Instigator / Pro
2
1502
rating
2
debates
50.0%
won
Topic
#2211

Legalized Abortion

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
3
Better sources
0
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...

MisterChris
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
2
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
7
1762
rating
45
debates
88.89%
won
Description

Debate on Abortion Rights.

We will be covering the reasons to have a complete ban on abortion or have it legal for all stages of pregnancy, nothing in the middle.

Pro = Pro Choice, Con = Pro life

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@Barney

Thank you for the analysis! Learned a lot from it

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@Barney

Thanks for the detailed analysis. It is very helpful and appreciated

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@MisterChris
@vector

Good debate!

I think I already mentioned the key weakness of being absolutely all or absolutely nothing. Con without a doubt did a much better job of leveraging that (pro should have used more focus on how rare late term abortions are, and the reason for full term if they ever occur definitely should have been in there); I did not notice nearly emphasis from pro on logical exceptions (I wish it did not play in, but rape for starters, threat to the mothers life; I think I've gotten a pro-lifer to oppose cancer treatments before due to the tumor being somewhat comparable to a fetus).

I did not realize this was only a 2-round debate until midway through con's R2. I do generally suggest more rounds with less characters, which mitigates the contender advantage as voters get a better sense for how the debate is going as the arguments get more flushed out.

I already swore off voting, but were I to vote, it would be arguments to con, and all other points tied.

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@MisterChris

R2-con:

A/2 OPENING:
Well played, particularly the BoP reminder talk of doubt. As a data scientist, even with a low confidence remaining, the number leaves a heavy impact.

A/2 “1. Life Starts at Birth”
Well played. I find the reference to pro being ok with killing people in their sleep a comedic stretch, but that is about the only weakness I see here. Which is so much of why I personally focus on the people angle, giving no importance to the fact of human cells. I would like to think what you've done here is how I would argue your side of this debate.

A/2 “Abortion is NOT murder”
Had to look back, because I missed the chicken egg argument above. I think I already gave some commentary on this seperately. Anyway, good defenses on why we're ok with eating chickens at any level of development. ... This does remind me of the meat is murder claims and why they're invalid, however that is not directly connected to this debate, and I truly do understand the utility of the appeal.

A/2 “#1: Abortion lowered crime”
Skimming a bit... Good defense of the previous source, as the information was not challenged, merely the speaker.

A/2 #2 Women in the workplace
Nice bit with the inconsistent use. You can pretty much insert my usual stuff against abstinence only education here.

A/2 #3 Economy
Very nice defense of India, and overpopulation not being a true problem for the world yet. ... neatly I think my slavery argument started related to insisted need for population growth, some politician was insisting it was peoples duty to have kids to bolster the economy, which goes directly against Kantian ethics I was studying around then, that people should not be treated as a means by as an end onto themselves.

A/2 “Illegal Abortions = Unsafe Abortions”
A fine defense. Not the best source, but I'm not even sure what source it is challenging so, *shrug*.

A/2 “UN Report”
Very good challenger to what was represented as being inside the source!

CONCLUSION:
I do really like seeing when these hold true between rounds.

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@vector

R2-pro:

I do like the opening syllogism. Even while it intuitively highlights the problem of this debate excluding the middle ground forcing each side to be all or nothing. As con previously said "By conception, it is already debatably murder, but by the 9th month, it is definitely so."

Decent job with life begins at birth, but I'm gain reminded of the above quote (and I say this as someone who trusts late-term abortions are going to be for strong reasons, not merely 'nah, changed my mind').

The murder point was handled well. I suggest in future moving away from the not human focus, to the not a person focus. Intellectually, a cat is closer to a person than a fetus at any point in development; while we should embrace animal cruelty laws, we don't give people the electric chair for first degree murder of a cat (they probably deserve the electric chair, but the crime would be a different one).

"#1: Abortion lowered crime"
"The study conducted by Donohue-Levitt isolated variables to determine drop for what happened in 1992, which was different than today."
Sadly, most people are not going to understand fancy words like "variables." Still to me it's a good defense of the study. As for the counter study, a short quote from it would greatly improve the description of why it's wrong. Plus I think you may have been mistyped, looking back I think it was a Christian fundamentalist source, insisting on religious law; as opposed to an anti-Christian source.

"#2 Women in the workplace"
Very well done defense against using adoption as birth control.
I will note on sourcing, that even with that link pointing to specific lines of text, it still could have been displayed with minimal character usage.
A displayed "http://www.adopt.org/faqs" taking just the character count from that, could still point to: http://www.adopt.org/faqs#:~:text=The%20wait%20is%20typically%20between,from%20the%20time%20of%20placement.

