Now onto the most important point of this video: does anyone else remember those alien eggs, and if so, please tell me: was it possible to breed them, or not? Also - why were we even attempting to breed things that looked remarkably like foetuses with other foetuses? what is wrong with us
in year 7 me and my friend, who were both extremely cool and popular, bought an alien egg and dissected it to see if it contained any reproductive parts, which, im afraid to say, it did not
@Shonalika > I recommend the "Abortion Debate at Texas Freethought Convention, Matt Dillahunty vs. Kristine Kruszelnicki" RUclips-video [1] from 2012, where Mr. D. is briefly referring to JJ Thomson's paper & expanding on the right to bodily integrity ([1] 7:16), whereas Ms. K. claims that: "if abortion does kill a human being, no justification for abortion is adequate" ([1] 19:34). I guess that many "pro-choice" activists are either not familiar with JJ Thomson's paper or are getting "distracted" by the "when is it a human" issue way too easily. MfG, Egooist [1] ruclips.net/video/P78_V1Z9CO4/видео.html
I think they’ve yet to clarify that. Shaw’s partner was attempting to figure that out in Prometheus but he ded so we may never know. I know David was breeding them so maybe there’s an easter egg (pun intended) in his notebooks somewhere? I feel like we gotta pester Sir Ridley Scott about this. I’m gonna now ask my friend who runs an Alien podcast to bring this up 🤣 Edit: I think I have woefully misunderstood the question after looking at that Reddit thread. Idk if we even HAD these toys in the US‽
@@Calpsotoma Sort-of-yes-sort-of-no? As far as I know the "life hiccup" part isn't from anything, but the year wasn't chosen at random. ruclips.net/video/uxeXHMHOcqQ/видео.html
@@cpg6541 Would you mind sharing it, then? The things I've found claiming to be its story all wildly contradict each other, and while their authors usually claim to be divinely inspired, none of them have supplied any convincing evidence of that. The writers don't even seem to agree on particular interpretations of any one given translation of a given set of holy books, let alone the correct translations themselves.
Watching this video after Abby came out as a trans woman and now I'm asking myself if she would get a more negative response to her video if she uploaded it today....
Abby can't do it all over again, but many trans girls have disclosed their opinions about abortion. Search and you will find it. But probably none of them is as popular as Abby is and was.
Perhaps when he says "I wanna give you a completely new way of thinking" he means: new to the viewer, not new to the world? It wasnt new to me when I first watched it, but, he does his research and cited his sources, it seems clear that he wasnt claiming he came up with it.
For sure. That bit of my video was mostly playful silliness. It also served as a good grounding to illustrate the fact that he was *able* to present the argument as new; this is a signifier of a much bigger problem that I go on to discuss in the latter half of the video. I use this example to help illustrate that problem, not as a critique of Olly himself.
@@Shonalika yeah, I loved this video btw, i always find that i only ever learn *new* information from people who arent white cis men, although that really shouldve been obvious before i started watching vids like this. Also, that scottish accent was decent, was your teacher Scottish? Cos I am and most people make a hash of it.
I grew up in between Scotland and England at various different points, and went to secondary school in Edinburgh:) haven't been back for a while though so good to know I can still do the accent not too terribly XD
Eh, i think its harder to play a clip of ollys on the news as no indervidual bit sounds as radical as the few senteces she said on the news. You cant really engage with just his conclusion out of context whereas you can with hers. They seem kinda different
It felt a bit forced to me. She pointed out the fact that the woman presenter had her video presented on fox news and other possible reason for the discrepancy but concluded regardless that the genders of the two presenters were the most important factor based on what is essentially her personal experience. I would personally guess that it was philosophy tube's tendency to portray very complex issues through theatre and tact rather than just talking directly to the camera that is the reason behind the discrepancy. But I would be willing to change my mind if proven wrong which is why I take issue with the level of almost frustrating confidence that the woman in this video displays as she has about as much evidence for her claim as I do. Not that you asked but this is my first shanaya video and so far I have not been impressed. The whole video gives off a "pulling other leftist down to make yourself look better" sort of vibe that many accuse the left of having.
@@asdg199 She's completely right and justified in pointing out how men with basic knowledge & understanding of feminist ideas are praised and put on a pedestal, while women are ostracized for presenting the same views. Feminists on the internet have been harassed, threatened and ridiculed since the inception of social media, long before lefty boys started making essays on the same subjects and gathering a following (by repeating the same arguments). She's not putting other leftists down, she's championing further discourse on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy (which in itself is leftist af). Did you really think that Philosophy Tube said everything there is to say about abortion in one video? Do you really think that valid criticism causes some sort of schism within the left? If so, maybe you should revisit your own sexist bias. Women and other marginalized ppl shouldn't have to be quiet about their views and forced to listen to white boys and treat their words like gospel. That would make leftist spaces no different than right-wing ones.
@@SamuraiShizuo No I don't think Philosophy tube presented his argument with sufficient detail. And yes this video did expand on pretty much all the points in his video (despite how mean spirited it was). However, I personally have never felt like I learnt something completely new from the philosophy tube channel anyways, however, his videos sure are entertaining. This is the main reason why I think people are less critical when he basically says he wants to "kill babies" regardless of if they are alive cause it could just be part of the skit or exagerration. However when a student, someone who is by definition assumed to be inferior in the field tells a teacher that they are wrong with a completely serious tone. Obviously there's is going to be a difference in reaction... Is that what happened *shrug emojii*. But to assume that the difference in reaction was *mainly* due to philosophy tube's gender is also kind of a stretch considering the myriad of other potential factors. And BTW. It is possible to prove that gender is the main factor for a particular reaction even if there are other causes in case you try to take that stance. Just look at discremimation laws. Also about your comment about valid criticism. What exactly was the valid criticism leveled at philosophy tubes channel? She said his video was fine and she only had a problem with it cause it garnered a different reaction to videos made by women...what is ollie supposed to do about that? Seems like she has a problem with the reaction of the people watching the content however she takes out her frustration on the creator of that content which is very unfair. If I remember contrapoints had to do something similar in addressing the community of a creator however she managed to do so without targeting the creator. So it is possible to address such an issue. The creator of this video simply didn't value the comfort of philosophy tube enough which is very hypocritical assuming she would want others to value her comfort. Also I'm not that concern with creating a schism in the left. I would prefer not to do so but I don't think there's much I can do abt that anyways. I just think dont like the way philosophy tube was characterised in this video
Minor point, Ollie didn’t say he came up with his way of thinking abt abortion, but that he wanted to present a new way of thinking abt it to his audience. It’s not taking credit.
Ikr, straight up they even chose to show a clip of him giving credit to the philosophers he got the idea from, but then they immediately accuse him of being just another man taking credit for a woman’s work. Like, wot???
@@brendenbaughman662 They clarify that they weren't questioning Olly so much as why people who accept his argument didn't accept it the first time when made earlier by women, or if they claim they simply hadn't heard it before why this argument didn't become one that pro-choice people present in favor of abortion for the decades it has existed.
Classi fied No, they specifically say that they have a problem with Olly saying in his video that he’s presenting a new way of looking at abortion. But they only see that as problematic because they see it as Olly saying “look at this new idea I came up with.” And that would be problematic, but clearly that’s not how he means it, because he immediately credits the female philosopher he heard the idea from. When he says he’s presenting a new way of looking at the issue, he means he’s presenting a new way *for the audience* to view the issue (since, for most of the audience, that’s likely true - because this is not a mainstream or popular argument, odds are it’s a new way of looking at the situation for the viewer). But they spin it as if he were subtly trying to take credit for the idea himself, but they're just plainly wrong about that, because he spends the whole video citing back to the source material, and never operates under the pretense that the argument is his.
I'm just a man just trying to understands the views of other people and become more compassionate/empathetic. Your videos help A LOT. Thanks for the hard work! Cheers!
Sadly, I definitely think that if we abolished gender from the way that we think about pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood, most opinions that abortion should be illegal would change. Our culture has an extremely romanticized idea of motherhood and womanhood in general that is kind of like the Dickensian “angel in the house” and I think it’s so subconscious that most people don’t even realize they’re thinking that way. If we treated “motherhood” like an existential situation rather than a feminine one and raised everyone from childhood to relate to and empathize with this experience, we wouldn’t be so adverse to the idea that mothers should have as much autonomy as anyone else. Instead we have this ideal that women *should* graciously and excitedly accept all the sacrifice that comes with reproduction, complete with bodily damage, loss of individual autonomy, loss of sexuality, loss of modesty, loss of dignity and loss of personal space that comes with pregnancy, birth and breast feeding.
Let me guess? Biology bad and how dare brining new life to this world be hard. #cancelnature. See the real problem we have today is peasantry like you are allows to talk issues they don't understand, and other peasants will agree, as long as its done under socially acceptable manner. What is that? Well, when real intelligent person looks at your post, first thing to be noticed is that its gibberish. You basically used expertised words that can't be put together due to how combinational meaning works, aka, the meaning of individual words change based on context. But ofc peasantry can't detect this. They see expertise terminology and instantly thinks that something of importance or smart has been said. Pathetic.
@@milesfurther4395 Acting from false sense of grandeur doesn't help your case, plebian. It cannot be understood because there is nothing to be understood. Its just gibberish.
"Instead we have this ideal that women should graciously and excitedly accept all the sacrifice that comes with reproduction, complete with bodily damage, loss of individual autonomy, loss of sexuality, loss of modesty, loss of dignity and loss of personal space that comes with pregnancy, birth and breast feeding." Why should not they? Are those drawback negate her responsibility for the life she cooperated to create? You could just say all these things and abort your child 1 week before he would be born, but I guess u would think that as a murder. Why?
@Crystal Kanashii You need a dead persons permission to take their organs, desecrating a corpse is a crime, it's illegal to sell organs all willy nilly. Corpses have rights and protective laws
Crystal Kanashii If I die, I don’t have to donate organs. Even if my organs would keep a person from dying, I don’t have to give them away, because even my dead body has rights. I may be ‘murdering’ the people who need my organs, but I can still choose not to donate, because I can choose what happens to my dead body. The same should be true for wombs.
This video MIGHT ruffle feathers the wrong way for something it is not actually guilty of so I want to make this clear for people who might not look at the upload date: This video came out literally years before Abigail/Philosophy Tube came out as trans! Many of the comments were made before Abigail came out as trans! Said comments may have used her deadname because that was the only name she was openly using at the time!
What I find interesting about the violinist argument, is less that it's under-representation reveals subconscious sexist biases, but that once it has been presented, the oppositions to it inevitably reveal some really overt sexist biases. That's true even for many of the replies that Ollie got. No matter how much you expand the analogy to account for the fact that women often choose to have sex (like you did with inviting people to swim), anti-choice people will ALWAYS stand predictably ready to call those versions of the analogy unfair, and replace it with one where the violinist might have done something heinous enough to justify taking away his bodily autonomy. That's always what it boils down to. They might even grasp at the violinist argument of their own will, because it lets them explain why abortion being uniquely permissible for "innocent" rape victims is OK, but the other shoe will always drop when they have to explain why all other women are not "innocents".
The analogy fractures once the woman decides to be connected to the violinist, and entirely collapses when it conforms to the reality of voluntary sex, meaning that the woman not only agreed to help the violinist but is the person responsible for his condition. Basically, there's a reason this argument is only valid in the case of rape, it destroys itself otherwise. Also, the swimming analogy is bad too, you aren't inviting people to swim, you're pushing people you know can't swim into pools and watching them drown.
@@account2871 Okay, let's say that the hypothetical person not only agrees to help the violinist and is the one responsible for the violinist's condition. Are you then suggesting that the government should mandate that our hypothetical person cannot rescind their consent to help the violinist and must continue the rest of the time unwillingly? That they should be prohibited by law from trying to separate themselves from the violinist once they initially agree no matter how their view on the arrangement changes? And that's not even including dimensions to the causes of pregnancy like failed contraceptives or lacking sexual education.
@@ToaNyroc Every time you have sex you risk pregnancy, failed contraceptives is a bad argument. And yes, you cannot back out after putting the violinist in the position he is in. Apply the analogy bro, if you give birth to a kid, they can go up for adoption or you can take responsibility for your actions. You can't just give the child life and then let them die.
I love this video! I'm a former right winger that used to worship the likes of Ben Shapiro, PragerU, etc. and realized there was a whole other point of view which I was completely ignoring. I searched for videos against Ben Shapiro and found that video from PT. I was expecting another SJW, snowflake argument against abortion. It turns out that the video had me questioning my views on abortion which led me to question all my other views as well. With the help of PT, Shaun, ContraPoints, Three Arrows and some others, I can proudly say that I finally escaped the alt-right rabbit hole.
That's awesome, mate. I remember finding Crowders videos and starting to go down before finding the other pov as well. Nowadays I have a really hard time finding right wingers who make good points.
this is obviously slightly off topic but you just made me remember a question i've had for years now so thought i'd ask. What precisely is considered the difference between someone being a "right-winger" as opposed to being "alt-right"/ "far-right"? I think I have my own handle on where and who these labels are about or represent but I'm really curious about how people think and the answer as to how people on the left classify alt-right/far-right more than almost any other constantly hyped idea from the past few years of craziness has just totally eluded me. I constantly hear the most bland really non-ideological very moderate right wingers being refereed to as alt or far right and just like some people on the right didn't wanna think out their positions and decided libtard was somehow all that need be said, I know plenty lefties do the same with nazi alt right blah blah w/e...but i know there are people on the left with a more thought out way of categorizing these differences so if anyone can fill me in I really would love to get a definitive take from a leftie on that
@@oliviastanley4783 I personally consider alt-right as anyone who support's fascism, white supremacy and is kinda apart of the whole ben shapiro, milo yineopolis and steven crowder crowd. It's a nebulous group at times admittedly, but basically if you support any of those people. Your alt-right and probably hold some racist ass ideas or are alt-right adjacent and close to a neo-nazi/objectivist is still like close to a neo-nazi Objectivist. Its indeed kinda nebulous, but unempatheitc fashy douchebags seeped in internet culture is what I see it as, the proud boys are an example of the alt right.
@@AbstractTraitorHero Ok it's actually helpful you answered from that direction, ya know the very alt-right centric one, bc I've been all kinda immersed in the politics shit since right b4 trump - like so many of us have (I dont think the sudden political engagement is gonna be something looked back on as positive tho....lol. i could be wrong? hah) but with so much info and people opinions available, well, u forget questions u meant to ask or ways you should've asked and thank u cause u reminded me! Alright so whether I agree or not I pretty cl.ear on the general range of who/what is gonna get labeled alt or far right. But what I am always left wondering is...ok like people on the left seem to have widened their labling of what equals this faaar right-ness to the point that I'm actually wanting to no who they consider simply RIGHT. Ya know what I mean?
