Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
1
Index
AT: Abortion is Murder ............................................................................................................................................................................. 2
AT: Abortion is Murder ............................................................................................................................................................................. 3
AT: Abortion Justifies Genocide ............................................................................................................................................................... 4
Hyde Kills Abortion Rights ....................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Hyde Causes Male Domination ................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Hyde K2 Feminism .................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Abortion K2 Equality ................................................................................................................................................................................. 8
Abortion K2 Patriarchy .............................................................................................................................................................................. 9
AT: Alt Cause Patriarchy ......................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Patriarchy  War .................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Patriarchy  Terrorism ........................................................................................................................................................................... 12
1AC Overpopulation Adv [1/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 13
1AC Overpopulation Adv [2/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 14
1AC Overpopulation Adv [3/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 15
1AC Overpopulation Adv [4/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 16
1AC Overpopulation Adv [5/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 17
1AC Overpopulation Adv [6/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
1AC Overpopulation Adv [7/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 19
1AC Overpopulation Adv [8/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 20
1AC Overpopulation Adv [9/10] ............................................................................................................................................................. 21
1AC Overpopulation Adv [10/10] ........................................................................................................................................................... 22
Overpopulation Now ................................................................................................................................................................................ 23
AT: Birth Rates Falling ............................................................................................................................................................................ 24
AT: Technology ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 25
AT: Technology ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 26
Impact Calculus ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
Overpopulation  Extinction .................................................................................................................................................................. 28
Overpopulation  Civilization ................................................................................................................................................................ 29
Overpopulation  Famine....................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Overpopulation  Environment .............................................................................................................................................................. 31
Overpopulation  Water Scarcity ........................................................................................................................................................... 32
SCOTUS Modeled ................................................................................................................................................................................... 33
SCOTUS Modeled ................................................................................................................................................................................... 34
Plan Solves Overpopulation ..................................................................................................................................................................... 35
Plan Solves Overpopulation ..................................................................................................................................................................... 36
Equal Protection Key ............................................................................................................................................................................... 37
Equal Protection Key ............................................................................................................................................................................... 38
Equal Protection Key ............................................................................................................................................................................... 39
AT: Congress – Must Read ...................................................................................................................................................................... 40
AT: Congress – Equal Protection............................................................................................................................................................. 41
AT: States – Gender Bias ......................................................................................................................................................................... 42
AT: States – Constitutionalism ................................................................................................................................................................ 43
AT: States – Constitutionalism ................................................................................................................................................................ 44
AT: States – Constitutionalism ................................................................................................................................................................ 45
AT: Spending DA .................................................................................................................................................................................... 46
Topicality – Poverty................................................................................................................................................................................. 47
Privacy Grounds CP ................................................................................................................................................................................. 48
Note: There are answers to the over-population DA in the Malthus file.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
2
AT: Abortion is Murder
The fetus is not a moral person deserving rights even if it is a human life. Conflating the two is a crude
biological reduction that grows out of racist social Darwinism
Petchesky, 90 – Professor of Political Science and Women’s Studies at Hunter College (Rosalind, “Abortion and Woman’s
Choice”, p. 338-342)
by relying on biological, or genetic, determinism, the
"right-to-life" movement asserts a claim to scientific objectivity. Biological determinism grows out of the social Darwinism and
eugenics of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which were applied in the service of racism, class domination, and
population control.
All human life is reduced to its chemical bits. It is no accident, of course, that the
"right-to-life" movement draws on mechanistic biological explanation as well as religion to legitimate its moral and social philosophy. For it does so in a
general ideological climate that has seen the revival of genetic "theories" of race and reductionist theories of genetics; the rise of
Increasingly, in response to accusations of religious bias and violations of church-state separation, the evidence marshaled by antiabortionists to affirm the personhood of the fetus is not its alleged possession of a soul but its possession of a human body and genotype. In addition,
Its essential core is an attempt to explain the meaning and direction of human society, behavior, and values in terms of biochemistry and what we can observe about heredity: "For sociobiologists and believers in natural aristocracies of class and sex, the properties of society are determined by the
intrinsic properties of individual human beings, individuals are the expression of their genes, and genes are nothing but self-replicating molecules."27
sociobiology in the social sciences; and, as part of the backlash against feminism, the renewed respectability of biological arguments supporting gender distinctions.28 "Fetal
personhood" doctrine draws upon biological determinism in several ways. Its crudest expression is the profusion of antiabortion imagery presenting the fetus as "baby." It is
a propagandistic tour de force to have taken the notion of "personhood" (a metaphysical, moral idea) and translated it into a
series of arresting visual images that are utterly physiological
Through an erroneous attempt to portray the fetus as a miniature replica of you
or me, this imagery not only denies the subtle processes of biological development but also seeks to arouse one's sense of identity with the fetus. Indeed, continually
stressing the "small fingers and toes" or the capacity of the fetus to "feel pain" excites this kind of identification, through a psychological mechanism that reduces the
sense of "humanity" to its most primitive biological and sentimental manifestations.
and often just plain morbid. Various techniques are used to convey the idea that the fetus is literally a baby from the moment of conception: (1) photographs of fetuses at different stages of development, revealing recognizable physiological
features; (2) photographs of aborted (bloody, gory) fetuses, particularly those aborted late; (3) clinical descriptions of fetal development, with special emphasis on the formation of heartbeat, fingerprints, fingers, and toes; (4) juxtaposition or alternation of pictures of fetuses with pictures of live babies, reinforcing the idea of their identity; and (5) the constant use of language referring to fetuses as "babies," "children" or "unborn children."29 The fetus as an image
of the small, the helpless, and the mortal is made to embody one's desire for protection, for the safety of the womb; hence its power as a symbol to manipulate emotions.
The purpose of shocking, scaring, and eliciting morbid fears is connected to the biologistic reduction of the meaning of "human life." "Right-to-life" rhetoric
communicates the worst horrors of our age; abortion is "killing babies," clinics are "death camps" and "abortion chambers," clinicians who perform abortions are "death peddlers" and "Nazi murderers." Their emphasis on fetuses "hacked to pieces" or "burned" in saline solution is polemical, since it refers to only 5 percent of all abortions. For people who claim to uphold "life," as critics have frequently noted, "right-to-lifers" are enormously preoccupied, even
obsessed, with death and the remnants of aborted fetuses, apotheosizing and even displaying them in public rituals. This symbolic representation of fetal "personhood" in the guise of human embodiment (in contrast, note, to "ensoulment") is reinforced on a more sophisticated level through an appeal by antiabortionists to biological science. Thus Jesse Helms, in introducing the "human life statute" (S. 158) in the Senate, cited, not moral and religious authorities,
but sources on human embryology; and Noonan takes for granted that the argument for fetal personhood is established in "biological knowledge common to all Americans."3' Using biological and theological language almost interchangeably, "prolife" spokesmen, in supporting the Helms statute in the Senate, argued that science is now able to determine "when human life begins" and that this settles the matter of the moral and legal status of the fetus.32
Because it can be shown that every fertilized human egg is genetically unique, possessing a distinct human genotype, they
claim, it can be inferred that the zygote is a human person in a moral sense. The Protestant theologian and opponent of abortion Paul Ramsey
expounded this argument, which Peter Steinfels calls the "genetic package" argument,
back in the 1960s: . . . microgenetics seems to have demonstrated what religion never could, and biological science to have resolved an
ancient theological dispute. The human individual comes into existence first as a minute informational speck, drawn at random from many other minute informational specks his parents possessed out of the common gene pool. This took place at the moment of impregnation. There were, of c ourse, an unimaginable number of combinations of
specks on his paternal and maternal chromosomes that did not come to be when they were refused and he began to be. Still (with the exception of identical twins), no one else in the entire history of the huma n race has ever had or will ever have exactly the same genotype. Thus, it can be said that the individual is whoever he is going to become
Into the randomness of human
fertilization and genetic pairing he conveniently reads the Calvinist doctrine of predestination: We are all that we can ever be
from the moment of conception.
. Only
over the past one hundred years has it come to be realized that the child conceived on any one occasion belongs to a vast
cohort of Possible Children, any one of whom might have been conceived
from the moment of impregnation. Thereafter, his subsequent development may be described as a process of becoming the one he already is." Ramsey's statement is a wondrous example of theological opinion masquerading as biological fact.
Indeed, there is even the suggestion, in the image of millions of possible combinations "refused" and only one selected, of a divine and inscrutable will. Such an interpretation is peculiarly alien to the stance of modern science, including molecular biology,
which is one of rigorous indeterminacy: . . . the traditional opinion, which most of us are still unconsciously guided by, is that the child conceived on any one occasion is the unique and necessary product of that occasion: that child would have been conceived, we tend to think, or no child at all. This interpretation is quite false. . .
and born if a different spermatozoon had chanced to fertilize the mother's egg cell—and the egg cell itself is only one of very many. It is a
matter of luck then, a sort of genetic lottery. And sometimes is cruelly bad luck—some terrible genetic conjunction, perhaps which once in ten or twenty thousand times will bring together a matching pair of damaging recessive genes. Such a misfortune, being the outcome of a random pr ocess, is, considered in isolation, completely and essentially
The whole process is unhallowed—is, in the older sense of
that word, profane.34 Abortions occur continually in nature, and we do not experience them as sacred events—quite the contrary. Even in a narrowly
biological sense, it is impossible to say with certainty that a particular embryo will develop into a particular human being, since
it may be spontaneously aborted or may turn out to be a decidedly unhumanlike mutation.35 If molecular biology cannot be relied on to
ascertain the sanctity of genetic uniqueness, how much less can it tell us about the relationship between the genotype and the person. The most striking fallacy in
the genetic arguments of antiabortionists is their leap from the fact of genetic individuality—a characteristic not only of humans but of all
living things, including cows and chameleons—to the value of human personhood. This is a problem, in part, of confusing the self, the person, with her or his
genetic basis, ignoring the enormously complex interaction between genes, environment, and development that ultimately determines who or what an actual person becomes.
To say that who I am is codified from the moment of my conception is to deny most people's common-sense assumptions
about who they are, their selfhood, and its roots in conscious experience.
it
is misleading to assert that "a being with a human genetic code is a man,"
From conception is its concept of personhood, or
even humanity, for it either rests on a theological premise—"ensoulment"—or it reduces to a :rude, mechanistic biologism. I
pointless. It is not even strictly true to say that a particular inborn abnormality must have lain within the genetic potentiality of the parents, for the malignant gene may have arisen de novo by mutation.
But it also contradicts the caveats of well-known geneticists (those of a humanist persuasion) against confusing genetic potentiality with actual
human personality and character, which are highly influenced by culture.36 Manier sums up this genetic fallacy with great ele gance: Since our general concept of humanity is more than a biological concept, no amount of biological evidence can provide adequate warrant for any claim concerning the starting point of individual life. . . . Further,
as if there were specific evidence from molecular biology warranting that assertion. In fact, it has no more empirical significance than "a rose is a
rose," since the only means of identifying genetic material as human is by direct comparison with DNA already identified as h uman.37 Thus the broader problem with the idea that the fetus is a "person"
n legal
and moral terms, this means that the concept of "person" (moral) is totally collapsed into the concept of 'human life" (biological, or generic)." In fact, as Dr. Leon Rosenberg testified in the Senate hearings on S. 158, there is not agreement among scientists about the question of "when human life begins," nor any way to determine the answer
that the beginning of human life is not the issue, for it can be argued that fetuses, even if they are "human life," are still
not human persons.
That the
fetus is human and may even have a "right to life" does not prove that abortion is "morally (im)permissible," because being
"human in a genetic_ sense" is distinct from being "human in a moral sense"—that is, from being a person
definitively.39 But I submit
It might be conceded that the fetus is a form of life insofar as it is alive (as established by EEG readings, heartbeat, and other biological responses) and it is human (in the narrow and morally insignificant sense that it is composed of authentically human genes or DNA, derived from genetically
human parents). Yet, agreeing on this reduction of the fetus' identity to its genetic material does not move us one step toward knowing what value to give the fetus, what rights it has (either as a class or in a particular case), or whether to regard it as a person in the moral and legal sense (which is the only sense there is).40
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
3
AT: Abortion is Murder
Fetal personhood is internally contradictory. Plus it undermines any claims for women’s rights.
Smyth, 02 – Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Wales (Lisa, Women’s Studies International Forum, “Feminism and Abortion Politics:
Choice, Rights, and Reproductive Freedoms”, 25:3, May-June, Science Direct)
Rights theory is based on the assumption of competing recognition claims. As already mentioned, the second major
problem with the “right to choose”
discourse has been that it has enabled the successful lobbying for both cultural and official recognition of foetal rights (McNeil,
1991). To evoke rights in the context of abortion would seem to affirm the construction of pregnancy in adversarial terms, between foetus and woman, rather than between
woman and the state, or between women and men. In other words, constructing abortion access as a rights issue would appear to inevitably
generate opposing claims on behalf of foetuses, as well as on behalf of men as fathers (Porter, 1996 and Steinberg, 1991). Foetal-rights advocates have
necessarily constructed women in terms of the potentially dangerous foetal environment, in need of regulation. , 9 Many feminists have draw attention to the way
contemporary foetal rights discourse depends on the construction of pregnant women as both absent and as threateningly present. Foetal iconography generally relies on
implications of exemplary masculine autonomy (Braidotti, 1994; Duden, 1993; McNeil, 1991; Petchesky, 1987; Rothman, 1989 and Sandlos, 2000). As Rothman puts it: …
the foetus in utero has become a metaphor for ‘man’ in space, floating free, attached only by the umbilical cord to the spaceship (in Petchesky, 1986, p. xi) The primary
purpose of this construction would appear to be that in order to command moral–political legitimacy foetal-rights advocates have had little choice but to proceed within the
terms of rights politics. However, in order to claim rights-bearer status, the foetus must be constructed as morally equivalent to women.
This construction relies on a basic contradiction. On the one hand, the autonomy or independence of the foetus must be
emphasized, in order to meet the basic preconditions of a rights-bearing individual. On the other hand, the essential
vulnerability or dependency of the foetus must also be emphasized, in order to defend the claim for the superiority of foetal
rights over those of women. This contradictory position is unavoidable if abortion is to be constructed as an issue primarily concerning foetal rights. The
success of the foetal-rights lobby is due not to an intrinsic misogyny underlying rights theory, but, rather, to the particular
blend of three basic assertions which have combined to legitimize these rights claims. These are, firstly, that the foetus is morally equivalent to
a rights-bearing person; secondly, that the foetus is morally superior (because morally “innocent”) to an involuntarily pregnant, and implicitly sexually guilty, woman; and
thirdly, that the claim to a right to choice carries less moral weight than the claim to a right to life. This blend of claims has, for instance, provided the basis for the success of
the anti-abortion lobby in the Republic of Ireland, where the idea that an innocent individual's life is at risk from women and girls is motivating the current Government to
reverse the partial liberalisation of abortion access which occurred in 1992, in response to the “X” case. While women's right to an abortion was recognised by the Supreme
Court in 1992 in cases where a pregnant woman's life is at risk from suicide (Smyth, 1998), the Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Protection of Human Life in
Pregnancy) Bill. (2001). Dublin: Government Publications Office.Twenty-Fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy) Bill (2001)
proposed to amend the Constitution so that a woman's right to abortion will be recognised only where her right to life is at risk from causes other than suicide. This move to
reverse the X case ruling has been justified by the Taoiseach [Prime Minister], Bertie Ahern, as follows: The Government … is of the view that legislation for the provision
of abortion on the ground of threat of suicide would start an inevitable and unstoppable slide toward ‘social abortion’ in Ireland. (Irish Times Ahern's Response to Fine Gael.
October 20, 2001). The distinction he is drawing here is between medical and social causes for abortion. Only in cases of an inevitable biological threat to a woman's life
from pregnancy will her right to life be recognised. The assumption of moral equivalence between woman and (innocent) foetus is operating
here to severely limit women's right to life and health, by setting up these sharp distinctions between “life” and “health”; and between “physical” and
“mental” threats to life. Under this proposal, it seems that pregnant women's right to life would extend little beyond a right to mere existence. Where foetal rights are at stake,
women's right to life in a more substantial sense, where a woman's long-term health and quality of life are in question, would, it seems, be compromised. However, at the
same time, the official guarantee that a woman's right to travel cannot be compromised by a foetal right to life, 10 provides women living in Ireland with a right to obtain an
abortion abroad. This has the effect of implicitly constructing abortion as an issue of “private choice,” allowing those with the means to do so to “choose” an abortion
outside the state's territory., 11 Rather than engaging consistently with rights theory, foetal rights advocacy instead relies on an asserted equivalence between foetuses and
rights bearing persons, not least through deploying an iconography that symbolizes that equivalence. The significance of birth in conferring rights is minimised., 12
Furthermore, it relies on a contradiction between claiming independence and claiming rights on the basis of dependency, or vulnerability. As Joe McCarroll (1997), an antiabortion campaigner in Ireland, has argued: The unborn are the weakest of the weak, and the right to life is the most fundamental of human rights, so it is appropriate and
necessary in a democracy to have legal protection for the right to life of the unborn. (McCarroll, 1997, p. 6)
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
4
AT: Abortion Justifies Genocide
Slippery slope is a joke – common sense destroys it
Boonin, 03 – Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado (David, “In Defense of Abortion”, p. 34-35)
So why should the fact of continuity between the zygote and us be taken as support for the conclusion that if we have a right to life, then so does the zygote? The
most
familiar way of putting the answer to this question takes the form of a slippery slope argument, urging that in virtue of the continuity relation, we must
attribute a right to life to the zygote in order to avoid starting down a path that leads inexorably to the denial of our own right
to life. A preliminary statement of the argument runs as follows: Suppose that you deny that the conceptus immediately following conception has a right to life. Then since
there is no significant difference between the conceptus at this moment and at the very next moment, you must conclude that the conceptus at the very next moment also
lacks a right to life. But since you will continue to find no significant difference between the conceptus at each moment and the next, and since you will eventually reach an
adult just like you and me, you will then have to conclude that the adult just like you and me also lacks a right to life. A defender of abortion, of course, could simply bite the
bullet at this point and accept the conclusion that adult human beings do not have a right to life. But if we are to engage critics of abortion on their own terms as much as
possible, we must surely concede that this conclusion is unacceptable. Since the conclusion that you and I lack a right to life must therefore be rejected,
and since the slippery slope argument seems to show that the claim that a zygote lacks a right to life entails this conclusion, the slippery slope argument seems to show that
the claim that a zygote lacks a right to life must also be rejected. As one advocate of the argument has put it, "My question to my pro-abortion friend who will not kill
a newborn baby is this: 'Would you kill this infant a minute before he was born, or a minute before that, or a minute before that, or a minute
before that?' " (Koop 1978: 9).'(' This slippery slope argument appeals to many people. Indeed, it is perhaps the single most common argument against abortion. How can a
defender of abortion respond to it while arguing on terms that the critic of abortion must accept? One common response to the slippery slope argument
is to insist that it embodies a simple logical fallacy. For one could apparently say precisely the same thing about the brightness
of the sky at noon and the darkness of the sky at midnight. There is not a signficant difference between the amount of light at
noon and at one second before noon, nor between then and one second before that, all the way to midnight. But surely this does not mean that
we must conclude that midnight is as bright as noon or that we should treat it as if it is. From the fact that there is a
continuous route of development from A to B it does not follow that A and B are not fundamentally different with respect to
some property P, and since the slippery slope argument seems to rest precisely on the claim that this inference is legitimate, it seems to be invalid on this count. Indeed,
even some of the strongest critics of abortion, such as Schwarz, are eager to disassociate themselves from the slippery slope
argument for this very reason (1990: 14-15).
Defining what is human isn’t the first step towards genocide
Green, 02 – Professor of Ethics and Human Values at Dartmouth (Ronald, Eunice and Julian Cohen, The American Journal of Bioethics,
“Stem Cell Research: A Target Article Collection”, 2:1, Project Muse)
A final reason for resistance to the idea that these boundary matters proceed from reasoned choices also leads back, albeit indirectly, to the role of religion in shaping our
thinking. Many people fear that acknowledging the role of human reason and decision in such vital matters will imperil whole
classes of vulnerable human beings. Those [End Page 28] who express this fear sometimes point to the tendency of human beings to
dehumanize their foes. The Nazis' branding of Jews, Slavs, and others as racially and biologically "subhuman" illustrates what
can happen when basic matters of human rights are made subject to some group's decision. In view of these recognized perils, is it not safer to identify objective features
of development, such as fertilization, that cast the net of moral protectedness as wide as possible and minimize the risk of arbitrary exclusion? Some further argue that it is an
error to see these matters in terms of human choice at all. Instead, we should rely on religious authority and tradition for guidance. Only this transcendent foundation
guarantees that no single human group will ever be in a position to mistreat others. Many who hold this view also typically perceive fertilization as a divinely established
boundary marker. These objections and fears are understandable, but they fundamentally misrepresent the issues . For one thing, it
is a parody of the need for reasoned choice in these matters to equate it to the terrible instances of racial exclusion and
genocide that have occurred in the past. Boundary decisions about life's beginning and end affect us all and must be thought of
as being made by us all. No one capable of engaging in reasoned discussion can arbitrarily be excluded from participating in
making them. They must also be made with the maximal degree of objectivity and impartiality we can achieve, and they must embrace the interests of everyone affected
by them. In this respect, they are no different than any other decisions we make about human rights. Just as it is wrong to
exclude whole groups of citizens from the right to vote because of their race or ethnicity, so arbitrary and unjustified
exclusions have no place in the boundary determining process for human community and moral protections.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
5
Hyde Kills Abortion Rights
Funding restrictions eviscerate the right to abortion, effectively forcing women to comply with the moral
demands of the government.
Temple Law Review, 97 (Sandra Berenknopf, “JUDICIAL AND CONGRESSIONAL BACK-DOOR METHODS THAT LIMIT THE EFFECT OF ROE
V. WADE: THERE IS NO CHOICE IF THERE IS NO ACCESS”, 70 Temp. L. Rev. 653, Summer, L/N)
The Court also dismissed the respondents' Equal Protection challenge. n118 The
respondents claimed that the Hyde Amendment violated the [*671]
Equal Protection Clause because it allowed states to fund all medically necessary procedures except abortions. n119 The Court stated
that because Congress did not impinge on a substantive right, nor purposefully detriment a suspect class, the rational relation standard applied. n120 The Court then
concluded that a denial of Medicaid funding for medically necessary abortions was rationally related to the state's goals of protecting the
potential life of a fetus. n121 Justice Brennan dissented n122 and wrote to express his continued disagreement with the majority's
"mischaracterization" of the fundamental right articulated in Roe v. Wade. n123 Justice Brennan argued that Roe conferred upon
every pregnant woman the right to be free from any state burden which would restrict her free choice to have an abortion. n124
Justice Brennan asserted that the Hyde Amendment was a deliberate attempt by Congress to coerce women out of their choice
n125 and to achieve indirectly what Congress could not achieve directly. n126 Further, in Justice Brennan's view, the government used
poor people - those with the least access to assert their rights - as a vehicle. n127 Justice Brennan equated pregnancy with any other medical condition. n128 He
concluded that abortion and childbirth, with all morals removed from consideration, are two opposite approaches to pregnancy, and thus abortion should be viewed as any
other medically necessary procedure. n129 Justice Marshall, also in dissent, n130 argued that the majority failed to realize that a denial of
Medicaid funding for an abortion was indistinguishable from a denial of a legal abortion. n131 Justice Marshall criticized the majority's
[*672] perpetuation of its "two-tiered" approach to equal protection. n132 He would have applied a heightened level of scrutiny to the equal protection claims because he
believed that indigent women were a powerless class in need of protection. n133 Justice Marshall explained that the government's interest in protecting
potential life fails to outweigh the denial of a constitutional right to poor women. n134 Moreover, Justice Marshall argued that since
the Hyde Amendment denied the exercise of a fundamental right, it also failed the rational basis test used by the majority. n135
Justice Marshall also discussed the consequences of the majority's decision. n136 He commented that women in need of Medicaid funding would be left with two options:
they could either carry the fetus to term or procure an illegal abortion. n137 Justice Marshall asserted that since the federal government had chosen to burden itself with
funding medically necessary procedures, it must do so across the board - without excluding procedures based on unconstitutional purposes. n138 Justice Stevens, in his
dissenting opinion, argued that any fiscal interest that the government might possess could not outweigh the detriment to women in need of Medicaid funding. n139 Justice
Stevens asserted that both the women who no longer receive Medicaid funding for abortions, as well as all other Medicaid recipients, would suffer from the majority's
decision because the cost of an abortion is much lower than the cost of childbirth. n140 Justice Stevens argued that because the government would have to extract more
money from the pool to cover more childbirths, there will necessarily be less funds for other medically necessary procedures. n141 It is safe to assume that Congress
knew about Roe v. Wade and its progeny when it passed the Hyde Amendment, and that the courts knew about Roe v. Wade and its progeny when they
strengthened the effect of the Hyde Amendment. What seems a bit absurd is that both Congress and the courts [*673] expressly denied that
the Hyde Amendment affected Roe v. Wade because Roe only recognized a right to seek an abortion - not a right to have it paid
for by the government. n142 Fine-line, muddled distinctions like these only work well in the classroom. A pregnant woman who
is able to afford the cost of an abortion may exercise her Constitutional right to "seek" an abortion during the first trimester
without any interference from the state which might cause an undue burden. n143 However, a poor woman who wishes to "seek"
the same exact medical procedure now faces additional problems. If the woman is poor, the only time a state will not interfere n144 is if she suffered
rape or incest or the pregnancy endangers her life. n145 If none of these conditions are met, the Hyde Amendment effectively allows the state to make
the woman's choice for her. If she cannot afford an abortion, she cannot seek an abortion. If she cannot seek an abortion, she cannot choose an abortion. So much
for Roe v. Wade.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
6
Hyde Causes Male Domination
The Hyde Amendment exemplifies the patriarchal social organization by imposing religiously ordained
male control through state edict
Stopler, 08 – Assistant Prof. Academic Center of Law & Business at Ramat Gan Israel (Gila, Duke Journal of Gender Law &
Policy, “"A Rank Usurpation of Power" – The Role of Patriarchal Religion and Culture in the Subordination of Women”, 15 Duke J. Gender L. & Pol'y 365, August, L/N)
Even today, through
a use of their political power, patriarchal religions and cultures that discriminate against women and in which
women have little voice, shape the law and through it the rights of all women. While the constitutional separation between church and state may
prevent an overt state-wide institutionalization of religion, it is powerless to prevent the insertion of patriarchal religion into politics, which adversely impacts the rights of all
women. Contemporary struggles that may have important ramifications affecting the life of every American woman are being waged by feminists against an increasingly
politically powerful Christian Right over matters such as abortion, contraception and sex education. n182 One pertinent example concerning abortion is
Harris v. Mcrae, in which a challenge was made to the Hyde amendment which prohibits federal funding of abortions for
Medicaid recipients except when the continuation of the pregnancy would endanger the woman's life. n183 The plaintiffs in Mcrae argued that the Hyde amendment
was a violation of the Establishment clause because it codified the teachings of the Roman Catholic church with regard to abortions. The Supreme Court rejected this
argument on the ground that the fact that the law happens to coincide with the teachings of a certain religion does not lead to a violation of the Establishment clause as long
as there is a legitimate secular purpose for the law. n184 Beyond the court's intentional failure to take notice of the connection between the
law and Roman Catholic teachings, the secular purpose that the Court found is particularly instructive. According to the Court,
denying federal funding for abortions is not an establishment of religion because "the Hyde [*392] amendment ... is as much a reflection of
"traditionalist' values towards abortion, as it is an embodiment of the views of any particular religion." n185 The Court might
very well be right. Patriarchal values are prevalent in both culture and religion, and consequently in law. Although it is often reiterated that the
impetus for state legislation enacted in the mid-nineteenth century banning abortion originated in the medical profession, it is also true that the physician's campaign was
largely based on the then-controlling societal perception about women's godly-ordained roles and duties and was couched in religious terms that directly appealed to religious
prejudices regarding women. In her detailed historical analysis of anti-abortion legislation in the United States, Siegel demonstrates how doctors have used religious
understandings of women's roles to advance their claim that the community has the right and the duty to control procreation through the medical profession, n186 and how
they used the women's movement's support for abortion to generate support for their own anti-abortion campaign by associating the right to abortion with the attack on
established gender roles. n187 As Siegel argues, nineteenth century laws banning abortions were explicitly based on the discriminatory view that women are destined solely for
the home and for the rearing of children, and should be understood in that context. n188 In the present, critics of the recent Gonzales v. Carhart decision could not fail to
notice that the five Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the ban on partial birth abortion and thus reverse the seven-year-old Stenberg v. Carhart decision were all
Catholics. n189 These critics could not help but wonder how this fact could be reconciled with the constitutional separation between church and state. The critics' critics
answered in return that the allegation that the five justices decided the case on the basis of their religious beliefs could not be substantiated because religion was not
mentioned once throughout the decision. n190 It is probably impossible to find clear evidence supporting either side of this unfinished debate. Nevertheless, it is becoming
clearer than ever in recent years that the notion that women's rights are protected by the constitutional separation of church and state from the reach of patriarchal religious
ideas is patently wrong. n191 Thus, the hegemony of patriarchy is maintained by translating patriarchal religious edicts and patriarchal
cultural assumptions into patriarchal law. In a [*393] society such as the United States, in which separation between religion and
the state is allegedly maintained, religiously-based patriarchal edicts are buttressed by non-religious patriarchal traditions in
order to legalize patriarchal laws. In countries that do not mandate separation between church and state, patriarchal law can rest directly on religious grounds.
