The Sean McDowell Show - Responding to the Toughest Pro-choice Arguments

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

What is the current state of the debate over abortion? How should Christians lovingly defend life? Our guest today, Scott Klusendorf, is one of the leading pro-life defenders of our day. We discuss the new version of his classic book The Case for Life. READ: The Case for Life, by Scott Klusendorf (https://amzn.to/3vAU7ld) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Why would our guest today commit his life to defending the pre-born? Our job has gotten a lot tougher. How can pro-lifers best respond to some of the leading most popular pro-choice arguments? We have a fight on our hands to dislodge them. Well, our guest today, in my humble opinion, is one of the leading pro-life apologists and spokespeople today, Scott Klusenorf. He's written a book called The Case for Life, which is a 10-year update. So here's the pro-life argument. And I would say this, Scott, in terms of my passion

and the way I approach pro-life, you and Greg Kokel have been the two most important people that have shaped my worldview on that. So I want to personally thank you for that, but also welcome you to the show. Well, thank you, Sean. I appreciate your kind words, and that means a lot. That's high praise coming from you. Well, let's take a look at your story. I've always been curious why this issue is something you've committed your life to, you've sacrificed for. Tell me where that first came from and why you keep now decades later fighting for the unborn. Well, the short story is this. I've always been pro-life, Sean, in terms of being attitudinally pro-life, meaning I was convinced the pro-life

position was true. I mean, I believed it was true from high school forward, but I really wasn't doing much on the issue until November of 1990 when I went to a pastor's seminar where a speaker not only laid out a case for the pro-life view, but he showed a videotape depicting abortion. And Sean, I had never seen abortion. And I sat there and I thought, man, this is unbelievably destroying to me because I'm just like the priest and the Levite who pass by on the other side of the road when they saw the beating victim. I say I care about this, but I'm not lifting a finger to stop it. So I went home that day after that presentation by Greg Cunningham and I took the VHS tape he showed and I showed it to my wife. By the way,

VHS tapes were these rectangular things we all used to watch video on for your YouTube audience that may not have a clue what I just said and uh I showed her that tape depicting abortion and she said well wherever you're going I'm with you and bottom line six months after that presentation I resigned my position as an associate pastor of the church in Southern California to pursue how I could equip Christians to make an intelligent case for this issue. Now this was pre-internet time, so we're talking 1990. You had to go down to the UCLA research library, look at microfiche, try to dig out old journal articles. But I was absolutely riveted on doing something on this issue. And I didn't have to wait for God to give me permission. I just did it. So that's my story, the short of it.

So tell me maybe what's changed in the past 10 years since you first wrote The Case for Life. Tell me what's changed culturally in that decade. Well, there's really two big changes. Number one, our job has gotten a lot tougher. Number two, the worldview assumptions that drive people to accept abortion have become even more entrenched, and we have a fight on our hands to dislodge them. To speak to that first issue, well, let me actually deal with the worldview issue first. The problem of moral relativism is not the only one we're dealing with anymore. It used to be that if we could convince people moral truth was out there, we had a shot. But now with the emergence of postmodernism and woke theology and woke philosophy, where people

say all truth is related to standpoint, it doesn't matter what's out there objectively. And quite frankly, if you claim you've got evidence and objectivity, that's an oppressive position to take. That's a new kid on the block. And that has changed a lot about how we approach this we're having to do a lot of work convincing people that reason itself still holds a place and is valid and we're having a hard job convincing people of what an argument actually looks like they don't know what an argument is everything is standpoint in a position of power and they view it all as power dynamics, not who's got the best evidence. So that's a challenge. So that was the first one in terms of the cultural shifts with the worldview.

I think you said there's two cultural shifts. The other one was... The other is the way pro-lifers themselves look at this issue. I think a lot of times we thought prior to the overturning of Roe v. Wade that if we could just overturn Roe in the courts and we could somehow get past a hostile press, we'd be okay. We now know that was pure fantasy on our part. The overwhelming majority of Americans are not with us on this issue. The old adage, there's a silent majority out there that agrees with us on this issue. The old adage, there's a silent majority out there that agrees with us. That's not true. Most of the public has embraced the worldview assumptions that make abortion plausible to many of our citizens.

And we've got to do the hard work of convincing them they're mistaken and we're right. So what are some of the other worldview issues at play? You're right. It's not just this postmodern relativism. There's critical theory. It seems to me the other two big ones would be naturalism. We don't believe in things like the soul and intrinsic human value, but also this deep entrenched autonomy that if I am the author of my own life and have no duties to anybody else outside of the self. Are those the two big ones? Would you qualify those? Would you add any others? Those are big. I mean, if I can cite Carl Truman, this idea of expressive individualism, this whole idea that the self is defined solely by my desires. And not only do you need to recognize those desires, Sean,

you better affirm them under threat of penalty or else. And that's a new change as well. It's not just autonomy. It's autonomy coupled with this idea that my very identity is wrapped up in what I desire. That's a new kid on the block as well. Okay. So tell us, what is the heart of the pro-life argument? Kind of sum it up for us, what you think is kind of the crux of the debate itself. And then we're going to get to some of the most common objections that people have to this position. Well, let me give you a syllogism for the pro-life view. And the reason I'm going to do this is if you don't start with a clearly stated formal presentation of your argument, people will change the subject on you

and you'll be led down a million different bunny trails. So it's best just to state what you believe and then keep bringing people back to what you actually argue. So here's the pro-life argument in a minute or less. Premise one, it's wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Premise two, abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being. Conclusion, therefore abortion is wrong. And we defend that with science and philosophy. We argue from science that from the earliest stages of development, from the one cell stage, Sean, you were a distinct living and whole human being. You weren't part of another human being like skin cells on the back of my hand.

