Woman's Choice to "House" her Unborn.

===> INTRO <=== The sole legitimate purpose of government is to prevent and punish acts of violence initiated by one person against another. This stems from the deontological non-aggression axiom. Simply stated, it should be legal for anyone to do anything he wants, so long as he does not threaten or initiate violence against another person or their rightfully owned property.[1] The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "no person shall be deprived of LIFE, liberty, or property, without due process of law." My opponent has conceded the crucial point that life begins at conception. If this is true, unborn child is entitled to such 14th Amendment protection.[2] The killing of an unborn child through abortion is morally equivalent to murder. As such, I hold that it is prima facie, deontologically wrong. It is a criminal act of aggression that ought to be punished by law. Before moving on to the body of the case, I will address my opponent's seriously misguided attempt at a legal defense of abortion. The "right to privacy" that Roe applied to the abortion issue is nonexistent in the constitution. It is a construct derived from the "emanations of the penumbra" of the 9th Amendment by the activist majority in Connecticut v. Griswold (1965).[3] In any case, even assuming such a "right to privacy" exists, it is hardly justification for infanticide, assuming (as my opponent has admitted), that the unborn child is a human life. Such a right to privacy could be used to justify virtually anything, so long as it is done in privacy.[4] ===> AFFIRMATIVE ARGUMENTS <=== PRO has laid out a largely consequentialist argument for abortion. As the affirmative, in order for her to win the debate, she will have to win a majority of these points AND refute my legal arguments for criminalization. ----> "[N]o person, persons, or even the law can prevent her from going to any extreme to terminate her unborn." This could be said of virtually any violent crime; is not in any way unique to the abortion issue. Moreover, enforcement problems do not negate the moral imperative to outlaw murder. Furthermore, to assume that overturning the Roe decision would not result in ANY reduction in abortion rates is naive and wholly unfounded. Statistics from the pre-Roe era show an average of 98,000 abortions performed each year, compared to the 1.3 MILLION abortions performed each year since.[5] That's an increase of over 1,000%. The clear majority of Americans are law-abiding citizens who would obey measures to criminalize abortion. ----> "Without abortions being performed some women would lose their lives trying to self-abort, and many others would wind up being hospitalized." This is a baseless assertion. Prior to Roe, 90 percent of illegal abortions were done by physicians, with the remainder being done by nurses or midwives. The term "back alley" abortion refers not to where abortions were performed, but to how women were supposed to enter the doctor's office.[6] Additionally, the widespread availability of abortion procedures and subsequent increase in total abortions have lead to FAR more maternal deaths than ever occurred in the pre-Roe era. In 1972, there were only 32 deaths related to illegal abortion. Today, several times more women die from LEGAL abortions than they did previously.[6] ----> "It is true that we have placed value on life. But it is also true that not all life is valued the same." This reminds me of the famously chilling line from Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." I want to first point out that the 14th Amendment plainly sets out that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the EQUAL PROTECTION of the laws."[7] Second, the worth of a human being is NOT dependent on whether or not others think his life is valuable. Blacks, Indians, Jews, and women have all in the past had their lives declared unmeaningful. Those in power have decided that their own economic, political, or personal goals are more important than the lives of others. Randy Alcorn writes: "Personhood is not something to be bestowed on living human beings, large or small, by an intellectual elite with vested interests in ridding society of undesirables. Personhood has an inherent value--a value that comes from being a member of the human race"[9] ----> "[T]he mother arrives home to find her daughter laying (sic) on the bathroom floor, unconscious in a pool of her own blood." This is an example of scare tactics and pure emotional appeal. I have already shown that maternal death rates were LOWER when abortion was illegal. Additionally, I can just as easily counter with my own deeply disturbing story about abortion, which, unlike my opponent's, has the virtue of being TRUE. From "The Revolution: A Manifesto" by Ron Paul. The following is an experience from his residency at the University of Pittsburgh. "Residents were encouraged to visit various operating rooms in order to observe the procedures that were being done. One day, I walked into an operating room without knowing what I was walking into, and the doctors were in the middle of performing…an abortion by hysterectomy. The woman was probably six months along in her pregnancy, and the child she was carrying weighed over two pounds. They went ahead with the delivery and put the baby in a bucket in the corner of the room. The baby tried to breathe, and tried to cry, and everyone in the room pretended the baby wasn't there. I was deeply shaken."[8] ----> Mother's Life is threatened/Rape/Incest Hard cases such as these account for less than 3% of all total abortions.[12] At best, PRO might make a case for certain exceptions to abortion laws. ===> THE NEGATIVE CASE <=== As PRO has stated, women who have abortions suffer serious consequences, including, but not limited to, sadness, depression, guilt, anger, infertility, and even death. In addition to those mentioned, there are plenty of utilitarian arguments against abortion. For example, while it is often claimed that abortion saves would-be mothers from a life of poverty, there is significant evidence that the opposite is true. "Women repeating abortion have…been found to have lower net household income and poorer level of housing conditions, compared with women aborting for the first time. Many women report first using drugs or alcohol in an attempt to overcome nightmares or insomnia in response to the abortion experience. It is clear that as women repeat abortion there is increasing evidence of personal, social and health deterioration. Women are in less stable social situations and are more likely to be divorced as abortion is repeated, which is associated with greater levels of family poverty for women. The repeated utilization of abortion appears to lead not to economic prosperity or social well-being for many women, but to an increasing ‘feminization of poverty.'"[10] In today's society, pregnancy can be easily avoided through proper condom usage, birth control pills, emergency contraceptives, IUDs, etc. In the rare cases where precautions fail, adoption is a far superior alternative. 1.3 MILLION couples are currently waiting to adopt a child while 1.3 million children are being killed each year by abortion, and less than 50,000 are put up for adoption. For every child put up for adoption, 30 are killed. For every couple that adopts, another 40 wait in line.[11] ----> Conclusion: I agree with PRO that each individual has a right to their own body. To that end, it is unethical to violate the CHILD's right to self ownership. PRO states that: "If one life could have been saved, that counts for something. It is our moral responsibility to protect human life." Again, I wholeheartedly agree. I have conclusively shown that legalized abortion does NOT accomplish this. It results not in the preservation of life, but its wholesale destruction.