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Look at the science. Life begins at conception. It is unscientific to say otherwise. All you need do is look at a picture to know an unborn child is not just a "clump of cells" or a "potential" human being An unborn baby is an actual human being and abortion is murder.
To be honest, yes it is in some way "murder," but what is the other solution? The mother wants to abort because of some specific reason, let it be because the unborn child is deformed, it was a rape child, or it was just an unwanted child(by mistake when drunk and such)... Tell me honestly if you got an wanted child you would keep it because you think it is "murder". most people abort because they don't have the money to support that unborn child. What is better? Letting the child into a world of sh*t or spare it of what could have come. Why would you take the risk? Because if you do take the risk then and it turns out bad then it wouldn't only hurt the child's life, but yours too, and you families lives/economy. And in the long Run it will cost the country they live in a lot of money because if they can't provide someone has to get them money... Who'll do that? Most likely that state and their family members...
Also, the central nervous system begins functioning around week 4. Most abortions are performed around week 8. Think the fetus can't feel anything? Think again.
This debate's URL is "abortion_30" which, I believe, indicates that it is the 30th debate to bear the title "Abortion". Next time, run a search and see how many like debates have already been made.
Abortion violates the NAP in that it causes harm to another human, and so I cannot support it. As well, I cannot comprehend how anybody can think that their own choice trumps the right to the life of another; I am alive, if another life is alive because of me, but can be terminated by me at a moment's notice, in what universe is it acceptable for me to put my own personal desires ahead of that of the other life? It is a different story if you choose to kill yourself, but to choose to kill somebody else... That's simply ludicrous to me.
Is an acorn a tree? Is an egg a chicken? No. The acorn has a chance to become a tree, but it is not.
Is a fetus a human? No. Science has blatantly proven this so many times that I truly question the opposing side's intellectual abilities; abortion is not murder. It's the termination of a collection of cells that cannot survive outside of the womb because it isn't a human.
Can you feed a 4 week old fetus? Watch it cry? No.
You might consider looking at things with consideration for the attributes they have rather than a rejection of them for the attributes they may temporarily lack.
Abortion is killing an innocent child. they dont even have a chance to live before they die. Their parents kill them before they have a chance at life.
You cannot die if you haven't lived!? I'm sorry to spoil your argument, but you can't live with out dying and the other way around too. You can't die without living...
Abortions are murder in the same way that slavery was a crime against humanity even during the time that slavery was 'legal' and for many of the same reasons.
There is no argument that the framers of the Constitution did not see children in the womb as persons any more than they viewed slaves as 'persons.'
But the framers wording and intentions for all 'persons' to have equal rights and be equally protected was never meant to exclude any 'persons' from their rights either.
The 5th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution clearly state that "all persons born or naturalized" are "citizens" and that would clearly prove that a child in the womb is not a "citizen."
However, the amendments do not limit the rights and protections to only "citizens." They say that all "persons" (citizens or not) have an equal right to their life, liberty, property and to the equal protections of our laws.
Supreme Court decisions like "Yick Wo vs Hopkins" proved that a "person" does not have to be a "citizen" to be entitled to their U.S. Constitutional rights and protections.
So, we should all be able to agree that if a child in the womb is a "person" they are automatically entitled to the protections of our laws.
The legal definition for a '[natural person]' is 'a human being' and or 'the body of a human being' (www.findlaw.com). A human being in the fetal stage of their life would qualify.
To support this further, we already have a federal law (the Unborn Victims of Violence Act) and several State's laws which not only define a child in the womb as: " the term `unborn child' means a child in utero, and the term `child in utero' or `child, who is in utero' means a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.' but the law also makes it the crime of murder to unjustly kill a child in the womb while committing any one of over 60 listed crimes.
While it is true that those laws also make an exception to allow for abortions to remain legal, the precedence has been established by the fact that people are charged with murder - that the victim is another human being / person.
By definition, murder is the unlawful killing of one 'person' by another. You can not be charged with murder for killing anything or any one less than a human being.
It is for all of these reasons and many many more that I have concluded that most abortions are murders. All of them are homicides.
Abortion may be murder, it may not be. I personally don't care. I think abortion is an option that should always be kept open. I wouldn't want the burden of raising a child I can't raise, and I wouldn't want anyone to force me or anyone else to.
And before someone tells me adoption is another option, I personally wouldn't like always wondering who is raising my child, and if they're raising them okay. Or how I would want them to.
Abortion can only come down to one question: Is the fetus alive or not. If it is alive, then destroying it would be murder. The burden that a life may create should always take a back seat to that life being give a CHANCE to exist. We have no problem saying that James E. Holmes murdered in the movie theater in Colorado. What if some of those people had become a burden on their family? Is it suddenly NOT murder any more?
Also, the difference between a fetus that can be destroyed in a 'Partial-birth" abortion and a live baby that has full protection of the law is a distance of only a few inches down the birth canal. Killing it in the birth canal is the same as killing it in the womb.
I personally don't consider the fetus to be living. At least not in a way that matter. And it's considerably different to kill someone who already is living a life, than a fetus that simply has the possibility to live a life.
The question isn't whether or not the fetus is alive. The question is whether or not it is sentient and bodily autonomous. You wouldn't force someone to donate blood, even if to save another sentient being. Likewise, you shouldn't force someone to give incubate what can be called a human, but not a human being, as human beings are sentient and not relying on another's body. Also, criminalizing abortion has statistically shown not only be ineffective, but endanger pregnant people's lives. Besides, "partial-birth" abortion is usually reserved for when severe abnormalities are detected that would endanger the pregnant person's or the fetus' lives. Being forced to give birth to a dead baby, or risk your life for a pregnancy is cruel.
