 Hey everybody, tonight we're debating pro-life versus pro-choice and we are starting right now with the pro-choice side opening. Thanks so much for being with us, Ryan. The floor is all yours. Thanks for having me, James. All right, so the question of this debate is whether abortion is morally permissible. It's an interesting question, surely, and one that philosophers have discussed, one that philosophers have discussed for much of history and will surely continue to discuss for eons following this debate. However, I propose two things as we go into this conversation. One, there are surely some circumstances where we might all agree that abortion is the right thing to do, particularly in cases where the life of the mother is on the line, though perhaps there are others. And two, that this question of moral permissibility is a proxy for the real question of the day, which is what should laws around the concept of abortion look like in the United States? That is to say, the question is not just a moral one, but a political one. What legislators and potential legislators are pushing for or against what legislation? And what are the implications of these laws? Answering these questions can help us determine how we should engage with the democratic process and how that impacts us all, particularly those of us who may have an abortion at some point in our lives, as nearly one in four women do in the United States before the age 45. This is not a conversation to be taken lightly. In my opinion, it's not one that needs to be flooded with ridiculous hypotheticals you might hear about violinists and kidneys. It's a very real and difficult decision, but again, nearly 25 percent of women will make at some point in their lives. We need to approach this question with radical empathy and levelheadedness. There should be room in these in these in these discussions, excuse me, for both a feminist who regrets her abortion, as well as a Catholic who is grateful for hers to be heard and seen. These choices are not easy, but is a choice that millions of women are increasingly being robbed of by mostly male for what it's worth. The legislators, many of the many of which seemed ironically fight against the social programs that would actually support the lives of these children they believe should be carried to term, even against the carrier as well, as well as the education about sex and access to contraception that are so valuable in reducing the demand for abortion in the first place. This must be a conversation about the extremely real consequences of legislation passing across the country and how it will impact the millions of everyday Americans whose lives will be so drastically altered. And in some cases, even ended by these policies as they continue to pass. All right. And then I would say my opening statement. Hi, I'm Ashley, not your every day. Ashley XOXO happy to be here. So is abortion morally permissible? Well, let's define morality. So moral or morality is defined as being concerned with the principles of right or wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character. Considering that we live in a country with an arguably broken system where Medicaid is currently financing approximately 42 percent of births annually health coverage for expectant mothers is typically terminated 60 days postpartum where only 11 out of 50 states do not offer paid FMLA. 2.2 million women of childbearing age live in maternity care deserts with an additional 4.8 million having very limited access to maternity care. Only eight out of the 24 states with a total or partial abortion ban pay hourly wages above the federal level of 725 an hour, eight out of 24. We're three quarters of abortion seekers are below this poverty line where one out of six children in this great country face hunger on a daily basis and a vast majority of these children live in states that have implemented total abortion bans. I think the real questions Americans need to Americans need to be asking ourselves is why are we not outraged by these facts? Where are these pro-life advocates while our children are starving and growing up in abusive households until there are more systems put into place to ensure proper health care education and put food on the tables of hungry Americans? I question one. I question how one can call themselves pro-life. All righty. Thank you very much for that opening statement and want to let you know, folks, if it's your first time here at Modern Day Debate, we are a neutral debate channel hosting debates on science, religion and politics. We hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you were from pro-life, pro-choice, unsure, you name it, we're glad that you're here. And we have one mission, one vision, which is to provide a neutral platform so that everybody has their chance to make their case on a level playing field. We're going to kick it over to the pro-life side as well. Hey, that's right. K, thanks very much. The floor is all yours. All right. Well, hi, I'm Kay Fellows. I'm sure everybody and James's audience is rather familiar with me on these abortion debates. So tonight we're trying to answer a very, very complex question about whether or not abortion is morally permissible. And as Ashley and Ryan pointed out in both their opening statements, this is going to go well beyond just the confines of abortion in this conversation. I'm not going to take a lot of time on my opening statement, but my position has on the issue has always been and continues to be that in the situation of pregnancy, that there's nothing like it on earth, the relationship between a human being and another human being growing literally inside their bodies. But my position has always been that during a pregnancy in that situation, regardless of underlying circumstances surrounding that situation, you have two equally valid, equally validable human beings that are equally deserving of rights, protections and life. Our goal should always be to try to protect both human beings until it is no longer possible for us to do so. And with that, I will just wrap up my statement and end it over. Thank you, Kay Fellows. And thank you, Radical Coder Ryan and Ashley XOXO. And of course, James of Modern Day Debate and shout out to the chat. I would like to also shout out the AAPIs. This is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. May you guys, those of you with shrinking populations, grow your populations just as the Caucasians ought to be doing. No abortion is not morally permissible. It is an interesting phrasing. I don't know if I would say that it's I wouldn't. I don't know if I would pose it as morally permissible because that that makes it sound like other people who are outside of abortion, who are not committing the abortions, should be trying to stop the people who are committing the abortions in a society where we have these laws that say that you can you can kill the unborn baby in the womb and abortion sort of reminds me of slavery in that. In years past, slavery was the norm. It was acceptable in many circles of society, just as abortion is. It behooved the slave owner, though, to treat a slave well so that the slave could thrive and do good work, unlike with abortion, where it's up to the woman who decides who lives or dies. And I don't believe that we should be making the woman God like that. I think that we're giving her a choice that she's not equipped to make. It's not her body. It is not her choice. It is a developing human being and we shouldn't be allowing the doctors and the women or the boyfriends who on occasion there are boyfriends who who are for this type of thing to make that type of decision. It's kind of like if you kill an old an old aging person in the privacy of your home. Does anybody notice who who is a really harm? It's your home. It's kind of similar to what they're doing with abortion. It reminds me of what I was taught about the Holocaust. They use dehumanizing language like fetuses and zygote to pretend like the babies are not developing human beings. And I'm not for this this increasing shamelessness about shout your abortion. We see that we see it going more and more out of control. And with the with the Roe v. Wade situation that happened back in the 70s. Out of wedlock, births increased because sex out of wedlock increased because both the men and the women knew that they would have and young ladies and underage boys and girls knew that they had that extra choice. So it would be was more acceptable to have the sex out of wedlock. And then so they had more children out of wedlock. And so poverty and crime increased because many men were not taking responsibility and women, too, did not want to take responsibility for their actions. To those who've committed abortion, though, and to those who are opposed to it, I say we have both level heads, neither guilt nor shame,lessness, both are wrong. And I don't believe I don't believe just as I don't really believe that slavery justified a war. I don't think that abortion justifies terrorism or things like that. I do think that we should be punishing if we establish. Moral laws against abortion that we should be punishing both the women and the doctors who violate those laws. But. But I don't think that we should be going crazy on either side like it's like it's going right now. They say it should be safe, legal and rare. But no, they they want it. They they want to increase increasingly shameless. And they want a lack of responsibility, and that's not good. Thank you very much for that opening as well. Hey, and want to let you know, folks, we have many more upcoming debates. So you don't want to miss them. Hit that subscribe button right now. So you don't miss any of the upcoming debates that we have here on modern day debate. We're going to kick it into the open discussion. So with that, thank you very much. Ashley, Radical Coder K and Hake, the floor is all yours. Let's go first. I guess on my first question, I think I know where case stands on this. I'm not sure, Hake, but to one of the first points that I kind of sorted out was about like, do we all agree that there's like some circumstances where like the life of the mother's in danger, like if an abortion is not carried out, that like this is a permissible case for an abortion? I suppose so. You know, there was a story of a 10 year old little girl who was allegedly raped, sorry to say it. Well, a 10 year old can't consent to sex, so I think you should take out allegedly. Yeah, 10 year old can't get pregnant without being raped. That's the only way that happens. Fair enough. Thank you. By an illegal alien. And and I think that, you know, that the child was not even going to survive in the first place. It was kind of outside of the womb. And it was going to and I don't I don't know if the Republic can't. I call them with the women's. Somewhat. I know that it's the thing that holds the baby. But it was something it was something wrong with the with the conception. And and they were saying that the Republic can't. I call them Republic can't sometimes. Uh, were had this law in place that made it so that the child had to travel to Indiana from Ohio to get the procedure done, the extraction or the abortion, whatever you want to call it. And I think that we can have the right we can iron out these problems with these with these laws so that you can do that. Now, the life of the mother, it's interesting because back in the day, a