Framework
The description tries to rig the debate as a truism for Pro to get a cheap and easy win.
What Pro is saying Con is up against is the idea that if all things were ideal, abortion wouldn't be necessary.
Pro concedes the resolution as it's written by including this in the framework:
This does not mean that an individual can't desire abortion or that it isn't necessary in some cases in the world as it is.
So, let's work with the rigged resolution, let's explore why it is plausible that in an ideal world, we still will desire abortion.
I will combine two philosophical outlooks; hedonism and anti-natalism into a fused case for the fact that in an ideal world not only will abortion be desirable but encouraged.
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Quickfire rebuttals
In an ideal world abortion is something that would be rendered unnecessary and obsolete.
Baseless statement, if I say unprotected sex would be happening at rampant rates in an ideal world and it being slick and easy to abort as people love every bit of their life, being as irresponsible as they can get away with as robots do all the menial and repetitive tasks, then what?
Pregnancy would either be prevented at minimal expense or result in healthy birth.
Why? Why is this ideal? Baseless.
1: Abortion is a waste of resources.
False. It is a bigger waste of resources to have a neglected kid either ending up in foster care or abused/neglected and growing up troubled and toxic themselves when the parents knew they didn't want the kid.
2: Abortion could be making God angry.
So could you saying no to me giving you a good hard spanking. Agreed?
3: Abortion not only costs money, but often leads to physical discomfort.
We would, in an ideal world, have refined combining precise strikes/moves with efficient painkilling to make slaughtering your foetus not just painless but fun even with music playing and scrolling tiktok as it's done to you.
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Hedonism
The word ‘hedonism’ comes from the ancient Greek for ‘pleasure’. Psychological or motivational hedonism claims that only pleasure or pain motivates us. Ethical or evaluative hedonism claims that only pleasure has worth or value and only pain or displeasure has disvalue or the opposite of worth. Jeremy Bentham asserted both psychological and ethical hedonism with the first two sentences of his book An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain, and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do”.
2. Ethical HedonismAt its simplest, ethical hedonism is the claim that all and only pleasure has positive importance and all and only pain or displeasure has negative importance. This importance is to be understood non-instrumentally, that is, independently of the importance of anything that pleasure or displeasure might cause or prevent. From ethical hedonism, it follows that if our relationships, achievements, knowledge, character states, and so on, have any non-instrumental importance, this is just a matter of any pleasure or displeasure that is in their natures. Otherwise, they have only instrumental importance through the pleasure they cause or displeasure they diminish. At least from the simple forms of ethical hedonism, it also follows that pleasure is good whenever it is had, even in matters that are themselves worthless or worse. Some hedonists are willing to bite such bullets; others develop more complex forms of ethical hedonism that seek to soften the bullets or even to dissolve them.
Some things have both instrumental and non-instrumental importance, and in such cases their overall importance is a function of both. These two matters can also pull in opposite directions. Your pain of being once bitten has non-instrumental negative importance, for example, but it might also have instrumental positive importance through the further pain you avoid by its making you twice shy. Instrumental importance is a contingent matter and it varies widely from case to case. This is why the non-instrumental claims of pleasure and displeasure are the present focus.
Ethical hedonism can be universalist, me-and-my-near-and-dear egocentric, or egoistically focused just on one's own pleasure. It can also be a claim about value, morality, well-being, rationality, reasons or aesthetics. It can be a claim about grounds for action, belief, motivation or feeling; or a claim about ought, obligation, good and bad, or right and wrong. And these are not the only possibilities. The discussion below aims for both determinacy of formulation and generality across the different forms of ethical hedonism, albeit that these two aims are in some tension with one another. For economy of expression, discussion proceeds below in terms of hedonism about value. At its simplest, this is the thesis that anything has non-instrumental value if and only if it is an instance of pleasure, and has non-instrumental disvalue if and only if it is an instance of pain or displeasure.
I could do a series of syllogisms but essentially maximal pleasure is achieved in a world where we fuck when we want how we want, protection or not and having minimised consequences AKA 'pain' of any kind for our actions.
If the aborted foetus would have been unwanted anyway, there's further argument but the key is if the mother doesn't want to have it, she needn't.
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Anti-Natalism
Benatar refers to this as his “Asymmetry of Pleasure and Pain.” He says:
- The presence of pain is bad
- The presence of pleasure is good
- The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone
- The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.
If humans were to exist (scenario A), the presence of pain (which is bad) and the presence of pleasure (which is good) cancel each other out. But, if humans were to never exist (scenario B), there would be no pain. And we say that no pain is good! There would also be an absence of pleasure. But we don’t tend to care about the absence of pleasure (like on Mars), so this isn’t bad; it’s just neutral. So we’re left with only a good!
In life we have many issues at times, pain can happen. Pleasure can't be taken away from a being that never got to be.
I suggest studying this one:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/4552-thbt-on-balance-abortion-should-be-illegal-in-the-united-states-from-the-point-of-conception-%5Bfor-austinl0926%5D
Your R1, seriously?!
Without reading cons reply, let me guess… aborting them can’t make them cease to exist. Rather it sends them straight to heaven. FYI, the he Amish believe this about dead babies, it’s something to be celebrated instead of mourned l; at least up until some weird thing of poking it with a brush and it hits back.
As for the physical discomfort, more is attained with pregnancy and birth.
and God? Oh god, any mediocre debater could have a field day with that, just consider how many abortions God performs per year. RM will probably keep it simple with something along the lines of “unfounded opinion.”
Great description. Honestly where I stand with abortion… I think with the current setup I. The USA it would be a crime against at humanity for the government to step in (FYI, I get used to force abortions!), but still, ideally it would not occur.
Any vote would be appreciated, cheers.