"Good Lord, I mean, this is concentration camp language. They look like humans, but they're not. They're Jews...". Peter was spot on with this analogy, that before people kill, they first dehumanize. Lord have mercy.
@@Mish844 The only folk lying here are pro-choicers with the lie that abortion doesn't kill a human being since it is not 'human' while in the womb. Keep on lying against science and yes, this argument still does hold up; were the victims of the holocaust not dehumanized?
I thought exactly the same. It really is just like the concentration camp commanders talked - and even wrote it down in their autobiographies, so we have receipts.
'Who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?' For a 'scientist' to reject the evidence of his own observation (that's called 'the scientific method') is to fail in his duty to himself as well as everyone else: _The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool._ (Richard Feynman to the 1974 graduating class of Cal Tech)
I am 100% pro-abortion, under whatever circumstances the ‘mother’ chooses to abort the pregnancy; however I do agree that these were poorly chosen words. It seems Adam Rutherford had not planned the delivery of his perspective well at all, and was noticeably unprepared for the arguments Peter Hitchens made.
I was the child in an unwanted pregnancy, whose mother considered her "options" when she found out she was pregnant with me. My right to live is as important as hers, and I am grateful that she chose life. From my perspective, the value of human life is simply that it's a human life. Period. I don't have to find a cure for cancer or be a world-famous violinist to be "worthy" of life. I could be a homeless woman, or a criminal. But I still have just as much right to make a go of it as the next person. [As it turns out, after 10 years in a group foster home, I went to live with my bio mom, finished high school, got a job, got another one, got married, adopted 3 kids, homeschooled them, and now teach high schoolers how wonderful this country is at a homeschool co-op.] Give kids a chance. It's literally the least we can do.
What an amazing lady you are ! What a loss to the world had you not been born. I was a couple of cells once. I had no potential other than to be a human person. None whatsoever.
I think the important point there is that no one forced your mother to do anything. It is very different when someone is forced to do something against their will.
@Lisa Woody very well said! Also most people aren’t born out of planned pregnancies. And I agree fully you don’t have to succeed in anything for the right to live! Tbh your only duty to this world is to contribute to the circle of life, your duty to humanity is to contribute to the reproduction of our species.
@AlwaysOutnumberedNeverOutgunned trust me that’s not the reason why Eu is sanctioning against you 😂 they’re sanctioning against your governments corruption, censoring of anything critical against the political party, the replacement of all high positioning jobs with political loyalists and the attempt to replace all the judges in your high court with their own political judges so they could force their own political will on your people and run the country like Russia. But I bet the polish propaganda machine wants to blame something else like your countries views on abortion. “If you don’t believe me try look at if there’s anything negative said about your government” on the media and check who runs all the news, the media etc… the only reason your government fail to ban the American news Chanel’- the only one that express criticism against your government is that America went in and said if you do there will be serious consequences. So the president put in his veto- I bet he pretend it was because he wanted to protect freedom of speech but he was actually forced to. You’re welcome 😄👍🏻
My nephew was a preemie-he was born at 24 weeks. He’s a happy, healthy, intelligent young man who I would be proud to call my son. The idea that in a large swath of the U.S. and “enlightened” West he could have had his skull penetrated with a surgical tool, his brains sucked out, and been abandoned in a pile of medical waste-legally and without second thought or debate-is abhorrent.
What does your nephew have to do with anything? Was abortion a possibility in the pregnancy? And that's not how abortions work, btw. So ty for the dishonesty there.
@@seraeirian2 The legal limit for abortions is 24 weeks in the UK and the pro abortionist in the video specifically makes the case that babies are not “people” at this age. Maybe try listening to the video?
Happy for you and your now healthy nephew. You didn't bring up why he was a preemie or what risk factors were involved. Was there a risk to the mother or child? Was their a chance that both would perish in childbirth? What about embryos that embed in fallopian tubes? do we just let those pregnancies run their course likely killing both mother and child?
thats a good point- its like a baby in the womb is the most precious life in the world or a problem to be killed depending on the whims of the mum, that doesnt seem very moral.
@@Si_Mondo Is "Foetus" Latin? If so, I wonder which nations still speak Latin. Not the Italians, nor the Spanish, nor the French. I understand you point though.
@@Si_Mondo True. Even if a fetus doesn’t classify as a baby, it’s still no excuse to kill it. Pro-aborts saying “A fetus isn’t a baby” as a valid argument to kill them is like saying “A baby isn’t a toddler” as a valid reason to kill them.
I listened to this debate more than ten years ago. Peter Hitchens really helped me rethink the issue. Specifically, he is right in the fact that a lot of dehumanisation takes place. People describe killing as a 'right over my own body'. They refuse even to admit that multiple bodies are involved. The language used is unbelievably skewed.
Whats interesting is they say "my body my choice" but as soon as you say "ok so your body your responsibility so feel free to choice any of the many contraception's and you wont have that unwanted pregnancy" they go nuts, funny how on the one hand its empowerment of women but on the other it's the escapism of all notions of personal responsibility that they deem inconvenient to selfish desire.
@@TimMartinBlogger He is extremely pessimistic, so pessimistic in fact that he really does not seem to believe in God's providence. I am not sure we as Christians can be so pessimistic, even though we all are from time to time considering the way things are moving to.
"They're capable of communication, they're capable of social interactions.." I used to teach at a special needs school. There was one kids who was, as far as anyone knew, was incapable of neither. He spent most of his days strapped to a restraint chair because he was violent and extremely strong, shitting and pissing and drooling for 8 hours a day. Adam would think he wasnt human i was the first teacher to really try to get thru to him. Taught him simple sign language, potty trained him, and had him eating lunch in the cafeteria by the end of the school year. Adams would think he suddenly became human.
@neal cassady Its crazy how you know so much about him and his future! This was about 10 years ago. I quit that job when I started a music school About 2 or 3 years later, I was visiting a different middle school to start a partnership with hem using grant money I got from the district. The principal was showing me around. GUESS WHO I BUMPED INTO?? The kid! He was walking around the hallways with an aide on the way back from the bathroom. He remembered who I was and gave me a hug. The principal told me how he was doing, he's in the special needs class. Eats lunch in the cafeteria. Knows more sign language. (I credit him with getting the deal signed because the principal loved our story) But other than that, yeah you're totally right he's definitely reverted
@neal cassady oh yeah and you're also right about people with downs. They're ALL going to end up end homes, sad and abandoned and confused. Like this guy, who testified in front of congress to attempt to convince the world that people like him deserve to live ruclips.net/video/vtS91Jd5mac/видео.html&ab_channel=MassachusettsDownSyndromeCongress You are 100% right that all of these people should be killed, immediately, because there's absolutely no hope for them and when they get old they will end up in homes, like other old people (who should also be killed, amirite?)
@neal cassady Sure well the problem isn't them, or their ability to handle stress. The problem is people who think they should be dead. In Iceland, there are almost no people with downs syndrome, because they kill them all. That's what the dude in that video I posted was talking about. America is becoming like Iceland, and people are killing down syndrome babies because they think they'll have a hard life or just plain don't want to deal with them. Eugenics is nazi level evil. Killing people because they are "defective" is not merciful or good for the gene pool. It's evil.
@@mike990 are you saying that this boy should have been killed? His life before I met him was the way it was because of people like you. People who thought he was worthless, didn't deserve to live, and didn't bother to find out how to reach him and bring him into society. He was being mistreated and no one cared because in their eyes he wasn't a real person. Last time I saw him he was able to communicate, socialize with his classmates, use the bathroom on his own, he remembered who I was after THREE YEARS. The level he was at when he was 10-11 set him up to make incredible progress. He's probably 18 or 19 now, and if he didn't find the misfortune to have any more people like you in his life, he's probably doing great.
His point about "dehumanising" the target really hit home. My God, this is EXACTLY what is happening. Proponents of abortion HAVE to do this to avoid looking at the appalling moral cesspit they're swirling around in. It's a "thing", not a human being.
The same argument, only in reverse, can be made about anti-abortionists. They invariably OVER-HUMANIZE an appendage in a woman's womb that has the POTENTIAL of becoming a human being, but at that stage is NOT. On what planet is it moral to bestow more rights on an as yet undeveloped entity with no name, no intellectual capacity, no emotions, no personality, and no footprint upon the earth than on a fully formed woman? The self-righteous anti-abortionist yahoos are treating the fully formed woman as though she doesn't even exist as a human being but merely as an incubator for the state. That is absurd! Also, consider that most anti-abortionists are invariably conservative and vehemently anti-government, yet they have no problem with government sticking its nose into a woman's womb and forcing her to give birth, regardless of the circumstances of the woman or the conditions of her pregnancy.
It's not about when "life" begins dear, a human spermatozoa is a unicellular life that is capable of surviving outside the body. Does this therefore mean that using a condom is an act of GENOCIDE ? 🤣😅 everything you eat was once "life" does that mean that one should not eat ?? Of course not. If you have your appendix taken out or a biopsy are you murdering that clump of cells ?? The real question is when does this "life" become conscious, feel pain ect and become a "human" this most certainly does NOT occur at conception. At what specific point in the process does the zygote become sentient without neurons or a brain ? Can you define it down to the individual stages of mitosis prophase prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, or telophase???? How may cells does it require for you to be able to diferentiate this blastocyte from a human "life" ? Perhaps its when the chorion develops around the blastocyte or when the inner ones become the amnion?? Or maybe when this becomes an embryo and we begin to see the beginnings of the internal organs ?? Or later when we first see the neural tube that will EVENTUALLY become the brain and the spinal column even though they do not become fully developed until the end of the pregnancy ???? How many specific neurons does this brain need before it attains consciousness in your subjective opinion?? Does it only class as life at 24 weeks when it becomes viable outside the uterus ?? Ect ect ect These are difficult questions don't get me wrong. But one thing is for certain, the percieved whims of anyone's subjective imaginary "God" are irrelevant to the discourse.
@@trumpbellend6717 A spermatozoa does not survive outside the body. It dies unless cryogenically preserved. But is unimportant, it is not dividing and multiplying. The process of life is cellular growth and multiplication. When this process is begun we have life. Your comment about condoms and sperm being genocidal is absurdly stupid. A sperm cell alone cannot become a human being. Didn’t you learn that in basic high school sex ed? Remember, it’s when the sperm meets the ovum that the zygote cell begins to multiply exponentially. Sorry to have to teach you the basics of reproductive biology. Even Reece Witherspoon made that mistake in Legally Blonde, therefore I guess we can forgive you as well.
Amen to that. Christians need to be as passionate as Peter. They shouldn't be bullies, but they should be rightfully indignant as to the position that pro-abortion people defend.
Not just Christians. I'm an agnostic and I am pro-life. All pro-lifers need to stand their ground and argue strongly and persuasively against the murder of the unborn.
Damn I gotta admit Peter made me laugh when he said “ Good Lord, this is the concentration camps all over again, they look like human beings but they’re not they’re Jews” wow what a powerful funny way to put that just remarkable
And you self-righteous, rabid anti-abortionists are incapable of seeing how much this has the look and feel of a concentration camp, with government being so authoritarian that it can force every woman to give birth, regardless of the circumstances of that woman and her pregnancy. You probably hate the very idea of government asserting itself into our private lives, yet you seem to have no problem with giving government the authority to intrude into the private life of every woman, bestowing more rights on an as yet nameless, miniscule zygote, embryo, or fetus than on the actual fully formed woman in whose womb it is still an appendage and could not possibly survive on its own.
Two of the most heartbreaking things I've heard that throws into sharp relief just how differently people value and respect life - a family having a funeral after the wife miscarried and a woman who would not have her own child due to medical reasons, watching a pro-adoration rally on the news saying, "They want to throw in the garbage what I can't have."
Also, if a fetus isn't human we should be ok to go around and kick pregnant women in the guts... It's not human so why are you upset when I kill your fetus? The argument is absolutely bonkers
When talking about seeing an abortion, where the baby is literally ripped apart, and removed, he says it looks like a human in every way, but it's not. What a sick way of thinking!
Right.. That MF is dangerous.. As he just described what a mass murder thinks. Just before they take your life! It's insane how academia has fallen to such depths.. It's barbaric in the 21st century that people can think in those terms...It shows how morally bankrupt they really are. And 40 years ago. We would put people like him in prison for crimes against Humanity...To protect the public from such monsters..
It would be the same species as me, but if it hasn't become conscious, I don't see why you would care about it anymore than a stone. If being something would feel like something, then we should probably care about it.
I agree, he's a true master. Like a skilled pugilist. His tone and inflection never change, he just calmly and politely dismantles these arguments. I envy people with this level of control over their emotions
Yes. Now then, he mentioned that adoption is preferable to abortion, and since you think he is so incredible and agree with him so deeply, how many children have you adopted? How many children are you currently fostering? How much of your money do you donate to orphanages? How much of your time do you spend volunteering to help orphans? Or should I just assume that you ignored that part, and you don't have any interest in actually doing something about all the unwanted children, you just want to control what others can do by forcing your morality on them?
He’d be a fine nazi general getting his medal from hitler for dehumanizing a group of people. You think Germans were awful for going along with mass genocide well humans haven’t changed much in history.
He needs to study fundamental genetic theory: Has a human being ever given birth to anything other than another human being? Then the unborn child is human
Despite previously saying that there is no scientific consensus on when a foetus becomes human, he can categorically state that it isn't. He hasn't even got a consistent argument!
@@margokupelian344 I truly don’t know because I see these young women screaming on the streets like vampires thirsting for the blood of their own children. It’s just pitiable and so sad. Satan is really desperate.
I used to believe the 'clump of cells' thing for years into adulthood. Then I saw an unsanitised video of the procedure and the aftermath and was absolutely horrified. It showed what was clearly a tiny human in pieces in a medical dish. The surgeon rinsed the blood etc off the body parts. It was genuinely unsettling, like looking at a horrific murder scene. Which it was.
All surgeries invoke that same emotion. Lots of blood, lots of bone, etc. The same feeling you get if you see a natural abortion or the damage a teenager will do to her body to abort an unwanted pregnancy or if she commits suicide. They are pretty ugly too.
You still have not made a good argument for changing your view, just because it looks like a miniature child and bleeds doesn't mean it is classed as alive, remember that those clump of cells are following a biological instruction book and for the first several chapters are nothing more than a clump of dividing cells regardless of recognisable features, it is only the last few chapter and specifically when the brain switches on that it is a individual with a conscious state, we can measure this point accurately and it occurs about 24 weeks , no coincidence the global norm for abortion cap is 24week or just below.
I wish people would stop calling pro-abortionists "pro-choice" as if to say pro-life advocates are against choice. We simply recognize that the choice was made prior to conception, and that murder is an unacceptable method of birth control.
Would war and genocide be considered birth control. If so, then an individual has the right to abort their own child for whatever reason esp if they do not have the adequate resources to care for it properly or out of wedlock. So they shouldn't have sex out of wedlock. Thus, shouldn't have a child. The rational mind based on the history of the world, past and present say do not procreate at all. Problem solved.
@@justinm4497 Agreed, and that's why I get frustrated that the parties that are in OPPOSITION to this use their terms. Of all the things to never surrender, language is top.
I saw my son yawn four or five months before he was born. This is the same day she identified my child as a boy. I still have the ultrasound on VHS videotape (yes, videotape). That same heart that I saw beating on that monitor is the same heart that is in Jonah's chest beating to this day. Could anything be more self-evident?
@@jackieo8693 obviously not but all mammals yawn. This topic is full off enough missi formation and a real lack of scientific rigour. Bringing anthropomorphism into it doesn't strengthen your argument in my opinion.
@@patdavey7187 well all he is saying is that it's not a blob of cells. You're being unscientific if you think a human fetus isn't human. What else is it? A walrus?
@@patdavey7187 Good thing it's your opinion because it is based off fake science. They, the babies, feel pain when they're being killed in the womb. Have you seen the reactions of the babies being killed in the womb? You might want to because it humanizes them. A baby still in the womb is very sentient.
"I don't think they are humans even though they look like human beings". THEN WHAT ARE THEY? I love the way he pushed back on it without mercy. Because it's a stupid position to take.
The most ironic thing about those abortionists is that the so much love children. There is a war in Ukraine now and they keep talking about poor children dying in Ukraine but they kill unborn babies. So ,,unborn baby is less important than an adult but born baby is more important that an adult" okey yeah it doesn't make any sense.
@@gazlives eugenics started in America in the late 19th century, hitler merely adopted it and his cabinet attempted to put it into practice. You’re right, just adding more context.
The way Adam Rutherford said that he has worked with aborted fetuses before and didn't see that they are human is quite shocking. Adam's argument from my understanding is that a baby below the 24 week mark is incapable of consciousness, which is a faulty argument and can be proven incorrect if he watches an abortion video because you see the baby fighting to survive. He forgets that he was also a fetus as well.....
@@liljade53 I have a science degree myself. I realized that most university students are idiots. Who claim to know more than they really do. Everyone is a fucking expert these days.