woman sometimes would die in giving childbirth and they would save the baby. So I'm a little on the fence about it. But yeah, for the life of the mother, I think. Yeah, I can kind of piggyback off of that a little bit. It's a very, very complex thing. I mean, pregnancy in and of itself is complex and things can turn very, very bad in a perfectly normal pregnancy, literally on the job of a dime. And there are incredibly complicated situations involved with the health of the baby, the health of the mother. So even in an ideal world where, you know, there are perfectly written out laws, I think that would still have to include protections for life-saving medical care, because we're never going to rid society of these complications during pregnancy. For sure. Um, so I guess a follow up on that. Kate, your position about like valuing both both lives equally. Do you do you personally? I'm just curious about this, actually. Do you personally feel that most of the legislation that's being pushed put forward in regards to this topic aligns with like your values here and the way that you think it should happen? No, I've been very, very vocal in the past about how these laws are not well written. Um, I am not somebody that is educated enough to understand everything that is being said in a law or a bill, just the way that it's worded. But I can get the basic premise enough to understand that there are massive holes in some of these laws. I've spoken out very publicly about how it doesn't make any sense that just legislators are coming together and writing these bills. There are millions of pro-life OBGYNs in the country. They need to be involved in writing this language. I've talked about how the difference in language used in law and the difference in language used in medicine makes it incredibly confusing for doctors whenever these laws are written. Other countries have actually addressed this like Germany, I believe. And in some parts of the UK, they talked about like the confusion around what even is an abortion and what qualifies as an abortion in the United States is an incredibly confusing because we have made absolutely no effort to clarify the difference between terms used in the legal terminology and medical terminology. So that is definitely something that needs to change. We need to do a much better job. If they're going to be passing abortion bans, they need to be ironclad. I thought it was interesting that you said specifically pro-life OBGYNs. It's interesting. There's pro-choice OBGYNs out there, too, that they should probably consult for these laws. I just wanted to point that out. Yeah, and it's not that I don't believe that pro-choice OBGYNs should be consulted. I'm just I'm kind of a realist and I know that if Republicans, which overwhelmingly pro-life politicians are Republican, if they're going to even be willing to kind of bridge that gap in having consulting OBGYNs, they're not going to go so far as to... Well, I think that what they should be doing is consulting the state's medical board. That's what I think they should be doing, which has nothing to do with your choice, whether whether you politically or through religious reasons, feel that abortion should or should not be legalized or accessible. I just don't think that that should be part of the medical decision as to what we're talking about a medical decision here as to what conditions during pregnancy constitute a medical emergency or would deem a pregnancy viable or not viable. So I don't think that whether or not a doctor's pro-choice or pro-life, I see what you're saying with that. But I just think the bigger thing would be like, let's not seek out pro-life doctors. Let's just seek out the the freak. Sorry, I cuss. Let's seek out the freaking state medical board, you know, let's just and keep keep our religion out of our politics. Why not? I agree. Why not have it in a general terms so that there is some wiggle room on these because general terms are what's causing so many problems. Just like earlier, you said that the baby was outside of the womb, unless the baby's in the woman's vagina at that point, actually being expelled from her body. She's not the baby's not outside of the womb. And the language you use, though, that's the same kind of language that a lot of these politicians, they're using as well. They don't even understand what the hell it is they're talking about and making laws about. They don't know anatomy, you know, which K brought up a good point about that. Like she said, I'm not even well versed enough in this to be making these kind of decisions. You know, I'm just saying like, that's why why. That's why we don't dumb it down for people because this isn't a dumb subject. This is something that affects millions of lives and potential lives and so much more. We should be more, more specific, not using low brow layman terms. No, no, I disagree, though, respectfully, because you don't have to even use the word womb. You can just say to save the life of the mother or something to that effect. And then that and then that leaves it open. It doesn't, though. Do you know how many physicians are actually delaying care that that is that is potentially life saving for their patients right now because they are afraid of being prosecuted and put in jail and losing their medical license and find hundreds of thousands, if not more dollars because the language and the bill is not specific enough as to constitute what is deemed as a necessary or life threatening situation. That's why it needs to be more specific. This is why I say that we shouldn't have all of this lawyer legalese in in our bills. It should be something that people can understand and so that doctors can make the decisions. So the people that are the ones making these decisions, like you like you just said, these are doctors. These are very well educated, intelligent people that are experienced. And I promise you to them, the language isn't going to be too complicated. Fair enough. But even still, I think that it's this this nitpicking type of thing is part of the problem in the country where you you have all these loopholes and it's overly specific. It's kind of like like the regulation regulatory industry of the part of the government and the industries. It's sometimes there is these regulations that don't make any sense. Like OSHA regulations and other state level regulations that do not make sense. And it costs regular industries a whole lot of money. That's why Trump was deregulating and allowing allowing for it helped businesses flourish. And I think that this overregulation can cost more money and more complication, just like you said. Let me ask you a question. Yeah, so say that there's a woman and she's about 16 to 18 weeks pregnant. She's actively miscarrying that baby, meaning it's going to be not in the womb anymore at some point. Right. She's bleeding. Her her membranes have already ruptured. So the the amniotic sac, the fluid, meaning this pregnancy is 100 percent over. It's done. The baby is not far along enough yet that even with medical intervention in the NICU can survive outside of this woman's body. Right. But because of these laws, the fetus or the baby that's inside of her womb still, but actively being expelled, meaning it could take days, sometimes 10 days after it starts, after membranes rupture. Right. This baby still has a heartbeat, though. Here's the thing. The doctors can't perform a dilation and curative or an abortion, so to speak. They can't remove this and get her on the mend and start giving her treatment because of the laws. The laws state that they can lose their medical license, go to prison and also that woman, if she electively chooses for them to go ahead and do that, she can also face prison time. But here's the problem with this. Let's say that four days, five days later after this starts and they're forcing her to sit there and actively miscarry, they send her home by the way to do this on her own. She starts getting really, really sick, right? Because what happens is you turn septic. You get a bacterial infection. And the problem is, is the doctors know that this is what's going to happen most of the time once this starts at that advanced stage in pregnancy, right? And they don't treat her, though, until she's almost going to die from sepsis. And at that point, finally, through blood work and finding out, like, oh, yeah, we need to admit her into ICU because this woman is septic, meaning the next step is organ failure and death. In that situation, with that baby still having a heartbeat five days ago, what do you how do you feel about removing the pregnancy at that point? Obviously, you think that that would be morally right or morally wrong? It would be it would be obviously morally right. Well, 10 states right now say that it isn't. That's why I called them Republicans. I don't know. I don't know the specifics of what these laws say. Right. I think more people should know the specifics of what they say, because being pro-life nowadays, it doesn't mean that you just don't want people going around killing babies inside of people. What it's actually meaning is that we're having a bunch of radicalists running around and basically preventing life. Saving, I guess that's the word I'm looking for, life saving care for these women. Another woman got pregnant. These are all real stories. Actually, there's a report that just came out, care post-row document. And before we go into the next one, I get the feeling that both of you don't like the way abortion laws are being written right now. And so, like, I guess in terms of like pragmatic action, when it comes to like the political process and like who we're voting for, I don't I don't I guess you're not advocating to support the people who are pushing for these this legislation. I think if if what if what you guys are saying is true about those those cases, then they I don't think that I don't believe that those people who are writing these laws and who are for these laws would be for the for the situations that are occurring and just need to iron out the details on that and make it so that the so that the doctors who are actually doing the Hippocratic oath, doing no harm or doing no harm can do what they need to do. But to be but to be honest, most abortions are committed for the convenience or it's not true ego, ego of the mother. That's absolutely zero. There's zero evidence to support that. It's not true. They're mostly elective, so-called abortions for because they want a career or they think that it's going to be too expensive, which it's overstated how expensive the raising a child is. And it's it's the selfishness. OK, you don't think that you don't think that by and large, that's the main reason? I do not know. I don't think that abortion is I don't think that this this willy nilly you know that women just willy nilly go out and they go, oh, I got pregnant. What's the big deal? Let me just go get an abortion, y'all and spend five to seven hundred or eight hundred dollars to do it. Go through that traumatic experience and no, I don't think that that is somebody's first choice to go go and do that. I think that a woman getting an abortion is a very personal and a very difficult and a very grueling decision to make. I personally have never had an abortion and I was telling Ryan this earlier, like if I were to get pregnant tomorrow, I don't think I would have an abortion and I don't want any more