Conference on Answering Abortion Arguments with Scott Klusendorf Final Q&A Session 8

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Okay, we've got some good questions here and these are in no particular order I've just kind of sorted them out some of these questions have already been dealt with so if you want to yes

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Now there we go All right, so these questions are no particular order some of these have already been asked so they might require smaller or shorter answers

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So here we go. What about birth control? Methods yeah Okay, I'm gonna answer this first Tactically how you should respond when the topic is abortion

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And then I'll talk about it in a more general sense first of all if you are at an open forum or Otherwise having a conversation with someone on abortion and they bring up birth control

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Here is the answer. I think you should give I am NOT here today keyword today

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To discuss any birth control that does not Intentionally kill an innocent human being in other words

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You're not there to discuss any birth control that doesn't intentionally end the life of a developing human

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Why do I say that? What would the other side on this issue like to talk about?

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Intentionally killing human fetuses and dismembering them or talking about why you want to come into their bedrooms and take away their condoms

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Which would they rather talk about? They want to talk about the latter, so I'm not going to let them change the subject

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I'm gonna keep the main thing the main thing now if you want to go back if your view on birth control is

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That even non abortifacient birth control is morally problematic And you want to go back later and make that case by all means that fine

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But I am cautioning you from a tactical standpoint when the topic is abortion

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Do not bring up non abortifacient birth control now What about birth control that is practiced by married couples?

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What is my view on that? Here is my view I Do not oppose married couples using birth control to space children

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There are Catholics and others who would disagree, but if birth control is wrong

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Let me explain Why it's wrong from a Catholic perspective so if you encounter this you can at least understand the argument the

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Catholic view on contraception meaning birth control that's non abortifacient is that it's immoral because it represents a structural break in the act of marriage when a couple married couple makes love the possibility of procreation and Unity must be present if you separate those two out you have a structural break.

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That's immoral there are some pro -lifers you will encounter who bring up birth control and they will say that a

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Contraceptive mentality leads to an abortion mentality that is absolutely false and damaging to say

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Because there are millions of people who practice Contraception in marriage who would never have an abortion and you don't want to alienate people and divide our ranks that way

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But if you want to argue that contraception is wrong fine do it Just don't say that it leads to an abortion mindset, which is not a good argument

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So my position is when I'm asked about birth control if it doesn't end the life of a child once it's begun

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I'm not there to oppose it that night. Now. What about alleged birth control that is

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Apparently abortifacient and here's an example of that people say well, what about the morning -after pill?

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What about? birth control pills in general, I Think we need to be very careful not to outrun what the evidence can support when we make claims

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Is it possible or is it possible that some forms of birth control pills are abortifacient?

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Yeah, it's possible but should we be making the claim that we know for a fact that the morning -after pill and Certain birth control pills are abortifacient.

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No, we should not make that claim The argument goes like this that if you are on the birth control pill and you have breakthrough ovulation meaning that you get pregnant in spite of being on the pill that there's a secondary mechanism that kicks in that makes the lining of the uterus

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Inhospitable to the developing human and the argument goes that in that event if breakthrough ovulation happens you're essentially triggering a miscarriage which is the same as abortion because you're triggering it by the use of this drug and that Secondary mechanism is causing these miscarriages

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Therefore Christians cannot use birth control pills because of that secondary mechanism The other side of this debate, by the way, this is an in -house pro -life debate

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This doesn't even involve the outside world pro -life scientists are disagreeing on whether the birth control pill is abortifacient

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The other side says no the lining of the uterine wall thickens and thins many times during pregnancy with no adverse effect on the

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Developing human therefore, we should not be making the claim that these pills have a secondary mechanism

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The other side responds by saying but labeling says it can cause a miscarriage The other side responds but labeling is not peer -reviewed evidence.

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Lots of things are on the label There's no evidence for labels or lawsuit protection not peer -reviewed evidence, and that's a fair point.

