Abortion is the murder of an innocent human life
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 4 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 500
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
The moment that a human sperm cell (the male gamete) fuses with a human egg cell (the female gamete) in what is known as “fertilization”, a single-cell, human diploid zygote, containing all of the genetic information necessary to proceed seamlessly (if uninterrupted by accident, disease, genetic defect, or external intervention) in the human developmental process (i.e. zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, child, adolescent, adult) is produced. Let us consider the following to help clarify some of that terminology:
“Gamete”
• Gametes, commonly referred to as an organism's reproductive cells or sex cells, are haploid cells (which means that they contain one set of chromosomes). In most humans, a gamete contains 23 chromosomes, or rather, half of a human’s genetic information (typically, each human has 46 chromosomes).
"Single-cell, human diploid zygote"
• The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of life forms. Only things that are living (or were living at one point or another) are composed of cells.
• A human is a member of the species "Homo sapiens". The fertilization of a human egg cell by a human sperm cell cannot produce anything other than a human cell.
• A diploid cell is a cell that contains two complete sets of chromosomes (23 chromosomes from the human male gamete and 23 chromosomes from the human female gamete). All of the cell types in our body, are diploid, except for gametes, which are haploid.
• A zygote is an organism within the animal kingdom, which is in the first stage of its developmental process. A zygote's genome (all of the genetic information of an organism) is a combination of the DNA in its parent’s gametes, and therefore, a zygote is a genetically distinct organism from its parents.
RFV
Hm, jamesrobertjoseph a bit late in making argument that murder is unjust killing (R5), and not many words used to address it.
Though I don't find Barney's murder arguments highly compelling.
jamesrobertjoseph 'personhood arguments lacking,
'Yes personhood subjective,
But most people don't think a rock is a person,
jamesrobertjoseph needed make more arguments on why a zygote,
Is a more blurred case than a rock,
Though for some people it's not, and the blurring comes later,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_human_personhood
. .
Eh, even if one is not religious, not believe in soul,
Even such people believe in sentience, often, at least 'act like do, practical,
Just replace soul with some other word.
But I am rambling,
I'm just going to vote Barney, as throughout debate,
Their points were more fully developed, more pronged.
I still don't think it was 'convincing,
But it was a better effort and result.
jamesrobertjoseph points were more focused on single prong of new existence,
But they did not fully develop this prong.
They 'did blunt some of Barney's prongs a bit, but not 'consistently.
Various thoughts of Voter during debate.
jamesrobertjoseph
Description/R1
Makes an assertion, states some facts.
Not enough facts to prove the assertions yet though.
Barney R1
I'd say murder 'can be a legal term,
But even if a judge or jury rules an individual did not murder some other individual,
Might be people still dead certain on the view that it was murder,
And I mean full adult individuals with full mental capacity and activity.
Course this is 'my arguement.
jamesrobertjoseph argues personhood is subjective in R2,
And in R3 says laws should be objective,
This doesn't quite make sense to me,
But Barney in R2 differentiates justifiable homicide and murder,
As well as the homeless example.
. . . There are many different 'laws though, differentiating types of killing,
So Barney's claim isn't really 'objective.
Though jamesrobertjoseph 'wants to claim murder objective as well.
. . .
Hm, well, subjective voter is all there is to be swayed.
. . . . .
Barney R1
Makes agreement about separated human body parts not being another person,
If they had more words, they might make further agreement about intelligence lacking,
jamesrobertjoseph R2 notes that the fetus contains 'different cells, implying new person.
Course people about this argue the new cells still not a new 'person, even if blueprints.
'Personhood seems a bit tricky though.
Barney R2
Makes interesting agreement about hand having potential to be a new person,
Twins 'do exist after all,
As well as clones, I am reminded of The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer.
My Thoughts Currently
I don't think Barney murder agreement is strong,
More relevant is whether fetus is considered person or not.
jamesrobertjoseph R3
Is mistaken in agreement that human hand cannot become-
Hm, I don't actually understand cloning. . .
Googling, Hm, I 'think you can clone something using blood,
Hm Barney R3 video, process involved putting the dna into an empty egg and electricity,
This is a step 'behind of fetus,. . .
Though of course Barney made this agreement addressing jamesrobertjoseph's agreement of potential.
. . .
