JackSprat (PRO))I shall summarize my position, pre-emptily address anticipated opposition, and expand as needed in further rounds.
“A human child is worth more than a thousand embryos. Or ten thousand. Or a million. Because they are not the same, not morally, not ethically, not biologically,” Tomlinson said.
It has been argued that abortions cause more harm to women psychologically than good. There is no evidence, whatsoever, that abortion leads to depression, anxiety, or suicide. On the contrary, the most overwhelming emotion women report feeling after abortion is “relief“.
Some argue the fetus feels pain, however scientists and doctors have established that pain perception only occurs after the cortex is developed which occurs around week 26, well after the legal abortion windows provided.
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royalson (CON)I would like to thank JackSprat for agreeing to engage me on this vitally important subject.
I will structure my opening presentation into three basic sections:
I.. UNDERSTANDING THE TITLE OF THE DEBATE
II. Why I believe that there are no good reasons for elective abortions to remain legaL.
III.Common arguments in favour of elective abortion.
With this overview in mind, I turn to the initial section of my presentation, an understanding of the title of the debate itself. This is to ensure that both sides address the actual topic, and marshall our best arguments without distracting the flow of the discussion.
I. UNDERSTANDING THE TITLE OF THE DEBATE
The title is “Should elective abortions continue to be legal?”
By elective abortions, I am referring to the termination and removal of an unborn child at any stage of a pregnancy, from conception, right through to birth by voluntary request and consent of the mother.
On the issue of legality, I believe that the legal liability ought to be bourne 100% by the doctors, assistant workers, and the servicing clinic as a whole, to put an end to elective abortions.
To clarify my position even furrther, it is not within the scope of debate to argue against emergency, involuntary procedures.
A. Elective Abortions are not life-threatening for the mother.
Abortion advocates often draw attention to statistical outliers, including situations in which the mother's life is threatened. However, elective abortions, unlike emergency abortions do not involve life-threatening circumstances. Since the threat of one's life is forcefully argued by abortion advocates, then that same force ought to be applicable where the mother's life is not at risk. In essence, abortion threatens the life of the baby.
B. The argument from rape is the very reason abortions in the case of rape ought to not be permissible.
Why is rape morally wrong? Because it is a violation of a woman's body. However, aborting a child from rape is a violation of the body of the child. In fact, abortion goes one step further, because it is not merely a one-time violation of the child's body, but a permanent violation and a denial of their human rights.
C. The power to make a choice presupposes one's own right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Either the right to choose to abort is either an inalienable human right or it is not.
1. If it is not ,then a woman does not have the right to choose an abortion for her own child.
2. If it is, then she must pass on that same right to choose to her own human child which requires that they be left to live.
D. General principles of morality presuppose that oughts exist.
1. If oughts do not essentially exist, but are only societal conventions, then there is no reliable determiner to conclude that terminating a child's life should remain a legal option.
2. If oughts do exist, they must be based upon a metaphysical reality from which morals values exist.
a. A Metaphysical reality from which moral values exist infers the existence of a creator God.
Such a metaphysical reality suggests that we creatures are subject to the will of our creator. As such we cannot take it upon ourselves to end the life of another human being.
b. A metaphysical reality other then God, has little or no ability to be recognized or understood and cannot form the basis to allow the killing of another human being.
E. General Morality aims to satisfy the maximal good for a given situation.
1. If human beings are not omniscient, nor have knowledge pertaining to the future outcomes for any unborn child, then we cannot know whether allowing that child to develop would lead to a greater good in society or not.
2. The only way to know how a child will develop in society is to allow that child to develop in society.
F. The Golden rule of Morality is that we ought to treat others as we would like to be treated.
1. No human being, in a healthy psychological state, would want to be tortured or killed by another human being.
2. Practicing abortion is the very antithesis to the golden rule.
G. Abortion as a form of women's rights is self-defeating
Abortion to (supposedly) preserve one of women's rights itself destroys all human rights of the child (including "little men" and "little women"
H. A woman's right to bodily autonomy stops where violation of others' rights begins.
It is the enduring refrain that a woman should be able to do what she wants with her body in every situation and that abortion is no exception.
