AS198: Debating Abortion, with Tyler Vela

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Atheistically Speaking. This is episode 198, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Here it is, the debate with Tyler Vela on abortion. It's, uh, it's a doozy.

0:00:46 Thomas: I'll just remind you that this is going to be in two parts. Part two will be available immediately to my very fine patrons over at patreon.com/atheist, pledges low as a dollar an episode, and you can have instant access to it. If not, no problem, no big deal, I understand. But wait till Monday for part two. That's it. That's all. It's fair trade. So thanks for listening to this. I'll do more of a preamble for the second part. Part one was more or less fine. Part two is where we started really running into it. So I'll see you then.

0:01:34 Thomas: Joining me right now is Tyler Vela, and you're back for a second time. A totally different topic this time, but very excited to talk about it. Let's refresh the listeners. You are a Christian. You have a podcast called The Freethinker, right?

0:01:51 Tyler: That's correct, yeah, I do.

0:01:52 Thomas: And you might as well get it out of the way. Where do you want want people to go to if they want to check it out, or check out your Twitter or Facebook or anything like that.

0:01:59 Tyler: You can find the Freethinker Podcast just by searching for it in Facebook. It's available on iTunes, Stitcher, the blog is freethinkerpodcast.blogspot.com, you can find it on Podbean, Patreon, and kind of different ways. I have a Twitter, but I almost never use it, so don't go there.

0:02:18 Thomas: Well, we won't worry about that then. You know, I should stop worrying about that in general. I should just say, hey guys, Google it. It really should. So yeah, there you go.

0:02:24 Tyler: Yeah, you're the only thing that comes up under Atheistically Speaking, so. So the

0:02:31 Thomas: And roughly speaking, what's the objective of your podcast? I mean, what would you say is kind of the mission statement of your broadcast?

0:02:40 Tyler: Whole point of the podcast is to try to be as open and honest in dialogue as possible. So I kind of criticize the left and the right on issues having to do with Christianity, philosophy. I don't do a lot of these types of shows on social issues because it's geared much more towards apologetics and Christianity and atheism and trying to rescue that dialogue from the fundamentalists on either side.

0:03:08 Thomas: Fair enough. So Tyler is someone that I've realized I disagree with on nearly everything. Like, I think if someone asked us, what is the weather today? We would disagree. Like I just, it's amazing. And I think it's really fascinating. So it could be interesting to try to engage on these things. And because, I mean, I don't know, I'm not sure you'll agree on both sides. There tends to be a reluctance of actual conversation. There's not a lot of actual engagement with the other side. And there's good reason for that. People want to stay comfortable. They want to, you know, just be reinforced in their views. And I think that's something I would love to not do. So how do you feel about that?

0:03:52 Tyler: Yeah, I think that I think while you were saying we disagree about almost everything, I think largely what we do agree on is that we should have reasonable discourse with people we disagree with.

0:04:01 Thomas: There you go. And I also think the abortion issue is immensely important. This doesn't necessarily have to be the framework for the conversation, but I think I want to lay out quickly. There was a recent show where I did talk about this a little bit. I don't know if you caught it, and it's okay if you didn't. I'll try to reiterate just briefly. I think abortion is an incredibly critical issue to talk about because there's such a difference in the consequences of the facts. So, there are a lot of issues we have where, honestly, the consequencesof our disagreement are just not not that high. Like it, I mean, if you think trickle down is one thing, I think some different form of policy is another.

0:04:46 Thomas: I mean, we can just vote on it, whatever will happen. I mean it's not life or death. I mean maybe you could stretch it to be life or death, but it really, it's debate. It's we can progress, we can we can chip back and forth. But on something like abortion, it really can fundamentally be, are we murdering a person, which is like the most serious thing we could be doing, or is nothing bad happening? Like it literally, like disagreement on the facts about it is incredibly important. There's not a lot of issues that are like that. You know, there's not A lot of things where it's like, well, you know, I, I prefer a ketchup on my hot dog. You like mustard. Like it's not, it's not that like disagreement On the facts change, uh, nothing to murder and vice versa, you You know, so it's, it's really important.

0:05:35 Thomas: And what I said on my show the other day was that I honestly worry that we don't engage this enough because I, just putting myself in another person's shoes, and you can disagree with this, I'm sure you probably will. If I thought abortion were murder, I would not be that upset when someone shoots up a place where people commit murder. Like, I just wouldn't, it wouldn't upset me that much because, and we can debate about this if you want, if you're not interested, it's okay. But I mean, really, if I thought, ifI put myself in the shoes of there is a place right now where with the government's permission, someone is literally murdering another, like in the process of murdering Another person, that really changes how I feel about things. And so I think it's important.

