Instigator / Pro
11
1500
rating
4
debates
50.0%
won
Topic
#4646
Abortion is okay
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
3
Better sources
4
0
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2
After 2 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...
Bill-0
Tags
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- One day
- Max argument characters
- 30,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
7
1476
rating
336
debates
40.77%
won
Description
Once again, just a friendly debate
3 rounds and plenty of time to make your response, Lets be civil, no personal attacks
To accept this challenge, you must be Pro- "Life" as i am Pro-Choice
Round 1
Pro
#1
Abortion is okay before 20 weeks
This is due to multiple factors, Firstly, we place importance on the ability to perceive conscious reality as a human, and the ability to perceive pain
Multiple scientific studies ( 1 ) Have concluded that the baby first begins to feel pain and become somewhat conscious at 20 weeks and on.
Con
#2
*Abortion is okay before 20 weeks"
Correct me if I'm wrong. You're position is not "Abortion is ok". It's abortion is ok before 20 weeks.
"Firstly, we place importance on the ability to perceive conscious reality as a human, and the ability to perceive pain
Multiple scientific studies ( 1 ) Have concluded that the baby first begins to feel pain and become somewhat conscious at 20 weeks and on."
Is abortion ok if the baby doesn't feel pain or consciousness after 20 weeks or even long after ?
Are you content and satisfied with your life intact?
Would it be ok to terminate your life now?
All of these questions aren't rhetorical. The point is to establish some consistency and perhaps expose ulterior agreement.
Round 2
Pro
#3
Firstly, My apologies for not being more specific on my stance, I should have explained that it is not okay after 20 weeks, however i do hope we can continue to have a conversation on the matter.
If the fetus is not conscious or cannot feel pain after 20 weeks, then i would be fine with abortion, However, several studies have found that we can begin to observe these things developing around 20-24 weeks.
It would not be okay to terminate my life, because i am currently deploying a conscious experience unlike a 19 week fetus is, Again, we can only see the necessary parts of the fetus's brain developing after 20 weeks.
Con
#4
"If the fetus is not conscious or cannot feel pain after 20 weeks, then i would be fine with abortion, "
Ok because of the shortage of rounds, I'm going to have to get to the point to set a rebuttal based on the information given.
You use the term"fetus " in the context of "after 20 weeks ". Now this is in response to my question below.
"Is abortion ok if the baby doesn't feel pain or consciousness after 20 weeks or even long after ?"
I specifically asked about a baby which you can continue to call a fetus. What is key to notice is the "after 20 weeks or even long after".
The question you could ask me is "how much long after"?
See with no cut off point going by a " no pain and consciousness " basis, abortion, termination, killing, causing an end to a life is ok with you. It's ok, approved of, supported or as you say you'd be "fine" with.
Ok let us line this up with the remaining responses that should characterize your position.
"It would not be okay to terminate my life, because i am currently deploying a conscious experience "
Here's where we can verify consistency altogether.
Wouldn't it then be ok to terminate you once you're not deploying conscious experience as you put it?
Now normally I like to wait for the answer to make a response but once more due to the number of rounds, I have to get right down to the point and respond in advance here from a projection of anticipated answers to the question.
If you say no, you're inconsistent with your position and is nullified with self refutation.
If you say yes, you're consistent but expose inconsistency with the act of murder and abortion.
According to what we know about the act of murder, it is not ok.
Round 3
Pro
#5
I used the term " Fetus " Because you using Baby in this situation is dishonest, A baby is defined as " a very young child, especially one newly or recently born. " Meaning, that a fetus in the womb cannot be called a baby, but rather, as i have consistently called it, a fetus.
Yes, Again, the part of life that we value is the ability to deploy a conscious experience, If i cut my head off my body, and placed my head onto a robot body, and a robot head on the other part of my body, then you would obviously call the one with the robot body me.
In that case, we then can find that the thing we find most important in a human is their brain, or more importantly, as i continue to call it, " The Ability to deploy conscious experience"
If someones brain dies, even if the rest of their body is working, we find it alright to euthanize them, This is due to the fact that they are not currently, and they will never again, be able to deploy the necessary portions of the brain necessary to grasp their existence in the first place.
To your final question, YES if my brain wasn't able to deploy a conscious experience, then it would be completely fine to kill me because the part of human life we value is gone.
We say murder is BAD because it causes SUFFERING, and when one doest have the brain capacity to SUFFER then there is nothing wrong with killing them.
( If you would like, once you respond we can begin a new debate with many more rounds so we can have a more in depth conversation about the topic :) )
Con
#6
"I used the term " Fetus " Because you using Baby in this situation is dishonest, A baby is defined as " a very young child, especially one newly or recently born. " Meaning, that a fetus in the womb cannot be called a baby, but rather, as i have consistently called it, a fetus."
