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DDO Tournament Debate: Zygotes Should be Recognized as Persons

Rebuttal Part I | Con in Round 2 Note | I am mixing up the order (not the numbering) to coordinate the rebuttal arguments into good setting for me. 1a regression | I don't see how every human organism is automatically a person. A male teenager is sexually mature. That does not automatically mean that he always has been sexually mature. Sexual maturity is a process but at a point he is not at all sexually mature (at birth f.i.) and at a point he certainly is. I don't see why personhood cannot be a process as well? The universality of personhood is only one interpretation. 1b reproduction | Yet again Con shows that a zygote is a human organism. Not how this makes it automatically a person. Personhood doesn't automatically equal these two. Being a human organism is biology. Being a person is law terminology (see following arguments for more context). 2 / 4a equality and discrimination | Discrimination is a daily problem. And will always be a problem. You cannot abolish discrimination. From 30 points in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDoHR] most of them have a hidden AND/BUT in it. Liberty [7], Article 3, and residence, Article 13, f.i.: You have to be human & never convicted of (a certain) crime in your country. Quoting Article 1 from the UDoHR [7] : "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.", we might even state that to be born is the most basic characteristic of being able to hold a right. Mentally disabled people and children are and will always be discriminated in a necessary and an unnecessary way. They cannot be allowed to drive or buy a gun. That is a form of discrimination. But necessary. But they can hold (to a certain extend of interpretation) all the 30 rights from the Declaration. An unborn cannot. Mainly when they interfere with the mother's. - see Part II 2.2/2.3 4b Zygote-Slavery | The believe or imply with comparision that unborns are the mother's slaves is something I totally object. They are of no financial/work benefit for the mother (to their own harm especially) yet they are a permanent health risk for her. A woman enslaves herself when she becomes pregnant. Not the other way around. 3 Superset | I enjoyed the conclusion of the idea that personhood is a superset of humanity, yet Con may forgot to actually show that personhood is superset of humanity. Up till then the examples given are slightly irrelevant. Rebuttal Part II | Con in Round 3 Note | The reason why I did not use sub-numbering for subarguments was to avoid having them seen as a single statement. I am dealing with them the way Con structured them, but I want to underline that they are meant to be read in context of each other. 1.0 Objection | A development progress doesn't equal the initial form with the final form. Con is wrong to conclude that I agreed with him. I am not disagreeing now but I object the interpretation because it was not what I said and I don't like it when my own words are getting twisted. 1.1 Development | Unequal rights for unequal development stages are daily life. Con's statement is wrong, that we don't practise this daily. Children have a lower developed judgement for speed [5], that's why they are not allowed to drive till they are older. 1.2 A DNA | I disapprove the words spent on the showing the similarities between my statement and racism. The statement, that 99% human DNA are identical implies opposite (because it acknowledges how much we all have in common, despite the looks) and the picture and cartoon can therefore only be misused to twist my arguments. 1.2 B Identical Twins | Con cannot turn down my Twin argument, by explaining how identical twins biologically occur. "How" is not the answer to the problem I outlined. 1.3 A Potential | I've not stated that murders or popes have a different claim on personhood. The argument of potential was there to show that you cannot award personhood on the potential that they might have, because you cannot evaluate that potential. Potential is an often used argument for the personhood of Zygote and I was probably wrong to use it before Con introduced it himself. We might want to put that on hold therefore. 1.3 B In-Vitro | Agreeing that personhood influences in-vitro I would probably move it to the practical approach section, because personhood automatically forbids most research that involve stem cells. A field that has been highly successful to keep the 2.0 Acknowledgment | I was expecting critique here. And I am glad my opponent took the time there because it's morally important to ask these questions. Some of the arguments are actually relativisation of profit and life and should never be solely enough for a decision. But they show that not only the best motives but also their applicability need to be considered. There is no use (= it shouldn't) in considering a Zygote a person if there is no way to fulfill the demands of that status. And that is a valid thing to consider and not latently racism. 2.1 A Biologically connected | A unborn and a mother are not totally separated. Nearly everything a woman does to her body, influences the unborn. Smoking and Alcohol are just two examples. There health systems are linked and to argue that a unborn is plain a "different organism" is not acknowledging that link sufficiently. 2.2 B/C Why it's a paradox | Con did a bit too much splitting here. B/C are linked. B - That one cell in comparison to over 700 billion having the same rights is not an argument that a cell cannot be a person but to prepare a base for the problem in "C" C - Con (as male?) might not be close to seeing that pregnancy is risky for a woman. Peripartum cardiomyopathy, preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, fatty liver of pregnancy, and amniotic fluid emboli [6] are actual health risks and every pregnant woman risks her life as well. If a woman actually is facing the situation that her death can only be prevented by abortion and the second "person" in her at the same time has the right to live, than the paradoxical situation occurs that a woman has to give up her right to live (personhood) to ensure the personhood status of the unborn. Or the other way around. Or both acknowledge their personhood and both die. That is of course an option. And for Con can it only be the only one. 2.2 D Dependence| A grown person can survive on his/her own. They probably never learned how but they physically can. A zygote cannot be taught how to develop an organ system outside a whomb. 2.3 Society | This is not about "Cotton Fields" this is about pregnant woman. Scared woman that face death, shame, social exclusion, poverty, suicide. For them it's (A) a philosophical mess because "personhood" makes them either murderers, (mentally/physically) ruined or dead (which would also make them murderers to some believes, if they choose to die, because they don't abort = suicide). Personhood is creating the mess. Not my position. The personhood of a zygote is criminalizing Any sort of non-natural abortion (murder) at any time natural abortions due to a woman's false life choices (manslaughter) stem cell research (that ironically helps to make pregnancy safer and extend life) Note | I want to encourage Con to take in account, that we are dealing with linked organisms of which only one is self-aware, can feel physical pain and can encounter the fear of of death, torture and destruction of their sanity. The mother can not be excluded from the question whether a Zygote should be seen as person, because it's influencing her rights. Conclusion | Giving a zygote that status of a person is therfore logically impossible because the resulting rights of all involved parties would contradict itself. [5] http://asrts.gccserver.ca... [6] http://www.medscape.com... [7] http://www.ohchr.org...