Resolved: The Father Should Not Have Say In an Abortion

Rebuttals1.Con does not adequately address my argument in his response. First of all, as stated in round 1, “<50% say = no say“ for the purposes of this debate. Therefore I must assume that Con is saying the father deserves 50% say for his financial help, catering to the mother and driving her to the hospital when the time comes for delivery (Etc). I don't know what this “etc” entails, but if the issue is abortion, then the matter of who will be driving to the hospital for the delivery is irrelevant as it wouldn't have happened yet. As for money, Con assumes that the mother has no means of finance other than what the father has to offer. In this day and age, the women of the house tend to work, and are capable of working well into their pregnancies (depending on the job). And since the issue is abortion, going through with the abortion relinquishes the father from having to take care of the woman in the later stages of the pregnancy, making catering also a moot point unless we already assume the father has the power to stop the abortion, which assumes the very thing Con is trying to prove.There is a greater issue with this argument though. Con seems to be insinuating that one's sovereignty can be bought. Well, how much money does the father need to spend on the mother to get 50% say? By what measure do we judge when the man's financial contribution is enough that the woman no longer has exclusive rights over her own body? And how do we justify this involuntary purchasing of the woman's right to change her mind? Also, does this same line of reasoning hold up with other relationships? Going back to my R2 example, if person A buys person B lunch every day for a week, does person B no longer have the right to scrap his dresser project? If he still does, then how much more money does person A have to spend to buy 50% of person B's sovereignty? And why?2.Con contends that my argument is misleading. Keep in mind I specifically stated the difference was up to 3.5%, not always 3.5%. Yes, there is a combination where the difference is only 0.0006%, but that difference is still in favour of the mother, winning her the genetic argument either way and so it was not worth my character space in R2 to go into further detail. Con has chosen to go into this detail here, but seeing as the mother contributes more genetic material regardless of the child's gender, he losses the point regardless. One cannot simply ignore a difference in contribution, no matter how small, if that factor is to be taken into account. Therefore, Con must either concede the point or argue as to why it is irrelevant.I have no problem with this point being irrelevant mind you, but since it is a point in my favour it is still Con's burden to argue against it, not to simply water it down and dismiss it.3.Con's argument here was preemptively debunked in the same point of my R2 argument. As previously stated, even if the man only gave his sperm to the woman specifically for her to make a baby (this could be viewed as a loan, where the baby is the return payment), the woman still retains her right to change her mind as no legally binding agreement was made beforehand. Since it is her body which actually carries the child and given the fact that she retains exclusive ownership of her own body, the final decision to abort or not must also be hers exclusively. Now, let's take Con's “bank” analogy. Even a bank has the right to refuse service, so how does this argument justify removing the woman's right to refuse service? It simply does not make sense. 4.Con states that there are middle-ground options and lists four. I will address these in the order Con presented them.- This option was already shown to be faulty in my R2 argument. If the dispute is to result in a dead-lock tie, then the decision has been ruled in favour of the opposition. If the father happens to be the opposition, then all he has to do is not have a change of heart until the mother has carried full-term and he wins, which is not representative of a 50/50 say. This option ignores the mother's say in favour of the father's - This option is still not representative of a 50/50 split either. The issue is of abortion and in this scenario the father once again wins regardless of the mother's 50% say. Giving up the child is another issue distinct from abortion. Yes an abortion results in giving up the child as well, but equivocating between the two ignores that the mother still has to carry the child full-term against her will in the case of adoption. In this option, Con has completely brushed aside the woman's right to chose what happens within her own body and let the man have final say over the abortion.Even in the case where the mother agrees to carry the child full term and then give it up for adoption, this option has a winner in terms of who has more say. The mother would have more say because this option was only carried out due to the mother agreeing to it – which implies that she has the final say.- In this option, Con says that the couple could seek out an arbitrator. This doesn't actually solve the problem, it just passes the buck. The arbitrator will still have to come to some sort of conclusion as to whose wishes will be carried out. By what measure will the arbitrator conclude who is right? Well, that's the topic we are debating right now, so this argument is only valid assuming Con is right, which he must prove before he can use this argument, making it a moot point.- This option has the same issues as option 2. As we can see, there is no middle-ground in this decision. Either an abortion happens or it does not, and therefore we must come up with some sort of standard to decide who has more say. I argue that the standard should be based on the mother's ownership of her own body first and foremost, but we should also take note that the mother contributes more genetic information to the child as well. Con has offered no real alternative standard other than the fathers financial support, but since he's drawn no parallel between “services” and “self-ownership”, this is a non-cognitive standard.5.Con has decided not to argue that the fetus is property, but instead assert that the mother's right to self-govern her body only accounts for 50% of the say, therefore giving the father equal say nonetheless. As previously stated, Con claims the Father's financial contribution gives him the other 50% say, but this argument requires further development to be compelling.But since I have the opportunity. Let's address another issue with this argument. Con asserts that carrying the child only gets the mother 50% of the say. Why? By what line of logic can we conclude that the right to decide what happens with and within your own body only accounts for half of the say in what happens with and within your own body? << To acknowledge what this line of reasoning actually states is to realize its absurdity. Dropped ArgumentsCon has ignored the reverse scenario arguments I laid out in R2. There were only 2, and Con only used about 6,600 characters, so he had the room to at least touch on them, yet he chose not to.ConclusionAside from giving previously debunked arguments, circular arguments, and dropping other arguments, all Con presents is the assertion that the father's financial contribution should remove 50% of the mother's ownership over her body. He does not explain how this contribution gives the father 50% say, why this standard should be taken over my suggested standards, nor does he go into detail on how such a standard is quantified (or that it even can be). Furthermore, this argument is readily dismissible when we consider that going through with the abortion preemptively removes these responsibilities from the father. As such he has failed to discredit my arguments and meet his own BoP.The resolution is affirmed. I turn the debate over to Con.