On Balance, Abortion Should Remain Legal
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
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- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
This concerns worldwide policy.
"Should": benefits outweigh the negatives.
Con is for ban, with the exception of Maternal life.
- RECALL from the description: “Con is for ban, with the exception of Maternal life.”
- This debate is not to assess whether it is likely or possible that abortion will be banned worldwide with the exception of maternal life, nor does it concern what the penalties under international or national law will be if the hypothetical ban is broken. Lastly, it does not concern whether or not the ban will be properly enforced at all. It is only concerned with why, or why not a ban should happen.
- As every formal debate event CON has participated in has not factored CX into assigning arguments points, CON says CX should be treated as a supplemental chance for the sides to interrogate each other, and nothing more. Ultimately, CX should not be a factor when deciding the winner. This is also supported by the fact that DART has no established voter policies regarding the judging of CX, even in the Extended Policies and Interpretations.
However, using the Pro-Choice’s own line of reasoning, the uncertainty principle states that there are 4 potential possibilities of abortion:
1. The fetus is a person, and that is known.
2. The fetus is a person, but it is unknown.
3. The fetus is not a person, and that is known.
4. The fetus is not a person, and that is unknown
There are ramifications to each:
1. You have committed brazen homicide.
2. You have committed manslaughter
3. You have done nothing wrong.
4. You have committed criminal negligence.
In 3/4ths of scenarios, the abortion is not justified.
"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
“By the eighth week of pregnancy, every organ is present and in place. The embryonic period is now over. Ninety percent of the structures found in an adult human being can be found in this tiny embryo (now called a fetus) which is only about an inch and a half long.”
If PRO thinks personhood begins with consciousness, then people in a vegetable state, suffering brain damage, or severely developmentally handicapped are “not people” under PRO’s logic and can be freely killed with no moral repercussion.
“the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation. Roughly two months later... many of the circuit elements necessary for consciousness are in place.”
Indeed, “According to WHO, every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day.”
“Abortion's strongest argument is that the woman has the right to her body. The autonomy is important, and it's difficult to say for sure when the baby becomes human, as life is a continuous process.”
- PRO immediately concedes CON’s first contention.
- The fetus is inherently not an extension of the woman’s body.
“Multiple sources agree on the lack of the consciousness (and especially unlikeliness of birth) that makes this human. Given the burden of the mother to serve as life support, it seems illogical that she should not be get rid of the baby, as she should have the choice to make.”
- RECALL & EXTEND all responses from CONTENTION 2.
- The mother freely elects to “serve as life support” when having the child, that is the inherent responsibility of motherhood. It is immoral to kill someone over inconvenience.
- On that note, PRO’s logic endorses the free killing of those on life support.
- Even if none of this was bought by the voter, the Uncertainty Principle still dictates a CON ballot.
“There is no suffering that the baby suffers under these conditions.”
“With illegalized abortion, many women nevertheless conduct dangerous abortions, leading to many deaths and problems. This is common knowledge. As such there is a definitive benefit to keeping benefit legalized.”
- CON argues that this objection does not resolve any moral objections to abortion.
- Additionally, banning abortion would deter women from having one because most women are law-abiding. It would also incentivize more use of abstinence, preventative birth control and orphanages to deter the need for abortion.
- Planned Parenthood itself refutes this argument.
Abortion is no longer a dangerous procedure. This applies not just to therapeutic abortions as performed in hospitals but also to so-called illegal abortions as done by physicians. In 1957 there were only 260 deaths in the whole country attributed to abortions of any kind. In New York City in 1921 there were 144 abortion deaths, In 1951 there were only 15; and , while the abortion death rate was going down so strikingly in that 30-year period, we know what happened to the population and the birth rate. Two corollary factors must be mentioned here: first, chemotherapy and antibiotics have come in, benefiting all surgical procedures as well as abortion. Second, and even more important, the conference estimated that 90 percent of all illegal abortions are presently being done by physicians. Call them what you will, abortionists or anything else, they are still physicians, trained as such; and many of them are in good standing in their communities. They must do a pretty good job if the death rate is as low as it is...abortion, whether therapeutic or illegal, is in the main no longer dangerous.”
- Lastly, OUTWEIGH on the basis on CON’s 3rd Contention.
“Now, the central argument of con is likely on this idea of life at conception and thus deserving of same human rights to live. This is not entirely founded. The vague idea of the zygote and embryo (certain cells) being equivalent to actual living human beings are separated by countless steps of process and is difficult to justify.”
- RECALL & EXTEND both of CON’s 1st & 2nd Contentions.
- The central argument of CON is not that “life” begins at conception, that is a truism. The argument CON proposes is that personhood is a faulty standard for whether killing is justified, and instead CON argues the standard should be “To kill a member of the Homo sapiens without justification is immoral.”
- The fetus is a human being at conception. That is indisputable, and not at all “vague” or filled with “countless steps.” In order to be a human being, the thing in question simply must be a member of Homo sapiens.
“Perhaps Psychology Today best states why we value human rights so much, even over other animals rights: " It also argues that humans are a radically different kind of animal, one that is qualitatively different and thus exceptional and potentially justifiably worthy of special moral rights and protections. A fully functioning human is a unique being that has self-reflective awareness, an explicit sense of self-in-relation-to-other over time, and an awareness of right and wrong.... if self-reflective awareness and the capacity to justify is a key aspect of human exceptionalism, then it is immediately clear that a zygote or embryo is not a fully functioning person."
- RECALL & EXTEND both of CON’s 1st & 2nd Contentions.
- This excerpt is the trademark “Human Being vs. Human Person” argument that CON has immediately refuted in Contentions 1 & 2.
“So it's clear that at the very least, first trimester abortions can be founded as they are radically different from other types of abortions.”
- RECALL: “Within 8 weeks (easily within the first trimester), Abort73 finds:
- RECALL: “Notably, even if PRO could somehow prove that only 1% of abortions were unjust killings, it would still equate to a massive toll of 40,000,000 people dead by 2100 (meaning 500,000 people per year).”
- RECALL: “The baby is also able to respond to stimuli as early as 8 weeks, well within the first trimester, when the majority of abortions happen.”
- RECALL & EXTEND CON’s 1st & 2nd Contentions.
PRO asks: “What precisely makes it so that all fetuses, or the majority, which are aborted, deserve the same rights as fully functioning baby?”
Abortion violates the 1st and most important natural right.
PRO asks: “Why don't the parents' authority and status give them ability to control over the first few weeks of conception?”
PRO asks: “If the fetus does have rights, shouldn't we reduce suffering if they are disabled, physically or mental? Keep in mind, that the earlier you abort, the more of a case you can make, rather than forcing them through an entire life of problems.”
PRO asks: “What punishment does con believe in, if abortion should be a crime? Life sentence? Imprisonment? No punishment? The first two have horrible implications, especially on the woman's future in society, while the third contradicts con's case…”
PRO asks: “Since con did not negate rape, what about those cases? Surely the woman isn't at fault here, and shouldn't be forced to give birth.”
PRO asks: “what about human cloning? Do you believe in supporting the stem cells' rights? What if we use brain cells instead? What happens?”