@@lettersquash I just watched the movie Gosnell. They're out there doing it. Gosnell got away with atrocities because his clinic was not inspected for at about a decade. He was aborting babies up to 32 weeks! There's also a documentary about him called 3801 Lancaster: An American Tragedy.
Pro abortion people always seem to think that somehow “enduring” a pregnancy brought on by my own choices is somehow worse than being murdered. Being pregnant is not deadly. Abortion is deadly nearly 100% of the time. It really is child sacrifice on the altar of convenience. Anyway he makes excellent points! Thank you for posting.
By your own choice? So if the contraception fails, it's your fault? If the guy puts the condom wrong, it's your fault? If he removes it before cumming, it's your fault? Gtfo
"Pro abortion people always seem to think that somehow “enduring” a pregnancy brought on by my own choices is somehow worse than being murdered." -No, they don't. "Being pregnant is not deadly." -It most certainly _can_ be. Abortion has been cited as being 14x safer than giving birth. "Abortion is deadly nearly 100% of the time." -But the "victim", is merely a sack of meat... " It really is child sacrifice on the altar of convenience." -It's so pathetic how you pro-lifers are apparently incapable of formulating any arguments that don't rely on euphemisms, and dysphemisms.
A female and her partner always have a choice…they can choose to not sleep together. If they don’t want children, then they should’ve chosen not to be intimately involved. That’s the time to make a choice: before the act. No one is taking that choice away. Why this choice isn’t exercised is due to a lack of morality and an increasing drive away from responsibility.
This takes me back to the many hours I watched Christopher Hitchens destroy his opponents in debates with his incredible rhetorical skills. I ended up strongly disagreeing with him on many things and returning to Catholicism, but I can’t deny he made me laugh out loud MANY times. Peter acts just like his brother here and runs circles around this Adam. Good to have a Hitchens on our side! Thanks for sharing!
I think the character of both is very different. In my teens, I loved to watch debates with Christopher Hitchens, but rewatching his video's kind of makes me feel annoyed. Some of his arguments for atheism were clever and original, but for the most part it was just rhetorics. The whole idea that thinking scientifically requires abandoning religion is really not backup by much at all. Especially when it comes from someone whose 'rationalism' led him to embrace extreme ideologies from time to time.
Absolutely. I loved watching Christopher Hitchens although I know some catholic priests who could have calmly dismantled his arguments. They were never given the opportunity on TV
The difference between the brothers Hitchens is that for all of Christopher's rhetorical skills he lacked the one thing that his brother Peter has in abundance and that is WISDOM!
The best part IMO starts at 6:45 - "Good Lord this concentration camp language!" - Hitchens sees the perfect opportunity to go for the jugular and leaves Rutherford reeling..
I'm so glad I found this video. I never knew of Peter Hitchens - only his brother, Christopher. So glad to hear the Hitchens' intellect on the correct side of the discussion!
‘I’ve dealt with aborted foetuses and they are not human beings’ I truly think any balanced rational person who heard that statement knows intrinsically that statement is false whether pro abortion or not . Truly disturbing stuff
People who are in favour of abortion care about the well being of babies (and the adults that they eventually will grow into) and so they realize that a fetus whose mother do not wish it being born, is likely to experience both a pregnancy and upbringing that will inflict damage upon their physical and mental health. This is not about wanting to have the lisence to "kill babies" on some kind of sosiophatic ground. If anybody is involved with dehumanizing in this matter, its Peter Hitchens and they way that he is refusing to acknowledge that the intention of pro-abortionists is to spare a future human being what is most likely going to be a less than optimal childhood development.
@@arkroyalrifemoonbasealpha6101 And what about what i wrote do you think is rubbish? The statement that the intention of pro-abortionists is one born out of empathy?
"Fetuses aren't human" but then to say "abortion shouldn't be freely avaliable to everyone" well why not? If fetuses aren't human and there's nothing morally wrong with abortion then why shouldn't they be freely available or do you recognise there is some evil going on?
its the common conundrum. I've argued with people that say 24 weeks is great because "consciousness", but the record for a preterm baby surviving is 21w0d. So consciousness can't be a criterion for "person-hood". They often talk about an unborn person being worth less than the mother and that a "fetus" is not a person until they are born. They then pull back when you bring up late term abortion because it is rare. Well so is abortion for rape, but you hear that argued often. If abortion is ethical in saving the mother's life, then it is ethical at any point up to birth. Why do they get so uncomfortable admitting this? One person told me it is because it is "close" to being a person, its "mostly developed". It is either a person or not. If the argument is that you need to be a "person" to have basic human rights, then they shouldn't run from this position. They realize when pushed that their position might just border on them behaving monstrously. That is even before you get to the eugenics arguments veiled in compassion. It is better to be terminated than born severely disabled. Because for some reason it is better to die than experience suffering.
What you choose to call the fetus, or what you actually think it is, is a moot point. Nobody has the right to exploit someone else's body against their will, even if their life depends on it. It's as simple as that.
@@darcymr353 Do you think we should disband CPS and abolish child welfare programs and public schooling? What gives post-birth children any claim on adults for support?
@@darcymr353 You wrote that nobody has the right to exploit someone else's body against their will, presumably referring to requiring mothers to use their bodies to keep their children alive even against their will. I am curious whether you believe adults shouldn't be required to keep their children alive after birth.
The college I attended in the early 70’s after Roe vs Wade taught us that abortion was a ‘simple medical procedure’ completely benign and acceptable. Today, I am having to live with the decision, I and another made so long ago.
I love that man. The only thing I would’ve done differently is this: when the opposition (I don’t remember or care what his name is) said he wasn’t suggesting that abortion be used as a method of contraception, I would’ve asked him, ‘why not?’ If its not a human, as he so ignorantly proclaimed, what would be wrong with “aborting” every single non-sentient “fetus”, in a consequence free world where everyone could have sex any time they please, and simply dispose of the bi-product with an abortion if they choose?
N a depraved world devoid of morality, that'd b just fine. But n a morally upright individual living n a society revolving around morality, the slaughter of another individual is viewed as what it is, abhorrent, evil, and grotesque. Because that's what killing someone just because u want to is.....evil.
If they can force you to put something in your body for the common good they can forcibly take something from your body. Overpopulation , abortion for the common good , China did it , dehumanise the baby enough and you can justify the most abhorrent acts
In the 1950s it was almost unknown for school children to have sexual intercourse. If any teacher was to suggest that they should ‘ experiment’ such a teacher would have been sacked and been lucky not to have been charged with outraging public decency. It is an indication of how low society has fallen that there is no concept of ‘public decency’ any longer.
When you reach puberty it's completely normal to want to start having sex. That's a biological imperative for our species. Contraception is available, so why the need for a 1950's puritanical stance on normal development?
@@OGRE_HATES_NERDS no its not...the destruction of the family has all been planned by the people u cant talk about who implemented pheminism...got pawn passed by govts...enacted affirmative action wahmen friendly courts no fault div and abor on demand.....weak family values and dest eth nick and so shall cohesion...hello new/wo
He hit the nail on the head when he compared the morality of the pro-choice point of view to the Nazi point of view. I was just thinking today that perhaps it is this lack of morality, that has become so common in our culture, that is the root of so many of our problems, including mass shootings. When you don't see people for who and what they are, who Jesus told us we are, you can do anything you want to them. Thanks for all the great videos and interviews. Really enjoy your channel.
I think that the bible(new testament) dehumanizes people that reject the idea of a Christian God and or do not acknowledge Jesus as their savior. Being human to christians is of less value than being a christian. The supposed moral high ground of christians is at the very least pretentious.
I'm not religious but I 100% agree with your view. The loss of religion is a major part of the problem. Human societies need structures & boundaries. The left are constantly removing all boundaries and look where we've arrived. Now they're pushing the boundary of paedophilia with new language - MAPs. No. Get lost with that. They are pedophiles. We need to kerp that loaded, repulsive term and not allow the left to 'humanise' it with neutral sounding language. Resist it at every step. I am certain that is where they are headed.
The Nazi's were impressed with the Democrats back in the day. They also sent letters to Democrat governors saying they believed that Jim Crow was going too far. These people who believe they are moral are the same as the people who impressed with a Regime that committed Genocide.
He says he's not advocating for abortion to be used as contraception, but why not? If it's not alive or him, then what's the problem? Why not have them all the time, for any reason? The fact he says this means he knows there is something unmoral about it, but won't admit it.
@@liamgross7217 I love how Christopher used to believe in weapons of mass distraction and egged on the appalling illegal Bush/Blair war in Iraq, that lead to the deaths of 1million innocent men, women and children! What an unfoolish Goliath of morality he was.
@@queent3343 I think “piffle” here refers to the suggestion that we should kill people because they might be born into poverty. “Piffle” could also refer to the phrase “forced to have a baby”.
@@queent3343 *bring a child into poverty because you're forced to have a baby* So we should kill the baby because he is "brought into poverty"? I thought we were all about caring for the poor?
I’m glad we are finally mocking the abortion position. Most of their advocates are closing off all discussion. They are right, and we can just kick rocks. If they won’t listen, the position deserves to be mocked.
I find most of the arguments used to defend abortion to be really bad or indeed somewhat ridiculous. Most of them try to circumvent the core moral issue, which is the killing of human life in the womb. It is interesting how people always refer to rape or incest, as if you can defend a general 'right' by appealing to specific, more compelling cases.
@@lara2937 Wouldn't you agree though that abortion is not only about a woman's body, but also about the body which is growing inside her? If so, why do you phrase your reaction in the way you did?
"They look like them, they resemble them physically, but they're not human beings." So, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then its a whale.🤷🏻♂️
This is actually a wonderful demonstration of pro-abortion sophistry. It's amazing how the wool has been pulled over our eyes. Even for those of us who are pro-life, oftentimes we don't know the true extent of the horror. It wasn't until I heard testimony from a former abortionist about the procedure that I was passionately convicted.
The media will never discuss abortion procedures in detail. I think something similar happens in the case of transgender surgery. Since when has amputating perfectly healthy body parts become acceptable medical practice?
"It wasn't until I heard testimony from a former abortionist about the procedure that I was passionately convicted." -This is an appeal to emotion fallacy.
@@NotSure723 ha what? ..so to hear the truth of the procedure from an abortion practitioner is an "emotional" appeal.....?? I would have thought that the more information one has about a subject the less emotional/irrational one would be??
@@kaizershozei8720 "..so to hear the truth of the procedure from an abortion practitioner is an "emotional" appeal.....??" -Yes. Just because something is yucky, doesn't explain why it should be banned.
Iceland and the Netherlands I think it was claimed to have eliminated downs syndrome. The truth is they exterminated all those people with downs syndrome. Monsters.
yep, eugenics are absolutely normalised in the UK and sadly in many other countries as well only the usage of the word is not quite so accepted yet, if only because of past associations
@@teacup3133 "Oh, that's right, it isn't a child unless I say so." -Kind of like how pro-lifers say it is a child, unless _they_ say so? It's soo pathetic how you pro-lifers have to rely on euphemisms and dysphemisms for seemingly all of your arguments...
Peter deserves a better introduction than “Christopher Hitchens brother”. He is an intellectual giant, and would have been even more popular than his brother had his views on religion and politics been left of center like Chris’s.
Yes, Peter is great. A talented family. I really liked Christopher Hitchens, though I disagreed with him on almost everything. I'm sorry that he's gone, he was quite a character. Peter however has always been the more clear headed of the two for my money. Always made more sense.
If abortion is not the ending of a human life, why would Rutherford say that he doesn’t believe abortion should be available on demand? Hitchens should have called him out on that.
Many years ago G.K Chesterton wrote an essay on the evils of euphemisms which is the lifeblood of our current political system. I would strongly encourage anyone that watched this video to read this essay. He predicted much of what we are witnessing today. It is wildly refreshing to listen to an intellectual who simply has neither the time nor patience for the evil euphemisms that has supported the atrocity of abortion for the past 50 years and simply shoves the lie right back in the face of the one uttering them. I am especially glad the topic of sex education was broached near the end of the video. The euphemism that apparently angered Chesterton the most was "birth control". I envision he was somewhat like Hitchens who despised cowards that hide behind euphemisms. Chesterton wanted the intellectuals who were advocating for birth control in his era to simply refer to it as what it actually is "birth prevention to remove the responsibility of control". BTW I think my new favorite word is "piffle"
An anti-abortion position is an incredibly easy position to hold, because it’s self-evident that unborn children are human beings, and that killing them is evil.
@@fishwatch8677 Putting aside that reassertion hardly counts as jsutification, but ok. For starters what I don't understand - am I to get from this that merely having biology like DNA of a human is sufficient to have that protection, even without personhood? Because it sets a dangerous precedense. None. Not that it's relevant, but you wanted to know.
@@Mish844 Yes, that’s precisely what you’re to get from it. People have sex, which creates new human life. Given time and nutrients, that new life will become a person. As Peter Hitchens points out, the personhood argument is ridiculous because personhood is social, and a human child in the womb obviously can’t be social. Tell me why this sets a dangerous precedent?
@@fishwatch8677 Betting that protection merely on biological criteria of life has 2 weird consequences - it invalidates concept of a soul, because all it takes to be a full human is a sack of meat, but more importantly even cancer cells are seperate life form coming from human. I sure hope you're ready to suck up the consequences of your position and defend the claim that chemo is murder.
I’m a Mormon, not a catholic, but I do thank God that we agree on the importance of protecting the unborn. I’m grateful that you all have the courage, faith and decency to maintain your doctrine.
@@Paul-ts5qw Fair question, and I'll reply in good faith. (1) For the purposes of the comment, the intended meaning of the term God is fairly clear- God refers to God the Father, His son Jesus Christ and the Holy spirit. Now, Catholics and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints (technical name as opposed to 'mormons) have disagreements in regards to trinitarian doctrine, with Catholic doctrine espousing 3 God's in one being (more or less) and 'Mormon' Doctrine espousing 3 God's united in purpose but not being. (2) As for how we decided on what we believe, I suspect that every person's answer would vary. Personally, I believe what I do based on what I believe to be interactions with God and evidences of him.
@@josepetersen7112 "Catholic doctrine espousing 3 God's in one being (more or less)." A minor correction about Catholic doctrine. We believe in one God, who is 3 persons. That sounds strange because we have no suitable analogy in our own experience. But it's not a contradiction. We as humans have one person with one being (substance). But God is three persons with one being (substance). That doesn't mean there are three Gods, however.
It's an interview from 2012, that's why. It was around about 2012 that the woke cancer became mainstream and destroyed the ability to have rational debates. Now if you disagree with anyone from the left you are racist or a white supremacist or something and shut out of any conversation, and possibly fired from your job.
I like Peter's direction towards the end. I agree that a better moral society would value human life in the womb and in doing so value responsibility so as to confine the privilege of sex within a stable marital relationship in order to be able to potentially take on the wonderful responsibility of raising children in a nurturing home. It's where a good moral society needs to be. Having sex anytime anywhere with anyone while may serve immediate joy and needs. In the long run it can help feed addictions and behaviors that destroy lives. Especially the unborn.
the destruction of the family has all been planned by the people u cant talk about who implemented pheminism...got pawn passed by govts...enacted affirmative action wahmen friendly courts no fault div and abor on demand.....weak family values and dest eth nick and so shall cohesion...hello new/wo
It almost seems like abortion is a scam to empower promiscuous, irresponsible men. Abortion removes the obvious consequence of casual sex. Men who have no desire or intention to be a husband or father can simply have careless sexual relations with as many women as they can seduce or trick into being with them, secure in the idea they can assure the women that abortion will remove any consequences. Rather than empowering women, abortion makes it that much easier to sexually exploit them.
@@dongilleo9743 men are naturally inclined to want sex with wahmen thats nature...the smnake has seen to it that their minds are filled with sx images at the click of a few buttons...it ensures they wont be thinking about rev oh lution or fighting back against the push for digee tal en slay v meant..at the same time wahmen have been empowered by the state and media and have access to 1000s of mehn via media and no social consequences unlike 60+ years ago..all part of the plan
If they're not human, what the hell are they, baby murderer? A fetus is an unborn human child, claiming otherwise is just insane. These murderers need to dehumanize the child so they can sleep at night while supporting murder.
Because these days anyone who identifies as a Christian (as I do) is automatically branded a bigot. All views are to be tolerated (an interesting concept tolerance but that’s for another day) except for the Christian worldview which is to be mocked and derided as much as possible.
I know a couple who think abortion in the UK before 24 weeks is fine. The other day they were horrified to see a woman who had a T-shirt proudly claiming she had had 21 abortions! Immediately, i felt the urge to ask "what's wrong with that? Surely, if one is OK, why not have as many as you like?"
The old idea is that it's okay to have them as long as you feel bad about it, which will presumably make them 'rare'. It's ridiculous logic, of course, because why are you doing something you 'feel bad' about? You obviously know it's wrong. Today, they know that is illogical, so instead they celebrate the fact.
But Peter didn't win it either when he played the Religious tyranny card. He lost all credibility at that point by suggestion we don't have sex outside of marriage On one hand he called Adam a Nazi but then went full authoritarian with his Religious views. Both men are wrong in this debate, that's why the abortion debate is so complex.
