Family Power and Authority Influences Introduce Topic

¶ … FAMILY POWER AND AUTHORITY INFLUENCES Introduce topic Introduce speakers DEE What affirmative views topic Brad make opposing views. Declares debate open AFFIRMATIVE VIEW OPPOSING VIEW Give equal time members opposing team Facilitate discussion Dee rebuttal Dan ( affirmative rebuttal) Dan rebuttal Dee ( Negative rebuttal) Dee summary (restate proposition significant argument favor change) Dan summary (restate proposition significant argument favor change) (PLS ADDRESS ONLY THE DEE PORTION AND INTRODUCTION -- the AFFIRMATIVE AND REBUTTAL PORTION OF DEE BASED ON SCENERIO BELOWAND MORE IF YOU COULD ADD SPICE TO IT, THANKS)…THE TOPIC IS ABOUT ISLAMIC OR MUSLIM FAMILY WITH CULTURAL DILEMMA.

Dee:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We live in a world that is nowadays prone to injustice, social inequality, and cultural discrepancies. Today's debate deals precisely with this type of reality: the reality of a family that was defined by a particular cultural background and has been shaped by another cultural environment. We are going to debate on the right choice a Muslim woman is to make between upholding tradition and saving her life. My colleague and I will each in our turn try to argue different points. While my colleague argues that the patriarchal Muslim family has supremacy over other adopted cultures, I will argue that the right of a woman to make a choice between life and possible death is a right that should be uphold regardless of culture or family type.

Sabeen, 45, Islamic woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and the options for her are reduced to surgery. The dilemma is between what type of surgery: lumpectomy or mastectomy. You are all aware of the differences between the two. Yet, for those of you unfamiliar with the terms, lumpectomy implies removal of only the breast lump and a surrounding margin of normal tissue. Radiation therapy is usually given after a lumpectomy. If adjuvant chemotherapy is to be given as well, radiation is usually delayed until the chemotherapy is completed. Mastectomy requires the removal of the entire breast. Sometimes both breasts are removed (a double mastectomy), often as preventive surgery in women at very high risk for breast cancer. Most women, if they are hospitalized, can go home the next day. This is the most common type of mastectomy used to treat breast cancer.

The dilemma is on whether to obey her husband who wants her to do a lumpectomy or to listen to doctors and her daughter who strongly advise on the double mastectomy.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a cultural dilemma, not a medical one and it should not be so. The most important thing is a person's health. Without health, one cannot worship, cannot work, cannot attend to the household, and cannot go about the daily activities. And most importantly, cannot fulfill the life it was given to it by God.

My colleague argues that the Islamic culture demands the patriarchal type of family. Sabeen is part of this culture, even though they are immigrants in the United States for 15 years. I argue that without health, there is nobody to worship and pray. Health must be more important than culture and tradition because it is the only quantifier of human capacity: the healthier you are, the more you can achieve what you are destined to achieve.

Sabeen's decision for one or another type of surgeries must not have a cultural implication. Research has been conducted for decades now on means to eradicate breast cancer and the most common measure is the one that puts the evil ahead of the positive and eradicates the problem rather than to wait for something new and bad to happen such as recession or spread of cancerous cells. A safer approach is always a better one because it avoids danger in the future. My colleague will argue that this is not a decision to be taken outside of the family place and by the head of the family, the husband and the father. I argue that it is not his decision for the simple fact that, if such decision proves to be wrong, it will not cost him his life, but rather his wife will lose hers and therefore this decision must be made on solid and scientific grounds.