Abortion should be illegal

I am going to begin this round of arguments by properly defining several key words and issues to negate each of my opponents arguments: Liberty: the power or scope to act as one pleases [1] Licence: freedom to behave as one wishes, especially in a way which results in excessive or unacceptable behaviour [2] First Degree Murder: Murder occurs where the person who causes the death of a human being means to cause his death, or means to cause him bodily harm that he knows is likely to cause his death, and is reckless whether death ensues or not. [3] and it becomes first degree when: was planned and deliberate [3] Failure to Provide the Necessities of Life: Everyone is under a legal duty as a parent, foster parent, guardian or head of a family, to provide necessaries of life for a child under the age of sixteen years [4] Rebuttal My opponent's arguments misconstrue the word Liberty to mean Licence. Liberty obviously has limits as all laws limit liberties. Example: I have the liberty to walk down the sidewalk. I do not have the licence to punch the people standing on the sidewalk talking. This confusion between liberty and licence is made clear in my opponents argument that an abortion is merely a denial of service and not an attack on the unborn. This like a restaurant owner saying that he was only denying a customer service when he shot him in the head and disposed his body in the dumpster. The fact that women have a liberty is not a licence to maintain that liberty at any cost. My opponent’s argument seems to rest solely on a misused definition of torture. If we re-examine his original sources: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment [5] and torture is: To bring great physical or mental pain upon (another) [6] As [5] is a UN Document we understand torture as the UN describes it: Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. [7] As we can clearly see the third party must be intentionally causing the pain. The definition put forth by my opponent is interpreted in a clearly erroneous manner. As such the definition by the UN does not support his argument. Using the clearly defined terms and concepts codified above my opponent's additional comments on his original 6 points will be shown to be false. 1) "equality of all humans doesnt give us right to force somebody/woman to do something. it doesnt give us to prevent somebody from avoiding something. " Once again my opponent has confused liberty with licence. Equality of all humans is precisely what limits our freedoms. I am prevented from stealing, raping, and murdering precisely because of the inherent equality of humans. Additionally, as I showed in round 2 there is a hierarchy of rights in that they all build upon the most fundamental right - the right to life. While it is an incorrect argument, even if we assumed that the woman’s right to her body is being violated, killing the child would be a greater violation as the child’s right to live is more fundamental than the woman's to her own body. 2a) "it doesnt mean that 100% of raped pregnants indeed did not want to have abortion. " This was addressed above as a liberty vs licence. The woman does not have absolute power to enforce her liberty. The fact that a woman wants an abortion doesn’t mean that she is entitled to it (hence this debate). It was the rapist who committed the crime, the unborn child is an innocent third party. As such the woman has no right to redress against the unborn, but does against the rapist. The argument greater violation of rights, as explained above, would favour the child. As for the rest of the comments in this section, my opponent misunderstood the context of the quote. 2b) "in the same way, a woman who wants to avoid can not legally be held responsible for the vulnerability of a fetus. " As she is the parent of the child, she is the guardian of the child until such time as she safely transfers that guardianship to another. See 4 below for more. 3) "a woman can not be held responsible for the vulnerability of a fetus. if fetus dies due to disconnection, that is not our problem, woman has right not to help fetus to survive. " See 2 above and 4 below. 4a) "Me: We hold parents as guardians responsible for the care of their children, regardless of financial circumstances. " "Opponent: who are you? we are not compulsory to live according to you. .if one does not want to spend money for something, that is his right not to spend" Worldwide governments require parents to provide the necessities of life for those who are unable to do so for themselves; this is rooted in Natural and Common Law. Quotes from Canadian and Irish Law as examples: Failure to Provide the Necessities of Life: Everyone is under a legal duty as a parent, foster parent, guardian or head of a family, to provide necessaries of life for a child under the age of sixteen years [4] Guardianship is the legal relationship between parents and their child…Guardianship involves: The duty to maintain and properly care for a child [8] Parents are obligated to provide for their children until they reach an age where they are capable of providing for themselves. 4b) Me: Parents of a newborn would be thrown in jail for dismembering an infant because they thought it was too expensive to take care of Opponent: what codex has such rule I’m sorry, but this is embarrassing to answer because it shows a complete lack of rationality to my opponents argument. Suffice to say please refer to sources [3], [7] & [8]. 4c) "what can they do till birth? in order this arguement to be sensical, till birth government needs to meet the woman till the birth" Once again this is already resolved by the liberty vs. licence argument above. Given that people in the third world manage to deliver children, while living well below what we would consider the poverty line, illustrates that this is not a valid argument. The cost of the abortion is likely more than the cost of any additional food necessary to sustain the mother as a result of being pregnant. 5) "that is tradition cant be changed by government at once. this is logical fallacy. to prevent the murder, government needs to watch her 9 months 24 hours because government can not know who&how will kill her. " My opponent seems to misunderstand the role of the government and laws. The purpose of the government is to institute just laws based on truth and to enforce them when people fail to adhere to them. Without instituting such laws, you have an unjust society based on cowardice and intimidation to avoid dealing with an unjust social tradition. 6) & Richman Once again my opponent fails to understand the difference between non-intervention resulting in death and active intervention resulting in death. Doing nothing ≠ causing. Not pulling someone away from in front of a speeding train is different than pushing them in front of it. Additionally, parent to child responsibility has been clearly established. [4] [8] Additional Arguments 1. That people die in committing crime is not justification to legalize an activity. Particularly when the activity being committed results in the death of an innocent human being. 2. If we extend my opponent’s argument we should legalize and license hit men. That way the proceeds do not go to organized crime, but instead assasinations would be more affordable and provide tax revenue. 3. Increase in crime from prohibition of abortion. What crime is worse than the slaughter of innocents? Now in excess of 55,000,000 in the US alone. Additionally, the validity of the research by Levitt has been brought into question: …contrary to Levitt's theory, there was at the state level, a positive correlation (when appropriately weighted by population of state), between the legal abortion rate in the early 1970s and the teen homicide offending rate in the late 1980s and early 1990s among those youths born after legalization. Unfortunately, Dr. Levitt initially only looked at crime rates for the years 1985 and 1997 (and only looked at the uselessly crude age groups of over and under 25), so he completely missed how his theory had catastrophically failed its most obvious historical test. [9] 4. “a foetus is part of a woman's body” We have already concluded that the unborn is an individual human being and thus not part of the mother’s body. Argument is nullified. Arguments That the unborn is a human has been proven. That bearing a child is not torture has been proven. That a liberty to something does not equal an unlimited license to achieve it has been proven. That parents are bound by law to provide for the needs of the child has been proven. Equality of humans has not been refuted or even questioned and is therefore proven. That life is the most fundamental right has not been refuted is therefore proven. [1] . http://tinyurl.com... [2] . http://tinyurl.com... [3] . http://tinyurl.com... [4] . http://tinyurl.com... [5] . http://tinyurl.com... [6] . http://tinyurl.com... [7] . http://tinyurl.com... [8] . http://tinyurl.com... [9] . http://tinyurl.com...