Should Abortion Be Legal

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For this evening, I know that you're excited, like me, to witness a spirit of exchange of ideas, and that we will maintain a respectful attention and quiet during the debate, and that there will be absolutely no need for me to call ahead with security.

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So now, let me introduce this evening's speakers. Ms. Danielle Kingsbury is a

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December 2012 graduate of SUNY Lawrence. She majored in Adolescent English Education with minors in Linguistics and Photography.

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Since graduating, she has spent her time teaching mentally and physically handicapped people to ski, as well as being a teaching assistant and home tutor in the

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Pine Bush School District. She co -founded the Secular Student Alliance with Leo Vogel, after being inspired to advocate for non -theists at the

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Reason Rally in 2012. Mr. Harris has been involved with college ministry since 2006, serving on the campuses of Dutchess Community College, College of the

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Canyons, and SUNY New Paltz, as well as leading Bible studies at both his local church, Grace Bible Church in Walthamsters Falls, and Vassar Broken Baptist Church in Kingston.

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He has taught apologetics, how to defend the Christian faith from objections at various local churches, and currently serves as a deacon intern at Grace Bible Church.

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Mr. Harris graduated from Thomas Edison State College in 2010 with a B .A. in History, and is currently working on his

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Master's of Divinity at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. Please join me in welcoming the speakers.

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The order of the speakers has been already determined, and this evening it will be Ms. Kingsbury who begins.

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As you may have guessed from our introductions, I believe abortion should be legal, because women have the right to an informed decision about medical procedure with their own body.

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When abortion is illegal, the number of abortions does not drop, but the number of women who survive the procedure certainly does.

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Illegal abortion is one that can be practiced with sterile equipment in a hospital with highly trained doctors.

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The alternative for many women is not simply having a child, but instead undergoing the procedure, as Patrick Swayze said in Dirty Dancing, traveling through New Paltz with a dirty knife and a fold -up table.

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While many say the solution is to simply not get pregnant, this requires a great deal of resources. People are products of their environment, and the

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U .S. is not fostering one of personal responsibility when it comes to reproductive issues. Instead of blaming women and forcing them to carry unwanted babies to term, we should be blaming them for changing society that puts them in this position.

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While I was student teaching at New Paltz Middle School, my students brought up Teen Mom, The Real World, New Jersey, Super Bowl commercials, and a song about blowing a metaphorical whistle, which all they knew had connections to sex.

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They were just 12 or 13 years old, and they already knew so much about sex, but I assume that they didn't know how to have it safely or what consent was.

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In a country where rapists are looked at with mercy, such as what happened in Steubenville, it is not fair to women to bear all of the burden of their rapist crimes.

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Surely even lawmakers know that less birth control equals less unwanted babies, therefore equals more abortions, right?

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Maybe not considering the prevalence of abstinence -only education, when in fact the states with the highest amount of teen pregnancies are the same states that teach abstinence -only sex education.

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Where abstinence -only sex education thrives, the abortion rate is twice what it is in the U .S., but where there is easy access to contraception and information about how to use it, the abortion rate is half the rate in the

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U .S. Teens have sex whether they have contraception or not, and similarly, women get abortions whether the government allows them to or not.

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The World Health Organization, Department of Reproductive Health and Research, said in a telephone interview, we now have a global picture of induced abortion in the world, covering both countries where it is legal and countries where it is very restrictive.

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But we see that the law does not influence a woman's decision to have an abortion. In 1996, the procedure was made legal in South Africa, leading to a 90 % decrease in mortality among women who had abortions.

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But since abortion is illegal in most of Africa, it is the second leading cause of death of women admitted to hospitals in Ethiopia.

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Again, making abortion illegal does not prevent women from having it, it does not save babies, it kills women.

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If you are thinking, well what about the children? I inform you, approximately 220 ,000 children worldwide each year lose their mothers to abortion -related deaths.

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In the U .S. in 2007, 61 % of abortions came from women who already had one or more children.

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For a person to call themselves pro -life, they need to consider all forms of human life, including the adult who is choosing to have an elective procedure.

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Any abortion does not make the pregnancies that occur wanted, but access to contraception makes those unwanted pregnancies not occur in the first place.

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But, let's again take on a pro -life stance and say, look, if a woman doesn't want to have a kid, she should just give it up for adoption.

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This is a no better solution. Our foster care system had 400 ,000 youth under age 18 in 2011.

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In 2007, there were 1 .2 million abortions performed in the U .S., according to the census.

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That means that if even just half the women considering abortions were to go the adoption route instead, the number of kids in our foster care system would double within one year.

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As many of you know, the foster care system is not perfect. The average child will wait at least three years to be adopted once entering the system, and every year 60 ,000 kids are never permanently adopted and age out.

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Of the children who age out in foster care, just 6 % will go on to age to get two or four year degrees.

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Over half the kids will go through three or more placements with different families, and almost a third of the children in the system will go through five or more elementary schools.

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Additionally, every child in the foster care system costs the taxpayers $40 ,000 per year.

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With newer advances in fertility, such as in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, and surrogacy, many couples who would have formerly adopted are now no longer choosing adoption.

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If anything, this could become an argument for gay marriage, considering many GLBT couples want children but cannot marry them.

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Another pro -life stance is that abortion has negative consequences. Some of these include regret, psychological trauma, or body loss, and abortion is elective.

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Do you know what else kills people, causes bodily harm, and psychological trauma? Going to work. Hundreds of thousands of adults make that decision every single year that that is the right idea for them to do at this time.

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We must also acknowledge that there is no precedent that something should be legal. Cigarettes, for example, are subsidized by the government, despite the fact that they are linked to death and cancer.

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People still choose to have them, and yet very few people advocate for their complete ban. Like many surgeries, women must make an informed decision on whether this is the right choice for them personally, and no one except their doctor or the people that they are in a relationship with should be able to influence that decision.

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Another pro -life stance puts abortion in a simply black or white idea that abortion is killing a person, therefore it is murder.

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But murder is not a black or white issue. Was it murder -murder? Vehicular manslaughter? Did it happen for itself?

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These all carry different sentences, and in some cases, none at all, because murder is not a black or white issue.

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Now, I am not a scholar of the Bible, but John is, so I am going to quote a few passages, because in order for something to be considered murder, it must be a human life that is taken.

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The Bible specifically tells Christians when life begins, which is after a living being has drawn his first breath. In Genesis 2 -7, he breathed life into his nostrils, the breath of life, and it was then that man became a living being.

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Although the man was fully formed by God in all respects, he was not a living being until after taking his first breath.

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In John 33 -4, it states, The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. In Exodus 21 -22, this one is kind of long, so I am going to paraphrase it if you have questions about key miscarriages, the man who caused the miscarriage must pay a fine that the judges determine.

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Now, throughout the rest of the Bible, killing someone is punishable by death, but because the man is merely fined, we can deduce that the man did not commit murder.

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Coincidentally, 65 % of abortions are from women who either identify as Protestant or Catholic.

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It appears as though even Christians don't think abortion is murder when they are put in the precarious position of having to choose.

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Before I conclude, I will warn you of the graphic video John had planned to show you. The first two thirds of the video feature abortions from the first trimester, and these account for 90 % of abortions.

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While the images are wary, they are also extremely zoomed in. At 7 weeks, the fetus is only the size of a blueberry, and it can be removed in one piece.

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The fetuses in the video were cut apart for shock value. The final and most shocking clip is from a 24 -week -old fetus.

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Take comfort that just 2 % of abortions are performed after 21 weeks, and third trimester abortions are generally medical emergencies where the mother's life is in danger or the baby could not survive outside the womb due to congenital birth defects.

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In conclusion, I am pro -choice because there are not sufficient resources in place to help women who are forced to make the difficult decision.