Really it's just semantics. It's not a big deal. Now calling it dishonest is a fallacy of accusation. At some point you would agree what a woman is pregnant with is a baby. You're just isolating a specific stage in the pregnancy process. Furthermore you didn't even ask how I'm defining the word baby. We can be using the same definition, but have our preference of semantics.
You define baby as "very young child, especially one newly or recently born." So according to this definition, a moment or an hour before birth in that womb is not a baby according to the definition. Although the physical resemblance would be identical, it's not a baby prebirth, but just after.
I wonder if it's just half a baby when half the body is delivered during the process of delivery. It would of been nice for you to challenge these counter points. But nevertheless, the readers can get something out of it .
The definition you're using doesn't really make sense of reality. What is the other half of that body? Remember, it's one whole body. It's identical just before and right after birth and your definition is conveying two different forms of beings/organisms.
This definition much like the your position doesn't appear to be well thought out.
If there are female readers that have experience or know of others in conversation with women 8-9 months pregnant, do they say I'm carrying a baby or the baby is due next week, next month?
Reevaluate your information.
"To your final question, YES if my brain wasn't able to deploy a conscious experience, then it would be completely fine to kill me because the part of human life we value is gone. "
This wasn't what the question was asking. See you went with a specific scenario where the question asked in general.
This was the question.
"Wouldn't it then be ok to terminate you once you're not deploying conscious experience as you put it?"
I'm asking generally meaning I didn't ask would it be ok to terminate you once you're not deploying conscious experience DUE TO THIS OR DUE TO THAT?
YOU ADDED the "DUE TO" part. You have to do that because you couldn't answer in general. I already demonstrated once you did that , you'd be refuted.
That question didn't ask about "if your brain wasn't able to". Who said you wouldn't be able to again? It was kind of sly of you to add that in . You brought in the "no hope" and " pretty much slowing dying, withering away" scenario.
You lose conscious experience in a coma that you can recover from. You lose conscious experience when you faint, sleep, receiving anesthesia, when you get knocked out from a fight, from nearly drowning in water. See you had to point out a specific scenario, particularly one where your own a death bed in order to still be arguing sound.
If I'm on a death bed, what difference does it make? I'm dying, pull the plug.
But you have to have a response to all the other possible scenarios because the question was in general about just losing conscious experience period. You conveniently avoided that because of the inconsistency that make your position fall apart and nullify it. All the other scenarios aren't necessarily an event where life is on the way out. This is why medical professionals attempt to resuscitate.
So because you didn't exactly answer the question as just yes period but said yes "IF", your answer is really NO except for the " IF "part.
So putting the exception aside, it would not be ok to terminate your life when you lose conscious experience. We already have inconsistency. Why would it not be ok for you but ok for other beings that would be in the same state as you?
You've nullified your own position.
"We say murder is BAD because it causes SUFFERING, and when one doest have the brain capacity to SUFFER then there is nothing wrong with killing them."
This too is erroneous. Don't ever go into society spreading this fallacious talking point. Murder is not based on the ability to suffer. If I kill someone unnecessarily, unjustly and deliberately in their sleep, experienced no suffering at all, it's still murder.
You have a very thin position on what is ok and not and you've contradicted yourself with it. I've demonstrated that.
You need more of an intricate basis rather than such a simplistic standard. It's too broad and it was how I was able to expose your contradiction between abortion and murder.
I understand Fred Hampton was murdered in his sleep. He experienced no consciousness from being drugged. Although the powers that be at the time ruled the in incident the other way. No different with the powers that be at the time of slavery ruling that just .
Point is don't think I can just kill someone unjustly that will not suffer from it all of the sudden make it just. I will be facing criminal prosecution.
To wrap all this up with a nice ribbon on it, the opposing side negated their position, rejected their own position, has falsified abortion being ok not only just after 20 weeks but prior by their own standard it wouldn't be ok to terminate their life due to no conscious experience, the same rule negates "no conscious experience" argument before 20 weeks in life development.
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:
Pro starts off simple, and direct. Creates a clear point of argument, and justifies it later on with respect to euthanizing a brain-dead person.
Con does not refute that. Pro had some careless language about murder, and Con rightfully pointed out a few contradictions, however all Con did was try to attack what Pro said, and said nothing of their own. Con did not create an argument. The very best Con could do was tie.
However Pro did enough, even when Con said "You have a very thin position on what is ok". It is still a position, it was clear, it was sourced, and it was not refuted.
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:
Con gave more convincing arguments. Pro's initiating argument was somewhat generic, and their last statement about murder was pretty bad. Neither gave sufficient sources, as they should have given the site where the definitions were taken from.
The person you voted for admitted that their position wasn't clear but it was clear to the voters. How many of you support abortion or political correct "pro-choice"?