AAN Tour: Voluntary Abortion should be legal

IntroductionI thank Con for her rebuttals.I will present now rebuttals for her rebuttals and show the reasons voluntary abortion should be legal.Rebuttals1. The bodily rights' and reproductive rightsCon starts asking for the bodily rights of the woman's "baby", and claims that they should be respected because they are 2 different persons. But the bodily rights or the fetus are not being affected. Remember that abortion doesn't mean "killing because it's in the woman's property", but using the woman's right to not donate her womb for 9 months.In other words, the only rights affected are the woman's bodily rights. My opponent then calls the pro-choice argument "one sided". This is totally false. Thanks to the bodily rights' argument we can see that having abortion as an option gives equality in the rights. We are not considering the fetus property, we are only showing that the fetus doesn't have the right to use the woman's body, just like no person has the right to use the woman's body.Con then attacks the reproductive rights argument. She claims that the consent to sex means consent to pregnancy, but this is not true. And even if the woman uses contraceptives, she may still get pregnant.Abortion deprivation violates her rights because if she gets pregnant, and doesn't consent the pregnancy, the fetus would be using her body without her consent.2. Personhood and life are not relevant to this debateMy opponent doesn't accept that personhood and life are not relevant to the debate because she was not able to understand the argument. It being a person/alive doesn't affect the argument. You can replace the fetus with an adult human being and the bodily rights of the woman would be affected.Now, Con claims that if the "baby" is just a blob with no feeling and no life, then abortion is acceptable, but if it's a person with feelings and alive and the ability to feel pain, then abortion is essentially murder.I disagree here. Abortion is defined as the termination of the pregnancy, not the killing of the fetus. So independently of the status of the fetus, abortion is not murder.And this is easier to see with example of abortions that result on the baby being alive. Caesarean section is a form of late term abortion because it terminates the pregnancy and the baby most of the times lives.It's late term because it is practiced when the fetus is viable.3. The issue of rapeMy opponents attacks an argument I did not present. She claims that abortion is not a solution to rape because it doesn't "erase the rape".But abortion was never intended to be a solution to rape. Abortion would be a solution to a pregnancy without consent. It's part of her rights that she should be able to defend.Then Con claims "psychological damage" caused by abortion. The source she gives also make that claim but with no substantial evidence of it. But it doesn't matter because it is a myth.The American Psychological Association(APA) has several studies about the relation between mental health and abortion [1][2][3][4]. All reach the conclusion that "The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy,"4. Safety of abortions1. Con tries to attack the fact that "abortions will not stop because of it being illegal".She claims that there will be more abortions if abortion is legal. I never claimed that there will be the same amount or more abortions if it was illegal, I just said that abortions will not stop but I still consider Con's evidence insufficient. The chart shows the amount of abortions related to restrictions in different states. The problem lies in the fact that those are "official" and legal abortions only. It doesn't show the complete amount of abortions that are still a considerable amount.I gave evidence that there is still a considerable amount of abortions in parts of the world where it is still illegal. [5] Then Con claims that the legal abortion will cause "STDs, broken relationships, and many more unwanted pregnancies" which is a ridiculous claim.Legal abortion may mean more abortions but it doesn't mean more sex. Sadly, the source of Con is biased and unreliable.Con ends implying that legal abortions give a false sense of security to woman, but this is false. Abortions are actually secure and I presented evidence for that in my last round and also in this round. 2. Here Con attacks the safety of "the system". I assume she is referring to the safe of abortion.She gives some reasons:a. Loss of money: Even though is not related to safety, it is not a problem at all compared to any other surgery and actions that defend the human rights of the people.b. Humiliating procedure: This claim is baseless and has no evidence to be true.c. Health damage: This is another baseless claim. I have provided evidence that shows that there are less risk of complications in abortion than in pregnancy. It is a safe medical procedure.d. Loss of her child: Con here implies that the fetus is wanted and the result of love between man and woman.e. Loss of her peace of mind: I already showed evidence that this doesn't happen. Usually mental health problems after abortion are more related to problems before abortions (like rape) than abortion itself. [6] f. Adds to current tragedy in cases of rape: Baseless claim. It begs the question as it implies what it is supposed to prove.g. It takes innocent life: Here it is the first time Con claims the fetus to be alive SINCE CONCEPTION. And although the life of the fetus is irrelevant to the debate, "when does life start?" is a question without an exact answer in science. That and the fact that abortion is not murder makes this a baseless claim. h. Deprivation of civil rights: No rights are affected by abortion. First, claiming the fetus is a person without any evidence of it is baseless. Second, even if it was a person, the civil rights of this fetus/person would not be affected as already explained in my last 2 rounds.i. Kills an innocent child: I think already 3 or 4 of Con's reasons are just this but paraphrased. Abortion is not murder. Abortion is the termination of the pregnancy. The fact that the fetus dies is just a fact of nature. It is not able to survive without the woman.j. It avoids responsibility for one's action. No it doesn't. For starters, Con is implying that being pregnancy is necessary because of the woman's actions. Then it also implies that consent to sex means consent to pregnancy. And last it forgets that abortions is a way of taking responsibility of the actions the woman made or were made against her will.Con then tries to attack the argument that "abortion is safer than child birth". Con claims that the damage of abortions is under reported.She uses here a totally biased and offensive source, a site that calls those who defend the right to choose of a woman, "child disposal apologist". I ask and recommend Con not to use similar sites again. The site claims a lot of things but no evidence is found, only a broken link from a paper I'm not able to read or at least know the name of. The site claims that 50% of complications cause by abortions are not reported.ConclusionCon was not able to rebut the bodily rights' argument properly and stands as my main argument for the legalization of abortion.Legal and safe abortion is necessary to ensure the rights of a lot of women around the world.Thanks, Vote PRO.Sources1. http://www.apa.org...2. http://www.apa.org...3. http://www.apa.org...4. http://www.apa.org...5. http://www.thelancet.com...6. http://www.apa.org...