Abortion

aborï¿½tion 1: the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus: as a: spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation — compare miscarriage b: induced expulsion of a human fetus c: expulsion of a fetus by a domestic animal often due to infection at any time before completion of pregnancy (http://www.merriam-webster.com...) Abortion cannot be defined as murder, as it doesn't always involve the induced death of an embryo or fetus. Embryo: The organism in the early stages of growth and differentiation from fertilization to, in humans, the beginning of the third month of pregnancy. After that point in time, it is termed a fetus. (http://www.medterms.com...) 1.a. An organism in its early stages of development, especially before it has reached a distinctively recognizable form. b. An organism at any time before full development, birth, or hatching. 2.a. The fertilized egg of a vertebrate animal following cleavage. b. In humans, the prefetal product of conception from implantation through the eighth week of development. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com...) Murder: 1: the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought (http://www.merriam-webster.com...) In order for my opponent's first statement to be valid: "Abortion is murder and it should be illegal.", abortion would have to first be illegal, and murder would have to be redefined in the US Code as the taking of human life including at the earliest stages of development. Abortion is a medical procedure, and should only be defined by medical doctors. In modern American history, the Christian Right has attempted to sequester this medical procedure and redefine it according to their own morals with complete disregard for the consequences of illegalizing abortion, the toll it will have on adoption rates in the US which are already dismal, and the social consequences of perpetuating a rise in illegal abortions. My opponent claims that an alternative for abortion is adoption. There are perpetually about 500,000 kids in foster care each year. With all the movement in and out of foster care, there is a constant 130,000 children awaiting adoption. In total, in 2007, 783,000 children were in the foster care system at some point. Only about 50,000 American children are adopted every year (http://www.acf.hhs.gov...). Abortion is currently LEGAL. In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions occurred. What would my opponent propose happen with this rise in unwanted children if already there are only 50,000 adoptions per year in the US? An extra 1.2 million children born per year would be disastrous to our economy, our orphanages, and the children doomed to live their lives in these institutions. (http://www.guttmacher.org...). My opponent states that the "only reason why there should be an abortion is in case the baby is acting as a cancer and its killing the mother". I refute that my opponent can make this claim because he cannot get into the heads of millions of women who have had, and do have abortions and discern for them whether or not they had a good reason to have an abortion. Even lacking this argument, my opponent ignores the conditions of rape and incest. Who will father these children? Will he? Who will provide psychiatric support for these women- too often children themselves- who have been violated and impregnated by disgusting criminals? Who will provide the psychiatric support for the children themselves when they are born? My opponent ignores several issues related to illegalizing abortion, besides the ones I have mentioned above. Illegalizing abortion would not lower abortion rates, rather it will raise illegal abortion rates, and the mortality rates associated with abortion. In 1972, a year before abortion became legal, there were a reported 130,000 illegal abortions. From 1975-1979 there were 11,300 illegal abortions reported. (http://findarticles.com...) Repealing Roe v. Wade (one of the steps required to illegalize abortion) would most likely result in a rise in illegal abortions. Now, rather than opposing the right of a woman and her doctor to choose what she should do medically with her own body, we should be advocating education of controceptive use, education in alternatives to abortion, laws that would ease adoption rather than make it more difficult (like the recent Arkansas Unmarried Couple adoption ban, http://ballotpedia.org...(2008), and help for single mothers and families living in poverty. It is this work that helps reduce the number of annual abortions, and reducing the number of annual abortions should be everyone's goal rather than attacking the rights of a woman, and a medical procedure while not being medically qualified to judge what is and isn't good for the human body, what defines human life, and what is or isn't ethical/unethical in medicine. Thank you.