Instigator / Pro
21
1763
rating
29
debates
98.28%
won
Topic
#3226

THBT: Abortion is, on balance, immoral.

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
9
3
Better sources
6
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
3
3

After 3 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

Bones
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
7,500
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
15
1777
rating
79
debates
76.58%
won
Description

THBT: Abortion is, on balance, immoral.

BoP:
Bones = Abortion is, on balance, immoral.
Contender = Abortion is, on balance, moral.

Definition:
Abortion = a procedure to end a pregnancy. It uses medicine or surgery to remove the embryo or fetus and placenta from the uterus.
Moral = A behaviour, conduct, or topic that is based on valid principles and/or foundations

RULES:
1. No Kritik.
2. No new arguments are to be made in the final round.
3. The Burden of Proof is shared.
4. Rules are agreed upon and are not to be contested.
5. Sources can be hyperlinked or provided in the comment section.
6. Be decent.
7. A breach of the rules should result in a conduct point deduction for the offender.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

In this debate, both sides failed entirely to understand what the debate was but because the pro-choice side needs to better grasp the debate, the pro-life side won and here is why:

Pro-life side says that firstly, a foetus is a human and that therefore personhood applies to a human (in Round 2 this is explicitly stated, in Round 1 implicitly)

Pro-choice side fails to realise he has to separate being human from being a person (also advocating for euthanasia here is a strong move but I understand that Con wanted to avoid having to fight a war on two fronts, though it is inevitable). Con never once does this, instead Con goes in the other direction, he actually abolishes all basis for animal rights in order to justify the slaughter of a human foetus... It's a very odd move because while it's true we as a society have huge neglect to the welfare of farm animals, it isn't true that this is necessarily morally correct.

I am also incredibly confused with what Con's point was. With a chicken, the justification is the meat... That's not lack of justification. In contrast, if you justify killing a human as cannibalistic, it is that we deem that justification insufficient vs what good the being does and can experience that is at play. This 'equating and scaling' system of morality is what Con desperately needed to bring into the debate and simply does not succeed in doing so.

Con keeps pushing for absolutism, comparing a human foetus to a chicken for instance but a much better absolutist approach from the pro-choice side would instead be equating a foetus to a fertilised chicken egg what we happened to cook and eat before it hatched (eggs from hens with a cockerel in the vicinity are always potentially fertilised and actually the morally superior organic form of egg is more, not less, likely to have had this occur).

Pro keeps sticking to absolutism, not realising that his syllogism completely lacks any exploration of morality. The way Pro wins the debate, in my eyes, is the following:

This rebuttal...

1. An infant
1.1 is able to have a different physical location than their mother
1.2 is able to learn and develop a unique personality.
2. A fetus
2.1 is directly infringing on the womens body.
3. The process of pregnancy is painful.
1.1 was covered in my initial nonconsequential argument.Just as how moving from the garage to the bedroom does not affect one's moral worth, moving from inside the womb into the delivery room shouldn’t either.

1.2 is not satisfactory, as people born with extreme brain damage cannot learn or develop any personality.

2.1 is also unsatisfactory, as the right to life trumps the right to desire.

3. is also unsatisfactory as ones pain does not allow for them to vent it onto others. If I were in pain, would I be morally allowed to kill my child? "

It excellently proves that Con's stance is scarily psychopathic in fact and essentially can be stretched to be justifying killing a newborn baby. Con's reply to this inthe LAST ROUND (which Pro can't reply to)

is this:

"Not every human has moral value because some have, that would be a fallacy of composition"

What on earth does that mean or imply? Is Con saying humans have no moral value at all, potentially?

Con's stance is that all morality is negated by default but I have never and will never support this kind of Kritik. You can't take a debate on abortion being immoral or not and say it's not immoral because nothing is immoral. That kind of kritik is childish and even if morality is purely subjective, it follows that subjectively it should and would disgust any non-psychopath that we can simply kill humans as we please if there isn't enough resistance to that killing.

Pro wins but could have presented a much stronger case, such as exploring the 'why' of foetuses mattering and the 'when' of personhood during conception and discussing euthanasia and why Pro may see that as immoral.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

RFd in comments: https://www.debateart.com/debates/3226/comment-links/40026

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13UhOss4xN4Zmw9bLL2qu4q5Aj3ave2HCqEIx171UPqM/edit?usp=sharing