If PRO thinks personhood begins with consciousness, then people in a vegetable state, suffering brain damage, or severely developmentally handicapped are “not people” under PRO’s logic and can be freely killed with no moral repercussion.
It is possible for a fetus to die while the mother lives, and it is possible for the mother to die while the fetus lives.
I would assume that there will be pain caused to the fetus. And I believe it will be severe and excruciating pain.”
estimated in a July 1960 article from the American Journal of Public Health
Abortion violates the 1st and most important natural right.
Why not kill 80 year old disabled people so that their remaining years will be pain-free?
Most likely, I would treat the situation like we treat manslaughter in courts.
“These are eggs that have been fertilized in the laboratory but have not been implanted in a womb.”As for cloning, I’d say I’m generally opposed.
“To kill a member of the Homo sapiens without justification is immoral.”
- PRO drops all of CON’s R1 observations. By extension, PRO concedes:
“RECALL from the description: “Con is for ban, with the exception of Maternal life.”This debate is not to assess whether it is likely or possible that abortion will be banned worldwide with the exception of maternal life, nor does it concern what the penalties under international or national law will be if the hypothetical ban is broken. Lastly, it does not concern whether or not the ban will be properly enforced at all. It is only concerned with why, or why not a ban should happen.As every formal debate event CON has participated in has not factored CX into assigning arguments points, CON says CX should be treated as a supplemental chance for the sides to interrogate each other, and nothing more. Ultimately, CX should not be a factor when deciding the winner. This is also supported by the fact that DART has no established voter policies regarding the judging of CX, even in the Extended Policies and Interpretations.”
- DROPPED/CONCEDED ARGUMENTS:
- 3/4 arguments CON gave against the fetus being part of the woman’s body.
- All arguments CON gave concerning “it’s the mother’s choice”
- The fetus can feel pain as early as 8 weeks.
- banning abortion would deter women from having one because most women are law-abiding. It would also incentivize more use of abstinence, preventative birth control and orphanages to deter the need for abortion.
- All arguments refuting the idea that 1st trimester abortions are different from 2nd onward.
- This goes without saying, but the voter should prioritize lives over economics.
“1. UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLEObjection! Con must not only prove that they are a person, but a person with fully deserved rights.”
“There has been much contention about whether human can or cannot lose rights in itself, with the general law setting the standard: criminals having their liberty taken away when proven guilty, despite the constitution's "right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness". When a human infringes upon another humans' right, then they are punished as a result. This is the prime set of standard, and this links into the lack of autonomy provided when a woman has a children. As the baby limits the woman's right to liberty and pursuit of happiness (as it may force her into poverty to support the child), this is a clear violation of the constitution, and arguably proves the baby is not a person with fully deserved rights.”
- The right to life is the foremost natural right as it is the prerequisite for all others. The right of a baby to live is more fundamental than the right of a woman to not be pregnant. To take someone’s life under the warrant that “my liberty and pursuit of happiness are being impeded” it is unjust and blatant homicide. Additionally, RECALL: “The mother freely elects to “serve as life support” when having the child, that is the inherent responsibility of motherhood. It is immoral to kill someone over inconvenience.”
- Second, even if the voter buys that by existing the baby has somehow done wrong, consider that the punishment must be proportional to the crime. Violating someone’s right to life is black & white. Life is the prerequisite to all other natural rights, so the punishment is proportional even if it is death. For instance, those sentenced to death have taken the lives of many people (i.e. in exchange for taking the lives of others, the perpetrator forfeits their right to life in response). On the other hand, it is universally agreed to be an unjust practice to execute over minor grievances. My liberty and pursuit of happiness are impeded in small ways daily (such as the fact that I must follow traffic laws when I drive, or the fact that I am not allowed to bring my orange juice into the movie theatre). These small inconveniences do not warrant me lining up everyone who has wronged me and shooting them in the back of the head, especially since many small sacrifices I make in liberty I make for the greater good (imagine how many lives people would take if they didn’t follow traffic laws). The woman sacrifices the right to kill her baby for the greater good of having a child (and once again I will remind the voter that the woman chooses to have the child of her own accord in the vast majority of cases), and finally the minor inconvenience a baby brings is not warranting death.
“2) HUMAN BEING vs PERSONHOODIf PRO thinks personhood begins with consciousness, then people in a vegetable state, suffering brain damage, or severely developmentally handicapped are “not people” under PRO’s logic and can be freely killed with no moral repercussion.CORRECT! I will immediately draw from the scholarly article I held in reserves to prove this point. “
“*ahem* to Paraphrase the arguments shortly, the researchers say: "Empirical data support the view presented in Holland (2010) that the ontological state of permanently vegetative patients is unclear: they are neither straightforwardly alive nor straightforwardly dead. Some relatives and experts take the view that the least worst option in this situation would be to shift patients from their currently unclear ontological state to that of being clearly dead. But many are concerned, or even horrified, by the prospect of the only legally sanctioned method guaranteed to achieve this, namely withdrawal of clinically assisted nutrition and hydration. Our analysis supports the case for debating a policy of allowing active euthanasia for PermVS patients (subject to all the sort of safeguards that are now or will be in the future put in place for allowing their deaths from treatment withdrawal).”
- PRO says that those in a permanent vegetative state (a small portion of cases) are not people, therefore anyone in a vegetative state (permanent or not), severely developmentally handicapped or suffering severe brain damage can be killed freely with no moral repercussion. Even if PRO’s original premise that those in a permanent vegetative state are not people were bought, the conclusion does not follow. Abortion kills unconscious beings that will definitely become conscious otherwise. This is like killing someone in a coma who is definitely going to come out of it.
- Even if the voter somehow buys PRO’s point here, RECALL & EXTEND CON’s Contention 1: “Indeed, the BoP is not on CON to show that abortion definitely does kill a person, it is on PRO to demonstrate that it definitely does not do so. And, as previously established, that is impossible. This throws out options 1 & 3, along with the only justifiable abortion scenario, leaving only unjustifiable scenarios.”
“Con keeps asserting that because it can be a person, it is a person, but the potential is just not there.”
“I have a hard time finding actual birth figures, but from IVF procedures, "21.3 percent: The chance of having a full term, normal birth weight and singleton live birth per ART cycle using fresh embryos from nondonor eggs is 21.3 percent for women younger than 35, according to SART’s 2015 report.”
- CON struggles to see the relevance of figures such as this. Some pregnancies fail, therefore it is okay for me to kill my child? That logic does not work.
- Even if the voter can somehow see relevancy in such figures, consider that this is specifically talking about IVF fertilization of women who are otherwise infertile. This should not be extrapolated to be a pregnancy success rate for the general population.
“If con is correct in that merely potential can be a person, that means we should charge everyone for manslaughter every nine months they are not having a child (because what could have been a child, was not. The "child" was "killed" through inaction.). This is incredibly problematic and leads to a worldwide apocalypse where either we have half the population reproducing and draining resources, or people are put in jail or even sentenced to death depending on how severe the manslaughter charge is. This is simply impossible of a world to live in."
