Abortion should be illegal in the United States

Thank you for this fine debate and making my job easy. In this final debate I will be showing how my adversary's arguments do not stand as well as bring up a few dropped arguments. Argument 1 (We have to admit the fetus is a (human) life.) In your evidence, you define that life has to feel pain, have conscious behavior, and think, feel, touch, and smell. This definition is vague and extremely flawed, and I am going to show why. Life has to feel pain to be considered human life. If this is true consider the following quotes. " About 5.6 million Americans have some degree of paralysis " far more than previously thought, according to the findings of a telephone survey released today by the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation." [1] "That means one in 50 Americans is living with some form of paralysis, whether caused by disease, spinal cord injury or neurological damage," said Peter T. Wilderotter, President and CEO of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. "Someone you know is living with paralysis " a family member, a friend or a work colleague." [2] To be paralyzed is defined as: "to make (a person or animal) unable to move or feel all or part of the body." [3] So does this mean that these 5.6 million Americans aren't considered human life? Of course not! These unfortunate people are considered just as human as you and I are. Life has to have conscious behavior to be considered human life. This is very true. If something had conscience behavior it would have emotions, it would be aware of its surroundings, and a multitude of other things. The fetus/baby does have these qualities. For example, "The girl is moving in the womb; displays a heartbeat of 140 per minute; and is at times sucking her thumb. As the abortionist"s suction tip begins to invade the womb, the child rears and moves violently in an attempt to avoid the instrument. Her mouth is visibly open in a "silent scream." The child"s heart rate speeds up dramatically (to 200 beats per minute) as she senses aggression. She moves violently away in a pathetic attempt to escape the instrument. The abortionist"s suction tip begins to rip the baby"s limbs from its body, ultimately leaving only her head in the uterus (too large to be pulled from the uterus in one piece). The abortionist attempts to crush her head with his forceps, allowing it to be removed. " This girl was still considered a fetus, before she was brutally ripped apart. If this fetus was a mindless organism, it wouldn't know that it was in harm's way. Instead this fetus showed that it was aware of its danger and tried to avoid it. Therefore the human fetus/baby shows that it indeed has conscious behavior. Life has to be able to think, feel, touch, and smell to be human life. I think by this point you get the idea. There are diseases which can prohibit feeling and the sense of smell. This definition of what is human life is flawed beyond repair, but there is a definition of human life which most science text books accept. "A scientific textbook called "Basics of Biology" gives five characteristics of living things; these five criteria are found in all modern elementary scientific textbooks: 1. Living things are highly organized. 2. All living things have an ability to acquire materials and energy. 3. All living things have an ability to respond to their environment. 4. All living things have an ability to reproduce. 5. All living things have an ability to adapt. According to this elementary definition of life, life begins at fertilization, when a sperm unites with an oocyte. From this moment, the being is highly organized, has the ability to acquire materials and energy, has the ability to respond to his or her environment, has the ability to adapt, and has the ability to reproduce (the cells divide, then divide again, etc., and barring pathology and pending reproductive maturity has the potential to reproduce other members of the species). Non-living things do not do these things. Even before the mother is aware that she is pregnant, a distinct, unique life has begun his or her existence inside her. Furthermore, that life is unquestionably human. A human being is a member of the species homo sapiens. Human beings are products of conception, which is when a human male sperm unites with a human female oocyte (egg). When humans procreate, they don't make non-humans like slugs, monkeys, cactuses, bacteria, or any such thing. Empirically-verifiable proof is as close as your nearest abortion clinic: send a sample of an aborted fetus to a laboratory and have them test the DNA to see if its human or not. Genetically, a new human being comes into existence from the earliest moment of conception." [4] Under this definition a fetus is indeed human life. So this argument flows to the affirmative (pro). Argument 2 (Banning abortions would not stop them) This argument is not only incorrect, but also illogical. To deal with the logicalness of this argument, lets refer to the previous argument. Since the human fetus is indeed a human life, legalizing abortions doesn't justify it in any way. Consider the following evidence. "This argument begs the question: it assumes the unborn are not human. Otherwise, this argument is tantamount to saying, "Because some people will die attempting to kill others, the state should make it safe and legal for them to do so." As Professor Schwarz points out, this is not really an argument for abortion (i.e. it does nothing to show that abortion does not murder a child or that the choice being offered is morally justified), but is a kind of veiled threat: "Give us choice or else!" Its appeal is psychological, not moral. (The Moral Question of Abortion, Loyola University Press, 1990" [5] To illustrate this subject further, look at the following example. "Racists once argued that equal treatment for blacks would result in terrible riots and cause untold suffering among law abiding citizens. But this in no way proved that blacks did not have equal rights or that a policy of racial discrimination could be morally justified." [5] So as you can see, abortions are morally wrong and can't be justified in any way. Now that we have discussed the illogicalness of this matter, I will show you how it is incorrect. You claim that about 5,000 women die as a result of unsafe abortions, but this number is highly exaggerated. "In 1972, the year prior to legalization, the Centers for Disease Control recorded 39 deaths from illegal abortion, not 5,000 to 10,000." [5] Even before abortions were legalized, the numbers are extremely low. So this argument flows to the affirmative. Argument 4 (Costs) If abortions were illegal it would end up as the person who does the abortion would end up under the death sentence. This would be rather expensive, if every mother who wanted an abortion got one. With the threat of the death penalty, they will be detoured from aborting children. "What gets little notice, however, is a series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years that claim to settle a once hotly debated argument _ whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes. They count between three and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer." [6] "A 2003 study he co-authored, and a 2006 study that re-examined the data, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides." [6] What we see here is the crime rates go down because of capital punishment. The same is true for abortion, illegal abortions will go down. Argument 4 (Ectopic Pregnancy, Rape, and Situations of severe discomfort.) You clearly do not understand the ectopic pregnancy argument. Yes it is sad that if we illegalize abortion, 840 mothers will die each year due to ectopic pregnancy or other pregnancy related problems, but it is even more drastic that if we legalize abortion, 1.2 MILLION babies will die each year. As modern technology gets better we may find a way to save these unfortunate mothers, but abortion isn't an option. Rape is still not an excuse to abort babies. What did this poor child do to deserve death? We are killing a child for the fathers sin. if the mother doesn't want the child she could set him/her up for adoption. There is still no good excuse for abortion to take place. So these arguments flow to the affirmative. Now that I have shown how your arguments do not stand, I will bring up some dropped arguments. Argument 1 You have failed to respond to my argument which states that planed parenthood had racial origins. Therefore you agree with this argument, and it flows to the affirmative. Argument 2 You have failed to refute my argument which states that abortion is unsafe for the mother. Therefore you agree with my argument, and it flows to the affirmative. Argument 3 You have failed to address my argument which states that abortion causes mental anguish for the mother. Therefore you agree with this argument, and it flows to the affirmative. Summary To end this fine debate I have proven that abortion brings a multitude of harms to the mother an that my opponents argument simply do not stand. For all these reason which I have listed abortion should be illegal in America. [1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com... [2] http://myelitis.org... [3] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [4] http://www.prolifephysicians.org... [5] http://www.priestsforlife.org... [6] http://www.washingtonpost.com...