Instigator / Pro
7
1472
rating
32
debates
48.44%
won
Topic
#3925

Abortion Should be Illegal.

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
1
1

After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Two weeks
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
13
1702
rating
574
debates
67.86%
won
Description

Rules:
Only topic to be discussed is weather abortion should be illegal, or legal.

If Con choses to defend abortion being legal, they must:
1. State when the cutoff point for abortion should be (because if there is no cutoff point, then they are defending homicide.)
2. When they answer #1, they must have a reason to why that point should be the cutoff point.

The only exception is that Pro does agree to Cons side of the argument, if they chose to argue that the mother will die if she does not get an abortion.

Both sides must reply to their opponent first with a counterargument.
Then they may proceed to the rest of their argument.

Round 1
Pro
#1
Thank you RationalMadman for excepting my debate.

Abortion Should be Illegal.
Let me explain:

Ok starting out, life starts at conception. It is proven through biology, and science.

What my argument is just to clarify, is that life is intrinsically valuable from conception. 
It should be Illegal to have an abortion. Now this part of my argument is excluding the cases from which the mother will definitely die if she does not get an abortion.

Question #1:
What makes life intrinsically valuable for you?
Question #2: 
When do you think the cutoff point for abortion should be.
Question #3: 
What is the reason that that should be the cutoff point.

Now just to show the reason why I agree abortion can be ok, in extremely rare cases is because of the following:
 "About 700 women die each year from complications of pregnancy."


That means that 0.00000875% percent of the population dies from pregnancy related deaths.
And "Every pregnancy-related death is tragic, especially because about 60% are preventable."

60 percent of those are preventable, so that means that only actually only 0.00000525% of pregnancy related deaths are definitely fatal.

That is why I make that exception.

The reason why abortion should be illegal:
Now before we get into this, lets get into what morality is:
"Morality directs people to behave in certain ways and avoid behaving in other ways. It evaluates behavior as right or wrong and may involve measuring the conformity of a person’s actions to a code of conduct or set of principles. Morality is “normative,” it is concerned with how people should behave, not just how they actually do behave."

It's simple really

Humans have morals. No matter how psychotic or insane a person is, all humans have morals which the way they should act not based on how they want to act.

A lot of laws and regulations are based in morals.
For instance:
It is illegal to kill someone, because it is morally wrong.
It is illegal to steal, because it is morally wrong.
It is illegal to rape, because it is morally wrong.

In the same way, it should be illegal to get an abortion, because it is morally wrong.

The abortion procedure:
This part of the argument is to show exactly why abortions are not morally right by showing the procedures done to humans in the womb.
"Dilation and Evacuation (D&E): between 13 to 24 weeks after LMP
This surgical abortion is done during the second trimester of pregnancy. At this point in pregnancy, the fetus is too large to be broken up by suction alone and will not pass through the suction tubing. In this procedure, the cervix must be opened wider than in a first trimester abortion. This is done by inserting numerous thin rods made of seaweed a day or two before the abortion. Once the cervix is stretched open the doctor pulls out the fetal parts with forceps. The fetus’ skull is crushed to ease removal. A sharp tool (called a curette) is also used to scrape out the contents of the uterus, removing any remaining tissue."

Now I would say that crushing someone's skull, sucking out the brain, and dismembering them is not morally right.

The American Genocide:

Getting an abortion, just because you don't want to deal with a baby, is not a viable reason to get an abortion. 
  1. 20.6% of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion.
  2. The top reason for abortion (25%) is not being ready for a child, <0.5% victim of rape

20.6% of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion.
The pregnancy rates have been falling. That means less people born, and less people to help our society grow.

The top reason for abortion (25%) is not being ready for a child, <0.5% victim of rape
Only 0.5 percent of people get abortions because of rape, so rape isn't really a valid argument for pro-choice.

Now the top reason for abortion, is not being ready for a child, aka not wanting that child. 
It is not morally right to kill something, just because you don't want it.
There are other ways to not have a child besides just killing it. Adoption is a perfect example.

Bad Sexual Decisions:

Now only 0.5 % of abortions are because of rape. 
That proves that the rest of the abortions are because of someone who purposely had sex, and then got pregnant.
It is morally wrong to take away another human's life, just because someone made a bad sexual decision.

Final question:
Can we come to an agreement, that getting an abortion just for convenience, and bad sexual decisions is morally wrong?














