Instigator / Pro

Mall

1382

rating

454

debates

46.04%

won

Topic

#6356

Taking the pro choice position is an inconsistent position without nihilism.

Status

Voting

The participant that receives the most points from the voters is declared a winner.

Voting will end in:

Tags

Health

Law

Abortion

pride

Parameters

Publication date: 06.29.2025 11:06AM
Last updated date: 08.06.2025 03:27PM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 5
Time for argument: One week
Max argument characters: 30,000
Voting period: Six months
Point system: Winner selection
Voting system: Open

Contender / Con

AlpacaHunter

1500

rating

debates

66.67%

won

Description

Please quote exactly. Do not rephrase or reinterpret.

Answer all questions directly.

Failure to comply with all this is an automatic forfeit.

Disclaimer : Regardless of the setup for voting win or lose, The aim of this interaction, Is for those that view it, Learn and or take away anything that will amount to any constructive value ultimately. So that counts as anything that'll cause one to reconsider an idea, Understand a subject better, Help build a greater wealth of knowledge getting closer to truth. When either of us has accomplished that with any individual here, That's who the victor of the debate becomes.

Questions on the topic, send a message.

***Lucy star fire cannot accept, nor any affiliates associated with this individual that has created multiple profiles, otherwise it will be an automatic forfeit on the topic from this individual, serious debates only*****

Round 1

Mall

07.01.2025 12:31AM

Pro

Taking a survey for newcomers. What was your impression of the topic?

AlpacaHunter

07.01.2025 05:51AM

Con

@Mall My think this topic is better compared to the other ones.

To the debate:

The claim that the pro-choice position is inconsistent without nihilism assumes that all life must be valued equally at all stages — and that failing to do so means one believes life is meaningless. That is a false and overly rigid assumption. A person can consistently value life and support the right to abortion without rejecting meaning, morality, or human dignity.

Ethical Consistency Exists in Pro-Choice Philosophy
Pro-choice positions are built on moral principles — not moral emptiness. These include:
- Bodily autonomy: A fundamental human right in medical ethics. No one can be forced to donate a kidney, even if doing so would save a life. So why should someone be forced to carry a pregnancy?
- Minimizing harm: Many who support abortion rights do so because they recognize the suffering that forced pregnancies can cause — physically, emotionally, economically, and socially. This is based on empathy, not nihilism.
- Moral prioritization: In ethical dilemmas, we often have to choose between competing values. Choosing the well-being of an existing person over the potential life of a fetus isn’t rejecting life — it’s making a hard but morally reasoned choice.
Philosophical Understandings of Personhood Support Pro-Choice Beliefs
The pro-choice view does not deny that biological life begins at conception; it questions when moral personhood begins. Many moral theories — including those by philosophers like Judith Jarvis Thomson and Mary Anne Warren — argue that:
- Moral rights (like the right to life) depend on qualities like sentience, self-awareness, or the ability to have interests.
- Fetuses, especially in early stages, lack these properties — so their moral status is not equivalent to that of a person.
Consistency in Supporting Life After Birth
Many pro-choice advocates support policies like universal healthcare, paid parental leave, childcare support, and education — all of which reflect a deep belief in the value of human life. A nihilist would not advocate for those. The pro-choice position is often part of a life-affirming worldview, just with different definitions about when personhood — and full moral rights — begin.

Round 2

Mall

07.03.2025 12:08AM

Pro

Being pro abortion does require an aspect of nihilism.

If you desire life, want life to exist, do not wish to destroy life, you are opposed to nihilism.

If you wish for all of this, you have to support the rights of life. Life of the born . In order to get that, rights have to be extended to the unborn.

You can't have one without the other. Otherwise you get inconsistency.

The opposing side already agrees without realizing granting a sound mind.

Otherwise you get disharmony just as those that claim they support homosexuality and not for abortion. That's disharmonious.

Claiming that you support life but support birth control is inconsistent as abortion is birth control.

Homosexuality and abortion are two sides of the same coin.

So the same coin has the same basis.

You can't be for the rights of people but will not support those that legally don't have them in a congruent fashion.

In order for the born to have rights, the unborn will have to have theirs in order to get there.

Reproductive health will have to be regarded, respected and protected for it all to get there.

This is the only sound path for pro life folks because the pro abortion folks first line of attack in an argument is to question a justified drawn line.

So what happens is that the line for birth control using abortion is equated to any other birth control.

The value in the birth control that the so called pro life encourage proves to have no greater value that is in birth control known as pregnancy termination.

Technically and legally classifying it as not murder.

Due to living in a society that is not concerned with optimal health, dietary care is neglected, psychological care is neglected, physiological sexual reproductive health is unprotected and thus the unborn is unprotected.

It all starts with optimally caring for ourselves first mandated through government and everything else falls congruently in order.

Otherwise nihilism goes deep into this and we're able to liberate, have liberals, liberal ideas, progress into further liberalism.

So as a product, we do have libertarian/nihilist individuals amongst us as the conditioning has been successful with them.

I've interacted with nihilists and I have engaged on the abortion subject.

I was going to participate in a challenge with them but upon getting clarity of their position, there was nothing inconsistent I could argue with them I could think of.

Now this topic is not about right or wrong, good or bad.

The name of the game is consistency which is always the epicenter.

Perhaps you can go into what "moral rights" are, who determines them and are they always subjective.

The only rights I'm talking about is within legality and by technicality partitioning them to life.

