Ladies and gentlemen, thrilled to have you here for another epic debate. Want to let you know if it's your first time here at Modern Day Debate, we are focused on hosting debates in the most neutral way possible on science, religion, and politics.  So consider hitting that subscribe button and with that, we are very excited folks. Want to let you know this should be, I think it's going to be despite the fact that it's controversial. I think it's going to be civil, I think it's going to be thoughtful and substantive and so we're really excited about that. We are very honored to host our guests. We are also want to give you a heads up, they're linked to the description. So that way if you'd like to hear more from them or read more from them, you certainly can. We encourage you to click their links and want to let you know tonight's format is going to be a little bit we're mixing it up. I think that'll make it fun keeping it fresh. So tonight's format is going to still have that open dialogue portion, but it's also going to have as usual, the five to 10 minute openings and then a rebuttal period, which should be five to 10 minutes from each person. And following that we'll have open conversation followed by 30 minutes of Q and A and then closing statements. So stick around to the very end and that way you'll get to hear the closing statements from our guests. And with that, we're going to want to get you basically want to let you know, folks, that if you have a question, feel free to fire it into the old live chat. If you tag me with at modern day debate, that'll make it easier for me to get every single question into that Q and A list. Super chat is also an option, in which case it'll bump your question to top of the list. And we'll try to give you a warning in terms of when we are kind of like, I don't know if we can read many more questions. So just want to give you a heads up that sometimes we don't get to read all of them. And with that, very excited as we'll have Kate getting the ball rolling. And so thanks so much, Kate, for coming back. And I've got the timer set. So the floor is all yours. Well, thank you for having me back on. I love coming on and having these discussions. For those of you who don't know, my name is Kate Bellows. I am a pro-life activist, first and foremost, been a pro-life activist for almost seven years now. I'm also a consistent life ethic activist. I believe that all human life is sacred and valuable, and that we should be protecting it from the beginning of life to the end of life. And that's sort of where my stance is on all issues. I'm not just anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, anti-Euthanasia, anti-assisted suicide, anti-war, anti-nuclear weapons. The list goes on and on. I just believe that all human life should be protected, and I like to use that consistently throughout all of my opinions in my life. I'm also a libertarian. I do a lot of political activism online and in my local community. I live in Philadelphia. I don't really know what else I can say in regards to myself, but I am looking forward to this discussion. I always look forward to talking to people about the abortion debate. I think that it's a really hot topic right now, and something that we really should continue to discuss. And I am looking forward to hearing a different perspective from mine and maybe learning something new about the abortion debate that maybe I don't know. And looking forward to just having civil conversation. I think that debate should be civil and productive, so I'm hoping to get more of that tonight. I think that's really all I can say at the moment. You got it. Thanks so much. Short and sweet. So we'll kick it over to Ben for his opening. Thanks so much for being back with us, Ben. The floor is all yours. Yeah, my pleasure. So looking forward to talking to Kay. Name is Ben Burgess. I'm a columnist for Jack Bin, host a show called Give Them an Argument. And let me start with something, I guess, to kind of lay out why my position is and always has been a pro-choice with something that might seem wildly off topic, but give it a minute, it will come to bear, which is this stat. So every year 8,000 Americans die waiting for organ transplants. This is obviously a terrible human tragedy. 80% of those need a kidney, 20% of the organs. And if you think about that, this is obviously a horrible thing. These are 8,000 men and women dying who are losing years or decades of life that they might have left. They're leaving behind grieving children, parents, husbands, wives, friends. And it's not a quick death. It's terrible death. Organ failure. In some cases we're talking about weeks of confusion, vomiting, feeling parts of your body go cold. So this is something that any decent person would want to avoid if they possibly can. And so you start thinking about what government could legitimately do to alleviate that tragedy. Well, one thing they could do would be to pour more money into more aggressive publicity campaigns about how important it is to sign up as an organ donor. And maybe that would help. But what if that wasn't enough? What else could we do? Well, I'm a socialist. So of course, the first place my mind goes is that one reason that some people die on the organ transplant list is they don't get there soon enough because they aren't going to die at the doctor because they don't have health insurance or they're worried about pay copays or other financial concerns. And maybe if we had socialized medicine, more of those people would be saved. Kay just told us to choose a libertarian. So maybe her solution would be something like she'd think that maybe part of the problems people don't have enough of incentive to be organ donors. And if we have like a free market in organs, maybe that would do something about it. And I would have problems and objections with her solution. She would have problems objections to my solution. But one thing that we would presumably all agree on is that it would be totally unacceptable to use the power of the state to force people to donate organs against their will that that would be really wrong.   And, you know, we could make relatively fair. We could have like a draft lottery like for the Vietnam War draft. And if your unlucky number came up, you have to donate a kidney. But again, I can't imagine that anybody really would support that we would all think that was a huge violation if you're right to control your own body. And well, this gets us back to the topic because in my view, forcing a pregnant woman to remain pregnant is a far greater violation of bodily autonomy of that basic human right to control your own body than forcing somebody to give up an organ. So Margaret Olivia Little says in her brilliant paper abortion intimacy and the duty to gestate, if you think that fetuses are people, then pregnancy is a far more intimate entwinement of two people than organ donation. A fetus literally inhabits a pregnant woman. It occupies her body. If a fetus is a person, it's a person whose blood is being oxygenated by the air being breathed into someone else's lungs. So if you think that it's wrong to cease to be inhabited by a fetus, then we're not just talking about a negative thing. Oh, it's wrong to do something to the fetus. You're saying that pregnant women have a duty to do something for the fetus, continue to keep it alive with their own body. Again, breathing the air that's that's oxygenated. It's blood not doing reckless things that that would end up that would end up killing it. And as a matter of fact, I don't think fetuses are people, at least not in the early stages of pregnancy. I agree with Judith Jarvis-Thompson that at first trimester fetus is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree.  But when I look at what medical researchers say in peer review journals, it looks like the fetal brain only develops to the point where there's a thalamus, right? That relay center that allows you to actually have experiences, not just, you know, reflexes, but experiences until well into the third trimester. And so up until then, it doesn't look like a fetus can experience pain or pleasure or any other sensation. You know, we're not even talking about thoughts here, just sensations. And as a philosophical issue, I don't think a literally mindless creature is the right kind of entity to have any kind of moral or legal rights at all. Now, sometimes people respond to this point by saying that, well, what about people who already exist as a creature with a mind, but then like they go into a coma or for some other reason, they become temporarily mindless? I'm not really persuaded by that analogy. That seems pretty different to me, but maybe we can get into that later in the discussion. But to my mind, all of this is kind of beside the point for the larger issue, which is that even if you do think a fetus is a person, even if you completely disagree with what I just said about that topic, and you define person in some way that doesn't require the ability to have thoughts or feelings or sensations of any kind, forcing a pregnant woman to share her body with that person again for bigger violators, the government instituted an organ donation lottery where they would draft you and make you donate your organs. If you think that that would be wrong, you should also think that laws against abortion are wrong. And final point I would make here is that the phrase right to life is easy to say. It rolls off the tongue. It feels like we're talking about just one thing, but really we're talking about a bunch of different rights or possible rights that someone could have, some of which are uncontroversial, some of which are super controversial. One thing to write to life means is that you can't be like stabbed to death while you're walking down the street minding your own business. Okay, that's uncontroversial. But another thing that many people like me think the right to life means is that if that does happen to you, the stabbing victim has a right to be treated at the taxpayer's expense through some sort of Medicare for all or national health service kind of system. That's also something that could be defended as the right to life. But these are very different rights. And in order to argue about whether we actually have all of them, we'd have to get into like much bigger issues about things like, you know, property rights and the legitimate rule of government. I can't just kind of say a right to life. And that's it in my view. And so similarly, when we're talking about grounds for a moral objection to abortion, much less to make it abortion illegal. And you talk about that as a right to life, you're talking about a third very different kind of right to life, which is the right to inhabit the body of a person. And when you talk about that, even aside from the fact that we are talking about a literally mindless organism at this point, having that right to inhabit somebody else's body, then I think we're talking about something really specific, which is forced pregnancy, which seems to me like one of the most authoritarian things that a government can do to somebody is forcing them to share their body with another person against their will. I assume that was all. Oh, sorry. Yeah. When I stopped talking, I'm done. No problem. So we will next wasn't just an incredibly long dramatic pause. So we'll kick it over to Kay for this rebuttal, which will be five to 10 minutes. Kay, the floor is all yours. Okay. Well, I think I try to break down your argument. Little by little. The reason why I see pregnancy as different from the idea of organ donation. First of all, I do believe that a fetus is a person. I don't know how you would define personhood if you're going to go by the dictionary definition or philosophical definition of what personhood is. But I do believe that a fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. But the reason why I see pregnancy as different from organ donation is number one organ donation. If you refuse to donate your organs and somebody on the transplant list dies because they could not get an organ that they needed. And maybe you could have given an organ that they that was necessary to save the life of another person.  