kids and I'm not in a good position right now. But that I don't feel like it is my job, as you said earlier, to play God. I don't think I can play God. It's not my job to police someone else's body and their choice. It's not my job to tell a woman who can't feed herself, who's in an abusive relationship, who grew up in poverty herself and who is now going to be forced. It's not my job to tell her you're forced to have this baby, which is going to statistically, drastically lower the chance that you will ever seek higher education that your current children, because 60 percent of women who get abortions already have one or more children, it lowers the chances of those children hitting major important milestones growing up as well. It's it's it's it the implications of the socioeconomic damage that it does to these women. Like no, it's not my job, but it's it's not for me to tell them what to do with themselves at all. Not my job, not my place for the men to tell the women how to be. I think you said it was mostly male legislators who are who are making these laws, it should be the men, because women don't really make good decisions for themselves or for other people. And it's I don't care how difficult the decision is, it still comes down to selfishness. Well, I will all just add there, I think women are fully capable of making their own decisions, even even extremely difficult ones. And they suffer for it, though. And then they're children and their children who survive suffer for it. People suffer for many of their choices. Yeah, for sure. I believe that crime has increased since Roe v. Wade. And it's partly because these women who are killing their babies are searing their consciences. Actually, there's a study showing that crime significantly decreased, especially in urban areas where after abortion was legal, after Roe v. Wade, it actually did. And we have that we have that data because it started like what in the 70s and by like by the 90s in those huge urban areas where abortion became legalized, crime went down drastically. There's an entire book about this, actually. Not really, because no, really, it's a fact. Like crazy in the eight late 80s and early 90s. You can say that it went down, but it you can say it spiking compared to what? Spiking compared to five years prior to that. But if you're talking about overall statistic of of of people not fulfilling education and crime in and of itself, yes, it did significantly decrease. In fact, there's a whole theory, which you'd probably love, because it's pretty cringe that that making Roe v. Wade legal, like that the original decision of Roe v. Wade, the court, the Supreme Court decision of federally legalized abortion, it was really just to like suppress and take down people of color that they wanted less people of color. And they knew that that if they gave people of color, it's a very cringe take. But this is a whole belief. And we're looking at this. The statistics of that show that in in heavily urbanized areas. Yes, it actually statistically did come true. That crime rates did lower. Not really, because they're mass murdering the children. And think about the way that these mothers who are raising their children, who, as you mentioned, they already do have children. And so they're raising them with harsher and more harsher. Abuse and more anger. Yeah. And the fathers are not around. And out of wedlock, births increased post Roe v. Wade. And well, they've been steadily increasing since the 60s. But it's pretty loud. Wade, and crime increased since the 60s and and since the 70s. You can claim that crime went down. But I don't really buy that. It's fucking study hack and you're going to get it. I think I think the idea, like the crime, I guess it depends on like, like she said earlier, like the crime spiked like from from like five years before, like. But the crime overall, I think it's gone down. Even compared to the 50s. Are you kidding me? Or this early 60s? It's it's it's crime. Well, I guess somebody actually has a data and we can pull out of your ass. Like, since we don't know, we don't know. We don't actually know either way. And I don't think any of us have that data in front of us. Yeah, it's really an answer. We're kind of off track anyway. Yeah, it is. It's an answer. Let's start here from Caleb. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm just going to say, like, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what the statistics say about whether it spiked or whether it went down. We know that poverty breeds crime, breeds poverty, breeds crime. It is a vicious cycle. And the reality is that even though Hick and I both disagree that it's morally permissible to say that we should allow for abortions to keep people out of poverty. It's there isn't. And you can't argue against the objective fact that when women have access to abortion and there are less people and poverty, like Ashley said earlier, over 60 percent of women who get abortions are living below the federal poverty line. So that limits their opportunity to get out of poverty while also bringing another person below the poverty line. Sixty percent already have children, three out of four living below. Sorry, three out of four. OK, thank you. I just wanted to flip later and like people to. I'm not trying to be picky, but like it is it is just the objective reality that having abortion access is going to have fewer people living in poverty, therefore crime weights are going to lower. That's just following the basic logic. And like Brian said, it is kind of getting away from the topic. Unless we want to argue about whether it is not morally permissible to support abortion based on the idea of like poverty. In my position, I am a child that was I was born into excessive poverty. I lived in poverty for the first six years of my life. And I don't take well to the idea that we should be promoting abortions specifically for poor people. It just it seems a little eugenic, see, in my opinion. But it is kind of it is it is. And, you know, we actually brought up what is what is the opposite of based to to to be for killing the babies for the sake of economics. Is that what you're saying? The theory that I was taught that that that that abortion was legalized specifically to decrease the amount to decrease the population of of colored people in America, that's what that's what is. Cringe people of color that. Well, that's in the book. That's how they were. It's very cringe. Well, Margaret Sanger, who was not really for abortion, she was for the, you know, sterilization, but she founded Planned Parenthood. She was for getting rid of the human weeds and the poor people who are including the blacks who are having babies like crazy. She was for that. And yeah, I would say an administration official like some woman in the Biden administration who says who said something like, oh, it's better for society, better for the economy, not to to commit abortions. Yeah, when it comes to the like the Margaret, Margaret Sanger, Margaret Sanger. Oh, yeah, OK, I was going to say, yeah, sorry. Yeah, when it comes to when it comes to her and other people who like Ashley alluded to, who are like pushing for abortion for like these these kind of nefarious and frankly, just racist reasons. Like, like, I think this is kind of an example of like people kind of getting to the right answer, but using the wrong math. Like, like they are they're they're they're giving these people the autonomy to make choices about their lives. Even if even if the intent is is they're they're trying to do something nefarious by giving people more autonomy. I don't think that that's that makes the giving the granting of that autonomy bad just because their intentions for it were bad. But but it's it's kind of like spoiling people. You know, I think that this socialism stuff that we've established in the country for the last 100 years has I wish, right. Increased has increased the the so-called poverty. I don't even like how you guys are throwing around the word poverty or the the notion that poverty is causing crime. I think it's a lack of morality that's causing the people to be irresponsible with their lives and and of lesser means for that reason. It's also causing them to commit the murders and commit the out of wedlock sex and the abortions. My understanding when it comes to crime and poverty, it's it's not just poverty. Right. It's it tends to be like a combination of like poverty and population density as well as like a lot of underfunded like resources that intersect with all these things from education system to health care, etc. Like there's there's a lot a lot bigger problems at play than just like people being like immoral. And even even if the even if it was the case that just all these people were just we're just more immoral, then you kind of have to like try to answer the question, OK, why is this population, quote unquote, more immoral than some other population? And if you look at American history, there's a pretty well, if you look at America, there's kind of like clear lines, like like pushing certain groups of people into specific like really bad environments that we haven't like we have done. We've moved pretty far from but we still have a lot of and we still see a lot of the impacts today on this. So but there are environments that they themselves create and and exacerbate by not being responsible. And they've been catered to and coddled and encouraged to be angry. And anger is like a debilitating thing. It makes you stupid. It makes you violent. It makes you lazy. It makes you unmotivated. It's isn't it's a great evil. And we have like a religion of anger that's being spread to women and to all kinds of groups across society. And it's it's a shame. I mean, we have a whole month dedicated to pushing anger coming up here with the so-called Pride Month. What it it's it's really. Most people celebrating Pride Month from from my experience are pretty happy. Have you ever hung out with the gays? They are the happiest. But why do you think that gay is the way that that people started referring to them in the first place? Seriously. But again, we are like again, we're like way off the topic. Right. We're talking about like we're now talking about like crime and like causes of crime and things. And I think again, like this is we we tried to yeah, we tried to recent earlier. I think we fell off again. But so maybe we can reset. But I'm talking about supporting the lives of the babies you guys brought up. You know, we're pro birth. Well, you didn't say this. But some people say, oh, you're just pro birth. You don't care about supporting. Sure, I alluded to it for sure. Yeah. And and so. Yes, I'm for the women not killing their consciences and killing their children in the womb, but I'm also for women being responsible and for men being responsible. We shouldn't be encouraging this out of wedlock birth and contraception stuff. We have a declining population among black Americans and white Americans. And so we're needing all this immigration to support the older people. And it's messing with society and it's causing a lot of division. So I don't think that this this supporting people with all this so-called free health care stuff or subsidized health care stuff. I think that's like a scam that's causing things to go more expensive. Believe it or not, when you subsidize something, you make it more expensive. And saying, not for the