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In this episode Trent sits down with Cy Kellett of the Catholic Answers Focus podcast to break down common slanderous accusations pro-choice advocates make against pro-lifers.
Welcome to The Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey, everyone. I’m still taking time off this week to spend time with family, to celebrate my wife’s birthday with her, but I thought it would still be nice to share with you an interview that I did, just in case you’re missing some time with me. Before the Dobbs v. Jackson decision came out in June, I sat down with Cy Kellett on the Catholic Answers Focus podcast to tear apart common pro-choice arguments and pro-choice stereotypes of pro-life people. The interview is still quite timely because you’re hearing all of these arguments now, just as I predicted you would be hearing all of this. I said even before…
Trent Horn:
It’s funny, when you go back and listen to the interview, I’m such a Debbie Downer. We’re talking about it, and I said, “Even if the Court doesn’t overturn Roe v. Wade, this is still a big deal.” You could tell I just had a hard time getting my hopes up, but now yippee! I’m happy that we’ve made this advance to protect the lives of unborn children.
Trent Horn:
We have not won the war by any means, but we have secured a major victory. That means we have to continue to push forward, and we have to do so in an assertive way and a gracious way. I hope this interview helps you to be able to do that, to give you some tips for engaging in these conversations. They’re going to be coming up more and more and more.
Trent Horn:
Hope that’s helpful for you guys, and don’t forget to subscribe to the Catholic Answers Focus podcast if you want to hear more interviews like this. Of course, continue to subscribe to The Counsel of Trent. Leave a review for us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play. That’s always helpful as well.
Trent Horn:
Without further ado, here is my interview with Cy Kellett about debunking pro-choice arguments and stereotypes about pro-life people.
Cy Kellett:
One thing that is clear, because the media has made this clear to me, is that the pro-life movement has overwhelmingly been a movement of violent people who attack pro-abortion people and abortion doctors and all of that. It really has been an extraordinarily violent movement.
Trent Horn:
Well, that’s what you’ll hear from the media, that, overall, the pro-life movement is violent; but when you compare the pro-life movement to other social movements throughout history, the pro-life movement is one of the most peaceful social movements of all time. This is a movement in the United States composed of tens of millions of people. Think about all the people who go to March for Life, who pray in front of abortion facilities.
Trent Horn:
While there are other movements around… If you think there are other movements around the country, such as animal rights movements, which are, I would say, they’re not as large as the pro-life movement. I’ve never seen an animal rights march that could compare to the March for Life. Yet animal rights, environmentalists, frequently engage in acts of violence. They’ll put steel spikes into trees when loggers try to cut them down. They will blow up laboratories, burn them down. In fact, there’s a whole branch of violence dedicated to that, called eco-terrorism.
Trent Horn:
Similar other movements throughout history have resorted to things like violence, but the pro-life movement… It’s really interesting, I was reading an article at Slate, which is an online publication, very liberal, so very in favor of the pro-choice worldview. One of the articles there, I remember the author saying, “It’s actually quite surprising how little violence there is in the pro-life movement given that pro-lifers believe thousands of human beings are being killed every day.”
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. That’s very fair. I think that’s-
Trent Horn:
There have been pro-life advocates who have killed abortion providers, who have engaged in violence, but the pro-life movement as a whole… You should judge a movement by the major players in it, the major organizations, and they have universally condemned it-
Cy Kellett:
And its strategies.
Trent Horn:
And its main strategies. You’ll see other movements do rely on violence, intimidation, and threats as a main strategy, or they won’t denounce violence committed by those that are done in the name of the movement. They’ll just turn a blind eye to it. But the pro-life movement has not done that. For 50 years, the pro-life movement has worked legislatively, pastorally, educationally, and is seeing gains from that. The acts of violence that have occurred have been the work of lone individuals who are unwell and have chosen to do this. Any movement that is large enough will have individuals like that in it.
Cy Kellett:
It’s a vast movement that went on for 50 years, and you probably could point to half a dozen, maybe a dozen-
Trent Horn:
A handful probably. Yes.
Cy Kellett:
… cases of violence in its name, and all of them condemned-
Trent Horn:
All condemned. Yeah.
Cy Kellett:
… by the leaders of the movement.
Cy Kellett:
Okay, but here’s the thing. This, also, I learned from the American media. This is illegitimate for the Supreme Court to decide something, for these black-robed justices to decide for the whole country on a major issue like this. That’s just illegitimate. The Court itself is illegitimate because pro-life people somehow stacked the Court.
Trent Horn:
You know what? I almost want to agree. Yeah, I do think it was illegitimate when the Supreme Court, in 1973, prevented states from protecting the unborn.
Cy Kellett:
Wait a minute. So you’re saying if I make the argument today that it’s illegitimate for the Supreme Court to assert itself in this issue, I have to go all the way back to the original Roe decision and ask, “Was it legitimate then?”
