Abortion

Ladies and gentlemen, it is evident my opponent has a disregard for statistics. He would rather you believe his own claims with no sources to back up these claims. He questions my statistics without reading the sources. He questions the relevance of my arguments, and in doing so ignores the fact that they were written in response to his own arguments. In effect, he is disregarding his own arguments as irrelevant. Though I know the readers can follow, it seems my opponent cannot, and so I will explain: "(1)Babies do NOT stay babies forever...(2)parents will buy things for them...(3)There is an entire Industry revolved around babies...etc." 1-I provided statistics regarding the vicious circle of the foster care system. Not only will it be at least 18 years before children grow out of the system, I provided statistics on children who are adopted before then. Yes, there are many adopted children- even the vast majority- who become productive members of our society, however it is a demographic which now contributes in greater majorities to homelessness, crime, and to the very demographic they come from- foster care and/or adoptive children. Please see my sources in R2. 2-We are speaking about parents who would not want their children, and would most likely give them up for adoption. 3- Again, these are children who won't be wanted by their parents because they were forced to have them after they already wanted to have them aborted. "Is my opponent suggesting that DCFS is a bad thing?" -My mention of DCFS was to show statistically the expenditure by the state of Illinois in comparison to my opponent's claim that abortions cost the state $1 million annually. "So unless my opponent claims that the majority of people who go to get abortions who belong to the Lower Socioeconomic Income class" -I thank my opponent for making my argument relevant. I will give several sources' statements on demographics: * 56% of women having abortions are in their 20s; * 61% have one or more children; * 67% have never married; * 57% are economically disadvantaged; * 88% live in a metropolitan area; and * 78% report a religious affiliation. http://www.guttmacher.org... -67% of abortions occur amongst minority (non-white) women. -The abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570 for a single woman with no children) is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level (44 vs. 10 abortions per 1,000 women). This is partly because the rate of unintended pregnancies among poor women (below 100% of poverty) is nearly four times that of women above 200% of poverty* (112 vs. 29 per 1,000 women -75% of women who had an abortion say they couldn't afford to have a child http://www.guttmacher.org... Now, I don't know if I have to link poverty to drug abuse, as that is common sense, but I will nonetheless provide some sources so as not to rely simply on my opinion and assumptions as my opponent has. My sources say there are links between poverty as the cause of drug abuse, and vice versa. There are also links between abortion and drug abuse, and vice versa. Poor, unmarried women are both more likely to have abortions (as evidenced in the sources above), and they are also more likely to use drugs. http://www.policelink.com... http://www.guttmacher.org... http://www.apa.org... "Again my opponent seems to keep going on about the Adoption Industry." - It is the only alternative my opponent provided to abortion. I have presented the options of education on contraceptive use, help for single mothers, etc. My opponent seems to not want me to address an issue that he brought up. "Now I am going to use one of his own arguments against him how do you know what is really going on in the adoptees minds? You do not know what they are thinking." -I did not claim to know what they were thinking, rather I was pointing out their higher prevalence for suicide attempts in response to your claim that "the worst doom of all is not even getting the chance to live and the right to life." Though I don't condone suicide, it is easy to understand why a child not wanted by his/her birth parents might wish that he/she were not alive. Yes, it is a drastic thought, and suicide is a drastic measure, but it is an issue that we have to deal with. Illegalizing abortion would contribute to the demographic most prone to attempting suicide amongst youths. "People should NOT be permitted to have an abortion in a case of these as I said earlier you cannot punish the innocent due to the evils of the guilty." -By that same token a girl who is raped by her father should not be punished by having to bear his child. At the time of conception it is not the conceived child who will suffer, rather the child who was raped. No one has the right to impose that on a child, and to claim ethical and moral superiority on this issue is ridiculous. My opponent makes other statements that completely disregard my arguments, yet has presented no counter-argument of his own, even if you disregard my arguments. He never defended my statements on abortion not being murder, nor my scientific definition of embryo, and so we must assume he has accepted both. What reason, then, remains to illegalize abortion in his arguments? He claimed in R2 "it is the right of the baby's right to life that abortion infringes on", but that argument does not hold when considering the definition of embryo, and the fact that most abortions occur at that stage of pregnancy (before the start of the third month). My opponent asks a question, but doesn't provide an answer: "Well, then why is it that when somebody commits a murder of a pregnant woman he is charged with double homicide, but somehow when a woman gets an abortion its somehow no longer human. For example The Scott and Lacy Peterson trial." I contend that the reason it is considered a double homicide is because it was not the woman's choice to end the child's life. Her life was taken, as well as the life of the child she INTENDED to have. My opponent claims that life begins when the sperm meets the egg, and that it is as simple as that. I refute this statement because a sperm is a living cell independent from all other cells in our body, and an egg is a cell independent from all other cells in our body. When the sperm enters the egg, they become one lving cell called a zygote. How is a zygote a living human, yet a sperm cell or an egg- both which contain the information to develop a human, both building blocks of life- not a living human? The truth is a zygote is not a living human. It is merely a cell. When it divides, and continues to divide, it eventually forms an embryo- also not a living human. I will close with some passages from the bible: Hosea 9:11-16"Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. Give them, 0 Lord: what wilt thou give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. . .Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb." Numbers 5:11-21 Priest ordered to cause abortion of woman who conceives child of another man. Hosea 13:16 God promises to dash to pieces the infants of Samaria and the "their women with child shall be ripped up". I do not condone abortion, nor do I support it. I support the right of a woman to choose, and I oppose the arguments against abortion based on morality or ethics. My morality should not impose on the personal choices of others which do not affect me. The above passages are not intended to offend Christians, rather to point out that morality can be taken out of context, and manipulated to one's own views. I ask the readers to judge on the merits of the arguments, not their own