No abortion outside of extenuating circumstances should be permitted

I thank Philocat for this debate. Time to wrap up.FrameworkLibertyI did not advocate for the harm principle (nor did I even cite it), hence large swaths of Pro’s rebuttal to my positive case is a blatant strawman. I advocated explicitly for maximising liberty, to which a common everyday consequence may well be to [generally] reduce harm to others – however that is a corollary and not the central thesis – there are numerous circumstances where the harm principle ends up impacting liberty – which is nonsensical from a pure libertarian stance.Pro has made no other rebuttals to liberty as a value, and also Pro drops my Human Development Index defence of liberty, thus on framework alone Pro has already lost this debate, since he has not successfully rebutted my value – and his value has at worst been heavily mitigated (it not, outright refuted).UtilityPro only in the final round actually gets around to supporting his value contention (rule violation). Moreover Pro only runs into the exact same problems I already highlighted, Pro is conflating utility-per-person with overall-utility. These are two different metrics, and Pro needs to be consistent for his arguments following from utilitarianism to be valid.“We simply cannot act without justifying our action by appealing to utility.”This is false. I act on impulse, instinct, and the fact that I want to do something, it doesn’t need justification“Even the existence of rights and liberties only serves to maximise peoples' happiness.”No they don’t (also, citation needed). I pre-emptively covered this objection in my opening framework. Because Pro’s entire defence of value is predicated on a strawman, then his objections to liberty and rights are also a strawman. Pro is running with the assumption that laws are there to maximise happiness, but doesn’t make any attempt to prove this or rebut my liberty value which contradicts it.Quantifying happiness“Although we cannot exactly define happiness, we can still recognise both the presence and magnitude of it.”No, you can’t. If you could then there would not exist ethical positions such as anti-natalism – which posits that the net utility is negative, efilism, sentient utilitarianism (prioritises sentience), negative utilitarianism (prioritises minimising pain), act/case utilitarianism (maximising happiness), etc. etc. etc. Since these theories (and several others) exist precisely because quantified happiness is poorly defined.[15]Justice & transplant objection“Whilst it is true that scenario 1 would have more happiness in the enclosed bubble of that scenario… An unstable society would lead to overall unhappiness and hence have negative utility.”Excellent, Pro’s has just demonstrated that his entire argument is explicitly circular:1. Utility is most concoctive of a stable society2. … because a stable society increases overall utilityPro must first assess the action’s affect on the stability of society first before assessing its effect on utility. Because Pro must first assume the conclusion, before justifying the premise, his position explicitly begs the question, and hence is unsound (since stability of government is exactly what we are trying to affirm here, it is the conclusion we are trying to achieve). Also Pro is conflating a consequence of a stable society (increased utility from the norm) with the requisite of a stable society.Also Pro’s objection doesn’t work, because I have already defined scenario 1 to have more happiness than scenario 2, so simply stating that “scenario 1 would lead to less happiness” is outright false. Pro is conflating long-term happiness with short-term, and hence making an equivocation with his position and following arguments.“ rule utilitarianism upholds them because it recognises that a society will generally be happier if we establish certain rights"If rule utilitarian compromises on happiness because establishing rights increases it, then none of Pro’s arguments for maximising utility in the case of abortion are sound. Because Pro already concedes that mitigating factors, such as rights and freedoms, also affect total happiness. Just where is Pro’s argument that the right and freedom to abortion does not increase total happiness via. increased stability? Pro needs to presuppose libertarianism in order to affirm his utility appeals.Because Pro has dropped the framework, then liberty arguments take priority over utility. Virtually all of Pro’s case can be dismissed on these grounds.Defence of Positive Case for Right to AbortionC1. Women's Bodily RightsPro’s defence against this argument presupposes the harm principle, which is a strawman of the arguments I have put forth. My priority is maximising liberty (viz. freedoms), not minimising harm. Also, Pro’s defence here presupposes that the foetus is a being who has rights to begin with (question begging).Organ DonationGiven that Pro accepts the premise that someone ought to have the right and liberty to withhold use of their organs – even if it maximises utility – then Pro’s defence here is already dubious.1. Define “directly” and “indirectly”. Since preventing organ donation “directly” withholds what is life-sustaining from the patient. Withholding the use of the mother’s body, uterus, and vital life support systems “directly” withholds what is life-sustaining from the patient. According to Pro’s logic – then it would be acceptable to just snip the umbilical cord (or wherever else is necessary – perhaps even remove the entire uterus itself, which is clearly part of the mother) and wait for the foetus to die on its own accord (such as is performed in some hyserosomy abortions).