people that didn't have access to it before, right? Right, right. But it's also not good for them to be to have to be spoiling them in that way. OK, yeah, I'm just going to disagree. But I kind of take the opposite position from Hake and I knew this debate was eventually going to get interesting because I don't think Hake agree on literally anything. But I spent 10 years as a pro-life activist in the pro-life movement, working for these organizations, talking to these politicians, being a part of these conversations. And I have to agree with a lot of what Ryan said in his opening statement and the allusions to this idea of being pro-birth. Whenever it comes to pro-life politicians, it is absolutely 100 percent true. And we are seeing in real time as somebody who is against abortion, but also pretty far left. I get so incredibly frustrated, especially around this time, we're getting into a campaigning time for the next election cycle. I get so incredibly frustrated with the narratives that go around in pro-life circles about what candidates they're supporting, because this was eventually never going to happen. What we're seeing is Republican candidates, Republican politicians are starting to see that abortion is not the winning issue for them anymore. And they're starting to retract that support. And we all knew that this was going to happen because the GOP only adopted the pro-life platform back in the 90s because they wanted to activate the evangelicals as a voting base for them. And now we're seeing what that has gotten us. Literally all that they gave to the pro-life position was finally after 50 years, they finally overturned Roe v. Wade, which is something that they have been promising ever since 1973 when Roe v. Wade was enacted. And on top of these very poorly written abortion bans, you do see pro-life politicians cutting social safety nets for these women, for these families and for these children, you see pro-life politicians not caring at all in any way, shape, or form what happens to these children after they're born, whether they are cared for, whether they are loved, whether they have access to the resources that they need in order to grow and be productive contributing members of society. And like I said earlier, poverty breeds crime, breeds poverty, breeds crime. So we have the we have politicians that are writing these bills that do not care if that child is then born into poverty, does not have access to a decent education, probably gets involved in crime due to poverty and not having access to the resources that they need, ends up in juvenile attention, ends up in prison, has their life completely upended. And the people that are saying, you need to have this baby, this baby needs to come into the world. And I'm somebody that does not support abortion as a solution to these problems. But I think that it is a major gaping hole in the pro-life position that they do not care more about these issues. I'm somebody that argues abortion from a more social perspective, because I know that politics is not going to influence culture. Culture is going to influence politics. So if we truly want to make abortion unthinkable, which is what the pro-life slogan is, then why not address the social issues that drive women into the abortion clinic in the first place? Exactly. So in the meantime, supporting these politicians by actively saying that somebody is pro-life is actually not helping anything. It's making it worse for millions of Americans, primarily child birthing, capable Americans and their their potential or existing offspring. So I feel like it. I feel like the like the over not like overturning it, let every state decide. And we already know that we have some cringe ass Republicans, as Hicks said, states that we're going to do things like this, putting the cart before the horse, we're not fixing the problem. And that's why I just I just that's my whole argument is like, I understand how you, you the understood pronoun, not you specifically K, but I understand how one could feel that it is morally wrong to end a life. Like I said, myself, I wouldn't I don't think that I could or would have an abortion. But that's my personal feeling. But I also know that I'm not going to support the pro-life stance with how broken every system we have in place from start to finish is right now. I feel like that is if it's about morality, then morally supporting pro-life, I would arguably say is the less moral stance to take overall. I just I would agree with that. Yeah. And the seed, the problem that we're seeing now is that, you know, for a while for a couple of years after I moved more into the liberal left, I was kind of an impasse whenever it came to voting because I didn't see, you know, Democrats like to boast about how, you know, they're the party that supports these social safety nets and bolsters these programs. But we still weren't getting things like paid family leave passed. You know, these are like very basic things that it's just you get support from that from the right to and we still weren't being able to get that past. But now we're at a point where I believe it was Minnesota just recently. You know, they passed all of these bills in their state once they got the Democratic majority, you know, free school lunches, paid family leave, all of these things that are there to support the family unit to help these families thrive, even when being faced with an unplanned pregnancy. And so with the GOP actually receding on the issue of abortion, compromising on their pro-life stance, while the Democrats are also are, you know, in contrast, starting to bolster these programs to help support families, I do believe that the GOP is as actually they've lost the plot at this point. I really think that socialism is part of the has been part of the problem of the last hundred or a hundred. What does it have to do with the price of tea in China right now? Like, well, can I ask a different question like that? What what do you when you say like what are you referring to specifically? Like about all this minimum wage, bringing in are you bringing in all of this social security and all that stuff? Do you think most people when they hear the word socialism are thinking of minimum wage and social security? Well, I don't I'm OK. I'm glad that you're having me clarify then. So then so that I can clarify for most people that who may not know what I'm talking about, yeah, because we have we have like these taxes. You don't even own your own home. You have to pay rent to the government every every year. Otherwise they take your home from you, you know, with property tax and all kinds of stuff. So we have all of these social programs and all of these things. And it's increased corruption and and so-called poverty and stuff in different ways and it's been spoiling. I think that I agree with some of you guys in that I'm not a fan of the current pro-lifers type of movement. It's mostly women led and they've they've been supporting girls who've had sex at a wedlock and decided to have even 10 year old girls. I'm talking about I'm talking about like seniors in high school. So are you against? OK, do you mind if I ask? Are you against the organizations that are are in place? I mean, there are only a few of them, but the organizations that are specifically started for the purpose of financing women keeping their babies. I don't know about that. I'm talking about I'm talking about the activist pro-life women who and and groups who like, for example, they opposed President Trump before he became the nominee. They were for anybody but Trump. And Trump was the best thing for what you guys are talking about, because he made the economy better so that people had their the jobs and could support themselves. He was decreasing regulation. And he the pro-life stance wasn't his main issue. His main issue was the country in different ways. The immigration, the deregulation, fixing the economy, being more responsible, being a man, setting up, setting an example of telling the truth, bringing the vagina bad. So he was so he was he was part of the solution rather than all of this social safety net type stuff. Yeah, I'm very skeptical of the thing you said there, saying like basically that like welfare programs and things that like give resources to people who are impoverished is like increasing poverty. It's almost like like tautologically the opposite, right? What's making think about think about how millennials can't even afford homes now? It's well, yeah, but yeah, we're all spoiled to a certain level. And they're college educated with degrees. I know, I mean, they're worthless. The degrees are more worthless than ever. They're a minority, though, right in a there in I don't know, it's it's a very spoiled society. I'll grant you that. But yeah, we should abolish minimum wage and all those things. If we redirect before we go on about minimum wage and education, I just want to go back to the abortion topic in particular. Well, it does seem like no one here supports the current at least the current iteration of abortion bans and the legislation that's being passed across the country. I think there's like even they called them like the Republicans who are pushing this stuff, I agree, I would extend that to a lot more Republicans. But but yeah, I mean, I think it's nice that we have that that we can all agree on that. And I guess with that in mind, when it comes to like actionable steps politically, we shouldn't be supporting those politicians. And so I think that that seems to be like the yeah, for things that we can do tangibly right now, it's going to be not supporting those people who are passing these abortion bans that none of us agree with. I don't know. I don't know how much I disagree with the abortion bans, but I'm not for something that's going to make it more complicated for one of those crazy situations that it's not a crazy situation. It's happening every day. But in fact, states like Idaho have gone from there's only, I think, a current total of 10 advanced advanced fetal paternal medicine, fetal maternal medicine specialists in the state now, because most of them are leaving. They're leaving because they are having to go against the hypocriticals that they took to to avoid facing literal federal prison sentences and fines and losing their medical licenses. Do you think this was explained to those politicians who are writing these? I think that they don't care. You really think so? It is actually like, you know, I've watched so many hours and hours that they don't care of Senate sessions where they have had actual medical professional standing telling them exactly what these laws are doing and what's going on. They are being told this information. They are not listening. They don't care. And in fact, since even a lot of this has come out and come to light, even since I was doing research on since Roe v. Wade and I looked at one report within a month's time, the number of states that have gone to to the they call it what a trigger laws is it's when there's legal prosecution? Yeah. And so not only like it's not only the physician, you're looking at the anesthesiologist. You're looking at any nurse that would have helped. You're looking at the patient themselves, any family member that was there transporting or conspiring for abortion. You're looking at women that are going into literal like they're having miscarriages, active miscarriages. And Kay, you worded