"#3 Economy"
Good comparison to India.
Weirdly I've seen this type of thing either spiral into you being called a racist for saying India is not the ideal we should aspire up to, or the person claiming race plays a role in the bad result. Neither of which I expect from con on this one.

"#4 Illegal Abortions = Unsafe Abortions"
A strong defense, which would have benefited from better sourcing (even just pointing to a specific part of that page). Granted, I tend to point people to lengthy PDF's from the UN and WHO, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite.
A key thing I will say, is that con by bringing in the millions of annual murders, is pretty much offering an excuse for anyone already biased to vote their bias instead of the debate as it played out (not pointing any fingers, I've just been on these sites too long that I've seen it... Heck my fetus as money debate, at certain times would have garnered several votes against me for opposing the pro-life side on that).

"#5 UN Report"
I looked back, and had difficulty differentiating which link was the report as opposed to pictures from the report (which is cool to see, but maybe label the links as that instead of just as whatever URL shortener?). Which is funny, since I suspect I've been using the report in question for a few debates now.
"CON proposes a complete ban without exceptions" is something to focus on more. I feel con has been doing a really good job of highlighting that your side is allowing them without cause even at 9 months, and you've kinda been just taking it... Ah the source you use here, a quote from it would make it pop (and allow people like me to quickly find the relevant section within it; searching for "14" I could not find the explanation of why those were occurring to verify it).

"Closing"
"As established, abortion is impossible to argue as murder" this isn't really true, as con has been arguing just that (successful or not, it risks harming your case's credibility to deny what people have clearly seen). This is a little worse given that con has put some focus on fully viable ones being on the chopping block (even if that does not actually happen, it's still an effective emotional tug on the heartstrings). The "illegal abortions would still be rampant" is of course a great point, but it feels a bit buried (pretty sure it came up earlier, but it is not standing out).

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@MisterChris
@fauxlaw

Ah yes, I see the issue. Thanks

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@fauxlaw
@vector

It is both, actually. He means to argue we do not consider it "murder" when the chicken fetus is in the egg, but we do consider it "murder" when it is finally hatched. It's not the greatest analogy but it works

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@vector

Quote from your r2: "It is not considered 'murdering a chicken' if one eats the egg." What "birth vs pre-birth?"

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@vector

Ok, I had to look up the chicken part. I'm coincidentally using a different chicken analogy in my own abortion debate right now.

Regarding yours, I would say the weakness is that it only works if someone has not made the human cell clusters are human life argument (which these days is almost assured). If they've made that, it leaves the thing in a grey area, still susceptible to pull from the potential millions of deaths abortion might represent.

At the risk of preaching, I hold to the belief that human beings are unique for our minds. From this perspective, the mere fact of measurable human cells does not matter so much unless it's a person. A fire in a fertility clinic with a daycare, save the children, not the millions of frozen embryos (saving the office cat over the embryos, would be debatable). Heck, if we find a way to transfer minds from dying humans into non-human bodies, I would view the intentional destruction of such as murder, in a way that most pro-life arguments would not.

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@fauxlaw

I see a lot of people attacking the chicken example I made -> It was used rather as an analogy of birth vs pre-birth rather than human and murder. It seems there was some confusion about this.

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@fauxlaw

Thank you for taking the time to vote

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@Barney

Thanks for the feedback, as vector said. Regarding the quote: “PRO counters that if life begins at birth, then all other points are moot because it would mean we are currently murdering hundreds of thousands of people yearly, and that outweighs all other impacts.”

It should actually be:
“CON counters that if life begins at birth, then all other points are moot because it would mean we are currently murdering hundreds of thousands of people yearly, and that outweighs all other impacts.”

I mixed up PRO and CON under that point :)

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@Barney

Thanks for the feedback for round 1! Definitely agree with a lot of what you said. I'll be making changes to my instigator argument for future use.

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@MisterChris
@vector

R1-pro:
Strong opening statement from pro. I will say that it would not hold up as well for late-term abortions, but that is such a small percentage that it's not a major problem.

Stating the only thing against abortion "Some people are offended by it" is bound to be problematic, it kind of invites con to mention the Poisoning The Well fallacy, so long as he can name any reason other than being offended (I've seen plenty who do not raise it beyond that, so I do understand the statement).

"The Effect of Abortion on Crime"
Really good data here.

"Women in the workforce"
A good start, but it feels like it's leading into something that does not deliver. It kinda belongs as a subheading to the next point.

"Abortion’s effect on the Economy and Lower Class"
Ties nicely into explaining the crime rate data.

"Effects of a ban on abortion"
This should have been point one (after your introduction). Putting it late into the round, is burying the lead; worse, it risks people skimming past it.