“ 3: THE IMPACTSA. Oho? And con would rather 40 million people be born every year, according to his logic? Already (master's thesis, wow!), "Food scarcity and shortage of water as well as lack of job opportunities and inadequate education are the results of global inequality. Uneven distribution of natural resources, financial means, and individual rights give rise to poverty and define the global culture as greedy, despite the aid of international organizations and agencies. Solutions to overpopulation lie in the efforts of national institutions to implement policies that will correspond to the guidelines given by v international institutions that work for the best of the global community. Within this global network, individuals act in their best interest, leaving the rest in extreme poverty and shortage. The inequality supports issues that contribute to overpopulation and leads to a humanity’s extinction". So. It's either 40,000,000 dead , or all 7 billion people+40 mill dead (or immensely suffering). I wonder just which is more severe?”
- Off tops, reading the source reveals it is a master’s thesis for a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies… We shouldn’t just take this guy’s word for it unless we carry along a fat bucket of salt. Liberal studies is too broad of a degree to qualify him as any authority on the matter, and a Master of Arts tends to ignore the more technical side of things.
- This argument is pure speculation. The actual facts disagree.
- Even if the judge doesn’t buy any of this, consider that demographers actually predict global population will fall in the long run.
“B. The US Spends $11,000 on healthcare per person per year. Using con's same ideas (however, healthcare has to be offered all the way from birth, unlike working for the government), we spend $11,000*72= $792000. Ouch. That doesn't outweigh the $786,996 gain. No wonder the US is in trillions of dollars of debt. NEGATED.”
- PRO isn’t understanding what the numbers CON used represent.
- CON will point out the obvious, this source only pertains to America. In fact, it says: “The United States spends significantly more on healthcare compared to other nations and such spending is expected to continue growing.” In other words, on balance, other nations are not spending nearly as much.
“What? Show me one source that tells me that I can kill the mother and the fetus will be fine.”
“The professor says after 20 weeks of development, which is the vast minority of choices.”
“Ok Mrs. 1960. You do you.”
“On a more serious note, the woman is talking about developed countries with access to all of the physicians. A more rigorous and backed study in 2000 says: "Every year, worldwide, about 42 million women with unintended pregnancies choose abortion, and nearly half of these procedures, 20 million, are unsafe. Some 68,000 women die of unsafe abortion annually, making it one of the leading causes of maternal mortality (13%). Of the women who survive unsafe abortion, 5 million will suffer long-term health complications. Unsafe abortion is thus a pressing issue. Both of the primary methods for preventing unsafe abortion—less restrictive abortion laws and greater contraceptive use—face social, religious, and political obstacles, particularly in developing nations, where most unsafe abortions (97%) occur. "
- RECALL & EXTEND the first unrefuted argument: “CON argues that this objection does not resolve any moral objections to abortion.” Expanding on this: even if the voter bought that legalizing abortion would reduce unsafe abortion deaths by a notable amount, clearly the societal cost of mass murder in the form of abortion outweighs.
- RECALL & EXTEND the 2nd unrefuted argument: “Additionally, banning abortion would deter women from having one because most women are law-abiding. It would also incentivize more use of abstinence, preventative birth control and orphanages to deter the need for abortion.” PRO emphasizes that his source says legalizing abortion would reduce illegal abortion deaths, but in the same breath, his source agrees with CON that the same exact problem could be solved through contraceptives.
- Moving onto the source itself, I want to emphasize how relatively small a number of 68,000 deaths is with over 20 million, objectively invasive procedures. If anything, this proves CON’s point. That’s a death rate of 0.34%. Less than half of the estimated overall surgery mortality rate
“The fact that con is actually advocating for illegal abortion while still being safe contradicts the very point con is trying to make.”
Pro says: Addressed in point 1
Pro says: They have the right to suicide. That is not prohibited.
Pro says: Voters should bear this in mind as they continue reading into MisterChris's arguments.
Pro says: Okay, so NOW what's the difference? If we're trusting that even week 8 is not acceptable, then we cannot even discard the cells which are being fertilized into a fetus (despite potential disabilities and problems)...
Pro says: One potential justification is asked in my question, "what about disabled children, who may live an entire life of suffering?" If con does not address this, I shall turn this into a full fledged argument he will have to counter.
The fetus can feel pain as early as 8 weeks.
The mother freely elects to “serve as life support” when having the child, that is the inherent responsibility of motherhood
- CON struggles to see the relevance of figures such as this. Some pregnancies fail, therefore it is okay for me to kill my child? That logic does not work.
- Even if the voter can somehow see relevancy in such figures, consider that this is specifically talking about IVF fertilization of women who are otherwise infertile. This should not be extrapolated to be a pregnancy success rate for the general population.
- Half of the poor are children. Women represent a majority of the poor in most regions and among some age groups. About 70 percent of the global poor aged 15 and over have no schooling or only some basic education.
- Almost half of poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa live in just five countries: Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Madagascar.
- More than 40 percent of the global poor live in economies affected by fragility, conflict and violence, and that number is expected to rise to 67 percent in the next decade. Those economies have just 10 percent of the world’s population.
- About 132 million of the global poor live in areas with high flood risk.
Among the many different explanations for the horrific 1994 Rwandan genocide, the possibility of a Malthusian check (also called “demographic entrapment”) is scarcely mentioned [17,19]. A Malthusian check in Rwanda was plausible not only because the total population was too large, but perhaps more importantly because the rate of population growth in Rwanda was faster than the capacity of Rwandan society to process the additional people. As a result, many indicators of development went backwards. The limited agricultural capacity forced many young men into Kigali, causing a concentration of young men with few prospects other than what they might gain from violence.
There is even less scientific discussion that entertains the possibility that the sub-Saharan epidemic of HIV/ AIDS may also be a Malthusian check [19]. This is plausible if one applies a conceptual framework that combines the erosion of human carrying capacity through the same rapid population growth seen in Rwanda, with a consequent decline in per capita income and food supply. Furthermore, slowly operating feedbacks occurring as a result of the epidemic further undermined development, including the loss of human capital as teachers died [20], the loss of agricultural expertise as farmers died [21], and a deepening debt and loss of productivity from the countless funerals. And leaders in the developed world and many within Africa itself failed to devote the resources and provide the leadership required to quell the epidemic.
According to Forbes, “demographers estimate the world population will decrease in the long run, after peaking around the year 2070. It is now well-documented that as countries grow richer, and people escape poverty, they opt for smaller families — a phenomenon called the fertility transition.”
Point is, if these two Homo sapiens are so obviously independent of one another, it follows that one does not have the right to kill the other intentionally.
What level of suffering is PRO willing to live with? Where does he draw the line? Creating a genetically perfect race through selective killing is exactly what the Nazis tried to do. This is no different.
- PRO drops and concedes CON’s R1 & R2 observations.
- There are a multitude of dropped arguments. CON will point them out as the round progresses.
“Minor objection:The fetus can feel pain as early as 8 weeks.Euthanizing solves this problem.That being said... Onto the big ideas!”