0:06:22 Tyler: Yeah, and I think we're going to, we're gonna largely agree on that. And part of it is I'm, I'm vaguely remembering back to the show you did a long time ago with with a secular humanist who was who was pro-life.

And, and, you know, you can correct me if I'm wrong, if you remember differently, but but I think you agreed that it really comes down to the question of, is the fetus, is the baby in the womb a human, or is it a human person with rights? Because if it's a human person with rights, then a lot of the arguments that are used in favor of abortion are just irrelevant, right?

Because if, you know, if it is a human person with rights then it doesn't matter if I'm a man talking about it. It doesn't matter if it's only 3% of Planned Parenthood's budget. It doesn't all those things don't matter if we're actually talking about killing an innocent human person uh if it's not an innocent human person which which, by the way, uh, one of the reasons why I, I dialogue on these things is I'm with you, I think they're really important. In the back of my mind, I, I wish someone could convince me that it's not a human person. Like, I, like I would rest so much. Like that would make me, I would be okay with that. Like if someone could convince me that it's not a human person and we could just all like wrap this up and go to bed, that would be

0:07:12 Thomas: I would agree with that. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

0:07:35 Tyler: Fantastic

0:07:35 Thomas: It would be a load off your mind, I guess, huh? It'd be like finding out the Holocaust didn't happen.

0:07:37 Tyler: It really would I you know, I I just don't I don't see it, yeah

0:07:40 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I want to clarify, though, I think it may be problematic to say human person, because I think personhood is probably what we need to look at. And this could be a fundamental disagreement, because there could be, I could conceive of, you know, sometime in the future, it probably never happened, but it could happen that we meet another race. We meet another species, an alien race. And they, honestly, I think if they had the right traits, if they weren't just, you know, algae or something, if they have the right traits, if they're sentient, if they can feel pain, etc., they would have rights. I believe it would be moral to grant them rights.

And so, I don't know that if we... I think that's something I didn't emphasize. Emphasize, and I want to thank a listener named Caleb for sending me an email that kind of pointed that out. I maybe didn't emphasize that enough in that original episode with Christine, I believe her name was, that it's not really, I think that may be the problem with this argument. It's not, well, is it a human? Well, technically, I guess, well there you go, it has all the rights. I don't think that's sufficient. I think personhood is important and the criteria for personhood is what we need to debate. I think that's the fundamental issue right there. I

0:08:39 Tyler: Yeah And I, and and I agree with you, I mean I largely agree with it. I think it's it's going to be one of the the the loci of the discussion, um, but but that's, but that just said, I mean, if, if we get to the, I mean, even if that's the the crux of it, we say well, if it's a, if it's a person or not, okay, that that's the point of the discussion. But I, I think we agree if it's a person, uh, then then it's a it's a radically important, important decision to say, okay, well, what does that mean if it's a person? What does it not mean if it doesn't, or what does it mean if he's not a person, because that's going to have huge, huge ramifications. So it's not as, it's, it's this flippant, uh, you know, it doesn' t really matter like you've been saying.

0:09:31 Thomas: Think you're right. And I think That's something that I've even got. I've even got a message the other day when I talked about this, that struck me as way too fundamentalist the other way. And it was a little scary. And It makes me uncomfortable, because it's something I I'm largely pro choice, like I really am. I just think it's a little foggier. And And I also think that now there's some kind of, I don't know, there's some subterfuge, there are some distractions we need to get out of the way, because there are people on your side, on the pro-life side, that even if it's a question of saving the mother, they don't allow it. And I think it would be important to clarify if there are exceptions for abortion, and to clarify your position of exactly what those would be.

0:10:18 Tyler: Yeah. And, and I think, and, I was, I would, this is one of my, my differences from the, your previous person that you had on, um, was, uh. So for example, example, a hysterectomy to save the mother's life. There's, in philosophy, a principle called the rule of double effect. Basically, the rule of double effect says that if you're doing one action, you may foresee an undesirable outcome, but you're still doing an intended action. It's something different. I don't think that type of procedure even qualifies to be called an abortion. Abortion, uh, And an abortion does one thing, it terminates a pregnancy, that, that the intent is to terminate the pregnancy, that's it. If you're doing a procedure, for example, to save the mother's life, the abortion is that, is the, is the unintended outcome. You know, you know it's going to happen, it's unnecessary, but the intent of the action isn't just to terminate the pregnancy, it's to save the mother's life. So I think, I think rule of double effect applies there, and I just wouldn't even call all that a case of abortion.

0:10:54 Thomas: Hmm. Right.

0:11:19 Thomas: Interesting. Well, that's good to get out of the way because that's what muddies this discussion so much. People throw in a ton of baggage that they've heard from elsewhere, and I want to make sure we're dealing with what your actual positions are. Now, what do you think about in cases of rape or incest and that sort of thing?

