Abortion

Since this is a complex topic that not everyone has a black-and-white stance on, even my opponent believes abortion can be used in three instances, in the case of rape, mother's life endangerment, and incest. I am in favor of it used in more cases than that, so I shall argue for that. However, In a perfect world(I recognize there are reasons, which I will address in argument 2, that it needs to be further than this) I am not in favor of it after a certain point, that point being once the fetus has developed a brain, which is generally between week 6 and 7 of a pregnancy[1]. Prior to this time, I believe an abortion should be legal for all women to get for any reason. After this point, I believe like my opponent does that it should only be legal in the cases of rape, incest, or harm of the mother. The reason for this being, is it's hard to argue that a fetus is not human once it has a brain. We often consider that the distinguishing factor for humanity.Now: I'll first point out that the United State Supreme Court(assuming we are talking about the United States) and many other western nations, have declared abortion legal for at least the first trimester.Next, I will address each of the points I disagree with and comment on the ones I agree with from my opponent. If I don't respond to something my opponent said, I either agreed with it or I didn't see a need to respond. "Argument 1: Men shouldn't have a voice in the conversation"Here's where I disagree with my opponent: I believe it is only the mother's choice to do a physical abortion. The reason why is because the fetus is the one using the mother's body without her consent, it's not using the man's body without consent. Since Personal Autonomy is a right in the United States[2] (I assume we are all in the United States here, but if my opponent is not, I can offer a source reflective of what their country considers to be rights) we have a right to decide who, what, and when someone uses our body. When someone or something is putting us through an unwanted experience, this is grounds to get that person or thing to stop, even with force. Thus, it is solely the mother's right to get the fetus to stop, and usually that means an abortion. The fetus is not harming the father's right to personal autonomy. Where I agree with my opponent is that the man should have some sort of say with abortion. The way I would give men a say, is by allowing them to have what is called a financial abortion. It can often happen that a man did not consent to having a baby, but the woman decides to allow it to be born anyways. I would say that a man should have a right to give up all parental responsibility and privileges within the first 6 weeks of pregnancy as well. I do find it remarkably unfair and wrong that a man is stuck with having to pay for a baby they didn't want. This would give men some sort of say with abortions in a different way. The reason why this would have to be done within the first 6 weeks of the pregnancy is also to allow the mother to be able to make a proper decision on whether they would want to abort. They may, perhaps, decide to abort if they found out the father is not wanting any parental responsibility or privileges. "Argument 2: For most abortions, you just kill a "ball of cells.""The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 66 percent of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 92 percent are performed within the first 13 weeks."[3] However, there are various reasons why the third of abortions occur after the first 8 weeks, and that is because: 1) Some women have to travel more than 100 miles to get to a place who will perform the abortion, so it takes a while to be able to finally get one [3] 2) 89% of counties in the United States have no known abortion providers [3]3) The cost of an abortion is very high [3]If all of these problems were to be solved, I would say we should definitely restrict abortion to the first 7 weeks, before brain development, like I said. Otherwise, we will need to offer abortions beyond that because of problems that were outside of the mother's control. "Argument 3: "Don"t impose your Christian values on me" or "Don"t impose your morals on me."My opponent claimed that "US laws agree with me and murder is outlawed in many forms." However, abortion is legal in the United States generally up until 24-26 weeks of pregnancy. [4] I would like to point out that my opponent also stated "Even if one were to argue that morals differ from person to person at a secular level and the government shouldn"t determine morals, government can make laws that reflect the moral belief of the nation." I believe government should make laws that reflect the moral belief of the nation as well, however I don't know whether we can trust any given polls on abortion support because it's a complex topic. It would need to be a poll that allowed for more than just 2 options, a I don't believe most people fall into these two positions: "Abortion should always be illegal" or "Abortion should always be legal". I'm pretty certain the majority of people fall in between those positions, so if a poll only offers two choices, it will not be reflective of what the general population believes. In fact, now that I looked it up, a vast majority(79%) of people either believe abortion should be legal under all circumstances, or legal under certain circumstances [5]. A small minority(19%) believe it should always be illegal. So, the fact that the United States has set certain circumstances under which abortion is legal, that seems to be reflective of the majority position, or is at least a compromise. "Argument 4: Its a women"s right to chose; the government should respect that right."I agree with the four rights you listed here as well. Now, one thing that I noticed was that your analogy was weak: "If I were holding someone off a bridge, and I voluntarily let them go, it's murder. Although they were using my body and physical strength to survive, I"ll most likely be charged with a crime if I voluntarily release them."This is weak because in this instance, you had to have actively got the person in that position where they were dependent on you and did so with malicious intent. In the case of a mother, they didn't actively get the fetus into the position where they were dependent upon the mother for life, at least not in every case. If the mother had an unexpected pregnancy, they didn't intentionally put the fetus in a position to be dependent upon them. In your example, the only way someone would be holding onto your arms over a bridge is if you intented to put them there. "Also, I kind of find it ironic that liberals argue freedom in this scenario. In literally every other political field, liberals argue for more control and less personal freedoms. Gun control, healthcare, and economic policies are all prime examples. But suddenly, they flip this stance on abortion."Well, this is irrelevant since not only liberals support a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. Libertarians, and most non-liberal left-wingers do too. In this case of this debate, I'm not a liberal, but I identify as a libertarian socialist. I support gun freedoms, weak government that only protects freedoms, etc. "How about this: what about the freedom to not have to fund abortions with taxpayer dollars? A columnist at Forbes complied a rough estimate and stated that roughly 24% of abortions recieve federal or state funding.Why should I be forced as a (future) taxpayer to support an action I find morally reprehensible? (Shoutout to Steven Crowder for giving me this idea.)"Well, if someone finds the military morally reprehensible, does that suddenly mean that they can choose to not pay taxes or that the military shouldn't be funded through taxes? However, that said, I would support the ability for states to secede from the union, so if the people in a state disagree with how tax payer money is spent, they should be allowed to secede. In addition, I would rather have a democracy than a republic, but in general, what the people decide is law. If majority want abortions to be funded through taxes, then it should be. I do, however, support a very decentralized model of democracy to the point where pretty much only like-minded people would be in that democratic government. So, the chances are is that a very large majority would be supporting abortions to be funded by tax money. The very few who disagree with it would easily be able to move to another democratic association that disagrees with it and doesn't pay abortions through tax payer money. It's kind of irrelevant that I started talking about democratic associations, I just did that so you'd understand where I'm coming from that I don't exactly support the idea of imposing things on other people and prefer decentralized democracies in which majority agree to something so that it's easy for someone to move out if they disagree with the majority. You shouldn't attack this belief in decentralized democracies, though, because it has nothing to do with the topic of abortion. So, if you do, I'll point out that you're not staying on topic. And again, I had reason to bring this up since you brought up the idea of imposing on tax payers something they don't want to pay for. Decentralized democracy is my solution to that problem. And I'm actually almost out of characters. I was going to say that I didn't get to make much argument, but I guess I did when I rebutted points by con. I kind of made all my main arguments in response to con. Sources:[1] https://medlineplus.gov...[2] https://www.law.cornell.edu... [3] https://www.plannedparenthood.org...[4] https://www.google.com...;[5] http://www.gallup.com...;