American Society Has No Moral Authority to Punish Murder

Virtually all of my contentions in this debate will rely upon the assumption that one has no right to punish another for a behavior which he or she also engages in. To do so would be hypocritical. Therefore, assuming that the above is true, to win this debate I must prove that the U.S. Government engages in or condones murder and therefore for the U.S. Government to punish murder would be hypocritical, thus meaning they have no moral authority to do so. With this cleared up, I shall begin. 1. Abortion Over a million abortions are performed legally in the United States every year. http://prolifeaction.org... Now, is abortion murder? Let's check the facts. Even pro-abortion people often agree that to terminate a pregnancy when the infant in question is capable of surviving outside of the womb is murder. Well, here's the story of an infant who was born in between 21 and 22 weeks. http://www.newscientist.com... Now, I freely admit that cases like these are extremely rare. However, it proves that with all infants there's the possibility, however remote, of surviving a preterm birth at 22 weeks. Therefore, by this definition, killing a fetus at 22 weeks is murder. Now, how many abortions happen after 22 weeks? Well, according to this source which may very well be the same source as the above, 1.5% of abortions happen at 21+ weeks. That's about 18,000 abortions at 21+ weeks, every year. http://prolifeaction.org... Therefore, the U.S. Government condones at least 18,000 cases of murder in the United States every year. But of course, what I just told you only included fetuses killed at 21+ weeks into the pregnancy. What about abortions at earlier periods? Well... By week twelve of a pregnancy, a fetus has fully formed arms and legs, it's got "private parts" (forgive my use of this euphemism), it's got a heartbeat, and all of its organs are formed (though it still cannot survive outside of the womb). Oh, and by "all organs" that includes the brain. A fetus has a fully formed brain. http://fetalfacts.net... And yes, I know that my sources have a definite bias. Yet at the same time they're still truthful when it comes to the facts stated. Yet abortion is perfectly legal at 12 weeks. Now, I just started that a fetus has many formed organs early on in a pregnancy. But is this enough? I mean, after all, animals have brains, and most people do not object to killing animals for meat or fur. Let's take a look at the fetal brain compared to animal brains. By the time a baby is born it has 100 billion motor neurons. During fetal brain development as many as 50,000 motor neurons are formed every second. http://www.ehow.com... Note: motor neurons are what allow brain activity. There is no intelligence without them. The average pregnancy is about 40 weeks long. http://www.cdc.gov... So, it's reasonable to assume that half this far in a pregnancy, or about 20 weeks along, a fetus would have half this many motor neurons, or about 50 billion motor neurons. At 10 weeks along a fetus would have around 25 billion motor neurons. The most intelligent known species of nonhuman animal is either the orangutans or the common chimpanzee http://discovermagazine.com... Now, the average chimpanzee has an estimated 7 billion motor neurons. http://psychology.about.com... And an orangutan probably has a similar number of motor neurons. Perhaps it's a slightly higher number than chimpanzees. This means that even a ten week old human fetus has far more motor neurons than a fully developed chimpanzee, which is arguably the most intelligent nonhuman animal on the planet Earth! With these statistics in mind, the termination of a human pregnancy is almost undeniably murder. 2. Drone Strikes Of the many people killed by US drone strikes over the past several years, an estimated 400 were civilians. http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com... Because they had full knowledge of what they've been doing and the fact that they've been killing civilians along with the terrorists, the U.S. Government is responsible for these 400 civilian deaths. And this figure cited applied only to Pakistan, so the number is probably much higher. Conclusion: as the U.S. Government regularly either participates in the murders of civilians overseas or allows abortions here in the United States, the U.S. Government is either guilty of or an accessory to murder. Therefore, it is hypocritical for the U.S. Government to punish murder. I await my opponent's arguments, and may the better debater win.