You were already a whole living member of the human family, even though you had yet to grow and develop. We then argue philosophically that there's no essential difference between Sean the adult and Sean the embryo that warrants killing you at that earlier stage of development. Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying we could kill you then, but not now. That's our essential argument. Now, one thing I want to say about this, we need to be careful about how people approach arguments. That argument may be mistaken. It's possible I'm wrong, but it's not enough to call my argument names. It's not enough to dismiss it as, oh, that's just a religious view. Arguments are sound or unsound, valid or invalid. You can't dismiss it by a label. You got to do the hard work of showing where it goes off the rails. And a lot

of our critics don't want to do that. They want to label it and call it a name rather than actually refute it. It won't work to say, well, you're a man, there goes your whole case. Arguments stand or fall apart from one's sex organs, all right? An argument stands on its merits, not the person making the argument. And a lot of people love to just attack the person rather than refute the argument. Or they go after a form of the genetic fallacy. They'll say something like, well, you're just motivated by hatred for women. You're just someone who's a misogynist. Well, maybe I'm all those things and worse,

but can bad people still make good arguments? And the answer is yes. So the pro-lifer has got to be very disciplined in making sure in today's postmodern culture that we keep the main thing, the main thing. The main thing is the argument, not who I am, not what my behaviors are, though we as pro-lifers certainly do believe we should be

virtuous and upstanding. But our argument at the end of the day stands or falls on its merits, not the person making it. Now, you said a minute or less. I think that was a little bit more, just for the record. I'm going to pick on you a little bit. I'm just playing, Scott. Well, actually, the minute defense started before I talked about how we respond to the argument. So I think I got it in. I actually had a stopwatch going. And that's just your statement. No way.

I love it. I love it. Well, I haven't heard anybody jump right in so clearly. And that's what you do in your book. The case for life is here's the case. Here's the objections. Here's our response. I put this up there with Frank Beckwith's book that I know he's updating right now on kind of defending the unborn as two of the most important books for pro-lifers to get, but also

any serious pro-choicer who says, I want to understand the arguments and respond to it. Now, again, we're going to get to the arguments, but one thing that just kind of puzzles me is how quickly people are willing to dismiss the case for life given what is at stake. If I were pro-choice, I would exhaustively study the arguments for pro-life and make sure I wasn't possibly wrong given that 61 million unborn human beings have died since this time. Why don't people, I mean, does this frustrate you? Why don't people grasp what's at stake and pick up your book and say, I'm going to make sure I comb through this and make sure I get it right? Like what's going on here? Well, I think you've raised an important question here. And my answer is this. There are two types of people who support abortion,

thoughtful people who have just come to a different conclusion than we have, and I think they're mistaken, and people who are ideologues who hold to the view because they have personal interest in holding in it, and they don't care what the evidence is. They don't care what the arguments are. In fact, they go further. They try to shut down the arguments. They try to win by a power play, not by refuting the actual arguments. The dangerous thing is more and more of the people we're encountering are in that latter category. They're not thoughtfully engaging. They just want to shut it down by calling you an oppressor, someone who hates women, someone who has no right to speak on this issue, and they're trying to cancel the debate, not engage it.

Seems to me there's a third category. Oh, go ahead. Well, here's the thing. As a pro-lifer, I care about where the truth goes. So I've actually read the best people on the other side. I've read David Boone, and I've read Michael Tooley, Peter Singer, Kate Grizzley, and others that are out there. I want to know their arguments. And in the book, I actually survey what they think and present their arguments fairly so the reader can at least understand the landscape. I think pro-lifers need to know our opponents' arguments better than they know them. And that's why I take time in the book to do that but i'm with you if i were intellectually

honest and that i was committed to the socratic quest for truth i'd want to hear the best arguments on both sides and not dismiss them and i do warn pro-lifers all the time do not wrap all people who disagree with you into one package oh they're just satanically blind and they're intellectually dishonest that's not a fair way to approach this we should look at their arguments weigh them in light of reason and find out where they can be challenged but we shouldn't be dismissive like some of our opponents are well i appreciate you do that in the book and you've also had a lot of public debates with the top pro-choice defenders not shying away these arguments. And maybe we'll come back to that,

but let me just throw a ton of these objections out to you. I think viewers will find it interesting to see how you respond to some of these. Really, not necessarily in any particular order, but some people might say, well, pro-lifers are inconsistent. If you're not willing to care for the women here, what right do you have to, in fact, be pro-life? Are you willing to adopt all the babies? If not, you shouldn't speak up for the unborn. Well, my first response is, how does my alleged unwillingness to adopt a child justify an

abortionist intentionally killing one? I mean, suppose I came to you, Sean, and said, unless you agree to adopt my three sons by noon tomorrow, I shall execute them. Now, that's not going to happen because they're now bigger than I am, but play along. If you turn me down, am I justified executing them? Of course not. Again, let's go back to our pro-life syllogism. Suppose I am inconsistent. Suppose, Sean, I'm that bad. I don't give a rip about human life after it's born. I'm that callous. How would that refute my argument that abortion is the intentional killing of an innocent human being and therefore is wrong? And

the answer is it wouldn't refute my argument. At best, you would prove I'm inconsistent. But I'd like to go a step further. Why is it only the pro-life movement gets saddled with this objection that we're somehow not doing enough to fix everything wrong with society? Imagine saying to the American Cancer Society, you have no right to consider yourself a health care organization because you know what? You're not treating all diseases. You're only treating one, cancer. What are you doing about lupus? What are you doing about diabetes and Crohn's disease and heart disease?

You're only treating one illness. You're too narrow. You're inconsistent. You're not pro-human life. You're just part of a medical technology conglomerate. That's all you are. Well, anybody that said that about the American Cancer Society would be off their rocker. And yet pro-lifers are constantly told that if we don't fix every social problem, we're inconsistent and therefore we're invalidated. How does it follow that because I oppose the intentional killing of an innocent human being, I have to fix everything wrong with society? And the answer is, of course, it doesn't follow at all. It's just an ad homininem cheap attack on pro-lifers or as one writer aptly put it it's a lazy slander of the pro-life movement Wow how about one more

inconsistency charge so you're pro-life but you're pro death penalty does life matter or not well again suppose I am inconsistent and I support pro-life, but I also support the death penalty. Would that invalidate my argument that it's wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being in the womb? No, at best it would prove I'm not consistently applying my ethic. So in essence, it's an ad hominem attack, not a legitimate attack on my argument. It doesn't refute the soundness of my argument. It does not refute the validity of my argument. At best, it makes me look inconsistent.

