Infanticide should be legal in the United States.

Freeman is a stellar debater and I am enjoying our exchange. First, I am aware of the moral underpinning of the law. If I was arguing from the position that laws are moral because they are Constitutional then used the Constitution for support, Pro would be correct in addressing the circularity of the argument, but I am not arguing the morality of the law by using the Constitution. I am not overly concerned with the moral underpinnings in this case. I am concerned that the law Pro suggests would require changes in the Constitution and current US laws (Pro must agree it does require change) and the changes necessary to allow for infanticide negate the "should" aspect of this resolution. In one sentence: Infanticide should not be legal because the changes it necessitates in the law would remove protections from a select group arbitrarily. (Infants in the response are 30 days or younger following Pro's response). To illustrate: If the Constitution and laws changed to allow for the legal definition of "person" to exclude infants then an infant cannot be kidnapped under the law, nor could an infant be murdered. A person could walk into a neonatal care unit and kill all the infants without a single charge of murder being presented as the infants are not "persons", a requirement for murder. Next, an infant could not be assaulted or battered outside of laws addressing animal cruelty as they would be "non persons". If such an issue is bothersome, then a new class of "non person" must be created and I see very little stopping laws from distinguishing between other select groups. If one group can be excluded, others can as well. Lastly, if Pro wishes to distinguish healthy infants from those who are certain to die quickly, then the 14th amendment must be changed and interpretation from the court must somehow allow that only certain disabled infants lose protection all the while keeping some Constitutional protection for the newly defined "persons" under the law and preventing other groups from losing protection. I simply do not see how it can be done. For these reasons, I asked Pro to show us the law and the new definition of person; he did not do so. The bottom line is application of Pro's law would result in a loss of rights for all citizens due to the structure of our current legal framework. If Pro cannot present the law and show how other groups could still be protected (healthy infants, disabled adults, Downs Syndrome citizens, etc) then he has not satisfied his burden as we cannot judge whether we should allow infanticide to be legal without looking at the law and plugging it into the current framework. My request is reasonable. C1: Currently, infanticide is homicide. Pro instigated this debate and must show us how a law could be written to separate the two while still providing protection for his undefined "person" under the law, without the law he cannot do so. At this point infanticide is simply homicide. Pro offered a syllogism, but the construction is not my position. My position is simply that Pro's law has massive legal ramifications for all citizens and due to these ramifications the law should be rejected. Pro refuses to show us a law so we can evaluate all the needed changes in order to initiate a cost/benefit analysis. In absence of the law, we can only evaluate the one specific class Pro addressed, infants with anencephaly, and these infants can be made comfortable for their short lives. The doctors and nurses do not let the baby lay in pain waiting for death. And most feel no pain at all, but for those that do, medication is administered and nature will provide the end result shortly. A painless death comes not by law or personal fiat but by nature itself so we have no need to open this door with all the possible implications that Pro is advocating. A simple cost/benefit analysis is all that is needed to render this proposed law moot. C2: I am in no way begging the question. I am not saying infants have a moral right to life; I could care less for this debate. I am saying that implementation of an unnecessary law with all the changes needed to allow for it under our current legal framework does not survive a simple cost/benefit analysis. The law should be rejected due to its implications on the country as a whole. Those implications are the found in the removal of the 14th Amendment and the allowance of a law segmenting groups by arbitrary distinctions. And without a working definition for "person" from Pro, we cannot evaluate the potential slippery slope. C3: I saw no need to address this argument considering my approach. I concede for the purposes of this debate that "potential" does not necessarily grant one rights. The issue is not whether we can separate Pro's select classes morally, but how we can do so and keep protection for others in the legal framework in the US. But for the term "legal" in the resolution, I would have avoided this debate. I debate pro abortion advocates the same way and ironically they have all refused to write a pro abortion law in the same manner Pro did here. By offering this in legal terms we must examine the legal framework needed to apply the law. The application of the law is the issue considering the resolution, not just the underlying morality of the law. In absence of the law or a legal definition of "person" we can say pro has not satisfied his burden.