'Potential varies though.
Ink and paper 'could be a painting,
Half drawn painting 'could be a fully finished painting,
People probably more upset if you take away the half finished painting while in the process though, features, 'life, 'personality are in that half painting.
Hm, regaurdless.
jamesrobertjoseph R4 does not adequately address cloning,
Though their words seem to imply that if I made a clone of myself it would still be me and not a separate individual.
Further side thought,
Debate description makes note of zygote,
Rather than say an unborn an hour from birth.
Barney R3
Agreement that if fetuses are people, they are responsible for their choices, is not very convincing,
But jamesrobertjoseph 'is having trouble addressing 'all points made in debate.
Also I am not convinced of it being criminal to care for ones children,
But it's a short word debate.
jamesrobertjoseph R4
Hm, interesting agreement about new human life,
But I'm not sure the new life 'matters,
As we don't think a hand cut off is sentient,
Maybe people certain zygote not sentient,
Though I'm still not a fan of abortion myself, at all.
jamesrobertjoseph R5
Ah, now addressing the differences between a zygote and a severed hand.
But short on words, short on convincement.
Barney R5
Eh, newborn baby needs external resources to be an adult, eh 'adults need external resources food, water.
But eh, debates done.
Much as I could bring up dropped points, this really comes down to whether Pro has a case or not and... yeah, I don't see one. I understand that you missed the first round, but you have the burden of proof to demonstrate that the resolution is true. Simply saying that laws shouldn't be based on subjectivity and that the unborn have the capacity for development aren't affirming the resolution. You can't just stop at responding to your opponent on this - you have to establish your case, build an argument that there it is objective to say that abortion is murder and that the capacity for development establishes it as such. Pro's responses didn't do that, so he fails to meet his burden.
There's some back and forth about personhood, but Con brings up a point about trespassing that Pro doesn't really address, arguing that abortion is self-defense and not murder. As such, even if I buy everything that Pro is telling me about personhood, Con's argument about self-defense goes dropped and thus essentially conceded.
Basically, Pro was never able to establish the definition upon which his argument rests. Con did a good job of outlining his conception of the word "murder" as a purely legal term in his first round. Pro doesn't contest this until the final round, and at that point, by virtue of not criticizing the definition before, Pro tacitly accepted the definition. Therefore, this debate is, in my mind, strictly about whether abortion satisfies the legal requirements for murder. In regard to this point, Pro never truly offered a meaningful argument, while Con clearly cemented the legality of abortion, necessarily meaning abortion is not murder. To his credit, Pro did attempt to deconstruct the idea of using the law as a measure of what does or does not constitute murder. However, all of Pro's retorts were either unclear or blatantly contradictory. For example, Pro initially alleges that the law is not subjective, and when challenged by Con, Pro admits that the law is subjective but insists that there is an objective basis to the law (without ever explaining what that objective basis is).
This next point does not have much to do with the legality of abortion, and therefore has little bearing on my vote, but I thought I would comment on it considering the debate was so short. Con attempted to compare preserving human hands to a fetus. I understand the basics of Con's point, effectively arguing that the mere presence of a human cell does not represent a "person" worthy of the right to life. However, I think Pro did a good job of clarifying that the presence of a human cell is not sufficient to attain the right to life. Rather, Pro asserts that it is the potential to become a person (through uninterrupted or manipulated processes). Pro offered two responses to this, one being that human hands can be cloned and become a PERSON, which is a claim he never really supported properly (I know he linked a YouTube video, but it wasn't particularly illuminating). He also argued in the final round that fetuses do not develop independent of external resources, but Pro never really seemed to disagree in his previous arguments. Pro very explicitly referred to external INTERVENTION, which I interpreted to be a reference to an action on the part of another agent to disrupt the development of personhood.
My opinion in that specific situation would be disappointment at the very least, quite likely more than that.
Most humans 'don't tend to help people though,
Least not all the time,
Beyond most humans expected willpower, possibly beyond expected 'care.
People 'have their money, their possessions,
Don't sell all of it and help the poor,
Walk by the homeless, the drugged,
Don't fight in wars,
Launch crusades of help in their neighborhoods.
. . .
Arguably abortion is not 'quite 'like seeing a baby drowning in a pond,
At the very least human perception/culture/reaction to it is different.
