Roe v. Wade (the case which legalized abortion) should be held up.

I will start by revealing that I am approaching this with the methodology (one of many) set forth by sociologists Peter Berger and Anton Zijderveld. (http://www.amazon.com...)The Normative Principles & Cross-Perspective AgreementThere are two principles in the normative status of legal abortion that are stressed with great certainty: "1) That every person has the fundamental right to life [which is why murder is one of the most terrible crimes]; 2) That a woman has the fundamental right over her own body [which is why rape is a crime comparable to murder in its violation of human dignity]."You will see how the two sides have thus deemed themselves "pro-life" and "pro-choice," which must be seen as an extension by assumption of the mutual exclusivity of these two statements. These two statements in and of themselves are hardly disagreeable and one may recognize this in "pro-choice" individuals granting assertion #1 and "pro-life" individuals granting assertion #2. This would seem to show us that the two sides have postulated arguments which are of little practical importance to the question of the legality of abortion, and the disagreement on the policy aspect of abortion would lead us to believe that we must turn elsewhere. Concerning the Inapplicability of the Above Normative Statements & The Appropriate QuestionThe fetus is of course a human life, just as much as your appendix is. The question is of "personhood" and this can be said to be agreed upon by legislative assemblies which have dubiously labeled anti-abortion bills "Personhood Amendments." Life and personhood are inextricably distinct concepts in theory and in the actuality of worldly substances of which "life" and "persons" are constructed. (http://rationalwiki.org...)That being said, the question to be asked of the "pro-choice" individual is not of a woman's legal right to control over her body, but in the case of abortion where her own body ends and another body begins with respect to a fetus. The ultimate question is explicated by Berger and Zijderveld as, "When in the nine-month trajectory of pregnancy does a human person emerge?" There is a simple and yet unsatisfying answer to that question we don't know. He who says that the person is formed at birth is required by the burden of proof to show, which hundreds upon hundreds of years of examination on the human person and natural law by the brightest of individuals has failed to provide a conclusive answer. The personhood at conception view is typically based on theological perspectives or inconclusive philosophical premises, which self-evidently have no role to play in legislative abortion policy. Unless it can be shown that allowing the termination of a pregnancy of a distinct and unique women contradicts the First Amendment ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...") then your religious concerns are of no relevance in this debate. The government need not respect your religion, only protect your ability to exercise it, which (unless proven to the contrary) the actions of a unique and distinct woman with regard to her pregnancy does infringe upon. The First Amendment does not give the right to religious indivdiuals to object to and hinder the actions of others it deems wrong if said actions do not impinge on your right to practice as you see fit. The Distinction between Specified DNA and "Personhood"It should first be noted the biological fact that mitochondria have their own separate and unique DNA within each cell, so unless personhood is to be granted to the organelle itself, unique DNA is not reason to grant unique personhood to the entity in which the DNA is contained. (http://en.wikipedia.org...)From this we can extrapolate to make a more practical distinction in that "Whatever I am as a person isn't identical with my DNA, and it's I, not my DNA, who have certain inalienable rights. Legislative Application (The Question of Roe v. Wade)If it is to be argued that the state has sufficient interest in banning the termination of a pregnancy, then Con must be asked to show: (1) a conclusive and convincing argument for the establishment of a human person at conception that does not depend on irrelevant religious premises; (2) that a defense of anti-abortion legislation appropriately applies the First Amendment which only grants the individual right to practice their religion independently and without obstruction.It can be reasonably assumed that an embryo at 1-2 weeks is relatively further from "personhood" than a developed fetus in the second or third trimester. This begs the question (but does not answer) of where along the 9 month spectrum it can be said that a human person has emerged. In this sense, we are "faced with the necessity of making a morally sound decision in a state of ignorance about the basic question underlying the issue at hand -- in this case, the question of when human [personhood] emerges." Because we don't know when we are dealing with an unborn person, it is reasonable to make "abortion solely the woman's prerogative at least during the first trimester, then making abortion increasingly difficult and finally illegal except under extraordinary circumstances." It is noted that this is the widely used preference of most European countries. In Defense of the Posed DebateIt can be reasonably shown that this methodology is consistent with the legislative conclusions of Roe v. Wade. The decision has limited the availability of receiving an abortion until "viability," or the point at which the fetus is able to naturally survive outside of the women. This is typically denoted as around 22 weeks. It is my argument that this chronological denotation is the best we as a collective species have done to establish "personhood," thus making the decision of the Supreme Court adequate and worthy of continued support.