@@Tinywars this is called the Fallacy fallacy: if Hitchens had made a fallacy (in this case as you noticed, the Appeal to Authority fallacy during the debate, using Religion as the authority) you discredit the rest of his position. Just because he made a fallacy during the course of his argument, does not mean there is no point of substance within the argument. Also, your comment started seeping into the Personal Incredulity fallacy at the end. You state that both men are wrong in the debate, that is why the debate is so complex. You did not list why both men were wrong at all, you merely stated your opinion. This is in line with the fallacy, in that you are essentially stating “I did not understand either position because they are too difficult to understand, therefore both positions are wrong and the debate is so complex.” Also another note, Hitchens did in fact concede that human systems are not non-fallible and that there will always be those who go against the majority (11:30). So it seems you did in fact not understand Hitchens position and appear to have a bias against him.
@@kevinpaap2890 Agreed Kevin, he is committing his own fallacies all over the place. One more thing on the dismantling of "both men are wrong, that's why the debate is so complex" - not only did he not state why both men are "wrong", as you pointed out, but two men being "wrong" does not in itself make a debate complex.
I was hit by a car and disabled when I was seven. The opinion of my family is that people with disabilities are "useless burdens" that take resources away from the strong, the ones who deserve everything, so therefore we victimize the able-bodied. This is a common perception. I've received a lot of discrimination publicly and for the most part people just look the other way. I think they are thinking, "well, she probably deserves it" and "I won't get any social cred for doing something so why bother?" It doesn't surprise me that parents were giving their disabled children to the nazis to be euthanized and that even today nobody cares about that segment of the population they killed/steralized.
@@mike-cc3dd I can’t laugh when I consider the consequences. The arbitrary and self-serving distinction between person and human is the root of so much unfathomable evil.
Agreed. I listened to the entire debate, and it becomes pretty clear that Rutherford is not a bad or dim person, but he lacks a considerable amount of self-awareness, and has never reflected his own narrow beliefs from a philosophical or logical point of view.
@@jean-baptistedupont5967 I have to disagree. If holding such positions doesn’t make one bad, then what does? Just because one might be affable, polite, or able to debate well does not make one good.
@@CMVBrielman I see what you mean, and yes, I think it is true what you say. It's nonetheless interesting to see in his case a classic example of not having thought through what his convictions will inevitably lead to (in this case euthanasia, infanticide and the moral bankruptcy of an entire society.) So those consequences are all evil and bad, but often such evil is brought on not by a conscious attempt of being or doing evil, but by a simple lack of self-awareness and failing to connect dots. In the debate itself it becomes rather clear that Rutherford has simply never really thought about many of the slogans used by pro-abortionists, he has heard those all his life and takes them for granted. Besides that many of his shortcomings are probably also due to his young age, and Hitchens' life experience is severly showing.
“At what point does a fetus become a human being?” Like it was a dog or a fish at some point? Was the DNA not always human DNA? The total lack of logic there is dumbfounding.
Well sperm has human DNA. Eggs have human DNA. You don't mourn a wank or period. What something is capable of BECOMING is not the same as what it now IS. Even when sperm and egg unite, there is a long way to go before we can rationally call the result a "person" worthy of the same rights as human adults, like, for example, its mother.
@@lettersquash Except that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness”. In other words, the very basis of our republic says we have a right to life from conception that can’t be taken or surrendered, and these basic facts were simple laws of nature according to our brilliant founders. To try to say anything other than we have the right to life from conception as a basic fact would be to say our right to life is a privilege granted by the government, which would make us all slaves rather than sovereigns. You can be a slave if you want to, but my government derives any powers it has from my consent. You are right about one thing though, what something is capable of becoming is irrelevant, because after egg and sperm unite, it is a unique human life, independent from mother and father, a completely new creation, endowed with the right to life.
Always amazing to listen to these arguments. Pro abortion side always argues for points thats are situational true or false. Abortion is ok because they aren't sentient. But people in comas aren't abortive?
It's preferable to deal with human behaviour based on reality rather than beautiful articulated moral principles. Reality is: - We are not perfect. Unwanted pregnancy is happening. - If abortion is illegal, it´s happening in the basements. And that is not pro-life, belive me... It's frankly disgusting to think you know better than the woman herself. Who can decide better what should happen to her body? She shall ofcourse have support from society in the her decision. Here in Sweden, abortion is free to week 18, after that you need permission. After 21 weeks and 6 days, abortion is illegal because at that time, the fetus can survive outside the womb.
@@patiole1 Yeah and thats still wrong, the whole oh, now it can survive outside the womb does not alter the value of the baby itself, literally one day it can be killed no consequences, the next day its illegal, its just stupidity.
i'm not religious at all but always been curious how people use the 'my body my choice' argument. where exactly does this choice start or end. choose not to have the sex, choose to use contraception, choose to abort at 1 month, 6 months, 9 months! it's always arbitrary depending on the whims of the day.
Peter Hitchens is a modern day hero. We're in a battle for the family and life.. we need to argue for the truth as strongly as Peter and leave the rest to Christ.
“What characteristics of a single cell fertilized egg are human?” “…well, all of them as far as I can see.” 😂👌🏻 For some reason, Peter’s plainly common sensical response amused me. What a reasonable person plainly sees by instinct, is that potency is a type of being. Potency is not nonbeing. It is not nothing. Human *beings* are composites of act and potency from the moment of conception until death. The sophists use linguistic trickery to present potency as nonbeing and therefore valueless. They arbitrarily select when particular potencies are brought into act as the defining moment of when being human begins,. But the fact is that the zygote is irreducibly human and alive, and therefore possesses the right to life that is particularly human in virtue of his or her human nature - a human with potential, not potentially human.
Yes, Aristotle's account of all living things is the most powerful tool for understanding life, including human life. A living thing cannot be understood without considering the ways in which it is a particular expression of its genus and species; and how the individual living thing is an ONGOING or process-like actualisation of the potentials specific to the genus and species. Human living being is a process. It is not a chemical reaction with an artificial starting point. This is the basis of my own objection to the disgusting practice of abortion and to the rights-obsessed liberals who lack the insight to see themselves as they are, dull witted killers.
Love Mr. Peter Hitchens, God bless you for carrying the Christian banner...and yes killers always dehumanize their victims first...as someone who has been attacked a few times in my life, yes it is horrifying to look into your attacker's eyes and realize they do not see you...
"yes killers always dehumanize their victims first" -Nonsense. There is nothing about the pro-choice position that says or implies that fetuses are not human.
This is great, I return to this every time I am feeling a bit down to get a good laugh at Adam Rutherford nonsensical position. :) All hail Peter Hitchens the great and powerful logician!!
idk about you but i think planned pregnancy is better than unplanned. i think alot of the globes problems could be solved at the family level... i think its bad parents that create the cycle of peril humanity faces over and over again. im not for killing children, i'd rather a fetus be aborted than a human be born and raised to be less than their potential. atm u can legally have an abortion 4 months into the pregnancy, for me thats too far into it. at 6 weeks the brain begins to develop, i'd argue this is a better time period to murder some cells before they become what i consider a human. without a brain or nervous system its lacking the fundamentals of what i consider a human to be.
@@o0xTHEcoPlayerx0o Planned pregnancy is not the easier thing to accomplish but generally sexual relations with out protection result in a pregnancy. Planned pregnancy is a conscious undertaking, usually by the mother and father to be. An unplanned pregnancy may be the result of a failed birth control method such as can happen with the use of an IUD. Then there is the careless sex practices where abortion is just another kind of birth control. If having an unplanned pregnancy were a crime then we could liken Pro-Choice abortion the that process where we do not arrest and try the bank robber for having robbed the bank but excuse his 'choice' of action. Abortion on demand removes all moral responsibility for consequences of her actions. But we see such removal involves two lives, not just one. There is no morality to abortion nor is amoral either. How do we know this is true? Because so many individuals who are willing to tolerate abortion on demand make so many excuses for it. But there are those who speak about mistakes and making women pay for them by not allowing abortion. But if those same women held guns to the heads of others and killed them, what should we think then? It was okay because the individual was a rapist, a murderer, a fraud who stole some ones life savings? Once you start making excuses there is no end and the result will eventually become chaos,
@@o0xTHEcoPlayerx0o I agree with your point on problems starting at the family level. However, I disagree about your premise of humans being born and raised to be less than their potential. Who are you or me or anyone else to predict the life of the unborn. If the parents don’t want their offspring then adoption is an ideal alternative to murder. If you think humans shouldn’t be born because they may experience hardship then hello, say goodbye to all ancestors who lived through tragedy after tragedy. Yet, here we are, growing, learning, advancing, inventing…living. Should we not at least grant that to our offspring? Also, I think it’s great to have a cut off at 6 weeks but why stop there? Scientifically, it is a new human being when the egg is fertilized. There’s brand new DNA - a full blueprint of what that fertilized egg is going to be (what do think is telling the cells to become a brain or nervous system?). Like Hitchens said when many pro-abortionists use words like fetus they tend to dehumanize the subject. Many say fetus, but fetus is a word for offspring or at least a stage of development of our offspring. What kind of offspring you might ask? Human. Not cat. Not dog. Not bacteria. Human. Abortion kills an innocent human. Plain and simple.
There are millions of people that have been born deformed, disfigured, with mental deficiencies and yes as a consiquence of rape and incest. So are we telling these people they don't deserve to be alive? I don' t think insulting all the people born under these circumstances helps their argument any.
This debate shifts around the words life, human being, and person. From conception, an unborn child is alive, and it is a developing human, but it is not a person right away, and will not be a person until the brain has reached some level of development. Of these three, the most important morally speaking is whether it is a person. Living human cells do not possess a right to life if they are not part of a person. For example, the HeLa line of cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks is living and genetically human, but it is not a person, and it lacks the right to life that persons have. Person is a concept with fuzzy borders, and unlike life or human, it is a psychological concept, not a biological concept. At conception, the zygote is not a person, and at birth, a baby is a person, but we don't know exactly when it becomes a person. If it's not a person until birth, then abortion is morally permissible up until birth. Given that Peter Hitchens actually says it's not a person until birth, he has lost the debate. So, he might want to rethink his definition of a person. I'm more inclined to think that it becomes a person sometime before birth, but I couldn't say for sure when that is. In general, I'm in favor of leaving the question of abortion up to the mother, but I do think the mother should be informed on the development of her child. Also, if there are non-lethal ways to end a pregnancy, this should be considered as an alternative to abortion. After all, the aim of abortion is not the death of an unborn child; the aim of abortion is to end a pregnancy. If that can be done without killing the child, that is to be preferred.
You nailed it. The so-called 'atheist' has chosen science as his god. But science is a human enterprise, and therefore fallible. People do need a guide in this complicated world. So the traditional Christian God has been traded in Western civilization for the monster of 'scientism'. Also, science can not inform morality. It's constantly changing and it's often contradictory. Our society is broken. Technologically advanced but morally corrupt.
Dear Mr Hitchens, I recall some years ago that on Q and A in Australia, you were asked what is the most dangerous claim that can be made. I was hoping you would answer that denying any person's humanity is the most dangerous claim possible. In the case of unborn people, this false claim has been used to justify mass murder.
to be precise it means offspring, this is a term they used also for plants and animals - including unborn animals too a very interesting word that reminds us we've long known humans are humans before birth too, even without knowing about the exact mechanism and genetics
@@NotSure723 not really irrelevant to the conversation because one of the main points was about using the term fetus instead of baby to refer to an unborn child
@@mikehawk2778 "not really irrelevant to the conversation because one of the main points was about using the term fetus instead of baby to refer to an unborn child" -This doesn't refute my point in any way...
Christopher Hitchens did a good print interview where he explained he objections to abortion as a liberal atheist. Peter recently shared this on twitter.
This is one thing in which I did find Christopher Hitchens courageous. I have never understood why abortion should be a religion vs. secularism issue. We have all been vulnerable little beings in the womb of our mother, so we should show some solidarity. Another issue is that the 'viability outside of the womb'-criterium has always been very arbitrary. It means that foetuses in Africa can be aborted for longer than in places with better healthcare. And in what sense is a baby, or any human being 'viable‘ without continuous human intervention?
@@trismegistus2881 I’m agnostic at most (perhaps closer to atheist), but it seems so (as Hitchens so eloquently put it) “blindingly obvious” to me that abortion is wrong, if anything is. I think whatever point of morality you’re arguing from, if you want to determine whether or not it is bad to do something to another person, you should ask yourself how you’d feel if it were done to you (there’s a reason they call this the Golden Rule). And if I’d been aborted, I’d feel - well, I wouldn’t feel anything at all, I’d be dead, either by poison or dismemberment, and my remains would have been incinerated as medical waste. And that is so obviously morally abhorrent that it astonishes me somebody can condone that being done to another human being, whether or not you’re religious.
@@pappy374 No more rights than any other human (and that is the only logical line to draw to say when something becomes a human). It is simply entitled to life, which trumps the woman’s rights to liberty, as in all other cases where those two rights are held in opposition.
"The mothers right to choose her own destiny." But she's not choosing her destiny. She's choosing the destiny of the child. If he means choosing her destiny in the sense she doesn't want to be a mother, or doesn't want to go through birth pains okay, simply say she doesn't want the responsibility of raising a child or doesn't want to experience pain. Sorry, that's got nothing to do with destiny, that is not wanting to be bothered or taking on a burden she feels she's not ready or willing to take on. That's what bothers me, when people use terms incorrectly or out of context. As Mr. Hitchens points out, it's like calling a child a fetus. Somehow that's supposed to make abortion acceptable, or at least make it sound less brutish.
What about when the man chooses his child's destiny by walking out and leaving the mother to fend for herself. Are you OK with that? Only 60% of men pay child support. Stop shaming women by saying they don't want to raise their child because they don't want to experience pain. It's condescending and out of line.
"She's choosing the destiny of the child. " -It's too bad you pro-lifers apparently are incapable of formulating arguments that don't rely on euphemisms and dysphemisms... "it's like calling a child a fetus. Somehow that's supposed to make abortion acceptable, or at least make it sound less brutish." -False. This is just calling pro-lifers out on their their pathetic false-equivalency fallacies.
No OBJECTIVE standard holds up to scrutiny except that life begins at conception. Peter is right when he says you must first dehumanize before you can kill. Pro choice people confuse human value with human function and they want to be the arbiters that determine personhood. Lets break it down... -"Just a clump of cells" Everyone is a clump of cells, the only difference is the state of development. -"Cant communicate/isnt conscious" Neither are people in a coma or asleep or with advanced alzheimer's. -"The baby may be deformed/disabled" This is a eugenics argument. -"Its the mothers right to choose" NO ONE has the right to choose murder no matter how much the other affects you. -"What about rape/incest?" Still not an argument to kill based on the 2 previous reasons. -"You cant force a woman to be a mother" Put the baby up for adoption. -"What if the mothers life is in danger?" Try to save both the baby and mother. If the baby dies in the process it is not an abortion, it is an accident. Abortion is the INTENTIONAL killing of a baby. -"The baby cant feel pain" What about people with CIPA disease, they cant feel pain either. -"The baby cant live on its own/isnt viable" Neither is a new born baby, it will die if you leave it alone. Some adults cant live unassisted either (pace makers, insulin etc) The youngest premature baby that lived was at 23 weeks thanks to technology. Viablity changes as technology advances. -"Its part of the womans body" Actually it isnt. The baby has a unique and distinct dna from the mother. The mothers body doesnt direct or control how the fetus develops, It is the DNA of the fetus carying out its instructions that makes it grow. What it really boils down to is pro-choice people START at the position that it is ok to kill the baby and then make up arbitrary reasons to justify their position afterwords with the foreknowledge that unborns wont meet their definition.
I like the way you’ve given a response to some of the most common arguments. How would you respond to someone that claims that no one should be forced to use their bodily resources to sustain the life of another? For example, no human is forced to provide blood or an organ to sustain the life of another. Even the organs of a corpse cannot be harvested to sustain the life of another unless consent was given prior to death. Essentially, the pregnant woman must give consent to the pregnancy. One might argue that a corpse has more rights than a pregnant woman. Does a fetus have special rights? Would love your thoughts.
@@Jonas-gl9ke I would argue the mere act of having consentual sex is the woman giving consent, since the natural result and purpose of sex is reproduction. If a woman didnt have the option of birth control or abortion, they would be much more careful about who they have sex with. This is exactly how all of human history was before the develeopment of birth control and abortion. It is also the main reason why people waited until after marriage before having sex, to ensure the man would stay around long enough and provide resources to raise the child. Once the woman becomes pregnant the baby inside her deserves all of the rights and protection that any person has. Since the baby cant communicate or defend itself, it is the responsibility of the adults to be the voice for that person. The same would apply for someone that is severely mentally impaired or in a coma. The baby is still a person, albiet one that is in a uniqely helpless situation and deserves no less rights than anyone else. This ties back in with the dehumanization argument pro-choice advocates love to use. (just a clump of cells) As for the case of rape, this is where it gets a bit tricky. I would argue that the babies right to live would take primary importance over the womans comfort in this situation. The woman may experience several months of temporary pain or discomfort due to the pregnancy, however this temporary discomfort still doesnt give the woman the right to murder another human being. After a few months the pregnancy can be terminated via c-section and the baby can continue its development outside the womb, or in the future, in an artificial womb. (currently being developed) The baby should not be punished for the actions of their parents. I understand this is not an ideal solution, but thats just the way reality goes sometimes.