“1. UncertaintyVery good, MisterChris, but you main argument has but one fatal flaw.I will now bring out my own strongest refutation of MisterChris's argument, to thoroughly show that the option 3 is the correct one, that the fetus does not necessarily deserve the rights. MisterChris assumes the mother has taken responsibility; they have not. He assumes:The mother freely elects to “serve as life support” when having the child, that is the inherent responsibility of motherhood”
- The mother freely electing to have the child is an additional, merely supplementary point tacked onto CON’s main refutations of your arguments. By saying this, you are dropping & conceding CON’s main points:
- PRO completely drops the fact that they have BoP to prove that we are certainly not killing people. On merit of this alone, the voters can extend CON’s 1st Contention, thereby automatically granting the CON victory.
“OBJECTION! A scholarly article states: "only a small proportion of abortions terminate intended pregnancies (8%)".”
- Even if this were flowed through on PRO’s behalf, this doesn’t actually do anything for PRO, as illustrated above. It was merely a supplemental point.
- The study is based on a singular survey in the US alone from 2002.
- The pregnancy being unintentional is not an excuse on three fronts:
“Due to lack of access, lack of information available, or simply the fact that 98~99% is actually not a good number for contraceptives (if everyone on earth had sex with contraceptives, out of 3 billion women, 30 million women would still have the unintended pregnancy). So MisterChris's argument falls right here.”
- RECALL: “The right of a baby to live is more fundamental than the right of a woman to not be pregnant. To take someone’s life under the warrant that “my liberty and pursuit of happiness are being impeded” it is unjust and blatant homicide.”
- Contraceptives are only one means of many. The use of a condom + a contraceptive is a virtual guarantee of no child. If all else fails, simple abstinence will do the job.
- Even if THAT fails, orphanages can take unwanted children.
- And finally, even if NONE OF THE ABOVE works, voters should outweigh the lives of millions over the inconvenience of a few. There is literally no excuse for mass slaughter of babies just because they were “accidentally made.”
“I will also bring up a theoretical situation to make clear that the punishment to the woman is also completely absurd and nonsensical…...”
- Off tops, what a cold, heartless argument PRO makes. Seriously. WTF.
- This metaphor falls harder than the stock market in 1929. Not only does having a child not restrict liberty NEARLY as much as PRO implies, but it actually enhances happiness for most people involved. Very few mothers actually regret having children, and even if they DID, it wouldn’t justify abortion in the slightest.
- RECALL & EXTEND: “Second, even if the voter buys that by existing the baby has somehow done wrong, consider that the punishment must be proportional to the crime. Violating someone’s right to life is black & white. Life is the prerequisite to all other natural rights, so the punishment is proportional even if it is death. For instance, those sentenced to death have taken the lives of many people (i.e. in exchange for taking the lives of others, the perpetrator forfeits their right to life in response). On the other hand, it is universally agreed to be an unjust practice to execute over minor grievances. My liberty and pursuit of happiness are impeded in small ways daily (such as the fact that I must follow traffic laws when I drive, or the fact that I am not allowed to bring my orange juice into the movie theatre). These small inconveniences do not warrant me lining up everyone who has wronged me and shooting them in the back of the head, especially since many small sacrifices I make in liberty I make for the greater good (imagine how many lives people would take if they didn’t follow traffic laws). The woman sacrifices the right to kill her baby for the greater good of having a child… and finally the minor inconvenience a baby brings is not warranting death.”
- Mothers have an intrinsic responsibility to care for their children.
- Finally, PRO still does not refute the fact that they have BoP, which freely extends CON’s Contention 1.
“2) Human Being vs Personhood…Ah... yes, I found it. The birth rate (11.6 per 1000 population). The logic, of course, works. If the pregnancy fails, then there is no child at all. Does that make sense? Look, if all pregnancies failed, obviously then it would be the same as abortion and we wouldn't even be having this debate….. By his logic, condoms have 2% of giving children, despite this low rate, they can become children. So now he is arguing against contraceptives as well, which is nonsensical. Let's go more concrete than "potential" then, and go on to sperms. What is the big difference, if con claims that at 8 weeks they already have everything they need? At the very beginning, the sperms alone contain DNA information…”
- The birth rate measures births as a share of the total population. This does not reflect the total number of pregnancy failures there are, but even if it did, CON still doesn’t see any relevancy in this point whatsoever. Pregnancies failing does not equate to the dead fetus being any other species than human. As for how this relates to contraceptives and condoms, the whole point of both is to stop fertilization/conception… Neither of those kill a human after they are created (i.e. the reason that a sperm dying does not equate to a human dying is that it is a cell of the father. It contains no new genetic information).
- The voter can extend CON’s 2nd Contention uncontested.
“3) ImpactsNicely done, however, before I refute, I would like to note that the previous source I used also said "We find that the provision of medical services to women who experience unintended pregnancies and to the infants who are born as a result of such pregnancies costs taxpayers $9.6–12.6 billion annually" . So we should also keep this mind against the economic gain con vouches for.”
“Con says things are growing more stable, being better, but he does not consider the fact that the population is now stabilizing, and that is why the resource distribution is being resolved. Con's world advocates for more chaos and more problems thrown into the mix.”
“The global extreme poverty rate fell to 9.2 percent in 2017, from 10.1 percent in 2015….So yes, people are doing slightly better, but the rate is still not that great, and the overpopulation is definitely an issue.”
- PRO contradicts themselves. Is the population stabilizing, or is population increasing?
- PRO says overpopulation is an issue despite the population clearly going up rapidly while poverty decreases.
- PRO isolates a couple years to say the improvement is slight. Looking at a wider view, we see that world poverty has been reduced by 86% in 36 years.
“A recent research notes that Rwanda genocide may have been caused by carrying capacity reaching the limit”
- Note that the study very clearly admits that there are a multitude of factors, and population is clearly not a large one.
- Rwanda is a singular nation. Even if the judge bought that somehow population single-handedly caused the Rwandan genocide, you can not extrapolate that to mean the entire world is going to face these problems when there is very clearly no overall correlation.
“Unfortunately, Con cannot posit to solve all overpopulation problems, especially wars we have little ways of controlling or overseeing.”
“About global warming, it isn't that a person is guaranteed to raise the temperature by an amount, but rather the industrialization, the needs to keep up with such amount of people, that is the actual problem. So more people means more products needed to be produce. Con's argument assumes that abortion is still legal…”
“People are still going to have sex, but the "smaller families" becomes really hard to manage especially with the mentioned fact that a lot of times with abortion, women don't feel ready, don't have enough information, or the contraceptive goes through. If con's "potential lives" actually are born, Forbes' ideas are completely destroyed, as con assumes the 40 million people will actually be born by 2070, rather than the population decreasing.”
“If they are obviously independent, then I could potentially abort the baby and have it survive, thus destroying con's entire argument. It's entirely plausible this is merely due to physical limitations. (Hm... extracting the cells to duplicate via cloning... maybe that could work, if human cloning was legalized). Also... they are forcing the mother to give birth in order to kill the mother and keep the child alive, which is.... just as bad, or worse, than what con is going for. So his argument doesn't work.”
NOTE: PRO drops the illegal abortion argument entirely. Extend in favor of CON.
PRO says: “Not quite, we are preventing disabled children from being born, and having trouble in real life. Though some can overcome their disabilities, we should do our best to ensure our children live the best lives, if they are born.”
