Resolved: The practice of abortion ought to be made illegal in most circumstances

Thanks for responding. I’m sorry for the delay, I’ve been busy with IRL stuffs. REBUTTAL Re: Fetus = Human Again, all my opponent has argued here is that the potential life inside the woman’s womb is part of the species homo sapiens, and that it will evolve and eventually become a human being. But again, is this enough to justify on illegalizing abortion? No. My opponent dismisses my ‘sentience’ argument because it is a failed theory and unnecessary. It isn’t, that’s why embryos/fetuses have no rights in the first place. I will focus on the sentience and consciousness, which the embryo has not. My opponent states that my theory of the embryo having no sentience relates to a person in a coma. Two things, first, embryos have no legal rights because they are inside the wombs and will only have rights once they are separated from the mother (Embryos are not recognized by law as having rights because personhood is defined by the state). Second, a person in a coma was obviously already born, and with legal rights thus making him a human being. Let’s take a look at the ‘bear’ scenario my opponent gave in R2; where one man mistakes a person for a bear thus shooting him and killing him accidentally. Now, even though we can say that the benefit of the doubt will go life, we still wouldn’t consider this action to become a killing of an innocent person (i.e.: murder). Why? Because the man thought he was shooting a bear (which can be a danger to him), rather than a real, sentient human. Relating to abortion, if we outlaw most abortions, and when a woman and her doctor think they're killing a non-viable being, they would be guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but it’s hard to judge someone criminally negligent for not personally believing that a pre-sentient embryo is a viable person when we don't actually know this to be the case. There isn’t any sufficient evidence to prove that an embryo is a human being in mind. If we’re following PRO’s logic on embryo being humans, then abortion would be tragic and lethal and should result to murder in all cases, there should be no exceptions, meaning that this will result to many bad consequences. As for it being just and moral, I will address my opponent’s Spiegel argument and morality rebuttal in my Utilitarianism defense below, but to his statement saying, “To deny something natural and essential to life is unjust.”, If I may ask, dying is something natural and (one might say) essential, should we consider modern medicine unjust too? Re: Abortion: Economical Disadvantage? I’ve already addressed this issue and my opponent hasn’t fully accurately backed this claim up. Please extend my previous rebuttal and the arguments regarding the advantage of abortion and the disadvantage of back alley abortions on the economy. Again, having the black market and criminals profit more than the private sector/state is NEVER a good idea to society and economy. Re: Hippocratic Oath Violation 4 Issues: All arguments from this source {10}. 1) This oath is obsolete and irrelevant since it is historically taken by physicians. This oath is also invalid since it’s a stretch to even argue it. 2) This oath is not binding by law, there is no law required that forces doctors to take this when performing abortion. So what if they break it? 3) Non-doctors perform abortions too. ‘Nuff said. 4) Quoted oath is false. The quoted statement my opponent cited is from the original version, which has already been modernized. And performing an abortion isn’t stated in it. ERGO) This argument is false, invalid and irrelevant. DEFENSE/CASE De: Morality My opponent dismisses this argument stating that it is irrelevant and that I have the BOP. But please note that PRO made this argument first (but forgot to put it in R2), so it’s already proven that killing innocent humans can be morally permissible, and that an embryo is NOT a killing of an innocent human being. Now, to address his rebuttal: Okay, let’s say that contraceptives failed, thus the woman woke up pregnant. It was the woman’s intention to use birth control and wished not have a life attached her, but it failed. Thus making this Utilitarianism argument very much valid. There are also cases where women are morons, they are promiscuous and do not know the outcomes of having sex, we shouldn’t let the woman and the baby suffer. Actually no, there are different kinds of pregnancies {11} which can complicate and danger the woman’s everyday life, like Ectopic pregnancies, RH negative diseases, Group B Strep, Gestational Diabetes, etc. These illnesses limit the woman’s ability to do things, work, shop, take care of stuff. De: Fetus =/= Legal Human I’ve already proven why a fetus is not a human and that the ‘coma’ argument is blatantly false. I’ve also argued why fetuses shouldn’t receive or be considered human. Extend. De:Fetus not really innocent This relates to my morality argument. De: Violates Rights OK, I apologize. I haven’t read the definitions accurately. But the ‘rights’ I’m talking about here are not only legal, but moral, universal or God-given rights that are being violated. In a Utilitarianist view, we need to consider on what is morally permissible and we must consider what the best interest of the mother and child is. Right to choose & to have dignity: Women should have the right to be respected by society, if they do not want children that should be respected. Again, there are cases where birth control fails, where women do not know the outcomes of having children. Most of these women are mostly in poverty where they couldn’t economically handle having a child. {12}. Mothers are responsible for their children, we need to value their right on what they think is safer and right for their children and environment. Do you want children to live in the streets, to suffer and live with abusive parents? De: Crime Yes, this is a US-only debate. I’m introducing the NYT source as pattern evidence. My opponent counters this argument by citing a source from a book, thus must be considered unreliable, I don’t normally attack sources that way but it’s crucial to what we’re arguing. Now, to further clarify abortion=crime correlation; I will quote what I said in the previous round; Before Roe, illegalization didn’t reduce abortions. the estimates of illegal abortions ranged as high as 1.2 million per year, this is almost the same as the number of legal abortions now, we can also assume that millions of women were harmed as a result of illegal abortion, this process is more dangerous, expensive and of course, unlawful {9}. That source also states that and I quote, “Many women died or suffered serious medical problems after attempting to self-induce their abortions or going to untrained practitioners who performed abortions with primitive methods or in unsanitary conditions. During this time, hospital emergency room staff treated thousands of women who either died or were suffering terrible effects of abortions provided without adequate skill and care.” Now, obviously, illegalizations have no effect due to that source, also this that statement wasn’t accurately refuted by PRO. About my NYT source, please note that the WHO did a research (in countries where abortion is illegal) where they found out that 20 million unsafe abortions are performed per year & 67K of those women die, and between 2 -7 million of these risky abortions result in long-term damage or illnesses. This is only a pattern or what might happen to the US if we illegalize abortion due to back-alley abortion {8}. My opponent needs to prove that illegalizing is more beneficial to society regardless of back-alley abortions where criminals profit more than the state, where mothers have more health risks and are endangered. CITATIONS http://www.debate.org...