Con
#2
Is it not best to let parents with the genes and situation where they either will be bad parents or don't want children to not reproduce?

Is it not just an extension of contraception if it's in the first term? Is this not a good way to help alleviate the penalty on poor families?

In cases of rape why are you okay with the 'murder' even 0.5% of the time?
Round 2
Pro
#3
Even though Con has not provided much of an argument, I will answer Cons questions. 

Is it not just an extension of contraception if it's in the first term?
Well no. What is the definition of contraception?

Contraception: "the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse."

So no, abortion is not an extension of contraception.



Is this not a good way to help alleviate the penalty on poor families?
Condoms cost 50 cents at your nearest gas station. I think if poor families are that desperate for sex, they can still use protection.


Is it not best to let parents with the genes and situation where they either will be bad parents or don't want children to not reproduce?
It might just be me, but I do not understand this question's purpose whatsoever. Could you elaborate.


In cases of rape why are you okay with the 'murder' even 0.5% of the time?
Because most if not all laws have exceptions. Again, this debate is whether abortion should be illegal or not. And in these rare cases, it becomes a moral problem, where either the mother will die, or the baby will die. So, at that point, it is a woman choosing her baby's life over hers. Not choosing taking care of said baby, and still being alive.
Con
#4
Forfeited
Round 3
Pro
#5
Con forfeited.
Vote Pro. 
Con
#6
My case is extremely straightforward and automatically rebuts Pro's case.

  • The net-detriment to society and the born children of those seeking abortion often enough outweighs the harms of letting them live out that life of being unwanted and neglected. This is inherently a rebuttal to the morality idea.
  • The abortions always, consistently, will happen anyway in dangerous and horrific ways that can really damage the womb and fetus (which may be unusuccessfully killed).
  • The women and society benefit from not making one bad situation, remember Pro includes rape which is not even her decision, ruin her life and her productivity and wellbeing.
Let me go bullet-point at a time.

~~~ SECOND BULLET POINT ~~~~~

People have abortions all the time, regardless of what the law says
Ending a pregnancy is a common decision that millions of people make – every year a quarter of pregnancies end in abortion.
And regardless of whether abortion is legal or not, people still require and regularly access abortion services. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a US-based reproductive health non-profit, the abortion rate is 37 per 1,000 people in countries that prohibit abortion altogether or allow it only in instances to save a woman’s life, and 34 per 1,000 people in countries that broadly allow for abortion, a difference that is not statistically significant.
When undertaken by a trained health-care provider in sanitary conditions, abortions are one of the safest medical procedures available, safer even than child birth.

But when governments restrict access to abortions, people are compelled to resort to clandestine, unsafe abortions, particularly those who cannot afford to travel or seek private care. Which brings us to the next point.

Criminalising abortion does not stop abortions, it just makes abortion less safe

Preventing women and girls from accessing an abortion does not mean they stop needing one. That’s why attempts to ban or restrict abortions do nothing to reduce the number of abortions, it only forces people to seek out unsafe abortions
.
Unsafe abortions are defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as “a procedure for terminating an unintended pregnancy carried out either by persons lacking the necessary skills or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards, or both.”

They estimate that 25 million unsafe abortions take place each year, the vast majority of them in developing countries.

In contrast to a legal abortion that is carried out by a trained medical provider, unsafe abortions can have fatal consequences. So much so that unsafe abortions are the third leading cause of maternal deaths worldwide and lead to an additional five million largely preventable disabilities, according to the WHO.

Relationship With Abortion Law
Abortion laws have a spectrum of restrictiveness. Nations may allow abortions based on saving the mother’s life, preserving physical and mental health, and socioeconomic grounds, or may be completely unrestrictive (Figure 2). Data indicate an association between unsafe abortion and restrictive abortion laws. The median rate of unsafe abortions in the 82 countries with the most restrictive abortion laws is up to 23 of 1000 women compared with 2 of 1000 in nations that allow abortions.4 Abortion-related deaths are more frequent in countries with more restrictive abortion laws (34 deaths per 100,000 childbirths) than in countries with less restrictive laws (1 or fewer per 100,000 childbirths).1

World abortion laws. Reproduced with permission from the Center for Reproductive Rights.
The same correlation appears when a given country tightens or relaxes its abortion law. In Romania, for example, where abortion was available upon request until 1966, the abortion mortality ratio was 20 per 100,000 live births in 1960. New legal restrictions were imposed in 1966, and by 1989 the ratio reached 148 deaths per 100,000 live births. The restrictions were reversed in 1989, and within a year the ratio dropped to 68 of 100,000 live births; by 2002 it was as low as 9 deaths per 100,000 births (Figure 3). Similarly, in South Africa, after abortion became legal and available on request in 1997, abortion-related infection decreased by 52%, and the abortion mortality ratio from 1998 to 2001 dropped by 91% from its 1994 level.6

Live births and proportion of maternal deaths due to abortion. Reprinted from The Lancet, Vol. 368, Grimes DA et al, “Unsafe abortion: the preventable pandemic,” pp. 1908–1919, Copyright 2006, with permission from Elsevier.4
Less restrictive abortion laws do not appear to entail more abortions overall. The world’s lowest abortion rates are in Europe, where abortion is legal and widely available but contraceptive use is high; in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, the rate is below 10 per 1000 women aged 15 to 44 years. In contrast, in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, where abortion laws are the most restrictive and contraceptive use is lower, the rates range from the mid-20s to 39 per 1000 women.3

Less restrictive abortion laws also do not guarantee safe abortions for those in need; better education and access to health care are also required. In India, unsafe illegal abortions persist despite India’s passage of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act in the early 1970s. The act appeared to remove legal hindrances to terminating pregnancies in the underfunded (national) health care system, but women still turn to unqualified local providers for abortion. Clearly, the implications of the law never reached the population that most needed to rely on it.7 This example is also seen in Cambodia, where abortion is legally available on request and women often attempt to abort themselves before turning to hospital.8

I have used sources to 'speak for me' but it is very clear that I could only word the identical stuff differently. My sources prove both that illegal abortions are often unsafe and that there is provable correlation with anti-abortion laws and the prevalence of unsafe abortions.


