Pretend that you’re a researcher who’s discovered a possible cure for a deadly disease, possibly being able to save the lives of tens of millions of people. You’re ecstatic to be able to present your cure to the world, and you just need to get through one more stage: Clinical trials. You post advertisements and offers, but with no monetary benefit, most people see no reason to participate and risk their lives, and without enough people willing to participate, your study ends up being closed down and abandoned. Without your cure, millions of people die.

Unfortunately, this is the case for a majority of clinical trials. According to Antidote.me, a medical connection company, “If you've heard any statistics around clinical trial recruitment, it's most likely this one: approximately 80% of clinical trials are delayed or closed because of problems with recruitment.”

Today I will speak of 2 points. I will talk about how banning monetary benefit will decrease medical advancement and diversity + access for medical trials.

Before I continue, I want to offer some rebuttals for p1 speaker:

May not be educated → According to the National Library of medicine→ The symptoms are stated by researchers before the trial, they know what theyre getting into, and what risks may happen.

Vague compensation → However, even though it is vague, it is still an incentive to people to participate

1. Medicine Development

When we don’t have any monetary incentive, little people will partake in your trials. As said by proposition p1, currently, clinical trial patients consist of two groups. People who want to join for the medicine/development of it, and people who want the money.

Removing these people from clinical trials would greatly decrease participants, only leaving those who are genuinely interested, or the researchers themselves, most of whom don’t want to participate either. For example, one survey included a vignette of a researcher conducting a clinical trial of an investigative medicinal product, and questions for interviewees regarding their willingness to participate in research after they were informed of the scenario description. Only 12 percent of the respondents answered that they would be willing to participate in the medical research.

Along with that, If you were to ban clinical pay, many who are farther away would also be excluded. Currently, clinical trials can cover traveling costs, work loss, meal plans, and cases of side effects, but banning money incentives would mean all these costs would have to come out of pocket and with no compensation.

According to USA today, “Increasing the number of enrollment sites has been done and hasn't worked. Relying on digital advertising and community partnerships has had limited success. It's time to recognize that other issues are at play, and one of them is the cost of participating.” Without compensation for their efforts, not many will sacrifice their time for clinical trials.

Because of this, medical development will slow down tremendously, prolonging treatment and possibly even discouraging and stopping some treatments from development. Many of these FDA trials are for approving health related surgeries or operations. That means many of these trials won’t be able to be approved by the FDA, and thousands or millions will have to slowly wait as they die, hoping for a cure that will never come.

2. Less representation / Access

Changing these incentives may even lead to lesser diversity. According to the National Library of Medicine, “Individuals, often from underrepresented and/or lower SES groups, who cannot afford the costs of participation are understudied, and therefore these groups are deprived of the long-term benefits of research [9–14].”

Currently, the diversity in clinical trials is still shockingly low, even in fields where they are mostly affected, as most clinical trials without monetary benefit discourage understudied patients with no compensation nor payment for their extra costs.

In banning monetary benefits, the proposition is doing nothing except further discourage underrepresented patients, further increasing the gap in understanding of medicine, leaving groups of people excluded.

Removing the monetary benefit of clinical trials will not only slow medicine development, but also decrease the already low diversity.

THW not subsidize companies for the employment of ex-convicts.

1. System Abuse

As an ex convict, you’ve been looking for a job for ages. When you finally get a possible job prospect at a company, you take it with glee, only to be laid off the company a few months later. Why? Because they wanted money, and they wanted tax cuts, and you were the perfect victim to exploit. You are furious, but without any money or employment, you have no choice but to turn to crime once again.

Today I will speak of 3 points. I will talk about how subsidization may lead to exploitation of workers, giving money to the wrong sources, and how our countermodel can provide a solution without these problems.

Rebuttal: Before I continue on, I’d like to offer some rebuttals.

Refer to section below

Continuing on, according to Deserka, “Employers would definitely like to have tax incentives to save dollars by hiring ex-felons. In fact, according to available data, small business owners find out novel ways and innovative ideas to go out of their way to hire them.”

While subsidization may feel like a small way to tip the scales, it likely will just lead to system abuse. Companies can and will take advantage of this policy. Subsidizing companies to hire ex-cons would make them want to maximize the amount of people they hire in a given time, and one way to do so would be to lay off workers and hire new ones.

Of course, the company may lay off anyone, but it is highly likely that it would mostly be the ex-cons getting laid off, as they are a risk because of the stigma and image they carry.

