Scott Klusendorf, President of the Life Training Institute
Here’s the video, featuring one of my favorite pro-life speakers Scott Klusendorf. Scott is the founder and President of the Life Training Institute. LTI’s mission is to make a rigorous, rational defense for pro-life positions with respect to a variety of ethical issues.
Three topics:
right to life of the unborn
reproductive technologies
end of life questions
40 minutes of guided discussion, 20 minutes of Q&A. This video was apparently recorded in the summer of 2016.
Abortion:
the 1-minute case for the pro-life position (excellent)
dealing with those who dismiss the pro-life case as religious
how and when do people win arguments?
how does one get better at discussing moral issues?
who are some of the best books to get informed about life issues?
what are some of the best books from the other side?
what is the SLED test? do pro-abortion scholars accept it?
if abortion were illegal, who should be punished and how much?
is it inflammatory and dangerous to say that abortion is killing?
Assisted reproductive technologies:
how should we speak to people considering ARTs?
what is the underlying issue in ART discussions?
should pro-lifers be opposed to all use of ARTs?
what should pro-lifers think about surrogacy?
which books provide an introduction to ART ethics?
End of life issues:
what is the central issue in end of life discussions?
should treatment always be continued or are there situations where treatment can be withdrawn?
Final issues:
if a student wants to take courses in bioethics, where should they go to take courses or do a degree?
what is the policy situation for pro-lifers in terms of legislation and SCOTUS decision-making?
what are some policies that pro-lifers can support as incremental measures that move the issue in the right direction?
I liked this discussion. I tried to listen as someone new to the issue and he did a good job of not assuming any prior knowledge of the debate. My favorite part was his survey of books and arguments on the other side, and what they say. I don’t think that most people realize what the implications of the pro-abortion worldview really are for things like infanticide, and so on. The discussion about who should be punished for abortion and how much was new to me – and that actually came up during the last election, during the GOP primary. Personally, I would let the woman get off, and just prosecute the doctor.
It’s very very good to listen to crystal clear thinking on these controversial issues from someone who has encountered the other side in their writings, and in public debates with them. Not to mention having to interact with people making decisions in these areas.
The abortion debate reared its head again this summer after controversial tweets by Richard Dawkins made the news.
Justin hosts a discussion between Mara Clarke of the Abortion Support Network and Scott Klusendorf of the Life Training Instititute. Mara believes women need to be decide whether to terminate a pregnancy, but Scott says that all depends on whether we are dealing with a human life in the womb.
Klusendorf: no justification for abortion is necessary if the unborn are not human
Klusendorf: we need to address the issue “what is the unborn?” Are the unborn human?
Klusendorf: SLED: size, level of development, environment, degree of dependency
Klusendorf: None of these things affect the value of a human being
Klusendorf: Even if we don’t KNOW whether the unborn is human
Mara: I’m not going to debate when life begins
Mara: Women know when life begins by feelings
Mara: The moral decision is “whether I can take care of this child?”
Brierley: When is an unborn being human?
Mara: I refuse to debate that – the real question is whether women want their babies or not
Mara: Forced pregnancy is not OK
Brierley: Could your justification for abortion (not wanting to care for a child) work through all 9 months?
Mara: Late term abortions are rare, so I don’t have to answer that question
Mara: Abortion should be OK through all 9 months of pregnancy because women cannot be restricted
Mara: Some women are poor, they need to be able to kill expensive babies at any time
Klusendorf: although she says she won’t debate the unborn, she does take a position
Klusendorf: she assumes the unborn is not human, because she says that insufficient funds is justification for abortion
Klusendorf: no one argues that you can kill a two year old because they cost money, because she thinks they are human
Klusendorf: she is begging the question by assuming the unborn are not human, but that is the issue we must resolve
Klusendorf: I am pro-choice on many other things, e.g. women choosing their own husbands, religion, etc.
Klusendorf: Some choices are wrong – Mara might be right, but she needs to make the case for the unborn not being human
Brierley: What is your reason for thinking that an unborn child is different from a 2-year old?