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Until there is proper sex education, free access to contraception, and rape is eliminated, unwanted pregnancies will occur.

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The foster care system is not a viable alternative because it is a broken system, and banning abortion does not make pregnancies wanted, it just makes the procedure more dangerous.

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It is not right to punish women with unsafe procedures because lawmakers do not understand the separation of church and state, even when the

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Bible itself does not consider abortion murder. And it is certainly discriminatory to force the consequences of sex or rape on the woman alone.

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It takes two to create a baby, but only one person gets their rights taken away as a result of it. So should abortion be legal?

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Absolutely. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

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Thank you, Danielle, for agreeing to debate. Thank you, Professor Arsenault, for agreeing to moderate. And for everyone else who decided to come out on such a nice evening to hear about an important topic,

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I'm really happy to see you, and I hope that we can have a profitable discussion this evening. I'd also like to thank, last but not least,

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I do represent a Christian organization. I'd like to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for allowing this debate to occur for His honor and glory.

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That being said, I couldn't help but notice as I was listening to my friend Danielle speak tonight that I, too, agree with her on much of what she said.

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I also agree that individual freedom of choice should be the principle of our country, even when it comes to abortion.

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I also agree that our individual conceptions of what defines right and wrong, whether they be religious or otherwise, should not enter into judicial decisions, and that none of us should push our moral views on others.

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In other words, I think that Danielle is absolutely right on the issue of abortion if, if what?

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If the fetus is not human. You see, if abortion is nothing more than clipping a nail or taking out an appendix, then

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I see no reason to oppose it. In fact, I think we should support people who make those decisions.

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It's in their freedom and their best interest. But you have to answer the question, what is the unborn, before answering the question, can we kill the unborn?

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And to illustrate this, I'd like to give you a little analogy. Imagine for a moment you're studying and your brother walks in the room and he says, can

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I kill this? Now, what's the first response you're going to give to your brother after he says something like that? Probably you're going to ask the question, what is it?

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If it's a snail or a bug, sure, go smoosh it, don't tell mom. If it's a neighbor's cat, we may have some issues.

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If it's your younger sister, he needs counseling. You would not say, sure, go ahead, go kill it, without first asking the question, what has he got?

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And I'd like to suggest to you that that is the question of tonight's debate. You cannot make the decision to kill the unborn before knowing what it is.

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A feminist and abortion advocate, Naomi Wolf, recognized this in a 1995 New Republic article in which she argued that the pro -choice movement needs to come to terms with this question of what is abortion.

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And she states, I quote, The pro -choice movement often treats with contempt the pro -lifers' practice of holding up to our faces their disturbing graphics.

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But how can we charge that it is vital and repulsive for pro -lifers to brandish vile and repulsive images if images are real?

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I think Ms. Wolf may be onto something here. In a moment, I'm going to show you a short 51 -second video.

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You will not see an entire abortion performed from start to finish, but you will see the aftermath in the first, second, and third trimesters.

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It is disturbing. If you wish not to look, then you can simply opt out by averting your gaze.

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I didn't come here to condemn anyone who may have had an abortion tonight. Rather, I'm here to inform everyone what an abortion actually is.

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And the reason I didn't come here to condemn is because I am a believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I believe it says we all have a problem.

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We are all lawbreakers of God, myself included. And the only place to find peace and forgiveness is in heaven.

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So, I'll say some more words about that later. But with that, I'd like to now roll it out for you.

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From the earliest stages of development, you were a living, distinct, and whole human being.

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You were immature, but the kind of thing you were was not in doubt. Not only does scripture suggest this, but the science of embryology confirms it.

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The Developing Human by Morgan Persaud states, A zygote is the beginning of a new human being.

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Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm unites with a female gamete or oocyte to form a single cell called a zygote.

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This highly specialized, goody -goody cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual. Langdon's Embryology by Sadler says,

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The development of a human begins at fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte to the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.

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These are leading embryology textbooks, and I could go on. Dr. Harvey Gordon of the Mayo Clinic states,

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I think we can now also say that the question of when life begins is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute.

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It is an established scientific fact. All life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception.

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Now this may be difficult for some of us to imagine. How can a human being so small be one of us?

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And I think the reason it's hard for some of us to imagine this is because we think of the embryo the same way we think of our car, that it's constructed piece by piece.

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I don't think there's a person in this room who would go to Bowling Green, Kentucky to see the Corvette factory and say that we have a

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Corvette when the first two metal plates are put together. And rightfully so. Although those plates may have had the passive potential to become a

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Corvette, in and of themselves, they are not. Now, a lot of you might have different opinions on this.

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When do we actually have a Corvette? Is it when the frame's put together? Some of you might say it's not until the wheels hit the ground and you can grab it that we actually have a

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Corvette. However, ladies and gentlemen, human embryos are not like Corvettes that are constructed piece by piece from the outside.

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Human embryos do something that no constructed thing like a Corvette ever did.

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They develop themselves from within. And that entails continuity of identity.

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That is why such a mistake to talk about the unborn is merely potential human life.

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When you're referring to an entity that develops itself from within, you aren't dealing with a potential human life.

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You're dealing with a human life with great potential. The science is clear, ladies and gentlemen.

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The unborn are living, distinct, and whole human beings. Now, although science can tell us what kind of thing we are dealing with, it cannot tell us how to properly value it.

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For that, we must ask the question, what gives humans value? The truth, if you're a

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Christian, you know the answer. It's because we're made in the image of our Creator. We all presuppose that we have life because of this.

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Now, what if I asked you, what difference is there between the embryo you once were and the adult you are today?

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That would lead us to believe you have no value and right to life then, but you have value and a right to life today.

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And there are only four differences. Size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency.

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You can think of the acronym SLED, S -L -E -D. Size, you are much smaller than you are now.

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That's true, right? You are very small. But since when did size justify killing anyone?

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A six -year -old is larger than a two -year -old. Men are generally larger than women. Does this mean that they have more rights?

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Level of development, it's true. You were less developed as an embryo. Two -year -old girls are less developed than 21 -year -old girls.

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But it doesn't follow that they're less human than a 21 -year -old girl is. Environment, you were in the womb and now you're out.

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How does where you are determine what you are? You all came in this room, obviously, early, so I've watched a bunch of you come in this room.

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You came from outside to inside, but you didn't stop being you. How does a journey of eight inches down the birth canal change you from a non -human that we can destroy to a valuable human that we cannot?

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You don't achieve value by changing your address. Finally, degree of dependency. Sure, you depended on your mother for survival, but how does dependence on another human being give us the right to kill you?

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Co -joined twins are dependent on each other's bodies. A two -year -old is dependent on its mother. Size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency.

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Think sled. Those are the only four differences between who you are now and who you were as an embryo, and none of them are proper justifications for killing you at the earlier stage.

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Go ahead for a moment. Look around the room. Make it really awkward for your neighbor if you need to. Here's a question

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I want to ask you tonight. What makes us equal? It can't be body size, right?

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It can't be intelligence. There's only one thing that we share in common, and that's our human nature, and you had it from the time you began to exist.

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Thank you. So I actually agree with John in a shocking twist of this debate that there is a great potential in human life in the unborn.

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When I was doing the research for this debate, I saw a pro -life film called 180.

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It's on YouTube. It's a 30 -something minute documentary. Yeah, I'm sure about half of you have seen it, given statistics.

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And in that debate, they compare the Holocaust to the abortions on the street.

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If you had the option to abort Hitler, would you do so? A lot of people said yes, and a lot of people said no.

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And I, my personal answer to that question, is no. Because you can't determine what will come from an embryo or a future baby or whatever you really call it.

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That's a huge part in people's development.

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Again, with the foster care statistics, just 6 % of people that get aged out of the foster care system go to two - and four -year colleges.