@@FigmentVFX Consenting to sex and consenting to pregnancy are very different. Although sex is the main mechanism by which humans reproduce, pregnancy it is not the only reason one engages in sex. The purpose of sex could also be pleasure or to deepen a relationship. In most cases, a healthy marriage requires sex. If you are married and actively engage in sex, do you use contraception? If you answer yes, how come? Given that you believe consenting to sex is consenting to pregnancy there would be no need to use contraception. Various forms of birth control have been around for centuries. In the 4th century BCE, the Greeks used ointments made with olive and cedar oil as spermicides. Humans also used linen or fish intestines to make condoms or diaphragms. Abortion has also been known since ancient times. To argue, “this is how exactly all of human history was before the development of birth control and abortion” is not convincing given birth control and abortion is not just a modern day issue. For the record, I do not believe that abortion is always wrong. I also do not believe that abortion is always permitted. For me abortion is complicated and nuanced. I enjoy hearing both sides of the argument and so appreciate you taking the time to reply. To argue that the fetus has all the rights and protection of any human but to argue that you are always against abortion is an aporia given that in any other circumstance, one must give consent for the use of your body. You are granting a fetus special rights. As I mentioned in my initial post, no human is required to provide blood or an organ to sustain the life of another and even the organs of a dead human cannot be harvested without prior consent - consent is everything. Rape is certainly one example where I believe early abortion is morally permitted. To assert that a woman may experience “several months of temporary pain or discomfort” is not backed by evidence. A woman undergoes many bodily changes and risks during and after pregnancy (some changes are permanent) such as weight gain, vaginal changes, increased risk of incontinence, risk of depression, breast changes, stretch marks, increased risk of diabetes, abdominal separation, wider hips, varicose veins, skin changes, increased risk of cavities and gum disease and more.
@@Jonas-gl9ke In my view abortion is ALWAYS wrong, no matter the cirmcumstance. It is a very slippery slope when you allow people to arbitrarily determine someones rights and personhood. This is exactly the thinking that has lead to hundreds of millions of deaths in the 20th century. Its is not an aporia, it only appears that way when you try to redefine the parameters of consent. In my view any women that willingly engauges in sexual activity is giving consent because there is always the risk of pregnancy, even if thats not the intention. They accept that risk and ultimately the consequences if they decide to proceed. Part of the problem i see here is you are trying to completely seperate sex from the possibility of pregnency. Yes sex is used for pleasure and deepening a relationship, but i would argue that is a SECONDARY effect. The primary effect is reproduction and every time you engauge in that activity you run the risk of pregnency, regardless of the persons intentions. I know birth control has been around for centuries and im completely fine with it since it prevents the pregnancy from occuring. However, once the sperm and egg unite a completely new DNA structure is formed and at that moment of conception, the fetus is alive, cells are multiplying and it deserves all the rights any other person would have. The real question you have to ask is "whos rights are being infringed upon?" The baby has a right to life, the mother on the other hand does NOT have a right to comfort. You cant terminate another life regardless of how the other may affect you. A persons rights stop when they affect someone else. I also disagree with saying that abortion is morally permitted in the case of rape. Murder is NEVER morally permitted no matter the circumstance, even if the woman suffers from the things you mentioned. Is it a crappy situation? certainly, however that still doesnt give anyone the right to kill another. To do so would be punishing the child for the crimes of their parents. Lets change the subject and see if the argument still holds up. Every time you get in a car and drive you take the risk of getting into a crash and becoming injured or even killed. If someone puts you in the hospital you cant then go and injure or kill the person that caused you injury. When you get into your car you are consenting to the possibility that you may be in a crash and you accept that risk. You dont have the intention of getting into a crash but accidents do happen and you must live with the consequences. The issue i see is people will do anything to avoid the consequences of their choices when the outcome is not desirable. You dont have the option to avoid the consequences of a car crash. Abortion is giving the woman a free pass to avoid accountablity for her choice to have sex. It is primarily a selfish decision and people rarely think of anyone else when making these types of selfish decisions. One thing to keep in mind here is intent. Intent is used in law to determine the severity of an action. This is the difference between murder and man slaughter. Abortion is the INTENTIONAL killing of another human being. That makes it wrong in every circumstance. There are ways to terminate the pregnancy without resorting to abortion. If the baby dies as a consequence, it is not murder, it is an accident since the intention was to try and save it and let it develop outside the womb. As for the topic of a dead persons organs. I dont think that is applicable here. In that case you are refering to a person that previously had the ability to give consent. Their wishes are not nullified the moment they die. However in the case of the fetus, it is unable to communicate or give consent so the highest level of rights and protections must be the default position. The same would be true for a person that is alive but unable to consent because they are in a coma or mentally impaired. As mentioned previously, letting someone determine the rights of another can lead to some pretty dark places. I hope that makes my position a bit more clear. Even if we disagree its been a good, civil discussion. I just wish more people could discuss this without it devolving into an emotional screaming match and ad hominem attacks. Thanks. :)
@@FigmentVFX Thank you also for the polite discourse - it’s a rare thing indeed. I believe you are conflating “consent” with “being aware of the consequences”. To consent to something is to give permission for something to happen. The fact that you are okay with contraception means you are aware there is a distinct difference between consenting to sex and consenting to pregnancy. If you truly believe that there is no distinction between these 2 things, you should be against contraception. PEW research suggests about 4% of Americans think the use of contraception is immoral. I also believe you are conflating baby with fetus - a fetus represents potential life. I would argue that a fetus does not become a human life until sentience is established which is somewhere between 18 and 25 weeks gestation. If you believe all abortion is murder and that life begins at conception, what do you think the penalty should be for abortion? Who gets punished? Your car crash analogy is interesting. By driving a car, I am aware of the possible consequences such as a car accident. Because of this, I use a seatbelt and take driving lessons to ensure I am mitigating risk. This does not mean I consent (give permission) for a car accident to occur. If a car accident does occur and I am injured, I am certainly not allowed to injure or kill the person who caused me harm. In addition, the person who caused me harm is also not required to provide me a blood transfusion or an organ because the law does not require them to use their body to sustain my life without their consent. I think the dead person is a good example of rights - you have not addressed the rights of the pregnant woman. You are essentially saying that the rights of a corpse and the rights of a fetus override that of a pregnant woman. I agree, “letting someone determine the rights of another can lead to some pretty dark places”. The issue here is that you are looking at it entirely from the point of view of a fetus and not seeing it from the point of view of the pregnant woman. Almost 100 000 Americans are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. After determining you are a match, would you be okay if the government forced you to give up one of your kidneys to save the life of another person? Answering yes to this question is indeed a dark place. I have enjoyed getting your perspective and will continue to think about the points you’ve made.
I'm pro-life but I was that rare person who was told I needed to abort my child to live after a doctor failed to diagnose a severe blood clot in my leg. I still nearly died. Having to see the sonogram before the procedure still haunts me. At the time the doctors tried to make me feel better since I'd already had two healthy children. But we all know that most people are not aborting because they're about to die, so it's a ridiculous argument.
@@zacharyboudreau9127 Life isn't as black and white as people would like to imagine. In this case it would have been that both of us would have died without intervention. I had two small children to take care of. If I could have saved the baby I would have and it was too early for the baby to survive. It was a baby though. I think we need to have a lot of compassion for others. When you make heartless comments you really don't win points for "your side."
If your life were in danger and the baby was already born, it would be a human being and I think it would be unlikely that anyone would kill it to save you, the adult; instead the 3 children would be cared for without you. I think this decision was made because everyone knows there is a difference between a fetus and a human being.
The argument isn’t whether “abortion is preferable to adoption,” it’s whether abortion should be legal. He’s making a straw man, so obviously it’s easy to destroy.
This was amazing and will really help me when talking with pro abortionists on this subject. I am not as erudite as Peter Hitchens and so feel more confident debating after studying this.
If something even remotely equivalent to a newly fertilized egg was found on mars the scientific community would be shouting from the proverbial rooftops that life had been found on mars . If that discovered life was equal to a two month old baby they would be screaming intelligent life had been found
"If you don't like abortion, don't have one" That's like saying "if you don't like murder, don't do it." Love this response from Hitchens because it perfectly sums up the absurdity of the argument.
Peter has made me re-think this now as well, in that I used to happy that abortion up to 24 weeks was harmless to the foetus and therefore okay. I was never happy about late term abortions, and letting them die after birth is pure infanticide. But I think Peter is right - morally no abortion can be justified.
As an atheist myself it always pleases me when atheist critical thinkers (former or not) actually argue from principles of morality and virtue rather than going the wokist or "nothing really matters" route that the political "atheist" movement has gone down.
While I appreciate your sentiment, I must make a point. From a purely atheistic perspective, one cannot derive principles of morality and virtue from which to argue from. I think modern atheists think they can argue from a foundation of morality and virtue “without being religious” because they were raised in a society that is inculcated and intrinsically founded on religious principles. In other words, they inherited a historical traditional that is largely predicated on religious principles, and that largely influences their moral framework. However, from a purely atheistic framework, morality doesn’t exist; it’s entirely subjective; and “nothing really matters” because there’s nothing substantiating meaning in reality. To put it another way, they’re running on the fumes of the foundation of which (many atheists) are seeking to denigrate
@@Joe-gi3nj you realize there are moralistic and virtuous cultures who don’t believe in a god, nor were raised on religious principles that are almost identical to the moralistic and virtues of religious cultures. How do you explain such a phenomenon?
"Good Lord, I mean, this is concentration camp language. They look like humans, but they're not. They're Jews...". Peter was spot on with this analogy, that before people kill, they first dehumanize.
Lord have mercy.
What is it with prolifers still making reference to holocaust when they know that comparison doesn't hold up? Is it some pathological desire to lie?
@@Mish844 The only folk lying here are pro-choicers with the lie that abortion doesn't kill a human being since it is not 'human' while in the womb. Keep on lying against science and yes, this argument still does hold up; were the victims of the holocaust not dehumanized?
I lol'd at his calm response
Yes, this was a very apt comparison.
I thought exactly the same. It really is just like the concentration camp commanders talked - and even wrote it down in their autobiographies, so we have receipts.
"I've worked with aborted fetuses and although they appear to be human, they are not human." Those are cold cold words.
'Who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes?' For a 'scientist' to reject the evidence of his own observation (that's called 'the scientific method') is to fail in his duty to himself as well as everyone else:
_The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool._ (Richard Feynman to the 1974 graduating class of Cal Tech)
this honestly is what most people are saying and its like...ok wtf? People are sickos!
It sounds very NAZI.
I am 100% pro-abortion, under whatever circumstances the ‘mother’ chooses to abort the pregnancy; however I do agree that these were poorly chosen words. It seems Adam Rutherford had not planned the delivery of his perspective well at all, and was noticeably unprepared for the arguments Peter Hitchens made.
@@christopheraudley6200 True, not helped, I have to add, by Hitchens' immature, aggressive, irrational bullying.
I was the child in an unwanted pregnancy, whose mother considered her "options" when she found out she was pregnant with me. My right to live is as important as hers, and I am grateful that she chose life. From my perspective, the value of human life is simply that it's a human life. Period. I don't have to find a cure for cancer or be a world-famous violinist to be "worthy" of life. I could be a homeless woman, or a criminal. But I still have just as much right to make a go of it as the next person. [As it turns out, after 10 years in a group foster home, I went to live with my bio mom, finished high school, got a job, got another one, got married, adopted 3 kids, homeschooled them, and now teach high schoolers how wonderful this country is at a homeschool co-op.] Give kids a chance. It's literally the least we can do.
What an amazing lady you are ! What a loss to the world had you not been born. I was a couple of cells once. I had no potential other than to be a human person. None whatsoever.
1. Why does that matter?
2. What if he forced her to be an option?
I think the important point there is that no one forced your mother to do anything. It is very different when someone is forced to do something against their will.
@Lisa Woody very well said! Also most people aren’t born out of planned pregnancies. And I agree fully you don’t have to succeed in anything for the right to live! Tbh your only duty to this world is to contribute to the circle of life, your duty to humanity is to contribute to the reproduction of our species.
@AlwaysOutnumberedNeverOutgunned trust me that’s not the reason why Eu is sanctioning against you 😂 they’re sanctioning against your governments corruption, censoring of anything critical against the political party, the replacement of all high positioning jobs with political loyalists and the attempt to replace all the judges in your high court with their own political judges so they could force their own political will on your people and run the country like Russia. But I bet the polish propaganda machine wants to blame something else like your countries views on abortion. “If you don’t believe me try look at if there’s anything negative said about your government” on the media and check who runs all the news, the media etc… the only reason your government fail to ban the American news Chanel’- the only one that express criticism against your government is that America went in and said if you do there will be serious consequences. So the president put in his veto- I bet he pretend it was because he wanted to protect freedom of speech but he was actually forced to. You’re welcome 😄👍🏻
My nephew was a preemie-he was born at 24 weeks. He’s a happy, healthy, intelligent young man who I would be proud to call my son. The idea that in a large swath of the U.S. and “enlightened” West he could have had his skull penetrated with a surgical tool, his brains sucked out, and been abandoned in a pile of medical waste-legally and without second thought or debate-is abhorrent.
What does your nephew have to do with anything? Was abortion a possibility in the pregnancy? And that's not how abortions work, btw. So ty for the dishonesty there.
That is why in the UK, abortions are illegal after 24 weeks!! Hello
@@seraeirian2 The legal limit for abortions is 24 weeks in the UK and the pro abortionist in the video specifically makes the case that babies are not “people” at this age. Maybe try listening to the video?
Happy for you and your now healthy nephew. You didn't bring up why he was a preemie or what risk factors were involved.
Was there a risk to the mother or child? Was their a chance that both would perish in childbirth? What about embryos that embed in fallopian tubes? do we just let those pregnancies run their course likely killing both mother and child?
Oh the outrage. "The idea" you put forth is disengenuous trash. That's what's abhorent.
"I felt the fetus kick today!" said no mother, ever.
thats a good point- its like a baby in the womb is the most precious life in the world or a problem to be killed depending on the whims of the mum, that doesnt seem very moral.
Foetus means baby....
@@Si_Mondo Is "Foetus" Latin? If so, I wonder which nations still speak Latin. Not the Italians, nor the Spanish, nor the French. I understand you point though.
@@Si_Mondo True. Even if a fetus doesn’t classify as a baby, it’s still no excuse to kill it. Pro-aborts saying “A fetus isn’t a baby” as a valid argument to kill them is like saying “A baby isn’t a toddler” as a valid reason to kill them.
What do they say?
I listened to this debate more than ten years ago. Peter Hitchens really helped me rethink the issue. Specifically, he is right in the fact that a lot of dehumanisation takes place. People describe killing as a 'right over my own body'. They refuse even to admit that multiple bodies are involved. The language used is unbelievably skewed.
Agreed, abortion is wrong
yep, 'my body my choice' is pure tripe, its not just the mothers body is it.
He's one of my favorite minds to listen to. His dismantling of nonsensical ideologies if brilliant.
Whats interesting is they say "my body my choice" but as soon as you say "ok so your body your responsibility so feel free to choice any of the many contraception's and you wont have that unwanted pregnancy" they go nuts, funny how on the one hand its empowerment of women but on the other it's the escapism of all notions of personal responsibility that they deem inconvenient to selfish desire.
@@TimMartinBlogger He is extremely pessimistic, so pessimistic in fact that he really does not seem to believe in God's providence. I am not sure we as Christians can be so pessimistic, even though we all are from time to time considering the way things are moving to.
"They're capable of communication, they're capable of social interactions.."
I used to teach at a special needs school. There was one kids who was, as far as anyone knew, was incapable of neither. He spent most of his days strapped to a restraint chair because he was violent and extremely strong, shitting and pissing and drooling for 8 hours a day.
Adam would think he wasnt human
i was the first teacher to really try to get thru to him. Taught him simple sign language, potty trained him, and had him eating lunch in the cafeteria by the end of the school year.
Adams would think he suddenly became human.
@neal cassady Its crazy how you know so much about him and his future!
This was about 10 years ago. I quit that job when I started a music school
About 2 or 3 years later, I was visiting a different middle school to start a partnership with hem using grant money I got from the district. The principal was showing me around.
GUESS WHO I BUMPED INTO??
The kid!