It's a sad fact that people do go into organ failure and they need organs that healthy people die and go into the ground having not donated and that could have saved the life. But the difference being that in an abortion, you are going into a facility and having a doctor directly terminate the life of another human being. Whereas with organ donation, you're not doing that.  Otherwise, this person is going to die and you do have the right to refuse. But overall, that's not what we're seeing happening. Whereas in abortion, it is one human being taking the life of another human being through many different causes depending on what stage of pregnancy the woman is in whenever she goes in to get the abortion. Another reason why I see organ donation and pregnancy as not similar situations is that pregnancy is a natural biological bodily function. It's what happens whenever a woman's body or I should say for context, whenever a biological female's body does exactly what it's supposed to do in response to intercourse. So I don't believe that a natural bodily function like breathing or your body breaking down food or liquid can violate your bodily autonomy. It's something that is just a natural process that the body goes through throughout a woman's existence. So I don't believe that the argument that a that pregnancy violates a woman's bodily autonomy is valid because that's like saying that your lungs expanding without your permission violates your bodily autonomy. Like you can attempt to prevent it, but that's going against the woman's basic biology and telling her body that what it is doing, what it is supposed to do is somehow wrong and an error and something that requires her permission for it to do, which is just not accurate. The argument that we should that we are forcing a woman, like we are using forced pregnancy, whenever we say that a woman cannot terminate her pregnancy, I also disagree with that because outside the cases of rape where a woman did not consent to the active intercourse, nobody is forcing a woman to get pregnant. And even in cases of rape, even if, you know, in odd situations where a rapist intends to impregnate a woman, pregnancy is not enforced on the woman. Again, it's just a natural biological bodily function. The body is responding the way that it's supposed to, to that process. And unfortunately, there are cases where a woman does not consent to having that process begin, but the process itself is biological. It does not require consent. With that, we will switch over to Ben for his rebuttal. Thanks so much. The floor is all yours. Sure. So when it comes to the difference between that I think is appealing to between abortion, killing somebody and then just not giving an organ donation and being, being not safe in them, I agree this can be, this can be a really morally important distinction that even if you think that there are cases where people can or should be compelled to save others or to help other people save others, we don't generally think that, that not saving somebody is always being equal as, as bad as bad as killing them. But it seems to me that, that, that saying that somebody has a legal duty to remain pregnant, they're not allowed to end that pregnancy isn't just saying that they're not allowed to do something to a fetus, right? And remember, all this is on the assumption and we will get to this in a second, that, that a fetus, you know, is a person, has the moral rights of a person, even, even though it's literally mindless and capable of having thoughts, feelings or sensations. But even on that assumption, that doesn't seem right to me. We're not just, we're not just talking about pregnant women doing or not doing something to the fetus. If you say a pregnant woman has a legal obligation to remain pregnant, then you're saying that she should do the most profound, most intimate thing one human being could possibly do for another, which is let them live inside their body. And, and so I think it is on the other, the other end of that on, on the subject of pregnancy being natural, of course, that's, that's true enough. But, but so, you know, heart attacks are natural. You know, cancer is natural, right? That's, that's a living, you know, that's on some definitions, a living thing that is doing what it does naturally, right, and expanding through the body of another living thing. We could go down the line. All there are lots of things that medical science can very unnaturally, very, very artificially intervene to stop that are natural. But we don't normally think that that fact is enough to, to make, to make it like illegitimate for somebody to stop the natural thing, to somebody use or to use artificial mechanisms to stop the natural thing from, from happening. There's nothing more unnatural than, than medicine.  So I don't think something being natural versus being unnatural tells us very much about its morality. There was also a discussion about whether it is possible to, you know, to force someone to get pregnant. And I'd say that I mean, my intuition will be a little bit different on that case in the Handmaid's tale sort of case where somebody is, you know, being forced to do something with a goal is to make them pregnant. I do think it's natural to describe that as forcing them to get pregnant, but, but I don't think that, you know, that's not something I really want to get really hung up on, because I don't think that's the main issue, right? I don't think that's what all of this really hinges on, because the issue is not forcing somebody to be pregnant. The issue is forcing somebody to stay pregnant. So if there were laws against removing tumors, then that wouldn't mean that somebody was forced to get a tumor in the first place. Getting the tumor is something that happens naturally. What it would mean is that they were being forced to keep the tumor, that they weren't allowed to exercise their basic right to bodily autonomy by taking it out. And that does seem like a huge violation of bodily autonomy. And I think you'd have to say the same thing about abortion, you know, that forcing somebody to remain pregnant is a violation of bodily autonomy, right? So it's not a matter of the pregnancy itself being something that's happening against the woman's will any more than getting the tumor is something that happens against your will or getting cancer is something that happens against your will. These are things that just happen. Of course, they're against your will in your sense that you rather than not happen, but they're things that just happen.  The force comes in when you're stopped from doing anything about it. And if you think that people have a basic right to control their own bodies, then it seems to me that that is a huge violation of that right. Finally, on the issue of persons, I think that the question of what makes somebody a person in the sense that we care about when it comes to morality is an incredibly difficult one. Fetus is certainly a human being, but that seems like a slightly different question. If a person at the end of life or something that was a person at the end of life is completely incurably brain dead but kept alive by machines, then we're talking about a human being. It's not at all clear to me that we're still talking about a person. If you, I don't know, you imagine Frankenstein's monster being assembled and they got everything but the head, but they still had the electricity running through it and it was still alive, then I don't think any of the experiment would be a murder because I think the morally relevant question is not whether something is a member of some species or not. Just like on the other end, if the aliens from Star Trek really existed, presumably we wouldn't think it would be okay to kill and eat them, because what we care about morally, when we think about a person, isn't their membership or non-membership in some species. What we care about are things like what kinds of thoughts and lives and experiences they have. Now, trying to figure out exactly what the cutoff is for what counts as a human being, for what counts as a person, what the checklist is of properties that you have to have is incredibly difficult. If you say that you need to be rational, to have thoughts that would differentiate a person from a cow or a chicken, then you have a problem about very young people like babies, toddlers. If you say that all that's necessary is being a human being, then you have a problem in that Frankenstein kind of case. I think that trying to sort through that morass philosophically of what counts as a person is incredibly difficult, and I would not at all claim to have all the answers here, but my big claim are two things. One, that whatever you have to be, to be a person or to be any kind of object of moral concern, there are things you couldn't do to a dog because it would be morally wrong to do, because a dog isn't a person, but a dog is an object of moral concern, that whatever the conditions are, certainly one of them is the ability to have feelings and sensations. This is why we care morally about what happens to dogs, torturing a dog is morally wrong, smashing up a rock can't be morally wrong, unless maybe it can be morally wrong as a thing that we do to the odor of the rock, but it can't be morally wrong as a thing that we do to the rock. If you're talking about an early trimester, you know, a first or second trimester fetus, then they are as bereft of sensations as that rock because you don't have the thalamus yet, but the second claim, it's the most important claim, and I'll just end on this, is that it doesn't matter whether a fetus is a person or not. I don't think so for the reasons I just said, but even if we did say that a fetus was already a person, not just something that could potentially develop into a person, then I don't think that it's right to force one human being to share their body against their will with another human being, which is what we do when we force someone to stay pregnant, which I think is the issue. You bet. Thanks so much. We will kick it into open conversation mode, and so the floor is all yours. Okay, so in response to like the beginning of your argument talking about how, you know, just because it's natural doesn't really argue the morality of the issue. My issue with that argument is, yes, cancer is natural, tumors are natural, but you know, heart attacks are natural, but those are instances whenever things go wrong in the body, whenever the body doesn't do what it's supposed to do, whenever something is not right, whereas with pregnancy, this is what the body was meant to do on the most basic biological basis, you know, infertility is whenever something goes wrong with the human reproductive system. This is how the body is meant to respond to sexual intercourse. This is how the body responds when everything goes absolutely right in this situation on a biological level. It is meant to result in pregnancy. So to me, that does make somewhat of a difference whenever arguing the morality of abortion, like yes, tumors are natural, whereas pregnancy is also natural, but tumors are when something goes wrong and pregnancy is with absolutely everything when the body works exactly the way that it is supposed to. Yeah, I guess I don't really get the supposed to thing. Like, supposed by who? Are we assuming that there's a God or some other creator laying out the plan for everything? Because then I would get it, right? That it would violate the intentions of that creator to do it, which is, by the way, also the argument that has been used historically for a lot of things I find pretty authoritarian, like saying that gay sex is morally wrong because it's not how sexual organs are supposed to be used, or even the birth, you know, that condoms or birth control are morally wrong for the same reason, because, you know, you're not letting things fill their natural function, play out like the way that they're supposed to do. So I guess, like, what's this supposed to? Like, is that something that should, like, do we have to have some kind of religious thing hovering in the background to make sense as