "human being person" is very arbitrary and relies solely on the cherrypicked definition Pro proposed. Pro's refutation lacks moral justification, as even if his refutation maintained, it would still be true that in 9 months time the unborn child will have everything that Pro constitutes as a human being. This brings me to the second point.
2.
Pro uses an abitrary and *non-objective* measurement to which constitutes what is human being. He affirms that because the unborn aren't very interactive, and not very functioning relative to an average person would mean that the unborn has no intrinsic value. However, it has been shown that the unborn can interact and function, just not like the average person. This begs the question, how much function/interaction does one need to be a human? This is the issue with arbitrary standards. Pro might say that when the baby is born it is deemed a human, but why? Newborn children aren't very functional or interactive at all. Barely any functional or interactive property seperates a newborn baby from a late-term unborn baby. Newborns can only see objects and colours up to 15 inches away [5], they can't walk, talk, reason or pretty much do anything apart from eat and sleep which is what the unborn do as well. So why is this level of functionality and interaction objectively superior to the functionality and interaction that an unborn baby has?
Lastly, Pro asserts:
"People who are sleeping or are in comas are "capable" at that moment in
time of interacting with the world, they just aren't because their
brains are elsewhere."
Pro cites a logical contradiction. He says people who are in comas are "capable" of interaction, but their "brains are elsewhere". This is a bare assertion, and has no logical sense, clearly someone in a coma lacks the agency to interact with anything and would deem them incapable. It is more accurate to say that someone in a coma was capable and will be capable when they exit the coma, but are currently incapbable.
==
Not everyone has the same rights
Here Pro's argument can be annotated as such:
P1: Different groups of development have different rights
P2: The unborn are of a different development group and therefore have different rights
P3: If different groups of development have different rights,one cannot say "living humans" are guaranteed rights and liberties
However, Pro is logcially inconsistent. He provides veracity for the first premise by saying that "teenagers are not guaranteed the same rights as retired elders". However, all this does is depict that different development groups don't all have the same rights. He then asks the question:
"are these unborn beings guaranteed the right to life?"
This is logically inconsistent because he established that there are different development groups to which he also included teenagers and the elderly. So why is it this question only includes the unborn? Yes the unborn can be established as an independent development group, but so are teenagers and retired elders, so why should teenagers and elders be guaranteed the right to life?
All this argument does is either show that there is a current inequality in the amount of rights each subset of human has or he is morally questioning why any development group should be guaranteed the right to life. I would respond to the latter by referencing the NAP that I presume Pro has no issue with as he didn't attempt to refute it within his rebuttal.
Hence, this is evidently inapt in negating the resolution.
==
Development
Here Pro rebuts by attempting to under value the unborn by professing that:
"a fetus cannot accomplish any of the tasks that a living human can"
However, this is a bare assertion and holds absolutely no veracity. In fact, research suggests that an unborn baby can listen to and even recognise the voice of its mother [6]. Moreover, I have shown that newborn babies are effectively useless in terms of interactive and functional capacity. In fact, I assert it has more in common with the unborn than it does with a fully mature adult.
The unborn and the newborn both:
-Live
-Eat
-Sleep - even REM sleep [6]
-Excrete
Hence, it can be seen that the unborn have much in common in functionality to their newborn counterparts. Moreover, I have shown that the measurement of functionality and interactivity to be an illogical, non-objective standard to base life upon and that there is no scientific backing for this standard.
Even comparing a zygote to a newborn baby would be intellectually dishonest, as both are scientifically 'living'. Even though a zygote can't necessarily "accomplish a task" it can accomplish the task of living, cell division etc. Just as a newborn or any other living human does. Without an objective framework for valuing one human life over another this argument is incoherent.
==
Consciousness
Here Pro states that people who are in comas are 'not conscious'. Therefore, the argument to be had is how this is similar in relation to a 'not conscious' zygote.
Pro asserts:
"Being "not conscious" implies that one can be conscious One would not describe a wall as "unconscious." It would be more accurate to describe a wall as "lacking conscious." And that is exactly the case with people in comas"
If anything this affirms my stance. Pro agrees that people in comas are 'not conscious' and even demonstrates than an inanimate object cannot become conscious. If anything, this shows that fetuses, even if, at the time, are 'not conscious', the fact they are guaranteed to be 'conscious' in 9 months time which demonstrates that they are not 'inanimate' as Pro implies.
If Pro tries to contend this by reiterating, we still have this scenario:
A person in a coma is admittedly 'not conscious' as stated by Pro. While the person is in a coma, they have no agency, volition, interaction or functionality by Pro's standards. While there is no further development the person shall remain in a coma viz. remain 'not conscious'. Hence, there is no logical standard here which truly seperates a man in a coma from a zygote. Both will be conscious if enough time is abundant. Thus comparing a zygote to a 'wall' is therefore absurd, because the wall will not be conscious in 9 months time.
Pro then appeals to extremes by stating that familes can pull the plug on life support if they choose to. However, this is an appeal to extremes fallacy, this tends to only happen when the chances of recovery are futile, I expect Pro would not posit the same moral question if the person in the coma was expected to recover.
==
Overall
Pro's refutation is contingent upon that despite human life being scientifically deduced at conception, they are not to be considered human beings as a society. Moreover, he states that unborn babies (throughout most of the pregnancy) lack consciousness and are unable to perform tasks as newborn babies can.
I assert I have successfully upheld the veracity of my arguments and that even if Pro's refutation was sound, it still wouldn't negate the resolution.
Pro's argument lacks moral premise
Even if Pro successfully proved the distinction involving development and consciousness between newborns and the unborn, he has offered no moral implication why this would permit the use of abortion when they will certainly meet Pro's standards in 9 months time. Pro didn't argue against the NAP, which is a political axiom intended to protect an individual from violence. Even though Pro contends that the unborn aren't individuals I assert that scientific definition ought to trump any legal or any pseudo-scientific parody of the definition.
Pro's argument lacks objective standard
I have shown that the unborn are *scientifically deduced humans* which acts as the only objective standard to compare the unborn to those who are already born. Pro attempts to under value the unborn by stating they have no real function and they "cannot accomplish any tasks a born human can" however, since both have been proven to be human lives, why can't it be reversed: already born humans have no value because they can perform tasks an unborn human can't? When has the ability to perform tasks ever been an objective standard to deduce human value. Moreover, just because zygotes aren't currently conscious, they are similar to those in comas as they will become conscious after a period of time.
Why does the current inability to function as an average human being trump the future ability to function as an average human being?
Therefore, the resolution is successfully upheld as my arguments regarding the immorality of abortion still stand as I have defended that the unborn are scientifically deduced lives and should deserve the rights and liberties we all deserve. I have shown that Pro attempted to cherry pick a definition to invalidate the humanly value of the unborn but I have shown that all scientific research infers that the unborn are human by biological definition.
==
Response to Pro
I would happily answer privately, but the case of abortion in extreme cases like rape were not included in the resolution, so I need not answer as it is irrelevant to the debate at hand.
References
Yes I agree with you. There should be some restrictions and thus a bit of punishment.
I want a light punishment for abortion; the woman or her boyfriend gives enough blood to save someone else's life to make up for the life they took from some abortions. Hopefully its a deal the left and the right can agree too.
I personally want abortion to be legalized. But I was really moved by the con's arguments. They were very very strong too.
But a superb effort from both sides.
I always get confused when the Instigator is Con.
best case I have seen against abortion, well done!