Abortion In General Should Be Illegal

Rebuttal 1: This debate inherently requires the analysis of what encompasses a child considering that my opponent's definition includes a child as one of the requisites of being a human being in his original definition, as implied by his provision of both the definitions of being man, woman, or child and being a member of the species Homo sapiens as being the characteristics of what is a human being. When it comes to the definition level, the judges should definately look at my definition over his when it comes to the definition of "child" considering that his definition is questionable at best, directly coming from a search engine whereas my definition comes from Mosby's Medical Dictionary, an actual, accredited dictionary with a basis in biology. Rebuttal 2: The main problem with my opponent's first point is that the Declaration of Independence not a document utilized for law in any way, shape, or form. The Declaration of Independence was just a letter listing the grievances of the people in colonial America during the rule of King George II during the age of taxation without representation. The Constitution and Bill of Rights are not joined to the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution is an indepedent document listing out the foundational rules and rights of the American nation, and when it comes to that level, the Constitution does protect abortions according to the Supreme Court ruling Roe v. Wade (1973), where Supreme Court ruled that abortions were protected by the Ninth Amendment.Rebuttal 3: This is where the definition of human beings comes into play. My opponent makes the direct distinction of man, woman, or child as a requisite for being a human being, as implied by his definition, and as I have explained, we must look toward my definition of "child" considering that it is much more credible than my opponent's, as I've explained in Rebuttal 1. My definition of child places the distinction as such after birth, thus meaning that a human being, under my opponent's idea of a human being, can only exist after birth. Thus, fetuses are not humans according to our definitions. My opponent also makes a sort of contradiction in his case when he says if they're not human, they won't develop INTO a human, which implies that during a stage where an unborn is not developed, it is developing in order to turn into a human being. Rebuttal 4: My opponent basically states that it is illogical to base humanity on a single characteristic, and this does make sense considering that speciation in biology has many defining factors and such. However, when it comes to granting rights, there is a single defining factor, and this is adherence to social contract. The government provides protections while the people provide adherence to laws and sacrifice of total freedom. In order to acquire these protection is to be a member of this contract, which would include being a member of society, a condition that fetuses do not have. Rebuttal 5: What my opponent has done is created a correlation without causation. He implies the illegalization of abortion was the cause of drops in abortion rates, but he doesn't explain how. There are many piece of counterevidence for this idea, including the statistics of illegal abortions rising in Brazil shortly after legislation outlawing abortions were passed and even here in the United States when illegal abortions increase when there is stricter legislation against abortion. Illegal abortions are incredibly dangerous and can cause an increase in abortion rates, and because there is so much couterevidence to prove my opponent's idea wrong, it's showing that his piece of evidence about Ireland is nothing more than a correlation without causation. He doesn't take into account lurking variables, one of them being Ireland's heavily strong adherence to Catholicism and how it affects their life decisions.Rebuttal 6: Even if it is one woman who gets pregnant from rape and wishes to get an abortion, we must consider this scenario considering that it forces our weighing of ethics and morality to a great extent. My opponent talks about how in cases of rape, women show to heal and whatnot, but a woman has a right also to deny getting an abortion if this is what she wishes anyway. My opponent talks about how two wrongs don't make a right, but is it really equally just to force a woman who had no responsibility in conceiving the child to have the responsibility to create it in her body? This doesn't seem to be just either.Rebuttal 7: My opponent contradicts himself here considering that the resolution asks us about abortions in general being illegal, meaning that abortion in self-defense would be included. For my opponent to attempt to justify any abortion is contradictory to his position, only strengthening my argument.