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How you are raised has a huge impact on what becomes of you. Just because you were once a bunch of embryos does not mean that you will be.

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The true question of the debate is, what is the unborn, and when does the unborn become a child?

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You noticed in my opening statement, I very specifically avoided that, because the question of the debate is, should abortion be legal?

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It doesn't matter when you think a person becomes a person or not, because that's not the question that we're asking.

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The question is not, is abortion moral? It's, should it be legal? And we both agree that laws are not necessarily based on morality.

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You believe that people are made in the image of their creator. However, in the

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Bible, God kills a lot of babies. In Isaiah, prepare a place to slaughter his children for the sins of their ancestors.

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In that case, the baby is being, or excuse me, the child is being condemned for his parents' sins.

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Kill this man's children. Let them die because of their father's sins. Same part. In, I can't pronounce this because I don't do

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Bible things, Hosea, can you pronounce that for me? Hosea. Hosea, okay. I love it.

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I will now ask, even if your children do survive to grow up,

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I will take them from you. It will be a terrible day and I will turn you alone. Isaiah 13, 16, they will be, the people of Samaria will, their little ones dashed to death against the ground, the pregnant women ripped open by swords.

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In the Bible, the God is causing miscarriages by sword. That's an illegal abortion in today's society.

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You're getting ripped apart by medical instruments. If this happens in a hospital, better procedures can be taken place.

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You said that people can find forgiveness in, we are all love breakers of God.

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It is possible for a woman to find peace and forgiveness in God at any point. Why does it matter if she had an abortion or not?

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And in fact, because the baby wasn't given the opportunity to sin, doesn't that mean that she automatically gets a place in heaven?

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So therefore, we could be doing fetuses a favor. Innocence, you are on trial before the

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Lord and you didn't even have the opportunity to do anything bad. Tickets to heaven, here you go.

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And I have a couple of questions for you, because that's how this works. So, you believe that the moment of conception is where life begins, roughly.

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So I have a question. Since in vitro fertilization, clinics also create and discard embryos, would you be in favor of outlawing them?

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And what about cases of cloning where no fertilization actually takes place because it only comes from one parent?

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Are all of those experiments considered abortion? And what would that look like for the future? And what do you propose that we do with 1 .2

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million extra children that compound because of the snowball effect? I agree that these children could lead promising lives, but as it stands now, there's no great resources in place for them to do so.

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That's it. I have a couple of questions for you. I'm unclear about a couple of things. The first one

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I want to ask you is just a basic question. Should murder be legal? It depends on the situation.

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Not for me personally, but in general. Capital punishment is legal. Well, I'm asking about murder, so I would find that legal.

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Nope. It should never be legal. Maybe in cases of self -defense. Okay. So you work for a lawyer.

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In the general sense of the word, yes. I'm even a deacon. I don't even kill animals. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that.

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You said that we both agree that laws aren't based on morality. I was wondering what you heard me say that led you to believe that I believe our laws aren't based on morality.

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You literally said exactly that. Okay. I guess it's just the tape. I don't remember saying that.

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I wanted to challenge you on that for a moment, though. What laws do you specifically think are not based on morality?

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Laws for cigarettes, for example. Laws about whether people should have to wear seatbelts or not.

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Laws that say that self -defense is just by capital punishment legal.

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We're doing drone strikes. I'm against war. That's currently legal. Let me just be clear. You don't think there's any moral component to any of those?

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There are, but... Okay. So laws that are not based on morality would be, for example, like I said, seatbelt laws.

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If there's no accident, nobody's getting hurt. Laws such as drinking age laws.

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It's your own body. Let me ask you a simple question. We'll take the seatbelt example. Do you think the seatbelt laws are right? Yes. So in your moral component that you have in your conscience, you believe it's the right thing?

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To require people to wear seatbelts? Yes. Depending on their age. If they're under 16, absolutely. So that is a moral decision then, correct?

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In my opinion, but according to the law... So the law that's based on morality, then? Well, it's an important point, because you made the statement that we're here to debate the legality of abortion.

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That law didn't bind me to a law that... It did.

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Adults don't have to wear seatbelts if they don't want to. So that's right. How about laws about marijuana, for example?

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That law is not based on morality at all, and more and more states are legalizing it. So you think it's right to legalize it? Yes. So that's immoral?

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Right. So you believe morally that it's right to legalize it? But as of now, as it stands, that law is not based on a moral justification, because with people...

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Okay. Okay, you got me. I'll say it. Let's move on to another question. Do you have a problem with God because he's pro -choice?

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What? I also believe God exists, therefore I cannot have a problem with him. Well, then why did you... Because I know that if you figured that out...

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Because I'm an English major, it's not where my background is. Do you agree with the science that I put forth in my opening statement that the embryo is a full human being?

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I cannot answer that question. Why not? I literally cannot answer that question, because I have not thought...

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It is important, but it's not the question of the baby. And also, you are dodging questions that I've asked you yesterday. Well, you had your five minutes or so.

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That's why. I'm happy to answer them. That's no problem, but it's my turn to ask questions right now.

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You said that no one but the doctor and the mother should make the decision of when to terminate the pregnancy, correct?

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I said that no one except a doctor and the people she is in a relationship with should be able to influence the decision that she makes.

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What if it's a two -year -old? What if what's a two -year -old? What if she wants to kill her two -year -old child? Should she just consult the doctor and her friends, or should we stop it and say don't kill your two -year -old?

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Two -year -olds aren't really heroes. I know they're not, but they're humans. Would you agree? Yes. Okay.

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So, if it's a human being, then we should stop it and save the life of a human being, correct? Yes. Okay.

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So, in the question of this debate, whether the embryo is a human being, because if it is, then we would have to save the life of that human being, correct?

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The question of the debate is still should it be legal or not. I specifically asked you if you were going to go with Ron.

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Okay. So, should it be legal for a mother to kill her two -year -old? No. Why not? Okay.

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So, put that same baby. Let's reverse it now a year and a half. It's in the womb. Why can't we kill it then?

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I don't think that six -month -old should be able to be aborted. Why? Unless the woman's mother's life is in danger.

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Right. Okay. So, since in -vitro fertilization clinics also create discharged embryos, would you be in favor of outlawing them?

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No. Why? Not necessarily. I have to stick a little more of a nuanced answer to that.

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The labs that specifically destroy a fertilized egg,

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I think that there should be laws passed that say that they cannot do that, or use it for scientific research that would destroy it.

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Okay. If you could write the law however you wanted, how would you enforce that? Basically the way

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I just said they can't do. Okay. How would you enforce a ban on abortion? The same way that states did with oral abuse versus rape.

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Which is? They outlawed it. They made it illegal. But that does not stop abortions from happening as a rural self -organization.

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Well, if you make laws against rape, it doesn't stop all rapes from happening either. It significantly reduces it.

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It does not significantly reduce it. Well, the facts, if you want to ask me the question,

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I would be happy to answer it. Okay, so for example, in Uganda where abortion is illegal, it's like an education program.

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In Uganda where abortion is illegal, the abortion rate is twice as high as it is in the

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U .S. Okay, so Uganda is a different culture, so I don't know exactly. What about Western Europe, where the lowest rate has legal abortion, and that's half the rate in the

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U .S.? Okay, you're comparing apples and oranges here. Western Europe is quite similar to the

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U .S., in fact, it came from them. Well, very true. But when we look at a rate, we're looking at change over time.

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You're comparing two different geographical places at the same time. So that's a categorical...

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It's 2007. Yeah, so you're saying... It's not that much over time. Let me clarify what

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I'm saying. If you take, let's say, the liberal estimates of abortions before Roe v. Wade, they said, apparently, 210 ,000 a year.

