Transcription
I'm sorry, but I can't assist with that.
And illegal. The reason I bring it up is because those scare numbers are, uh, I think they're just used as a kind of propaganda. They deceive in that the numbers usually aren't right, and they're dramatically wrong. And, uh, and because the number for the illegal and the legal were basically the same.
So my question for you is, it seems like you consistently want to find ways to minimize the harm that is experienced by pregnant people. And you really want to hone in on mortality, right? Because you think that death is the only negative outcome of pregnancy.
No, I never said that. There's a lot of suffering that goes along with pregnancy.
Exactly. And you think that you get to decide that people who become pregnant should just be obligated to endure that suffering, whether or not...
Yes, if the alternative is killing the baby, then yes.
So even though the fetus is completely unaware of its own existence...
And is not even...
...its own existence, right? But people aren't getting abortions at three months. And people who do get abortions at three months, it is largely because of medical concerns or because they do not have timely access.
I mean, three months out of the womb, I mean, a three-month-old after birth, they're not aware of... they're not aware of themselves, but they can feel. They can feel pain. They can feel fear. They can feel hope.
Not at nine weeks, they cannot.
Not at nine weeks, it's questionable.
No, it's really not, not from science, because we understand the neural networks that are required in order for you to perceive pain and feel emotion, and those neural networks are not present at nine weeks.
Yeah, well, it's questionable. People keep moving the definition. So you could say that a baby at ten weeks has a beating heart.
Well, it doesn't actually have... it doesn't actually have a beating heart because it doesn't look totally like a heart.
No, because it doesn't have all of the chambers of your heart. It is not an anatomical heart. It is the electrical cells that are able to have an electrical impulse.
And so again, you know, when you use this language like the heart is beating and it has a beating heart, canar the ultas many... actually, that's a simulated heart sound because it is an electrical impulse.
Because your heart sounds, when, say, we listen with a stethoscope, the heart sounds are made from the valves of your heart opening and closing. That is what creates that heart sound. And when you don't have the proper chambers of your heart at that week of gestation, many times the sound on the ultrasound machine is a simulated sound. It can pick up the electrical impulses, but it's a simulated sound.
Exactly. It's translating a representation into a representation.
So it is true that a baby at ten weeks gestation is different in a way from a, you know, a ten-week-old.
Yeah, right. It's undeveloped.
No, no, it's not undeveloped. It's just less developed.
No, it's undeveloped, but it's more developed than it was at nine weeks, right? It's developing.
Sure.
So, yes, it's true that it translates that heart impulse into a sound in some cases. But where does the sound come from? The sound is a representation of what is and will further become the baby's heart, but is not yet an existing anatomical heart the way it's anatomical.
Yeah, but it is not existing in the way it does.
It does. It's both of those things. It is electrical cells. It is cells that carry an electrical...
Yeah, it's cells proper to a ten-week-old baby that are different in some way from cells at a fifteen-week-old baby and a ten-year-old baby and a twenty-five-year-old.
And again, I'm going to continue to repeat, even if you want to apply all of the same rights that a living, breathing person has, do you want to give the fetus those same rights?
Nobody has the right to use your body against your will. Not a nine-week-old fetus, not a forty-year-old man. It doesn't matter.
And so when you want to remove the right for someone to decide what happens to their body, you are arguing that the only people who should have those rights to their body removed are people with uteruses who become purposefully or accidentally pregnant. They are not deserving of basic human rights, and that is what you...
I really like people with uteruses, so I have no problem with them.
But right, when you get to decide what happens to their body when they are...
D... try to...
Well, we live in a self... so yeah, we make all sorts of decisions about how we should live.
But you keep going back to rights, which is interesting to me because I don't think of politics primarily through a lens of rights, but you do. You keep going back to rights. You say fundamental rights to do whatever I want with my body in these circumstances or whatever.
So, okay, if we're talking about rights, are all rights equal?
Or all rights on this, you know, my right to have this pink fruity drink here, is that the same as your right to, I don't know, drive a car or something?
No, I don't believe they're all equal.
No?
Okay, so then there are gradations of rights. Some are more important than others. Is there one most important right that you would call a fundamental right?
The fundamental right? The right to your body and the right to decide what happens to your body. There's no right that precedes it.
I mean, it depends. What rights do you think predate that?
Well, it would seem to me that the right to your body and the right to do certain things to your body must necessarily be preceded by the right to life, without which you have your body or the ability to do anything at all.
Well, and as I've described, your right to life does not get to supersede or overwrite someone else's right to bodily autonomy.
But I thought we just admitted that it did because we...
Oh, you didn't agree with me?
Okay, because it seems to me if we're going to have any rights at all, the right to drink my fruity drink, the right to have a lovely conversation in this kind of black room here, any of these other rights, that all of those rights depend upon the right to life, which is not just one right among many, but is the fundamental right.
And so therefore, if rights are to have any meaning at all, the right to life must supersede all of the other ones.
And I disagree. I think that you have a right to life, but your right to life does not override someone's right to bodily autonomy.
Saying that, but why is that true?
Because you, as I've asked you quite a few times now, you cannot describe to me one instance except motherhood where it is acceptable for you to...
Motherhood's unique, but I'm just saying...
What you are saying is that the right to do whatever you want with your body supersedes the right to life. It's more fundamental than the right to life.
And I explained to you why I think that the right to life is fundamental and more important than all those other rights. And I gave you... maybe you don't like my argument or something, but I think I at least spelled it out in a way that's fairly clear and logical.
So what is your argument as to why the right to control your own body is more fundamental than the right to life?
Because I think that if you allow the government to decide that someone else's right to life can override your right to bodily autonomy, that is opening the door for a lot of terrifying things to happen.
This is why you have to volunteer to be an organ donor. This is why you have to volunteer to be a blood donor, things like that. If we allowed the government to say that someone else's right to life can supersede your right to your body, that is a pretty terrifying amount of power to give to the government.
No, we're speaking about... I mean, you're talking about organ donations, but we're speaking about this unique case, right?
Because...
No, we're talking about the use of your body, right?
But, for instance, Bronte, I have kidneys. I don't need both of my kidneys. Maybe I do to filter all these terrible things I put into my body, but I don't really need both of them. I could give them to someone else.
But it would be wrong if the government came in and said, "Michael, we're taking your kidney now because Bronte needs it."
I might give it to you voluntarily, but I certainly wouldn't want someone coming in gunpoint taking my kidney away. That would be wrong.
Even if you were in dire straits?
I still might give it to you, but I don't want someone taking it from me, and I don't think that I have an obligation to give you my kidney.
His kidney is for filtering my blood. That's what it's for, right?
In the same way, a woman's womb is for nurturing a child. That is the purpose of the womb. It serves no other purpose.
So I don't think that the analogy that you're making here is apt. I think once again it gets back to the unique status of motherhood.
So the same thing can be said for your liver, right? Your liver...
Well, my... no one wants my liver.