Okay, now I don't believe I am inconsistent, and here's why. Let's go back to our syllogism. We did not argue that it's always wrong to take human life. We argued that it's always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. And the death penalty, by definition, does not involve innocent human beings, but guilty ones. So our argument is not inconsistent in that regard at all. But I'd like to make one further distinction, Sean. I think that people who raise this objection fail to distinguish between intrinsic evils and prudential evils. And let

me explain what I mean by that. Something that's intrinsically evil is wrong on the face of it. You don't need to present a syllogism to show it's wrong. For example, rape is wrong. Murder is wrong. If somebody doesn't recognize that, they don't need an argument. They need to shrink. Something's wrong with their psychological makeup. When we say abortion is wrong, we mean an intrinsic wrong. It is always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. The death penalty might be wrong, but it's prudentially wrong, meaning it could be wrong because A, the defendant isn't really guilty, or B, maybe there's a moral argument in some cases where the penalty would be wrong, even if the criminal is guilty. But on pro-life arguments, we're arguing abortion is intrinsically wrong.

It's always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. So even if the death penalty is wrong, it's wrong for a prudential reason, not an intrinsic reason the way that the abortion issue applies. I know some of you are listening and going, what about if a woman's life is in jeopardy? We will get there. So hang on. Scott, what about this one? This is what I hear somewhat more frequently. This seems to come oftentimes from many Christians. They'll say, I don't just have a pro-life view in terms of abortion. I have a whole life view. In a way, we should take care of people in terms of life from conception all the way until the grave.

This is often used politically to say it's okay to vote for one party as opposed to another party. I'm not so much asking the political question to you, but is this a way that we should look at dismissing some of the arguments for the pro-life position if you're not willing to care for all of life even after the womb? Well, the whole objection is a fraud. And let me tell you why. 100% of the time when I ask people, if pro-lifers take on every course you're asking us to do, every societal problem, we take all of it on and we devote equal resources that we don't have to solve all these other issues. Will you now join us in opposing abortion and being pro-life? 100% of the time, the answer is no.

So this is a big canard that people bring up. But let me go back to what I said a moment ago. How does it follow that because pro-lifers oppose the intentional killing of an innocent human being, we have to fix everything wrong with society? People don't say that about the American Cancer Society. They wouldn't say it about your church. Say your church, Sean, opens a daycare center in inner city Los Angeles, and you do it out of the goodness of your heart and a great sacrifice to try to spare elementary age kids being recruited by gangs. And your church puts a ton of money into this. You staff it for two hours every day after school so that these kids have a place to go off the streets and they can be safe while moms at home get dinner ready. You do this as an act of love. Now, suppose a journalist comes along and says to you, you don't really care about kids because if you did, you'd be open 24 7. And oh, by the way, you'd care about all life, not just elementary age kids. You'd care about

high school kids. They have problems, too. What about middle school kids? And oh, while we're at it, why aren't you open 24 7, 365? Because if you really cared, you would help all children all the time, not just a small number some of the time. Well, if a journalist printed that about your daycare center, he'd be fired that evening if he posted the report. But if you say that about a pro-lifer, you might just win a journalistic award, maybe an Emmy or something. I don't know. It's only pro-lifers who get picked on at not taking on other issues. Nobody says that about those who devote their course to sex trafficking or poverty. Only pro-lifers get hit with this. But I want to make one other point here, and that is I think those who make this objection,

they confuse the operational objectives of the pro-life movement with Christian ethics. As a Christian, Sean, I care about a lot of issues. My wife and I support issues that go beyond abortion. We care about sex trafficking. We care about poverty. We care about immigrants. These are things that should concern a Christian. But it doesn't follow that because my Christian ethic is broad, that the pro-life operational objectives must be broad as well. That's confusing operational objectives with Christian ethics. Somebody asked me recently in conversation, I made a short Instagram reel about this. Why are Christians obsessed with life? And I made a theological response that

biblically every human life, black, white, rich, poor, tall, short, male, female, made in the image of God and have value. But second, the right to life is the most basic human right that we have. The right to free speech, the right to religion, the right to bear arms, the right to immigrate or emigrate can only happen if you're first alive to do so. So those other rights are vital and I think they're intrinsic to being human, but they're secondary to the right to life. So I do think politically and practically more weight should be put on helping people just be alive first and stopping people from killing them. Do you agree with that or would you answer that differently? Oh, I totally agree. I might give an answer here

that might put a secularist a little more at ease to listen to your response. And that is this. I will ask the secularist, do you think that human equality is a real thing? And they'll all say yes. I'll then say on what basis do we make it? Do you believe each and every human being has an equal right to life? They say yes. And then if I say, well, if I can demonstrate the unborn are human, would you agree they too have an equal right to life? And then of course the excuses start. But here's the thing, Sean, if human nature is not real and objective, the rights that spring from our human nature, the fundamental rights of equality, right to life, pursuit of happiness, those things are not objective either. If the right to life is not real, knowable, and objective, the rights that spring from our human nature aren't either. So if you want human

equality, you're going to have to have an objective human nature that you ground that right in. And the problem is, as soon as we take it away from biology and we embrace this body self-dualism that says the real you has nothing to do with your body, it has to do with what we're going to call having desires or aims. As soon as you make human equality and human rights grounded in subjective traits that come and go and that some other government can define out of existence, your foundation for human equality is on really shaky ground. Scott, I've often referred to you, to my students, and we've watched a lot of your debates over the years as a debating ninja. That's the exact term that I've used. But I want viewers to pause and realize that you make a

simple argument. And when objections come back, you consistently, rather than going down rabbit trails, go back to that argument itself. You also call for consistency. When pro-lifers are charged with inconsistency, you say, wait a minute, this is unique to pro-lifers, not to others. And you keep the main thing, the main thing. So strategically, you're not only advancing what you think is true, but I want to make sure everybody sees the means by which you do that. And of course, again, you book the case for life. You not only give a case for life, you walk through how to do this as well. We're going to come back to some of these popular cultural objections, but let's look at a few biblical ones.

