Raped Women Should Be Euthanised

Framework I got tangled with the LD Format, which I thought only governs the structure of the rounds (1. Proposition cases, 2. rebuttals to propositions, 3. defence of own case). In any case I made my values statement in ‘Strategy’ (pseudo-framework) explicit enough “Euthanizing rape victims would effectively free the state’s financial and medical resources and provide a net positive effect on society”. Just what I meant by ‘positive effect’ I made explicit later in the round, where it would allow for the same number of living beings without the suffering effects, and lower employment, as well as economic impact on society to be realized. Those are the values I have affirmed and Con has not contested these. Hence the framework, while not ideal, is not something Con has attempted to attack, while I have challenges his in ‘presuppositions’, hence this portion is still very much in contention. I have defended the moral obligation take on the resolution in the last round, and even assuming pragmatics are an issue I have addressed these in the previous round positively regardless. ‘Murder’/Killing The main bone of contention in this debate is Con’s repeated assertion that euthanasia = murder, and murder = bad. However essentially all of Con’s arguments have been gross exaggerations and fear mongering. Con continues to assert that these women have a right to live, yet provides zero reason to accept why this is the case (without even considering my positive reasons why we should reject this), especially given that our euthanization of these women is indeed justified. Con continues to equivocate the proposition with “murder”. As far as the proposition stands, women do not have an inherent, or intrinsic right to live, and most certainly no more right than any other living being, such as animals. Affirmation that women have some sort of special right to live appears to just be a case of special pleading by Con. Given he has refused to support this right (at least in a way I can challenge it), we should reject all such arguments and assertions of his out of hand. Con concedes there are circumstances in which society finds killing other people is permissible, which seems pretty clear evidence that there is no ‘fundamental axiom against ‘murder’, or whatever Con defines euthanasia as. Hence all these arguments are just more special pleading by Con. My arguments come from our society’s moral experience, and are objective in their answers. I have already addressed the problems of moral objectivism which is what Pro implies with his repetitious “murder is wrong”, assuming taking a life to be absurd leads to ridiculous propositions where situations of extreme universal suffering are outweighed by a single saved life. We forfeit lives every day since every sum of money spent superficially (e.g. entertainment, or other non-essentials) goes some way to sacrificing lives of others, since that same amount of capital can be used to raise/save other lives (childbirth, medical care). Thus society is clearly not against balancing the books with people’s lives on the grand scheme of things. Moreover society strongly disapproves of the points of suffering, societal well-being and liability made in my affirmative case (which Con has not attempted to refute). Pro is commits the fallacy of hasty generalization in arguing that because one subset of killing people is wrong, that the entirety of killing people is wrong, he has refuted himself by arguing that there are instances where it is seen as permissible, and hence cannot make this generalization. To formalize: P1. If killing is morally wrong, then all killing of other people is wrong P2. Not all killing of other people is wrong C. Killing other people is not morally wrong Economics Con uses a classic salesman tactic by taking the small-incrimental figure and comparing it to the one-off cost of a murder of a different type to make the difference seem significant. He compares the per-unit untangable cost of murder (virtually all >95% of the costs were non-tangable from his own study) against the per US Citizen/annum tangable cost of rape, and then gloats about an alleged ‘5,526x’ discrepancy between the cost of rape and murder. Well of course you are going to obtain wildly different values by comparing apples to oranges! This is just absurd form from Con on this. From my opening round I gave a cost of ~$127 billion *VICTIM* impact of rape on the US (higher than murder, which doesn’t include the tangable increase medical costs per victim which are obviously lacking. To cite the horrible inaccuracies in the numbers Con presented for the intangible ‘costs’ of murder, the following logic used: “… that does not mean anyone would voluntarily exchange their life for $1.9 million. Instead, that number is arrived at by estimating the incremental amount that individuals are willing to pay for a reduced risk of death, where the commodity is “risk of death,” not death itself... if 100,000 people would collectively pay $30 each to reduce their risk of dying from 1/100,000 to 0, one would say that the group values the “statistical life” that is likely to be saved by $3 million” Such studies assume a linear no threshold theory (hugely problematic in real-world applications), and such sums arise from very little if any relation to actual monetary cost, and has little in any relevant to the intangible impact of murder anyway.[2] Further, Con ignores that death necessarily entails zero tangable victim cost, zero victim medical cost, and additional space on the job market, whereas rape entails extensive medical and therapy costs, continued and persistent victim and family suffering because of the compromised mental and social state of the victim. ‘Murder’ simply does not entail these long-term negative social well-being and economical impacts as well as reduced work productivity. With the money saved (an excess of $127 billion), we can afford to breed 31 million new children every year (assuming a $4020/annum cost/child per annum), many times greater than the number of women that are raped in the US every year (160,000 according to Con).[1] Even accounting for improving the quality of upbringing of these new people the value of removing the costs associated with maintaining raped women are easily outstripped by the benefits of breeding new people without the trauma. Con attacks my case for lacking impacts, which I thought were readily apparent anyway (discussed later), yet there are no impacts to compare my case to of his own, no impacts of not implementing the policy, no comparison of the negative financial consequences of implementing the policy over not implementing it. As such on financial impacts alone you should vote Pro. Society Contrary to Con’s complaints of a lack of impacts of employing the policy, most of my opening round WAS the impacts. The affirmation of the negative effects of rape on both the victim, economy, family, employment, workforce are all impacts of what would happen if we did not implement this policy, I see no reason to accept that they will be any different. A 180O on these impacts of not implementing this policy would be realized if the policy was implemented. The economical backlash would be reversed; there would reduce suffering, and more room for more viable employment prospects. “…We avoid virtually all of these consequences of rape on both the victim and society” Pro argues that society’s response to this policy would be “disgust & outrage”…. so what (even if it’s true)? How does that negate the arguments given, it is not clear how anger and contempt affirm that we should not euthanize, since people’s reaction isn’t inherently linked to well-being, I would find it difficult to do any sort of moral calculation based on this, and it prima facie has no effect on economics, and other social issues. Pro argues that the resolution would create a culture in which women would refuse to report their rapes and consequently hand rapists a ‘blank check’. Now only does he provide no substantiation for this, only speculation, he also ignores the current statistics which entail only a 40% current report rape and only a 10% conviction rate of the reported rapes. Essentially, rapists already so have a ‘blank check’, yet we do not see a ‘rape epidemic’. Furthermore I argued last round how the opposite would in fact be true. Furthermore, I am proposing a systematic program of cleansing raped victims from the population, ‘for the greater good’, if such a program was installed it would be on the presupposition that those who do not want to submit themselves to euthanization would be doing to at the expense of the community, and hence would be stigmatized anyway for not submitting themselves for euthanization. There would be hence moral coersion of the rape victims to turn themselves in, as well as social stigma against those who do not. The same investigation and conviction of the perpetrators can occur regardless, hence Con’s points are bunk. Con argues that the families and friends would suffer as a result, but ignores that they suffer significantly anyway while the rape victim lives, and once the rape victim is euthanized, the grief is only a temporary set-back in well being, if at all. Con also argues that my statistics entail that 85% of women don’t want to commit suicide, but this is just false, just before 85% of rapes women don’t commit suicide, doesn’t mean they don’t want to commit suicide. Just because less than 1% of people own a Ferrari, doesn’t mean 99% don’t want to own a Ferrari, this is horribly fallacious reasoning by Con, and is partially the reason why this resolution sets to euthanize (assisted suicide) rape victims. Conclusion If you share the value in healthy, human lives, with excellent well-being, if you oppose the emotional, physical, mental and monetary penalty that rape inflicts on society as it stands, then please vote Pro. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org...