Resolved: The United States Federal Government should pass the Life at Conception Act.

Okay, I thank my opponet for doing this great debate, but I'm afraid it's time for it to come to an end. Without further ado let's move onto the debate. Contention 1: Self Awareness. The evaluation of life, as defined by Biologists, is done by locating Signs or Characteristics all life possess. While no full list is accepted on a universal scale, at least twelve characteristics are generally used in Biology, often in lists of five or seven. They are as followed: Organization: Defined as composing of cells. Genes: To consist of DNA and RNA. Adaption: Changing to match the environment around it. Homeostasis: Maintaining a consistent internal environment. Metabolism: Sometimes called Thermodynamics, it’s the transformation and use of energy. Response: To react to stimuli or to the environment around it. Reproduction: To be able reproduce or bear children. Growth: To grow in size, usually referred to as Cell Growth. Excretion: Removing wasted from the organism’s body. Respiration: The intake of gases needed to live. Feeding: The consumption of resources to live. Movement: The ability to move that even plants have. The Characteristics of Life are used to measure whether or not something is alive or non-living. As with any measurement, the unit of measurement must match the thing being measured. It is completely useless to measure weight in inches, thus showing my opponent's umbrella is irrelivant and this is the proper measurement. For that reason, we have to use these Characteristics used to determine life among single-celled organisms to determine if a Zygote is really alive. Measuring a Zygote by the standards of a full grown, multi-celled organism would be a fraudulent means to determine it not living, sadly too often successfully used to do so. There are many who believe that life starts with a heartbeat, or some who argue that it’s about being self-sustaining. Neither is correct. Life has nothing to do with a heartbeat, or self-sustainment. This is an issue of flawed Cause and Correlation. That because someone is alive because he has a heartbeat, when in reality he has a heartbeat, and brain signals, and digestion… because he is alive. We can measure if you die by using your heartbeat, but it’s not because of your heartbeat that you are a living creature. Your heartbeat just keeps you alive. A tree has no heartbeat, nor does jellyfish, but even they are alive. (. http://www.nsf.gov...) In all reality, a heartbeat is merely a side-function of Respiration, the true character of life. Self-Sustainment isn’t used to measure life either. The idea that humans are self-sustaining is far from reality. Humans depend on bacteria to live, if we lost the trillions of microorganisms and bacteria in our bodies, we would simply begin to die. (. http://www.scientificamerican.com...)There are many humans who can’t live on their own, some using iron lungs, and others in comas. Being able to live is required; being able to do it independently for this very reason is not. It should also be noted that parasitic creatures like the Candiru, or the tapeworm also fall under this category and we still concider them alive. While this seem less than humanly, living isn’t about how pretty or desirable the creature is. Last round I have already posted many of these reason on how the fetus is alive in refutation to my opponent's second contention, but I'll continue by extending those points across as they were dropped by adding on to it as they help prove this point. The fetus does not breathe through its mouth, but through its umbilical cord. The Mother inhales, and the oxygen is sent to the fetus through the placenta. The placenta then transports the CO2 back to the Mother via the same means. (. http://www.livestrong.com...) This would call us to ask whether this counts as Respiration. The answer is simple. Yes. As mentioned in the criteria, respiration is not about means and ways. It’s about bringing in a gas to live, and Fetus does bring in gas. While it doesn’t ‘breathe,’ it does require and take in oxygen. It should be noted that the heart begins to beat just 10 days after implementation, during the first and second week. (. http://www.ehd.org...) This is around the time it’s begins receiving nutrients and oxygen from the Mother. As discussed in the prior sections, once the placenta is finished forming, the fetus begins receiving oxygen and nutrients (same as the last source). By receiving nutrient from the Mother by week 1-2, the fetus fulfills the criteria needed for Feeding. As stated, it is not a matter of means. The fetus need not eat much the same as an adult. It need only require and take in nutrients. The fetus does this via the umbilical cord. Prior to conception, the two human Gametes, Sperm and Egg, each contain one pair of Chromosomes, for a total of 23 chromosomes each, or 46 pair together. During fertilization, the two sets merge, forming 23 pairs of Chromosome. After Fertilization, the diploid cell, a zygote, that is formed contains a full set of 46 human Chromosomes. (. http://www.healthline.com...) Even at conception, the zygote contains Genes. We can now see that I have shown that the zygote has met all the crieteria needed for it to be concidered alive. The other criteria that my opponent has brought up is irrelivant as one does not need friends and such to be concidered alive. Contention 2: Aftermath affects (with contention 3) Here's somthing that my opponent has failed to take into account here. There is actually several problems about my opponent's GLoria Fledt source. Firstly she is heavily biased as she is the founder of a feminist Pro-Choice organization, so that's one peice of judgement that could've skewed her judgement. Okay, Lannan you say, let's look past that it's still valid right? Wrong, the next piece of evidence is her sourcing states that she said and declared this in 2004. While both of my sources come nearly 8 and 9 years later with better and more accurae evidence than what was provided back then. So my argument here stands. She then calls it irrelivant because it's ad hoc, but that once again is false. THere is clear emperical evidence showing the connection between the two which is the same as linking smoking to lung cancer. Now what my opponent is saying maybe true about China, but take this into factor. They have been this way since the 1980s so why in the world is breast cancer starting to show up now? Thus my opponent's conclusion is wrong and should be discarded. THe last part is once again the date. My opponent's source from the telegraph comes in Feburary 2012 while mine comes 7 months later. Not only that, but mine is a study done by OBstertics and Gynaecologists and thus we can see that mine is more creditable due to them having more creditentials to this field as well. In conclusion, we can see that I have effectively refuted all of my opponent's points and she has dropped her own case. I have shown that the fetus is alive and the effects of abortion on a mother is dangerous.