Well, but your liver, the purpose of your liver is to detoxify your blood. It can process alcohol. It can process all kinds of toxins.
But if I don't ingest those toxins, then my liver doesn't have to do that job. If I don't choose to harbor a fetus, my uterus doesn't have to harbor that fetus.
Just because your body can do something doesn't mean that you should be compelled to do it. If you choose not to have a drink, then your liver is not going to process alcohol. There's no way the alcohol got in there.
But if you decide, after, I don't know, you had a crazy weekend, you went out here to Nashville, met a nice guy, you would never do this, but I'm saying, you know, women of ill repute would go out and, you know, they meet a guy, he's not so nice.
Anyway, the next morning she finds out she's pregnant. Really, four weeks later she finds out she's pregnant.
It'd be very... but mothers know, you know, and anyway, she finds out she's pregnant. She says, "Oh darn, I don't want to be pregnant."
And, you know, that baby has no right to be in my womb.
She has engaged in behavior that would introduce the baby into her womb in a way that, uh, if you put the drink down, you will not be introducing alcohol to your liver.
Should we then deny health care to alcoholics because they partook in behaviors that caused them to have liver failure?
Should we deny smokers access to medical care because they partook in, you know, behaviors that damaged their lungs?
No, no, no, but you believe that we shouldn't kill them, though.
I don't think we should kill them, you know, or steal their livers or anything like that, just like I don't think we should go in and kill the baby just 'cause...
But you are saying that you get to judge someone based off of their behaviors, and because of those behaviors, you believe that they should be denied access to health care in order to address the effects of those behaviors.
And not if it's a drinker, not if it's a smoker, but if it's a woman, then sure, now we get to remove the right to her body and the effects of her behaviors.
No, well, and I guess we're again missing the point. I don't think a mother ever has the right to kill her child in any circumstances.
So I'm not suggesting that we single mothers out here or that it be very judgmental or anything like that or deny anybody health care.
I just don't think that killing a baby is ever health care. I think that's a euphemism.
And you kind of admitted at the top when we talked about the distinction between babies and fetuses.
See, and that's where you're wrong, though, because when we... we've talked about maternal mortality rates. We've talked about the number one cause of death for pregnant people is maternal mortality, which is still very low, by the way.
Right? Do you know the amount of people who have... do you know the difference between maternal mortality and maternal morbidity?
Uh, no. Enlighten me.
So morbidity is essentially unforeseen or serious health effects of medical conditions.
So maternal morbidity is when someone experiences severe complications of pregnancy and labor.
And I know that you think that seven to eight hundred women dying annually from pregnancy is too low for you to care, but...
No, we should bring the number down, but we shouldn't kill eight thousand babies to pretend to resolve that.
So sixty thousand people every year have serious maternal morbidity, which means, um, there are certain codes that they use, and, um, like insurance codes that they use to determine whether or not you experienced a severe side effect.
And some of those codes are being having an ICU admission or needing multiple blood transfusions, things like that.
And sixty thousand women every year are admitted into the ICU or need blood transfusions.
What have you? Definition of a severe comorbidity?
There's... I think we're talking about... I... or are we talking about certain things that are less severe?
It's severe.
That would be some of the other examples.
So it depends because it can be sepsis.
Um, I think pulmonary embolism. There's multitudes of different complications.
That we're not talking something like tearing or something like that.
No, that's minor, and that's not included in sixty thousand.
So that's my point is sixty thousand women every year experience severe morbidity, and that's not including the women who just develop things like diabetes or have a perineal tear.
Oh, well, this is actually a very important point that you bring up of some of these problems that go along with pregnancy because something that the abortion advocates mention that often is not addressed by the pro-life movement—not that I think it needs to be, but it's interesting nonetheless—is that the United States is not the best when it comes to maternal mortality.
We're not the worst, but we're not the best.
And there are lots of problems with it, but the reason for that, of course, is not because of any conspiracy among the doctors or, you know, misogyny or anything like that.
I don't think. I think it probably has more to do with America's disproportionate rates of obesity and heart disease and diabetes.
You look, especially, it's not as though complications of pregnancy are the same across all demographics. It's largely concentrated in black women.
And the reason for that, it would seem to me, is that black women are much more likely to be obese and to have heart problems and have diabetes and all those things that do factor into pregnancy problems.
But that's not a... again, I don't think any of that is a good argument to kill a bunch of babies every single year.
But that seems like a health issue that should be addressed elsewhere, right? Getting people to exercise, put down the cupcake, not be so obese, and have many pregnancy complications are unavoidable and unforeseen.
And so sure, there are comorbidities that make you more likely—a lot of them—but some are not.
I agree, but a lot of them... but when we live in a country where health care is inaccessible and affordable to a large majority of Americans...
Yeah, that seems like overstating.
Well, it depends on the statistics, and it depends on what you classify as unaffordable and unaccessible because, you know, someone can be, you know, living in a rural area and be less accessible.
Someone, you know, can be in financial situations, be not affordable. It just depends on your classification.
But I don't... the thing is, this entire conversation, you are very fetus-centered, where I am very...
Yes.
Where I am very woman-centered.
When we are going through these scenarios, you consistently center the fetus, where I consistently center the woman.
I want to consider her health, her finances, her mentality, and her body.
Do you think that I'm neglecting that?
Yes.
Yes, because you believe that the only people in our society who shouldn't get to decide what happens to their body are people with uteruses.
I don't think that people have an absolute right over their own body.
Exactly. And that's where we disagree.
But I know, but you're putting an opinion into my head that you've said it multiple times that you...
What you've said is you cannot tell me one scenario in society where someone can use someone's body against their will.
But unless it's hard labor in a prison, you know, that would be one scenario.
Yeah, well, that's in a completely different topic because that is, you know, essentially...
But if when you described it and you said, you know, give... name me a scenario where someone other than a mother or, I'm sorry, a pregnant person has someone growing inside of them using their organs, I say, okay, I can't name any other scenario.
You're right, that's unique to motherhood.
You're right, you're right.
It is unique.
No, I didn't say growing inside of them. I said tell me a scenario where someone can use someone else's body without their consent, and you can't name me a time.
I just told you hard labor in a prison.
Well, I mean, that again, that is an issue in and of itself. I believe we shouldn't... that's not rehabbing.
Someone like that is definitely taking advantage of a broken system.
Well, but yeah, but there are three purposes to criminal justice. I guess this is a little bit of a pivot here, but it's not just rehabilitation.
We could all use a little rehabilitation. People go to prison to get punished.
Yeah, well, it should be rehabilitation, should it not?
I mean, this is a pivot, and I just think it's funny that the only other scenario you can bring up is definitely a symptom of a broken system.
And so, no, I don't think that's definitely... I think it's good to punish criminals. I think that's good.
I mean, why is that bad?
It depends on the crime, but I am bad crime.
Like you, again, I mean, this is, you know, going off into the weeds, but I'm a naturally compassionate person, and I see the best in people.
