Abortion should be illegal

Far too often, this subject turns into a battle of ideologies, and I"ve rarely had the opportunity to engage in such a high level discussion on such a contentious issue. It has been a privilege to read his arguments. Pro has made a masterful attempt at upholding his burdens, but has fallen short based on a single word: context. In a world where the death of the unborn is being analyzed against no other harms, Pro is winning this debate. But that"s not our world. We live in a world where abortion is used to prevent or ameliorate medical and psychological harms to mothers, and where poverty is a real problem for women and their families. As such, we must ask ourselves whether the harms of aborting the unborn outweigh these. Personhood: Back to the flow of the debate. Pro only addresses vague issues with Warren"s analysis. I could easily grant this argument, though, and point out that he is still completely non-responsive to my point about brainwaves in the higher brain. Those papers (my [3] and [4] from round 2) have gone completely undisputed. Since my opponent has not argued that someone who is brain dead is still a person, that person is dead. Therefore, someone who has not yet gone through "brain birth" is similarly not yet a person. There"s nothing arbitrary or baseless here. But it gets worse. Con hasn"t provided any reason why any of the 5 criteria are faulty. Not one. He says there might be limited scientific accuracy, but that"s not a direct response, just an assertion on his part. The paper from Warren very expansively defends these 5 criteria, and shows how they transcend the philosophical. His lack of specific response here leaves the point practically untouched. Voters shouldn"t be swayed by a blanket argument that in no way addresses the structure of this argument. He provides no alternative, and only offers his own opinion as proof that personhood is a philosophical concept. So voters should be buying this argument " Pro simply hasn"t spent enough time disproving it. Now, if we accept that the unborn aren"t persons, then we should ask ourselves, why does personhood matter? The first reason, as I brought up in round 3, is that his moral imperative is contingent on it. He cites the Second Formulation, but leaves out a few words: "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end but always at the same time as an end. " Person, mentioned twice. It"s meant in a different way here, but let"s look at the particular definition: "The body of a human being. " . http://www.merriam-webster.com... This argument is contingent on those involved being human beings, or persons. It isn"t predicated on the child solely being biologically human. His moralistic stance, therefore, fails so long as it is not a person. But it goes beyond that. If an unborn child is not a person, then its life is simply never to be preferred over the life or well-being of the mother, as well as other living persons. Their personhood makes their health morally superior, given the reasons I"ve already described. So any impact to them should be far heavier than an impact to the unborn. Value: No mother, no matter how dire her physical state, will be able to get an abortion under this law. I"ve already stated the numerous physical harms that can result. Remember, each life weighs far more, not just because of personhood, but also because every ovum is a life form under Pro"s worldview (he was non-responsive to my explanation from round 3 on this). And no, I didn"t drop the argument about the right to abort. It"s a balance of lives, and only one of those lives is a person. Therefore, while both lives have value, the one that has more value should be preferred. Pro tries to use his definition of abortion to get out of this argument, but it doesn"t work. Delivering the fetus before 21 weeks is guaranteed to end its life, no matter the life-saving measures you use, which means it"s an abortion under a different name. Under such a law, these would still be denied. Worse yet, this new argument actually does major harm to his case. Every single mother could just "deliver the fetus prematurely" instead of getting an abortion. All the same harms result from status quo, except that now, more money and effort is spent on trying to keep a fetus alive that stands no chance at life. The law itself may not be responsible for the harm that comes to those who break it, but that doesn"t mean that we should dismiss the harm from the round. The harms of back-alley abortions only exist in the presence of this law. It"s a unique harm that results from implementing such a law; therefore the losses that occur as a result are harms to Pro"s case. Pro is still completely non-responsive to my point about in vitro fertilization. These potential persons will never exist under such a law. Under his own paradigm for humanity, this is very harmful to him. This is his law specifically inflicting harm to the unborn, and since he provides absolutely no response to my point about every gamete having value under his worldview, these are lives that will be lost as well. Rape: The same basic arguments hold true on rape " the mother"s quality of life decreases when the state is forcing her to have a child that was, similarly, forced upon her. Pro can keep pretending that this isn"t an issue and that no excessive psychological harms will result from being forced to carry a child that they had no choice in conceiving, but the harm is there. Whether it results in domestic violence or not is really immaterial; psychological harms are not a small issue, and the decreased quality of life of the mother and her family, if nothing else, is worthy of concern. And this is 12,000 women a year we"re talking about, no small number. And no, I didn"t ignore Pro"s challenge. The response is in R3: "When the trauma can result in harm to other life, and the life being lost is not yet a person, there is room for permissibility. " In other words, it"s never morally permissible to kill another person for that purpose, but that"s irrelevant to this debate. Child suffering: Pro is still completely non-responsive to Tay-Sachs and Edwards Syndrome, and now he has dropped sickle-cell and alymphocytosis. Most of these kids are likely not to survive longer than their first few years of personhood. Therefore, they are uniquely being harmed by being made to endure it. Pro argues about consent. Since when did any of these children consent to being born with a disease that will make them suffer over their relatively short lives? Banning abortion forces these children to live through pain and suffering while its family watches helplessly. The child doesn"t get a choice of tolerability here; they will have to bear it. And if they choose to commit suicide, they will leave mental scars on their families. The same is true for children that will be abused, and often these children will be completely deprived of a way out, even suicide. Pro also completely drops the overburdened adoption systems point. Now that we"ve established that the pregnancy rate won"t change, millions of new children will be added to this system. Millions that will never be adopted, and suffer reductions to their qualities of life. Classism: This point remains strong after two rounds of rebuttals. Pro simply isn"t addressing this issue thoroughly enough. The economic loss that he says cannot be compared could lead to starvation, homelessness, and death, not just for the child but for their entire family. This is forcing bankruptcy on families that can hardly afford to live day to day, while leaving many of the middle class and all of the rich untouched. And that"s not to mention that many of these families will have to watch their kids suffer through diseases that they could treat if only they had the money. Their economic state directly affects their quality of life and ability to survive. In the end, Pro is causing a great deal of harm, no matter how he tries to minimize it. And he"s not even solving for the vast majority of the problems he purports to be so terrible, as there seem to be many possible loopholes. Context. Again, this is the word that voters should be thinking of as they judge this debate. Who is providing the most reasonable context? Is it Pro, who states that abortion is "arbitrary killing" and views the life of a zygote " with a 75% chance of never reaching the world (R3, not rebutted), limited to no brain activity, and lacking the factors integral to personhood " as equivalent to the life of viable human beings with all of those factors? Or is it me, who has pointed out the many areas where a law like this could do severe physical harm to mothers and kids, dramatically increase suffering, and exacerbate classism in this nation? You already know my answer.