Abortion

Thank you for your reply. First I wish to address your accusation that I am using emotional and aggravating words, like "murder". If you find this an issue, don't return it by accusing me of oppressing people. Quickly on the topic of the abortionfacts.com website, I did research its reliability and unfortunately it is outdated, so using it as justification for abortion being necessary even rarely is merely showing that you haven't researched the website itself and are just judging it by its emotive langauge. It is biased, though not thereby incorrect, and the studies used are out of date, but not inaccurate. (1). Most of your argument now revolves around the mother"s choice, to sum it up. You are now saying that should a woman decide whether she does not want a baby/ foetus, she is within her rights to terminate it. I'll quickly define "foetus" so we both know what we are talking about: "An unborn/unhatched offspring of a mammal, in particular, an unborn human more than eight weeks after conception." Just so you know that it is officially considered human and we have no further argument on that point. You seem to feel as though I have targeted you personally when I refer to abortion as murder, but while I still hold fast to that statement, I'm sure you mean well despite your delusions about what "quality of life" really means. Your argument for abortion being allowed is that a woman is somehow incredibly fragile (we are fairly strong for the most part, actually) and may suffer "Psychological trauma that would be experienced if carrying a pregnancy to term, pregnancy caused by rape, predisposed disposition to birth defects a disease, and many other personal or family reasons, all in all when a person wants an abortion they generally won't be able to support, nor ready, or won't love their child as much as they would if they wish to carry the child to term." Childbirth is not a situation that ruins lives, indeed, it is the reason you and I are alive. In fact, my mother was 42 when she gave birth to me, an age where the chances for a baby having Down syndrome can be as high as about 1 in 40, but was I aborted? No, and I'm perfectly normal. Also, my mother has not suffered any side effects from having four children. It's a normal part of sexual reproduction and hardly psychologically damaging. Women are not traumatised by giving birth, it is natural and doctors are able to provide painkillers and medical care on hand. I wish to see a citation for this claim of yours. I've covered the rape pregnancy situation already, though you may not have cared to read it. Also birth defects are no reason to abort- if the child is so defective it cannot survive, often it is miscarried (in certain cases of trisomy, for example). If the defect is like Down-syndrome or Zika, then you need to meet children who suffer those conditions. They are beautiful souls and deserve life as much as a healthy child. To kill a child for the sake of its condition is not mercy but selfishness- why do they deserve less of a chance than anyone else? As for support, there is no lack of government support for single mothers- my own sister is a single mother and despite her single-parent employment position she is not homeless or starving or lacking in necessities. And tell me something- if someone aborts their child because they think they won't love it enough, how is it helping? That child won't always be a child. It will have a life of its own, and its mother won't be the only one in its life to supply love. You're thinking of this in a close minded way. Look at the bigger picture: this is the life of a child we are discussing. You may argue, as many before you have, that it does not develop human qualities until later, but those human qualities are still there, in its very DNA, from the moment that it came into being. I wish to present the Argument From Substantial Identity: 1. You and I are intrinsically valuable (in the sense that makes us subjects of rights). 2. We are intrinsically valuable because of what we are (what we are essentially). 3. What we are, is each a human, physical organism. 4. Human physical organisms come to be at conception. (A bio- logical proposition: a new and distinct human organism is generated by the fusion of a spermatozoon and an oocyte.) 5. Therefore, what is intrinsically valuable (as a subject of rights) comes to be at conception. What makes it wrong to kill you or me now would also have been present in the killing of you or me when we existed as adolescents, as toddlers, as infants, but also when we existed as foetuses or embryos. (2). What has physical development to do with who you are? What acquired characteristic do we gain at some point that makes us valuable between certain points? For example, unborn children, the elderly, the sick/comatose, and those with mental conditions, are often considered to be less human than those who are healthy, already born, and "normal". "Drain on society", "waste of resources", you've probably heard it too. It's a common defense of euthanasia and abortion both. Tell me why the whims of a woman who doesn't think she is able to love her own child enough for it to live well are more important than giving that child the chance to find love itself. And what about women having repeat abortions? How many times can an "accident" happen or a mistake be repeatedly? Another point- abortion survivors. Have you ever read their stories? How glad they are that they survived, or the ones who had siblings aborted and are hurt by the fact they'll never know their brother or sister? (3,4,5). These are people alive today. Human beings. Are they suffering because their mothers didn't want them, or are they more motivated to make a difference because of it? Also I wish to address your analogy (poorly put together, I must say). For one, my cousin has had both kidneys removed and he is not hooked up to another human being, he has to manually sort his functions out with a machine. He is also engaged to be married, just as a side point. Kidney problems aren't the end, we've come a bit further than that. Also, an unborn baby is not as physically demanding as an adult, nor would the pregnant mother be confined to a hospital plugged into another person, the baby is inside her and growing. Don't tell me that it's parasitic, or something else non-human. Your analogy is full of flaws. Nine months of carrying a baby around inside you? Elephants have a harder time of it than us- 18-22 months! Also I'd like you to check out these quotes from abortion doctors (6) may be eye-opening for you. Yes abortion is safer than it used to be, and used more as contraception now than when illegal. By the time they're 45, at least one in three women will have had one or more abortions. That is a staggering amount of children who will never be born and will never know the joy life brings, whether poor or rich or somewhere in between. My closing statement is this: I have two sisters who have been in a situation where they could choose abortion or carry the pregnancy to term. There was no pressure on them save that they might not want the child. One of them chose abortion. One did not. One of them would have had a little girl about 8 years old, she lives with a partner 20 years older than her, drinks excessively, has no children nor does her partner want children, and she is afraid that we, her family, will judge her if she comes home, despite the support we have shown and how much we just want her home. The other one has a boy of 8 years old, is living with him and he is in school while she works. They are happy, he is in Boy Scouts, he is learning karate, he loves superheroes and he is an awesome kid, father figure or not. I wish I'd had the chance to meet my niece. But I won't get that. Abortion doesn't just affect the mother and the child. Take that into your considerations, my friend. To potential voters, I am going to ask you not to vote on your biases. Please take into account all you have read in this debate, and decide anew which side you think is right, morally, medically, humanely, and scientifically. To my opponent, I am going to say one more thing- emotive language does not make an argument invalid or biased. I have reviewed both sides of this topic and have come down on the side that I believe is morally and scientifically right. There is more I would say but it will keep. Good luck with your last rebuttal. It's been great debating with you. (1) http://www.reviewstream.com... (2) http://patrickleebioethics.homestead.com... (3) www.teenbreaks.com/abortion/abortionsurvivors.cfm (4) listverse.com/2013/08/20/10-abortion-survivors/ (5) https://healthimpactnews.com... (6) liveactionnews.org/10-surprising-quotes-from-abortionists/ (7) www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-82368/Third-women-abortion-age-45.html