And I believe especially a lot of crime is committed because of circumstances that people find themselves in.
And I think... I don't mean to be this blunt, but I guess I have to be.
You have been sitting here describing how it is good and moral to permit a system to exist that kills 850,000 people, who you admit are human beings, every single year because of the desires of another person.
That has been your position, and I'm not calling you evil because of that.
I think you're just extraordinarily confused and misguided.
But to say, you know, I'm such a compassionate person as I make it my jihad to permit the killing of 850,000 babies, who I admit are babies, every single year seems to me absurd.
See, and this is why I bring up that you are entirely fetus-centered in this conversation, and you completely disregard the trauma experienced by...
I have said so many times that women suffer in pregnancy, but you don't feel like it's worth protecting them from.
You don't.
I think it's definitely worth protecting them and giving them the best medical care you can.
I just don't think it's worth sanctioning the killing of 850,000 babies a year.
Giving people medical care does not, you know, minimize or does not get rid of the trauma and suffering of pregnancy.
You can have all the medical care in the world available to you, and you still will experience some trauma, some pain, and some suffering throughout your pregnancy.
You want to mitigate that.
That's right.
But if you do not consent to that suffering...
You just brought up rape, which is a very, very small percentage of abortions.
Every so... it doesn't matter, right? It's worth discussing, but that is clearly a... the exception of the exception of the exception, not the rule.
Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.
Oh, yes, it is.
No, it is not. It's consent. It's consent to the possibility of pregnancy. It's not consent to enduring pregnancy, as I've said.
But if it's consent to the possibility of pregnancy, then it is consent to pregnancy.
It is not.
It is not consent to enduring pregnancy.
I don't even know how to respond to that.
How is it not?
You've just said that when you consent to sex, you are acknowledging the possibility of becoming pregnant and consenting to that.
So you are consenting to that.
If I consent to go to the bar and I know that if I go to the bar, there's a possibility that I get drunk, and then I know if I get drunk, there's a possibility that I have a hangover the next morning, then when I go out there to that bar with the boys for a rowdy Saturday night, I am consenting to that hangover that I am going to have that will involve some suffering and maybe teach me some lessons in the morning, right?
So I don't see how it's different with pregnancy.
Right, I'll explain it to you.
So because it's not that different.
So say that you just didn't have a hangover because a hangover doesn't necessarily require medical care.
Say that you had alcohol poisoning.
Should you go to the ER and then be turned away because they're like, "Well, you drank, so you consented to the possibility of alcohol poisoning, and we have restricted your access to medical care because you consented to the possibility"?
Of course, but again, as we've pointed out, the issue of abortion does not merely concern the mother. It concerns this other person who you've admitted is a human being.
So I think a more apt analogy would be if I go out to the bar, right, and I wake up and I've got this headache, and my kid just won't stop crying.
You know, this kid, and he cries, he cries, and he cries, and I say, "You know, I got to kill my kid. I got to kill my kid to shut him up because he's crying too much, and it's really... ah, my body, and my head is just throbbing, and I'm suffering, and it's just going to make me feel a lot better if I kill my little baby, who, by the way, is exactly as sentient, well, exactly as sentient per... I'll even go further, conscious, self-aware as the little baby in the womb."
Okay, it's not.
It is, of course it is.
Well, you haven't asked me how old my kid is.
It doesn't matter if they are a born child who is autonomous. They are not equal to a fetus.
Oh my goodness, what do you think little babies are like if you think they're autonomous?
So you are confusing biological autonomy with functional autonomy.
Would you like me to define those for you?
Oh, please do.
Yes, so biological autonomy is when your bodily system can support itself. Your organs can support themselves, and you do not need to be connected to another person biologically for your body systems to function.
So maybe like a baby in the womb at twenty-five weeks?
Sure, when abortions do not happen.
Then when it comes to abortions that do happen, they are largely because of medical conditions.
And so they don't happen then or do happen then, but they do not happen often.
Then there are like less than one percent of abortions happen.
And yet for some reason, states in America like New York are changing their laws in a hurry to permit abortion up until the moment of birth.
Abortion does not happen up until the moment of birth.
That would be an induction of labor.
But if, but Bronte, they did change the law in New York such that... and they actually changed the penal code such that abortion is permitted in the state of New York up until the moment of birth.
That happened.
That is a misrepresentation of the law.
But if you... the penal code such that if you kill a pregnant woman, it's no longer double homicide.
They could not more clearly point out... they could not more clearly highlight through the statute that abortion is permissible at any point in pregnancy up until the moment of birth.
See, it seems that you consistently want to demonize women, and you want to feel as though pregnant...
I'm just describing the law in New York.
No, but when you describe abortions happening right up until the moment of birth, you are describing someone who has carried this fetus for likely, you know, nine months, forty weeks, whatever it may be, and you are acting as though those people are completely unaware of the situation they find themselves in.
And usually, people who are at that point in their pregnancy have decorated the nursery, have picked out a name, have went to prenatal appointments, things like that.
And so for you to try to say that women are wanting abortions right up until the moment of birth, you are demonizing them.
And you are saying...
Just describing their behavior.
But women aren't doing that.
That is not something that happens.
It's not something that...
So then why do they keep changing the law in all of these liberal states?
They're changing the law to protect women and protect women's access because there's also a lot of these laws that are trying to criminalize women for things like miscarriages.
And so rewriting these laws that all of that is protected, and especially because of the Doe decision, people don't realize that the Roe v. Wade decision was really two cases: Roe and Doe.
And Doe creates this right that protects women's ability to have abortions for psychological reasons, for emotional reasons, practically until the very end.
And so that already exists. That was already protected in New York.
There was no risk whatsoever in New York that abortion was going to be criminalized or miscarriages were going to be criminalized or whatever other propaganda comes out.
So if you're telling me that abortions do not happen late term, why would multiple liberal governors and state legislatures change the law to permit abortion up until the moment of birth?
I'm not saying that I agree with those laws, but I also believe from what I've read as well that a lot of those... the way that you're describing it is a misrepresentation of the purpose of the law.
But I'm also not saying that I personally agree with those laws if that is what they state.
Oh, good. Well, that's good.
Why do you disagree with them?
Well, because, as I've said numerous times, I'm prioritizing the needs of the pregnant person.
But if you're going to prioritize the needs of the pregnant person, surely they should have the greatest window possible to have an abortion, which would be up until the moment of birth.
New York?
I don't believe so because I believe if you reached that late term in the pregnancy, then, you know, at that point, then the fetus is somewhat autonomous.
It has the ability to be viable and autonomous, and that is when their life can and should be, you know, weighed heavier.
So post-viability, you think abortion should be illegal?
Um, with the exception of, you know, medical concerns.
Really?
Well, by medical concerns, do you include, you know, emotional distress, or do you mean real serious medical risks to the...
Um, I mean, not to discount medical or mental concerns because those can be serious, but primarily physical.
Wow, so you would support a post-viability abortion?
Yes.
