Pints With Aquinas - BONUS: Abortion Debate - Stephanie Gray Connors Vs Abortionist, Dr. Malcom Potts

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

Catholic pro-life advocate Stephanie Gray Connors debates abortionist Dr. Malcom Potts on whether abortion can ever be justified.   Largest Catholic Apologetics conference ever!: https://www.virtualcatholicconference.com/PWA2020 Like what we're doing at PWA? Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd

Thank you. so Thank you. G'day, g'day, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. My name is Matt Fradd, and I'm really excited about the debate we have for you today. The debate will be between Dr. Malcolm Potts and Stephanie Gray Connors, and the topic will be abortion is wrong, abortion is immoral. Stephanie will be, of course, arguing the affirmative, and Dr. Potts the negative. Really good to have you with us. Before we do anything else, do me a favor and click subscribe and just destroy that like button for me. And one of the ways you can help this channel too is by sharing this video right now on social media.

Let's see how many people we can get to watch this fascinating discussion. I want to let you know that we are going to be having opening statements, rebuttals, there will be a cross-examination period, and then we'll be taking questions from our Super Chat supporters as well as our patrons, so stick around for that. Before I introduce you to our debaters though, I have to tell you, I don't have to but I'm going to, about this upcoming Pints with Aquinas virtual Catholic conference we've got going on. This is really exciting stuff. We have over 50 presenters, and it's this weekend, October 23rd through 25th, and it's 100% free. So there is a link in the description below. Click it, register right now, because after that weekend is over, you won't be able to get those videos unless you become a premium subscriber.

But you can watch all of these talks for free. We've got people like Dr. Scott Hahn, Dr. Ed Fazer, Stephanie Gray, who you'll get to hear today, Steve Ray, Jimmy Akin, Father Gregory Pine, and many others. This is going to be a fantastic weekend. We're looking at having around 30,000 people who have already joined and who will be watching from all over the world. So no matter where you are, you can join this conference again this weekend,

October 23rd through 25th, and it's 100% free. So go and register today so you don't miss out. There is a link in the description below. So be sure to click that. All right. Let me welcome up my two debaters, Dr. Malcolm Potts and Stephanie Gray-Connors. Lovely to have you.

I thought I could, even though I have your bios in the description, I'll ask each of you maybe to take a minute to introduce yourself. Malcolm, would you like to begin? Yes. ask each of you maybe to take a minute to introduce yourself. Malcolm, would you like to begin? Yes, I'm a Cambridge University trained physician and obstetrician, and I practiced medicine in London when abortion was illegal, so I saw a lot of suffering. I have now done abortions myself. I am unusual in that I also spent several years as an embryologist doing research on electron microscopy. In fact, I was the first person in the world ever to look at the egg attaching to the uterine wall with an electron microscope. So I know what it is that I've been destroying.

Thank you, Dr. Potts. Stephanie? My name is Stephanie Gray-Connors, and I am a pro-life speaker and author. I've spent the last two decades traveling the world, speaking to people on all matters related to life, primarily abortion, as is the topic of tonight's debate, but also engaging in other bioethical-related issues like assisted suicide and euthanasia. like assisted suicide and euthanasia. I am a Canadian, and I went to the University of British Columbia where I did a degree in political science, as well as received a certification with distinction in healthcare ethics from the National Catholic Bioethics Centre in Pennsylvania. Very lovely.

And for those of our patrons watching, we'll be doing a post-show wrap-up with Stephanie Gray after this debate is done. So please be sure to head over to Patreon once this debate is over and we'll chat with her. Okay, so let's get started. Again, the contention is abortion is wrong. That's what we'll be debating tonight. Stephanie, would you like to begin? You have 15 minutes if you're ready.

And whenever you start, I'll click the timer and I'll let you know when you have one minute left. Okay. Abortion is wrong. That is the position that I will be arguing tonight and I will be up front. It is a difficult position to argue. Now, it is not a difficult position to argue because there aren't adequate arguments, that there isn't adequate information to substantiate claims that I will make. It's a difficult position to argue, not because of the absence of good argument, but because of the presence of profound emotion. There are more than 70 million abortions that occur every year throughout the world.

As a Canadian, if I think of the population of Canada, it's just around 35 million. That is like wiping out two times the population of Canada year after year after year. So the reality is all of us in some way are affected by abortion. It's very possible that some of us have had abortions. Malcolm himself has described in the introduction that he's done abortions. It's very possible that people have driven a friend to an abortion clinic or they have been silent about someone's abortion that was to occur. And so because often we have made a decision that in a sense implicates ourselves, involves us with abortion, when I make the declaration abortion is wrong,

it can cause some people to immediately respond by thinking, oh, you're telling me I'm wrong. And then the back goes up and the emotions get high because it feels like we're being targeted in our person. And so I wanted to begin by just addressing that point, because I think we need to ask ourselves this question. Are any of us perfect? The answer is obviously no. Have we all committed mistakes? The answer is obviously yes. And when we have committed mistakes, don't we like to learn from them? Don't we like to improve upon our past so the future is better than where we've come from? Think for a moment about texting and driving. Perhaps all of us at some point have been guilty of that. I'd like to think we all should at least admit, though, texting and driving is a bad idea.

It is wrong. Now, imagine you have a friend who you love dearly and that friend decides to text and drive and as a result of that she kills an innocent bystander through her car accident. Would you hate your friend? I don't think so. But would you hate texting and driving? I think so. Would you say texting and driving is wrong? Absolutely. But you wouldn't separate yourself from your friend. In all likelihood, you would feel more profound compassion and empathy for your friend because you now know your friend has to live the rest of her life with the deep, heavy weight of the realization that she made a choice that devastated someone else's life. And so the same is true then with this issue of abortion.

In my declaration that abortion is wrong, it's not speaking to the person who has been involved with abortion, but making an examination of the action of abortion itself. So abortion is wrong is what I'm gonna be defending tonight. But before I do that, let's first examine why someone would say abortion is right. In my experience, what crosses someone's mind who would make that claim is the terrible circumstances a pregnant

woman might find herself in. The consideration that someone is pregnant from rape. She didn't consent to the sexual act. Now she's pregnant with a rapist child. Or what about someone who's incredibly poor? What about someone who has no support network? What about someone who's incredibly poor? What about someone who has no support network? What about someone who's really young? I, as a pro-lifer, can agree with abortion supporters that those are very difficult circumstances to be in. And because those circumstances are so difficult, that is why some people will say abortion is right. We need it for these crises. Let's consider for a moment, though, if we have someone who's pregnant and everything is good, and it's only after their

child is born where they hit some difficult times, such as right now during COVID-19 with the shutdown. Perhaps you have someone with a five-year-old child who had no savings and who's out of work and is suddenly really poor and not capable of adequately caring for their child? Would we ever allow them to kill their child because of their poverty? Obviously not. Would we ever allow someone to kill their 10-year-old child because they don't have a good support network anymore? Of course not. Would we ever allow someone to end the life of a born child because the father of the child committed a horrible crime and the child is somehow a visual reminder? Again, we wouldn't end the life

of a born child for the difficult circumstances of those around them. So here's my question. Why then would we end the life of a pre-born child for the difficult circumstances of their mother and those around them. Now, someone might respond by saying there's a huge difference. The fetus and the embryo aren't human beings like born children are, which really then is the issue in determining whether abortion is wrong. We need to consider whether with the pre-born we're dealing with human beings. And so I want to move to that now in order to

substantiate my claim that abortion is wrong. To begin this part, what I'd like to do is ask us to consider in our own hearts if we're people who believe in human rights. I certainly believe in human rights. I'd like us to then consider, well, who would get human rights? And the obvious answer is humans get human rights. Because if women get women's rights and children get children's rights, what matters when it comes to human rights and who gets them is that the individual fits into the category of human. So then the next question we want to ask ourselves is this, when do human beings begin their lives? Because if we believe in human rights, and if

we acknowledge humans get those rights, then the moment humans begin, the moment humans begin, is the moment that we have the right to life. So when do human beings begin their lives? Well, to answer that question, I point people to an excellent paper called When Does Human Life Begin by scientist and professor, Dr. Maureen Kondik. And in this paper, she talks about life beginning at fertilization and in particular at the beginning of the process of fertilization. Because fertilization takes about 24 hours. But she makes an excellent scientific case for life beginning at the start of that 24-hour period by focusing in particular on two things.

She says when scientists want to distinguish whether one cell is different from another cell, they look at two criteria, cell composition and cell behavior. In other words, what is it made up of and what does it do? If you look at the sperm cell, its composition is the genetic material of the father, different than from the egg cell because its composition is the genetic material of the father different than from the egg cell because its composition is the genetic material of the mother you look at the behavior of a sperm it's to swim around find an egg and penetrate it you look at the behavior of an egg very different from a sperm it sits and allows for penetration so we can see the sperm and the egg are different by looking at composition and behavior.