Actually, the people making an exception are abortion advocates. Can a woman do whatever she likes with her own body? It depends. Our entire legal system is based upon the fact that while we do have autonomy and the right to our own bodies, we cannot do whatever we want with out bodies. For example, I can way my fists around in the air. The air doesn't care because it is not living. However, a woman cannot swing her fists in the air if it means punching someone in the face. Does the woman have bodily automy? To an extent, yes. But is this autonomy morally acceptable in any situation. Quite clearly not.
If autonomy was to be respected in any circumstance, what place would there be for a police system or judicial system?
III. COMMON ARGUMENTS IN FAVOUR OF ABORTION
A. The child isn't really a human being.
Response - This is not based upon Science. From conception, the child has all the DNA that will make them unique in the world.
At what point would an abortion advocate propose a child suddenly becomes human?
Left to go their natural course to grow and develop, the child will ultimately mature from infancy, to childhood, to adolescence , to adulthood.
The unborn child lacks not one thing to be able to become a fully functioning human being.
B. Sometimes children are just too heavy a financial burden.
Response - That is no reason to kill them. We don't kill our children once they become teenagers because it is too much of a financial struggle. We don't use that as an excuse to kill human beings in other contexts, so why should we make an exception with abortion. Such a proposal would be ridiculous.
C. A child of rape is a painful memory
We go through many painful memories. It is a part of what it is to live a human life. But to cut someone else off from painful memories would be illegal and frowned upon. For example, perhaps a woman was raped, and she remembers in her flash backs, there is a library straight ahead. Just because there is an association of the traumatic experiences with certain people or things, is no reason to start attacking them. If it is wrong for us to kill a witness, damage buildings and art, and destroying every last thing that we associate with the experience, does not guarantee that the memories won't endure far beyond the current year. To use this as a reason to be able to kill a child, is to basically say to all rape-children that they have no worth, and do not deserve to live on this earth. To the contrary, every child is a sacred gift from Almighty God.
D. Foster care organisations are rampant with abuse, so adoption is not a good option.
Response - It is a much better solution if it prevents the ultimate abuse - killing the child. A parent has the ability to ask others in their friendship and/or family circles to help them. As they say, it takes a village to raise up a child. It is interesting to observe that anytime there is a failing on the part of the judicial system, or foster homes etc., that instead of calling those organisations to correct and improve their services, the child has to suffer.
E. Noone has the right to control a woman's body.
We are not talking about merely one person's body. How man hands does a woman have? Two or four? Since it is argued that one should not control another person's body, then don't control the child's body! And keep in mind that you cannot just do with your body whatever you like. That is why we have laws.
There is more that could be said, but I think I will wrap this up here and turn it over to my opponent for a response. Thank you once again for participating in this debate.
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JackSprat (PRO)Return To Top | Posted:
royalson (CON)In this second round, I would like to begin by thanking my opponent for taking the time to carefully address the points that I have raised.
I will respond to my opponent's claims both in his opening statement, and here in the first rebuttal. I will then proceed to add further thoughts as to why I remain firm in my convictions that elective abortions should not be made legal.
The National Center for Biotechnology states: “Elective abortion has no indications because it is carried out at the wish of a mother without any medical reason. Abortion which is carried out for clinical reasons and indicated when there is harm to the mother is known as therapeutic abortion”
However, even with this in mind, I will still address the claims made. I have looked through the figures presented on the CDC website, and provide the following chart:
As we can see, the statistic for pregnancy complications does not appear 6th but 9th, in this category. I will give my opponent the benefit of the doubt, as I'm sure he would not intentionally provide misinformation. A number of remarks to make follows.
Thus, this statistic does little to justify taking the step of abortion, which would almost guarantee 100% a death – the death of the child. If my opponent is truly passionate about the preservation of human life, as expressed with appealing to the health and safety of the mother, then I would like to see consistency and as much concern for the health and safety of the child.