n192 But, one could argue that this is merely a semantic difference. The fusion so clearly apparent in Mcrae between patriarchal
religious values, patriarchal traditional values, and patriarchal laws demonstrates the central argument of this article, namely,
that the hegemony of patriarchy is maintained through the creation of patriarchal values within patriarchal religions and cultures which are
then incorporated into patriarchal law. Because power operates through discourses that legitimate its operation and conceal domination, it is exactly the hegemonic nature of
patriarchy which keeps us oblivious to its pervasive presence. n193 As a result, the fundamental problem with Mcrae, namely that it maintains the
domination of women by usurping their power to control their bodies, cannot even be discussed in terms of domination and
subordination because in a patriarchal world abortion is not a matter of women's equality. n194 At the same time, the underlying cause of
the problem is that the patriarchal religious and cultural assumptions that are the basis for the law cannot be challenged because they are protected by religious liberty, by the
right to culture and by freedom of association. This is how the hegemony of patriarchy is maintained.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
7
Hyde K2 Feminism
Current focus on choice ignores the intersection of gender with race and class. The plan is crucial to
reorient the abortion debate in a more inclusive direction.
Smyth, 02 – Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Wales (Lisa, Women’s Studies International Forum, “Feminism and Abortion Politics:
Choice, Rights, and Reproductive Freedoms”, 25:3, May-June, Science Direct)
Feminist arguments in support of abortion rights have necessarily engaged with broader debates over how to produce rights claims which minimise the
risk of application or interpretation in unjust and unequal ways. This has, in turn, led to debates over whether rights claims can ever be a sufficient
remedy for inequality and injustice. The strategy of defending abortion access as “a woman's right to choose” has come under
pressure from two directions. Firstly, the particular articulation of the demand has facilitated racist and eugenic policies
concerned with population control, particularly in the US context.1 The major problem which has facilitated this form of appropriation lies with the meaning of the
term “choice,” generally defined, both culturally and legally, as an aggregation of ideas of privacy and autonomy. The implicit meaning informing the use of
the concept can be found even in feminist criticisms of its political value. For example, Petchesky (1986), in her influential consideration of its
limits, defines choice as “a woman's right to control her own body,” a version of bodily and decisional autonomy, while also arguing that such autonomy should be limited,
because, as she puts it, recognizing women as the source of decision making over pregnancy “lets men and society neatly off the hook” (Petchesky, 1986, p. 7). Specifically,
the complex contexts of abortion decisions is left unexamined in making a claim for abortion access as an issue of “private”
choice (Davis, 1981 and Himmelweit, 1988). In other words, the emphasis on privacy prevents any consideration of the socio-political forces
which produce both involuntary pregnancies and calls for abortion access, and constrain the “choices” of different women in
different contexts. This construction of abortion as an issue of private choice trivializes abortion decisions, as well as endorsing
the very mind/body dualism which feminism has consistently contested (Cornell, 1995, p. 33). , 2 The problems associated with this narrow
interpretation of what is at stake in abortion politics can be seen, for example, in Lucinda Cisler's (1969) argument that access to birth control is essential to women's
liberation. She explained the very high rates of sterilization among Puerto Rican women in New York city as a pragmatic response by those women, precisely through the
exercise of private choice, both to Catholic regulation of sexual morality, and to the difficulty of practicing birth control legally in Puerto Rico. , 3 In other words, the very
high rates of sterilization among Puerto Rican women, she assumed, was due to a form of private female resistance to enforced motherhood, rather than as the result of
specifically racist official policy., 4 Thus, she failed to take into account classed and raced constructions of gender, sexuality, and nationhood. She consequently offered a
mistaken account of abortion practices, in terms that would not address the wider contexts within which particular groups of women seek abortions., 5 which This
misinterpretation illustrates the tension in the idea of “choice”, on the one hand, acknowledges that women's decisional and bodily autonomy is at stake in (anti-) abortion
politics, and, on the other, facilitates the “illusion,” to use Himmelweit's term (1988, p. 40), that a woman can make a “private” choice free from social, economic, and
political constraints (Charles, 2000, p. 164). As Petchesky comments, “… the idea of ‘a woman's right to choose’ as the main principle of reproductive freedom is insufficient
and problematic at the same time as it is politically compelling” (Petchesky, 1986, pp. 6–7). There are two aspects to the problem with pro-choice privacy claims. Firstly, the
definition of “privacy” is always contestable, and feminists have defined it, for example, not as the familial or domestic sphere, but rather as the imaginary sphere of personal
identity and self-realization., 6 Nancy Fraser (1997, p. 115) has argued that the feminist project is aimed not at the collapse of the boundaries between public and private, but
rather “to overcome the gender hierarchy that gives men more power than women to draw the line between public and private,” while also taking account of other
dimensions to that power imbalance, not least those of race, ethnicity, and class. Kandiyoti (1991, p. 430) emphasizes the major difference between privacy and patriarchy,
arguing that feminists should be wary of ethnocentric definitions of the private and the public, and should acknowledge that the “private” is often problematically defined by
the state. The second problem with claiming abortion as a privacy right, however, is that this construction does not oblige the state to ensure access to
abortion services (Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack, 1986. Abortion and woman's choice. The state, sexuality and reproductive freedom. , Verso, London.Petchesky, 1986).
Treating abortion as a right to privacy is therefore insufficient to prevent the state from actively obstructing access (Cornell, 1995, p. 33). , 7 If the private sphere were
officially defined not in the usual terms of possessive individualism, but in terms of personal identity and self-realization, then perhaps the state would be obliged to support
abortion access (a point which will be considered in section three, on Feminist Rights Theory, below). To borrow Nancy Fraser's (1997) analytic model, the claim
that abortion should be considered an issue of private choice, in contexts where privacy is defined either in familial, domestic
terms, or in terms of possessive individualism, can be characterized as an “affirmative recognition” strategy, which, in this
context, ultimately endorses essentialist constructions of women as mothers. The ease with which feminist pro-choice
arguments have been connected with Malthusian views on population control, and have served to justify the operation of
racist and eugenic policies, notably in the US,, 8 has raised serious questions for feminist political theory. Before considering how these
difficulties have been addressed, I will discuss the second major problem with a feminist defence of abortion access in terms of “a woman's right to choose,” namely the
emergence and success of foetal rights advocacy.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
8
Abortion K2 Equality
Abortion rights are fundamental for women's equal participation in social life.
Michelmann et al, 89 – Professor of Law at Harvard (Frank, Norman Redlich, Prof. Law – NYU, Stephen Neuwirth, Associate – Wachtell,
Lipton, Rosen & Katz, and Denise Carty-Bennia, Prof. Law – Northwestern, American Journal of Law & Medicine, “Brief for 885 Law Professors in Support of Maintaining
Adherence to the Roe Decision”, 15 Am. J. L. and Med. 197, L/N)
The Supreme Court's privacy jurisprudence provides a rich body of precedental support for a woman's right of procreative freedom. We marshalled the cases in defense of
our contention that the right of personal privacy stands against state domination in matters of value and conscience, and self-determination regarding ways and walks of life.
By its force, government's hand is stayed from the diverse choices by which persons define their values, form and maintain communities of belief and practice, and bring up
children whose lives in turn will be their own, and not the state's. We argued that these elementary privacy [*199] concepts logically and historically, included
decisions regarding procreation and family formation. These decisions, along with those about child-rearing, lie at the core of those from which a
non-totalitarian government must ordinarily be excluded. Far from representing a departure from existing privacy doctrine, freedom of
procreative choice is an indispensable aspect of people's control over their own destinies guaranteed by the right of privacy. We pointed
out that for a pregnant woman the fundamental right of procreative choice is the freedom to abort her pregnancy. As a fundamental
right, that decision demands the same rigorous standard of constitutional protection as other fundamental rights: the state may restrict abortions only to further a compelling
state interest, and only by means that are narrowly tailored to be least restrictive of the pregnant woman's procreative rights. II. EQUALITY FOR WOMEN We noted
that the movement of women toward full participation in all aspects of American life was another important force in the
emergence of procreational freedom and family formation since 1965. This movement has been considered by the Court primarily in cases arising under the
equal protection clause. n3 We argued that the denial of procreative choice would fundamentally alter a woman's ability to secure the
benefits of equality guaranteed by equal protection jurisprudence. Drawing upon a brief submitted by a group of American historians, we pointed out
that abortion has been most controversial during periods when women have sought to break the restraints imposed on them by
a male-dominated society. Accordingly, we argued that the right to terminate a pregnancy ought to be viewed as both an assertion of
basic personal liberty, and as part of a broader movement by women to secure their full and equal place in all aspects of
American life. We pointed out the Court's prior use of strict scrutiny in reviewing laws that restrict fundamental freedoms in ways that are specially onerous for those
already burdened by disfavored or insecure social position in American life.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
9
Abortion K2 Patriarchy
Abortion is the paramount issue for female liberation and race equality
Greenberg, 98 – Spokesman for the NY Branch of Revolutionary Communist Party, Founder of Refuse and Resist
and Winner of the National Organization of Women’s Susan B. Antony Award (Mary Lou, The Revolutionary Worker, “25th
Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Choice and Women's Liberation: Abortion Rights and the Fight to Defeat the Reactionary Agenda An Open Letter to the Pro-Choice
Movement”, 1-18, # 940, http://www.rwor.org/a/v19/940-49/940/mlg.htm)
The 25th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the January 22, 1973 Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion in the U.S., is time for a hard look at the ongoing battle to
defend abortion rights. The availability of legal abortion over the past 25 years has made it possible for millions of women to
preserve their health, their dreams, and their lives. Without the ability to control their own reproduction, women cannot
participate fully and equally in every sphere of society. To the degree Roe gave women the ability to control their own reproduction, it is something to
celebrate. At the same time, on this 25th anniversary, the battle for safe, legal abortion is more intense than ever and is at an extremely critical stage. In the last five years,
two doctors, one escort, and two clinic workers have been killed, and others wounded, by anti-abortion assassins. More bombings and arson of clinics occurred in 1997 than
in any year since the previous peak in 1984. The anti-abortion forces have gone on the offensive around a procedure for later abortions. They have targeted high school
women with their anti-abortion propaganda campaigns. They are actively organizing millions of men and women around the idea that abortion is immoral, should be
outlawed, and must be stopped. This offensive against abortion has received support from the highest levels of government. Harmful restrictions on funding and access,
especially for poor women, were instituted immediately after Roe. Then in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Supreme Court came down with a series of rulings that gave
states the right to restrict access to abortion. Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush openly promoted reactionary anti-abortion forces. Democratic president
Clinton talks about abortion as something that should be "legal but rare." And under his watch, abortion has definitely become "rarer"--more difficult to obtain. At the same
time, large sections of the pro-choice movement have found themselves demobilized, pinning one hope after another on the Democrats. All in
all, women are being made to feel shame and guilt if they want to end a pregnancy. Confusion has been sown. Women growing up in the last two decades have been
bombarded with all kinds of anti-scientific lies--that fetuses are babies, that abortion is murder. And for millions of women today the right to abortion
effectively does not exist. Restrictions imposed by states, lack of Medicaid funding make it especially hard for poor, Black,
Latina, Native American, young women and women in rural areas to control their reproduction. In 84 percent of the counties in the U.S.
there are no abortion providers. Once again, enforced motherhood is taking its toll: too many women forced to have children they don't
want, too many dreams deferred. Women forced into desperate acts like leaving unwanted babies in dumpsters. This assault is not an isolated thing. It is
part of a larger reactionary political agenda that the ruling class is pushing. I am talking about the whole "war on the people" that is
stalking the land: the dismantling of welfare, laws that limit people's rights, the warehousing into jail of a whole generation of Black and Latino youth, attacks on immigrants,
the rollback of affirmative action, censorship. This is an agenda that stands for male supremacy, for white supremacy, and for the
imposition of a fundamentalist Christian morality. Waging the fight to keep abortion legal, safe, and accessible is a crucial part
of beating back this larger reactionary program.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
10
AT: Alt Cause Patriarchy
Abortion is key. It is central to the control of fertility, which is at the core of patriarchy.
Nosiff, 07 – Associate Professor of Political. Science and Chair Social Science Division at Marymount Manhattan
College (Rosemary, New Political Science, “Gendered Citizenship: Women, Equality, and Abortion Policy”, 29:1, March, Ebsco)
More than 30 years after the Roe v. Wade decision established that state laws prohibiting early abortions were unconstitutional, the controversy over abortion policy
continues, with the majority of states passing hundreds of restrictions ranging from informed and parental consent, to bans on the public funding of elective abortions.
While the recent ballot measure in South Dakota to prohibit all abortions except when the woman’s health is threatened was
defeated, future attempts to ban abortions except in cases of life endangerment, rape and incest are likely to be the next step
taken by abortion opponents.1 Restrictive abortion laws are based on religious beliefs that life begins at conception, and therefore that abortion is
tantamount to murder. They are also shaped by traditional attitudes about women, in their roles as wives and mothers, that reveal two
interrelated assumptions about them. The first is that they are incompetent to make decisions and are unaccountable for their
actions. The second is that once a woman is pregnant, her citizenship can be abridged and her rights to privacy and equality
shared with her physician, the State, and the fetus she is supporting. She is a patient and a future mother first, and an individual with constitutional
rights second. Since 1973 numerous books have examined the legal, social and political dimensions of abortion policy,2 but less attention has been paid by scholars to the
implications of abortion restrictions for women’s citizenship. The chief exception is Rosalind Petchesky, who has argued that when the State criminalized
abortions in the second half of the 19th century and later limited access to birth control, it did so as a way to control its population, maintain the
gender hierarchy, and regulate women’s sexuality. Catharine MacKinnon’s work has focused on how abortion laws have
contributed to women’s sexual inequality, as opposed to how they have affected their equality within the broader context of citizenship.3 Yet few issues affect
women’s right to self-determination more directly than access to abortion, and for that reason restrictions to it raise significant questions regarding their standing as citizens.
As T. H. Marshall noted, to be a citizen means to have the political, civil, and social rights necessary to fully participate in the polity,4 which implies the ability to pursue them
free of discrimination and domination. Gould’s definition of equality and freedom is particularly relevant to the case of women’s citizenship, because it is based on the
premise of self-development, “ . . . requiring not only the absence of external constraint but also the availability of social and material conditions necessary for the
achievement of purposes and plans.”5 Shaver’s conception of abortion as a “body right . . . a personal right attached not to medical need
but to the legal personhood of the woman” captures its centrality to women’s equality, and is the starting point for this article.6
In it I argue that one of the root causes of the persistent inequality between the sexes is the legal primacy given to women’s roles as wives and
mothers over their rights as individuals, which results in gendered citizenship.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
11
Patriarchy  War
Patriarchy makes nuclear war inevitable. Male dominance is the root of military aggression.
Zanotti, 82 (Barbara, Catholic Feminist, in “Reweaving the Web of Life: Feminism and Nonviolence”, Ed. Pam McAllister, p. 16-19)
Why weren't we prepared for this?—the
imminence of nuclear holocaust; the final silencing of life; the brutal extinction of the planet. Surely
supremacy. Wars. Witch-burning. Male religious myths. Weapons of increased
destructive capacity. Institutionalized greed. The enslavement of half the human race. Centuries of violence. Why weren't we prepared
for this? We have lived with violence so long. We have lived under the rule of the fathers so long. Violence and patriarchy: mirror images. An ethic of
destruction as normative. Diminished love for life, a numbing to real events as the final consequence. We are not even prepared. Feminism, writes: "The rulers
of patriarchy—males with power—wage an unceasing war against life itself. Since female energy is essentially biophilic, the female spirit/body is
there have been substantial clues throughout history. Male
the primary target in the perpetual war of aggression against life. Women must understand that the female self is the enemy under fire from the patriarchy." She further writes
that "clearly the primary and essential object of aggression is not the opposing military force. The members of the opposing team play the same war games and share the same
values. The secret bond that binds the warriors together is the violation of women, acted out physically and constantly replayed on the level of
language and shared fantasies." We needn't look far for evidence to support her theory. Recall the US Army basic training jingle: "This is my rifle (slaps rifle). This is my gun
(slaps crotch). One is for killing; the other for fun." The language of war is the language of gynocide. Misogynist obscenities are used to train fighters and intensify feelings of
violence. War provides men with a context to act out their hatred of women and to embody their ancient warrior myths. War is
rape.
In the male world of war, toughness is the most highly prized virtue. Some even speak of the "hairy chest syndrome." The man who recommends violence does not
endanger his reputation for wisdom, but a man who suggests negotiation becomes known as soft, as willing to settle for less. To be repelled by mass murder is to be
irresponsible. It is to refuse the phallic celebration. It is to be feminine, to be a "dove." It means walking out of the club of bureaucratic machismo. It is no accident
that patriachy relates history as the history of war—that is precisely their history. In remembering their battles, the fathers recall the deep
experience of their own violent proclivities and relive the euphoria of those ultimate moments of male bonding. The history of wars speaks volumes about national will in a
patriarchal culture. Wars are nothing short of rituals of organized killing presided over by men deemed "the best." The fact is—they are. They have absorbed in the most
complete way the violent character of their own ethos. These are the men who design missiles and technologies as extensions of themselves.
These are the men ready to annihilate whole societies. These are the men honored as heroes with steel minds, resolute ,y 'ills, insatiable drives for
excellence, who are capable of planning demonic acts in a detached, non-emotional way. These are hollow men, capable of little but violence. It is significant that during and
after the accident at Three Mile Island, women were more concerned about danger than men; women knew that they were being lied to about the real-life effects of nuclear
technology. Women were resistant to the repeated declarations of male decision-makers that everything was under control, that there was nothing to be alarmed about, that
nuclear engineers could solve any difficulties. Women felt the lies. Women know and feel the lies that maintain nuclear technology because we have been lied to before. We
are the victims of patriarchal lies. We know the deceit that grounds patriarchal colonization of women. We know, feel and intuit that deception forms the very character of
male rule. Women are the first victims of the patriarchal state of war: Violence to our bodies: A woman is raped every three minutes. A woman is battered every eighteen
seconds. Women are physically threatened by a frightening social climate structured in male might. Women are depicted in pornography as objects to be beaten, whipped,
chained and conquered. The myth prevails that women like it. Violence to our hearts: The positing of male comradeship as the model of human relationships. The systematic
separation of women's culture. The erasure of women's history. The sanctifying of the heterosexual norm with its limited understanding of the giving and receiving of
affection and its arrogant reinforcement of male privilege and female vulnerability. Violence to our spirit: The dismemberment of the goddess and the enthronement of the
male god. The ripping away of women from a life in tune with natural patterns and rhythm of the universe. The ongoing patriarchal work of rendering women unconscious to
ourselves. Violence to our work: The exploitation and devaluation of women's labor. The relegation of women to supportive, maintenance roles. The deliberate structuring of
women's economic dependence. Under patriarchy, women are the enemy. This is a war across time and space, the real history of the ages. In this extreme
situation, confronted by the patriarchy in its multiple institutional forms, what
can women do? We can name the enemy: patriarchy. We can break from deadly
possession by the fathers. We can move from docility, passivity and silence to liberation, courage and speech. We can name ourselves, cherish ourselves,
courageously take up our lives. We can refuse to sell our bodies and refuse to sell our minds. We can claim freedom from false loyalties. We can bond with other women and
ignite the roaring fire of female friendship. This much we have learned from our living: life begets life. Life for women, life for the earth, the very
survival of the planet is found only outside the patriarchy; beyond their sad and shallow definitions; beyond their dead and static knowing; beyond their
amnesia; beyond their impotence; beyond their wars—wars which unmask the fear, insecurity and powerlessness that form the very base of patriarchal rule. To end the
state of war, to halt the momentum toward death, passion for life must flourish. Women are the bearers of lifeloving energy. Ours is the task of
deepening that passion for life and separating from all that threatens life, all that diminishes life; becoming who we are as women; telling/living the truth of our lives; shifting
the weight of the world. Will such measures put an end to war? What we already know is that centuries of other means have failed. In the name of peace, war is waged,
weapons are developed, lives are lost. And though there are testimonies announced, treaties signed, declarations stated, pronouncements issued, still the battles go on. The
patriarchy remains intact. Women are not free. Nothing changes.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
12
Patriarchy  Terrorism
Patriarchy is the root cause of terrorism
Barak, 03 – Professor of Criminology at Eastern Michigan University (Gregg, “Violence and Nonviolence: Pathways to Understanding: p.
265)
Any faction of people that competes with the position of such people in society, especially for secondary-level or low-skilled jobs, including women, members of minority
groups, immigrants, gay men, and lesbians, may receive the wrath of these marginalized groups of terrorists, sexists, racists, and homophobes. The restoration of
manhood and the repression of sexual diversity are central to many terrorists' ideologies. With the exception of the "downward mobility"
pathway of these "antiestablishment" terrorists, governmental counterterrorists share similar sentiments of disdain for or indifference to the lives of "others." Both kinds of
terrorists or terrorist activities use parallel techniques of, for example, neutralization, adopting the discourse of "collateral damage" to justify their avenging violence with more
violence against people who are close to those whom they claim have injured, harmed, or threatened their respective ways of life. The recovery of the terrorists
involves addressing their exclusion from full participation in their societies and the larger world order. In a different but related
way, the recovery of counterterrorists also involves addressing those same exclusionary conditions. In other words, as long as
conditions of extreme and comparative inequality exist at home and abroad, it is safe to assume that cycles of terrorism and
counterterrorism will exist. Those conditions that not only prohibit full participation by more than half the world's population but know no particular ethnic or
religious limits to violence are all subject to the forces of patriarchy and market capitalism. Thus, the origins of the making or marking of mass
murderers and terrorists alike are to be found within the patterned and gendered feelings of "masculine" shame, humiliation,
and inadequacy connected to the political economies of globalization. As Kimmel (2002) recognizes: The events of September 11, as well as of
April 19, 1995 (the Oklahoma City bombing), resulted from an increasingly common combination of factors—the massive male displacement that accompanies globalization,
the spread of American consumerism, and the perceived corruption of local political elites—fused with a masculine sense of entitlement. Someone else—some "other"—had
to be held responsible for the terrorists' [exclusion] and failures, and the failure of their fathers to deliver their promised inheritance. The terrorists [and
counterterrorists] didn't just get mad. They got even. Such themes were not lost on the disparate bands of young, white
supremacists. American Aryans admired the terrorists' courage and chastised their own compatriots. "It's a disgrace that in a population of at least 150 million
White/Aryan Americans, we provide so few that are willing to do the same [as the terrorists]," bemoaned Rocky Suhayda, the chairman of the American Nazi Party. "A
bunch of towel head/sand niggers put our great White Movement to shame." (p. B12)
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
13
1AC Overpopulation Adv [1/10]
The Advantage – Overpopulation
Unchecked population growth is fueling an ecological crisis that will completely destroy the biosphere.
