Audio only:
In this episode Trent breaks down a debate on life issues between Cambridge student Kai Bevan and Charlie Kirk.
Transcription:
Trent:
Recently, Steven Woodford of Rationality Rules published a video called Charlie Kirk’s Worst Debate, how a Calm Cambridge student exposed his one trick, which got over 700,000 views. He also interviewed the student Kai Bevin in a video called Medical Student Reveals how he destroyed Charlie Kirk’s entire abortion argument. Woodford spent over two hours discussing this on his channel, so I figured this must be a really rigorous and interesting argument. Spoiler alert, it’s not. I emailed Kai Bevin and asked him to come on my channel to debate abortion, but he never responded to me and it’s tragic that Charlie Kirk is no longer with us to respond to these kinds of videos. So in today’s episode, I’ll go through the key moments of their exchange and see what really happened and what we can learn from it.
CLIP:
Alright, so thank you for coming. Charlie, my question to you, I mean I’m a medical student and I’m going to throw out the big a word. I know you get asked about it a lot, but I want to hear it from you. Your opinion is on abortion.
Life begins at conception,
But about abortion specifically, why do you think abortion’s wrong specifically?
Well, you agree murder is wrong.
Okay, so this is where we get to the question, right? Because what is it about murder you say is wrong? Why is murder wrong?
Well, because it’s a human being, not just because it has consciousness or because it’s of a certain age, because it’s a human. What is it that gives human being this moral worth? Not its consciousness necessarily. I didn’t say it’s consciousness. I know I can imagine because it is a human being because that is a soul.
Trent:
Normally I’m a big fan of the Socratic method, but sometimes it’s more helpful to just state your case and then dissect the opposing side, especially with someone like Kai, who also likes asking questions. So keep it simple. Abortion is wrong because it’s wrong to directly kill innocent human beings, and abortion directly kills human embryos and human fetuses who are innocent human beings In these situations, you also as a debater have to be careful to not allow a doctor or a medical student to make it seem like that because they claim an expertise in biology that therefore they are automatically correct about the moral issue being debated. Throughout history, there have been doctors who committed terrible moral acts in the name of medicine. So we need to always remind people that knowledge of medicine and anatomy does not always translate to a moral worldview. Finally, I would not veer off into talk about souls when debating abortion because that’s a whole other subject to debate. So I’m going to skip over that part of their discussion because it derails the point Charlie needed to make and start again where they talk about abortion.
CLIP:
And let me ask you, what is the first stage of human development? I mean,
This is the thing, right? We can take it from the sperm being generated in the father and the being generated in the mother, right? They fuse at birth conception. Sorry. The only thing that happens at conception is these two cells fuse
No, DNA is created zygote. A is not created D, no, that’s not true. The D, the DNA coding at the hold on time out finish. Does a zygote have a unique marker? Charlie DNA. Does a zygote have a unique marker? You have to let me
Speak. You have
To answer it. Yes or no? Does a zygote have a unique marker? Define a unique marker. Meaning can you differentiate the DNA coating between the mother and the zygote? If you examine it under a deoxyribonucleic acid analysis, can you only purely because the addition comes from the father? Oh, so it is something different.
Charlie, Charlie DNA is not created. DNA is not created. The father has his own genome. The mother has her own genome, they fuse. This is why you have the same characteristics, similar ones to your mother, similar ones to your father. That’s why you have similar characteristics to your siblings. DNA is not created. So when you ask me where does a human being come from, I can say to you, it starts a conception. But all conception is these two cells joining.
Trent:
Wait a minute, rewind and play that again.
CLIP:
So when you ask me where does a human being come from, I can say to you, it starts a conception. It starts a conception.
Trent:
The biggest problem with this exchange is that Kai and Charlie are talking past each other. An important term to include here would be human organism. What is the first stage of development in the life of a human organism? And even Kai agrees it’s conception. I think the reason they’re speaking past each other is because Charlie is saying biological human life begins a conception. But Kai is saying human life with unique moral value begins at a later time in human development. That’s why Kai seems to be making this kind of bizarre argument that DNA is not created or that conception isn’t special. Saying DNA is not created because the genetic material preexists in the mother and father’s sex cells is like saying houses are not created because the construction material preexists in hardware stores. Now, human beings are not constructed in the womb like a house because they have their whole identity from the moment they are conceived. But my point is that it’s silly to think that transformation of materials does not result in new things with value coming into existence. And the point isn’t that the human embryo has unique DNA every living thing. Even single cells have unique DNA. The point is that the human embryo after successful conception or fertilization is a unique human organism. A member of the human species who can just like you or I grow and develop provided they’re given nutrition and a proper environment.