What if I were to say, Scott, the Bible is silent on abortion. It is, so Christians should be silent on abortion or at least agree to disagree about it. Well, as our good colleague Greg Kokel points out, the question you want to ask at that point is, are you saying whatever the Bible does not expressly condemn, it allows? I mean, Sean, where does it say in the Bible, thou shalt not use neighbor for shark bait? There's no verse that says that. Does that mean we can do it? So arguments from silence are inherently fallacious to begin with. We got to look deeper and say, what does the Bible actually say? So I'm going to go out on a limb here. I'm going to grant for the sake of argument that nowhere does the Bible say you can't have an

abortion. And I'm going to go one step further. Nowhere does it say the unborn are human. And I can still make the case the Bible is pro-life. Here's how. Premise one, scripture teaches that all humans have value because they bear the image of God. Genesis 1 teaches that in the Old Testament. James 3 teaches it in the New. Premise 2, because humans bear the image of God, the shedding of innocent blood, meaning the intentional killing of an innocent human being, is strictly forbidden. Exodus 23 7 teaches this. Proverbs 6 16-19 teaches this. Proverbs 6, 16 to 19 teaches this. Matthew 5, 21 teaches this, to name just a few. The only question we need to ask now, Sean, is are the unborn human? And we know from the science of embryology, they are. Therefore, the same biblical commands that forbid the shedding of

innocent blood apply to the unborn as they do everybody else. I think this is the way to argue your case biblically. If you simply trot out Psalm 139, a skeptical critic will say, well, that's a poetic passage. We can't take that literally. Okay, I'll give them that, even though I think we could use Psalm 139. Let's set that aside. You still have the problem of Scripture teaching that all humans have value because they bear the image of God and the shedding of innocent blood is strictly forbidden. Therefore, whether the scripture specifically mentions the unborn or not is irrelevant. I mean, the scripture doesn't say Americans are human or that Germans are human or the French are human. Some of your listeners might

be going, wait a minute, on that last one, we have an argument, but you get the point. What it does say is all humans have value because they bear the image of God. If the unborn are human, and we know from the science of embryology, they are, the same commands against shedding innocent blood apply to them as they do everyone else. Okay. So what about Exodus 21? This is probably the most common biblical passage that I've been challenged with online or in person. Maybe explain to us kind of what's at the heart of that, why it's used commonly and your response to it. In Exodus 21, we have a situation where two grown men are fighting in proximity to a pregnant woman. We don't know why they're fighting. We don't know if they're fighting over her or some other matter. All we know is they're duking it out. And in the course of punching each other's lights out, they inadvertently

collide with the pregnant woman, triggering her child to come forth, the text says. And depending on what translation you read the passage in, there's a few translations, the Jerusalem Bible and the Revised Standard Version, that seem to indicate there's a lesser penalty if the child is harmed than if the mother is harmed. And the argument goes like this. If the mother is harmed, the lex talionos applies, the eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life. But if the child is harmed, then you only pay a fine. Therefore, God values the life of the unborn less than he does the life of the adult woman, who is clearly a person. And only the woman is an image bearer, not the child that comes forth prematurely. That's their argument.

Well, here's my response. How is this, in any possible world, a text that justifies intentional abortion. In this case, you have a situation where two men accidentally collide with a woman. How do we get from there to the position that we may intentionally harm an unborn human? And the answer is it's a giant non sequitur. It doesn't work. But even biblically, I think there's other problems. Number one, the Revised Standard Version and the Jerusalem Bible are not the most trustworthy translations of the text we have. When you read these texts in other versions, like the NIV, NASB, English Standard Version, the lex talianos appears to apply equally to mother or child. If either is harmed, it's the lex talianos, the life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Pardon my hoarseness here. I think I'm still getting over Thanksgiving

turkey gravy. But the point is, when read in the original Hebrew, the lex talianos applies to both, not just the mother. But I would add one other thing in that same passage sean you have a situation where a master unintentionally kills his slave and gets no penalty at all does it follow god doesn't think slaves are human so i think you can see this argument will end up proving way more than they want it to if they take it literally in that sense. All right, Scott, so can a Christian be pro-choice? Well, I'm going to define what a Christian is. A Christian is somebody who's been declared righteous by God the Father, and in virtue of Christ's merits, they have been born again, drawn by the Spirit of God into the family of God, and they are now part of God's family,

or as Paul says in Colossians 1.13, they've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved Son. To quote our colleague again, Greg Koukl, I think he has a great comment here. It's true that Jesus first catches his fish, then he cleans them. I think we can all agree on that. But I will say this. If you are a committed Christian and you believe that intentionally killing an innocent human being through abortion is permissible within the context of a biblical worldview, your worldview is deeply flawed at best, and it makes me wonder if you've truly been drawn by the Spirit of God if you persist in that worldview. Obviously, only God can judge people for eternal sake, but I think we as

Christians can make assessments about whether someone's worldview lines up with biblical truth. That's fair. I appreciate that. As far as you're aware, how consistently has been the church and the Jewish community been pro-life? And I realize this is a historical question. You give some examples from early Judaism around the first century that seemed to line up almost universally on being pro-life. And I wondered if that meant over time there started to be differing debate. And I ask because I've also done a lot of research on the topic of marriage and the idea that marriage is a sex institution is about as Catholic, lowercase c, as of your mainline churches, your Protestant mainline churches, are pro-abortion as they are favorable toward gay marriage and trans ideology. Those would be the Presbyterian Church or the Presbyterian USA Church, Evangelical Lutherans, Church of Christ in many cases, Episcopal. They tend to be very mainline and very pro-abortion. And they tend to make arguments like the one you just cited from Exodus

21 in claiming that the Bible's silent. That seems to be their main way of going forward with their pro-abortion advocacy. But then you've got evangelical churches that aren't doctrinally opposed to the pro-life view, but in the way they behave, they act like the issue isn't paramount, that it somehow isn't important. And what they tend to do, and I'm going to speak a little bit generally here, there are notable exceptions, but I find that churches that are seeker-driven, market-driven, and have bought into an idea of church growth through making everything appeal to non-believers, those churches in the main do not say much at all about abortion. And if they do, it's always along the lines of, well, let's not judge. Let's not pretend we're

more right than someone else. Let's check our pride at the door and let's make sure we don't get preachy. And I know this from watching what happened the day after Roe v. Wade was overturned. I surveyed the websites of a number of large churches just to see how are they responding to this? Because for years they were telling us the answer to abortion is not political activism, it's prayer. Well, they just got their answer. How are they going to respond now? Well, the vast majority of the ones I looked at, and again, there's notable exceptions, so I don't want to put too broadly here. But the main response seemed to be this. Let's pray for those who are deeply troubled now that their abortion access has