Mara: An unborn child is not the same as a 2-year old, in my personal opinion
Mara: I am not a debater, so I don’t have to provide reasoning for my assertion, I just feel it
Mara: Not everybody agrees with Scott, they don’t have to have a rational argument, they just need to feel differently
Mara: From my experience, when a woman doesn’t want to be pregnant, then she should be able to not be pregnant
Mara: Women shouldn’t be punished with a baby that she doesn’t want, even if she chooses to have recreational sex
Brierley: What do you think of women who think the unborn is human and do it anyway?
Klusendorf: It’s interesting that they never kill their toddlers for those reasons
Klusendorf: I layed out scientific and philosophical reasons for the humanity of the unborn
Klusendorf: Her response was “but some people disagree with you”
Klusendorf: People disagreed about whether slavery was wrong, or whether women should be able to vote
Klusendorf: that doesn’t mean there is no right answer – the right answer depends on the arguments
Klusendorf: if absence of agreement makes a view false, then it makes HER pro-choice view false as well
Klusendorf: she did make an argument for the unborn child having no rights because of the location
Klusendorf: she needs to explain to us why location matters – what about location confers value
Mara: I’m not going to let Scott frame my debate for me!!!
Mara: women get pregnant and they don’t want their babies! should we put them in jail!!!!
Klusendorf: I didn’t just give my opinion, I had science and philosophy, the issue is “what is the unborn?”
Mara: philosophical and scientific debates are unimportant, I am an expert in real women’s lives
Klusendorf: Which women? Women in the womb or only those outside the womb?
Mara: Only those outside the womb
Klusendorf: Only those outside the womb?
Mara: Women living outside the womb have a right to kill women inside the womb – women have bodily autonomy
Klusendorf: then does a pregnant woman with nausea have a right to take a drug for it that will harm her unborn child?
Mara: Unborn children are only valuable if they are wanted, unborn children only deserve protection if they are wanted
Mara: There are restrictions on abortion – you can’t get an abortion through all nine months in the US
Mara: There is a 24-week limit in the UK as well
Klusendorf: There are no restrictions on abortion that conflict with “a woman’s health” because Supreme Court said
Mara: where are these late term abortion clinics?
Klusendorf: (he names two)
Mara: that’s not enough!!! we need more! where is there one in Pennsylvania?
Klusendorf: well, there used to be Gosnell’s clinic in Pennsylvania, and you could even get an infanticide there….
Brierley: What about Dawkins’ view that it is moral to abort Down’s Syndrome babies?
Klusendorf: he is ignoring the scientific case and philosophical case for the pro-life
Klusendorf: the pro-life view is a true basis for human equality
What I wanted Scott to ask was whether sex-selection abortions were OK with her. Since her reasoning is “if it’s unwanted, it has no rights”, then that would mean sex-selection abortions are just fine. That’s what a UK abortion expert recently argued. And I also posted recently about how sex-selection abortions are not prosecuted in the UK. If you’re looking for a war on women, there it is.
This is a long treatment that talks about the challenge of moral relativism and the case for the pro-life view. He does show a clip of abortion in the video to the audience.
There’s also a 35-minute audio recording of Scott on the LTI web site. (H/T Apologetics 315) You can put that on your podcast player and listen to it. Listen to it a lot and soon you’ll sound like Scott.
Scott also has an article posted on the LTI web site for those who don’t have time for the video or the audio.
In the article makes three points:
Clarify the issue
Defend your pro-life position with science and philosophy
Challenge your listeners to be intellectually honest
Here’s the second point:
Scientifically, we know that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. Leading embryology books confirm this.2 For example, Keith L. Moore & T.V.N. Persaud write, “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm … unites with a female gamete or oocyte … to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.”3 Prior to his abortion advocacy, former Planned Parenthood President Dr. Alan Guttmacher was perplexed that anyone, much less a medical doctor, would question this. “This all seems so simple and evident that it is difficult to picture a time when it wasn’t part of the common knowledge,” he wrote in his book Life in the Making.4
Philosophically, we can say that embryos are less developed than newborns (or, for that matter, toddlers) but this difference is not morally significant in the way abortion advocates need it to be. Consider the claim that the immediate capacity for self-awareness bestows value on human beings. Notice that this is not an argument, but an arbitrary assertion. Why is some development needed? And why is this particular degree of development (i.e., higher brain function) decisive rather than another? These are questions that abortion advocates do not adequately address.