Keep in mind a point I made in my opening statement – Abortions due to life threatening conditions are not included my definition of elective abortions. I deliberately excluded them, because I believe that in cases where a mother's life is in danger, that is a completely different set of circumstances to elective abortion, where a woman makes a choice, rather than having an emergency thrust upon them in a life and death event. As such, while not wishing to appear cavelier or dismissive regarding women's health, the appeal to this chart would perhaps serve more in a general discussion on abortion, rather than the restricted domain of elective-only procedures.
According to 2018 Abortion Statistics form the State of Florida, 0.27% of abortions were carried out because of the threat to the mother's life (Source: https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/). As such, since my opponent decided to appeal to non-elective reasons such as a threat to the mother's life, this number demonstrates that life-threatening scenarios are in the extreme minority.
Approximate number of deaths by ceasarian procedure: 2 in every 100,000 procedures
Approximate number of deaths by abortion complications: 1 in every 100,000 procedures.
Approximate maternal deaths by cesarian: 2 out of every 100,000
Approximate infant deaths by ceasarian: 1.77 out of every 100,000
Total deaths by ceasarian : 3.77 out of every 200,000
Now let us take a look at the figures for abortion:
Approximate maternal deaths by abortion: 1 out of every 100,000
Approximate infant deaths by abortion: 100,000 out of 100,000
Total deaths by abortion: 101,000 out of 200,000.
I fully recognise that caring for a child requires cooperation on the Mother's part.
“73% could not afford.”
Again, if parents have financial difficulty to support their children later in life, that gives them no right to kill them. There are support services available.
“
Imagine if a young lady murdered her parents because they “interfered with her education and career", would any reasonable judge accept this excuse?
“
This comes back to the earlier 73% group. Financial hardship is not justification for murdering an unborn child. If anyone is so terrified of the financial hardship parenthood would bring, then they should abstain from sex until they are in a financially stable marriage relationship, to guarantee a level of security for the child. But if one does not live responsibly to wait, then they ought to bear the consequences. Again there are support services out there.
There are many opportunities nowadays for people to work from home, so instead of having a defeatist attitude, one would do well to maturely own the consequences of their choices, and do what it takes to overcome adversity. That is what life is all about.
Scores of women gave testimonies of regret of abortions at the Supreme Court in Washington DC for the 2019 March for life. Can you dismiss their anecdotal evidence and testimony? I cannot see how my opponent could reasonably do this.
Without a theistic framework, my opponent has no bedrock upon which to form moral claims which underpin the very laws of the land. Yes we are speaking of why something should or shouldnt be legal. The determination of this most certainly involves moral factors.
On this note I would like to know what my opponent would answer if God asked why he should not be killed, and yet have no problem with unborn children being torn into tiny pieces.
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JackSprat (PRO)RETORTS
My opponent is erroneous in attempting to change the definition of elective abortion in the second round.
Round 1: I defined “elective abortion” as: the intentional induction of expelling a pre-viable fetus.
Round 1: My opponent defined “elective abortion” as: “the termination and removal of an unborn child at any stage of pregnancy, from conception, right through to birth by voluntary request and consent of the mother. “
My opponent does not try to qualify elective abortions as also having no medical basis for election. It is very improper to move the definition in the second round. The entire construct of the debate shifts, as to what constitutes a medical reason. Does mental health qualify? A mother says “I can’t cope”, and the doctors say “at this stage there does not appear to be a pathological reason why the pregnancy would not be valid.
If my opponent is arguing against abortion for the purposes of sex selection or eugenic reasons, then that is a very different topic. Nowhere during round 1 did my opponent qualify this very important distinction in their interpretation of elective abortions.
I thank my opponent for addressing the CDC reference that I made. I reject my opponent’s claim the pregnancy complications are ambiguous. For clarity, I reference the CDC’s more specific Serious Maternal Morbidity
With respect to the question of causation versus correlation is not relevant. We are not talking about speculated conjectured statistics. We are talking about statistics that are based on medical professionals’ issuance of a cause of death. The mortality is not limited to birth. Complications occur during pregnancy. There is a list of 25 complications that can occur pre-term resulting in a woman’s death. Giving birth is not the only risk to the mother.
