Resolved: Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices.

I negate. The value is morality. The standard is maximizing societal welfare. 1. Pain is universally bad and pleasure is universally good. Nagel 86. Sensory pleasure is good and pain bad, no matter who’s they are. Everyone takes the avoidance of pain and promotion pleasure as subjective reason for action. Without positive reason to think there is nothing good or bad about having an experience. We can't regard the common impression to the contrary as a collective illusion. 2. Equality must be the foundation of any system. Util is the only ethical framework that is consistent with the equality of individuals by impartially maximizing good consequences. Reject ethics that admit arbitrariness, as they are not coherent guides to action.ï¿½ 3. Util is the most educational because it’s how states make decisions; this gives portable skills in the realm of public policy. Education is the only portable impact from debate so prefer my standard because it’s more educational. To summarize everything I just said, your role of the judge is to look for the debater who saves the most lives or maximizes pleasure. If I successfully prove that affirming the resolution leads to a large amount of deaths, then you vote neg because I have proved the resolution false. Contention 1: Drugs First, giving adolescents medical autonomy will lead to them abusing prescription drugs, which they currently are prohibited from accessing. Foundation for a Drug-Free World Youth prescription drug abuse is a problem around the world. In the US alone, more than 15 million abuse prescription drugs. Prescription drug abuse causes the largest percentage of deaths from drug overdosing. Of the 22,400 drug overdose deaths in the US in 2005, opioid painkillers were the most commonly found drugs, accounting for 38.2% of these deaths. Summarizing my card, adolescents will abuse prescription drugs if we give them medical autonomy. This also proves why adolescents are incapable of medical autonomy. There are 2 major consequences A] This shows adolescents are not capable of medical autonomy. Drug abuse leads to school failure, family problems, impaired memory, and increased risk of infectious diseases. The National Institute on Drug Abuse writes Drug use can be part of a pattern of risky behavior including school failure, problems with family, loss of interest in normal healthy activities, impaired memory, and an increased risk of infectious disease. My evidence indicates the negative effects of drugs on adolescents and impaired memory means that these adolescents won’t be able to make accurate medical decisions autonomously. B] Adolescents abusing prescription drugs are 20 times more likely to abuse highly illegal and lethal drugs. Foundation For A Drug-Free World Teens who abuse prescription drugs are twice as likely to use alcohol, five times more likely to use marijuana, and twelve to twenty times more likely to use illegal street drugs such as heroin, Ecstasy and cocaine. Abuse of the painkiller Fentanyl killed more than 1,000 people a year in the US. It is thirty to fifty times more powerful than heroin. This card indicates that giving adolescents medical autonomy is problematic because they are 20 times more likely to abuse numerous illegal drugs like marijuana and heroin. This card also shows that thousands of adolescents are dying in the US yearly because of this abuse. Summarizing my first contention, drug abuse leads to many detrimental effects to the adolescents’ health. As the judge, you should vote neg because we are protecting the health of adolescents who will literally be dying and suffering from drug abuse, which the affirmative is worsening. Contention 2: Disease First, giving adolescents medical autonomy leads to a massive increase in diseases. My evidence indicates that a frightening amount of adolescents reject vaccinations. Taddio ‘12 Needle fear contributes to distress in vaccinators and dissatisfaction with the immunization experience for everyone. Procedures may be aborted. Traumatic memories of past procedures lead to the development of negative attitudes about immunization. 26% of individuals refused vaccination because of fear of injections. My evidence shows that adolescents will not take vaccines if they are given medical autonomy because of multiple reasons, including needle fear and bad memories. This has resulted in outbreaks of diseases in the past, ravaging across countries and killing many. Second, diseases cause mass death, possible extinction. Mensa 96 There is a medical crisis at hand. Humanity could face extinction because of a single virus. The threat of a deadly viral outbreak is imminent. The survival of the human species is not a preordained. Abundant sources of genetic variation exist for viruses to learn how to mutate and evade the immune system. Viruses have outsmarted human intelligence. Viruses would infect humanity at a large scale and imperil the survival of the human race. This evidence shows that deadly viruses have the ability to wipe out populations because these small microbial viruses are often so hard to detect. They take advantage of humans as we subtlety transport them to others and they take control of our bodies and deprive us of essential nutrients. If adolescents refuse vaccines, then outbreaks are inevitable. Even if extinction does not occur, massive populations will be wiped out. This could be comparable to an ebola outbreak in New York City. Summarizing my second contention, adolescents do not like vaccines and thus, if we give them medical autonomy then they will reject vaccines. This is extremely dangerous for society because vaccines are key to preventing diseases and my evidence indicates that mass death of populations will follow if we are to do the affirmative plan. **Thus, I negate. (read this last sentence only if you do not have time to read the AC flow) Go to my opponent's case. My opponent's framework (and case) revolve around the idea that autonomy comes first. However, their framework begs the question "why is autonomy intrinsically valuable?" This assumption is never justified in the 1AC. 1. Nothing is intrinsically valuable since things are only valuable if they achieve some other end. Autonomy achieves some other end and is therefore valuable but that"s only after the fact that means that since death precludes autonomy, you should evaluate death impacts first. 2. The only reason autonomy would be valuable is because it allows us to control our decisions, however this assumption appeals to the idea that consequences matter which justifies utilitarianism. Instead of merely protecting autonomy, we should maximize overall autonomy. Outweighs: 1] My arguments are intuitively true, for example we wouldn"t let genocide occur even if we had to violate someone"s autonomy because that makes no sense. 2] Autonomy violations are inevitable " every state action will obviously violate some people"s autonomy so we should devolve to utilitarianism instead of using a framework that leads to policy inaction. I Outweigh: 1] My arguments are intuitively true, for example we wouldn"t let genocide occur even if we had to violate someone"s autonomy because that makes no sense. 2] Autonomy violations are inevitable " every state action will obviously violate some people"s autonomy so we should devolve to utilitarianism instead of using a framework that leads to policy inaction. And let's go to the solvency. Medical decisions cost money but adolescents don"t have any. De facto, adolescents will require parental consent in order to pay for any medical decision. A core tenet of the aff is that parents disagree with adolescents on their medical choices" unfortunately, they don"t resolve that. McGuire 10 Many treatments are expensive. The likelihood that a minor is able to sustain such fees is remote; hence, there is an a priori assumption of parental approval and consent. The adolescent as well as the adult are on equal footing in this matter. This is empirically proven " most adolescents are dependent on parents for money. White 14 Financially dependent teenagers on their parents until their mid-20s has doubled. 25% of teens think they won"t be able to support themselves until their mid-20s. Tt"s become the norm for parents to pay bills for phones, Internet, music and TV. A survey of parents with adult children found 30% keep paying the bill even after their kids are living on their own. According to a Pew study 40% barely break even or don"t have enough money to meet basic expenses. 30% of people can"t pay back student loans. Even if adolescents are capable of getting the medical treatment the parents would find out through the medical bill. Turns all confidentiality based offence. Moon 13 Although access to confidential services has become a cornerstone of adolescent health care confidentiality is limited. Despite promises of confidential care, parents have full access to their children"s medical records. Medical bills may reveal the type of care provided. In other words, the aff has no solvency. I've proven why looking to an "autonomy first" framework isn't sufficient, and why util is good. I've also shown the several causes of allowing adolescents autonomy in healthcare. I save more lives, and the aff has no solvency, which is why you need to negate.