It Is Unjust For Unwed, Reluctant Fathers To Be Coerced To Pay Child Support

Rebuttal: "We assume, as the two participants in said debate, that we have property rights, but an individual who is willing to deprive another of THEIR rights to themselves obviously should not, and cannot otherwise the entire system of property rights would collapse. " In this sentence my opponent concedes the point that humans do indeed have property rights. And it is true that if one person deprives another by force of their rights, then he has forgone his own rights. But I am not asserting anything different to this. I am saying that an unwilling, reluctant father who has not entered under contract with the fetus or the mother is not depriving anyone of their rights and therefore his rights should not be deprived. Unless my opponent is asserting that a fetus has a right to the father's property, which in itself is a self refuting statement. No one has property rights to take another's property without contract or prior discourse (as per argumentation ethics). And as for the non-aggression principle in relation to the serial killer parallel, I am afraid my opponent has missed the mark. "In contrast to pacifism, the non-aggression principle does not preclude violence used in self-defense or defense of others. " (. http://en.wikipedia.org...) "As humans, we adapt to the circumstances evident in our daily lives in different ways, therefore by not using violence to decide this debate we are using the non - aggression principle in this debate and nowhere else. " My opponent is once again mistaking the a priori founded non-aggression principle with pacifism. They are two very separate things. The point of argumentation ethics in relation to the non-aggression principle is if someone decides to forgo his rights of discourse by engaging in violence, then he will be treated the same way. He has not only dismissed his victims personal rights, but by ignoring discourse he has also dismissed his own. "Yet I shall concede that a person does primarily have a right to their own property, including themselves, ASSUMING that conditions do not arise where deprivation of that property is necessary. " My opponent concedes that I am right about property rights. And as I have stated, the only situation where deprivation of property is necessary as allowed by argumentation ethics, is when someone forgoes their own rights to personal property by engaging in forceful action. An unwilling, reluctant father has taken no act to deprive another's liberty, he has merely exercised his own by copulating for pleasure. Therefore, one can conclude by my opponent's own concession that the father's property rights (labor, money, time) should therefore not be taken from him. I find that my opponent's concessions have already nullified his position and bolstered mine to the point of capitulation, but I will continue to debate for the sake of discourse. ". .. the emotional baggage of having an abortion, emotional baggage, by the way, that the would - be father does NOT have to partake in. " Just because a father is incapable genetically of performing birth does not mean he should be accountable for a woman's decision based on social pressure or agenda to not have an abortion until late, or to feel bad about it if she does. A person's emotions do not determine logical conclusions. And the inequality of genetics cannot be rectified by law without impeding a person's liberty. (Ie. A woman has breasts. In sports it is more difficult to play when you have large breasts in front of you. Therefore all men should strap weights to their chest. .. This is a logical fallacy and completely absurd. My opponent is saying something similar. He is saying that because women are the only ones capable of going through birth, the man should be forced to suffer as well. The conclusion doesn't follow the premise. I refer you to Hume's guillotine regarding all normative assertions. ) Also my opponent's arguments concerning a woman's religious beliefs are irrelevant. If she wants to suffer the burden of an unwanted child because she is scared of hell, then that is her prerogative. But her personal convictions do not have any effect on the unwilling reluctant father's civil liberty. If it did, we'd be living in a Theocracy. "However, the doing or not doing of having a child really rests on whether the parents both know the possible consequences of the actions that they will perform," I assume my opponent means that if they have sex, both parents should be aware of the possible outcome. I agree. In this case the outcome is that the woman could get pregnant. She should be aware of that and because she should be aware of that it shouldn't matter if abortion (in some strange extreme scenario) is not an option. By your own logic, she knew the consequences, so she should have to deal with it. This isn't a matter of what is fair about genetics. You can't say (as I've stated before) that because men don't risk pregnancy during copulation they should suffer in some other way. (I refer you to my argument regarding breasts and sports). It once again, doesn't follow, by my opponent's own concessions, that civil liberty of a male should be actively deprived when he has committed no act of force or coercion himself. All he is guilty of is having sex, and under U. S. law this is not a crime and if it is consensual then it is not an act of force so we are still within the boundaries of argumentation ethics. "Since they entered into a contract to possibly have a child. " This is a baseless claim. My opponent is simply asserting his unfounded opinion as fact and therefore I will respond by saying: They entered into no such contract. They had sex. And as I have shown the law does give the rights of the child completely to the mother in her ability to terminate or keep it regardless of the father's wishes. And once again, we are discussing reluctant fathers. They do not want the child in the first place and are under no contract to the mother or fetus and by law the mother has control of the fetus. What is a contract? A contract is an agreement entered into voluntarily by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing, though contracts can be made orally. (. http://en.wikipedia.org...) You cannot have a contract as my opponent asserts, "as I'm certain the opposition knows, contracts do not have to be legally on paper and neither do they have to be spoken. " Neither of these constitute a contract so this dismisses my opponent's argument regarding contractual obligation on an unwilling father's part. "two adult human beings have entered into a contract to create that human being," Once again my opponent makes an assertion that is disingenuous with his previous concessions and with argumentation ethics. Also, he has misunderstood what a 'contract' is. His last allegory of using the 'knife' and vindictive friend is an attempt to create a strawman of the situation. 1. There is no violence involved. 2. No crime is being committed. 3. You knowing and intentionally providing for violence for your own vindictive pleasure which has no bearing whatsoever on the case at hand. Through a combination of misunderstanding arguments, and misrepresenting others as well as providing baseless assertions, my opponent has failed to refute my points or defend his position. Most of my arguments have been agreed with by my opponent's concessions. And because he has failed to disprove my assertions regarding property rights, the non-aggression principle and argumentation ethics, he has conceded this debate.