Abortion

I will be taking the position that abortion should not be legal except in extreme cases such as rape, incest, or endangerment of the mother. The real argument is about drawing the line at a certain point. At what stage is abortion considered amoral or murder? At what stage should the embryo be considered a human? Should the mother have the right to choose what happens with the child? These are all things that need to be considered when deciding what the law should be. My opponent pointed out that there is a certain stage where we put restrictions on abortions. I would like to expand upon this because I believe this to be the heart of the conversation. I would draw the line sooner and say that abortions should be limited to people with extreme cases. Of course there should be abortion for ectopic pregnancies. Of course a child who is raped by their father should be able to have an abortion. Most Pro-Life people agree with that. It's not even an argument. The real battle is for the common abortions that are unnecessary. The fact of the matter is that the fetus is definitely alive. Abortion is always taking a life. I think the Pro-Choice side tends to devalue that life by saying it is just a clump of cells. "It isn't a human yet". How many cells do you need to be considered a human? How many nerve endings do you get to have before it is inhumane and torturous? The answer is that this is definitely a life. It doesn't matter how many cells the fetus has or whether it can feel pain or not. It is alive. The only reason people do not acknowledge this is because it makes them feel better about doing it. If you called it what it is, you would feel the gravity of the action. Just because it is taking a life doesn't mean it is always amoral. We have many exceptions in society where we are allowed to take lives. Most of the time it is when our own life is in jeopardy or when taking the life would be saving other lives in return. For instance, there are laws for self defense when you kill somebody. Euthanasia is now legal in certain places in order to prevent suffering. Capital punishment permits us to take a life in exchange for preventing harm to society. These are all extreme cases to take lives in the real world. So why should it be different just because a child hasn't passed a certain threshold? Our laws for human rights are outdated. An unborn child has no voice. Nobody will fight for them. The only person to care for the child is the mother. When you become a mother, you are held responsible for the care of a child. Why is the womb a gateway to their right to life? A child who is born prematurely has more rights than a child who is older, but still in the womb. Murder is always a "choice". If you shoot a dog in the face, you are considered a terrible person. People will scold you and call you terrible. But those same people will fight for the choice for the mother to vacuum her baby out in separate pieces. This is disgusting and not natural. I know of no other animal that would rejects its own pregnancy in the animal kingdom. Really it comes down to fear. Fear that the quality of life for the child is not sustainable. Fear that there won't be enough money to support it. Abortion is a selfish choice. You are robbing a person of their chance at life. Why is adoption such a horrible decision? It is better for a child to die rather than be given a chance to live with other parents? The whole argument that a child won't have a happy life is bull. You can't say for sure that someone will have a horrible life if they are adopted. You cant assume they will be abused. The reality is that the mother is embarrassed because she got pregnant and can't take care of her baby. It is less humiliating to get rid of it in secret before anybody knows than it is to give the child a chance to live with other parents. It's about the mother's feelings not about the baby's quality of life. If that kid grows up and hates his life, then that is his choice. But what if he grows up and is grateful to have been in this world? With abortion, we will never know. You rob that person of a chance to love and laugh and play and experience this world. If they reject it, that is their choice. Even growing up in an abusive home doesn't mean you aren't grateful for being alive. What about the real problem? It's not so much about abortion as it is sex education. People need contraception. What the mothers really want is the freedom to have sex without consequences. So why don't we fix it where the problem is? Let's make sure they don't get pregnant in the first place so that they don't have to make this terrible choice. Invest in birth control and teach people about condoms. That is what really needs to happen. I am not a Christian. I don't think that this moral code is written in a book anywhere. But if we take a step back and look at the reality of what abortion really is, I think it's safe to say it is pretty brutal and disgusting. If you give people an option to do something within the boundaries of the law, they will do it. If you make rape legal, there will be rapists with no remorse. If you make drugs legal, there will be more addiction. And if you make abortion legal, people will do it more frequently than necessary. People need restraint. There needs to be a line that says abortion is not okay.