Resolved: The United States Federal Government should pass the Life at Conception Act.

That is quite alright if you use student Congress wording as I myself did Student Congress myself for a few years though I prefered doing Lincoln-Douglous on my Friday rounds. Contention 1: Technical Problems with this bill. Now I do comend my opponent on bringing up such an interesting argument. The only problem with it is that it does not apply to a miscarriage. Why you may ask? Well let's just consult Con's own source for this argument. Con's source states that in order for it to be involuntary mansalaughter it must satisfy three, not one, but all three of the following points in order for it to be involuntary manslaughter. 1. Someone was killed as a result of act by the defendant. 2. The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life. 3. The defendant knew or should have known his or her conduct was a threat to the lives of others. (http://criminal.findlaw.com...) Now let's apply this to a miscarriage, but for those of you who do not know what a miscarriage is I shall define it for you. Miscarriage- the expulsion of a fetus before it is viable, especially between the third and seventh months of pregnancy; spontaneous abortion (http://dictionary.reference.com...) So we can see from the above this is the explusion of the fetus before it can survive. Which can include an abortion, which under this bill will be manslaughter, or it could just simply be the failure of the child. This is not done on purpose on behalf of the mother nor would she know that this would cause a miscarriage and thus disproves point three. Point two can also be disproven by us just simply looking at the fact that a miscarriage can simply be an accident and is not the fault of the mother. Contention 2: The Fetus is alive. My opponent goest out in this contention saying that the fetus is not alive because of XY and Z, without any imperical evidence. This round I intend on showing that evidence for these things. Every organism must be able to maintain a consistent internal environment. This is often seen done through sweating, excretion and blood plays a major role. There is no set law on how one’s internal environment must be maintained, so long as the organism can accomplish this, it’s performing Homeostasis. The Fetus performs a great deal of Homeostasis through the Placenta. The Amniotic Fluid also plays a large role in maintaining body temperature. The fluid stays slightly above the body temperature of the mother in order to keep the fetus’s body temperature where it needs to be. (http://americanpregnancy.org...) The hormones that help maintain Homeostasis are produced in the Placenta. The Fetus must maintain glucose homeostasis, body temperature, and body fluid homeostasis. Every organism must require Metabolism, the transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and the decomposing of organic substances (catabolism). The energy is used to vastly support homeostasis and other phenomena. The fetus maintains a good deal of metabolism on its own. Many primary hormones, such as insulin and glucagon, don’t pass through the placenta. This means the hormones are produced within the fetus. The mother’s own hormones play a minor role in the fetus’s Metabolism. (http://www.reproduction-online.org...)It is well known among biologists that the fetus responses to external stimuli. At what week it begins to react is not known, and no estimates are universally accepted. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...) A test performed in the early 20th century, studying the effects of sound on fetuses found considerable amounts of data on the subject. The Fetus does react to sound and other stimuli. (http://www.jstor.org...) This is seen again in the study of 100 Dutch women, where the fetus responds to sound before adapting to it. (http://abcnews.go.com...) In the study mentioned in the prior segment, the researchers used noise to test the fetus, and found that the fetus would stop responding. It adapted to the noise through habituation or sensitization. These are primitive forms of memory, but the fetus did nonetheless adapt to and remembered the noise. There is other research that suggests the fetus adapts to stress. This adaptation usually involves increased maturation in the Brain and Lungs. (http://labs.mcdb.lsa.umich.edu...) Being able unable to reproduce only means you aren’t fully developed or that your development was messed up, but you can still be alive. So how does one handle this characteristic? A good move would be to accept that this characteristic need only be found in one’s species. Of course, we could also use information from Vorvick and Stork to conclude that, on a cellular level, the zygote is reproducing. (http://www.nlm.nih.gov...) Starting as a single cell, the Zygote begins cell division (reproduction). This mean that, for the first few weeks, the fetus is capable of fulfilling the reproduction characteristic. For the sake of reason, we will conclude that after the fetus reaches a certain level of development, where cellular development is less as an issue, cellular reproduction no longer counts. We will also conclude that once living, a fetus can’t die and come back to life months later. The fetus reproduces as a cell, and afterwards, is protected by the principle that it’s already fulfilled its criteria, and that reproduction need only be a specie’s characteristic. So we can see here that I have refuted all of the areas that my opponent has brought up.