Optimists on population ignore fundamental ecological limits. Overpopulation results in extinction of life
on earth, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, fishery collapse, soil erosion, global warming, and economic
collapse.
Kates, 04 – Professor of Philosophy at Ithica College (Carol, “REPRODUCTIVE LIBERTY AND OVERPOPULATION*”,
http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/philrel/replib.pdf)
In 1996, the Ecological Society of America hosted a major conference on population growth which concluded: “There
is general agreement throughout the
scientific community that growth of the human population, and the resultant increase in consumption, is exerting an unsustainable amount
of pressure on global [eco] systems ”(Kearns 1997: 163). This warning echoed the concern raised by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1994 that “Humanity is approaching a crisis point with respect to the interlocking issues of
population, natural resources, and sustainability”(NAS 1994). In 1992, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London issued a joint statement warning that science and technology could not be counted on to avoid irreversible environmental degradation
and widespread poverty (NAS 1992). The same year, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a “World Scientists Warning to Humanity” signed by 1,600 of the world’s top scientists, including 102 Nobel Prize winners, saying that destructive human activities “may so alter the
Worldwatch
growth in population over the next half-century may more directly affect
economic progress than any other single trend, exacerbating nearly all other environmental and social problems ....the trend that will
most affect the human prospect is an irreversible one – the accelerating extinction of plant and animal species....As human population grows,...at some point
we will face wholesale ecosystem collapse ....The risk in a world adding nearly 80 million people annually is that so many sustainable yield
thresholds will be crossed in such a short time that the consequences will become unmanageable (italics added) (Brown 2000: 5,8,13).
living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know,” and that human behavior must change “if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated” (UCS 1992). In 2000,
Institute issued this chilling assessment: “ The projected
Noted ecologist Edward Goldsmith warns that the Western life-style of mass-consumption is “ecologically doomed,” because “the biosphere is incapable of sustaining all six billion of us at the
consumption levels of the North.” and, if human demands are not reduced, the planet may become “incapable of sustaining complex forms of life” within fifty years (Goldsmith 1996: 81). William Rees, who, with Mathis Wackernagel, pioneered the concept of an ‘ecological
footprint’1 as a measure of the environmental impact of human population and consumption, has concluded that aggregate human load (resource harvesting and waste generation), “already exceeds, and is steadily eroding, the very carrying capacity upon which...continued
humane existence depends”(Rees 1996: 199). Yet, despite mounting evidence of
a threat to humane survival
2 posed by a growing ecological deficit, 3 the paradigm of continuous economic growth, in a form increasingly dominated by the global production chains and mass-marketing strategies of transnational corporations, 4 remains
firmly entrenched.5 While scientists debate the precise carrying capacity of the planet, the accelerating risk of ecosystem collapse urgently requires our species to resolve a dilemma which Garrett Hardin called “the tragedy of the commons”(Hardin 1968). The environment, with its ultimately limited resources of land, clean air and water, food, and so on, is treated as a ‘commons’ when it is viewed as an unpriced asset which may be freely used by all (Costanza et
al1997). The inevitable result of this laissez-faire approach is the eventual exhaustion of shared resources, as each individual acts to maximize his gain. Hardin applied this analysis to population (“freedom to [over] breed”), though it is easily generalized to include a system of production and consumption which in a similar way exploits the environment as a “free good.” The solution is an enforceable rational agreement to regulate the commons, that is, “mutual
coercion mutually agreed upon” to limit reproduction and, by extension, the unsustainable use of environmental resources in production and consu mption. Reducing population to a sustainable level (at some desirable level of consumption), would obviously require a major global effort, not merely to subsidize and distribute effective modern contraceptives, but to offer incentives and impose penalties to influence fertility, manipulate institutional variables,6
aggressively counter pronatalist cultural values, and, very likely, impose coercive limits on reproductive liberty. However, some or all of those measures have been strongly opposed by many religious conservatives and by an influential bloc of left- liberal and feminist advocates of ‘reproductive liberty’. The contentious 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo declared reproductive liberty to be a human right, and shifted the
focus of development efforts from population programs to women’s reproductive health (UNICPD 1994). In this political climate, it is perhaps not surprising that the September 2002 U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development produced a long list of proposals to achieve sustainable economic growth without a single mention of sustainable population levels. This essay will argue that: 1) there is an imminent threat to survival posed by the human
The
U.N.’s revised 2000 population projection estimated world population (about 6.3 billion in 2003), would swell to between 7.9 and 10.9
billion by 2050. The medium estimate 7 of 9.3 billion by 2050 was expected to stabilize at about 10 billion by the end of the century, or, on the high estimate, about 12 billion (UNPD 2001; Bongaarts 2002). Contrary to the common perception that the medium
environmental deficit, and sustainability will require population reduction as well as changes in consumption; 2) reproductive liberty should not be considered a fundamental human right, or certainly not an indefeasible right; 3) a global agreement to address the tragedy of the commons should include the option of coercive measures to reduce population to a sustainable level. 1. The Harm of Unsustainable Population and Consumption
forecasts are “more probable” than the low or high estimates, a recent National Research Council study concluded that a 95-percent prediction interval for world population in 2050 would extend from 7.9 to 10.9 billion (NRC 2000:10,191). 8 The U.N.’s 2002 population revision
projects a world population of 7.4 to 10.6 billion by 2050, with a medium estimate of 8.9 billion (UNPD 2003). The estimate reflects the judgment of demographers assembled to advise the Population Division in March 2002, 9 taking into account evidence of a worsening impact
of HIV/AIDS and indications that the total fertility rate (TFR) in intermediate-fertility countries 10 may fall below replacement level before 2050. However, at that meeting, Joseph Chamie, Director of the Population Division, stressed that “world population growth is not
over....Population momentum 11 will cause world population growth to continue for many decades even if the level of fertility in the intermediate-fertility countries falls below replacement by 2050” (UNPD 2002:19). Griffith Feeney, conference rapporteur, presented an
To dismiss
world population growth as a fundamental issue for the future of humanity is absurdly short sighted and could incur a terrible
human cost” (UNPD2002:21). The demographer John Caldwell also expressed fear that complacency about a smooth demographic transition12 could jeopardize critical support for population programs, which in turn could make the difference between a future
overview of conference themes and emphasized the point that : “We have not seen the end of huge population growth....We are in the middle of a century of rapid world population growth. The end is in sight, but it is still at least 50 years away.
population of 8 or 12 billion people ( Caldwell 2002:72, 73, 78). “My point ...is that the rich nations should still be primarily concerned with world population growth....The peak global populations could range between 9 and 12 billion....With regard to the long-term stability of
the world’s ecosystems and our ability to feed everyone adequately and to give them a reasonably good life, that margin of 3 or 4 billion extra people may be critical” (Caldwell 2002:75). Population in the developed regions will remain virtually constant (or even fall), until 2050,
but less developed countries are projected to grow from about 4.9 billion in 2000 to some level between 6.3 and 9.3 billion in 2050. Population in the 48 least developed countries will double or triple, from about 668 million in 2000 to somewhere between 1.4 to 2 billion in 2050.
Africa will grow from about 13% of world population in 2000 to over 20% by 2050 (UNPD 2003: Table 1). John Bongaarts has underlined the point that “the historically unprecedented population expansion in the poorest parts of the world continues largely unabated”
(Bongaarts 2002:68). Development organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) typically prescribe “sustained and rapid economic growth” through the creation of “market-friendly institutions” as a cure for poverty (IMF 2000:185). Problems associated with
Optimists
note that world output growth (total world GDP) has increasingly exceeded population growth in the 20th century, largely as a
result of accelerating technical progress (IMF 2000:ch.5).14 Nations in which population growth has not been matched by economic development are urged to
improve their productive capacity and incomes through market reforms, free trade, and adoption of new technology (IMF 2000: ch. 5). There are at least two
major ecological objections to this growth prescription. First, ecologists have vigorously contested the claim that technology
can provide substitutes for all scarce, and critical, resources, and that food production in particular can keep pace with
population growth without unacceptable environmental damage. Of course it’s always possible that some new technologies will emerge to mediate the
environmental impact of population and consumption.15 However, ecologists have estimated that an absolute reduction of up to 50% in the human
load currently imposed on ecosystems would be required for ecological sustainability, and that high income countries would have to reduce
their ecosystem demands by 80% or more to create “ecological space” for growth in developing countries (Rees 2002:41). Technology to achieve this goal does
not appear to be on the horizon. Therefore, prudence would suggest a direct focus on eco-compatible population and consumption
rapid population growth (resource scarcity, environmental damage), are thought to reflect short-term problems, stemming from poor economic and social policies, which can be resolved by better technology and further economic development.13
levels. If the economic optimists turn out to be right, efforts to reduce population and consumption will have made the planet healthier and less crowded. But if they are
wrong, the planet, and our own species among others, will pay an unacceptable price for growth The second objection is that even if every
nation on the planet rapidly adopted “efficient” free market and free trade policies, and even assuming such policies “worked”
to accelerate global economic growth, the result, given current and, certainly, projected population levels, would be an
impossibly large ecological deficit. Humanity’s ecological footprint has been estimated to exceed long-term global carrying capacity as much as 40% (Rees
2002:40).16 Humanity currently appropriates an unsustainable 25-35% of coastal shelf
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Continued…
primary production (Rees 1996:198), and over 50% of the Sun’s energy captured by the entire plant biomass on Earth each year ( Pimentel et al 1999:30). William Rees estimated that if the world population of 5.8 billion (in 1996) lived at unsustainable North American consumption levels, two additional planet Earths would be required to accommodate the ecological load. With a population of 10 or 11 billion, 5 additional Earths would be needed simply to
maintain the present rate of ecological decline (Rees 1996:210). Optimistic economists have argued that the neo-Malthusian perspective 17 in claims about “carrying capacity” limits for human population reflects excessive pessimism (i.e. “alarmism”) (UNPD 2001a:75-76; Sen 1996). The UN’s World Population Monitoring 2001 report argues that environmental harm is caused by a number of factors, including population, consumption, technology, and socialinstitutional factors, and that it’s not possible to assign exact measures of blame to each variable (UNPD 2001a: ch.4, 8, Annex II). Moreover, since estimates of carrying capacity have ranged from 1 to 1,000 billion people, the report questions the credibility of this approach (UNPD 2001a: 30-31). Furthermore, more efficient markets, better social policies (to promote “equitable income growth”), conservation measures, factor substitution, and new technology
have the potential to increase the supply of critical resources well beyond most estimates of carrying capacity (UNPD 2001a:30,38). For example, a 1994 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) study concluded that with “high inputs to agriculture such as full mechanization and optimal application of fertilizers and chemical controls for pests, diseases and weeds” developing countries had a carrying capacity of 33 billion people (UNPD 2001a:76). (Do such
estimates undermine the FAO’s credibility?) However, though the UN’s report downplays direct effects of population size, it does concede that, other things being equal, increasing population size plays a role in increasing aggregate economic demand, hence the volume of pollution-causing production. For that reason, population policies can enhance long-term human welfare (UNPD 2001a:38-39). Despite the constant appeal to “mediating factors,” the 2001
Ecosystems of all
kinds are under pressure worldwide” (UNPD 2001a:20). About 34% of all fish species and 58% of coral reefs are now at risk from human activities (UNPD
UN report does not entirely endorse an optimistic outlook for the environment. It acknowledges the reality of significant environmental damage from agricultural intensification, the unresolved problem of global warming, a pessimistic outlook for commercial fish stocks, water scarcity, and loss of forests and biodiversity, all of which have at least some relation to population pressures. “
2001a:20). Flowering plants and vertebrate animals have become extinct in recent years at rates estimated to be 50 to 100 times the expected background rate (UNPD
Destruction of forests, which contributes both to global warming and loss of biodiversity, has been accelerating
during the last 30 years, especially in developing countries, where they are being lost to logging, mining, expansion of agriculture, and vegetation removal, including gathering of firewood (UNPD 2001a:20-21, 33). Between 1980 and 1995, developing
2001a:20).
countries lost about 200 million hectares of forests. Deforestation has been most rapid in Africa (losing about 10.5% of its forests between 1980-1995), especially Sub-Saharan Africa (UNPD 2001a:20-21). Tropical rainforests are a particularly significant loss, because they contain
anywhere from half to 90% of all terrestrial species (UNPD 2001a:.21). The report cites a 1992 World Bank estimate that about 60% of tropical forest clearing was due to agricultural development, (UNPD 2001a:33) and also notes that tropical diseases can grow to epidemic
Agricultural irrigation, which accounts for more than 70% of fresh water from lakes,
rivers, and aquifers, is placing “mounting stress” on water supplies in many parts of the world because of “the need to feed a
growing population”(UNPD 2001a:33,71). In its conclusion, the report concedes that “whether mediated by technology or by markets and social institutions, there is no doubt that population growth...affects the environment resource base”(UNPD
proportions as a result of agricultural clearing of frontier areas (UNPD 2001a:35).
2001a:78). Without a comprehensive and dynamic model of population, environment and development, “we are thrown back on common sense....”(UNPD 2001a:78). The debate between neoliberal economists and neo-Malthusians is especially sharp with respect to prospects
for food security. Optimistic economists such as Amartya Sen argue that “there is, in fact, no significant crisis in world food production at this time [2000]....there is little room for any great pessimism that food output will soon start falling behind population growth” (Sen
the economic models of agricultural production underlying this optimism assume factor substitutions and market
mechanisms can overcome ecological limits. Ecologists, in contrast, take into account biophysical constraints and the longterm sustainability of land intensification. As (agricultural ecologists) David Pimentel and Mario Giampietro put it, “Some agronomists and many economists
2000:206-9). However,
generally see no problem in feeding 10 billion people on our planet...whereas ecologists argue that the current population level is already too numerous given...environmental
resources. Regarding these different outlooks...economists and ecologists are simply saying different things. What is considered technologically feasible by agronomists and
economists, that is maintaining or improving current yields per hectare in the coming few decades by relying more on technology, fossil energy, soil degradation, and
depletion of underground water reservoirs, is not sustainable in ecological terms .... What ecologists do say is that these, so-called, technological fixes
are not sustainable in the long run because they are (i) not ecologically compatible with the earth’s resources; and (ii) are based
on the depletion of fossil energy stocks, which are finite
”(Pimentel and Giampietro 1994:14-15). In 2002, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) issued a major study projecting world food production prospects through 2030 (FAO 2002). Although the report generally supports the optimistic
view of many economists, it also exposes some significant environmental costs of expanded food production. The FAO asserts that although growth rates of agricultural production and crop yields have slowed in recent years, this has been a response to slower demand, and not a sign of land or water shortages (FAO 2002). 18 The FAO is confident global food shortages are unlikely in the future (at least until 2030), if national and international policies promote
efficiency, and that the world population will be increasingly well-fed, although in developing countries about 440 million people will be chronically undernourished, 183 million in Sub-Saharan Africa, by 2030 (FAO 2002, 2002a). In fact, the study notes the number of undernourished people in some regions may rise because of rapid population growth (FAO 2002). Food production growth will come from higher productivity. In developing countries, the FAO
believes about 70% of increased crop production will come from higher yields ( from irrigation and fertilizer), 10% from shorter fallow periods and multiple cropping, and 20% from expansion of arable land (FAO 2002, 2002a). Developing countries will require 14% more water for irrigation by 2030(FAO 2002a).
about 20 developing countries will suffer actual or impending water scarcity (2002b). Developing countries will need an
additional 120 million hectares (ha) for crops, but most of the “suitable” new land is in Sub-Saharan Africa (60 million ha) and Latin America(40 million ha)(2002a). Most of this new land will come from forest clearance, and would represent
However, by that date,
a loss of about 10% of the Sub-Saharan African forest and about 4% of the Latin American forest (since 2000) (UNPD 2001a:21, table.II.7). The FAO acknowledges the “challenges” of meeting production needs while safeguarding the environmental services and biodiversity
provided by trees (FAO 2002). It also acknowledges that nitrogen fertilizers are “a major source of water and air pollution,” and that the projected “60% increase in emissions of ammonia and methane from the livestock sector” will require “comprehensive measures”(FAO
Converting land to agricultural use can lead to soil erosion, and the
chemicals often used in fertilizers can also degrade soil. Deforestation is also associated with soil erosion and can lessen the
ability of soil to hold water, thereby increasing the frequency and severity of floods.
2002). A RAND report (RAND 2000) on population and environment which discussed FAO land-use projections noted, “
Human-induced changes in land can often result in habitat fragmentation and loss, the primary cause of species decline. In fact, if current rates of forest
clearing continue, one-quarter of all species on Earth could be lost within the next 50 years” (RAND 2000). The FAO says “new technology” is needed to deal with shortages of land or water, as well as problems with soil or climate, expected to become increasingly serious after 2030, (FAO 2002)19 and is generally hopeful that biotechnology will increase yields without harming the environment. “Needed for the twenty-first century is a second, doubly green
revolution in agricultural technology”(FAO 2002). The FAO also acknowledges that environmental factors are expected to limit the supply of fish, because by 2000 “three-quarters of ocean fish stocks were overfished, depleted or exploited up to their maximum sustainable yield”(FAO 2002). However, they expect aquaculture to continue to grow rapidly (FAO 2002). Aquaculture is also being promoted by the Malaysia-based WorldFish Center and the
Although bland accounts of declining fish yields
might suggest a limited period of conservation can restore “fish stocks,” a major study directed by Dr. Daniel Pauly of the
University of British Columbia Fisheries Center (the Sea Around Us project), concluded that the North Atlantic ocean is heading
towards a “fisheries collapse”- in effect, losing its ability to sustain further catches
International Food Policy Research Institute, which issued a report on declining fish yields in preparation for a conference (“Fish for All Summit”) in November, 2002 (World Fish Center 2002). 20 Ecologists, however, have questioned the sustainability of aquaculture (Rees 2002:29-31).
. Over the past 50 years catches of cod, tuna, haddock, flake and flounder have fallen by more than half (Pauly 2002). The research reports are available at
http://www.saup.fisheries.ubc.ca/publications/reports. David Pimentel and other ecologists have vigorously contested the optimistic economists’ models of agricultural productivity, which they say ignore 1) the non-substitutability of natural resources such as arable land, soil, biota, and water, 2) environmental degradation caused by land intensification and 3) the unsustainability of food production relying on fossil energy (Pimentel and Giampietro 1994). The
average cropland available for food production worldwide is 0.25 ha per person (Pimentel 2002:419), but 0.5 ha per capita has been suggested as the minimum requirement for a diverse, healthy, nutritious diet of plant and animal products (Pimentel and Giampietro 1994:2; Pimentel et al 1994:351-2; Pimentel et al 1999:22). Between 1950 and 1992, about one-third of the world’s cropland (1.5 billion ha), was abandoned because of soil erosion and degradation, a
result of population growth and excessive pressure on the environment (Pimentel and Giampietro 1994:2; Pimentel et al 1997:10). It takes 500 years to form 25mm of soil under agricultural conditions (Pimentel et al 1997:10). The U.S. is losing cropland soil at an average rate 13 times the sustainability rate of soil (Pimentel, 2000:420). India is losing soil at 30 to 40 times its sustainability (Pimentel 2000:421). In a major report on the environment released in 2002,
the UN Environmental Program concluded, “Land degradation continues to worsen, particularly in developing countries where the poor are forced onto marginal lands with fragile ecosystems and in areas where land is increasingly exploited to meet food and agricultural needs without adequate economic and political support to adopt appropriate agricultural practices” (UNEP2002:299). Most of the degraded agricultural land has been replaced by removing
nearly half of the world’s
original forest cover has been lost in the last 50 years, and each year about 16 million hectares of virgin forest are “cut,
bulldozed, or burned”(CIA 2001:77). Since about 60% of the world’s population growth this decade will occur in countries with
tropical forests, the report expects this population pressure to produce “accelerating destruction of forests ”(CIA 2001:76). A
forests. Agriculture accounts for 60% to 80% of deforestation (Pimentel et al 1997:10). A CIA assessment of long-term demographic trends (which was based on an October 2000 conference of experts from academia, business, and the intelligence community), noted that “Tropical forests are vanishing at the rate of 250 acres per minute”(CIA 2001:77). Further,
combination of demand for wood for cooking and heating, a need for more crop land, and demand for wood in developed countries ensure that “forests will continue to be
Deforestation is a major threat to biodiversity. It is worth repeating the RAND 2000
projection that current rates of forest clearing would destroy one-quarter of all species on Earth within the next 50 years.” Tropical
destroyed at an alarming rate”(CIA 2001:77).
rainforests are a particularly significant loss, because they contain anywhere from half to 90% of all terrestrial species (UNPD2001a:21). Species are also being lost because of pollution, pesticide use, urbanization, and other human activities: “Environmental pressure from the
Rates of species extinction, which appear to be accelerating, (UNEP
been described by leading scientists as “appalling”(WS 1997). On one estimate, one species extinction occurs every 20 minutes (Levin and Levin 2002:6). The background (“normal”) rate of
human population is the prime destructive force on earth and is the primary cause of reduced biodiversity” (Pimentel et al 1999:30).
2002:298) have
species extinction, estimated from fossil records, is thought to be about 1 bird or mammal species lost every 500-1000 years (UNEP 2002:121). “Estimates of present extinction rates range from 100 to 1,000 times normal, with most estimates at 1,000. The percent of bird (12),
mammal (18), fish (5) and flowering plant (8) species threatened with extinction is consistent with that estimate. And the rates are certain to rise–and to do so exponentially–as natural habitats continue to dwindle” (Lovejoy 2002:70). The extinction rate for some organisms may
10,000-times faster than background rates
be 1,000 to
(Pimentel et al 1999:30). Ecologists estimate that half of all living bird and mammal species will be gone within 200 or 300 years (Levin and Levin 2002:6). These exceptional
losses qualify the present as an era of “mass extinction” (Levin and Levin 2002:6). As “vast tracts of wilderness” vanish in the “not-so-distant future,” the “alteration and fragmentation of existing habitats ensures that any future radiation of mammals, for instance, will not include
large forms such as rhinoceroses, apes and big cats....Human activities will likely increase [primate] rates of extinction....Such a wholesale shift in earth’s biota will impoverish the planet for many millions of years to come” (Levin and Levin 2002:7-8). Biodiversity loss may pose
if it destabilizes the biosphere and interferes with recycling of such vital elements as carbon, nitrogen, and
phosphorus (Pimentel and Giampietro 1994:2). The end result of the accelerating extinction of plant and animal species could be
“wholesale ecosystem collapse ”(Brown 2000:8).
the greatest direct threat to human survival,
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Well isolate five impacts
A. Environmental collapse causes extinction
Diner, 94 (Major David N.; Instructor, Administrative and Civil Law Division, The Judge Advocate General's
School, United States Army) "The Army and the Endangered Species Act: Who's Endangering Whom?" 143 Mil. L.
Rev. 161l/n
Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than
less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse
better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." 79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic
simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild
examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects, could cause total
ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, 80 mankind may be
edging closer to the abyss.
B. Deforestation causes extinction
O’Neal, 97 (Martin, “Rain Forest Depletion”, May 5, http://www.northern.wvnet.edu/~tdanford/bio1/RA
INFO.htm)
There are some really amazing facts about the Amazon rain forest. The
Amazon alone covers 54% of all the world's rain forests, thus (are) making it
literally the lungs of the Earth. We can say this because trees produce oxygen while they use carbon dioxide to maintain their
respiration. Rain forests cover about 7% of the Earth's surface, but host about 50-90% of the plant and animal population of
the entire world. The Amazon River has more species of fish than the entire Atlantic Ocean does. In less than 25 acres of rain forest there are more species of trees than
the entire continent of North America. A tree found in Peru was found to be the host to 43 different species of ants. There are more species of birds on a Peru reserve than
the entire United States has. A fact that is very highly regarded about the Amazon rain forest is that of the 3000 species of plants that have been discovered there, 70% of
these plants have anti-cancerous properties. Also, 25% of these plants are now used to combat cancer. So as humankind continues to harvest the Amazon
rain forest which covers 1.2 million acres and 9 countries, they should also try to consider the devastating effects that it is
having on our race along with all the biological effects that it also carries. Although 1.2 million acres seems like a very large number, in the past
four decades that number was reduced in half to the current figure, so we see that this can not keep happening with out some type of governing on
what is occurring. If it does we may become an endangered species.
C. Overfishing kills billions and crushes ocean biodiversity
Weiss, 06 (Kenneth R. Weiss November 26 2006 “Not Enough Fish in the Sea,” Los Angeles Times http://www.laborrights.org/press/WalMart/fish_latimes_112606.htm)
Much is at stake. Overfishing
jeopardizes the dietary essentials of the billion people who rely on fish as their primary source of nonvegetable
it threatens the health of the oceans themselves. Fish and other marine animals help maintain the ocean's equilibrium by
eating algae and keeping microbes in check. Overfishing abets the spread of these primitive organisms, which smother coral
reefs and create "dead zones" in coastal waters that starve most sea life of oxygen.
protein, and
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And, ocean biodiversity loss causes extinction
Craig, 03 – Associate Professor of Law at Indiana University (Robin Kundis, “Taking Steps Toward Marine
Wilderness Protection?” 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155 Winter l/n)
Biodiversity and ecosystem function arguments for conserving marine ecosystems also exist, just as they do for terrestrial ecosystems, but these arguments have thus far rarely
been raised in political debates. For example, besides significant tourism values - the most economically valuable ecosystem service coral reefs provide, worldwide - coral reefs
protect against storms and dampen other environmental fluctuations, services worth more than ten times the reefs' value for food production. 856 Waste treatment is
another significant, non-extractive ecosystem function that intact coral reef ecosystems provide. 857 More generally, "ocean ecosystems play a major role in
the global geochemical cycling of all the elements that represent the basic building blocks of living organisms, carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur, as well as other less abundant but necessary elements." 858 In a very real and direct sense,
therefore, human degradation of marine ecosystems impairs the planet's ability to support life. Maintaining biodiversity is often
critical to maintaining the functions of marine ecosystems. Current evidence shows that, in general, an ecosystem's ability to keep
functioning in the face of disturbance is strongly dependent on its biodiversity, "indicating that more diverse ecosystems are more stable."