You make really intelligent clear points. More like this please! I believe one of our deepest biases is our biological urge to go “oh cute small person, I must look after it”. This is clearly very valuable for the propagation of a species which is pretty useless as a self sustaining organism until at least 10 years old. But it’s so deeply ingrained it’s hard to separate philosophical arguments from the basic drive to be nice to babies, and the repulsion from considering harming one even at post-ball-of-cell foetal stage.
thank you! ^^ lol funnily enough I have something more like a revulsion response upon seeing actual babies (less so once they can walk around talk etc) which is apparently a trait that's on the rise in people capable of being pregnant. which is super interesting, and something I might come back to and explore in relation to another video on a similar topic in future
Shonalika that’s interesting... I don’t have that but would be interested to hear about it. I am enjoying satisfying my instinctual urges (2 kids now) and have found it a surprisingly visceral joy. It makes me a bit sad that it seems to be all the smart people who have no urge to breed... whilst of course it’s a deeply personal choice (and sometimes a biological limitation) I can’t help fearing our future could have shadows of the film idiocracy....
It's sad that people listen to men rather than women on a mostly AFAB-related topic, but given the urgency of the situation, shouldn't we weaponize the privilege in order to get the message out as much as possible ? I know this doesn't feel right to say,but if men speaking about abortion is the way pro-choicers are going to be heard...
They're not saying that men shouldn't speak out. They're just pointing out that amab presenting people are often taken more seriously, even in an area where afab people have more authority.
@@IIxIxIv I know that this isn't what they're saying, I just had to ask the question because the people who introduced me to feminism kinda did say that men should stand back and let the women speak because in the end,that's the goal,but it kinda never felt right to me
@@IIxIxIv almost right... people aren’t likely to take trans women seriously nearly as much as cis men, they only get treated like men when it can be used to insult and hurt them. if an amab trans person was to say something about abortion similarly to what an afab person might say, it definitely still doesn’t mean they have authority on the subject over people who’re actually affected by it, but the nearest right-wing pro-lifer dude would still probably go ‘i’m not listening to you cause you’re a fucking [insert bigoted slur here]’ regardless. y’know the gist
@@victorianeechan I don't know. Force women to take some pill so that they don't bleed every month and make it mandatory? How the f*ck does a man simply say "I am a woman" and everyone believes him? How the f*ck do some people think that killing an unborn child is perfectly acceptable? That's the world we are living in nowadays.
More like forcing a woman to not kill a person... This really isn't convincing. If a psycho has a compulsion to kill its not oppression if the government forces the person away from his victim, even if it does produce heinous pain.
@@jhonjacson798 Well you can see it that way, but it is still the other way too. It would be both keeping women from killing babies and forcing them to give birth.
@@alicedeligny9240 well yeah but if that's the case then in that context forcing women to give birth wouldn't be a bad thing. The phrasing of "forcing women to give birth" deliberately brings the image of governments getting women pregnant for the purpose of breeding, which is obviously not the idea when it comes to banning abortion.
@@jhonjacson798 It's that in the sense that they're taking away someone's right to use their autonomy and body as they please. That's a pretty major right in modern society, and a major achievement for both human right activists of the past centuries and feminists of the 20th century. That's why it clashes with the right to life (also a major and fundamental right). And we have to choose the "right" one to put forward.
@@alicedeligny9240 we still havn't legalized murder. That's the thing, the moment you say that the fetus IS a person, and that you have the right to kill it, because it causes you some form of harm, and that suffering is due to a cause you yourself started, and could have prevented before, during, and even after the inciting event happened, then the principle that allows one to do murder in the case of abortion is the same one that allows murder in basically any context where you don't like someone. If abortion is murder and its ok in any context, then murder is ok in any context, unless there is some fundamental difference between a fetus and an adult. What is the difference between killing a fetus and killing an adult if it isn't the personhood of either being? That's the fundamental question.
Coming in a bit late here, but I would like to offer a slightly different perspective on the Olly Thorn 'new way of thinking' issue. I'm originally from the UK, but since 2012 I've been mostly living in Dublin. In the Republic of Ireland, before 2018, abortion was not only illegal but constitutionally forbidden and treated as an act of murder. In the autumn of 2012 the unmitigated horror of this legal position was thrown into sharp relief when a woman, Savita Halappanavar, died as a result of septic shock arising from complications of a failing pregnancy despite repeatedly requesting a termination that would have saved her life. It also brought up an earlier case (from the early 90s) when a suicidal, 14 year old rape victim was granted special dispensation to leave the country in order to terminate her unwanted pregnancy abroad. This put the issue of pregnant people's bodily autonomy and basic right to survival firmly in the limelight and sparked a mass political campaign, led by women, to pressure the government to action. For the next five years, there were marches, candlelit vigils in memory of Savita, and debates (in the press, in public, online etc.) in which every iteration of the 'what if you were hooked up to a comatose patient against your will?' and 'do you know what pregnancy actually does to people's bodies?' positions was articulated (usually by female activists). For me, there was this weird dual consciousness of being from a place where abortion wasn't a hot button political issue (and essentially became an abstract moral) and living in a place where it was a real, life-and-death one. In 2018 the Irish government finally relented enough to hold a public referendum on changing the constitution to allow for abortions. This could have gone really badly, but it didn't. Although the 'pro-life' side was much better funded, it fought a bad campaign by focussing on alienating scare tactics and easily debunked exaggerated horror stories. The 'pro-choice' side, by contrast, focussed on how the law affected ordinary people, especially women forced to flee the country to get the medical care they needed, and had volunteers that acted like reasonable, motivated activists rather than uniformed, angry drones. The latter won a resounding victory. So when Olly's video came out a year later, it was less 'wow, I'd never thought of it like that before' and more 'oh he's doing that argument, but maybe in a way that will somehow reach FACTS-AND-LOGIC fanboys and other internet misogynists'. In that context, criticisms that he's presented as 'doing something groundbreaking' and getting less flack from it than Sophie Lewis are very real, but I find the idea that pro-choicers aren't/haven't been making bodily autonomy the basis of their movement a little troubling in light of the massive, decades-long struggle entirely about bodily autonomy and its relation to misogyny that's been happening in the country right next-door to us.
Remember when I got in a shouting match with my ethics instructor about how it doesn't matter whether a fetus is a person or not? No, none of you were there. But it's definitely when I peaked.
A fetus is 100% not a person. If it is then so is my sneeze until the bits of me the flew out along with it die....and so is every other person who is dead until they decompose to the point of DNA not being viable. Genetically human != person != alive and deserving of full human rights
@@dstinnettmusic Jesus Christ, do *NOT* bring up this argument in conversation/debate with an actual pro-lifer. A rhetorician of ANY SKILL LEVEL AT ALL will recognize this as the mother of all false equivalencies and tear it to shreds.
LOOK. I have a child. I love my child. I would never choose to not have my child. I loved my child before she was born. I loved my child more as soon as she was born. I held her in my arms and I looked down at her and I could not imagine any other clump of biological matter meaning more to me in the entire world. Almost fourteen years later, I still cannot imagine any person being more important to me. There is not a single one of you that I would not murder, horrifically, to protect her. HOWEVER. Infants are not people yet. As humans, we have evolved so that our heads are too big to safely deliver even at 9 months, reliably, and we basically give birth to premature still-developing fetuses that stay basically non-sapient for an unpredictable but non-zero amount of time because we physically can't give birth to fully developed babies due to the vagaries of biology, re: walking upright, having huge fucking craniums, et cetera. Compare to a baby horse, which is basically a horse as soon as it's born. Walking around and being a horse and shit. That is a horse immediately. Infant humans are basically still fetuses for A WHILE after birth. There is obviously an EMOTIONAL line that we cross where none of us would feel the same about infanticide as we would about abortion. BUT. Basically I'm saying Shonalika is 100% right.
The problem is that the very conecpt of personhood inherently creates an arbitrary line, whether it be at some time during fetal development or somewhere between infanthood and childhood. It's impossible to determine an exact age at which a young human turns into a person, or even narrow it down to a specific period in life. I wonder why I never made that connection before in regard of abortion, as it aligns very well with vegan arguments against speciesism (as in that the (lack of) intellectual capacities of an organism cannot justify eating or exploiting it. Otherwise, we should be allowed to eat human babies or exploit them in other ways.)
What is a “fully developed baby”? It’s a baby. It’s technically “developing” until between around 21-25 years old. It’s completely arbitrary what you consider to be a “baby”.
When I watch PT and ContraPoints, as well as other leftist content from white women or men, I always remind myself that they have been "blessed" with their own privileges that may not necessarily invalidate their opinions or even outcast their accomplishments, but it illustrates something about their audience (it is, after all, the fuel that keeps these channels growing) and how they approach political or social content. I am just glad, to be honest, that most of these content creators are also aware of their privileges and use them to further the discussion and to point out lesser known (or overlooked) figures in the field.
I agree with to an extent but I think their popularity is also due to the work they both put in to both the aesthetics and scripts they write and they include humour, defined characters and quotes from philsophers. The only way privilege comes into that is they both studied philosophy academically although I don't get the impression Olly comes from an especially privileged background.
@@superduperfreakyDj Define "Marxism" without Googling. Spoiler: it's not synonymous with Communism and Socialism. Neither are the channels pushing anarchy. This the same fear mongering you cry about getting from the far left (i.e being called nazis and white supremacists)
@@K.Marie119 Pretty sure Freggle is saying "Marxism" as a good thing, not a bad thing. And that's a good point, neither Contra nor Philosophy-Tube are Marxist-Leninists, but they both draw ideological views and arguments from Marx which absolutely isn't a bad thing.
I would like to point out that Ollie doesn't imply that the ideas are his own and sites the original women who pioneered this theory, although it's totally valid that the double standard when it comes to men being listened to more by our patriarchal society is absolute horseshit.
"Ollie this entire video is you reenacting arguments that people with uteruses have already made, can you not say you're saying something new, when you a very demonstrably not?" -Shonalika Ummm, he literally stated the scenario he was presenting was formulated by Judith Jarvis Thompson in 1971 before presenting it. Maybe it's just me, but I took "new " to mean "probably new to the audience" and not "brand new, never before seen."
Also, how an argument is received had a LOT to do with presentation of the argument. There a lot of other variables to consider, not just if the person is a man or woman. Philosophy tube has a very interesting ascetic and presentation style whereas from the clips of the early woman, clearly I don’t think she’s wrong but the way she present she arguments is not as stylistically interesting (from what I’ve seen, I may be wrong). Same can be said about someone like contrapoints
I paused at 14:52 when she made that criticism again and went back to Ollie's video to make sure I didn't hallucinate that part. He does put off mentioning it until right before the scenario starts at around 8m in, so maybe she just missed it? (Although it's also the very first citation)
No they didn't miss it... they quoted that part of the video, how did you miss that ? Of course, we get that Ollie was talking about a 'new argument' in the sens of new to the public but that exactly what is criticized in this video : apparently to be heard this argument need to be presented by a man...
@@disinitana4249 The problem is, Shonalika specifically addresses Ollie with that criticism, when it's a societal issue. I mean, look at my original comment. *I quoted Shonalika, because I rewatched that section couple times to accurately transcribe what was said.*
@@TheSmileMile yay but at the beginning of his video, Ollie still presented in a way that gave the impression it was new, even if he credited the women who brought up these arguments in the first place, it contribute to the environnement where speeches have more impact when they come from men... and Shonalika said explicitly that apart from that one sentence from Ollie, they don't have any critic for him, so yeah they never implied that it was Ollie's individual problem or that Ollie presented the idea as his own in the rest of his video... Finally, just to be clear, because I feel there may be a misunderstanding, the 'how did you miss it?' from my previous comment wasn't adressed to you, but to the comment just above mine
If you're pro-killing of sentient creatures that are more intelligent, social, and emotionally developed than a human baby at birth because "it's what's for dinner," but can't stomach the idea that some pregnant people might want to terminate a pregnancy for any reason, then you and I are fundamentally opposed in terms of understanding values, sentience, and suffering. I'm not trying to convert anyone to a vegan today. I'm not even a vegan, but how many creatures suffer for nothing but greed while the supposedly godly preach about how a blastocyst has human rights? Did their God not command his first humans to "tend the garden" in the same story that he told them to "be fruitful and multiply?"
I agree. I actually think those species of animals, who are as sentient or more sentient than a newborn human baby should be protected by law. We should switch to eating other, less sentient animals, plus plants and fungi. Otherwise we are hypocrits, all of us, huge huge hypocrits
The vegan argument has to do with externalities within the capitalist system, rather than the direct act of killing a fetus. This is a wholly false comparison.
Weggy GayGay while I agree that a loooooot of stuff is because of the externalities of capitalism (wool, for instance I do think could theoretically be ethicaybut isn’t because of those externalities), there is still the fundamental concept that animals cannot consent to be consumed and thus we have to either respect them as fellow sentient beings OR we have a duty of care, depending on where you fall on the ‘intelligence’ issue, if that makes sense. As far as ‘the wild’/carnivores, most of us have the option to make a kinder choice and thus should, obligate carnivores do not have that choice, even were we to consider them culpable moral actors. I personally fall on the duty of care/animals are not moral actors side
This brings up a lot of ideas which really take the arguments presented in Olly's video to a whole other level that I hadn't considered before! Kudos! Also, as someone who is currently growing out their hair, I can't stop noticing how beautiful yours is! I want your hair!
Not to mention, and I feel like this is glossed over all the time, bring a baby into a world that isn't ready for it is abusive and heartless towards the baby. It hurts both the baby AND the mother.
This isn’t unique to the abortion argument. Women’s ideas, opinions, and work are often seen as less logical/valid until presented by a male. PierreXO did a video on catcalling and he got very little backlash. If a women made the same claims and complaints it’d be very different. Glad you’re making a video with your feminine perspective placed strongly at the forefront. We need more voices like yours 💕
i still thank olly for using his large platform for helping me articulate my opinion on abortion, but i do think it’s important to recognize that a man had a much easier time presenting those ideas than women have for decades.