A pond is also pretty easy to wade in save the baby,
Not like it's a pond of acid.
Many Pro Life individuals also have lines they draw of where they are against abortion,
Rape, for some of them,
Compared to where they see the existence of the Yet Born in abortions of convenience, as being created in an act of callous disregard of the Yet born.
(Tossed the baby into the pond)
I don't think it is wrong/unexpected of Pro Life individuals for push for laws that help people,
As opposed to Pro Life individuals suffering great pain to help only who they can help individually.
A baby drowning in a pond is common and basic test applied to ethical systems. What does X command someone to do about it…
So what would your opinion be of people who run away from the pond to petition the government to force someone else to rescue said baby, yet refuse to do it themselves because they’re too special to be inconvenienced?
Somehow your question and statement go over my head,
Can you rephrase them?
If said people stood by and let babies drown in a pond for fear of getting their shoes wet, what would your opinion of them be?
Ethically it would be quite similar (basically identical in their opinion). The key difference is that much like the pregnant woman, they may opt for some future more willing person to carry the fetus to term.
"Doesn't mean people are wrong to push for laws that take kids from parents that beat/starve/neglect their kids"
Umm yes, it does mean that people are mostly wrong.
Children in foster care are also beaten and neglected, so really, anyone thinking children are being done some great favor is himself completely retarded and needs a brain.
Plus, often children get treated worse in foster care than by parents they are taken away from.
Its just that our current society is too retarded.
I believe that I am the only person on Earth with a working brain, which is mostly a curse to be honest.
Eh, some people don't want to adopt abused kids either,
Doesn't mean people are wrong to push for laws that take kids from parents that beat/starve/neglect their kids.
There was a limit of 500 characters, which caused things to have to be presented in their most simple form.
While I failed to get it across properly, if anyone has their feelings hurt by abortions, then they should preserve cells from each fetus for their later use. Ideally we’ll find a way to convert men into baby incubators, allowing for all men who oppose abortion to know the joys of pregnancy and prevent any “murders” from having occurred in abortions.
Somehow I doubt any of the anti abortion politicians would be willing to endure pregnancy were it an option.
Abortion is simply referring to the result of killing.. regardless of referring to the result of murder or not. Once you see the word "Abortion".. consider that the word "killing" is involved at all times.. even if it is legal or not. Morality is different for places and for people, for this necessary case.
Everybody party until barney writes "Cloning = copying" which is a very dangerous verbal mistake, it makes you consider if he is well educated on "the differences between words and their definitions"..
..Quite interesting.
Thanks again for the debate.
If you’d ever like advice on strengthening any arguments, just ask.
@Barney
In some ways a debate is nicer without participants giving lengthy explanation, that one might already be aware of,
Enough to reference fact/claim/study/idea.
@NoOneInParticular
Argument, not arguement.
Stupid spellcheck user, not 'looking close enough at the words, before changing arguement to agreement.
Thank you both for voting.
In both your votes you stated some of my thoughts much more articulately than I managed.
No problem!
The hand comparison was certainly difficult to tie together with just 500 characters.
Thanks for the vote.
And yeah, I did not have nearly enough characters to make the discussion of preserved human bits properly entertaining and logically valid. As was, it was kinda just there as little more than a side tangent.
Nice job on your first serious debate.
I rather enjoyed the unique challenge of the 500 character limit. While I don't like to prattle on too much, any one of my points would most likely normally take that many.
A really good resource for you is: https://tiny.cc/DebateArt
There's even a section in it on writing strong resolutions... Basically make it both minimal in contentions and precise in meaning (I've seen these debates kritiked with such things as animal abortions).
As Ponikshiy said, you'll also want to be assertive/proactive. For this debate, before even responding to me it would have been best to present your case for abortion being murder, and your case for the fetus being innocent.
Oh and your best defense to such odd contentions as the hand, is to say something like "If anything else is or is not murder, is outside the scope of this debate." My debates usually have some thing more for entertainment; in this case, I really did not have the characters to properly explain it.
Judges will use a form of abductive reasoning when judging a debate. I would advise you to present a better case that your opponent rather than simply arguing what I call.
"Nuh uh"
At most "nuh uh" mitigates your opponents arguments, it doesn't build your case.
Friendly reminder, you have one day remaining to post your opening argument.