He was walking around the hallways with an aide on the way back from the bathroom. He remembered who I was and gave me a hug. The principal told me how he was doing, he's in the special needs class. Eats lunch in the cafeteria. Knows more sign language. (I credit him with getting the deal signed because the principal loved our story)
But other than that, yeah you're totally right he's definitely reverted
@neal cassady oh yeah and you're also right about people with downs. They're ALL going to end up end homes, sad and abandoned and confused. Like this guy, who testified in front of congress to attempt to convince the world that people like him deserve to live
ruclips.net/video/vtS91Jd5mac/видео.html&ab_channel=MassachusettsDownSyndromeCongress
You are 100% right that all of these people should be killed, immediately, because there's absolutely no hope for them and when they get old they will end up in homes, like other old people (who should also be killed, amirite?)
@neal cassady Sure well the problem isn't them, or their ability to handle stress.
The problem is people who think they should be dead.
In Iceland, there are almost no people with downs syndrome, because they kill them all.
That's what the dude in that video I posted was talking about. America is becoming like Iceland, and people are killing down syndrome babies because they think they'll have a hard life or just plain don't want to deal with them.
Eugenics is nazi level evil. Killing people because they are "defective" is not merciful or good for the gene pool. It's evil.
What sort of life is that?
@@mike990 are you saying that this boy should have been killed?
His life before I met him was the way it was because of people like you. People who thought he was worthless, didn't deserve to live, and didn't bother to find out how to reach him and bring him into society. He was being mistreated and no one cared because in their eyes he wasn't a real person.
Last time I saw him he was able to communicate, socialize with his classmates, use the bathroom on his own, he remembered who I was after THREE YEARS. The level he was at when he was 10-11 set him up to make incredible progress. He's probably 18 or 19 now, and if he didn't find the misfortune to have any more people like you in his life, he's probably doing great.
His point about "dehumanising" the target really hit home. My God, this is EXACTLY what is happening. Proponents of abortion HAVE to do this to avoid looking at the appalling moral cesspit they're swirling around in. It's a "thing", not a human being.
The same argument, only in reverse, can be made about anti-abortionists. They invariably OVER-HUMANIZE an appendage in a woman's womb that has the POTENTIAL of becoming a human being, but at that stage is NOT. On what planet is it moral to bestow more rights on an as yet undeveloped entity with no name, no intellectual capacity, no emotions, no personality, and no footprint upon the earth than on a fully formed woman? The self-righteous anti-abortionist yahoos are treating the fully formed woman as though she doesn't even exist as a human being but merely as an incubator for the state. That is absurd! Also, consider that most anti-abortionists are invariably conservative and vehemently anti-government, yet they have no problem with government sticking its nose into a woman's womb and forcing her to give birth, regardless of the circumstances of the woman or the conditions of her pregnancy.
It hit home for me too and have been sharing this one at least a hundred times.
That’s why they call it just a “clump of cells”.
It's not about when "life" begins dear, a human spermatozoa is a unicellular life that is capable of surviving outside the body. Does this therefore mean that using a condom is an act of GENOCIDE ? 🤣😅 everything you eat was once "life" does that mean that one should not eat ?? Of course not. If you have your appendix taken out or a biopsy are you murdering that clump of cells ??
The real question is when does this "life" become conscious, feel pain ect and become a "human" this most certainly does NOT occur at conception. At what specific point in the process does the zygote become sentient without neurons or a brain ? Can you define it down to the individual stages of mitosis prophase prometaphase, metaphase, anaphase, or telophase???? How may cells does it require for you to be able to diferentiate this blastocyte from a human "life" ?
Perhaps its when the chorion develops around the blastocyte or when the inner ones become the amnion??
Or maybe when this becomes an embryo and we begin to see the beginnings of the internal organs ?? Or later when we first see the neural tube that will EVENTUALLY become the brain and the spinal column even though they do not become fully developed until the end of the pregnancy ????
How many specific neurons does this brain need before it attains consciousness in your subjective opinion?? Does it only class as life at 24 weeks when it becomes viable outside the uterus ?? Ect ect ect
These are difficult questions don't get me wrong. But one thing is for certain, the percieved whims of anyone's subjective imaginary "God" are irrelevant to the discourse.
@@trumpbellend6717 A spermatozoa does not survive outside the body. It dies unless cryogenically preserved. But is unimportant, it is not dividing and multiplying. The process of life is cellular growth and multiplication. When this process is begun we have life. Your comment about condoms and sperm being genocidal is absurdly stupid. A sperm cell alone cannot become a human being. Didn’t you learn that in basic high school sex ed? Remember, it’s when the sperm meets the ovum that the zygote cell begins to multiply exponentially. Sorry to have to teach you the basics of reproductive biology. Even Reece Witherspoon made that mistake in Legally Blonde, therefore I guess we can forgive you as well.
I wish more people would fight like Peter here, most Christians are so gutless in holding their own.
Amen to that. Christians need to be as passionate as Peter. They shouldn't be bullies, but they should be rightfully indignant as to the position that pro-abortion people defend.
Dude pulls no punches I'll him that.
Not just Christians. I'm an agnostic and I am pro-life. All pro-lifers need to stand their ground and argue strongly and persuasively against the murder of the unborn.
Nah there’s way too many religious extremists. All of you are so lost and confused.
@@alethein359
For that you would need to prove it is murder. That a creature with a very underdeveloped brain is a person.
Damn I gotta admit Peter made me laugh when he said “ Good Lord, this is the concentration camps all over again, they look like human beings but they’re not they’re Jews” wow what a powerful funny way to put that just remarkable
And you self-righteous, rabid anti-abortionists are incapable of seeing how much this has the look and feel of a concentration camp, with government being so authoritarian that it can force every woman to give birth, regardless of the circumstances of that woman and her pregnancy. You probably hate the very idea of government asserting itself into our private lives, yet you seem to have no problem with giving government the authority to intrude into the private life of every woman, bestowing more rights on an as yet nameless, miniscule zygote, embryo, or fetus than on the actual fully formed woman in whose womb it is still an appendage and could not possibly survive on its own.
I can't imagine my aunt (who's had 2 miscarriages) being told by someone, "don't worry. It wasn't a human, it was a mere foetus :) ".
This is what I felt exactly. I have had 3 miscarriages and each one of them was a baby to me, a child lost and not just a foetus.
Two of the most heartbreaking things I've heard that throws into sharp relief just how differently people value and respect life - a family having a funeral after the wife miscarried and a woman who would not have her own child due to medical reasons, watching a pro-adoration rally on the news saying, "They want to throw in the garbage what I can't have."
@@planetmilkshake I'm so sorry to hear that. I cannot imagine experiencing that level of loss. Thank you for sharing.
@@177SCmaro Oh dear.. I had Goosebumps reading this. Especially with that ending quote you wrote.
Also, if a fetus isn't human we should be ok to go around and kick pregnant women in the guts...
It's not human so why are you upset when I kill your fetus? The argument is absolutely bonkers
When talking about seeing an abortion, where the baby is literally ripped apart, and removed, he says it looks like a human in every way, but it's not. What a sick way of thinking!
Right.. That MF is dangerous.. As he just described what a mass murder thinks. Just before they take your life! It's insane how academia has fallen to such depths..
It's barbaric in the 21st century that people can think in those terms...It shows how morally bankrupt they really are. And 40 years ago. We would put people like him in prison for crimes against Humanity...To protect the public from such monsters..
It would be the same species as me, but if it hasn't become conscious, I don't see why you would care about it anymore than a stone. If being something would feel like something, then we should probably care about it.
@@josephpostma1787 We should not care about temporarily unconscious humans?
@@josephpostma1787 I thought they could feel pain at a certain point inside the womb ? maybe not I have a bad memory if its true or not
"There's no scientific consensus on when a fetus becomes human"
"Science doesn't inform my morality at all"
🙄
Yes, morality isn't a question for science
Dude! That’s hilarious 😂 🤣
The part that blows my mind is a minute later when he is super confident that the aborted fetuses he has worked with before "were not human".
@@Mish844 It seems you didn't quite get the irony here.
@@jean-baptistedupont5967 hard to say on the internet. Poe's law is still surprisingly relevant
Hitchens is a man of extraordinary patience, dealing with a very disingenuous sophist leaping from failed argument to failed argument.
I agree, he's a true master. Like a skilled pugilist. His tone and inflection never change, he just calmly and politely dismantles these arguments. I envy people with this level of control over their emotions
So true.
Which failed argument is that?
This debate has been going on for a very long time
Hitchen's is great but his lack of patience is one of his fundamental flaws.
Yes. Now then, he mentioned that adoption is preferable to abortion, and since you think he is so incredible and agree with him so deeply, how many children have you adopted? How many children are you currently fostering? How much of your money do you donate to orphanages? How much of your time do you spend volunteering to help orphans? Or should I just assume that you ignored that part, and you don't have any interest in actually doing something about all the unwanted children, you just want to control what others can do by forcing your morality on them?
Adam Rutherford is monstrous in his views. “It looks like a human but it isn’t”. I pity him.
He’d be a fine nazi general getting his medal from hitler for dehumanizing a group of people. You think Germans were awful for going along with mass genocide well humans haven’t changed much in history.
He holds the same position on unborn babies as Nazis held toward Jews, or that Democrats used to once justify enslaving black people.
If it's not a human being then what is it? A dog? A bird? A fish?
He needs to study fundamental genetic theory: Has a human being ever given birth to anything other than another human being? Then the unborn child is human
@@Angrybogan bruh don’t act like you understand science.
Peter Hitchens is a treasure, and always edifying to those with ears to hear.
He absolutely is, however, he was wrong about it being shown on British TV. Channel 4 did so 2004.
“I’ve worked with aborted fetuses, they’re not human”
I’ve worked with drumsticks and wings, they’re not chickens.
Despite previously saying that there is no scientific consensus on when a foetus becomes human, he can categorically state that it isn't. He hasn't even got a consistent argument!
This comment singlehandedly made my day. 🤣🤣
So like if they, the "scientists" are disecting baby monkeys - they aren't baby monkeys then?
@@HilaryB. he did state the age of the fetuses he worked with though
drumsticks and wings come from a chicken ,so at one point it was a chicken . I have worked with true morons ,sounded just like you .
What always puzzles me is if I don’t want it it’s not a human is a fetus, but if I want it is my dear beautiful beloved baby 🤦🏻♀️
WELL SAID…!!!
What’s wrong with people these days. They can’t think anymore, they’re desensitized.
@@margokupelian344 I truly don’t know because I see these young women screaming on the streets like vampires thirsting for the blood of their own children. It’s just pitiable and so sad. Satan is really desperate.
Schroedinger's Baby
I used to believe the 'clump of cells' thing for years into adulthood. Then I saw an unsanitised video of the procedure and the aftermath and was absolutely horrified. It showed what was clearly a tiny human in pieces in a medical dish. The surgeon rinsed the blood etc off the body parts. It was genuinely unsettling, like looking at a horrific murder scene. Which it was.
All surgeries invoke that same emotion. Lots of blood, lots of bone, etc. The same feeling you get if you see a natural abortion or the damage a teenager will do to her body to abort an unwanted pregnancy or if she commits suicide. They are pretty ugly too.
@@gordoncavanaugh8744 they are all killing.
You still have not made a good argument for changing your view, just because it looks like a miniature child and bleeds doesn't mean it is classed as alive, remember that those clump of cells are following a biological instruction book and for the first several chapters are nothing more than a clump of dividing cells regardless of recognisable features, it is only the last few chapter and specifically when the brain switches on that it is a individual with a conscious state, we can measure this point accurately and it occurs about 24 weeks , no coincidence the global norm for abortion cap is 24week or just below.
@@genome616 But it is a human being, isnt it? The cells aren't dead, they are alive, aren't they?
@@genome616 interesting response. A question for you: does the “clump of cells” turn into any other creature at the end of gestation? A fish perhaps?
I wish people would stop calling pro-abortionists "pro-choice" as if to say pro-life advocates are against choice. We simply recognize that the choice was made prior to conception, and that murder is an unacceptable method of birth control.
Would war and genocide be considered birth control. If so, then an individual has the right to abort their own child for whatever reason esp if they do not have the adequate resources to care for it properly or out of wedlock. So they shouldn't have sex out of wedlock. Thus, shouldn't have a child. The rational mind based on the history of the world, past and present say do not procreate at all. Problem solved.
just political double speak, people have done it forever to try to make themselves seem good, or to get support from the masses.
@@justinm4497 Agreed, and that's why I get frustrated that the parties that are in OPPOSITION to this use their terms. Of all the things to never surrender, language is top.
Really it just needs to be pro-abortion and anti-abortion.
@@ejwestit's pro-life or pro-death
I saw my son yawn four or five months before he was born. This is the same day she identified my child as a boy. I still have the ultrasound on VHS videotape (yes, videotape).
That same heart that I saw beating on that monitor is the same heart that is in Jonah's chest beating to this day. Could anything be more self-evident?
My cat yawns. Is its life more important or equal to yours? Regardless of which side I'm on, your argument is not self evident sorry.
@@patdavey7187 does your cat have human DNA? His argument is that it's not just a blob of cells.
@@jackieo8693 obviously not but all mammals yawn. This topic is full off enough missi formation and a real lack of scientific rigour. Bringing anthropomorphism into it doesn't strengthen your argument in my opinion.
@@patdavey7187 well all he is saying is that it's not a blob of cells. You're being unscientific if you think a human fetus isn't human. What else is it? A walrus?
@@patdavey7187 Good thing it's your opinion because it is based off fake science. They, the babies, feel pain when they're being killed in the womb. Have you seen the reactions of the babies being killed in the womb? You might want to because it humanizes them. A baby still in the womb is very sentient.
"I don't think they are humans even though they look like human beings". THEN WHAT ARE THEY? I love the way he pushed back on it without mercy. Because it's a stupid position to take.
The most ironic thing about those abortionists is that the so much love children. There is a war in Ukraine now and they keep talking about poor children dying in Ukraine but they kill unborn babies. So ,,unborn baby is less important than an adult but born baby is more important that an adult" okey yeah it doesn't make any sense.
peter was right, this type of thinking is exactly what got us Eugenics in the 1930s
@@gazlives eugenics started in America in the late 19th century, hitler merely adopted it and his cabinet attempted to put it into practice. You’re right, just adding more context.
I love Peter Hitchens, I'd love to see him on the show sometime, he'd make a fantastic guest.
I concur
I agree completely, Peter is a gem
Absolutely
YES!
70 likes and counting, Give the people what they want!…lol
The way Adam Rutherford said that he has worked with aborted fetuses before and didn't see that they are human is quite shocking. Adam's argument from my understanding is that a baby below the 24 week mark is incapable of consciousness, which is a faulty argument and can be proven incorrect if he watches an abortion video because you see the baby fighting to survive. He forgets that he was also a fetus as well.....
What the heck is it if it’s not human!!
He says that the fetus before the age of 24 is not a human being. Who gave this man a science degree!?!
@@liljade53 I have a science degree myself. I realized that most university students are idiots. Who claim to know more than they really do. Everyone is a fucking expert these days.
@@liljade53 I'm sure you can't abort them once they get to 24. Teenagers is another matter.
@@lettersquash I just watched the movie Gosnell. They're out there doing it. Gosnell got away with atrocities because his clinic was not inspected for at about a decade. He was aborting babies up to 32 weeks! There's also a documentary about him called 3801 Lancaster: An American Tragedy.
Pro abortion people always seem to think that somehow “enduring” a pregnancy brought on by my own choices is somehow worse than being murdered. Being pregnant is not deadly. Abortion is deadly nearly 100% of the time. It really is child sacrifice on the altar of convenience. Anyway he makes excellent points! Thank you for posting.
ruclips.net/video/W6jjNjntwtI/видео.html
By your own choice? So if the contraception fails, it's your fault? If the guy puts the condom wrong, it's your fault? If he removes it before cumming, it's your fault? Gtfo
Have you ever had an abortion?
"Pro abortion people always seem to think that somehow “enduring” a pregnancy brought on by my own choices is somehow worse than being murdered."
-No, they don't.
"Being pregnant is not deadly."
-It most certainly _can_ be. Abortion has been cited as being 14x safer than giving birth.
"Abortion is deadly nearly 100% of the time."
-But the "victim", is merely a sack of meat...
" It really is child sacrifice on the altar of convenience."
-It's so pathetic how you pro-lifers are apparently incapable of formulating any arguments that don't rely on euphemisms, and dysphemisms.
A female and her partner always have a choice…they can choose to not sleep together. If they don’t want children, then they should’ve chosen not to be intimately involved. That’s the time to make a choice: before the act. No one is taking that choice away. Why this choice isn’t exercised is due to a lack of morality and an increasing drive away from responsibility.
This takes me back to the many hours I watched Christopher Hitchens destroy his opponents in debates with his incredible rhetorical skills. I ended up strongly disagreeing with him on many things and returning to Catholicism, but I can’t deny he made me laugh out loud MANY times. Peter acts just like his brother here and runs circles around this Adam. Good to have a Hitchens on our side! Thanks for sharing!
Crazy how one can have such great debate skills and craft, and still be so ignorant about science. He’s clearly a religious extremist.
