Ask the Panel: Adolescent Medical Choices
Resolved: Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices.
To help you prepare for this year’s Sept/Oct topic, we have John Scoggin, Monica Amestoy and Adam Tomasi ready to field any questions you have. Think of it like an “ask me anything,” so get your questions ready, and have plenty of them! We will respond in the comments section below. Take a look at our panelists:
John Scoggin
Since graduating from The Blake School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, John has coached for Loyola High School. During the last 5 years John’s students have earned 66 bids to the tournament of champions. He has coached 2 TOC finalists, a TOC quarterfinalist, and champions of many major national tournaments across the country.
Monica Amestoy
Monica debated for Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy in La Cañada, CA. She helped start the debate team and was the first person to attend TOC from her school. As a junior, she reached octafinals of the NDCA championships. As a senior, she made it to quarterfinals of the Victory Briefs Tournament, earned top speaker at the Cal Berkeley Invitational and the Damien Invitational, and received speaker awards at Meadows, CPS, Apple Valley, and Golden Desert, while reaching bid rounds at Valley, Apple Valley, Alta, College Prep, Stanford and Berkeley. Monica also competed at the Hockaday and Lexington Round Robins. In college, she debates for the University of Utah where she has reached three final rounds of NPDA style parli debate.
Adam Tomasi
Adam Tomasi debated for Sacred Heart High School (MA). He cleared at the Tournament of Champions his sophomore, junior and senior years, reaching quarterfinals his senior year. Adam has earned Top Speaker awards at the Collegiate RR, Yale, the Bronx RR + NYC Invitational, Hendrick Hudson, the Sunvitational RR, and Harvard. This year he’s made a finals appearance in the Valley, Bronx, and Apple Valley Round Robins. Adam is also planning to continue debate on the NDT-CEDA college policy circuit next year.
Post your questions below!
70 Comments
What are some good aff and neg positions on the topic?
I think you’ll find a bunch of viable aff and neg positions scattered amongst our replies to others comments.
Are there any good K links on this topic? I’ve noticed a good potential for K affs, but not too many on neg.
I definitely think there are plenty of K links to go around for the negative on this topic. I have seen a ton of quality links to both cap and ableism in my preliminary research, and I’m sure there are lots more out there!
– John
What are some good plans that can be read under this topic? Some people say that there are a limited number of impacts on this topic?
What would some potential K’s be on this topic?
What do you think of PIC’s on this topic? e.g. Aff says age 13 is when they should make decisions. Neg says 14 or some minor alteration of that sort.
With a topic this broad you have to balance the strategic value of the specificity of a plan with the theoretical downside of its unpredictability. Certainly country specificity could be useful for developing specific advantages that more easily lend themselves to large advantages. That being said there are a lot of interesting plan areas including but not limited to abortion, marijuana, and right to die. The main downside of a lot of the specific medical areas is that the literature isn’t really all that different concerning adults and adolescents. Abortion is a notable exception to that.
The PICs on this topic seem to be particularly powerful given that most of the literature suggests that some individuals that are adolescents probably have everything necessary to make rational medical choices and some likely do not. In addition to simply the age stuff there are also a wide variety of specific medical choices the negative could PIC out of. Always be aware of the weakness of a PIC and be ready to defend them theoretically if that comes up. In terms of Ks I’ll direct you to my response to Kdebater above.
– John
What’s the best link to extinction for both sides?
https://www.academia.edu/14969808/Russian_Economy_and_the_Option_To_Abort
The Russia Aff is very promising and solid for Util debaters- panel what do you think?
That is a fake article, please admins take down this comment. Makarov Putin can’t be found anywhere online or on his alma maters staff list, to avoid confusion please remove
Re: extinction, see my reply below
Re: extinction, see below
I’m on my phone; those were meant for the comment above the Russia one.
What’s the best way to get over the very clear neg ground skew on this topics? Positions saying adolescents don’t have autonomy or aren’t capable of making choices seems like it would take out a lot of strategies for the affirmative. What positions do you feel are best for the affirmative or the best ways to defend against these positions in your case?
I’m not sure that there is a definitive negative advantage on this topic. I would say as the aff if you are having a hard time coming up with answers to the ‘adolescents are not capable of making rational choices’ argument you can do a few things to tip the balance in your favor:
1. Have strategic definitions. Make sure that you don’t defend the sort of extreme examples that can benefit the negative.