~~~~ THE THIRD BULLET With FIRST BULLET POINT HYBRID CASE ~~~~
The source for my case's outline is here (focusing on the third bullet point above): ipas.org I will be using it as a template

When abortion is legal, available and affordable, pregnant people can:
  • Stay in school

I will now quote from this source: caf.com

According to the report titled Accelerating progress toward the reduction of adolescent pregnancy in Latin America and the Caribbean prepared by UNFPA, UNICEF and PAHO/WHO, the region exhibits the second highest teen pregnancy rate, as about 15 percent of all pregnancies are to women under the age of 20. Central and South America show the highest rates, especially Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Bolivia and Venezuela. Pregnancy is also more common among indigenous and rural teens, less-educated women, and those living in poor households.
Teen pregnancy and parenthood are considered outside factors for school disengagement among secondary school students in Latin America, according to a CAF study. Teen pregnancy and early motherhood represent a cost of opportunity for women, given the lack of adequate conditions, poor understanding and inadequate approach to the problem, resulting in the interruption of formal education or definite dropout by adolescent girls. In fact, as much as 36 percent of school dropout cases in the region can be attributed to teen pregnancy or motherhood.

Back to the the template source, so on and so forth.

  • Continue to work
I now use this source, however my focus is a 'Turnaway study' referred to inside it: scientificamerican.com
To address the methodological limitations in previous studies, researcher Diana Greene Foster, a professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, designed a novel approach. Her team recruited women at abortion clinics, and compared outcomes among those who were just over the gestational limit and were denied an abortion with those who were just under the limit and had the procedure. Foster called the investigation the Turnaway Study, a reference to clinics turning some people away because they are too far along in their pregnancy. Its results have been described in 50 scientific papers, almost all of which were published in peer-reviewed journals from 2012 to 2020. And to date, the study is one of the most comprehensive in the field.

“The real innovation of the Turnaway Study,” Foster says, “was to take people who received an abortion and compare them to [those who had] the only other outcome that is available to somebody who is pregnant and doesn’t want to be—which is to carry that pregnancy to term.”

From 2008 to 2010 the study recruited nearly 1,000 women seeking abortions at 30 facilities in 21 states. Afterward the participants were interviewed by phone every six months for a span of five years. (While transgender men and nonbinary people also experience pregnancy and seek abortions, the Turnaway Study focused specifically on pregnant women.) The study found that, compared with women who received an abortion, those who wanted the procedure but were denied it fared worse in numerous aspects of their life, including financial situation, education, and physical and mental health.