859 Coral reef ecosystems are particularly dependent on their biodiversity.
D. Soil erosion causes extinction
Ikerd, 99 – Professor Emeritus of Agricultural Economics at University of Missouri (John E., “Foundational Principles: Soils.
Stewardship, and Sustainability,” Sep 22, http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd/papers/NCSOILS.html)
A foundation is "the basis upon which something stands or is supported" (Webster). The basic premises of this discourse on "foundational principles" is that soil
is the foundation for
all of life, including humanity, that stewardship of soil is the foundation for agricultural sustainability, and that sustainability is the conceptual
foundation for wise soil management. All living things require food of one kind or another to keep them alive. Life also requires air and water, but nothing
lives from air and water alone. Things that are not directly rooted in the soil -- that live in the sea, on rocks, or on trees, for example -- still
require minerals that come from the earth. They must have soil from somewhere. Living things other than plants get their
food from plants, or from other living things that feed on plants, and plants feed on the soil. All life may not seem to have roots in the soil, but soil is still at the root of
all life. First, I am not a soil scientist. I took a class in soils as an undergraduate and have learned a good bit about soils from reading and listening to other people over the years. But, I make no claim to being an expert. So I will try to stick to the things that almost anyone might
know or at least understand about soil. As I was doing some reading on the subject, I ran across a delightful little book called, "The Great World’s Farm," written by an English author, Selina Gaye, somewhere around the turn of the century. The copyrights apparently had run
out, since the book didn’t have a copyright date. Back then people didn’t know so much about everything, so they could get more of what they knew about a lot more things in a little book. The book starts off explaining how soil is formed from rock, proceeds through growth
and reproduction of plants and animals, and concludes with cycles of life and the balance of nature. But, it stresses that all life is rooted in the soil. Initially molten lava covered all of the earth’s crust. So, all soil started out as rock. Most plants have to wait until rock is pulverized
into small particles before they can feed on the minerals contained in the rock. Chemical reaction with oxygen and carbon dioxide, wearing away by wind and water, expansion and contraction from heating and cooling, and rock slides and glaciers have all played important roles in
transforming the earth’s crust from rock into soil. However, living things also help create soil for other living things. Lichens are a unique sort of plant that can grow directly on rock. Their spores settle on rock and begin to grow. They extract their food by secreting acids, which
dissolve the minerals contained in the rock. As lichens grow and die, minerals are left in their remains to provide food for other types of plants. Some plants which feed on dead lichens put down roots, which penetrate crevices in rocks previously caused by mechanical
weathering. Growth or roots can split and crumble rock further, exposing more surfaces to weathering and accelerating the process of soil making. Specific types of rock contain limited varieties of minerals and will feed limited varieties of plants – even when pulverized into dust.
Many plants require more complex combinations of minerals than are available from any single type of rock. So the soils made from various types of rocks had to be mixed with other types before they would support the variety and complexity of plant life that we have come to
associate with nature. Sand and dust can be carried from one place to another by wind and water, mixing with sand and dust from other rocks along the way. Glaciers have also been important actors in mixing soil. Some of the richest soils in the world are fertile bottomlands
along flooding streams and rivers, loess hills that were blown and dropped by the wind, and soil deposits left behind by retreating glaciers. Quoting from the "Great World’s Farm," "No soil is really fertile, whatever the mineral matter composing it, unless it also contains some
amount of organic matter – matter derived from organized, living things, whether animal or vegetable. Organic matter alone is not enough to make a fertile soil; but with less than one-half percent of organic matter, no soil can be cultivated to much purpose." After the mixed soil
minerals are bound in place by plants, and successions of plants and animals added organic matter and tilth, the mixtures became what we generally refer to as soils. The first stages of soil formation are distinguished from the latter stages by at least one important characteristic.
The dissolving, grinding, and mixing required millions of years, whereas, soil binding and adding organic matter can be accomplished in a matter of decades. Thus, the mineral fraction of soil is a "non-renewable" resource – it cannot be recreated or renewed within any realistic
future timeframe. Whereas, the organic fraction is a renewable or regenerative resource that can be recreated or renewed over decades, or at least over a few generations. Misuse can displace, degrade, or destroyed the productivity of both fractions of soils within a matter of years.
And, once the mineral fraction of soil is lost, its productivity is lost forever. If there are to be productive soils in the future, we must conserve and make wise use of the soils we have today. The soil that washes down our rivers to the sea is no more renewable than are the fossil
fuels that we are mining from ancient deposit within the earth. In spite of our best efforts, some quantity of soil will be lost – at least lost to our use. Thus, our only hope for sustaining soil productivity is to conserve as much soil as we can and to build up soil organic matter and
In times not too long past, the connection between soil and human life was clear and ever present
enhance the productivity of the soil that remains.
. Little more
than a century ago, most people were farmers and those who were not lived close enough to a farm to know that the food that gave them life came from the soil. They knew that when the soil was rich, the rains came, and the temperature was hospitable to plants and animals,
food was bountiful and there was plenty to eat. They knew that when droughts came, plants dried out and died, and the soil was bare, there was little to eat. They knew when the floods came, plants were covered with water and died, and the soil was bare; there was little to eat.
They knew very well that their physical well being, if not their lives, depended on the things that lived from the soil. William Albrecht, a well known soil ascientist at the University of Missouri during the middle of this century, hypothesized that people from different parts of the
country had distinctive physical characteristics linked to the soils of the area where they grew up. He attributed those physical distinctions to differences in nutrient values of the foods they eat, which in turn depended on the make-up of the soils on which their foodstuffs were
grown. Albrecht’s hypothesis was never fully tested. As people began to move from one place to another throughout their lives, and as more and more foodstuffs were shipped from one region of production to another for consumption, people no longer ate food from any one
region or soil type. But it’s quite possible that when people lived most of their lives in one place, and ate mostly food produced locally, their physical makeup was significantly linked to the make up of local soils. Today, we eat from many soils, from all around the world. Even
The connection between soil and life is no longer so direct or so clear, but it
is still there. Most urban dwellers also have lost all sense of personl connection to the farm or the soil. During most of this century many people living in cities either had lived on a farm at one time or knew someone, usually a close relative, who still lived on a farm
today there is a common saying that "we are what we eat." If so, "we actually are the soil from which we eat."
-- which gave them some tangible connection with the soil. At least they knew that "land" meant something more than just a place to play or space to be filled with some form of "development." But these personal connections have been lost with the aging of urbanization. One
of the most common laments among farmers today is that "people no longer know where their food comes from." For most, any real understanding of the direct connection between soil and life has been lost. It ‘s sad but true. What’s even sadder is that many farmers don’t
realize the dependence of their own farming operation on the health and natural productivity of their soil. They have been told by the experts that soil is little more than a medium for propping up the plants so they can be fed with commercial fertilizers and protected by
commercial pesticides until they produce a bountiful harvest. In the short run, this illusion of production without natural soil fertility appears real. As long as the soil has a residue of minerals and organic matter from times past, annual amendments of a few basic nutrients –
nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash, being the most common – crop yields can be maintained. Over time, however, as organic matter becomes depleted, production problems appear and it becomes increasingly expensive to maintain productivity. As additional "trace elements" are
depleted, soil management problems become more complex. Eventually, it will become apparent that it would have been far easier and less costly in the long run to have maintained the natural fertility of the soil. But, by then much of the natural productivity will be gone --
all of life depends upon soil. All life requires food and there is simply no
other source of food except living things that depend directly or indirectly on the soil. This is a foundational principle of
natural science, of human health, and of social studies that should be taught at every level in every school in the world -- beginning in kindergarten and continuing through college. That
we must have soil to live is as fundamental as the fact that we must have air to breath, water to drink, and food to eat. It’s just less
forever. In the meantime, many farmers will have little sense of their ultimate dependence on the soil. Still ,
obvious.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
17
1AC Overpopulation Adv [5/10]
E. Overpopulation independently risks global nuclear conflict.
Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 90 – Policy Coordinator at the Center for Conservation Biology (Anne and Paul, Bing Prof. Population
Studies in Dept. Biology – Stanford U., “The Population Explosion”, http://www.ditext.com/ehrlich/9.html)
The population explosion contributes to international tensions and therefore makes a nuclear holocaust more likely. Most people
in our society can visualize the horrors of a large-scale nuclear war followed by a nuclear winter.1 We call that possible end to our civilization "the Bang." Hundreds of
millions of people would be killed outright, and billions more would [175] follow from the disruption of agricultural systems and other indirect effects largely caused by the
disruption of ecosystem services. It would be the ultimate "death-rate solution" to the population problem -- a stunning contrast to the humane solution of lowering the
global birthrate to slightly below the death rate for a few centuries. As this is written (mid-1989), it fortunately seems that the chances of the Bang have lessened. New-minded
leadership in the Soviet Union is for the moment in the ascendancy. President Mikhail Gorbachev, along with a few other world leaders, seems to be aware that
environmental security is at least as important as military strength in providing security to nations, and appears to be doing everything possible to damp down the arms race
between the United States and the Soviet Union. An apparently more pragmatic government also is in place in the United States, although it is still too soon to tell whether
the superpowers are on the road toward massive nuclear-arms reduction and true reconciliation. What is certain is that the structure of military forces
around the world still provides plenty of chances for local conflicts to escalate into Armageddon even in the face of growing
East-West rapprochement. There remains the problem that, as the world gets further and further out of control, crazies on
both the left and the right may exert increasingly xenophobic pressures on national governments. The rise of fundamentalism in both
East and West is a completely understandable but not at all encouraging sample of what the future may hold in terms of conflict. Those struggling to achieve a
permanently peaceful world still have much work to do, especially as growing and already over-populated nations struggle to
divide up dwindling resources in a deteriorating global environment. THE WHIMPER But for now, after forty years of worrying about it, the Bang
seems to be getting less likely. The same can't be said about "the Whimper."
And, overpopulation makes war inevitable. Only the plan can solve the root cause of their disads.
Bangert, 03 (Randy, PhD Student in Biology – Northern Arizona U., Frontiers in ecology and Environment, “Overpopulation Overlooked”, 1:5, June, JSTOR)
Though I enjoy reading most of the articles in Frontiers and find the con- tent valuable and credible, I have a general, ongoing concern that was exemplified by the
Environmental Justice forum in the March issue (Frontiers 2003; 2: 154-60). Reference to overpopulation was absent from all of the forum articles.
While it is extremely important to address and resolve issues in environmental justice, we continue to ignore or deny the root
cause of most of the problems plaguing this planet. Overpopulation is the real problem, and environmental inequi- ties are symptoms. We need to directly
address this disease. Overpopulation as an ecological concept is common knowledge to eco- logists, and yet we refuse to acknow- ledge this issue when it comes to the human
population. The pattern of human overpopulation manifests itself from the local to the global scale, yet we do not discuss ecological problems in this context. To make
matters worse, we are in denial that the world economy is based on growth and that economies based on growth drive
excessive human population growth, even in the US. We fail to make the connection between overpopulation and poverty.
Overpopulation drives environmental destruction, which dri- ves poverty (which results in environ- mental injustice), which in turn drives war. Moreover, the last article in
the forum denies the fact that one of the .major root causes of these problems is religion; the Judeo-Christian tradition is directly responsible and continues to drive
overpopulation and environ- mental degradation, and to justify these actions. We must acknowledge human overpopulation as the primary cause of many
proximate problems. Until we do, discussing the symptoms is moot.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
18
1AC Overpopulation Adv [6/10]
The plan is modeled globally –
A. Empirically proven – the world follows our governments abortion policies
Ernst et al., 04 – Lawyers with the Center for Reproductive Rights (Julia L. Ernst, Laura Katzive, and Erica Smock,
April 2004 6 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 752)
At the same time, since
1973, a vocal anti-choice movement within the United States has chipped away at the core of the principles
espoused by Roe. This gradual backsliding in the legal framework and [*754] jurisprudence affecting women's right to abortion, together with an increasingly
anti-choice U.S. foreign policy, pose serious threats to women's ability to exercise their right to reproductive choice, not only in the United
States but around the globe. Early attempts by anti-choice fundamentalists to reverse Roe through frontal attacks on the right to abortion have steadily been replaced by
a more sophisticated, surreptitious, multifaceted approach. In 1980, the right wing of the Republican Party succeeded in compelling the party to adopt a platform supporting a
constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion. n3 Having realized that a pro-choice majority within the United States opposed such a constitutional amendment, n4 abortion
opponents have largely turned to more incremental tactics to erode women's ability to exercise their right to abortion. For
example, they espouse restrictions primarily affecting those who are least likely to be able to exercise the franchise or have a
voice in government, such as low-income women, adolescents, and women in other countries. In addition, anti-choice leaders have learned
to moderate their rhetoric, using deceptive tactics to lull policy makers and the American public into believing that core reproductive rights are not being threatened by their
individual policy initiatives. The sophisticated and disproportionately powerful anti-choice movement n5 has been alarmingly influential to the current Bush administration,
posing substantial threats to the right to choose both within our borders and overseas. Pro-choice lawmakers have tended to confront each of the
proposed infringements upon women's reproductive rights as an isolated problem, not placing it within the context of the
broader anti-choice offensive. In taking this disconnected approach, policy makers have enabled those opposing choice to
control the debate. Anti-choice lawmakers have thus focused on isolated issues with limited constituencies, again, such as initiatives targeting low-income women or
adolescents. Or they have taken measures with apparently limited direct - and therefore less visible - consequences, such as promoting fetal rights or stacking the federal
judiciary. Furthermore, pro-choice lawmakers have largely failed to make the links between the anti- [*755] choice agenda in the
United States and the U.S. foreign policy imposed upon women in the rest of the world. As one commentator put it, "George Bush ... is
gearing up to police the wombs of the world's women." n6 This Article argues that each seemingly disconnected initiative advanced by the U.S. antichoice movement must be viewed collectively as part of a unified agenda to undermine global recognition of women's
reproductive rights. The argument is premised on the observation that global respect for reproductive rights, like all human rights, can be
greatly enhanced or hindered by the policies and actions of the U.S. The Article first examines Roe in its historical, global context, considering the
extent to which the decision was influenced by the legal approach to abortion taken in other countries and discussing its contribution to the liberalization of abortion laws
that has been occurring around the world since the early 1970s. It next considers the gradual backsliding in abortion rights in U.S. domestic and foreign policy between 1973
and 2000. The Article then examines the vigorous momentum under the Bush administration toward an increasingly stringent schema of restrictions on women's access to
safe and legal abortion services in the United States and worldwide. It calls attention to the negative implications of the United States'
increasingly anti-abortion policies for women globally. Finally, the Article concludes with a call for pro-choice lawmakers to recognize the
interconnectedness of each of the anti-choice initiatives - within both domestic and foreign policy - in order to expose the broad political agenda of the far right and more
effectively fight against each initiative by placing it within this comprehensive framework.
B. Antiabortion US policies have a ripple effect, undermining access to abortion globally.
Ernst et al, 04 (Julia, Laura Katzive and Erica Smock, Lawywers – Center for Reproductive Rights, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, THE
LEGACY OF ROE: THE CONSTITUTION, REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS, AND FEMINISM: THE GLOBAL PATTERN OF U.S. INITIATIVES CURTAILING
WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: A PERSPECTIVE ON THE INCREASINGLY ANTI-CHOICE MOSAIC, “ 6 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 752, April, L/N)
Just as Roe v. Wade's positive reverberations were felt worldwide in the decades that followed
, U.S. backpedaling on reproductive choice has had negative implications around the world. The
mounting assault on women's reproductive rights in other countries through explicit U.S. foreign policy directed at undermining those rights is painfully [*787] apparent. However, all too often the polic y makers in Washington, D.C., do not make the connection between their actions and the significant impact those actions have upon the health,
well-being, and, indeed, the very lives of women living in remote areas of the globe. It is much easier for opponents of choice to convince U.S. lawmakers to impose restrictions on the reproductive rights of women in other countries than on the rights of women in the U.S. For one thing, the protections of abortion rights guaranteed to American
women under the U.S. Constitution do not apply beyond the borders of the United States. n172 Additionally, women in other cou ntries have little influence over U.S. politics. As one writer observed:
Given that abortions are legal in the United States and are required to be medically sound, why would an American president seek to deny that
standard of healthcare protection to the rest of the world? Here's why: Women in other countries can't vote in U.S. elections, but the members of the National Right to Life Committee no t only vote but also donate to candidates and political action committees. n173 U.S. policy makers can placate a conservative constituency by imposing
U.S. policy makers and the general public are also largely unaware of the
significant impact that the domestic abortion debate within the U.S. has upon the issue of abortion in other countries. Foreign
governments and nongovernmental organizations who depend upon U.S. assistance for survival have every incentive to
implement policies within their own countries that will not offend the U.S. government and jeopardize their funding. When antisevere abortion restrictions on women in other countries and, at the same time, turning a blind eye to the impact of those po licies. Moreover,
choice rhetoric surrounding domestic politics in the United States increases, it has a ripple effect upon public response to abortion in other countries. This section briefly
examines the impact that the anti-choice U.S. foreign and domestic policies have upon women's access to abortion around the world.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
19
1AC Overpopulation Adv [7/10]
C. The plan is a key signal. US court decisions on abortion shape global values.
Posner, 07 (Eric, Kirkland & Ellis Prof. Law – U. Chicago, Cato Supreme Court Review, “INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE WAR ON TERROR: Boumediene
and the Uncertain March of Judicial Cosmopolitanism”, 2007-08 Cato Sup. Ct. Rev. 23, L/N)
The more ambitious and cosmopolitan justification for use of foreign law goes farther. Consider, for example, this statement by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor:
Doing so [citing foreign sources] may not only enrich our own country's decisions; it will create that all important good impression. When U.S. courts are seen to be cognizant
of other judicial systems, our ability to act as a rule-of-law model for other nations will be enhanced. n45
[*40] The statement, taken literally, suggests a vision of
U.S. courts interpreting
the American Constitution in a manner that, at least at the margin, defers to foreign sensibilities, in return
for which foreign courts follow American jurisprudence--again, at least at the margin. On the American side, the Court would cut back on constitutional
norms that many Americans approve of--say, freedom of speech or the permissibility of the death penalty. On the foreign side, American constitutional norms would
increasingly influence foreign law--stronger abortion rights, say, or a right to bear arms. What is the justification for this approach? American judges confer
benefits on Americans--perhaps, strengthening their rights in foreign countries, or perhaps advancing their presumed political/constitutional interests in those lands--in return
for which American judges accept constraints on American constitutional norms at home. In a stronger form, perhaps it is not even necessary for American norms to travel
abroad. In the weaker form, reciprocity occurs, albeit of an odd sort. From our perspective (not theirs), foreigners benefit from the extension of American constitutional
norms to their states, while from their perspective (not ours) we benefit from the extension of their norms to our state. We want them to accept our norms; they
want us to accept theirs. All these notions are outside traditional American jurisprudence. n46 We
are used to encouraging other countries to adopt
American constitutional norms, but we have never accepted the idea that we should adopt theirs--and even less, the idea that this adoption of foreign
constitutional norms should take place at the hands of our judges.
D. The plan is modeled abroad but the CP won’t be modeled in the US.
Langbein, 95 – Chancellor Kent Prof. Law and Legal History at Yale University (John., American Journal of Comparative Law, "The
Influence of Comparative Procedure in the United States", 43 Am. J. Comp. L. 545, 549-550, Hein Online)
Mary Ann Glendon
has drawn attention to the insularity of modern American constitutional law in her book, Rights Talk.12 She contrasts the
the leading European case, Dudgeon v. United Kingdom,13 and the later U.S. Supreme Court case, Bowers v.
Hardwidk.14 Several of the six opinions in Dudgeon were steeped in comparative (including American) learning. The American case, decided
six years later, was badly reasoned and wholly ignorant of the European precedent. Glendon laments: "The six Dudgeon opinions, issued by some of the
world's leading jurists, contained ideas and information that could have focused issues, enlarged perspectives, improved the quality of
reasoning, and ultimately helped to place our Court's decision--whichever way it went--on a sounder and more persuasive footing."15 To
take another example, it has been striking to watch the United States Supreme Court wrestle with the problems of abortion as
through pregnancy were a phenomenon unique to the United States. The abortion question became legally contentious in the 1960s and 1970s on
account of medical and sociological changes that were experienced throughout the West. Elsewhere, the constitutional courts have drawn on each
other's experience.16 In the United States, the work of other constitutional systems goes unmentioned in other courts.17 An
English writer, observing these trends, has written: "With U.S. law being argued to Strasbourg institutions, and the House of Lords referring to both U.S.
and Strasbourg law, perhaps it is now the Americans who have assumed the attitude once ascribed...to the British: when told how things
are done in another country they simply say: 'How funny.'"18
handling of the privacy rights of homosexuals in
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
20
1AC Overpopulation Adv [8/10]
Abortion access is critical to reverse the environmental consequences of overpopulation. The plan solves
without using coercive population control.
Hardaway, 97 – Professor of Law at the University of Denver College of Law (Robert, Environmental Law, “Environmental
Malthusianism: Integrating Population and Environmental Policy”, 27 Envtl. L. 1209, Winter, L/N)
In 1992, representatives from the nations of the world met at the much publicized World Environmental Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Population issues were not on the agenda, and population groups were not invited. n119 Environmental groups rarely, if ever, take
policy positions on such population issues as family planning, abortion, or immigration. Why are such groups so reluctant to address the underlying causes of environmental degradation? The answer might be found in the polls. A poll revealed that four out of every five citizens
identify themselves as "environmentalists." n120 Issues such as family planning and abortion, on the other hand, are controversial and sensitive. Why jeopardize fundraising efforts by getting into a controversial area? As
long as fundraising efforts
are directed at such horrors as the brutal clubbing of baby-faced white seals, the devastation of pristine coastlines by oil spills from tankers such
as the Exxon Valdez, or the clear-cutting of non-renewable rainforests, the money keeps rolling in. But the real issues are rarely, if
ever, directly addressed by the major environmental organizations, or by such governmental agencies as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
These issues are the high demand for oil and the corresponding need to transport the oil long distances, and the high demand for wood products and shelter. Ask the
citizens of Kisii. n121 Demands on the carrying capacities and resources of the earth are increasing because the number of people
making these demands is increasing at an exponential rate. n122 The ultimate cause of environmental [*1229] degradation is not
that living standards are rising too high for the people alive today, but that the number of people who will be demanding those
living standards in the future is rising at an exponential rate. Traditional Malthusianism therefore requires a broadening of its scope in order to consider the underlying causes of environmental degradation,
and to integrate population and environmental policy. Many of these issues, such as abortion, immigration, family planning, free trade, and models of economic growth have not previously been considered in the context of traditional Malthusian theory. The remainder of this
article will address those issues briefly, and reveal how they are all relevant to a comprehensive theory of environmental Malthusianism. A. Abortion The link between the issue of population growth and abortion was recognized by Justice Blackmun writing for a U.S.