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So where do I land on all this? I Think you are within your rights to tell people that Given the seriousness of what's at stake and given it's at least

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Plausible at some level that these pills may be abortifacient

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Until further evidence is secured we should err on the side of caution and not use them

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But you should not say, you know for a fact that these pills are abortifacient

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Because that would be overstating what the evidence will allow at this state in the game Does that does that make sense to everybody and by the way, there's nothing wrong with punting to Saying look, we should err on the side of caution if you're driving home tonight and you see what looks like An old coat in the road, or it could be an old man lying in the street

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Are you gonna run the coat over or err on the side of caution? Or if you're out hunting and you see bushes rustling in front of you

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And you don't know if it's your best friend or that deer you've been after. Are you gonna open fire? Not unless you're

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Dick Cheney, right? I mean you're gonna err on the side of caution That's for those of you too young to know that joke

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Dick Cheney when he was vice president Accidentally shot his best friend when they were out hunting So, yeah, we should err on the side of caution in that sense, but not overstate our case

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Is that get what you are? I think so. We don't have any more time for any more questions, but that was okay Okay can the greater moral good argument you used in the example of the person hiding the

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Jews be used to allow abortion the case is a life of the mother or Withholding chemo that would harm the fetus

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Keep in mind in the case of the Greater good argument saving the life of the mother in the case of ectopic pregnancy.

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There's nothing I can do to save the embryo He's doomed that there's nothing I can do to save him. The only question is can

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I save the mother? So when I act to save the mother, I am NOT intending the death of the embryo

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I I foresee it, but I don't intend it and also remember what I said earlier. I could remove that embryo and By removing him

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I haven't made him worse off because he's gonna die outside. He's gonna die inside I don't have a rescue mission for him at this point

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But I could argue I haven't made him worse off if I remove him from his Pathological environment where he will indeed kill the mother if we do nothing

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So I don't think those two are parallel Is that the only example where the mother life of the mother is genuinely threatened during a pregnancy?

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I believe there are a few more but I cannot recall what they're what they are.

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That is the major one That's the most common by far is ectopic pregnancy and usually that happens before a woman is even aware that she's pregnant

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Well the ectopic pregnancy ensues from the beginning I mean, it's it's right there The embryo does not travel down into the it doesn't make the journey down the fallopian tube into the uterine cavity

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Instead it stays in the fallopian tube and that's the danger Where does life start and how do we know from secular science?

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Where does life start at the completion of a fertilization process and that is not a theological view

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That is the science of embryology in your notes You're going to get footnotes to at least four

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Embryology textbooks that confirm that life begins at conception and by the way

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It's not just pro -life advocates who say this I can cite for you Pro -abortion activists who are actually honest on this subject.

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Let me give you a few examples Camille Paglia a feminist I'm growing to like better day by day because she's brutally honest

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Says and I'll paraphrase her here. We should be honest about what abortion is.

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I have always called it murder she says it is the extinguishing of a life by the

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Powerful who want to extinguish the life of the weak and it is not the destruction of cells

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It is the destruction of concrete individuals and we should call it that I appreciate her honesty a journal article is late as early as 1970 in California medicine made the point that until the ethic of society has been changed to a quality of life ethic

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We're going to have to be Dishonest about what killing really is in the womb and the article concludes this way

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Anybody with an ounce of credibility? Knows life begins at fertilization and is continuous till natural death

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But in order to talk people out of this we're gonna have to change our language and we're gonna have to change the way

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We phrase things so they begin to accept death rather than Having to to deal with the obvious scientific fact that we all know is true that life begins at fertilization

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How do you suggest learning to use pro -life arguments if you do not normally interact with people who are pro -choice? Take a homeschool kid

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Christian parents Most of his social activity is if you're not going to interact with people out there

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Then you need to call dr. Zeke to come do it for you Seriously I would encourage you to have

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Conversations, but another thing I would add is the literature is so good right now that you can access

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This isn't like it was 30 years ago where there weren't a lot of resources 30 years ago

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There were really smart pro -life guys and gals But they wrote at a level that lay people could not access at all now

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That's very different those resources are out there and in the notes that you're going to get oh by the way I'm about to give the notes out.

