Abortion is morally evil and should be outlawed

Hello and welcome to another e debate. I would like to ask the judges and the audience to forgive my brevity, I am posting this from my phone as I do not have access to a computer right now. Nonetheless, I will try my best to state my case.

Today's topic is about abortion, and it is my contention that abortion is not "a woman's right to choose" a "healthcare issue" or a matter of what is socially acceptable. Rather, we must call abortion what abortion really is. Murder. The deliberate and purposeful ending of a human life, and worse... The most innocent human life, that of the unborn.

My arguments this debate will not be of a religious persuasion. Although I am a deeply religious individual, I am discussing this issue with an audience who may not be. Therefore my arguments will strictly be from science and logic.

That human life begins at conception is not something your pastor told you, it is not something the guy on the street corner told you, it is not a slogan pioneered by the pro life movement. It is a basic scientific fact.

“The basic fact is simple: life begins not at birth, but conception.” (Ashley Montague, geneticist at Harvard. Life Before Birth (New York: Signet Books, 1977), vi.

  "  Fertilization is the process by which male and female haploid gametes (sperm and egg) unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.”

Signorelli et al., Kinases, phosphatases and proteases during sperm capacitation, CELL TISSUE RES. 349(3):765 (Mar. 20, 2012)

(sources.    https://www.lifenews.com/2015/01/08/41-quotes-from-medical-textbooks-prove-human-life-begins-at-conception/)

https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html

When male and female gametes unite, they create a genetically unique organism. The zygote contains the genetic information for the complete individual. The zygote and embryo that follows is

1. Alive

2. Genetically human

Therefore it is a human life. A common slogan put forth by the pro choice movement is "my body my choice." Basic logic and common sense dictates that it is NOT the body of the women pro lifers are interested in. It is the unique human organism within her

Since it is a scientific fact that human life begins at conception, we can now move forward and look at a scenario that creates an ethical paradox for pro choicers.

Let's say we have two pregnant woman. Both are six months pregnant. Women A gives birth 3 months early. After her six month her baby is born. Although severely premature, her baby is alive at the hospital. Women B is six months pregnant, Woman B decides to have an abortion.

After a few days of giving birth early, woman A decides she no longer wants her premature child. She kills it at the hospital.

Why was it morally acceptable for woman B to kill her six month old INSIDE the womb, but not morally acceptable to kill her preemie OUTSIDE THE WOMB.

I'm summary, science tells us human life begins at conception. Abortion at any stage therefore takes a human life. Taking an innocent human life is morally evil. Therefore abortion is morally evil.

I believe that today's debate should not hinge off of a purely pragmatic argument, but the individual scopes of philosophy we choose to view this topic over. My view for today's round functions on a single principle: autonomy.

In today's case, I will be valuing the autonomy of the mother greater than the child, simply because the mother has greater ability for rational thought and action; however, the autonomy of the fetus/embryo/child should also be valued, simply because of the internet capability for autonomy once that child is born. It is simply valued less, and unless that the mother's autonomy has been or will be violated by the child, the child still has capability of human autonomy and should therefore be valued.

There are multiple cases where abortion should be legal, because the autonomy of the woman has or will be violated, that constitute the abortion of a child.

A special thank you to my opponent for his very well thought out response. It appears me and my opponent agree very closely on this topic, however, my opponent argues there are times abortion is justifiable. We will certainly discuss this. Firstly I would like to follow suit and discuss the philosophical viewpoint my opponent has espoused

 My opponent has stated that he considers autonomy to be what gives human life value. Is that a fair assessment Acer?

My opponent has also defined autonomy as

"ability for rational thought and action"

So if we follow that out, that means ability for rational thought and action is what makes human life valuable. Would you agree Acer?

No two people have identical capacities for rational thought or action.

I know some people who suffer from crippling OCD. The actions they take to relieve their symptoms are anything but rational.  They are still human beings and their lives are just as valuable.

If someone underwent some type of trauma and went through a period of irrational behavior, would their lives temporally become less valuable?

Same for rational thought. The Harvard philosophy professor thinks far more rationally than the guy in a coma. Is the guy in a coma less valuable as a human being?

The issue is we can't quantify human worth based upon subjective factors.

Human beings are intrinsically valuable because, I believe, they bear the image of God as humans.

What's more, my opponent has stated he believes abortion is acceptable in rape cases.

Here's where I take issue. If you have an abortion after a rape case, what happens now is you have a a situation where we not only have one victim but now two. The human life in the woman is still that, a human life. It is morally wrong to punish an innocent life for the crime of the perpetrator.

If a child from a rape gets aborted in the womb, that in itself is a virtual second rape, because that human life has the right to be alive just as much as a child who is wanted. 

Multiplying victims is never the answer.

Finally my opponent has stated abortion is acceptable if the woman's life is in danger. I agree with not using the term health, as that can be an is abused.

Statistically speaking, those types of instances are so rare they're virtually non existent.

If you have a situation where two people's lives are in danger, and you can only save one of them, who do you save?  That's a philosophical paradox, not so much a medical issue. Truthfully though there is no good answer.

Again, thanks to my opponent for his response.