args

Abortion should be made legal.

If you don't think debating the status of a fetus (or more accurately, a Zygote, embryo or fetus) is productive, you should have picked a different topic to debate because, as I said, that's central to whether abortion should be legal. You say life doesn't begin at conception because a zygote doesn't have "human characteristics." But you never tell us what "human characteristics" you're talking about and why no fetus has such "human characteristics" prior to birth. You concede that a zygote, unlike a sperm or egg cell (both of which inevitably die out on their own if they're not fertilized) will develop into a human. In fact, the zygote, unlike the sperm and egg cells, has the DNA of both parents, which of course is the necessary building blocks for human growth. So in that respect, the zygote is a "human" in a way that the unfertilized egg and sperm cells are not. You further argue that the zygote "needs nutrition, protection, and a slew of other things from it's mother." What's your point? So does a baby after it's been born. So therefore, a zygote is clearly materially different than an unfertilized sperm or egg, and your hilarious tangent about banning masturbation and menstruating women being prosecuted for murder is not relevant. You focus heavily that a child conceived through rape is forced on the woman. Undoubtedly, but the same is true (at least to an extent) of any child conceived through sex where pregnancy was not intended. But as I said, the manner in which the child was conceived doesn't make it any less human or any less worthy of protection. At 17, you might not fully grasp this about the world, but people are forced to do things against their will ALL THE TIME, both due to the law and to the fact of their particular situation. Lots of children are unwanted and/or live in homes that are less than ideal. That doesn't make their lives worthless or make them second-class citizens less worthy of protection or less worthy of having their most basic right (the right to life) respected. You mention some "right not to do what you tell me." No such "right" exists. All laws involve telling people what they can and can't do, whether that means stopping at red lights, taking out the trash cans on Tuesdays for collection, or not aborting fetuses. You claim I am being "oppressive" if I do not concede a "health" exception, but, of course, you've made no effort to define exactly what such an exception an entails. "Health" is a very broad concept that could end up being the exception that swallows up the rule because it would apply in so many situations. I gave a specific answer to as to when I would consider abortion justifiable -- I would not force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term if doing so be either life threatening or present a sizable risk of grave, physical harm. As for your forgery argument, tomorrow, go ask your doctor to forge up some medical records for you or to write you a bogus prescription. See how far you get. Do you honestly believe that a sizable number of medical professionals in this country would risk their medical licenses (i.e., their livelihood) so that a woman can get an abortion? Get real. As an aside, I'm not aware of any FORGERY allegations with respect to the Iraq issue -- only that the intelligence was bad and/or politically manipulated. As for your argument that "banning abortions won't stop them," my response is the same as the previous round (which you didn't address) so I won't repeat myself. To clarify a statement I made in the previous round which you appear to have misunderstood, I never said abortion was murder (incidentally, most convictions for murder do NOT result in executions, especially if we're not talking about murder in the first degree). What I said was that this debate was about whether we SHOULD equate abortion with murder. To continue briefly on this tangent, your statement that "under no circumstances is murder considered ok" is simply not true. Murder is ok in certain situations, including self-defense, defense of others, etc . . . . In any event, making abortion illegal would effectively send the message that society does NOT consider abortion to be okay except in those same limited situations. I never said people get abortions because "they like killing zygotes." Where did that come from? I understand that people have motives to get abortions, but they will only seek out abortions if the determination behind that motive outweighs the risks and the difficulty and inconvenience of the obstacles imposed. Therefore, the harder it is to get an abortion, the less people will actually get one, even if they have "motives". Of course information about where to obtain underground abortions will not be readily available if abortions were made illegal. That's why they'd be called UNDERGROUND. The internet is generally nice resource, but it doesn't really address this issue. Underground abortion providers won't want the police finding them, and it was you that said such abortions would ultimately go unreported. I am curious as to what websites would be accessible to women seeking abortions but would somehow be inaccessible to police and reporters. I didn't provide an "alternative" to the suicide argument because the suicide argument is ridiculous. You don't legalize something because somebody holds themselves and others hostage. Otherwise, you'd be creating some pretty perverse incentives. You want to legalize crystal meth? Just threaten to go on a killing spree and then commit suicide. That way, legalizing crystal meth will save lives in the end. In any event, you haven't provided any evidence that such a sizable amount of women would actually contemplate suicide if they were denied an abortion to make this "argument" even worth considering. Life isn't outweighed by unfettered liberty. If it was, anybody would have the "liberty" to kill anybody else. We have fundamental rights (most of which are set forth in the Bill of Rights) which may not be infringed, but those simply don't include an unfettered right to abort a fetus at any time before birth. Indeed, one of the basic notions of individual rights is that your liberty ends at the point where you're infringing on somebody else's fundamental rights. And since the fetus is a life with rights worth protecting, "liberty" cannot be said to include the absolute right to an abortion.