2. Find solid evidence that stresses the commonalities of adolescent and adult decision-making and practice selling the strengths of that evidence and obscuring its weaknesses.
3. Have benefits to the affirmative that go beyond simply the capacity of adolescents to make rational decisions. Many moral frameworks are more concerned with the results of adolescent decision-making rather than if they are made in the most rational of ways.
– John
The phil ground on this topic seems weak — any ideas for framework affs? negs?
Potential plans? LARP ground also seems :/.
Phil ground on this topic is actually amazing. Medical ethics, theories about what things deserve to be rights, util and kant, determinism, the implications of culpability/cognitive ability for moral responsibility, whether different moral standards should apply to kids, etc
Any thoughts on the strange wording of “ought to have the right”?
The NSDA seems to really like using the word ought, I’m guessing because it is associated with the traditional form of LD as values debate. My instinct is that that phrasing is likely the ‘ought’ version of the more reasonable sounding “should be given the right…”
– John
What’s the best K affs on this topic
Ageism would be a cool and unique kritikal aff.
I want to run an Ageism K, but wouldn’t it fall flat because empirics prove that adolescents aren’t as capable of making medical choices? Isn’t it different from racism on the grounds that race has no effect on decision-making, but brain development does?
I think its good.
Hello
Adam, as someone with experience with LARP and Util, how do you see some connections to extinction being made?
All- On Neg what do you feel common Negs will be, other than a bias with Lay judges, the Neg ground looks weak. Other than generic Politics and Cap, it’s looking hard.
Advantages:
–disease (more easily treated for diseases that spread really quickly)
–International law (consistency with U.N. declaration on rights of the child strengthens the overall ILaw regime)
–bioterrorism (the aff is key to hospital credibility which enables better treatment after a bioterror attack)
These advantages aren’t amazing, but if you defend that adolescents globally get autonomous medical decisions you’d have a stronger internal link.
Disads:
–politics (always)
–hospital cred (letting immature teens do whatever looks bad)
–disads about a really bad medical choice that adolescents will tend to make, which leads to something else, which leads to something else, extinction
Hmm on the ILaw, how would consistency with ILaw be Util or have an extinction scenario? Kinda lost there.
What is the impact of the gender unicorn card? Please explain Tomasi
the op advocacy: adolescents ought to have the right to end their (anti-gay) conversion therapy.
idk, I’m pretty sure psychiatry is a form of medical practice, even if conversion therapy is obviously a sketch, pseudoscientific portion.
and some conservatives actually do weird stuff like that, trust me it’s a thing
that would be a pretty damn good idea
conversion therapy aff OP. nsda plz nerf.
What does kant say about adolescents? Like, what consistutes someone to have rational agency?
What are some good countries to specify?
Do you think there is room to play with the defintion of medical? Like medical marijuanna for adolescents?
Is there a lot of lit on oppression of the youth?
How do u feel vaccines play a role into this discussion? Any ground for vaccinations?
1. Kant generally thinks that parents needs to take care of their children until they are capable of taking care of themselves, “From the duty thus indicated, there further necessarily arises the right of the parents to the management and training of the child, so long as it is itself incapable of making proper use of its body as an organism, and of its mind as an understanding.” – The Science of Right 1790. From what I can tell its some combination of ‘who is paying for it?’ and ‘can the individual make a rational choice?’
2. The United States is one that comes to mind right away obviously. Beyond that nothing about the content of the resolution seems to make any particular country more predictable than another. In terms of creating a plan I think its still somewhat early to decide which ones are best, take a look at our brief when it comes out and that will get you going in the right direction.
3. Absolutely room to play with the definition of medical, although I think a lot of people would say that any definition of medical should be able to include medical marijuana. Be aware that if you play with this definition too much you will have a hard time answering T.
4. There is definitely literature on that, I don’t know exactly how to characterize its magnitude, but how to treat youth morally certainly has enough literature on it to support a robust debate topic. Some topics are better and worse, but I don’t think there are huge depth issues here. Still only a few days into the topic though so it is hard to make a claim like that definitively.
5. First thing that came to mind on that question was the ‘compulsory vaccination’ resolution because I remember coaching it. The lit is really strong that vaccines should be compulsory and that could be a viable negative position.