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I'll do that right now, and then I'll finish the question all right here You go you're ready for the notes. This is the moment.

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You've all been waiting for How many of you are on Facebook? Can I see your hands if you are on Facebook put them up high?

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I want you to go to Scott's lecture notes Scott's lecture notes

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I Want you to admit asked to be admitted to the group I? Will admit you this afternoon

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You will then be able to access the notes for this Conference that I will post there and Jim you're gonna post them on the church website, too

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Yeah, I think we can post them on the church website or YouTube channel right next to the videos of the live stream Okay, so there you go. You'll you'll have a chance to get those there

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But do friend Scott on Facebook and also go to that group so you can become part of that and see the interaction

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That's there as well see the interaction as well, so that that'll be there for you Okay back to our question before I got distracted by notes

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I've completely forgot what the question was what was it? How do you suggest people are interacting with others?

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Yeah, um I let me give you some books Just two titles that I think will really help you in addition to the case for life back there two titles

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Chris Kayser's book the ethics of abortion the reason that is such a good work

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He interacts with the leading thinkers on the issue all of whom endorsed his book interesting

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Kayser destroys David Boonin's desire argument dr. Zeke gave you David Boonin's desire argument and Boonin gets destroyed by Chris Kayser and Boonin endorses

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Kayser's book as being an Intellectually tower house achievement right that's what

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I love about the academics They're a little more kind to each other than the street -level people are but Kayser does a great job giving you the lay of the land

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Understanding the arguments that are in play understanding the thoughts that are out there and accurately summarizing them

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So you learn what people are thinking? So that's the first way I would go about it secondly

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I would encourage you to watch a debate watch the debate between myself and Nadine Strossen that's sold on the

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DVD with the package. We're offering and then watch the debate. I mentioned earlier with Mike Adams and Dr.

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Willie Parker the abortionist you will see these arguments come out and You'll be equipped to respond having watched those debates.

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What is the biblically prescribed method for dealing with a long -term coma? What is the biblically?

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prescribed long -term coma, okay biblically speaking Damaged humans are not non -humans

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They are still image bearers People in persistent vegetative states are not dying

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Therefore we should not intentionally kill them The world's view is that if you lose cognitive ability you lose personhood.

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That's that body self dualism We talked about the biblical view is all humans bear the image of God regardless of their functional ability remember this

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Jesus treated lepers with dignity and respect lepers who were dying from their diseases who had lost a lot of abilities and he still treated them

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Charitably, he didn't treat them as second -class citizens all Humans bear the image of God regardless of their functional ability and that includes the cognitive

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Cognitively impaired person in a persistent vegetative state our spirits in heaven and hell are aware and conscious of their condition even though they are in a disembodied state do not have bodies are the spirits or souls of Frozen embryos aware and conscious of their condition.

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Are they suffering if we were to freeze your legs solid you would be in immense pain Yeah Well, first of all embryos do not have an apparatus for physical pain.

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They are not capable of experiencing physical pain They are not capable of experiencing consciousness or self -awareness

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So there's no issue there with them being aware of suffering at that point Frozen embryos are not dead.

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They are alive. They're in a suspended state In fact, we had an interesting thing happen after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in Hurricane Katrina I don't know if you remember this in 2005, but there was incredible flooding in New Orleans Especially in some of the the

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Fifth Ward areas There was a fertility clinic that was underwater nearly 20 feet and Rescuers dived down with scuba gear to rescue

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Vials full of frozen embryos and bring them up to the surface and transfer them to other fertility clinics

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Where those children were later born? one of those children was nicknamed and actually named

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Noah and When pro -lifers were putting forward a bill in Congress to protect unborn children

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They brought baby Noah in actually wasn't a baby. It was two years old at this point. This was 2009 or so, but baby

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Noah was born a year after Katrina he had been submerged underwater at that point.