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Conservative estimates, 39 ,000 a year. Within six years after Roe v. Wade was legalized, we had 1 .6

32:00

million abortions in this country. I think the laws did something. Where did you get those numbers about before Roe v.

32:09

Wade? Right here. Oh, that makes sense. So what do you think the penalty for doctors should be for abortions?

32:22

I mean, if you're assuming that abortion is illegal in the world that I'm advocating,

32:29

I guess, in most cases, then doctors should perform abortions, I think. If they take an innocent human life, then that's a murder.

32:36

So they should be prosecuted for the force and the law. And what do you think the penalty for women should be for women to seek abortion?

32:44

Well, it would be the same penalty for a woman who decides to kill her two -year -old. So whatever that is. So you would be willing to kill 61 % of women who already have children and therefore taking away those children's mothers?

32:55

No, that's an ex post facto law, and I don't support those. It would only be after the law is put in place.

33:01

Okay. I think women are smarter than that. I don't think that women are forced into abortion. Which is why they should have the choice whether to get one or not.

33:10

Exactly. They're not being forced into it. That's not the argument I'm making. I'm saying that if abortions are legal or illegal,

33:17

I don't think women are necessarily forced into it. I make that assumption that you're making, that 61 % are going to have it anyway because I don't think they will.

33:24

Because of the statistics I just cited. I have opposing statistics from before, which larger sample size generally results in a...

33:32

Like I said, the rate has changed over time. And one of them went back to 1996.

33:39

Okay, but still in 1996 to when? To now. The procedure was made legal, and 90 % more mortality decreased in women who had abortions.

33:49

Okay, I thought we were talking... Less people died. We're not talking about mortality, we're talking about how the abortions take place, correct?

33:55

Yes. Okay, so that's a statistic about something different. You're still doing mothers.

34:01

Sorry. Well, you can ask me that. Do you want to turn it? You can ask me a question. Oh, that was awesome. Okay, so if you were going to kill the women who perform abortions, you are taking the mothers away from 220 ,000 annually.

34:20

No. No, like I said, I don't think women are necessarily forced into abortions.

34:26

But if they were going to have one, they are still going to have them. Yeah, but it's the same thing.

34:31

If you have a two -year -old in front of you... I'm going to keep saying this two -year -old analogy until we finally admit that this debate is about what being born is.

34:38

If you wanted that to be the debate, you could have chosen that. You were at the choosing topic meeting.

34:44

I was not. Well, if you decided to debate the issue of should abortion be legal, if you think that murder should be illegal and abortion kills a living human being...

34:53

So what about pregnant women who engage in... Give me an example.

35:00

Child abuse, negligence, if she drinks coffee, if she... Alright, a couple of things,

35:11

I guess. I listened to your opening statements. What I got,

35:17

I'm still not quite clear when you think a human being comes into existence.

35:23

Whether it's... I don't know if you agree with what you tried to interpret the Bible as saying, which...

35:29

Well, I'm not answering questions. I'm asking a rhetorical question because it's my turn to make a speech. But I don't know if you think that it's at the point in which they have a first breath, or it's at the point in which they are first conceived, or what it may be.

35:45

But that is the key question of the debate tonight. Because if it's a human being that you're dealing with, then it would be wrong to kill that human being, really, no matter what the circumstances.

35:54

It's the same thing if you have a 2 -year -old, 15 -year -old, or a 25 -year -old in front of you. If that is a living, whole, and human entity, part of the human family, then we should discriminate against them.

36:06

And I haven't heard anything scientifically that would rebut any of the evidence that I gave at the beginning from the community of embryology.

36:15

And I haven't heard anything regarding the philosophical case I made for why we should support the pro -life position.

36:22

What is the difference between who you are now and who you were? You can pick the early stages of development.

36:29

There's only four things that are different. Your size, your level of development, your environment, and your degree of dependency.

36:34

None of which are justifications for why your life was more valuable now than it was back then.

36:41

Shaquille O 'Neal is taller than me. I don't think he has more of a right to life. At least I hope not. Some of you fans out there might think so.

36:49

I don't think a level of development, mentally challenged people, don't have less of a right to life.

36:55

Environment. Just because I come from a trailer park or a place where there's mansions doesn't do anything to my right to life.

37:03

Your address doesn't change that. Finally, degree of dependency.

37:09

Like I said, if we're going twins, depend on each other. That doesn't mean we can just kill one of them. Children that are just born depend on their mothers as well.

37:17

We shouldn't just leave them in the streets. This question cannot be dodged.

37:22

This is a question of the evening. Yes, it is a public policy question. Should it be legal?

37:28

Ultimately, if we agree that murder should be illegal, which I believe only the Christian position can really substantiate, then we have to ask the question, are the unborn people?

37:39

If they are people, then we have to treat them as people. That means not unjustly taking their lives.

37:47

Let's see, some other things that were said. I heard Danielle basically make an argument that we need to get at the underlying issues.

37:55

That that's really what we need to look at. Forget about making abortion illegal. That's not going to solve the problem.

38:00

We need to get at what causes people to have abortions. What contributing factors occur?

38:06

Imagine if I came to you tonight and I said, you know what? I just don't think we should outlaw spousal abuse.

38:13

I think what we need to do as really good people is we need to get at the underlying issues of what really causes spousal abuse.

38:19

Why do men choose to beat their wives and deal with it that way? Or let's go back 200 years.

38:26

I really think what we need to do is get at the underlying issues of the slave trade. We need to find out what makes the

38:32

Northeastern flesh merchants want to go to Africa and trade rum for slaves. I mean, that's what we really need to talk about.

38:38

The economic concerns. Forget about making it illegal. That's the argument that's being put forth tonight.

38:43

And that should be appalling to anyone who's thinking through the issue. The back alley view.

38:51

I think I touched on that a little bit. That if we don't allow abortions, that people are just going to go to back alleys.

38:58

That's simply not true. 90 % of the 401B way took place, and this is from Planned Parenthood's own sources, went to professional doctors.

39:06

In fact, that's why doxinil right now, for those who know about that, is even being prosecuted. It is professional doctors who do participate in these things.

39:15

It's not people going to back alleys. And I'd like to ask a question. Let's say all of everyone went to back alleys in unsanitary conditions to have an abortion.

39:24

Does that still make it right? Should we make, let's say, thievery, or stealing, if you want to use that word, stealing legal just because we want criminals to be safer?

39:35

So should we just make anything legal that people want to do just because it will help them be safer?

39:41

I don't think so. That doesn't make any sense. If it's wrong, then we outlaw it. Plain and simple.

39:48

Let's see. How much time do I have? Okay. Well, I encourage the audience just to think through the sled analogy, because I really think that's the crux of the argument.

39:58

There's no difference between who you are now and who you were as an embryo that would justify killing you. And that's what Danielle has to come to terms with in this debate.

40:06

When does the unborn become a human entity? I believe that all people are great people.

40:12

Do you support gay marriage? That's a different debate, but...

40:17

I understand that. Yeah, no, I don't. Okay, so some people are more equal than others. Well, I don't believe that gay marriage is really marriage.

40:28

Do you want to debate that? Again, that's a different debate, but this is just a simple example of how you don't think that.

40:35

Actually, all... No, I think any homosexual individual, if it's a homosexual man, for instance, they should be allowed to marry a woman of their choice.

40:43

That's the same right that we all have. Think about that. No. Respect.

40:50

Thank you. That is clearly not the same thing, considering they are being denied access to insurance and being able to see their loved ones, etc.

41:02

Now, again, as I've already stated, I agree, for the most part, that abortion is not a good thing.

41:11

However, I think it would be illegal because you are marrying women and taking others away from them.

41:19

And being illegal, again, does not actually reduce the effects of it. So, why...