it beautifully earlier when you said the language is not being there's no there's no different differential language, I guess, is what I'm looking for, because the medical terminology for a miscarriage is an abortion, an abortion is a spontaneous abortion is what they call it in medical in medical terms, right? So a lot of the stats we're looking at isn't the same. But if they're not specifying this in the bill and that's the actual medical terminology for it, how do people are afraid? Women are afraid to go to the emergency room when they're bleeding out during a pregnancy because they're afraid that they're going to be put under investigation for whether or not they tried to purposely cause that miscarriage to happen. And then that's a whole other thing you get into. But it's happening every day, especially in the South. It's happening overwhelmingly. I think there's only 11 states right now that are like, I guess, supporting or being pro like abortion rights. And that's out of 50. And the only reason that that number that the number of states that are banning these things, like some at least five or six states right now that have restrictive abortion laws, say, maybe go into like 15 weeks, 12 weeks, etc. They're actively fighting to also become trigger states. Nobody. It's not getting better. It's getting worse. Nobody saying would be for that type of situation, though. Nobody saying what would be for that type of type of would be. Why is it? Why is it happening? So I guess you're suggesting, then, that these these Republicans who are pushing this legislation, they just don't understand what they're doing. Well, it's hard to know. It's hard. I would imagine in their defense that it would be hard for them to know because a lot of doctors are liberals now. They don't they're not honest and a lot of experts are politically motivated. They're for killing the babies. You think that these doctors are like it's like many of them are. I'm going to kill babies. Like you really think that you don't think that like I guess you hear them talking about they they're piping up on Twitter about gun laws and all kinds of things saying, oh, we're treating these gunshot wounds. We need to get rid of the guns. So I'm telling you a lot of abort of doctors nowadays, especially the younger ones coming up, have an agenda. And so it's hard to know who's telling the truth. So I'm I don't know what the truth is. I'm just saying that it's that I can I can sympathize with a politician who's like, I don't know what the truth is. Well, don't you think that if they're in that position where they can't figure out like what's going on, they can't tell up from down in this regard, in regards to this stuff that they should probably not be passing legislation on it? Kind of like it seems really hard to know the definition of a wound. You shouldn't argue about abortions. I'm going to say about it. That's not fair. I'm going to say I'm going to talk about Ashley XOXO. I have to say that I agree with Ryan and Ashley here. I mean, I'm somebody that's very passionate about the topic of abortion. Like I said, it's been 10 years in the pro-life movement left last year, but that's a different thing. But I'm somebody that whenever I started to understand what the pro-life first push choice argument was and I became very invested in it, I educated myself. I read embryology textbooks, I read medical textbooks. I read up all kinds of books about pregnancy, childbirth, complications, all of it. I educate myself because it is something that I was invested in. If these pro-life politicians were as invested in this issue as they pretend to be whenever campaign season rolls around, they would be educated on this topic. I have literally watched one of these committee meetings where they are discussing these bills where one of the Republican politicians that was signing on to this bill didn't know that there was even such a thing as an ectopic pregnancy and could not understand that ectopic pregnancies cannot be carried to term. Both the mother and the child will die. That's the one where I was talking about with the outside of the womb. That's what I meant. Ectopic pregnancy, yeah. It's still technically in the womb, except for the very rare occasion that they is very, very rare that you can have an abdominal ectopic pregnancy where that is actually outside the womb, but most of them are in the fallopian tube, which is if it's like a cesarean scar, yeah, sometimes it can protrude and start to develop outside of the in the abdominal cavity. Yeah. And that's the only ectopic pregnancy that has ever successfully been carried to term and it's not recommended. It's very, very dangerous, but all ectopic pregnancies outside of that are you can't carry them to term. But these people don't know this and they are writing legislation on situations where it could get a woman killed. That specific scenario, that that legislator was actually trying. He was actually questioned. He said, why do we need to have this exception in this bill of an ectopic pregnancy? Yeah, it's a life. And like, yes, we agree that it is a human being. But I do part of my interruption. I've tried to give a lot of freedom and flexibility because at moderate debate, we want that to be the case. But it is to be fair, this debate to a large extent has been more about is the new pro-life legislation since Roe versus Wade informed or ethical, whatever you might call it, and that's OK. We've allowed it to cover there because it's relevant. But I did promise the viewers that it would be more of a debate on whether or not abortion is ethically permissible. So I do want to cover that a little bit before we go into the Q&A. Sure. And before we do that, I will, I mean, it seems like. Oh, Ryan, I'm redirecting the conversation right now. So I'm not asking you to carry it forward on the same topic. Do you understand that? I'm not. Yes, James. OK. Yeah, I know. Can you tell me where you're going with it? Because it just sounded like you were going in that same direction. No, I'm what I'm going to say is you're not going to tell me. Oh, hold on. What? Like, I hate to do this because I'm just asking, are you going to bring it back to the topic just so we can? Yes, like I promised to the audience. OK, that's all I was asking. OK, go ahead. I literally when I was going to say, if you let me is I was going to say that at the outset, we all agree that there were some situations where abortion was permissible morally. So I think I think there is an agreement here that there that it is so. So I mean, moving forward to stay on that topic, I guess we can discuss what situations would be immoral and what are the bounds of that? I'd like to start there because I think that Ashley and Hank touched on it a little bit earlier where they have a disagreement. I think it was just because, again, the language in this conversation is so complicated. And Hank used the term elected and whenever majority of people use that term, they're talking about non-medical emergency abortions. And so that would also include abortions that are done later in the pregnancy for fetal anomalies that are not terminal or fatal that baby could still, you know, live outside of the womb. So like it was a little bit complex because I thought I felt like Ashley kind of felt like he was saying that something that I didn't feel like he was actually saying because of the terminology there. But whenever like for my position, obviously, there are situations of pregnancy where it's going to be you need to administer life saving care for the mother and that is going to unfortunate result in the death of the baby. I don't I think you'd be hard-pressed to find somebody that is pro-life that disagrees with that. There are people out there, but vast minority. For me, what would be considered as not morally permissible is anything outside of what I would consider a necessary abortion in a life-saving medical situation. What about so even rape and incest is on that spectrum for you is something that I struggled with. But I am against abortions for rape and incest simply because I do not believe that we should be killing off human beings because of how they were created. Kill the rapists, though. Yeah, I'm not for abortions in the sake of in the case of rape and incest, obviously, because you don't you don't cause more trauma and guilt and trouble on the family, on the woman. Actually, 95 percent of women that chose to have an abortion and did have it. They actually say later that they don't regret that decision. There is a study that was released on that as a 10-year study, actively interviewing over a thousand women from both sides of the spectrum that chose to have an abortion. So that that is a common misconception. I wanted to nip it in the bud, though. So they may say at least it. Yeah. So this 10-year study by a medical professional may say, sure. He thinks they're lying. OK, I don't buy liberal studies that much. I don't give much credence to them. And on top of it, they are they are bringing guilt on themselves. They're suffering for their decisions, regardless of whether they what they feel about it, we need to get away from feelings and emotions. Anyway, I guess you're bringing up feelings and emotions explicitly right now. You know, I think it's an oxymoron. You're I don't think you can have a conversation about morality without talking about the way that like feelings and emotions. I mean, like it's pretty well, they're suffering for it. They're suffering for it. That's true. It's obvious. Trust me, bro. Yeah, trust me, bro. Do you not think that someone's suffering? I mean, I I think normally when a woman has a child from from any situation, she's so happy with that child, regardless of how she feels leading up to it. True or false, I'd say probably true. Boom. I mean, there is a study that was it was also a peer reviewed study talking about how statistics did show that women that chose that were abortion minded and chose not to go through with their abortion and kept their babies didn't regret that decision either. But that doesn't invalidate the statistic that says that women that do have abortions choose tend not to regret that decision either. It's kind of, you know, that. What study are you referring to? I will have to find it for you. I have it saved in my Google documents with all of my. Because the study I'm referring to actually it goes so it's a thousand, a little over a thousand women and it's women from both sides. So it's they all chose or wanted an abortion. Half of them were not able to access one. Half of them successfully had an abortion. And and I'll I'll tell you the source for that one. But I'm just curious what is are you studying the turn away study? Yeah, the turn away. Yeah, yeah, that's why I thought. I'd like to see a study on how these women who kill their unborn children kill the treat the children who's who survive. So actually statistically better in cool. Their children tend to hit developmental milestones on a much higher rate than the than the women that didn't go through with the abortion. That doesn't tell me that doesn't tell me how they treated the children. Well, I would assume they gave them much more love and attention seen as that those children hit vital developmental milestones. Well, they know that when children don't hit these milestones, it's it's typically because of abuse and neglect and lack of education, lack of stimuli, lack