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Abortion is bad

Debate Information

Position: For
I believe abortion is bad unless the child and the mother are both going to die unless. I am debating a friend who disagrees with me in hopes of understanding and changing some minds. Gook luck, PeterD!



Debra AI Prediction

Against
Predicted To Win
56%
Likely
44%
Unlikely

Details +




Debate Type: Traditional Debate



Voting Format: Casual Voting

Opponent: PETERD

Rounds: 3

Time Per Round: 24 Hours Per Round


Voting Period: 24 Hours


Forfeited



Post Argument Now Debate Details +



    Arguments


  • Round 1 | Position: For
    PyromanGamingPyromanGaming 63 Pts   -  
    Hello everyone watching this! I believe abortion is bad, as I'm sure you could tell from the description. So let's get into it.

    I first want to explain why a fetus should be treated as a child. I need to do this in order to show why it should be banned except in cases where both the mother and the fetus will die unless. A fetus is commonly considered not a human life. But I want to understand why. Sure it's not as developed as a child, but that doesn't matter. Should we start treating people with down's syndrome worse? Of course not! Also, we need to judge a fetus by what it can become, not by what it is. We shouldn't not give a child an education just because they're a dumb compared to an adult. We should let the child grow into it's fullest potential rather than squash it. It's like a seed. We all want to nurture children because at the end of the day, they're going to be the ones who are going to change the world of tomorrow. Everything mentioned here can apply to a fetus.

    Next, let's talk about the reasons a women might want an abortion one by one to explain why it should only be allowed if the mother and the child are going to die unless. Rape. Rape is a horrible crime, I believe that and I'm sure my opponent also agrees. However, we should not have prejudice (this is going to sound weird) on a fetus on the basis of which penis it was created from. It could still become the next Albert Einstein or Martin Luther King Jr. Now let's get into why most abortions are committed. Because the fetus is of some inconvenience to the women. If you are going to kill a human life just out of your own convenience that is a literal definition of evil. Can't afford the child? ADOPT IT!

    So what does my opponent have to convince you to win this debate? He has to justify aborting a fetus in at least one of these examples by explaining why a fetus has no potential and will always be a detriment regardless of if it is aborted or not. I may think of some other points later, but my future arguments will be mainly focused on explaining why my opponent is incorrect. Thank you and good luck to my opponent!
  • Round 1 | Position: Against
    PETERDPETERD 12 Pts   -  
    First of all, I would like to clash with something my opponent said. He said that a fetus should be considered a child and compared abortion to the mistreatment of a person with down syndrome but, according to this website https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14767059209161911 it is generally agreed that fetuses develop sentience at 18 weeks to 25 weeks and the author of the article believes that 30 weeks is when the fetus develops sentience so at the very least abortion should be allowed in that period of time which also happens to be when nearly all abortions happen according to this website https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/5113/9611/5527/Abortion_After_first_trimester.pdf. ;

    Now onto the MEAT of my argument. Like I already said my opponent compared abortion to the mistreatment of a person with down syndrome. I think this is not really a relevant comparison because a down syndrome is certainly sentient when many fetuses who get aborted are not. Let's not forget that giving birth is a painful endeavour plus it means labour and being sick and lots of other horrible things.

    This argument is all about when someone starts to be qualified as a person and that someone should start to be qualified as a person. This should be after the person is born because if that is the case then no one has to give birth unwillingly. However you seem to think that a person is first considered a person when the sperm fertilizes an egg but you should tell me why that is because right now there seems to be no reason why not to think of a person as someone who has been born.

    In conclusion an abortion is the killing of a likely not sentient fetus to prevent horrible pain and absurd inconvenience.  
  • Round 2 | Position: For
    PyromanGamingPyromanGaming 63 Pts   -  
    Hello PeterD I would like to respond to your claims. So let's look at the premise of your argument which is that because a fetus does not have sentience it is not qualified as a person. I don't think that having sentience qualifies as being a person because there are many examples of primates who have sentience. So let's look at the Wikipedia definition of sentience. It is "Sentience is the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively". As an example, according to 
    https://www.nature.com/news/2010/100112/full/news.2010.9.html
    many monkeys have evolved a desire to help others. Often a monkey will scratch another monkey's back in hopes that their back will be scratched in return. Often, the monkey's back being scratched will incentivize that monkey to scratch the scratcher's back. That is a a subjective feeling that you should scratch that monkey back, so by definition, monkeys have sentience. Monkeys are not people. But by your definition, they are.

    But aside from this example, this is a common argument that people will use: what if I am in a coma? If I am in a coma I cannot have sentience because my brain is not functioning. Should we terminate that life? And this can be easily exploited because if sentience defines a person than I can knock someone unconscious and then kill them while they're unconscious and I will only get charged for assault because by the time I kill the person they're already by definition not a person.

    My point is that this idea of sentience is incoherent. But this is beside the point because this isn't about what qualifies as a person it's about what qualifies as life worth protecting. That's a coherent idea. You don't seem to have any contention with the idea that what life has potential should be worth protecting, rather the idea of what constitutes a person.

    So now I want to clarify the idea behind what defines a life because there are many contentions with the idea of life worth protecting. I define a life as anything that has DNA separate from its creator. This doesn't mean that all life is worth protecting, that's where the potential argument comes in.

    And finally I want to get to the idea of inconvenience. I was actually surprised that you used that term in your argument because it's a very untraditional word for the pro choice crowd to use. So again, the inconvenience of not killing something does not justify killing it. I touched upon it in my first speech, but not in great detail, so I will elaborate on it now.

    Let's draw the comparison with raising a child. When you raise a child you have to give time, effort, and money. It can be a huge detriment to poor families. However, this doesn't mean that you should kill the children. You should take care of them until you can give them a better home such as an adoption facility. And this is what you can do with the fetus. It is extremely unlikely that the fetus will be of any detriment close to this not as uncommon as you might think scenario, because you don't have to sacrifice time, effort, and money.

    In conclusion, I strongly oppose abortion. Thank you!
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