Despite this reference, however, few environmental or population
groups have reinforced this connection. Because the issue of abortion is so divisive, it is understandable that environmental groups have avoided it. Not surprisingly, anti-abortion groups vigorously deny any connection between
Supreme Court majority in Roe v. Wade when he observed that "population growth...tends to complicate...the problem [of abortion]." n123
population and abortion issues. But abortion is in fact an issue which cannot be avoided in any discussion of population and the environment. Abortion is primarily a problem in countries which do not have adequate family planning programs. In the Netherlands, for example,
contraceptives are widely available and the people are educated as to their use. As a result, the average abortion rate for women of reproductive age is 0.18, among the lowest in the world, despite the fact that abortion is legal. n124 By way of comparison, in Romania under
Ceaucescu, not only were there no family planning programs, but contraception was prohibited by law. As a result a sickening 60% of all pregnancies were aborted or miscarried, despite a Draconian ban on all abortions enforced by the secret police. n125 [*1230] In Mexico,
where the Catholic Church has great influence and birth control has been strongly resisted, one third of all women have reportedly had abortions. n126 When a modest, though fiercely resisted family planning program was instituted, the Mexican Social Security Administration
estimated that it had "prevented 360,000 abortions since family planning services began in 1972." n127 A 1987-88 survey revealed that the abortion rate among Catholics, whose church classifies abortion as a serious sin, is 30% higher than among Protestant women. n128 The
only explanation for such a result is that the Catholic Church also forbids artificial birth control. Tragically, even the historical doctrinal basis for the prohibition of abortion has been misunderstood. As early as medieval times, the great Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas had
adopted the Aristotelian notion of quickening. According to his teachings it "was clear that there was actual homicide when an ensouled embryo was killed. [It] was equally clear that ensoulment did not take place at conception." n129 In Politicorum, Aquinas stated in no
uncertain terms "seed and what is not seed is determined by sensation and movement." n130 This is pretty close to what the Supreme Court said in Roe v. Wade. n131 Indeed, until the mid-to-late-1800s, when doctors began to lobby for abortion laws in order to protect their
professional turf, the common law and the laws of most states in the United States permitted abortion before quickening. Martin Azplicueta, described as "the guide in moral questions of three popes, and the leading canonist of the 16th century," n132 stated in Consilia that
"the rule of the Penitentiary was to treat a fetus over forty days as ensouled. Hence therapeutic abortion was accepted in the case of a fetus under this age." n133 Indeed it was not until October 29, 1588 that Pope Sixtus V, apparently in a fit of pique and exasperation at the
failure of local officials to suppress the local prostitution trade, issued the bull Effraenatam, which for the first time declared abortion to be homicide regardless of the age of the fetus. n134 This bull, based apparently on the dubious assumption that an unwanted child was God's
just retribution for lust, mercifully did not stay in effect very long. Two years later Sixtus died, and his bull was reversed by Pope Gregory XIV who, noting that "the hoped for fruit had not re- [*1231] sulted," issued amendments to the bull "repealing all its penalties except
those applying to a fetus which had been ensouled." n135 Official dogma rested there until 1869, when God revealed to Pope Pius IX that Thomas Aquinas, Asplicueta, and Gregory XIX were all wrong, and abortion should again be banned for any fetus, regardless of
quickening. There followed a series of even more extreme declarations, culminating in the Humanae Vitae of 1968 which condemned not only abortion, but all forms of artificial birth control, and asserted that intercourse was acceptable only for the specific purpose of having a
Regardless of the theological basis for the condemnation of abortion, the effects of its prohibition have been tragic on
a scale of human suffering which is almost incomprehensible. The World Health Organization has documented that over
200,000 women die each year from botched illegal abortions. n137 A single hospital in Kenya has reported the admission of forty to sixty women per day who are suffering and dying from the effects of
child. n136
illegal abortions. n138 Even in countries where abortion is now legal, as in Bangladesh, the closing of a United States-funded family planning clinic resulted in a dramatic rise in abortion deaths of young women. n139 Ironically, abortion rates are highest in states which prohibit
it the most strictly. For example, countries such as Ceaucescu's Romania suffered from the highest rates of abortion despite Draconian penalties and enforcement. n140 In Romania, according to Newsweek magazine, "women under the age of forty-five were rounded up at
their workplace every one to three months and taken to clinics, where they were examined for signs of pregnancy, often in the presence of government agents - dubbed the 'menstrual police' by some Romanians. A pregnant woman who failed to 'produce' babies at the proper
time could expect to be summoned for questioning." n141 As a result of such Draconian enforcement of the ban on abortion, illegal abortions soared, and infant mortality skyrocketed to 83 in every 1000 births compared to the Western European average of less than 10 deaths
The stabilization of the world's population does not require drastic or
Draconian measures such as those instituted in India in the 1970s, or in [*1232] China today. n143 Population could be stabilized without coercive
measures if governments provided contraceptives and family planning services to every woman of child-bearing age. Even if nations could not fully achieve such a goal, stabilization might still be
per 1000 births. n142 Abortion is therefore closely related to the availability of family planning. B. Family Planning
attained if nations: 1) expanded their existing family planning programs, 2) fostered liberal policies of free trade and permitted economic growth to raise world incomes, particularly those in developing countries, so that parents would not need children solely for ensuring their
economic survival, and 3) reformed their immigration policies so that people-exporting countries would be forced to deal directly with their internal population problems within their own borders rather than simply exporting their excess humans.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
21
1AC Overpopulation Adv [9/10]
Finally, the Hyde amendment is key –
A. It forces women to have unwanted children or riskier abortion services.
Guttmacher Institute, 2k [“Rights Without Access: Revisiting Public Funding of Abortion for Poor Women” Vol. 3 No. 2
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/03/2/gr030208.html]
restrictions on
funding have considerable impact on women's reproductive decisions. In the absence of funding, a significant percentage of pregnancies that would
Other studies set out to determine the importance of Medicaid funding for abortions on pregnancy outcomes. The results show, with little exception, that
have otherwise been aborted are instead carried to term. An analysis by researchers at Princeton University's Office of Population Research and The Alan Guttmacher
Institute (AGI) of the number of abortions to Medicaid-eligible women in two states before and after the law was enforced in the late 1970s, concluded that about 20%
of the women who would have obtained an abortion had funding been available were unable to do so in the post-Hyde period
and carried their pregnancy to term
. Two more recent studies also have found considerable impact. A 1994-1995 AGI survey of abortion patients found that in states where Medicaid pays for abortions, women covered by Medicaid have an abo rtion rate 3.9 times that of women who are
not covered, while in states that do not permit Medicaid funding for abortions, Medicaid recipients are only 1.6 times as likely as nonrecipients to have abortions. In explaining this finding, the researchers state that while other factors also may be at play, "the magnitude of the difference indicates that Medicaid coverage of abortio n has an important
effect on the ability of poor women to end unwanted pregnancies." Meanwhile, a study published by the Journal of Health Economics in 1999 considered the effects of interruptions in abortion funding in North Carolina (which paid for abortion until 1995). In five instances between 1978 and 1993, the state's abortion fund was depleted before the end
women who are able to raise
the money needed for an abortion do so at a great sacrifice to themselves and their families. In 1983, AGI researchers interviewed
Medicaid-eligible patients having abortions to determine how they went about raising the money for the procedure and found that women were often forced to
divert money that would otherwise be used to pay their daily expenses. Some said they used money that should have been spent on rent, utility bills,
food and clothing for themselves and their children. Some even resorted to pawning household goods, theft or prostitution in a desperate effort to
of the fiscal year. During those times when funding was not available, the researchers found, more than one in three women (3 7%) who would have obtained an abortion if the state had paid for it instead carried the pregnancy to term. Studies also have found that
come up with the necessary cash. Little wonder that this study found that nearly 60% of Medicaid recipients said that paying for the abortion entailed serious hardship,
compared with only 26% of non-Medicaid-eligible women. Research also indicates that while many women may be able to ultimately scrape together the funds, the time
this effort takes increases the delay between the decision to have an abortion and actually having the procedure. The 1983 AGI
study found that Medicaid-eligible women wait on average 2-3 weeks longer than other women to have an abortion because of
difficulties they have in obtaining the necessary funds. The cost of an abortion, of course, increases the longer a woman waits to have the
procedure, exacerbating her difficulties. While the average cost of a first-trimester nonhospital abortion in 1997 was $316, the charge jumped to $618 at 16 weeks of gestation
and the charge more than tripled to $1,109 at 20 weeks. Such delays also can have health implications, because the risk of complications following an
induced abortion increases as the procedure is done later in gestation.
B. It has severely curtailed access to abortion and forces life threatening procedures.
Fried, 07 (Marlene Fried, professor of philosophy and director of the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program. New Politics. Brooklyn: Winter 2007. Vol. 11, Iss. 2; pg.
82. “Hyde Amendment: The Opening Wedge to Abolish Abortion”. Proquest)
Before congress cut off federal funding, Medicaid paid for almost one-third of all abortions - about 300,000 annually. After the
Hyde Amendment, the federal government paid for virtually none. The average cost of an abortion at that time was $285, forty-four dollars more than the average total monthly welfare payment
for a family of four. In Mississippi, because welfare payments are so meager, the average cost of an abortion is four times higher than the average welfare payment for a family of four. Today the average price of an abortion is $468. When adjusted for inflation, this
, it is still out of reach for thousands of women. In addition, although the abortion funds, which
NNAF distributes, offer financial assistance to as many women as possible - collectively to about 20,000 women annually the
women we are able to serve represent only a fraction of the need expressed by pre-Hyde Medicaid payments. Funding
restrictions do not appear to have led to the large scale increases in maternal mortality that abortion rights advocates had feared.
But the consequences have been devastating for poor women, who are disproportionately women of color. In 1977, Rosie Jiménez, a Latina and a single mother, became the
first woman known to have died from an illegal abortion after the passage of the Hyde Amendment. There is no way to know
how many other women have resorted to illegal abortions because of Hyde and other barriers to access. In a recent article,
"Reproductive Regression," Carol Joffe documents an increasing number of women attempting self-abortions. Many women
price has remained pretty steady since Roe v. Wade. However
cannot obtain abortions at all - an estimated 18-35 percent of Medicaid-eligible women carry to term because they cannot
afford an abortion. Other women who succeed in getting an abortion do so at great personal cost-by borrowing money, postponing bills, or forgoing
other basic necessities. Nearly 60 percent of Medicaid recipients in a study by the Guttmacher Institute said that paying for an abortion entailed serious hardship, compared with only 26 percent of non-Medicaid-eligible
. Given the obstacles they face, poor women disproportionately have later abortions that are also more costly. Cutting off
abortion funding also encourages sterilization because Medicaid has consistently paid up to 90 percent of the costs for
sterilization.
women
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
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1AC Overpopulation Adv [10/10]
The Hyde Amendment has severely limited abortion access.
Horsley, 06 (Sarah Horsley is Communications and Campaigns Director at the National Network of Abortion Funds, a teacher of political economy at Springfield
College School of Human Services, and a long-time advocate for low-income women and families. October 20, 2006, Dignity and Justice for Some?,
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/10/hyde_column2.html)
The U.S. Congress passed the Hyde Amendment in 1976, prohibiting Medicaid from paying for abortion services. The only exceptions to this federal funding
funding
restrictions have had a devastating impact on the daily lives of women and families. Women on Medicaid have very low incomes
and cannot afford to pay for their health care, including abortion, so the Hyde Amendment and state funding bans effectively
restrict their right to control their health and lives. The average cost of a first-trimester abortion in the U.S. is $468, which is more than one-third of what a
ban are in cases of rape, incest, and danger to the life of the woman. Over 30 states have also banned the use of state Medicaid funds to pay for abortion. These
poverty-level family lives on in a month (the poverty level is defined as $16,600 yearly for a family of three). With no Medicaid coverage and without other means to pay for
care, many low-income women cannot obtain abortions at all. A study of women on Medicaid in North Carolina found that one in
three women who would have had an abortion if funding had been available instead carried their pregnancies to term. Other
low-income women are forced to pay for abortion care with money they need for rent, utilities, and food for their families.
Because abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy can cost over $1,000, lower-income women often find themselves in a vicious
cycle. By the time they raise enough money for a first-trimester abortion, they may be in the beginning of the second trimester
and in need of even more money. The Hyde Amendment and state funding bans have a disproportionate impact on women of
color and on immigrant women. African Americans comprised nearly one-quarter of all Medicaid recipients in 2004, despite making up only 12% of the total U.S. population. Over two-thirds of Laotians and Hmong and nearly half of
Cambodians in the U.S. live in poverty and depend on Medicaid. Latinas similarly make up over one-fifth of Medicaid recipients, while comprising only 12.5 percent of the general population. Access is often out of reach for immigrant women, even in the seventeen states that do
offer abortion coverage. Under current law, immigrants who entered the U.S. after August 1996 are barred from receiving Medicaid benefits for five years. Like Medicaid, the federally-funded health program for Native Americans known as Indian Health Services is supposed to
cover abortion in cases of rape, incest, and when the woman’s life is in danger. However, a 2002 survey conducted by the Native American Women’s Health Education Research Center found that over 60 percent of IHS facilities provide neither abortion services nor funding
Women on Medicaid are also routinely refused
assistance in cases of rape or incest. Medicaid officials sometimes claim that they never cover abortion, either because they do
not understand that there is a rape/incest exception or because of personal opposition to the procedure. When proper information is given, the arduous
even in eligible cases. This is especially horrifying given that there is a higher incidence of rape among Native American women than any other U.S. racial or ethnic group.
paperwork that Medicaid requires of the woman, the police, and/or the doctor means that payment is never made—or does not come in time. In some cases, the reimbursement from the state is so low that clinics are simply unwilling to seek repayment at all. In a disturbing
continuation of past coercive and racist policies, IHS and Medicaid refuse to cover abortion even when legal exceptions apply, but they consistently pay most of the costs for sterilization. Funding bans also strip military service members and families of their right to full
reproductive health services. During the decade following the Hyde Amendment
, Congress severely restricted abortion coverage in virtually every federal program, denying
coverage to military personnel and their families, federal employees (including the Peace Corps), people on disability insurance,
teenagers enrolled in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, and women in the federal prison system. Women in
prison face particular obstacles because they have no opportunities to earn income and little control over their access to health
care. The Hyde Amendment and other funding bans have meant that for the last thirty years, abortion, although legal, is largely out of reach for millions of women. If you
are moved by these women’s stories, please join us in saying “Hyde – 30 Years is Enough!”
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
23
Overpopulation Now
Massive population growth now – constraining growth is vital to prevent the worst environmental impacts.
Ehrlich, 08 – Professor of Population Studies in Biology at Stanford University (Paul., Population and Development Review,
“Demography and Policy: A View from Outside the Discipline”, 34:1, March)
As was the case with Malthus and Ibn Khaldoun, many important contributions to demography have come from scholars originally trained outside of that field. Two
scholars who developed predictions of resource calamities associated with continued population growth in China were control systems engineers, Song Jian and Zhenghua
Jiang; and one of the researchers (among many demographers) leading studies of the skewed sex ratios in China resulting from the one-child family policy in combination
with parents’ continued preference for sons is my geneticist colleague Marc Feldman (Feldman et al. 2005). He has worked closely with the demographer Li Shuzhuo of
Xi’an Jiaotong University in developing the “Care for Girls” program designed to ameliorate the problem. Analyses of key global issues such as the environmental impacts
of household dynamics have been pioneered by the ecologist Jack Liu (Liu et al. 2003), and overall carrying capacity and closely related analyses of humans’ “ecological
footprint” have also been the domain of ecologists and public policy experts (Wackernagel and Rees 1996; Daily et al. 1994; Daily and Ehrlich 1996). These are topics to
which traditional demographers should have paid careful attention and made substantial contributions. Things still haven’t changed. A statement by the physicist Chris
Rapley in July 2007 led to a headline in the Guardian—”Science chief: cut birthrate to save Earth” (McKie 2007). Again it was a natural scientist, rather than a demographer,
warning about overpopulation. I suspect if he were asked about the contributions of demographers today, Hardin’s view would be even more dismissive. The reason, in
short, is that the discipline
has continued to avoid dealing with the biggest policy issues in the area of population: How many
people can Earth’s ecosystems support? How do the size of the global population, the planet’s carrying capacity under various
assumptions, and the distribution of political power interact with those issues demographers study so well, such as the impact
of women’s education on fertility, the role of local and regional population size on health, the demography of human migrations, and so on? This
unwillingness to confront the big issues has worsened in the last decade. The August 2007 issue of Africa Geographic5 from Capetown devoted
to climate change commented thus in an article titled “The Earth’s growing population: At least let’s talk about it”: The size of the human population is
inextricably interwoven with global warming, yet seldom will “population” be found on the agendas of global economic and
sustainability forums. It is a taboo subject that offends political, social and religious correctness and so it is swept under the table, making
a mockery of deliberations around notions of sustainable development. As James Lovelock [2001, p. 153] has commented: “We have grown in number
to the point where our presence is perceptibly disabling the planet like a disease.” Lovelock is not a demographer, but a physician, inventor,
and long-time Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society who created the electron capture detector that led to the discovery that humanity was threatened with disaster through
destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer. A symptom of this aversion of politicians and the media to dealing with population issues (and thus with demographers) is the
agenda of the United Nations Environment Programme. UNEP covers such vital areas as international trade in endangered species and in hazardous materials and at least
helps keep these population-related issues alive. But it is symbolic of the avoidance of demographic issues that the UNEP web site does not include population as a thematic
area. Turf wars and political correctness keep the United Nations from being an effective force in relating population size and
growth to the most critical human problems, and the same forces keep demographers out of the limelight.
All of this traces in part to
a lack of vision and public outreach in the discipline (shared across much of the social sciences) and to a misperception, rooted perhaps in the usually narrow training of
social scientists, that recent declines in birth rates have been adequate to avoid disaster, and in part to a wave of irresponsible political correctness among funders in the
foundation community. As a result, as Africa Geographic noted, the environmental repercussions of population size have largely dropped off
the radar screen to be replaced with a narrow focus on issues of reproductive rights and maternal and child health (Kantner and
Kantner 2006). Both of the latter are critical areas for concern. But demographers must keep in mind, and in the public eye, that
if the much more fundamental problems of the damage being inflicted upon humanity’s life-support systems are not solved,
those issues will become secondary. Population is the key factor in the I=PAT equation because its growth is the one driver of
environmental deterioration that requires the greatest time and care to curb humanely. One sad consequence of these failures is that
humanity, if it is fortunate to avoid great increases in mortality rates, is facing an addition to the planet in the next several
decades of more people than were alive when I was born in 1932. And those additional billions of people will have a disproportionate impact on the
systems that support human societies. People are clever: they farm the richest soils first, mine the most concentrated ores, pump the shallowest aquifers and oil pools,
exhaust the most convenient pollution sinks, and settle as close as possible to other valued resources. As the available resources become increasingly
depleted or despoiled, each person added to the planet on average contributes more to environmental deterioration than the
previous person (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 2005).
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Abortion Aff, Wave 2
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AT: Birth Rates Falling
No reversal. Population growth now
Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 06 (Anne, Policy Coordinator – Center for Conservation Biology, and Paul, Bing Prof. Population Studies in Dept. Biology – Stanford U.,
New Scientist, “Enough Already”, 9-30, L/N)
Whatever happened to the population explosion? With all this talk of the "baby gap" you might be forgiven for thinking it is
over. In fact, it is still very much happening. Although birth rates have fallen in almost every country over the past few decades, they have
not fallen equally fast or far everywhere. Most countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America have not yet reached replacement
reproduction, the level at which each generation gives birth to just enough children to ensure the next generation is no more (or less) numerous. Some are not even
close. Demographers project that by 2050 the global population will increase by 2.5 billion to 9 billion, and then continue
growing, though at a slackening rate. In the fastest-growing populations - mainly in sub-Saharan Africa and several Middle Eastern
nations - the proportion of people under the age of 15 can be as high as 45 or 50 per cent. These are the parents of tomorrow,
who quite likely will produce an even larger cohort in the next generation, even if each couple has fewer children than their parents did. It is
difficult to predict when reproduction will reach replacement levels in such countries, but it is unlikely to occur in the next few decades. Even when it does, it will take a
lifetime - 70 years or so - before growth stops. This momentum results from previous higher birth rates that produced ever larger
generations of people, who then become parents and grandparents living alongside their children and grandchildren before dying in old age.
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AT: Technology
Exponential growth can't continue forever. Stabilizing the population is vital to prevent an ecological
crash.
Cairns, 08 (John, Emeritus Prof. Env. Sci. – UVA, Asian J. Exp. Sci., “Preparing for the Post-Industrial Age”, 22:1, http://ajes.in/PDFs/081/Preparing%20for%20the%20Post-Industrial%20Age.pdf)
Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist. Economist Kenneth
Boulding This manuscript was inspired by an automobile bumper sticker that read: "Bring Ethanol to Blacksburg." I am confident that people whose bumpers had these stickers believed the sentiment was a "green" request that was good for the environment. However, as
always, one cannot do merely one thing - consequently, the purpose of this discussion is to mention other events that will happen or have already happened that may, at first, appear good for the environment. For example, Monbiot (2004) remarks that adoption of biofuels
would be a humanitarian and environmental disaster and notes: "Those who have been promoting biofuels are well-intentioned, but wrong. They are wrong because the world is finite." In 1900, the global population was 1.6-1.7 billion. In 2007, it is 6,612,087 billion, nearly
four times larger than in 1900. These people expect to be fed, but arable land is finite. Moreover, approximately 1,000 tons of water is needed to produce 1 ton of grain, and shortages of freshwater are being experienced worldwide. Crop wastes, such as wheat stubble and
cornstalks, can be turned into ethanol, but solid information on the energy needed to collect and transport the stalks and process them is lacking (e.g., McKie, 2004). In addition, Friedman (2007) calls attention to adverse effects upon the soil caused by biomass removal.
Italian pasta tastes good because it is made from durum wheat, which is now being converted to a biofuel (Willey, 2007). One of the consequences, state Italian pasta manufacturers, is that the price of pasta will rise 20% in fall 2007. Problems of scale are almost always
present, but they are extremely troublesome in the case of biofuels. Giampietro et al. (1997) focus on this issue: "Large-scale biofuel production is not an alternative to the current use of oil and is not even an advisable option to cover a significant fraction of it." Humankind is
now using huge amounts of "fossil sunlight," as well as the energy that falls daily on the planet from the sun. Society is now at or near "peak oil," after which it will experience a precipitous decline in oil availability. Duncan (2007) remarks that "the high point of industrial
civilization followed by its terminal decline will be a watershed of human history." His forecast for peak oil is 2007, and the life expectancy of an industrial civilization is about 100 years (e.g., 1930-2030). Duncan believes the terminal decline of industrial civilization will begin
circa 2008-2012. Heinberg (2005, p. 1) is more blunt: ". . . industrial civilization is based on the consumption of energy resources that are inherently limited in quantity, and that are about to become scarce." Coyle (2007) reports on a United Nations Press Release of May 9,
2007, that acknowledges that biofuels are more carbon dioxide neutral than fossil fuels but warns that land use, food supply, and water supply issues need to be taken into account when planning for biofuels production. Arga (2007) reports on the burning of Indonesian
forests to replace them with palm oil trees to produce a biofuel. These fires are a menace to citizens of Indonesia and the inhabitants of neighboring countries (e.g., Singapore and Malaysia). Indonesia has 91 million hectares of rainforest, or about 10% of the world's
Cline (2007) finds that agricultural production in
developing countries may fall by 20%, and, if global heating progresses at its current rate, India's agricultural capacity could
fall as much as 40% by the end of the century. James E. Burke (personal communication) reports a conversation with a friend who had extensive
remaining tropical forest (www.rainforestweb.org). This area is not only a treasure trove of biodiversity but a substantial store of sequestered carbon. End of Cheap Food
commodities training experience. The friend proposed that the world was running out of food - that, for the first time in decades, no surplus food is available in the
markets and that his business was searching the world for surplus commodities when, in the past, it had always operated from the excesses of the United States. His
professional opinion was that prices of food would increase substantially (3 to 5 times) in the coming years. How long is this scenario likely to continue? Of course,
accurate prediction of climate change consequences is impossible, so quality estimates must be used. Collins et al. (2007) state: "Plants, animals and
humans will be living with the consequences of climate change for at least the next thousand years." The "at least" is a shock, but not
out of the question. An important point made by Collins et al. (2007) is ..that the removal of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by natural processes on land and
in the ocean will become less efficient as the planet warms. This change leads to a higher percentage of emitted carbon dioxide remaining in the atmosphere, which then
further accelerates global warming. In the coming post peak oil era, liquid coal will almost certainly be used to partly replace petroleum. This approach would be a major
mistake since liquid coal would produce roughly twice the global heating emissions of gasoline (Opinion 2007). Comprehensive Energy Conservation Default Position
The eventual transition from a heavy dependence on fossil energy (e.g., oil and coal) to an ability to live on present solar energy will
require major alteration in human lifestyles. Even if nuclear energy is used more extensively, despite the risks, to replace fossil energy,
available energy per capita will still be less.
In the United States, addiction to profligate energy use is still strong, despite former US Vice-President Al Gore's pleas for the United States to lead the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The basic problem is simply
stated - when fossil fuels are gone, humankind must live on solar energy as it is delivered by the sun (humankind may someday devel op fusion power and/or safe disposal of nuclear wastes, but neither is available now). Plants could be used to capture sunlight, or it could be used direct ly. Patzek (2004) carries out both a traditional mass and
energy balance based on the First Law of Thermodynamics, as well as an energy-based Second Law Analysis. He lists the following inputs in corn, one of the sources of ethanol, production: • nitrogen fe rtilizers (all fossil energy) • phosphate, potash, and lime (mostly fossil energy) • herbicides and insecticides (all fo ssil energy) • fossil fuels:
diesel, gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and natural gas (NG) • electricity (almost all fossil energy) • transpor tation (all fossil energy) • corn seeds and irrigation (mostly fossil energy) • machinery, roads, silos, plants (mostly fossil energy) • labor (mostly fossil energy) In this era of droughts, reduced snow packs, and scarce freshwater,
production of a ton of grain requires approximately 1,000 tons of water. If all this effort and resources are involved in capturing solar energy with plants, why not capture it directly with solar panels or less directly with wind mill s and tides? Of course, some means of storage (e.g., hydrogen, pumped storage, or batteries) is one of the major
problems of solar and wind sources of energy since neither is constant. However, wind mills and solar panels will function in deserts and other areas not suitable for agriculture. This option would not deprive malnourished and/or starving people of food and is worth consideration despite the storage problems. One renewable source of
energy, palm oil, is responsible for much deforestation. In addition, every ton of palm oil generates 33 tons of carbon di oxide emissions - 10 times more than petroleum (Holt-Giménez, 2007). Holt-Giménez states: Strong enforceable standards based on limiting land planted for biofuels are urgently needed, as are anti trust laws powerful
enough to prevent the corporate concentration of market power in the industry. Sustainable benefits to the countryside will only accrue if biofuels are a complement to plans for sustainable rural development, not the centerpiece. Addiction to cheap, abundant energy based on a cornucopian view of the world is what keeps the biofuels
"bandwagon" going. The concept of "clean" fuel and renewable abundance promote the concept almost to cult status. However, the d etailed systems-level approach of Runge and Senauer (2007) soon puts an end to the cornucopian vision. They note that "The enor mous volume of corn required by the ethanol industry is sending shock waves
through the food system." Population Crashes
Earth's human population has been
estimated at 250 million in AD 950, 500 million in AD 1600, 1 billion in AD 1802, and 2 billion in
doubled in less than a single human lifetime.
Other species may have similar population surges if food and habitat are plentiful and predators and diseases are few.
Population crashes are also common, even for humans - for example, the Black Death is rarely discussed except in horror tales. However, at present,
post peak oil is here or coming soon and will have a major effect on Earth's carrying capacity for humans. In addition, climate
change is affecting food production; over half the human population lives in large cities; debilitating resource wars are in progress; and a post-industrial age is
AD 1928 (http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population). Only recently has the human population
probable, not just possible, but humankind remains silent about these major issues. In the United States, the city of New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast have not
recovered from Hurricane Katrina, for which preplanning and post-hurricane remedial efforts have been tragically inadequate. The three biggest threats to
human security are (1) overpopulation, (2) global heating and other types of climate change, and (3) humankind's addiction to fossil energy. Few plans
are actually in place to eliminate these concerns, so a "hard-landing" scenario is the most probable unless drastic corrective
measures are in place soon. A hard landing could reduce human population size to 1 billion or less and would also markedly
reduce the prospects for peace (Delpech, 2007). A "soft-landing" scenario is still possible, although not probable. A soft landing would require
maintaining production of foodstuffs close to present levels. Perhaps loss of human life might be kept to 1 billion or less.