of proper nutrition. It's a multitude of things. But you there are studies on it. You can see hate. They clearly don't have love if they're killing a baby in the womb. And that's your feeling, right? I mean, it's a reality for you. Like, that's your reality. So those women that are loving the existing children, that's not love. Right. It's not it's not love. They're faking that love. It's ego. It's ego. Great. OK. If you say so. Yeah, I mean, you look at how these women are. I mean, look at how they are with the pro-abortion thing. They've gotten worse and more out of control. Shout, you're abortion. Are you kidding me? And then I will say I did want to talk about that a little bit, actually. Because I think that it's it's an interesting area because, like, obviously, I agreed. These conversations should be like really, really serious. And like it can be like being very glib about it, which I'm certainly guilty of at times. I think it doesn't do with justice. And when people do, I feel I could be wrong about this. I think when people are doing the shout my abortion stuff, I think what they're trying to to alleviate is the the societal shame and horror that like people are treated really badly for like choosing to do this and perceived like really like monsters and for my a lot of people. And I think that that is probably not like even if even if you want people to not get abortions, I feel like that just just an increased amount of shame around it is probably not the only way to or like the best way to do that. Many things like shame doesn't necessarily like actually lead to less of that thing. Like fat shaming, for example, is another example, you know? I mean, I get they shouldn't be mistreated or or treated with a judgment or hatred or anger by people who are who see that it's wrong. I agree, but we we have a problem of shamelessness and this combating of shame. I understand it, but it's misguided. They should not like I said in my opening, they should neither feel guilt because because what's done is done, nor should they have this shameless thing about it or this praise of it. Well, let me just piggyback off of what Ryan said a little bit because I agree with him and the fact of the matter is is that I have talked to post-aborted women that are part of that 5 percent that did they are still 10 plus years later really, really struggling with their abortions. And one of the most common themes of their stories is shame, feel so ashamed. The people that know that it happened every time I see them, I feel so ashamed. And I feel like talking to women that don't regret their abortions that are part of these campaigns like shout your abortion. They are angry. They're very, very angry because of the shame women before them have been made to feel in previous generations where it was extremely common to shame women who have had abortions. And so while I don't feel like any of us really necessarily agree with the shout your abortion movement, because as Ryan said, these need to be serious conversations, it is a response to shame culture. So bringing back shame culture is not going to make that situation better. I support your abortion. It's kind of like what I said about the the pride, the gay pride thing. That was a reaction to the shame on the gaze. Maybe there maybe there was some there was obviously something wrong with the so-called shame culture back then because it was fake. The people weren't living it right. And so there was an overreaction that went the opposite extreme. So I'm not saying go back. I'm saying go towards what's right. And what's right is not is is neither shame nor pride. So I think that if I if I had to like make an abortion law, right? Nationwide and be like, this is when you can't have an abortion anymore. Just after thinking about it really hard and everything, I don't know. I would say that the moment that the fetus would be viable outside of the womb is when we should draw the line. That is when abortion is not OK. What do you have to say about that? I totally disagree because it's it's still a developing human being and we don't have the right to a woman's body is not even her own, a man's body is not his own. We're not we shouldn't be playing committing suicide or anything like that. So same thing with killing the babies in the womb. Who's who's wait for bodies aren't ours, which I mean, there's some philosophical ways I might agree with that. But I'm not sure we're saying the same thing. Like, like, what do you say when you say our bodies aren't ours? Can you elaborate on that more? Like it's it's a it's it's morally right to take care of your body. You know, it's it's you should be you should be taking care of your body rather than letting it go like feeding a junk or whatever or doing drugs or or stuff like that. Tattoos and all those things. It's they say, oh, it's my body, my choice, but it's not really even her body and the baby's certainly not her body and get that it's attached to her body and she has to suffer. Well, that was fun. Hey, I just I just think that there is a huge disagreement surrounding when when is when is life considered life? Like, when is it a life? If I really had to look at it that way and look at it just totally logically, I would say that when this life can sustain life outside of being a parasite in someone else's body, using them for life, then then I'll consider it a life. Sure. Just even in the Bible. They call it quickening when they felt like that that's the point where the baby's big enough they can feel the baby move. So this whole like life begins at conception is just bullshit. I think it is for what it's worth. I don't necessarily agree with I think it is like I mean, it's like I'm concerned it's a human life the whole time. I just I think it's there are times where it's justified to end a human life. And this this very unique and tragic situation in many cases is just one of those examples. The science or in the six week embryo of of elephant looks the same as the six week embryo of a human being. Is that a scientifically accurate term? Parasite? Yeah, that is a scientific term and there's it's in the dictionary. I'm saying is it a regular one? I think she said I do think she said like like like a pair if I if I agree. I might not have I thought she said like like a parasite, maybe parasite. But I don't know. Is it a parasite? Is it siphoning life off of a host in order to survive itself? To the damage of the host in many cases, in many cases it is. Did you know that during pregnancy that a woman's body actually releases enzymes travel along the bones and eat away at the bones, releasing it into the bloodstream so that the baby can get vitamin D and calcium? Did you know that a woman's bones actually weakened during pregnancy? I've heard. Did you know that many women develop preeclampsia? Yes. Is it a parasite? Pregnancy does damage the host. I know. In a vast majority of pregnancy is actually diabetes. No, no, no, no. Hold on. Is it a parasite? Yes, it's a parasite. Absolutely. Until it's able to sustain life on its own, it is a parasite. It is a parasitic normal scientist who's not trying to dehumanize this baby. I call it a parasite. I don't know. I'm not. Well, I mean, actually defined scientist. I mean, technically, they might I don't I don't know. Like, I don't think they might make a technical argument about a parasite. I think we like I do think I understand that when a lot of people hear the word parasite and maybe even when a lot of people use the word parasite, they are they are to some degree doing what you're what you're describing like the dehumanization in a way to like that's what the Nazis did to the Jews. OK, I don't know. Yeah, that's true. They did. There was a lot of dehumanization there. That's true. It was really a long process of racialization and dehumanization. I agree. But sorry, I'm not sure about there. Nazi stuff. But again, six week, six week embryo of a human looks the same as a six week embryo of a puppy or a kitty or an elephant ever turned into a hippo or a puppy or a kitty. Well, they all look the same now with that attitude. It's kind of funny. Yeah, anyway, I just I was just interesting to see to hear that come out of your mouth. Shameless. But I am shameless. I'm very shameless. Not totally because you wouldn't because you wouldn't kill your baby in the womb. So you say. So you have a little it doesn't it doesn't negate the fact that that baby technically, according to the definition, is at that point in time, a parasite living off of the host of its mother. Yeah, I remember the other half of what I was going to say. It was like because that like we can make the technical argument that it is like it qualifies under the definition of a parasite. But I mean, we're using it. Would that it would not necessarily. I don't think that would be like the the. It's parasite. Yeah, yeah, regardless, I which I mean, I agree that it can be technically described as one, but I don't I don't think that like whether or not we can classify it as such as like the really the hinge here that we should focus on. Parasites lives matter. Sure. Oh, nice. Last thoughts, if you guys want to draw together threads before we go into the Q and A. I do know, go ahead, guys. Thank you, James. Yeah, I guess I guess like I understand that this was supposed to be more about is abortion more permissible. Again, it's an interesting discussion. I just the reason that I engage with it the way I did is because right now this is impacting so many millions of people's lives and it's going to continue. And I think that when we're having conversations about abortion and the morality of it and we are like whether we want to or not, we are like steering people towards political positions and we when we're doing that, we need to be very clear about what those political positions are and what the implications of them are. And so and again, like as we we all we all I think we all agree here that like we wouldn't support most of the legislation that's out there for various for different reasons and therefore we shouldn't support the politicians who are pushing that legislation and and at the end of the day, like whether you agree or disagree, although we did seem to all agree that in some cases it is morally permissible, whether you agree with that, I think is secondary to how you engage with the political process. But yeah, I don't care if it's morally permissible or not to be quite honest. I don't give a flying rat's ass. I think that a woman should have that right and choice to do whatever as long as that thing is still a parasite. I think she should be able to get rid of it. It's her body. I just I think it's stupid. I understand that the the question of it is is to pull on heart strings. But at the end of the day, it isn't my decision. It's not my choice. Like you said, hey, I'm not God. We are not God. And if you're so worried about their moral fucking souls, then let God sort it out at the pearly gates and keep your nose and your vote out of a woman's body. Period. End of story. And so is it morally right or wrong? I don't give a fuck that I support it. That's my that's my feelings. You want to go. OK, good. Yeah, I'll go. I think, you know, I know that we kind of got massively off topic at the beginning of the debate. But what I take away from this is that there is a lot of common ground that is going completely unnoticed by the majority on those times. And I think