supposed to, or does that have an independent justification? Well, I hope that it doesn't hinder on religion, because I'm actually a pay-in. But I think that it's a biological issue, whereas we know that whenever a biological male and a biological female engage in sexual intercourse, the process that the woman's body goes through is meant to take the male sperm, fertilize the egg, the egg travels through the fallopian tube to the uterus to implant to create a pregnancy. That's the process that it is meant to go through on the most basic biological level. Okay, but again, I don't really get, I mean, I don't know, maybe we don't get want to get stuck on this point for too long, but I don't really get the the meant to, right? Like, if you have like a conscious being that's setting something up or designing something, then I get the meant to, right? This is what's meant to happen. But it seems like when we're talking about biological processes, all we can really say is this is what does happen a certain percentage of the time. This is that if things play out the way they usually do, maybe this will happen. Although, with pregnancy, that's not true, right? Ideal conditions, it's still going to be only a minority of the time, right? But like, it seems like we can talk about that, right? But what's the meant to? Because it seems like we could equally say that when, I mean, I don't even know, right? That when your body comes into contact with something that would cause you to get some cancer cells to develop, that what's meant to happen is that the cancer then metastasizes through your body. But we wouldn't say that. And it doesn't seem like that's because the actual process, I mean, we could say, okay, here's the beginning of the process, here's what's going to happen if nothing hinders it. So if you want to call that meant to, get that in both cases. But otherwise, it just seems like we're saying, well, one is a process that we like, and that in most cases, right, we try to make sure everything goes the way that it would without interference. Most pregnant people want to stay pregnant. And in the other case, it's something that we really dislike and we like, never want that to play out. But other than saying that we like one and we don't like the other, I guess I have to say, I don't really get what it means to say that it's supposed to happen or it's meant to happen or anything like this. Well, a woman's biology, I mean, I keep saying woman, I don't want to offend anybody in the chat. A biological female's biology is constantly, once you get puberty, is in a constant cycle of preparing for this. It's a constant process for us. We actually have to take man-made medication to prevent it from happening. From the minute like we go through the process, and once the process has quote unquote ended for us through, you know, our are you done while like passing through, it starts right over for us again. This is what our bodies are constantly preparing to do month after month, year after year, until we reach a biological age where our bodies can no longer prepare for that process anymore. So I guess whenever I say it's supposed to do that is because this is just our natural biological process day in and day out, month to month, year to year, throughout our quote unquote childbearing ages where our body has the ability to do this, it's what it's constantly preparing to do. Yeah. So, but I mean, you wouldn't think, I assume, right, that like other things that interfere with that happening are wrong because they're interfering with something natural happening. Like I'm assuming you don't think that like using birth control is morally wrong. No, not at all. I'm very pro birth control. I'm also pro allowing women to take morning after pills. I don't think that there's anything morally wrong with that. I disagree with a lot of my pro life constituents on that, but I've used birth control. I've used morning after pills. I don't see an issue with that. Okay. So, so I guess, yeah, I mean, I guess the, I guess the MENTU thing is still, is still kind of a sticking point for me, but I don't want to get stuck on that, stuck on that forever. But I guess, I guess one thing I'm curious about, and then I don't know if you want to turn it around and ask me stuff, right?  So, so presumably there's this tons of stuff that we could do to keep people alive that, that you don't, you know, that you don't think that, that people should, should have to do, right? Like, like even if, like even if all we're doing to people is taking some money out of their bank account, you know, and, and doing that can help people, you know, keep people alive. I mean, libertarianism seems like it would say you can't do that because it's their money and they could do whatever we want with. And I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. See, the issue with being a libertarian is like, I can't speak for all libertarians, but for me personally, my issue is that I do not trust the government to do anything efficiently. I think that the government has proven that they cannot do anything efficiently. And if, you know, anybody doubted it, like just look at the last five days of living in the United States.  And that's just because of like the government being involved with it. I'm very much pro-private charity. Studies have shown that private charities are statistically, you know, more capable of providing what people need and in better, in like better amounts of time for them. So for me, it's just removing the government aspect. I haven't gone, you know, over the edge of going into full anarchist. So I do believe that the government serves a purpose, but I believe that their sole purpose is to protect our human rights, our constitutionally protected rights. And for me, I believe that the fundamental right to life is the most foundational right that we have, that without having the right to our own lives, no other rights really matter at that point. So being a libertarian and being pro-life, they seem to go hand in hand to me, to where as I think that the government's only purpose is to step in and protect humans from killing other humans. And of course, all of our other legally constitutionally protected human rights, but foundationally at the beginning, the right to life. Well, for some reason, I just keep asking you questions, and that's not at all what the, so if you want to, you know, a few questions for me or however you want to do this. I do have a question. So for you is like, do you believe that there should be a cutoff for abortion or do you think that it should be acceptable throughout all nine months of pregnancy? I think that if there were really, like, I think that if I were really worried that there were pregnant women out there who were trying to, were trying to abort at like eight and a half months or something, I think, you know, just, just because they changed their minds, you know, there's no, there's no concern about the health of the mother, there's no, you know, whatever, right? Like there was no overwhelming urgent thing, but you know, but they just kind of changed their minds about it. And that there were doctors who were willing to do it under those circumstances, then I think there might be a case for stopping that. I mean, that's that, I think that, I mean, I think that the later you get, the closer you get to, to the end, the end of pregnancy, I think the weaker, the bodily autonomy stuff that most bothers me about laws against abortion get. But, but I guess my reason for, for not thinking, okay, so, so let's pass a bunch of, you know, have a bunch of laws against that, is that I think that it's very unlikely that anybody is going to have an abortion that late, just because, just because she changed her mind. And, and that even if there are some very, like psychologically unusual people out there who would just sort of, like, make a, you know, like just sort of decide, you know, like just on a whim, you know, to have a super duper late abortion without like any like overwhelming good reason to do it, then I'd be very skeptical that they would find a doctor who would actually perform it. At that point, right, that I, my understanding is that, is that the very few, the very few doctors who will perform abortions in the late third trimester will generally only do it if there is some like overwhelming reason like that, like, like some big threat to the, to the health of the mother. So, all of which is just to say that, I mean, I think if you really like pin me down on like hypothetical situations, like, okay, do you really think somebody should have a, you know, right abortion under these circumstances? That's like, all right, it's a day before she would have gone into labor and you know, she doesn't have any good reason and whatever. Then I'm sure I would say, okay, no, right, you wouldn't have to, you'll never write abortion to those circumstances. But I'm not that worried about that coming up. I think that, I think that most people wouldn't, or not just most people, I think nearly every day wouldn't like, by the time you get like into late third trimester, you know, I mean, people, nobody, it would be a really weird situation if somebody didn't know they're pregnant long before that. And by then, you know, you've almost certainly already decided to keep it. You've probably, you know, given the future baby a name. And, and so I think I'd be very surprised if anybody was just kind of whimsically deciding to have an abortion without a really good reason then. And even more surprised if a doctor was willing to do it, which is, which is why I would err on the side of, of not having laws about that necessarily. But if you could show me that there were lots of people who were actually willing to have abortions under those circumstances, then, then I guess maybe. Okay, well, the Guttmacher Institute, I think that's how you say it. He said they're actually, they're actually very pro-choice. They have a very pro-choice pro-abortion leaning bias. They actually released statistics, I believe it was back in 2014 or 2015, to where they actually proved that late term abortions or what we refer to as the late term abortions, which is, you know, late second trimester into early third trimester, actually showed that the majority of late term abortions are actually done for elective reasons. So it's not, it's a common pro-choice narrative that late term abortions only happen to save the life of the mother. That's actually not statistically accurate. The majority of late term abortions do happen for elective reasons. And I thought it was interesting that you brought up, you know, that they didn't know that they were pregnant because that's actually the number one reason why women get late term abortions is because they didn't know that they were pregnant and could not get an abortion sooner than that. Don't believe that anybody at any point in pregnancy just kind of on a whim.  I do truly believe that these women are making this decision with a heavy heart. I believe that it is a very hard decision for the majority of women that get it. And studies have shown that the majority of women that get abortions do it for outside reasons that, you know, if those reasons could have been eliminated, they would not have got an abortion. And that's an unfortunate circumstance. There are a lot of things that we need to change on a social level to help these women to where as they don't feel like they need to get an abortion. But as far as late term abortions go, I believe that it is only unless something has changed since the last time I checked. Late term abortions all the way up to the point of birth are only legal in eight states, I believe. And every single one of those states does have a very well known late term abortion doctor that is, you know, more than happy to help these women, regardless of the reason that they're getting the abortion. They have gone, four or five of them have gone on record saying that, you know, they don't care about the reasoning behind it. They believe that it's a woman's right to do so. So with that, like in mind. Yeah. Yeah.  