U Democrats and Republicans agreed Thursday that abortion should be legal in special circumstances.
However, that's where common ground between the sides halted.
One Republican-Ryan Geertsen-advocated abstinence, saying a ban on abortion-with the exception of health, incest and rape cases-would still allow freedom of choice.
"The choice is to plan ahead. If you can't afford it, then you can't handle to raise the child," Geertsen said. "Basically you need to keep your pants on. There is a choice and that choice should be at the time when you're thinking about creating that child."
He added the Supreme Court has opened floodgates to "abortion-on-demand."
Christina Yong, a representative from the College Democrats, disagreed, saying abstinence has failed in the past.
"You can't just say, 'You never get to have sex until you're ready to have a child,'" she said.
Yong added that a woman's freedom to choose is more important than a fetus.
"People who claim to be pro-life trade a woman's freedom, liberty and control of her own body in return for the life of a fetus, which is not even legally a human," she said. "I don't think we can trade a woman's liberties in return for the life of something that isn't even legally a person."
Another Republican, Brad Anderson, said abortion is a form of genocide. He cited Webster's Encyclopedia, which defines genocide as any act that systematically destructs an unwanted group.
"If the government were to suddenly withdraw legal protection from African-Americans, would the government be staying out of race, or would they be taking the side of those who wish to lynch African-Americans?" Anderson asked.
Democrat Jiro Johnson said the comments were insensitive to Jews who endured the Holocaust and "hundreds of thousands upon millions of people right now who are starving, dying, being chopped up and butchered in Sudan who are actually succumbing to a genocide."
"I don't think you can draw that parallel to abortion," Johnson added. "The Constitution doesn't provide any type of legal protection as an unaborted person being an actual person."
Anderson said the Democrats owe an apology to "13 million African-American babies since 1973 who have been aborted, which is 35 percent of the African-American population inside the United States. If that is not genocide, then nothing constitutes genocide."
He added that an unborn fetus should constitute a person.
"Society has classically withheld the right to personhood of those who got in our way," Anderson said, citing Native Americans and African-Americans from whom we wanted land and labor, respectively. Johnson said a fetus has no viability, or has no use to the government and cannot survive on its own until the third trimester, and it therefore it cannot have claims to life rights.
Republican Danielle Fowles said under Johnson's reasoning, it is difficult to tell when a child becomes "viable."
"If a baby is born and you don't do anything with it, it just sits there, it's going to die," she said. "Who gets to decide when a child is old enough to take care of itself?"
Yong said the morning-after pill should be sold over-the-counter everywhere and the abortion pill should be available.
Fowles disagreed, saying that minors should not have access to an abortion without their parents' knowledge and added that while abstinence is the best policy, education, condoms and birth control are important options.
"The best way to ensure that somebody doesn't become a drug addict is to prevent them from taking drugs in the first place," Fowles said. "The best way to prevent abortion is to make sure people aren't getting themselves into a position where they're going to need one."
Anderson said adoption is an absolute solution to the issue.
"There are thousands upon thousands of couples in the country who would love to adopt babies, and I don't see that there is any downside to the adoption of unwanted babies."
Yong disagreed.
"Adoption disregards the rights of a woman. You're saying, 'OK you're pregnant, but that's OK, you just have to be a slave to this child for nine months and then we'll take it off your hands.'"
Johnson said if the government provided the social structure necessary to support children, abortion would go down.
Anderson disagreed.
"Communism and socialism solves every problem, doesn't it?" he joked as the debate shifted its focus toward socialism.
The College Democrats and College Republicans-U Chapter will host their next monthly debate regarding Social Security on April 13 at 2 p.m. in the Hinckley Caucus Room, which is in OSH 255.
sgehrke@chronicle.utah.edu