Well, let's also now consider the one cell embryo or zygote in contrast to the sperm and the egg cell. If we look at cell composition and behavior, we can see how the zygote at fertilization is substantively different from the sperm and the egg. The composition of the zygote is the genetic material of the mother and the egg. The composition of the zygote is the genetic material of the mother and the father. Even before the chromosomes have intermingled, nonetheless at the moment of sperm egg fusion, that one cell embryo contains the genetic material from both parents, making it substantively different

from the sperm and the egg based on composition. Now let's look at cell behavior. If you look at the very nature of the one-celled zygote, if another sperm comes along as the first sperm came to the egg and a sperm tries to penetrate the one-cell embryo the way a sperm tried to penetrate the egg, the embryo behaves differently from the other two cells. It creates this zone or wall around it that prevents penetration. So by behavior and by composition, we know at fertilization we're dealing with something new. The genetic material that each of us has, our own blueprint, that distinguishes us from our mother, our father, and every single human being unless we have identical twins, that is determined at the moment of sperm egg fusion. And from that

point forward, we change what we look like and what we're able to do. But our essential nature remains the same. We're human at that moment because our parents are human and beings reproduce after their own kind. We're alive at that moment because the one-celled embryo is growing from one to two to four to eight, sixteen and so forth, and the growth there is indicative of life. The human parents is indicative of being human, and the fact that we're genetically distinct at that moment separating us from our parents makes us the next generation. Which brings me to my next point. I think a question we need to ask ourselves in exploring the question of whether abortion is wrong

is when does parenthood begin? So we know life begins at fertilization, which then gives us our answer for when parenthood begins. I turned 40 a few months ago, and for 40 years of my life, I was a mother to be. And that means I was never in my life pregnant before. I was not a mother. I was a mother to be. But three and a half weeks ago, my very essence, my very identity changed. I am no longer a mother to be. I am now a mother. Why? Because there was a child growing in my womb who began his or her life three and a half weeks ago at the moment of fertilization. So that brings me then to the next question we need to ask. What do civil societies expect of parents? And the answer is civil societies expect parents to help their children, not harm their children. That's why if you Google parents starve, torture,

kill offspring, you get horrifying headlines around the world of terrible child abuse cases that I know Malcolm and I both would agree are horrifying. Because there's this consensus that parents ought not abuse their children, but instead they should provide food, clothing, shelter, and love. The basic things we need to live. And if that's what civil societies expect of parents, and since parenthood begins at fertilization, then the obligation to provide food, clothing, shelter, and love begins at the moment of fertilization when there's offspring and one therefore becomes a parent. You know, the United Nations really reinforces this point. They have a declaration on the rights of the child. And in that document, they say the child, by rights of his physical and

mental immaturities, has rights to special safeguards and care before as well as after birth." So they're acknowledging the vulnerability and immaturity of the child is what necessitates extra care and special attention. The United Nations has also adopted a document called the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And in this document, it says in countries where the death penalty is legal, it may never be done on a pregnant woman. Now, I find that fascinating because I ask myself, setting aside the ethics of the debate about capital punishment, and perhaps Matt will do a future show on that topic. But setting aside whether it's right or wrong to kill guilty people, both people on that side of the on either

side of that debate agree on something. And what they agree on is that it's always wrong to kill innocent people. So we debate about capital punishment for the guilty, but we all agree we should never give capital punishment to the innocent. So if you have a woman, if you have two women, rather, in the same country who've committed the same crime, that according to that country is deserving of the death penalty, but only one of the two women will get the death penalty because the one who gets it is not pregnant, and the one who doesn't get it is, then that's an admission that although there are two guilty women, that in the body of one of those guilty women is an innocent child. And if giving her the death penalty would kill the innocent child, then it ought not be done. So here's my

question. If it's wrong to kill the pre-born child by the death penalty, isn't it also wrong to kill the pre-born child by abortion? I guess the last point I'd like to address in my last couple minutes is that point I just made there, which is abortion as killing. You know, the vast majority of abortions, I'll admit, happen in the first three months of pregnancy and the common surgical procedure at that point would be a vacuum aspiration or D&C abortion and that procedure involves a suction tube being inserted into the uterus that causes the baby to be pulled apart the tiny pre-born child whose heart was beating at three weeks my own child's heart has just started beating.

The tiny pre-born child whose brain waves were detected at six weeks, the suction tube pulls that baby's body parts apart piece by piece. The child is decapitated, dismembered, and disemboweled. If we look at later abortions, you have a D&E abortion, dilation and evacuation. And in that case, forceps are inserted and clamped down on whatever the abortionist feels. And then he pulls out whatever comes, perhaps an arm. And then he puts the forceps in again and clamps down, pulls out. Maybe there's a leg. And this keeps happening until all the parts are removed. And if we're talking about parts, if we're talking about arms and legs,

we're clearly talking about a human being. So I've been asked to defend the position abortion is wrong. Clearly, the act of abortion dismembers the body of what we know to be a living being because that being is growing to what we know to be a living being because that being is growing to what we know to be a human being because the parents are human and who is offspring of parents and since parents have a special responsibility to care for their children an abortion ought to be rejected and is wrong because it involves killing one's child. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Stephanie. And congratulations on becoming a mother. I didn't know that. That's

really fantastic. Malcolm, it's lovely to have you again. Thank you for agreeing to participate in this debate. Whenever you begin, I'll click the timer for 15 minutes. Okay. So my ethic is to wish to live in a world with the least suffering. I have done abortions because I've seen how much suffering is associated with unsafe abortions. And when I practiced obstetrics in London in the 1960s, abortion was illegal. learned that no law threat, even the threat of death, pain, and exploitation will prevent a woman who's going to have an abortion from having that abortion. It's often associated with a great deal of risk and exploitation. I did a study of women having abortions in Ethiopia. It's illegal. Many of the abortionists were men, and many of them insisted on having sex with a pregnant

woman as part of the payment for that procedure. That I think I just find viscerally, horribly disturbing. So whether abortion is illegal, it makes no difference to the number of embryos that are destroyed. It does make a difference to the number of women who are killed trying to end that pregnancy. In Africa, where I work a lot, there are 6 million abortions and 26,000 women die each year from unsafe abortions. There were 26,000 students at Berkeley campus. And when I walk across it, I turn the men into women and say, every year, this number of human

beings die from unsafe abortion in Africa. And I could prevent 95% of those deaths tomorrow if I was allowed to use manual vacuum aspiration, which I was partly involved in inventing. So that's one. But as a basic researcher, I find the term pre-born child unnecessarily emotional. I am interested in cell behavior. cell behavior. When I was studying embryos on the first sort of 100 hours after fertilization, we would sometimes take the egg and put it somewhere else in the body. The egg is like cancer. It's not a little fragile thing in a delicate uterus to be looked after. The uterus

actually is one of the few organs in the body that can resist metastasis of cancers, except at the time of ovulation. This is not a joke, but it's revealing. A fertilized egg grows more rapidly in the testis than in any other organ we can find. It destroys the testis. It grows so rapidly. It is a very aggressive, cancerous-like object. And early reproduction is associated with an enormous number of abnormalities. This is not a beautiful DNA blueprint that produces a beautiful hiccup in baby nine months later. A beautiful hiccuping baby nine months later. And abortion is a necessary, safe, healing process. Abortion is a healing process.

Because if spontaneous abortions did not happen, then if I may, Stephanie, I'm delighted you are pregnant and I wish you every happiness. It's the most wonderful experience you can have. It is possible, we're talking intellectually, that your embryo might be abnormal. If it is, it's highly likely that the uterus will expel it as a spontaneous abortion because abortion is a way in which nature, Darwinian evolution deals with abnormalities a common abnormality is to have three chromosomes identical chromosomes instead of two so down syndrome you have three copies of chromosome 17 it gives you this mass most down syndrome are spontaneously aborted. One or two are not. If a woman asks me to do what nature has failed to do and she wishes it, I will, with great comfort,

abort Down's syndrome when it's been diagnosed in a pregnant woman if she wants it. So I see abortion as a necessary healing process and the whole of human reproduction would be totally different. The earlier you are in pregnancy, the more likely it is that the embryo will be abnormal.

And a lot of women get pregnant without knowing it and actually lose the abnormal embryo. And their period might be a couple of days late, they don't know even they've been pregnant because that is when nature's screening mechanism is working most effectively. But it does also work later in pregnancy. So as a doctor, if somebody has pneumonia and their immune system is not keeping up with it, I will prescribe an antibiotic. If they have an abnormal baby and they wish to have an abortion, I will give them a medical

abortion. To me, it is the same basic ethic that all, I think, physicians have. I think physicians have. So I think it's important that we don't think of, so first of all, making abortions illegal has no impact on the number taking place. Secondly, human reproduction is inaccurate. Mistakes are very, very numerous. Nature is excessive, it's extreme, it's extravagant. I'm making 1,500 genetically unique sperm, and so are you, Matthew, as we talk to each other.

A woman has half a million genetically unique eggs when she's still in her mother's uterus. And so human reproduction is about inaccuracy, it's about mistakes, and abortion is part of the healing process. So I see abortion as a natural, necessary healing process. And sometimes it is my privilege as a doctor to do what nature may have failed to do, like the person who's dying from pneumonia. The current ethical interest in abortion is relatively recent. The only verse in the Bible is Exodus 21-22 that says,

if men are fighting and injure a pregnant woman so she miscarries, they shall pay a fine. That would be an involuntary abortion. It certainly is something none of us would agree with. But there is not a single word or suggestion or anything about the embryo or fetus in the Bible. We just have to start from our own ethics, as indeed Stephanie has done very eloquently. All of us that do abortions have an upper limit to when we do them. I would be very uncomfortable doing abortion after the first 12 weeks. But when I was faced with 12-year-old women who were pregnant following rape in 1972 in the abortion, in the Bangladesh War of Liberation, I did abortions later than 12 weeks.