There's late term. If you just, if I late term, you just mean third trimester, then sure, it is plausible, you know, more plausible than that somebody could not realize, you know, that that they were pregnant until then.  And I would imagine even that one doctor in the entire state, who's a well known person who's willing to perform late term abortions. If it was a matter not of you, you have to be pregnant for two months, you know, but you have to be pregnant for a week. Then then I mean, whatever, I'm open to this, if there really are statistics showing this, then I'm wrong. But but I would be surprised if under those circumstances, even that one late term abortion doctor in the state was was willing to do it.  And so just just as a quick refresher, I know you argue about the stuff all the time, just for people who are watching who aren't obsessed with this, that this is this is this classic thought experiment about somebody who's who's kidnapped by the Society of Music Lovers and they wake up in a hospital bed, they've been hooked up to this famous sick violinist. And and they they can unhook themselves, but in so doing, they would kill, they would kill the violinist. And the point that Thompson was making about this is the right to bodily autonomy, plausibly, even if even if you do accept the thing that she doesn't accept and I don't accept, you know, that a that an early term fetus is a person that the right to bodily autonomy can be even more important than someone else's right to life.  Well, if you have to if if the you only have to stay hooked up to the sick violinist for 15 minutes, then I guess I don't have a big problem with legally forcing somebody to do that. If you have to stay hooked up to the sick violinist for like six weeks or a couple of months, then that seems like a deeper violation of bodily autonomy. What exactly would you know with the cutoff point be in either that that case or the abortion case? I don't know. That's that's like I think that I think that there there are cases that are clearly, you know, unreasonable, right? Somebody says I can't be pregnant for one more day, right? I go to labor tomorrow, but I'm not willing to do that. That's clearly unreasonable. I think once we start stretching into months, it starts it starts seeming a lot more reasonable to me that you say, All right, this is a really deep violation of bodily autonomy. I'm being forced to share my body with someone else.  That's that seems like a much worse thing to force somebody to do. And then in between, I'm sure you can find lots of gray area cases where I wouldn't be sure what to say about. But I guess I would say that when it comes to moral gray areas, my impulse is to is to want people not to be arrested or legally punished, you know, for doing things that lie into some gray area that I'm not sure what to say about. Well, for me, and I'm actually thankful that this line of thinking has kind of taken the mainstream in pro-life activism, because it hasn't always been the case. But for me, and for the majority of pro-lifers, we actually don't agree with the idea of women being arrested or imprisoned for getting abortions, even after abortion is made illegal. This is something that has been normalized to the point where it's literally ingrained in our society. And like I said before, these are incredibly hard circumstances for these women. It's a very hard decision that they make. They make it with a heavy heart and the majority of them make it despite not wanting to have to make it. So for me, arresting women, imprisoning women for getting abortions is a huge no-go. The issue particularly was like... You would arrest an imprisoned doctor. I do. I do agree with arresting and imprisoning doctors that perform procedures on women after it has been made illegal, not just for the fact that they're performing illegal operations, but performing an abortion after it has been made illegal makes it more of a risk for women's health. But as far as imprisoning women for getting abortions, the majority of pro-lifers... I mean, I'm sure you're still going to find a small minority of pro-life people that think that women should be imprisoned after abortion is made illegal, but thankfully that's not the mainstream thought process within our movement anymore. Yeah, I mean the president kind of said it back in 2016 that he said there should be some kind of punishment, which is really interesting to me because it was treated as this gaffe even by pro-life people, but then it seems like normally if you think that abortion is murder, normally if somebody requests a third party to kill someone for them, if they've paid somebody to commit murder on their behalf, normally we would say that we would arrest an imprisoned, not just the murderer, but the person who arranged the hit.  And one of them was that so ingrained in our society, which made me wonder if you think that if it wasn't, right? I mean if we lived like, I don't know, 100 years after abortion had been made illegal, whether it would then be okay to arrest an imprisoned woman for having abortions. I would entertain the idea in this hypothetical we make abortion illegal so far down the road, but for me as a pro-life factor, as a consistent life activist, it would really, really hinge on how far we have come as a society to where we've adapted to that women don't feel the need to run to abortion, to where society has adjusted to the point where women don't have to fear about being able to finish their education or get a job or keep their job or provide for their already born children, all of these reasons why women are getting abortion that we can help them handle on a social level. For me, whether or not we would be arresting women for having abortions all these years later, it would really, really hinge on how society has adapted to help them to where they don't feel the need to get abortions. Do you have more questions for me? Do you want to go to Q&A? How do you want to do this? I don't have any more questions. All right, James. You got it. We'll switch into it. Want to let you know, folks, we will get through as many questions as we possibly can. We'll give you a warning when we look like we're maybe running low. And so thanks so much. I want to start with starting moving up the list rather than down the list. Let me ask from Fulcrum, said 4K, what would you say to someone who is anti-natalist? How would you convince them to reject that philosophy? Sorry, I'm not familiar with that philosophy. Ben may be able to correct me, kind of guide me if I'm off track because I know you're a philosopher, Ben. And so generally, it's an idea from philosophy and also in popular cultures as well that I think its people would say that they would rather, let's see, is anyone in the chat willing to talk? So I think, I mean, I don't know anything about this. Like most of what I know about anti-natalism is from Russ Cole and True Detective season one, but I think that it's just a view that for like one reason or another, it's better. It would actually be better just not to have a next generation of humans that would be better off just not reproducing because, I don't know, maybe you're bringing people into a world where they'll suffer or whatever. I mean, like, I don't, I guess I just say for myself that I mean, that seems like a really unappealing view to me, right?  And even though I think that even somebody who's already pregnant should have a right to make that decision, I think it would be equally wrong to say that somebody shouldn't have a right to decide to have children and I mean, whatever. I mean, I guess I don't, maybe I'd feel differently if my life were worse, but you know, there's this suffering, bad things happen in life, but I think it's still worth it. You got it. Thanks. Go ahead, Kate.  And yeah, that's true. It is possible. And for some people, it's statistically more probable that they will go through hardships in life, but everybody should have the option or the chance to make of their lives what they can. I've been through some dark times, but even whenever, you know, I tried to take my own life, I would never try to project that onto other people. You know, if you're in a dark place to where you think that the world should just end, that's your issue to deal with. And I'm sorry for you for being in such a dark place and I hope that it gets better for you, but everybody deserves a chance to make the most out of their life and to try to make the world a better place. There are some bad and horrible things that happen in this world. And, but for every person that gets up every day and tries to make the world a little bit better for the next generation and pushes those ideas onto the next generation, the next generation can make it better for the following generation, it's a good day. You got it. Thanks so much. And this question coming in from Brandon, appreciate it. Oh, wait, hold on. Let me toss beatbox. I know you stay up really late for us from Europe. Well, I want to ask you a question next set for K, if pregnancy being something meant to be quote unquote, how can some actions taken to prevent it to prevent it be morally okay and others not?  And they say, if not by some completely arbitrary measure. For me, the difference between using something to prevent pregnancy and abortion are two different things. Whenever you're having an abortion, you're not preventing pregnancy, reproduction has already taken place. Abortion and the human life that has already been reproduced with birth control. That's not the case. And I understand, you know, people, I'm going to have somebody in the chat arguing with me about how some birth controls can cause abortion. That's a whole different argument. But overall, birth control is meant to prevent another human life from ever coming into existence. And that's where I draw the line as it being a difference. You got it. Thanks so much. And Jerry Noggins appreciate your super chats said, swatting a fruit fly causes 100 times more suffering and pain than aborting a three day old human embryo blastocyst. I'm pronouncing that right. How much how much just sorry, I'm just really wondering about that. Like, like, is the like, if you're swatting the fruit fly, then that it dies instantly, right? What am I missing here? Yeah, what am I missing here? And just to go on record, I cry whenever I heal. And let's see, we from Mike, Bill ours, they asked, as much as 50% of pregnancies and in miscarriage. So wouldn't this mean God is pro choice? I don't know if Mike knows that you're pagan, pagan, but maybe this is a challenge for paganism just as well in terms of your pagan theology. Would you say that the pagan gods seem to be pro choice given that 50% of pregnancies and in miscarriage? It's hard for me to talk about the difference between pagan beliefs and the belief in, you know, an almighty God, quote unquote, I did grow up Christian. So I understand the idea. But as a pagan, I do believe in complete and total free will. I don't believe that there is a higher entity that is interfering directly into our everyday lives. So miscarriages as horrible as they are, their tragedies. It's one of those processes in the body whenever something does this goes wrong, and the body rejects that human life, unfortunately. But I don't I'm not saying that the woman's responsible for killing her child whenever she miscarries, whereas an abortion, an abortion doctor directly takes the life of that human being. Gotcha. And I hate to speed through. I know that a lot of these would be easy for both of you to answer, but it's just to speed through as many questions as possible. Mike Billar's, thanks for your question, said, Kay, I need a kidney or I die. I'm guessing you have one. Would you give it to me? How is that different from your pro life stance now substitute kidney with heart?  