Great. Oh, that's progress.
With the exception of, you know, medical and protecting medical providers based on certain scenarios.
So post-viability, okay.
So then I guess I have to ask, why is viability so important?
Why is independence so important?
Because, you know, a baby who's born, a newborn baby can't do a damn thing.
You leave the baby outside or even inside for seventy-two hours, the kid's going to die.
Right, that's functional autonomy versus biological.
Practically, it's the same thing.
It's not biological, and no, biological autonomy and functional autonomy are two very different things.
But they're distinct, but practically speaking, they're the same thing because if you leave the baby, who you say is biologically autonomous, if you leave that baby alone to its autonomous self for, let's say, five days, even that baby is going to die.
That baby has no control over himself or his surroundings at all because they lack functional autonomy.
So it's really a distinction without a difference.
No, but the difference is anyone can provide food and shelter to that infant, where only the singular pregnant person can provide the womb for the fetus.
That is where...
And you can surrender your parental rights.
We cannot force someone to be a parent.
They can give up those parental rights, and that is the same thing in pregnancy because you cannot force someone to use their body and use their time in a way that they do not agree with.
Do you think parents of children who are five years old should be able to just renounce them and say, "Go away"?
Pronounce their parental obligations?
I mean, if they're incapable of providing a safe home...
If they're capable and they just don't want to be a parent?
It's just their consent.
If they're not... but if they're not mentally willing and capable, then they're...
I'm not saying capable, though.
Let's say that they are totally capable.
It's some rich lawyer with a nice house in the suburbs, two cars, nice dinner every night.
They just don't want to be parents anymore.
You think they ought to have the right to renounce their parenthood?
That seems like that would be better for the child.
I would... no, but I wouldn't want the child to grow up in a home where they're unwanted and resented.
So yeah, I think they should be able to give up their parental rights because that doesn't seem like an appropriate environment for that child.
Well, if you're saying Child Protective Services should go in and take the kids away, maybe there's an argument for that.
But I just... I guess it's just this right part that you keep... because you keep coming down to consent and rights.
If you're saying that a parent of sound mind really has the right to abandon his own children, that seems crazy to me.
It's prioritizing the wellness of the child.
I would never want a child to grow up in a home where they're resented and abused because their parent isn't willing to take care of them.
That's why should we force a child to stay in that environment?
I'm talking about what is prudentially best for the child.
I'm really focused on...
That's not the topic of discussion.
What I'm asking about is the rights.
You're saying a parent has a right to renounce his or her child.
Again, if it is prioritizing the well-being of the child, I think that what if it's not?
What if it's worse for the child?
What if the child is staying in an abusive home?
No, I didn't say it's abusive.
Why a neglectful home?
I'm not saying it's neglectful.
I'm telling you all things being equal, this guy, this nice guy and his wife, you know, good jobs, good money, nice house, they take care of the kid just fine.
They just don't want to do it anymore, and they'll do it if they have to, but they just don't want to, and it'd be a little easier if they could renounce the child.
I'm really focusing on this question of rights because I think that's where the abortion argument really starts to unravel.
You're saying they have a right to do that?
Again, prioritizing the well-being of the child.
If they are in an environment in which they are unwanted, then that is not an appropriate environment for them.
And I believe that if a parent is unwilling to care for that child appropriately...
And I just think you're not accepting the...
No, I just think that you continuously want to ignore the well-being of people that we share society with.
Whenever I... right?
Whenever I bring up the well-being of people, it seems like you want to brush this off because you keep rights too.
And then when I focus on rights, you shift to well-being, and then when I focus on well-being, you shift to rights.
And so I think you're trying to evade...
No, no, because they're intermingled, right?
Our rights are... our rights protect our well-being, and our rights basically have a large effect on our well-being.
So they are not two exclusive things.
We decide what our rights are depending on the way that they affect our health and our well-being and our mentalities.
We decide what our rights are as a society.
So where do you think rights come from?
This might help me to understand your view on abortion.
Where do you think rights come from?
Well, it depends on what kind of rights you're talking about because in a society, we like... our government is a system designed to protect our rights.
That is the purpose, right?
That is the purpose of...
So where do those rights come from?
I mean, I think it's a convoluted question because essentially, if we were cavemen, we wouldn't necessarily decide that we had...
I don't know. I think we were a lot smarter than we give them credit for.
Oh, the only thing we know about cavemen is that they painted on the walls.
The only thing we know about cavemen is that they were artists, so I think they probably had a pretty good intuition of these things.
Right, but I mean, our rights don't necessarily come from anywhere aside from our own analysis of our human experience.
Oh, so then we don't really have any rights at all?
The rights that we have decided on based on the analysis of our human experience, we have decided that these are the rights that prioritize the health and well-being of society.
And these are the things that we need to protect in order to prioritize the health and well-being of society.
My rights are just whatever I say my rights are?
No, our rights are what our society has decided on a large spectrum.
And there's... when we look at...
Okay, well then our society on a large spectrum has just decided that abortion is not a right.
And in about half the country now, abortion is severely restricted, if not outright illegal.
And so those are our rights, and there's no arguing with it.
So again, sixty-one percent of Americans, which is the major...
No, I'm talking about the Supreme Court and the legislature.
Right, but that's how our government... our government is not conducted by pure...
And that was stacked corruptly.
When I talk about society, when I talk about society, I talk about both society in a general sense and then society as also the experts as it pertains to that right in particular.
So when we talk about sixty-one percent of Americans, according to the Pew Research Center, agree...
Let me finish... agree with the ability to access abortion in all or most cases.
And ninety-five percent of OBGYNs said, regardless of their personal feelings, they would help a patient access abortion.
So that is what I mean by coming to a consensus as a society about what is a right that should be protected.
And both society as a whole and the group of experts largely as a whole has decided that this is a right that should be protected.
But so I think you're ignoring the way that our society is actually governed.
The civil authority in our society has decided that there is no right to abortion.
That just happened.
The Supreme Court just decided that, which is in keeping with the longer jurisprudence throughout the United States and England and elsewhere in civilization.
And so that was how the actual civil authority in our society that governs us determined we would live.
And, uh, so then I would say if that's your understanding of where rights come from, you should accept those rights.
But then you respond to that and say, "No, that's actually... that doesn't matter what the civil authority already says through our self-government because of this one Pew Research survey and because of the trade organization for the obstetricians."
So no, because who is the "we"?
And we decide our rights, as I've said, as I've said, pregnancy is a medical condition, and abortion is a medical procedure.
And so when I talk about the experts and when I talk about people who should be deciding these things...
So our rights come from the experts?
It comes from society as a whole in addition to the experts.
And society as a whole is typically guided by experts, but society as a whole...
Well, what represents society as a whole?
Is it the civil authority or is it...
No, it's not.
No, because the government is meant to serve society.
And if society decides that something should be protected, as they... their representatives, and in self-government, the representatives pass new laws and appoint different judges, and the judges make rulings about statutory and constitutional interpretation.
