AAN Tour: Voluntary Abortion should be legal

Pro presented some interesting arguments that I will be addressing at this time as well as bringing up new points. In this post I want to cover the issue of bodily rights, whether the beginning of life is really relevant, whether rape is really solved with abortion, how legality could effect abortion, and whether abortion is really a safe or good idea. A woman's bodily rights. Even if a woman has control over her own body, does she necessarily have that same right over the body of her baby? Her baby is a completely different person. (. http://www.l4l.org...) The baby is genetically separate from the mother, and is most definitely not just a part of her tissue. (. http://www.leaderu.com...) The mother does not have the right to kill her baby included in her bodily rights because the baby is a separate entity. The child does not have a choice. The Pro-choice argument is one-sided. Pro choice advocates support the choice of the mother, but they do not take in to account that the child has absolutely no choice or fault in the matter. It did not choose to be in the that particular mother's womb, it was placed there by some one else. The unborn baby cannot protect those rights like an adult can. So, we should not unfairly rob them of those rights. A woman's reproductive rights. A woman can exercise her reproductive rights by remaining abstinent and avoid the whole problem, or by using readily available contraceptives. When a woman consents to have sex with a man, she is consenting to the idea of having a baby. She has exercised her right of choice, and it can only be considered responsible if she accepts the moral responsibility that comes with that decision. She does not have to kill her baby and her peace of mind in order to have her rights. (. http://www.l4l.org...) It is false to say that abortion deprivation violates her rights. Personhood and life are highly relevant to this debate. My opponent claims that beginning of life is irrelevant to this debate. I beg to differ. It has everything to do with it. If the baby is just a blob with no feeling and no life, abortion can be viewed as acceptable. But if the baby is a person with feelings, emotions, life, and the ability to feel pain, abortion is essentially murder. We cannot just dismiss this issue. The issue of rape. Many Pro Choice people say that if a woman is raped, it is OK to have an abortion, but an abortion does not really eliminate the damage wreaked by a rape. "We do not erase a rape by killing a child. We do not cure a baby by taking his life. And we do not avoid all health issues by avoiding the reality of another human being. Women who have been raped must be compassionately cared for. But compassionate care does not include executing a woman's child. " (. http://www.lifesitenews.com...)If Pro's desire is to help raped women, abortion is not the answer. Caring compassionately for the woman as she struggles to defeat the odds is the better course of action. If a woman already has psychological damage from the rape, why add to it with an abortion? The people who are supposedly desiring to help the raped woman are only adding to her pain. Wounding the wounded is completely immoral. As to the legality argument, where my opponent stated that abortions will continue and will be less safe, I have two responses. 1. When something is difficult, then people are less likely to do it. Logically, if it is illegal to have an abortion, and more dangerous, would the same number of people have abortions? Let's look at a state in America, Oregon, that allows legal abortions and has the fewest restrictions on it. (. http://liveactionnews.org...) In this state, abortion is so easy, people feel free to be promiscuous, which brings on more problems: STDs, broken relationships, and many more unwanted pregnancies. If abortion was harder, and illegal, would people feel as encouraged to act promiscuously when they know they will need to pay the consequences? Making abortion illegal may not completely stop abortions, but it will likely deter them, and will not give a false sense of security to women. 2. Is the current system safe? Pro is assuming that the current system is safe, but he is forgetting the problems that ensue from an abortion. Abortion has many negative side effects. (I have derived the following sources from . http://www.lifesitenews.com... and . http://www.feministsforlife.org... ) 1. Loss of money. The woman has to pay for the surgery. 2. Humiliating procedure. A woman's inward parts are vacuumed. 3. Health damage. The instruments used to kill the baby might permanently scar her and sterilize her. 4. Loss of her child. This may be misunderstood to be a good thing, but the metal is pulling her own flesh and blood apart and kills it with cruelty. No matter what Pro might say, this "blob" is the result of love between a man and a woman, and the woman is killing it. 5. Loss of her peace of mind. My source says: "A man who saw his wife slowly disintegrate after her abortion asks, "What kind of trade-off is that: Gain control of your body, lose control of your mind? "" (. http://www.feministsforlife.org...) Abortion will never go away in the mind of a mother. It will continue on and on, tearing her heart up like she let a doctor tear her baby up. Abortion is neither empowering or liberating because a woman who kills her own child is enslaved in the bondage of regret. 6. Adds to current tragedy in cases of rape 7. It takes innocent life. The baby is alive from first conception. It is not potentially alive, it IS alive. 8. Deprivation of civil rights. Unborn babies are discriminated against just because they are unborn. 9. Kills an innocent child. Pro says the mother shouldn't suffer for her own choices, but this baby has to suffer being torn apart limb from limb because of it's parent's decisions. 10. It avoids responsibility for one's actions. The current system is already unsafe. The "safety" that is claimed is false. The negative side effects of getting an abortion are enormous. Moving on, Pro claims that abortion is safer than child birth. The damage with abortions is under-reported, thrown together into other categories so it is harder to find, and treated in emergency rooms, not the abortion clinic, so it is never reported as abortion related. (. http://www.lifenews.com...) The result is, abortion advocates avoid telling the whole truth. Abortion is a dangerous procedure, even more than we think because of this data supression. How can we condone abortion by legalizing it knowing full well the enormous cost to our women? A 15 year old girl might think it is okay to kill the "fetus," but she will live the rest of her life with emotional and physical damage. We know what happens to the baby. A healthy pregnancy is artificially interrupted by the surgical team that reaches in with sharp metal tools that cut the baby into pieces and then vacuum its parts out of the womb, all so that her mother can avoid an "inconvenience. "