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Should abortion be illegal?

(PRO)
2 points
(CON)
WINNER!
10 points
the_viperthe_viper (PRO)
Fetuses should have rights because they will be sentient in the future (like someone in a coma). Also, fetuses have property rights or the woman could claim the fetus' body and kill them when they are born (infanticide), so they must moral rights. Also, parents have a responsibility to care for their children, since they are responsible for them needing food, shelter, etc. to stay alive. Abortion is the act of a woman terminating this support to the fetus. Therefore, abortion is wrong.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-21 10:02:32
| Speak Round
JohannesJohannes (CON)
You draw a comparison between fetuses and a person in a coma as your first point, these two things aren't comparable. The person in the coma existed and was alive before. Fetuses don't have property rights, that doesn't even make any sense; killing a child is wrong because murder is wrong, not because as a fetus it inherited property rights. Just because you see something as wrong doesn't mean it should be illegal, Vegans think eating meat is wrong but they don't think meat should be illegal.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-22 12:54:40
| Speak Round
the_viperthe_viper (PRO)
Dead people were alive before but it's not "murder" to stab them. Killing a child is murder because they own their body. If you owned it, it would not be murder. Could you poison a fetus so they die after they are born? Or chop off their limbs? Of course not. Therefore, fetuses must have property rights so that you don't get a chance to "claim" their body before they are born. Many vegans do think meat should be illegal (https://www.debate.org/opinions/should-eating-meat-be-illegal).
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-23 06:11:30
| Speak Round
JohannesJohannes (CON)
The dead person comparison doesn’t work either, they’re dead — the born baby is alive. You should realize that these comparisons are empirically wrong. No you can’t poison a fetus so it dies after it’s born. The baby inherits it’s rights when it is born. People get the right the right to drink when they’re 21, that doesn’t mean they can just start drinking before that. No one talks about claiming they’re baby’s body, that’s ridiculous. The vegan data is arbitrary. Vote CON!
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-23 13:20:38
| Speak Round
the_viperthe_viper (PRO)
The dead person comparison proves that people in a coma have rights because of future sentience - not past sentience. You say that it's wrong to shorten the lifespan of a child before it's born. Wouldn't abortion be worse, since it's shortening their lifespan to zero? It's morally okay to create a child you know will die (people do it all the time), but not kill a child. If the fetus isn't a child yet, then poisoning them would just be part of creating a child you know will die.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-24 07:09:34
| Speak Round
JohannesJohannes (CON)
A person in a coma still isn't the same as a fetus living inside its mother yet to be born, and the dead comparison didn't prove that. The guaranteed life(mother) is more important than the dependent body of cells living inside of it(fetus) until it is born and becomes independent(relatively speaking). This is why abortion is and should be legal. The poison example is so hyperbolic it's not even worth responding to. Abortion is very pragmatic. You still can't kill the baby after it's born.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-24 07:56:07
| Speak Round
the_viperthe_viper (PRO)
The ends don't justify the means. So long as the fetus has rights, you can't kill it to save a more "important" life (according to you). You brought up bodily autonomy, but the woman doesn't get to appeal to bodily autonomy because parents have a responsibility to take care of their kids. Infants depend on their parents, but you can't kill them. Before recent times, infants were often left to die. If parents don't have a responsibility to take care of their kids, wouldn't this be justifiable?
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-25 05:02:55
| Speak Round
JohannesJohannes (CON)
You can't compare the relationship between a mother and her infant and apply it with the fetus. The fetus' rights don't supersede its mother's, logically it makes more sense to protect the guaranteed life over the potential. If you're in a burning building and there are a young girl and a tray with an embryo on it which would you save? Also, the way a mother takes care of her infant child is very different from the way she "takes care" of a fetus, you're just trying to spin the argument here.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-25 08:27:22
| Speak Round
the_viperthe_viper (PRO)
Poisoning a fetus is also only attacking a "potential" person, as is killing someone in a coma. Yet it's wrong to harvest their organs for a "guaranteed" person. I would save the young girl because she can feel pain, but it's still not okay to kill people who can't feel pain. Con still hasn't demonstrated a moral difference between a mother's duty to a fetus and infant. If a moral duty exists, she should still carry it out even if she doesn't like how. Vote PRO!
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-25 11:31:48
| Speak Round
JohannesJohannes (CON)
My point was that a mother has no "moral duty" to a fetus, it biologically survives off of its mother - it doesn't need physical care like an infant, that's the difference. A person in a coma isn't a potential person, I know you keep wanting to use this Ben Shapiro example but it's not applicable. Yes, mother's should carry out their moral duty and they do under most circumstances; abortion is legal for extreme circumstances like when the mother's life is at stake, you seem to not realize this.
Return To Top | Posted:
2018-12-25 11:49:43
| Speak Round


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Hingle McKringleBerryHingle McKringleBerry
Testing testing 123
Posted 2019-01-07 08:17:13
The judging period on this debate is over

Previous Judgments

2018-12-31 05:51:37
dpowell3543Judge: dpowell3543    TOP JUDGE
Win awarded to: Johannes
Reasoning:
While I do agree with the_viper, I have to give the points to Johannes. the_viper failed to provide any good points as to why abortion should be illegal, nor did their points make much sense. This made it easier for Johannes to just brush aside and shut down all of their points without even needing to make any points of their own.

