Abortion Should be Legal

Now, I will begin by stating that I will start by laying out my case by refuting my opponent's contentions and then procede to lay out one contention that I see is really the heart of the mass debate over legal abortions in the United States and all over the world. So with that said I will begin my refutation of my opponent's contentions. Refutation 1: The Human fetus vs Personhood. I will start my first counterpoint out by saying that I somewhat agree with my opponent. While, I don't accept his statements that Zygotes and Embryos are humans, I accept the notion that he is giving off that fetuses are humans. However, even though the fetus is a member of the biological species "Homo Sapiens", it is not a person. The fact that a fetus is of one species or another does not mean that it gets rights. I will define a person as an entity individual entity,morally conscious being capable of forming a complex thought and possessing the capacity (but not nessasarily the ability) to comunitcate their thoughts through language. This definition includes no animals. All of the said requirements for personhood are far more valuable in determining personhood then apindages. So, since a fetus is not a person then it has no serious right to life. My opponent calls the act of abortion murder, but what does the word murder really mean? The dictionary defines it as follows:' The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice. ' [1]However, abortions are fully legal making his statement rather empty. Refutation 2: Economy vs OverpopulationMy opponent's second contention has two things wrong with it. 1. My opponent is saying that abortion should not be legal, because it doesn't make the state as much money as they would like to have. Now, I don't know about the readers, but I in particular would just like to state that the United States government's jobs is not to protect it's interests but rather the interests of its people. As was told by the founding fathers when it was first created, it is a government for the people. The majority of Americans want safe abortions to be legal so it is the government's duty to make sure the people get what they want. Furthermore, it uses the word 'people' when fetuses are not people because they are not persons.2. The other thing that is wrong with his contention is that he ignores a major detail. The U. S. as well as the rest of the world is overpopulated. Chris Hedges (a former New York Times correspondent) said this in his article known as "We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction":"All measures to thwart the degradation and destruction of our ecosystem will be useless if we do not cut population growth," Hedges wrote. "By 2050, if we continue to reproduce at the current rate, the planet will have between 8 billion and 10 billion people. This is a 50 percent increase. And yet government-commissioned reviews, such as the Stern report in Britain, do not mention the word population. Books and documentaries that deal with the climate crisis, including Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," fail to discuss the danger of population growth. This omission is odd, given that a doubling in population, even if we cut back on the use of fossil fuels, shut down all our coal-burning power plants and build seas of wind turbines, will plunge us into an age of extinction and desolation unseen since the end of the Mesozoic era, 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs disappeared. " [2]While abortion would not be the final solution to this problem, it would help in decreasing the birth rate in our country. Just face it! Our coun try has quadrupaled in size in the last century, and now we are paying the price for it. We have areas that were once known for there natural beauty now turned into concrete jungles, we have schools that our overloaded and barely any teachers, and the enviroment is being pushed to its breaking point. Abortion needs to stay legal, because it actually does help society. Refutation 3: Health Risks vs ChoiceWhile my opponent is right when it comes to the health risks of abortion, it still isn't proper cause for making abortions illegal. Tobacco smoking and drink casue health problems, but they are not made illegal. Why? Because they (like abortion) are personal choices that come with consequences. Now I will state my contention. Contention 1: Women and Self OwnershipMy opponent started out his case by stating the ussual arguments that the fetus is a human and the fetus is being murdered. Like the rest of the people who have debated the issue before him he makes a critical error. He commits what is often called "The Fetus Focus Fallacy". However, the fetus even if it were a person with a right to life, would not be the only person with rights. The woman has total control over her own body and it's functions under the constitution. Under the 5th Amendment all 'persons' (notice the word person) have rights to life, liberty, and private property. Life is refering to ' the right to life', liberty refers to the freedom to live their life as they please (this intells that they have control over their bodies), and private property just confirms my last statement since one must first own themselves before they can own something from their surroundings. So, the government has no just cause to violate women's rights. It is their bodies and if they don't want a fetus in it then they don't have to [3]. I will now await my opponent's response. Thanks for reading. Sources[1]. http://www.thefreedictionary.com...[2]http://rense.com...[3]http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com...