Abortion

First of all I would like to apologize to my opponent if I came across a bit rude in my last round. I did not intend any kind of disrespect. I would like him to know that even though I'm not on a competitive debate team, I do know that learning the other arguments and arguing from their side is excellent practice. I acknowledge that my opponent's true beliefs are against abortion, but I will continue with this debate pretending that he isn't, just to fit his purpose of trying to argue from the other side. Now on to my rebuttals. One thing that needs to be made clear regarding abortions in cases of rape is that they are very slim in numbers. Out of all the abortions in the nation, according to a study, only 1% of them were due to rape/incest. One common thing that pro-choice people will do is take this very marginal case of abortions, and apply that to all the other cases that there are (which are much more numerous), using this as an excuse to make all of the other cases acceptable. When an argument is made that abortion is wrong, almost every time the pro-choice side says "but what about in cases of rape or incest?" This is faulty thinking. If my opponent and I can agree (still assuming his assumed position in this debate, not his actual opinion) that all of the other cases of abortion are bad, then we can continue to discuss rape/incest cases. Source: http://www.nytimes.com... My opponent is correct in that scientists have no clear way of discovering when the actual baby begins development. However, this is aside from when I believe that human life begins. This is not a religious interpretation, for secular reasons I believe that the human life begins upon conception, regardless of whether or not it has developed into a baby yet. If my opponent is arguing that the baby does not become a human until it exits the birth canal and takes its first breath, I would like him to consider this: if you were to take a fully-formed baby that was just about to exit the womb and stab them in the head with a knife, that baby was not a person? You didn't kill another human being? If my opponent is trying to define the terms on which they become a person based on convenience, that is the nature of evil. Life begins upon conception. Regarding the arguments on America's views on abortion, I never said that this debate would be about whether abortion should be illegal or not, I am simply arguing against abortion itself. Also, if we were talking about it becoming illegal, I don't think that Trump himself would get the final say, as that's just not how our economy works. That would be up to the American population to decide. (By the way, this is where I feel that I may have been a bit rude. By saying that I didn't care, that could have been taken the wrong way. I just explained what I meant by that.) Taking a brief step back to the rape cases, I do agree with my opponent in that the final decision is the woman's. However, because that is still a human being, my opinion is that it should not be killed, regardless of the way it was put there. Let's take a moment and step away from the ethical side of this debate and look at the different ways abortions are performed. Although there are many different techniques, many of them involve the dismemberment of the baby. The body is cut into pieces. If the head is too big, it is crushed in order to remove it. In other techniques, the skull is punctured and the contents drained out before pulling the dead baby out. Source: http://studentsforlife.org... As I tie ethics back in, this is truly awful to me to see that human lives are ended this way. Regardless of the way you feel about abortion, techniques such as these should not be used. In conclusion, my opponent falsely stated my religious beliefs, yet brought in the point that religion should be left out of this debate as much as possible, which I agree with, however I would like the voters to consider this as well. I look forward to what my opponent has to say next.