I think the character of both is very different. In my teens, I loved to watch debates with Christopher Hitchens, but rewatching his video's kind of makes me feel annoyed. Some of his arguments for atheism were clever and original, but for the most part it was just rhetorics. The whole idea that thinking scientifically requires abandoning religion is really not backup by much at all. Especially when it comes from someone whose 'rationalism' led him to embrace extreme ideologies from time to time.
Absolutely. I loved watching Christopher Hitchens although I know some catholic priests who could have calmly dismantled his arguments. They were never given the opportunity on TV
The difference between the brothers Hitchens is that for all of Christopher's rhetorical skills he lacked the one thing that his brother Peter has in abundance and that is WISDOM!
Me too!
The best part IMO starts at 6:45 - "Good Lord this concentration camp language!" - Hitchens sees the perfect opportunity to go for the jugular and leaves Rutherford reeling..
I'm so glad I found this video. I never knew of Peter Hitchens - only his brother, Christopher. So glad to hear the Hitchens' intellect on the correct side of the discussion!
Actually, although Christopher was strongly atheist he also condemned abortion
. The brothers were united on this,
‘I’ve dealt with aborted foetuses and they are not human beings’
I truly think any balanced rational person who heard that statement knows intrinsically that statement is false whether pro abortion or not . Truly disturbing stuff
Nonsense people need to wash their own brains instead of the media telling you what to think
I agree, very disturbing to hear someone say it looks like a human but it isn't when talking about an unborn baby. Yikes.
People who are in favour of abortion care about the well being of babies (and the adults that they eventually will grow into) and so they realize that a fetus whose mother do not wish it being born, is likely to experience both a pregnancy and upbringing that will inflict damage upon their physical and mental health.
This is not about wanting to have the lisence to "kill babies" on some kind of sosiophatic ground. If anybody is involved with dehumanizing in this matter, its Peter Hitchens and they way that he is refusing to acknowledge that the intention of pro-abortionists is to spare a future human being what is most likely going to be a less than optimal childhood development.
@@mandola2095 Rubbish
@@arkroyalrifemoonbasealpha6101 And what about what i wrote do you think is rubbish? The statement that the intention of pro-abortionists is one born out of empathy?
"Fetuses aren't human" but then to say "abortion shouldn't be freely avaliable to everyone" well why not? If fetuses aren't human and there's nothing morally wrong with abortion then why shouldn't they be freely available or do you recognise there is some evil going on?
its the common conundrum. I've argued with people that say 24 weeks is great because "consciousness", but the record for a preterm baby surviving is 21w0d. So consciousness can't be a criterion for "person-hood". They often talk about an unborn person being worth less than the mother and that a "fetus" is not a person until they are born. They then pull back when you bring up late term abortion because it is rare. Well so is abortion for rape, but you hear that argued often. If abortion is ethical in saving the mother's life, then it is ethical at any point up to birth. Why do they get so uncomfortable admitting this? One person told me it is because it is "close" to being a person, its "mostly developed". It is either a person or not. If the argument is that you need to be a "person" to have basic human rights, then they shouldn't run from this position. They realize when pushed that their position might just border on them behaving monstrously.
That is even before you get to the eugenics arguments veiled in compassion. It is better to be terminated than born severely disabled. Because for some reason it is better to die than experience suffering.
What you choose to call the fetus, or what you actually think it is, is a moot point. Nobody has the right to exploit someone else's body against their will, even if their life depends on it. It's as simple as that.
@@darcymr353 Do you think we should disband CPS and abolish child welfare programs and public schooling? What gives post-birth children any claim on adults for support?
@@lukedornon7799 what does this have to do with what I wrote?
@@darcymr353 You wrote that nobody has the right to exploit someone else's body against their will, presumably referring to requiring mothers to use their bodies to keep their children alive even against their will. I am curious whether you believe adults shouldn't be required to keep their children alive after birth.
Thankyou Peter for standing for the totally vulnerable and utterly innocent.
The college I attended in the early 70’s after Roe vs Wade taught us that abortion was a ‘simple medical procedure’ completely benign and acceptable. Today, I am having to live with the decision, I and another made so long ago.
Materialism/ scientism does not understand the human person. I'm sorry for your loss.
I love that man. The only thing I would’ve done differently is this: when the opposition (I don’t remember or care what his name is) said he wasn’t suggesting that abortion be used as a method of contraception, I would’ve asked him, ‘why not?’ If its not a human, as he so ignorantly proclaimed, what would be wrong with “aborting” every single non-sentient “fetus”, in a consequence free world where everyone could have sex any time they please, and simply dispose of the bi-product with an abortion if they choose?
N a depraved world devoid of morality, that'd b just fine. But n a morally upright individual living n a society revolving around morality, the slaughter of another individual is viewed as what it is, abhorrent, evil, and grotesque. Because that's what killing someone just because u want to is.....evil.
If they can force you to put something in your body for the common good they can forcibly take something from your body. Overpopulation , abortion for the common good , China did it , dehumanise the baby enough and you can justify the most abhorrent acts
In the 1950s it was almost unknown for school children to have sexual intercourse. If any teacher was to suggest that they should ‘ experiment’ such a teacher would have been sacked and been lucky not to have been charged with outraging public decency. It is an indication of how low society has fallen that there is no concept of ‘public decency’ any longer.
this is some of the mist naive bs ive ever heard in my life
When you reach puberty it's completely normal to want to start having sex. That's a biological imperative for our species. Contraception is available, so why the need for a 1950's puritanical stance on normal development?
@@OGRE_HATES_NERDS no its not...the destruction of the family has all been planned by the people u cant talk about who implemented pheminism...got pawn passed by govts...enacted affirmative action wahmen friendly courts no fault div and abor on demand.....weak family values and dest eth nick and so shall cohesion...hello new/wo
@@OGRE_HATES_NERDS Were you living then? Society has not always been so degenerate as it is now.
@@OGRE_HATES_NERDS This is some of the mist werst inglish ive red in my life.
He hit the nail on the head when he compared the morality of the pro-choice point of view to the Nazi point of view. I was just thinking today that perhaps it is this lack of morality, that has become so common in our culture, that is the root of so many of our problems, including mass shootings. When you don't see people for who and what they are, who Jesus told us we are, you can do anything you want to them. Thanks for all the great videos and interviews. Really enjoy your channel.
Nazis..Jesus.. your unare funny as heck. Lol. Grow up
I think that the bible(new testament) dehumanizes people that reject the idea of a Christian God and or do not acknowledge Jesus as their savior. Being human to christians is of less value than being a christian. The supposed moral high ground of christians is at the very least pretentious.
I'm not religious but I 100% agree with your view. The loss of religion is a major part of the problem. Human societies need structures & boundaries. The left are constantly removing all boundaries and look where we've arrived. Now they're pushing the boundary of paedophilia with new language - MAPs. No. Get lost with that. They are pedophiles. We need to kerp that loaded, repulsive term and not allow the left to 'humanise' it with neutral sounding language. Resist it at every step. I am certain that is where they are headed.
The Nazi's were impressed with the Democrats back in the day. They also sent letters to Democrat governors saying they believed that Jim Crow was going too far. These people who believe they are moral are the same as the people who impressed with a Regime that committed Genocide.
Maybe it is all about this. ruclips.net/video/WFWkHGMRrG8/видео.html
He says he's not advocating for abortion to be used as contraception, but why not? If it's not alive or him, then what's the problem? Why not have them all the time, for any reason? The fact he says this means he knows there is something unmoral about it, but won't admit it.
He's lying.
I love how Hitchens' outright laughs at this guy. As much as his ilk needs to be fought, they also need to be mocked relentlessly.
When someone is contemptible it is incumbent on us all to show them our contempt.
Without relent. I agree the amazingly shallow logic and morality of abortion apologists needs to be mocked without relent.
I love how Christopher used to laughed at Peter for believing in the fairy in the sky. 😂 now that stupidity deserves mocking .
@@liamgross7217 I love how Christopher used to believe in weapons of mass distraction and egged on the appalling illegal Bush/Blair war in Iraq, that lead to the deaths of 1million innocent men, women and children! What an unfoolish Goliath of morality he was.
Adam defeated himself.. Peter Hitchens just made it obvious and made sport of him in the process..
As only a Hitchens can!
My favorite part was when Peter Hitchens called the pro-aborts' position "piffle".
Of course it's piffle because he doesn't agree with it. It isn't piffle when you bring a child into poverty because you're forced to have a baby.
@@queent3343 piffle.
@@queent3343 I think “piffle” here refers to the suggestion that we should kill people because they might be born into poverty. “Piffle” could also refer to the phrase “forced to have a baby”.
@@queent3343 piffle vs. protecting the right of the unborn's right to live
@@queent3343 *bring a child into poverty because you're forced to have a baby*
So we should kill the baby because he is "brought into poverty"? I thought we were all about caring for the poor?
“A woman’s right to choose” is perhaps the most insidious, twisted and wicked slogan ever to be invented.
A woman's right to be irresponsible...
I’m glad we are finally mocking the abortion position. Most of their advocates are closing off all discussion. They are right, and we can just kick rocks. If they won’t listen, the position deserves to be mocked.
"They are right, and we can just kick rocks"
"Most of their advocates are closing off all discussion"
Oh, the lack of sel awareness
Nobody should listen when your stance is to control other peoples free will and autonomy over their bodies. Nick, just leave women alone ffs
I find most of the arguments used to defend abortion to be really bad or indeed somewhat ridiculous. Most of them try to circumvent the core moral issue, which is the killing of human life in the womb. It is interesting how people always refer to rape or incest, as if you can defend a general 'right' by appealing to specific, more compelling cases.
@@lara2937 Wouldn't you agree though that abortion is not only about a woman's body, but also about the body which is growing inside her? If so, why do you phrase your reaction in the way you did?
@@Mish844 #Provedmypoint
"They look like them, they resemble them physically, but they're not human beings." So, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then its a whale.🤷🏻♂️
This is actually a wonderful demonstration of pro-abortion sophistry. It's amazing how the wool has been pulled over our eyes. Even for those of us who are pro-life, oftentimes we don't know the true extent of the horror. It wasn't until I heard testimony from a former abortionist about the procedure that I was passionately convicted.
The media will never discuss abortion procedures in detail. I think something similar happens in the case of transgender surgery. Since when has amputating perfectly healthy body parts become acceptable medical practice?
@@trismegistus2881
If it doesn't kill a person, most find it acceptable.
"It wasn't until I heard testimony from a former abortionist about the procedure that I was passionately convicted."
-This is an appeal to emotion fallacy.
@@NotSure723 ha what?
..so to hear the truth of the procedure from an abortion practitioner is an "emotional" appeal.....?? I would have thought that the more information one has about a subject the less emotional/irrational one would be??
@@kaizershozei8720
"..so to hear the truth of the procedure from an abortion practitioner is an "emotional" appeal.....??"
-Yes. Just because something is yucky, doesn't explain why it should be banned.
He’s right, people can justify anything, and we’ve seen that in action haven’t we?
Right, especially if they're a religious fundamentalist.
I don't even have to listen to the whole thing to know how morally corrupt this "scientist" is. Good reasoning Peter Hitchens.
In the UK it is 24 weeks unless they may be born disabled, then there is no limits....
Eugenics?
That is horrible. God forbid the child isn't perfect. Oh, that's right, it isn't a child unless I say so. Sick business it is.
Iceland and the Netherlands I think it was claimed to have eliminated downs syndrome. The truth is they exterminated all those people with downs syndrome. Monsters.
yep, eugenics are absolutely normalised in the UK and sadly in many other countries as well
only the usage of the word is not quite so accepted yet, if only because of past associations
What's wrong with eugenics?
@@teacup3133
"Oh, that's right, it isn't a child unless I say so."
-Kind of like how pro-lifers say it is a child, unless _they_ say so? It's soo pathetic how you pro-lifers have to rely on euphemisms and dysphemisms for seemingly all of your arguments...
Peter deserves a better introduction than “Christopher Hitchens brother”. He is an intellectual giant, and would have been even more popular than his brother had his views on religion and politics been left of center like Chris’s.
Agree with this, I was about to write this exact comment. He is his own man and they were political adversaries on many important topics.
This 100%, I cringed. Otherwise, this is amazing and thank you for sharing.
Yes, Peter is great. A talented family. I really liked Christopher Hitchens, though I disagreed with him on almost everything. I'm sorry that he's gone, he was quite a character. Peter however has always been the more clear headed of the two for my money. Always made more sense.
Christopher was a better orator, but Peter was good in his own right, not for his clever quips, but for his sound reasoning.
I have seen Peter talk a lot lately and prefer him over his brother which is no small feat as his brother was great.
If abortion is not the ending of a human life, why would Rutherford say that he doesn’t believe abortion should be available on demand? Hitchens should have called him out on that.
Many years ago G.K Chesterton wrote an essay on the evils of euphemisms which is the lifeblood of our current political system. I would strongly encourage anyone that watched this video to read this essay. He predicted much of what we are witnessing today. It is wildly refreshing to listen to an intellectual who simply has neither the time nor patience for the evil euphemisms that has supported the atrocity of abortion for the past 50 years and simply shoves the lie right back in the face of the one uttering them. I am especially glad the topic of sex education was broached near the end of the video. The euphemism that apparently angered Chesterton the most was "birth control". I envision he was somewhat like Hitchens who despised cowards that hide behind euphemisms. Chesterton wanted the intellectuals who were advocating for birth control in his era to simply refer to it as what it actually is "birth prevention to remove the responsibility of control". BTW I think my new favorite word is "piffle"
Do you have the specific name of the essay? Just googled "Political Euphemisms Chesterton Essay" bunch of different results
And Chesterton was a convert Catholicism!
Yes 'piffle' is a good word and one that I will be using from now on.
Thank you. I've looked it up 👍
@@DonnyDelco I think it's 'On Evil Euphemisms'
An anti-abortion position is an incredibly easy position to hold, because it’s self-evident that unborn children are human beings, and that killing them is evil.
can you elaborate? Ofc you can, given that it's self evident, and it's not jsut your anrcisism speaking
@@Mish844 Which part of unborn children are human beings, and that killing then is evil did you not understand?
Also, how many abortions have you had?
@@fishwatch8677 Putting aside that reassertion hardly counts as jsutification, but ok. For starters what I don't understand - am I to get from this that merely having biology like DNA of a human is sufficient to have that protection, even without personhood? Because it sets a dangerous precedense.
None. Not that it's relevant, but you wanted to know.
@@Mish844 Yes, that’s precisely what you’re to get from it. People have sex, which creates new human life. Given time and nutrients, that new life will become a person. As Peter Hitchens points out, the personhood argument is ridiculous because personhood is social, and a human child in the womb obviously can’t be social.
Tell me why this sets a dangerous precedent?
@@fishwatch8677 Betting that protection merely on biological criteria of life has 2 weird consequences - it invalidates concept of a soul, because all it takes to be a full human is a sack of meat, but more importantly even cancer cells are seperate life form coming from human. I sure hope you're ready to suck up the consequences of your position and defend the claim that chemo is murder.
"Give me strength" Mr Hitchens said with resignation- despite the seriousness of that conversation that made me laugh.
I’m a Mormon, not a catholic, but I do thank God that we agree on the importance of protecting the unborn. I’m grateful that you all have the courage, faith and decency to maintain your doctrine.
Which god? There's thousands of god myths. How did you determine what ones real and what isn't?
@@Paul-ts5qw Fair question, and I'll reply in good faith.
(1) For the purposes of the comment, the intended meaning of the term God is fairly clear- God refers to God the Father, His son Jesus Christ and the Holy spirit. Now, Catholics and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints (technical name as opposed to 'mormons) have disagreements in regards to trinitarian doctrine, with Catholic doctrine espousing 3 God's in one being (more or less) and 'Mormon' Doctrine espousing 3 God's united in purpose but not being.
(2) As for how we decided on what we believe, I suspect that every person's answer would vary. Personally, I believe what I do based on what I believe to be interactions with God and evidences of him.
@@josepetersen7112 "Catholic doctrine espousing 3 God's in one being (more or less)."
A minor correction about Catholic doctrine. We believe in one God, who is 3 persons. That sounds strange because we have no suitable analogy in our own experience. But it's not a contradiction. We as humans have one person with one being (substance). But God is three persons with one being (substance). That doesn't mean there are three Gods, however.
@@harvey364 Thanks!
I just like the fact that somebody actually debates the issues instead of smearing the opposition
It's an interview from 2012, that's why. It was around about 2012 that the woke cancer became mainstream and destroyed the ability to have rational debates. Now if you disagree with anyone from the left you are racist or a white supremacist or something and shut out of any conversation, and possibly fired from your job.
I really appreciate Peter Hitchens view. Very strong position and very well thought out.