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I would argue that baby Noah Submerged underwater is

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Identical to baby Noah today who is now a teenager. He's the same being he was alive in both states

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He was in a suspended state, but he was not dead. Let's define death death is the irreversible cessation of the body's ability to function as a coordinated living entity if we rolled in a corpse through one of those doorways right now and That corpse came right up here.

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We wheeled it in right up here. Would there be living cells on the corpse? Yes or no? Eight hours.

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Let's say the corpse has been dead eight hours. Would there be corpse with their corpse? Would there be cells on the body? Yes Are there cells on your body?

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Yes. Well, why do we say then that the corpse is dead, but you're alive answer The cells on the corpse unlike you the cells on the corpse are no longer talking to each other

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There's been an irreversible breakdown of the body's ability to function as a coordinated whole

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That's not true of the embryo the embryo even in a four in a frozen state has not suffered an irreversible loss a cessation of bodily

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Coordination the way that that corpse has so baby Noah even underwater even though frozen has not died

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It's in an animated or frozen state, but not dead. So that's the difference there

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You said you talked to Nick can on the phone. Have you actually met him before? No, just talked to him briefly once on the phone for 20 minutes or so.

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Is it true that aborted fetal tissue is used in the development of vaccines in the late 1950s?

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There was a fetus aborted and after the abortion Vaccine lines were developed from this fetus that went on and continued to treat

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Certain diseases today through vaccines. Yes, it is true that happened

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Okay, this is a related question. Have there been any advances in science and medicine from the taking of human life?

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In other words vaccines human lives are taken in order to advance human Yeah advanced science if so, is there a reason to refuse the use of technology that comes from those sources?

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Absolutely, there have been advances in medicine that were Unethically attained

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I don't know how many of you remember the Tuskegee experiments We took african -american men who were dying from syphilis

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We promised them a cure only we didn't give them a cure We gave them sugar pills so we could study how the disease killed them

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Was that unethical you better believe it was unethical Absolutely, it was unethical because it treated image bearers as means to an end

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So now the question becomes what about knowledge obtained illicitly like that and It comes down to a question of proximity

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So let's take The Nazi experiments the medical experiments they conducted against victims in the death camps

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That research has been locked up in some quarters for decades people arguing.

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We shouldn't use it We shouldn't benefit from it. But let me ask a question If that research is unlocked and Gives us pointers to curing disease.

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Are we? Participants in the original evil that was done. Yes or no

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We're not our proximity to it is incredibly remote now if by unlocking that research

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It were shown that we would be contributing to the possibility of other victims being used that way

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Then of course, we we wouldn't want to use it. We shouldn't use it, but if not What would be wrong with unpacking that and learning what we could those victims are already dead

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We can't bring them back But if we're talking about participating in therapies that result in the death of innocent human beings

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We cannot participate in those therapies, even if they do bring about healing for other human beings

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What would you tell a person near the end of their life who is suffering and wants to end their life? a

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Desire to die is not the same as a right to die. Our culture thinks they're one in the same

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We do not have as Christians a right to say that our desires mean

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I can do with my what I can do what I want with my body Including end my life. I do think there's nothing wrong with you refusing treatment that can no longer help you

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I do believe you're right to control your pain to the extent you can But aiming at your own death is no more right than aiming at someone else's death

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Suicide is wrong because it involves the intentional killing of an innocent human being and the

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Bible forbids that it calls it the shedding of innocent blood and if you have as our founders argued in an

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Unalienable right to life you can't waive that right just because you want to die that right is still there and it would be wrong

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For you to dispose of your body that way even if you wanted to so no

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Wanting to die is not the same as having a biblical justification to die or having a right to die

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It appears that in the future science will be able to create life without sperm and egg is the result human