Pro asks: “Bonus Question: Does con support incest? Because the main anti-incest argument is precisely this: we cannot allow them to have the potential to create children with severe diseases that die very early on in life.”
a. “The right to life is the foremost natural right as it is the prerequisite for all others. The right of a baby to live is more fundamental than the right of a woman to not be pregnant. To take someone’s life under the warrant that “my liberty and pursuit of happiness are being impeded” it is unjust and blatant homicide.”ANDb. “Second, even if the voter buys that by existing the baby has somehow done wrong, consider that the punishment must be proportional to the crime. Violating someone’s right to life is black & white. Life is the prerequisite to all other natural rights, so the punishment is proportional even if it is death. For instance, those sentenced to death have taken the lives of many people (i.e. in exchange for taking the lives of others, the perpetrator forfeits their right to life in response). On the other hand, it is universally agreed to be an unjust practice to execute over minor grievances. My liberty and pursuit of happiness are impeded in small ways daily (such as the fact that I must follow traffic laws when I drive, or the fact that I am not allowed to bring my orange juice into the movie theatre). These small inconveniences do not warrant me lining up everyone who has wronged me and shooting them in the back of the head, especially since many small sacrifices I make in liberty I make for the greater good (imagine how many lives people would take if they didn’t follow traffic laws). The woman sacrifices the right to kill her baby for the greater good of having a child… and finally the minor inconvenience a baby brings is not warranting death.”
The birth rate measures births as a share of the total population. This does not reflect the total number of pregnancy failures there are, but even if it did, CON still doesn’t see any relevancy in this point whatsoever. Pregnancies failing does not equate to the dead fetus being any other species than human. As for how this relates to contraceptives and condoms, the whole point of both is to stop fertilization/conception… Neither of those kill a human after they are created (i.e. the reason that a sperm dying does not equate to a human dying is that it is a cell of the father. It contains no new genetic information).
- Women suffer during pregnancy, despite having unintended this result
- Women suffer afterward and mentally are unstable due to denied abortion
- Children also have worse lives due to raised in an unprepared environment
“The argument CON proposes is that personhood is a faulty standard for whether killing is justified, and instead CON argues the standard should be “To kill a member of the Homo sapiens without justification is immoral.” Even if none of this was bought by the voter, the Uncertainty Principle still dictates a CON ballot.”
- RECALL & EXTEND: This goes without saying, but the voter should prioritize lives over economics.
- RECALL & EXTEND that PRO continues to have BoP to prove that the fetus is certainly not a person. And if that BoP is not met, then CON wins instantaneously.
“Firstly, I can drop all of Con’s original third argument (impacts). I am saying this here because this argument directly negates it. Why? Because Con’s economic impacts are “means to an end” which he does not desire. He is only talking about government gain of money [“contributed $14,574 to the world economy”]. No matter how much money the government can gain, if we violate the persons’ rights and personal liberties, people are suffering, and we cannot measure finance against this.”
- “He is only talking about government gain of money” is a gross misrepresentation of CON’s 3rd Contention Subpoint B. The actual point has been repeated so many times CON is starting to think PRO is doing this intentionally.
- Aside from this, PRO can not “drop all of CON’s original third argument” and expect to win, because the Subpoint A of lives is ignored by his reasoning here. This is especially bad for PRO, as lives outweigh finances, liberties, and everything else of the sort. Indeed, life is a prerequisite to having liberty or finance. People understand this intuitively, as we are completely ok with sacrificing pieces of liberty for the greater good. (CON mostly sees the economic argument of abortion as secondary, so it is interesting that PRO chooses to drill only this side of the contention.)
- Tying this into the liberty argument, impeding on liberty is not necessarily a bad thing, depending on what is being impeded upon and why.
“Otherwise, we could justify the government oppressing us all as slaves to the net massive financial benefit, not paying us, and merely giving us resources to live, a horrible dystopian future no one wants to live in.”
“money could be funneled from the poor to the rich even more. Only those with businesses can provide services, and the extra child drains extra resources. The disparity growing contributes further to the poverty resulting from banning abortion.”
- Children cost resources, but they also contribute far more than they take from society. OUTWEIGH with CON’s 3rd Contention.
- Once again, by having sex an implicit moral contract is made that if a child were to appear, the parents have a responsibility to either care for it, or give it to someone who can.
- Even still, Abort73 furthers:
“If Con's "potential of the fetus" argument works, then my logic can still stand, as a fetus sacrificed now compared to a fetus ten years later will still be netting one actual life saved, in exchange for one potential life filled with unnecessary suffering from parent and child.”
- PRO brings up the already-refuted premise that CON is arguing “potential.”
- What an absurd proposition. PRO argues that it is moral to kill people as long as we replace them with others.
“Counter Arg: Additional Suffering From Above, Clarified…Consider that women denied abortion have worse lives, which also contributes to their children living worse lives. “Women who had given birth also reported increasing rates of chronic joint pain and headaches – 15 and 23 percent by end of the five-year study period – compared to women who had first-trimester abortions (12 and 18 percent) and second-trimester abortions (8 and 17 percent).”
- PRO seems to argue that chronic pain from childbirth justifies killing children.
- Chronic pain can be attributed to many, many factors. But like with all ailments, the woman that gives birth but eats healthy and exercises will be better off than a woman with an abortion who does neither, and likewise.
“Another article supports this idea (except in financial matters): “The inability to control the timing and circumstances of birth affect the children born. Women are much more likely to report poor maternal bonding, such as feeling trapped as a mother or resenting their baby, with the child born after abortion denial than with the next child born after receiving an abortion (9% vs 3%). “
- PRO argues that being unwanted warrants death.
- A 9% vs 3% difference is tiny enough to where it backs up CON’s point that most mothers love their children.
“This may be a consequence of economic hardship and the circumstances that led the woman to want an abortion in the first place. Children born as the result of abortion denial are more likely to live below the federal poverty level (63% vs 55%), an average of 101% vs 132% of federal poverty level among children born subsequently to women who were able to receive an abortion.”
“Not to mention my “potentially disabled children from incest” argument. Look, I’m not saying a specific race is better, or hair color, or any of the traits that all humans possess. But losing an arm is definitively detrimental to life, and being blind loses an entire sense. Or living under minimum wage compared to living in a middle-class environment. We can predict the disabled, especially in the theoretical scenario the incest couple gets pregnant. We can help poor children, in the case of developing countries, where the majority of abortions are prohibited. Then we can stop the potential suffering or lack of fulfilling life due to disease and deformities.”
- PRO makes a fascist argument with a weak defense akin to “I’m not racist, but….”
- RECALL & EXTEND all responses:
“2. Personhood vs human rightCon still fails to completely differentiate between the actual life that deserves rights, and merely what constructs to be a person.”
- PRO once again ignores the core argument that humanity in of itself is enough to condemn the unjustified killing of a child.
- RECALL that PRO has BoP to prove that a fetus definitely isn’t a person. CON does not have BoP to prove that it definitely is. PRO has not fulfilled their BoP, only saying CON does not prove the fetus definitely is a person.