Thank you for this video. I am teaching Thompson's paper next week in my ethics class. This video has been a great help in breathing new life into a 50 year old paper. I am so often disappointed by online philosophy content. I was/am a bit worried that Thompson's paper is a bit out of date. In fact that is my worry for all of the papers in our text book (I didn't really choose it). My specialties in philosophy are not in ethics so I am not very familiar with the current literature. My impression (as a non-specialist) was that Thompson had shifted the conversation beyond personhood, but not so much in the public sphere where many people don't read academic articles. RUclips culture is not something I was very familiar with until the recent need to switch to online teaching. So I appreciate this video as an introduction of sorts to the state of play here. (I had only seen one Philosophy Tube video.) I think your diagnosis of misogyny is revealing and powerfully argued. I especially appreciate how you make your point about the very framework of the debate being shaped by a misogynistic agenda and that the acceptance of that frame work is a way many of us can be, if accidentally, complicit with misogynistic agendas. It is my limited understanding that Thompson's strategy to grant personhood to the fetus for the sake of argument was to shift the literature out of a gridlocked debate about whether the fetus was a person. Some philosophical questions are such that you just can't resolve them with evidence. It all depends on what starting assumptions you share or don't share. Personhood is a frustrating concept like that. And I like the way you nearly bit the bullet on the personhood of babies. Tricky, right? This is why the old debate couldn't be scienced away with more evidence. It is my experience that philosophers just love to make the move where they give the opponent the assumption they want and still manage to show they are wrong. Thompson's defense of abortion is like the textbook case. For that reason, the way it uses thought experiments (which I actually prefer more direct arguments like yours), and they way it exemplifies analogous reasoning I think it remains a valuable teaching tool. And yet it is a real bummer that this is still where the popular debate is. I had qualms about even covering abortion because it feels like the moral disagreement is outdated and what remains is a political power struggle. I'm now a bit inspired by this video connects the matter to the current day and the power dynamics that of the discourse.
It's okay to use the pause button, (the space bar also pauses and unpauses the video) and go back and forth through the video at your leisure (using the left and right arrow keys makes it easy). That's how I watch videos and I'm a millennial :) Think about it like a book where you can read a passage as many times as you like if you want to absorb it better.
I'm gen z but I have terrible concentration skills so I'm constantly rewinding the video to relisten to parts I didn't get the first time, don't worry it's not just you!
This works in Reverse for creators who speak too slowly for your taste as well. I have a friend who watches almost all RUclips videos at at least 1.25 speed
Not to try and defend the shockingly different response to two people making the same point, but as a man who's not familiar at all with the discussion of this topic, I would like to say that the way Sophie explained her argument was more technical and used some wording that I didn't quite comprehend, whereas Philosophietube's dialectic seems more explanatory and geared towards an audience out if the "know". So I wonder if the difference Olin response also light have been exhausted with the symple fact that certain folk like myself didn't understand Sophie and symply piled on to what others where saying. Ps: I'm half way through the video, do I dunno if this is a point you'll make later. But yeah. Great video! I'm learning a lot 😁
Hi there! New viewer here! I found this while looking for the Philosophy Tube video you mentioned. I must say, I agree with everything you say here. I am an example of a philosophy tube viewer that already agreed with him on that topic and didn't looked any further on what other people have to say on the matter (at least, not immediately, I'm watching this video). I find this video very enjoyable, I'm going to stick around for a while.
This video came out a year ago and boy is it a doozy watching it now considering the new information. I mean yeah I still completely agree with the points in the video and I think this video truly is swag but also hearing Abigail’s deadname was a bit of a “Oh, I forgot about that” moment. ✨Still a stellar video✨
'Pregnant Persons' said throughout this video makes me very happy. I had a teacher push back when I referred to 'people with uteri' as such, and was informed that only women could have periods and I should say as much. I'm going to be a Medical Assistant y'all. Make the progress if you can't find it.
You mean the world for me for using such inclusive language. As a trans man anything to do with reproductive health always comes with misgendering and shame. You made me feel safe here.
This reminds me of Tracie Harris and her focus is on the bodily autonomy of the person who is here already. We can't even be forced to donate blood or organs to a child or spouse. Why would we force gestation on someone who is not interested in parenthood?
In my history introductory course, a student wrote about how he liked about a text that the woman author's writing did the work to appear unbiased, despite the subject being about women's issues - as if men's perspectives on women's issues aren't skewed by their gendered socialization. Pretty sure that is a reaction that's at play here too. An intellectual man can totally discuss the subject of abortion rationally, objectively, while a woman's perspective is far more likely to come under increased scrutiny.
He didn't say it was something new. He said it'd been made for years. His was more excepted because he's a man, a wonderful, sexy online communist man, but a man none the less. There is still hate however, specifically on RUclips from far right Christians attempting to call out Olly for the analogy being unmappable, which (as a woman who has carried, and birthed children AND has had an abortion I think I'm qualified to say) is bollocks. Please bear in mind this isn't Olly's fault.
I think views of opposite group is always important when we speaking about giving any group more rights or less obligations, because the opposite group never have personal interest in right inflation and obligations shrinking of opposite group. Anytime we are speaking about giving any group extra rights (like abortion) or less obligation (like gestating unwanted pregnancy) it is reasonable to hear someone who will not gain anything from this desision personally.
I think Mr. Thorne just passed off the argument as a "new" way of thinking in his video, not because he doesn't know the arguments have not been made before, but because he's aware of his somewhat more mainstream audience, for whom this might be new (including me).
She (you were before she came out as transgender, no worries) explicitly said the argument wasn't original and cited who it came from. Abby could have been clearer and emphasized more that the argument was older but still. Apparently many people missed Abby saying the argument was older and just uncommonly used, so don't worry about it.
I don't even think this argument necessarily has to be made even though I agree. To me it comes down to who gets to make that decision. Whoever's carrying the foetus, gets to decide. Don't like abortion? Don't have one...
That's the same argument, though. That's assuming that pregnant people deserve to make that decision regardless of whether the fetus is "human", which is the exact opposite of what pro-lifers think.
@@samkadel8185 They assume they get to decide. The decision has to be made, and the decision has to be made by adult humans. So the question is, does the government have the right to overrule what a woman does with her body or not?
@@ImaginaryMdA yeah they do to an extent if they can stop me from doing violent crime and drugs with my body they can stop us with other stuff within reason
Yeah, he generally argues on the base assumption that his viewers are slightly left-leaning, but not particularly entrenched in these sorts of conversations.
People are against abortion but they're also against afab people getting surgery to make the risk pregnancy disappear. I will never know what it is that anti-choicers want, and I think you're very close to it by saying they want patriarchy to continue. What a wonderful video, thank you.
I'm American, and I hold that the right to an abortion is enshrined in the Third Amendment to the Constitution: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”
No doubt that a lot of people will be way softer on a white guy like Olly, but I think it also likely has something to do with the media involved. Sophie Lewis is an academic who publishes in traditional media, and wrote a book. That's the kind of media that gets most often picked up by conservative media. They tend to ignore leftist youtubers in general, at least in their official narrative. They prefer shutting them down using the platform, because they have more control over it due to their enormous amount of dark money. IIRC there never was much outrage against trans woman Natalie Wynn, either, except from the left. Edit: Welp, you already said it in the video, should've watched it all before writing.
I feel like that is his entire channel though. He is often times just re-enacting literature, arguments, or philosophy that he has already created. He is just doing it in a way that is entertaining and maybe more modern... But for a lot of his fan base this probably is "new" information for them. But I personally never got the feeling that he was claiming these as original/new arguments that he was creating. I think his introductory statement is probably a bit hyperbolic but I think that is just his love for theatrics and it's kind of his hook for his audience. Although, as a woman, it is kinda frustrating when you've made an argument and people don't listen. Then suddenly when a man says it people are like OH MY GOD revolutionary! So I kind of get where you are coming from in regards to that. I don't lay very much blame on him but I also simp pretty hard for him.
Great video, please keep making them! New to your channel but enjoying it a lot. While I agree the difference in response to Olly’s vid was largely due to gender (I think this is fairly uncontroversial), I would ask is it fair to say that Olly presents the arguments as if they were new? I mean, he cites Thompson at the beginning and is doing what he does in a lot of his videos, which is just present academic philosophy to a mainstream audience with his own spin on it (in this case, the dramatic element).
hi, thank you! yes, absolutely. I know he doesn't think these ideas are new as in, totally original, I was more drawing attention to the fact that he is able to *present* them as new i.e new to his audience. the fact that this is the case says a lot about the way that we treat women when they come up with ideas vs. men. that part of the video was largely playful, and just laid the foundations for a critique of a bigger problem, rather than one of Olly himself. I really liked his video and am glad people like him are using their platforms to support ^^
Shonalika . Yeah, that makes sense. I remember when reading Thompson’s article years ago thinking how convincing it was and how it’s a shame it isn’t more mainstream - it seems as if there are so many people on the fence or pro-choice with reservations (particularly in the Britain where anti-abortion feeling isn’t quite so strong) who the article would convince in a heartbeat.
I know people who’ve lost children they very much wanted. Still born children who were named and had a family waiting to welcome them. The mothers are anti-abortion because they would have done anything to protect their child. We can argue you shouldn’t have to rescue someone drowning if it puts a significant risk to yourself, but many would say you should try to rescue your child if you are their parent even if it means putting yourself in harms way. You should rescue your own child if you see them drowning because you have committed, through becoming their parent, to be their protector. I think it matters whether an unborn child is an unborn child or just a foetus. I think defining whether a foetus is human life is worth it, but I believe it’s best to do this through recognising the mother's autonomy. The mother chooses what will happen to her own body, and if she’s decided she wants to have a child then she’s going to think of the foetus as her child. This is a family member she’s likely already started planning for and creating a space in her life for. The foetus should be recognised as a life, even if you don’t view foetuses as life, because if allowed to continue to grow then it should grow into a child and one day into an adult. After a child is conceived, if it is wanted, there is often no meaningful distinction between a potential life and a life for that foetus imo. The act of wanting that child and planning a future for that child and viewing that child as a family member is what makes that child a child imo. But a woman who is pregnant with a foetus she does not want and does not have plans for is not meaningfully a life. If she kills it, this is her exercising autonomy over her own body. There was never meaningfully any child, and aborting the foetus is not murder under any circumstances (even if you could somehow guarantee that allowing the foetus to continue to grow would cause the mother zero harm). There will be women who desperately want a child who lose their child or are forced, due to medical risks for example, to sacrifice them before they can be born. To these women, the foetus was a life ended. A life they will grieve and the absence of this life will be felt in the world, in the home and family it was planned to be welcomed into. To say their child’s death doesn’t matter, which is what some leftist discourse sounds like, is cruel. I think defining whether a foetus is alive through recognising the woman’s autonomy is the best way to approach the topic.
Wonderful vid, obv. At @ 1:30 I just wanted to add that "...the impact of the of the parents..." AND the impact on the child. We're mitigating unnecessary pain that the child will certainly go through a hostile setting. The reasons pile up. Secondarily, I just discovered an experiment where children were asked to decide whether, in a fire, if you could, would you choose two dogs or one person, and the majority chose the dogs, whereas the adults w/ the same question almost always choose the human over 100 dogs. I feel this highlights a cultural conditioning that plays a similar role in the abortion argument. Deeply ingrained that you feel the need to adopt certain frameworks.
They make the same basic argument in very different ways. If ollie just said "abortion is a form of killing we should defend" then his video would receive a different reaction to the more carefully couched way he frames it.
I disagree with your initial point that abortion is killing no matter when it happens. As you said, a fetus is a cluster of cells, not a person. By this logic, any form of surgery which removes a part of the body constitutes "killing." A finger is a cluster of cells, but if it gets infected and needs to be removed, we don't say we've "killed' the finger. The reason the point about the beginning of life is so contentious is that it's not self-evident that a cluster of cells that makes up a fetus constitutes an independent life. Rather, it's a growth of cells contained in a woman's body, which could be compared (in the most neutral way possible, just in terms of the textbook definitions of cellular growth) to cancer, or a cyst. We don't treat surgery to remove cancerous cells as the killing of an independent entity, it's a medical procedure removing a growth from the body that may be harmful to that body. By this definition, abortion is a medical procedure not dissimilar to surgery. It's an oversimplification to say that all abortion constitutes "killing" because that assumes a personhood for a cluster of cells contained within a fully-formed person who may want that cluster of cells to be removed before it can grow and cause greater harm to that person's life. Philosophy Tube's video is unique in this conversation among leftists (not all leftists, as you rightfully point out, but certainly mainstream liberal and left-wing media, particularly in the U.S.) because he takes as a given the idea that life begins at conception and argues that abortion is nevertheless philosophically and morally acceptable. This is hypothetical, however, because it still very much matters to many involved in this debate whether or not a fetus is a person, so while it's an interesting thought experiment that might sway some away from anti-abortion positions, I still think it's a debatable and flawed position to assume all abortion is "killing," a narrative which only serves conservative anti-abortion arguments.
Fun fact: As I understand it, it is HIGHLY DISCOURAGED that people try rescuing drowning people unless they're actually trained to do it. Drowning people have very little control over themselves and their reflexive response (trying to grab at anything they can reach and use it to leverage themselves above the water so they can breathe) can very EASILY endanger someone swimming up to them to try to help them.
Hey, not sure if anyone is gonna see this but Philosophy Tube goes by she/her pronouns so if you’re writing a comment please use them. Her perception as a man at the time is obviously important to the argument, and was a key factor in the reception. But it’s still important to respect her while still considering how her perception as a man as a part of the situation.
I feel like another factor contributing to this is also that those women were academics and activists while Ollie is an educator and entertainer. The right is antagonist to educators and entertainers when they present ideas they dislike, but they generally just loathe the vast majority of academics and activists through and through because their very job description is exploratory in ways that threaten the status quo or to directly challenge the status quo and the academics are part of "intellectual elite" which for the rank and file of the rightwing is easy to demonize. Hell, there are average joes and janes that are apolitical or even leftwing that sometimes find academics unlikable.
This isn't Brazil. Keep abortion legal. Banning abortion defeats the entire point of family planning in the first place; Ready to have a kid? No? Okay, you have a kid when you're ready (if you ever want a kid).
@@whovianrusher7145 A Suprema Corte dos Estados Unidos diz o contrário. É necessária uma maioria de votos de 2/3 para fazer uma emenda. (Traduzido do Google tradutor.).
I cannot for the life of me place the accents at the beginning. How in hell do two islands in the middle of a frozen sea have fifty-million different accents.
This is the first time I've encountered this argument in a long time (I've mostly come around to it on my own since someone in the distant past pointed out the principle of bodily autonomy) and I love your presentation of it. I don't know how to spread this idea.
This video is great! I like your approach in making the lecture style very approachable with your posture, the drink, and the frequent cuts to relevant set and costume changes. The takes !! The presentation !!!
