In this clip, Cy Kellett welcomes Emily Dinneny to discuss the moral implications of abortion laws and the role of democracy in determining them. Emily challenges a caller’s pro-choice stance by drawing a provocative comparison to slavery, sparking a heated debate about ethics and societal values.
Transcript:
Caller: The United States has a method for deciding our moral values, specifically the argument on abortion. This is done by the American voter.
Emily Dinneny: Would you use that same justification for slavery?
Caller: Yes. I mean, if it’s on the ballot, absolutely. I mean, you know, it’s okay. You get to cast your vote. Everybody gets one vote for whatever is on the ballot or whatever candidates are on the ballot.
Emily Dinneny: And we would have to respect that vote and bring slavery back if people did that.
Caller: Yes, correct. That is unfortunately true. There are all kinds of things that are legal now that I really, really do not like. But I have to live with them or else I have to go move to another country. But ultimately this country has done very, very well. It’s not perfect. I’m not claiming it’s perfect, but it’s vastly better than any theocracy that I can point an example to. And I’m opposed to change. And I suspect that, Emily, you’re not. You want to change this. You want your personal opinion to be able to do away with voters in California, Kansas, Vermont and these, these states that have put this on the ballot because you didn’t personally like the outcome of those elections. And I’m opposed to that.
Emily Dinneny: Yeah. I mean, you’re in favor, Dana? I would say, I would say the exact same thing about slavery. Yeah, of course. I don’t, I don’t care if somebody in the south wants to enslave another human being. I don’t care if, if that’s their vote. Because if they are voting for something that’s objectively evil and degrading and wrong, that’s not something that, that’s worth considering. And it’s the same with abortion. Let me ask you this. Why, why do laws exist in the first place? Like, why does the United States say you can’t murder people, you can’t, you can’t steal in your mind, why. Why do we have laws anyway?
Caller: Well, ultimately it comes down to, you know, you bring up stealing. I live in California where, you know, shoplifting was made a non crime. I think we’ve discovering that that was a mistake and we’re starting to change that back. And I understand that there’s probably 100 million Americans that very deeply share her opinion with her. So I’m not trying to seem like this is some lightweight, you know, just your personal opinion, but you think that those personal opinions, because they’re a conglome of personal opinions, should overwhelm and disregard the American voters decision at the ballot box. Because these issues in some states were decided pro life. Pro life. And Pro choice. And then what’s your. What do you want to do? Get rid of the United States Constitution and the act of voting or what? Can you explain it?
Emily Dinneny: Yes. So it is not that I want law to circle around my opinion. It’s that I want law to be based on and rooted in what is objectively good. And it is objectively good to give everybody the right to life. And that’s what, you know, the Declaration of Independent States, that we all have a right, that man has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So I. That’s what I desire. And so on the contrary, it would be objectively evil to allow somebody under law to kill an innocent human being, just like it was objectively evil for the law to permit individuals to enslave other people as their property. So it’s not that it’s about my opinion per se. It’s that laws exist for the sake of protecting moral goods. And one of those moral goods is our. Is our right to live. And unborn human beings have that right. It should not be up to democracy to determine who gets to live and who gets to die. If tomorrow the United States decided to let every state vote on can men beat their wives, enslave them and sexually abuse them. And some states in a majority said, yeah, let’s allow that. That would be objectively evil and wrong. And I really, really hope that you would acknowledge that and not say, well, we need to respect democracy above all and allow these voters to have that right because that’s what they desire. No, that’s objectively evil. And no democracy, no law can ever make that good or right. And law needs to be acknowledging that that’s objectively evil. Same with abortion. Does that make sense?
Caller: It makes sense from a theological point of view, but it is not objectively evil. It’s. That’s an opinion. That’s your opinion that it’s objectively evil. But it does sound like, no, you feel that, no, we should away from voting. This should not be decided by voting. This should be decided by some other.
Emily Dinneny: No, I didn’t say that it’s not objective. No, I said, you know, the United
Caller: States person, it’s your opinion. It’s objectively evil.
Cy Kellett: It’s not. Oh, just. I just want to be clear, Dana. It’s not objectively evil to kill an innocent person.
Caller: It is her opinion. And I share the opinion in a lot of ways that. I’m not saying that she’s wrong about this. I’m saying it is her opinion. She’s throwing out this word objectively evil. Objectively this. Objectively that. That. That’s an unnecessary adjective that means nothing in the ballot box. Okay. The ballot box. Is.
