No abortion outside of extenuating circumstances should be permitted

Thank you Envisage :)IntroductionI am in agreement with Con when he states that 'we cannot allow infinite liberty for all people, and a limited government, which rules when one's liberty impinges on another'. This is essentially J.S Mill's Harm Principle:'The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.' (1)The disagreement in this debate it whether abortion constitutes significant 'harm to others' and hence whether power can be rightfully exercised upon women to prevent them from having an abortion.Women's Bodily RightsI accept Con's premise that bodily autonomy is a genuine right, although I dispute that this is applicable to human pregnancy to the extent that it justifies the killing of a human foetus.If we define bodily autonomy as the liberty to control one's body, then clearly we recognise that this is a right. However, in accordance to the harm principle, this liberty cannot be extended to the point at which it harms others. For example, I have the bodily autonomy to control my fists, but not to the extent where I can punch someone (since this causes harm). As Zechariah Chafee wrote:'Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins' (2)Does abortion harm the foetus? Consider the definition of harm:'Physical injury, especially that which is deliberately inflicted' (3)Clearly, a foetus is physically injured (since it is killed) and it is deliberately inflicted (as defined in R1).Therefore, according to the Harm Principle [a], the right to abortion is not entailed by the right to bodily autonomy.AnalogiesCon likens being prevented from having an abortion to being forced to donate organs. Clearly, in the latter scenario, someone has the liberty to withhold the use of their organs and hence the government ought to not enforce it even in cases where it would be life-saving.However, I argue that abortion-prevention is not analogous to forced-organ-donation. For multiple reasons:1. There is a difference between declining to donate an organ and hence causing someone's death, and directly killing that person. If I refuse to donate my organ to someone I probably won't even be reproached by society, yet if I was to slit that person's throat I would be most likely be jailed. Clearly therefore, the government places a significant distinction between the two actions, even if the outcome is the same. This is because people don't have a right to have organs donated to them to sustain their life, but people do have a negative right not to be killed. Since abortion is the direct killing of the foetus, this infringes upon this latter right, not the former (because the former is not a genuine right). The fallacy within the bodily-autonomy argument is that it wrongly presumes that pro-lifers appeal to the foetus's right to be sustained by the mother, whereas in reality we appeal to the foetus's right not to be killed.2. In a stable, civilised society, the mother has obligations to ensure the welfare of her offspring, whereas she may not have these obligations to those who are not her offspring. This is why it is illegal to neglect your child whereas it is not illegal to neglect a complete stranger. Therefore, motherhood ascribes certain obligations on a mother to ensure the welfare of her children. Abortion is the ultimate form of neglect, and therefore should be illegal on the same grounds that it is illegal to neglect a born child [b].Absolute/selective bodily autonomyFor those who advocate bodily autonomy, there are two views:1. Bodily autonomy cannot be infringed, it is an absolute right2. Bodily autonomy is a right, but is subject to reasonable parameters (e.g the harm principle).Abortion can only be justified via bodily autonomy if bodily autonomy is held to be absolute, as otherwise it would fail the reasonable parameters of a selective right to bodily autonomy [d].However, the view that bodily autonomy is absolute is absurd. When someone says 'I have a right to X', they are essentially saying that 'my body has a right to X', since we are essentially the same as our bodies.Therefore, if one is to say that they have a right to bodily autonomy then this is synonymous with saying that they have a right to autonomy. If this right is absolute, then it would follow that we have an unalienable right to do whatever the hell we want. Clearly, we have no such right [c] so therefore (reductio ad absurdum) bodily autonomy is not absolute.Since the bodily-autonomy argument presupposes that bodily autonomy is an absolute right, it is an invalid argument because the presupposition is patently false.Health RisksWhilst it is true that childbirth is riskier than abortion, it is still very unlikely that childbirth will be fatal. If it looks like it will, then abortion is justified because it is classed as 'extenuating circumstances'. But the other health risks of pregnancy don't justify abortion