0:11:39 Tyler: Rape and incest are hard. They're hard because they're clearly emotionally driven. And this also, I should say, by the way, in some cases, and this is going to get people throwing your podcast out the window, in some cases, I think abortions murder. In some cases, abortions more equivalent to manslaughter or criminal negligence, which I think might be an interesting point for us to discuss some of those differences. I think part of the problem is that we live in a culture where abortion and kind of the thoughts about abortion have shaped the way that we think about it. So it's not necessarily, I know this is a human person, I have malicious intent, I want to kill this person.

0:12:24 Tyler: That, I think, would be murder. I think some people do do that. But I think in the most cases, our culture hasn't morally, morally informed us enough yet. And so I think in cases of rape, it's really challenging. I think we should come alongside those victims and help them and give them support and give them counseling and all that kind of stuff. But again, this goes back to, is the fetus, is the baby a human person with rights? If it is, then the tragic thing is, well, yeah, you don't punish one, you don't make one victim because there's another victim. If it's not a human person, then the rape victim should be at complete liberty to have an abortion. That's why deciding and coming back to that crucial issue of is it a human person is really, really the dividing line between these issues.

0:13:16 Tyler: So when someone says, well, what about in the case of rape? It brings up emotion, but if you haven't settled that previous issue, then no answer from either side is going to satisfy the other side.

0:13:26 Thomas: Yeah, I completely agree. That's what I said on the other day when I did some commentating about this. I think that people overreact to that. Opponents. They'll say, well, he's pro-life, but he's pro-life even in the case of rape. It's like, yeah, well I mean, now you're just getting more mad at him for being logically consistent, which doesn't make sense to me. Now, I understand, like you said, people have a vicious reaction to that. They have a, you know, a visceral kind of emotional reaction to it. And it's because a lot of this is viewed as a war on women. And that actually, apologies to you, you, Tyler, but I need to say a few things here, mainly for my listeners, not so much for our interaction, but because of the emails I will get. So sorry for that.

0:14:11 Thomas: I have gotten, yeah, I have got emails to the effect of, you know, this is a war on women. This is why you can't, you shouldn't even talk about these hypotheticals, like women don't go getting abortions at seven months. This is something trying to control women. I need to say that I'm not going to deal with that today on this episode. I mean, if you out there, anyone out there, any listeners, if, if your listeners do believe that, if you think that Tyler is waging a war on women, if you think he's motivated by being sexist, I mean that's, that's up to you. I I personally, I don't really view the problem that way. I view the other side on this debate, the other side from me, I view it as they have a misunderstanding of the philosophy involved.

0:14:11 Tyler: No, it's you it's your show, do your thing, um.

0:15:02 Thomas: They have a misunderstanding of the facts, in my view. And that leads them to certain conclusions that are then interpreted as being sexist. And on top of that, there's some genuine sexism that goes on with religion, I think, personally. So that might be there, but I'm not, I'm just making a point of saying I'm not going to emphasize that. That's not going to be an angle of attack against Tyler. I'm not going to say, well, what about the fact that you're controlling women's, I don't, I mean, like you said, I mean, the fundamental issue is if we're saying this is a person, no amount of women's rights gives you the ability to kill a person. Now there's going to be, like you said corner cases of saving the mother's life when, in which case you don't even call it abortion. I actually think that's a good point.

0:15:47 Thomas: I think that is probably a decent way to look at it. So the point is, I am not going to attack that angle. I am NOT going to ATTACK Tyler for that unless he just happens to say something incredibly sexist. But I would prefer, and apologies if that offends anyone of my listeners, but I am going to approach this from the side of philosophy and not from the site of, you know, what this is from a women's health perspective. And I apologize if that offends anyone, but that's the conversation I'm going to try to have. And if I can get someone on later on to represent another angle of this, I will. I actually do have someone in mind. So fret not, oh, listeners. But just had to give that caveat. I'm not really interested in attacking Tyler for that.

0:16:33 Thomas: But if you were to look at Tyler's Facebook, you might see some anti-planned parenthood posts that you'd probably want to attack. And I just want to say, I understand you listeners. Okay, let's, with all that annoying disclaimer out of the way, so what do you think is the criterion for personhood, and is it fair to say, would you think it's fair to say it's motivated by religion? I think you try to keep it secular, but deep down inside, the fact that you phrase it as a human person, you know, that to me suggests that maybe the idea of a soul has some impact on your argument, but what do you think?