Rationing of petroleum products would be essential to the realization of a soft landing. The word ration, as a national requirement, has not been commonly used in the
popular press. However, Mount (2007) reviews a book by David Kynaston on the subject and notes that the author misses the essential point: the era of rationing was a
time of both austerity and hope - but hope can be dulled by sheer exhaustion. This situation would require a successful global effort to eliminate
or markedly reduce the
three biggest threats to human survival. In short, the inhabitants (i.e., crew) of Spaceship Earth must act intelligently and
vigorously to protect its function and integrity. Earth must become a viable habitat for all of humanity.
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AT: Technology
Tech growth can't continue forever. Eventually finite resource constraints kick in.
Vanderheiden, 08 (Steve, Assistant Prof. Pol. Sci. – UC Boulder, Political Studies, “Two Conceptions of Sustainability”, 56:2, ScienceDirect)
Carrying capacity offered a powerful heuristic device for understanding the root causes of famine and the consequences of exceeding ecological limits, for the two were
portrayed as one and the same. The biological capacity of land to grow food is limited, but within those limits it can (if managed appropriately) yield a constant supply of
agricultural produce and ecological services without any diminution in that capacity. Should one attempt to extract more produce or services from the land than is sustainably
possible, carrying capacity instructs, future yields will inevitably suffer. Within a closed system for the production of food (i.e. with no import or export), a given parcel of land
can therefore support only a finite resident population, and famine predictably results when populations exceed that threshold. While some technological
innovations in agriculture may increase the productive capacity of land (and have done so, delaying the onset of neo-Malthusian predictions of
scarcity), other technologies merely increase current yields by depleting other resources (e.g. petroleum-based fertilizers or
aquifer-based irrigation) or depleting resources from other regions (e.g. reclamation-based irrigation), allowing some
temporarily to exceed their region's carrying capacity by drawing upon the 'phantom carrying capacity' made possible by
depletion of stored resources (Catton, 1980). Ecological limits are finite, carrying capacity accurately maintains, and while (contrary
to the claims of resource cornucopians like Julian Simon,3 who reject limits on gains in efficiency) technological advances can increase productive
capacity at the margins (and have done so in the past), technology's main effect over the past century has been 'to increase per capita resource
requirements, and thus aggravate the overload' (Catton, 1980, p. 36). As a conception of sustainability, carrying capacity presents itself as a kind of
immutable natural law, applicable to humans and non-humans alike, and manifesting most clearly in cases of famine.
Tech can’t solve. US leadership on population is vital to prevent environmental destruction.
Bandarage, 94
(Asoka, Teaches in Georgetown Public Policy Institute “A New and Improved Population Control Policy?”, Committee on Women, Population, and
the Environment , Political Environments #1, Spring, http://www.cwpe.org/node/71)
A joint statement issued by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London in 1992 claims that if current rates of
population growth continue, "science and technology may not be able to prevent either irreversible degradation of the
environment or continued poverty for much of the world". More than seventy leading population and environment agencies also signed a "Priority
Statement" in 1991 arguing that "there is no issue of greater concern to the world's future than the rise in human population" and that the
"the United States and all nations of the world must make issues of human population growth a priority in this decade".
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Impact Calculus
Default to larger magnitude impacts – each person you let die now means 10 people are saved in the
crunch
Ehrlich, 74 – Professor of Biology at Stanford University (Paul June 16th The New York Times)
Furthermore, there are other pernicious fallacies in the “what we as Americans can do about the world population program” game. Let’s start with a fallacy that the authors
helped to create-the idea that we might successfully pressure governments of developing countries into launching effective population control programs. In the first edition
of our book “The Population Bomb,” it was suggested that the United States try to use its food aid as a lever to get recalcitrant governments moving on population control
programs. The logic then ( as today) was impeccable. If you deluded people into thinking that either the U.S could ( or would) supply food
in perpetuity for any number of people, you were doing evil. Sooner or later, popualation growth would completely outstrip
the capacity of the United States or any other nation to supply food. For every 1,000 people saved today, perhaps 10,000
would die when the crunch came. Simply sending food to hungry nations with population explosions is analogous to a physician prescribing aspirin as a
treatment for a patient with operable cancer-in deferring something unpleasant, disaster is entrained. Yes, send some good- but insist that population control measure be
instituted. But despite the logic, no one in the U.S. Government paid the slightest heed to that suggestion ( or to related proposals by William and Paul Paddock in their 1968
book, “Famine-1975!”) , and the point is now moot, since we have no more surplus food.
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Overpopulation  Extinction
Current levels of overpopulation will cause extinction unless addressed
Jones, 03 – Division of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Australian Museum (A.R., Nov, Population goals and ecological strategies
for spaceship earth, Journal of Population Research, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PCG/is_2_20/ai_111014985/print, AG)
The last century has seen extraordinary growth in human populations and economies. This growth has imposed huge and
ever-increasing pressures on Earth's ecosystems, prompting fears concerning the integrity of their life-supporting functions
and the high rate of extinction of species. Quite simply, ecological degradation threatens the interests and possibly the survival of future
human populations. By the criterion of ecological sustainability, and given our current consumption rates and technologies,
Earth is now overpopulated. In such times of great and threatening change it is important to reconsider human goals and enabling strategies. A fundamental goal is
the sustained quality survival of human populations. Achieving this requires new paradigms of understanding and management, especially
the realization that the human economic and social spheres are dependent on healthy, functioning ecosystems, and that most forms of growth are unsustainable. Socioeconomic development must become ecologically sustainable with the maintenance of Earth's life-support systems assuming
priority. Developing integrated ecosystem management, cutting consumption, and negotiating optimum population sizes would be useful. This paper discusses these issues
with emphasis on the Australian situation. The most critical task facing humanity today is the creation of a shared vision of a sustainable
and desirable society. (Robert Costanza 2000: 1) Change is now pervasive and rapid. According to the British Prime Minister, 'the rate of economic, geopolitical,
industrial and social change is quicker than at any time in our history' (Blair 1995: 3). The one form of change Blair did not mention--ecological change--is also arguably the
most important. Omissions notwithstanding, all these changes have been driven by growth; for example, the global population has multiplied by four and
world economic production by 20 since 1900 (Meadows, Meadows and Randers 1992). This growth has caused huge degradation to
Earth's ecosystems and brought fears that their structures and life-support functions are being progressively weakened
(Lubchenko et al. 1991; Risser, Lubchenko and Levin 1991; Vitousek et al. 1997; World Resources Institute 2000). Despite attempts to play down the severity of the situation
(e.g. Lomborg 200l), it seems certain that a continuation of these damaging forms of growth will further degrade nature and this will
compromise the options and possibly even the survival of future generations (Laurance 2001). These fears have been recognized internationally
by Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, who acknowledged the 'perilous state of the Earth' and a principal cause: 'nothing could be more important than
helping the world's people control their numbers.' (UNEP 2002: xiv). Despite attempts by some countries to lessen growth, the global population is unlikely to
stabilize below about nine billion, 50 per cent greater than now (UNFPA 2001). This growth would greatly increase demands on
ecosystems as would the continued economic growth that is universally desired.
Overpopulation risks extinction – only death checks prevent the crash
Brown, 06 – Professor of physiology at West Virginia University (Paul, Notes from a Dying Planet, p. xvi)
This book is inevitably about sustainability: using resources only as fast as they can be replenished. The concept is as simple as balancing a checkbook. By
living
unsustainably, overusing our credit, we’ve caused global warming and habitat destruction for the living creatures that provide our life
support in the form of drinkable water, edible food, breathable air, and even habitable land. Our planet is going through the
worst mass extinction since the death of the dinosaurs, possibly the worst in the planet’s history. To make matters worse, we’ve crossed the
threshold of a positive feedback loop in which global warming is accelerating. It may be too late to prevent a runaway process
that only microbes will survive.
A key component of our unsustainable lifestyle is overpopulation. If it weren’t for wars,
famine, drought, and pestilence, we would have used up our planet’s resources long ago. There are now more than six billion people on this
planet. In the worst case, that number could increase to twelve billion by the middle of this century. In some underdeveloped areas of the world populations are growing
completely out of control and, as far as many are concerned, the last days of humanity are upon them right now. They are harbingers of the developed world’s fate if we don’t
do enough, soon enough.
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Overpopulation  Civilization
Overpopulation will destroy all of civilization
Ehrlich and Ehrlich 90 – Professor of Population Studies at Stanford (Paul and Anne, 1990 The Population Explosion, Simon &
Schuster, pg 180)
Even if large-scale war can be avoided, it seems likely that regional conflicts will become more frequent as disputes over land, dwindling water and energy
sources, environmental refugees, and "who's to blame" become more frequent. Whatever form it ultimately took, the Whimper would destroy civilization just
as effectively as a large-scale war. The changes in our environment seen over the last fifty years will be dwarfed by those of the next fifty, and those changes are likely to
be accompanied by an enormous rise in death rates. That's the rub. The world is ill-equipped to handle a massive escalation in death rates. The deaths of many hundreds of
millions of people in famines, for example, will present utterly unprecedented problems -- especially when the nations in which they are dying have the capability of
threatening nuclear terrorism. The richest countries, those with the technological resources to assist the rest of the world and to
develop more benign technologies, are also the nations most vulnerable to disruption from terrorism, epidemics, water
shortages, and ecological breakdown. Because these societies are highly centralized and interconnected, local disasters would tend to [180] propagate. Food
riots or epidemics leading to a breakdown of transport systems, for instance, could kill a large number of Americans who
otherwise could still buy food even at highly inflated prices. Local conflicts over floods of environmental refugees or transnational
pollution problems leading to breakdowns of international trade could add to the problems of keeping societies functioning.5
The Whimper thus could lead to a collapse of civilization just as surely as the Bang. Populations of human beings could be
greatly reduced, and national governments could be so weakened that they would be replaced by something resembling
feudalism with a strong overlay of tribalism. Large cities with ethnically mixed populations could suffer fates similar to that of Beirut, made all the more
difficult by severe shortages of food and the nearly total breakdown of centralized services. Overpopulation will destroy civilization
Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 90 – Professor of Population Studies at Stanford (Paul and, The Population Explosion, Simon & Schuster, pg 176)
The Whimper is simply
the way that civilization will end if current population/resource/environment trends continue. Such a continuation could
bring us essentially to the same sort of world as would be left after a nuclear war and a nuclear winter -- just more slowly, on a time scale
of years rather than weeks. The exact sequence of events in the Whimper is impossible to predict. If population growth continues on its current path,
both ecosystems and social systems will be subjected to greater and greater stresses of many kinds. It seems likely that hunger,
already affecting a billion or so people more or less chronically, will become acute in more places. That, in turn, will make the
epidemiological environment ever more precarious and increase both intranational and international sociopolitical tensions. People in rich
But for now, after forty years of worrying about it, the Bang seems to be getting less likely. The same can't be said about "the Whimper."
nations may be able to ignore starvation in the poorest nations for a while, but increasing hunger and disaffection among the poor within rich nations will be more difficult
for elites to overlook. Unless emissions of greenhouse gases, of chlorofluorocarbons and nitrogen oxides and other ozone-depleting gases, and the precursors of acid
precipitation are strongly curtailed, the breakdown of both natural and agricultural ecosystems will accelerate. Agricultural systems, under current practices, will continue to
deteriorate anyway from massive erosion, faulty irrigation, and depletion of groundwater supplies. Most likely, some crucial system that we don't
understand in detail, such as the global climate system, holds the key to the overall downhill slide. If, by some miracle, the climatic system
returned to the relatively stable, favorable conditions of 1930-70, it might take three decades or more for the food-production system to come apart unless its repair became a
top priority of all humanity
. If, on the other hand, recent climatic events were not part of "normal variability," but rather were caused
by atmospheric warming, we will be plagued by very difficult problems in this decade or the next.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
30
Overpopulation  Famine
Overpopulation causes famines that affect at least 850 million
Ketover, 94 – Law clerk @ advocacy center for persons with disabilities (Anne, 7 Tul. Envtil. L. J., 1994, 431)
Simply put, each
person has minimum food requirements, and consequently, as population increases, so does the total amount of
food needed. n39 Growing population pressure is changing patterns of land use necessary for food production. n40 In order to
accommodate the growing population's demand for food, farmers in many [*439] developing countries are forced to cultivate land that is hilly, rocky, or dry, or areas with
weak soils. n41 Overgrazing, deforestation, inefficient farming practices, urbanization, pollution, as well as rapid population growth,
contribute to the deterioration of soil. n42 These factors have damaged more than one-tenth of the earth's fertile soil since 1945,
threatening the world's food supply. n43 According to a recent report, production of meat, fish and grains per person has declined to a point where the earth's
carrying capacity may have been reached, and nearly one in five people is malnourished. n44 Desertification presently threatens one third of the Earth's land surface. n45 This
threat affects at least 850 million people. n46 Without major conservation efforts, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that
by the end of the next century, developing countries may experience a thirty percent fall in agricultural production, whereas their populations may increase four to six times.
n47 Even if increases in human numbers is not the main cause of hunger and malnutrition, rapid growth exacerbates environmental problems and poverty that prevent many
from buying and growing an adequate supply of food. n48 Lester Brown, president of Worldwatch states, "'The bottom line is that the world's farmers [*440] can
no longer be counted on to feed the projected additions to our numbers." n49
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
31
Overpopulation  Environment
Population growth kills forests and biodiversity hotspots, which regulate global climate
Ketover, 94 – Law clerk @ advocacy center for persons with disabilities (Anne, 7 Tul. Envtil. L. J., 1994, 431)
n50 Tropical forests are disappearing by approximately 15.4 million hectares
per year. n51 Deforestation is a result of population growth. n52 Growing numbers of persons who need fuel for heating and
cooking lead to increased pressure on forest land. n53 Increased slash-and-burn practices and intensive shifting cultivation are also indirect results of
population pressures. n54 Although shifting cultivation is sustainable if the forest is left to regrow over ten to twenty years, increases
in population densities force people to return to the same area of land more often, which does not allow the forest enough
time to regenerate. n55Forests are essential for many ecological functions: retaining soil and absorbing water; helping to
prevent floods, landslides, and erosion; regulating world climate; providing ingredients for [*441] commercial and industrial products; and housing
plant and animal species. n56 Losing forests may lead to serious consequences. C. Biodiversity As forests disappear, so do homes for
various plant and animal species. n57 The fauna and flora are genetic resources "of inestimable value to human welfare." n58 It is
Between 1971 and 1986, forests decreased by 125 million hectares.
thought that the majority n59 of undiscovered species of plants and animals n60 reside in tropical moist forests that encompass only about seven percent of the Earth's
surface. n61 A recent ecological study suggests that much of the loss of unique plants and animals is occurring in eighteen "hot
spots" of biological diversity: fourteen tropical forests and four Mediterranean-type zones. n62 Increasing development from
human populations are mainly to blame. n63 Further, the loss of biodiversity can strain the world's ability to feed growing numbers
of people. n64 It is estimated that there are 80,000 species of edible plants. While only 200 have been cultivated, only twelve are currently important staples. n65
Population growth kills ocean biodiversity and ecosystems, causes global climate change
Ketover, 94 – Law clerk @ advocacy center for persons with disabilities (Anne, 7 Tul. Envtil. L. J., 1994, 431)
Population pressures produce several dangers for the earth's oceans. Growing
populations on or near the coasts n77 increase the demand for
food, resulting in overfishing. n78 Coastal development is another damaging result. This development is reducing the oceans'
productive capacity n79 and damaging natural ecosystems. n80Coastal settlements wreak environmental havoc: "[S]ewages discharged into upland rivers,
sediment from tree cutting, and fertilizer and pesticide run off eventually reach the oceans." n81 Apart from providing food, oceans serve other
important functions: regulation of climate; protection against extreme temperature fluctuations; absorption of carbon dioxide;
and housing for a great number of animal species that inhabit coral reefs. n82 The pollution that results from increases in population detrimentally affects all of these
functions. As population grows, the problems will likely worsen. n83
Population growth causes poverty and environmental degradation
Ketover, 94 – Law clerk @ advocacy center for persons with disabilities (Anne, 7 Tul. Envtil. L. J., 1994, 431)
Over one billion people, approximately one-fifth of the world's population, live in poverty. n95 Poverty, population growth, and
environmental degradation are "mutually reinforcing phenomena." n96 Economic struggles often force those in poverty to "destroy their
surroundings by cutting down trees, overworking the soil, overgrazing rangelands, and overfishing." n97 Further, attempts by
developing countries to escape poverty also damage the environment. Efforts to raise foreign currency often lead to an
exploitation of timber and cash crops. n98
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
32
Overpopulation  Water Scarcity
Population growth leads to freshwater shortages and kills biodiversity in water systems
Ketover, 94 – Law clerk @ advocacy center for persons with disabilities (Anne, 7 Tul. Envtil. L. J., 1994, 431)
D. Freshwater "Less
than [one percent] of the earth's water is available for human consumption." n66 Indirect consequences of
population growth, [*442] such as deforestation and poor land and water management, adversely affect water resources. n67 For
example, deforested land, because it retains less moisture, leads to erosion and downstream flooding. n68 There is also a direct connection between
population growth and the amount of water available per capita. n69 At least twice this century water consumption has doubled
as a result of population growth and inefficient use of water resources. n70 Water consumption could double again within the next
two decades. n71 It is currently estimated that eighty countries with forty percent of the world's population experience water shortages at some time during every year. n72
Water quality is also an issue. The more people, the greater the need for sanitation. As of 1990, 1.7 billion people worldwide had no access to sanitary
waste facilities. n73 Fecal wastes cause oxygen depletion in water killing fish, plants, and other animals. n74 Moreover, increasing demand
for food and goods leads to increased industrial and agricultural waste, which is often discharged into rivers, lakes, or aquifers. n75 By the end of this decade, if
water pollution continues at current rates, nearly one-quarter of the earth's supply of freshwater could be unsafe for human
consumption. n76
Population growth causes massive systemic death from unclean water and lack of medicine
Ketover, 94 – Law clerk @ advocacy center for persons with disabilities (Anne, 7 Tul. Envtil. L. J., 1994, 431)
The United Nations estimates that 10 to 25 million people die each year as a result of diseases caused or aggravated by
polluted drinking water. n100 Efforts to feed growing numbers of people result [*446] in expanded agriculture, posing risks to
worldwide health. For example, land irrigation is siphoning off safe drinking water. n101 Expanded agriculture is a major cause of
deforestation. Deforestation adversely affects world health by forcing traditional healers to travel farther in order to retrieve
medicinal plants. n102 The destruction of biodiversity also may destroy many species that have possible medicinal benefits. A
representative from the United Nations noted, "'A cure for AIDS may have already been thrown out.'"
n103
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
33
SCOTUS Modeled
The US has global legal influence. Our constitution and ideology shaps the global value structure and
legal reasoning
MacDonald, 92 (Robert, Prof. Int’l Law – Dalhousie U., Vice Chairman – Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Judge – European Court of
European Rights, American Journal of International Law, “BOOK REVIEW: Constitutionalism and Rights. The Influence of the United States Constitution Abroad. Edited
by Louis Henkin and Albert J. Rosenthal”, January, 86 A.J.I.L. 192, L/N)
The influence of U.S. constitutionalism. As the title of this volume suggests, the concept of "influence" is an important theme. How do American constitutional ideas and
values achieve influence? How is influence to be measured? What are the dynamics and politics of influence? On this, the contributors are unanimous: that the
U.S. Constitution has had profound influence around the world. Most identify the durability of the Constitution, the success of its institutions and its
two centuries of interpretation and development as important factors that have allowed it to serve as a model for other states. Yet, as noted by Henkin in his introduction and
Rosenthal in his afterword, these broad categories only begin to address the multiplicity of its influences. Influence can be traced through direct and
indirect means, from outright adoption of constitutional provisions, to adaptation of principles from other instruments
(themselves influenced by the U.S. Constitution), to the adoption by foreign judges of the ideas, decisions and approaches of the U.S.
Supreme Court in general, and of certain of its famous judges in particular. For example, the German Federal Constitutional Court, the European Court and the
European Commission of Human Rights have all cited decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Influence is also exercised as a result of the training
annually of hundreds of foreign students in the great law schools of the United States, a point I would have thought important but to which the two editors, both senior
academicians, draw surprisingly little attention. At what stage does this widespread influence and, more importantly, the willingness to be influenced, become in itself a form of universalization of principles of fundamental human rights that can truly be shared by all and that all
governments will have the duty to protect? The influence of ideas of any kind can be difficult to measure; the influence of constitutional ideas is no exception. To begin at one end of the problem, the ideals of the Enlightenment, nurtured in the rich philosophic soil of Europe,
greatly influenced the drafters of the U.S. Constitution. In this connection, Professor Louis Favoreu (Constitutional Review in Europe) makes the point quite firmly that, while the United States was the first country to draft a modern written constitution and to articulate a bill of
rights, the Framers were greatly indebted to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European thinkers. Professor Thomas Fleiner-Gerster (Federalism, Decentralization, and Rights) traces this intellectual debt even farther back: to the possible influence of republican forms of
government in ancient Greece and Rome. Wiktor Osiatynski (Constitutionalism and Rights in the History of Poland) believes that the "idea of personal liberties and freedoms emerged in Poland long before the first settlers arrived in America" (p. 284). Admittedly, the debate
over the ancestry of so-called American constitutional values may seem like quibbling in light of the more important question of their present impact on constitutionalism around the world. Yet it does raise important questions about the dynamics of constitutional influence.
Clearly, no person or nation has a monopoly on ideas. It is probably only at the precise point at which constitutional ideas and values are received into a country from outside that one can speak of a direct, one-way influence. The fact is that the very incorporation of these values
into the receiving society usually alters them. Local customs, culture and interpretations add new layers of meaning to imported values. Although international human rights norms can also be said to have been "influenced" by the American Bill of Rights, its ongoing influence
must not be overrated. Since 1948, the nations of the world, whether East or West, rich or poor, have influenced international human rights documents through their respective interpretations of principles of human rights. Henkin (Constitutionalism and Human Rights) makes
the point that these international norms in turn influence all nations, including, to some extent, the United States itself. However, he notes openly and ironically that this influence is resisted: "To some extent there is an unwillingness by Americans to admit such influence: that we
should be governed by ideas from foreign [*197] sources is not congenial to us" (p. 392). Nevertheless, there is some reciprocity, sluggish though it may be, and Rosenthal, though he provides few concrete examples, suggests that "the return flow may lead to further democracy
and enhancement of individual rights in the United States" (p. 403). Just as it would be difficult to assess all kinds and degrees of influence behind the formation of the American Constitution, so would it appear impossible to measure the influence that it, in its turn, has had on
American influences are likely to be combined with those from other sources. For example, Professor Claudio Grossman
constitutional ideas have had influence
in Latin America, "they have often been modified by European ideologies and practices and reshaped by local forces" (p. 177). In former colonies,
other constitutions around the world.
(States of Emergency: Latin America and the United States) makes the obvious, but important, point that, while U.S.
constitutionalism is often a blend of European governmental structures, American-style rights, and local values and customs.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
34
SCOTUS Modeled
Rights restrictions are modeled. Segregation proves.
MacDonald, 92 (Robert, Prof. Int’l Law – Dalhousie U., Vice Chairman – Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Judge – European Court of
European Rights, American Journal of International Law, “BOOK REVIEW: Constitutionalism and Rights. The Influence of the United States Constitution Abroad. Edited
by Louis Henkin and Albert J. Rosenthal”, January, 86 A.J.I.L. 192, L/N)
One of the most disturbing examples of influence presented in this volume is that described by John Dugard (Toward Racial Justice in South Africa). According
to
Dugard, the racial segregation and discrimination tolerated in the United States until the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education
served to bolster South African justifications of apartheid in the 1940s and 1950s. South African politicians and public figures
"repeatedly justified the country's racial policies by references to American law and its accepted constitutional legitimacy" (p.
367). Further, Dugard cites American legislation restricting freedom of political expression during the Cold War as having had an
impact on similar restrictive legislation in South Africa. Examples of what Dugard calls "harmful influence" serve as a
powerful reminder that constitutional values are interpreted by actions and not by mere words. It is, in fact, through its actual
results that the main influence of American constitutionalism is felt. The American Revolution was an action that made the idea of selfdetermination possible. The enactment of a constitutional bill of rights turned the idea of rights antecedent to government and beyond the reach of the legislature into a
fundamental principle. Judicial review, by interpreting and upholding those fundamental rights, made it possible for them to achieve the three
dimensions of reality. The realization that fundamental rights can in fact exist and be effectively protected represents
-- and glories -- of
the American Constitution.
perhaps one of the greatest influences
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
35
Plan Solves Overpopulation
Family planning and reproductive rights curb fertility rates – empirically proven
Haub 07
(Carl, Carl Haub holds the Conrad Taeuber Chair of Population Information,
Population Reference Bureau, “Defusing the Population Bomb”,
http://www.peopleandplanet.net/doc.php?id=2913)
But countries did begin to at least recognize that a demographic phenomenon was taking place within their borders and some
began to address the often-delicate issue of family planning. India was the first, announcing the beginning of what was to an
effective and, at times, series of population policies and activities in 1952. In the 1960s, women in developing countries were
averaging six children each. Today, that figure has been halved. The astonishing speed with which this occurred is often lost in discussions today.
Many developing countries achieved in mere decades what had previously taken the developed countries centuries. And, much of
the fertility decline has been achieved in poor, rural areas although the story is somewhat different from place to place. Why is fertility important? The future trend in
the birth rate is the single most important determinant of future population size even with the global impact of HIV/AIDS.