This help me put a finger on a thing that’s been bugging me for awhile. Alot of Pro- life propaganda will post pictures of miniature art dolls of babies, claiming they are real aborted fetuses- or make arbitrary statements about what age a fetus can smile, or has a heartbeat- And this all bugged me not just because it’s lazy- and often false manipulation, But because- I didn’t think any of those things (ie cuteness, relatability) is what defines value in a life. I found myself abit mad that these supposed fetus Groupies had such a shallow sense of value. Like, I can see value and life in an amorphous potential..... But that being said I don’t think decisions like abortion have anything to do with these factors and feelings. Many Women can understand these reflections- that doesn’t mean they have to dictate their situations. It sometimes feels as if the full picture of logic, emotion, and reflection on future consequences that we form when we make a decision is what bothers the patriarchy- As if we are meant to not only make life altering decisions purely on spur of the moment emotion..... but have the ‘correct’ and ‘approved’ emotions.
I relate to what you said a lot. Although, for a long time I never had a problem with abortion, but I just couldn’t put a finger on why. I never believed in an arbitrary point where the fetus isn’t alive, but I never could be against abortion.
This was awesome, and left me thirsty🍷 This channel is gonna BLOW UP soon, awesome content and deserves all the millions viewers to come. Cheers and keep up the good work
Interesting points but I largely disagree: -I'm not convinced that the personhood argument is more popular than the bodily autonomy argument, as you claim. After, all, it's called being "pro-choice." The bodily autonomy argument is right in the name. It would be better to use statistics to show which argument is more popular rather than comparing 2 examples. -I don't think misogyny is the reason that many prefer the personhood argument. I'm a strong feminist, but I think the personhood argument is more compelling since it removes the guilt associated with my actions bringing about the death of a person. To use your drowning man analogy, I might understand on an intellectual level that I'm justified in calling emergency services and walking away, but if the man dies and I didn't try hard enough to save him, I will be haunted with guilt for the rest of my life. In contrast, if a squirrel is drowning and I try to save it, I won't be wracked with guilt if it dies.
Here late and via Curio -- Awesome video, gained a subscriber. Totally agree with everything you said, and that it was a bit awkward for Ollie to claim his argument as novel, even if in the next scene it was clear he meant "you probably haven't heard this framing before" and not "I came up with this myself". To be fair to Philosophy Tube, he also made a bomb, well scripted, acted, and edited video designed to engage and entertain as well as argue/convince.
the thing that's hard is that the women that originally thought of these idea's are buried in history. Oliver did a great job digging up that stuff, but as "normal" person that is casually interested in politics, finding this kind of info can be pretty hard if you're not researching it thoroughly.
While your video didn't scare me horribly like philosophy tube's, you make some really insightful points and point out some very startling biases. Great video!
Some say life starts at conception, some at the moment of birth, and people can fall in between or even beyond those points. I think that the fact that this cut-off point is so subjective depending on your perspective, just proves that we should let people decide on their own where they want to set their own boundaries. Not to mention that statistically speaking, banning abortions doesn't decrease the number of abortions in a country, it just means that now only the rich and powerful have access to proper medical care, while the rest of the country has to contend with a much higher risk of maternal death.
Life begins at conception is a well-established fact. It's not a matter of belief. The zygote is a living member of homo sapiens. It's a living human being right from the moment of fertilization
I feel like a lot of people when talking about this issue forget that when pro lifers discuss abortion they aren't thinking of the fetus as a person- they are thinking of the fetus as a *baby*. Your metaphors all involve two adults in a difficult situation and the legal precedent surrounding that, but the laws and moral conventions surrounding children are significantly different. The drowning scenario holds up the way you presented it, but imagine the person on the bank is a parent and the person in the water is their child. Now they're being convicted for child endangerment. You mention that the fetus's lack of agency and judgement is irrelevant, but those attributes are what make adults feel so strongly about the safety of young children in the first place. I don't disagree with you, but I feel this is an important aspect of the argument many fail to bring up.
As a woman with a minor in philosophy, Judith Thomson’s work was the first thing we talked about in my bioethics course’s abortion unit. I also think a closer analogy to the asking your friend to go swimming argument is taking your child swimming without their having a say, and then leaving them. The right also IS often opposed to all contraceptives. I mostly agree with you though.
Big Joel also made this argument recently. Ollie didn't steal or take credit for an argument created in the 70s, you can point out the differences between the reactions towards his video and Sophie's, but neither are to blame for it. Misogyny exists we are all aware, but it didn't come from PhilosphyTube, who in fact quotes the og. While it might not have been your intention, I didn't really understand if the video was suppose to be humorous or not so I just took everything in it seriously. Also while we can say men vs woman, we could also point out Olly and Sophie are popular for different reasons in different circles, they have a different platform and audiences.
This is the conceit of all large youtubers, if we're being honest. None of them are the creators of the trends/ideas they popularize, and those who do create are often ignored. Plus, even if we like to ignore it or are usually apathetic about it, left tube is populated in large part by young adults who get most of their political notions from youtube videos. Entertainment value is king online, so people with snazzy/unique styles like Ollie or Contrapoints get way more clicks than the people they quote.
Thank you so much for playing this out for me. I always felt uneasy around this topic but you gave me a perspective that lets me think a lot clearer on it.
The wording was different, but the bodily autonomy argument was actually what first converted me from active, outspoken pro-life activist to "I think it's immoral but should still be legal" back in 2014/2015. (I've come much further left since then)
Just wanted to say that I subscribed after seeing this, and I wish I'd seen this when it was first uploaded. This is a very well done argument, and I'm ashamed to say that it covers a part of the debate that I hadn't considered enough.
In South Africa, abortion is legal. However because of the social structures (such as tradition ethnic cultures, religious organizations etc.) People are still shamed for even considering it, they are also harrassed by health professionals . We don't just need to deal with government making laws to permit it, but the social structures need to be reformed as well.
"Ollie Thorn is a man!” isn't a statement that has aged particularly well, even though the point bring made is totally valid. The irony is pretty juicy.
I just feel if pro lifers felt it was a woman's duty to carry a baby to term as a consequence for having sex, then they should think the same of police officers. US officers aren't required to protect you from harm according to the ruling in Warren v District of Columbia. They don't actually have to come help you when you call them and say someone is trying to murder or rape you. You would assume that that these prolifers would be against this when police officers chose the profession, they chose to 'serve and protect'. Somehow I don't think that matters the same to them.
however we call it, it will always be a human abstraction, which will diverge depending on the background of each one. It will always be interesting to hear the definition and arguments of someone who will never have to break that decision.
One thing I'd like to add is that the depersonalizing of fetuses plays an important psychological role in the real-world justification process. Similar to how some societies with high infant-mortality rates might delay the naming of an infant until they are a few weeks or months old to make it easier for the parents to cope if the baby dies. In the same vein as the "you must see an ultrasound and pray 10 rosaries before you abort" laws one could imagine how macabre it would be to be forced to name the fetus you wish to abort. Obviously in a theoretical framework these things are irrelevant but humans are emotional creatures and I think it's important to think about how philosophy happens when emotions are involved. Also if you're reading this GO WATCH CURIO'S VIDEO ON ABORTION IT'S INCREDIBLE.
Instead of referring to people capable of becoming pregnant as "women" might I propose the term "egg-layer" (obligatory internet disclaimer that this is a j o k e)
Connor Barkington On a completely unrelated note: I saw you answering to other comments in this comment section and just thought what nice of a name Connor is ! I really like it for some reason. Great choice.
I watched Olly's video, your video and now also the video of Sophie Lewis which got so much backlash. The difference in reception might (next to the reasons you already gave) be due to the form of delivery. Olly's video is theatre, its the politization of art. Sophie just presented the political theory as it is. Anyway, I am so glad I found your channel, you have won another subscriber!
Except that really doesn't matter in terms of this analogy. Specifically because the point she is making with it is that the government can't force you to risk your health or your bodily autonomy, regardless of if you are technically responsible for the situation. Trying to pick at some minor conceptual flaw that doesn't affect the underlying argument kinda makes you come off as pedantic.
@@all_thescience You gather tinder for a fire. Another brings a lighter. You both agree to start a fire. You two grow closer to each other because of the fire in this cenario, and the fire is a net positive- except there is a 1% risk of killing someone after starting the fire. If someone dies because of the fire, and the fire was unnecessary, wouldn't it be the fault of both people who started the fire? Why take the risk of killing something over something recreational and avoidable?
Aside from that, I do believe in a sense of duty to take care of the biologically human that you risked creating- I think the question is whether or not this duty should be enforced by the state, and I think not.
@@june4135 Your argument is doomer as hell and can only be taken to ridiculous logical conclusions. Uncountable number of things fall under this "recreational and avoidable" category and come with a non-zero risk of death. So are we just supposed to live in this completely unrealistic world where we only engage in things that are necessary and 100% safe? No, of course not. The answer then isn't to live in fear of that 1% chance, but to make sure people are informed about the risks and are properly taught how to do it safely. And in the cases where that fails, nobody should be stripped of their bodily autonomy as some kind of punishment for seeking out completely natural desires (between two consenting adults, yadayada please don't be disingenuous here). And this isn't even mentioning the part where sex is more than just some primitive pleasure button in any healthy relationship and countless amounts of science points to the numerous benefits it provides. I'm glad that we at least agree that, regardless of the morals, the state should not be the one to enforce this kind of thing.
@@all_thescience I made a few assumptions. The first assumption would be that the fire killed somebody- this assumes that the two people would not want to pay two decades worth of rehabilitation for the injured person, so they instead just kill the person. Let’s define our statistics better. According to verywellmind.com, the average american has sex 80 times a year. According to guttmacher.org, “5% of reproductive-age women have an unintended pregnancy each year,” and of the unintended pregnancies, “18% of pregnancies were ‘unwanted’ ” in 2011. If I did my math correctly, there is about a .9% chance of having an unwanted pregnancy if you have sex 80 times a year. Depending on your definition of “natural desire,” I believe some “natural desires” should have legal consequences, such as the “natural desire” to not pay your taxes, or the “natural desire” to steal, murder, and so on. A desire being in and of itself “natural” does not necessarily make it morally or legally correct. I do not believe a desire’s positive benefits outweigh the possible cessation of human life in classic moral theory. But I engage in such activity anyways. I am a hypocrite.
I refuse to ever entertain a conversation with someone about abortion - on the grounds of personhood. I never make that argument, (though I agree with you that even young babies could be considered 'not persons' - which is one reason why we shouldn't base legality/morality of a killing something/someone on its status as 'a person') AND if they start to try and have that argument with me I shut them down and steer the argument back to bodily autonomy. It's sad that its even something we have to argue for, but since we live in this hellworld, it's the only argument we should be making.
This video was very thorough and informative. Might I suggest a edit or an addition to the description or a pinned comment addressing how philosophytube’s gender was perceived at the time to be that of a cis man, since she no longer identifies that way?
Everything you said in this video is on point. I love it. I was taught about Thompson's arguments in my A-level RS class, and it completely changed my outlook for me: I was pro-life personally, but recognised that it wasn't my choice to make for other people, since they might draw the line of personhood differently; but then we read Thompson's article and I flipped to being unabashedly pro-choice. Why I wasn't taught these arguments earlier on is a mystery to me.
Oof watching this video after Abigail came out feels kinda wrong. I find the video very interesting so far but the clips from her video hit very weirdly now
Now onto the most important point of this video: does anyone else remember those alien eggs, and if so, please tell me: was it possible to breed them, or not? Also - why were we even attempting to breed things that looked remarkably like foetuses with other foetuses? what is wrong with us
in year 7 me and my friend, who were both extremely cool and popular, bought an alien egg and dissected it to see if it contained any reproductive parts, which, im afraid to say, it did not
I think that was just a myth, sadly. Probably started by the manufacturers to sell more of them. I know I probably bought like half a dozen.
@Shonalika
> I recommend the "Abortion Debate at Texas Freethought Convention, Matt Dillahunty vs. Kristine Kruszelnicki" RUclips-video [1] from 2012, where Mr. D. is briefly referring to JJ Thomson's paper & expanding on the right to bodily integrity ([1] 7:16), whereas Ms. K. claims that: "if abortion does kill a human being, no justification for abortion is adequate" ([1] 19:34).
I guess that many "pro-choice" activists are either not familiar with JJ Thomson's paper or are getting "distracted" by the "when is it a human" issue way too easily.
MfG, Egooist
[1] ruclips.net/video/P78_V1Z9CO4/видео.html
I think they’ve yet to clarify that. Shaw’s partner was attempting to figure that out in Prometheus but he ded so we may never know. I know David was breeding them so maybe there’s an easter egg (pun intended) in his notebooks somewhere? I feel like we gotta pester Sir Ridley Scott about this. I’m gonna now ask my friend who runs an Alien podcast to bring this up 🤣
Edit: I think I have woefully misunderstood the question after looking at that Reddit thread. Idk if we even HAD these toys in the US‽
In my school you put them back to back with their slits touching so they would "breed". I don't think it worked.
"When does life begin?"
Life began 2 billion years ago and hasn't stopped since.
I mean, there was that one time in 1816, but that was a very minor thing; not even a hiccup, really.
@@Oops-All-Ghosts Is this a reference? It feels like a Douglas Adams reference, but not sure
@@Calpsotoma Sort-of-yes-sort-of-no? As far as I know the "life hiccup" part isn't from anything, but the year wasn't chosen at random.
ruclips.net/video/uxeXHMHOcqQ/видео.html
The lord of creation has a very different story.
@@cpg6541 Would you mind sharing it, then? The things I've found claiming to be its story all wildly contradict each other, and while their authors usually claim to be divinely inspired, none of them have supplied any convincing evidence of that. The writers don't even seem to agree on particular interpretations of any one given translation of a given set of holy books, let alone the correct translations themselves.
Watching this video after Abby came out as a trans woman and now I'm asking myself if she would get a more negative response to her video if she uploaded it today....
That's actually a genuinely good question.....
Abby can't do it all over again, but many trans girls have disclosed their opinions about abortion. Search and you will find it. But probably none of them is as popular as Abby is and was.
oh shit
Perhaps when he says "I wanna give you a completely new way of thinking" he means: new to the viewer, not new to the world?
It wasnt new to me when I first watched it, but, he does his research and cited his sources, it seems clear that he wasnt claiming he came up with it.
For sure. That bit of my video was mostly playful silliness. It also served as a good grounding to illustrate the fact that he was *able* to present the argument as new; this is a signifier of a much bigger problem that I go on to discuss in the latter half of the video. I use this example to help illustrate that problem, not as a critique of Olly himself.
@@Shonalika yeah, I loved this video btw, i always find that i only ever learn *new* information from people who arent white cis men, although that really shouldve been obvious before i started watching vids like this.
Also, that scottish accent was decent, was your teacher Scottish? Cos I am and most people make a hash of it.
I grew up in between Scotland and England at various different points, and went to secondary school in Edinburgh:) haven't been back for a while though so good to know I can still do the accent not too terribly XD
It was definitely new to me, and one of the most interesting arguments I'd ever heard.
