Child birth should be considered immoral

Happiness And Pleasure Are GoodPro wants us to accept this general principle:GP: One must suffer first before being motivated to be happy or pleasurefulI see no reason to accept GP. Many times one can be happy, but be motivated towards a different form of happiness. It wouldn't follow from this that the former happiness was suffering. In fact, I would think that is self-evidently false. I am happy right now in context 1, but I am motivated to be happy in in context 2 as well, and this has nothing to do with any previous suffering. Even if we accept GP, how does this really effect the resolution? There are many missing premises. Pro would have to show that the good that comes from the previous suffering isn't enough to deem the suffering trivial; she does not have any rounds left to do that. Special PleadingI made the argument that most rational people would rather be alive and live a life with a lot of suffering, than not have life. I cited bums in the street who would rather barely make it every day than die (and all the people in Africa). The ones that do kill themselves suffer from depression, and aren't very rational. My opponent says this about my argument:"This is an appeal to popularity." This is clearly a case of a double standard and special pleading. In her first round to support the notion that suffering is bad, she said:"Suffering , in itself, is a bad thing. This can be determined by simply asking any sentient, rational being the question: in a world where there is only suffering and non-suffering, which would you prefer?"It seems appealing to popularity is alright when it comes to her arguments, but when it comes to mine it is not. If we run with this notion of an appeal to popularity being fallacious, then this undermines her support for suffering being bad meaning that premise now has to be rejected, thus, making her argument obsolete by default. The Good, The Bad"Sure, it is not a convincing reason to end your life, rather part of a cumulative negative conglomeration that is far more persuading."My opponent forgets that I listed plenty of good things to match with her bad scenarios. We can list bad and good situations all day, but it is not going to get Pro any closer to meeting her burden of proof. "Seeing that suffering is bad, and that there is more suffering than pleasure in the world, people should not be brought into it."Pro simply never showed that there is more suffering in the world than not; this is the point. She just listed all these bad scenarios like "what do you think?". The problem is I can just list plenty of good scenarios; this gets us nowhere. Regardless, even if there is more suffering than bad there are still missing premises. Perhaps life is intrinsically valuable, and no amount of suffering could damage the goodness of life. My opponent is just expecting us to take the resolution on faith, without closing any of the huge gaps in the argument she presented. "It is the suffering that results which should not be ignored and brushed off in the way of my opponent."This is just more of my opponent delving into the dark world of double standards. Pro has ignored and brushed off much of the good that results from suffering that I mentioned, and presupposes that this good isn't good enough to deem life > non-life. Why believe that?Life Is Uncomfortable"I’ll try rephrasing: because people have a natural state of wanting to live, regardless of the circumstances."My opponent's whole case is shut down off of this self-refuting statement alone. This is because she concedes that suffering doesn't matter to people in the long run, and that life is more important. If this is the case, then all the suffering my opponent points to is trivial with regards to supporting the resolution, when previously, she acted like the suffering somehow made life, in general, bad. However, the only argument my opponent used to support the notion that suffering was bad was an appeal to popularity. Since my opponent admits that most people would rather live and put up with the suffering than not, then this means that based on the same logic she used to support the notion that suffering is bad; suffering isn't bad enough to warrant non-life > life.Once the mother gives birth, and that child has a will to live, then according to my opponent, the suffering won't matter. Pro literally has no case now. "You have missed the point entirely. Yes, you can still cause an accident if you’re not drunk, but it is wrong to drive drunk because it significantly increases the risks of an accident."Ironically, my opponent misses the point. Even if driving drunk increases the risk, there is still that risk with regards to driving without being drunk. How is increasing a risk necessarily immoral, but engaging in that risk in the first place isn't?"But if you didn’t have a headache, you could have countless other things – you are creating a false-dichotomy"Things like headaches and stubbing toes are relatively uncommon, most of the time people aren't tripping and constantly in pain. I think it is self-evident with with regards to most people that we are not suffering most of the time. "Besides, even if it’s not occurring all the time, suffering amount exceeds positive things because it occurs first."The above is a non-sequitur: the order doesn't determine which exceeds which. "Those things you have listed as comfortable are only so because you had the discomfort to begin with. You can only appreciate a beautiful woman because you are not with one constantly with a deprivation state of sexuality."My opponent appeals to GP here, but I already discussed the problems with it earlier in this round. Either way, if we accept GP, all this could be showing is that the suffering was good. Why? Well, if I didn't suffer, then I couldn't experience the good of waking up next to a beautiful woman; which clearly trumps the suffering. Suffering is good if it leads to a greater good. I will hold out on smoking marijuana for a week (suffer), just so when I smoke again I will get more pleasure (happiness). People purposely cause suffering on themselves specifically for the reason of the happiness that will occur. My opponent even conceded that people would agree that life is worth the suffering based on a will to live (she clearly accepts appeals to popularity based on the "Suffering Is Bad" section). Your Life Is Far Worse Than You Probably Recognise"...but you have no right to impose the risk of that upon someone else by creating him/her without consent."Pro hasn't shown that this risk is substantial enough to warrant the claim that creating someone is immoral. Life is a precious gift from nature, and as my opponent concedes; people agree that the will to stay alive trumps the suffering. Even if this is popularity, Pro has to accept it, or reject her support for the notion that suffering is bad (and forfeit that point). "I am arguing against the procreation of people."Here is another reason why my opponent's argument falls flat. My opponent is advocating taking away people's basic human rights (the right to procreate). This is itself immoral, no? "You should not be refuting my arguments by attacking my character"I wasn't "attacking" anyone's character. Pro's New Argument"The point is that if you go gambling (procreating) with another person’s life inheritance (state of being), without his/her consent, that is immoral."The above is only true if the risk is high enough to justify such a conclusion. Sufficient support for this simply has not been brought to the table. "... you don’t have to have sex in the first place."It is a basic human right. Anything that undercuts people's basic human rights are usually not moral (this seems to include the idea that people shouldn't give birth). ConclusionPro cannot win, because if an appeal to popularity is fallacious then her support for suffering being bad fails (her arguments rest upon it). If it is not, then my objections go through.