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And how do you define human? if There comes about alternate ways of creating human beings outside of the normal means

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Then we're gonna have a discussion about what that means, but these would still be human beings people thought that once we had the test -tube baby in 1978 the first baby

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Louise Brown that was born through in vitro fertilization We thought well we were playing

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God that how do we even know if that's human life at this point of course? It is people thought that when cloning technology started dawning upon us that if we get to the point where we can clone

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Human beings that are born with those human beings have souls would they be human of course they would be of course

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They would be all humans have souls all living things do so that's not an issue

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The danger here is these technologies Program us to begin

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Accepting human beings as commodities that we exploit for our own benefit

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It's how we treat the embryos conceived through IVF that is deeply problematic

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It's how we treat embryos that we create through ESCR Where we take a cloning process and we create a child.

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That's a problem. How do we treat these embryos and Unfortunately embryos are being used for commodities not for Intrinsically valuable human beings that we believe them to be as Christians Related question if science could create life without a brain or without other organs for harvesting

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How many parts are required before this creation is human? Well just on a side note that day is coming that day is coming

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There's already talk in medical journals of creating Headless human clones

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I don't mean that they wouldn't have physical heads, but they would lack the frontal lobes of the brain and as a result that clone would not have

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Desires would not have feelings would not have cognitive ability and we could grow them to harvest their organs

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There's already talk of this in some of the peer -reviewed Bioethics journals and the argument goes that until you're an actual person by which they mean someone with immediately

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Exercisable cognitive abilities you don't have a right not to be killed to benefit others

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Others can kill you if it benefits others who are actual persons rather than merely potential

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Persons so that day is coming What who bears the image of God any?

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Human being that is living the image of God is not based on any Functional thing we do it's not based on our rational nature

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It's not based on our feelings our cognitive abilities the Bible nowhere teaches that the image of God is

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Related to what we can and can't do in terms of the number of parts we have or functional abilities

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We have it simply says if you're a human being you bear the image of your maker So if we are dealing with a living human organism at this point

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We have a human being that is an image bearer and it's wrong to exploit them for the benefit of others

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You might have like a human body. That's no brain all meat from head to toe No cognitive ability and all the organs are there except for the brain and it's being kept alive through artificial means

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That's a human being you're saying I'm saying if there if that is a living human being if you have brain stem

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Activity keeping you alive. You are a human being Dr.

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Zeke's position is that the Bible doesn't mention abortion or define human life as at a beginning point yet He then developed his entire position about person on philosophy.

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What is the question to ask? Dr. Zeke to expose this inconsistency in his statement that the

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Bible is his source of morality. Yeah Dr. Zeke played fast and loose with Scripture you probably picked up on that, right?

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He he was a little bit slippery on Scripture. Dr. Zeke wanted to appeal to the authority of Scripture He wanted to make you think he was committed to respecting

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Scripture as an errant authoritative as being the rule of all life and faith, but yet He didn't exactly

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Interpret Scripture very accurately. Did he he liked to to mess around with it.

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So dr. Zeke Rejected flat -out the biblical teaching that all humans have value because they bear the image of God he just flat -out ignored it and by the way that's stated clearly and he ignored that and Simply posited his own view of personhood

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I don't know how he can reconcile that with his view that he respects Scripture Is that what the question was essentially asked?

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Yeah, what question would you ask him to expose the fallacy the fallacy? I would ask him what makes humans valuable in the first place and what's your evidence for it and have you considered the

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Implications of your view and what that means I'd go Columbo on him Do you recommend watching the movie unplanned?

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It's a good movie in many ways. Let me tell you what I liked about it I like the fact that it showed

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Abortion that opening scene is pretty gruesome to watch. I'm glad it showed it.

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That's a very good thing The disappointing part of the movie was the redemption side of it

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There's a real lack in the movie's ability to say how people

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Get right with God after a sin like abortion There's a scene near the end of the movie where Abby's character

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Spoiler here if you haven't seen it is talking to her husband and she's weeping and she says

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How can God ever forgive me boy talk about a setup question for the gospel and the movie?

