abortion

My Contentions I will make three unique contentions of my own which my opponent is supposed to refute. It will revolve around three ideas: illegal abortions, the life of the mother, and mental and/or physical handicaps of the baby. CI: The Life of the Mother It is widely agreed all around that the life of the mother should be held to a higher standard than the unborn baby for a plethora of reasons. First and foremost, in cases where the life of the mother is at risk, there is a large chance that the baby will simply die along with the mother, so in predetermined circumstances where it is deemed likely that the baby will put the mother's life at risk, it would simply be best to abort the baby, no matter the stage of pregnancy, as aborting the fetus will likely save the mother's life. The baby will die anyway, and that will simply pile on health risks that can take the mother's life too. Some would probably ask why the mother's life is so preferable to the baby's. Well, I believe that there are two key reasons, which I will state below. A. The mother is a functional, rational, breathing, thinking human being who has already started her life. In 99% of cases she is capable of making logical decisions, can feel pain, and can provide the life's necessities without much help. (She can feed herself, clothe herself, walk herself, etc.). The baby hasn't started doing any of this yet. In extreme cases such as when the mother's life is put in jeopardy, the baby will likely die before any of this could be said about them, and, often times, they will take the rational, breathing, thinking mother with them. B. It is pretty likely that the mother will have the ability to have more babies that are healthy and will be born without putting any lives in danger. If the mother had two or three children after the initial abortion that could've killed her (if she hadn't gotten it), then in the end, multiple lives were saved at the cost of having an abortion. CII: Mental and/or Physical Handicaps I am not talking about a kid being crippled or having down's syndrome, nor am I talking about kids with things like cystic fibrosis, and such illnesses. I am talking about when a person has limbs that are underdeveloped and they have no consciousness to begin with, and they are simply a financial burden to the family. And yes, unfortunately, there are babies born with no consciousness and they never know that their alive. One top of that, it's common that they are born with no arms and no legs, or their missing a part of his/her brain. It's fairly sad to see and it's best to spare the family the hardship of the countless medical bills and emotional trauma. In some cases the child feels helpless pain their entire life and it's terrible to see. I hope this doesn't make me come off as cold. CIII: Illegal Abortions If abortion were a crime, people would simply find ways to do it unprofessionally and many times the baby will simply be permanently messed up from the physical trauma of the attempted abortion. Often times victims of failed abortions suffer a lot in life, and allowing professional abortions regulated by the government would spare much hardship. Take prostitution for example. Where it is legalized and regulated by the government, there are virtually no STDs and many prostitutes give their money to their pimps or they could potentially be killed. In places where prostitution is legalized none of this happens because of it's legalization. Keeping abortion a crime will only make things worse. Rebuttals I will now rebut and refute my opponent's arguments he has made thus far. RI: How is killing a fetus different from killing a baby This is mostly refuted in my earlier contentions. A fetus cannot feel pain in the early states of pregnancy, cannot make rational choices, does not (in early stages) have consciousness etc. etc. Look at my earlier contentions if you are not satisfied that I have already refuted this. In conclusion I have explained why the mother's life is more important that the fetuses, and that in cases where the mother's life is put at risk abortion should be an open option, I have explained why it would be morally wrong to allow some babies who have no consciousness and barely any brain activity to suffer through the hardships they will face in life, I have explained that illegal abortions will occur and the results will be disastrous if it is not regulated by the government, and I have refuted my opponent's fetus versus baby contention. One Last Tip for my Opponent It's preferable that you don't make your titles so vague. I made the mistake of doing this in my first few debates and it's a regrettable thing to do. Trolls can play semantic games, and veterans can take advantage of your vague terms. So instead of simply putting the title 'abortion' you should have probably made it something more like: “Abortion should never be permitted in any case in the United States” or “Abortion should never be permitted in most cases in the United States” (then you could state the rare exceptions in the first round). In either of these you would be pro, which an instigator should be. Just trying to help. Because of the vague title I did all of this in the assumption that you were talking about all cases of abortion in general. With all of that said I hand this back to my opponent. I look forward to it.