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

So, this is awkward. Decisionally is definitely a word. A quick google search reveals that to be the case... and produces some results where it's used, including in my source which I originally listed. (1) This link explores the nuances of decisional capacity: http://plato.stanford.edu... This is sort of awkward, because we are now at the second occasion in this debate where my opponent's incapacity to "google" stuff has produced generally unfavorable results on his own end. I think another thing CON doesn't understand is how decision making works... as if medical decisions are somehow "over and above" other kinds of decisions. That seems to be a consistent theme of what he's writing, which is silly. He has done little more than acknowledge that I used a word he didn't know, and has thus far failed to substantively rebut anything I've said. The problem is that he doesn't understand how logic works... His argument, rephrased in the previous round in some creative ways, is essentially this: THIS IS IMPORTANT: Teenagers' pre-frontal cortexes are not as developed as adults, therefore only adults can make medical decisions for teens. What he has failed, demonstrably, to do is show how (1) prefrontal cortex development to an adult level is necessary to make medical decisions, (2) that teen prefrontal cortex development -even if less than adults- is not "sufficient" to make medical decisions, and (3) that even if teenager's prefrontal cortexes are not sufficiently developed, and "adult level" prefrontal cortex development is necessary to make "good" medical deacons, that restricting the medical decisions of teenagers only to adults violates adolescents' substantive rights. THIS IS WHY WHAT I SAID ABOVE IS IMPORTANT: As to the stuff I mentioned above, my opponent doesn't consider any of those things. There is no link between "prefrontal cortex development at the adult level" and "exclusive medical deciders." Even still, insofar as the pre-frontal cortex does not develop until around the mid-20s, his own logic should preclude even legal adults form making their own medical decisions which is (other than violating adult's substantive rights) fundamentally dumb. So while CON can make silly pithy remarks like he did in the previous round, his logic is terribly weak. I said why it was weak above, but he just said that explaining the actual reasons that his argument was weak was an ad hom attack.... such disappoint. So... I've pointed out a lot of contradictions in the status quo, which he has yet to rebut the substance of. I've pointed out weakness in his case, and he's ignored them. I've made the argument that adolescents ought to be able to make their own medical decisions... and when all else fails my opponent says "adults are more mature than adolescents" therefore only adults should be able to make medical decisions. This is basically the same weak logic as his dumb prefrontal cortex argument. It might be the case that adults are more mature than adolescents, but unless my opponent can show that adolescents are NOT sufficiently mature to make medical decisions for themselves, (accepting "maturity" as the standard for who ought to be able to make medical decisions) then this argument falls too. Again, the fact that adults are more mature than teens does not mean that teens are not mature enough to make those decisions for themselves. But, I'm not so sure I like the standard of "maturity" being the delineating factor between groups who can make medical decisions and those who can't. The reason is because even if someone else might be in a better position to make certain decisions for someone else (for any number of reasons -one of which might be *LOL* a more developed prefrontal cortex), the reason that we respect people's right to make decisions that relate to themselves is because respect for the dignity of others (read: justice) requires it. In a free and democratic society, it's not good enough to say that all and only those who are in the best position to make decisions get to make those decisions when that decisional power intrudes on another's right to autonomy. And... this is another point that my opponent has just fouled up in totality, inferior as he's completely dropped it other than to put some irrelevant philosophical quotes in that he clearly doesn't understand the meaning of. Like, he literally does not grasp the difference between "liberty" as a general concept and "limited autonomy within the context of making medical decisions." The former is a whole lot more broad than the latter, even if I were to accept that "liberty" and "autonomy" are the same thing -which they're not, but the semantic argument is another conversation for another day. To say that teenagers should have "some autonomy within a limited context" is not to say that "teenagers should have carte balance liberty to do anything they please." The other problem with CONs entire case is that he's talking about teens being able to make medical decisions for themselves as if that somehow means that anything the parent thinks is to be thrown out with careless disregard. That is not the case. To say that an adolescent should be able to decide medical things for themselves is not to entirely remove the parent from the medical decision making process. It means, rather, that even though the parent(s) may still have influence in that process, the person who is actually going to be subject to the decision that's made (read: the adolescent) is going to be the one who makes that call. Perhaps CON doesn't get this because his pre-frontal cortex isn't sufficiently developed, so he's not capable of understanding the relevant stakes in place here... like, maybe he lied about being 25. (I kid... I kid... sort of.)