0:17:12 Tyler: Actually, let me, let me go back, because I, I do want to address what you said in your, in your, uh, commentary there. Um, just very, very briefly, um, there's a common misconception, um, that all pro-lifers, uh, are religious, um, which you had a secular humanist on that wasn't, um, and, and there's the common misconception that we're all, all like anti-birth control, raging Vatican I Catholics, which couldn't be further from the truth. So let me just say, this is not a war on women. I am completely in favor of women's reproductive rights. We should have sex education. They should have access to birth control. They should have free health care. None of this has to do with any type of assault on women, and if Planned Parenthood, for example, was not performing abortions, I don't think anyone would have Planned Parenthood on their radar. So it has nothing to do, for example, with some type of war on women.

0:17:13 Thomas: Sure. Oh, feel free.

0:17:29 Thomas: Right.

0:18:10 Tyler: Now, with all that said, back to your question. So my religious beliefs actually have very little to do with my pro-life beliefs. Well, I should caveat that. They're in sync with each other. But I was actually pro-life when I was an atheist. So it largely doesn't have to do with a view of a soul. It actually has to do, for the most part, with my view of what a human is, what human development is, and a philosophy of human rights. So I think that human rights extend to all humans. So you talked about the category of person. I think the category of person is a larger category than the category of humans.

0:18:10 Thomas: That's a good point.

0:18:58 Tyler: I think humans is a subcategory of persons, which is why if we found, for example, an alien race that was similar to us, they would fall, I think, under the category under persons, I mean. So it really doesn't have to do with my religious belief. I largely agree with your previous guest. There's another secular humanist named Jen Roth, who was on Point of Inquiry, who I largely agree with. There's secular pro-life groups. And most of the arguments that I have, well, actually all of the agreements I have in favor of, and I'm hesitant to call it pro-Life, by the way. I prefer just anti-abortion, really.

0:19:40 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. I mean, fair enough. I think that both the terms are kind of stupid, to be honest.

0:19:44 Tyler: Yeah, There's a hard term because it actually should be more anti-abortive rights, rights, um, because even if you say pro-abortion, anti-abortion, no one's like "yay abortion" or anything like that, um, they just think that you should have that, so it's really pro- abortive rights, anti- abortative rights, um, if but that's just a mouthful.

0:19:55 Thomas: Yeah, and you're right, and I think I've said this before, but pro-choice, I think, is just as stupid. I mean, choice isn't what matters. I mean, both sides have framed the terminology in a way that suits them, and, I honestly think both terms are stupid, pro-life and pro-choice. I think they're kind of a necessary evil at this point because they're so well established, but it's not like, well, it is murder, but I'm pro-chosing to be able to murder. You know, like it doesn't, that is a false thing. It's not a position anyone holds. So calling it pro-choice, it's just, it's, yeah. Anyway, I think you've made that point. I I kind of agree with it.

0:20:04 Tyler: Yeah, Yeah, So, um, so most of my, most of our reasons really actually don't have to do with with any um, with any rigid religious beliefs. It just has to do with a view that all humans are human persons with a right to life. And that begins when a human begins. I think it's innate to humanity. I don't think that there's a stage in human development where you reach kind of an Orwellian, "all humans are human, but some humans are more human." I just don't think that there's that stage where one day you're not a human person, and the next day you are a human person. And I think that any of the justifications or any of those lines that are drawn in the sand, any of those standards equally be applied to other areas where we would be horrified to say that that's not a human person.

0:21:39 Tyler: So consciousness or ability to feel pain, or any of those other areas, we have analogous situations that we would never use that as a standard for when a human is a person and has rights. So for me, a lot of it just has to do with coming down to, well, what is a human person and what is the human right? And are they things that are granted by the majority, granted by the state, or is it something that's innate to humanity? And I think that the best view is that it's something innate to humanity.

0:22:07 Thomas: Yeah, okay, so this could be a very boring podcast because I just think that's wrong.

0:22:14 Thomas: I think personhood, the important criteria is, you know, cognition, sentience, ability to feel pain, and I just Think that at that age, at that, you know, level of development, it's just not there yet. And furthermore, the, I mean, I think it really comes down to consequentialism versus some some other, you know, way of looking at morality. I'm a consequentialist. I think that's the ultimate thing we need to be worried about, and the fact is the the suffering involved by persons, by sentient beings, with aborting at a very early age, at a very early place in development, when there's almost nothing going on or very little going on, the suffering caused is so much less than restricting that right would be.

0:23:05 Thomas: That would be far more suffering, impactful on people's lives, impactful on the mother and her health, impactful on all that. I mean, that is my basic view. I think personhood, I do agree that there's no fine line for it. That's always very tough. I don't believe reality divides itself that easily for us. Because honestly, I mean, maybe this is atheistically, you know, motivated, but I just don't think reality lends itself to that very easily. I think it's difficult, just like with law or with lots of human things that we have to make, it's hard to find a way to find some hard and fast rule that applies to everybody. But I think some level of cognition and sentience and consciousness and ability to feel pain, some calculus of that is the best we can do.

