Resolved: Legalized Abortion is the Greatest Crime against Humanity in the History of Mankind

As this round is for arguments, I will present my arguments though all the questions my opponent has asked me I will answer. 1. Do prenatal human children not comprise an ethnic or national “group” of human beings[3][4]? No, prenatal human children do not comprise an ethnic or national group because they are not human beings because of the lack of a conscious brain as I will explain later on. 2. Are prenatal human beings not deliberately killed when they are aborted? No as I will explain in my constructive. 3. Are voluntary abortions not intended to “prevent births” of the children aborted? Yes, abortions are meant to prevent births, but this is completely different from what my opponent has underlined in the definition of genocide. The key word here is VOLUNTARY, meaning that the mother requested the abortion. No measures are IMPOSED to prevent birth. The definition of imposed is “to lay or set as something to be borne, endured, obeyed, fulfilled, paid, etc [3]. The mother is not forced to abort can still give birth if she chooses. This is in no way the same as forced abortions. I also would like to ask Con if he agrees that the denial of the status of equal “personhood” to a human being or to a group of human beings would be a crime against humanity. Yes, I would consider it to be a crime against humanity. However, my opponent cannot say that denying “personhood” to a “human being” is the same as denying “personhood” to a “non-conscious clump of cells that are part of the mother. ” Thus, denying personhood to a baby is completely different from denying personhood to a grown man. Before I move on to my constructive arguments, I would first like to show voters why abortion is not murder. Abortions most commonly occur in the first trimester, with 88 – 92% of abortions occurring in that time period [1]. Abortions are very rare after 12 weeks. During the first trimester (around 12 weeks), the most a baby can develop is to the stage where the baby is 3 inches long [2]. Babies during this period can be referred to as embryos. During this time period, the baby has just begun to develop a nervous system and brain. However, an embryo has not developed to the stage where it is conscious, in essence, it is a group of cells. Is destroying a group of non-conscious cells that only have the POTENTIAL to become human beings murder? By this same logic, a woman is a mass-murderer because every time eggs are released from her uterus and are not fertilized, she has murdered hundreds of people. Furthermore, throughout pregnancy, a baby is completely dependent upon the mother, and thus the baby cannot even be considered an organism, even during the late trimester. This is because of the fact that an organism is an INDIVIDUAL living thing. [4] Finally, when a baby is in the third trimester, abortions are extremely rare and are usually done to save the mother’s life as 95% of abortions done in the third trimester are done because of some sort of medical illness associated with the baby. [5] Very clearly, a baby cannot be considered an organism as the baby is part of the mother and thus abortion is not murder. I will now move on to my constructive points. C1: GENOCIDE IS A SERIOUS HUMANITARIAN CRIME This is a very straight forward point, within the definition of genocide we can see that genocide is the systematic extermination of a group of people. Throughout history, people have been persecuted because of their ethnicity or religion and have been mass-murdered. Probably the most famous example of genocide was the Holocaust, a tragedy where Nazi Germany exterminated over 6 million Jew’s because of their religion [6]! There is considered to be 8 stages of genocide [7]: Classification – them vs. us Symbolization – hate symbols are created Dehumanization – the victims are considered non-humans Organization – the militias and armies are organized Polarization – propaganda is spread Preparation – victims are identified Extermination – victims are eliminated Denial – perpetrators deny that a crime was committed Clearly, these 8 stages and what happened during the Holocaust exemplify the crimes that my opponent has laid out except for sexual crimes and apartheid. Clearly, genocides are serious issues that are much larger than abortion. Through a lower character count, I’ll keep it to one contention. Very clearly, I have shown why abortion is not murder and how genocide is. Thus, it is very clear that abortion is not a crime against humanity and genocide is. I look forward to my opponent’s response. SOURCES: . http://www.abort73.com... . http://www.justthefactsbaby.com... . http://dictionary.reference.com... . http://www.biology-online.org... . http://sciencenotes.wordpress.com... . http://en.wikipedia.org... . http://en.wikipedia.org...