been cut off. Let's not get prideful and claim we're right. Let's not celebrate we should be mourning for those who are deeply troubled today. Why shouldn't we celebrate that the Supreme Court has said there's no constitutional right to intentionally kill an unborn human being? If we can't celebrate that, what can we celebrate? Of course, that doesn't mean we're going to be mean, but we should have a measure of joy that a particular evil has been scaled back. But no, what these market-driven churches were saying was, let's not get overjoyed. Let's not make anybody feel uncomfortable here. Instead, the main takeaway is not that an evil has been scaled back, but that we need to be extra careful that we don't

hurt people who now feel very vulnerable. I think that's misplaced ethics. I agree with that. Now, I've seen some people argue that abortion has gone up since Roe versus Wade. I saw a study recently that said at least 30,000 children have been saved. I haven't probed into the details of this. Have you probed into this? And do we have good reason to believe the overturning of Roe versus Wade isn't just people leaving state A and going to state B to actually have an abortion, but there's actually been a reduction in the amount of abortions and some human lives saved? Well, there's definitely been a reduction because some states, not a ton of them, not the majority, but about,

I think it's up to about 13 or 14, have pretty strong restrictions on abortion, and that has cut down access to abortion. Yeah, some women go to surrounding states and get that. That's going to happen. We knew that would. That's not a surprise. So abortion has certainly gone up in abortion tourism states like Illinois, California. Those states have definitely seen an increase because some women are coming to those states. But there's still a lot more who aren't traveling. In fact, I saw a feminist study that indicated they were concerned that now that Roe had been overturned, women would not have access because there's a lot of women who refuse to travel or can't afford to travel. So they stay at home and they end up having their children. And this feminist journal was upset that this was happening. That's really interesting. I was challenged with an objection somewhat like that at a church,

maybe six months ago, doing a pro-life presentation. And a lady said to me, I think she's a Christian. she said something to the effect of, having an abortion is something that the rich can do, but the poor can't. This seems unfair and overburdens the poor. What would your response be? Well, hiring hitmen is something that rich people can do easier than poor people. Does that justify letting the poor have equal access and the funding they need to hire hitmen? I mean, this is silly. I think Frank Beckwith puts it real well. He says the vices of the wealthy do not become virtues just because the poor are denied them. And that's true.

You've got to deal with the moral issue. What is the unborn? Suppose somebody had the money to arrange to have their spouse taken out, and another poor man doesn't have that right. Is the answer to make fair access for the poor men to have someone kill their wives, just like the rich can do? Of course not. This avoids the moral question altogether. And it's just a way of assuming the unborn aren't human. Nobody's going to argue the poor should have equal access to hit men, but they will argue that the poor should have equal access to have an abortion. And that's because they're assuming the unborn

aren't human. So let's go back to your syllogism. Step number one is it is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Now, I was trying to think of some counter examples to this. And every time somebody would say it's okay, would be like war. You're not intending to kill an innocent human being. Self-defense, you're not intending to kill an innocent human being. Capital punishment, the person is not innocent. Are there any challenges to that first premise apart from the pro-life issue when people bring it in where somebody would say, no, no, actually it's fine to kill an innocent human being. That would be precedent for challenging your premise. I have not heard anything persuasive that would challenge that first major premise.

Okay, so the second premise is really where all the debate would come in. And the second premise is abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being. So at this point, this is where some of the challenges come in and people will start to say things like a woman's bodily autonomy actually overrides that second premise. So is that second premise really, in some ways, as I'm reading it, abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being. Even if the woman is arguing for bodily autonomy, there's still an abortion that kills an innocent human being, right?

You're spot on, Sean. How does somebody challenge that second premise? Well, here's the thing. They often want to paint abortion in this case as merely the mother withholding support from a dependent child. And they want to make abortion look like the withdrawing of support. But you have hit on the point that even pro-abortion advocates like Kate Grizzley have pointed out. You can't jump from a mother's right to bodily autonomy to she has a right to intentionally kill an innocent human

being. Abortion is much more than merely withholding support. It's as Frank Beckwith points out, calling abortion merely the withholding of support is kind of like suffocating someone with a pillow and calling it the withdrawing of oxygen. I mean, there's a whole lot more going on here than the woman withholding support for her bodily autonomy. There's the intentional and active killing of an innocent human being. Okay, good. That's really, really helpful clarification. Let's dive into, you spent some time in one of your chapters walking through some kind of the more deep scholarly objections, and you rightly say we're not going into all the weeds and the details here. Other people do. But these two

objections in particular seem to come up in the circles that I run in or online more commonly than the others do. And the first one is the violinist argument. I've heard this for years. It keeps cropping up different incarnations of it. Maybe explain kind of what this is, if you think it gets anything right, but ultimately why it falls short. Yeah, the argument was initially put forward in 1971 by an MIT philosopher by the name of Judith Jarvis Thompson. And Thompson argued, Sean, that even if we grant that the unborn are human persons with a right to life, they do not have a right to use the body of the mother to sustain their own lives if the mother wishes to withhold that support. And abortion properly understood,

argued Thompson, is the mother withholding support to protect her bodily integrity. That's the basic argument. And the violinist analogy went like this. Suppose you wake up one morning and find yourself surgically connected to a world-famous violinist. He's been put there by the Society of Music Lovers, and this world-famous violinist has a kidney ailment that's killing him, and you alone have the correct blood type to sustain his life. And as you're waking up trying to figure out what's going on, and you start to detach yourself, the hospital staff rushes to your bed and says, no, no, no, stop right there. Though it's inconvenient for you to be hooked up to him, he's a person with a right to life.

And if you disconnect, he will die because he has a kidney ailment. Therefore, you've got to stay connected. And Thompson asked this question. She says it certainly would be nice if you let your body be used that way, but must you? In other words, she's willing to bite the bullet. She's willing to look pro-lifers in the eye and say, I'll grant your major and minor premises, and you still lose. That's a pretty gutsy move on her part, I might add. And honestly, if it's true that a mother being hooked up to her own child is morally parallel

to you being hooked up to a stranger violinist, I think her case is unassailable. But I think there's a number of flaws with it. And we just discussed what I think is the biggest flaw. And that is this, it's one thing to withhold support. It's quite another to slit your victim's throat in the name of withholding support. Suppose I have a deadly disease. I'll just make one up.

