Bestiality should be illegal in all cases in the United States

Remember, based on the rules for this debate in Round 1, Pro accepted the burden of proof. Pro completely fails to justify bestiality"s illegality (in all cases). Pro does not offer any example of an ethical system that would justify the adoption of anti-bestiality laws. Pro merely attempts to shift the burden to me and offers a few scant refutations of my arguments. Do not let Pro bring up new arguments in the final Round because I do not have a chance to respond. ==Rebuttal== R1) Animal Consent Isn"t Valid Pro argues about age of consent laws. However, there can only be two possible justifications for age of consent laws: (1) people under the age of consent are not sexually mature, so they are too young to make decisions about sex [pre-puberty] or (2) people under the age of consent lack the emotional sophistication to consent because they do not realize the ways in which sex can be emotionally harmful. As to #1, animals reach sexual maturity at much younger ages than humans, and only mature animals would show sexual interest in others. Animals are driven by biology, so without sex hormones coursing through their bodies, immature animals would never make sexual advances upon humans. Remember my argument about consent from last Round says that consent would be inferred from the animal"s behavior. So there is no need for complex laws (as my opponent claims) to define the age of consent for each animal. The rule would simply be that only consensual bestiality would be legal. And because sexually immature animals would never engage in sexual behavior, they could never be deemed to have consented to sex. As to #2, remember my argument from the previous Round [under 2B], in which I argued that animals do not attach any emotional significance to sex. The burden is on my opponent to prove that animals can be harmed psychologically by sex. If animals cannot be harmed psychologically by sex, then the argument cannot be used that they are not "emotionally advanced" enough to consent. Because they do not have the same emotions as humans in the first place, animals cannot have these emotions "hurt. " Therefore, my opponent cannot use an analogy to sexually and emotionally immature humans to argue that animals cannot consent. If animals can consent, my opponent loses. My opponent brings up that animals lack "theory of mind," but my opponent never explains what is uniquely important about theory of mind. Theory of mind is the ability to see something from another"s perspective. Here is the typical theory of mind test: There is a basket and a box in the room. The subject watches one person (Sally) come into the room and place a marble inside the basket. Then Sally leaves the room. The subject watches another person (Anne) come into the room and move the marble from inside the basket to inside the box. The subject is then asked where Sally will look for the marble when she re-enters the room. Someone without theory of mind will answer, "the box," because the person knows that the marble is in the box and is unable to see things from Sally"s perspective. Someone who has theory of mind says, "the basket," because this person realize that Sally did not see Anne move the marble, so Sally will still think it"s in the basket. However, my opponent never explains why "theory of mind" is necessary for consent to sexual intercourse. The burden of explaining this is on my opponent. Thus, Pro offers no definitive proof that animals cannot consent. Therefore, Con wins the debate on the consent argument alone. R2) Sex with non-consenting animals is morally permissible My opponent merely asserts that "animal cruelty is unethical. " He never explains why. Moral Nihilism posits that beliefs about morality are entirely subjective, and therefore the statement that "X is immoral" is nothing more than a personal opinion. There cannot be objective morality because people have disagreements about what is moral and immoral (e. g. about the death penalty, abortion, etc. ) However, if there are no objective moral truths, then all morality is subjective, which means that every single moral assertion is simply one person"s opinion. And there is no reason that one person"s opinion is any more valid than another person"s opinion. In contrast to Pro, who merely recites an opinion about what is ethical, I show that we cannot accept animals as being morally considerable beings because under utilitarianism, if animals were morally considerable we could not hunt them for pleasure and we could not eat them [because we could instead survive on vegetables, without causing pain to animals]. However, currently the United States allows hunting and allows people to consume meat. Therefore, there is no moral basis for considering animals to be morally considerable for purposes of bestiality, but not for any other purpose. In fact, rape is less bad than murder. And we can murder animals just for the fun of it [hunting]. In addition, my opponent drops the argument under social contract theory (SCT). SCT attempts to derive the ethical justification for the state"s use of power because people have an inalienable right to liberty. Mills argued that people choose to join a society for protection from other people, so they agree that the only time the state can restrict their liberty is when their actions might harm other people. Animals are not part of the social contract, so using the state police power to outlaw bestiality based on harm to animals is an illegitimate and unethical use of the state coercive power to impinge upon the inalienable right to liberty. Illegalizing bestiality therefore is itself immoral. The State should not be allowed to criminalize anything it pleases, otherwise it could make anything illegal. Thus, vote Con because there are ethical limits on the State"s power to criminalize. And harm to animals is not morally sufficient reason to restrain liberty. R3) Bestiality laws can and should be enforced In the case of statutory rape, the State has decided that protecting children is such a substantial state interest that it outweighs the private to privacy. However, this is not the case for animals. There is not a single Supreme Court case in which the Court has held that animal welfare is a reason to deny people their fundamental rights guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Therefore, bestiality laws are still unconstitutional. Pro claims that gay marriage is illegal in many states, but "illegal" in this context merely means that the State refuses to grant them a marriage license. It does not mean they are not allowed to have sex. Pro claims sodomy is illegal in 14 states, but these laws were found to be unconstitutional in the Supreme Court"s decision in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. Pro also makes some claims about me being a hypocrite, but none of the views on my profile reflect my true beliefs. Even if they did, this isn"t a good argument. In conclusion, Pro loses because Pro fails to offer any ethical system that would justify adopting a bestiality law, whereas I show that our current society has decidedly refused to recognize animals as morally considerable beings [because we can hunt and kill animals for pleasure]. There is therefore no moral justification for prohibiting even the raping of animals.