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Abortion should be made legal.

>>This [when life begins] is wholy irrelevant in this case, conception is not the subject of this debate.<< The subject of this debate is whether or not abortion should be legal. At the very heart of that dispute is whether or not the fetus constitutes a living being with rights and interests that merit protection. Your failure to grasp this pervades all of your responses to me. You simply appear to assume that the mother is the only individual involved here and that her rights and interests are all that matter. >>It would not, essentially the only argument I've ever heard against abortion is that "they're paying the consequences for their actions and they can't kill a baby". The important part of the argument is that the child is seen as a consequence of one's actions, however, if you think rape victims should be blamed for their rape, then you have some f***ing twisted logic. The woman in a case of rape has not had a choice, she has had it forced upon her. Can I force a woman to bear my child?<< If that's truly the ONLY argument you've heard against abortion (there are many), I suggest you read a lot more about the topic. The most prominent anti-abortion argument is NOT that people must take responsibility for their choices. It's that the fetus constitutes a life that is deserving of love and protection, regardless of the circumstances through which that fetus came into being. I NEVER stated or implied that rape victims should be blamed for being raped. That is a classic example of a straw man argument. My point was that a child conceived through rape is no less deserving of protection than a child conceived in a marital bedroom. THAT is why the rape exception makes no sense, not because the woman is somehow responsible for being raped. >>This isn't about a child from a rape being less human, that is not the argument at all. The argument is that a women should not be forced to bear a child of another man, forced upon her completely (a woman has no choice in rape, she did not choose to have sex). If a woman wants to bear the child, all good to her, there's nothing wrong with it, however, if she does not want to bear her raper's child, that should be allowed as well.<< Actually, the argument is about whether or not abortion should be legal (unless I'm drastically misreading the subject line of this debate). As I explained above, the question of whether or not the fetus involved is a human being is central to that dispute. And if one believes that a fetus is a human being that no more deserves to be killed than any other human being, it shouldn't matter at all that the fetus was conceived through rape. If the fetus isn't a human being, then you're right -- all we're really talking about is forcing a woman to make decisions about her body against her will (and yes, as you say later, I suppose this could be seen as a form of oppression). But if the fetus IS a human being, another life, with rights and protections, we're not just talking about the woman's body anymore. That's why this question is so central. >>You conceed an exception based on health. It would be difficult to prove perjury as well, the files would say there is a medical problem, so there would be no way to disprove it. Really, in this day, it's not hard to forge anything, period. I will explain further why this exception must be made universal in the overview.<< I made no such concession. You used the word "health". I used the far LESS broad terms "serious, reasonable threat of severe physical harm." Basically the same situation in which somebody would be justified in killing to ward off an attacker. This type of thing would not be so easy to forge. You'd have a bunch of witnesses (all the doctors, nurses, etc . . .) plus x-rays, medical records and the like, all of which could be used to determine if there was actually the type of severe threat I described. "You equate murder and larceny with abortion. The fact is, we can decrease the negative impacts of abortion by making it legal, we cannot do so with rape, so your analogy fails. Furthermore, it is an example of a logical fallacy, you cannot compare two unlike things." This is amusing because the whole point of this debate is to argue over whether or not abortion should be equated with murder. The only distinction between "murder" and simply "killing" is that murder involves an UNLAWFUL killing. Therefore, a debate over whether or not abortion should be legal is in reality a debate over whether or not abortion should be considered murder. You write of decreasing the "negative impacts" of abortion. But those are only the negative impacts that YOU perceive. Others, who believe that abortion is the unjustified killing of a human life, see the abortion of millions of fetuses as the most "negative impact" that must be decreased. "Not necessarily, if we recognize that abortions cannot be stopped by making a law, but rather will go underground, then it is acceptable to regulate it." If abortions are forced "underground", logically, the amount of abortions will dramatically decrease because: (i) There will be fewer people performing them out of fear of prosecution; (ii) fewer people will seek to get them out of fear of prosecution; (iii) information about where to obtain an abortion will not be readily available; and (iv) fewer people will seek to get them because the procedures would be unregulated and less safe. So while this might not stop abortions entirely, the likelihood is that the number of abortions that occur would be dramatically reduced. "Furthermore, your argument is turned on its head. There's no way you can prove anti-abortion laws reduce abortion, because abortion goes underground and is 100% unreported. There is no way to gain statistics on its efficiency, so you can't claim a net benefit when it comes to human life. In fact, in this round, I'm the only one that can claim a benefit, because it is better to have safer abortions where the mother does not die with the child." My argument stands perfectly right-side up. :) As I stated above, even without empirical evidence, there are very logical reasons to conclude that the number of abortions would dramatically decrease were the practice made illegal. Any time you make a task harder to accomplish, fewer people are likely to accomplish it. In fact, when you think it through, it's YOUR argument that gets turned on its heard. If abortions are so far underground that they go COMPLETELY unreported, how will the people who desire abortions be able to find out the necessary information about where to get one? "But should our opinions, our morals become the law? Are our rules, our standards appropriate for everyone? Can we realistically enforce these laws on everyone, and would society really be better off from it?" Many, if not most, laws are derived from the morality and the sense of right and wrong of the society that passes them. In large part, murder and larceny are outlawed because killing and stealing from people without justification is MORALLY wrong. Rape is illegal because forcing yourself on somebody without their consent is MORALLY wrong. And yes, many people believe society will be substantially better off with dramatically fewer abortions. Since I don't believe in the rape exception, I don't feel the need to justify it here. "What if a woman says she will commit suicide if she can't have an abortion? Do we allow the woman to have her life, or do we lose two lives in the process?" This is nonsensical. What if I say I'll commit suicide (and kill my kids) if I can't get a hit of crystal meth? Does that mean we should legalize that? I love how you talk about having children and starting a new life as a "punishment". There are plenty who would disagree with that. Lots of children are unwanted. That doesn't mean their lives are worthless and would be better off not having been born.