Rape Should Not Be An Exception In Abortion Policy

1. Philosophy vs. Facts Pro is making a mountain out of a mole hill with this argument. Laws involving areas where there is philosophical disagreement are determined based on facts. Some people for example, believe in absolute freedom of speech. However, if we allow someone to claim that there is a bomb on a plane just for fun, the results can be very harmful. Because of this fact, freedom of speech is limited. Pros arguments do not negate this concept nor is crucial to this debate. Moving on… 2. A More Similar Comparison Pro now changes his analogy to a homeowner inviting a person into their house in the middle of a blizzard, then kicking them out, potentially leaving them to die. Pro claims that because this is legally tolerated it somehow negates my argument about responsibility and consequence. This type of situation is unthinkably rare so I don’t think anyone would conceive of enacting a law against it. If the result of kicking a person out of your home is that they would die, and you were the one who invited them into your home, then it is obviously immoral to kick them out. If Pros analogy was somehow a common occurrence in society then it would obviously warrant legal consideration. But the situation changes if that person wandered into your home uninvited, because that person’s predicament is not the result of the homeowner’s actions. This only affirms the very basic argument that people have a responsibility for their own actions and should suffer the consequences for them. 3. Pros side Pro continues with his already refuted argument that my end of the resolution would give the fetus a “conditional right to life”. The right to life for a fetus is justifiably conditional because its survival is conditional. We all have rights until those rights impede on others. In this case the rights of the fetus clearly impede on the mothers rights to her own body. Pro also claims that making rape an exception in abortion policy would lead to people of different races being considered "a person but not fully person". How could Pro possibly justify such a bizarre statement? Rape has been an exception in abortion policy for years, yet society has progressed. The civil rights movement did not occur because of abortion policy. Slavery did not end because of abortion policy. Making rape an exception in abortion policy will not cause us to change the status of disabled people to “half people”. Pros claim is clearly not realistic. 4. Shades of Gray in Responsibility Pro argues that responsibility and consequence don’t apply to a woman who uses protection or where her birth control failed. Using protection or birth control does not eliminate the possibility of pregnancy. If it did we would not be having this discussion. The only way to eliminate the possibility of pregnancy is abstinence. If a women chooses not to practice abstinence then she is responsible for what happens afterward. Claiming that the probability of a women getting pregnant has anything to do with their level of responsibility in it goes against the very basic concept of responsibility. It is not the mother's fault her birth control didn’t work, but she wouldn’t be pregnant if she didn’t have sex in the first place. Pro seems to believe that the act which the mother engages in has to be morally wrong in order for her to have to suffer the consequences for them. That is not the case. The issue here is not about whether the mother deserves to lose her rights, it is about whether removing her rights is justified. What makes it justified has nothing to do with the probability of undesired results, but only if those results were caused by the mother's actions. Consider a grocery store that mops the floor to clean up a spill. There is nothing wrong with this, however if someone slips and falls the store is responsible even though they did not directly make that person fall. As long as the person who fell took reasonable precautions, the fall is considered the result of the stores actions regardless of whether their actions were right or wrong. Pro also argues that abortion should not be an exception because making this exception causes grey areas in the law. Pro disregards the fact that there are grey areas in almost every law that was ever written. For example we know that murder is wrong therefore illegal, but what is murder? How do you distinguish between someone being killed intentionally vs. someone being killed by the result of negligence? What about someone who is killed accidentally? These types of grey areas result in having first degree murder, second degree murder, homicide, etc… Gray areas are expected in every law and are not a logical reason to deny a law from being enacted. Pro tries to make the argument that this will cause abortion policy to fall apart. He disregards the fact that this issue has already been tested being that there are currently 19 states that have exceptions in their abortion law (1). Pros argument depends on society to be incapable of figuring out its own laws. Society has been figuring these things out for centuries, it will not cause our laws to fall apart. Conclusion I have made my argument quite clear that responsibility and consequence give a valid justification to remove a women’s right to choose in favor of the life of the fetus, and that this argument does not work in the case of rape. This is clear reason to create an exception in the law regarding abortion. My responsibility in this debate was not to affirm whether abortion in the case of rape should be legal, but rather to affirm that there is valid justification for making rape an exception. Pro could not adequately refute any of my main arguments, therefore I feel the results of this debate are clear. (1) http://en.wikipedia.org...