CLIP:
All conception is these two cells joining, right? But these two cells were created, the mother’s cells were created long before they were created when she was a fetus. So there’s none of this DNA being produced, right? So we can’t, the only thing that happens at conception is these two cells views. Now this idea that that means that for some reason suddenly that moral worth comes in, but it wasn’t there before when you had these two cells who had half the the DNA, but suddenly there’s a correct, correct?
Yes. Something magical happens at that.
It’s not magical. Charlie, we know about this. Well, hold on. Hold on. Charlie, Charlie, time out. I promise you I’m not trying to score points
Trent:
Really, because it seems like that’s exactly what you’re doing. Clearly what Charlie meant was that something incredibly special happens when the DNA of a sperm and egg combine to form a new unique genetic sequence in a new human organism, a new human being that never existed before. Charlie’s not saying this is something we cannot rationally explain. Kai seems caught up on the idea that because the genetic material that makes up the embryos DNA existed before the embryo, that means there’s nothing special about this material when it fuses together. But that’s like saying that since all the paint in a beautiful work of art existed before it was put on a canvas, that means there’s nothing more special about a painting than a bottle of paint over. Don’t take my analogies about house construction or paintings. Literally, human beings are not constructed in the womb like objects.
They develop more like a photograph. If you take a Polaroid picture of something rare like aliens stepping out of a spaceship, the Polaroid picture will just look like a blank brown or black smudge. If someone tore up that picture and said it wasn’t a picture of aliens, just take potential picture of aliens, you’d be rightfully mad and say it was a picture of aliens. It just needed time to develop for you and I to see that. And now we’ll never see that picture. Likewise, an unborn human being is not a potential person. He is a person with great potential who is on a path of development just like you or I. And if you destroy that human being in the womb, then we will never see the earthly life that human being would’ve possessed.
CLIP:
I’m not trying to score points on you. This is genuine. We call it the miracle of life for a reason we’ve not been able to yet replicate human life development outside of the womb.
We call it the miracle of life because yes, it’s something beautiful, the ability to magical, it’s not you say magical, is it? Oh, it’s beautiful. It’s an incredible thing that happens, of course, but it’s not incredible in the sense we don’t know what’s going on. There’s no new
DNA being coming out of nowhere. Hold on, time out. Isn’t there a separate DNA though than the mother? Yes, from the father, okay, yes. But then yes, but it’s not the father’s DNA, either a new coating is created. Charlie, you are a blend of the two. So when did your life begin?
Trent:
Great question, and Charlie is getting at the right point here. I would just make it specific by saying that prior to conception, there are two organisms, the human mother and the human father. However, after conception, there are three organisms, the mother, the father, and the new very young human being what we would call a young one, which is what the Greek word embryo or ryon means, or fetus, which is Latin for offspring. I would also at this point in the debate bring up the scientific consensus that the life of a human organism begins a fertilization, at least for the vast majority of human beings. Because some humans may come into existence when an embryo splits at twinning, but for everybody else, it’s fertilization. The standard medical text, human embryology and ology states. Although human life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed.
Keith Moore and Tvn Prasad’s textbook, the developing human states, human development begins at fertilization. And Lang man’s medical embryology also says Development begins with fertilization. In 2019, Steve Jacobs wrote an article called I Asked Thousands of Biologists When Life Begins, the Answer wasn’t popular. He writes, as the usable responses began to come in, I found that 5,337 biologists or 96% of the survey affirm that a human’s life begins a fertilization. This was the case, even though 85% of the respondents identified as pro-choice. This isn’t surprising given that Planned Parenthood’s own medical staff once affirmed in a court document that to describe an embryo or fetus scientifically and factually, one would say that a living embryo or fetus in utero is a developing organism of the species. Homo sapiens, which may become a self-sustaining member of the species if no organic or environmental incident interrupts its gestation. Nathan Nobus, a pro-choice philosopher, I’ve debated, said that the proposition fetuses are human beings or organisms is true. And David Boin, author of a Defense of Abortion, a philosopher I’ve also debated, says, A human fetus after all is simply a human being at a very early stage in his or her development.