Because of how it was able to isolate the effect of abortion access in a natural experiment, the Turnaway Study is recognized by the scientific community as an important contribution to the field, generating data that many scientists say should be considered by policy makers. “The rigid cutoff generates a situation where you’ve got women immediately on either side of the cutoff being extremely similar in characteristics and circumstances—but one can have an abortion and the other one can’t,” says Phillip Levine, a Wellesley College professor of economics, who was not involved with the study. “The Turnaway Study has the advantage of providing information that would otherwise be very difficult to ascertain regarding the impact of an abortion on women.”

  • Avoid unhealthy relationships
The ability to leave unhealthy relationships proves to be a critical benefit for those able to choose abortion. Findings show abortion access can help a woman avoid violence in a controlling relationship in the United Kingdom, avoid becoming a second wife in Ghana, and end an unhealthy relationship in Colombia and Indonesia.
^ Template source (TS)

  • Access abortion earlier
Finding money for transportation is a major cause of delayed abortions in Zambia, Northern Ireland and Australia. In Kenya, a requirement that patients pay prior to each procedure restricts access to prompt care, while in the U.S., health insurance issues cause delays. In Colombia, having to gain health insurance coverage through an external agency caused women to have their abortions later than they had desired.
^ TS

I wish to extend past the women issue into the community/society one. I will use the same TS: ipas.org
When abortion is legal, available and affordable, communities have:
  • Less poverty
The poverty refers to the wellbeing of the children, not just the mother: usccb.org Please look inside that source for the numbered sources inside here.
In a 2005 study, 73% of women undergoing an abortion said not being able to afford a baby now was a reason for the abortion. That number rose to 81% for women below the federal poverty line.1 And while the abortion rate for American women declined by 8% between 2000 and 2008, among poor American women it increased by 18%.2

Pope Francis has seen a deeper link between the poor and the unborn. They are both among the first victims of a “throw-away society,” an attitude that sees people as disposable when they do not serve the selfish interests of those with more power.
Economic pressure and government abortion policy can combine to make things worse. One study found that poor women on Medicaid had twice the abortion rate of other women in their state. If the state’s Medicaid program paid for elective abortions, their abortion rate was more than four times that of other women.3 By offering “free” abortions, the government effectively places its thumb on the scale to favor death for the unborn child. By contrast, if these programs continue funding care for mothers and babies but stop funding abortion, abortions among women in the program decrease by as much as 35%.4

For many years policymakers have debated whether we should reduce abortions by fighting poverty or by passing pro-life laws. The question is misplaced. It is not a matter of either/or, but of both/and. We need to address both poverty and bad abortion policies.

So poverty can lead to an increase in abortions. How does abortion affect poverty?

Here we have to look at a trend called “the feminization of poverty.” Women are more likely than men to be poor, and to be in “deep poverty” (with an income less than half the federal poverty line). U.S. Census Bureau figures show that 5 million more women than men were poor in 2012. Almost 31% of households headed by a single woman are below the poverty line, compared to 6% of households headed by a married couple.Women head over 80% of single-parent households, and almost half of children living with only their mother are poor.6 So poverty in America is often a story of poor women and children, with no man in the house.

Some social observers once thought legalized abortion would solve this problem. If single poor women had access to abortion, they could avoid the hardships of trying to raise a child alone without resources. But after more than forty years of legalized abortion, out-of-wedlock births have increased, and the plight of poor women has worsened.

Beginning in the 1990s, groundbreaking research has found that the “technology shock” of widely available contraception and abortion has increased out-of-wedlock births. Previously, it was widely accepted that an unexpected pregnancy out-of-wedlock should lead a man to offer marriage.
Once contraception and abortion became widespread, the same pregnancy came to be seen as the woman’s responsibility – and as her problem. The man’s obligation can end with an offer to pay for abortion; if the woman refuses, she often soon finds herself to be a single mother. Today over 40% of births are out-of-wedlock.7

What if the woman does have the abortion? Besides suffering from psychological and spiritual burdens as an individual, she may find that the abortion has poisoned her relationships. The rate of marital breakups and relationship dissolution after an abortion is said to be between 40 and 75 percent, often related to a breakdown of intimacy and trust.And that often leaves women alone to care for themselves and any other children. In fact, sixty percent of abortions are performed on women who already had one or more children.

