The USFG should ban abortion

I would like to sincerely apologize to my opponent for not following the structure he outlined. I will respond only to the rebuttals he made last round. 1. My first argument was that individuals have the right to bodily autonomy. Pro counters that fetuses have that right as well; however, that is a bare assertion since I am specifically arguing that they do not. Indeed when the right to life begins will be discussed at length in this debate. I went on to explain that abortion should be a legal choice for women because it is risky and directly involves their body and health. Pro says that in the case of a mother's danger, abortion should be allowed, though my point was that the possibility of risk in and of itself is why a woman has the right to choose if she wants to accept the potential risk. Furthermore, while Pro does disagree with me on when the right to life (and bodily autonomy) begins for the fetus, he does not deny that the woman has bodily autonomy without question. Therefore, her rights are absolute. If a fetus can live outside the womb, perhaps it should have that right. However when a woman's body MUST be utilized for any reason, her consent is mandatory in order to be consistent with the right to bodily autonomy, which Pro does not deny exists. Until a fetus is viable to live on its own, its alleged right to life does not trump the mother's right to bodily autonomy. 2. I argued that other people do not have the moral or legal authority to govern our bodies, even if someone else's life is on the line. For example if someone needs me to donate organs, blood or plasma, I cannot be legally forced to use my body to save their life -- even if it's my fault they need help. Pro responded that there is a big distinction between not helping and actively killing someone. However I specifically pointed out that the law does not force us to help keep others alive, even if it is our fault they are in danger (much like a fetus). Our bodies cannot be impeded upon. If the law does not legally permit us to sell our own organs, the law cannot claim to have more control over how our bodies are used than we do. That is a gross exaggeration of government rights. People are not property; we cannot legally or morally be bought and sold or forced to do things against our will. That is called slavery. Again Pro does not deny that people (mothers) have rights. So Pro must not only prove that fetuses have the right to life, but that this right means they can violate other people's bodies (against their will) in order to keep living. Pro says, "Just because zygotes aren"t able to give consent doesn't mean their bodily rights should be invaded, much like how you can't have sex with an drunk woman who is unable to give consent in US law." This is a fallacious analogy as we have already established that zygotes do not necessarily have rights. 3. Pro claims that "back alley abortions" aren't a problem because there were only 40 recorded deaths from illegal abortion procedures. There are so many problems with these statistics and arguments. First, noting that only 40 women died completely ignores my argument. My point was that back alley abortions will still occur, thus criminalization does not serve as an effective deterrent. My opponent completely dropped this argument. Abortion was made illegal in the U.S. in 1800. Throughout the next 173 years until abortion became legal, the same number of women each year (over 1 million in some years) continued to seek abortions out, illegally [1]. Thus extend my argument about criminalization and making (caught) women criminals completely unnecessarily and unjustifiably; they have not harmed any human being with rights. Second, the reason there have been few deaths from illegal abortions is because abortion is available thanks to abortion doctors and people willing to do the procedure. Pro's argument is that back alley abortions wouldn't be a problem, because "before the Supreme Court case, more than 90% of the illegal abortions were done by medical professionals with high standing in their fields. [So] If abortion were to become illegal, back-alley abortions won"t be much of a problem." So he's saying that medical professionals are (thankfully) willing to perform the procedure, instead of having some hack do it. But what's the problem with having some hack do, it, Pro? My point is that we need to keep abortion providers trained and have a safe doctor to work with -- apparently my opponent agrees. In fact, a total of around 40 million abortions occur both legally and illegally around the globe each year. Around the world around 19 million back alley abortions are still performed on an annual basis. Most of these occur in developing countries in Asia or Africa [1]. About one in eight pregnancy-related deaths worldwide is associated with unsafe abortion [2]. Nearly half of all abortions worldwide are unsafe, and it's the leading cause of maternal mortality [3]. I'm also challenging Pro's sources. Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s range from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year. Prior to Roe v. Wade, as many as 5,000 American women died annually as a direct result of unsafe abortions [3]. Essentially there is no way Pro can argue that back alley abortions aren't unsafe or problematic. The fact is that when legal and safe abortions aren't available, both the fetus and women die. Pro fallaciously equivocates legalizing abortion with legalizing slavery. However my argument isn't that we should make abortion legal simply because people will do it anyway; it's that it makes no sense whatsoever to make women criminals for 1) not violating another person's rights and 2) because forcing unsafe abortion kills both fetus and woman, making it a nonsensical standard. 4. Rape has been used as a weapon of psychological warfare for centuries, to terrorize, humiliate, and undermine the morale of the victim. It's a violent degradation and violation of rights. For a mother who raises a rape-conceived child, both the traumatic effect of the rape and the child's blood relationship to the rapist can create significant psychological problems for both mother and child. If a woman decides to keep and raise the child, she may have difficulty accepting it, and both mother and child face ostracism in some societies [4]. Mothers may also face legal difficulties. In most US states, the rapist maintains parental rights. Research by legal scholar Shauna Prewitt indicates that the resulting continued contact with the rapist is damaging for women who keep the child -- which is possible because 31 states in the U.S. allow rapists to assert custody and visitation rights over children conceived through rape [5]. 6. Both IVF and abortion involve the destruction of fertilized eggs that could potentially develop into people. However the push to criminalize abortion and not those who need fertility treatment, proves the contention is less about protecting human lives, and more about controlling women's bodies. Pro says, "Just because many people do not follow what you believe to be a consistent pro-life ideology, that does not mean they reflect badly on the ideology itself." But indeed protecting every human life does not seem like a serious or consistent contention. If so-called "pro lifers" don't care about destroying eggs in one instance "because they have legal rights," why not in ALL instances? Of course this is relevant. 7. I pointed out that aborted fetuses do serve a functional and moral purpose in society. Their stem cells can be useful at treating disease and saving other human lives - the lives of those already sentient. Pro says non fetus stem cells exist but that's irrelevant. That doesn't mean fetus stem cells aren't exceptionally helpful and useful for specific functions which Pro does not deny. 8. By saying the right to life doesn't apply to babies outside of the U.S. (implying only American fetuses are relevant) my opponent is discrediting the argument that all fetuses have the right to life. Indeed the right to life trumps national borders. If Pro is saying abortion is permissible in places where adoption isn't a realistic option, he's saying pragmatic arguments trump the "right to life" argument. Throughout this debate I've been arguing that it's more pragmatic to keep abortion legal as well as moral (because fetuses do not have the right to life). 9. Pro invokes the 14th Amendment and United Nations to justify the fetus' right to life, which is a fallacious appeal to tradition and appeal to authority. Neither one of these documents ever extends these rights to fetuses or all humans, specifically. In the last round, I explained at length why a particular level of sentience (and capacity for sentience) should be the standard for legal personhood. However Pro simply recited the 14th amendment granting rights based on personhood. He has NOT proven that human fetuses qualify as "people" with human rights. I have argued that they do not qualify as people with human rights just because they are both living and human. Simply being alive (or even being conscious) does not determine the "right to life" in society. This standard of sentience is important and useful because it accounts for the essence of personhood beyond being alive or arbitrary speciesism. [1] http://healthresearchfunding.org... [2] https://books.google.com... [3] http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org... [4] http://www.slate.com... [5] http://georgetownlawjournal.org...