Global population projections that we all use, such as those of the United Nations Population Division, assume that, not only will fertility decline everywhere, but that it will
decline to below two children per woman in the developing countries. Thus, when we quote the UN to say that “world population will rise to 9.1 billion” in 2050, we should
at least be aware of the hundreds of assumptions that must come true to realise that figure. Future fertility trends will play the key role. Currently, the regional
situation and prospects for further decline is as follows: Africa Africa may rightly be considered the last to join the contemporary transition to lower birth rates. While there
has been some decline, from a total fertility rate (TFR)* of 6.9 in the 1960s to about 5.1 at present, most of that has been in the continent’s extreme north and south. Much of
the reason for the slow decline may be traced to comparatively weak national population policies in many countries but also to a clearly persistent desire throughout Africa for
larger families. In Burkina Faso, for example, women stated that their ideal number of children was 5.6 in a 2003 Demographic and Health Survey while men gave 6.3. Even
the younger generation said that their ideal number was 4.9 and 5.6, respectively. One disturbing trend that has been noted in a number of surveys is a trend to a “slowdown”
in fertility decline in countries which had previously been somewhat successful such as Cameroon, Ghana, and Kenya. Asia In Asia, fertility has, on the one hand, declined to
the lowest of the developing regions but it is also the region with the widest variation in levels, from an astoundingly low 1.1 children per woman in South Korea and Taiwan
(both considered “NICS,” or newly-industrialized countries) to values as high as 6.8 in Afghanistan to 6.2 in Yemen. Currently, Asia’s TFR stands at 2.4 children per woman,
although it is 2.8 when the effect of China’s very low fertility, driven by its “one child” policy is removed. Generally, fertility tends to decline as one moves
from west to east in Asia, from the Middle East to the Pacific. In the eastern sector, economies are somewhat more advanced
and family planning programmes have been well administered, such as in Indonesia and Thailand. A major question mark is India, whose
TFR at slightly below three children per woman masks wide variation within the country. Higher fertility in northern states, states which happen to have large populations and
high levels of illiteracy, may cause much higher population growth than is generally expected, particularly if fertility decline in those states is slower than it was in the bettereducated south. Latin America/Caribbean Overall, the TFR in this region, 2.5, is close to that of Asia but there is also less variation across countries. Only two countries have
TFRs above four children per woman, Guatemala and Haiti. In the region’s largest country, Brazil, the TFR is now about 2.3, a low rate that can be attributed to considerable
economic development and urbanisation. In Latin America, fertility decline has one difference, the apparent resistance of the TFR to decline to two children or less as it did
in a number of Asian countries. Thus, a country such as Argentina, which has had quite low fertility for decades, has never had a TFR actually approach the replacement level
of 2.1. This is sometimes referred to as the “Latin American exception.” Industrialised countries As fertility decreased in the developing world, a parallel decrease has taken
place among the industrialised countries, albeit with very surprising consequences. No one anticipated TFR’s as low as 1.2 or 1.3 and the population decline and ageing that
accompany such low fertility. While such low fertility was at first more prevalent in Northern and Western Europe, the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 resulted in steep
fertility declines in both its former republics and its eastern European satellites. As a result, some of the lowest fertility is to be found in those countries. Europe is not alone
in this situation, as Japan, Canada, and other East Asian countries have joined them. One exception to this low fertility pattern is the United States, whose TFR of 2.0 is partly
due to the higher fertility of immigrants, but also to that of the traditional majority population, white non-Hispanics, whose fertility is only slightly less than the national
average. Today, European countries and others, such as Japan and South Korea, are addressing their low fertility as a national crisis and are introducing measures to ease the
burden of childbearing on couples in contemporary, two-earner societies. Uncertain future Global fertility patterns have changed remarkably in the past 40 years and have
been full of surprises. Doubtless, the future will provide its own twists and turns and the size of future world population hangs in the
balance. Much will depend upon the political will to persevere with the agenda agreed by the world's governments in Cairo 12
years ago to extend reproductive health and family planning services and to educate girls and promote opportunities for them.
In a world threatened by climate change, spreading deserts and water shortages, the quicker population stabilises the better.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
36
Plan Solves Overpopulation
Abortion access is the most effective means of population control. Empirical evidence Proves
Fisher, 70 (Barbara, LL.B. NYU School of Law, Clerkship – US District Court Southern District of New York, Staff Attorney – N.Y. Legal Aid Society, Women
Lawyers Journal, "The Case for Abortion: A Plea for Unrestrictive Laws", 56 Women Law. J. 95, Hein Online)
The enactment of the nation's most liberal abortion law in New York this spring, the passage of similar laws in Alaska over a gubernatorial veto, and in Hawaii should be
celebrated as the first national recognition that abortion decisions must be made medically rather than theologically or legally. In addition, when Dr. Roger O. Egeberg,
Assistant Secretary of Health and Scientific Affairs and the nation's ranking health officer, recently urged the American Medical Association Congress on Environmental
Health to create guidelines on abortion and voluntary sterilization for population control, he reinforced the need for a national policy of liberalized abortion. Among the
many reasons unlimited abortion has gained increasing support is the ecological race against overpopulation. Plato and
Aristotle advocated unrestricted abortion to control population and thereby maintain an economically healthy society. Restrictive
abortion laws were not enacted in this country until the early 1900's. They recognized in an age before anesthesia and antiseptic techniques that abortion was a dangerous
medical procedure, more likely to cause death or injury than childbirth. Experience in other countries attests to the effectiveness of unlimited
abortion as a technique for population control. For example, Japan's population growth has been reduced to less than 1% with
its use. Romania's birth rate, which had been the second lowest in Europe at 13.7% per 1000, rose to 38.4% per 1000 when
restrictive statutes replaced the unlimited abortion laws. Hungary, with the lowest birth rate in the world of 13% per 1000, has
an unlimited abortion policy.
Abortion access is vital to reduce population growth.
Alcorn, 09 (Randy, “Abortion is pro-life”, Daily Sound, http://www.thedailysound.com/randyalcorn/060909rot)
Thousands of infants and children die each year from starvation and disease. If
it is murder to abort a fetus, is it murder to give birth to a child who
must surely starve to death? This is not pro-life. The argument that a reallocation of world resources will solve this Malthusian nightmare is ultimately based
on an expectation of the miraculous—both economic and ecological. The problem is demand, not supply. The world is simply running out of the basic
finite resources, water, arable land, and sea life, needed to create food. The solution, therefore, is not going to come from
increasing supply; it must come from reducing demand, which means reducing population, which, in turn, means effectively
controlling birth rates. Abortion is one effective method to do that, but just one. The number of abortions can be reduced by availing women of
birth control methods, devices, and pharmaceuticals that can prevent conception, but when public policy is polluted with theological moralities, as it was under the Bush
Presidency, these birth control alternatives can be denied the world’s women who need them the most. This moral arrogance only results in more death by abortion,
starvation, and disease. This is not pro-life. Abortion is pro choice, and, until human population is reduced to a sustainable level, it is also
pro-life.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
37
Equal Protection Key
Equal protection demands protection of abortion rights. The court should use equal protection to create
abortion access.
Allen, 95 – Professor of Law and Public Policy (Anita, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, “The Proposed Equal Protection Fix for Abortion
Law: Reflections on Citizenship, Gender, and the Constitution,” Harvard Journal Of Law & Public Policy, Ebsco)
A general principle of formal equality--a principle that just institutions treat like cases alike--is arguably the core meaning of the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.[34] Blacks and whites should be treated alike because they share a common humanity; similarly, men and
women should be treated alike, because they, too, share a common humanity. Of course, neither the races nor the sexes are alike in every regard.
Respect for the principle of formal equality presumably squares with disparate treatment of men and women to the extent of relevant gender-specific biological differences.
It has proven impossible to demonstrate that gender-specific differences are relevant to each and every social, political and economic disadvantage imposed on women. The
irrelevance of gender differences to competence to practice law[35] and serve on juries[36] seems clear enough today, but other supposed areas of incompetence and
unsuitability remain. Women need the protection the Supreme Court has accorded them under the Equal Protection Clause. They
need heightened judicial scrutiny of government classification on the basis of gender,[37] and preferential affirmative action in education and
employment.[38] Needless to say, others would sharply disagree with these conclusions. The Supreme Court's gender equality jurisprudence is controversial. Some critics
blast the Court for policy-making at odds with ideals of the responsible nuclear family. Other critics accuse the Court of falling short of equally protecting the
interests of poor women and women belonging to minority groups. Indeed, the
Court does not require government welfare programs to subsidize
elective abortions for poor women. Moreover, current equal protection standards applicable to employment classify discrimination as either race-based or
gender-based, implying female gender and minority race are mutually exclusive traits incapable of compounding injury.[39] Contemporary feminist legal theorists generally
concur that constitutional doctrine imperfectly serves women and merits revision. We live in an age where it can seem doubtful that our society still
needs the messages of legal feminism. Recent television advertisements, in which women stand on a corner comparing the size of a man's car to his penis and
gather at their office windows to ogle a muscular construction worker, imply that young women are no different than their male counterparts. The careers of Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Madonna imply that women can be as smart, enterprising and raunchy as men. Although the lives of many individuals and many cultural
phenomena reflect changing roles for women, supporters of thoroughgoing gender equality should not take them as evidence of adequate movement toward gender equality.
What appears on the surface to be gender inequality may sometimes reflect the voluntary preferences of men for traditional men's roles and women for traditional women's
roles. But women doing the same work as men or similar work, rarely "prefer" lower wages and inadequate pregnancy benefits. Women seeking lives outside the home rarely
"prefer" discriminatory barriers to their success. The inequality of the sexes visible in employment, business, politics, fine arts, science, and higher education is visible
elsewhere. Gender inequality is particularly visible in social practices relating to families and in legal debates over regulating
human reproduction.
For several decades abortion policy has been a focus of legal debates over regulating human reproduction.[40] The right to privacy dominates
discussions of constitutional abortion law, but connections between abortion rights and ideals of gender equality have not gone unnoticed. Though shared to an extent by
men, the burdens of sexuality, pregnancy, and child-rearing are overwhelmingly women's burdens. Laws restricting access to abortion make it more
difficult for women to avoid these burdens. Women's legally enforced disadvantages suggest "second class" citizenship and
unequal protection of law. Accordingly, permissive abortion laws would seem to be required by the Equal Protection Clause.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
38
Equal Protection Key
The Court should strike the Hyde Amendment to ensure equal protection for ALL women – only they can
change suspect class and scrutiny standards
Kay 94 (Julie F. 60, Brooklyn Law Review, Brooklyn L. Rev. 349, “IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT: AN EQUAL PROTECTION MODEL FOR FEDERAL
FUNDING OF ABORTION UNDER A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN”, Lexis)
Part I of this Note examines the practical effects of the
Hyde Amendment's denial of abortion funding, with an emphasis on how it endangers women's
lives, restricts reproductive health care choices for low-income women, and disproportionately harms women from minority
groups. This Note argues that restrictions on access to abortion, such as funding bans, force women to delay securing abortion
services, thereby endangering their physical and mental health, and increasing the cost and hardship of abortion. Furthermore, this
Note argues that when low-income women are denied abortion funding, the constitutional right to choose abortion becomes mere
rhetoric. Part II of this Note proposes an alternative interpretation of the equal protection doctrine and applies it to an analysis
of abortion funding restrictions. The analysis emphasizes that the level of scrutiny that the Court has employed to decide whether
legislation violates reproductive rights is inadequate. The government's goal of protecting the non-viable fetus without regard
to a woman's well-being should not satisfy any equal protection standard. Therefore, Part II concludes that federal funding of abortion services
is required under a modified equal protection analysis. [*352] Specifically, the revised form of the equal protection guarantees proposed in this
Note would require the use of the highest level of scrutiny when considering legislation that affects women as a class. This analysis
also de-emphasizes a showing of purposeful discrimination, instead focusing on the discriminatory effects of the challenged legislation. Using this analysis, the Court would
give greater weight to the discriminatory impact of legislation that on its face does not explicitly classify people by gender. The result would be that if a statute
considered facially neutral by the Court--such as the Hyde Amendment--is shown to affect women as a class and does not
serve a compelling state interest, it would be struck as violative of equal protection guarantees. This analysis, based on the
practical effects of denying abortion funding, would expand equal protection rights for all women.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
39
Equal Protection Key
The Hyde Amendment should be evaluated under a revised and expanded form of equal protection
analysis because it targets all women as a group
Kay, 94 (Julie F. 60, Brooklyn Law Review, Brooklyn L. Rev. 349, “IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT: AN EQUAL PROTECTION MODEL FOR FEDERAL
FUNDING OF ABORTION UNDER A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN”, Lexis)
Under a traditional equal protection model, a challenge to the ban on federal funding of abortion faces two doctrinal obstacles.
These obstacles are a result of earlier Supreme Court decisions that tolerated sex discrimination. First, as discussed earlier, the Court has
rejected the notion that pregnancy is a sex-based characteristic; n124 and, second, the required showing of a discriminatory
legislative intent is extremely difficult to surmount. n125 [*381] Equal protection standards should concentrate on the situation
of those who are discriminated against, rather than reviewing the intentions of the discriminator. A more practical purposeful
requirement would focus on the impact of the legislation at issue, not on congressional intent. A revised analysis simply would ask whether the state's
interest in protecting the fetus is being promoted in a manner that directly harms the welfare of women as a class. The court could therefore "examine what the state is doing
to women, and not simply why it does it." n126 Currently, the Court refuses to acknowledge that legislation restricting access to abortion affects women as a class, and
therefore is not facially neutral and not subject to a showing of purposefulness. Consequently, the requirement that a purposeful intent to discriminate must be shown for a
"facially neutral" statute should be revised to reflect the reality of the subtle sexism in the law. The characteristics of abortion legislation demonstrate the
need and opportunity for a revised form of equal protection analysis. The Hyde Amendment on its face applies only to that
group of individuals who can become pregnant: women. n127 To illustrate this point, suppose that the legislature declared that anyone
who developed testicular cancer would not be covered by Medicaid for particular treatments--those disapproved by the legislature. The denial of
cancer treatment funding would not immediately impact all men, only those with cancer, or with the possibility of developing cancer. Certainly some men could minimize
their chances of developing cancer through a healthy lifestyle and good luck. But since there is no totally reliable method for either staying healthy enough to avoid cancer or
wealthy enough to avoid the need for Medicaid funding, this legislation would impact all men as a group. Therefore, this legislation would not be gender
neutral on its face. [*382] The biological reality is that, for obvious reasons, only
men can develop cancer of the testes. Similarly, only women can
become pregnant. Even if the Court insists that the fact that only women become pregnant is insufficient to declare legislation facially discriminatory, the Court cannot
deny that in practice such legislation primarily affects women. Without elaborate statistical surveying, it is obvious that 100% of the people directly affected by the Hyde
Amendment will be women because only women have abortions. Although men may be affected secondarily by the Hyde Amendment's denial of abortion
funding, this legislation is targeted solely at pregnant women.
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AT: Congress – Must Read
Congress fails. Congressional language fails to shape public values in a way that conceptualizes abortion
as a fundamental women’s right.
McDonagh, 96 – Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Visiting Scholar in the Department
of Government at Radcliffe College (Eileen, “Breaking the Abortion Deadlock: From Choice to Consent”, p. 164-169)
The Court, the president, and Congress can all be thought of as key institutional actors in the determination of public policy.64 When
fearful that the Court
might overrule Roe and when frustrated with the failure of the Court to rule that women have the right to abortion funding,
many people turned to Congress as an alternate route for securing women's reproductive rights. In 1989 after the Webster decision, for example, in
which the Court had ruled that it was constitutional for a state to deny the use of public funds, facilities, and personnel for an abortion, people feared that this was merely the prelude to overturning Roe itself.65 In response, feminist
proponents of abortion rights stepped up their efforts to pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) in Congress, which would give women a legislative right to an abortion in case the Court overruled the constitutional right.
Representative Les AuCoin (Ore., D) cosponsored the Reproductive Rights bill (H.R. 3700 and S. 1912), which provided that a "state may not restrict the right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy before fetal viability or
Yet Congress can never be an alternative path as long as the same cultural
attitudes and assumptions that underlie the Supreme Court reasoning on abortion underpin the congressional analysis as well.
Unfortunately, there is little reason to expect improvements over the Court's decrees, because Congress in its formulation of
abortion rights uses exactly the same limited metaphors for pregnancy. As a result, the legislative branch merely perpetuates ,
rather than corrects, the flaws inherent in the representation by the Court of the right to an abortion and abortion funding. What
at any time, if such termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman."66
is missing from the congressional debate on the abortion issue is exactly what has been missing from the judicial debate: an understanding of the cause of pregnancy. Congress and the Court focus inordinate attention on what the
fetus is, thereby failing to analyze what the fetus does to a woman when it makes her pregnant without her consent. Failure to recognize that the fetus causes pregnancy hides a woman's right to consent to pregnancy. As a
consequence, debate focuses on a woman's right to choose an abortion without interference from the state, which misdirects attention from women's primary right to equal protection of the laws. To the degree that laws are
Congress and the Court reflect a culture that has been slow to accord equal rights to
women, and then only at minimum levels. For this reason, both institutions perpetuate and reinforce , rather than challenge and reframe, prevailing
cultural assumptions that women's primary identity is to be of service to others. With premises such as these so firmly entrenched, those advancing women's rights
interpreted to protect the fetus, so must they be interpreted to restrict the fetus. The problem is that both
within the institutional settings of both Congress and the Court identify a woman's right to refuse to sacrifice herself as the maximum possible way to conceptualize her autonomy and reproductive freedom. Yet when a fetus causes
wrongful pregnancy, it makes a woman a captive samaritan by imposing pregnancy without her consent. The key issue no longer is merely a woman's right to refuse to give her body to the fetus but also her even more primary right
not to have her body and liberty taken by the fetus in the first place. It is the woman's status as a captive samaritan, not merely her right to be a bad samaritan, that must inform our cultural understanding of abortion rights and our
institutional formulation of those rights in laws passed by legislatures and adjudicated by courts. The power of cultural norms to set the parameters for institutional reasoning and override apparent differences is nowhere more
The Supreme Court is regarded as being insulated from public opinion, interpreting the Constitution free
from the political pressures and social activism of the moment, whereas Congress is designed to represent public opinion, its
institutional norms celebrating responsiveness to constituency pressure and political processes. Yet despite such institutional contrasts, both converge in
evident than in the abortion debate.
their depictions of pregnancy and both reach the same conclusions about abortion rights. This commonality comes into focus in Congress and the Court's use of metaphorical depictions of pregnancy. Congressional Metaphors
Four years before the Roe decision, as abortion was being hotly debated in the Ninety-first Congress, Rep. John R. Rarick (La., D.) prophesied that to discuss this issue would be to open a "pandora's box."67 The contents of the box
actually opened by the legislative process reveal the same faulty definitions of pregnancy as those that structure the judicial branch's treatment of abortion rights, namely, pregnancy defined variously as carrying a fetus, the
Congressional debate
has long fastened on the Court's view of pregnant women as vessels who carry a fetus, sometimes depicted as a baby. As Rep. John
development of a fetus, the outcome of sex, a burden and sacrifice, and a value to society. In addition, the legislature came up-with one more definition of pregnancy: as a punishment for sex.
Dingell (Mich., R.) remarked, In assessing fetal health, the doctor . . . has learned that it is actually the mother who is a passive carrier . . . he [the unborn] is quite beautiful and perfect in his fashion, active and graceful. He is neither an acquiescent vegetable nor a witless tadpole . .
. but rather a tiny human being as independent as though he were lying in a crib with a blanket wrapped around him instead of his mother.68 Pro-life Rep. John M. Murphy (N.Y., D.) introduced a "right to life" resolution by saying that it would "insure, through law, that
maternal rights are not superior to those of the child she carries."69 Similarly, Rep. Robert K. Dornan (Calif., R.) observed that "it was not so very long ago that mothers who were pregnant were said to be `with child," and that, according to the Bible, "[a]t the sound of Mary's
greeting, the baby in Elizabeth's womb `leapt for joy' . . . that infant of course was St. John, the Baptist."70 The perceptions of a mother as an "incubator;" "passive carrier," or "blanket" for a fetus, which is itself portrayed as a "tiny human being," miss a crucial marker: what the
"tiny human being" does to a woman when it makes her pregnant. Some members of Congress have in fact tried to negate the view of women as vessels. As Rep. Les AuCoin (Ore., D.) explained, "Surely, this Congress should repudiate the mind set that views women as mere
`incubators' whose rights and human spirit must be subordinated to their reproductive function."71 Yet such members have failed to identify explicitly the cause of pregnancy as the fertilized ovum. Fetal development, another key concept used by the Supreme Court, is also
present in congressional reasoning on abortion rights. As Henry Hyde (Ill., R.), among others, has observed, when a woman is pregnant, her only choice is to "kill" her "preborn child or [to] let nature take its course" until development is complete and the child is born.72 Pro-life
members of Congress also contend, along with the Court, that pregnancy is the result of sex, which allows them to support a woman's right to an abortion subsequent to rape or incest, even when the pregnancy in question poses no medical complications and hence the abortion
is nontherapeutic. Representative Robert Michel (Ill., R.), for example, asserted that "victims of forced rape or incest" are entitled to federal funds for "nontherapeutic abortions."73 In 1980, when Congress legislated that no federal funds can be used for abortion even if
pregnancy severely threatens women's health, the rape and incest exceptions remained.74 Most pro-life members of Congress agree with the Court that pregnancy can become a burdensome condition, and they affirm that when the fetus becomes life-threatening, a woman must
have the right to an abortion. Some even specifically use the language of self-defense. As early as 1975, when pro-life Rep. Clement J. Zablocki (Wisc., D.) introduced a constitutional amendment to protect the unborn, he noted that when a mother's life is "seriously endangered
by the continuation of pregnancy," abortion is permissible in "self¬defense"75 Two years later, when introducing a similar amendment, Rep. James Abdnor (S. Dak., R.) stated that it "shall not apply in an emergency when a reasonable medical certainty exists that continuation of
the pregnancy will cause the death of the mother."76 Representative Thomas Luken (Ohio, D.) stressed, in connection with the same amendment, that "nothing in this article shall prohibit a law permitting only those medical procedures required to prevent the death of the
mother.77 Similarly in 1976 when Rep. Henry Hyde's restriction on the use of Medicaid funds for abortion was being debated, pro-life Rep. Jim Santini (Nev., D.) stressed that it does not apply to those abortions necessary to save the life of the mother.78 Yet Congress, like the
Court, ignores the fetus as the cause of the burdens of a normal pregnancy, and, by so doing, casts a woman's right to terminate a normal pregnancy as the right to make decisions or to request an abortion rather than as the right to stop the fetus from imposing the extraordinary
burdens of normal pregnancy on her.79 Pro-life members reconstruct abortion as women's right to "abortion on demand," thereby ignoring that fetuses impose "pregnancy by demand" on women.80 Finally, some members of Congress who support funding for childbirth but
not for abortion reflect the Court's interpretation of pregnancy as a value to society. Pro-life Rep. Robert K. Dornan (Calif., R.) observed that abortion is morally repugnant to many taxpayers, whereas childbirth is a value to be supported by public funds.81 Similarly, as Rep.
Martin Russo (Ill., D.) argued for cutting off Medicaid funds for abortion, Eliminating the source of funds [for abortion] may tip the balance toward bringing the child into the world and I believe in tipping the scale in favor of life almost every time . . . if Medicaid money were
unavailable for this purpose [abortion] .. . [t]hat would save approximately 240,000 lives every year.82 In an even more startling pronouncement on the value of pregnancy to society, Rep. William Dannemeyer (Calif., R.) noted that unless women were pregnant and gave birth, no
taxpayers would be born to pay off the national debt: If we are going to pay off this debt, somebody has got to be born to pay it off. Now, since 1973, the decline in the birth rate per fertile female has reached the point where, as a civilization, we run the serious risk of
disappearing from this planet. Right now ... the rate of reproduction per fertile female is 1.8. Now, demographers tell us we need 2.1 to sustain a civilization . . . [or] by the year 2020, it will require a tax rate to pay social security benefits . . . between 25 percent and 32 percent.83
Congress has added an extracultural metaphor of its own to the mix of metaphors it shares with the Supreme Court, namely,
pregnancy as a punishment for sex. Representative Donald M. Fraser (Minn., D.) expressed this view by saying that women "bear the
responsibility for avoiding pregnancy. They must be punished if they do not."84 Similarly, Rep. Larry McDonald (Ga., D.) decried the abortion policies at West Point, whereby "cadets who
have illegitimate pregnancies are protected against dismissal and are kept in good standing as though they were honorable cadets . . . . All the female cadet needs to do in order to cover up her fornication is [to get an abortion]."85 He deplored the fact that women cadets receive
Without an accurate analysis of the effects of the fetus on a woman,
congressional debate perpetuates some serious distortions, such as equating abortion with slavery.
