There should be a law that only allows abortions before the end of the first trimester

The Resolution: Pro undertook to prove that "There should be a law that only allows abortions before the end of the first trimester." The Concession: Now she says that's not true. Women shouldn't be forced to have babies, but only "made aware that her unborn child can live its life being loved by a mother who never had the opportunity she has." Pro has conceded that the resolution is False. The Harms: By Pro's own numbers, her resolution would force fifty million unwilling women to have babies in order to fill a backlog of only one and a half million babies. Think of the misery that would cause. Fifty million unwilling pregnancies; forty-eight and a half million unwanted children. The resolution would cause much harm. A better solution---not good, but far less damaging than that proposed by Pro---would be to let certified infertile women choose one single fertile woman, and get a court order forcing her to have children and then surrender them. That would be terrible, but far less terrible than putting fifty million women though that same involuntary servitude for the benefit of a few. Forcing women to have kids is a huge imposition. It is treating people as objects, as property, rather than as people. It is immoral, a form of sexual slavery. Could you walk up to someone and say, "I don't want this kid anymore; therefore, you must take it and raise it as your own." Could you say, "I think the world is too crowded; therefore, I order you not to have children." Or, "I like boys, therefore I order you to surrender your girls for adoption and try again." Those would all be terrible, but not more terrible than Pro's resolution. In a free country, we choose whether to have children. Government does not get to cancel and overrule the personal decisions of private citizens. The Various Rationales: One way you can recognize when you are in the wrong is this: If you find yourself flailing around, grasping and abandoning one rationale after another, then you probably don't have a real justification for your position. What rationales has Pro tried? - The PoC (product of conception, or, as Pro might have it, unborn very successful person) is a human being. This doesn't distinguish PoCs after three months from those before, or even from gametes. All are human. All be. This test fails to draw a line at three months - It produces cells at a mass rate. Pro says this doesn't start at three months. - It has a beating heart.Pro says this doesn't start at three months. - It has limbs.We don't get to kill limbless people. This test isn't relevant. - It can now be born.Right now, three months is way too early. But, presumably, science will eventually fix that so even a baby that has to be taken from the womb at one month can survive. They'll probably be able to take it back to before conception, allowing test tube babies to grow into "very successful adults" without ever having been in wombs. So this test also fails. It has nothing to do with three months. - It can now be born.Let's put a different spin on this one. Let's say Pro is saying that, after three months, if we leave the PoC alone, and let it develop in a natural way, it may eventually, with some luck, get born. But this is true also of PoCs before three months. It is true even of an egg and sperm cell in a womb together. This test has nothing to do with Pro's arbitrary three-month limit. - Sperm cells have no "them." What does this mean? Whatever it means, it doesn't draw a line at three months. What I think it means, my best and most charitable interpretation, is that it means the sperm cell isn't a person. It may be human, and it may be, but nobody's home: it doesn't have consciousness. I've raised this personhood issue myself, and Pro seems to be agreeing that it's important, but she isn't tying it to her arbitrary three-month limit. Pro has given us no reason to believe that conscious personhood happens at three months. - Your body can create more.This one is outrageous. Should we kill three-year-olds because our bodies can create more? This rule would allow all abortions. It doesn't support Pro's arbitrary three months limit.- Not all women are comfortable with fertility treatments and would rather just adopt a baby they can raise as their own. Not all women are comfortable with being forced to have babies for other women; they'd rather not have children at all, or not have children until they want them for themselve. Not all Americans are comfortable with government intrusion into their private reproductive decisions; they'd rather this be a free country.- Aborted babies have no say in their unlived lives.This is true of sperm cells and unfertilized eggs too. But it's okay, there's no problem with it, because they don't have any opinions. They aren't people. They have no personhood, no consciousness. There's no reason for us to impute opinions to them like, "I want to be born," or, "I don't want to be born," or, "Take off that condom so I can get me some." And, as established, Pro has not argued that personhood happens at three months. This rationale doesn't support Pro's arbitrary three-month limit. - "shouldn"t EVERY LIVING beings have a right to live?" Sic, and emphasis in original.No, we kill for food. We kill in self defense. We kill human living cancer cell beings. Even Pro is okay with killing PoCs before three months. And for killing sperm and eggs. Not every living thing has a right to live. Dandelions, mold spoors, wheat rust; nothing without personality, without consciousness and opinion, can have rights. There is no point, no utility, to pretending they do. And even if we were going to abuse ourselves and our society by pretending that such things do have rights, this would have nothing to do with Pro's arbitrary three-month limit. Conclusion: - Pro has conceded that the resolution is false. Vote Con. - None of Pro's arguments survive inspection. None of them would support her arbitrary three-month limit even if they did survive inspection. Pro has not, therefore, met the burden of proof. Her claim, the resolution, is unsupported. Vote Con. - While Pro's arbitrary three-month rule serves no purpose that she cares to name, it would do enormous harm to individual lives and to American freedom. Vote Con. - While Pro's S&G isn't a serious nuisance, her formatting is pretty confusing. Since her S&G is worse than mine, voting S&G points is permissible. I suggest that one or more of you vote the S&G point and specifically point out that she could boldface quoted material, or start the first line of quoted material with a colon, or otherwise take pains to distinguish quoted material from new material. Vote Spelling and Grammar for Con. - I don't have any citations. Pro mentioned the CDC. But even if you want to count that mention-without-link as a source, she did not use that source in a way that helped her case. From the CDC, Pro got the figures that she could fill a 1.5 million baby shortfall by forcing 50 million people to have babies. This doesn't help her case. It is not persuasive at all. Therefore it cannot be "more persuasive." She does not have a "more persuasive" source. Don't vote sources either way. ---Thanks for reading, everybody. And thanks, Pro, for participating. And thanks to DDO for hosting.