Same thing with personhood and the technicalities of that which demonstrate the inconsistency in what the true value of life is. Does it rest on a technicality or on the process and growth of nature alone?

This is the inconsistency the pro abortion and pro life folks get twisted into.

AlpacaHunter

07.03.2025 05:51AM

Con

Their core claim is that valuing life demands protecting all life, including the unborn. They argue that drawing any line short of that is inconsistent unless one embraces nihilism — the idea that life has no value at all. They equate abortion to murder, see birth control and abortion as morally similar, and suggest that liberalism naturally leads to nihilism.

They are saying that Moral Consistency Doesn’t Require Absolutism

The affirmative insists that if you value life, you must value all life in the same way — from conception to death — or else your worldview is nihilistic. But that logic falsely assumes that all life holds equal moral status at all stages, which is not how moral or legal reasoning works.

Most ethical systems — and laws — recognize moral gradation.
- For example, killing in self-defense is treated differently from premeditated murder.
- Removing life support is legal in many countries; killing a conscious adult is not.
- A fetus and a fully conscious adult are not morally equivalent in most moral systems — because of differences in sentience, autonomy, and consciousness.
Pro-choice ethics consistently apply this kind of moral reasoning.
They don’t reject the value of life. They assess how and when different forms of life acquire rights. That’s not nihilism — that’s principled ethics.

They also said that: Personhood and Rights Are Consistently Defined — Not Arbitrary

The affirmative claims that “legal rights” and “moral rights” are used inconsistently, but that’s not the case. There are clear, well-established frameworks that pro-choice thinkers use to define when moral and legal personhood begins.

Personhood in law and ethics is not determined by biological life alone, but by features like:
- Consciousness
- Ability to feel pain
- Self-awareness
- Capacity for relationships and moral agency
A fetus in early development lacks these traits, and therefore does not carry the same moral or legal weight as a born human. This distinction is not arbitrary; it's grounded in decades of legal precedent (e.g., Roe v. Wade’s viability standard) and philosophical reasoning.
Rights are never absolute — not even for born individuals. We place limits on freedom of speech, on parental rights, and on bodily autonomy (such as vaccine mandates during pandemics). Balancing competing rights — such as the rights of the pregnant person and the fetus — is a standard, not inconsistent, moral approach.

They tried to say that Birth Control ≠ Abortion — False Equivalence

The affirmative argues that abortion is "just another form of birth control," implying that using contraception and terminating a pregnancy are morally equivalent. That is incorrect both biologically and ethically.

Birth control prevents conception; abortion ends a pregnancy after conception.
Many pro-choice advocates morally distinguish between the two, based on the developmental stage of the embryo or fetus.
Moral weight increases as development progresses. That’s why many support access to early abortion but favor limits on late-term abortion — showing consistency, not confusion.

They said :The Affirmative Argument Is Based on a False Dilemma

They argue that you're either:

100% pro-life from conception onward, or
You're a nihilist.

This false binary ignores the large moral space between those extremes. You can:

Value life
Believe meaning exists
Reject nihilism
And still hold that the right to bodily autonomy outweighs the rights of a non-sentient fetus

Pro-choice does not mean anti-life. It means the rights of a fully developed human being — with thoughts, dreams, and suffering — take precedence over potential life in its earliest, unconscious stage.

The affirmative tried to tell you that: Claiming Homosexuality and Abortion Are “Two Sides of the Same Coin” Is Conceptually Weak

This claim assumes that any deviation from traditional or biological reproduction is nihilistic or “against life.” That’s philosophically and factually flawed.

Homosexuality does not deny life. LGBTQ+ individuals can and do raise children, adopt, and create loving families.
Equating identity with moral decisions like abortion oversimplifies the debate and erases the unique contexts surrounding each issue.

Let’s be clear: pro-choice thinkers don’t just "draw a line and hope for the best." They justify their lines using:

Medical science (viability, fetal development)
Ethics (sentience, moral status)
Human rights (bodily autonomy)
Legal tradition (case law, civil liberties)

This is not random. It is principled, reasoned, and deeply moral — which is the opposite of nihilism.

Round 3

Mall

07.09.2025 01:06PM

Pro

I'm going to ask a series of questions to try to bring this to the center of the topic.

Consider this the cross examination and any non engagement is forfeiture.

If you are a pro abortionist and support the rights of those , namely women to choose to abort pregnancies, aren't their lives valued so much that they should have autonomy?

Do you believe in the fight for the autonomy of these women?

If you believe that you wish not to take that autonomy away, why do you support opting to take it in advance before these women are born?

If you are a nihilist, it is consistent that one's autonomy doesn't supersede another whether unborn or born.

Why?

Where does life begin?

At conception.

No.

When the fetus is developed.

No.

When the baby is developed.

No.

Life began with the first man or human being.

This is why the line drawn anywhere else is argued in arbitration.

If you are a person that has the lack of value or significance on life itself, you are neglectful of a deleterious impact on health.

There is no concern for the man, the human being, what the being produced such as offspring.

This has nothing to do with morality I believe I stated last round. I'm arguing about inconsistency.

There is no consistent line with non nihilist pro abortion folks. Just social conditioning is all to believe one thing totally unaware of paradoxical reasoning. Presumably anyway.

Self defense killing and unjustified killing are not the same so we can't used that as an excuse to kill the unborn.

Self defense killing is based on a value for life. The unjustified termination of any life is a lack thereof.