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Absolutely bombs on its answer there the answer should be

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God can't forgive you Except for one thing Jesus stood in your place

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Condemned and bore the judgment you deserved for your sin of abortion like he stood in our place and and bore the sin

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The judgment for our sins. That's your only way out You can't forgive yourself only

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God can and it only happens through a saving relationship with Jesus That does not come through in the film regrettably

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And I'm not even demanding that it had had to but they set that question up it was right there

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They set it up. They teed it up and then Missed the missed the strike. It was terrible in that regard last night

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You said you're not here to condemn Women who have had abortions and yet if there was a woman sitting here who had killed her husband

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You certainly would condemn that is that an inconsistency in your position? Well, I guess it would depend on what he did.

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I mean if he drove a Chevy or something. No, I'm kidding. I Probably should have clarified what

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I meant last night. I meant we are not I think the language I used was we're not here to Condemn and here's what

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I meant by that the purpose of this seminar is not To lay a guilt trip on people who've had abortions

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The reason is we believe there's a remedy for the sin of abortion and I did use the language last night that abortion was a sin

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The remedy for the sin of abortion is found in the gospel of Jesus. Jesus calls us sinners

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So, of course, we're condemned, you know, why I don't have to condemn that woman The Bible says she's already condemned

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The Bible says in John chapter 3 that he who believes in the

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Son has life those who don't they? Remain under the wrath of God. Why didn't

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Jesus come to condemn sinners in John 3? I think I know why because the world's already condemned.

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They're already under the wrath of God What I need to do is make sure they understand that sin is real

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That's why we show the images of abortion We make sin real and then we point people to the only thing that can cure their post abortion guilt

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So in one sense, I don't have to condemn them that way because they already stand condemned

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But I certainly want to make sure they understand the sin of abortion and know there's but one remedy for it

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So, I don't know if that clarifies that question, but was Zeke saying that a screaming baby has no desire for food or a clean diaper

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Yeah, he was He was Remember Zeke was brutally honest and said that his position entailed that infanticide was okay

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It does and the more honest abortion choice advocates will admit that Peter Singer will tell you that his position on abortion

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Justifies infanticide Peter Tooley or Michael Tooley will tell you the same thing Marianne Warren will tell you the same thing

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David Boonin wants to hedge he wants to pretend desires happen around week 32 He's wrong because Zeke was right about one thing to have desires

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You have to have belief and judgment and newborns are incapable of that So the implication of David Boonin's desire argument is it justifies killing newborns as it does

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Those in the womb. What is the proper way to use graphic imagery in this conversation because you argued for its use last night

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But you wouldn't say that all use of all graphic imagery is done appropriately Let me give you three

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Contexts for graphic visuals first There's a captive audience setting like you last night like the students

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We speak to in high school assemblies like worldview forums where we talk in those settings

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I set the video up exactly like you saw me do it last night telling people what's in it inviting them to look away and Giving them that option if they want to But does that mean we can only show visuals in a captive audience site setting?

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I don't believe that's true for example There are groups I work with that show the gigantic posters that we read about in that Student that went berserk on us at the

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University of Maryland When we talked about relativism Greg Dickinson that group will show the images publicly on the school campus

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And make abortion the topic of the conversation on that campus. They put up warning signs, but they put them up publicly there are also groups that Follow or go to the abortion clinic and there

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I've been asked a couple of times Is it effective to use abortion imagery at the clinic itself?