Proposition’s argument is focused on the belief that by allowing ex-convicts to get a job, they will be pulled out of the vicious cycle of crime. But evidently, the proposition is doing nothing but giving out free money to companies that will just abuse ex-cons as a means of income. Proposition is not getting them jobs, but just stalling the employment problem for a few months, possibly even exacerbating the problem as being fired may rekindle the fury sparked from imprisonment.

Guidelines of the ex-convict employment would also be hard to implement. Would there be certain time limits to retain the convicts? And what about the scenario where ex-convicts are reasonably fired? If allowed, couldn’t employers just find an excuse as to why the convict was fired? No matter what precautions the proposition takes, the proposition's solution will become more trouble than it’s worth. As a result, we believe subsidization is ineffective.

2. Better costs

We must also consider more companies, which may actually hope to give convicts actual employment. However, even without any added incentive, as said by the first speaker, a lot of big companies, such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc are already offering jobs.

Giving subsidization to these companies would essentially be giving away free money to companies already hiring ex-felons, instead of using this money for purposes such as possibly working to decrease unemployment as a whole.

According to Vera, The US already spends 295 billion a year on criminal justice, and a subsidy only adds to that. The government already spends so much money, and the proposition is adding yet another expense that does little other than giving free taxpayer money to rich companies. Proposition is wasting the limited taxpayer money on an ineffective solution, while we can achieve the same effects with little to no costs.

In our countermodel, Ex-convicts no longer get discriminated against, ex-convicts are just not used as a form of money abuse, and taxpayer money can instead be invested to fight problems like poverty, and unemployment as a whole.

So because we need to give ex-convicts opportunities to change, we are taking away the chances of those who did nothing wrong. However, the reason why people commit crimes is because of low levels of education and work experience, so on our side we fix this with rehabilitation. Also, by removing the criminal record, ex-convicts would be able to compete with other candidates with the same starting point of a clean background, and they would have to work hard themselves to prove to employers that they are worthy to be employed.

I have proven that implementing this motion does not alleviate the problem of unemployment in ex-convicts, and how proposition is wasting money. In comparison, our countermodel helps remove a stigma that prevents them from getting jobs, and we present them with a new opportunity, not an ineffective bribe. Proposition’s argument is ineffective, and therefore it is mutually exclusive.

In our case, we allow prisoners to change their lives effectively, to help push society into a better direction, and we don’t waste money in the process.

Why is it that women have longer maternity leave than men? Some may think the answer is obvious. The mother would obviously have more leave, as they need to take care of the child, right? It’s for the best.

But is that true? Does longer maternity leave actually benefit women? Today, we will argue why we believe this is not true.

1. Job disadvantages

Imagine. You’re desperately looking for a job, trying to get enough money to support yourself. You apply for a job, meeting all of the qualifications, maybe even exceeding other candidates, but the employer passes you up because of the possibility of pregnancy. This, unfortunately, may be the case for many women.

Even though it is illegal to have pregnancy discrimination, many sources, such as The Guardian, Science Direct, People Management, Recruiter, etc, report that more than ⅓ of employers hesitate in avoid hiring younger women in fear of maternity leave.

In fear of women going on longer breaks, many of them lose the chances to get a job. The longer breaks we give to women seem like a good thing, but for women, it is a great disadvantage. If we were to make parental leave equal, there would no longer be a bias against women in employment, as there would be risk of leave among both genders.

Harder employment isn’t the only disadvantage of longer leave. Not only does it affect women before they get a job, it also affects them after they get the job. Evidence from many different countries show that after a longer leave, women are less likely to be promoted, move into management, or receive a pay raise, and more likely to get fired. A lot of women already take up so many career difficulties, why add more?

2. Supports a stereotype of women taking care of children while father is absent / Gender roles and stereotypes, parents start to get equal role

With all these disadvantages, why is it that parental leave is the way it is in the first place?

Why is it that women get longer leave than men? Well, the answer is simple. It’s because it’s assumed that the mother will be the one who stays home and takes care of the children, like a housewife.

This thinking is deeply rooted in the stereotypes of gender roles in society, as women used to just be thought of as those who raised children and bore children. It took a long time for women to break these stereotypes and prove they should be able to work, yet these beliefs still linger today.

Longer maternity leave is an exact example of these lingering beliefs, and if we truly want to change society's views of women and their rights, we should give equal parental leave, showing parenthood isn’t just mostly the responsibility of the mother, but of both parents. Parents will start to get an equal amount of work in parenting, and as a result, society's view of parenting and women will change.

To conclude, longer leave is deeply disadvantageous for women, with it being rooted into gender stereotypes and norms. Equal leave would not only solve this issue, but would also help change the views of women and parenting for the better. Thank you for listening.