It was painful for me, for the girl who was 12 years old and was pregnant. It would have been even more painful to continue. We both have to look at our ethics very carefully. So abortion is difficult. It is emotion. I think we should use careful terms. I like the term cell behavior because that is what is my framework for looking at an early abortion and seeing it as nature's healing process. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dr. Potts. Okay. And so now we're going to move into our rebuttal period. Stephanie, you have seven minutes. Start whenever you like. Okay. So to begin, I think how Malcolm started reinforces why I started the way I did, which is my position is difficult to argue, not because of a lack of evidence, but because the presence of emotion. Malcolm and I have debated on several occasions. We've met each other for coffee on several occasions. And I am very aware that he

has seen profound suffering for decades all around the world. I don't doubt that he saw the brutal reality of women who came to emergency rooms as a result of illegal botched abortions. I don't doubt he has seen terrible, brutal suffering in Africa and other parts of the world where women and children have been raped and so forth. I agree that those things exist, that they are terrible realities. And really, there aren't words to adequately address that type of suffering. What I'm asking is this. Is homicide ever an ethical solution to what we all can agree are terrible problems, are brutal realities. Malcolm said he wants the least amount of suffering. I agree. I don't want suffering either. What we're debating over is the solution to the suffering. And what comes to my mind is the insights of Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, Dr. Viktor Frankl, who in his book, Man's Search for Meaning, talked about the profound suffering he and his fellow concentration camp victims were living through under the terrible oppression of the Nazis.

And he noticed that some people in the face of the suffering sought to kill, not others, but themselves. They would run into the electric barbed wire fence and try to commit suicide, often succeeding. And Dr. Frankel said that he decided early on he would never do that, that he would never do that, that he would never let killing be the solution to the profound suffering he and his fellow inmates were facing. And instead, he came up with this mathematical equation, D equals S minus M. What he meant by that is despair is suffering without meaning. And Dr. Frankl worked tirelessly to try to eliminate suffering. But he came to the realization that if you are human and if you are alive, you will face suffering. Granted, some suffering is worse than others.

Some forms are more brutal than others. But his point was simply that we ought not despair. And rather than end people's lives, we need to help them find meaning in the situation that they're in. lives, we need to help them find meaning in the situation that they're in. I think, for example, of my friend Leanna Rebelito, who was raped at the age of 12, like some of the victims Malcolm himself saw. And Leanna was offered an abortion in Mexico City. And she asked the doctor if the abortion would take away all her nightmares, if it would take away the feeling she was experiencing that no matter how many times she showered, she couldn't get clean. And the doctor had to answer her that technically an abortion wouldn't take all that away. And Leanna said in an interview that I just didn't see the point. She said all I knew was

there was a life inside of me that the life needed me and I needed her. And she decided to carry through with that pregnancy and parented her daughter who became her best friend and the only child she's ever had. Leanna is now in her early 40s and that may be the only child that she ever has. And Leanna talked about how she was suicidal because of the rape. And she talked about how the only reason she didn't kill herself was because she was pregnant. And she knew that if she ended her life, it would end the baby's life. And as much as she didn't wanna live, she wanted her baby to live. And so she told me her story.

She said, Stephanie, I saved my daughter's life, but she saved mine. So Leanna's suffering wasn't eliminated, but she didn't despair. She didn't end her life. She didn't end her daughter's. She found meaning and credits her daughter for saving her life. Malcolm talks about women dying from illegal abortions in some parts of the world

such as Africa and what I'd like to point out is that the problem with maternal deaths for the most part around the world is not about access to abortion, it's just about access to good medical care overall. And let me give you some examples. If you take my home country of Canada, abortion didn't become legal until 1969. But from 1920 through the 1970s, maternal mortality in Canada was on a clear decline. It was decreasing. Now, if it's true that where abortion is illegal, we see maternal mortality go up, then 1920, 30, 40, 50, 60, all these years, maternal deaths in Canada should have been increasing because abortion was illegal.

But instead, maternal deaths were decreasing. Why? Because in Canada, they had improving medical care overall. So if we really care about women, it's not about giving them access to abortion. It's about giving them access to clean water. It's about ensuring they have good birth attendance. It's about ensuring that they have cesarean section access if they have problems vaginally delivering and so on and so forth. So if we really care about women, instead of responding by helping women kill their children in these poor countries, we ought to respond by helping improve health care

overall in these countries. One of the points Malcolm made was that spontaneous abortions happen at a fairly high rate, particularly early in pregnancy. And again, I'll concede to that. My question is this, just because there's a high rate of a certain group of people dying naturally, does that give us a right to kill them purposefully? If we use the Africa example, babies born in some war-torn parts of Africa have a higher likelihood of dying in infancy than babies born in North America. So there's more of them that will die naturally, but that doesn't give us the right to go over to Africa and kill them purposefully. If I had a group of human beings in the room and all of these people have a higher risk of heart attack,

well, the fact that they might have a heart attack doesn't give me the right to take a knife and stab them in the heart. So I agree that there's a higher chance that preborn children early in pregnancy might die naturally. But that doesn't give us a right to kill them purposely. And he analogized it to if he has a patient with a pneumonia, he gives them an antibiotic. If they have an abnormal baby, he gives a chemical. Here's where that's flawed. 30 seconds. Yeah. Wrap up. Wrap gives a chemical. That's time. Here's where that's flawed. 30 seconds? Yeah, wrap up.

Wrap up your thought. Okay, here's where that's flawed. If you have pneumonia, you're in an unhealthy state, and giving you antibiotics restores you to health. If you're pregnant, you're in a healthy state, so giving you an abortion maims and disfigures the healthy state and puts you in an unhealthy one. Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much, one. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Thank you, Malcolm. That was great. Okay. So, Stephanie, I'm astonished in a way. Okay. Go for it.

That you said, let's see if there are more deaths from abortion. That really astonishes me. That is the gap. Those abortions were, I know the man who helped change the law in Canada. Those abortions were occurring before the law was changed. The law doesn't have more abortions. The law probably leads to fewer abortions because unsafe abortionists do not give the woman family planning

advice after the procedure. They want her to get pregnant again. I have never done an abortion without asking the woman afterwards, can I help you with contraception? Often they say, I was just going to ask you that doctor, which is their code for saying thank you. That is why when we look at the data that's available, there are probably fewer abortions per thousand fertile women where abortion is legal than in countries where it's illegal because women get pregnant more repeatedly. So we're not doing new. We're not. I think the word homicide is totally inappropriate. We are not doing more abortions because the law has changed. We are doing safely those abortions that have killed a woman. Let me have one very simple

tale. I was traveling with one of my staff in Colombia and I was telling her how terrible abortion was. And I asked the hospital director if we could go to the abortion ward. When we got there, there was one woman, and I felt rather stupid, and my staff member was saying, this man is obsessed with abortion, what's he worried about? Then I realised it was Friday and they always empty the ward because they can have so many abortions at the weekend when the husband's being paid.

But the only woman there was sitting with her hand in a dish of water. And after a while, very slowly, she pulled her hand out of the water and all her fingers were black. And she had had such a bacterial infection from the abortion that they'd already done a hysterectomy. from the abortion that they'd already done a hysterectomy and they knew they had to remove her fingers and they hadn't let uh reached a point where they could tell her she's going to lose her fingers as well so this woman was 20 years old she had lost her uterus she'd lost her fingers her life was destroyed she could never stephanie have the joy that you know have having a child and some of the people i work with most closely have had abortions and they said they're glad they have them because then they made that loving stable marriage that they

and they love their children and they're as delighted and happy as you will be, because I know you will be, and I know many children. So that's how I see it. I am not killing embryos. I am doing something safely for a woman who, if I hadn't done it, was at risk of very serious exploitation, death, or like the woman who lost her fingers and her uterus, lifelong suffering. Thank you, Malcolm. Okay, Stephanie, you have four minutes to respond.

Okay, so a few things there. On a technical level, if we break down the meaning of the word homicide, homo, of man, and side, to kill. So as long as what i've provided as evidence for the humanity of the pre-born child stands by virtue of their parents being human them being alive because they're growing and quite frankly if they weren't alive there'd be no need for a proportion um and the fact that their genetic blueprint distinguishing them from their parents begins at fertilization means they are man in the general sense. They're part of the species Homo sapiens. And since the act of abortion ends their lives, then it would be side. It would be killing. I am actually I want to clarify something with you, Malcolm, because perhaps I miscommunicated. something with you, Malcolm, because perhaps I miscommunicated. I'm not making the argument that since abortion has been made legal, there have been more abortions, although I think that

point can be made. That actually isn't what I was saying, though. What I was saying is that when abortion was illegal, it doesn't always follow that you have increasing rates of maternal death. I used Canada as an example, but I have several other here that I want to reference from a well-respected medical journal called The Lancet. And they pointed out several case studies in countries where abortion had been allowed and then banned. So El Salvador, for example, they banned abortion in 1997. And yet between 1997 and 2008, when this study occurred, maternal deaths continued to decrease. Well, if upon banning abortion, more women will die, we should see maternal deaths go up, but they actually went down. The same is true in Chile. Abortion was banned in 1989.

