Abortions should be free, safe and available all through the US

Good morning, and thank you for coming to this morning's debate. I take it my opponent's previous post was meant to be his/her opening statement since he/she stated his/her position and gave reasons in support of it. Until I discover the identity of Pro, I'm going to say "he" from here on out just to avoid annoying you with "he/she" and so on. For Pro to carry his burden of proof, he must show three things: 1. Abortions should be free all through the US. 2. Abortions should be safe all through the US. 3. Abortions should be available all through the US. One thing I will concede from the get go is that wherever abortions are available, those same abortions ought to be safe. But I do not concede that they ought to be available everywhere. When I say they ought to be safe, I mean they ought to be safe for the mother. Obviously, no abortion is safe for the unborn since they are the ones being aborted. Pro appears to make only one argument in his opening. He argues that abortion is morally permissible within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and his supporting premise is that "Women should have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies, under any circumstances." Notice, though, that even if this reasoning is sound, it doesn't not support any of the three original contentions above. Consider the first contention. How does it follow that because a person has a moral right to do something, that it therefore ought to be free for them to do it? I have the right to go see a movie, but it doesn't follow that it ought to be free. Moreover, it's not really practical for abortion to be free. The equipment, doctors, lights, and electricity, all cost money. Somebody has to pay for it. These things don't just fall out of the sky. Now, consider the second contention. It doesn't follow that because you have a moral right to do something, that it therefore ought to be safe. There are lots of jobs that aren't particularly safe. Being a police officer isn't particularly safe. Neither is being a Marine or a Navy Seal. Being an oil field worker isn't all that safe either. So it doesn't follow that because one has a moral right to do something, that it therefore ought to be safe for them to do it. Now, consider the third contention. It has hard to see why if something is morally permissible, that a person who wants to engage in it ought to have the facilities provided for them wherever they go. Who owes anybody an abortion? Does the government owe anybody an abortion? Do citizens owe anybody an abortion? Of course not! If abortions OUGHT to be available everywhere, that means somebody has an obligation to provide them everywhere. But who has that obligation? I submit that nobody does. Abortion clinics are private for-profit businesses. Nobody is obligated to open such a business. So there is no sense in which such businesses OUGHT to be open everywhere. So we can see that even if Pro's arguments for the morality of abortion is sound, that is not enough for Pro to establish the resolution for this debate since it doesn't support any of the three contentions implied by the resolution. Now, let's look at whether Pro's argument is even sound to begin with. Recall that Pro's premise is that "Women should have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies, under any circumstances." Presumably, the argument would go something like this: 1. Women should have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies, under any circumstances. 2. Abortion is something women do with their own bodies. 3. Therefore, women should have the right to have an abortion, under any circumstances. The problem with Pro's conclusion is that it contradicts what Pro had said earlier. Earlier, Pro had said that he believes only early abortions ought to be permissible since late term abortions are "indeed wrong." So there is a circumstance under which Pro would be in favor of prohibiting abortion, and that contradicts Pro's "under an circumstances" clause. It also contradicts Pro's reasoning. Pro thinks abortion is something a woman does with her own body, and that women have a right to do whatever they want with their own body. But how does that equation change from week to week while they are prengant? If abortion is something a woman does with her own body at 11 weeks, then it's just as much something a woman does with her body after 13 weeks, and vice versa. We can see now that Pro's case is self-contradictory. He affirms what he denies. Pro's own statements about abortion restrictions refute his argument since if his argument were sound, it would follow that abortion is permissible through all stages of pregnancy. Now, let me say why I do not think abortion should be free, safe, and available all through the US. Reason #1: It's impossible for abortion to be free and safe at the same time. Safety entails competent and qualified abortion providers with good functioning sterile equipment, and that costs money. Somebody has to pay for these things. Reason #2: Abortion is morally wrong for the same reason homicide is wrong. It's wrong because it takes the life of an innocent human being without proper justification. Taking the life of the unborn is wrong for the same reason taking the life of a teenager is wrong. They are both members of the human family. The unborn are not mere appendages or organs in the female body. They are not part of the woman's body in the same way their stomach, liver, or heart are part of their body. The unborn are distinct organisms from the moment of conception. Granted, they are dependent on the woman's body in the earliest stages of their development, but they are not for that reason PART of the woman's body. All of us have gone through various stages of development since our conception, but none of these stages make us more or less human. We are human beings through all stages of development from zygote to senior citizen. If it is wrong to deprive us of life at one stage of development, then it's wrong to deprive us of life at any other stage of development because we are the same organism regardless of our stage of development. Abortion is not something a woman does solely to her own body; it is something she does to the body of another organism--her own young. For this reason, abortion should not be made available all through the US. And that concludes my opening statement. Thank you.