Abortion.

(I put rebuttals in this argument, so to be fair, you can put rebuttals in your conclusion.) Sonia Gandhi, Nancy Brinker, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, JK Rowling, Mia Farrow. Why am I stating random names? Well, let's look into what they have in common. All these women are brilliant humans beings that are shaping history, and the world, for the better. All these stated names were born in the world as women, and they grew up to be amazingly influential figures. In their earlier years, you would never have been able to guess what they were capable of. Same thing applies to those women who need abortions. They are alive, and they are human. They are humans who are also capable of changing the world. If we force these women to devote their lives to raising a child when they are not ready, for all we know, we could be destroying the next Gandhi, sentencing her to give up her education or career. By denying an abortion to one woman, we could end up killing millions of people this woman was destined to help. Do we really want to take that chance? "A majority of women seeking abortion have suffered horrible experiences, such as rape." This isn't true. Less than one percent of abortions are sought due to rape (1,2) , so that kills your credibility a bit. Anyway, it breaks your crime and punishment analogy. Abortion is not punishing the fetus for crimes; most abortions do not involve rape at all. A more frequent punishment analogy is that forcing a woman to have a baby is punishing her for having sex. I'm also not going to simply acknowledge the unsupported claim that "the child is human." How do you know? There is no commonly accepted answer to this question. Everyone has a different opinion. No one who had a chance at life should be allowed to be pro-choice? If this is true, it seems fair that no one without a uterus should be allowed to be pro-life. What makes those of us who have the freedom to not have babies, qualified to decide if someone else should or should not receive that freedom? Or we can take it one step farther. No one who isn't in need of an abortion right at this moment should be allowed to be pro-life. What makes those of us who have been given the chance at life without having a baby, qualified to decide if someone should or should not receive a chance of that life. No matter what, this woman is a someone. She is alive, and she deserves to keep her quality of life. The whole next argument centers around rape victims. Not only have we established that this is an uncommon reason for abortion, you are making a lot of assumptions about their reasoning. Sure, some women think that way. Others have other reasons. Anyway, I'll accommodate the claim that "abortion is an extremely selfish act." You can view it that way, but we all have the right to bodily autonomy. That means that, under certain circumstances, "selfishness" is considered excusable. You are not required to damage your own body, even if doing it would save another person's life (3). You have a right to yourself. That is a very basic right, and getting rid of it would lead to disastrous consequences. Suddenly, there would be legally mandatory organ donation. Now, you can say that it's selfish to make use of this right. That's fine. As I said earlier, we're not discussing whether or not women should get abortions. We're discussing whether or not it should be legal, and the case I linked to (3) proves that it should. I don't understand how that picture supports the reasoning that follows it. First of all, we have no information as to the background to that picture. Maybe they did use protection, and it just didn't work. Besides, the woman chose not to get the abortion. Anyway, it doesn't really matter if women are using abortion as birth control, because as gross as we both find that, no woman can be forced to carry a baby she doesn't want. Denying abortion because of this group would be totally unfair to the other group of women that needs an abortion for other reasons. As I said with the bodily autonomy argument, it is indeed our choice to make, and yes, the government gives us that right. My last wish is for you to ponder this question: Can we really afford to force the next genius, political reformer, rights activist, war hero, etc. to give up her education, time, and body to raise a child she does not want? The note proves that you view fetuses as less than human. Why is it a full life that needs to be saved until the mother's life is at risk? If they're both human, why does the mother's life matter more? The fact that this is your instinct shows that the woman's rights must to be important than the fetus's. (1) http://www.operationrescue.org... (2) http://www.abort73.com... (3) http://www.ucs.louisiana.edu...