either, since we are not justified in killing others in order to improve our health. For example, bringing up a toddler can cause stress, anxiety and other health issues, yet it does not follow that the mother is justified in killing her toddler in order to improve her health [d].The foetusCon attempts to distinguish why society disapproves of killing an adult human but not a foetus by appealing to identity and memory. However, I will now demonstrate that neither identity or memories affect the morality of killing.IdentityCon postulates that a 'sense of identity' is necessary for having freedom and liberty. However, numerous counterexamples exist. For example, this criterion would mean that comatose/unconscious people have no liberty (including the freedom not to be killed). Yet clearly the government maintains the liberty of unconscious people.Therefore, neither identity, rationality, thought or intelligence remove one's liberties. Since an unconscious person retains their liberty despite having no sense of identity or rational thought.Memory & ValuesCon seems to imply that killing is justified before the age of two years old, since we do not retain memories before that age. Aside from this justifying infanticide (which is illegal), Con does not demonstrate the connection between the permissibility of killing and the remembering of past events (memories).What he also implies is that abortion is justified because a foetus does not value its liberty. However, it is not demonstrated that one can only have liberty if they value it. It is a bare assertion.I would argue that the valuing of liberty is not a prerequisite to having liberty itself. For example, a slave born into slavery does not know the concept of autonomous living or being free from slavery, and hence would not value freedom. However, it does not follow that the slave owner is justified in keeping this slave simply because the slave does not value the liberty of freedom.Therefore, one does not have to value their liberty in order to have liberty; therefore a foetus can still qualify as a being that has human liberties._____________Both of Con's attempts to remove a foetus's liberty are invalid, and hence the foetus retains basic liberties [f] (namely the liberty not to be killed).Rape-casesCon argues that abortion in cases of rape is justified because it will otherwise force a woman to carry her rapists child to full term and then be forced to raise the child for two decades.Firstly, the latter is simply false (it can be put up for adoption). Furthermore, Con makes the false assumption that having an abortion in these cases would increase the welfare of the woman.David Reardon interviewed over 200 women who became pregnant via rape, and found that out of all of those who chose to birth their child, the majority thought that it was the right thing to do. In contrast, more than 80% of those who chose to abort felt that it increased their pain. (4).Therefore, abortion is not justified in cases of rape because there is no reason to suppose that it actually helps the rape victim, and it even suggests that it negatively affects them.Illegal/legal abortionThere are multiple problems with this argument:1. Women are not forced to have an illegal abortion (if they are, those who are forcing them ought to be arrested), and hence they accept the risks of abortion by choosing to have one. In short, they take responsibility for their own welfare so it is no longer the government's concern.2. Banning abortion would deter most women from having one. (5)3. Most illegal abortions are done by 'reputable physicians in good standing in their local medical associations' (6), not shady people in back alleys with rusty coat-hangers.4. Legalising abortions has little causal effect, if any, on their safety. From this graph (http://prolifeaction.org...), you can observe that the safety of abortions was increasing due to better medical technology, with legalisation having little effect.Footnotes[a] Which is essential to a stable society; it clearly defines the extent to which the government can infringe upon out liberties.[b] Whether a child is still in its mother's womb is irrelevant to the parental obligations of the mother.[c] If we did, then there would be no such thing as a just law or a stable society. [d] Since these parameters would most likely employ something similar to the harm principle, which rules out abortion.[e] Whether someone is born or is sentinent does not affect their right to life,[f] Con admits that human rights 'Start with all rights and have them limited from top-down'.Sources(1) Mill, John Stuart - On Liberty(2) http://en.wikiquote.org...(3) http://www.oxforddictionaries.com...(4) Reardon, David - Victims and Victors: Speaking Out About their Pregnancies, Abortions and Children Resulting from Sexual Assault(5) Reardon, David - Aborted Women: Silent No More(6) Willke, John - Abortion Questions and Answers