As Stephen Schwarz points out, there is no morally significant difference between the embryo that you once were and the adult that you are today. Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not relevant such that we can say that you had no rights as an embryo but you do have rights today. Think of the acronym SLED as a helpful reminder of these non-essential differences:5
Size: True, embryos are smaller than newborns and adults, but why is that relevant? Do we really want to say that large people are more human than small ones? Men are generally larger than women, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve more rights. Size doesn’t equal value.
Level of development: True, embryos and fetuses are less developed than the adults they’ll one day become. But again, why is this relevant? Four year-old girls are less developed than 14 year-old ones. Should older children have more rights than their younger siblings? Some people say that self-awareness makes one human. But if that is true, newborns do not qualify as valuable human beings. Six-week old infants lack the immediate capacity for performing human mental functions, as do the reversibly comatose, the sleeping, and those with Alzheimer’s Disease.
Environment: Where you are has no bearing on who you are. Does your value change when you cross the street or roll over in bed? If not, how can a journey of eight inches down the birth-canal suddenly change the essential nature of the unborn from non-human to human? If the unborn are not already human, merely changing their location can’t make them valuable.
Degree of Dependency: If viability makes us human, then all those who depend on insulin or kidney medication are not valuable and we may kill them. Conjoined twins who share blood type and bodily systems also have no right to life.
In short, it’s far more reasonable to argue that although humans differ immensely with respect to talents, accomplishments, and degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature.
That’s the core of the basic pro-life case right there. There’s also a good interview of Mr. Klusendorf that I blogged about.
Advanced Objections
You can learn more by reading basic pro-life apologetics… from Francis Beckwith. You might recognize Frank Beckwith as the author of “Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice“. He wrote that book for Cambridge University Press, a top academic press. But before Cambridge University Press, Beckwith wrote easy-to-understand essays for the Christian Research Journal.
Here are four essays that answer common arguments in favor of legalized abortion.
A woman who becomes pregnant due to an act of either rape or incest is the victim of a horribly violent and morally reprehensible crime. Although pregnancy as a result of either rape or incest is extremely rare, [1] there is no getting around the fact that pregnancy does occur in some instances.
[…]Despite its forceful appeal to our sympathies, there are several problems with this argument. First, it is not relevant to the case for abortion on demand, the position defended by the popular pro-choice movement. This position states that a woman has a right to have an abortion for any reason she prefers during the entire nine months of pregnancy, whether it be for gender-selection, convenience, or rape. [3] To argue for abortion on demand from the hard cases of rape and incest is like trying to argue for the elimination of traffic laws from the fact that one might have to violate some of them in rare circumstances, such as when one’s spouse or child needs to be rushed to the hospital. Proving an exception does not establish a general rule.
[…]Fourth, this argument begs the question by assuming that the unborn is not fully human. For if the unborn is fully human, then we must weigh the relieving of the woman’s mental suffering against the right-to-life of an innocent human being. And homicide of another is never justified to relieve one of emotional distress. Although such a judgment is indeed anguishing, we must not forget that the same innocent unborn entity that the career-oriented woman will abort in order to avoid interference with a job promotion is biologically and morally indistinguishable from the unborn entity that results from an act of rape or incest. And since abortion for career advancement cannot be justified if the unborn entity is fully human, abortion cannot be justified in the cases of rape and incest. In both cases abortion results in the death of an innocent human life. As Dr. Bernard Nathanson has written, “The unwanted pregnancy flows biologically from the sexual act, but not morally from it.” [5]Hence, this argument, like the ones we have already covered in this series, is successful only if the unborn are not fully human.
Scott Klusendorf wrote the The Case for Life, which is the best book for beginners on the pro-life view. For those looking for advanced resources, Francis Beckwith, a professor at Baylor University, published the book Defending Life, with Cambridge University Press, 2007.
I found a very polished hour-long talk by Scott on Viemo. That talk was delivered to students and faculty at Furman University.
Finally, if you want to see Scott Klusendorf in a debate with a former ACLU executive, you can see it right here.
WINTERY KNIGHT 