Reaction to abortion debate

I attended the campus event Wednesday night offering two perspectives on the abortion issue. During the question and answer period, I asked Dr. David Baram, representing the pro-choice side, to point to some morally relevant difference between unborn humans and humans who have already been born, such that we may kill the former but not the latter for the same reasons.
Rather than answer my question, he repeated a line he had used throughout the evening: “Abortion is a woman’s decision.”
But this commits a logical fallacy known as begging the question — it assumes the very point Baram needed to prove. Clearly, it is not “a woman’s decision” to murder her toddler; the question at hand is whether the unborn, like the toddler, deserves full moral respect and ought not to be killed for the convenience or benefit of another. Baram’s answer was “no,” but he never offered an argument for this position — not through the entire debate.
It is disappointing to see Baram — and, it seemed, the vast majority of his pro-choice debate cheerleaders — relying on such intellectually superficial rhetoric. It is not worthy of academia.

Paul Stark
University student