I like Peter's direction towards the end. I agree that a better moral society would value human life in the womb and in doing so value responsibility so as to confine the privilege of sex within a stable marital relationship in order to be able to potentially take on the wonderful responsibility of raising children in a nurturing home. It's where a good moral society needs to be. Having sex anytime anywhere with anyone while may serve immediate joy and needs. In the long run it can help feed addictions and behaviors that destroy lives. Especially the unborn.
the destruction of the family has all been planned by the people u cant talk about who implemented pheminism...got pawn passed by govts...enacted affirmative action wahmen friendly courts no fault div and abor on demand.....weak family values and dest eth nick and so shall cohesion...hello new/wo
It almost seems like abortion is a scam to empower promiscuous, irresponsible men. Abortion removes the obvious consequence of casual sex. Men who have no desire or intention to be a husband or father can simply have careless sexual relations with as many women as they can seduce or trick into being with them, secure in the idea they can assure the women that abortion will remove any consequences. Rather than empowering women, abortion makes it that much easier to sexually exploit them.
@@dongilleo9743 Agreed.
@@dongilleo9743 men are naturally inclined to want sex with wahmen thats nature...the smnake has seen to it that their minds are filled with sx images at the click of a few buttons...it ensures they wont be thinking about rev oh lution or fighting back against the push for digee tal en slay v meant..at the same time wahmen have been empowered by the state and media and have access to 1000s of mehn via media and no social consequences unlike 60+ years ago..all part of the plan
If they're not human, what the hell are they, baby murderer? A fetus is an unborn human child, claiming otherwise is just insane. These murderers need to dehumanize the child so they can sleep at night while supporting murder.
Why is it I’m bombarded by Christopher Hitchens videos and yet this is the first I’ve heard Peter Hitchens? The man is brilliant.
Both are awesome
Christopher supported somewhat more fashionable causes...
Because these days anyone who identifies as a Christian (as I do) is automatically branded a bigot. All views are to be tolerated (an interesting concept tolerance but that’s for another day) except for the Christian worldview which is to be mocked and derided as much as possible.
@@cooldebt Ricky Gervais,Tim Minchin and many others wouldn't have much of a repotoire without Us Christians..
You should see when the two brothers debate each other.
I know a couple who think abortion in the UK before 24 weeks is fine. The other day they were horrified to see a woman who had a T-shirt proudly claiming she had had 21 abortions!
Immediately, i felt the urge to ask "what's wrong with that? Surely, if one is OK, why not have as many as you like?"
The old idea is that it's okay to have them as long as you feel bad about it, which will presumably make them 'rare'. It's ridiculous logic, of course, because why are you doing something you 'feel bad' about? You obviously know it's wrong. Today, they know that is illogical, so instead they celebrate the fact.
If your moral argument requires the dehumanization of a living being in order to be palatable, you've probably lost the debate.
But Peter didn't win it either when he played the Religious tyranny card. He lost all credibility at that point by suggestion we don't have sex outside of marriage On one hand he called Adam a Nazi but then went full authoritarian with his Religious views. Both men are wrong in this debate, that's why the abortion debate is so complex.
@@Tinywars
That one might have inconsistent views doesn't invalidate their entire argument or arguments. See "the argument from fallacy".
@@Tinywars this is called the Fallacy fallacy: if Hitchens had made a fallacy (in this case as you noticed, the Appeal to Authority fallacy during the debate, using Religion as the authority) you discredit the rest of his position. Just because he made a fallacy during the course of his argument, does not mean there is no point of substance within the argument.
Also, your comment started seeping into the Personal Incredulity fallacy at the end. You state that both men are wrong in the debate, that is why the debate is so complex. You did not list why both men were wrong at all, you merely stated your opinion.
This is in line with the fallacy, in that you are essentially stating “I did not understand either position because they are too difficult to understand, therefore both positions are wrong and the debate is so complex.”
Also another note, Hitchens did in fact concede that human systems are not non-fallible and that there will always be those who go against the majority (11:30). So it seems you did in fact not understand Hitchens position and appear to have a bias against him.
@@kevinpaap2890 Agreed Kevin, he is committing his own fallacies all over the place. One more thing on the dismantling of "both men are wrong, that's why the debate is so complex" - not only did he not state why both men are "wrong", as you pointed out, but two men being "wrong" does not in itself make a debate complex.
@@Tinywars So you have a problem with laws against people murdering you and stealing your stuff also, correct?
I was hit by a car and disabled when I was seven. The opinion of my family is that people with disabilities are "useless burdens" that take resources away from the strong, the ones who deserve everything, so therefore we victimize the able-bodied. This is a common perception. I've received a lot of discrimination publicly and for the most part people just look the other way. I think they are thinking, "well, she probably deserves it" and "I won't get any social cred for doing something so why bother?" It doesn't surprise me that parents were giving their disabled children to the nazis to be euthanized and that even today nobody cares about that segment of the population they killed/steralized.
Rutherford’s side was chilling.
@@mike-cc3dd I can’t laugh when I consider the consequences. The arbitrary and self-serving distinction between person and human is the root of so much unfathomable evil.
Agreed. I listened to the entire debate, and it becomes pretty clear that Rutherford is not a bad or dim person, but he lacks a considerable amount of self-awareness, and has never reflected his own narrow beliefs from a philosophical or logical point of view.
@@jean-baptistedupont5967 I have to disagree. If holding such positions doesn’t make one bad, then what does? Just because one might be affable, polite, or able to debate well does not make one good.
@@CMVBrielman I see what you mean, and yes, I think it is true what you say. It's nonetheless interesting to see in his case a classic example of not having thought through what his convictions will inevitably lead to (in this case euthanasia, infanticide and the moral bankruptcy of an entire society.) So those consequences are all evil and bad, but often such evil is brought on not by a conscious attempt of being or doing evil, but by a simple lack of self-awareness and failing to connect dots.
In the debate itself it becomes rather clear that Rutherford has simply never really thought about many of the slogans used by pro-abortionists, he has heard those all his life and takes them for granted. Besides that many of his shortcomings are probably also due to his young age, and Hitchens' life experience is severly showing.
He's a reprobate plain and simple .
His speech really reminds me of his brother. They must have had some fearsome debates as kids.
I could listen to Peter talk for hours on end. Masterful and beautiful command of the kings English, with much Godly wisdom to boot.
Damn, they're the EXACT opposites, Christopher and Peter Hitchens.
“At what point does a fetus become a human being?” Like it was a dog or a fish at some point? Was the DNA not always human DNA? The total lack of logic there is dumbfounding.
Well sperm has human DNA. Eggs have human DNA. You don't mourn a wank or period. What something is capable of BECOMING is not the same as what it now IS. Even when sperm and egg unite, there is a long way to go before we can rationally call the result a "person" worthy of the same rights as human adults, like, for example, its mother.
@@lettersquash Except that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness”. In other words, the very basis of our republic says we have a right to life from conception that can’t be taken or surrendered, and these basic facts were simple laws of nature according to our brilliant founders. To try to say anything other than we have the right to life from conception as a basic fact would be to say our right to life is a privilege granted by the government, which would make us all slaves rather than sovereigns. You can be a slave if you want to, but my government derives any powers it has from my consent. You are right about one thing though, what something is capable of becoming is irrelevant, because after egg and sperm unite, it is a unique human life, independent from mother and father, a completely new creation, endowed with the right to life.
I’m glad Peter Hitchens is on our side 👍🏻
Always amazing to listen to these arguments. Pro abortion side always argues for points thats are situational true or false. Abortion is ok because they aren't sentient. But people in comas aren't abortive?
It's preferable to deal with human behaviour based on reality rather than beautiful articulated moral principles. Reality is:
- We are not perfect. Unwanted pregnancy is happening.
- If abortion is illegal, it´s happening in the basements. And that is not pro-life, belive me...
It's frankly disgusting to think you know better than the woman herself. Who can decide better what should happen to her body? She shall ofcourse have support from society in the her decision.
Here in Sweden, abortion is free to week 18, after that you need permission. After 21 weeks and 6 days, abortion is illegal because at that time, the fetus can survive outside the womb.
@@patiole1 Yeah and thats still wrong, the whole oh, now it can survive outside the womb does not alter the value of the baby itself, literally one day it can be killed no consequences, the next day its illegal, its just stupidity.
I'll bet Peter Hitchens really hates being introduced as "the brother of Christopher Hitchens."
Yes, particularly as Peter is a Christian, & Christopher was not.
Exactly. He is his own man.
Peter Hitchens absolutely right on the nail!
Best thing I’ve ever heard! Utterly brilliant defense of unborn babies. Thank you Peter!
i'm not religious at all but always been curious how people use the 'my body my choice' argument. where exactly does this choice start or end. choose not to have the sex, choose to use contraception, choose to abort at 1 month, 6 months, 9 months! it's always arbitrary depending on the whims of the day.
How ignorant i feel that I'm just now discovering Peter hitchens, what a great arguer this man is
He’s the best get his book rage against god
Peter Hitchens is a modern day hero. We're in a battle for the family and life.. we need to argue for the truth as strongly as Peter and leave the rest to Christ.
Peter is a prophet and the prophet is never accepted in his own country.
“What characteristics of a single cell fertilized egg are human?”
“…well, all of them as far as I can see.” 😂👌🏻
For some reason, Peter’s plainly common sensical response amused me. What a reasonable person plainly sees by instinct, is that potency is a type of being. Potency is not nonbeing. It is not nothing. Human *beings* are composites of act and potency from the moment of conception until death. The sophists use linguistic trickery to present potency as nonbeing and therefore valueless. They arbitrarily select when particular potencies are brought into act as the defining moment of when being human begins,. But the fact is that the zygote is irreducibly human and alive, and therefore possesses the right to life that is particularly human in virtue of his or her human nature - a human with potential, not potentially human.
That bit about sophistry was a great projection
Yes, Aristotle's account of all living things is the most powerful tool for understanding life, including human life. A living thing cannot be understood without considering the ways in which it is a particular expression of its genus and species; and how the individual living thing is an ONGOING or process-like actualisation of the potentials specific to the genus and species. Human living being is a process. It is not a chemical reaction with an artificial starting point. This is the basis of my own objection to the disgusting practice of abortion and to the rights-obsessed liberals who lack the insight to see themselves as they are, dull witted killers.
@@Mish844 projection is what you're doing
@@cwm6203 can't you spam elsewhere? You're flooding notifications with your nonsense
@@Mish844 I won't stop saying the truth and also you're the one flooding comment threads with absolute rubbish.
Love Mr. Peter Hitchens, God bless you for carrying the Christian banner...and yes killers always dehumanize their victims first...as someone who has been attacked a few times in my life, yes it is horrifying to look into your attacker's eyes and realize they do not see you...
"yes killers always dehumanize their victims first"
-Nonsense. There is nothing about the pro-choice position that says or implies that fetuses are not human.
@@NotSure723 literally the majority of pro-lifers dehumanize babies literally calling them the common "clump of cells" tag.
Pro-choice isn't pro-murder like abortionists want you to think then.
Otherwise you're lying.
The older I’m getting the more disgusted I’m getting at people that do mental gymnastics to justify killing innocent children.
This is great, I return to this every time I am feeling a bit down to get a good laugh at Adam Rutherford nonsensical position. :) All hail Peter Hitchens the great and powerful logician!!
The Pro-Choice argument is simply this: "Because we cannot control anyone's behavior without being fascist, we must let people do whatever they will."
idk about you but i think planned pregnancy is better than unplanned. i think alot of the globes problems could be solved at the family level... i think its bad parents that create the cycle of peril humanity faces over and over again.
im not for killing children, i'd rather a fetus be aborted than a human be born and raised to be less than their potential.
atm u can legally have an abortion 4 months into the pregnancy, for me thats too far into it.
at 6 weeks the brain begins to develop, i'd argue this is a better time period to murder some cells before they become what i consider a human.
without a brain or nervous system its lacking the fundamentals of what i consider a human to be.
@@o0xTHEcoPlayerx0o Planned pregnancy is not the easier thing to accomplish but generally sexual relations with out protection result in a pregnancy. Planned pregnancy is a conscious undertaking, usually by the mother and father to be. An unplanned pregnancy may be the result of a failed birth control method such as can happen with the use of an IUD. Then there is the careless sex practices where abortion is just another kind of birth control.
If having an unplanned pregnancy were a crime then we could liken Pro-Choice abortion the that process where we do not arrest and try the bank robber for having robbed the bank but excuse his 'choice' of action. Abortion on demand removes all moral responsibility for consequences of her actions. But we see such removal involves two lives, not just one. There is no morality to abortion nor is amoral either. How do we know this is true? Because so many individuals who are willing to tolerate abortion on demand make so many excuses for it.
But there are those who speak about mistakes and making women pay for them by not allowing abortion. But if those same women held guns to the heads of others and killed them, what should we think then? It was okay because the individual was a rapist, a murderer, a fraud who stole some ones life savings? Once you start making excuses there is no end and the result will eventually become chaos,
@@o0xTHEcoPlayerx0o I agree with your point on problems starting at the family level. However, I disagree about your premise of humans being born and raised to be less than their potential. Who are you or me or anyone else to predict the life of the unborn. If the parents don’t want their offspring then adoption is an ideal alternative to murder. If you think humans shouldn’t be born because they may experience hardship then hello, say goodbye to all ancestors who lived through tragedy after tragedy. Yet, here we are, growing, learning, advancing, inventing…living. Should we not at least grant that to our offspring?
Also, I think it’s great to have a cut off at 6 weeks but why stop there? Scientifically, it is a new human being when the egg is fertilized. There’s brand new DNA - a full blueprint of what that fertilized egg is going to be (what do think is telling the cells to become a brain or nervous system?). Like Hitchens said when many pro-abortionists use words like fetus they tend to dehumanize the subject. Many say fetus, but fetus is a word for offspring or at least a stage of development of our offspring. What kind of offspring you might ask? Human. Not cat. Not dog. Not bacteria. Human. Abortion kills an innocent human. Plain and simple.
With their own bodies yes, its not for the state to decide
I assume you've never ate eggs either, are we morally better than chickens
exactly. Pro-choice means pro murder. Murder is not a choice.
There are millions of people that have been born deformed, disfigured, with mental deficiencies and yes as a consiquence of rape and incest. So are we telling these people they don't deserve to be alive? I don' t think insulting all the people born under these circumstances helps their argument any.
Hiller thought they did not deserve to live. Proceed to kill them borned & unborn.
Thus topic is so out of the way nowadays that your argument doesnt come up as much as it should. Nice one
Edit:
*this
This debate shifts around the words life, human being, and person. From conception, an unborn child is alive, and it is a developing human, but it is not a person right away, and will not be a person until the brain has reached some level of development. Of these three, the most important morally speaking is whether it is a person. Living human cells do not possess a right to life if they are not part of a person. For example, the HeLa line of cancer cells from Henrietta Lacks is living and genetically human, but it is not a person, and it lacks the right to life that persons have. Person is a concept with fuzzy borders, and unlike life or human, it is a psychological concept, not a biological concept. At conception, the zygote is not a person, and at birth, a baby is a person, but we don't know exactly when it becomes a person. If it's not a person until birth, then abortion is morally permissible up until birth. Given that Peter Hitchens actually says it's not a person until birth, he has lost the debate. So, he might want to rethink his definition of a person. I'm more inclined to think that it becomes a person sometime before birth, but I couldn't say for sure when that is. In general, I'm in favor of leaving the question of abortion up to the mother, but I do think the mother should be informed on the development of her child. Also, if there are non-lethal ways to end a pregnancy, this should be considered as an alternative to abortion. After all, the aim of abortion is not the death of an unborn child; the aim of abortion is to end a pregnancy. If that can be done without killing the child, that is to be preferred.
Did anyone notice at 6.38 the butcher Rutherford refer to freshly aborted babies as "the things I dealt with in the lab."
Truly sickening!
"Science doesn't inform my morality at all" He's right I guess. Scientism, the left's new religion, does inform his morality though.
Please don't drag science down. Actual science doesn't support abortion
Science, so long as the research is done by external entities that perpetuate and idea people are looking for. All in the name of freedom.
You nailed it. The so-called 'atheist' has chosen science as his god. But science is a human enterprise, and therefore fallible. People do need a guide in this complicated world. So the traditional Christian God has been traded in Western civilization for the monster of 'scientism'. Also, science can not inform morality. It's constantly changing and it's often contradictory. Our society is broken. Technologically advanced but morally corrupt.
Bravo Peter Hitchens! Spoken like a true follower of Christ!!
Dear Mr Hitchens, I recall some years ago that on Q and A in Australia, you were asked what is the most dangerous claim that can be made. I was hoping you would answer that denying any person's humanity is the most dangerous claim possible. In the case of unborn people, this false claim has been used to justify mass murder.
Fetus is the Latin word for baby
Correct
to be precise it means offspring, this is a term they used also for plants and animals - including unborn animals too
a very interesting word that reminds us we've long known humans are humans before birth too, even without knowing about the exact mechanism and genetics
But this conversation is in _English,_ so that's irrelevant.
@@NotSure723 not really irrelevant to the conversation because one of the main points was about using the term fetus instead of baby to refer to an unborn child
@@mikehawk2778
"not really irrelevant to the conversation because one of the main points was about using the term fetus instead of baby to refer to an unborn child"
-This doesn't refute my point in any way...
Christopher Hitchens did a good print interview where he explained he objections to abortion as a liberal atheist. Peter recently shared this on twitter.