0:23:57 Tyler: Yeah, and I mean, I can say just by way of caveat that, you know, this is going to be one of the disagreements between a theist and an atheist, for example, because basically what you've just said is that you can't ground any human rights. They all become something like civil rights where they're granted. So there's going to Be that major difference. But I think what becomes problematic is, again, any of those criterias that you gave. So, for example, sentience.

0:24:31 Tyler: Really, sentience and self-awareness, even in a born infant, doesn't happen for a few days. So I mean, you have babies that can be born in reversible comas, but even so, infants aren't really self-aware for for a while. Um, so, you know, if if that's, if if you're going to be consistent with that, then you're gonna have people like Peter Singer who's going to say, well, you know, you know, we have lemon laws for cars, why don't we have limit laws for babies, why don't why don't we give mothers the right to kill their kill their infant for up to, you know, two two months to a year or so if it's if it's a lemon baby, if it is more than they can handle, because it's not sentient yet. Um,

0:24:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:25:13 Thomas: And I actually think that that is something every pro-choice person on my side needs to look at. And, I will tell you, I think it's a difficult thing, just like when you said rape and and incest is a difficult issue on your side. This is a difficult issue. It's an emotional issue, but I agree with Peter Singer. I actually do.

0:25:14 Tyler: Right. Yeah.

0:25:34 Thomas: I think there is some consideration to be made, but again, this is only under consequentialism, that the consequences of allowing that kind of, you know, world where you can just, you know, kill your baby within a certain... There is an argument to be made that that world is just so much worse than not, that you have to look at that. But I do think if we're just looking at personhood, yeah, I agree with that. I don't think personhood is really established for a while. I think it would be a tough law to try to enact. I don't think that it would be very popular, but I think that it's an unpopular logical conclusion of what I'm saying. So, I'm happy to take that on. Well, not happy because it's tough, but I will be consistent and take that one and I think he might be right.

0:26:23 Tyler: And and and, by the way, and my my uh fellow pro-lifers are going to scream at me for saying this. I appreciate your consistency, I think, I mean, to be honest, I think it's horrifying, uh, but at least you see the consistency. That's that part of the the maddening thing, is that when you talk to so many people, they don't see the consistency of it. Um, they're they're completely happy to hold inconsistent views. Whereas, you know, on my side, I think logical consistency is a requirement for truth. And I think that you agree, at least with that, that you should be logically consistent. And for you, it's just taken in a different direction. I think we can, right.

0:27:04 Thomas: Yeah, well, and to to Emphasize, I think people, if they, if they are reacting badly to what I'm saying, and I mean people on my side because obviously people on your side are going to be reacting horribly to everything I'm saying, but if people on my side are reacting bad, badly to that, I'd encourage them to try to read Singer's argument because really what philosophical difference is there between the baby a day before it's delivered and then once it's outside the mother, like if there's not, if you're just looking at that life form, there's nothing magical happens in that time. It's pretty much the same thing for a while. So I think it's worth looking at. So yeah, I at least appreciate that we both are trying to be logically consistent. I think that's important.

0:27:50 Tyler: And by the way, I'm not going to push you on defending each and every single one of those criteria because, um, well, it's insulting. I, I think, I think your, your, your position is, is the stronger one where you say, well, person is kind of a a nebulous concept where you have a web of attributes, right? It's not, you're not a person just because you have consciousness or you're not a person just because you can feel pain. So, you know, I can give, I could give an example for each one of those things where you might say, okay, well, the person meets three of the four criteria, so that, that qualifies. Um, do you think that's a fair assessment? So,

0:28:24 Thomas: Possibly, I think so. We'll see.

0:28:27 Tyler: So, for example, I could say, well, um, if you're talking about the ability to feel pain, well, there's the, I forget the name of the disorder, but there's, um, there's the The The What's it called?

0:28:34 Thomas: Oh, where you can't feel pain. Yeah, yeah. I can't remember the name, but I know what you're talking about. And And those, those

0:28:36 Tyler: Yeah. There's The Condition where, where you're, you're born, you're unable to feel, you're literally unable to feel pain.

0:28:43 Thomas: Those people die almost immediately because it's so detrimental to their ability to function. It's crazy.

0:28:44 Tyler: Yeah. It's really hard, but you have some who survive into their, into their younger, younger childhood and into their teens.

0:28:56 Tyler: And, and I, you know, I could use that example and say, you know well, well would you want to kill that person? And, I think, I, I just in charity to your view you're going to say well no because they're conscious and they have it.