Emily Dinneny: Is it. Is it always evil? Is it always evil in every circumstance to. To abuse a child?
Caller: I think it’s always evil to. It is my opinion that it’s always evil to abuse a child. Yes, I agree with that.
Emily Dinnenyr: So if, that. If the United States tomorrow voted on that, what would you say?
Caller: In some states it’s legal? Well, it depends on your definition of abuse. It also depends on your definition of rape. You’re saying that would be horrible, objectively evil for men to be able to rape their wives. In some states, there’s no punishment for doing that. Women are largely kooks. No, I don’t think it’s a good thing at all. But ultimately, the way that you have to deal with this issue is you need to convince more Americans to vote within your opinion. And you haven’t been successful, at least at this moment in time, in doing that. But it sounds like you want to change our system that we’ve had for 250 years now, that we fought the Revolutionary War to obtain. And the people that were involved in that took these horrible risks, some of them were executed by the British just because they were involved. And you want. It’s their cmt. You want to throw all of that, this country that has done so much for humanity, you want to throw all of that away and get rid of people’s right to vote so that you and your people who are pro life can have their way, even though they’re unable to convince a majority of American voters that they’re right.
Cy Kellett: Dana, I think you’re. If I may say, I think you’re wrong about American history. It’s a history of inalienable rights that’s at the foundation of our. So some things are not up for a vote. The history of the United States is not. We get to vote on everything. The history of the United States is within certain limits, ordered limits, and the limits are the rights of other people so that you don’t get to vote on everything that has not been the history of the United States. You don’t get to vote on whether or not murder is good or bad. Murder is bad. People have the right to life. So I think you’re wrong about the history of the United States.
Caller: Well, can I just explain how it works? Let’s say, for instance, Texas, the Texan voter, did not get to vote on whether abortion would be illegal or legal, but they did get to vote for the people in the Texas legislature that made those laws. So in a way they did get to vote. And this upcoming election is going to be very interesting because you have a pro choice candidate.
Cy Kellett: But that vote didn’t take away anyone’s rights. That’s what we’re allowed to vote on things so long as they don’t take away other people’s rights. But the limit is other people’s rights.
Caller: It’s legislation through representation. The representatives are elected by the people. No, we don’t have king and church anymore. There is no sole person who decides what’s legal and not legal. The Congress decides what’s legal and not legal. The individual states decide through their elected representatives. And sometimes that is directly voted on. In some cases, abortion was directly voted on by some states with constitutional amendments. That’s how it’s decided. There’s no law that’s forced on us that we can’t go and remove the person that forced that law on us.
Cy Kellett: But let me. My point to you, Dana, was I think you’re wrong about American history. When Thomas Jefferson said we have inalienable rights, that means no one can take those rights away. Was that just his opinion or was that the founding principle of our nation?
Caller: That’s a very good question. And she made a great point because Thomas Jefferson did write that we have the right to life. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Pursuit of happiness is actually satanic. But no, that was. You’re correct. The second thing you said is correct. That is the foundation of our country. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That was the Declaration of Independence. Though that wasn’t the United States Constitution. That came long after that. That was simply a letter that we sent to King George. It didn’t cause any legal necessity with it with the soon to be United States after winning the Revolutionary War.
Emily Dinneny: Well, it was the legal justification for a war. It was actually. It was the legal justification for an entire war.
Caller: But my point is it had nothing to do with the laws.
Cy Kellett: People have inalienable rights. Dana is my point. And the second part that you are focused on is only among these are. But the point, the fundamental point on which the country was founded is people have inalienable rights and those can’t be voted in or out. They don’t come from you or me. They come from nature and nature’s God. That’s what the founding document of our country says.
Caller: Then how is it that the state of California, Vermont, Kansas and these other states directly voted for abortion kind of abortion on demand? I Think that’s what they voted for? If you’re right, how come that’s not reality? You’re talking about a utopia that doesn’t exist. I’m talking about the United States of America, and I want to keep it the United States of America, not the theocracy, you know, the Catholic Republic of America. And I do think that, you know, I’m questioning, is that what you ultimately want? Is that what the Catholic Church wants?
Caller: Is it, Emily? Is that what we want?