Trent Horn:
Well, yes, if you’re going to be consistent and fair. It’s interesting that you can see another course that is taken on these particular issues. In 1973, Roe v. Wade really cut off the ability to discuss and shape, at the state level, abortion policy and laws.
Cy Kellett:
Yes. Right.
Trent Horn:
But there is another moral issue. The one I would compare this to would be… People will say, “If you leave this up to the states, it would be anarchy and chaos. The Court has to step in and do this.” No, it doesn’t.
Trent Horn:
To give you an example, I would point to assisted suicide laws. Now, I would like assisted suicide to be illegal in all 50 states, but progressively, different states were loosening their laws, allowing assisted suicide through the use of physicians or through… I don’t want to call them medications. They’re poisonous pills that are taken to kill somebody. But in, I want to say it was 1999, there was a Supreme Court case, Washington v. Glucksberg, where the Court ruled unanimously, 9-0, that there is no right to die in the Constitution.
Trent Horn:
Assisted suicide advocates, what they wanted in Glucksberg was for the Court to say, like it did with Roe, that a state may not prohibit assisted suicide, and the Court chose not to do that. They said, “Well, no, there’s a long tradition of protecting people, protecting the mentally ill. Suicide causes a lot of harm.” There’s a long legal tradition of it. It is constitutional for a state to outlaw assisted suicide, but the Court said in Glucksberg a state does not have to do it. They may ban assisted suicide, but they are not obliged to.
Cy Kellett:
But wait. I haven’t noticed the chaos and the madness that states get to decide this for themselves.
Trent Horn:
No. What we have is some states, like California and Oregon and Washington, that allow this offense to human life, and other states that protect human life. You know that if you’re a doctor, you say, “Well, I’m in the state of Texas. I can’t give you a drug to kill yourself. That’s silly. I will lose my license. I’ll go to jail.” We understand that some states have been able to move public opinion and to protect life, the life of the elderly or the disabled. Other states, unfortunately, have not, and we have work to do in those areas.
Trent Horn:
It seems to me quite reasonable to allow abortion. Now, ideally, I would like abortion illegal in all 50 states, but it’s a reasonable improvement, from my perspective, to treat abortion like assisted suicide, where you have states that are able to protect the unborn and others we have to do more work in.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. We’ll just do the work then. We’re not saying-
Trent Horn:
That’s right.
Cy Kellett:
… “We’ll just forget about it. Okay, states, we’ll do the pro-life work.”
Trent Horn:
Right.
Cy Kellett:
Okay, so I got one more for you, and then you can tell me some straw men that you hear.
Trent Horn:
Sure.
Cy Kellett:
This I also learned from the American media. You see, I’ve learned a lot of things from the American media.
Trent Horn:
You have heard a lot of things.
Cy Kellett:
Well, yes, I suppose that’s one way of saying it. Clearly, the whole pro-life movement is rooted in an old-fashioned, religious, and anti-science view that, really, it’s a struggle between a religious point of view that wants to impose itself and a more secular scientific view that doesn’t want to impose itself.
Trent Horn:
That is actually correct, but the roles are reversed.
Cy Kellett:
Excuse me?
Trent Horn:
Yes. It is the pro-life movement that has consistently argued from a secular and scientific perspective. The only people who bring up religion in abortion debates are pro-choice people. I should say, in debates among policymakers, among leaders of pro-life organizations, among pro-life apologists like myself, so among people who are involved in promoting, defending, and explaining policy related to abortion, or in media. The only people amongst that group who bring up religion are pro-choice people. They’re the only ones who bring it up, precisely to try to say, “This is a religious issue.”.
Trent Horn:
Or they’ll say something like, “Some religions believe that you should have abortion through all nine months, and we can’t tell them that their religion is wrong.” But they’re more than willing to tell pro-lifers who say, “Well, marriage is a union of a man and a woman in my religion, so I’m not going to take photographs of this wedding that violates my religious beliefs.” “Tough cookies, you with your religious beliefs. You can’t impose them on innocent people,” is what they would say. I would say, “Well, same for the unborn. If you have a dangerous religious belief that it’s okay to kill them, you can have your belief. You’re just not allowed to act on it.”
Trent Horn:
There was a Supreme Court case back in the 19th century dealing with Mormonism back when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormons, allowed for polygamy. Then, later, they received a divine revelation saying polygamy is no longer allowed, coincidentally, right at the same time that the federal government was cracking down on polygamy and outlawing it.
Trent Horn:
This went to the Supreme Court. It was a case called Reynolds v. United States, arguing, “Well, should people be allowed to be polygamous because that’s their religion?” and the Court said that if freedom of religion meant that people could ignore any law they wanted, then the law could exist in name only. If you can disobey a law solely because of your religious inclinations, law could only exist in name only. It would be anarchy.