And over those next couple of decades, number of maternal is true in Chile. Abortion was banned in 1989 and over those next couple decades number of maternal deaths decreased in Chile. Same in Poland. Abortion was banned in 1997 and maternal deaths went down. Interestingly, interestingly in South Africa abortion was made legal in 1997 and guess what happened after that in the year 2000 and the year 2008? Maternal health went up. So isn't that interesting? Where abortion was made legal in South Africa, maternal mortality increased, which I think is indicative of the overall issue being what type of health care are we providing, not are we giving someone access to abortion. Malcolm is right to point out that there are terrible stories like the woman whose life, as he said, was destroyed.

But the point was he's creating a false dilemma. It was either she had the abortion or her life would have been miserable. She didn't need abortion at all. So I'm not suggesting it was good that she had the illegal abortion where her fingers got gangrene, it sounds like, where her uterus had to have a removal with a hysterectomy. I'm not saying that was good. That was bad. But I'm pointing out that doing that same procedure legally so that those things didn't happen to her, but those things essentially would have happened to her child. That's time. Would have happened to her child that that is

wrong. And the solution is just supporting women's maternity through motherhood. All right. Thank you very much. Okay. We're going to have a time of cross-examination now, Malcolm and Stephanie. So the two of you will get to have a conversation with each other and I'll get to step out of the way and let you have at it. I want to remind the audience that the cross-examiner is allowed to interrupt and move the flow of the argument as he sees fit. So both Stephanie and Malcolm are not being rude if they cut the other person off and press them to answer the question. I also want to say thank you to everybody who's currently watching. We have over 800 people watching. Do us a favor, click like, click subscribe and share this on social media. I don't think Google would be a big fan of sharing an excellent discussion like this, so you can help us out by sharing that right now. Okay, we're going to have the affirmative cross-examine. So Stephanie will cross-examine Malcolm first for 12 minutes, and I'll click

the timer as soon as you begin, Stephanie. Just one thing, Matt. I think we might have missed Malcolm's second rebuttal. I feel like I did two rebuttals, but he didn't. I don't think so. I think because we both did a first rebuttal, and then Malcolm kind of, I was planning on going straight to cross but but Malcolm offered a rebuttal and then you did a second one oh I see yeah is that okay as long as it's okay with Malcolm I don't mind if he wants sure yeah okay well why don't we do the affirmative cross-examine so um Stephanie start whenever you have 12 minutes. Okay, I'm just going to put my timer on 12 minutes too. You can't trust an Australian. All right, Malcolm.

So when you mentioned that you did abortions on those girls that were victims of rape, you said that was after 12 weeks? How late were those ones? Probably as late as 16 weeks. We were destroying fetuses. And it was a brutal time. And what was it about, what is it about the line of 12 weeks? So although you did that up to 16 weeks, you admit that now your line is 12 weeks.

What is the difference in your mind between 12 weeks and 13, between 12 weeks and 16? Because I'm an embryologist, I do not see the early embryo as a pre-born child. I see it as a fascinating group of cells that are dividing, that are rearranging themselves. It's a fascinating process. In fact, when I was studying, the first person to use an electron microscope to look at mammalian embryos, you have this big expensive microscope. You have a little light microscope, you look at where the plate's going to be. And I'd be so emotional about what I was seeing, my eyes would fill with tears and I couldn't see what I was trying to photograph, because these are emotional things.

So I can get very emotional about an embryo, but I don't call it a pre-born child. And I know how many embryos are abnormal and how important it is that we have natural, necessary processes destroying those embryos in very large numbers. And that's my role as a doctor, is to enhance what nature does. So how would you respond to my point about someone having a heart attack, that not giving me license to stab them in the heart? So what I'm hearing from you is that you're saying because someone dies naturally through miscarriage, that gives you license to do something intentionally i assume if someone's going to have a heart attack you don't believe you have the license to stab them in the heart i think that's not a good comparison because what i've learned

all over the world is once a woman decides to have an abortion she is going to have that abortion even if she dies in the process and so you know i've been to hospitals in last time i was in ghana i went to the abortion ward and there were three women in every bed there was a woman and who was the sickest at top there was a mattress this thick underneath and the two less thick women were underneath. They were coming in all the time. This degree of danger and unnecessary suffering goes on all the time. So why not help them be mothers? Why not help them with their parenthood? Because I know no way of doing that for six million African women. Do you know any realistic, achievable, pragmatic policy way of helping those women? I don't think it exists.

Okay, well, let me ask you this, though. If it did exist, am I hearing you right that if there was a viable alternative to help these suffering women that didn't involve abortion, am I hearing you right that you would support that? Is it that you just aren't convinced that that exists? Let me rephrase your question. If I am with a woman who says she wants an abortion, but as I talk to her, her body language and words are telling me

that she's a bit ambivalent about this. I would try to broaden the discussion and if she then, in discussing this with her doctor, says, you know, now I've talked about this and I know what the options are, I'm going to keep this pregnancy, personally I'd be rather pleased. But I wouldn't be coercive in either direction. My role is to give people a platform and do what we're doing, Matthew, for your audience today. We are trying to share our perspectives on a difficult task, and it's a privilege to do that, and it's a privilege to have this large audience. Thank you for being there. Malcolm, if we could go back to one of the points you made about seeing through the microscope the embryo at the beginning.

Would you acknowledge that at least genetically your blueprint, who you are as different from that in myself, would you acknowledge that that began at fertilization and that you once were an embryo? Of course. And it's wonderful. All we know about embryology is awesome. The way the embryo and the cells move around, the more we're learning about it is quite fascinating. And I'm sure we'll go on having a greater depth of knowledge. So would you acknowledge then, Malcolm, that if the embryo that was you, you know, 80 plus years ago had been aborted,

that you wouldn't be here right now. Oh, precisely. And if my father, who made 15, 1,500 sperm a minute, had impregnated my mother with a different sperm, I might be a woman or I might be totally different. It's a hypothetical. It's a non-question. It doesn't mean anything to me. Well, actually, biologically, Malcolm, wouldn't that have been your sibling? If the sperm that made you hit a different egg, it wouldn't have been a different

version of you. It would have been your sibling. Exactly. Yeah, that's right. You weren't a sperm, I guess, is my point. You weren't an egg, but you were an embryo. And you're acknowledging that. Like you have an embryo and you love that embryo. And when you see it on the, you know, you'll be fascinated and overjoyed. So, Malcolm, if we could get to this magical 12-week line, this is what I find a little perplexing.

I mean, would you acknowledge, for example, the 12-week fetus that you would still abort, or at least 11-week, has brainwave activity and has a heartbeat? Would you acknowledge that? Yeah, yes, yes. Would you acknowledge that also the start of the fertility, for example, the ovaries of the female fetus are already in place then?

The start of them? Yes. Okay. And let me ask you this. What if someone at 11 weeks found out they were pregnant with a female fetus and they wanted a male fetus? And so they came to you and said, Malcolm, please do this abortion because I don't want a girl. Because it's at 11 weeks, would you do it? I wouldn't do it at any time. I have been confronted by that, particularly by Indian

women in a culture which is very paternalistic and the women are suffered and criticized if they have another baby. I wouldn't do an abortion on that. What I would do, and it's a piece of general knowledge for all the audience, Matthew, I ask them to remember one thing. The sex of the child is determined by the man, not by the woman. And so in those patriarchal societies that blame women for having a series of girls, they should at least get it right and say that God gave the power of deciding the child's sex to the man.

Now, I have to say, Malcolm, I'm very intrigued by this position, though, because if abortion in your mind isn't wrong up to 12 weeks, and if the fetus at that stage and even the earlier embryo, let's say it's six weeks, is not a pre-born child, as I've been referring to it as, if that's the case, why wouldn't you do an abortion for reasons of sex selection? It's a good question. I'm emotionally not sort of comfortable with that. I mean, I've never met a woman abortion because I want to go on a Mediterranean cruise.

But if she did, I probably would try to create a framework in which she could say that was really a rather stupid and selfish thing to do. So I think a lot of people would have the same common response to that. Whether you would act on it, I don't have an overarching ethic for that. I just feel uncomfortable and wouldn't do it. I guess my question is, if you're uncomfortable for killing a child because the child is female, why are you comfortable killing a child because the child has Down syndrome? Because it refers to the cell's behavior in that case.

So I am looking at the framework in which that child, that embryo, that fetus is developing. Your fetus is developing in a very, very loving family environment. I would look at it very differently from a woman who's having a child whose husband beats her and who lives on a dollar a day. And I can see that discussion and that awareness and knowledge and empathy goes to my brain and makes my nerves make certain decisions. And that's how I make those decisions. I mean, it's useful to discuss them. I don't think there's any, you's any great philosophical or theological power out there

telling us what to do. I think this is a difficult topic, and it's massive why this is a very useful discussion. How do we make decisions by asking me the questions? You're getting me to tell you how my brain works in this particular situation. Because it is an emotional situation, I'm making human decisions about a difficult human topic. And if I'm hearing you correctly, not only with what you said a moment ago, but some of the other stories you've referenced, let's take this case of someone who's being beaten by her husband and living on a dollar a day.

If I'm hearing you right, if such a woman was not being beaten by her husband and in fact was being loved by her husband, and if she wasn't in abject poverty but was in fact doing well from an economic perspective, I assume it sounds like you think such a woman wouldn't even want an abortion or you would want to help her parent her child. even want an abortion or you would want to help her parent her child. Is it only because she's being beaten and is poor that it sounds like that's where your heartstrings bleed and you say, oh my gosh, I need to give her a... Because those are the women I've met. I may have met one or two women who seem to me to be reasonably happy relationships who are asking for abortions. This is exceptionally rare.

