Urinating and defecating in public should be allowed as long as you clean it up

INTRODUCTION Wow. Impulse acceptance. This should be fun. Warning: most of my points will be about the spread of disease from fluid discharge, but only urine and feces. I also did not expect you to troll this debate, because I will be taking this seriously. Also, I will be saving all my rebuttals and refutations for the last round, or R4. I hope you do the same but often trolls don’t cross reference. (ARGUMENTS) a) Ebola spreading around. Before I begin, I would like to explain what ebola is: “Ebola virus disease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans. EVD outbreaks have a case fatality rate of up to 90%. The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission. Severely ill patients require intensive supportive care. No licensed specific treatment or vaccine is available for use in people or animals” {1} “As I speak, EVD is now considered an international public health emergency according to world Health Organisation (WHO). Ebola is a very terrifying disease, a killer” {2} 1552 people have died from this terrifying lethal disease. But what does urinating and defecating in public do to spread this? Well “You can catch it through direct contact with the body fluids of an infected person.” {3} These fluids would include urine and feces. So, imagine you are walking, one day, and someone defecated on the path but you didn’t notice it. You accidentally stepped in it. That person who defecated has (or had) Ebola. Now you have a 90% chance of dying. But, if people were not allowed to urinate or defecate in public, the number of people doing their business would simply drop, parallel to the amount of people getting ebola and other diseases would simply fall of a downward cliff. And even if they pick it up, there is still germs all over the spot where they went. Exposure period is very deadly period. b) Giardiasis. What is it? “Giardiasis is an illness caused by the parasite, Giardia intestinalis. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), giardiasis is the most common intestinal parasite in the United States. When a person becomes infected, some will show signs and symptoms, while others will not.” {4} “Giardiasis can also lead to dehydration because of the loss of fluids and electrolytes lost in diarrhea and vomiting. In some cases symptoms will go away, only to return a few day or weeks later. In most cases, symptoms last one to two weeks.” {4} But how can it spread? Imagine you are a poor man in a poor country. You bite your nails. Someone before you had Giardiasis, did their business, wiped, but did not wash their hands. That person touched, let’s say, a door handle. You then touch that door handle, and then bite your nails. Ba-bam, you have Giardiasis. Now, this could happen anywhere, but to relate back to the resolution, “One billion people still defecate in public” {5} The chance of people washing their hands inside washing rooms before spreading the disease is much better than if people just defecated anywhere they wanted too. It’s not like there are random sinks in the middle of a local park in the forest. c) “Waste that end up in water bodies negatively change the chemical composition of the water. Technically, this is called water pollution. This will affect all ecosystems existing in the water. It can also cause harm to animals that drink from such polluted water.” {6} Whenever you eat food, that food is either “basic” or “acidic.” So let’s say you eat a lot of acidic food such as: “Corn Lentils Olives Winter Squash” {7} (see reference 7 for a LOT more acidic foods) You then defecate out a mixture of this food you ate that you did not use up within your body. Then imagine you defecated in a river. even though the resolution states you pick it up, it has already affected the rivers basicness and acidity. So now you have a crap-load (pun intended) of acid in the water from you and other people who had acidic foods defecating in the river. This example can also be switched to basic foods, or Alkaline food. But what can acid do to water life? “Most freshwater lakes, streams, and ponds have a natural pH in the range of 6 to 8. Acid deposition has many harmful ecological effects when the pH of most aquatic systems falls below 6 and especially below 5. Here are some effects of increased acidity on aquatic systems: - As the pH approaches 5, non-desirable species of plankton and mosses may begin to invade, and populations of fish such as smallmouth bass disappear. - Below a pH of 5, fish populations begin to disappear, the bottom is covered with undecayed material, and mosses may dominate nearshore areas. - Below a pH of 4.5, the water is essentially devoid of fish. - Aluminium ions (Al3+) attached to minerals in nearby soil can be released into lakes, where they can kill many kinds of fish by stimulating excessive mucus formation. This asphyxiates the fish by clogging their gills. It can also cause chronic stress that may not kill individual fish, but leads to lower body weight and smaller size and makes fish less able to compete for food and habitat. - The most serious chronic effect of increased acidity in surface waters appears to be interference with the fish’ reproductive cycle. Calcium levels in the female fish may be lowered to the point where she cannot produce eggs or the eggs fail to pass from the ovaries or if fertilized, the eggs and/or larvae develop abnormally (EPA, 1980). See also metals in freshwater. Extreme pH can kill adult fish and invertebrate life directly and can also damage developing juvenile fish. It will strip a fish of its slime coat and high pH level ‘chaps’ the skin of fish because of its alkalinity. When the pH of freshwater becomes highly alkaline (e.g. 9.6), the effects on fish may include: death, damage to outer surfaces like gills, eyes, and skin and an inability to dispose of metabolic wastes. High pH may also increase the toxicity of other substances. For example, the toxicity of ammonia is ten times more severe at a pH of 8 than it is at pH 7. It is directly toxic to aquatic life when it appears in alkaline conditions. Low concentrations of ammonia are generally permitted for discharge.” {8} Nasty, huh? By merely defecating in public, you are already killing or unnecessarily growing animals and plants. But, if “doing your business” in public is illegal, then it would serve as a deterrence and thus decrease people “doing their business” in a public body of water. CONCLUSION Alright, I have proven my point. DDD References. {1} http://www.who.int... {2} http://leadership.ng... {3} http://www.bbc.co.uk... {4} http://www.decodedscience.com... {5} http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com... {6} http://www.eschooltoday.com... {7} http://www.rense.com... {8}http://www.lenntech.com...