CLIP:
When did your life, life, I mean, again, this comes from what you define as where life starts. You can say life starts in conception, but I’m telling you, I believe that’s just an ary point, right? That’s just the moment these two cells views. Now you say about this mother thing. So the way DNA is arranged in a cell is it’s arranging chromosomes. Chromosomes are paired up, so you have one from the mother, one from the father. Typically in a healthy individual right now, you can take those maternal chromosomes out and you can find that this is who the person’s mother is, and you can do the same with the father. Now, the reason you are different to your mother and father is because some of those chromosomes express genes that are different from each other. And so those genes interact and that’s what gives rise to you. There’s no space for any kind of moral framework to come into that until you consider that a human being is capable of consciousness and of suffering. But unless if you take that out of the equation, the fact that these 2D NA, whatever they call molecules, these 2D NA molecules are fusing, that does not suddenly flip a switch that attributes moral worth to that individual.
I’m just saying, I’m not trying to score points.
Trent:
Kai’s argument seems to be that DNA cannot confer value because the matter that makes up DNA pre-existed the child. However, consciousness seems to come into existence almost from nothing since consciousness is a non-physical and it has a unique moral property associated with it like pain sensation. So according to Kai, this is what gives human beings moral value, not their biological humanity. However, Charlie Kirk could have said, what makes conception morally relevant is that this is the moment a new human organism comes into existence. It’s not the DNA itself that gives value because the skin cells I shed from my body have a complete copy of my DNA, but it’s not murder to destroy skin cells. What matters is being a complete human organism. And what makes human organisms more valuable than other organisms or life forms is that they belong to the humankind, which can be seen from their DNA. Now, Kai might ask, why does being human matter at all? To which Charlie could say, because we all agree human rights matter. Don’t you believe people ought to have human rights? The problem is that if you try to say human rights, it’s just a shorthand for conscious human rights, then you get all sorts of moral problems, which will come up in this next section
CLIP:
By
What moral standard do you believe
That? I believe that if an individual is capable of suffering, then it’s wrong. Now, can I explain my opinion on abortion? Just so you can understand? I would agree as many reasonable people would that at nine months, it is unreasonable to expect someone to get an abortion, right? Unless you have some extreme circumstances. But for an elective, abortion seems a bit radical to me, but it also seems radical to say that a woman who has just those cells have just used to deny her of an abortion also seems wrong to me because that zygote is not capable of suffering as far as we know.
Again, by what moral standard is that? Just your opinion? Where did you get that moral standard from?
Because suffering is a bad thing. We all know suffering is a bad thing. That’s an objective fact, right?
Hold on. Okay, so you do believe in objective morality. I believe that suffering is an objective negative. So if you can’t feel it, is it okay? What do you mean if you can’t, you can’t feel the pain? Is it okay to inflict the pain
In the sense that if no one’s suffering from it, if you have a scenario when nobody is suffering from something, then yes, of course there’s no, something is only a moral question if it affects someone’s wellbeing.
Trent:
So Kai’s argument is basically that you can only harm someone if you harm their wellbeing, which seems to necessarily involve inflicting pain on a conscious individual. And since human embryos and early fetuses are not conscious, then you cannot harm them. And so abortion is morally permissible right off the bat, I would note that this is an overly truncated view of morality. You can harm someone, IE make him worse off without hurting him, causing him to feel pain. For example, one time I was hanging out with friends in high school and a guy I knew bragged about stealing a gift card on the present table at a rich girl’s birthday party. He justified the action by saying she’d never miss it and had plenty of money, and he was right that she wouldn’t experience any pain over what he did. But it’s still wrong to steal from people just because you think that they have enough or they won’t miss what you steal. Another example might be defrauding someone by stealing an inheritance they never knew about, and so they won’t feel pain over that, but they have been harmed by being deprived something. They have a right to just as ab boarding an unborn child may not hurt the child, but it deprives him of the life he has a right to. And there’s many other examples I can present that would show what’s wrong with Kai’s argument. But first, let’s look at how Charlie Kirk responded.