“Though seemingly callous, the low pregnancy rate, and the uncertainty before 13 weeks, corresponds to a potential situation where the Vegetative person has a low chance of actually becoming conscious (“only 10% of the 500 patients making a good recovery” for those in a coma)”
- But there ISN’T a low conception to successful pregnancy rate. PRO has not given any evidence that there is.
- And once again, if we’re dealing with a fetus that has been successful enough for us to detect there is a pregnancy and want to kill it, then it IS successful and VERY LIKELY TO BE BORN.
- Even if it weren’t, what is PRO’s point here? How the heck do you go from “some pregnancies fail” to “we are justified in stopping all pregnancies”?????
- Lastly, despite the low recovery rate, we don’t go around unplugging life support before the patients are determined to be unsavable. PRO’s metaphor here is extremely off.
“I have repeatedly noted that consciousness only happens way after 13 weeks (“Its physical substrate, the thalamocortical complex that provides consciousness with its highly elaborate content, begins to be in place between the 24th and 28th week of gestation.”).”
- RECALL CON’s previous debunking of this argument.
- RECALL that PRO has BoP to prove that a fetus definitely isn’t a person. CON does not have BoP to prove that it definitely is. PRO has not fulfilled their BoP, only saying CON does not prove the fetus definitely is a person.
“What is “respond to stimuli at 8 weeks” (Con arg), even? You could argue that muscles alone can respond to an electrical stimulus. That argument falls apart. The actual pain is only after 20 weeks, both of which are only 1% of abortions.”
- The respond to stimuli at 8 weeks argument is a pre-emptive argument against PRO. By PRO arguing it is a stupid metric of whether something is alive or not, PRO fully concedes this argument to CON.
- RECALL: “The baby is also able to respond to stimuli as early as 8 weeks, well within the first trimester, when the majority of abortions happen.” This stimuli includes pain. As for the professor, he said after 20 weeks the pain is “severe and excruciating.” This might just come down to semantic preference, but CON does not believe we can extrapolate this to mean nothing is felt prior to 20 weeks. It is not as if pain receptors are not present within the baby until 20 weeks exactly and then suddenly the pain is excruciating… No, it makes more sense for the pain to increase as the weeks go by. Either way, if we are to qualify our right to kill by how much pain is felt, then I am able to kill you as long as you are put under a strong sedative.”
“Even if Con can win this point, banning 1% of abortions is not winning this debate at all.”
“Con makes a good point about my analogy, but he still cannot entirely penetrate through, because his point can co-exist with my point. From a Cambridge University article, an author states…..A pregnant woman, on the other hand, has a negative right not to have her body invaded, and from this negative right derives a positive right to abort her fetus, so long as doing so is not disproportionate to the seriousness of the threat (as it is not in the case of involuntary pregnancy, or of pregnancy which has become involuntary).”
- First, this is an argument from unwantedness. Something CON has already debunked numerous times.
- Second, the “invasion” classification is bullshit. It labels a living child as something close to a parasite.
- Even in PRO’s source, the source acknowledges that the vast majority of abortions, it is unjustified: “so long as doing so is not disproportionate to the seriousness of the threat (as it is not in the case of involuntary pregnancy, or of pregnancy which has become involuntary).”
“The violation of the body for 9 months and the absurdity to take care of 18 years afterward is nonsensical, especially if the woman is poor and doesn’t have the finance to support for 18 years afterward.”
- Freely extend all responses against this analogy from last round
“The thing is, the clump of cells alone cannot be considered a human being.”
- RECALL & EXTEND all responses to this “clump of cells” argument.
- RECALL: “Notably, even if PRO could somehow prove that only 1% of abortions were unjust killings, it would still equate to a massive toll of 40,000,000 people dead by 2100 (meaning 500,000 people per year).”
- RECALL that PRO has BoP to prove that a fetus definitely isn’t a person. CON does not have BoP to prove that it definitely is. PRO has not fulfilled their BoP, only saying CON does not prove the fetus definitely is a person.
“Con has not even addressed the idea of just how detrimental this is on the woman. I have already previously mentioned the parasite/host or master/slave relation. He has not negated that it would be similar to forcing to draw blood between you and a relative.”
- Already negated
“Countless diseases and problems are stemming from pregnancy, further enforcing the idea of the lost autonomy and control over one’s body. Some examples are anemia, UTI, depression, High Blood Pressure, Obesity, Infections, HIV, “morning sickness”, I could go on and on.”
- OUTWEIGH with CON’s 3rd Contention.
- All of these are ailments that happen with or without pregnancy (even HIV, which is an STD). Most of which are very preventable and treatable.
- Medical care is getting better so this problem will diminish over time.
“There are even lists of things you cannot do while pregnant”
“Even if blood draw alone wasn’t enough, adding all these problems could lead to far too much suffering imposed upon the relative. For someone to impose a parasite/slave like relation, in exchange for life, is absurd. Some people under threat of slavery have fought nail and tooth, sacrificing their lives in the process, in exchange for freedom. It's clear to see that EVEN if fetus was a baby, killing it to fight for the right of liberty and self-autonomy can be justified. We value liberties even more than lives; we believe it is better to die than to live under oppression. Con's argument doesn't stand, for both these reasons.”
- PRO says babies can be killed because some people feel restricted by their existence.
- RECALL all of CON’s previous responses to this argument which stand completely unrefuted.
“3. Impacts While I can drop Con’s econ impacts, Con cannot drop MY economic impacts.”
- Already refuted
“Why? Because Con argument ignores the ideas of the future. My money is people’s money, which directly influences the quality of life. He forces women to give birth...Remember what I said about forcing women into poverty, which may increase the level of crime or suffering...A famous scholarly article supports this idea… crime fell roughly 20% between 1997 and 2014 due to legalized abortion. The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s.””
- “Forcing women to give birth” is a funny way of saying “keeping women from killing their children.”
- RECALL all economic refutations CON gave.
- As for crime, this point is idiotic.
- While CON does not support his racial views, Steve Sailer elaborates on the inconsistencies of this study quite well:
“Knowing con’s good research, he can probably find many articles refuting the idea of “unwanted”, however, he cannot find any that refute the idea of “unprepared. ”
- Already refuted on many levels.
“A Havard site notes: “it’s clear that population numbers – especially in richer, developed countries – are critical. A 2017 study from Lund University in Sweden found that an individual having one fewer child in a developed country would reduce their carbon emissions over 7 times the level of several other “green” actions combined: including living car-free, avoiding airplane travel, buying green energy, and eating a plant-based diet.”
- This is a pretty big “duh” point. The absence of a person obviously reduces their emissions more than if they had existed, even if they were diligent in reducing them.
“Species loss and animal population declines show that high levels of the human population do not, as Smaje states, “lurk somewhere behind the numerous environmental crises of our age.” Instead, hiding in plain sight, human numbers expanding by an additional 80 million per year are destroying animal habitat to expand cropland, pastureland, and cities.”
- PRO says the loss of animals means overpopulation is a problem worth taking action against. The judge should prioritize human lives over animal ones. In this case, there is a binary choice to be made between preventing the homicidal killing over 40 million people a year or having a loss of animal populations. The judge should always choose the former over the latter.
- PRO ignores that we could literally fit the entire human population in the US for the next 80-100 years or so.
