Uvic Abortion Debate Oct 21st '09 Part 8 of 10

On October 21st 2009 a debate took place at 3:30pm on the Uvic Campus. The debate featured Philosophy professor Dr. Eike-Henner Kluge, one of Canadas top bioethicists, and Stephanie Gray, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR).

Unfortunately, the only recording device I had was an iPhone, and because of my seating position the audio may be hard to hear at times, and I could not capture the slides each presenter used.

Also, at the end of part 2 and beginning of part 3 Gray plays a graphic video, that I didn't capture. It probably wasn't youtube friendly anyway. Even though it's mostly silent during the duration of that clip, I left that part in so we could listen to the few reactions people had.

After a quick google search I found links to the graphic video. It turns out it was two videos put together and shortened for the presentation. Please exercise caution before clicking these links as they are extremely graphic.
Part 1 http://tinyurl.com/yleljue
Part 2 http://tinyurl.com/yl8538a

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Abortion
• Atheist
• uvic
• education
• bioethics
• eike-henner
• kluge
• stephanie
• gray
• pro-life
• pro-choice
• rationality
• reason
• philosophy

[Doobrai15]

This Dr. Guy is rude. and hes not good at debating. hes like contradicting himself, he has no idea what hes talking about

he runs in circles and these brain dead pro ABORTION people eat it up so fucking easily. use your BRAINS people come on!

[bahramf]

@MrAbolitionist Do you know anything about the basis for human rights at all?

Read either Hume, Weber or Rawls. None of them say anything like human rights are based on humanity. If that were true brain-dead people would have human rights.

Maybe you think they should, but you'd be wrong. Maybe you're brain-dead?

[bahramf]

@MrAbolitionist Newborns are sentient! Where do you get your information from?

That's not the basis of human rights at all. Where do you get your information from?

[bahramf]

@MrAbolitionist NEWBORNS ARE SENTIENT!!!!!

Human rights are not based on humanity.

Where do you get your information from?

[bahramf]

@MrAbolitionist A NEWBORN IS SENTIENT!!!!

The main idea of human rights is not that rights are inherent in whoever is a human!

Where do you get this information (your ass)?

[MrAbolitionist]

@bahramf He said that sentience is the definition of personhood. A newborn isn't sentient yet we still treat them with human rights and we don't consider them non-person,  sentience therefore isn't an accurate measerng for personhood. The main idea of human rights is that rights are inherent in whoever is human. Therefore he's wrong to say that the fetuses humanity isn't sufficient to consider them persons who deserves rights.

[bahramf]

@MrAbolitionist Sure, I'll argue against your implicit point instead. Which is that since fetuses always become persons, they should be treated as such while they're still only potentially persons.

That's a bad argument and Kluge explained why many times (although Gray didn't seem to stop arguing her fallacious point). As a Canadian citizen I could become Prime Minister. That doesn't mean I should be treated like the PM now though. I should actually become PM to be treated like the PM.

[MrAbolitionist]

@bahramf ha ha I'll be honest, I kind of understand what you mean. Anyway, I don't want to get into a "What he really meant" argument

[bahramf]

@bahramf "(most of the time)" because, despite what Gray says, killing people to save more people is ethically permissible killing.

[bahramf]

@amariner5 He would also admit that killing a cow is killing. Don't be stupid. killing is not immoral, killing persons is (most of the time).