This House Concludes that Abortion is Murder

Citing the supreme court's constitutionally delegated power of judicial review is not akin to fallaciously appealing to authority. If it were, then every legal argument ever made which cited Supreme Court precedent would be invalid. That my opponent lacks a most basic understanding of how the American legal system works should not persuade you that he, in any way, has a valid point to that end. It should also be noted that my saying that "I don't like" images and ostentatious text is not akin to my saying that I am "antagonized" by them... but that's a subsidiary point. What is interesting is that, in making constitutional arguments, PRO refuses to acknowledge the authority of the highest court in the land -an authority higher than his, and higher than mine. By definition, the Supreme Court cannot render an opinion that is "unconstitutional" as it is the court's province to say what the constitution means. The simple concept of judicial review appears to be one which escapes my opponent -though it has to. The reason my opponent question's the Supreme Court's authority is because he has to, in order to make his argument. If he does not, then nothing he says stands. This is ironic considering he cited Marbury v. Madison in an earlier round, but essentially a tactic of desperation because he understands that he's lost this debate. So, he directly contradicts himself when he says that he recognizes the power of judicial review, and then later claims both that citing SCOTUS opinions is a fallacious appeal to authority and that decisions the court has rendered are unconstitutional. Moving on, PRO's attempt to draw a distinction between something being "legal" and "lawful" is little more than an exercise in semantic futility. His "constitutional argument" is, furthermore, not even "constitutional," it's rooted in an absurd misinterpretation of US Code. 18 U.S. Code " 1841, the law which PRO cites stating that makes abortion illegal, known as "Protection of unborn children" literally says in subsection (c)(1) that "(c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the prosecution" (1) of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf, has been obtained or for which such consent is implied by law." How my opponent missed that is a mystery to me. The reason that abortion is not murder is because the law does not recognize that fetuses have constitutional rights, another principle reflected in the Casey decision. That established, 18 U.S. Code " 1111 defines "Murder" as "the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought." Abortion is not unlawful, therefore it cannot be murder. Nothing about receipt of an abortion implies that the gynecologist who performed it had either malice or afterthought towards any particular fetus which was aborted. To suggest otherwise would be lunacy. My opponent cannot establish that abortion even satisfied the elements for murder, which I have pointed out above, just as he cannot reconcile the fact that murder literally requires that a "killing" be unlawful to constitute murder. The implication is, then, that even if fetuses were people from the perspective of the law, abortion is still not murder because the law protects broadly protects women's rights to receive them. His point about U.S.C. " 1841, then, falls on its face, just as his other points about fetal state homicide laws, because, once more, the law distinguishes between abortion and other forms of unlawful killing. This is a point which has been explained above, which I am shocked that my opponent returns to, despite it's abject failure. PRO's argument from the 5th and 14th amendment is similarly misguided. Once more, the courts have not recognized that non-viable fetuses have constitutional rights. This is found in the Casey decision which it is explicitly clear at this point in the round that my opponent has neither availed himself to read or understand. The law says that "no person" shall be so deprived, and in that Casey delineates personhood from non-personhood at the point of viability, no non-viable fetus can be said to have constitutional rights -and only if a fetus is viable does it have constitutional rights from the law's perspective. There are reasons why the viability framework for personhood was adopted (and the trimester framework for Roe was abandoned) but to discuss them is to deviate beyond the scope of this debate. All that matters is what the law is, and yet ironically my opponent recalcitrantly refuses to acknowledge our nation's highest court as a source of legal authority -a point which should not be lost on you, the judge, when voting commences. To conclude: In order to win this debate, PRO had to demonstrate that abortion was murder. He could not do that, because the law categorically distinguishes between them. When forced to accept that, he denies the authority of the highest court in our land, the Supreme Court of the United States -and he ignores salient clauses within US code that directly invalidate his arguments. I have won this debate because I have sufficiently prevented him from showing that abortion is murder, as such. Peace and Love, YYW