Abortion

Thanks for the debate BangBang-Coconut. I'm sorry you had to skip your last round. I'll agree that voters can choose to not count it as a forfeit if they like. I did, however, give a more technical rebuttal in Round 3 with the expectation that I could give a summary style closing argument in Round 4. So if voters aren't going to count this as a forfeit, I'd like to take some time to quickly sum up the debate and re-explain my position. ==My opponent's case== My opponent's argument is essentially: (P1) Murder is defined as killing another human being (P2) A human being is anything with human DNA (P3) Abortion is murder (from P1 and P2) (P4) Murder is wrong (P5) Abortion is wrong This is the most simplistic pro-life argument possible, and I have refuted it on multiple levels. The most problematic refutation for my opponent is the refutation of P4. He said in Round 1 that if asked, he would prove why murder is wrong. My opponent never explains under what ethical system murder is wrong. The only ethical system that concludes that murder is always wrong, on face, regardless of consequences, is the categorical imperative. However, the categorical imperative is a terrible ethical system because it does not allow you to kill one person to save the lives of thousands of other people, as Joseph Nye explains. For this reason, utilitarianism is the superior ethical system because it judges the morality of actions based on consequences rather than imposing a categorical restraint on action. Under utilitarianism, murder, as my opponent defines it, is morally permissible. For example, killing a criminal (capital punishment) can be morally permissible under utilitarianism. Killing an enemy soldier in a war could be morally permissible. However, the categorical imperative (my opponent's rigid morality) would require you to let the enemy soldier kill you, since it would force you to conclude that killing is always wrong, regardless of consequences or circumstances. So if murder is morally permissible, my opponent's P4 fails and thus his whole argument fails. P1 is also extremely problematic. The first reason it's problematic is because my opponent's only proof that murder is wrong is that society defines it as wrong. However, I proved that society does not define a fetus as a person, as far as rights are concerned (Judith Butler). 4 dictionaries prove that murder is defined as unlawful killing, which abortion is not. So when my opponent argues that this is circular and semantic, it's his own fault for saying that murder is wrong because society defines it as such. I also prove that murder is defined as killing another PERSON, not another human being (using Webster's Dictionary). A person must be autonomous, meaning capable of surviving on its own. Judith Thompson explains why with the Famous Violinist – if someone requires the use of our body for their survival, we do not have to agree to that use, since we have ownership over our bodies. In addition, a person must have self-awareness or denying them life is not a loss because they are not aware of what they lost, since they were never aware in the first place. So morality sees a distinction between a person and non-autonomous, non-self-aware human DNA. So if murder is killing a person and a fetus is not defined as a person (remember, this was never refuted), then P1 of his argument fails. ==My case== Remember, utilitarianism is an ethical system that weighs two options and tells us to choose the option that creates fewer harms and more benefits. This preferable option is moral; choosing the other option is immoral. 1. Single case utilitarianism When judging whether someone who needs an abortion for medical reasons should get an abortion, as a singular case, utilitarianism would obviously conclude that an abortion should be allowed if the mother has a 100% chance of dying without the procedure. If the mother dies, the fetus dies too. So there is NO benefit to denying the procedure, since any possible benefit derives from the fetus surviving, but there is a HUGE downside to denying the procedure, i.e. the mother dies. It's easy to vote for the medical exception by itself because I only need to prove that abortion is morally permissible (see the burden of proof I set up in Round 2). 2. Policy utilitarianism This utilitarianism judges whether the entire policy of allowing abortion creates more societal benefits and fewer harms than the policy of banning it. Banning abortion creates huge downsides; the NY Times study proves, through a cross-country analysis, that banning abortion doesn't lead to more than the tiniest decrease in the abortion rate; women merely shift from legal, safe abortions into dangerous back ally and home remedies, like coat hangers (which can perforate the uterus), ingesting dangerous chemicals, physical blows to the stomach, etc. Prior to Roe v. Wade, 15,000 women died per year from botched abortions in the U.S. The second benefit to abortion is that it decreases unwanted children. The Levitt study proves that crime rates would be 40% higher if Roe v. Wade had never happened. 5 states legalized abortion prior to Roe v. Wade and those states saw their decrease in crime rates start significantly before the rest of the country, and every state that legalized abortion saw crime rates begin to drop exactly 18 years after they legalized abortion. So without abortion, crime rates would be significantly higher. This makes sense since unwanted children are likely to live in poverty and have bad home lives, both huge risk factors for crime. Lots of unwanted children are bad for society. The third benefit is to the world. 42 million abortions are performed per year. The world population would grow by an additional 1 billion people every 20 years, above and beyond the already astronomical population growth rate, if all abortions ceased. Stopping abortion would flood the world with far too many unwanted children and too many mouths to feed. So clearly, weighing the benefits and harms, utilitarianism leads us to conclude that allowing abortion is the best and most moral policy. 3. Absurd definition Lastly, my opponent definitions is absurd since it would mean that fertility clinics routinely murder fetuses by actually trying to create life since when implanting a fetus, the implantation has an 80% failure rate, so they implant 3-5 fetuses. If my opponent's definition of murder is correct, this would be the same as injecting someone with Ebola, which has an 80% mortality rate. This seems absurd that trying to create life is murder. This is an independent reason to reject my opponent's P1 definition of murder. For all these reasons, I urge a Pro vote. I leave you with this awesome PSA from Lisa Edelstein from House (see youtube video). http://www.youtube.com...