0:29:04 Thomas: And I like the, the idea of, sorry, I have to just point this out, but I like the idea that it does come from a, well, do you want to kill that person? Like, like I want to do it. I want you to kill, just give me something to kill. Okay. I got to find something that has, meets the right criteria. Yeah. You also have to have a reason to need to kill that person.

0:29:21 Tyler: Well maybe they're, maybe they're you know they're a burden financially because they have high medical costs. I don't know. But, but I think I think just in Charity to your view it's more of a web of of attributes. Do you think that's closer to your view?

0:29:25 Thomas: Right. Right. It's fair enough. Yeah, no, I, sure. I think that's fair.

0:29:36 Tyler: Okay. I think part of the problem is going to come, well, let me try to give some counter examples. Because I think, Even though you're being logically consistent, I think intuitively, and this may be presumptuous, us, um, we have, we have, when, when we see abortion in in areas that we hold kind of dear to us, um, we have different reactions. So I don't know if you've heard the hypothetical for the gay baby.

0:29:48 Thomas: Sure. Hmm.

0:30:08 Tyler: Uh, So imagine that we could at week three, uh, we had, you know, we discovered that someone was pregnant really really early, and we developed a test, and and there there was a weighted test with something like 99% accuracy, if the, if the child would have a proclivity to be homosexual, right. Would, would you think it's justifiable for the parents to abort the baby just because they have a proclivity to be gay, right?

0:30:09 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:30:36 Thomas: Yeah. I Think that these are important questions. These are tough questions. I think what we do, what people do is they associate actually killing someone they know who's gay with, you know, with this situation. It is not the same thing. And I think you would have to look at wider societal issues. So, in the case of being gay, I actually, well, okay, sorry. To easy answer your case, I believe in the right to abortion, so I think that's acceptable. That's fine. I would disagree with the assessment of the parents, though. So, socially and societally, I would want to emphasize to everybody, and I think it's already happening in our culture, being gay is not really a negative, unless we make it a negative.

0:31:21 Thomas: Like, the only negative aspect of being gay, is that oftentimes we make a very hard world to live as a gay person. That's about it. Other than that, there's nothing inherently wrong with being gay. There's nothing that, it's like, I would look at it as another trait that your baby could have. So the same question could be, well, should we abort all babies with brown hair or blue eyes? It's like, well you could. I would accept that that could be a result of granting the right to abort for any reason you want. That's a possible result. I would hope that societally, we would never decide that that's something we need to do. We would never decide, oh, we got to get rid of all these blue-eyed people. Let's abort all, you know, like, so that would be how I would answer that one.

0:32:07 Thomas: And I think that it is a challenge for some people because they're like, oh no, that's going to be discrimination or something. It kind of is, but that's Something that it's joining two issues that aren't really philosophically merged. You know, it's looking at two separate issues. And in my mind, the issue of abortion still remains unscathed, given that objection.

0:32:31 Tyler: So, so abortion largely remain unscathed, but the, the point is, um, it drives at the idea that it's, uh, that that a fetus is morally neutral, um, that that, because, because we can think of instances where we would, you know, we might, we might look at it and say, okay, well, well you know, if the woman was raped, you know, largely pro-choice, they're going to say, well yeah, she should have the right to abort. But then there's other instances where we say, you say, well, you know, it might, it might not be, you know, that might not be a justifiable or, you know, an ethical reason to abort, even if you largely agree that it should be, it should be legal, maybe not criminalized. I think it, it drives at that assumption that somehow the fetus is morally neutral and the situation determines if it's acceptable, if that makes sense.

0:33:21 Thomas: I think that answer makes sense to anyone on my side who objects to aborting for those reasons. So yes, if someone on my side said, no, you can't abort a baby just for being gay, then I think you would actually have a point. Point. And I think they'd be wrong and you'd be right. I think that if you're consistent about abortion, the right to abort should be granted no matter what the scenario is. But my way of addressing that issue and the thinking I've done, I've thought about that a lot and I'll tell you why. There's an even more important scenario, I think, and that is aborting all female babies. That's aborting all babies of a certain gender, because there's a wider concern. Now, the concern in my mind is not, well, it's sexist to not want to have daughters. Yeah, that's sexism, but that's another issue.

There could be sexism that we need to address, and then abortion is a tool that people are using to be sexist, but those are two separate issues. But there's also a wider issue, which is eventually you would get to the point, and again, this This is why I believe so firmly in consequentialism. You need to look, do our best. We have to do our Best to look at all the consequences of our actions when we're trying to come up with these rules.