– John
What’s the best lay approach on this topic, that isn’t stock positions?
I like the more nuanced plan and K debates on this topic. The broadness of the topic allows for a myriad of different plans, while the involvement of the state/medical industry etc. seems to provide a ton of different K links.
What can I run at my local tournament?
I apologize I was doing these too quickly and missed the word lay. One interesting position that the neg could take that would be not super stock, but still defensible in front of more traditional judging would be to say that in general the medical community or state should make medical choices rather than individuals. Think something along the lines of compulsory vaccinations. I also think that there are some interesting arguments that can be made to run plan like arguments and not call them that. You could start from the premise that most medical choices are non-controversial (say for instance taking antibiotics when needed) and that debates should focus on areas where adolescents and parents are more likely to have divergent opinions like abortion.
– John
What are the various interpretations of the topic that you could see being contested a lot?
The definition of adolescent is going to be important. The younger the subset of people you are discussing the worse off in general the aff will be. There will also be a ton of debates centered around what constitutes a ‘medical choice’ as there are a number of social issues that seem to have medical ramifications but might not fit neatly under the banner of medical choices.
Do you think autonomy will be a common framework for the aff, since the resolution questions autonomy? And if so, do you think there is neg turn ground that is decent.
Autonomy can be really valuable to either side. Depending on how good you feel about making empirical arguments about the cognitive abilities of adolescents you can get really good offensive access to an autonomy framework.
The Aff position is looking very stacked on this topic after my initial research. The only neg positions I see are basic stock args mentioning how adolescents won’t make an intelligent choice. Any thought on the potential on the neg side?
Lots of options as the negative. DAs to implementation of the aff plan will be fairly easy to construct as there do not seem to be really obvious huge impacts stemming from the aff. The Ks on this topic also seem to be pretty amazing, easy links to cap and ableism.
How does it link back to cap
Especially with affirmatives that are US specific the neg could make an argument something along the lines of ‘affirming the resolution supports the status quo mode of thinking that allows the medical industrial complex to exist.’ Ends based affs that claim economic advantages will also provide fairly easy links.
– John
Is there a plausible ageism K aff?
How would country spec work with this topic?
What disads do you think are plausible?
What philosophical NCs do you think would work?
1. That is a possible argument. I’m not sure how strategic that position would be though as the discursive implications of the K would seem to beg the question of one of the most stock arguments: cognitive development.
2. Country spec is very interesting on this topic. The resolution seems to be phrased in about as abstract of a way as possible, so perhaps stock arguments about why we should debate the resolution as a general aim would have a little more intuitive appeal. At the end of the day the same arguments for country spec and plans good will be relevant to this topic. If we are concerned about the implementation of policy as the primary educational goal of the activity, it seems rather hard to do that without limiting down the empirical conditions to which the resolution could apply.
3. DAs most naturally come from the implementation of policy. As such the best disadvantages are going to be those that are specific to the plans being run. In our preparation week students have proposed a wide variety of potential plans from marijuana legalization to abortion rights to the right to die. Politics, elections, and economy disadvantages come to mind right away, but we will have to see how the plan debate shapes up to really know what the best DAs will be.
4. Frameworks that emphasize autonomy seem to be really valuable to the neg. At the same time other popular frameworks like Util or Aristotelian virtue ethics would seem to be relevant and viable for the negative as well. To me this topic seems to be relatively neutral as to what particular frameworks are viable for either side.
Do you think the AC can frame the debate so that they only have to prove there are no morally relevant distinctions between adolescents and adults? Is that strategic?
The affirmative can and will frame the debate that way. It can be strategic to frame the debate in that way because it limits the debate down to a very narrow set of arguments that can easily be prepared well in advance of the round.
Why wouldn’t this be neg ground? It seems that the res assumes that adults and adolescents are different because it says that adolescents ought to be treated differently, so proving that they are the same would negate.
Adults are allowed to make autonomous medical choices, so if there were no morally relevant distinctions between adults and adolescents then we would also let adolescents make autonomous choices.
– John
who would be the default if adolescents weren’t making their own choice? would it be the parents? how would that whole debate turn out?
Generally the default would be the parents. Another possible way that debate could play out is that the negative could argue that the state should make these choices, as that would be a logical counterargument to autonomous decision-making in general.
what would be some stock positions on both sides?
how could you affirm this topic without reading a plan?
how could you potentially resolve/weigh the adolescents can/can’t reason debate?
