Title: Infirm Initiates
Validity: Medium to high levels of civil rights, religiousness and / or primitiveness
The Issue
An eighteen-year-old boy, @@RANDOMNAMEMALE_1@@, recently died during a traditional month-long initiation into manhood. These secretive initiation ceremonies are held in remote rural areas, and lead to a slew of hospitalisations and several deaths every year. Various groups are now calling for these potentially deadly initiation ceremonies to be banned.
The Debate
Option 1. “You have to ban this barbarism” begs @@RANDOMNAMEMALE_1@@’s mother, while clutching a picture of her son. “My boy went away thinking he was going to become a man, but the brutal initiation he was put through cost him his life. How many more boys are we going to sacrifice in the name of tradition?”
Consequence: ceremonial initiations into manhood now include hiding from the police
Option 2. “These practices have been passed down for hundreds of years, they are an integral part of our culture” orates @@RANDOMNAMEMALE_2@@, an elder who oversees many traditional initiation ceremonies. “We do not force any boys to take part, they come to us willingly. Yes, some of our initiates tragically do pass on, but these are the risks of the difficult process of becoming a man. We will not deny boys the opportunity to become men in order to satisfy modern hysteria”.
Consequence: “becoming a man” is often considered an extreme sport
Option 3. “What if the government regulated these initiation ceremonies?” muses @@RANDOMNAME@@, your conciliatory Minister of Health. “We could ensure that the ceremonies are held in clean and sanitary environments, and that they are much shorter and less brutal. We could even require that a medical professional supervise each one. Sure, the traditionalists might complain about the tweaks to the ceremony, but it’s better than an outright ban, or standing by while boys die”.
Consequence: ceremonial initiations into manhood now include getting a lollipop afterwards
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