I've got all kinds of blood issues. I wouldn't recommend it. I mean, you're welcome to it if you really want it. But I don't think your body's going to take to it very well. The difference is being like I said at the beginning organ donation being different from abortion is if I don't donate my organs whenever I die or don't donate my organs throughout my life, I'm not directly killing someone. Whereas an abortion, she goes into a clinic and a doctor directly kills that human life. They're in like a difference. Gotcha. And thanks for your question. This one comes in from Brandon says, thanks for setting up another debate with quality guests who want to take this seriously more of this less flat earth please. Gotcha. Well, I definitely agree. This is high quality tonight. I couldn't. This is when I was excited about it. So I'm pumped for it and I'm glad you've enjoyed it too, Brandon. And then Mike Billar's again says, Kay, where is the line though? Contraception, celibacy, every egg is biologically meant to be offspring. So is not having sex wrong? No, because okay, let me break it down for you guys. I am against taking the life of other human beings. If an egg does not get fertilized, then no human being has died. If a sperm does not fertilize the egg, then no human being has died.  There's a difference between an egg and a fertilized egg. One conception takes place. Another unique human being has begun to exist and I am against ending human life. Gotcha. And I want to remind you folks, we will have the closing statements after the question. So stick around for that. You don't want to miss those. And thanks for your question.  I'm not anti ectopic pregnancy care. In cases like in Ireland, whenever abortion was completely banned, you still did have access to getting an ectopic pregnancy removed. In this case, as tragic as it is, that embryo is in some cases it can reach fetal stages, but that embryo or fetus cannot survive. And in a lot of cases is already dead before the ectopic pregnancy is removed.  And I am not against women getting ectopic pregnancies removed. And I do not believe it is morally wrong to do so. Gotcha. Sorry, Ben, we don't have more questions for you. I think there are some coming up, but I think most of our audience is pro-choice. They're trying to drill in cave. But Brandon Ardeline says, what is the greater evil? This is kind of broad, so it depends on maybe how you measure evil, but they said abortion or war. I don't think that you can measure evil. I think that the taking of human life is the taking of human life. Yes, more life is lost in a shorter amount of time with war, but if you look at since Roe v. Wade, more than 60 million human beings have been killed. I don't think that you can measure which lives are more valuable than others and which deaths are more evil than others. I think that is kind of a personal insubjective argument that differs from person to person. Gotcha. And then, Ben, this is a good one if you want to answer this one as well. Yeah. Oh, about war and abortion. Right. I guess maybe however we want to. So, okay, look, I mean, to me, there is a big difference there. I think one of them is, I think that war is very morally bad. I think that if you have a late enough term abortion that you do have a being that has a mind, that has feelings and sensations that's being killed, that might be a moral dilemma, although I'd still settle that dilemma in the direction of bodily autonomy, whereas if you have human beings with their own separate existence being wiped out as an award that seems then, yeah, I think that's just about unambiguously bad. I mean, there might be circumstances the same way that killing somebody in self-defense might be justified. I think if your country is being invaded, you have a right to cut off the invaders, things like that, under almost all circumstances, war is wrong. Gotcha. And thanks so much for your question. This one comes in from OP. Appreciate it. Greg, let's see. They say two of three of all fertilized eggs don't implant into the wall of the mother's uterus and thus millions of lives, quote unquote, die each year. Would you consider this to be a grave moral injustice? I think that's for Kay. Moral injustice? No, because nobody had control over these lives ending.  Sometimes nature just isn't fair and it's unfortunate having gone through a miscarriage myself.  Gotcha. And Jeremy T says killing cells in my leg is not murder. Killing cells in a corpse is not murder. These are not capable of consciousness. That's the crux of personhood. I think this is for you, Ben. Well, is it for me because I think that it sounds to me like they're agreeing with me. Let me think about this. I have not gotten a lot of sleep, but it's okay. Let me know how you interpreted it, and then I can share how I interpreted it. Sure, sure. So it sounds to me like they're saying that the same way that the same way that killing cells in these other situations isn't murder because you're not killing something with consciousness, that abortion wouldn't be murder because you're not killing something with consciousness. Did I mishear the question? Oh, yes. Okay. I see what you're saying. They say these are not capable of consciousness. That's the crux of personhood. You're absolutely right. That makes more sense than the way I interpreted it. Thank you. So, Kay, another one for you. I think that you can argue the idea of personhood on a philosophical level until you die. The difference being, for me, is on a scientific and biological level.  The difference between those cells and a fertilized egg is that one is a individual, unique human being with its own DNA, and one is just human cells that are, they share the exact same DNA that you do. They're parts of you, not another separate human being. Gotcha. Okay. Well, the way I interpreted it, just for kicks, because I know Ben, I'd like to have you be engaged, is the way, and I don't doubt the way that you're interpreting it, that I think is the most reasonable interpretation. I do worry though about, like, maybe someone takes this same super chat and they say, well, killing cells is my legs, not murder. We all agree. Same thing with cells in a corpse. Because they're not capable of consciousness. But my worry is, if consciousness is the criteria, is something conscious while it's in the womb, or is it the moment it comes out of the womb? So your idea was that they might be saying that these things aren't murder because those aren't conscious, but a fetus is conscious. So that is murder. Yeah, at least I was thinking they were, even if maybe at the first trimester, maybe it's not. I don't know if it is, and this is something outside of my wheelhouse. Is it in the third trimester? Yeah, I think my understanding, I mean, look, I don't have the relevant expertise, all I can do is look up what people who do have the relevant expertise seem to say, but my understanding is that, you know, that the fetus only forms the thalamus, which is like the relay center that would allow, which would allow like nerve stimulation, actually be processed as a feeling by sometime in the third trimester. So is the question, okay, so does that mean that all third trim, that all, let's say that all abortion after that happens, whenever it happens, right? Because that's kind of almost beside the point, right? That like, should we say that all abortions after that happens are therefore murder because you're killing something that's conscious. I don't think that, I think that, although I'd also point out that the idea being conscious certainly seems to be a necessary condition for something having a right to life, whether it's sufficient, it might be a little bit more controversial, because if you think it's sufficient, then presumably you also think it's wrong to kill cows and pigs and chickens, step issue, just flagging that. But putting that aside, right, that like, okay, maybe if something's human and conscious, then killing it, all else being equal is murder. And I'd probably go along with that, right? Like, because we all think that infanticide is wrong. And there's probably not a big difference between the mental capacities of a third trimester fetus and a newborn baby, or at least after whatever point in the third trimester. So, but I think to my mind, the difference is between killing something with a separate existence and forcing somebody to share their body with it, right? This is the line that I've been taking all along, that like, while I don't think that at least most fetuses count as people, because they don't have thoughts or feelings or experiences yet, I think that even a fetus did count as people. I agree with the point that Judith Jarvis Thompson is making with the sick violinist example. I think that I think that you can't reasonably ask someone to share their body with another person against their will, that that's too deep a violation of all of our right to control our bodies. You got it. Thanks so much. And this question comes in from, oh, it's like, Caleb, sorry, you're right. Caleb, I did miss your question. Sorry about that. And this, if you have any, it's a special time. I always, it's kind of like now when you're a kid, a lot of the holidays, you seem like they have some sort of magicalness to them. And you get older and the feeling kind of fades. But I realize it doesn't fade. It moves into like election day, things like that. It feels very special. There's like election Eve. But anyway, the question is this, you don't have to answer it. But if you want question for all three, did you vote for Biden? No, no, I didn't. I was actually super disappointed with the election this year. I'm really tired of two party system putting up two candidates that I cannot vote for. I actually voted third party this time around. Yes, I did. James, are you gonna answer? I guess so. If I have to say it, let's see, I voted third party as well. Respect. So I did not vote for Biden. I don't really have anything. Just out of curiosity, you've divulged who or is that? Oh boy, let's see. Okay, it's true. This is not a joke. I voted for Kanye. You're my hero. I have to be honest. All right. I like it. Well, I did vote for Joe Biden, even though I think that if Kanye had a chance, I'd really start looking at his platform and think about that. I have voted third party many times, but I live in a swing state. And so I think that for me, I think that there are harm reduction reasons to vote for Biden and well, whatever. If you want to get into that seed debate I did with Mr. Reagan a few weeks ago, I'll go on and on and on there. So I'll save it here and just say yes. That was a great debate. I'm gonna put that into the live chat. I get what you mean. That's a good point on being in a swing state. I don't think anybody blames you for voting for Biden. I think the chat is left. And yeah, that's one of the challenges is I'm out in Colorado, so we're not quite a swing state. And so I did cross my mind though, I thought if I was a swing state, maybe you vote differently. But with that, thanks for your question, Caleb. I appreciate you changing it up for us. Next up, this one comes in from Brandon. Let's see, we got Brandon. Oh, Pete. No, we got that. Next we have Brandon. Oh, this is stinging. He says, for K, I asked you to justify abortion late into a pregnancy and you essentially didn't answer it by calling it unlikely, quote unquote. And you sure this is for K? This sounds like it'd be for me. Oh, you're right. I'm so sorry. Thank you for that. I'm like no joke. I like devastatingly sleep deprived. It's been really hardly. So I appreciate you kind of guiding me through this. They asked question for Ben. That's right. Yeah, I get the stinging question. They said K asked you to justify the abortion late into the lead into a pregnancy and you essentially didn't answer it calling it unlikely and discussing legality. Could you answer morally or morally what you would how you'd answer this? Yeah, I think morally the answer would be similar to the legal answer. That I think that I think that somebody who like somebody who hypothetically was, you know, would have gone into labor the next day, you know, getting an abortion at that point, if they could somehow get away with that, find a doctor who would do it, etc. And they didn't and they didn't have, you know, there wasn't any health concern. There was drive in them. They just weren't willing to stay pregnant for a day. That I would morally object to if somebody who somebody who who had a month to go, who something K pointed out earlier is that in my earlier answer, I might have really underestimated or at least been very unclear about the chances of somebody in the third trimester right not realizing she was pregnant. So somebody who had a month to go, then I'd be more sympathetic with the morally not wanting to stay pregnant. I think that that's I think that I think that asking somebody to share their body with another human being for for a month against against their will. I think that's I think that's a really extreme request to make of somebody.  