The people who ask for abortions are driven by something in their world around them. Okay, so then what that sounds to me like, and if this is what we're breaking it down to, it sounds to me then like these women don't actually want abortion, that it's their circumstances that are driving them to abortion.

It's their poverty. It's the abuse. It's all these terrible things. And if we really cared about women, wouldn't we fix the terrible situation they're in rather than eliminate their child? If it was to the previous six million African women having abortion, we have no achievable policy to help those women in immediate term. I wish, you know, I have devoted my professional life to try to give women autonomy over their own

bodies to prevent women dying in childbirth. Matthew, I don't know if you can see this, If you can see this, the undergraduates at Berkeley call me. It's a happy condom tie. Because I have that reputation, I want to give women the right deal of pleasure. Sorry, finish your thought, Malcolm. I didn't mean to cut you off. No. Okay.

Well, okay. That's fine. You have now 12 minutes, Malcolm, to cross-examine Stephanie, and you're welcome to interrupt her, to push the conversation along however you see fit. Whenever you begin, I'll click the timer. Okay. So I'm listening to what you say, Stephanie. A lot of it seems to me is semantics.

It's the way you choose to use your words as a pre-born baby, etc. It's an embryo or a fetus. You've got perfectly good words to describe them. When something is of increasing complexity, I don't think the initial iteration is on the same level as a later expression of that same complexity. So I will not lose sleep about doing a vacuum aspiration on the woman that's three weeks pregnant,

even if she probably doesn't necessarily ask for a reason that I would find particularly compelling. I would not do that for a woman who is 14 weeks pregnant. Again that is how I bring together half a century of experience of dealing with women, of dealing with this technology, of traveling all over the world. And I'm grateful for those experiences. And I believe in the great book on liberty. One of the things I think to acknowledge, and I try to acknowledge, and often I do this when I'm talking to you, Stephanie, is I may be saying something wrong myself. You cannot be a hundred percent sure about any set of decisions you make about abortion. And so I'd like to ask you a question. Do you ever

think you may be wrong in some of the emphasis you're giving? I think there are times in my life where I'm wrong. But on this particular issue with the language that I'm using, I have yet to be given evidence that would prove I'm wrong. For example, you criticized me for using the term pre-born child. I am a, you could describe me as a very type A personality. I'm very technical. So although you seem to describe my use of the term pre-born child as inaccurate, that's actually ridiculously accurate. Pre means before, born, they're not born yet, and child implies offspring of parents. Although I'm 40, I'm still a child in reference to my parents. So I don't think I'm wrong using the term pre-born child in reference to embryos and fetuses, because they technically are each of those things.

I think the terms embryo and fetus, which I've also used even in asking you questions, are accurate as well insofar as their age ranges. And quite frankly, the term fetus is another language. I mean, it's Latin for young one or offspring. So these are under my skin, my finger bones, or we could call them my phalanges, but we're really just speaking another language in that case. It means the same thing. So yes, I'll acknowledge the child in the womb at one point is an embryo and is one

a little bit later, a fetus at the end of eight weeks. But then at birth, we call that child an infant. And at two, we call them a toddler. And at 13, we call them a teenager. These are just labels to refer to age ranges. But I have yet to hear evidence from you that my use on a technical level of every word I've chosen so far is actually inaccurate based on evidence. So you don't see any sort of statistics in this. You don't think in 2% of cases I might be mistaken? Well, you can give me a concrete example, but I thought... Yes, I would. Okay. Here's a very concrete example.

An ectopic pregnancy is when the fertilized egg attaches to the fallopian tubes or somewhere else in the abdomen. Left untreated... As a doctor, I will always operate to remove those egg attaches to the fallopian tubes or somewhere else in the abdomen. As a doctor, I will always operate to remove those because there's probably a 99% chance they will lead to hemorrhage and the death of the woman. But some ectopic pregnancies go to term. I've shown you a picture of a very loving mother with her child that was never in her mother's uterus. So when I do an ectopic pregnancy, I am killing a

possible pre-born child. And whether I'm a Catholic or a Buddhist or anybody else, I would always operate on the ectopic pregnancy. I would probably lose my license if I didn't. So that is the statistical problem. So why do you think I should operate on an ectopic pregnancy when there's a 2% chance the baby may live? Okay, it's a great question. I don't think you should ever directly and intentionally kill the innocent human being. But holding that position doesn't mean you cannot intervene at all. So with, for example, the tubal ectopic pregnancy, you could do a cell panjectomy, which isn't an abortion. The cell panjectomy, as you well know, but the audience might not.

So for the sake of the audience, is removing the fallopian tube that has essentially become pathological because the baby has implanted in the tube instead of in the uterus. And as the child grows and develops in the trophoblast, the pre placental cells burrow their way into the tube, the tube will burst. If the tube bursts, the baby's dead. And also the mom can be dead as well. So clearly I would accept intervening in that case, but not doing an abortion targeting the baby for destruction, but removing the part of the mother's body that is left alone would result in the demise of two human beings. So that's not a change to my position. So you're talking about statistics. If the statistics are sufficiently, make it likely the mother may suffer and die, you're willing to kill the pre-born baby.

I'm not willing to kill the pre-born baby. I'm willing to intervene in a way that respects both lives. I apologize. I'm being like Trump. I'm interrupted. I will not interrupt. Well, this part technically you're allowed. Well, this part technically you're allowed, but when it, you know, it's kind of like an analogy I use, Malcolm, is if you're driving home and you drive home the same way every day, and one day you drive that same route home and halfway through there's a big sign up that says road closed and you can't get home the way that say detour ahead and you take all these other turns that still get you home.

So when the woman's life is in danger, the road closed sign to me is abortion. That path. So getting from here to there, saving her life, that's road closed. I can't do that. But just because I say I can't kill the child to save her doesn't mean there isn't a detour ahead. There's an alternative to killing the child that we can do. And so the cell injectjectomy is an example of that. Now, I'll admit, again, you know this, but the audience might not, that when you do the cell pinjectomy, it's so early in pregnancy, we don't have the technology to keep the baby alive. There isn't a place where we can transplant that little piece of fallopian tube or the baby in the tube too. But there's a difference between not having the technology to save someone who was in a situation where they were going to die anyways.

There's a difference between not being able to save them and directly and intentionally killing them. And so what I'm objecting to is that second thing. Okay. Intentionally killing, I think, is an interesting phrase. So let's explore that a little bit. We're dealing with a woman with an ectopic pregnancy and I'm operating on her.

My intention is to destroy the embryo. I don't think about this as a pathological tube. I want to destroy that I don't want to but I am going to destroy that embryo I know I am going to destroy that embryo those are the words that I would use if you like to call that intentional it is intentional you and I use words very differently and so I think you are using words to try and escape from the fact

that you accept, as I do, that when there's a certain statistical chance of the embryo going to term, but it's very low that you would kill that embryo. Well, let me ask, just to kind of understand what you just said there, if you said your intention is to destroy the embryo, if, Malcolm, we had advanced technologically so that upon doing a cell pinjectomy or even a cell pinostomy, that upon removing the embryo, we actually could place the embryo in a really brand new high-tech incubator and gestate the embryo from, let's say, six weeks onwards. If that technology existed, would you opt for that over-destruction in the case of an ectopic pregnancy?

I would ask the woman what she wanted and I would follow her advice. I mean, so that's consistent with your view, but what it does is it shows that my view is not inconsistent that if you go in with the intention to destroy the child that's the problem to begin with if you go in with the intention of oh my gosh two people are essentially dying I need to try to help them if we had the technology to help both of them and we failed to use it intentionally, that is the desire to destroy. I would never fail to use the technology that we have.

I would always use the technology we have to save the child. And the only reason I don't is because the technology doesn't exist. doesn't exist. Yeah. So I would do what I would explain to the woman what the technology is, and I would follow her advice because it is her body, it's her uterus, it's her tube, it's her decision-making. This is what my life as a white-haired man has been built around, Gannett, is giving women the opportunity, the right to decide what they're doing with their own body and their own reproduction. And I will follow their advice.

And I certainly would never do an abortion on somebody who didn't want it. And I am empathetic to the women because if they're asking me, I've talked to enough of them to know that that's a painful decision they've already made because there's so many things in their lives they can't put right. So I listen to the woman. She is my decision maker. I'm just a technician with some scalpels and aesthetic. You still have one minute and 25 seconds, Malcolm, if you'd like to continue.

Okay, let's look again at words. I admit that semantically pre-born child is accurate, but most people don't use it. One of the things about language is we tend to use the words that other people use and they understand. So you tend to take words like pre-born child, which most of society doesn't use, in order to make the discussion as emotional as possible. Now, I agree that this is a difficult topic and I can be emotional about it. But I think it's better to use technical terms. technical terms um and again for our audience um there may be if you've got a big audience there may be a woman listening to us who is early in pregnancy and is wondering whether she wants that pregnancy to continue or not if she's listening about pre-born children she may go down one avenue if she's listening to me talking about embryos and trying to describe that absolutely fascinating

awesome complicated object which will grow into a fully mature complete human being but it's incomplete it's shifting the cells around it doesn't have all the cells and it's in a world with a very very high wastage from abnormalities. I keep on coming back to this, that abortion is a necessary natural process without which no informed woman would wish to get pregnant because the chances of having an abnormal child would be so high. Okay. All right.