Suppose I have cancer and your blood type is a perfect match for me, Sean. Suppose you refuse to grant me a blood transfusion. Does that give you a right to slit my throat in the name of withholding support? And the answer is no. It's one thing to withhold support. It's quite another to intentionally kill an innocent human being, which is what abortion is. But I could also point out that the very thing that allows us on Thompson's model to detach from the violinist, namely that he's a stranger unnaturally hooked up to us, is precisely what is not the case in the mother's relationship to her own child. If the child doesn't belong in the womb, please tell me where

it does belong. The womb has been designed to house a child. Making your kidney fit in someone else's body is not a natural design at all. So the very thing that allows us under Thompson's model to detach isn't there in the mother's relationship to her own child. It kind of makes the child this invader, doesn't it? Like an outside invader, which you raise a question, you say, what if a doctor is doing some other operation, say maybe a heart operation on a woman, discovers that she's six weeks pregnant, but the mother doesn't know. If it really were an invader like a parasite, he should take it out while he's operating without the mother's consent. Absolutely. And this is a great point that Francis Beckwith and Steve Thomas has brought up in an

essay, that if the unborn truly is an intruder, as Eileen McDonough wants to point out, as David Boonin and Thompson point out, if so, if she is unaware that she's pregnant and there's nobody there that can say she's consented to the pregnancy, if consent is what makes the pregnancy legitimate and we don't have that, then if the child is indeed an intruder, the physician in charge should in fact perform an abortion immediately, even if the woman doesn't consent to it. Which is a pretty amazing thing that we all know if a doctor did that, they should lose their right to ever practice again and be charged with something criminal, which shows that the cases are not analogous with a violinist and with a woman being pregnant. Now, Peter Singer, we recently did a show on our podcast, Scott and I did, also here too on YouTube, in which we broke down his arguments for animal rights. And there's some interesting arguments he makes, some things we agree with, some things we

would take massive disagreement with, but he's perhaps even more known for his arguments in favor of what we would consider infanticide and what makes a human being a person with the right to life. Walk us through what his arguments are and maybe some ways you would challenge his ideas. Well, first of all, let me say what I like about Peter Singer, which may surprise some of your viewers, but I think he gets a few things right. The first thing he gets right is there's no essential difference between the child in the womb and outside the womb that justifies killing the child in the womb, but not the one outside. He's utterly consistent on that point. Thus, he is no friend of Planned Parenthood, no friend of your average street abortion activist who wants to draw a hard line at birth and say, that's the decisive moment.

Singer says, nope, that's not going to work. There's no essential difference. So I appreciate that about him. I also like the fact that he's willing to go where his argument leads. Although I find his conclusion horrific, he says, look, if we can kill a child in the womb for not being self-aware, that justifies killing a newborn. They're not self-aware. They don't see themselves existing over time. And Singer seems perfectly willing to look his conclusion in the eye and accept where it goes. I appreciate that. However, of course, I think he's wrong. Let me kind of give you a summary of what he argues. You know this, but just for your viewers, what he argues. Peter Singer argues along the lines of identity. And there's really two groups of people who say the unborn do not have a right. Those who argue

along lines of identity and those who argue along the lines of rights. Singer is arguing there's no you there when you're an embryo, when you're a fetus, when you're a newborn. That rather, the real you does not show up until you have what is called continuity of memory. You see yourself existing over time and have a right to live or have a desire to live over time. Until you have that, there's no you there. So the being that was conceived is not the same as Sean McDowell sitting across from me from the camera today. You existed as a body, but that wasn't you. The real you did not show up until your cognitive self showed up.

Now, that's different than the way David Boonin argues. David Boonin's going to argue that was you back then. You were the same being as an embryo that you are today. However, you don't have the same right to life today as you do back then. But Singer is going to basically say there was no you there until you had cognitive continuity, mainly the ability to see yourself over time. Now, of course, you know, and I know that the philosophical anthropology involved here is that of body self dualism, the belief that the real you has nothing to do with your body. And this is something we see in the transgender debate, in the gay marriage debate, and in the

abortion debate. In the transgender debate, of course, you get, and in the abortion debate. In the transgender debate, of course, you get people who say, I'm a woman trapped in a man's body, as if the real person is the desires they have, not their physical body. And this is not usually argued for, it's just assumed to be true in today's culture. And I think we need to push back against body-self dualism. It, of course, plays out in the abortion debate by saying, well, until that embryo has a conscious self, there's no identity present there. Therefore, ending that that his view of the human person cannot account for human equality. Number two, we can challenge him on why his standard ought to be accepted in the first place. He needs to argue for that, not just merely assert it. And I haven't seen him really argue for it. Why do I have to see myself existing over time to have a right to life? He needs to make a case for that, not just assume it. Another thing I'd point out is that if you want human equality, you're going to have to ground it in something that doesn't come and go

and that all of us share equally. Well, he grounds it in seeing yourself existing over time, having a desire to go on living, and therefore you're a person that has interests and a right to life. The problem is, Sean, you and I can lose those traits and regain them in the course of our life, and nobody watching us right now shares them equally at this point. Some of us are more or less self-aware than others. Some of us have a greater desire to go on living than others, and these traits do not apply to us equally. The only thing we all share equally is we have a common human nature, which as Christians we know bears the image of our maker. But if you ground human identity and human rights in traits that come and go

and that none of us share equally, instead of us having a common human nature that doesn't come in degrees, you're going to end up with savage inequality because those with more of that trait will have a greater right to life than those with less. I love to ask people, what makes us equal in the first place? And they love to throw out these traits. Well, my ability to be self-aware does. Okay, if you're in a reversible coma and I'm

not, does that mean then if right to life is grounded in the immediate capacity for self-awareness, do I have a right to life that's greater than yours then? And of course, they want to hedge and fudge at that point. But the argument they're advancing for human value, if it's grounded in traits that come and go, you have no basis for true human nature. It's going to lead to inconsistencies. Things like what if two people get in a motorcycle accident, one has their memories and one doesn't. If you ground it in memories, person A still has the same identity, person B doesn't. But as those memories come back, then person B becomes person B again. And you also have to ask, well, how many memories do you need? How deep do those memories have to be? Is one memory enough? I mean, it literally leads to absurdities if you try to ground it in anything. There's so many counterexamples that come up. Yeah. I mean, how self-aware do I have to be not to be killed? I mean, they've got to give an