0:34:40 Thomas: If it's, if it becomes okay to abort all female babies, you come to a point where there's no women. I mean, it's a pretty obvious problem. And that, that, that is not a problem with abortion. That's a, that would be a problem that humanity would have. That would be a problem that a culture would have that they would need to then step in and say we cannot allow this anymore because of bigger issues. I mean, because of different issues. But all these hypotheticals, like, oh, can we abort all X babies, all babies of characteristics of X, they, I think, are trying to muddy the discussion. I don't think they really point out a flaw in abortion. They point out that there can be other exterior issues that you run into problems with.

0:35:24 Tyler: Well, and I'm actually, I kind of agree with you, but the reason why they're not the muddying the water is I'm actual getting to a point. So gender selection was the next one, which I'm glad you said that. But my next question would be, do you think that a pregnant woman should be allowed to drink and do drugs? Drugs.

0:35:32 Thomas: Okay, I'll let you go on. I would say that we judge those women very harshly, and we do.

0:35:48 Tyler: Should we judge them harshly? Should it be illegal for a woman to drink while she's pregnant, for example?

0:35:50 Thomas: Yes, difficult. That's a difficult question that I haven't pondered as much as these other ones.

0:35:57 Tyler: I should say drink in excess because for the most part, a glass of wine and stuff isn't harmful, but drink in access or smoke or do drugs.

0:36:07 Thomas: I think it's something we ought to judge very harsh. I don't know that the government, like a law, is the appropriate response to that. I think judging, just like you would say, well, we don't want you to smoke in excess around your kids all the time because of the obviously terrible health effects. If you are a mother or a mother and a father, parents who want to bring the baby to term, who are trying to have a healthy child, then I think we would put it in the same category as we do with a lot of things with child endangerment or things that are a threat to that child, child. So some of them are laws, some of them are common sense things. I think that's a debate, I guess, whether it's the best idea.

0:36:56 Thomas: But oddly enough, the, you know, most conservatives are pro-small government, and so they probably would not want to introduce a law to prevent that, even though the pro-life stance might want them to or something. I'm not sure how you feel about that. But no, I don't think it's something we need to deal with legally, just because I think think we can put a huge societal pressure on parents. If they're going to bring a child to term, they ought to do their very best, everything in their power to make sure they're not harming the child's capability.

0:37:30 Tyler: So who is it that they're harming when they're smoking?

0:37:33 Thomas: They're harming the child's capability. It wouldn't be murder, it wouldn't that sort of crime. It's a crime where they're shaping how this child is going to develop into a person. And so it's really harmful to the future product that is a person?

0:37:58 Tyler: So then my next question is, and I have about two more and then we'll get to the point. I'm not trying to do like a gotcha question. There's a specific argument.

0:38:07 Thomas: No, it is a gotcha question, but it's, I mean, it's a hard issue, but I'm happy to do my best. I mean I don't claim that I will answer things in a perfect way that won't be gotcha in some way, but I'll do my Best.

0:38:14 Tyler: Uh. Well, and I'm just trying to say I'm not trying to do gotcha, that's not, that's not my intent, so. If if then, if if a woman, uh, should, should a woman be held to a different standard if she smokes around her child or if she smothers her child to death, newborn? Well, you know, let's, let's, let's go past the singer-esque period, let's say two two years old.

0:38:23 Thomas: Sure.

0:38:37 Thomas: Well, I was going to say, okay, Okay. Let's, granted that it's, it's a person now. I was going to say that, but if you're granting it's past that period, we're both agreed, you and I are both agreed it's a person, then I would judge the person smothering, sorry, the mother smothered the person far more harshly. That would actually be murder in my mind. Once we've established it's person, that's murder. The smoking is, is, I think it's serious. If it can be proven that the mother is doing something that seriously affects what is going to be this person and causes them harm, it's a tough issue. It may be something, if it was a big enough problem, that you would need to introduce laws about.

0:39:25 Thomas: But I'm not an expert on what ends up being the health concerns there. I don't know how dire it is. It's a lot different to me to smother to definitely kill a person than it is to do an action that might result in that person developing a little differently.

0:39:42 Tyler: So so then, I mean, we largely agree that that causing future harm is a less severe offense than killing someone and taking away what philosophers call a future like mine. So if you were to do something to me right now, smoke around me that would future give me emphysema, that's something that's less severe than if you were to kill me and take away my entire future.

0:40:08 Thomas: Sure.