Marriage has been called “America’s greatest weapon against child poverty.”9 By the same token, anything that disrupts lasting relationships undermines the ability of women and men to join together to make a promising future for themselves and their children. In short, poverty can lead to abortion, and abortion can lead to more poverty.

  • More opportunities for children
While historical evidence from Romania’s abortion ban showed a significant decline in educational and labor market achievements of those born during the ban, studies from both Sub-Saharan Africa and Taiwan linked abortion law liberalization to greater parental investment in girls’ schooling. In the United States, children born after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling faced lower infant mortality.
^ TS

(TS template extended) Fewer maternal deaths (already proven earlier but realise this is important for society because the aftermath means motherless children potentially):


The risk of dying from childbirth is 50 to 130 times greater than dying from an abortion. One comprehensive analysis of maternal mortality around the world found that unsafe abortion accounts for a higher percentage (10%) of maternal mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean than in any other region, followed closely by Sub-Saharan Africa; both these regions have highly restrictive abortion laws. In contrast, unsafe abortion causes fewer than 1% of maternal deaths in East Asia, a region with less restrictive abortion laws.
^ TS

How Does The Death Of A Parent Affect A Child (THIS IS RELEVANT BECAUSE OF MOTHER'S WHO ALREADY HAVE A CHILD AS WELL):
An early loss of parents usually increases the probability of inadequate child care2 and worsens the family’s economic status3.
In some families, that means increased pressures for the grieving child to take on the responsibilities of the dead parent and to isolate from friends. In others, The death of their parents will result in the child’s poor psychosocial well-being, changes in behavior, increase in stress and sleep disturbances4.
The psychological effects of losing a mother or a father during formative years are significant. Children who experience parental loss are at a higher risk for many negative outcomes, including mental issues (e.g., depression, anxiety, somatic complaints, post-traumatic stress symptoms), shorter schooling, less academic success, lower self-esteem5, and more sexual risk behaviors6.
Given the negative long-term effects associated with parental death, it is imperative that society helps children grieve in a healthy way. However, cultural beliefs and persistent misunderstandings are often standing in the way of appropriate support for children and doing them a disservice.
parentingforbrain.com numbered sources inside

Less strain on health systems

Studies from Ghana and Nigeria show how access to safe abortion for 60% of women that would otherwise get an unsafe abortion translates to many years of life saved: almost 11,000 years of life saved per 100,000 procedures in Nigeria and 17,500 years of life saved per 100,000 procedures in Ghana. In Burkina Faso, safe abortion services would only cost 12% of what health facilities spent treating complications of unsafe abortion.

When abortion is legal, available and affordable, countries have:
  • More workers and prosperity
  • Less teen pregnancy and marriage
  • Less crime
  • Less strain on public resources
^ I feel these are either already covered or self-evident. This is from the template source.
Abortion access = A crucial benefit for mothers
Research from around the world shows that the ability to decide when and whether to have another child helps mothers take better care of themselves and the children they already have.
One study from the United States, where 61% of women who have abortions are already mothers and more than half of whom have two or more children, provided the case example of Angel [a pseudonym]:
Round 4
Pro
#7
Con forfeited; therefore, I won the debate.

Also, Cons case for his argument, is an argument at whether abortion is right or not, not if it should be illegal. 

Vote Pro.
Con
#8
Nowhere in the description did we agree to a 1 round forfeit equals a loss policy.

I absolutely addressed abortion being legal throughout.

There are scenarios where the prevention and taking of a life can be a net good for the mother and society, even for the wealth and livelihood of their family minus that one offspring.

Pro would even have abortion illegal in cases of rape and blatant severe risk to the mother's life.
Round 5
Pro
#9
Nowhere in the description did we agree to a 1 round forfeit equals a loss policy.
It is common knowledge that if you forfeit the set number of arguments without letting the person know that you are going to forfeit that round, is losing. 

If we were to agree that we are allowed to forfeit one round, then this would be ok. 

But no one put anything about forfeits in the description, so therefore it should be common knowledge that:

Forfeit=Loss. 

Vote Pro. 
Con
#10
I will let you try to pull this arrogant tone because in your shoes and being new to this website, it is clear that you feel i played dorty and deserve a loss here.

You are wrong though but with 30k per round across 5 rounds, you were begging for that blitz, buddy.

You played the ending all wrong. 

Learn and improve