I think that might be heroic, but I don't think you'd necessarily be doing something morally wrong if you didn't do it in between a day and a month. I have no idea what the cutoff point is. I think it's a really difficult moral question, which again is why I said on the legal question that that when there are moral gray areas the last thing I want to do, whether we're talking about the women themselves, who Kay said she doesn't want to prosecute, or the doctors who she said she does want to prosecute, you know, I don't want to get the state involved and put a human being in a cage for for doing something that's a moral gray area, but I'm not sure what the cutoff point is. You got it. Thanks so much. And with that, do you mind if I ask Ben a question really quick, like in regards to late term abortion? You bet. So we've been able to push back the time of viability all the way back in 21 weeks. The earliest that a fetus has been able to survive outside the womb is 21 week. And statistics show that, you know, protesters like to push out that abortion is safer than pregnancy. But as they get, as the fetus gets larger and gets closer to birth, abortion becomes more dangerous and birth becomes the better option. So would you be opposed to changing it to whereas like a woman doesn't want to be pregnant anymore, or for whatever reason, once an abortion after 21 weeks, going through the process of just giving birth to Yeah, yeah, I got you. Yeah, I think that if depending on what we mean by viability, if we're, I think that if you have to undergo like heroic medical measures to keep a baby that's delivered that pretty early alive, then I think the the ethics of should you have to do that are tricky, right? That that if you the medical systems don't have unlimited resources to to go around and and I could see I could see saying no potentially. But look, if you have, if you could, if you could deliver, and the process wouldn't be any more dangerous to the woman than having the abortion, or maybe even less. And you wouldn't have to undergo extreme measures to then then keep the premature baby alive. It would just happen the normal course of things. Then no, I think those are all big ifs. But I think if you met all three of those, then I wouldn't be against legally requiring that because, like, Jews Jarvis Thompson says about the sick violinist right you have a right to separate yourself you and even if that means killing the violinist. But if you can separate yourself without killing him, right, you don't have a right to have him dead. And so so I think under the scenario you laid out, if you check all of those boxes, then I wouldn't be against legally requiring that. You got it. Thanks so much. And next, this one, John Maddox. Good to see you, John. It's been awhile says don't miss the after show starts right after this debate ends. Look out for the link. And they say conversation is welcome no matter what side or third, you know, third position wherever you are, you're welcome there. And Mike Bill Ars. Thanks for your question. Let's see. He says, I know. Okay, that's just making fun of Nathan Thompson. Next op says studies have found that abortion rates tend to be lowest in places where it's legal and highest where it's most restrictive. Why should it be illegal then if we want to preserve life? Well, as I said at the beginning, I do believe that even if we make abortion illegal first, which I don't think that we're going to the very uphill battle, that there are a lot of things that we need to do on a social level to not just make abortion, we don't want to just make abortion illegal. We want to make it so that women don't feel the need to go and get abortion in the first place. And I think that the issue lies in the fact that abortion is being very heavily restricted in areas that just restrict abortion and then put absolutely no effort into anything after that. And that's something that needs to change on a social level. It's not something that we're going to do on a legal level. It has to do with changing the culture to be more of a culture towards life to help these women so that they don't need to get an abortion in the first place. So while I do support making abortion illegal, I believe that there's a lot more footwork that needs to be done in order to keep those abortion levels down even after it is restricted or made completely illegal. You got it. Thanks so much. And this final one that I have, Stripper Liquor, glad to see you. A regular says, Kay, if a fertilized egg is a quote unquote life, what about in vitro fertilization where many eggs are fertilized, knowing most will die, hoping that one will take? Well, I think that I'm not against in vitro fertilization. I've actually donated eggs twice and I intend to do so again. I've noticed that clinics are taking a more pro-life, if you can call it stance, whereas they are not destroying unused embryos. They're actually donating them to women that otherwise wouldn't be able to afford in vitro fertilization. I believe that in vitro fertilization, it can be done in a way that doesn't violate pro-life stance. And if we can get there as a society, I have no problem with in vitro fertilization on a wide scale. You got it. And we have one, let's see, you have a question over here from Brandon. Thanks for your patience. Asked for Ben. I love it.  Yeah, great question. I think that's probably the best objection to the position. I think that no, right? But I also, I think that in terms of trying to think about why not, it's, I think that the difference between those two cases is that that's a symmetrical thing. That either of the twins would, either of the twins request in that about the other, right, would have an equally good claim. And so it's not really a matter of one of them inhabiting the other one's body. It's a matter of the two bodies being entangled. So you can't separate them without risking killing one or the other. And so since they both have an equally good claim, then no, I don't think so. But also, I guess I'd point out that the other difference, of course, between this and abortion besides the symmetricality, right, rather than having one being completely dependent on another, living in another body, another one's body, being oxygenated, you know, having their blood oxygenated by the air that the other one is breathing, being fed by the food the other one is eating, that rather than that situation, they're equally dependent on the other. I do think that makes a difference, I think that the, but then also, even if this did convince you, right, even if thinking about the conjoining twins case did convince you that I was just wrong about the bodily autonomy issue, which I do think is the most, is the more important, if the two reasons to support reproductive rights, then there would still be the issue about the disanalogy between a conjoined twin and a fetus that the conjoined twin who would be killed in this scenario is a full-fledged person who has thoughts and feelings and experiences and the fetus, the fetus isn't. So all of which is to say that, I mean, I take it seriously, I do get why this is the best sort of way of pushing the idea that I'm wrong about the bodily autonomy issue, but I think that the fact that it's symmetrical that each one would have an equally good claim is a big difference between the cases. And also, even if you did conclude that bodily autonomy didn't extend to full-fledged persons, that might complicate the third trimester abortion issue, but it wouldn't be relevant to the first two, I would argue. You bet. And thanks for that, as well as thanks for logical, plausible, probable, who says after show, we'll kick off five minutes after this debate ends. They must really want you to come. So thanks for that second super chat, and thanks for your, this is a question that, forgive me, let's see, I'm not sure who asked it. I must not have copy and pasted the name with it, but I do have the question there, and this is for Kay. They said, if you care about life, why wouldn't you focus on addressing the socio-economic issues that cause or motivate abortions instead of criminalizing women who experience their effect? Well, as a pro-life activist, our movement is kind of divided. I'm not sure how evenly divided it is, but there is a huge number of pro-life activists that mainly focus on the socio-economic issues that drive women to abortions. We do have organizations and individuals at the head of our movement that mainly focus on the fight all the way in Washington DC to make it illegal on a federal level, but the majority of pro-life activists are in their communities, they're volunteering at pregnancy resource centers, they're donating to diaper drives, helping women that are in need, and really getting to the root of the issues that are pushing women into abortion clinics in the first place. And fortunately, over the last four or five years, we've seen the number of pro-life activists that are mainly focusing on the social relevance of abortion. Over the legal relevance of abortion, it's steadily growing, because for me personally, I believe that that's where our fight is, that's where we're going to make the most difference. You can make something illegal, but until you change the culture's perspective on it, you're never going to truly rid the culture of it. So for me, my fight is in the culture in our society, making sure that women don't feel they need to get abortions in the first place over the legal issue. Thanks so much. And then the last question we have here before we go to closing statements, this is from God Servant. Thanks for your super chat. Said, good show is always modern day debate. Appreciate that encouragement. It's nice of you. And I couldn't agree more. Our guests are linked in the description folks. So if you want to hear more, you can hear more from either one. And they asked for K. They said, just quote, unquote, adoption as alternative to abortion. I'm not sure if they're asking if you've adopted it, or if they're asking like, do you think it's a good, is it like your primary alternative suggestion if someone's considering abortion? Yes, I think that adoption is a great alternative to abortion. I do I do have to say that the adoption system is not perfect. And I do believe that it needs to be reformed. We also need to reform our foster care system. And I do want to make it clear that the adoption foster care system are two totally separate things. But I do believe that adoption is a super valid option for women that just do not want to be mothers. They don't want to have a baby. I do believe that adoption is a great thing. There are thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that would love to be able to adopt a newborn baby. And I think that is a perfectly valid option. Thanks so much. And this one, let's see. No, we are all set there. So we'll go into the closing statements. And as mentioned, folks, these will be five to 10 minutes if they want to take as much as five or 10 minutes. So in that range, and given that we started with K, we'll go with K and then over to Ben afterwards. Okay, the floor is all yours. Well, I appreciate everybody that tuned in. I really, really enjoyed the discussion. I think it was great. I love having civil debates on the abortion issue. I think that it's something that we need to continue talking about. I think that there's a lot of common grounds that people that are pro-choice and people that are pro-life can meet on in order to make, you know, things better for both women and children, born and unborn. I don't have a whole lot to say as far as closing statements. I just really