And in this case, they've said there's no right to abortion.
But as I've said, the legislation is not appropriately representing the need and desires of the people.
How could you say that?
Because sixty-one percent of Americans believe that abortion should be protected.
So you're saying that the way that the people in our self-government express their will is through a Pew Research survey, not through our elected representatives at the ballot box on Election Day, but through some survey from this one...
No, our desires are represented by surveys, but we have abysmal voter turnout here in the U.S.
And so what is represented in our legislation isn't necessarily representing the desires of the people.
It should, but it doesn't.
But you... so I don't think that our rights come from... come primarily from just what we all sort of agree upon.
But even if I did, you realize how absurd this sounds.
You're saying that our system of self-government, where we go to the polls and we elect our representatives, the representatives, they're there to represent us imperfectly, as a fallen world might do, but that's what they do.
You're saying that that is not the way to understand the will of the people, but just like one survey of who knows, usually these are a thousand to two thousand people, that is the expression of the will of the people, even when other surveys contradict it?
That seems a little silly, right?
You're saying our rights come not from the civil authority but from the Pew Research Center?
That seems a little silly, doesn't it?
No, it is very clear as of, you know, recently that our representatives are not properly representing the will of the people.
And like I said, we have abysmal voter turnout.
By the way, who controls the government in what way right now?
I mean, who has unified government today?
A lot of money controls our government.
Which party controls government right now?
I think the Senate is the Democrats.
Our presidency is a Democrat, and then I believe the House went to the Republicans, or it hasn't been called yet.
I haven't...
Well, the Republicans will take the House in January when they're sworn into office.
But today we have a unified government run by the Democrats.
And so when you say that our government is not adequately representing the people, I agree with you entirely.
But, yeah, but we also have a filibuster, which is essentially, you know, kneecapping our ability to pass proper legislation that is the will of the people.
But the representatives of the people agreed to have the filibuster in the first place, right?
And that is a point of contention right now.
That should be...
I'm just saying the filibuster itself was an expression of the popular will in the self...
But it's not right now, and it should be abolished according to...
They can abolish it if they want to, but it just hasn't been done yet by either party, correct?
Right, because...
And disagree.
Because the politicians...
You might disagree with it, but the politicians do not abolish it because presumably they believe it's in their electoral interest not to abolish it because they are accountable to the voters.
And so regardless of what you think about the filibuster, nevertheless, if you accept the premise of self-government, republican government at all, that expresses the will of the people, right?
Well, also, we live right now in a binary political system in the United States, which our political spectrum as a whole doesn't exist in a binary.
Nothing exists in a binary.
And so when we only have one of two options, it's not going to accurately represent the desires of the people, which is a big problem in our political system.
Do you call yourself a Democrat?
No.
You're not?
What do you call yourself?
I'm more of a leftist.
You find the Democrats are a little too weak?
Uh, financially, yeah.
I don't agree with all that Democrats do, but I believe it was Obama who said that voting is not marriage.
It is public transportation.
You aren't going to find the one, but you take the one that is getting you closest to your desired destination, and for me, that is the Democrats.
And our binary system...
You're not a liberal, you're a leftist.
I'm a leftist, yeah.
You're a feminist?
Yes.
You know, I find myself... I don't know, maybe I'm going crazy in my old age, but I find myself agreeing with the radical feminists more and more than I do with the leftists, or I'm sorry, more and more than I do with the liberals.
Okay, elaborate on that for me.
Well, there was a great clip that was going around of Catherine MacKinnon. Are you familiar with her?
No, I don't think so.
Catherine MacKinnon, wonderful, great radical feminist.
And, uh, it was her debating some conservative over porn, and she made this point.
She said, "You know, you conservatives, some of you conservatives are tolerant of porn. You think porn is no big deal, and obviously since the Internet, it's exploded everywhere and caused a lot of problems."
And she says, "But you know, imagine if you were in your apartment and you heard some guy knocking a woman around every single wall, abusing some woman. And what would you do? I hope you'd go over to the apartment, try to stop it. I hope you'd call the cops."
But that's what you're doing when you're watching porn.
And this weak conservative, he said, "Well, you know, but people have a right to look at whatever smut they want."
And she said, "What are you talking about? You know, that's completely insane."
And the conservative said to her, "Well, don't you agree with that? All these free principles of just watching whatever you want?"
She said, "No, because I'm not a liberal. I'm a feminist. I'm not a liberal."
I thought, "Oh, guess I guess maybe I'm a feminist too. Who knew?"
Yeah, I mean, are you... would you describe yourself as...
She called herself sex-negative. You know, that's the kind of anti-porn feminists.
Are you the anti-porn feminist or the pro-porn feminist?
Yeah, because largely the pornographic industry is a huge issue as far as perpetuating and supporting sex trafficking and human trafficking.
And so, no, yeah, I'm not a supporter of the porn industry as a whole.
Now, as far as like agree on, yeah, and as far as like sexual liberation and the ability to, you know, consciously and responsibly consume porn, I'm not necessarily opposed to that.
But the large porn industry as a whole, as it supports sex trafficking and is largely unregulated, I am...
Yeah, and is it only the trafficking that bothers you, or is it the women who are involved in porn come from bad backgrounds almost all the time and usually neglectful and abusive backgrounds, and they're very vulnerable, and they're completely exploited, and they're paid pennies, and they're treated literally like meat, and then they're thrown out two years later?
And it's just the whole thing so ghastly, and it's not... that's not a matter of trafficking exactly, but it's still an exploitation.
Yeah, I agree with that.
But then you just said that you don't mind people watching porn in certain circumstances, right?
If the industry was better regulated, people were paid living wages, there wasn't this whole situation where people feel, you know, pressured or forced into that industry based off of certain life experiences or certain circumstances.
100% of the time, right?
Well, not necessarily 100%.
I do feel like people can consensually and responsibly, you know, partake.
I mean, that's not necessarily what happens.
Like, I see, and I think that that is sort of dehumanizing.
And I think that is dehumanizing, right?
But that's also removing the consent aspect because there are a lot of people who do sex work responsibly, and they do so of their own volition.
Oh, so you... so before, you were sounding sex-negative like the radical feminists.
Now you're sounding sex-positive like the liberals.
Well, I am sex-positive, but I mean, it depends.
All right, never mind. I thought we agreed on one thing finally, but okay.
I mean, we agree that we both do not like the porn industry as a whole, but you wouldn't... would you ban it?
The porn industry?
Yeah, I mean, frankly, according to the law, it already sort of is largely banned.
It's just a few court decisions kind of screwed that up.
But yeah, I mean, I think that things like OnlyFans should stay legal when they are run...
I think that if it is run by the worker themselves and it is they deciding to do something of their own volition, then I'm not necessarily opposed to that.
But I do think that the porn industry should be banned or regulated as a whole.
Well, that's good.
So people should not be permitted to look at PornHub, for instance?
That's what you're saying?