My opponent states that statistics from the State of Florida prove that abortions are carried out for purposes other than when it is deemed a “threat to the mother's life”. That definition of a threat to a mother's life is not given. So let's look at some stats. While what I provided is a little dated, they give a good picture. HERE
- Direct immediate medical reasons (7%)
- If a mother can’t afford the new child because of economic circumstances is that not a threat? (21%)
- If the mother is too immature and/or cannot handle the responsibility, is that not a threat? (32%)
- If the mother has anxiety about being single, or unknown how to handle the responsibility is that not a threat? (16%).
- And of all abortions over 50% were performed where contraception was in use.
What is really interesting about the statistics I demonstrate above, is the difference in questions or reasons given in each of the different states. How the terms are defined, and how the agencies obtain this information is not the same across the board, and can lead to regional misinterpretations. Based on the totality of the data I provided, and the definition issues I addressed I reject my opponent's premise that abortions for medical threats are statistical outliers.
My point, as I stated in Round 2, is that the legality of abortions is not a binary issue. It is multifaceted. The fact my opponent would like to question the validity of the statistics, and causations vs correlations show that this is a complex nonbinary issue.
My opponent states
“In addition, a threat to a mother's life does not automatically mean that the danger could not be mitigated if not completely eliminated through an emergency caesarian procedure.”
My opponent also states
“At this point my opponent might get excited, suggesting that abortions are much safer than caesarian procedures.”
Death does not excite me, and I resent the assumption. This is a very serious issue here, and I am taking this debate seriously.
To the previous point about caesarian procedures. The life expectancy of a baby born at 24 or 25 weeks of gestation is 25-45%. Less than 1.3% - 1.5% of abortions occur after week 21. Over 92% of abortion occur before week 12. Caesarian is not even a statistically relevant alternative remedy. My opponent suggesting this clearly demonstrates an uninformed baseline on the facts around abortion.
My opponent stated that I would agree it is not “ok kill post-birth children if they became too much to bear”. And as I stated a fetus, and a child are not the same. A child can be cared for by others, a fetus cannot. It is a red herring to equate them. If a mother has cancer, and take chemotherapy and the baby dies as a result, is the mother guilty of murder? Her toddler would not die from the chemo.
My opponent states
“if parents have financial difficulty to support their children later in life, that gives them no right to kill them. There are support services available.”
In actuality, the support services are thin at best. There is no public health care in the US, so prenatal care is a problem. For financially challenged families, how are they to eat properly? There are no provisions for increased welfare or unemployment insurance if a woman is pregnant versus not. There is no paid maternal leave for parents, so often a single mother is forced into unemployment with a child. To say there are support services is not enough. My opponent has not demonstrated, even remotely what type of services are available that could remotely justify making elective abortions illegal. That being services that address all the psycho-social and physical health, and financial impacts of pregnancy and birth.
In fact, my opponent says :
“It’s not the government’s job to take care of people's poor lifestyle choices. It is not the tax payers’(SIC) responsibility to pay for others' poor lifestyle choices. It should be the responsibility of any parent to care for their child.”
This is another example of a statement that demonstrates my opponent is not well informed. While poverty could result from poor choices, a significant amount of poverty is not resulting therefrom. Poverty can be a negative cycle. Quitting school to try to work, low minimum wage, and it gets hard to get out of that cycle. To add to that when 50% of abortions are given when contraception is used, how is that a bad choice?
My opponent wants the government to ban abortions, and then says it is not their job to take care of the children. So by nature, my opponent would rather have the children be born into poverty, or problematic circumstances, and struggle to survive, thereby continuing the cycle of poverty.
My opponent discounts the principal of legalizing as a way to protect public health. It is established abortions are going to happen. I have given statistics and shown global trends. Yet my opponent argues the logic is the same as child exploitation. The two are not even closely related. Ensuring the health of a woman is not the same as permitting children to be exploited.
I shall say again, that availability of medically supervised abortions is a globally recognized public health issue. My opponent has not addressed the health of the woman involved or provided any means by which the issues that lead to abortion decisions can be addressed.