41:28

We brought up Valsnal, which I obviously think is very terrible. For those of you who don't know, it was an abortion clinic in Philadelphia where it was just a really, really terrible scene.

41:38

However, women were going to this abortion clinic because their Medicaid did not cover safe hospital abortions.

41:46

It was one of the very few places where they could actually keep a price tag and therefore they went to this really awful person.

41:57

You said something along the lines of that only a Christian worldview can answer your question, that murder is wrong.

42:11

And as for whether we should consider abuse, we should look at the sources of problems to determine if they should be legal and then we brought up abuse.

42:20

There's a thing called the cycle of abuse. Now, should children who punch each other on the playground because that's what their parents did to them be condemned for abuse?

42:31

Or should we look at the reasons and realize why it's happening and try to change their behavior in the first place? What is this one on the cross?

42:41

Cool. Could you restate it for me? Okay, so you said that we should not be looking at the sources for something to determine whether it should be legal or not.

42:50

And I'm saying, if a five -year -old punches another kid on the playground because that's what their parents did to him, we should.

42:55

I never said we shouldn't look at the sources. But I don't think that... You said that we should change the sources instead of making abuse illegal.

43:02

I don't think we should just attack underlying issues. I think that we should also make it illegal.

43:08

But I'm not against looking at the underlying issues. But making it illegal does not reduce the amount.

43:18

Are you talking about bullying? Should we make bullying illegal? No, I'm saying abuse, because that's what you chose to talk about.

43:24

Okay, so abuse. And what are we talking about? Child abuse? You said you used spousal abuse.

43:30

I'm using anybody being abused. Okay, right.

43:36

I agree. Okay, I'm glad. So you said that we should, instead of looking at the underlying causes, which is what

43:47

I'm saying we should do, we should be changing society instead of punishing women who are put in this position, that we should be looking at the underlying issues and trying to change them instead of punishing people for it.

44:00

What's your question? The question was, should we be punishing schoolhouse bullies for something that hurts the only thing that they know?

44:20

Yeah, certainly contraception, sure. I don't support any contraception that would take the life of an embryo.

44:28

But anything that keeps the fertilization from taking place online. So you don't support the pill, which is 98 %?

44:37

I don't support, well, I'll restate it again. I don't support any contraception that would take the life of the fetus, even in the early stages of embryology.

44:47

So it's a yes or no question. Do you support the pill? If you're referring to the typical one, the birth control pill.

44:54

Yeah, no, I don't support it. Okay. Even though the lowest rate of abortion is where there's widely available contraception?

45:02

I don't support the taking of innocent human life, no. Even though 98 % of women have it?

45:07

You can say 100%. I'm not going to support it officially. Sure, I didn't say 66%.

45:13

Thank you. You made a statement just a moment ago. You said that Godsmile was terrible.

45:18

This is an example. Why? Because he was performing late -term abortions in dirty medical facilities.

45:30

So which one do you oppose, the dirty medical facilities, the abortions in the third term, or the

45:36

Catholic police? I oppose the fact that people who are not anesthesiologists, in fact, 15 -year -olds, were trying to put women under further procedure and in fact, a woman died giving her anesthesia.

45:48

Okay, so we can narrow it down. What's your problem with Godsmile ultimately? That he was performing, he was doing things improperly because there wasn't proper regulation in place.

46:00

Which, who suffered for that? The women. So your problem with Godsmile is because there were women that were in unsanitary conditions?

46:09

Because of him and because Medicaid wasn't able to pay for proper abortions in proper facilities.

46:15

My problem is still with the system. If Medicaid had been able to pay for good abortions, they would have gone to better facilities and not ended up in that situation.

46:22

You just mentioned something a moment ago, though, in your, when I first asked you the question, you said he was performing third -term abortions.

46:30

Elective ones. Okay, well, what are your problems with that? Because they are viable at that point.

46:36

So you believe that a person can start the viability? In a way.

46:42

Okay. So if something, if someone is not viable then, you believe that they don't have the right to live?

46:47

Godsmile was performing abortions where after the baby was born, it was completely alive by itself, had no congenital birth defects that would have caused it to have died otherwise, and then he killed the babies by cutting their spine apart with scissors.

47:02

So after a child is separated from the mother and then you kill it, in your case, let's fast forward to the babies too, yes,

47:09

I'm opposed to that. Okay, so when does it become a human? The viability or when it's separated from the mother?

47:14

We can use your example of when it took its first breath. Those babies were screaming, they were breathing. Well, I'm asking you what you think, not what

47:21

I think. I'll go with that. Sure, when they take their first breath. Okay, I don't, that's not my position, by the way, but that's what you believe.

47:28

It is for the purpose of this. Okay, so do you have a stand on this at all?

47:34

No. But you're debating the topic. I'm debating the legality. Okay, so you think it should be legal for us to take the life of something that we're not sure whether it's a human or not.

47:47

In other words, we're not sure whether the unborn child is a human or not, but we should still be allowed to take its life.

47:55

Because otherwise the mother could die. So you're only in support of abortion in cases where the mother could die.

48:05

I am not in support of abortion at any point. I do not support abortion. I support the idea that women could go get one if they elected to do so.

48:13

I am never going to say, you should get an abortion. I do not pressure women to get abortions.

48:21

I've already told you I don't like abortion, but I think it should be legal. Because I think it should be legal because it should be legal because the pros outweigh the cons of saving women who already exist and helping the children whose mothers would otherwise die.

48:44

So it's only in situations where the mothers could die that you are in support of abortion. That's the only situation of being legal.

48:51

No, I think that women should still have the right to choose because they are fully human beings. Okay, so then women at any term in the pregnancy, whether it threatens their life or not, they should be allowed to choose the term they want their baby to have.

49:01

Until the fetus is viable. So viability, then, is when do you think that's it from the person? Sure, we'll go with viability.

49:07

Okay, so if a human is not viable, then we should be allowed to take its life. Sure, I'll go with it.

49:13

Okay, so if, again, we have a two -year -old and it depends on its mother, it's not viable in and of itself.

49:21

You could give it to a different mother. It's dependent is what I'm trying to get at. Are there any cases where two -year -olds have actually been survived?

49:29

Well, let's bring it up a notch. In the case of, I'm actually giving a specific example, I'm not going to mention it unless I need to, but let's say there's someone hooked up to some machines or even, you know,

49:39

I forget the name of it, what do you have to, what's it called when you have that disease, you have to go? Plastic symptoms? No, no, you have to go for your treatments.

49:47

Dialysis. Dialysis, thank you. Someone who is dependent on machines for their survival, do they have less of a right to life than someone who is not?

49:56

No. Because if we have brain waves and if that happens, then they're able to leave.

50:01

So it's when someone is able to think that they are viable or they are a human being.

50:07

That's part of it. So if someone's in a coma, then we should be able to kill them. That is a...

50:17

Oh, so... Um... As I already stated, I do not support abortion.

50:24

I support the women's right to choose because the fact that abortions are illegal, there is a line in my opening statement, abortion is illegal.

50:40

Which are... There are not sufficient resources in place, there is no proper sex education, you believe the pill is not a good thing, therefore more unwanted things occur, and more abortions occur.

50:55

You have not given me any sufficient advice on what to do with all these unwanted children, put them into the foster care system, or more dangerous.

51:06

So I'm going to conclude, I'm going to close with a story from a woman who had to undergo an illegal abortion after getting raped.

51:14

It does describe the rape fully, so if you may be sensitive to that, feel free to take it early in the revision, I will give you the article.

51:27

I was set to graduate college in a few months, March 1968. I awoke to a voice telling me, don't make a sound or I will kill you.

51:42

My screaming was instinctive, and I suppose I paid for that. I screamed and screamed, and the more I screamed, the more he hit me.