"Closing Remarks"
It right away cites a disproven reason for abortion bans. That kind of thing could have been its own contention, with a list of them, and the refusal of pro-life states to change in spite of being proven wrong in their excuses (general pro-life states avoids risk of targeting your opponent directly, even while implicitly attacking their position).

Conduct: Not nearly enough to be penalized, but it's usually best to in R1 as the instigator to not overly frame someone else's case. Even while I advise how to use guilt by association, such should be done carefully to not border on Ad Hominems. Your R1 as instigator should primarily be why you're right, less so why the other person is wrong.

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R1-con:
“THE FETUS IS HUMAN LIFE STARTING FROM CONCEPTION”
The walk through the stages of pregnancy, is something I think it missing on most of these debates. I nearly did it on my current debate (before seeing it here), but the character limit was getting tight already. I will outright suggest this (well maybe a less one sided one) as something in the description on these.

Also the framing of pro’s case for late term abortions, was smart (gets less flack from me as this is in response). It does highlight one problem on this debate, in that these debates should generally be over when the cutoff occurs, as opposed to all or nothing.

“ABORTIONS DO NOT KILL”
I always dislike graphic descriptions, but I do understand it as a tactic.

“LIFE AT CONCEPTION”
I admit I did not understand the phrasing: “PRO counters that if life begins at birth, then all other points are moot because it would mean we are currently murdering hundreds of thousands of people yearly, and that outweighs all other impacts.”

“CRIME & CONDITIONS”
Con does a very good reframing (sorry that I keep using that term) of this contention, pointing blame at bad parents (who pro argues should thus not be forced to become parents). He has a counter proposal, which is a little besides the point about these debates, but well played. The problem with this type of counter proposal, is it is not guaranteed to happen either way. I admit I actually make about the same one regardless of if abortion should be legal or not… Effectively, I argue that if abortion is to be illegal, first there should be full support in place provided by the government for expectant mothers and their future children, to take away much of the current need for abortion.

“ECONOMIC BENEFIT”
Well played counter that those children would be consumers. It is an argument that usually stands on thin ice, yet one that is usually unopposed for some reason.

“ABORTIONS ARE SAFE (UNLESS DONE ILLEGALLY):”
“Advertising the ability to efficiently kill children may not be the best way to advocate for abortion in terms of ethics.” Very well said. The safety is better as a defense point when deluded people start citing long disproven things, but standing on its own without being a response to that, it’s very vulnerable to this type of counter.

The rest of his counter was less good, I even glanced into one of the sources… Curious if pro will catch the faults or not. If not, them standing uncontested would greatly hurt the affirmative case.

“NICARAGUA AND THE UN REPORT”
A bit of a deflection, but a wise one. Again, pointing back to the pro case being the opposite of this messed up place, which also gets into an ugly area.

Sources: Skimming over the sources, they tended to be openly agenda driven ones. Within such sources, they often call to better sources, which are needless to say, better to use. I don't know yet if pro weaponizes them properly, but these sources would be easy to flip to bolster his claims about the pro-life stance is based on "-Some people are offended by it (for moral/religious reasons pertaining to their feelings)"

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@MisterChris
@seldiora
@vector

**************************************************
>Reported Vote: seldiora // Mod action: Removed
>Points Awarded: 0:3; 3 points to Con.
>Reason for Decision: See Comments Tab.
>Reason for Mod Action:
In essence, this vote was just too vague... This can be avoided in future by just commenting on the core contention (and the main counterpoint or the lack thereof), listing a single source you found important (if voting sources), saying what conduct violation distracted you (if voting conduct)... You need not write a thesis but some minimal level of detail is required to verify knowledge of what you're grading.
The voter acted in such a way to suggest they did not give fair weighting to the debate content.
**************************************************

seldiora
18 minutes ago
Criterion Pro Tie Con Points
Better arguments ✗ ✗ ✔ 3 points
Better sources ✗ ✔ ✗ 2 points
Better spelling and grammar ✗ ✔ ✗ 1 point
Better conduct ✗ ✔ ✗ 1 point
Reason:
pro's case is too difficult; it's too hard to argue that during all of pregnancy that the baby is not alive. If pro could even provide the shred of doubt before 9 weeks (and thus hard to provide any responses from the fetus), then he could make a break through in con's case. Alas, he could not.

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@seldiora

Thanks for voting on our debate! However, it will be removed until you add some more detail to it. We do this to ensure that voting remains high quality and fair.

Here is a quick guide for voting:
"To award argument points, the voter must:

(1) survey the main argument and counterargument in the debate,
(2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and
(3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision."

