abortion

I look forward to it. ---- Argument ---- My opponent's argument begins with an over-generalization. He maintains that because killing is "wrong", therefore abortion is also wrong: "Abortion is taking the life of an innocent". However, this assumption is wrong -- killing in it of itself is perfectly okay. From hunting, to fishing, to the zooplankton in our toothpastes, killing occurs all the time. What I believe my opponent was trying to say though, was that the forced termination of human life is "wrong". That it true, and I will not attempt to argue that point. However, a fetus is NOT a human being. Wiktionary, for instance, defines a human being as, "A human being, whether man, woman, or child; Of or belonging to the species Homo sapiens or its closest relatives. " There is no mention of fetuses anywhere in that definition. And in fact, if you can find a mainstream, unbiased source (from a dictionary, online dictionary, or otherwise) that defines humans to include fetuses, I will forfeit the sources vote. Furthermore, your conception of the word "killing" is also flawed. If we can assume that preventing life to become life is in fact killing, then every moment you are not engaging in the act of reproduction, you are killing potential life. In other words, if at any time in your life you were not procreating, you just destroyed potential life. This notion, however, is quite ridiculous; the notion of disallowing abortion is similarly absurd. The idea of "potential life" is neither equatable, nor comparable with actual life. But even if a fetus were a human being, its "rights" still would not trump the rights of the mother. Who are we to expect pregnant women to voluntarily donate their body and life support systems to something else? Who are we to force a mother to devote eighteen years to taking care of a child? That is both unreasonable, and, arguably, sexist. Therefore, my opponent's argument that abortions deprive the rights of future humans should be ignored. Besides, even if abortions were made illegal, women would still seek them, and this would be extremely dangerous. According to Planned Parenthood, "In 1972 there were 1,000,000 illegal abortions and 5,000 to 10,000 women died from them. " When Roe v. Wade passed in 1973 (a year after the above-mentioned statistic), deaths from abortion drastically dropped. This is supported by the National Center for Health Statistics' own statistics. But above all, the fundamental reason Sribs expresses his opinion this way in his opening argument, is because he wants to inflict her morals upon the different people around her. The government has extremely little right to control the morals of its people, and above all, that is why you must allow abortions. And that is why I strongly urge the audience to vote PRO. ---- Cross Examination ---- I request that my opponent answer the following questions. 1) Do you support any one of the following: The death penalty, the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, or gun rights? Or possibly: Are you against human embryonic research? 2) Do you support the statement: Life begins at conception? Or do you support other definitions, such as "when the hearts starts beating"? 3) What do you believe should be done in the instances of (1) rape, (2) incest, (3) a severe genetic deformity, and (4) when the fetus poses a health threat toward the mother?