Abortion is wrong.

----Clearing Things Up---- My opponent's opening argument is very ambiguous. However, in looking at my opponent's profile, we can easily see that she is pro-life. Her burden shall be to prove that "Abortion is wrong", while my burden shall be to prove that "Abortion is not wrong." The labels of "PRO" and "CON" are wrong for this debate. ----Arguments and Counterarguments---- My opponent's whole entire argument relies solely on one single fallacious argument. She maintains that because killing is "wrong", therefore abortion is also "wrong". However, this assumption is wrong -- killing in it of itself is perfectly okay. From hunting, to fishing, to the zooplankton in our toothpastes, killing occurs all the time. What I believe my opponent was trying to say though, was that the forced termination of human life is "wrong". That it true, and I will not attempt to argue that point. However, a fetus is NOT a human being. Wiktionary, for instance, defines a human being as, "A human being, whether man, woman, or child; Of or belonging to the species Homo sapiens or its closest relatives." There is no mention of fetuses anywhere in that definition. And in fact, if you can find a mainstream, unbiased source (from a dictionary, online dictionary, or otherwise) that defines humans to include fetuses, I will concede this debate. Furthermore, your conception of the word "killing" is also flawed. If we can assume that preventing life to become life is in fact killing, then every moment you are not engaging in the act of reproduction, you are killing potential life. In other words, if at any time in your life you were not procreating, you just destroyed potential life. This notion, however, is quite ridiculous as to your idea of disallowing the abortion of a fetus. Therefore, the idea of "potential life" is neither equatable, nor comparable with actual life. But even if a fetus were a human being, its "rights" still would not trump the rights of the mother. Who are we to expect pregnant women to voluntarily donate their body and life support systems to something else? Who are we to force a mother to devote eighteen years to taking care of a child? That is both unreasonable, and, arguably, sexist. Therefore, my opponent's argument that "unborn baby has no say in whether or not it gets to live" should be ignored. Besides, even if abortions were made illegal, women would still seek them, and this would be extremely dangerous. According to Planned Parenthood, "In 1972 there were 1,000,000 illegal abortions and 5,000 to 10,000 women died from them." When Roe v. Wade passed in 1973 (a year after the above-mentioned statistic), deaths from abortion drastically dropped. This is supported by the National Center for Health Statistics' own statistics. But above all this, the fundamental reason indianajones644 expresses her opinion this way in her post, is because she wants to inflict her morals upon the different people around her. As I've proven, potential life is NOT life. To her however, her own personal truth outweighs fact. This is okay. However, the government has no right to control the morals of its people. Above all, that is why you must allow abortions. And that is why you must vote for me for this debate. Abortion is not wrong.