appreciate coming on. I appreciate everybody that listened. I appreciated all of the great questions. And you guys can follow me on my Twitter. That's where I'm most active. I do have YouTube channel. I'm not super active right now because 2020 has been the year from hell. But I will be posting on that more in the coming months. You can feel free to follow me on there as well. You bet. Thanks so much, Kay. And we will kick it over to Ben. The floor is all yours. Yeah. Well, after that, I'm not going to blather on for 10 minutes, but I guess I'll just say this. That I think that this question of bodily autonomy is really important that when you get beyond what Kay was asking me about near the end there, about cases where fetus would be viable outside of the womb, and you can do that safely. And, you know, you could come up with cases there where I think the bodily autonomy argument would not apply. But if you're thinking about the cases in which most abortions take place, it seems to me that it really does. And it's worth pausing to think about what does still seem to me like a double standard here, and not saying in particular of Kay, but I think just in general, when people think about these issues, about what people can be legally forced to do. So in that, just some papers been mentioned a few times, one of the most interesting. Everybody remembers this sort of crazy science thought experiments from it. But I think one of the most compelling things is when she starts talking about the Kitty Jennings case, if people don't remember this. Well, not that you know, I think people remember this from what happened. It happened like 50 years ago. But you know, people aren't familiar with this. This is a case from 1964 where there's this 28 year old woman who was stabbed to death outside an apartment building in New York City and supposedly there were 38 people who saw it happening and didn't do anything to save her. And now, to be fair, since I'm bringing up this example, I should say that I think that more recent investigators have really questioned the story, whether they really were all those people who watched and didn't do anything. But Thompson was writing in a point where this was widely believed, where she seemed to believe it. And she brought this up to make the point that at least here in the United States where this happened, if this did happen, none of those 38 people would have been breaking the law, that the law doesn't even require you to pick up a phone and call 911 to save another person's life. Morally, of course, we'd object, we think that they were doing something dishonorable by not calling that it certainly reflects badly on their characters. But legally, they wouldn't be forced to even do that, right? Like that's the super minimal thing to save another person's life. There are countries in the world where they would be required to, like in Serbia, I know, there are duty to rescue laws on the books that would require somebody to, I'm sure whatever the number is in Serbia, but to do the equivalent of calling 911 in that situation. But even there, I know that the duty to rescue laws only apply when by rescuing somebody, you're not taking any risk to yourself. You can't be legally required to risk your own health and safety rescuing somebody else, even in countries where that is on the books. And so we think, okay, should we move to the Serbian system as far as that? Should we have duty to rescue laws? Yeah, maybe. I think if we had one that was as limited as theirs is, I'd be comfortable with that, as mentioned. I'm not a libertarian, I'm a socialist, so I'm perfectly comfortable taking away some of the money in people's bank accounts against their will to pay for public health insurance to save people's lives that way. But as you move from making somebody call 911 to making them pay into a system that will save somebody's life, like public health insurance or national health service, you are asking a little bit more of them. But I think something that's reasonable, it's a big violation of personal freedom and autonomy to ask that. But I think it's really interesting to think about the fact how as you go a step down that line, a step down that line, these things become more and more controversial. And whereas when we're talking about abortion and pregnancy, we're asking somebody to force them to do the most intimate thing that you can do with another human being, which is let them live inside your body. So they're being nurtured by the food you're eating, they're being, you know, that all of that stuff that we said earlier, as they expand, you expand. And also that even if you give up a child to adoption, by the time that happens, that's a heart wrenching thing to ask someone to do. So physically and emotionally, you're asking somebody to do so, this really extreme thing. And if somebody values life, even pre-conscious life enough that they're willing to altruistically do that and then carry the life for nine months, then give them up to adoption, I could admire that. But I can't get behind wanting to legally require somebody to do that. Thanks so much. And with that, I want to say, folks, both of our guests are linked in the description. So if you want to hear more, you can. We really appreciate them. We've gotten a ton of positive feedback. In fact, we did, we just had a super chat just come in. This is somebody who was especially stoked for tonight's debate. Let me just read this here. It's loading. And also, here it is, Brandon. Thanks so much, Brandon, for your kind words that what a great good faith debate loved it. So thanks so much, Brandon. We are so glad you enjoyed it. And I absolutely loved it. So also, folks, if you love political debates, I am right now putting our playlist in the live chat, which has our political debates that we've hosted, including, you'll see, pretty far up on the top of that list, you'll see Ben's debate with Mr. Reagan. So that was a good one. That was several weeks ago. And I highly encourage you to check that one out. It is. Yeah. But by the way, I can't help but ask. Now, it looks like we have some closure such that it looks like Trump is fired. And I have to ask, do you think there's going to be any possibility? Would it have to be a litigation miracle for Trump to somehow get this to swing the other way? What probability assessment? What kind of probability number would you give it? I'm kind of curious. I know you haven't probably read a ton into the legal documents. Super low, I think, because for one thing, part of the reason it took so long to call it was that they were waiting for the Pennsylvania number to go beyond the point where you could ask for a recount. And I believe, I mean, I'm saying this as a casual observer of like, but that's my understanding, right? Or at least certainly wouldn't trigger the mandatory recount. Maybe I'm not sure whether you could still ask for a recount at this point or not. But whatever it was, that was like the half a percent. And that was passed. And I think my understanding is there are enough votes that it'd be very surprising if they could find enough that they could have some halfway plausible grounds to challenge. And even if they did, right, even if by some miracle, there was enough to throw away the result in Pennsylvania or disqualify enough buying votes to do that. I think I stopped refreshing since they officially called it this afternoon, so I could wrong. But I think that, well, Nevada, at least some of the networks did call for Biden and Arizona. I don't know if they called it yet, but it was certainly looking like Biden was leading there. And so my understanding is even without Pennsylvania with Arizona and Nevada, he has enough electoral votes to win. So you need to, so I guess for him not to win, you'd have to come up with some sort of legal challenge that would somehow invalidate the result in both of those places. And I'm not buying that. By the way, I also think some leftists are hysterical about this and that they think that they have all these fantasies that Trump is going to do like a military coup or this could be a civil war or something like that. I don't think any of that stuff is going to happen. I agree with I think Alice from Queens said on Twitter that from what we know about Trump, it's way less likely that there's a military coup than that he just rage quits after the election. So, you know, I mean, like I like Matt Taibbi had a good line about this about how it's not that Trump wouldn't necessarily morally object to doing a coup. It's the two minutes into the discussion of it. He would lose interest and like wander into the other room to watch TV. Yeah, yeah, I roughly the same. That's what I was thinking ballpark wise. Yeah, I hard to believe there's going to be any sort of like attempted military takeover. But also, Kay, I'm curious. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I have to agree with Ben. I don't see I think the margin for error here is very, very slim. But I do think that Trump is going to drag this down as long as he possibly can. And he's probably going to ruin the holiday season for a lot of people become commit. I think that we're probably going to go well into November, possibly even December with him still rage tweeting about how the election was stolen from him. And I get a lot of heat because the majority of my following on social media is right leaning. And they all believe that there was massive voter fraud. I have not jumped on that train. I don't believe that that's what's happening. And I'm really hoping that after a few more days of this, that the majority of people just kind of come to their senses, you know, take it on the chin. I lost the loss. Come back 2024, try again. Hopefully, we're not seeing Donald Trump running on the GOP ticket again in 2024, or I'm going to shoot myself. But, you know, I have to see what we have to see. I don't think he's going to run in 2024. For the GOP, that you may have a split vote if Trump comes back.  But I but but my like actual prediction would be that Trump doesn't actually run in 2024. But he does does spend years saying that he's going to run in 2024, and he's going to fundraise on it. And then it's not going to happen. I could see that. Yeah, that's that's juicy. I could definitely see that. And let's see, I could have sworn there is one last thing that I Oh, we are. This is like we have no guarantees. But these are possible debates in the future. I want to let you know folks that the word on the streets, Ben, is that you'd like to debate. You might have interest. Brenton mentioned, I don't know if he had mentioned this, he just may be speculated, but that you might have interest in in debating David D Friedman. And if you do, I mean, that's something that we would be stoked to try to set up. But at the same time, yeah, no, I'd love to do that. I watched the one that he did with Richard Wolff. And and and I would, yes, 100%. Yes, that would be epic. And so if it's wherever it happens, though, folks, we will try to put it out in our social media, even if it's on another channel, we hope it happens and and we'll try for it. And if it happens somewhere else, we'll put out the link so you can watch it. And so the other one is K. I think that we had originally we talked about a possible debate with destiny on abortion per se. And so, Ben, I think you've crossed swords with destiny before you guys have dialogue before. And so that could be a fun one case. So with that, we will say thanks so much everybody for hanging out here. We really appreciate it. And we hope you have a great by the way, shout out to like really respect that K I assume that your name actually is K.   Just just just go by your name. Okay, is short. It's actually funny.  