- Additionally, we are becoming more efficient at farming. Less and less land is required to make the same amount of food. In fact, the amount of land we use for farming has stayed constant.
- Even if the judge didn’t buy anything above, RECALL:
“The UN estimates that by 2050 we’ll have to increase food production 60% over 2009 levels to meet the demands of our swelling population.”
- First, there is a large window that ranges from 25-75% increase depending on many different factors. A much more recent analysis finds:
- Even if we were, RECALL:
“Remember that Con’s “stabilizing population” argument (“people have little impact on pollution”) only works if the world is kept as it is, with abortions allowed and relation to helping women save money on otherwise forced childbirth. The only reason we haven’t seen the big “carbon footprint” effect is where abortion is still banned, in developing countries.”
“This seems all fine and dandy until you realize that you are advocating for not developing the country. We still have to increase the quality of life for them, as living in disease and poverty is definitively worse when we can supply this. But as the developing countries grow in population and become the “developed country”, you have to find a way to help reduce the fertility or birth rates, otherwise, there is no way to provide for the people while taking care of the environment.”
This debate was a bit messy, largely because I feel that large sections of it could have been collapsed when points were being repeated. Despite those issues, I do feel that there’s a clear outcome to the debate, and it plays out largely in Con’s first contention. As per usual with abortion debates, the biggest arguments on the table are those regarding access to basic human rights, namely life and liberty. Economic impacts, while stated to be large, get a little murky because it’s unclear where that money is being yanked from or how it would be used. I buy that it exists, but as Pro points out in R4 and Con stated previously, it’s difficult to compare these economic impacts with those affecting life and liberty more directly. I could see points being made for how economics could affect life and liberty, but they go unstated in the debate, so I drop this impact out. I also do drop Pro’s economic impacts, despite his claims within R4 (not sure why you’d do this) that his economic impacts matter more because it affects quality of life due to coming directly out of the pockets of these new families. I guess I see that, but while the personal scale of the problem definitely makes the impacts clearer, I’m not sure how that automatically weighs in a debate about more fundamental rights. If it doesn’t matter that governments don’t have the resources to help these people because there aren’t enough people to generate those resources, then it doesn’t matter if individuals lack those resources. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.
That doesn’t really hurt Con, though. The preservation of life argument holds up pretty strongly throughout the debate, and though I have personal misgivings with the framing of both the burdens in the debate (I don’t think Pro was required to take on the burden of proof that Con put on him simply because he is the instigator) and of some aspects of the uncertainty principle, these largely go uncontested. Pro just doesn’t do all that much on this argument beyond stating that Con must prove certain aspects without engaging on the BoP reasoning that Con gives, and providing an argument for why liberty shouldn’t be infringed upon that is, at best, tangential to the point being made. The point is that uncertainty in the question of whether a fetus is a person should favor the fetus being a person, otherwise abortion becomes a means to end a terribly huge number of lives solely on the basis that we don’t know. He points out connections to those in comas and those who are sedated as examples: we need to recognize that, no matter whether someone feels pain or is conscious, their life is precious. Pro’s responses, particularly on the comatose, miss the mark. Euthanasia is a very different issue because there is at least the capacity for an active choice in that person’s life. Any choice made by someone else would also have been designated by that person. I can see where you were trying to go with this, but it’s a weird point and it doesn’t get at the basic argument Con is making: that life doesn’t gain or lose value (at least not in the eyes of the community at large) simply because one is unconscious or not capable of feeling pain. Pro does make a point about suffering and how these children may be subject to terrible lives, and while that has merit, he doesn’t do enough with it and allows Con to easily outweigh it by simply saying that that loss of life is the greater harm.
So Con is winning this point, and there’s not a lot left to be done with the debate. Con repeatedly argues that life precedes any even substantial loss of liberty for the women carrying these children, which Pro never substantially disputes. There are some loss of life arguments presented by Pro regarding illegal abortions, but the numbers are unclear by the end and they come nowhere near Con’s numbers. There’s also this point about overpopulation, which just becomes a bit of an unclear mess by the end. It’s an issue, it’s important, but it’s unclear that banning abortions would trigger a massive rise in the population or that any resulting rise would put us over the brink. It’s a linear impact at best, enhancing existing problems rather than putting us in dangerous new territory, and while that may be a valuable impact in most debates, it’s not going to do much against Con’s main impact of life loss.
Con clearly takes this debate. He pushes a strong narrative from the outset, focusing heavily on the link between human beings and personhood, and remains largely unchallenged on that narrative throughout the debate, practically granting him his biggest impact without substantial mitigation. I don’t think it’s possible to win an abortion debate where that happens, regardless of how good the opposing arguments are.
Without going back and reading through this (I'll rely on my limited memory of the arguments made), I believe the response that MisterChris presented against uncertainty regarding the future of the unborn was that it's not about a sense of potential. I agree that there's a point to be made about how the unborn is often miscarried, but that argument relies on everyone already agreeing that what matters most is to be born into the world alive. Sure, it's possible that many unborn would die through no fault of anyone, but your opponent argued that that doesn't lessen the value of the unborn, it just means that a certain amount of tragedy is inevitable. The existence of said tragedy doesn't mean that we should heap onto that tragedy with more loss where such loss is unnecessary. The other aspect that affects this is that even if I buy that they matter less simply because many of them will never reach the point of viability, the loss of life is a more severe harm than the loss of autonomy on the part of the woman. I largely agree with the point made by the article you're quoting, but to say that pregnant women are "those most affected" is a point that's not clearly true on its face. I'm sure MisterChris would argue that the one most affected is the one who loses their life, which would be the unborn.
If I was going after the same point (eschewing more scientific questions that relate to it), which I have on occasion, I don't think I'd rest on the probability point. If we could somehow determine whether someone is likely to die at a young age or not, we wouldn't reduce their value as human beings as a result because we have established that life matters past the point of birth. MisterChris is simply trying to push that back to conception. Ragnar's made some pretty solid arguments about uncertainty regarding the value of the unborn, partly as a result of probability, and that the loss to rights is more absolute and continuous. Here, MisterChris tried to precede such arguments with his point on the Uncertainty Principle. I think that's both his most important point and the one that must be assailed most strongly. Still, even if he won the uncertainty principle, it's possible to outweigh him, and I think the 20% point could be used to do that. You would just have to put some really hefty weight on the loss to self-ownership that women suffer, and use the 20% point to reduce the impact of the losses that MisterChris used to weigh his arguments. This balancing act is a major reason why my arguments in other abortion debates have shifted a bit - I think it's possible to shift the dynamic of these debates and force more discussion over implementation - but I do think it's possible to win on these points. It just gets more complicated.
there's one thing I can't get out of my head-- why didn't you buy that the idea that the fetus was only going to be a baby like 20% of the time? doing more research on if Chris's argument was possible to challenge, I found an interesting article rewording my link in a more direct way: "Viability is a claim about what action can be taken in the present based on an anticipated future that is never to be. Viability is a measurement only sensible as applied to a neonate post-birth, but it is used to define the status of a fetus in utero. Moral arguments from viability thus treat pre- and post-birth as though they were equivalent states, when the very argument is that they are not.