Trent Horn:
When people bring that up, I say, “That’s not a good argument for abortion.” The question is, what can we look at with objective things, like science, to determine what the unborn are? Whatever reasons we have for outlawing the killing of two-year-olds, that would also apply to the unborn, because they’re equally human.
Trent Horn:
So you’re right that it is religion versus science, but nine times out of 10, when I hear the ladies on The View talking with their elegant discourse about these issues, Whoopi Goldberg or someone else will bring up, “God wants us to have free will. It’s God’s choice for us” or “The Bible says this.” Or you’ll have other people saying… I think it was Whoopi Goldberg told Archbishop Cordileone withholding Communion from Nancy Pelosi for voting for the legality of killing children through abortion, “That’s not your job,” even though he’s the bishop.
Cy Kellett:
It’s quite literally his job.
Trent Horn:
Exactly.
Cy Kellett:
Custody of the sacraments is his job.
Trent Horn:
I find that those who defend abortion tend to bring up religion to muddy the water versus those who are pro-life, while their religious convictions move them to be pro-life, just as the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s religious convictions moved him to be anti-racism, the movements that they were proposing, the laws they were proposing, were religiously neutral.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Right. Could I go so far as to say the reason that the pro-life movement, and I’m going to be quite graphic here, so excuse my graphicness, but the reason that the pro-life movement concerns itself with pregnancy, but does not concern itself with masturbation, is science?
Trent Horn:
Right. Yeah, people will say that, “Oh, if you are opposed to abortion, why aren’t you opposed to sperm that die after an act of masturbation or an egg that dies through menstruation?” The answer is, “Because those aren’t human beings.”
Trent Horn:
That would be another straw man, that people will say that, “Oh, pro-lifers think that anything that’s alive or anything with human DNA is a person.” That’s not what pro-lifers believe. What we believe is that every human organism has the same basic right to live, every human being. We define human being as an individual member of the human species.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. All right, I have more of these straw men for you, but I wonder if you have any that you want to get to, because I don’t want to use up all the time on-
Trent Horn:
No, I’m happy to-
Cy Kellett:
… things I’ve learned from the American media.
Trent Horn:
Well, I had one that was… Oh, another one connected to the status of the unborn child is people will put a straw man this way. They’ll say, “The pro-life position is that a fetus is a potential person, and so it’s wrong to kill them. A potential person doesn’t mean actual person. A potential president of the United States doesn’t have the same rights as the actual president of the United States.”
Trent Horn:
Now, on the one hand, this argument is a little faulty because president-elect does have more rights than when he was merely a candidate. He doesn’t have the full rights of the president, but he still is treated like the president in many morally relevant senses.
Trent Horn:
But more, I would say, that’s not the argument. The argument is not, “A human fetus is a potential person; therefore, it’s wrong to kill them.” The argument is, “They are a person.” Now, they have the potential to act like a person in the future. They can potentially act like a rational person in the same way an infant can potentially act like a rational person, act in a way beyond non-human animals. But an infant is a person even though they haven’t reached that stage of development yet, and the same would be true for an unborn child.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. You want more from me, or you want to give me any-
Trent Horn:
Sure. Let’s take a few from you. That would be fine.
Cy Kellett:
Okay. The pro-life movement, when you get right down to it, is a movement of control, essentially, wanting to control women’s bodies. This may derive from a kind of sexual repression or otherwise-inspired misogyny, but it is clearly a movement of control.
Trent Horn:
What I would say here to those who would make this argument… Actually, a pro-choice philosopher, Nathan Nobis, who I debated at Emory University, he has a book called Thinking Critically About Abortion, and he says this is a bad pro-choice argument. He says that even if you had a bad motive to do something, it could still be a morally right thing to do.
Trent Horn:
For example, suppose you wanted to end poverty or clean up pollution, and the only reason you want to do that is to look famous and have people heap praise upon you. That’s not a very noble goal, but it’s still good. It’s still a good act to reduce poverty, to clean up the environment, even if you had a bad motivation.
Trent Horn:
For example, suppose there were a prosecutor who prosecuted rapists, and it’s because she hates men and she just wants men to suffer, and so she rigorously prosecutes and lawfully convicts men who are truly guilty of rape. She’s not framing anyone or anything like that, but she’s doing it just so that she can make men suffer. Now, I think that that’s a bad motive-
Cy Kellett:
But-
Trent Horn:
… but prosecuting rapists is a good thing. Even if one had a bad motive, it wouldn’t mean that… Even if pro-lifers had these terrible motives, that wouldn’t mean protecting the unborn is bad, what they’re doing.
Trent Horn:
Now, of course, the main complaint I would have is I’ve never met these mythical pro-lifers, these mythical pro-lifers who are only concerned about controlling women’s bodies.
