abortion should be illegal in first trimester, but not investigated nor punished*

*Citations for last speech in comments, they didn't copy! * First, I am going to ffer some brief argumentation to the points that my opponent brought up in his final speech. Then, I will break down this round, and show you, the judge, why this round is an easy vote for the Con. To quickly address the BOP argmentation, there is nothing that the Pro has provided that really substantially answers the question of why we should accept this rather vague notion that it should be illegal to have an abortion during the first tri-mester but that this law should not be pursued. This seems like the kind of plan that one would submit for decriminalizing marijuana or drugs or some other practice that is already against the law. My point here is that, throughout the argumentation you have been presented with, there is really no substantiation as to why we should follow this sort of plan. Thus, given that you should automatically default to the Con. My opponent begins his "arguments" with this idea that values and arguments about morals are not quantitative. The pro argues that there is inherent value. This argument is at best confusing and at worst a deliberate attempt to completely obfuscate the field of philosophy. There are thousands of people who have spent their lives in pursuit of universal truths about value. The truth is that we have not found that, but that does not mean that value and morals are this vague notion that cannot be figured out. Moving on: again, my opponent tries to obfuscate issues. The pro in their last speech attempts to liken the personhood argument by claiming that viability is like a snowball or a lego. .. which is just a modified version of the Heap problem. Essentially what my opponent is attempting to argue--not well, but is attempting--is to say that the point of viability is just a "fuzzy line. " This is nonesense. There is a certian biological point where a fetus coluld live outside the womb without assistance. Period. That is the point of viability. That may not be the same for all pregnancies, but that point of viability is an instance. It is not some vague notion like the heap. Thus, the idea that there is this arbitrariness to viability is obliterated. Then, in this same argumentation, the Pro offers this idea that the trimester marik is arbitrary as well. Based on Pro's own logic, if there is an arbitrary natuyre to ths point of the first trimester, then you should bvote for the side that avoids being arbitrary--thus warranting a vote for the Con. On this rather bizarre argument from the Pro that if there is an accident that attaches a victim to a wrong-doers body, no would would argue that the wrong doer should kill the innocent victim. First of all, this seems to be a bizzare twist of Judith Jarvis Thomson's violinist example. But this argument fails for a number of reasons. First, in the matter of a pregnancy, a woman contemplating abortion is not a wrong-doer. The act of having sex is not inherently wrong. Thus, this analogy breaks down. As a last-ditch effort, the Pro attempts to characterize Thomson's burglar analogy as faulty by saying that leaving a door open in a dangerous neighborhood is not tantamount the act of having sex. My opponent says that this is a "passive" and "sloppy" behavior, but that it does not constitute the active action of having sex. However, if we further look at this point, the act of leavingt one's door open is active. The act of not instituting protections is active. Primarily, we must see that there really is no such thing as a passive action. Just like thte act of omitting action is an action, so too is passive action active action. However, even if you don't buy this distinction, the Pro does not argue how this negates the idea that a fetus does not posses rights to its mother's body. Thus, once this is concluded, we have one final nail in the Pro's coffin. Breaking down the round quickly. S/G: Pro does not use capitalization or any sort of spell check. Just copy/paste this debate into a word document and see the difference. I urge a vote for the Con for S/G out of sheer lack of trying from the pro. Sourcing: The Con provides solid philosophical reasoning and sourcing for the arguments. Pro provides no sourcing. Arguments: You have seen above that there really is no BOP upheld. The Pro provides no solid reasoning as to why we should accept this resolution. All reasoning seems to be that abortion is bad, but he does not fulfill BOP as far as arguing for the resolution. Please vote for Con here. Conduct: No rounds are dropped, but I think it is clear from the quality of the debate, the argumentation, and the spelling and grammar that the Pro made a mockery of this debate. There is no formalized argumentation and the BOP is not upheld. I urge a vote for Con here simply because the Pro made little to no effort in attempting to prove this rather interesting resolution. Once again, thank you for reading!