This is one thing in which I did find Christopher Hitchens courageous. I have never understood why abortion should be a religion vs. secularism issue. We have all been vulnerable little beings in the womb of our mother, so we should show some solidarity. Another issue is that the 'viability outside of the womb'-criterium has always been very arbitrary. It means that foetuses in Africa can be aborted for longer than in places with better healthcare. And in what sense is a baby, or any human being 'viable‘ without continuous human intervention?
@@trismegistus2881 I’m agnostic at most (perhaps closer to atheist), but it seems so (as Hitchens so eloquently put it) “blindingly obvious” to me that abortion is wrong, if anything is. I think whatever point of morality you’re arguing from, if you want to determine whether or not it is bad to do something to another person, you should ask yourself how you’d feel if it were done to you (there’s a reason they call this the Golden Rule). And if I’d been aborted, I’d feel - well, I wouldn’t feel anything at all, I’d be dead, either by poison or dismemberment, and my remains would have been incinerated as medical waste. And that is so obviously morally abhorrent that it astonishes me somebody can condone that being done to another human being, whether or not you’re religious.
@@caleb7882 Do you believe that a fetus, one minute after conception, should have the same rights, indeed more rights, than the woman carrying it?
@@pappy374 No more rights than any other human (and that is the only logical line to draw to say when something becomes a human). It is simply entitled to life, which trumps the woman’s rights to liberty, as in all other cases where those two rights are held in opposition.
@@caleb7882 Why is it entitled to life?
"The mothers right to choose her own destiny." But she's not choosing her destiny. She's choosing the destiny of the child. If he means choosing her destiny in the sense she doesn't want to be a mother, or doesn't want to go through birth pains okay, simply say she doesn't want the responsibility of raising a child or doesn't want to experience pain. Sorry, that's got nothing to do with destiny, that is not wanting to be bothered or taking on a burden she feels she's not ready or willing to take on. That's what bothers me, when people use terms incorrectly or out of context. As Mr. Hitchens points out, it's like calling a child a fetus. Somehow that's supposed to make abortion acceptable, or at least make it sound less brutish.
40 years of feminism has aborted any possibility of women ever taking responsibility for their words or actions.
What about when the man chooses his child's destiny by walking out and leaving the mother to fend for herself. Are you OK with that? Only 60% of men pay child support. Stop shaming women by saying they don't want to raise their child because they don't want to experience pain. It's condescending and out of line.
@@kenrehill8775 Wow. Do you know anyone who has had an abortion?
"She's choosing the destiny of the child. "
-It's too bad you pro-lifers apparently are incapable of formulating arguments that don't rely on euphemisms and dysphemisms...
"it's like calling a child a fetus. Somehow that's supposed to make abortion acceptable, or at least make it sound less brutish."
-False. This is just calling pro-lifers out on their their pathetic false-equivalency fallacies.
@@queent3343 yes, what of it?
You done Peter Hitchens dirty by introducing him as “some more famous guy’s brother” 😂
No OBJECTIVE standard holds up to scrutiny except that life begins at conception. Peter is right when he says you must first dehumanize before you can kill. Pro choice people confuse human value with human function and they want to be the arbiters that determine personhood. Lets break it down...
-"Just a clump of cells" Everyone is a clump of cells, the only difference is the state of development.
-"Cant communicate/isnt conscious" Neither are people in a coma or asleep or with advanced alzheimer's.
-"The baby may be deformed/disabled" This is a eugenics argument.
-"Its the mothers right to choose" NO ONE has the right to choose murder no matter how much the other affects you.
-"What about rape/incest?" Still not an argument to kill based on the 2 previous reasons.
-"You cant force a woman to be a mother" Put the baby up for adoption.
-"What if the mothers life is in danger?" Try to save both the baby and mother. If the baby dies in the process it is not an abortion, it is an accident. Abortion is the INTENTIONAL killing of a baby.
-"The baby cant feel pain" What about people with CIPA disease, they cant feel pain either.
-"The baby cant live on its own/isnt viable" Neither is a new born baby, it will die if you leave it alone. Some adults cant live unassisted either (pace makers, insulin etc) The youngest premature baby that lived was at 23 weeks thanks to technology. Viablity changes as technology advances.
-"Its part of the womans body" Actually it isnt. The baby has a unique and distinct dna from the mother. The mothers body doesnt direct or control how the fetus develops, It is the DNA of the fetus carying out its instructions that makes it grow.
What it really boils down to is pro-choice people START at the position that it is ok to kill the baby and then make up arbitrary reasons to justify their position afterwords with the foreknowledge that unborns wont meet their definition.
I like the way you’ve given a response to some of the most common arguments. How would you respond to someone that claims that no one should be forced to use their bodily resources to sustain the life of another? For example, no human is forced to provide blood or an organ to sustain the life of another. Even the organs of a corpse cannot be harvested to sustain the life of another unless consent was given prior to death. Essentially, the pregnant woman must give consent to the pregnancy. One might argue that a corpse has more rights than a pregnant woman. Does a fetus have special rights? Would love your thoughts.
@@Jonas-gl9ke I would argue the mere act of having consentual sex is the woman giving consent, since the natural result and purpose of sex is reproduction. If a woman didnt have the option of birth control or abortion, they would be much more careful about who they have sex with. This is exactly how all of human history was before the develeopment of birth control and abortion. It is also the main reason why people waited until after marriage before having sex, to ensure the man would stay around long enough and provide resources to raise the child.
Once the woman becomes pregnant the baby inside her deserves all of the rights and protection that any person has. Since the baby cant communicate or defend itself, it is the responsibility of the adults to be the voice for that person. The same would apply for someone that is severely mentally impaired or in a coma. The baby is still a person, albiet one that is in a uniqely helpless situation and deserves no less rights than anyone else. This ties back in with the dehumanization argument pro-choice advocates love to use. (just a clump of cells)
As for the case of rape, this is where it gets a bit tricky. I would argue that the babies right to live would take primary importance over the womans comfort in this situation. The woman may experience several months of temporary pain or discomfort due to the pregnancy, however this temporary discomfort still doesnt give the woman the right to murder another human being. After a few months the pregnancy can be terminated via c-section and the baby can continue its development outside the womb, or in the future, in an artificial womb. (currently being developed) The baby should not be punished for the actions of their parents. I understand this is not an ideal solution, but thats just the way reality goes sometimes.
@@FigmentVFX Consenting to sex and consenting to pregnancy are very different. Although sex is the main mechanism by which humans reproduce, pregnancy it is not the only reason one engages in sex. The purpose of sex could also be pleasure or to deepen a relationship. In most cases, a healthy marriage requires sex. If you are married and actively engage in sex, do you use contraception? If you answer yes, how come? Given that you believe consenting to sex is consenting to pregnancy there would be no need to use contraception. Various forms of birth control have been around for centuries. In the 4th century BCE, the Greeks used ointments made with olive and cedar oil as spermicides. Humans also used linen or fish intestines to make condoms or diaphragms. Abortion has also been known since ancient times. To argue, “this is how exactly all of human history was before the development of birth control and abortion” is not convincing given birth control and abortion is not just a modern day issue.
For the record, I do not believe that abortion is always wrong. I also do not believe that abortion is always permitted. For me abortion is complicated and nuanced. I enjoy hearing both sides of the argument and so appreciate you taking the time to reply.
To argue that the fetus has all the rights and protection of any human but to argue that you are always against abortion is an aporia given that in any other circumstance, one must give consent for the use of your body. You are granting a fetus special rights. As I mentioned in my initial post, no human is required to provide blood or an organ to sustain the life of another and even the organs of a dead human cannot be harvested without prior consent - consent is everything.
Rape is certainly one example where I believe early abortion is morally permitted. To assert that a woman may experience “several months of temporary pain or discomfort” is not backed by evidence. A woman undergoes many bodily changes and risks during and after pregnancy (some changes are permanent) such as weight gain, vaginal changes, increased risk of incontinence, risk of depression, breast changes, stretch marks, increased risk of diabetes, abdominal separation, wider hips, varicose veins, skin changes, increased risk of cavities and gum disease and more.
@@Jonas-gl9ke In my view abortion is ALWAYS wrong, no matter the cirmcumstance. It is a very slippery slope when you allow people to arbitrarily determine someones rights and personhood. This is exactly the thinking that has lead to hundreds of millions of deaths in the 20th century. Its is not an aporia, it only appears that way when you try to redefine the parameters of consent. In my view any women that willingly engauges in sexual activity is giving consent because there is always the risk of pregnancy, even if thats not the intention. They accept that risk and ultimately the consequences if they decide to proceed.
Part of the problem i see here is you are trying to completely seperate sex from the possibility of pregnency. Yes sex is used for pleasure and deepening a relationship, but i would argue that is a SECONDARY effect. The primary effect is reproduction and every time you engauge in that activity you run the risk of pregnency, regardless of the persons intentions. I know birth control has been around for centuries and im completely fine with it since it prevents the pregnancy from occuring. However, once the sperm and egg unite a completely new DNA structure is formed and at that moment of conception, the fetus is alive, cells are multiplying and it deserves all the rights any other person would have.
The real question you have to ask is "whos rights are being infringed upon?" The baby has a right to life, the mother on the other hand does NOT have a right to comfort. You cant terminate another life regardless of how the other may affect you. A persons rights stop when they affect someone else.
I also disagree with saying that abortion is morally permitted in the case of rape. Murder is NEVER morally permitted no matter the circumstance, even if the woman suffers from the things you mentioned. Is it a crappy situation? certainly, however that still doesnt give anyone the right to kill another. To do so would be punishing the child for the crimes of their parents.
Lets change the subject and see if the argument still holds up. Every time you get in a car and drive you take the risk of getting into a crash and becoming injured or even killed. If someone puts you in the hospital you cant then go and injure or kill the person that caused you injury. When you get into your car you are consenting to the possibility that you may be in a crash and you accept that risk. You dont have the intention of getting into a crash but accidents do happen and you must live with the consequences. The issue i see is people will do anything to avoid the consequences of their choices when the outcome is not desirable. You dont have the option to avoid the consequences of a car crash. Abortion is giving the woman a free pass to avoid accountablity for her choice to have sex. It is primarily a selfish decision and people rarely think of anyone else when making these types of selfish decisions.
One thing to keep in mind here is intent. Intent is used in law to determine the severity of an action. This is the difference between murder and man slaughter. Abortion is the INTENTIONAL killing of another human being. That makes it wrong in every circumstance. There are ways to terminate the pregnancy without resorting to abortion. If the baby dies as a consequence, it is not murder, it is an accident since the intention was to try and save it and let it develop outside the womb.
As for the topic of a dead persons organs. I dont think that is applicable here. In that case you are refering to a person that previously had the ability to give consent. Their wishes are not nullified the moment they die. However in the case of the fetus, it is unable to communicate or give consent so the highest level of rights and protections must be the default position. The same would be true for a person that is alive but unable to consent because they are in a coma or mentally impaired. As mentioned previously, letting someone determine the rights of another can lead to some pretty dark places.
I hope that makes my position a bit more clear. Even if we disagree its been a good, civil discussion. I just wish more people could discuss this without it devolving into an emotional screaming match and ad hominem attacks.
Thanks. :)
@@FigmentVFX Thank you also for the polite discourse - it’s a rare thing indeed. I believe you are conflating “consent” with “being aware of the consequences”. To consent to something is to give permission for something to happen. The fact that you are okay with contraception means you are aware there is a distinct difference between consenting to sex and consenting to pregnancy. If you truly believe that there is no distinction between these 2 things, you should be against contraception. PEW research suggests about 4% of Americans think the use of contraception is immoral.
I also believe you are conflating baby with fetus - a fetus represents potential life. I would argue that a fetus does not become a human life until sentience is established which is somewhere between 18 and 25 weeks gestation.
If you believe all abortion is murder and that life begins at conception, what do you think the penalty should be for abortion? Who gets punished?
Your car crash analogy is interesting. By driving a car, I am aware of the possible consequences such as a car accident. Because of this, I use a seatbelt and take driving lessons to ensure I am mitigating risk. This does not mean I consent (give permission) for a car accident to occur. If a car accident does occur and I am injured, I am certainly not allowed to injure or kill the person who caused me harm. In addition, the person who caused me harm is also not required to provide me a blood transfusion or an organ because the law does not require them to use their body to sustain my life without their consent.
I think the dead person is a good example of rights - you have not addressed the rights of the pregnant woman. You are essentially saying that the rights of a corpse and the rights of a fetus override that of a pregnant woman. I agree, “letting someone determine the rights of another can lead to some pretty dark places”. The issue here is that you are looking at it entirely from the point of view of a fetus and not seeing it from the point of view of the pregnant woman. Almost 100 000 Americans are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. After determining you are a match, would you be okay if the government forced you to give up one of your kidneys to save the life of another person? Answering yes to this question is indeed a dark place.
I have enjoyed getting your perspective and will continue to think about the points you’ve made.
I'm pro-life but I was that rare person who was told I needed to abort my child to live after a doctor failed to diagnose a severe blood clot in my leg. I still nearly died. Having to see the sonogram before the procedure still haunts me. At the time the doctors tried to make me feel better since I'd already had two healthy children. But we all know that most people are not aborting because they're about to die, so it's a ridiculous argument.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that.
You killed your unborn child? If so, you are not prolife.
@@zacharyboudreau9127 Life isn't as black and white as people would like to imagine. In this case it would have been that both of us would have died without intervention. I had two small children to take care of. If I could have saved the baby I would have and it was too early for the baby to survive. It was a baby though. I think we need to have a lot of compassion for others. When you make heartless comments you really don't win points for "your side."
@Donkey Kong Plus, if it's evil/killing/murder then how is it okay in any situation? I bet old Pete didn't save himself for marriage. Just sayin'
If your life were in danger and the baby was already born, it would be a human being and I think it would be unlikely that anyone would kill it to save you, the adult; instead the 3 children would be cared for without you. I think this decision was made because everyone knows there is a difference between a fetus and a human being.
Socrates would crush it on YT with all these “scientists”
I want to see Socrates’ clickbait titles. “Philosopher destroys college students logical fallacies in one sentence!?!?!?!”
Usually Socrates embarrass his opponent pointing out the flaws in their argument, without actually stating his own beliefs.
The argument isn’t whether “abortion is preferable to adoption,” it’s whether abortion should be legal. He’s making a straw man, so obviously it’s easy to destroy.
This was amazing and will really help me when talking with pro abortionists on this subject. I am not as erudite as Peter Hitchens and so feel more confident debating after studying this.
Yeah, the erudition of Peter Hitchens: call your disputant a dehumanizing Nazi.
If something even remotely equivalent to a newly fertilized egg was found on mars the scientific community would be shouting from the proverbial rooftops that life had been found on mars .
If that discovered life was equal to a two month old baby they would be screaming intelligent life had been found
Unless it was revealed as a threat, in which case it would be destroyed.
9:34 "I'm not arguing that abortion should be freely available to everyone as a means of contraception."
Well... everyone else is.
"If you don't like abortion, don't have one"
That's like saying "if you don't like murder, don't do it."
Love this response from Hitchens because it perfectly sums up the absurdity of the argument.
Except abortion isn't murder and if you truly believe that shouldn't we treat miscarriages as involuntary manslaughter
Don’t like slavery, don’t own a slave.
I was once a religious than became an atheist than became religious again.
We need religion for moral guidance.
Atheism/ humanism is a religion.
no we don't!
Peter has made me re-think this now as well, in that I used to happy that abortion up to 24 weeks was harmless to the foetus and therefore okay. I was never happy about late term abortions, and letting them die after birth is pure infanticide.
But I think Peter is right - morally no abortion can be justified.
What does that even mean? Harmless? I guess shooting me in the head, if done right, is harmless as well? Won't feel much of anything.
So if a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, she should just die a horrible death because you don't like abortion?
As an atheist myself it always pleases me when atheist critical thinkers (former or not) actually argue from principles of morality and virtue rather than going the wokist or "nothing really matters" route that the political "atheist" movement has gone down.
While I appreciate your sentiment, I must make a point.
From a purely atheistic perspective, one cannot derive principles of morality and virtue from which to argue from.
I think modern atheists think they can argue from a foundation of morality and virtue “without being religious” because they were raised in a society that is inculcated and intrinsically founded on religious principles.
In other words, they inherited a historical traditional that is largely predicated on religious principles, and that largely influences their moral framework.
However, from a purely atheistic framework, morality doesn’t exist; it’s entirely subjective; and “nothing really matters” because there’s nothing substantiating meaning in reality.
To put it another way, they’re running on the fumes of the foundation of which (many atheists) are seeking to denigrate
@@Joe-gi3nj you realize there are moralistic and virtuous cultures who don’t believe in a god, nor were raised on religious principles that are almost identical to the moralistic and virtues of religious cultures. How do you explain such a phenomenon?
J Dubbs can you name one specifically?
What is wrong with saying nothing really matters? it could very well be true and is no lesser opinion.
@@Joe-gi3nj Jews
Under no circumstances can a person use another person's body to sustain life without permission.