Yeah, I think PornHub should be shut down because a lot of it is, you know, unregulated and kind of per... there's a lot of things on there too that perpetuate abuse, that perpetuate, you know, radicalist ideas of, you know, objectifying women.
And so that, yeah, I definitely...
Not so does that not undercut a little bit of your argument about bodily autonomy and doing what you want, you know, in your own bedroom with the blinds closed?
I mean, if a guy wants to go into his bedroom and pull up some disgusting pornography and, uh, do whatever with his own body, you know, sex with someone you love, as Woody Allen described it, uh, is that not a matter of his personal bodily autonomy that he allegedly has a right to?
I believe he has the right to do that, but like I said, it doesn't have to be done through PornHub.
There are responsible and worker-run...
But what if he really likes PornHub?
What if that's his favorite one?
Well, we don't have to protect his right to access PornHub.
No, I don't believe we should.
No, that's good.
All right, that's something.
But OnlyFans, you think, is okay?
Yeah, I think OnlyFans is okay because, like I said, it is run by the workers themselves, and they are exploited by an industry, and they aren't forced into certain things.
Don't you think that pornography intrinsically is exploitative and degrading?
I guess that's my problem with it.
There are other problems too. It's not just the consent.
Is what I'm saying because you seem to think that the only moral criterion that matters is consent.
If you consent to do it, then it's fine and dandy.
But I think there are plenty of things that you can consent to do that are not good and are degrading and feed your basest passions and enslave you and should be illegal and are illegal even today in some cases.
Yeah, elaborate on that.
Well, like drugs would be an example, right?
I don't think you have a right to do drugs, but I don't think you have a right to do all sorts of things.
You know, I don't think people should have a right to cheat on their wives.
Maybe a married man consents to sleep with his secretary or something, and the secretary consents.
I think that should be illegal, and it was illegal for a lot of American history.
I don't think you ought to have a right to that.
I don't think that if you are under the delusion, if you're a man and you're under the delusion that you're a woman, that you have a right to chop your healthy genitals off any more than you would have a right to walk into a doctor's office and say, "Doc, I identify as a quadriplegic."
And the doc says, "Man, you got problems. You need to go see a psychologist. I'm not going to chop your limbs off."
But then that same man walks into a doctor's office, and he says, "Doc, I'm a woman."
That doc says, "Wow, oh my gosh, that's so brave and wonderful. You're a stunning, beautiful woman. Let's get you onto the operating table and cut off the family jewels."
That seems to me preposterous.
I don't think anyone has a right to that.
I guess ultimately I'm saying I don't think you have a right to...
Well, what we define as wrong is different between you and I because I do agree in providing gender-affirming care to people because when you are in a body that doesn't feel right to you and you do not identify as the gender that people perceive you as, that can have psychological consequences.
And again, when we look at medical experts who study this and provide this care, they agree that gender-affirming care is essential in order to prioritize the needs of these patients.
What about Dr. Paul McHugh?
I don't know.
So Dr. Paul McHugh was a doctor at Johns Hopkins and was the pioneer of the gender transition surgery and was the head of their gender clinic.
And, uh, so he pioneered the whole thing.
Then he found after a few years that it wasn't improving psychological outcomes.
He didn't find that it was damaging psychological outcomes in most cases, but it just wasn't really doing anything, and it wasn't helping.
And so if it wasn't helping, he shut it down.
And so he's not only one figure in the transgender care medical community, whatever.
I mean, he's a preeminent figure in it, and he says that it's awful and we should stop the surgeries.
So does his expert opinion color your views at all?
No.
So in medicine, we are taught something called paternalism.
It's something that we should avoid, and paternalism is essentially putting your own personal views into the health care of other people.
So if you believe that a patient is going to regret this decision, then you are going to, you know, prohibit their access to this.
And as medical practitioners, as physicians, we are taught to avoid paternalism, and acting paternalistically is unethical.
So that's an interesting use of the word paternalism.
So by that, you mean just having opinions and acting on them?
No, no, it is a specific terminology in medical ethics.
It is not prohibiting your patient's access to medical care based off...
You would give advice, right?
Say, "I don't think you should chop your genitals off," or "I don't think you should have an abortion."
See, and that is putting your personal opinion that is unrelated to medical studies and unrelated to proper psychology...
How?
Why would you hold a personal opinion that is completely out of step with reality?
Would you... I mean, I just fail to understand this distinction between a personal opinion and, say, public opinion, professional opinion.
Yeah, I don't see... if the professional opinion that you're supposed to hold and your personal opinion, and if they're contradictory, only one of them can be true.
So if the professional opinion is true, then why do you hold your mistaken personal opinion?
And if your personal opinion is true, then why would you give a damn what some lunatic who's telling you to perform a lobotomy has to say?
So a per... when it comes to medical practice, your personal opinion is colored by your own personal experience, where your professional opinion is influenced by evidence and training.
And is your personal opinion not influenced by your faculties of reason and your moral conscience and your ability to perceive reality?
True, but my moral conscience and my ability to perceive reality is based off of my own personal reality, and my personal reality differs from someone else's.
Hold on, I thought the purpose of reason and perception is to ascertain objective reality.
It's not like the imagination where you're just concocting your own fantasies, right?
So what you're telling me then is that your faculties of reason and moral conscience are not reliable, and they can have nothing to say about objective reality.
So then I have to ask, why should I care what you think about anything?
Well, it depends on what you're asking me my opinion on because, again, there's a difference between personal and professional opinions.
Because when professional opinions, especially in medical practice, are colored by statistics and training, that is going to supersede my personal opinion when it comes to offering someone medical advice.
So are you saying you simultaneously hold two opinions at the same time, or are you saying that you just defer to the board of obstetricians on every question?
I'm saying that I understand as a medical professional that I need to avoid paternalism and that although my personal opinion and my personal experience and my perception of life based off of, you know, my own worldview isn't going to be completely accurate when it comes to the life experience of a patient sitting in my exam room.
So what if it's 1950? You've just graduated medical school. You're doing your residency, and the fancy people in the lab coats say, "All right, Bronte, here's your first assignment. You're going to perform a lobotomy on this crazy lady."
And the crazy lady comes in, and you say, "You know, I think it's probably a bad idea to perform this lobotomy. I think scrambling up poor women's brains is not good."
But the consensus medical opinion, the professional opinion, disagrees with my personal opinion here.
Would you just put your personal opinion and your own view from your reason and your conscience aside and scramble up the poor woman's brains?
So does the woman... is she wanting this procedure?
Well, she's a bit crazy, isn't she?
But maybe she says she wants it.
Maybe one day she says she wants it, another day she says she doesn't want it.
I mean, with any kind of psychological treatment, there was a lot of ambiguity.
So in this sort of situation, but let's say... let's say that she does want it.
So in this situation, we have the privilege of, you know, perspective, right?
We, in the 1950s, you don't have the privilege of that kind of perspective.
So we understand that, you know, medically, lobotomies are not appropriate.