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@vector

Just don't go the direction of Gish Galloping.

Also you should know that numbered links [1, 2, etc], take even less of the character limit than URL shorteners. Plus just by hovering the mouse, someone can see what it is pointing to. ... I still generally suggest a list at the end, but I'd be lying if I said I never condensed something down in there.

Also, I think if I ever have a second debate it could be even stronger now that my argument has been through some battles. Once I condense my writing down, I can fit more points too.

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@Barney
@MisterChris

Thank you Ragnar! Yes, changing it to rated would be nice.

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@Barney
@vector

Thanks for the kind words and for looking over it for us. I'm alright with the debate being changed to rated. What about you vector?

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@MisterChris
@vector

This is the greatest use of the comment section I can remember.

It's so nice to see the debaters having a genuine discussion with each other.

Oh and FYI, if you both want the debate may be changed to rated.

...

Regarding voting: You can expect me to read this debate. However, I will probably not be moved out of the tied range, given that it looks like a great job from both combined with my own bias which extends the tied range.

I've long considered one of my debates to be the best abortion debate (https://www.debateart.com/debates/1024/should-abortion-be-made-illegal), but this one might unseat it.

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@vector

It could have strengthened that point substantially. Although I could've simply countered that 42.3 million abortions per year outweighs the "Unsafe Abortions" point entirely, the stat could have earned you a victory over my point about women being deterred from abortion by the law. Although I think using those stats to argue that women have the same amount of abortions either way ignores major cultural factors. Typically the countries that have more restrictions are poorer and more religious, and society looks down upon women who have sex outside of marriage FAR more. The result is that women who have had sex outside of wedlock are far more compelled to have an abortion, which overrides the negating effect of the law. So while it is true that it makes up the difference for 2nd or 3rd world countries, if we made abortion illegal in the US, for example, I doubt women would have abortions at the same rate as they do now. Overall there's some very interesting implications from that stat

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@MisterChris

Could I get your thoughts on this stat?

https://givingcompass.org/article/the-demographic-breakdown-of-women-who-are-getting-abortions/

Scroll down to "Abortion Restrictions". In countries where there are bans, the number of abortions per 1000 women is no less than in countries without restrictions. I think that including this stat would have definitely strengthened my case a lot more.

Thoughts?

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@vector

"In order to show that abortion is murder, CON must show undoubtedly that life begins before birth. If you have one shred of doubt, CON’s entire case falls apart. "

That's beyond all possible doubt, not reasonable doubt

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@MisterChris

I agree. Though I disagree with your interpretation, we can leave it off as there is no round 3. Just need to wait for the votes. Glad I could challenge myself with this debate!

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@vector

Anyway, just my take. Let's leave the debate as-is and let the judges decide

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@vector

I think that bringing up women's rights might've helped depending on the judge. A constitutional battle can be a good way to win some libertarians over. You can say "you may not agree with it, but it is their constitutional freedom" and that could potentially be convincing. For people like me, the best angle is to give me some really solid scientific facts that negate life beginning at conception.

As for the 90% stat, my interpretation is that it was global. They wouldn't have worded it like they did otherwise, in my opinion. I could be wrong. Either way, I think the key word here is "estimated." It's not exact and it's not meant to be. You say there was no way to attain data from other countries, yet you also cited that 45% stat... So if that is the case I suppose we are both guilty.

As for the 75% saying "no reason," I don't think it is common practice to remove that number and then inflate the percentages like that. I might be wrong, but I think there are genuinely a lot of women who get an abortion for none of the reasons that they listed. Simply: they did not want a child. It's not like that was the only poll there either, it just happened to be the one I cited. Regardless, 7%... 1.27%... both small numbers with very little true difference in terms of the debate.

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@MisterChris

Yeah I didn't know what to do as it was my first debate. Do you think my case would have been stronger if I added things pertaining to women's rights? I think I could have improved my case if I added things with constitutional rights pertaining to the US constitution, etc.

Also, some further notes regarding to the source on how 90% of abortions are done by licensed physicians (this does not pertain to the main debate as there is no R3 and thus this is simply post-debate discussion):
Your source: https://abort73.com/end_abortion/what_about_illegal_abortions/
It stated:"...article from the American Journal of Public Health that 90% of all illegal abortions were performed by licensed physicians in good standing"
Given that the excerpt provided only cited New York as its research example and that data from other countries were unattainable, it is safe to conclude that it only meant America, not the globe. There was no mention of worldwide and only mentions of America.