Emily Dinneny: No, Dana. So no one here is advocating for a theocracy for a nation that is governed directly under the sovereignty of the Pope or something? Nobody said that. Nobody said that. We want our laws based off of the Catholic Church’s views of things. We made an appeal to the founding documents of our country, which came from this understanding, due to the Enlightenment, that man has rights inherent to himself. These aren’t rights that the state arbitrarily gives him, but he naturally possesses these rights, namely the right to preserve himself, the right to property, the right to pursue and have his freedom in terms of pursuing his own happiness. Are there sometimes mistakes in how this is judged? 100%. That’s why slavery was protected under law for so long, and that’s why abortion is currently protected under law in certain states. But that doesn’t make it good. You’re understanding that, oh, we just need to have everybody, you know, respect the states and their citizens, whatever they vote for. That’s not a foundational American principle. As Sai was saying, the founding American principles are that we have these rights inherent to us because of what God has given us, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and all of these things exist for the sake of preserving and protecting those rights under law. So, no, tomorrow, the states could not all, let’s say, hey, guys, let’s vote on whether we can make murder legal. Is abortion murder? Yes. Unfortunately, there’s been, you know, disagreements and misunderstandings about human embryology and to what extent fetuses have rights. But in the same way that people misjudged that, oh, black people don’t have the same rights. They’re not worth the same amount as a white citizen. That was severely misjudged. That’s the same case for abortion. And I’m not saying abortion should be outlawed because the Catholic Church says so. I’m making an argument that abortion is always wrong because abortion kills an innocent human being. You haven’t addressed that argument, Dana. Whether abortion in itself is, you know, something that kills life, that kills innocent human life, and whether legally that should be protected. You’re claiming that, you know, people can just vote on issues. You just said earlier that if we all voted on slavery again, that we should respect the state’s right to have slaves if that’s what their citizens voted on. That’s a crazy assertion. And so I think you need to unpack your stance on abortion and why you think democracy somehow supersedes our natural right.
Caller: I think first you’re confusing the Declaration of Independence with the United States Constitution and the system that’s set up in the Constitution for deciding America’s moral values. And you say that it is always wrong to kill an innocent person. Abortion kills an innocent person, and therefore abortion should. Is always wrong and should be illegal. Yes, and I actually tend to agree with you. That’s a very compelling argument. I tend to agree with that argument. But more Americans don’t agree with that argument, and they vote that way. And that’s the problem. You need to convince Americans there’s all kinds of things going on that you don’t like, that I don’t like. Nobody gets everything they want. But in a democracy, nobody’s leaving this country because of our abortion laws and going somewhere where it’s more strict, not doing that because we recognize that this is a wonderful place to live in spite of our flaws. And there isn’t any better place to live that we would choose to. There are. There are countries on this planet where abortion is strictly illegal. You could move to any of those countries, but you’re not going to because they’re not nice places to live. And I am totally opposed to changing our system. And you’re bringing up all these stains. Slavery was actually voted on. That’s how we got rid of it. It was legal at first. We fought the Civil War. One of the main reasons for the Civil War was slavery, because so many people were passionate about it. They were willing to go to war to change that. So this is the history of America, and you don’t get to come in as Catholics and say, this is objectively wrong, therefore we’re going to change it. Now, you can advocate for your position. The First Amendment allows you to say whatever you want. So I strongly support your ability to try to convince people. But you haven’t really done that. You haven’t been able to do that to where it matters, at the ballot box.
Emily Dinneny: People. People don’t go to war. People don’t go to war because they. They think cats are better than dogs or that pineapple shouldn’t be on pizza. People don’t go to war over opinions. They go to war over truth, over injustices. And that’s exactly why people fought against slavery, because they realized the huge injustice that it was. So, I mean, saying that, like, our opinions on politics and on human rights is just like our opinions on whether certain pizza toppings deserve to be on pizza or not, that’s absurd. That just does not match up with reality at all. The reason people are so passionate about these human rights issues is because deep down we have this understanding that they are something inherent to us that are kind of beyond our ability to dispute whether. Oh, it’s just your opinion. I can respect your opinion, but let you do whatever you want to do. No, but when you’re hurting another human being, that’s objectively wrong.
Cy Kellett: I have to say I should have gone to the break five minutes ago. But Dana, one of the best calls. I love that we really do believe in reasoning together, and I appreciate that you called and let us fight that out with you. But I gotta go to the break and I have more callers that I have to get to. Why are you pro choice? Our topic. Emily Denneny, our guest, right back with more pro choice calls on Catholic Answers Live.