@@johnmacdonald9861 Sounds like you've got some biases to work out then, lol
Pointing out the difference in reception of the same idea presented by a man and a woman is awesome. Keep up the great work.
Eh, i think its harder to play a clip of ollys on the news as no indervidual bit sounds as radical as the few senteces she said on the news. You cant really engage with just his conclusion out of context whereas you can with hers. They seem kinda different
@@joshme3659 makes sense
It felt a bit forced to me. She pointed out the fact that the woman presenter had her video presented on fox news and other possible reason for the discrepancy but concluded regardless that the genders of the two presenters were the most important factor based on what is essentially her personal experience.
I would personally guess that it was philosophy tube's tendency to portray very complex issues through theatre and tact rather than just talking directly to the camera that is the reason behind the discrepancy. But I would be willing to change my mind if proven wrong which is why I take issue with the level of almost frustrating confidence that the woman in this video displays as she has about as much evidence for her claim as I do.
Not that you asked but this is my first shanaya video and so far I have not been impressed. The whole video gives off a "pulling other leftist down to make yourself look better" sort of vibe that many accuse the left of having.
@@asdg199 She's completely right and justified in pointing out how men with basic knowledge & understanding of feminist ideas are praised and put on a pedestal, while women are ostracized for presenting the same views. Feminists on the internet have been harassed, threatened and ridiculed since the inception of social media, long before lefty boys started making essays on the same subjects and gathering a following (by repeating the same arguments). She's not putting other leftists down, she's championing further discourse on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy (which in itself is leftist af). Did you really think that Philosophy Tube said everything there is to say about abortion in one video? Do you really think that valid criticism causes some sort of schism within the left? If so, maybe you should revisit your own sexist bias. Women and other marginalized ppl shouldn't have to be quiet about their views and forced to listen to white boys and treat their words like gospel. That would make leftist spaces no different than right-wing ones.
@@SamuraiShizuo
No I don't think Philosophy tube presented his argument with sufficient detail. And yes this video did expand on pretty much all the points in his video (despite how mean spirited it was). However, I personally have never felt like I learnt something completely new from the philosophy tube channel anyways, however, his videos sure are entertaining.
This is the main reason why I think people are less critical when he basically says he wants to "kill babies" regardless of if they are alive cause it could just be part of the skit or exagerration. However when a student, someone who is by definition assumed to be inferior in the field tells a teacher that they are wrong with a completely serious tone. Obviously there's is going to be a difference in reaction...
Is that what happened *shrug emojii*. But to assume that the difference in reaction was *mainly* due to philosophy tube's gender is also kind of a stretch considering the myriad of other potential factors.
And BTW. It is possible to prove that gender is the main factor for a particular reaction even if there are other causes in case you try to take that stance. Just look at discremimation laws.
Also about your comment about valid criticism. What exactly was the valid criticism leveled at philosophy tubes channel? She said his video was fine and she only had a problem with it cause it garnered a different reaction to videos made by women...what is ollie supposed to do about that? Seems like she has a problem with the reaction of the people watching the content however she takes out her frustration on the creator of that content which is very unfair.
If I remember contrapoints had to do something similar in addressing the community of a creator however she managed to do so without targeting the creator. So it is possible to address such an issue. The creator of this video simply didn't value the comfort of philosophy tube enough which is very hypocritical assuming she would want others to value her comfort.
Also I'm not that concern with creating a schism in the left. I would prefer not to do so but I don't think there's much I can do abt that anyways. I just think dont like the way philosophy tube was characterised in this video
Minor point, Ollie didn’t say he came up with his way of thinking abt abortion, but that he wanted to present a new way of thinking abt it to his audience. It’s not taking credit.
Ikr, straight up they even chose to show a clip of him giving credit to the philosophers he got the idea from, but then they immediately accuse him of being just another man taking credit for a woman’s work. Like, wot???
Yeah the entire argument was made in the 70's, I think, and the idea of when life begins was way before that.
@@brendenbaughman662 They clarify that they weren't questioning Olly so much as why people who accept his argument didn't accept it the first time when made earlier by women, or if they claim they simply hadn't heard it before why this argument didn't become one that pro-choice people present in favor of abortion for the decades it has existed.
Classi fied
No, they specifically say that they have a problem with Olly saying in his video that he’s presenting a new way of looking at abortion. But they only see that as problematic because they see it as Olly saying “look at this new idea I came up with.” And that would be problematic, but clearly that’s not how he means it, because he immediately credits the female philosopher he heard the idea from. When he says he’s presenting a new way of looking at the issue, he means he’s presenting a new way *for the audience* to view the issue (since, for most of the audience, that’s likely true - because this is not a mainstream or popular argument, odds are it’s a new way of looking at the situation for the viewer). But they spin it as if he were subtly trying to take credit for the idea himself, but they're just plainly wrong about that, because he spends the whole video citing back to the source material, and never operates under the pretense that the argument is his.
@@brendenbaughman662 You watched the whole video right? They clarify that.
I'm just a man just trying to understands the views of other people and become more compassionate/empathetic. Your videos help A LOT. Thanks for the hard work! Cheers!
Sadly, I definitely think that if we abolished gender from the way that we think about pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood, most opinions that abortion should be illegal would change. Our culture has an extremely romanticized idea of motherhood and womanhood in general that is kind of like the Dickensian “angel in the house” and I think it’s so subconscious that most people don’t even realize they’re thinking that way. If we treated “motherhood” like an existential situation rather than a feminine one and raised everyone from childhood to relate to and empathize with this experience, we wouldn’t be so adverse to the idea that mothers should have as much autonomy as anyone else. Instead we have this ideal that women *should* graciously and excitedly accept all the sacrifice that comes with reproduction, complete with bodily damage, loss of individual autonomy, loss of sexuality, loss of modesty, loss of dignity and loss of personal space that comes with pregnancy, birth and breast feeding.
Let me guess? Biology bad and how dare brining new life to this world be hard. #cancelnature. See the real problem we have today is peasantry like you are allows to talk issues they don't understand, and other peasants will agree, as long as its done under socially acceptable manner. What is that? Well, when real intelligent person looks at your post, first thing to be noticed is that its gibberish. You basically used expertised words that can't be put together due to how combinational meaning works, aka, the meaning of individual words change based on context. But ofc peasantry can't detect this. They see expertise terminology and instantly thinks that something of importance or smart has been said. Pathetic.
That’s every right wing/prolifer. You’re not as smart as you think
@@AbaddonTheDestroyer you mad, bro? Maybe getting an education would help you to understand my comment. Just something to think about.
@@milesfurther4395 Acting from false sense of grandeur doesn't help your case, plebian. It cannot be understood because there is nothing to be understood. Its just gibberish.
"Instead we have this ideal that women should graciously and excitedly accept all the sacrifice that comes with reproduction, complete with bodily damage, loss of individual autonomy, loss of sexuality, loss of modesty, loss of dignity and loss of personal space that comes with pregnancy, birth and breast feeding." Why should not they? Are those drawback negate her responsibility for the life she cooperated to create? You could just say all these things and abort your child 1 week before he would be born, but I guess u would think that as a murder. Why?
I have always hated that dead bodies have more bodily autonomy than very much living uterus possessing individuals
Ouch. You right tho
@Crystal Kanashii You need a dead persons permission to take their organs, desecrating a corpse is a crime, it's illegal to sell organs all willy nilly. Corpses have rights and protective laws
Crystal Kanashii If I die, I don’t have to donate organs. Even if my organs would keep a person from dying, I don’t have to give them away, because even my dead body has rights. I may be ‘murdering’ the people who need my organs, but I can still choose not to donate, because I can choose what happens to my dead body. The same should be true for wombs.
@@hellohi8062 they are in a few places iirc. Certainly where I live, organ donations work on an "agreement by default" basis
I am thinking are people above were joking about dead bodies' rights or not?
This video MIGHT ruffle feathers the wrong way for something it is not actually guilty of so I want to make this clear for people who might not look at the upload date:
This video came out literally years before Abigail/Philosophy Tube came out as trans! Many of the comments were made before Abigail came out as trans! Said comments may have used her deadname because that was the only name she was openly using at the time!
What I find interesting about the violinist argument, is less that it's under-representation reveals subconscious sexist biases, but that once it has been presented, the oppositions to it inevitably reveal some really overt sexist biases. That's true even for many of the replies that Ollie got.
No matter how much you expand the analogy to account for the fact that women often choose to have sex (like you did with inviting people to swim), anti-choice people will ALWAYS stand predictably ready to call those versions of the analogy unfair, and replace it with one where the violinist might have done something heinous enough to justify taking away his bodily autonomy.
That's always what it boils down to. They might even grasp at the violinist argument of their own will, because it lets them explain why abortion being uniquely permissible for "innocent" rape victims is OK, but the other shoe will always drop when they have to explain why all other women are not "innocents".
The analogy fractures once the woman decides to be connected to the violinist, and entirely collapses when it conforms to the reality of voluntary sex, meaning that the woman not only agreed to help the violinist but is the person responsible for his condition.
Basically, there's a reason this argument is only valid in the case of rape, it destroys itself otherwise.
Also, the swimming analogy is bad too, you aren't inviting people to swim, you're pushing people you know can't swim into pools and watching them drown.
@@account2871 Okay, let's say that the hypothetical person not only agrees to help the violinist and is the one responsible for the violinist's condition. Are you then suggesting that the government should mandate that our hypothetical person cannot rescind their consent to help the violinist and must continue the rest of the time unwillingly? That they should be prohibited by law from trying to separate themselves from the violinist once they initially agree no matter how their view on the arrangement changes? And that's not even including dimensions to the causes of pregnancy like failed contraceptives or lacking sexual education.
@@ToaNyroc Every time you have sex you risk pregnancy, failed contraceptives is a bad argument. And yes, you cannot back out after putting the violinist in the position he is in. Apply the analogy bro, if you give birth to a kid, they can go up for adoption or you can take responsibility for your actions. You can't just give the child life and then let them die.
@@account2871 You realise you didn't answer the question right? It seems like you're talking in circles because you cannot defend your position.
@@bluebubblegum440 I literally did defend the position, you just refused to read it.
I love this video! I'm a former right winger that used to worship the likes of Ben Shapiro, PragerU, etc. and realized there was a whole other point of view which I was completely ignoring.
I searched for videos against Ben Shapiro and found that video from PT. I was expecting another SJW, snowflake argument against abortion. It turns out that the video had me questioning my views on abortion which led me to question all my other views as well. With the help of PT, Shaun, ContraPoints, Three Arrows and some others, I can proudly say that I finally escaped the alt-right rabbit hole.
That's awesome, mate. I remember finding Crowders videos and starting to go down before finding the other pov as well. Nowadays I have a really hard time finding right wingers who make good points.
Happy to hear man!
this is obviously slightly off topic but you just made me remember a question i've had for years now so thought i'd ask. What precisely is considered the difference between someone being a "right-winger" as opposed to being "alt-right"/ "far-right"? I think I have my own handle on where and who these labels are about or represent but I'm really curious about how people think and the answer as to how people on the left classify alt-right/far-right more than almost any other constantly hyped idea from the past few years of craziness has just totally eluded me. I constantly hear the most bland really non-ideological very moderate right wingers being refereed to as alt or far right and just like some people on the right didn't wanna think out their positions and decided libtard was somehow all that need be said, I know plenty lefties do the same with nazi alt right blah blah w/e...but i know there are people on the left with a more thought out way of categorizing these differences so if anyone can fill me in I really would love to get a definitive take from a leftie on that
@@oliviastanley4783 I personally consider alt-right as anyone who support's fascism, white supremacy and is kinda apart of the whole ben shapiro, milo yineopolis and steven crowder crowd. It's a nebulous group at times admittedly, but basically if you support any of those people.
Your alt-right and probably hold some racist ass ideas or are alt-right adjacent and close to a neo-nazi/objectivist is still like close to a neo-nazi Objectivist.
Its indeed kinda nebulous, but unempatheitc fashy douchebags seeped in internet culture is what I see it as, the proud boys are an example of the alt right.
@@AbstractTraitorHero Ok it's actually helpful you answered from that direction, ya know the very alt-right centric one, bc I've been all kinda immersed in the politics shit since right b4 trump - like so many of us have (I dont think the sudden political engagement is gonna be something looked back on as positive tho....lol. i could be wrong? hah) but with so much info and people opinions available, well, u forget questions u meant to ask or ways you should've asked and thank u cause u reminded me! Alright so whether I agree or not I pretty cl.ear on the general range of who/what is gonna get labeled alt or far right. But what I am always left wondering is...ok like people on the left seem to have widened their labling of what equals this faaar right-ness to the point that I'm actually wanting to no who they consider simply RIGHT. Ya know what I mean?
if ppl get ptsd from watching childbirth imagine how awful it is for the one experiencing it 💀
Periods should, at best, be a subscription service.
Agreed. My period regularly posts cringe and should DEFINITELY lose subscriber!
You make really intelligent clear points. More like this please!
I believe one of our deepest biases is our biological urge to go “oh cute small person, I must look after it”. This is clearly very valuable for the propagation of a species which is pretty useless as a self sustaining organism until at least 10 years old. But it’s so deeply ingrained it’s hard to separate philosophical arguments from the basic drive to be nice to babies, and the repulsion from considering harming one even at post-ball-of-cell foetal stage.
thank you! ^^ lol funnily enough I have something more like a revulsion response upon seeing actual babies (less so once they can walk around talk etc) which is apparently a trait that's on the rise in people capable of being pregnant. which is super interesting, and something I might come back to and explore in relation to another video on a similar topic in future
Shonalika that’s interesting... I don’t have that but would be interested to hear about it. I am enjoying satisfying my instinctual urges (2 kids now) and have found it a surprisingly visceral joy. It makes me a bit sad that it seems to be all the smart people who have no urge to breed... whilst of course it’s a deeply personal choice (and sometimes a biological limitation) I can’t help fearing our future could have shadows of the film idiocracy....
@shonalika please do if you haven’t already!
@@Shonalika Same. Babies are just not cute to me.
@@Michaelalondon Its more education than anything about "intelligence".
It's sad that people listen to men rather than women on a mostly AFAB-related topic, but given the urgency of the situation, shouldn't we weaponize the privilege in order to get the message out as much as possible ?
I know this doesn't feel right to say,but if men speaking about abortion is the way pro-choicers are going to be heard...
They're not saying that men shouldn't speak out. They're just pointing out that amab presenting people are often taken more seriously, even in an area where afab people have more authority.