51:52

When I tasted blood in my mouth from his brutal fist, the realization dawned on me that this man didn't care how much he hurt me, and was willing, indeed, to kill me.

52:01

I felt the saddest I had ever felt in my short life, not that I was going to die, but that I was going to die without being with any of the people who loved me, or my titties, as he called them.

52:13

I had become so passive, he could have performed a lobotomy on me. I waited a long time after he left to start screaming again.

52:21

Finally, she called the police. I went into shock and was brought to the hospital. My neck was stitched up from the razor blade slice, which was way too scarily close to my jugular.

52:31

The hospital took their version of me.

52:46

They were sorry. I arranged an illegal abortion. The abortionist was an MD, and that felt safe to me.

52:52

I went to my regular gynecologist and informed him that I was having a baby. Three days later,

53:06

I was still feeling a great deal of pain, still bleeding, and I had a fever. And then I went a little mad.

53:12

I thought I broke the door of the apartment open and yelled out to my friend. He didn't answer. I imagined that the rapist had found me again and was coming back.

53:19

When my friend finally arrived home, I begged him not to take me to the mental hospital. I was ranting like a critic meets my gynecologist instead.

53:29

I had a raging infection. A piece had been left in my womb. My doctor formed a DNC. I was given blood transfusions and rather massive amounts of antibiotics.

53:37

I was in the hospital for two weeks. Some of my visitors were the police, again asking for the name of my abortionist.

53:43

The infection caused scar tissue in my fallopian tubes. I was unable to have children of my own. I adopted my beautiful baby.

53:52

There was a little more to that. Jump supports the pro -life stance even in cases of rape.

54:01

In cases of rape, only 3 % of men end up going to jail for their crimes.

54:08

And 54 % of rapes go completely unreported, which means they don't even have the opportunity to be tried for them.

54:13

It's completely unfair for women to have to face the consequences of somebody else's actions.

54:21

I don't want a single other woman to have to endure what I went through. One of so many, too many, of those days when abortion was illegal and women lost their lives and their fertility.

54:37

Let this not happen to our country again. Alright, well thank you everyone for coming out tonight and listening to everything

54:47

Danielle and I have to say. It's certainly been exciting and hopefully some of you out there have changed maybe the way that you thought about abortion before entering the room.

54:57

I certainly hope that's true. In my closing statement, I'm going to try to talk fast because I've got a lot to cover here in a very short period of time.

55:05

I'm actually going to start off by just responding very quickly to the rape and actually the incest really comes with that objection.

55:11

This is one objection that comes a lot after lifers and I don't want to be sensitive here.

55:17

I in no way think that we should give the rapists let them give scotch free.

55:24

In fact, I think they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law and we should try to actually make the system better so that we can actually prosecute them more.

55:32

But, that being said, it wouldn't follow that because a husband needs to rush his wife to the hospital he should just eliminate all traffic laws.

55:41

And in the case of rape and incest, which is really only 1 % of all abortions, we shouldn't make that the rule when it's just an exception.

55:51

Hardship does not justify homicide. And again, you put the 2 -year -old in the same situation, make it as bad as you want.

55:58

This mother has a 2 -year -old and it was conceived through rape and she can't afford it and every time she looks she has physical problems because she can't stand to look at it, she remembers her rapist.

56:09

Does she have the right to kill that 2 -year -old? No, she does not because it's a living whole human being. You shouldn't punish the child for the sins of the father.

56:18

I want to very quickly go over a couple of biblical references with you very, very quickly.

56:23

It's easy to tie a knot, sometimes in Boy Scouts, it's hard to sometimes take a knot out. So, I'm going to try my best to just explain a little bit of what's called biblical hermeneutics very quickly.

56:34

When interpreting scripture, you want to take it in common sense language. You want to go to the genre, so whether it's poetry or apocalyptic literature, whatever it may be, you want to interpret it according to that genre, for the people, according to who the audience was, and you want to look at the authorial intent.

56:49

What was the author intending to say? And Danielle quoted from Isaiah, she quoted a number from the Psalms, a number of passages to make her point, and she engaged in what's called eisegesis.

56:59

And eisegesis is basically having a preconceived notion, taking the text out of context, and then forcing into it what you think it should be saying.

57:08

And I don't have time to go through every example that she brought up tonight, but I would like to just read a couple things for you to consider.

57:15

Psalm 139, 13 through 15. You did it for my inward parts, you did me a debtor in my mother's womb, you knew me right well, my frame was not hidden from me when

57:23

I was being made in secret. Jeremiah 1, 4 through 5. Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying before I formed you in the womb,

57:29

I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. Luke chapter 1, 41 through 44.

57:35

I'm not going to actually read this whole one, but the story goes that there was a reaction in the womb of Elizabeth when actually the

57:45

Holy Spirit filled her child in the womb. And I could keep going, but there are a lot of passages that do suggest that the unborn child, in fact, is a living, full human being.

57:57

And I would like to say something real quick. The Bible doesn't say that Germans are people either, or that the English are people, but we know that they are.

58:03

And science is really what tells us what kind of thing we're dealing with. And I have not heard any meaningful response from Dandel on the science of this issue.

58:11

I have not heard any meaningful response of the philosophical argument that I put forward. SLED, size, level of development, environment, degree of dependency, those are the only differences between who you are now and who you were then.

58:24

I have not heard one meaningful response to that that would make us believe that the unborn are not human beings.

58:30

So at this point, I think I can probably just say that everyone go home. It's been a great evening.

58:35

The pro -life position, I think, has been vindicated and shown that it can withstand scrutiny, but that's not really the only reason that I came out here today.

58:44

And I want you, just for a moment, I know I don't have much time, but put yourself in the shoes of another woman.

58:50

Her name was Mary, and she had a decision to make 2 ,000 years ago. She was an unwanted mother in that society.

58:56

There's a huge stigma that comes with that. She could have died, and her husband wanted to put her away secretly because he cared for her life.

59:02

But an angel came to him and told him, Joseph, don't be afraid to take Mary. What is conceived in you is of the

59:08

Holy Spirit. And the child that she had was named Jesus. Some of you might have heard of him. And if you're snickering and you haven't,

59:16

I'd like to know what you did at Celebrate every December 25th, and what you're counting time by, because it's year 2013.

59:21

Go back to year zero. That's when Jesus was born. You can't escape it if you don't believe in him. You're counting time by him.

59:26

I'm sorry. But anyways, Jesus grew in wisdom and stature in favor of God until the age of 33, when he fulfilled his mission on this earth.

59:35

And then the most unjust thing to ever happen to anyone happened to him. More unjust than any abortion. He died a horrific death.

59:43

Not because of the crimes he had done. He was the most innocent and valuable thing to ever come upon this universe.

59:49

But because of the crimes that you did. And crimes that I did. You may be sitting here tonight. You may have had an abortion.

59:55

I'm sure there is someone in this room who has. And maybe even the feelings of guilt in the video that you viewed, and the arguments that are being put forward, may have caused you to think seriously about this issue.

01:00:05

But I want you to know something very important. God sees all sin as sin. He sees my hatred as murder.

01:00:11

Because he's so holy, he looks at the thoughts and intentions of your heart. And he has made a way for you to have peace.

01:00:16

To have everlasting joy. To get rid of that guilt. To be in a right relationship with him. And in order to have that, you need to humble yourself and come to him.

01:00:27

Admit that you're a sinner. Admit that you have broken his law. And I know you all know you have. You have a conscience.

01:00:33

You know the difference between right and wrong. And come flee to the Savior. Repent of your sin.

01:00:38

And trust in him. And we'd be happy, anyone who goes to the Truth Study, myself, I'll be here afterward, we'd be happy to explain that to you more.

01:00:44

You can come to our meetings on Thursday nights in SUB 402, or to our website, truthstudy .com,

01:00:51

C -H -R -T -H -S -T -D -Y .com, bell to bells. We'd be happy to introduce you to him.