that if more people were willing to come together and meet on that common ground and have these discussions that we might actually be able to see something accomplished in this area, I think that pro like people need to be louder. I mean, I know that there are pro like people that have been loud. They have gotten bills that were up for vote pulled back down because it's like this is not something that we support. This is terribly written. If you pass this, you lose our support. But they need to be louder about it because they're obviously they're not doing that well enough because there are still bills being passed into law that have these gaping holes in them. And instead of addressing that issue, you have majority of pro lifers defending it. So I think that if more people were willing to have the conversation about where we agree more than we disagree, we might actually be able to come together and see something actually done. I I agree that we should not be doing the pull on people's emotions and heartstrings thing. I think both sides are guilty of that. It's I don't think that this is a complex issue. I get that medicine can get complex, but I think the moral stance is quite simple. You you protect the you protect both lives where you can, as K K said. And and that should be that it could be just a one line law, in my opinion. But but yeah, unfortunately, we have weak republicans who kiss up to all the different minorities and women and all that stuff. And if only and it's a shame, it's a shame because because it's really a simple issue. Women don't have the right to kill the child in the womb, but we don't. But but given that we have a society where where it's legal in some instances in many instances and it's socially acceptable and in large swaths of the country, just as slavery was, just as as Nazi Germany had their situation, we should be peaceful and understanding of of people's evil and allow people to be evil and just tell them. Tell them what's right and don't let them shut you up. Don't don't let people follow Trump's example and express your freedom of speech. Be a man and and ladies, don't worry. You're pretty little heads about politics or the future that doesn't exist. Nice. We're going to jump into the Q&A. But want to say thanks for your questions, folks. We're going to move into it fast. Couple of reminders in terms of housekeeping. Was there something I miss? Oh, yeah. One last point. Oh, no, I thought I wasn't. I thought I heard maybe it was your voice. Go ahead, Hank, if it was you. Well, I did notice that the most extreme pro abortion or pro choice person was the one with the with the mouth on her. Everybody else, everybody else couldn't was pretty good in their language. Give you a chance to respond. All right, kids, Hank made an accusation about you. He does have a mouth. She did admit it at the beginning. I and I totally and I totally like you, Ashley XOXO totally like you, Hank. Nice. I have mixed feelings about you, Hank, to be honest. Where do we last to be? We talked to Nick Fuentes and a few other people on the show. Oh, dear God. This one coming in. Do want to say thanks so much for your questions, folks. Troll nerd says to the pro life team, what are your thoughts about the 10 year old Ohio girl who had to travel to get an abortion due to quote unquote pro life legislation? It sounded like a clumsy law because it sounded like the baby was not going to survive like ectothermic or whatever. A topic. Yeah, yeah, outside the womb or whatever, which it wasn't. And so it was just a clumsy situation. And those things happen. But I would like to make the point that it's these laws, although they're flawed, they're they're potentially saving many, many more lives of children. And sometimes women, too, because women die in abortions, too, sometimes. So that's my take. Um, mine is pretty similar. It is it just goes back to these laws being extremely poorly written. And the reality is, is that overwhelmingly a 10 year old going through pregnancy incredibly dangerous to absolutely fall under medically necessary abortions. Yeah, that's just I hate that there was so much wrong with that case. The doctor violated Hiba. There there was not nearly enough focus. Everybody's focused on abortion, not focused on the fact that this girl was raped by her mom's boyfriend. Like it was just a poorly written law. It was something at the whole that needs to be filled. That's horrifying. This one from Christopher Kuston. Kaston says pro life. Why isn't this a personal issue for couples? They say single mothers, shouldn't this be a mind your own business problem? I don't personally think so. Right now, currently it is it is and unfortunately the father's this hasn't been mentioned, but fathers don't really have rights in these in these situations. Unfortunately, like in many cases, I get that sometimes the father wants to the woman to have it or force pressures her. But in many cases, the fathers do not want their children killed. And so the mother will kill the father's the man's child. And that's that's wrong. But right now it is and I don't think that just as we shouldn't allow suicide or killing the elderly, I don't think we should be allowed for killing the unborn. This one from I was just curious about what he met about single mothers question work. Like, yeah, ideally we wouldn't want women to have to raise a child on her own if that's not a choice that she's like making not just circumstances, but single it's not a bad thing if she's a single mother. This one coming in. Do appreciate it. Two seconds, my page is not loading. This one from Trollner says, hey, I agree that laws should be as free of legalese as possible. But then politically motivated prosecutors use the quote unquote legalese to go after people. I know it's it's a shame and we and we have a justice system that's filled with politically motivated people and it's it's I feel like we should deport the lawyers, so many of them are such liars and judges too. So it's it's really corrupt. I don't know what to do about it. I agree wholly and I think that that's exactly why abortion needs to just be legalized across the board. My take on the laws. I I don't know. I mean, it's unfortunate, I guess, for laymen who want to understand like laws that like that, you know, the quote unquote legalese, as you say, I don't know if that's the technical term. But I mean, law legislating for a country, I mean, for any country, but a country like America, 350 million people or even much more now, I think. I mean, these things are really complicated and you need you need language that is able to address nuance and be specific. And yeah, like there are going to be loopholes that are created. But the solution to like you mentioned earlier, the loopholes come from it couldn't some of these cases come from that language. But the solution to those loopholes is also more specific language that closes those loopholes. So to bring it back to what you're saying about Trump's just deregulating like crazy. I think that's a very irresponsible approach to legislation. You got to this one coming in from do appreciate it. Area Lace says, actually ignores the fact that many pro life people, even some who have been on MDD or secular and strongly pro life. Question mark. It says it seems dishonest and ignorant. You read it one more time. I'm so sorry. No problem. They say, actually, I'm trying to make it out. They say, actually ignores the fact that many pro life people, even some who have been on MDD or secular and pro life. I don't know if they meant to put the question mark, but I think they're saying that you're just came in early in the debate. I think this is when you you said something to the effect of, you can correct me how you depending on how you said it, something about keep your religion separate from the state or out of the state laws or whatever. We'll give you a chance to respond to the question. OK, got you. I was I guess I would say that I was targeting that comment specifically to those that do project their religious views and opinions and beliefs on to other human beings specifically. And I think that not even arguably, I think that vast majority of people, a vast majority, not everyone, there's always an exception to a rule that are supporting the strict abortion laws are typically extremists. And they're typically evangelicals, evangelicals, evangelicals. Evangelicals, thank you. Evangelicals and and you're you're well, look at it. It's all in the Bible built the South. It's come on. Yeah, it is primarily religious base. That's where they're coming from, except for their pockets, religion and money. Let's pull on the heartstrings. Let's manipulate the people. But anyways, I stand by what I said. I don't I don't care. I don't think that we're ever going to get to the end of this rabbit hole in this loopholes, these loopholes in the laws and like misinterpreted it this way, interpreting it that way. At the end of the day, just stay out of it, stay out of stay out of it. Just leave it alone. Roe v. Wade was was put into practice for a reason when it was. And I think it was a huge mistake that it was overturned. And I think that all this is doing is again, is it moral or not? Why I said I don't care is because it's none of your in business. That's why if you don't want an abortion, don't get one. And I'm cool if you're a secular, you know, person that supports, you know, pro-life choices, good for you. But I think you're doing a lot of harm and a lot of damage to a lot more people than you think you're saving. I think people I think people if you want to I want to give it. I think everybody's religion for Ashley on some level. I can give you a quick response, Hague, but then I want to give Ashley the last word because the question was originally for her. Fair enough, I just think that I think the leftists and the secularists follow their own false religion. It's just not an established religion. You have the last word. Last word, I don't I don't care about your religion. I don't care about why you wanted abortion, because at the end of the day, it is none of my business. And I like I said already. It's a never ending cycle. We're never going to solve it. It's not going to be the perfect algorithm and the perfect formula for what constitutes as a morally acceptable abortion. I just think that it's again, it's repugnant to support to support being pro-life. Gerudo legend says Ashley is right. They say if I murder a pregnant woman, which I would never do, they say, and the fetus dies. It's a double homicide. Just look up abortion survivors. I've heard that. I heard that. I'm confused at the point. What was this? This came up for a really, I don't know what you mean by Ashley's right. I like that part. I think we should just end it there. This one from Arielle Lace is nice straw man. Ashley is just doesn't seem like it's. Arielle says Richard Spencer. I think they mean Richard Spencer. They say says he's for your position because he likes that it means more black people will be terminated and thus white people become a bigger percent of the population. Yeah, I think they're referring to my debate with Richard Spencer on abortion. Richard Spencer is a white supremacist who is pro-choice because he is a white supremacist. Is he a white supremacist? I think he's the father of the alt-right. But that doesn't mean he's a supremacist. I know that he's a self-described white supremacist. You may be right, because he said that blacks were doing better under white supremacy and he's his reason for a few or less like something a supremacist. Yeah, that is a white supremacist position, I believe. His reason for the blacks killing off their own is the lowering of the crime. All right, just keep it on a topic. They but I think they're saying like that racist people like pro-choice. I think this comes back to the thing that came in earlier of what it was like an alleged conspiracy that abortion is supposed to further a racist agenda. And they're saying Richard Spencer said he likes it because it means that black people will become a smaller percentage of the population because they abort more. