The issue I raise to speak today is of high importance to society. I am going to declare the main idea of a new legislation, reasons why it should be implemented with clear consideration of all the evidence. Boxing is a kind of sport which causes numerous injuries to those who take part in it. It should be criminalised for a number of reasons. One of the main purposes of the law directed at criminalising boxing is to forbid medically and morally wrong kinds of sport. It humiliates human dignity, makes people fight with each other almost to death, kills people, and, what is more dangerous about it, it makes people fight with each other, increasing aggressiveness and interpersonal conflicts between people. I would like to live in a happy and crimeless society. The ban on professional boxing and mutilate amateur entertainment with the natural disappearance of this kind of sports from TV can be the first step on the way to the society you and I want to live in. This new law is going to eliminate boxing from human life as medically risky and morally spoiled.
Justifying the necessity of adopting a new legislation directed at criminalising boxing, I would like to point to the following arguments. The first argument is devoted to medical point of view. Boxing is extremely dangerous as a person can have injuries inconsistent with life. Doctors point to the following main issues which might be used for banning boxing, (1) “the frequency and causes of fatalities”, (2) “the incidence of brain injury”, and (3) “a comparison between the incidence of death and brain injury in boxing to other relatively high-risk sports is undertaken” (Anderson, 2007, p. 40). Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is one more reason for criminalising boxing as it appears because of constant head injuries. Apart from constant headaches, slurring dysarthria (in 90% of cases) supported with gait ataxia or disequilibrium the behavioural changes are inevitable. Emotional lability, euphoria, hypomania, “psychomotor retardation, exacerbation of premorbid personality traits, aggression, suspiciousness, childishness, loquacity and restlessness” (McCrory, Zazryn, & Cameron, 2007, p. 470) are the behavioural changes which occur in human organism.
My second argument in favour of prohibiting boxing is ethical/moral. Boxers are aimed at incapacitating an opponent by constant head injury to gain victory. Furthermore, boxers treat their opponents “as mere objects to be disposed of in order to achieve victory” (Dixon , 2001, p. 337). I definitely state that this brutal attitude is immoral and unethical. Jones (2001) points to the immorality of health risk (causing death) and says that being a sport that involves health risk (causing death), boxing is immoral. In addition, I definitely agree with this statement. The desire to harm a person intentionally is immoral. Boxing is directed at the desire to harm another person intentionally, therefore, it is immoral. It is impossible to justify violence. Being a violent kind of sports, boxing is immoral. Considering the social issues, it should be mentioned that each activity which leads to anti-social behaviour must be forbidden. Those who watch and support boxing lead to anti-social behaviour; therefore, boxing is immoral (Jones, 2001). I believe my message is clear: boxing is unethical and immoral kind of sports.
Even though many people disagree with the reasons above and try to implement their arguments, they can be easily contradicted. Those who say that all professional sports are dangerous and can lead to serious harm are right. Football, basketball, hockey, and karate are traumatic kinds of sports. Each contact sport can lead to traumas resulted in death. Still, only boxing is directed at beating a person until he/she cannot stand up. It is an intentional mayhem and it is not present in other existing kinds of sport. Hagell (2000) states that boxing should be banned only because “the thought of two people fighting each other and the winner being the one who is not badly injured and still able to stand is repulsive” (p. 126). Don’t you agree?
In addition, many people earn money using their fighting skill. All boxers have managers who earn not less. It means that one person gets money on the health and life of another one. Earning money should be compatible with life. Boxing is not. There are a lot of arguments which try to show that boxing is a good variant for self-protection, physical development, strengthen of a fighting spirit and an alternative for drugs and alcohol consumption. However, is it possible to use immoral and healthy dangerous kind of sports as a variant for the issues mentioned above. Boxing may exist as entertaining without serious injuries, as the way to protect oneself, but not as the kind of sports which ruins human lives.
I would like to read a substantive text for the new Bill including all elements of the offence and the sentence to be imposed:
Boxing prohibition
Definition
Boxing is a kind of sport which presupposes intentional injury with the purpose to fight another person for getting victory which leads to health risk.
A person is considered guilty in the following cases: When serious injuries are caused to another person under the supervision of a group of people and the winner get money for having bitten another person,
Penalty: Imprisonment for five years: When two people fight with or without spectators with the purpose to identify who is more powerful and who is going to be able to stand while another one is combated,
Penalty: imprisonment for two years: Two people fight with the desire to consider who is more powerful and one or another, or both of them get serious injuries and the spectators are present,
Penalty: imprisonment 1 year + fine $5,000: Two people fight with the desire to consider who is more powerful and one or another, or both of them get serious injuries (without spectators)
Penalty: fine $5,000
The spectators of the occasion who knew about illegal fight and did not inform the necessary powerful structures are imposed with the fine.
Penalty: fine $2,000
A person is not guilty, when
A person is attacked and he/she acts with the desire to protect oneself.
These elements are included as a part of the new offence because they have direct relation to the definition of ‘boxing’, and they can strictly differentiate boxing from protection actions. I am convinced that when people fight to understand who is more powerful, it means that they harm each other intentionally and it must be forbidden. All the offences mentioned in the law are considered from the definition of boxing and the actions related to it. Furthermore, developing a new law I was guided by moral and medical issues in the field under discussion.
Our new Bill perfectly fits the existing legislative framework for non-fatal, non-sexual offences against the person considered in the Crimes Act (1958), Victorian legislation. According to that law, a person can be convicted for fifteen years because “a person who, without lawful excuse, intentionally causes serious injury to another person is guilty of an indictable offence” (Crimes Act, 1958, p. 24). According to another clause, “a person who, without lawful excuse, recklessly causes serious injury to another person is guilty of an indictable offence” (Crimes Act, 1958, p. 25) and can be imprisoned for ten years. The entire 3rd part Offences against the person of the Crimes Act (1958) can be used as the principal act for new legislation in the relation to criminalising boxing.
The law we have now sets strict punishment on those who recklessly or intentionally hurts another person. Health injuries got while boxing can lead to serious problems in the future and influence social understanding of morality in general. Before the Parliament, media and public make their final decisions which are final, think about your children. Are you ready to support your child’s interest in professional boxing with failures resulted in hospitalization and months of treatment and years of rehabilitation? Boxing is cruel kind of sports directed at a concrete person. To get a victory, a person should beat another one almost to death. Criminalising boxing, we are going to eliminate the kind of sport which is medically abnormal and ethically unacceptable.
Reference List
Anderson, J. (2007). The business of hurting people: A historical, social and legal analysis of professional boxing. Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal, 7(1), 35-59.
Crimes Act. (1958). Victorian Historical Acts. No. 1089. Web.
Dixon, N. (2001). Boxing, Paternalism, and Legal Moralism. Social Theory & Practice, 27(2), 323.
Hagell, P. (2000). Should boxing be banned? Journal of Neuroscience Nursing. 32(2), 126.
Jones, K. (2001). A key moral issue: Should boxing be banned? Culture, Sport, Society, 4(1), 63.
McCrory, P., Zazryn, T., & Cameron, P. (2007). The evidence for chronic traumatic encephalopathy in boxing. Sports Medicine, 37(6), 467-477.