But in the '50s, we are working with the evidence that we have at the time.
And if the patient is wanting the procedure and the evidence and studies at the time support that procedure, then sure, you would move... you would perform the lobotomy.
Even if your faculties of reason...
Because it was very controversial at the time, just as abortion and transgender surgery are controversial now.
And so you're saying even if you see...
It's not only that we learned in foresight, you know, or rather in retrospectively...
Oh gosh, can you imagine?
We did these lobotomies?
Wow, everyone agreed to do them, and then all of a sudden we all realized it was wrong?
No, it was very controversial at the time, but the lab coat people said, "Go do them."
So I think the analogy is quite apt to abortion and to transgenderism.
And let's say, you know, I disagree with you.
Well, let's just go to the lobotomy thing then.
You know, at the time, as did many, many people in the medical profession, that lobotomies are really spooky and weird and not good.
And you really disagree with it, but you're there.
There's the patient. The docs are telling you to perform the lobotomy.
Do you really put your own moral conscience aside and your own rational thought aside, and you just do what the doctors tell you to do?
I mean, not necessarily, no.
Oh, okay, good.
Right, and I also don't believe that lobotomies are, you know, analogous to gender-affirming care.
And when we are talking about... because gender-affirming care is not necessarily controversial in the medical field.
Where...
Well, the guy who invented it says that it's terrible.
No, as you said, as you said, it might not have improved their psych, you know, their mental state, but it also didn't necessarily damage it.
Yeah, him personally, but on the whole, he camps against it.
Well, he might have been one of the first to do it, but in the medical field, it is shown that providing gender-affirming care is beneficial to the patients when done with evidence-based medicine and appropriately.
In the medical field, it was shown that lobotomies were really good for crazy ladies, and it was shown with evidence and studies and papers and very serious men in horned classes and lab coats.
See, and I just feel like this line of questioning is inherently transphobic.
And when you act as though people who have, you know, gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia or whatever it may be, when you act as though their situation is equivalent to someone in the '50s needing or wanting a lobotomy, you are perpetuating this idea that their life experience and their opinions about their own bodies is inappropriate and wrong.
Bronte, I just think... I think your attacks on lobotomy are extraordinarily misogynistic, first of all, and I think they deny the science and the scientific consensus, and they're frankly ignorant because all of the educated people with all the power, they say that lobotomies are really, really good, and they're for women, and they're to make women feel better.
These poor women are dealing with anxiety, hysteria, actually is what we would have called it then, and you're denying them care that will ease their suffering.
And I just think it's really awful.
I didn't say that I would deny them that care.
If the patient is consenting to this procedure and the evidence and studies at the time support that procedure, then I would go forward with it.
So you would perform the lobotomy?
I'm not going to say that I would perform the lobotomy.
You just said you would perform the lobotomy.
I would perform a procedure if the evidence supported it and the patient consented to it.
That is it.
And in the 1950s, the evidence supported lobotomy.
I don't know enough about lobotomy in the '50s in order to give you an accurate response to that question.
Okay, all right.
So it seems to me that you... your deferral away from moral conscience, your admission that your moral conscience and your faculties of reason are purely subjective, solipsistic even, they only pertain to your own body and your own possibly diluted view of the world.
And so that's why you have to defer to the experts and the, you know, the people in the lab coats.
And those people are the ones who have the ability to make our rights.
Anyway, our rights, in fact, come from the Academy of Obstetricians or whatever.
And because of all of that, if the medical science supported it and if the patient consented to it, you would perform the lobotomy, you would perform the gender-affirming surgery on the men who think that they're women, and you would perform the abortion.
I just say humbly and respectfully, Bronte, it should give you pause if you're on the side of the lobotomies.
I am on the side of gender-affirming care and reproductive health care.
Yeah, and lobotomies?
Not necessarily lobotomies, no, because those aren't analogous to gender-affirming care.
If you want to... because it seems like you are intent to use manipulative and emotional language in order to...
Because if you need to refer to lobotomy in order to make your point, then my point is that the scientists often get things dramatically wrong, including in the medical field.
We should be able to have a conversation about gender-affirming care and abortion without bringing in a controversial procedure from the '50s.
If you're... if you are not able to just discuss gender-affirming care and just discuss abortion without bringing in, you know, manipulative language and outdated procedures, then you're not able to appropriately discuss this topic.
Because your defense of, well, now transgenderism, but also abortion, is based on the authority of the credibility of the medical authorities.
And so I have to demonstrate to you that those medical authorities don't have all that much credibility, especially on sort of bizarre and controversial matters because historically, they don't have a great track record.
And that's why I'm going into the not-too-distant past, by the way.
It's not like I'm going back to, uh, leeches and bleedings and all sorts of bizarre medical practices that were accepted by the experts for all of human history.
I'm going back to a very, very recent example and showing you that those experts in the lab coats that you are deferring to, even for the question of rights itself, are very frequently wrong.
But in this case, we have shown that gender-affirming care is beneficial to patients who have gender dysphoria.
We haven't, though.
Of the surgery says it isn't.
Currently, with the evidence that we have right now, we are showing that it is medically responsible to provide patients with all the information and all of the access to health care that can benefit them in their medical care.
And so that is the topic at hand, is it not?
Is it not discussing people who exist in a body that they don't feel comfortable in, and modern medicine has the ability to help them address that issue?
Bronte, when you say exist in a body or you say they find themselves in a body, who do you think they are?
What does that mean, exist in a body?
Our fellow citizens that we share the society with.
But who is... you're saying that they are distinct from their body?
Yes.
So you are not your body?
No, I... what are you?
I believe that I'm a soul with a body.
But you are the soul, and your body is just a... it's the physical manifestation.
The body's a costume.
Oh, the body is the physical manifestation.
That's different.
Well, I agree with that.
I think that the body is a symbol of the soul.
I think that the soul is a substantial form of the body.
We agree on that, but then that means that the soul and the body are linked, right?
But they're not the same.
But they're linked inextricably.
If you agree, as we just said, that the body is actually a symbol of the soul, then you don't just go about trading out the body.
The body is not something merely to be discarded.
The body is, in fact, part of you.
To say, "I have a body" is an incoherent statement according to what you've just agreed to because you would say, "I am a body, and I am a soul."
And I'm this... the technical term for it is hylomorphic being that is body and soul inextricably linked on this earth, right?
But that doesn't mean that my mentality and my soul is accurately represented by the body that I present to the world.
So if you find a discrepancy between your metaphysical perception of yourself and the physical representation, which you acknowledge is tied inextricably to your soul, why do you have to mutilate the body?
Wouldn't it be a little easier just to change your mind and recognize that your perception of yourself is a little bit wrong?
If you're... if you're, you know, you're a woman, I think you're very, you know, clearly a woman.
And if you said one day, "I'm a man," well, rather than my saying, "Oh, well, good, go chop your body up," shouldn't I just say, "No, you're not. You're a woman, and you're just misperceiving yourself, and you need to... or misconceiving yourself, and you need to get your mind right"?