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a thing that exists out there. Yeah, and like I said earlier, like this is an example and I'm sure there's many of these where it's people kind of coming to the correct answer. But their work is wrong. You know, like they're they're they're coming to the what I would say is the right position, but they're I mean, they're they're certainly not coming to it in a way that I would agree with. So I mean, I'm glad that they support the rights of people to have abortions and I don't like that they're racist. This one coming in from Richie Constitution says, does the pro-choice side think the baby in the womb is life? If so, they're saying it's morally better to kill the baby if the baby is born into poverty and or the mother's life would be harder. Question. I am 100 percent say it. I'm kind of I mean, I'm I generally consider it a life the whole time. I don't I just I don't think that the I think the poverty stuff is very relevant to the conversation. But I don't think it's like it's the the hinge by any means. So I am not. Yeah, I think the rabbit hole, you'd have to go down to prove who's live, who how many more lives are saved by one abortion versus not. It would take more time than we have left here. Yeah, I wouldn't want to do that math. This one coming in from Christopher Costanz says both if pro-life gets its way, do you agree with mandatory DNA testing for fathers? Also paternity fraud, otherwise double standards. I'll answer that for sure. I've heard a lot of talk about this lately. I do think that mandatory DNA testing is fine. I think it's fine. I don't see any problem with it. I don't see any well morally if we're talking morally now that if you want to go into cost, this is very expensive. And again, people throw out wild ideas of well, we should do this if it were like in the perfect world, right? And again, I also want to point out a lot of people have a misconception, but there aren't any states that make it illegal or like not accessible for a man to have a paternity test. OK, what they're talking about is upon birth, every single child has a paternity test right then and there. And and I'm not opposed to that like morally, like as I wouldn't be offended. I don't give a shit, you know, like I know who my baby daddy is or whatever. But but financially, it's not feasible. It's it's ridiculous. But yeah, just to piggyback off that, I would say that if people want to have a paternity test, they should have access to it and they do. And I think they do. So I don't know about mandatory. I think that it it's it feeds into that document and register everybody in the surveillance state type of thing, potentially could cause other problems. You and I are on to something there, I'm with you. Ryan, Ryan hates that about me, but I have some conspiracy theories. I mean, I personally I personally don't care that much about because I figured that they have it all anyway, but I. I am not. I think we should get rid of. Child support and I think that's I think there needs to be some work on it. That's a date. Yeah, I think the family courts have a lot of issues, too, which is why I support abortion. I think the children should by and large go with the father's. If it doesn't work out between a man and a woman, we should get rid of this no fault divorce stuff and bring back morality. That would be very it would be very immoral, of course, people to stay in marriages that they don't want to be in. That's the opposite of being moral and from my view. So they should think about that before they marry. You know, I mean, I gotta go put my kids to bed soon. You got it. We'll jump to the next one. I don't think we have too many left. We have a Batman saying they say Ashley saying life doesn't start at conception is legitimate scientific misinformation. They see a fetus is metabolizing energy and growing. It's a legitimate lie. I'll make it quick. OK, for you, I said sustainable outside of its host. So every parasite is alive. This one coming in from Fia Vascanela. Thanks for your kind words, Fia. I'll read that one in the post show. And this one from experience and pre-biotic chemistry says, hey, a person's body is not their own. Really? Right. Yeah. Think about it like you didn't make yourself. How are you? How is it your body to I get it that other people can't? Imposed on you in different ways, but but you are not your own. You got it. This one I'm going to try to see if we've got any for Kay in particular. Kay, we can let you go early if you need to go. There aren't too many more questions, but I do want to let you go. OK, I'm fine. This one from Mercedes F1 fans says, I don't trust psychological studies as humans don't know what they want, especially young people. Show me abortion in nature. Abortion is contradiction as you wouldn't exist without birth. OK, I actually disagree with that a little bit. We I mean, we see certain species eating their own to say that, you know, it's not moral or it's not natural because we don't see actual abortions, which is a medical procedure that other animal species can't perform. I think that's kind of a straw man or ignorant. This one from the tribe once says for pro-lifers, what are the percentages of abortions happening during the third trimester? Do you want abortions as a whole band? How about contraceptives? Good question. Actually, I don't know the percentages. I do want abortions as on the whole. Exceptions to the rule, obviously, banned and I am not for contraceptives. I think that we have a declining population. We need to bring back some right level of shame for out of all this sex, out of wedlock and pornography and all that stuff so that men and women can come back together rather than hating each other and using each other selfishly. They come together and the man is not his own. The woman is not her own. They belong to each other and their bodies both belong to God. My position on that is it's about somewhere between one and two percent of abortions happen in the third trimester, late trimester abortions are fairly rare in comparison to the other 99 percent. I am a from conception pro-lifer, so I support abortion bans from conception, obviously, with the exception of life-saving medical care. And I am 100 percent pro-contraceptives, make contraceptives more accessible and bolster our sexual education programs. Even IUDs? Yes. But life starts a conception. This one coming in from Agent Black says no questions. Just a mere thank you, James. Appreciate that. All credit to the speakers. They're linked in the description, folks. I highly encourage you, even if you disagree with them, it doesn't hurt. In fact, it's a good thing to at least understand their position, right? So even if you're opposing their position, you can at least know that you've understood it to the fullest extent. If you check out their own content. This one from Kaik says to pro-choicers, if artificial wombs become a viable and cheap, I think they mean alternative, should abortion be outlawed since women can transfer the fetus and carry the pregnancy? That's ignorant. You can't just transfer a fetus into, I mean. I guess they're saying a hypothetical where you could. In the perfect world. You never know. I stand firm that abortion should still be legal. Let me see. I think where was there? I can't remember if I forgot one here. Oh, this one from Geary Grant. Did we read this? They said the opposite of life is death. Who could the opposition of pro-life be pro-choice? I think they're saying how could the opposition of pro-life be pro-choice? Can you explain the pro-choice people? Well, I think that often the pro-life position, I'd say like with the exception of Kay and the movement she's trying, she's part of, like which I would like to see more of. It's generally it's pretty refreshing compared to the other like pro-life people that I tend to see and argue with. I don't know that like I think it's kind of a misnomer that these people are. They're they're pro. I really do think that it's kind of the pro-birth thing for a lot of these people. You know, whether they whether that's a provocative, a provocative way to frame it or not, that's the feeling I get. Sure. Sure. Yeah, they can call it anti-abortion. Yeah, you got it. Let me see if there are any last questions. Otherwise, we'll get Geary Grant. Let me know if I got your question. I think that was the one that I just asked. I think I just caught caught up. So let me know if I didn't. And then with that couple of quick housekeeping things, just to be sure as they get back to me on whether or not I got theirs is one, if you haven't yet, check out the modern debate podcast. It's ad free, so no ads at all. And you can hear these debates within 24 hours of them being live. They're uploaded there. I want to say thank you very much to our guests. It's a huge we have a huge appreciation for you guys. Pardon, Ryan, my little run in with you earlier. I think that when you said I think we got our lines crossed where when I asked if you could tell me where you were going and you said no. I think you were saying no to something else. And I was taking it as you were or I was like, wait, you're not. You won't even tell me where you're going. So I do want to say I apologize for that, Ryan. I didn't mean to accept your apologies, let my lid fly off. But want to say, folks, really do encourage you to check out our guest links, even if you disagree with them, there's a lot of value in understanding the opposite position, right? Because at least you understand it, right? Like, if you authentically, you're kind of like, oh, OK, I have these presuppositions, this group or, you know, position has different presuppositions, you at least get it. So do want to encourage you, all of our guests are linked in the description box, both here on YouTube and at the podcast. Look us up on your favorite podcast app right now. And when you listen, find our guest links below. So one last thank you very much, Ashley, Ryan and Kay and Hake. We appreciate you guys. Thanks for being with us tonight. Thank you so much. It was so nice to meet you guys, by the way, Hake. I actually really did enjoy our conversation a lot. You're fun to talk to and you're very respectful. I appreciate that. And Kay, you're super based in so many things. And James, as always, you're just the man. Thank you so much for always being open and willing to host all kinds of different things, and we appreciate you. Until the end, thank you guys. I appreciate it. Thanks very much. We will be back. I'll be back in a moment of the post credit show just to hang out with you folks in the live chat. So stick around. I'll be back in about nineteen point five seconds. Thanks so much, folks.