For https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/
Where you said that fetal/maternal life issues accounted for 1.27% of abortions rather than 7%, the chart that was used for your had 75% of participants not fill it out at all. Thus, adjust the data points removing the 75% who didn't participate produces (and this data is for Florida only): 4% from fetal defects, 13.6% for maternal health, and remaining 80% as economic reasons (incest+rape as 1%).

This is just for verification of data only, and does not pertain to the debate at all. Could you please go through and verify it too, the numbers/evidence only? Thanks.

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@vector

Yes, I agree. Overall this one of the stronger debates on the site. Too bad we didn't make it rated!

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@MisterChris

Glad how this debate turned out! Very strong finish

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@vector

I think the debate could have used a 3rd round, just for future reference. It feels a bit unfinished, like we didn't have enough clash or something

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@TheUnderdog

I wouldn't punish the women. I'd abolish it and leave it at that. Similar to how we did not punish every Confederate soldier after the end of the Civil War. History looks back at them in disgust, and that is enough for me.

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@TheUnderdog

Well, in the case that Pro-Life does institute some sort of restriction on abortion, I definitely would be in support of compromising with the said method of forced blood donations (with exceptions, of course). However, in the case in which abortion is kept legal, I would not support any form of punishment for abortions and will support government funding to increase access to planned parenthood.

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@vector

The punishment doesn't have to be effective; it just as to be proportional. 80% of pro lifers are pro contraception legalization, so if your worried about losing contraception with an abortion ban, that just wouldn't happen anytime soon. I'm fine with contraception and education about the contraception methods. I'm also pro life though, and because of that, I think abortion should be punished in a proportional manner.

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@TheUnderdog

As I am pro-choice, I do not believe this punishment would be an effective deterrent. It seems to be more of a creative benefit from abortion. Personally, I would not punish abortion as I do not find it morally wrong nor pertaining to murder. In contrary, abortions would be more effective to be reduced through education, more birth control access, and other means to prevent pregnancies from taking place.

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@vector

The blood would be taken in a safe way and while unusual, it wouldn't be too cruel. It has to be both in order for it to be against the constitution. If the woman can't give blood, her boyfriend would have to. If neither one of them can do it, they'll have to rely on one of their parents to get it done. The parents can make a deal with the kid to have the punishment carried out. Thoughts?

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@MisterChris

So how would you punish abortion? To me, since we can't jail women for life for having an abortion, it seems like a fair and proportional penalty.

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@TheUnderdog

Though this is quite a creative compromise, I would not think this as a practical endeavor. Donating blood is often associated with many health effects, many people are not qualified to donate blood, and constitutionally, this is categorized as a "cruel and unusual punishment" and since it cannot encompass all subjects, it is not a uniform punishment. To require all abortion patients to be subject to this law would definitely be cruel and unusual as not everyone has the ability to donate blood, and many conditions render the forced extracted blood to unusable.

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@TheUnderdog

I don't think human life is a zero sum game. The policy lessens the moral dent, but it does not wash their hands of the crime.

Now, if we HAVE to have abortion legal then the policy is better than nothing. Still, it is far from optimal

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@MisterChris
@vector

I would institute a light but proportional penalty for abortion; I'd make the woman or her boyfriend give enough blood to save someone else's life. I've tagged you both because there have been some pro lifers that I've met and some pro choicers that have both backed this punishment, and some that hav believed it to be too harsh or too lenient. Thoughts on it?

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@MisterChris

Yeah, I thought that it would be suitable for my first debate to be unrated.

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@vector

Yeah no problem. It was fun, and since the debate is unrated it doesn't matter all that much regardless.

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@MisterChris

Thank you for this opportunity to debate you! Even if I do not win, I will have learned a lot to strengthen my side for future arguments. You have proven to be a very competent opponent as it took me a while to come up with a clever response.

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@vector

ATTENTION VOTERS!!

I made a typo in my R1. I mixed up the "PRO" and "CON" label under the LIFE AT CONCEPTION point.
Here is what it SHOULD say:

"LIFE AT CONCEPTION

PRO argues that life beginning at birth is a moot point because it is subjective and fickle.

CON counters that if life begins at birth, then all other points are moot because it would mean we are currently murdering hundreds of thousands of people yearly, and that outweighs all other impacts."

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@MisterChris
@Intelligence_06

Thank you!

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@Intelligence_06
@vector

I agree. You will do well here. Welcome to the site

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@vector

"By the way, this is my first time doing this and debating, so my apologies if I am a complete noob."

Looks pretty good for an opening debate. You are not a noob.

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@vector

Don't sweat it. You'll catch on quickly to the formal debate norms

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@MisterChris

Thank you! I am also looking forward to seeing your argument. By the way, this is my first time doing this and debating, so my apologies if I am a complete noob.