[16] The only reason why “indirect” death is preferable is due to diffusion of responsibility (perhaps the patient could have obtained an organ donation elsewhere, etc.). Yet that serves only to obfuscate the issue.[17]2. Obligations - These presuppose the mother is a parent, and that the foetus is an offspring. Pro has not supported these equivocations. Also Pro is arguing from outside utility or libertarianism with “obligations” (what obligations, legal obligations?), and thus has not established a value to base this rebuttal on. These laws are based on the assumption that the [born] child has liberties of its own to be protected, and hence those need to be examined on their own merits before this rebuttal is substantive.Absolute/selective bodily autonomyWe have already established that bodily autonomy ought to be upheld for a stable society, even if it restricts the rights, or harms other people (such as is the case with the organ transplant scenario). Thus, while #2 of Pro’s dichotomy is correct (liberty ought only be impeded if it impedes on the liberty of others), these parameters do not apply in the same way to bodily autonomy.“If this right is absolute, then it would follow that we have an unalienable right to do whatever the hell we want.”With our bodies, yes, we can prtty much. We can tattoo it, cut it, kill it, skin it, whatever. But Pro equivocates this with anything that doesn’t involve our bodies – which is false, and Pro has given no reason to accept this equivocation.Health Risks“Whilst it is true that childbirth is riskier than abortion, it is still very unlikely that childbirth will be fatal.”It doesn’t matter. Me shooting a person once increases risk of death, yet it is still very unlikely they will die. Has Pro got a justified arbitrary gauge on “how much increased risk” is too much? No. Also this assumes an extremely wealthy environment, which is not the case for an extremely large minority of the world, see the following chart: Pro also drops that it causes other complications, including reduced quality of life, mental health issues, etc. Pro equivocates a foetus with a toddler in his defence with no justification.C2. Foetus’ lack identityI have previously addressed rebuttals to identity & memory arguments for a foetus’ lack of liberty, thus I extend these.C4. The AlternativeIllegal/legal abortion1. “In short, they take responsibility for their own welfare so it is no longer the government's concern”If we are assuming utility as a value, then Pro cannot make this defence without undermining his own case. Since abortion actually increases utility here no matter which way the facts are interpreted. If we are assuming liberty as a value, then right to medical and health liberties is violated.2. Pro’s citation here is a 400 page book with no page reference. Given that I have presented precise facts to the contrary, Pro’s rebuttal can be treated as a bare assertion. I could cite the journal “Science”, all 100,000+ pages of it, to support a fact if we accept Pro’s citation here. Fact is that no correlation is found between legalising abortion and abortion incidence, with nations and regions with increased restrictions having similar abortion rates to those without. Even within sub-regions, such as between different US states, this was found to hold. Thus, people are going have abortions regardless of whether or not it is legal.[18] See following chart: Note the extremely high incidence of abortion of women in Africa, where strict anti-abortion laws exist, and hence virtually all abortions are illegal.3. Same issue with sourcing as point #2. Impossible to check Pro’s facts on this, and ignores the evidence already presented.4. After points #2 and #3, I am thoroughly disgusted by Pro’s sourcing here. Pro’s source provides no:i. Contextii. No axis labels (wtf do these values signify)iii. Reference (it is just a chart) – which would contain information on where the data was collected, how, and where it is validThis chart could mean virtually anything as a result, it could be looking at one household for all we know and the mortality of abortion of that household. Moreover it only measures one metric - death, and ignores all others.References15. https://goo.gl...16. http://goo.gl...17. https://goo.gl...18. http://goo.gl...