But who is to say the child may not grow up to be the next Stephen Hawking, or even just a stable, healthy individual. Yes, there is also a chance that they would have a horrible life. But by killing the fetus, you remove ANY chance at all. It would be like the staff on the Titanic walking through the ship and killing every passenger aboard, rather than giving them a chance in the lifeboats or even in the open water (6 survived in the water by the way......Bet they were glad they were given the chance.)
The biggest difference that makes abortion more humane than killing is that abortion is done at a time when a potential life has never even experienced life, so there is no suffering.
I believe the legal amount of time one has for abortion is 12 weeks, while the fetus' kicking doesn't start until around 18 weeks.
It's similar to masturbation or the use of a condom.
Those are potential lives, casually tossed aside, before even having a chance to have a life.
A sperm and and egg cell (prior to conception) are only a potential life at best.
After conception, however... their 'potential' to begin a new life has been realized. And while I also agree with you that it would be more humane to kill a child in their first days of life than it would be to kill them later in life?
The question of this poll is not about that.
It's about whether or not killing the child is a 'murder' and as I explained in my argument, I believe it is.
That translates in to a rather macabre belief that it is somehow impossible to 'murder' someone who is not likely to survive on their own.
If a fisherman falls overboard and into the bering sea and will no doubt die within minutes if they are not rescued, would it not be a murder to just shoot them dead?
Well granted it would be killing that person, but it is cases like these that are generally accepted, and thus not called murder.
Now in the scenario you presented having no legal right to kill that man make it murder, even if it was just, even if there was no chance for survival.
Yet in the case of a cop killing a criminal in defense or in the chase, that is counted not as murder but as legal homicide.
It's legal because it's necessary, and it's not murder because it's legal.
So the case comes back to abortion being murder or not. Where the answer is no. At this moment in time (that could change like you've said), abortion is legal making it not murder.
Anti-abortionist seek to make it illegal, thus making it murder, but I see that it still has a necessary purpose to it. To prevent struggling mothers from being forced take care of a child they may grow to resent because they can barely afford it, to press down on overpopulation, if on slightly, and even to keep neglected children from being born into a world where adoption is the only option.
Now while any of those kids could have grown to be Steven hawking, the pressing issues of the time, the ones I just mentioned, overcame the potential good f the future. Like with criminals being legal shot dead, any criminal that was could have grew into the president and did a lot of good for his country, like Nelson Mandela, but the pressing issue of the time, their running from the police, was enough to out weigh their future potential.
I still don't know if you agree that slavery was a violation of the rights of those enslaved. And, while you said that you see abortions as being "just" - you haven't specified what the justifications are. I would like to see if your 'justifications' for abortions would stand up in a courtroom challenge.
I do agree that slavery was wrong. I'm morally against it but, I as an observer, can see why it was just at the time.
Yet you keep comparing slavery, a violation of rights, to abortion, an alleged murder.
By definition abortion is not murder because it's legal. Anti abortionists want to make it illegal. I don't want to make it illegal because I see it's purpose.
The analogy I used before I'll try to refine it.
A cop killing a criminal in a chase is legal. A doctor killing an unborn child is legal.
The cop's kill is legal because it's the lesser of two evils. The doctor's kill is legal because it's the lesser of two sufferings.
If the cop let the criminal escape the criminal would go do more crimes.
If the doctor let the baby live it would be born into a world of misery.
The criminal might not have continued a life of crime and became a doctor.
The baby might not have suffered forever and became a doctor.
The criminal at that exact moment was in a dire situation where the potential future was unknown, but most likely to be a criminal still.
The baby is in a dire situation where the future is unknown, but most likely to be misery.
I wouldn't want the burden of raising a child I can't raise, and I wouldn't want anyone to force me or anyone else to.
Adoption exists. If you don't care for the child, give them to the local orphanage so they might find someone who does.
And before someone tells me adoption is another option,
Damn! Jumped the gun there. Sorry.
I personally wouldn't like always wondering who is raising my child,
So then why did you give them up for adoption in the first place? You don't want to raise them, but you also don't want to not know if they're okay? If you want to make sure they're healthy, try not giving them up for adoption.
If you think a fetus should have more rights than a pregnant person, then you have your priorities wrong. Fetuses are not sentient or bodily autonomous, therefore abortion does not constitute murder. Killing maybe, in the same sense that using hand sanitizer is killing germs. In fact, the pro-life side, I would say, supports murder, as forcing women to continue an unwanted pregnancy has been statistically shown to increase suicide and maternal mortality rates.
If someone is a strict constructionist who interprets the Constitution word for word, the sanction for abortion is given under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Fourteenth Amendment of our U.S. Constitution defines a citizen “a citizen” at birth. If a woman is carrying a fetus in the womb, the U.S. Constitution does not designate the fetus as “a citizen.” It would take an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to declare a fetus a citizen. You have to be born in order to be recognized as a citizen. Therefore, a woman does have the right to choose. A fetus inside the womb is not designated as a citizen according to the U.S. Constitution so by default is not entitled to life, liberty, or prosperity. You have to be born in order to be endowed with those privileges. To conclude, neither the Federal government nor any of the States can deny a woman the right to choose.
If abortion is murder, abortion would have been terminated years ago due to the cruel and unusual punishment clause under the Eighth Amendment. Again, proof that a fetus is not recognized as a citizen of the United States of America.