Well, we're just going to take a quick pause here because we're about to move into a time of Q&A where I will ask a question from our patrons and if it's directed to Malcolm, he'll have two minutes to respond and then Stephanie will have a minute to respond to Malcolm and vice versa. But before we go any further, I want to say thank you to all who are watching right now. We have well over 800, almost 900 people watching. It's lovely to have you.

Please click that thumbs up and give us a share on YouTube and on your social media because that really helps. And I also wanted to say that if you want to, you could become a patron of the world. How's that for a soft sell? You could become a patron at patreon.com. We're doing a ton of work. We have a Pints with Aquinas Español channel that we're populating. We're doing a ton of work. We have a Pints with Aquinas Espanol channel

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signed books. We're also going to be doing a post-show wrap-up with Stephanie immediately after this debate for our patrons only so help us out by going to patreon.com slash matt frad and you can support as little as a dollar a month or something and the team here thanks you kindly okay well let's go into our um time of Q&. I'll do my best here. I'll start with a question for Stephanie. Stephanie, this comes from Sean. Should we imprison mothers who choose to have an abortion? And if you're going to say no, doesn't that show that you don't really consider abortion that bad? that show that you don't really consider abortion that bad? Great question, Sean. Thank you. I would say that where someone has broken the law,

prison should be a possible consequence for breaking the law. So the reality is anyone who has an abortion, at least let's say in North America right now, by having an abortion is not breaking the law. But if at some future point the law changes so that abortion is unlawful as it once was in North America, then yes, consistency compels me to say that jail time should be a possible consequence for people who end the lives of their children in the future when that's unlawful, as we already have prison time as a possible consequence for people who end the lives of their children already born. So there was a woman by the name of Andrea Yates who drowned her children in the bathtub. People are horrified by that. There are lots of examples when I raise the question of what does civil society say for how parents ought to treat their children?

I gave examples of terrible child abuse. One minute. Do jail time should be a consequence for that? If yes, then because the pre-born child is human, once that is as unlawful as all these other examples of abuse, then that should be a possible consequence. I'd be inconsistent if I said otherwise. Okay. Malcolm, you have a minute to respond.

If I can read the question as thinking, I think he's saying, imprison the woman to stop her doing an abortion. I would say we know that woman's going to do an abortion. I think it's a very reasonable question. Should you imprison a woman who you think has a high chance of seeking an unsafe abortion? I think the question had more to do with if a woman has an abortion,

should we throw her in prison? I believe this question was posed to Donald Trump in 2016, and he said yes. And Stephanie says, well, I won't say what Stephanie said because I'm going to put words in her mouth, but what do you think about those pro-life advocates who are like, yeah, under certain circumstances, to be consistent, yeah, you should put her in prison? Can you hear me, Malcolm? Yes, yes, no. Because I think

it would be a law that I object to, and so I would do nothing to support it. Yep, fair enough. Okay. This question is for Malcolm. This comes from Eric Clark. Malcolm, would you oppose the killing of a fetus if it was being kept alive outside of the mother by some other sort of mechanism, like some sort of life support system for a fetus? And if so, why? You have two minutes.

The answer is I would not try to kill that situation. I think he's looking ahead to a technology, which I'm sure will be developed in the end, where you can keep the fetus alive for several months outside the womb. If we had that technology and a child was in it, I would wish to continue safely. I certainly would not, in that technical framework, do anything harmful to that child. I would assume that it's something the mother and the doctors wanted, and it was a miracle of medical technology.

Good luck to them. Okay, Stephanie. think the question uh brings to light an important point do we have human rights based on where we are or who we are i think the obvious answer is it's who we are that's why they're called human rights otherwise they'd be called location rights and i don't hear people going around celebrating location rights it's interesting if you think about some in utero surgery that can be done um where babies later in pregnancy could be taken out of the uterus briefly and then put back in are they not to be protected when they're in the uterus then they suddenly get protection briefly and then they lose their protections again until they're born so that's the kind of insane thinking

that comes about when human rights aren't grounded in being human, but instead are grounded in our location. So the reality is we should be protected because we are not where we are. Did you guys want to converse on this topic a bit? Go for it. Even to ask the question, if they were operating, you took the baby out, would you put it back in? That's such a stupid question, if I may use that adjective, Stephanie. You've got yourself into a strange box because of the way in which you use words. That's an absolute non-question. In this hypothetical, we're operating on the baby. We take it out to do something in it. We put it back into unit. That's normal surgical practice. There's absolutely zero ethical questions for me.

It's obvious what you have to do to a child of 12. You don't need lots of funny words and pre-born baby to frame that. Okay, well, why don't I direct this question to you, Stephanie, since this is coming up a bit about your use of language. So let me just kind of pose this somewhat antagonistically. Aren't you being emotionally manipulative by referring to the fetus by these sort of, I know this sounds funny, but an anthropomorphic term, like the child, pre-born baby? Aren't you sort of poisoning the well is the wrong fallacy, but I think you see what I mean.

Why are you using that sort of language rather than just using kind of medical definitions? Sure. So again, I have used some of the medical definitions. I use lots of words because good speakers and good writers know that they need to use a diversity of language to make their point more compelling. The second point I would make is, again, as I said earlier, it's still very technical and accurate to use the terms pre-born children. The third point is, I I said at the beginning my position is difficult to argue not because there isn't evidence but because of the presence of deep emotion but Malcolm himself has proved my point by him introducing profound emotion which is insanely more profound than my use of the term pre-born child okay him describing this woman who's gone through

profound suffering who had the hysterectomy, whose, you know, fingers or digits were in this, he is appealing to people's emotions. Now, I'm not objecting to that, because I think there has been far more emotion with the pictures painted with what Malcolm has seen, the 12-year-old girls, victims of mass rapes in Africa, far more emotion brought in there than my use of the term pre-born child. But again, my use of the term is accurate and we should feel affection for the child. And when someone doesn't feel affection for the child, then you can use more, more accurate language that helps them see this is someone to care about. It is a child. But the whole problem with abortion is people aren't perceiving their maternity or their paternity, their motherhood and their fatherhood. And so embryo and fetus just sound clinical and technical, which is great for the physician, but not when you're the mom or dad. I mean, you guys heard me technologically setting up before this began with my husband, and you heard me keep saying, oh, hey, love. Thanks, love. Can you do this, love? Because

I have affection for him. He's my husband. I'm not going to say, husband, do this, do that. Maybe a marriage counselor wants to use those terms. But I'm going to use terms of endearment that are still accurate. He's both my husband and my love. The pre-born child is an embryo and a pre-born child. Dr. Potts, a minute to respond. I have a psychologist friend who said women say my period is late. Then they say I'm pregnant.

Then they say I'm going to have a child. And those tend to occur in a temporal sequence early in pregnancy, and I think they're very descriptive. Okay. Colin Key, this is a question for Malcolm, says, For the sake of intellectual honesty, is there any argument or evidence that could be presented to make you view abortion as the unethical ending of a human life? No.

I mean, as I said earlier, I think I'm a sort of on-liberty person. And so I always have to remind myself that I may be making mistakes, I think that's the human condition particularly in this one but within that framework I don't see anything that would make me change my

life or experience I mean I respect the question Stephanie that. I mean, I respect the question. Stephanie. Could you repeat the question? Right. Well, let me kind of rephrase the question for you. You know, again, to put it somewhat antagonistically, Malcolm seems to be showing

this degree of humility where he's saying, look, I could be wrong, but here's my position on this. What's the evidence that could be presented to you for you to change your mind? Just in theory, what is a piece of evidence that could be put forward for you to be like, okay, you know, my life's work has been wrong here trying to help people not have abortions. Abortion might be okay. Sure. For someone to convince me that I was wrong, they would need to convince me that my evidence for the pre-born child being human is flawed. And I'm very open to that. But I've yet to hear

that. I'd like to point out Malcolm made no effort to refute that at all when I was going through the science of what Dr. Condick said. I mean, it's back, what I say is backed up in embryology text. But yes, if someone can prove that the child is not a human being, if someone can prove that the child is not a human being, then, and if they could also prove that the act of abortion doesn't go against the nature of how things ought to be, because I'm a natural law proponent. And I think something can be wrong without killing. You look at nature. So I think if you just maim someone's eyes because you want to maim their eyes, I think that's a problem. And there's a condition called body integrity identity disorder where people who have healthy eyes want to be blind or they have healthy limbs and they want to be amputees. So that doesn't

involve killing someone by maiming their limbs or their eyes. But I still think it's wrong because the arms are supposed to move and the eyes are supposed to see. So as long as if someone could prove that that abortion doesn't kill a human being or if they could prove that no way it goes against the nature of how things ought to be, then absolutely I'll change my position. Okay. Why don't I put forth an argument for abortion, for the legitimacy of abortion, and then give you both two minutes to respond. It would go like this. Okay. God does not exist. We are merely accidental byproducts of nature who have evolved to this point. We talk about human rights like it's an actual thing, but really it's a useful fiction. It's helped us evolve to this stage. So if we collectively as a human society decide that abortion is something we would like to participate in and do,

fine, we get to decide that. What's the problem? Again, if God doesn't exist, it would seem to me that all morality is relative, and you could say relative to the individual, you could say relative to societies, but if a particular society overall is okay with it, then I think that's something you might just have to live with. What would you say to that, Dr. Potts and then Stephanie? I think it's reasonable. Stephanie was saying the preborn child is human. I think an embryo is human.

