Yesterday (April 1, 2021), Happy_Killbot and I (Keal192NXQ2) went on the
Reformation Discord Server (an instant messaging VoIP platform).
We debated on the topic of "Should we criminalize abortion?"
The person in question that was being debated goes by the name of "CriminalizeAbortionNow".
Now, why did I need to go on DebateIsland?
Instant message debates were something I have not liked and will not like,
long, forum messages are easier to analyze, dissect, and discuss.
It's very easy to gloss over something in instant messaging.
The debate also ended 10+ hours ago.
But I want to ask you, Debate Islanders, what do you think?
--
Here's what I think.
In 1978 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) implemented the "One-Child" Policy program as a response to the population size of the People's Republic of China (
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120114/understanding-chinas-one-child-policy.asp). It only allowed families to have
one child (with exceptions to certain minorities, some of which could have up to four). This is important because if abortions were not allowed (illegal) you will have an overpopulation problem. "The goal of China's one-child policy was to make sure that population growth did not outpace economic development and to ease environmental and natural resource challenges and imbalances caused by a rapidly expanding population." (
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120114/understanding-chinas-one-child-policy.asp) If you criminalize abortion, you'll have many people fighting over resources
long-term, whether that be food, water, or work, you would've been causing more suffering than if you were to abort. A lack of life is tenfold times better than a suffering one.
Before we go any further, let's make this
very clear.
No one wants to kill
anything.
Human baby, animal, or not.
I am not forcing people to abort children, only to let them have the leisure to.
However, there is a point where a person's right of having a normal life needs to be enforced, and that just so happens to be abortion.
The fetus is essentially just a microscopic ball of cells at that point, not a human being.
The mind defines us, not our cellular structure. Masturbation would be genocide otherwise, as it kills millions of cells every go. (
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110624141735AAnljs7)
Speaking of which, we'll get into the "person-hood" aspect of this topic.
From what I see, the "personhood" argument states if a fetus is just in fact an immature person, then there is no reason that we can deny it the right to life. (
http://www.beckyclay.com/philosophy/essays/personhood-abortion/#:~:text=The personhood argument is one that states if,does not mean that it is not “human.”)
From what "CriminalizeAbortionNow" told me, this personhood argument has been used in support of slavery and other immoral practices.
The difference between a fetus and a slave (in this context, a grown human) is that the mind of those individuals clearly differs in intellectual and emotional ways. If we defined people based on their physical features, the disabled, the ill, and the old would be considered lower-valued or maybe discriminated against.
It would be best to define the mind as; rational self-awareness and/or sentience as that is what the mind in this context is.
To support the personhood argument; humans are defined by their mind, not by their cellular structure.
What about the fact that we would be destroying the fact of potential life (not even acknowledging if they're in a position, a setting, where resources are scarce in which the lack of life is better than a suffering life)?
Well, what about the fact that the woman (the middle man, or woman) here would be risking her health and freedom to unwanted pregnancy? The value of an
actual life heavily outweighs
any potential life. 'Unless there is a social need for more children, a
potential life is simply unneeded. People who are proponents of the "potential" of a fetus are called Aristotelians. The Aristotelian view leads us to see contraceptives as being just as morally reprehensible as an abortion. This would be an unacceptable conclusion for most people in societies where contraception is widely used and generally seen as being morally unproblematic. The Aristotelian view also leads us to regard spontaneous abortion as being just as tragic as the death of a post-birth human being. Yet sociologically, we do not mourn the death of a fetus in the same way we mourn the death of a grown person (aged 40+). The Aristotelian view would be counter-intuitive.' (
https://www.ogmagazine.org.au/20/2-20/ethically-speaking-is-a-fetus-a-person/#:~:text=In one view, the fetus is a person,and privileges as a fully developed human being.)
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