@@IIxIxIv I know that this isn't what they're saying, I just had to ask the question because the people who introduced me to feminism kinda did say that men should stand back and let the women speak because in the end,that's the goal,but it kinda never felt right to me
@@IIxIxIv almost right... people aren’t likely to take trans women seriously nearly as much as cis men, they only get treated like men when it can be used to insult and hurt them. if an amab trans person was to say something about abortion similarly to what an afab person might say, it definitely still doesn’t mean they have authority on the subject over people who’re actually affected by it, but the nearest right-wing pro-lifer dude would still probably go ‘i’m not listening to you cause you’re a fucking [insert bigoted slur here]’ regardless. y’know the gist
SOMEONE IS FINALLY TALKING ABOUT BANNING PERIODS. ONWARD WE MARCH, SIBLING!
Ah yes, a true trans-humanist icon
I do hope you are joking...
@@Achilles94627 how the fvck could one possibly actually ban periods?
@@victorianeechan I don't know. Force women to take some pill so that they don't bleed every month and make it mandatory? How the f*ck does a man simply say "I am a woman" and everyone believes him? How the f*ck do some people think that killing an unborn child is perfectly acceptable? That's the world we are living in nowadays.
@@Achilles94627 oop, nevermind. It's just a transphobe. Go shave that beard off your neck or something, you're spending too much time online
I think the best argument is that criminalizing abortion is equivalent to the government forcing women to give birth.
More like forcing a woman to not kill a person... This really isn't convincing. If a psycho has a compulsion to kill its not oppression if the government forces the person away from his victim, even if it does produce heinous pain.
@@jhonjacson798 Well you can see it that way, but it is still the other way too. It would be both keeping women from killing babies and forcing them to give birth.
@@alicedeligny9240 well yeah but if that's the case then in that context forcing women to give birth wouldn't be a bad thing. The phrasing of "forcing women to give birth" deliberately brings the image of governments getting women pregnant for the purpose of breeding, which is obviously not the idea when it comes to banning abortion.
@@jhonjacson798 It's that in the sense that they're taking away someone's right to use their autonomy and body as they please. That's a pretty major right in modern society, and a major achievement for both human right activists of the past centuries and feminists of the 20th century. That's why it clashes with the right to life (also a major and fundamental right). And we have to choose the "right" one to put forward.
@@alicedeligny9240 we still havn't legalized murder. That's the thing, the moment you say that the fetus IS a person, and that you have the right to kill it, because it causes you some form of harm, and that suffering is due to a cause you yourself started, and could have prevented before, during, and even after the inciting event happened, then the principle that allows one to do murder in the case of abortion is the same one that allows murder in basically any context where you don't like someone.
If abortion is murder and its ok in any context, then murder is ok in any context, unless there is some fundamental difference between a fetus and an adult.
What is the difference between killing a fetus and killing an adult if it isn't the personhood of either being? That's the fundamental question.
Coming in a bit late here, but I would like to offer a slightly different perspective on the Olly Thorn 'new way of thinking' issue. I'm originally from the UK, but since 2012 I've been mostly living in Dublin. In the Republic of Ireland, before 2018, abortion was not only illegal but constitutionally forbidden and treated as an act of murder. In the autumn of 2012 the unmitigated horror of this legal position was thrown into sharp relief when a woman, Savita Halappanavar, died as a result of septic shock arising from complications of a failing pregnancy despite repeatedly requesting a termination that would have saved her life. It also brought up an earlier case (from the early 90s) when a suicidal, 14 year old rape victim was granted special dispensation to leave the country in order to terminate her unwanted pregnancy abroad. This put the issue of pregnant people's bodily autonomy and basic right to survival firmly in the limelight and sparked a mass political campaign, led by women, to pressure the government to action. For the next five years, there were marches, candlelit vigils in memory of Savita, and debates (in the press, in public, online etc.) in which every iteration of the 'what if you were hooked up to a comatose patient against your will?' and 'do you know what pregnancy actually does to people's bodies?' positions was articulated (usually by female activists). For me, there was this weird dual consciousness of being from a place where abortion wasn't a hot button political issue (and essentially became an abstract moral) and living in a place where it was a real, life-and-death one. In 2018 the Irish government finally relented enough to hold a public referendum on changing the constitution to allow for abortions. This could have gone really badly, but it didn't. Although the 'pro-life' side was much better funded, it fought a bad campaign by focussing on alienating scare tactics and easily debunked exaggerated horror stories. The 'pro-choice' side, by contrast, focussed on how the law affected ordinary people, especially women forced to flee the country to get the medical care they needed, and had volunteers that acted like reasonable, motivated activists rather than uniformed, angry drones. The latter won a resounding victory.
So when Olly's video came out a year later, it was less 'wow, I'd never thought of it like that before' and more 'oh he's doing that argument, but maybe in a way that will somehow reach FACTS-AND-LOGIC fanboys and other internet misogynists'. In that context, criticisms that he's presented as 'doing something groundbreaking' and getting less flack from it than Sophie Lewis are very real, but I find the idea that pro-choicers aren't/haven't been making bodily autonomy the basis of their movement a little troubling in light of the massive, decades-long struggle entirely about bodily autonomy and its relation to misogyny that's been happening in the country right next-door to us.
Remember when I got in a shouting match with my ethics instructor about how it doesn't matter whether a fetus is a person or not? No, none of you were there. But it's definitely when I peaked.
Well now I have a memory of the mental image, and I'd like to think it's in agreement.
A fetus is 100% not a person. If it is then so is my sneeze until the bits of me the flew out along with it die....and so is every other person who is dead until they decompose to the point of DNA not being viable.
Genetically human != person != alive and deserving of full human rights
@@dstinnettmusic Jesus Christ, do *NOT* bring up this argument in conversation/debate with an actual pro-lifer. A rhetorician of ANY SKILL LEVEL AT ALL will recognize this as the mother of all false equivalencies and tear it to shreds.
@@dstinnettmusic not a good arguement my dude
@@dstinnettmusic Never use pseudospeciation as an argument.
LOOK.
I have a child. I love my child. I would never choose to not have my child. I loved my child before she was born. I loved my child more as soon as she was born. I held her in my arms and I looked down at her and I could not imagine any other clump of biological matter meaning more to me in the entire world. Almost fourteen years later, I still cannot imagine any person being more important to me. There is not a single one of you that I would not murder, horrifically, to protect her.
HOWEVER.
Infants are not people yet. As humans, we have evolved so that our heads are too big to safely deliver even at 9 months, reliably, and we basically give birth to premature still-developing fetuses that stay basically non-sapient for an unpredictable but non-zero amount of time because we physically can't give birth to fully developed babies due to the vagaries of biology, re: walking upright, having huge fucking craniums, et cetera.
Compare to a baby horse, which is basically a horse as soon as it's born. Walking around and being a horse and shit. That is a horse immediately.
Infant humans are basically still fetuses for A WHILE after birth. There is obviously an EMOTIONAL line that we cross where none of us would feel the same about infanticide as we would about abortion. BUT.
Basically I'm saying Shonalika is 100% right.
Great point!
The problem is that the very conecpt of personhood inherently creates an arbitrary line, whether it be at some time during fetal development or somewhere between infanthood and childhood. It's impossible to determine an exact age at which a young human turns into a person, or even narrow it down to a specific period in life. I wonder why I never made that connection before in regard of abortion, as it aligns very well with vegan arguments against speciesism (as in that the (lack of) intellectual capacities of an organism cannot justify eating or exploiting it. Otherwise, we should be allowed to eat human babies or exploit them in other ways.)
@@NoPityForThePlatsch I wouldn't call it an arbitrary line, I would say its a very important one that we just don't have a simple answer for.
What is a “fully developed baby”? It’s a baby. It’s technically “developing” until between around 21-25 years old. It’s completely arbitrary what you consider to be a “baby”.
The horse thing made me giggle hard.
When I watch PT and ContraPoints, as well as other leftist content from white women or men, I always remind myself that they have been "blessed" with their own privileges that may not necessarily invalidate their opinions or even outcast their accomplishments, but it illustrates something about their audience (it is, after all, the fuel that keeps these channels growing) and how they approach political or social content.
I am just glad, to be honest, that most of these content creators are also aware of their privileges and use them to further the discussion and to point out lesser known (or overlooked) figures in the field.
It is a privilege they are using to further the cause. They're using their privilege to spread the ideas of Marxism, anarchism and intersectionality.
I agree with to an extent but I think their popularity is also due to the work they both put in to both the aesthetics and scripts they write and they include humour, defined characters and quotes from philsophers. The only way privilege comes into that is they both studied philosophy academically although I don't get the impression Olly comes from an especially privileged background.
@@superduperfreakyDj Define "Marxism" without Googling. Spoiler: it's not synonymous with Communism and Socialism. Neither are the channels pushing anarchy. This the same fear mongering you cry about getting from the far left (i.e being called nazis and white supremacists)
@@K.Marie119 Pretty sure Freggle is saying "Marxism" as a good thing, not a bad thing. And that's a good point, neither Contra nor Philosophy-Tube are Marxist-Leninists, but they both draw ideological views and arguments from Marx which absolutely isn't a bad thing.
@[A]ddiction why are you here
i can’t fathom how badly i wanna spam this video to classically abby’s email...
😅😅👏👏👏
Be the change u wanna see in this world.
I would like to point out that Ollie doesn't imply that the ideas are his own and sites the original women who pioneered this theory, although it's totally valid that the double standard when it comes to men being listened to more by our patriarchal society is absolute horseshit.
"Ollie this entire video is you reenacting arguments that people with uteruses have already made, can you not say you're saying something new, when you a very demonstrably not?" -Shonalika
Ummm, he literally stated the scenario he was presenting was formulated by Judith Jarvis Thompson in 1971 before presenting it. Maybe it's just me, but I took "new " to mean "probably new to the audience" and not "brand new, never before seen."
Also, how an argument is received had a LOT to do with presentation of the argument. There a lot of other variables to consider, not just if the person is a man or woman. Philosophy tube has a very interesting ascetic and presentation style whereas from the clips of the early woman, clearly I don’t think she’s wrong but the way she present she arguments is not as stylistically interesting (from what I’ve seen, I may be wrong). Same can be said about someone like contrapoints
I paused at 14:52 when she made that criticism again and went back to Ollie's video to make sure I didn't hallucinate that part. He does put off mentioning it until right before the scenario starts at around 8m in, so maybe she just missed it? (Although it's also the very first citation)
No they didn't miss it... they quoted that part of the video, how did you miss that ?
Of course, we get that Ollie was talking about a 'new argument' in the sens of new to the public but that exactly what is criticized in this video : apparently to be heard this argument need to be presented by a man...
@@disinitana4249 The problem is, Shonalika specifically addresses Ollie with that criticism, when it's a societal issue.
I mean, look at my original comment. *I quoted Shonalika, because I rewatched that section couple times to accurately transcribe what was said.*
@@TheSmileMile yay but at the beginning of his video, Ollie still presented in a way that gave the impression it was new, even if he credited the women who brought up these arguments in the first place, it contribute to the environnement where speeches have more impact when they come from men... and Shonalika said explicitly that apart from that one sentence from Ollie, they don't have any critic for him, so yeah they never implied that it was Ollie's individual problem or that Ollie presented the idea as his own in the rest of his video...
Finally, just to be clear, because I feel there may be a misunderstanding, the 'how did you miss it?' from my previous comment wasn't adressed to you, but to the comment just above mine
Love the self-vo-cut over 'babies aren't people'!
They're semi-sentient poop machines, prove me wrong science.
Babies aren't people? Well, not yet. Puppies aren't dogs, and kittens aren't cats, puppies--kittens--babies all start in the womb of the mother.
@@sherrib4168 There is no yet, only now, babies aren't people.
@@ZGVideosChannel There is no yet, only now, babies aren't people. This is YOUR COMMENT. You want try it again?????
"babies aren't people" would be a really ineffective, but really fun chant for pro-choice protests.
If you're pro-killing of sentient creatures that are more intelligent, social, and emotionally developed than a human baby at birth because "it's what's for dinner," but can't stomach the idea that some pregnant people might want to terminate a pregnancy for any reason, then you and I are fundamentally opposed in terms of understanding values, sentience, and suffering.
I'm not trying to convert anyone to a vegan today. I'm not even a vegan, but how many creatures suffer for nothing but greed while the supposedly godly preach about how a blastocyst has human rights? Did their God not command his first humans to "tend the garden" in the same story that he told them to "be fruitful and multiply?"
Ah, that's a really good argument I never would have thought of on my own!
I agree. I actually think those species of animals, who are as sentient or more sentient than a newborn human baby should be protected by law. We should switch to eating other, less sentient animals, plus plants and fungi. Otherwise we are hypocrits, all of us, huge huge hypocrits
Obviously intelligence is not the important attribute that differentiates between things that are ok to kill and things that are not ok to kill.
The vegan argument has to do with externalities within the capitalist system, rather than the direct act of killing a fetus. This is a wholly false comparison.
Weggy GayGay while I agree that a loooooot of stuff is because of the externalities of capitalism (wool, for instance I do think could theoretically be ethicaybut isn’t because of those externalities), there is still the fundamental concept that animals cannot consent to be consumed and thus we have to either respect them as fellow sentient beings OR we have a duty of care, depending on where you fall on the ‘intelligence’ issue, if that makes sense.
As far as ‘the wild’/carnivores, most of us have the option to make a kinder choice and thus should, obligate carnivores do not have that choice, even were we to consider them culpable moral actors.
I personally fall on the duty of care/animals are not moral actors side
This brings up a lot of ideas which really take the arguments presented in Olly's video to a whole other level that I hadn't considered before! Kudos!
Also, as someone who is currently growing out their hair, I can't stop noticing how beautiful yours is! I want your hair!
You just posted quality, you are going to gain subscriber
This video's a weird one to watch after Philosophy Tube came out
Not to mention, and I feel like this is glossed over all the time, bring a baby into a world that isn't ready for it is abusive and heartless towards the baby. It hurts both the baby AND the mother.
This isn’t unique to the abortion argument. Women’s ideas, opinions, and work are often seen as less logical/valid until presented by a male.
PierreXO did a video on catcalling and he got very little backlash. If a women made the same claims and complaints it’d be very different.
Glad you’re making a video with your feminine perspective placed strongly at the forefront. We need more voices like yours 💕
i still thank olly for using his large platform for helping me articulate my opinion on abortion, but i do think it’s important to recognize that a man had a much easier time presenting those ideas than women have for decades.
