Abortion

R1 Rebuttals My opponent makes the claim that killing babies (ie. infanticide) is ultimately the same as having an abortion. This is not true as my R1 arguments clearly demonstrate. The list that has been complied by biolgoists to determine whether things are living and the fetus clearly does not meet this list. My opponent cannot make baseless assertions as comparisons to abortions. I have provided scientific evidence in support of the fetus being living whereas my opponent has failed to do the same. Without any evidence to support this comparison voters ought to consider it as baring no weight upon the resolution. My opponent attempt to define life using Webster's dictionary to define life. Unfortunately Webster's dictionary is not used by scientists when determining things. It is not a biological site and it is purposefully vague to as to keep the definition suitable for anybody of any age or background [1]. Of course, even if you do buy my opponent's definition you still ought to presume Pro since this definition includes the condition of reproduction which the fetus is unable to do [2]. Therefore, whichever definition you choose, mine or my opponents, the fetus should be considered to be non-living. My opponent makes the following claim which is completely false: "According to biology, life has these characteristics:1. Grows and develops (check)2. Capable of reproduction (check)3. Consumes and uses energy (check)4. Responds to stimuli (check)" [3]1 is true. 2 is completely false, and I have proven this already [2]. 3 is correct. 4 is false, it can detect stimuli however it cannot respond to it until much after the legal date for an abortion [4]. I never referred to the fetus as a clump of cells, merely non-living. Therefore the pre-emptive rebuttal stating that the fetus is not a clump of cells is irrelevant since it is already proven to be non-living which is what is important. My opponent's 3rd point is that the fetus is a human which is false. The genetic material will come out as human because it is growing to become a human however that doesn't mean that it is a human, this simply means that it is developing to become one. My opponent seems to believe that when humans and other species reproduce another member of that species just pops into existence. They are very mistaken. If it's parents are both members of this species then this does not means that it is automatically classified as a member of this species. And even if it is this still doesn't prove that it's living - it simply proves that it could be human (which it isn't). A dead person is still human, but that doesn't mean that it is living does it? Just because something is a member of the same species as something else, this does not mean that it ought to be considered living.This is the only argument that my opponent presents and since the burden of proof is shared, my opponent is clearly unable to fulfill their burden. Another important thing to note is that my opponent fails to prove the impacts of this to me and to readers. Even if you believe my rebuttal to be insufficient and my opponent's argument to be wrong, you still ought to presume Pro since the impacts are not provided. My opponent fails to say why the fact that the fetus is living means that abortions should be illegal (not that I believe this but my opponent clearly does). R2 Rebuttals My opponent completely misunderstands the framework. The framework does not refer to liberals. It refers to libertarians and it provides arguments and a framework for the debate. My opponent has failed to respond to the framework or provide an alternative framework, this is problematic since under my framework abortion should be legal. Without a sufficient rebuttal or alternative, this ultimately means that you can vote Pro based on this alone. Of course the fetus has no choice in being in the mother's womb. Why is that? The answer is: because the fetus isn't alive and only living things can make decisions [5]. The fetus isn't like a prisoner for a number of reasons. The first being that prisoners are held in prisons to be punished. The fetus is not held in the womb as a punishment. The second reason is that the prisoner is held there against their will. The fetus has no will because it is unable to think or feel things so therefore the fetus is not being held their against its will (this is impossible since the fetus has no will). Even if the fetus had will it still wouldn't be a prisoner because when prisoners are released from jail they are free to go back to civilization. If the fetus is taken out of the womb then it will die. The womb is its only place of security and therefore the womb is not like a prison. For this reason my opponent's analogy is flawed. Another point that my opponent's analogy fails to acknowledge is that you actually have to look after the baby once it's born and this can be extremely expensive as my contentions explain. Another vital things that I must pick up on is the insufficieny of a rebuttal to my argument in regards to embryotic abortions. I stated that most abortions are done when it is proven for a 100% fact that the embro is not alive (since it is not even at the stage of being a fetus). My opponent responds by saying that it consumes energy, grows and develops and responds to stimuli. It does not respond to stimuli so even by my opponent's definition the embryo is not alive [6].My opponent makes a common misconception with my biological categories of defining life. I understand that there are people that do not meet all of these categories due to a disability or for some other reason. The problem is that my opponent misunderstands the entire purpose of the argument. The argument is used to define whether a group of things is alive not individual things. We aren't going to go around to every single fetus to test if it's alive or not. We're going to analyze the fetus as a whole and decide whether it's alive or not. Therefore, when analyzing humans using this classification system we analyzed humans on a whole not just every individual humans [7]. My opponent's response to illegal abortions is shocking. He deems mother's to be psychopaths because they want abortions and they are denied the right to do so. Until my opponent is able to prove this, then this argument should not work in his favour since it is under my opponent's burden to provide evidence for this assertion. My opponent drops the rest of my illegal abortions contention by saying that it's a medical issue. This is not true. Having an illegal abortion can result in death but the argument isn't about this alone. It is also about the fact that there is no point in making it illegal if it's going to happen anyway. My opponent completely ignores this part of the argument and only responds to the statement in regards to people dying and being severely injured due to these illegal abortions which is arguably not a medical reason - rather a political related one. My opponent dismisses the argument in regards to teenagers having children by saying that this harms both the mother and child. This may be true however the criteria set in R1 is that I am not allowed to argue in regards to rape, medical issues or incest. I haven't argued in regards to any of these and therefore voters ought to consider this argument as dropped by my opponent. My opponent completely misunderstands my argument and essentially drops all the philosophy in regards to women's rights. He states that this means that women have the right to kill but you cannot kill what isn't alive. Also my opponent fails to acknowledge that this isn't all about whether or not the fetus is living. It is also about human rights. Sources[1] http://bit.ly...;[2] http://bit.ly...;[3] http://bit.ly... [4] http://www.beginbeforebirth.org...;[5] http://www2.fiu.edu...;[6] http://bit.ly...;[7] http://bbc.in...;