January LD Topic: See INFO

(Please by all means feel free to give suggestions and critique my debate in the comments. Also, feel free to give suggestions for contentions that I might add to the body of my case after I have finished debating said round.)Resolved: It is morally permissible for victims to use deadly force as a deliberate response to repeated domestic violence. Domestic abuse is not only a problem to the person being abused but to everyone around them—it is even harmful to the economy. Unfortunately, unless a person fights back, they could end up being beaten to death or into a state where medical bills begin to affect their ability to purchase everyday needs. Before I begin, I would like to define a few recurring terms that will appear throughout. Firstly, morality being conformity to ideals of right human conduct, while permissible is something that may be permitted—allowed. For this debate, my value is self-preservation and my criterion is the bettering of society. If a person in an abusive situation works to protect oneself, then society will be bettered. The most beneficial action to society as a whole is the most moral action and since the fulfillment of the resolution is the most beneficial action to a society, the use of deliberate deadly force is morally permissible. Contention 1: Domestic violence is harmful to the victim and the economy. Over 5.8 million dollars a year are doled out to pay for the damages caused by domestic abuse, much of which is subtracted from health care. If that doesn’t seem like very much, one should take a look at Oregon with a population of 3,700,758. Annually, eighteen people are dead with the cause as domestic violence. In Oregon, one in ten women between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-five have been physically or sexually assaulted by an intimate partner regardless of whether or not they are past or current. Over fifty-million dollars are paid every year in Oregon for physical and sexual abuse, costs accumulated from health and medical bills, missing work, and the rest losses of the lifetime earnings of dead victims. While the fault is that of the abuser, the costs not only affect the economy but the financials of the family or couple where the abuse occurs. Seeing as 55 to 95 percent of women do not report abuse to the police, the abuse cannot be stopped and is repeated. Also, per year, almost 8 million hours of work are missed by victims of domestic abuse—equal to thirty-two-thousand full time jobs. Considering the deadly force would only be used once by the victim while beatings occur ridiculously more often, everyone would financially benefit from the victim retaliating. Seeing as this would benefit society as a whole, my criterion is proved valid. Contention 2: Repetitive witnessing of domestic abuse from male children can result in abusive tendencies in them as adults. Because of this, it would only make sense for the abuse to be stopped by the victim as soon as possible. Men who witnessed domestic abuse as children are twice as likely to be abusive as adults. The less abusive behavior they witness, the less likely they are to be abusive. This behavior would lead to a cycle in which generation after generation of males would be abusive, harming the society they live in greatly. In fact, over 50 percent of men who abused their wives admitted to having abused their children as well. The sooner a victim defends oneself, the less the cycle will be continued. Going back to Oregon references, the statistic above also stated that thirty-three percent of all physical and sexual assaults in twenty-five to fifty-five range were witnessed by children. If the attacks were ended promptly, fewer children would be influenced and corrupted by them. The corruption of children is not something to be considered a moral act, especially in the cases of the witnessing of physical and sexual abuse. Again, the most moral action would be retaliation with the intent to end the violence and decrease the witnessing of these acts by children—acts that are corruptive and deter the growth of a society. By this act of self-preservation, society would be bettered.