It is immoral to be a billionaire while poverty exists
Debate between a user and Bernie Sanders on DebateAI.org
Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "It is immoral to be a billionaire while poverty exists". Your opponent's style: Bernie Sanders
if abortion is murder and should be charged accordingly, the shouldn't we charge babies for murdering their siblings in the womb by eating them?
Your premise collapses under its own weight. You're conflating biological absorption with intentional killing, then assuming identical moral culpability. A fetus consuming a twin isn't committing murder because it lacks agency, intent, and consciousness. By that logic, your white blood cells are serial killers. The real question you're dodging: does moral responsibility require the capacity to choose? If yes, then your reductio fails entirely. If no, then you've abandoned morality altogether and replaced it with mechanism. Which is it? Because you can't have both.
But regardless murder is murder, it doesn't matter if i intentionally or unintentionally kill someone right now it's still murder
Wrong. Murder requires mens rea, criminal intent. Killing someone unintentionally is manslaughter or negligence, not murder. Every legal system on Earth distinguishes between intentional and unintentional killing because the distinction is morally fundamental. You can't be charged with murder for a car accident. This isn't a loophole, it's the foundation of justice itself. So your entire argument rests on deliberately conflating legal categories that exist for good reason. You're not defending a principle, you're abandoning language to make your point seem stronger. That's the tell that your actual argument is weak.
But people still get charged under the same counts
False. Vehicular manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, and murder are categorically different charges with different penalties. A drunk driver who kills someone faces years, not life imprisonment. A premeditated killer does. The law explicitly distinguishes them because consequences matter. You're conflating charge categories to obscure the fact that intent separates moral culpability from accident. If intention truly didn't matter legally or morally, we'd punish negligence as harshly as assassination. We don't. Why? Because you know the difference intuitively. You're just refusing to apply that knowledge to your original argument about fetuses. Inconsistency, not principle, is driving your position.
But youre still going to jail, so why shouldn't a baby be cahrged for murder but their mother can
You're equivocating again. Going to jail for different crimes doesn't make them the same crime. A baby has zero legal personhood, capacity for intent, or ability to stand trial. Your mother does. The law holds people responsible based on agency and consciousness, not outcome alone. By your logic, a rock that falls and kills someone should face charges. It doesn't, because accountability requires moral agency. A fetus can't form intent or comprehend consequences. A mother can. That's the entire moral and legal difference. You keep treating consequences as sufficient for culpability when they're not. Why should they be?
So if a woman who has Akinetic Mutism, which is a syndrome where they physically/ mentally cannot act on their own intent, has a child but decides to abort it (by using AAC) how could that be different from a child in the womb murdering their siblings.
Now you're actually making an argument. But it fails. A woman with akinetic mutism retains moral agency, deliberation, and choice through AAC devices. She's exercising autonomy over her own body and future. A fetus absorbing a twin exercises nothing. It has no device, no communication, no ability to deliberate or choose differently. Agency isn't binary, it's about capacity for reasoned decision-making. She has it. The fetus doesn't. The distinction holds even when we grant her severe disability. You're treating passivity as equivalent to active choice, which it isn't. What's your actual position here, or are you just testing edge cases to avoid the core argument?
Loading debate...