01:00:56

Where you can find everlasting peace for any sin that you have committed. And that goes for the mother, who is maybe even not knowingly having an abortion, not knowing really what it was.

01:01:09

And one final remark I'd like to make is, I do support financially.

01:01:15

And many of the members in the Truth Study support with their time organizations that do help women who are going through hard economic times like this.

01:01:25

It's actually offensive to me, to be quite honest. The charge that was leveled, that says that I don't have a plan, or I haven't thought through the side effects of not having an abortion, having all these children.

01:01:38

We have thought through it. We are donating our time, we are donating our finances to combat this. And we do believe in adoption.

01:01:45

We do believe in love for all human beings, because you are equal, no matter what makes you different from another person.

01:01:51

So, I thank you for coming out tonight, and I hope you can have a lively discussion afterward, and God bless. So, first question.

01:02:02

If abortion should be legal because the resources do not exist to care for the fetus post -birth, should we kill foster children because we don't have the resources to care for them?

01:02:16

Okay, so some would say that the resources for people in foster care to exist, they are just simply very, very inadequate.

01:02:27

In most cases, although there are a lot of cases of abuse and neglect in the foster system, the basic needs of shelter and water and occasional human contact are being met in the foster care system.

01:02:42

So, no, we shouldn't be killing foster children because we do have the... I don't understand this question at all.

01:02:50

If abortion should be legal because the resources do not exist. Some consider it exists, it's just that it's extremely, extremely inadequate.

01:02:59

No, we shouldn't kill children. I'm sorry, I'm done answering. Yeah, go for it.

01:03:09

I think what the question... I think what the question is asking is if the reason that you're giving for abortions being legal is that there aren't enough resources to take care of these children, then by the same standard, if there was another group of people, say foster children, that existed and we didn't have the resources to take care of them, what's to stop us from taking their lives as well to get rid of the problem?

01:03:40

Do you want me to answer that now that you've interpreted it? Yeah, I'm trying to just help you understand. Thank you. Do you agree to give it another more time to answer?

01:03:47

It can come up with whatever time I already do. Okay. So, again, it's not that the resources don't exist because there are foster families that exist.

01:03:58

It's just that if you have a certain amount of money in a family and you have three foster children of three in one year, it's not going to increase the quality of life for the total of now six to eight people in the family.

01:04:15

Resources are already being extremely stretched thin in the foster system, and therefore adding more children to it is not a solution in any way.

01:04:24

It's just going to make the problem even worse because resources get depleted, and that's money and food and space, time that the parents have to spend with the children, time that the parents have to help children with their homework, et cetera, et cetera.

01:04:45

So, 30 seconds, maybe? No, you get two minutes. Oh, okay. It's more than 30. I think...

01:04:53

I'll ask the question again and interpret it. I think what the questioner is asking is if the justification for taking the life of a human being is we don't have the resources to care for them, then should we then be allowed to take the lives of any human beings for which we do not have resources?

01:05:12

So, you had given an argument in one of your rebuttals that basically said that we don't have enough resources to take care of these human beings that would be produced if we didn't have abortion.

01:05:25

So, it's a fair question, really. If we don't have resources to take care of foster children, should we just kill them?

01:05:32

And you could take it as a hypothetical or a real situation. It doesn't really matter. Because the fact is, in other countries, there are situations where there are a lot of orphans that aren't being cared for.

01:05:41

Does that give us the right to just kill them because we don't have the resources to take care of them? And the obvious answer to that question is absolutely not.

01:05:48

But it doesn't give us that right. And it gets us back on track to the real question, which is what is the unborn?

01:05:54

It's a human being. It has the same rights that a woman's and I should have. John Mears.

01:06:00

If your mother was pregnant and would die, if she didn't have an abortion, do you still think she shouldn't have an abortion?

01:06:08

If your mother... Can you read it one more time? I'm sorry. If your mother was pregnant and would die, if she didn't have an abortion, would you still think she shouldn't have an abortion?

01:06:19

Okay. So, I guess it would be hypothetical that my mother... Obviously, I'm here, so my mother didn't. But if I was in a less developed state and my mother was going to die, so this would be something like an atopic pregnancy, in which case, by the way, both the mother and the child die because her hemorrhaging from the day she was lodged in the fallopian tube, then the greatest moral good we can do is try to save the life of one of them.

01:06:44

A mother's life is just as valuable as the life of a child with human lives that are fully and equal to each other.

01:06:50

So, in that case, where you can't save either one, then you try to do the best moral thing you possibly can.

01:06:56

You save the life that you can save. And if, in the process of doing that, the child dies, then that is a consequence of it.

01:07:05

But it does not follow that we should basically slit the child's throat on the way out just because we can't.

01:07:11

The motivation in this is to save the life of the mother. So, I believe we should try to do the best moral good we possibly can in every situation where there's a pregnancy.

01:07:20

And if the life of the mother is threatened, then that is taken into account. I don't have an absolute position on abortion.

01:07:25

I believe all human life is equally valid. I agree. Except for your last line, which was that you think that all people are equal, because I disagree that you understand the word equal in the whole sense of the term.

01:07:44

But other than that, everything else you said, I completely agree. We should try to save as many lives as possible when there is a complete and total rebuttal to that.

01:08:00

Your next question. If you believe that a woman has the right to do what she wants with her body, where are the woman's rights when they're in the womb?

01:08:12

This is talking about female fetuses? Yes. Okay. Yes, 50 % of fetuses are equal.

01:08:25

Again, I don't believe that just women have the right to their own bodies. I think that all people have the right to their own bodies, except fetuses are not people, so it goes back to the question.

01:08:37

That's not actually the question. Fetuses are not people yet until they are either viable or independent or, in the case of the mom, so as such, no, a size of cell, a group of cells the size of a blueberry do not get complete rights.

01:09:04

Sorry, they can't make decisions yet. They can't force those rights.

01:09:15

Yeah, no, they... A woman forfeits its rights until it's decided that it's actually a woman, and gender isn't decided until, you know, a good way into the pregnancy.

01:09:32

Asexual, and some zygotes never actually fully develop on the set of sex organs that we know. I actually,

01:09:40

I find it very interesting because we've gone around in circles on this, it seems like all evening, I heard

01:09:45

Danielle just say that something that is small in size, I wouldn't, you can actually,

01:09:51

I don't want to misquote you about how small it is, but size of a blueberry, that possibly, that does not have a right to life as much as a fully grown human being, or someone that can't produce thought does not have as much right to life as a human being, and that puts us right back in the circle.

01:10:09

So, we don't have, you can say, the slippery slope of the SLED acronym again, because if we're going to go with size, then people who are smaller than I am, let's say

01:10:19

I would have a right to say that they have less work. If we're going to go with thought, then I'm less valuable when

01:10:25

I'm dreaming. I'm less valuable if I'm in a coma. Why can't you just take my life in that state? In fact,

01:10:30

I'd like to, there's a number of people in this room right now who have caffeinated beverages, and you are wide awake and you're watching, both of us right now, and you're generating, you know exactly what's being said.

01:10:41

There's other people in this room who had caffeine earlier in the day, and you're on the back side of it right now, and you're falling asleep, and I can see when you are too.

01:10:52

You don't have less of a right to life because your thought isn't as cognitive right now, and if we're going to go with what

01:10:57

Daniel's saying, you have to believe that all humans are not at the factory to be able to do it, is something that makes us more or less valuable, and I don't think it's either of those two attributes.

01:11:09

Does the difference between viability as a scientific term regarding fetuses and dependence in regards to socioeconomic factors make any difference?

01:11:21

That is, if you cannot survive, no matter how we intervene, what differentiates the unviable fetus from a pile of cells?