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I? Have not done empirical research to back up what I'm about to say this comes from talking with Pregnancy care workers and others the most important thing a woman needs to hear at that Final stage when she's at the clinic at that point at the clinic

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The most important message that seems to resonate with her is we will help you we will help you

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Now my friend Eric Scheidler at pro -life Action League has a great strategy They they're in front of clinics all the time in the

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Chicago area And what they do is up the street from the abortion clinic

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Maybe about a quarter of a mile in they know exactly the route these women are going to take to get to the clinic

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They will display the abortion pictures But when she gets to the clinic the last people she meets are people saying we will help you

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What can we do to help you? We're here for you And they found that they got more saves doing that than they did putting the abortion pictures right at the clinic itself

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And trying to shout to the woman a message about abortion being murder

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It was more effective to reach that woman at that final stage With we will help you and reach her with the reality of abortion a quarter of a mile up the road, so I think that represents a good use of images

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Some people will say we shouldn't show images anytime children can see them well if that's the case we can never show images because there's

34:10

Always the possibility children could see them by the way nobody complains at the local zoo when the zoo displays pictures

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Graphic horrific pictures of elephants poached. That's okay. That's all right or giraffes being poached poached

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You walk through the supermarket counters and along the magazine aisles there as you go to check out

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Often on these magazine covers time Newsweek. There's graphic imagery nobody throws a fit about that But boy if you show abortion everybody becomes undone, and I do think is pro -lifers

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We need to ask ourselves Are we more worried about the feelings of the born than we are the lives of the unborn that at least needs to be in?

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Our minds that doesn't mean we're gonna target children It doesn't mean I'm going to the elementary school with pictures like what you saw here

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But my standard will never be that I can never show images if there's a possibility of children being present

35:03

What happens in a molar pregnancy you mentioned the chunks of bone Hair skin, etc.

35:09

Yeah, what? Sperm and egg come together what goes wrong at that yeah Sperm and egg come together, but it's an incomplete fertilization.

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You never get a full living human organism instead you get a molar Pregnancy that contains the teeth and the hair, but no actual coordinating principle as a living organism

35:27

Are we failing to utilize love joy and guilt in persuading someone to choose life couldn't we agree that it is?

35:32

Naturally better to love the unborn child So we would have joy in loving versus the guilt found in killing

35:39

I think I know what this question means I think a way of rephrasing it is isn't it better to celebrate the joy of life the joy and tell me if you think

35:49

I'm getting this the joy of The birth the joy of the life of the child rather than exposing the evil and and the guilt that would go along with talking

35:58

About abortion am I getting that question right? I think so okay Interesting book written a number of years ago by the name by a guy by the name of Jerry Mander if that were my name

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I would change it but Jerry Mander wrote an argument wrote a book called for arguments for the elimination of television and In that book

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Jerry Mander writes that images of death Sell better than images of life in terms of persuading the culture one way or the other and he gives the example of the modern environmental movement the modern environmental movement started in the late 60s showing pictures of gigantic redwood trees and all their glory and all their beauty and Basically trying to convince people that we shouldn't be cutting down these trees because look they're so beautiful The public yawned nobody cared

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Then they got smart they started showing split cream or split screen postcards one side showed beautiful redwoods the other side showed a deforestation scene where all the timber had been knocked down and Jerry Mander says it looks like a nuclear battlefield and the public outcry was immediate

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If we think we're going to win this fight just showing the pretty pictures of the babies in utero

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We have another thing coming the public is yawning We are going to have to do what Frederick Douglass said to Abraham Lincoln We're gonna have to arrest the moral conscience of this nation and reawaken it

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We're gonna have to bypass the rhetorical lies They're being told and speak directly to their moral intuitions and one of the ways and most effective ways

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We do that is through the imagery So the answer is we can use both but we should never assume that we don't need the graphic ugly pictures

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We need them desperately Regarding ectopic pregnancy and predicting the death of the unborn and therefore assisting or performing in the inevitable death of the unborn

37:59

Reconcile that with physician -assisted suicide in the case of the terminally ill. How are those two cases different?

