Infanticide should be encouraged up to the age of 3

I strongly suspect that my opponent has intentionally given up round 2 in order to place himself in the privaleged position of having the last word in round 3. I therefore will preemptively argue to counter this strategy. It is also worth mentioning that Yraelz has not addressed my argument in round 2, and for the sake of the readers, I submit that he must do so. Lets begin with round 3 As shocking as may seem to most people, I have heard some of the more hardcore proponents of abortion make a similar argument about euthanizing infants and toddlers. Their rationale? For them they see young children as not capable of sentience or cognizance, which of course is preposterous, since even fetuses as young as 12 weeks old have exhibited fear and distress during curettage and dilation. The other argument is that an infant is not self-aware, meaning that (s)he is not capable of understanding they are their own being. My answer to that: So what? We all started out the exact same way, and in my estimation, words like blastocyst, fetus, infant, toddler, child, teenager, adult, and geriatric adult are merely words to convey gestation or developmental stages in humans. They are not dehumanizing terms used to erase the humanity of humans, which some people are apt to do. Regardless, some people claim that an infant will not be aware of its impending doom and therefore it somehow alleviates the individuals committing the act of murdering the child. This argument fails miserably, however, since a grown adult sleeping in their bed would also not be aware that I snuck in their home and shot them in the head. Does the fact that they weren't aware of their impending death somehow exonerate me? Does it somehow remove the crime or the atrocity of it? No. And neither would the courts see it that way. None of this, though, explains why anyone would WANT to euthanize children under 3 years old in the first place. Indeed my opponent made no discernible argument beyond, what I gathered, that they were stupid like animals. .. ? That, of course, does nothing to explain why we should kill them at all (as if we just walked up to dogs and shot them on the basis of their animalness to begin with). My opponent has made no attempt to explain why we would even want to kill them, let alone why 3 years is the magic number the separates legal homicide from illegal homicide. Clarification on his part would be most appreciated. So with that, I will provide reasons that I've heard some people give on why it should be societally acceptable to kill infants. The next argument is that a mother has the right to do whatever the hell she wants with her own kids. Of course, this doesn't at all explain why a mother is instructed not to smoke or drink when she's pregnant, nor does it explain why she could be arrested for not providing adequate child restraints when traveling in a vehicle with her infant. (Go figure that both abortion laws and euthanasia laws fail in the rationality department) As it stands now, if she wants to abort, even after the birth of child (aka; amorphous blob of molecules), a few deluded people feel that she should have that right. Of course, after the birth, the whole "my body, my choice" mantra goes right out the window. It then stands to reason that she would only do it to selfishly alleviate herself from any culpability or responsibility. Furthermore, there is no need to euthanize an infant at all if the burden is just to much for the mother to handle. Adoption is always available, as there are countless couples who cannot conceive naturally. They desperately would love a child of their own, so why not make it a win/win/win situation. With euthanasia only the mother gets what she wants. With adoption the mother wins because she has washed her hands clean of her responsibility, the adopting parents win because now they have their little bundle of joy, and the child wins because. .. well. .. they're still ALIVE! The next argument, and by far the most prevalent among people using the euthanasia argument, is overpopulation. A pervasive myth shaping the minds of many is the notion that the earth is spiraling out of control due to overpopulation. The belief is that earth cannot provide enough resources any longer to sustain the influx, which will inevitably lead to all sorts of perils. Much like the topic of anthropogenic global warming, this Malthusian hysteria is a similar "the sky is falling, the sky is falling! " excuse to perpetrate and justify the most sinister acts of eugenics. Its no wonder human life is considered meaningless when people, such as Jacques Cousteau, state that, "In order to stabilize the world population we must eliminate 350,000 people per day," and Ted Turner, ". .. the root of the problem is Christianity which posits that people are more important than sea otters. " Or perhaps this comment, made by Charles Wurster of the Environment Defense Fund: "People are the cause of all the problems; we have too many of THEM; we need to get rid of some of THEM. " I find this terribly ironic being that Charles is himself, a human being. Perhaps he should heed some of his own convoluted advice and LEAD US BY EXAMPLE! People often look at cities that are exploding in population like Sao Paolo, Beijing, Tokyo, New York City, Los Angeles, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Calcutta, and the like, as a model in the presumption that the earth is like this everywhere. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that people are boxing themselves in. All the best jobs with the highest market value and the strongest economy are in major cities. People flock to these places only to turn around and complain about how bad the traffic is. Take the United States for example. The US population is the third highest in the world, at just over 280 million residents. Wow, that sounds like a lot. Well, it is a lot, but then again, so is the mileage of this nation. Models have been made showing that every single American can live in the state of Texas, each family with 2 acres of land! But really, does any of that matter? Lets suppose the earth really is becoming overpopulated to the point where natural resources could be completely stripped, thus hurling the human race in to extinction -- never mind the UN estimate which claimed that the world could comfortably sustain 9 billion people. Besides, one would think that mandatory vasectomies or tubal ligations would come before murdering children, provided things were that bad. Does it somehow justify murdering little babies? Because make no mistake, we are indeed talking about little babies here who have every conceivable right to exist in the same privileged manner we do. Every society has gone out of its way to protect the progeny. Thankfully there are few monsters who have assassinated their own conscience to the point where even an innocent child is potential threat to them and THEIR comfort. My last argument has to do with the straw man of claiming that showing pictures of infants is itself a straw man. For starters, I gave a detailed thesis on why it is deluded. No one can deny the emotive argument here. And why try? It is instilled in us for a reason, no matter how much someone may wish it away. Killing innocent children for no discernible reason, or reasons that seem justified to us so we can enact our own selfishness, is immoral on a level that most people identify with irrespective of country of origin, religion, age, or culture. There is this innate desire to protect the progeny. In closing, there is no earthly reason to ever agree with the assertion given to us by my opponent. I have demonstrated, by systematically removing all possible justifications, that there is no viable reason to unilaterally murder infants at will. Their arguments are vacuous and specious.