My full name is Corey. And they called me K. And it just kind of stuck. And my followers started calling me that. And so here I am seven years later. Fair enough. That was that was just me making a me and joke about about destiny, but K at least sounds like it could be your name. Destiny. Destiny sounds like, you know, like if somebody's named destiny, well, anyway, I'm not even going to complete the thought, but I will say I didn't know who destiny was until I debated him on here and leading up to that debate until I went and researched for a debate. I thought it was a girl. So surprise. Yes. Yeah, we hope Steven's doing well and and also Dr. Friedman. So we will wish you a great night or day depending on where you are, folks. Thanks so much for hanging out with us. And one last reminder, our guests are linked in the description. We hope you have a great rest of your night. Thanks so much, folks and take care. Want to say thanks so much for your support. Seriously. This is the after credit scene. We are stoked about the future, folks, and we cannot thank you enough for all of the help with this channel, just the growth and the exciting debates and everything. And so we are very excited that yes, we are the hope. The plan is we hopefully get to have Dr. Ben Burgess back on to debate Dr. David D. Friedman. That would be epic. And also Kay and Destiny. That's something. Both of these are speculative. We haven't reached out to the people yet, but want to let you know, folks, that it's we hope to. That'd be fun and be epic. And also, yes, very exciting week.  I have been. It's been a crazy one, folks. I have been so and I'm not breaking about this because I do. I've been trying really hard for a week, not a week, a year to get good sleep and this week, it's been a rough one. We're going to make it, folks. And it's actually not to do with the election much. It's this week in terms of schedule wise has been nuts. And so thanks so much, Amy, who says appreciate it says if you like what you saw, don't forget to like and subscribe. Appreciate that, Amy. And yeah, we hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you're from, folks. We really do mean that whether you be politically right politically left or one of the many strange creatures in between. We do really appreciate you. And where was this? I saw something from you, Amy, that I just loved in the live chat. I think Amy said love. Well, where's the word love? Because I know the word love was in it. So much love. Chioca says love you, tusk beat box. Next, let's see where's the other one. But Amy said something to the effect of Amy's not a Trump supporter, I guess. Amy said I'm happy Trump is out. However, we I still love you, you Trump supporters and conservatives. That is so nice, Amy. Seriously, I think that that makes people so much more likely when you're willing to be charitable to the other side. And that makes them it's the first step to having a conversation and true listening.  Not everybody. I don't want to be sensationalist about it. But, you know, a lot of a lot of times it's like, I mean, for me, Twitter, sometimes the battles I see on Twitter are just so vicious. It's like, oh, man, I really do hope. And I'm not trying to indict all of Twitter, but we do hope that people get along despite the fact that we're a debate channel. We really do care about people and we want you to do to be all right. And so we appreciate that charitable demeanor that you have toward other people, Amy. And then stripper liquor said after Aaron and Nathan, we needed this one. Yes, that one was a wild one, folks. You know, no hard feelings against Aaron. Basically, I think some people have wondered about that. I will let you know because it's been so busy lately, folks, that I've honestly like last night, I was so sleep deprived that like was it Thursday night, I didn't get to sleep at all, been trying to work on stuff for someone working on this is like the doctorate stuff. And so it's not YouTube stuff even. And, but yeah, basically Aaron asked for, I think I can't remember the exact words, but basically something to the effect of like a model from Nathan. And the way I interpreted the debate, even though I was like, hadn't slept for like, I don't know how many hours, maybe like two days, I interpreted it as that it wasn't clear Nathan was wanting to defend that model in the debate. So so Aaron had gotten the model prior to the debate. And so I think that the what happened during the debate was actually that it wasn't that there wasn't a model, it's just that I'm not sure if Nathan was still willing to defend it.  And so that, you know, led to RN saying, well, if you're not going to defend the model you sent via email, then forget it. And so that is how I interpreted it. I have no hard feelings against RN, you know, because that makes sense that if somebody's not going to defend what you agreed to, then like, yeah, I don't blame Aaron for leaving. And, and like I said, I even asked, it was Nathan at one point, like, are you going to, this is a flat versus global debate. And so, you know, that's where I was trying to say, but Nathan, like, you are going to, you did send him that, you know, technically I sent it to RN, but I forwarded it on behalf of Nathan, which is his model of the flat earth. And so, yeah, flame was it a flat earth debates are controversial. Surprisingly, people care about those a lot. But we will get to the bottom of it. I suspect the earth is shaped like a dice. So, you know, it's not quite a globe. It's kind of a globe. It's also kind of flat. So, in a way, both sides can be right. Yeah. And stripper liquor says, thanks for that. And then Robert Page said, James, sleep is important. Make sure you get it in. I definitely will. I'm definitely going to sleep tonight as well. And man, last night, I just slept through the entire night, which is rare. I don't usually sleep through the entire night, but I was so tired that I didn't wake up once. I don't think. And, but yes, let's see. Flat earth, Aussie Roscoe is in the house speaking of flat earthers. Oh boy, here he goes, is, let's see, he says, Trump losing is going to disappoint. What did you say? It's going to disappoint who? I lost it now in the chat. A lot of psychics and profits, LOL. I didn't know that that was what the psychics were predicting. That's interesting. But yeah, so that's fascinating. I do, but thanks for, yeah, pro-social pessimist says, Aaron Ra wasn't having it. It's true. But yeah, like I said, I don't blame him. Like, no hard feelings. I hope, I hope he's not mad at me. I don't know why he would be. I can't, that's the trick. I like, I don't know what. And so here's the catch 22 in that situation. I can, I can say like Nathan, like you have to defend it or if he just keeps being equivocal about it, do I just end the debate? And you might be like, yes, that's exactly what you do. And it's like, okay, well now, what about all the super chats that everybody just sent? You know, many emails I'll get if people say, you under the debate, you didn't read my super chat. And they're like, okay, so that's it.  You should check out the comment section. I didn't get to check it until let's say I checked it right before the debate.  And I can't respond to every comment. I'm sorry. It's not that I'm trying to be like too cool for school. It's more that I'm enslaved to school. Like, I was talking to somebody on Friday. And so I teach my own two classes of general psych. And then I also, I'm taking four classes, one of which is a heavy duty stats class. It's a beast. And then also, trying to push research through and which, yeah, it's just honestly, it's unbelievable. And then yeah, it's all these projects. It is unbelievably busy. It's the maybe the biggest, most heavy duty semester I've ever had. Pro social pessimist says, I definitely agree with Aaron Raw's decision to leave at that point. Yeah, I don't blame him. I mean, like I said, Nathan was admittedly being equivocal. It could use like, are you going to defend your model or not? And so yes, Amy says triggered. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. So some of the comments, some of the people are triggered. But yeah, it's kind of like me. It's like pick my poison. I either just ignore all the super chats that people sent in. And then hold, they're all still get backlash if I did that.  And so that's I signed up for that when I signed up for the job. And so we though are focused on, we do want to host fair debates. We want to host debates that if you enjoy those juicy controversial topics, you have a platform here that you can hear about those topics, and it'll be moderated fairly. So that's our goal, what we want to do for you. And so we hope to see you next time. If you are not subscribed to encourage you and hit that subscribe button is you have a lot more coming up. So for example, you will see on the bottom right of your screen, that is Amy and James W, who will be tag teaming and a tag team debate tomorrow. That'll be against John Maddox and Smokey. It's right there on the screen. I'm still having trouble with it. I want to show you guys something. This is, I just picked it up at a thrift store. One second. It's maybe my favorite purchase from the thrift store. It's something that as a kid, I always thought these were like the coolest things. Tomorrow's tag team debate will be for the title folks. This is going to be special. So we hope that you make it as Maddox and Smokey will be taking on Amy and James W. So that should be fun. So let's see. Tuss beat box. Love your question. However, I must go. And so forgive me for not answering it, Tuss. There are some interesting things though that I have been intrigued by. And so I hate running, but I do want to say we hope we see you guys here tomorrow, and it should be a lot of fun. I think Carissa is debating tomorrow. And so that should be a really fun time. Carissa does a tremendous job. This is a new backdrop in the sense that we used to have, you remember we used to have that blue one. It was like all wrinkly and stuff. And now look at this lovely not too wrinkled sheet. Yeah. We're pretty fancy around here. You know, we work really hard here at this channel some nights. And but yes, this is a sweet sheep sheet. And this is my blue light. I love this, you guys, like very state of the art. So we have this blue light that I can just shine onto the sheet and it makes it kind of look cool and mysterious. So yes, thanks so much. That's right, Tiger Jin. I am so glad you also appreciate the belt. We are very excited. This is going to be one of the things that fell out. So this isn't the complete belt. It's got pieces that go into it. Yeah. So we do really appreciate it. Thank you for your compliment test beat box on my fancy sheet. So yeah, thanks so much. We will see you tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun. We hope you have a great night. And we are within the month will announce the Kickstarter. And we hadn't maybe mentioned or I had but hadn't mentioned it for a while. We'll have that Kickstarter for an exciting event as you're going for a big time speaker. And so to cover those honorariums where we're like, Hey, it's like, let's do a Kickstarter. So should be a sweet deal. And yeah, we've got if you have people where you're like, Oh, I love this YouTuber and they do debates. I'd love to see them. Let me know folks, that would be awesome. And if you want to something that really helps me while working on the PhD is that I'm honestly, honestly so overworked. But I would say is that while working on the PhD, despite that, I am so helped when sometimes people like Brenton, he connected us with David Friedman. He's like, Hey, can we have a David Freeman? I was like, Yeah, like that'd be awesome. Like, let's do it. And he connected us by via email. And that helped a ton. He just reached out and he's like, Hey, Dr. Freeman, big fan, would you like to come on here? And we're like, Yeah, like that would. And so that was a huge help. See, it starts with Saturn says I don't blame. I think you mean are in it, but I get what you mean. So forgive me for being pedantic. They said are in for leaving last debate at all. Yeah, like I said, I agree. It was a I think I already explained if you were if you were here a few minutes, maybe like five, 10 minutes ago, we explained I explained the situation and why I actually agree with you. And so thanks so much, folks. We hope you have a great night. It's always fun. We're excited about the future. And we hope you keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable. Amazing.