Feedback:
Pro: First off, I would advise that you don't use polls from debate.org. You have the right idea, just using the wrong source. DDO is dying, not many people get on anymore, plus the results aren't official. I'd try looking for an official census on the matter. Another thing you could have done, would be to explain how abortion is murder. That could have helped your case a lot since murder itself is already illegal, proving that abortion is murder would mean that it is already illegal by default and therefore should be declared illegal by law makers. A good point to bring up in that argument would be the fact that the United States Congress has declared that all fetuses on American soil have all of their Constitutional rights. Not only does this show that they're considered living people in the eyes of the law, but it would help prove your point and it would make it difficult for someone to rebut your arguments.

Con: Overall good job, but I'd try adding someone of your own points to your arguments rather than just shut down your opponent's points. Making your own points will give not only your rebuttals, but your whole stance more backbone.


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2019-01-01 05:06:03
BookaJudge: Booka
Win awarded to: the_viper
2019-01-03 12:05:37
DefenderJudge: Defender
Win awarded to: Johannes
Reasoning:
the_viper have a point that I agree to, however, I must give the points to Johannes. the_viper failed to support us a good and standing evidence while Johannes not only have a better grammar and simply countered nearly all of the_viper's argument without making any evidence of her own.
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2019-01-04 16:29:15
Felix HarrisJudge: Felix Harris
Win awarded to: the_viper
2019-01-06 21:11:50
nzlockieJudge: nzlockie    TOP JUDGE
Win awarded to: Johannes
Reasoning:
This debate was actually WAY closer than it first appeared. That’s a kudos to both debaters. I also want to acknowledge the fact that this debate had a very small character limit, and yet the arguments were relatively easy to follow. Not easy to do.
My win goes to CON by a definite but close margin.
Essentially this is because although they insinuated it, PRO never actually addressed the idea of when “life” begins. Since this is a pretty contentious issue, I really needed this to be raised and defended if I were going to buy their arguments that involved rights.
For me, PRO had two strong arguments. I liked both of them. The Coma argument got unfortunately derailed when PRO started linking it with stabbing dead bodies to defend the idea that coma patients were different because they had been alive previously. A better pitch would have been to state that the fetus WAS alive prior to the abortion. Dead bodies are obviously not related because although they were alive previous, they are not alive now, nor will they be in the future. They shouldn’t have been linked with the coma patient argument at all, and I couldn’t see the relevance.
I also liked the Parental responsibility argument. That was a new one for me, and I actually thought PRO won that one in the later rounds, EXCEPT, without life, there is no responsibility. Again, PRO needed to state that life begins before birth for this point to score with me.

CON did a good job defending all the arguments PRO bought up, especially given the limited character space. There wasn’t much in the way of positive arguments from CON, but in this case I don’t think there needed to be.
The straight neg case is risky because the scores are always tight, but I think for me it was a definite win to CON.


Feedback:
GREAT work by both sides.
I really enjoyed this one. I wish you guys would redo this debate with a larger character limit. I think it may be a different story.

PRO: I think that given the character limit, you should have considered arguing ONE case. It would have allowed you to elaborate on it more, which would have made it easier to follow and more compelling for me.
I also think you should reread the Coma patient argument and see where you lost me in the second round. If I’ve misunderstood you somehow, (I don’t think I have) hen chalk that up to the fact that I think you needed more space to make your case clearer.

Finally in the neg column, your actual text was much harder to follow than CON’s. you might to reread your round before you post it, and make sure it’s really easy to follow your train of thought.

On the plus side, everything else. I loved that you stuck to this debate right to the end, and you really pushed it. For this judge, CON had to answer you each round, and that’s about all you can ask for. Great work.

CON: I honestly think this debate was a giant leap forward for you. I know I’ve been banging on at you about your narrative, and in this debate I think you did a great job. Not only that, but to do it in a limited character debate was super impressive.

I especially liked the way you chose to acknowledge but dismiss a couple of PRO’s minor points as not worthy of wasting character space on.
I totally agreed with your assessment that these were not scoring points, and so your attention was better placed elsewhere. This made your train of thought much easier to follow.

I think it would have been a nice touch if you had thrown in a positive argument about why it SHOULD be legal, but I understand why you didn’t.
I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not, but I liked the way you inferred that life begins at birth, but didn’t actually say that.
Had you done so, PRO would have been forced to state their position of life beginning prior to birth, and that might have changed everything.
In any debate on abortion, defending the idea that life begins at birth is one the hardest parts of the pro-abortion camp as it opens lots of avenues for attack by anti-abortionists.
The way this debate was structured, it was PRO’s benefit to bring it up, and you did well to sidestep it.

Great job both of you!
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2019-01-08 04:01:09
ibalazsJudge: ibalazs
Win awarded to: Johannes

Rules of the debate

  • Text debate
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  • 5 rounds
  • 500 characters per round
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  • Time to post: 3 days
  • Time to vote: 2 weeks
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I will be arguing that abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape, and even when the life of the mother is threatened.

I am not claiming one way or the other that abortion should be illegal if the fetus will die anyway. It is not part of the debate.