There is a rational basis to deny fertile, young women employment

CON has listed his points out in an increasingly cumbersome manner and I will simply trust that the reader is astute enough to understand how it all pans out. As for uncontested points, I think our readers know the truth of it, my opponent’s claims on the matter notwithstanding. Further define to defeat You’ll remember that I told you my opponent has attempted to redefine my argument in order to disqualify it from comporting to the resolution as stated. This is churlish and, as it were, completely backwards. For instance, he says the following: “It logically follows that PRO's resolution will NECESSARILY deny YFFs employment.” And “if per PRO's resolution: ‘There is a rational basis to deny YFFs employment,’ then the contrapositive...also holds..." I will give my opponent the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is simply philosophically ignorant when it comes to the use of contrapositives. As it happens, contrapositives work on conditional statements, which mine is not. If P then Q necessitates that not-Q then not-P is also true. But my statement that there exists a rational basis is decidedly, verifiably, observably and quite assuredly, NOT a conditional statement, nor cannot it reasonably be changed to a conditional sentence without being substantially different then the resolution I have intended to argue. What is worse is that my opponent seemed to start out this debate with an inferred understanding of this, where he said that there exists a rational basis for lawyers to represent their clients as it prevents bias. According to his own weird misuse of logical laws, this would mean that all people who represent themselves are operating at the height of irrationality. I have already spent too much time on this wasteful point. My opponent has wrongfully interpreted my resolution as necessarily denying employment when it clearly does not necessitate anything. My opponent again claims that I am actually making an argument against pregnancy not YFF. If one did not read this debate and instead had made up what they thought would be said, perhaps they could come to such a conclusion. But I have clearly shown that there is a rational basis to deny YFF because of the likelihood of pregnancy and its associated risks. This risk applies to all YFF and thus conforms to the resolution as stated. Employment is not Denied I state this again under a bold header to make it even clearer than I already have. I am arguing that there is a rational basis to deny employment, not that a rational basis necessitates denial. Nor that non-denial necessitates irrationality. My opponent is utilizing a fallacy known as a false dilemma, whereby he has sought to limit the alternatives in an either-or manner that is simply not supported by reality. Employers that ultimately do not care about quick job-turnover or other related factors may hire YFF at their leisure. This does not eliminate the rational basis, it simply is supersedes it with other bases that may themselves be more pressing or rational. On Correlation and Causation It’s tedious, but CON will need quotes when it comes to the risks of working women.1. Career women cheat more frequently “...recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it.[1]” "In 2000 Treas and Giesen found similar results where sexual opportunities in the workplace increased the likelihood of infidelity during the last 12 months." Also, "Wiggins and Lederer (1984) found that opportunities to engage in infidelity were related to the workplace where nearly one half of their samples who engaged in infidelity were involved with coworkers.[2]" My opponent has erroneously tried to blame this on other factors, but the fact that infidelity increases with women who work but does not similarly increase with women who do not, seems quite clearly to favor the position that employment is a causal factor in increased infidelity. This seems prima facie true, insofar as employment increases the amount of potential romantic encounters. 2. Career women divorce more often “Higher income for women increases the probability of divorce.[3]” One need not be a genius to see that no income for women reduces the probability of divorce as much as possible. “All three indicators of career success increase the chances of divorce for women.[4]” 3. Career women have fewer kids “Somewhere between 34 percent and 61 percent of high-achieving women are childless in midlife.[5]” In light of the statistics displayed in this graph Social scientist offer that “Women now postpone marriage and/or motherhood in order to get more years of schooling and work experience before they settle into married life. In 1970, for example, the median age of first marriage for women was not quite 21. Since then the age of first marriage has risen to just short of 26.5 For women who hold a four-year college degree, the age of first marriage is even higher. After marriage, moreover, women wait longer before they bear their first child.[6]” It could merely be coincidental that the rise of women in the workforce corresponds to the decrease in birthrate, but that doesn’t seem to be the opinion of social scientists. For instance, if it was primarily the result of other factors, we would think it would be consistent among women regardless of employment. Yet consider the following: “While roughly 1 out of 5 stay-at-home mothers had two or more children under age 5 in the household, this was true for closer to 1 out of 10 for other mothers.[7]” Thus, women who are not stay-at-home moms are 50% more likely to have fewer kids than their stay-at-home counterparts. These three statistics alone show that denying YFF in the workforce will benefit employers by eliminating the higher risks of divorce, where divorce is well known to reduce worker productivity.[8] Being that denying YFF will also limit the probability of infidelity, it will in turn limit the probability of divorce. Similarly, limiting YFF will also increase the production of future consumers, insofar as non-career women produce more offspring. Accounting for Pregnancy While it could equally be said that there is a rational basis to deny pregnant women employment, this does very little to prevent the liabilities incurred by those who may get pregnant during their employment. Thus, by denying employment to those most likely to get pregnant, employers can avoid all the aforesaid risks associated with YFF. Furthermore, my opponent’s figure is wrong about the 29 million. In the 19% childless, we forgot to deduct 10.9% of women who have impaired fecundity and thus could not be rightly considered fertile. Thus the remaining 8.1% who are voluntarily infertile is actually more in the range of 12 million. Even so, irrespective of whether or not any given woman is actually among that 12 million, there is still an 89.1% chance that at some point during the duration of employment she will become pregnant. It is not wise for an employer to cling to an 8.1% chance that an employee will not become temporarily disabled at some point during their career. Conclusion The majority of my opponent’s case rests on a false philosophical assertion that simply cannot obtain in this case. It is abundantly clear that there is a rational basis for employers to deny employment to YFF because of the unnecessary risks that would be assumed. My opponent’s insurance claims at the end are utterly irrelevant as they don’t even begin to address the issues of divorce, consumer reduction and the job turnover associated with YFF in the workplace. [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] http://tinyurl.com... [7] http://tinyurl.com... [8] http://tinyurl.com...