38:05

Yeah in the case of Ectopic pregnancy the child is doomed and it's going to kill the mother in the case of physician -assisted suicide the dying patient is not killing another human being and We're not you we're not in any way placing in danger another life in this case the child though It's innocent means no harm to the mother is actually in its pathological condition where it will die

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Going to kill the mother too. So we act to save the one life

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We can even though we foresee the death of the embryo We're not intending it if we could save this child we would with a physician -assisted suicide

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I not only foresee the death of the patient. I want it. I intend it There's a difference there in terms of the mode of intent involved

38:58

What would you say to the woman who says it's much better to abort my baby than to abandon him to adoption? I'm saving him from wondering later.

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Why my mom didn't want me Notice this argument assumes the unborn aren't human

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Would anybody suggest killing two -year -olds so they're not traumatized by adoption at age five?

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They only say this with the unborn because they're assuming I suggest that what's really going on there is the mother is saying

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I Don't want the feelings that go with giving my child up for adoption

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I can't face that so I'd rather have the abortion. I can't stand the thought of someone else raising him now imagine a situation as happened in California about 15 years ago a

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Guy was dating a girl, and he was very possessive very neurotic

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She tried to break up with him several times, and he would not go away He would not let her in essence break up with him, and he became scary and finally she told him no more and yet he showed up two days later and killed her and When he appeared in court here was his justification

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I couldn't stand the thought of her being in another man's arms Now we think that's just barbaric

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But look at the rationale here Somebody says I got to have an abortion Because if I don't

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I can't stand the thought of someone else raising this child unless you assume the unborn aren't human

40:29

The same moral logic is in play here, and that's devastating To our sense of right and wrong

40:37

I'm gonna summarize this question best response to someone who says I would not get an abortion myself but I would because The baby and the human are not life until it is breathing which we already dealt with that But second

40:51

Adam and Eve were not literal individual humans, but were a literary allegorical representation of the human race

40:58

Okay First of all if you believe that the first six chapters of Genesis were strictly allegorical

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I believe your biblical hermeneutic is in grave danger of leading you astray

41:13

You either believe the Bible is true in what it teaches or you don't so I think

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The the teaching from Scripture is clear Adam and Eve were real human beings

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Who were created in the image of God? They really did sin and fall and God really did promise to those two individuals

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That he would crush the serpent and those are real Individuals if you make that allegorical you've reduced the foundation for the atonement itself, so I don't want to go there

41:46

Excellent. Okay. This goes back to the intent the foreseen, but not intending distinction

41:52

Is putting embryos on ice equal to murder when you can foresee the death of the embryo, but that is not the intent

42:00

Well first of all putting them on ice is not murdering them in fact the technology as it relates right now is

42:09

Not endangering these embryos the way it was thought to 20 -25 years ago Okay, let me push back on that for a second because the basis of this question is you have couples who will do that But then they get into their 40s.

42:19

They're right past childbearing age that may not be what they have intended, right? They could have foreseen that that was going to happen, but that's not what they intended

42:26

So yeah, are they therefore alleviated of that moral problem? No, they're not but the technology itself is not wrong there

42:33

It's not intrinsically wrong to freeze embryos It's contingently wrong because you're not taking personal responsibility for the embryos that ensue.

42:42

That's the problem there So those parents that create more embryos that then they can take care of that They can reasonably bring to birth are

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Being morally wrong because they should not engage in assisted technologies to create embryos

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They cannot personally take responsibility for Okay, that is the end of what we're doing on the live stream

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So one quick note here the notes are available on our website and alongside the live stream

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For what Scott has done and at the Facebook group that Scott mentioned earlier our spring conference in May of 2020

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Features Paul Taylor from the Mount St. Helens Creation Center He's going to be here to talk about Genesis and creation and Noah's Flood and what?

43:26

Mount St. Helens and the eruption of Mount St. Helens tells us about that and he's going to be doing exactly similar to what

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Scott has done sort of the same format But then also Paul will be teaching an adult Sunday school class as well as preaching and that's in May of 2020 in May Of 2021 we have