The father of an unborn child should have a say in an abortion

IntroductionDue to the unique debate structure set forth by DDD (Pro) I am going to present my side of the debate this in a unique style. I will present my argument in a similar manner that St. Thomas Aquinas used in the Summa Theologica.In the Summa St. Thomas presented the best arguments against his own that he could find in order to prove his reasoning and argument to be valid. As such I will use this round to make my argument. I will follow this round up with the best Pro arguments I can think of or find anywhere else on the internet and show them to be inadequate to prove the Pro side of the debate.ArgumentThis is essentially a very straight forward topic to deal with. It is a resolution that both the Pro-Life side and Pro-Choice sides can agree upon as this is fundamentally a debate about personhood.1. Pro Life - PersonIf the unborn child is a person, then neither the mother nor the father should have the say on whether the child should die, because this would make abortion the equivalent of murder. Pro's use of the word "father" in the debate title would indicate that this is the governing factor in the debate.Father: A male person whose sperm unites with an egg, resulting in the conception of a child. [0]2. Pro Choice - Not a PersonIf the unborn tissue is not a person, then it should have no legal standing and it is classified as merely a part of the mother's body or her property to do with as she pleases and the father should have no say. 3. SummarySo here is an oddity in the abortion debate. An issue that both those who are Pro-Life and Pro-Choice will refute as neither side would agree that the father should ultimately have any say in the decision to abort - for completely opposite reasons.4. Counter-ResolutionOver the next several rounds I will present a comprehensive rebuttal of the Pro position from the Pro-Life viewpoint. By showing that the mother shouldn't have any normative right to abortion I will be able to show that the father obviously shouldn't either.Establishment of Pro-Life Position1. BiologySexual reproduction:In fish, the female fish releases eggs into the water where the male inseminates them. The fertilized eggs settle to the bottom of the lake or river and are independent from that time forth. As they are able to grow into adult fish it is intuitively obvious that they are unique individual organisms from the moment of fertilization onwards. As humans also reproduce via sexual reproduction, fertilization is the beginning of life for a new human organism. Mammals have the added ability to protect and nurture their young within the mother until a much later stage of development. This enables mammals to have certain advantageous traits over other animals.Thus a new member of the homo sapiens species comes into being when the sperm and egg join resulting in the zygote. The zygote transforms matures into an embryo and has undergone 70 to 100 cell divisions prior to implantation in the mother's womb. [1] Zygote, embryo, and fetus are merely technical medical terms that denote age and development of the human being, not whether it is human or not. eg. Embryo: In humans, the prefetal product of conception from implantation through the eighth week of development. [2]The typical life of a human being (barring any problems) is:zygote -> embryo -> fetus -> baby -> infant -> toddler -> youth -> teenager -> adult -> elderlyThis is the same organism at every stage of life.By using the term father (and not some qualifying term like future father) in the debate topic, Pro has conceded that the unborn is already the child of both parents. If it is the child then all of my previous biological contentions are implicitly accepted by Pro.2. PhilosophyOur system of law is based on the concept of the existence of fundamental human rights. The US Founding Fathers enunciated these fundamental human rights as a philosophical statement in the declaration of independence: [4]We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.The order that the rights are listed in is relevant because they are stated in increasing progression of reliance on the previous right. One cannot pursue happiness if one doesn't have liberty. One can have no liberty if there is no right to life. The right to life is the most fundamental right anybody has. All other rights are founded upon the right to life. In essence, if you do not have this right, you can have no rights at all.If a right is inalienable that means that it is yours by default, and is not granted to you by any government or ruling body. Otherwise, if this was a right that a government had the authority to grant to an individual, it logically is within the power of the government to revoke as well. Thus the necessity of the aforementioned truth in the Declaration was that everyone is created equal.If a right is inalienable, it is illogical to state that it does not belong to the same organism at every stage of its life. Every member of the human race either has fundamental rights or they do not. And if they do, then they must logically possess it for the entirety of their lives. This fundamental right is not to be confused with privileges granted by the state such as the right to drive, vote, etc...3. DiscriminationThe attempt to deny the most fundamental of rights - life - to the unborn is simply another form of discrimination such as sexism or racism. This is a prejudice based solely on a single characteristic of the other person that attempts to dehumanize them in one fashion or another. Humanity has a history of the powerful denying the rights of the weak based on personal prejudice or selfish motive. In all cases, this becomes an exercise of justifying the denial of fundamental human rights by qualifying that in order to recognize the right to life of the individual they have to be Human AND something. The two most obvious ones in recent history were:You have to be human AND white - justification for slaveryYou have to be human AND not Jewish - justification for the holocaust4. Responsibilities of GuardiansI believe that Pro and myself can agree that parents do not own their children. However, they are the natural guardians of those children and as such have a grave duty (and associated powers) towards their children.Thus my final argument will be that the Law already recognizes the responsibility of parents to provide for the needs of their children:Failure to Provide the Necessities of Life: Everyone is under a legal duty as a parent, foster parent, guardian or head of a family, to provide necessaries of life for a child under the age of sixteen years. [5]Now this shows a logical disconnect in the current law. It is partially this disconnect in the current law that validates the idea that the father should have some say over whether the child is aborted or not. However, I will show over the next couple of rounds that this is only an apparent disconnect because the greater truth of the nature of the unborn child is being ignored.Pro concedes through the use of father in the debate topic that the unborn is the biological child of the parents. Additionally, the law mandates that the parents, being the natural guardians of the child, are obligated to provide for the needs of the child until they reach an age where they are able to provide for themselves.Additionally, the law would not permit me to intentionally kill my child after birth:First Degree Murder: Murder occurs where the person who causes the death of a human being means to cause his death, or means to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and is reckless whether death ensues or not.[6]So we can see that the true disconnect is that the child's rights are being abused and not the father's.ConclusionI have clearly shown that the unborn are:1) individual members of the human race and the living children of both parents, 2) that the foundation of our justice system is that everyone is created equal and thus equal before the law,3) that the justification for abortion is just another form of discrimination4) parents have a duty to provide for minor children until they are able to provide for themselvesAs noted in my introduction, the next couple of rounds will be used to pit the best arguments against my position in order to show that the father should have no say over whether the mother should or shouldn't have an abortion,I invite Pro to continue the presentation of their argument.Sources[0] http://www.thefreedictionary.com...[1] http://courses.washington.edu...[2] http://www.thefreedictionary.com...[3] http://www.thefreedictionary.com...[4] http://www.ushistory.org...[5] http://en.wikibooks.org...[6] http://tinyurl.com...