Thank you for this video. I am teaching Thompson's paper next week in my ethics class. This video has been a great help in breathing new life into a 50 year old paper. I am so often disappointed by online philosophy content. I was/am a bit worried that Thompson's paper is a bit out of date. In fact that is my worry for all of the papers in our text book (I didn't really choose it). My specialties in philosophy are not in ethics so I am not very familiar with the current literature. My impression (as a non-specialist) was that Thompson had shifted the conversation beyond personhood, but not so much in the public sphere where many people don't read academic articles. RUclips culture is not something I was very familiar with until the recent need to switch to online teaching. So I appreciate this video as an introduction of sorts to the state of play here. (I had only seen one Philosophy Tube video.) I think your diagnosis of misogyny is revealing and powerfully argued. I especially appreciate how you make your point about the very framework of the debate being shaped by a misogynistic agenda and that the acceptance of that frame work is a way many of us can be, if accidentally, complicit with misogynistic agendas.
It is my limited understanding that Thompson's strategy to grant personhood to the fetus for the sake of argument was to shift the literature out of a gridlocked debate about whether the fetus was a person. Some philosophical questions are such that you just can't resolve them with evidence. It all depends on what starting assumptions you share or don't share. Personhood is a frustrating concept like that. And I like the way you nearly bit the bullet on the personhood of babies. Tricky, right? This is why the old debate couldn't be scienced away with more evidence. It is my experience that philosophers just love to make the move where they give the opponent the assumption they want and still manage to show they are wrong. Thompson's defense of abortion is like the textbook case. For that reason, the way it uses thought experiments (which I actually prefer more direct arguments like yours), and they way it exemplifies analogous reasoning I think it remains a valuable teaching tool.
And yet it is a real bummer that this is still where the popular debate is. I had qualms about even covering abortion because it feels like the moral disagreement is outdated and what remains is a political power struggle. I'm now a bit inspired by this video connects the matter to the current day and the power dynamics that of the discourse.
10:51 "pro-lifers shouldn't be ok with contraceptive pills, fertility clinics, or the way the AFAB body works!"
Please don't give them any ideas...
Don't worry, she didn't. It was one of her least compelling points.
"honestly I don't even think a baby is that much of a perso-”
🗣️🗣️🗣️ *LET HER SPEAK* 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Abortion up to age five post-birth should be legal.
buries face in hands
Lisa Dal Porto WTF WHAT VIOLENCE IS GONNA BE ENACTED ON A MOTHER UP TO 5 YEARS. YOU ARE LITRALY PRO KILLING KIDS
@@joshme3659 yeah dude cause they're not people
creshiell why not?
Is it ever posible for these brilliant people to SLOW DOWN A TAD for us old boomers?
It's okay to use the pause button, (the space bar also pauses and unpauses the video) and go back and forth through the video at your leisure (using the left and right arrow keys makes it easy). That's how I watch videos and I'm a millennial :) Think about it like a book where you can read a passage as many times as you like if you want to absorb it better.
I'm gen z but I have terrible concentration skills so I'm constantly rewinding the video to relisten to parts I didn't get the first time, don't worry it's not just you!
Another option is to set the playback speed at something below 1! Try 0.75 or even 0.5
This works in Reverse for creators who speak too slowly for your taste as well. I have a friend who watches almost all RUclips videos at at least 1.25 speed
@@meganroserebecca My adhd ass had to watch jacksepticeye play subnautica on 2x speed. it was wild, 10/10 do not recommend
Not to try and defend the shockingly different response to two people making the same point, but as a man who's not familiar at all with the discussion of this topic, I would like to say that the way Sophie explained her argument was more technical and used some wording that I didn't quite comprehend, whereas Philosophietube's dialectic seems more explanatory and geared towards an audience out if the "know".
So I wonder if the difference Olin response also light have been exhausted with the symple fact that certain folk like myself didn't understand Sophie and symply piled on to what others where saying.
Ps: I'm half way through the video, do I dunno if this is a point you'll make later. But yeah. Great video! I'm learning a lot 😁
Hi there! New viewer here! I found this while looking for the Philosophy Tube video you mentioned.
I must say, I agree with everything you say here. I am an example of a philosophy tube viewer that already agreed with him on that topic and didn't looked any further on what other people have to say on the matter (at least, not immediately, I'm watching this video).
I find this video very enjoyable, I'm going to stick around for a while.
This video came out a year ago and boy is it a doozy watching it now considering the new information. I mean yeah I still completely agree with the points in the video and I think this video truly is swag but also hearing Abigail’s deadname was a bit of a “Oh, I forgot about that” moment.
✨Still a stellar video✨
Thankyou, yes deviation from popular views is not encouraged by schools at all. I hope this changes in my commune.
'Pregnant Persons' said throughout this video makes me very happy. I had a teacher push back when I referred to 'people with uteri' as such, and was informed that only women could have periods and I should say as much. I'm going to be a Medical Assistant y'all. Make the progress if you can't find it.
How can somebody without a uterus have a period?
@@RED-my9hl no, the point is only people who have a uterus would have a period. But not everyone with a uterus is a woman.
You mean the world for me for using such inclusive language. As a trans man anything to do with reproductive health always comes with misgendering and shame. You made me feel safe here.
I really like Ollie's stuff, but this is a fantastic critique and I absolutely love the fact that you're highlighting what he missed
This reminds me of Tracie Harris and her focus is on the bodily autonomy of the person who is here already. We can't even be forced to donate blood or organs to a child or spouse. Why would we force gestation on someone who is not interested in parenthood?
In my history introductory course, a student wrote about how he liked about a text that the woman author's writing did the work to appear unbiased, despite the subject being about women's issues - as if men's perspectives on women's issues aren't skewed by their gendered socialization.
Pretty sure that is a reaction that's at play here too.
An intellectual man can totally discuss the subject of abortion rationally, objectively, while a woman's perspective is far more likely to come under increased scrutiny.
He didn't say it was something new. He said it'd been made for years.
His was more excepted because he's a man, a wonderful, sexy online communist man, but a man none the less.
There is still hate however, specifically on RUclips from far right Christians attempting to call out Olly for the analogy being unmappable, which (as a woman who has carried, and birthed children AND has had an abortion I think I'm qualified to say) is bollocks.
Please bear in mind this isn't Olly's fault.
I think views of opposite group is always important when we speaking about giving any group more rights or less obligations, because the opposite group never have personal interest in right inflation and obligations shrinking of opposite group.
Anytime we are speaking about giving any group extra rights (like abortion) or less obligation (like gestating unwanted pregnancy) it is reasonable to hear someone who will not gain anything from this desision personally.
I think Mr. Thorne just passed off the argument as a "new" way of thinking in his video, not because he doesn't know the arguments have not been made before, but because he's aware of his somewhat more mainstream audience, for whom this might be new (including me).
She (you were before she came out as transgender, no worries) explicitly said the argument wasn't original and cited who it came from. Abby could have been clearer and emphasized more that the argument was older but still. Apparently many people missed Abby saying the argument was older and just uncommonly used, so don't worry about it.
I don't even think this argument necessarily has to be made even though I agree.
To me it comes down to who gets to make that decision.
Whoever's carrying the foetus, gets to decide.
Don't like abortion? Don't have one...
That's the same argument, though. That's assuming that pregnant people deserve to make that decision regardless of whether the fetus is "human", which is the exact opposite of what pro-lifers think.
@@samkadel8185 They assume they get to decide. The decision has to be made, and the decision has to be made by adult humans. So the question is, does the government have the right to overrule what a woman does with her body or not?
@@ImaginaryMdA yeah they do to an extent if they can stop me from doing violent crime and drugs with my body they can stop us with other stuff within reason
I think, /maybe/ when he said 'new' he meant something the viewer hadn't considered rather than an idea that hasn't been discussed.
Yeah, he generally argues on the base assumption that his viewers are slightly left-leaning, but not particularly entrenched in these sorts of conversations.
Why did it take so long for me to find this channel? My views are being challenged and I love it!
People are against abortion but they're also against afab people getting surgery to make the risk pregnancy disappear. I will never know what it is that anti-choicers want, and I think you're very close to it by saying they want patriarchy to continue. What a wonderful video, thank you.
yeah they just want to control the people they perceive as women
I'm American, and I hold that the right to an abortion is enshrined in the Third Amendment to the Constitution: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”
Just want to say, I just discovered your channel and I am obsessed! Your delivery, humor, and intonation is so amusing :D
No doubt that a lot of people will be way softer on a white guy like Olly, but I think it also likely has something to do with the media involved. Sophie Lewis is an academic who publishes in traditional media, and wrote a book. That's the kind of media that gets most often picked up by conservative media. They tend to ignore leftist youtubers in general, at least in their official narrative. They prefer shutting them down using the platform, because they have more control over it due to their enormous amount of dark money. IIRC there never was much outrage against trans woman Natalie Wynn, either, except from the left.
Edit: Welp, you already said it in the video, should've watched it all before writing.
I feel like that is his entire channel though. He is often times just re-enacting literature, arguments, or philosophy that he has already created. He is just doing it in a way that is entertaining and maybe more modern... But for a lot of his fan base this probably is "new" information for them. But I personally never got the feeling that he was claiming these as original/new arguments that he was creating. I think his introductory statement is probably a bit hyperbolic but I think that is just his love for theatrics and it's kind of his hook for his audience. Although, as a woman, it is kinda frustrating when you've made an argument and people don't listen. Then suddenly when a man says it people are like OH MY GOD revolutionary! So I kind of get where you are coming from in regards to that. I don't lay very much blame on him but I also simp pretty hard for him.
Yeah I like his channel because he compiles info well not necessarily because he has original ideas
Well thats what philosophy is about (at least partly): discussing ideas of (mostly dead) people and thinking about what it does mean for our world.
Great video, please keep making them! New to your channel but enjoying it a lot.
While I agree the difference in response to Olly’s vid was largely due to gender (I think this is fairly uncontroversial), I would ask is it fair to say that Olly presents the arguments as if they were new? I mean, he cites Thompson at the beginning and is doing what he does in a lot of his videos, which is just present academic philosophy to a mainstream audience with his own spin on it (in this case, the dramatic element).
hi, thank you! yes, absolutely. I know he doesn't think these ideas are new as in, totally original, I was more drawing attention to the fact that he is able to *present* them as new i.e new to his audience. the fact that this is the case says a lot about the way that we treat women when they come up with ideas vs. men.
that part of the video was largely playful, and just laid the foundations for a critique of a bigger problem, rather than one of Olly himself. I really liked his video and am glad people like him are using their platforms to support ^^
Shonalika . Yeah, that makes sense. I remember when reading Thompson’s article years ago thinking how convincing it was and how it’s a shame it isn’t more mainstream - it seems as if there are so many people on the fence or pro-choice with reservations (particularly in the Britain where anti-abortion feeling isn’t quite so strong) who the article would convince in a heartbeat.
I know people who’ve lost children they very much wanted. Still born children who were named and had a family waiting to welcome them. The mothers are anti-abortion because they would have done anything to protect their child.
We can argue you shouldn’t have to rescue someone drowning if it puts a significant risk to yourself, but many would say you should try to rescue your child if you are their parent even if it means putting yourself in harms way. You should rescue your own child if you see them drowning because you have committed, through becoming their parent, to be their protector.
I think it matters whether an unborn child is an unborn child or just a foetus. I think defining whether a foetus is human life is worth it, but I believe it’s best to do this through recognising the mother's autonomy. The mother chooses what will happen to her own body, and if she’s decided she wants to have a child then she’s going to think of the foetus as her child. This is a family member she’s likely already started planning for and creating a space in her life for. The foetus should be recognised as a life, even if you don’t view foetuses as life, because if allowed to continue to grow then it should grow into a child and one day into an adult. After a child is conceived, if it is wanted, there is often no meaningful distinction between a potential life and a life for that foetus imo. The act of wanting that child and planning a future for that child and viewing that child as a family member is what makes that child a child imo.
But a woman who is pregnant with a foetus she does not want and does not have plans for is not meaningfully a life. If she kills it, this is her exercising autonomy over her own body. There was never meaningfully any child, and aborting the foetus is not murder under any circumstances (even if you could somehow guarantee that allowing the foetus to continue to grow would cause the mother zero harm).
There will be women who desperately want a child who lose their child or are forced, due to medical risks for example, to sacrifice them before they can be born. To these women, the foetus was a life ended. A life they will grieve and the absence of this life will be felt in the world, in the home and family it was planned to be welcomed into. To say their child’s death doesn’t matter, which is what some leftist discourse sounds like, is cruel.
I think defining whether a foetus is alive through recognising the woman’s autonomy is the best way to approach the topic.
Wonderful vid, obv.
At @ 1:30 I just wanted to add that "...the impact of the of the parents..." AND the impact on the child. We're mitigating unnecessary pain that the child will certainly go through a hostile setting. The reasons pile up.
Secondarily, I just discovered an experiment where children were asked to decide whether, in a fire, if you could, would you choose two dogs or one person, and the majority chose the dogs, whereas the adults w/ the same question almost always choose the human over 100 dogs.
I feel this highlights a cultural conditioning that plays a similar role in the abortion argument. Deeply ingrained that you feel the need to adopt certain frameworks.
They make the same basic argument in very different ways. If ollie just said "abortion is a form of killing we should defend" then his video would receive a different reaction to the more carefully couched way he frames it.
I disagree with your initial point that abortion is killing no matter when it happens. As you said, a fetus is a cluster of cells, not a person. By this logic, any form of surgery which removes a part of the body constitutes "killing." A finger is a cluster of cells, but if it gets infected and needs to be removed, we don't say we've "killed' the finger. The reason the point about the beginning of life is so contentious is that it's not self-evident that a cluster of cells that makes up a fetus constitutes an independent life. Rather, it's a growth of cells contained in a woman's body, which could be compared (in the most neutral way possible, just in terms of the textbook definitions of cellular growth) to cancer, or a cyst. We don't treat surgery to remove cancerous cells as the killing of an independent entity, it's a medical procedure removing a growth from the body that may be harmful to that body. By this definition, abortion is a medical procedure not dissimilar to surgery. It's an oversimplification to say that all abortion constitutes "killing" because that assumes a personhood for a cluster of cells contained within a fully-formed person who may want that cluster of cells to be removed before it can grow and cause greater harm to that person's life.
Philosophy Tube's video is unique in this conversation among leftists (not all leftists, as you rightfully point out, but certainly mainstream liberal and left-wing media, particularly in the U.S.) because he takes as a given the idea that life begins at conception and argues that abortion is nevertheless philosophically and morally acceptable. This is hypothetical, however, because it still very much matters to many involved in this debate whether or not a fetus is a person, so while it's an interesting thought experiment that might sway some away from anti-abortion positions, I still think it's a debatable and flawed position to assume all abortion is "killing," a narrative which only serves conservative anti-abortion arguments.
8:05 LMAO That big sip and blunt honesty made me an instant subscriber. Keep it up!