I mean, that's a perfectly reasonable use of words. I think if I do an abortion, there remains an incinerator of humor, and I don't find any difficulty with that. It's not something that you need to sort of describe all the time. But I'm not saying they're a cat or something like that. But again, my point would be that even though human beings are more cognitively developed, why think that gives them any more worth

than a cat, than a slug? Isn't this just an example of speciesism? We have an emotional attachment to humans, and so recoil at the idea of killing them, but maybe we just need to get over our emotions and just agree that abortion is legitimate whether or not we feel a certain way about it. I think that's a reasonable argument.

Stephanie, how would you respond to that? Well, I'd start by saying that in two days' time on Thursday, I'm debating Dr. Peter Singer, which will probably come up because that's his worldview and philosophy, so if people want to tune into that, then go loveunleasheslife.com and check out the event page. But in terms of the general question you asked about accidental byproducts, we are accidental byproducts. So there's no such thing as human rights. We just collectively decide whether abortion is OK. That same thing, that mindset, is what resulted in the Holocaust, slavery, treating women as less than men. Those were societies at the time collectively deciding

that the Holocaust was okay, that slavery was okay, that women aren't quite persons. And we assumedly have advanced from that. And we look back on the past and say, no, wait a minute, if we don't say there's such a thing as universal human rights, and we just say it's about the people in power deciding, then the problem is that always results in the more powerful preying on the more weak and vulnerable. And right now that's manifesting in the form of abortion, where it's the born claiming the right to kill the preborn. But it wasn't too long ago when that manifested in the form of the Nazis saying that they could kill Jews and others, whites saying they could enslave blacks and others, men leading society saying women like me didn't

have a right to vote. So if you hold that mindset, that introduces far more than abortion into society. It introduces all types of dehumanizing philosophy into society that really bases society on bullying. It might do that if it was historically true, but it's historically false. Idi Amin, Joseph Stalin, Ceausescu, Hitler, all condemned abortion. The last woman executed for performing an abortion was in nazi-dominated france she was a a laundry woman she'd done a series of abortions and she was guillotined i think 1943 because she did abortions under hitler's eyes okay let's get our history right sorry to get cross no that's okay. Stephanie, do you want to talk about this back and forth?

I don't want to kind of step in it, or should we take another question? I'm sure if I can just comment on that. Let's take Malcolm's statement as it is. I mean, I don't know enough about the specifics of the legalization or lack thereof of abortion in these countries. But I would just say that all of the people you just listed were just brutal dictators overall, who didn't have respect for human beings at all, whether pre-born or whether born. The fact that I hold an anti-abortion position, and let's just say, because I don't know enough about Hitler and his views on abortion, but let me just for the sake of argument, admit that what you've just said is correct, that Hitler was against abortion.

It doesn't mean that my position against abortion is somehow flawed because he shares that view. I'm against smoking. I think it's bad for your health. Let's just hypothetically say Hitler is against smoking, too. Do I have to suddenly embrace smoking because I don't want to hold any view that Hitler holds? Or let's just say that he was against stealing something from your relative. Well, so am I. I think it's wrong to steal things from your relative. So it's possible to share a view that someone else shares on a particular subject, but still think their whole worldview itself is flawed. but still think their whole worldview itself is flawed. So even if he was against abortion, it doesn't make my position against abortion flawed.

What would make my position against abortion flawed is the evidence I've provided be lacking and the claims I make be false. And that is yet to be proven. With respect, Stephanie, what it does say, what I hear it saying, is that you should not use the word Holocaust when you're talking about abortion, unless you don't know your history. The Holocaust is a well-defined evil thing, and Hitler didn't like the Jews but he did execute women for doing abortions. Well Hitler also didn't like disabled people and he believed in

exterminating them and killing the infirm and the disabled before he was killing the Jews and I'm sure he would agree with you on things like killing children who have Down syndrome. It's just that you do it in utero and he would do it ex utero. So, so again, there's, what we're seeing is the problem that arises when we live by a philosophy of lives unworthy of life. And a human rights philosophy rejects that notion. A human rights philosophy says, if you're alive, you're worthy of life. But a notion that supports abortion,

that supports the Holocaust, that supports any type of killing is saying, oh, there's a life unworthy of life. There's a life unworthy of life. And that's what I'm fundamentally objecting to. Let me just make something clear about my own thinking. It would never occur to me ever to kill a Down syndrome child. I would do an abortion if it was early in pregnancy and the woman also wished it. But don't infer that I have any more interest in killing babies than you have, the audience has.

But if they were in utero before 12 weeks, you would, correct? I don't want to misunderstand. Right. So my point still stands that if they're in utero and they have Down syndrome, you would end their life. If the woman asked it, yes. Sure. Yeah. Okay. Another question here from Colin Key. Stephanie,

Colin says, I agree with your stance that ideally legal or illegal abortion should be unthinkable. Even though as a Catholic, I do not believe contraception should be used. Would you advocate for increased access to contraceptives and sex education in lieu of making abortion illegal if data showed these practices being the most effective means of reducing abortions? I am pulling my question from a Guttemacher study that suggests policy changes limiting access to abortion directly do not actually reduce the number of abortions. So there's a lot there that my time frame doesn't allow me to dive into. So the general principle I'd respond back with is that I do not believe that we can ethically do evil in order to bring about a good. That's unethical to me, not ethical.

So if contraception is an evil, if it's wrong, then no matter how much good can come from its promotion, it wouldn't be ethical to promote it if itself is evil. I do believe that it is morally wrong, but a whole other debate segment would need to be granted for me to make that position reasonable to the average hearer. It's shocking to most people to encounter someone who thinks contraception is immoral. So I don't have time to make that case, although feel free to email me and I can send you information I've written on that. I would point out that if you look in places like where we live, you look in North America, that there is so much contraception now. Since I think about myself growing up like I was a teenager in the 90s,

so much sex ed was pushed, so much contraception was pushed. It's so accessible, it's so cheap, and abortions keep going up. And some people say, well, the abortion numbers have gone down. Well, births have also gone down. The question is, is the abortion rate roughly the same? Do people have this perspective that life is disposable? So I don't think it's an ethical solution to a problem. Okay, Malcolm? I'm interested in this topic. To be transparent, I'm a founder of a company that's going to take the pill off prescription to make it more accessible. I think oral contraceptives are absolutely fascinating discussion. They imitate the natural processes by which pregnancies are spaced, which are the hormonal changes that take place when you're breastfeeding. That suppresses ovulation. The pill was invented by a great Catholic, John Rock. He pointed that out.

He said it was a natural process. So the pill is imitating what used to happen. Our ancestors didn't have puberty until about 18 years old. They had four or six children. They might have had 60 menstrual cycles a lifetime. A modern woman can have 300 in a lifetime. They bring really the history of cancer. The pill, oral contraceptives, is the only drug I can prescribe as a doctor, which significantly, significantly, by one third to one half, reduces certain cancers, cancers of the uterus, cancers of the ovary, cancers of the bowel, or less if you take the pill, because it's more natural than not taking it. The modern woman lives in a highly unnatural world with a very early puberty,

hundred dimensional cycles, totally different from the world of your Stone Age ancestors, the world that God or Charles Darwin intended for you. So the pill is more natural than not taking it. And to think it's immoral just blows my mind. How can you possibly think something which is so natural? You're very focused on words, Stephanie. You're not seeing the bigger picture of what evolution or God intended. Okay. This question is for Malcolm from Dominic. He says, are there any circumstances which you would consider an abortion immoral? And if so, why? Yes.

I've given one. I would myself consider abortion immoral if a woman asked for it because she wants a child of a certain sex and that's the reason that I wouldn't do it but I realize other people would have different opinions that's clearly is the case so yes it's a good question and I have a transparent answer Stephanie I think Malcolm's answer demonstrates that from a logical perspective and from an argumentation perspective, there are some serious holes in the abortion rights view that he's presenting. weeks, aren't pre-born children, aren't worthy of protection, then quite frankly, abortions should be allowed for any reason or no reason. You should be allowed to have an abortion. And he ought to do

the abortions on fetuses and embryos, to use his terminology, because they're female. The very fact that he doesn't, again, he admitted earlier on his emotions come into play, but those tell us something. Our emotions tell us something. And if we recognize, wow, that embryo or fetus is female, you shouldn't pick on a girl because they're a girl. True. But gosh, isn't that female human? You shouldn't pick on a human just because they're human, you know, like just because they're younger. So if it's not someone worthy of protection, he should do the abortion. If he won't do the abortion, then that calls into question any abortions that he would do because it seems to show that we're dealing with what I've been saying, a pre-born child. That's not the way I see it. What I see you talking is within a framework of semantics that you've chosen to use. I'm trying to make decisions as an 85-year-old man who's probably made some bad decisions as well as good decisions in my life by looking at every difficult topic

and trying to make the best decision that I can to listen to other people, to question my own decision-making, etc. I think it's very important that we all question our own decision making even on things that appear to us to be very self-evident i think it's just important when we do question the decision making to go where it leads us so obviously as a pro lifer i'm encouraged to hear you won't do a second abortion. That is something I want to hear. But what I would encourage you is to go where that leads you, which is what I'm trying to point out, which is that, gosh, if that one makes me uncomfortable, even at six weeks,

then why? And is the reason why, what does that mean for this one, and that one and that one. And maybe there should be another solution than abortion to deal with the problems that we see. I think of modern care international, you mentioned earlier, you don't, you know, what alternatives are there for women. And this is an international organization that works to help women who are faced with obstetric fistula, which of course, you know a lot about, but the listeners do not, where the baby, they don't have enough labor support. And so a woman could be laboring by herself, the baby gets stuck in the vagina,

the baby dies in the vagina. And only a couple days later, when the baby starts to decompose, she delivered the dead child. At this point, she's got a hole from her, from her vagina, the dead child. At this point, she's got a hole from her from her vagina all the way to her rectum, everything. And modern care goes to Kenya and other places and does restorative surgery and transforms these women's lives. It also does preventative work, training people to be birth attendants, having safer delivery so that this problem doesn't even come into existence to begin with. That's an example where abortion isn't part of their mandate, but helping women in Africa is. And that's just one example of many of things that can be done. I have been to that hospital. I've talked to the women who've had the fistula.