"no penalties" for their "promiscuity." Most cultural metaphors for pregnancy are not so much wrong as incom¬plete.86
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
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AT: Congress – Equal Protection
Congress can’t solve equal protection concerns or gender discrimination, legislative intent has no impact
because it is impossible to determine
Kay, 94 (Julie F. 60, Brooklyn Law Review, Brooklyn L. Rev. 349, “IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT: AN EQUAL PROTECTION MODEL FOR FEDERAL
FUNDING OF ABORTION UNDER A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN”, Lexis)
Even if it acknowledges the discriminatory effects of challenged legislation, the Court may still require a showing of a "discriminatory purpose." n131 Yet, the traditional equal
protection analysis of discriminatory purpose does not consider the gender stereotypes that influence some Congressional decisions denying abortion funding. The Court's
distinction that legislation must be passed "because of" rather than "in spite of" a discriminatory purpose is tenuous. n132 Determining congressional intent in
reproductive health law is an arduous task, particularly since legislative history is largely indiscernible and often contains barely
visible, but significant, gender stereotypes about women and motherhood. The danger exists that gender stereotypes are so ingrained
that legislators do not recognize that such assumptions form the basis of a policy. For instance, a legislature may consider compelled pregnancy
a "reasonable" way to preserve fetal life but this belief may be based on archaic or stereotypic assumptions about women and pregnancy. n133 The traditional
purposeful analysis is misguided in its heavy reliance on legislative intent, which may be impossible to determine and once
determined can contain subtle gender stereotypes harmful to women. n134 [*384] In addition, legislation that restricts access to abortion is unique in that it is directed at
women as a class, has the dramatic effect of forced pregnancy, and historically has significantly oppressed women. Although the inevitable outcome of the Hyde
Amendment is to restrict or deny abortion access for women, the traditional equal protection analysis does not consider this
demonstrative of congressional intent. The Court has rejected the inevitable outcome of legislation as conclusive proof of intentional discrimination by
Congress. n135 It has required a showing that the legislative body has "selected or reaffirmed a particular course of action at least in part because of,' not merely in spite of,'
its adverse effects upon an [*385] identifiable group." n136 Yet, if the purpose of equal protection is to guarantee equal protection for all
individuals, then the intent of those legislators enacting the law should be less important than the law's impact. Traditional equal
protection doctrine focuses on "the judgment and justifications of the state actors deploying public power, rather than the impact of a particular exercise of power on the
citizens subject to it." n137 Because gender discrimination often is very subtle, and may be based on a combination of biological facts and sexual stereotyping, searching for
"purposeful" discrimination frequently will be futile. n138 If equal protection guarantees exist to facilitate a truly equal society, then scrutiny
must focus on the impact of laws that oppress women. A revised equal protection model, which considers gender as a suspect class and
de-emphasizes the discriminatory legislative intent requirement, offers greater protection from legislation that oppress women. The Court should concentrate not
on whether a legislative goal to classify by gender is substantially related to important governmental ends, but instead should ask: "Has the challenged action harmed women
in ways that enforce, perpetuate, or aggravate their subordinate social status?" n139 This revised analysis would focus on the practical effects of the challenged legislation
rather than the relatively minor and uncertain question of whether legislators were aware of these effects when they passed the legislation. Such a standard would
enable a more substantial challenge to gender discrimination, while maintaining the substance of the traditional equal protection analysis.
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
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42
AT: States – Gender Bias
Federal courts as massively superior for gender issues. The CP fails because the state court system is
riddled with male bias.
Hallock, 93 – JD Indiana U. School of Law (W.H., Indiana Law Journal, “The Violence Against Women Act: Civil
Rights for Sexual Assault Victims”, 68 Ind. L.J. 577, L/N)
During the Reconstruction, Congress passed the original post-war civil rights legislation "in response to the unwillingness or inability of the state governments to enforce their
own laws against those violating the civil rights of others." n158 The situation of women in the courts today, particularly in cases dealing with violence, is
analogous; the barriers to equality, the biases, and other "defect[s] in the administration of the laws [*601] [do] not extend to other cases." n159 Women are
uniquely and disproportionately disadvantaged. n160 Providing a civil rights claim that would be litigated in federal court, under federal law, helps to alleviate some of the
inequalities women face. In the past, when Congress has created new federal rights, it has relied on the federal courts because: The
United States courts are further above mere local influence than the county courts; their judges can act with more
independence, . . . their sympathies are not so nearly identified with those of the vicinage; . . . they will be able to rise above prejudices or bad
passions. . . . We believe that we can trust our United States courts, and we propose to do so. n161 For similar reasons, women bringing suit under Title III would have the
opportunity to bring suit in federal court, thereby avoiding the "prejudices or bad passions" of state systems. Federal judges obviously are not infallible or completely
immune to the cultural forces and gender stereotypes that cause gender bias in state legal systems. n162 However, as with civil rights legislation aimed at protecting racial
minorities, it is fair to assume that the federal system would provide litigants a better opportunity to assert their rights than would
state courts. n163 In fact, the recently released sex bias survey of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals shows that many of the
women surveyed found "the federal courts are relatively free of the kind of blatant sexism they have encountered in some state
courts." n164 [*602] There are several specific reasons why the federal courts are a better forum for plaintiffs seeking redress for civil rights violations. First, a
federal forum makes "antiquated State procedural rules . . . irrelevant and local immunities inapplicable." n165 The "fresh complaint
rule," n166 for example, would no longer be a barrier to victims suffering from rape trauma syndrome who fail to report their claim immediately. n167 Second, the small
number of positions available on the federal bench permits the selection of highly competent judges n168 -- judges who, at least in
theory, should be better suited to administer the laws in a neutral, nondiscriminatory manner. Third, federal judges are aware of
the special tradition surrounding their posts; this awareness "instill[s] elan and a sense of mission . . . and exert[s] . . . a palpable
influence on the quality of the judicial product." n169 Finally, federal judges with life tenure are insulated from local political
pressures, biases, and other majoritarian concerns faced by elected or appointed state judges. n170 This may allow them to perform their
duties with less bias than that found in state court judges. Any one of these reasons taken alone may not be conclusive. However, when taken in the aggregate, one could
reasonably conclude that a federal forum would provide civil rights plaintiffs a better opportunity to vindicate their interests than is currently available in state judicial systems.
In fact, it seems that Congress itself has reached that conclusion by enacting statutes that provide federal jurisdiction for civil rights claims. n171
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Abortion Aff, Wave 2
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AT: States – Constitutionalism
States fail. Their court decisions can't establish a coherent body of jurisprudence to speak to the public
values or national identity questions of the 1AC.
Gardner, 91 – Associate Professor of Law at Western New England College (James, Michigan Law Review, “THE FAILED
DISCOURSE OF STATE CONSTITUTIONALISM”, 90 Mich. L. Rev. 761, Hein Online, 763-764)
The recent retirement of Justices Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, the last two liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court,9 and the corresponding solidification during the 19901991 Term of the Court's conservative majority, make this an appropriate time to reconsider the potential role of state constitutional law in American society. Are state
courts, as proponents of New Federalism contend, developing an independent body of constitutional jurisprudence? If so, will state
courts assume the dominant role traditionally occupied by the Supreme Court in articulating and protecting individual rights?
If not, can they assume such a role, and should they? In this article, I approach these questions in two steps. First, I examine the status of state constitutional law as it is
practiced today. I conclude that, contrary to the claims of New Federalism, state constitutional law today is a vast wasteland of confusing,
conflicting, and essentially unintelligible pronouncements. I argue that the fundamental defect responsible for this state of affairs
is the failure of state courts to develop a coherent discourse of state constitutional law - that is, a language in which it is
possible for participants in the legal system to make intelligible claims about the meaning of state constitutions. Second, I analyze
the reasons for the failure of state courts to develop such a discourse. After rejecting several frequently offered explanations, I conclude that the failure of state
constitutional discourse reflects a much deeper failure, a failure of state constitutionalism itself. The central premise of state
constitutionalism is that a state constitution reflects the fundamental values, and ultimately the character, of the people of the
state that adopted it. This premise, however, cannot serve as the foundation for a workable state constitutional discourse because it
is not a good description of actual state constitutions; it embraces theoretical inconsistencies that undermine its value as a
framework for a coherent discourse; and it takes an obsolete and potentially dangerous view of the texture and focus of American
national identity.
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AT: States – Constitutionalism
Impoverished state constitutional discourse means they can't solve any of our impacts. The richness of
federal constitutional meanings allows it to speak effectively to social values and the concept of identity.
Gardner, 91 – Associate Professor of Law at Western New England College (James, Michigan Law Review, “THE FAILED
DISCOURSE OF STATE CONSTITUTIONALISM”, 90 Mich. L. Rev. 761, Hein Online, 769-771)
But constitutional
discourse is more than a mechanical procedure for producing the authoritative interpretations of the constitution
is also the means by which participants in the legal system debate among themselves the
meaning of the document. One side makes a claim about the meaning of the constitution; the other side responds by disputing that claim and making its own
needed to effectuate constitutional government. It
different one, which the first side disputes. The court then jumps into the exchange, questioning, accepting, rejecting, or modifying the claims made by the parties and
reaching a conclusion. This debate among the participants plays a significant role in shaping the authoritative constitutional pronouncements the judicial system ultimately
yields. That constitutional discourse comprises a debate about the meaning of the constitution has important implications for a society that conceives of itself as
living under that constitution. For what do we debate when we debate the meaning of a constitution? It has often been observed that any discourse
is in a sense a
means of self-definition, both for the individuals who engage in the discourse and the community of individuals among whom the discourse takes place.20 As
Richard Sherwin has argued, "it is through discourse itself that who we are and the community and culture we belong to take on
an embodied existence in the world. ' 21 Thus, virtually any type of discourse is a means of debating the identity - the internal roles,
relations, and ethos - of the community in which it occurs.22 But if this is true of discourse generally, it seems especially true of
constitutional discourse because a constitution is a document that selfconsciously defines a communal identity. In Part V, I discuss the nature of constitutions
and American constitutionalism in some detail. For now, it is sufficient to say that a constitution, according to our legal and social conventions, is a document meant
to identify a political community and to set out some of the most fundamental principles according to which the members of the
community wish to live their lives. Consequently, to debate the meaning of a constitution, as participants in the legal system do when they engage in
constitutional discourse, is to debate some aspect of the most fundamental characteristics of the constitutional community's understanding of
its own identity. It is to claim that we are (or are not) a certain type of people, who hold dear certain values and not others, and who act in certain ways in particular
situations. Thus, constitutional discourse is an integral aspect not only of constitutional law as a body of positive legal authority, but of societal selfidentification as well. As a
result, to monitor a society's constitutional discourse is in an important sense to take the pulse of that society's efforts to understand itself. C. Federal Constitutional
Discourse as a Model My purpose in Part III is to describe and criticize state constitutional discourse as it is currently practiced. In particular, I shall argue that state
constitutional discourse is "impoverished." In order to get a better sense of what this conclusion entails, we may usefully contrast state constitutional discourse with its far
more successful cousin, American federal constitutional discourse. Our federal constitutional discourse is extraordinarily rich. Perhaps as a result of
the age or stability of the U.S. Constitution, a participant in the legal system can today make claims about the meaning of the Constitution in a variety of ways. Among
the types of arguments about the meaning of the Constitution widely acknowledged to be appropriate are arguments from
the language and structure of the constitutional text; from history and the intent of the Framers; from constitutional theory;
from judicial precedent and legal doctrine; and from a virtually limitless number of value systems dealing with matters such as
ethics, justice, and social policy.23 This is more than enough raw material to allow a wide variety of disparate claims about the meaning of the Constitution,
including claims that some otherwise active participants in the discourse may well consider outlandish. Indeed, some critics of federal constitutional jurisprudence, most
prominently originalists, have argued that federal constitutional discourse is too rich - that too many types of arguments have been incorporated into the discourse, and that
some of them do not furnish a legitimate language in which to make claims about the meaning of the Constitution. 24 There is another reason for choosing federal
constitutional discourse as a model of a successful constitutional discourse: it is the model adopted by the New Federalism movement as the one toward which state
constitutional discourse should aspire.
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AT: States – Constitutionalism
These constitutional norms are especially important for creating social equality on gender issues.
Post and Siegel, 07 – David Boies Professor of Law at Yale University (Robert, Reva, Nicholas deb Katzenbach, Harvard Civil RightsCivil Liberties Law Review, “Roe Rage: Democratic Constitutionalism and Backlash”, 42 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 373, Summer, L/N)
We begin from history. Americans
have continuously struggled to shape the content of constitutional meaning. They did so with regard to
[*380] questions of race in the 1960s and questions of gender in the 1970s, and we are now in the midst of such a struggle about questions of abortion, gay rights,
and religion. Americans have used a myriad of different methods to shape constitutional understandings--sit-ins, protests, political mobilization, congressional use of section
five powers, ordinary federal and state legislation, state court litigation, and so on. These struggles are premised on the belief that the Constitution
should express a nomos that Americans can recognize as their own. Through these struggles, Americans have consistently
sought to embody their constitutional ideals within the domain of judicially enforceable constitutional law. n20 Constitutional
ideals enforced by courts express national identity; they radiate gravitas and consequence. When entrenched through the
professional logic of legal reason, otherwise contested understandings of the nation's ideals receive official endorsement and
application by those who feel obligated to obey the law. They become guides for the juridical organization of society, wielding
enormous symbolic power and shaping the social meaning of innumerable nonlegal transactions. Americans have thus found
it important that courts articulate a vision of the Constitution that reflects their own ideals.
The legitimacy of the American constitutional system has come to depend on the many practices
Americans have developed to ensure the democratic accountability of their constitutional law. No doubt constitutional lawmaki ng plays an important role in sustaining the democratic legitimacy of the American constitutional order, yet because the diff iculty of lawmaking is so great and its successful achievement so infrequent, lawmaking alone
cannot sustain the Constitution's democratic legitimacy. Article V amendments are so very rare that they cannot provide an ef fective avenue for connecting constitutional law to popular commitments. n21 And if twenty-seven constitutional amendments cannot ensure democratic accountability, neither can three or four discrete "constitutional
moments." n22 More persistent and nuanced forms of exchange are required to maintain the authority of those who enforce constitutional law in situations of aggravated dispute. Democratic constitutionalis m examines the many practices that facilitate an ongoing and continuous communication between courts and the public. n23 Thes e
practices must be robust enough to prevent [*381] constitutional alienation and to maintain solidarity in a normatively heterog eneous community. One important avenue for influencing constitutional decisionmaking is the appointment of Supreme Court J ustices. n24 There can be public pressure to choose Justices who are likely to express
popular commitments. Those opposed to the innovations of the Warren Court, for example, were attracted to President Reagan's pledge to halt the slide toward "the radical egalitarianism and expansive civil libertarianism of the Warren Court . . . ." n25 They threw their support behind Reagan because he pledged to nominate Justices who would
adopt a "philosophy of judicial restraint." n26 It is well documented that the Reagan Justice Department self-consciously and successfully used judicial appointments to alter existing practices of constitutional interpretation. n27 Presidential politics and Supreme Court nominations, however, are blunt and infrequent methods of affecting the
content of constitutional law. A more democratically dispersed and continuous pathway is the practice of norm contestation, w hich seeks to transform the values that underlie judicial interpretations of the Constitution. The Reagan administration, for example, used litigation and presidential rhetoric to challenge and discredit the basic ideals that
had generated Warren Court precedents. n28 The current controversy over same-sex marriage illustrates many of the dynamics of norm contestation. Much of this controversy has transpired [*382] within the context of state court decisions applying state constitutional law. n29 Alth ough these decisions are, as a matter of legal doctrine, irrelevant
to the interpretation of the federal Constitution, state court opinions about state law are venues within which national values are continually contested and reshaped. n30 Understanding th e recent controversy about same-sex marriage thus requires us to appreciate the many subtle ways that constitutional norms circulate among divergent actors in
Second-wave feminism offers a rich example of successful norm
contestation. As late as 1970, it was thought that distinctions based upon sex were natural and proper, and the Equal
Protection Clause was accordingly interpreted to have no particular application to sex discrimination. n31 But as women
organized to contest traditional understandings of gender roles, common sense began to evolve. Discrimination based on sex came to
the American constitutional system, traveling along informal pathways that do not always conform to official accounts of cons titutional lawmaking and interpretation.
seem unreasonable. Because judges interpret constitutional text to express their implicit understanding of the world, the Court began to read the Fourteenth Amendment to
require elevated scrutiny for classifications based on sex. n32 The Court altered its understanding of the Equal Protection Clause even though
the Equal Rights Amendment ("ERA"), which proposed to use the procedures of Article V to amend the Constitution to prohibit discrimination based on sex, was
never ratified. n33 Democratic constitutionalism suggests that backlash can be understood as one of many practices of norm
contestation through which the [*383] public seeks to influence the content of constitutional law.
It is a commonplace of history and political science that these practices can
eventually be successful because, in the long run, our constitutional law is plainly susceptible to political influence. n34 Our "[c]onstitutional law is historically conditioned and politically shaped." n35 The democratic legitimacy of our constitutional law in part depends on its responsiveness to popular opinion. n36 The ongoing possibility of shaping
constitutional meaning helps explain why Americans remain faithful to their Constitution even when their constitutional views do not prevail. n37 Democratic constitutionalism [*384] allows us to comprehend how the Constitution can continue to inspire loyalty and commitment despit e persistent disagreement. n38 Democratic legitimacy,
however, comes at a price, because constitutional law defines its integrity precisely in terms of its independence from polit ical influence. From the internal perspective of the law, the law/politics distinction is constitutive of legality. That is why courts proudly and insistently proclaim themselves to be "mere instruments of the law." n39 Their
authority is to say "what the law is," n40 and the law's content is to be determined by "essentially lawyers' work" n41 that transpires within a space of "principle and logic" n42 from which all political considerations are rigorously excluded. n43 A judge's duty is "to uphold the law and to follow the dictates of the Constitution," not to "serve a
constituency." n44 "Judges . . . are not political actors . . . . They must strive to do what is legally right, all the more so when the result is not the one 'the home crowd' wants." n45 The very practices that ensure the democratic accountability of the Americ an constitutional system thus seem also to endanger the integrity of American constitutional
law. It is no simple matter for courts to find ways of incorporating popular beliefs into the domain of legality while at the same time maintaining fidelity to the demands of professional legal reason. n46 One might imagine this process as a series of "conversations [*385] between the Court and the people and their representatives," n47 but the
process is rarely as civilized and orderly as a conversation. The Court must navigate a complex field of intense disagreement in order to produce an account of constitutional law that is democratically legitimate and faithful to norms of professional craft. Exactly how the Court accomplishes this remarkable feat is insuffi ciently studied. n48
Traditional legal scholarship has sought to identify methods of constitutional interpretation that will justify the Court's d ecisions to those who might otherwise be disposed to oppose them. But while this approach may give comfort to acade mics, we doubt that it has much political effect. Serious constitutional controversies, like all political
controversies, are not to be solved by some magical methodological trick. Disagreement will not disappear merely because the Court has chosen to frame its argument in one form or another. Democratic constitutionalism invites us to pay close attention to how the Court act ually responds to conditions of disagreement and contestation. The
By consolidating
these understandings into doctrine, the Court rapidly developed a Fourteenth Amendment gender discrimination
jurisprudence that commanded astonishingly widespread support, despite the ERA's defeat. n50 Although the American constitutional
contemporary constitutional law of sex discrimination, for example, first appeared when the Court was able to perceive points of convergence in the nation's understanding of women as equal citizens that emerged within debates between those who opposed and those who embraced the ERA. n49
system is rife with conflict, there is nonetheless widespread interest in preserving the integrity of constitutional law. This is because citizens who seek to embody their own
particular constitutional understandings in law have reason to preserve the authority of the rule of law, even as they endeavor to influence the content of judicial
decisionmaking. Those who wish to change the content of constitutional law thus face a dilemma: they must sway courts to their own constitutional values and yet they must
also preserve the authority of courts to speak for the Constitution in the name of an independent rule of law. n51 [*386] Democratic constitutionalism invites
us to explore how this dilemma is actually mediated. In Stenberg v. Carhart, n52 for example, the Court struck down "a Nebraska
law banning 'partial birth abortion'" n53 because the statute did not contain a "health exception" n54 allowing the procedure when necessary
to preserve the health of a mother. Antiabortion advocates responded to Stenberg in a way that communicated complete disagreement
with the Court and yet also conveyed respect for the Court's institutional authority to pronounce law. They pressed Congress
to enact legislation resembling the Nebraska law the Court had invalidated and to support this legislation with congressional findings to the effect that
facts indicate "that a partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of a woman." n55 These dubious findings of fact n56
enabled congressional critics of Stenberg to dissent from the Court's precedent while at the same time preserving nominal allegiance to the rule of law. n57 Although
Congress directly challenged the Court, n58 it stopped well short of outright defiance. In an opinion whose five-to-four majority comprised only Justices
appointed by Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Bush--each elected on a platform pledged to appoint judges to protect the lives of the unborn and traditional family values n59 -the Court responded by deferring to the congressional legislation [*387] (although repudiating Congress's dubious factfinding) n60 and by
sounding for the first time notes of a new justification for restricting abortion: the protection of women. n61
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
46
AT: Spending DA
Turn – We save money, killing babies is cheaper than raising them.
Torres et al, 86 – Senior Research Associate (Aida, Nancy Dittes, Research Associate, and Jacqueline Darroch Forest, Research Director, Alan
Guttmacher Institute, and Patricia Donovan, Ed. Law and Public Policy, Family Planning Perspectives, “Public Benefits and Costs of Government Funding for Abortion”,
18:3, May-June, JSTOR)
A 1974 study by health department officials in New York City compared the costs of paying for abortions for indigent women
there with those of paying for maternity care and public assistance for indigent women and their babies if publicly funded abortions were not
available. The authors estimated that government expenditures for such first-year health and welfare costs would be 7-10 times
higher than what the government spent in 1973 for abortions for Medicaid recipients. The investigators assumed that all women who were
denied Medicaid funding for abortions would carry their pregnancies to term. In a subsequent benefit-cost study for New York State, it was
assumed that only 25 percent of pregnancies terminated by Medicaid-financed abortions would be carried to term if Medicaid
funding were not available. The researchers found that under this assumption (which was based on studies of states that stopped paying for
abortions for poor women), the benefit-cost ratio was two dollars saved in public health and welfare expenditures for every Medicaid
dollar spent on abortion services. (However, the benefits were estimated as 8:1 if all pregnancies were carried to term.)
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
47
Topicality – Poverty
We meet – people eligible for Medicaid must fall below federal poverty thresholds
Kay, 94 (Julie F. 60, Brooklyn Law Review, Brooklyn L. Rev. 349, “IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT: AN EQUAL PROTECTION MODEL FOR FEDERAL
FUNDING OF ABORTION UNDER A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN”, Lexis)
Medicaid provides health insurance for "the poorest of poor Americans." n8 By definition, women who receive Medicaid cannot
afford to pay for their own health care. To be eligible for Medicaid, most recipients must be well below the federal poverty level.
As of 1993, the Medicaid program, which was first established in 1965, had approximately 31 million enrollees. n10 Depending on the final structure of the proposed
national health care plan, the Clinton Administration estimates that Medicaid eventually could be phased out entirely. n11 Until then, the Medicaid program will
n9
continue to dictate the health care choices of Americans whose income level is low enough to make them eligible for these
benefits.
People eligible for Medicaid must fall below federal poverty thresholds
Kay, 94 (Julie F. 60, Brooklyn Law Review, Brooklyn L. Rev. 349, “IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT: AN EQUAL PROTECTION MODEL FOR FEDERAL
FUNDING OF ABORTION UNDER A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN”, Lexis)
A person's Medicaid eligibility is derived from his or her income eligibility for AFDC. This rate is set by each state. The
national average income for AFDC eligibility is approximately 50% of the federal poverty level--under $ 12,000 for a single parent
family of three. n12 Thus, if a woman earns more than [*354] $ 6000 a year, she and her dependents would not be eligible for AFDC
nor Medicaid. n13
Medicaid-eligible women are by definition living in poverty
Kay, 94 (Julie F. 60, Brooklyn Law Review, Brooklyn L. Rev. 349, “IF MEN COULD GET PREGNANT: AN EQUAL PROTECTION MODEL FOR FEDERAL
FUNDING OF ABORTION UNDER A NATIONAL HEALTH CARE PLAN”, Lexis)
Medicaid-eligible women, who by definition are living in poverty, lack the funds necessary to pay for reproductive health care,
including abortion services. Because the federal government refuses to pay these costs, women are often completely denied access to abortion services or face delays
that increase the health risks of abortion. Low-income women en [*361] counter significant additional barriers which perpetuate a twotiered system of health care delivery
Michigan 7 Week Seniors 09
Abortion Aff, Wave 2
48
Privacy Grounds CP
Text – Insert
The Supreme Court should overturn the Hyde Amendment on Privacy Rights grounds
Brennan, 80 (SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, Dissenting Opinion, 448 U.S. 297, Harris v. McRae No. 79-1268 Argued: April 21, 1980 --Decided: June 30, 1980 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0448_0297_ZD.html
Roe v. Wade held that the constitutional right to personal privacy encompasses a woman's decision whether or not to [p330]
terminate her pregnancy. Roe and its progeny [n2] established that the pregnant woman has a right to be free from state interference with her choice
to have an abortion -- a right which, at least prior to the end of the first trimester, absolutely prohibits any governmental regulation of that highly
personal decision. [n3] The proposition for which these cases stand thus is not that the State is under an affirmative obligation to ensure access to abortions for all who
may desire them; it is that the State must refrain from wielding its enormous power and influence in a manner that might burden the pregnant woman's freedom to choose
whether to have an abortion. The Hyde Amendment's denial of public funds for medically necessary abortions plainly intrudes upon
this constitutionally protected decision, for both by design and in effect, it serves to coerce indigent pregnant women to bear children
that they would otherwise elect not to have. [n4] [p331] When viewed in the context of the Medicaid program to which it is appended, it is obvious that the Hyde
Amendment is nothing less than an attempt by Congress to circumvent the dictates of the Constitution and achieve indirectly
what Roe v. Wade said it could not do directly. [n5] Under Title XIX of the Social Security Act, the Federal Government reimburses participating States for
virtually all medically necessary services it provides to the categorically needy. The sole limitation of any significance is the Hyde Amendment's prohibition against the use of
any federal funds to pay for the [p332] costs of abortions (except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term). As my Brother
STEVENS persuasively demonstrates, exclusion of medically necessary abortions from Medicaid coverage cannot be justified as a cost-saving device. Rather, the Hyde
Amendment is a transparent attempt by the Legislative Branch to impose the political majority's judgment of the morally acceptable and
socially desirable preference on a sensitive and intimate decision that the Constitution entrusts to the individual. Worse yet, the Hyde
Amendment does not foist that majoritarian viewpoint with equal measure upon everyone in our Nation, rich and poor alike; rather, it imposes that viewpoint only
upon that segment of our society which, because of its position of political powerlessness, is least able to defend its privacy rights from the
encroachments of state-mandated morality. The instant legislation thus calls for more exacting judicial review than in most other cases. When elected
leaders cower before public pressure, this Court, more than ever, must not shirk its duty to enforce the Constitution for the
benefit of the poor and powerless. Beal v. Doe, 432 U.S. 438, 462 (1977) (MARSHALL, J., dissenting). Though it may not be this Court's mission "to
decide whether the balance of competing interests reflected in the Hyde Amendment is wise social policy," ante at 326, it most assuredly is our responsibility to
vindicate the pregnant woman's constitutional right to decide whether to bear children free from governmental intrusion.