My opponent did not address the core concept of the Tomlinson dilemma. That is, a choice of saving a living child being made over the 5000 embryos because they are very different. If it is justified to choose the child over the embryos, why is it not justified to choose the mother's mental health and well being over the fetus? At what point during pregnancy do you force the mother to eat properly, with money she does not have, got to pre-natal care, with medical services she does not have access to, plan for a nursery, and daycare, with money she does not have. My opponent has not solved those issues.
My opponent asks for a study about supporting my position that there is not a direct cause-effect relationship unofficially known Post Abortion Syndrome (not even a DSM V listed psychological condition). Here is a study out of Denmark of nearly 1 million girls. The results:
“The relative risk of a psychiatric contact did not differ significantly after abortion as compared with before abortion (P=0.19) but did increase after childbirth as compared with before childbirth “
I have no doubt that abortion can cause mental stress. Just as unwanted pregnancy and birth does. However, my argument is that the amount of stress associated with abortion is not a statistically relevant or persuasive factor to support its outlawing.
My opponent asks if I agree that post-26-week abortions be made illegal, following the discussion about pain reception in a fetus. I certainly think that when pregnancy gets closer to viable, a much more serious look at all opportunities should be explored. I do not like painting a global canvas problem with one brush of YES or NO. That being said, if you started a debate topic that said post 26-week abortions should be made illegal, I would find it very difficult to argue against it. Because it is a different situation. The baby can survive outside without the mother, in some circumstances.
My opponent says
“pro-choice is never an option because someone else's body (the child's) is not your choice to make. “
This is false logic. There are many times you act with the other's body in mind. I brought up examples of self-defense, accidents, and then there is the military, governments, and medical professionals. My position is very simple. Until the birth of the child, you cannot ignore the role and impact on the woman. But for women, the fetus could not exist or grow. Women ultimately have the power of life over a fetus in -utero.
At this point, the debate took an unnerving turn.
My opponent says that the bible is the source of all laws and the highest authority. This is a diversion from the debate. However, I will address it. God, (I will assume the reference is to Abrahamic religion deity) and his moral bedrock is in the bible. This source of the moral foundation says:
- Anyone who dreams or prophesies anything that is against God, or anyone who tries to turn you from God, is to be put to death. (Deuteronomy 13:5)
- If anyone, even your own family suggests worshipping another God, kill them. (Deuteronomy 13:6-10)
- Don’t have a variety of crops on the same field. (Leviticus 19:19)
- Don’t wear clothes made of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19)
- Don’t cut your hair nor shave. (Leviticus 19:27)
- Kill all the boys, and any woman who is not a virgin (Numbers 31:17-18)
- Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)
Obviously, there are many more examples. The bible is not the source of our laws. And with examples like that, how could you call it the moral foundation? Many civilizations have laws and rules that are not based on the Abrahamic god, as I mentioned in my previous rounds, and their societies are very noble and moral. (Japan, South Korea as examples).
However if one wants to use the bible as a reference for the conduct, then my opponent's statement above about the government's and taxpayers' responsibility in caring for other children. Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same. Luke 3:11 NIV
My opponent can't have it both ways. And to the question, about if God should not be killed… as shown above, God ordered the killing of all boys. Child and baby death is something God is used to. Not to mention all the famine, and exploitation he allows. Well if he exists.
SUMMARY
I summarize my position that abortion is a global women's health issue. They occur for many medical socioeconomic and psychological reasons. The global trend is creating legal frameworks to permit certain types of abortions. A complete ban on abortions, without addressing and solving the underlying causes, will create significant health issues for women, and cripple social support services.
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royalson (CON)Round Forfeited
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Well, I got your. request late. So I could not give the extension'. I really wanted this to go to judging. @admin Can you help?Posted 2020-04-29 20:22:40
I will endeavour to get my rebuttal posted. I had my notes on my laptop, then the power adapter died so I'm working with my phone, also working on another debate and preparing for a live discussion on Islam in 9 hours, so its pretty chaotic. Please bear with me.Posted 2020-04-25 22:26:18