0:40:09 Tyler: So this goes to what it's, what philosophers call a future like mine. So, they can trace back adult Tyler to teen Tyler to child Tyler to infant Tyler to fetal Tyler to embryonic Tyler to zygotic Tyler, right to the point of conception. I am one continuous entity. So if my mother, for example, were to smoke around me and give me emphysema, she is causing future harm to future Tyler. Whereas if she killed me when I was five years old, she was taking away any chance at a future like mine as future adult Tyler. So if we trace that back to sometime in the womb, where we largely agree that causing future harm isn't as bad as causing the termination of of life resulting in the end of a future like mine, then fetal Tyler, a woman smoking and drinking and all that kind of stuff while she's pregnant, is less severe than taking the life of the fetus because she's only causing potential future harm rather than eliminating the chance at a future-like mine. So I think that's also kind of a robust philosophical argument against abortion.

0:41:30 Thomas: How is that an argument against abortion? I mean, you've, you've done, you've done played some word games and some philosophy games to make something seem like two different things. But does that prove abortion is wrong somehow? How does that work?

0:41:44 Tyler: Well, if we're going to say that taking, I mean, part of it is, why is it wrong to kill someone? It's wrong to kill someone largely because you're taking away a future like mine. If we trace that back, then abortion is, in one analogous case, we say, well, a woman shouldn't, like you said, we should, even if we don't criminalize it, You're going to say, well, we should really socially condemn it, smoking and drinking and causing future harm. Even though the fetus isn't currently a person, it's causing future harm. Well, if in principle future harm isn't as bad as taking away a future like mine, then abortion is taking away a future life like mine of the fetus.

0:42:30 Tyler: So if it's 80% morally wrong to smoke and drink and all that kind of stuff when you're pregnant, then surely it should be more morally wrong to end a future like mine, even though you might not agree it's a person yet.

0:42:44 Thomas: Yeah, but it, it's, I mean, it just really isn't the same thing. I mean, you're you're, you could also make similar arguments tracing back to when the, when you're a sperm, when you, why do you, if you're not granting preventing, so you're saying this argument works.

0:42:56 Tyler: Well, no, no. Because that's different. Then we're going to get into, well, what is a human? I'm a distinct human organism when I have my distinct DNA, when I have all my chromosomes from conception. I'm distinct human organisms. The spermazoa is part part of my father. It's not me.

0:43:03 Thomas: No, we're not. We're not, but It goes into building you, so it goes, if you could identify the exact sperm, you could somehow harm it. I mean, that would go into the same timeline there. I don't know why it wouldn't. I mean, if you're allowing that we can trace all this back and it still counts or something, then I don't know why you couldn't trace it all the way back to that level, or why you... You couldn't trace it all the way back to life choices you're making. I mean, if I'm doing things to my body in general without even regard to pregnancy at all, I'm still harming a future person. If I right now start just huffing paint and, you know, or if I am a mother and I start just abusing my body, even though I'm not pregnant, I am not intending to be pregnant, I am still doing harm to the potential and possibly causing bad effects to the potential any human I might bring into the world, but I don't think you would say that that is similarly a crime against them. It's not the same thing.

0:44:18 Tyler: No, because you're missing the salient point, which is that you're causing direct harm to a human organism.

0:44:26 Tyler: We don't talk about moral culpability to non-human organisms, and I mean, barring maybe animal rights, but we don't, we don't talk about it, you know, if I shave, I'm doing harm to my skin cells or, you know nothing like that. We're talking about specifically human organisms, right?

0:44:42 Thomas: I was too.

0:44:43 Tyler: I mean, I think, no,

0:44:43 Thomas: I'm saying if you make bad choices, if you use drugs as a woman, anything you do, and it's all on the woman pretty much. I mean, I don't know, maybe we'll see if I can do something to ruin my sperm. But if women make certain really bad health choices, they are harming future humans if they have kids.

0:45:06 Tyler: No. So there's a difference between they're creating an environment where you might potentially bring a human into it. The difference is directly causing harm to a human person.

0:45:16 Thomas: But it's not a human... I thought your argument, the reason I went that way is I thought you were trying to make an argument that didn't rely on the fetus being a human person.

0:45:24 Tyler: Sorry, sorry, not a human, to an actual human being, right. It doesn't rely on the person, but it relies on the direct, direct uh the direct harm to a distinct human organism, not not a potential human, to an actual human, to an organism that is developing with a future like mine, right?

0:45:28 Thomas: Oh, okay.

0:45:52 Thomas: Alright, that's it for part one of the debate with Tyler Vela, and not a great clean cut there, I know, but it's hard to find, we had such a fluid back and forth that there wasn't really a set time that I could cut it off. But anyway, like I said, patreon.com/atheist, get part two right away, if not, no problem, you'll have it on Monday, and then I'll have a ton of thoughts, I have definitely a big follow-up I need to do on this, and you'll see why, either immediately or on Monday. Day, depending on who you are. So thank you for listening. Again, I really appreciate it. Thank you to all my fine patrons, and I will see you next time.