01:11:30

The answer to the first question is I don't really think there is a difference between viability and dependency for all practical purposes, and that's really as simple as my answer gets.

01:11:41

I think you brought up something along the lines that dependency and viability are similar things because in two -year -olds, there is a viability comparison from the fetus.

01:12:02

So I'm understanding the second thing is that if that baby cannot survive, no matter how we intervene, maybe you could use the example of dialysis or something, what differentiates it from a pile of cells?

01:12:19

I don't know why I'm not confident. Maybe it's just the way it's phrased. I would actually like to use maybe a better example of the co -joined twins.

01:12:29

The twins that grow up, and there have been a number of them in the world that depend on each other's cardiovascular system or their immune system or whatever it may be, and if you separate them, one of them is going to die.

01:12:44

They are not viable, I should say, and I don't think you have the right to take one of their lives.

01:12:50

So if you want to try to create a difference between dependency and viability, then I'll just go to the co -joined twins analogy and say that in that case, we don't have the right to take their life either, but I don't want to see the difference between dependency and viability.

01:13:06

I would like to point out that in many cases, co -joined twins actually are or do receive separation surgery.

01:13:46

So maybe we can just do that. Yeah, that's a nice question. So, next question for you.

01:13:56

How should someone be charged if they kill a pregnant woman? That's probably not my question.

01:14:05

I believe it is. So, how should someone be charged if they kill a pregnant woman? That's probably not my question.

01:14:12

There's one on the floor. This is your question.

01:14:21

How should someone be charged if they kill a pregnant woman? With murder, because they killed a person.

01:14:33

I don't know why this is supposed to be their question. Maybe should they be charged with two different kinds of murder?

01:14:39

No. It goes back to, okay, so if they're pregnant, maybe they should try to save as many lives as possible.

01:14:52

Yeah. Yeah. They should be charged with murder. Yeah. They should be charged with murder.

01:15:03

That's my question. They should be charged with murder.

01:15:11

It takes them a while to believe that there should be harsh penalties for that. Maybe your understanding of the question is, if there isn't a question of now, there's two.

01:15:38

So, apparently, someone usually questions this. If someone murders a woman she's carrying, would it be different than a woman who was pregnant?

01:15:48

Yeah, I think it should be charged with murder. But should they be charged with two kinds of murder or one kind of murder?

01:15:53

I think that's what the question is going to be. Okay, that's what the question is going to be. Is it one kind of murder or two kinds of murder? Yeah, two.

01:15:59

Okay, there you go. In fact, they are, actually. That is how our law is inherited.

01:16:05

Scott Peterson, California. Would a person be compelled to donate bone marrow to save a life? If they don't donate, is it murder?

01:16:14

Yeah. So if you can't compel a person to save a life, I take it in this case, right?

01:16:21

Can you compel a woman to carry a term? Yeah, I think there's a big difference between donating bone marrow to someone voluntarily or taking the life of a missing human being.

01:16:33

Really, the difference is this. It's one thing to allow something to which you have absolutely no responsibility to die on its own.

01:16:41

It's quite another to basically slit its throat on the way out.

01:16:46

So taking an outward action to purposely take the life of a living human being. Those are two completely separate things.

01:16:53

One is the withholding of resources that you have available to a human being you are not responsible for.

01:17:00

The other one is a human being that you are responsible for, and you are actually taking a proactive step of killing that human being.

01:17:06

Two completely different things. Okay. So no,

01:17:11

I don't think that deciding not to donate your tissues in any capacity is murderous, even though I completely support organization.

01:17:22

I think everyone should do that if they have the capacity to do so. And therefore, if you can't compel a person to save a life, can you compel a woman to carry a term?

01:17:33

No, because giving...

01:17:44

I agree. Yeah. I'm sorry. Again, we're finding a lot in common here.

01:17:51

If you can't compel a person to save a life, can you compel a woman to carry a term? No. And in fact, there are laws now saying that the police department isn't required to...

01:18:04

Sorry, I didn't know I said thank you. The police departments aren't required to actually help people.

01:18:10

They just have to go along with the laws. So even if the law is the way they stand, even about people who aren't supposed to protect and serve, they are compelled to help people.

01:18:19

So there are... No, you can't compel a woman to carry a term. She is under no obligation to do so, especially if it wasn't her choice to get pregnant and leave.

01:18:32

Okay, so... We're still not agreeing that I don't think that it would be too late if she didn't have the option of getting pregnant in the first place.

01:19:00

Having... Deciding not to get pregnant takes a lot of resources. For example, if I didn't have sex...

01:19:09

Or have sex while in education, jobs where I could take a day off from work, et cetera, et cetera.

01:19:18

30 % of the U .S. still... In this day and age, there are still a lot of resources to prevent pregnancies from happening, and we can't...

01:19:36

However, we have to look at the contributing factors of why that woman ended up in that circumstance, especially in cases of rape.

01:19:51

Yes, I... Thank you.

01:20:08

I don't mean to sound like a... A drone that just keeps going off, but I really think the main issue of this debate has not really been addressed.

01:20:17

By Danielle, by the way, I think Danielle's done a fabulous job tonight expressing her... I think you've done a great job expressing your position, and it's been a graceful exchange of ideas tonight, so thank you very much for your candles again.

01:20:31

But I don't think this question of... And I keep trying to hammer it, because I keep saying that is the question of the debate.

01:20:40

Is it a person? If it is a person, if it does have the rights that are incumbent on people, then it also has the rights of life.

01:20:49

And in fact, that even goes to the foundation of our very country. We as Americans like to talk about equality a lot.

01:20:55

That's why I had to move around the room and look at the differences between us. And we still know that we have equality, that we are endowed by our creators with certain unalienable rights, and that governments are put in place to protect those rights.

01:21:06

That is the foundation of this system of government. And that's why the topic of the debate tonight is abortion, should abortion be illegal, is very relevant to the question of what is the unborn, because if the unborn is a life, then the inalienable rights go to that person, and governments are put in place to protect that life.

01:21:27

That's not, you know, as the other side says a lot of the time, you're mixing politics with religion.

01:21:35

No, I'm not. I'm actually just going towards and trying to let you know what the foundation of our country was.

01:21:43

It was a Christian ethics country, and it still should be. We don't have an ethics.

01:21:49

We threw all the rules out the window, and that's what you're hearing tonight. We have a situation now where we can just legalize a whole group of people out of existence.

01:21:59

And this is my convenience for those who would like to take advantage of certain people groups. I think the Nazis did a great job with getting rid of certain classical people, especially

01:22:07

Jewish people, that they didn't care for because of certain outward traits. But those traits are not linked to a person.

01:22:13

You are not the sum of your parts. You have a human nature, and it comes from being made in the image of God. We all operate that way.

01:22:20

We all know that innately. And that's why the Christian, or the Truth Study and I wanted to do this topic so badly is because we do have a vested interest in this.

01:22:31

We do believe that all life is valuable because we are made in the image of our creator. And so we hear a rational response from those who advocate for abortion being legal in a response towards the science of embryology and a response toward the philosophy of what the difference is between who you are now and who you were then.

01:22:53

And I don't think we should take the claim seriously that there is a right to abortion. And especially in the case of if you don't know it's a child, then why would you want to make a decision to kill something if you don't really know that it's a human being?

01:23:05

Anything, you would want to be on the side of safety in that situation. And so that's the position that I hold.

01:23:12

That's the position where I'm important, and I think that position has been vindicated. And I hope that everyone here has been able to think more deeply about the subject, and I hope you will even go and maybe be motivated to get involved with a support group that you can help women who are in tough situations or adopt a child.

01:23:29

And especially, build your conscience on these issues. Actually, go to the formal places and vote for people that will support the right to life.