Fun fact: As I understand it, it is HIGHLY DISCOURAGED that people try rescuing drowning people unless they're actually trained to do it. Drowning people have very little control over themselves and their reflexive response (trying to grab at anything they can reach and use it to leverage themselves above the water so they can breathe) can very EASILY endanger someone swimming up to them to try to help them.
Hey, not sure if anyone is gonna see this but Philosophy Tube goes by she/her pronouns so if you’re writing a comment please use them.
Her perception as a man at the time is obviously important to the argument, and was a key factor in the reception. But it’s still important to respect her while still considering how her perception as a man as a part of the situation.
I feel like another factor contributing to this is also that those women were academics and activists while Ollie is an educator and entertainer.
The right is antagonist to educators and entertainers when they present ideas they dislike, but they generally just loathe the vast majority of academics and activists through and through because their very job description is exploratory in ways that threaten the status quo or to directly challenge the status quo and the academics are part of "intellectual elite" which for the rank and file of the rightwing is easy to demonize. Hell, there are average joes and janes that are apolitical or even leftwing that sometimes find academics unlikable.
This isn't Brazil. Keep abortion legal. Banning abortion defeats the entire point of family planning in the first place; Ready to have a kid? No? Okay, you have a kid when you're ready (if you ever want a kid).
Ouch! I wish abortion was legal here in Brazil :(
Vocês sabem q tem (teve sla) um plebiscito sobre aborto esses dias né?
@@whovianrusher7145 aquele sobre proibir até em caso de estupro, risco de morte etc? Ai que bom ser brasileiro né
@@whovianrusher7145 A Suprema Corte dos Estados Unidos diz o contrário. É necessária uma maioria de votos de 2/3 para fazer uma emenda.
(Traduzido do Google tradutor.).
Yara Zan esse mesmo, mas que dá muita inveja de diversos outros países
I cannot for the life of me place the accents at the beginning. How in hell do two islands in the middle of a frozen sea have fifty-million different accents.
This is the first time I've encountered this argument in a long time (I've mostly come around to it on my own since someone in the distant past pointed out the principle of bodily autonomy) and I love your presentation of it. I don't know how to spread this idea.
This video is great! I like your approach in making the lecture style very approachable with your posture, the drink, and the frequent cuts to relevant set and costume changes. The takes !! The presentation !!!
This help me put a finger on a thing that’s been bugging me for awhile.
Alot of Pro- life propaganda will post pictures of miniature art dolls of babies, claiming they are real aborted fetuses- or make arbitrary statements about what age a fetus can smile, or has a heartbeat-
And this all bugged me not just because it’s lazy- and often false manipulation,
But because- I didn’t think any of those things (ie cuteness, relatability) is what defines value in a life.
I found myself abit mad that these supposed fetus Groupies had such a shallow sense of value.
Like, I can see value and life in an amorphous potential.....
But that being said I don’t think decisions like abortion have anything to do with these factors and feelings.
Many Women can understand these reflections- that doesn’t mean they have to dictate their situations. It sometimes feels as if the full picture of logic, emotion, and reflection on future consequences that we form when we make a decision is what bothers the patriarchy-
As if we are meant to not only make life altering decisions purely on spur of the moment emotion..... but have the ‘correct’ and ‘approved’ emotions.
I relate to what you said a lot. Although, for a long time I never had a problem with abortion, but I just couldn’t put a finger on why. I never believed in an arbitrary point where the fetus isn’t alive, but I never could be against abortion.
This was awesome, and left me thirsty🍷
This channel is gonna BLOW UP soon, awesome content and deserves all the millions viewers to come. Cheers and keep up the good work
Interesting points but I largely disagree:
-I'm not convinced that the personhood argument is more popular than the bodily autonomy argument, as you claim. After, all, it's called being "pro-choice." The bodily autonomy argument is right in the name. It would be better to use statistics to show which argument is more popular rather than comparing 2 examples.
-I don't think misogyny is the reason that many prefer the personhood argument. I'm a strong feminist, but I think the personhood argument is more compelling since it removes the guilt associated with my actions bringing about the death of a person. To use your drowning man analogy, I might understand on an intellectual level that I'm justified in calling emergency services and walking away, but if the man dies and I didn't try hard enough to save him, I will be haunted with guilt for the rest of my life. In contrast, if a squirrel is drowning and I try to save it, I won't be wracked with guilt if it dies.
What are you saying? That killing a fetus is no different from killing a squirrel, morally speaking?
Here late and via Curio -- Awesome video, gained a subscriber. Totally agree with everything you said, and that it was a bit awkward for Ollie to claim his argument as novel, even if in the next scene it was clear he meant "you probably haven't heard this framing before" and not "I came up with this myself". To be fair to Philosophy Tube, he also made a bomb, well scripted, acted, and edited video designed to engage and entertain as well as argue/convince.
the thing that's hard is that the women that originally thought of these idea's are buried in history. Oliver did a great job digging up that stuff, but as "normal" person that is casually interested in politics, finding this kind of info can be pretty hard if you're not researching it thoroughly.
Cas Uh, Good Point!
Wow. Even 2 minutes in and Shonalika already holds my viewpoint on the whole matter....
I knew I was not the only one damnit!!
While your video didn't scare me horribly like philosophy tube's, you make some really insightful points and point out some very startling biases. Great video!
Some say life starts at conception, some at the moment of birth, and people can fall in between or even beyond those points. I think that the fact that this cut-off point is so subjective depending on your perspective, just proves that we should let people decide on their own where they want to set their own boundaries.
Not to mention that statistically speaking, banning abortions doesn't decrease the number of abortions in a country, it just means that now only the rich and powerful have access to proper medical care, while the rest of the country has to contend with a much higher risk of maternal death.
Life begins at conception is a well-established fact. It's not a matter of belief. The zygote is a living member of homo sapiens. It's a living human being right from the moment of fertilization
I feel like a lot of people when talking about this issue forget that when pro lifers discuss abortion they aren't thinking of the fetus as a person- they are thinking of the fetus as a *baby*. Your metaphors all involve two adults in a difficult situation and the legal precedent surrounding that, but the laws and moral conventions surrounding children are significantly different. The drowning scenario holds up the way you presented it, but imagine the person on the bank is a parent and the person in the water is their child. Now they're being convicted for child endangerment. You mention that the fetus's lack of agency and judgement is irrelevant, but those attributes are what make adults feel so strongly about the safety of young children in the first place. I don't disagree with you, but I feel this is an important aspect of the argument many fail to bring up.
As a woman with a minor in philosophy, Judith Thomson’s work was the first thing we talked about in my bioethics course’s abortion unit. I also think a closer analogy to the asking your friend to go swimming argument is taking your child swimming without their having a say, and then leaving them. The right also IS often opposed to all contraceptives. I mostly agree with you though.
I think the real question asked by this video is how Shonalika's wine keeps refilling
But also that was a sub well-earned!
I was getting happily drunk throughout this video and also spilled wine on myself, which was very helpful for the workflow
@@Shonalika Well, you're more articulate drunk than I am sober, so...
Big Joel also made this argument recently. Ollie didn't steal or take credit for an argument created in the 70s, you can point out the differences between the reactions towards his video and Sophie's, but neither are to blame for it. Misogyny exists we are all aware, but it didn't come from PhilosphyTube, who in fact quotes the og. While it might not have been your intention, I didn't really understand if the video was suppose to be humorous or not so I just took everything in it seriously.
Also while we can say men vs woman, we could also point out Olly and Sophie are popular for different reasons in different circles, they have a different platform and audiences.
This is the conceit of all large youtubers, if we're being honest. None of them are the creators of the trends/ideas they popularize, and those who do create are often ignored.
Plus, even if we like to ignore it or are usually apathetic about it, left tube is populated in large part by young adults who get most of their political notions from youtube videos. Entertainment value is king online, so people with snazzy/unique styles like Ollie or Contrapoints get way more clicks than the people they quote.
Thank you so much for playing this out for me. I always felt uneasy around this topic but you gave me a perspective that lets me think a lot clearer on it.
OMG THE BABY PART IN 8:14 FINALLY SOMEONE SAID IT
Absolutely psychotic.
The wording was different, but the bodily autonomy argument was actually what first converted me from active, outspoken pro-life activist to "I think it's immoral but should still be legal" back in 2014/2015. (I've come much further left since then)
Just wanted to say that I subscribed after seeing this, and I wish I'd seen this when it was first uploaded. This is a very well done argument, and I'm ashamed to say that it covers a part of the debate that I hadn't considered enough.
In South Africa, abortion is legal. However because of the social structures (such as tradition ethnic cultures, religious organizations etc.) People are still shamed for even considering it, they are also harrassed by health professionals . We don't just need to deal with government making laws to permit it, but the social structures need to be reformed as well.
"Ollie Thorn is a man!” isn't a statement that has aged particularly well, even though the point bring made is totally valid. The irony is pretty juicy.
Very happy to have been fed this by the RUclips algorithm. Well-informed, critical and nuanced.
I just feel if pro lifers felt it was a woman's duty to carry a baby to term as a consequence for having sex, then they should think the same of police officers. US officers aren't required to protect you from harm according to the ruling in Warren v District of Columbia. They don't actually have to come help you when you call them and say someone is trying to murder or rape you. You would assume that that these prolifers would be against this when police officers chose the profession, they chose to 'serve and protect'. Somehow I don't think that matters the same to them.
however we call it, it will always be a human abstraction, which will diverge depending on the background of each one. It will always be interesting to hear the definition and arguments of someone who will never have to break that decision.
algorithm, please show it to more people
One thing I'd like to add is that the depersonalizing of fetuses plays an important psychological role in the real-world justification process. Similar to how some societies with high infant-mortality rates might delay the naming of an infant until they are a few weeks or months old to make it easier for the parents to cope if the baby dies. In the same vein as the "you must see an ultrasound and pray 10 rosaries before you abort" laws one could imagine how macabre it would be to be forced to name the fetus you wish to abort. Obviously in a theoretical framework these things are irrelevant but humans are emotional creatures and I think it's important to think about how philosophy happens when emotions are involved.
Also if you're reading this GO WATCH CURIO'S VIDEO ON ABORTION IT'S INCREDIBLE.
Instead of referring to people capable of becoming pregnant as "women" might I propose the term "egg-layer"
(obligatory internet disclaimer that this is a j o k e)
As a trans man, I propose we call non-woman uterus-havers "Yoshis".
@@Queer_Nerd_For_Human_Justice love it
@@ceve ty lol
Connor Barkington On a completely unrelated note: I saw you answering to other comments in this comment section and just thought what nice of a name Connor is ! I really like it for some reason. Great choice.
@@wickedwonderland9831 Thank you!!
I watched Olly's video, your video and now also the video of Sophie Lewis which got so much backlash. The difference in reception might (next to the reasons you already gave) be due to the form of delivery. Olly's video is theatre, its the politization of art. Sophie just presented the political theory as it is.
Anyway, I am so glad I found your channel, you have won another subscriber!
The problem with the river argument is that your companion agreed to go swimming, the fetus didn't agree to be born
Except that really doesn't matter in terms of this analogy. Specifically because the point she is making with it is that the government can't force you to risk your health or your bodily autonomy, regardless of if you are technically responsible for the situation.
Trying to pick at some minor conceptual flaw that doesn't affect the underlying argument kinda makes you come off as pedantic.
@@all_thescience You gather tinder for a fire. Another brings a lighter. You both agree to start a fire. You two grow closer to each other because of the fire in this cenario, and the fire is a net positive- except there is a 1% risk of killing someone after starting the fire. If someone dies because of the fire, and the fire was unnecessary, wouldn't it be the fault of both people who started the fire? Why take the risk of killing something over something recreational and avoidable?
Aside from that, I do believe in a sense of duty to take care of the biologically human that you risked creating- I think the question is whether or not this duty should be enforced by the state, and I think not.
@@june4135 Your argument is doomer as hell and can only be taken to ridiculous logical conclusions. Uncountable number of things fall under this "recreational and avoidable" category and come with a non-zero risk of death. So are we just supposed to live in this completely unrealistic world where we only engage in things that are necessary and 100% safe? No, of course not. The answer then isn't to live in fear of that 1% chance, but to make sure people are informed about the risks and are properly taught how to do it safely. And in the cases where that fails, nobody should be stripped of their bodily autonomy as some kind of punishment for seeking out completely natural desires (between two consenting adults, yadayada please don't be disingenuous here). And this isn't even mentioning the part where sex is more than just some primitive pleasure button in any healthy relationship and countless amounts of science points to the numerous benefits it provides.
I'm glad that we at least agree that, regardless of the morals, the state should not be the one to enforce this kind of thing.
@@all_thescience I made a few assumptions. The first assumption would be that the fire killed somebody- this assumes that the two people would not want to pay two decades worth of rehabilitation for the injured person, so they instead just kill the person. Let’s define our statistics better. According to verywellmind.com, the average american has sex 80 times a year. According to guttmacher.org, “5% of reproductive-age women have an unintended pregnancy each year,” and of the unintended pregnancies, “18% of pregnancies were ‘unwanted’ ” in 2011. If I did my math correctly, there is about a .9% chance of having an unwanted pregnancy if you have sex 80 times a year.
Depending on your definition of “natural desire,” I believe some “natural desires” should have legal consequences, such as the “natural desire” to not pay your taxes, or the “natural desire” to steal, murder, and so on. A desire being in and of itself “natural” does not necessarily make it morally or legally correct. I do not believe a desire’s positive benefits outweigh the possible cessation of human life in classic moral theory. But I engage in such activity anyways. I am a hypocrite.
I refuse to ever entertain a conversation with someone about abortion - on the grounds of personhood. I never make that argument, (though I agree with you that even young babies could be considered 'not persons' - which is one reason why we shouldn't base legality/morality of a killing something/someone on its status as 'a person') AND if they start to try and have that argument with me I shut them down and steer the argument back to bodily autonomy. It's sad that its even something we have to argue for, but since we live in this hellworld, it's the only argument we should be making.
This video was very thorough and informative. Might I suggest a edit or an addition to the description or a pinned comment addressing how philosophytube’s gender was perceived at the time to be that of a cis man, since she no longer identifies that way?
Everything you said in this video is on point. I love it. I was taught about Thompson's arguments in my A-level RS class, and it completely changed my outlook for me: I was pro-life personally, but recognised that it wasn't my choice to make for other people, since they might draw the line of personhood differently; but then we read Thompson's article and I flipped to being unabashedly pro-choice. Why I wasn't taught these arguments earlier on is a mystery to me.
Oof watching this video after Abigail came out feels kinda wrong. I find the video very interesting so far but the clips from her video hit very weirdly now
Finished watching and I have to say thank you for broadening my horizons by pointing out my unconscious biases. A really good video