Well, you are then... you would be denying what I am telling you is my life experience because you would be wrong according to you.
But you can't tell someone that their life experience is wrong.
No, I can tell people that their statements about reality are wrong.
So why do you see the world in such a binary?
Why do you think that we are men and women and there is no spectrum in between?
Oh, well, because I have eyes and, uh, and reason, so I can see you're a woman.
All evidence shows that you're a woman.
What makes me a woman?
Well, I haven't... you know, I'm a married man, so I don't have too much...
What would, in abstract, what would you quantify sex to?
Uh, well, uh, it would involve your bodily features. It would involve your chromosomes. It would involve your soul.
It would involve, uh, it would mean that you're not a man.
It would mean that you're complimentary to a man and not identical with a man.
So are you aware that medically your genitalia, your hormones, and your chromosomes do not always align with a particular sex?
There are multiple medical conditions in which your chromosomes, your hormones, and your genitalia do not match and do not fit into this binary.
There could be... there could be ambiguity, of course, right?
And so what I'm saying is naturally sex is a spectrum.
And yes, no, yes, it is.
Well, there's such a thing as a liger.
Are you familiar with a liger?
Like a lion-tiger?
It's a hybrid of a lion and a tiger.
Yeah, but if we say that there are some ligers, not very many, but there's some ligers, this would not deny that there is a categorical distinction between lions and tigers.
And the same thing would be true.
You mentioned a chromosomal abnormality.
Let's say Turner syndrome.
Turner syndrome is where you have one X chromosome, right?
Not an XY, not an XX.
We have one X.
Well, why don't we talk about Klein-Felter then?
Because that's when you have, I think, two X's and a Y.
Yeah, sure, sure.
I mean, you could talk about any of these chromosomal or genital abnormalities.
There can be certain ambiguities, but in that expression, it's pretty easy to categorize.
I mean, I mentioned Turner syndrome because it's so easy to categorize people who have Turner syndrome as women.
And, uh, but in the others too, even when there's more ambiguity, you can categorize these things.
And so then we talk about this distinction between sex and gender, and people say, "Well, sex and gender are different."
So you might be a woman, but your gender, by which people really, I think, mean your soul, I think you're using the more precise language there, your soul might be the soul of a man, say, or something like that.
But I just don't see how that would be true if your soul and body really are linked.
And also, if it were true, then why is it that we would say that you then have a right to mutilate your body?
Wouldn't we then say you have an obligation to express your gender in accord with your sex?
Well, body modification is an entire industry.
I can get tattoos.
I can get...
Drug industries too.
Yeah, yeah, but that has nothing... that's not the same.
Porn and drugs is not the same as gender-affirming care.
And it seems like you, when cons...
They're not the same, but they're all bad.
I mean, to you, but drugs, sure, like porn and drugs obviously have... like that is a negative industry.
But when you compare them to something like gender-affirming care, you are coloring gender-affirming care...
I'm just saying that the sex surgeries where you chop off the boys' family jewels, that that's also bad.
See, and where I stand on it is I think that acceptance and tolerance and respect for people who are different from you is inherent in being a compassionate moral being.
And I don't believe that I get to tell someone that they are wrong based off of my interpretation of their life experience.
Right, so to get us back, I think to the top, I sincerely believe that abortion is evil because it is, as you describe, ending the life of a human being.
And so that's what I believe, and I sincerely believe that abortion should be illegal throughout the United States.
And I really would just request that you not impose your liberal beliefs on me and force me to surrender my political views in a self-government, for goodness sake, and force me to live in a society where women are permitted to kill their children.
I would just ask you to respect and include and be welcoming and tolerant of my views and my identity, my identity as the correct person in this debate.
So I respect your opinion as it pertains to your body and your life.
That is the entire point of being pro-choice, is I am not saying that you or your wife or whoever should get an abortion.
I'm not forcing you to get an abortion.
Get an abortion, right?
I very clearly... and being pro-choice means that I respect everyone's ability to decide what is best for their body and for their life.
And it is their body and their life, and whether physically, financially, or mentally, they are incapable or unwilling to endure pregnancy and labor.
And I hope every pregnant person who's watching this can try to understand if they had to endure that unwanted and unsupported, how terrifying and traumatizing that would be.
And you consistently center the fetus, and I just want to say that I consistently center the pregnant person.
I respect... I respect women.
I respect women and their ability and their knowledge about their own body and their own lives, and I want to protect their right to access health care.
What if they believe that their baby is not a... that the fetus is not a human being?
Do you respect that belief?
I mean, well, that would be medically inaccurate.
So you don't respect their knowledge?
I mean, I respect their belief, but it doesn't make it correct.
You respect mistaken beliefs, incorrect beliefs?
I mean, if it doesn't impose on my ability to access health care and it doesn't reflect my life individually, then they can think whatever they want.
But you respect it?
I respect their right to have that opinion, but just not to act on it in public.
I mean, I don't understand what you mean by that.
Well, you're saying you respect these views that are wrong, but we live in a self-government, right?
We live in a republic, so the government that we get, at least in theory, is going to reflect what people believe.
And so what you keep coming back to in these questions of transgenderism and in questions of people mistakenly believing that the human in their body is not a human being, you keep saying, "Well, I just respect your wrong beliefs."
You're entitled to your wrong beliefs.
You can... but you know those wrong beliefs in a self-government end up becoming law.
But they must be evidence-based and medically accurate and medically appropriate.
And as I...
Oh, so you only respect the beliefs if they're medically accurate?
But you just said you respected the woman's belief even...
I respect her right to have that belief.
She can have that belief if she chooses to have that belief as long as there's no consequence of it in society, right?
But ideas do have consequences.
I mean, it depends.
Yeah, exactly.
Like your ideas that you're pushing on your show do have dire consequences for pregnant people, as the University of Colorado showed.
Banning abortion can increase maternal mortality by twenty-four percent.
And so pushing these medically inaccurate and emotionally manipulative views on your show and many others, they do have impacts on living, breathing people, people, and they will lead to more harm and more suffering of people's mothers, daughters, sisters, of women in our society.
Well, you know, because I'm a gentleman, I obviously disagree with everything you just said.
But since I'm a gentleman, I'll give you the last word, Bronte, and I will leave it there.
We know my position in the debate.
I am firmly opposed to abortion and the transgender surgeries and the mutilation and, uh, to lobotomies.
And my, I guess my opponents support those things, and people can decide for themselves who is more reasonable.
I am sincerely really impressed with you that you came out here and were willing to come on the show and express your point of view.
And I really... I wish more... well, I won't call you a liberal because you're a leftist, but I wish more leftists would do it.
So thank you, Bronte, for coming out.
Where can people find you?
Welcome.
They can find me at Bronte Remick on TikTok, and my website is BeKindAndCurious.com.
All right, be kind and curious out there, folks.
I'm Michael Knowles.
See you next time.
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