answer to that that is cogent and makes sense. And this is what you've just highlighted is what Chris Kayser calls the episodic problem with a lot of these body-self dualistic arguments. You end up having a situation where someone starts off being one thing and then ends up being another and may revert back to the original. I'll give you another example. We can now do fetal surgery on children in the womb that might suffer from things like herniated diaphragms. So at the beginning of the procedure, the child is in the womb. The physician removes the child, repairs the herniated diaphragm, puts the child back in the womb to be born normally at 40 weeks. So does that child go from being a non-human with rights at the

beginning of the surgical procedure to briefly becoming a person with rights while he's outside the womb and then go back to not being one again when he's placed in the womb? I mean, these are the absurd things that happen. Or take viability. A woman boards a plane in New York City where viability is roughly now, let's say, 24 weeks, and let's say she's flying to Bangladesh where viability is 32 weeks because they don't have the same advanced medical equipment we do. Does her child go from being a human being in New York City where there is great equipment to then becoming non-one when the flight enters Bangladesh airspace and then go back to being a person when the woman flies home.

I mean, this is absurd, but this is what follows from these performance views of human value. And if we can ever develop a completely artificial womb, then would the right to life emerge literally at conception because it's dependent upon technology and location? And of course, I don't think anybody's going to want to concede that. You're right. Viability measures are medical equipment, not the status of the unborn. All right, let's do this. I don't do this with all my guests, but like I said earlier, Scott, I consider you a debate ninja. You've mastered this stuff because you care about it and you think about it and you practice it and debate it. Let's kind of do a rapid fire. So you don't have to give me the full response to these, but maybe one or two points that you would raise so people can consistently

see how you reason through these objections. And for those who want more, again, book Case for Life is one of the top books I'd recommend on this. 10-year update is out. You cover even more than we will do here as well. All right. So let's take these one by one, Scott. Somebody says, well, look, laws can't stop all abortions. So what's the point? Laws against rape don't stop all rape, but we don't make rape legal. That was a great quick response.

All right. The unborn are human, but they're not persons. Why should I believe there can be such a thing as a human that's not a person? Have you ever met a human that wasn't a person? If you have a teenager, don't answer, but otherwise, have you? Why would me meeting somebody be the standard of whether you could have a human non-person? Because that would seem to beg the question against the unborn being potentially a human non-person. What do we mean by person? I mean, or what do we mean by potential? That seems arbitrary. Sex organs are actual sex organs, whether they're ever used that way or not. Human beings are not potential

persons. They're humans with great potential. I love that line, by the way. Okay. Embryos and fetuses have no desire to go on living and thus they don't have the right to life. So the right to life is grounded in desires. Since the unborn don't have it, they don't have the right to life. A suicidal person may not desire to go on living. Should we just let him jump off a bridge? For that matter, a slave can be conditioned not to desire his freedom. Does that mean it's fair to lock him up and make him perform certitude to a master? Scott, in our country, we have separation of church and state. Why don't you keep your religious arguments in the church?

Well, first of all, arguments are sound or unsound, valid or invalid. Calling my argument religious doesn't refute it. But secondly, what do you mean by separation of church and state? Do you mean it in the strong sense that believers are not allowed to bring their values to the public square and argue for them like everyone

else? Or do you mean it in the modest sense that the church should not establish a state church, or the state should not establish a state church? If you mean it in the strong sense, where is it found in the Constitution that religious believers don't get to participate in their own government fair enough interesting good questions okay uh we talked about that one man you are an ninja how about this one the coat hanger objection if we outlaw objections then women are going to die from illegal abortions. And we don't want this to happen to our daughters, to our neighbors. Isn't it better to just do this safely? Well, of course, I feel badly for any woman that dies from an abortion, illegal or legal.

But notice the objection assumes the unborn aren't human. Because otherwise, Sean, what the argument is saying is that because some people want to intentionally kill other innocent human beings, the state ought to make it safe and legal for them to do it. Safe for whom? For the child? No. We don't make bank robberies safer for felons by legalizing it. We restrict it. If the unborn are human, they should be legally protected too. And I would also add, there is no evidence to suggest that five to 10,000 women a year died from illegal abortion prior to Roe v. Wade. Not because pro lifers say it, but because I say in the book, at least four pro abortion sources totally debunked the idea that women died from illegal abortion in mass numbers. Okay. Now there's more that you go to in detail. That was excellent. That was very helpful, but hopefully this gives viewers a sense of the way you respond to objections, bring it back to the heart of the issue. Is the unborn human? Do all human beings

have a right to life? What does abortion actually entail? That's one of the biggest things I've learned from you, Scott, is to keep the main thing the main thing So maybe illustrate for us. This is something I've cited you on many times what you call trot out the toddler Yeah, when people give you street-level objections to the pro-life view Usually they are assuming the unborn aren't human For example when they talk about choice and who decides or trusting women to make their own decisions or right to privacy, would they ever use those as good reasons for killing a toddler? The answer is no. Why? Because they're assuming the unborn aren't human like the toddler. So we're not arguing with Trot Out the Toddler that the unborn are human. We use the science of embryology to do that. But we use Trot Out the the toddler to show that the main issue is not

choice not privacy not trusting women it's one question what is the unborn so suppose sean you're in a conversation with um one of your students there at biola who didn't have the benefit of being raised in a christian home and that student challenges you one day and says, well, wait a minute, what about trusting women to make their own decisions? And you respond by saying, okay, let's ask this question. Suppose I have a two-year-old in front of me, and suppose that the parents want us to trust them to rough that toddler up in the privacy of their own home. Should they be allowed to do it? Well, your student's going to say no, and you will rightfully say, well, why not? Well, because he's a human being, at which point you'll respond, ah, if the unborn are human, like their toddler or like that toddler, and we

haven't yet argued they are, but if they are, intentionally killing them in the name of trusting people or privacy is immoral. So the real issue here is not trust. It's not privacy. It's not, hey, do we value women? The question is, what is the unborn? If they are human, they shouldn't be killed in the name of trusting people any more than we'd kill a toddler for that reason. And you just keep bringing it back to that question, what is the unborn? I'm curious if you've changed your mind on anything, because one way I've nuanced over the years, I've probably spoken and written on life for probably, gosh, since the late 90s. So coming up on about 25 years, I have, and of course, I'm a generalist, I cover a lot of issues, you really focus on this. But I used to say in cases when a mother's

life is in jeopardy, abortion was justified. And then it really occurred to me that although it's the same procedure, if a mother's life is truly in jeopardy, it's not an abortion because the intention is not to end the life of the innocent unborn. It's actually to protect the mother and all efforts are and would be made to protect the unborn. So it's really not even a case of abortion. Assuming you agree with that or feel free to add anything to that. Or so you do that. OK, is there anything really good point, Sean? And that is you cannot reduce morality to behavior.