Stock debate in LD usually centers on the interaction between various topical arguments and either an ends or means based framework. On this topic the question of cognitive development seems to be relevant to both ends and means based frameworks. Under a means based framework that emphasizes rationality the affirmative will try to show that adolescents possess similar levels of rationality as adults, and negatives will generally try to prove the opposite. Many means based frameworks place a high degree of emphasis on autonomy and many stock negatives will use that focus to develop their values and value criteria. Ends based frameworks will certainly be concerned with this debate as well, as in general rational decisions ought to be correlated with beneficial results. Certainly many people running ends based frameworks will argue that even irrational decisions will lead to beneficial results, but those debates will generally more likely be accompanied by plans and counterplans rather than a straight up stock debate.
it seems impossible to justify every single situation, so what are some potential arguments for traditional Affs?
It is often strategic to make the argument in a traditional aff that you should only have to prove the resolution to be true ‘on balance’ rather than in all instances. If in most cases its better to give adolescents autonomous medical choice then it probably makes more sense to vote aff rather that neg.
– John
is there a way to go non-plan for Aff? if so, what would the best strat be for that?
Are you kidding me
Lots of good ways to go non-plan. This type of aff stresses the similarities that adolescents have to adults in terms of decision-making. Depending on what type of moral framework you want to run different similarities because more or less important. Many moral theories will stress the process similarities (adolescents and adults have the same capacity to reason etc.) and others will stress that juveniles will make choices with similar or better end results. If you look around at some of the other comments in the thread you’ll find that a lot of people have shared ideas for positions that don’t require a plan.
– John
Should the resolution be one where a state actor enforces the implementation of a rule? It seems that the resolution lacks an actor and seems to be whether morally they ought to have the right yet plans are obvs a more interesting part of the topic.
Generally I think that the state should be the actor in this question. It seems pretty logical to me if one party (the parents) are trying to infringe on something that another party (the adolescent) has a right to, the state should step in if necessary. You can also just define right in the legal sense rather than the moral one and that seems like a pretty easy way to get the state involved in the resolution.
– John
What would be a good framework to go with something like allowing transgender adolescents to undergo hormonal therapy / intersex to choose their gender? I was thinking along the lines of some framing that implies or emphasizes a need for one to have control over their identity. Any starters on this? It would be even better if anyone had some good authors on this too.
How would a stock deontology case work out (if at all) on either side? Mainly looking for how it would function on the aff
Creating a deontology aff would probably be best suited by running a patient-centered deontology framework. If you are unfamiliar with the difference between agent and patient centered deontology I strongly recommend reading sections 2.1 and 2.2 of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s article on deontological ethics. The framework could establish an argument that it is morally impermissible to use another’s body without their consent. The contention could then say that adolescents are capable of making medical decisions and allowing another entity to make decisions for them would be impermissible under the framework.
– John
Would a Ripstein framework make sense on the aff for this topic? It seems to be specific to a governmental actor, whereas this resolution doesn’t seem to specify an actor. How could it be linked?
I think its possible to run a Ripstein framework on this topic, but how it would work is not immediately obvious to me. In terms of how to get the state involved, take a look at my reply to sax guy above and that should be a good starting point for ways that you can make those types of arguments.
– John
I’m an aspiring cap “specialist”. I have some Giroux about how the notion of freedom itself is corrupted by capitalism because “freedom” in the cap world is seen as economic freedom (like black people are seen to be free once they gain the right to a wage, even though for all intents and purposes they are slaves to their owners’ economic prospects). I considered using that as a link on the neg, but I also kinda power-tagged something about how we need to look to “real” notions of freedom to break down the illusion of economic freedom when cap denies us any, so affirming key to stopping cap. Would something like this work for the aff?
In general, what are some arguments that can be made (critical of cap) on the aff and the neg? I’ve done some research and have found virtually nothing linking the medical system to capitalism.
How can we run Virtue ethics under this topic?
what are some good phil NC’s for this topic?
Would a libertarianism aff work on this topic, or is libertarianism more specific to governmental action?
What are some strategic capitalism impacts/ rt cause arguments that can be run on this topic in order to turn/ take out aff impacts effectively?