CLIP:
So lemme just make sure I understand this correctly, that if it doesn’t affect their wellbeing, so dementia patients that don’t know who they are or where they’re from, can we execute dementia patients because they’re confused about their wellbeing?
Can you imagine a scenario
Or Alzheimer’s patients, Charlie, Charlie Alzheimer’s patients don’t really know much about anything? Can we schedule them for execution because they can’t technically suffer?
I respond. So can you imagine a scenario where we lived in a society where we killed people when they underwent, they suffered from dementia, were uncapable of suffering and we killed them, right? That would not, it is not a scenario that involves an absence of suffering. There’s still suffering involved people’s fat. Imagine you grow up thinking, my dad could be killed at any moment because he’s going to get dementia. Imagine living your life thinking, I could get dementia and suddenly I’d be killed by my state.
Imagine a world where you slaughter a million babies every year in America, Charlie, Charlie. It’s not slaughter. That’s the problem.
Trent:
Kai seems to be presenting a kind of utilitarian argument for the wrongness of killing and giving the standard utilitarian replies. For example, if morality is about maximizing wellbeing, then it wouldn’t be wrong for a hospital to painlessly euthanize a homeless man who has no family in order to use as organs to save five sick people. Utilitarians often respond by saying, acts like this are wrong. Not because it’s just wrong to kill innocent human beings, but because these kinds of acts cause more suffering overall. In this case, a utilitarian might say it’s wrong because this kind of policy makes the rest of us afraid to go to the hospital because we might get chopped up for our organs. Now, you could point out that the utilitarian response really doesn’t capture the horror of justifying the direct killing of innocent people for the good of other people.
But you can also just pick different thought experiments to make the same point and avoid the reply, especially if you’re in a debate scenario like Charlie’s in where there’s a time crunch element. This is why in my debate with destiny on abortion, I brought up the example of genetically modifying unborn children and turning them into brainless human beings to use as organ farms or even as objects to be violated by child predators. Unlike the Alzheimer’s case, none of us would ever be in fear that we would be turned into a brainless object since we’ve already gone through gestation. So Kai couldn’t appeal to that kind of rationale to condemn this act. The only justification that makes sense is that it is wrong to deprive human beings of their natural course of development, whether by making them brainless through in utero modification or making them dead through in utero dismemberment.
Finally, consciousness is a species neutral category. If by consciousness you mean just being able to feel pain, while non-human animals like rats or pigeons can feel pain and even perform mental tasks like solving mazes or delivering the mail, but they aren’t persons. So Kai’s argument will fail if it grounds morality in this level of consciousness because I doubt he’s going to bite the bullet and say, fumigating rats as mass murder because they can feel pain. But if by consciousness he means capable of uniquely human rational thought, then infants would not be persons because they are not capable of rational thought beyond what non-human animals like dogs or pigs can do. And he’d have to bite the infanticide bullet. And if he says that being a conscious human is what makes you valuable, then he’s constructing an ad hoc definition. If consciousness doesn’t give a rat value, then it doesn’t give a human value either.
It’s the human part of conscious human that would be doing all the heavy lifting in his moral category. What makes more sense is that our value as human beings comes not from our current functional ability, what we can do, but from our current identity, what we are as members of the human species, and that we all have equal human rights. Because in spite of our many unequal differences in size or intelligence, we all possess the same equal human nature written into our DNA as human organisms. And for the remaining 45 seconds, Charlie and Kai just kind of reiterate their points and talk past each other, and then the debate is terminated by the moderator. So ultimately I would say this was just an example of Charlie being a little imprecise in his language and not picking the best counter examples. It certainly wasn’t a knockdown defeat of the pro-life position.
If you want to see how Charlie did well in this kind of environment on this topic, see my previous episode where I reviewed his appearance on the Jubilee podcast, I’d also be happy to dialogue with Steven or Kai on this subject. So if they’re interested, I hope they’ll let me know. And if you’d like to go deeper on this subject yourself, check out my book Persuasive Pro-Life. Also, if you want to meet me in over 30 other Catholic creators, get your tickets for our April 11th conference in dallas@conferenceoftrent.com. Over 200 people have already signed up and we’d love to have you join us along with them. So thank you so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.