Stealing and borrowing look the same. But intention and motive matter as to whether it's borrowing or stealing. If I see my neighbor and I look out at his house and I see somebody walking out of the garage with a 60-inch television, I need to know, is it being borrowed? Is it being delivered? Is it being stolen? Intent matters. And the same would apply here, for example, in the case of ectopic pregnancy. This is where the embryo implants on the inner wall of the fallopian tube rather than the uterine cavity wall. And as that embryo grows in that narrow passageway, you can imagine the danger to the mother's life. It can cause that tube to rupture,

in which case there's a high probability the mother bleeds to death internally. You have a choice as a pro-life doctor in that situation. Do you do nothing and let two humans perish, or do you act in such a way that you save one life, even though, and here's the one life I can. I don't intend the death of the embryo. If there's a way to save the child, I would do it. But in acting to remove the embryo, I don't intend his death. With abortion, we not only foresee the death of the unborn, we intend it, and therein lies the wrong. So two last questions for you.

If somebody watched this through to the end and they're pro-choice, they're not convinced for whatever reason it is, what would you say to somebody who's heard this and listened through at this point? What would your words of encouragement or challenge be? My challenge would be this. If our argument is sound and valid, namely that it's wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings, abortion does that, therefore it's wrong. If that argument is sound and valid, and if the terms are used clearly, I would say this, not in a sense of I got you,

one-upmanship, but just intellectual honesty. Are we not obliged to accept arguments that meet the standard of reason? And I would argue we are. And I put myself to that same standard. This is not about me being better than you. It's not about me beating you. I hate it when people say, oh, so-and-so got owned in an argument. I think that kind of makes it personal and nasty. Rather, what I'd say is if we are equally committed to the Socratic quest for truth, we both ought to be committed to follow the argument where it leads. If the argument is persuasive that we just gave and we've done a good job buttressing it with science and philosophy, then I would say listeners are obliged to accept the conclusion that abortion

is morally wrong. That's not being mean. It's just where the quest for truth leads. The second thing I would say to people that are pro-choice is that don't assume that everybody you're discussing this with wants to make it personal. And not everything is personal. Some things stand or fall on their merits, and logical arguments are one of those things. Look at the argument, look past the person. I grant you there are some pro-lifers out there who could do a better job at being winsome.

I want you to look past that and look at the arguments and evaluate them on their merits. That would be my challenge. That's a great challenge. And I would just say, look, if you've listened and you've tracked with us this far, pick up a copy of the case for life. When it's all said and done, you might still not be persuaded, but I have not met a lot of pro-choicers in my life and my experience who are willing to say, I'm going to consider the best arguments given what's at stake. Make sure I'm on the side of truth and I'm not motivated by emotions or relationally or something else motivated by truth. relationally or something else,

motivated by truth, pick a copy of Case for Life and you owe it to yourself and to the pre-born to work it through. What encouragement would you give to the pro-life community or individuals watching this who came to this to be encouraged to get some answers? Of course, I'm going to tell them, pick up the Case for Life. This 10-year update is fantastic. What words of encouragement would you give to them? Well, I'm glad you asked, Sean. I think there's a couple of things pro-lifers can do. In a post-Roe world, Sean, we are all apologists now.

This idea that we can leave the defense of the unborn to professionals, to guys like you and I who are in this field, those days are over. We've got to be able to be equipped to defend our views with neighbors, with friends, with classmates. So the book will help them do that. Another tool they may want to take advantage of, on my website at scottklusendorf.com, we now have a 10-session course that takes a deep dive into the pro-life apologetics. We look at the thinking of Peter Singer, who we referenced a moment ago, David Boonenonen and the new kid on the block Kate Grizzly even and we take a deep dive into what their thinking is why their

arguments ultimately fail to persuade and we give you tips on how to begin making your church more into a pro-life Church and how you as a Christian ambassador can become a persuasive pro-life defender. So that course is now available at my website and people can go there and purchase it. And the textbook for the course is of course, the new edition of The Case for Life. Good. And that's there. And it both will be valuable tools for helping your viewers defend life. Check out The Case for Life, scottklusendorf.com.

Last one, you did the MA Apologetics program at Biola where I teach before I was there. Usually at this point, I try to get folks to sign up so we can train them. You give the sell for us. Honestly, how important was that for you? How vital is it that people get training in apologetics? Tell us about Biola the the MA course in apologetics at Biola was absolutely fantastic and it did a couple of things for me Sean number one it helped me see the larger world views that are in play in the abortion debate and number two it gave me credentials with gatekeepers gatekeepers that are considering hey do I want this guy to

speak? When you come with an MA from Biola, that means something out there in the world. It carries weight. And so I have nothing but good things to say about my time at Biola in the MA graduate program. And I would say, if you are at all interested in understanding the culture we're in, you get great faculty like Sean. You get people like JP Moreland. You get people like Scott Smith and Dr. Scott Ray, who also were very helpful to me and whose views I reference in the book. So I would say to viewers,

it is well worth the time and resources to enroll in that program. I noticed- You didn't pay me to say that. I know, I didn't. I didn't prep you with that one either but i noticed even some of your notes were referencing back to some of the classes you took at biola which was pretty cool to see when i looked at the footnotes scott

appreciate your boldness appreciate your clarity thanks for your time thanks for your friendship let's do this again let's do it sean thank you i appreciate you brother you too