I find it an intensely emotional experience to talk to a woman who's dripping urine on the ground while you're talking to her. I have exactly the same feelings that you do. I'm a human being. It's just that I use my words differently. And I try to look at individual problems as a problem to be discussed and solved. And I don't look for universal statements, which I think are very, very difficult to make about biology, and particularly about early human development. Okay, this could be the final question before we wrap up with closing statements. This comes from Tyler Wayne Ross, and there's a question for Stephanie and then a question for Malcolm.

So maybe I'll ask them in that order, and each of you can have two minutes to respond. Stephanie, if the state's goal is to protect and uphold the common good, isn't it better that we have less unwanted babies in the world, less resources directed to them, freeze-up resources to be directed to a great many other things that advance the common good? So that perspective is making an assumption pre-born children aren't living human beings with a right to life. beings with a right to life because if they are then what the person is suggesting is that again on a technical level we commit homicide on some in order to bring about goods for others why not do that with people who are already born quite frankly we could we could survey born human beings in the first 18 years of their life and perhaps say well we can really identify the ones that are maybe need a little work and just eliminate them and start fresh with the pre-born.

Now of course I don't believe we should do that but my point is I'm showing the flaws of that mentality that says oh well I could do all this other good over here. If you kill a stranger and take them to a black market doctor their cornea, their kidneys, their liver, their heart, so many of their body parts could help four, five, six, seven, eight, nine human beings. But we don't do it because we recognize that no matter how good it is to help those nine human beings, the means of killing an innocent human being to save nine human beings simply isn't ethical. So all I'm suggesting is the means of ending preborn children's lives as a way to solve any type of

societal problems simply isn't ethical unless someone can provide evidence that they're not pre-born children. Malcolm, two minutes to respond. Yeah, so first of all, I've enjoyed these discussions and I'm delighted, Stephanie, that you're pregnant and I wish you all the best and every possible happiness I think we're divided by words I think you continually call them pre-born children and you want to apply to the embryo or the fetus the ethical framework I would apply to your baby when it's born or I'd apply to the other people in the room. And that's where we differ. Sometimes I wake up and I think today, probably in Africa, I don't know, 10 women won't die because I provided a technology for very safe early abortions. And I think, well, that's a nice thing to think about. I've been a doctor all my life.

There are people whose lives I've changed because I had a technology. There are people in Africa whose my wife changed their lives because she got a drug called mesoprostol around in Africa, which you can use to prevent hemorrhage after childbirth, which is the main cause of maternal death. You can also do abortions with it. So I look back on my life and I'm happy and proud of some things. I also realize I've made mistakes and I may have made mistakes in some of the abortions that I've done. That is the human situation. But I try to struggle with things using what experience and training I've had to make the best decisions I can. And I think these kinds of discussions and discussions our

large audience are listening to are very, very important. And I hope, Matthew, that audience goes on talking to themselves, because all three of us can agree that these are important, difficult issues. Okay, thank you. All right, well, this has been a really great debate, and I want to thank both Malcolm and Stephanie for agreeing to participate in it. Let's go to our closing statements. Each of you will have five minutes to conclude your thoughts, and then we'll end the debate. Stephanie, you're the affirmative, so you can begin, and then Dr. Potts can end. Go for it. So I want to begin by thanking Malcolm for being willing to participate in yet another debate. We have done this several times, as I mentioned, over the years. And what strikes me is that in all my years of knowing Malcolm, he has never congratulated me for the eggs in my body. But today was different because he congratulated me

for the embryo in my body. An embryo who is a living human being, who is not a stranger, being, who is not a stranger, who is my child. That's the difference between an egg and an embryo. Eggs aren't to be protected the way embryos are, because embryos are like fetuses, who are like infants, who are like toddlers, teenagers, and adults. They're human beings at different stages, and human rights are not grounded in what stage you're in. They're grounded in whether you're a member of the human family. There are a lot of differences in all of us here, the three of us debating, all of you listening, but there's one thing that all of us very clearly have in common on our bodies and that is a belly button, which is a physical reminder, if we look at it every single day in the shower, that all of us were once children in the womb. All of us were once fetuses.

All of us were once embryos. All of us were once weak and vulnerable and totally dependent on our mothers for their survival. Our mothers had power over us. And in that moment, they could have chosen to have an abortion. And had our mothers done that, that very action would have been a physical declaration to us by our mothers, this is your body given for me. But our mothers didn't make that physical declaration. All of us are here today, Malcolm, Matt, myself, and you, because when our mothers were more powerful than us, they used that with great responsibility. And by carrying through with that pregnancy, they essentially declared, this is my body given for you. And so I propose to you tonight, two worlds. You choose, you do

choose. You can choose a world that says this is your body given for me and destroys the youngest of our kind, or you can choose the world your mothers gave you and say, this is my body given for you. I've chosen the latter, and I hope you do too. Thank you. I've, as a man... I'll click this just so we get your timer right. Sorry to cut you off there, Malcolm, but yeah, I'll click five minutes. Go for it. As a man talking about reproduction, I have to be careful. But my interest is in giving women's choices. I do respect a woman's body, and I think a woman has the total right to do what she likes with her body.

Or, within reason, if she came and said, please amputate my right arm because I don't like it, I wouldn't do that. It would be a very simple, stupid hypothetical. But for most of the time, in relation to reproduction, first of all, I think women are incredibly savvy. I think they're very sincere. I think they're very sincere. I think they're very thoughtful. I think one way that I describe a woman who is seeking an abortion is she wants to have

an abortion. She is seeking an abortion because she knows she cannot give the child, if born, the love and nurture that every child deserves. That, I think, is the motivation of most women having an abortion. They know they can't give the child the love and nurture they brought, and they know they can probably do that in the future. So I've seen many happy women that have had abortions and now are wonderful parents. It is a choice and it's a choice that women have a right to make. Okay. Well, again, thank you very much, both Stephanie and Malcolm for agreeing to participate in this debate. As we close, perhaps you might have something you'd

like to share with our viewers, maybe a book you've written or a website or somewhere else people can get in touch with you and interact with your work. Malcolm? I've maybe a book you've written or a website or somewhere else people can get in touch with you and interact with your work. Malcolm? I've written a book called Abortion, came as University Press many years ago. My current focus is in Africa and it is in a group at the University of California, Berkeley. We have a group called the Oasis Initiative, organizing to improve choices in the Sahel, the Francophone countries. That is my focus. I would like people to learn about that.

Amongst 3,000 girls, we've raised the age of marriage from 12.9 to 17 and a half years, which is a huge jump. We've changed the number of girls completing secondary school from 4,000, from 4% to about 80%. I'm enormously proud of those achievements. They're mainly, obviously, achievements of my colleagues I have the privilege of working with in a very patriarchal society. So those are areas perhaps I would like to use to end with because I know that Stephanie feels as strongly as I do about girls' education, about not condemning child marriage and the things we're trying to deal with. So that is an area where I think, Stephanie, we are totally embracing one another. Okay, Stephanie, anything you'd like to

point people to? Remind people about this excellent debate you have coming up as well. Yes, so people can learn more about me and my work at my website, which is loveunleasheslife.com. That has my events on it, which includes the event coming up this Thursday, a live stream debate with Professor Peter Singer from Princeton. He's a philosophy professor from Princeton. And so information is on loveunleasheslife.com. I have also written a book about abortion called Love Unleashes Life, Abortion and the Art of Communicating Truth. And later this year, I will be releasing a book on assisted suicide. So once again, you can learn more at loveunleasheslife.com. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I want to

remind everybody that we have a virtual Catholic apologetics conference coming up this weekend, and it is 100% free and you can join no matter where in the world you happen to live. So click the link in the description below. It's only going to be October 23rd through 25th. You can sign up. Make sure you do so you don't miss out. We've got some amazing speakers, well over 50 excellent presenters that will help you understand and defend the Catholic faith. We even have some excellent evangelical presenters who are very Catholic-friendly, like Dr. William Lane Craig and some others. I also want to remind people that right after this debate, we will be

doing a live show just for patrons, where Stephanie and I, hopefully Stephanie will pull out a drink and the two of us will chat about how she prepares for debates like this, how she thought it went, and that sort of thing. So if you're a patron, be sure to go over to patreon.com slash mattfradd. Alright, thanks a lot, went and that sort of thing. So if you're a patron, be sure to go over to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd.

Alright, thanks a lot guys. God bless you all. Thanks again for being part of this debate and thanks for all of you for watching. Bye.