abortion

Thank you for this debate. First off, I'd like to dispute the claim that an abortion is the equivalent of murder, which seems to be my opponent's central argument. For that to be true, a fetus must be considered equal to a living human being. However, a fetus is nothing more than a ball of cells. Now this clump of cells is not what pro-life activists like to say, "a living breathing human being". Only in the late third trimester would the fetus even come close to looking human. At the embryo stage, it is difficult to distinguish a human from a chicken or a fish or a reptile. Furthermore, the fetus is not conscious of its own being within the womb. When it is in utero, it is similar to being in a deep sleep, only that they have nothing to dream about and nothing to experience. The difference between murder and abortion is that when you murder someone, you are taking their life away. However, a fetus hasn't gained life yet; it hasn't experienced or felt anything. It is simply a group of dividing cells and developing organs. To say that abortion is the same as murder is like saying removing a kidney is murder. Second of all, when you murder someone you are hurting the people who are close to this person and it leaves them traumatized. Abortion doesn't hurt anyone this way because the parents actually want it. http://www.scientificamerican.com...Abortion is a mother's right to have because it's her own body. By banning abortion, you are violating a person's right to their own body. You are also supporting a patriarchal society by placing the gender role of a woman as a child-bearer. If we want to see true gender equality, we must give women the option of whether they want to have a child or not. Yes, I agree that birth control or condoms is a better way of preventing pregnancy than abortion. But just because a person is irresponsible about their body does not mean that they should lose all responsibilities to their body by forcing them to keep a baby. At the end of the day, it's still their body, no matter what. And in the case of failed contraceptives or rape, the woman has no fault in becoming pregnant.But if we look at what happens if a woman is not allowed to have an abortion, it is a grim picture for both the mother and the child. First of all, no child should have to have a mother who doesn't want and love him or her. We can't pick our parents, so why are we forcing people who don't want to be parents to become parents? When the child finds out that their father was a rapist, they will be extremely hurt and confused. Also, the idea that we should just abandon the child is simply ridiculous. No child wants to stay at an orphanage. Perhaps they may find a loving family that wants to adopt them, but then that child is replacing another abandoned child who could have had a home. There are already enough orphans out there, so we shouldn't be adding to this number. A child may also pose an unwanted financial burden to a family that can't afford it. What's going to happen when a mother working a minimum wage job is forced to have a baby? The child doesn't get to grow up in an environment they deserve and the family will be trapped in debt trying to pay the bills to support a baby.This leads me to my next argument for abortion. Aside for moral or ethical reasons, there are several economic advantages for abortion. First of all, abortion is a way to keep the population in check to prevent overpopulation. Stem cells from the fetus can be used to regenerate tissue for humans and can be used for cancer. Abortion clinics provides jobs for people. But one of the more compelling reasons for abortion is that it helps deter crime. Remember all of those unwanted children who lived poorly? Well it turns out that where you come from determines whether you're likely to become a criminal later in life. The simple fact was when women were denied an abortion, their children were more likely to be born in an unstable home where they felt neglected. Studies show that these unborn children were fifty percent more likely to live in poverty and sixty percent more likely to grow up with just one parent. These two factors, childhood poverty and a single-parent household, are among the strongest predictors that a child will have a criminal future. Having a teenage mother and low maternal education also increased a child's likelihood to crime. In 1973, Roe vs. Wade gave women in the U.S. the right to have an abortion. 18 years later, the peak of someone's likelihood to commit a crime, crime dropped dramatically. Five states that allowed abortions in 1970 experienced this drop earlier. From the reverse perspective, in 1966, abortions in Romania were banned. Crime then rose dramatically afterwards. Another benefit of Roe vs. Wade is that after it was passed, infanticide and the number of children being put up for adoption dropped, which puts in perspective what was happening to these unwanted children.http://www.nber.org...I look forward to your arguments next round.