In the end, rather than seek moral absolutism where there is none, the only legitimate answer in law is to embrace individual moral judgment on its fairest terms. There is a human rights argument that the judgment of those most affected, pregnant women themselves, should matter most, and it is thus their moral judgment about later abortions in which collective faith and trust should be placed.36 This is the sentiment driving popular Trust Women abortion movements. Gestational time limits thus implicate human rights of more than access to services, but of women’s freedom in conscience, equality, and liberty. " (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5473036/)
admittedly it takes the moral grey ground rather than talking about how viability downright is ridiculous/implausible, and raises the woman's right as the only remaining resolution possible. Chris's argument is particularly worrisome because it infers that even if the baby's birth was determined by a 20 sided dice we should still refuse to give the woman the moral claim to her body. I'm not seeing a way to defeat it...
Knowing the quality whiteflame gives voting, I don't believe I will be putting in the time and effort to read this one. I started into it, and both seemed to do well. I assume based on pro letting the focus be on humanity, that con would inevitably win.
Personally, I’m not sure on the moral question. I have a lot of problems with the arguments of both sides, though I think MisterChris does a good job of representing the pro-life argument. My issue is mostly with finding an objective point at which a unique life (and yes, I’m not just talking about personhood) begins, and I think both sides struggle hard to justify choices that fit a specific narrative rather than engaging with the scientific facts that underpin their choices, but that’s just me. That being said, the moral argument is a lot easier for pro-life debaters than for pro-choice debaters. Lives lost is such a huge and easy impact, and it’s a given. Everything else can get a little muddled if you’re not careful.
I see. I guess that's why online it suggested asking what exactly the punishment should be with Abortion. With manslaughter, the legal implications are interesting. I think I focused too much on morality. As Jordan Peterson notes, Abortion is clearly wrong. However, illegalizing abortion may be even more wrong, somehow.
Ragnar tackles it differently than I would, but he engages quite a bit harder on the issue of personhood. I can’t speak for how he’d make these arguments, but if you look back at prior debates of his, he’s largely argued that uncertainty should favor a lack of personhood. I’d like to see how he’d engage with this uncertainty principle argument.
The way I’d do it is largely not to engage on it. Essentially, the uncertainty principle is a moral framework based on a lack of knowledge. We can’t know, ergo we may be doing harm and not be aware of it. I’d refocus the debate on what we do know, including incidence of abortions (if illegal abortions are super safe as Chris said) and how they’re affected by punishments/investigations being unclear (the claim of miscarriage would allow many to get away with abortions if they’re not actively investigated). Morally, we as a society may do something “wrong” (i.e. make abortion legal) to prevent greater harms from trying to do it “right” (making abortions illegal). Essentially, I’d focus on the mechanisms used to implement what MisterChris argues for in this debate rather than the perceived outcomes of those actions.
As for defending third term abortions, I actually find that absurdly easy. Almost all of those cases involve physical harms to the child or the mother. A woman doesn’t carry a child that far to term without wanting it very often, and the number of boxes you have to check to get a late term abortion with most providers is not insubstantial. As for the rebirth argument... it came up late and leaves me thinking that the whole debate doesn’t really matter (why care about any suffering or death if we’re coming back later?).
any additional tips? I haven't seen even Ragnar successfully negate the fact that the value of the human life, especially third term abortion, should not be ridded. That 1% is severely bothering me. Is the framework the problem? (should I say, only abort first term). Or is there actually a way to win 3rd term abortion, because I've seen experts successfully argue that it's better to live horribly than never be born at all. I tried to say that you're effectively reborn 10 years later, but it seems you didn't buy it.
( and also Cornell University's argument links to Rape, but I probably didn't link that well enough together.)
Might take me a bit, but I’ll get through this.
have a go.
Interesting responses, time to wait another week and post last min again
I had trouble linking a second study I found to support the first study. Here it is. I'll re mention it in the last round, but know that there was more than one that added to the 92 % statistics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4727534/
I don't know you either, but it's always good to have more quality debaters around. Welcome back!
I missed you! I don't know you, but I missed you!
I'm back! Who missed me?
Ah, I see. Does consciousness decide person hood? Btw, how do you define "parasite." I think it is misapplied here given that parasites are not members of their own species, as a human is in early development. Additionally parasites rely on hosts for their entire existence, while humans rely on their mothers for only about nine months out of their life. Slavery seems a bit extreme also. I don't think think humans can force themselves onto their mother...I think we know how that happens.
Consciousness doesn't make much sense either given we are not fully conscious until our prefrontal cortex is fully developed well into adulthood (are we not fully human until that point?). You can also compare the consciousness of animals to see why it doesn't fit as the mark of person hood.
I think you are left with the bigger question: What exactly is happening in pregnancy?
If we are talking about the development of a member of the human species, then it makes sense that a person is involved. But if it is not a member of the human species, then it cannot be a person. That to me makes the most sense. What do you think?
To Truth!
-logicae
the reasoning is that 13 weeks is conscious standard (and that explains why they vast majority of women decide so before 13 weeks for abortion) [https://www.nature.com/articles/pr200950] ... and the big problem is the "parasite"/"slave" comparison from lack of abortion.
I think major inconsistencies arise if you declare person hood to begin there. Can you explain why that point defines person hood and not conception? (which is the standard for the beginning of the human species in biology) I can understand searching for common ground, but hopefully we can find solid ground to share.
To Truth!
-logicae
other way around. Choicer usually think only 3rd term counts as best (1st term does not count as life that can infringe upon the woman's autonomy). This is the best agreement that both can agree to, that 1st term abortions should be allowed. 2nd is the arguable part.
The pro-lifer asserts life starts at conception, while pro-choicer claims preconception.
Can agreement come from debate, when all we wish to do is negate?
Could we devise a plan for agreement, so that we might find out why the disagreement.
A point can only be made if true -the very wise words of a fool.
We must tread lightly on our ignorance, till at long last we find deliverance.
We are in in this together, separated by thousands of miles, and yet it is still as if we are not so far away. May we all have the strength to accept the truth when it comes. Love to all.
To Truth!
-logicae
note to self to use this as a final straw... https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-philosophy-and-policy/article/abortion-abandonment-and-positive-rights-the-limits-of-compulsory-altruism/12B2E3CF9296247A0D572ED4807A7833
we will leave that to the voters to decide
to be fair, I could drop all your arguments except the first one and win on virtue of that alone
*laughs maliciously in 92% unintended pregancy*
I will be forever astonished at your speed of reply...
9spaceking's reminder to future self to use this in case of disabled children: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bioe.12679
noted
sorry, I meant "that does outweigh", not that doesn't outweigh, for the $790,000 vs $780,000 argument
Decent response, given the timeframe you wrote it in
Keep in mind that nothing you put in the comments actually counts in the debate, although that article was interesting to read
I will also leave https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4078237/ here in case of your vegetative person argument.
ah, I just came up with a good idea. Parents are free to ground their children, limiting their freedom of liberty (access to communication, locations). They can even disown and cut off ties with children for good reason. I should probably mention this, as it troubled me for an additional reason, even if it can be proven fetus have "rights".