Cy Kellett:
It terrifies me that women are having sex, so I need to have an abortion.
Trent Horn:
No. What I find are people who are horrified about the killing of the unborn, because they treat abortion as being morally worse than fornication, for example, or even contraception. Many pro-lifers recognize those things as being bad, but they see abortion as being worse because it kills an innocent human being. So the claim that men just want to control women’s bodies…
Trent Horn:
My point, though, so Nobis says, “Yeah, maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t, but you don’t want to judge people’s motives.” Nobis puts it this way. He says, “Look, pro-lifers sometimes say that pro-choicers only want abortion to be legal so they can have sex without responsibility.” The claim that pro-lifers only want to control women is the mirror image of the straw man of the pro-choice position, which is that abortion should be legal so women can be promiscuous.
Trent Horn:
I think actually many people who defend legal abortion have other arguments, that the unborn is not human or doesn’t have a right to a mother’s body. Even if they had that bad motive, it wouldn’t affect the validity of their arguments for abortion. Nobis says, “Put the motives aside, judging the motives, because human beings are bad at that. Just judge the arguments.”
Cy Kellett:
Okay. Well, let me throw out another one for you.
Trent Horn:
All right.
Cy Kellett:
I have two more. These two both are “if” ones. If you outlaw abortion, this is what will happen. If you outlaw abortion, then the gains that women have made as participants in the economic life of the society will be lost because women will be handicapped in relation to men as far as career prospects and job prospects.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. What I would say here is that this is a very anti-feminist way of looking at the advancement of women in society.
Cy Kellett:
Really?
Trent Horn:
The argument seems to be that women, in order to achieve equality with men… The argument is, “Men are able to be so successful because they can’t get pregnant. In order for women to be as successful as men, they have to be able to not get pregnant either, so we need abortion and contraception.” The argument is basically saying men are able to be successful because they’re men, so the only way women will be successful is if we make them men, if we basically turn women into a kind of… What’s the word?
Cy Kellett:
Simulacrum.
Trent Horn:
Simulacrum. Yeah, a simulacrum, a facsimile of a man, basically, that you’re someone who can have sex and not get pregnant. What’s the definition of a man? What is a woman? There’s a definition. Here’s one for you, Matt Walsh. A woman is someone who can have sex and get pregnant, not every time, not all the time, some people can’t, but in general, they can. And a man is someone who can have sex and-
Cy Kellett:
Not get pregnant.
Trent Horn:
… not get pregnant. That seems that they want to change what women are, so I would say that that is a poor definition.
Trent Horn:
This also has come up… In the leaked Dobbs draft, this was mentioned. This came up in oral arguments for the case, saying that, in the 1970s, there was discrimination against women in the workplace. In the 50 years since the early ’70s, we have had developments in things like sexual harassment laws, pregnancy discrimination laws, and so we are now in a place where women do not face the discrimination in society where maybe you had to get an abortion because you could be fired for being pregnant. Now you cannot be. These advancements have been made, not in getting women to be treated as if they are men, but understanding that men and women are different, and accommodating them accordingly.
Cy Kellett:
Could we also say, in addition to that… Certainly, some of the things that went on, even into the ’70s and ’80s, as far as pregnant women, people would be shocked to know that they were legal. Would you be willing to concede this point, though? We still have a long way to go in welcoming pregnant women and mothers into the workforce, that the rules of the game still are stacked against women. We need to do better in that regard.
Trent Horn:
Sure. We should be able to have things so that women are capable of breastfeeding at work, of being able to not sacrifice their femininity and their motherhood. I think the other problem here is that we live in a workaholic culture that expects fathers to sacrifice their fatherhood for work and for other things like that.
Cy Kellett:
Oh, that’s a good point. Yeah.
Trent Horn:
Instead of asking mothers to sacrifice their motherhood, we have to look at things a different way, so we don’t ask parents to sacrifice parenthood and we keep things in their proper perspective.
Cy Kellett:
All right. Here’s my other “if” one.
Trent Horn:
All right.
Cy Kellett:
If Roe is overturned, it’s a domino effect. Obergefell will be overturned, and there’ll be no more gay marriage. The Connecticut, Griswold-
Trent Horn:
Griswold v. Connecticut.
Cy Kellett:
… will be overturned, and there’ll be no more contraception. All down the line, the… I’ve even heard that certain civil rights protections, hard-won civil rights protections having to do with race and sex, gone because, without Roe, the framework for all the rest of this just collapses.
Trent Horn:
Right. I would say, I would look forward to many of those cases you mentioned being overturned. But a case being overturned, it does not… First, if they were overturned, I would be grateful for that, especially since, even if you set aside a moral issue, many people will agree, even people who are pro-choice or on the left, so to speak, they will agree that a case like Griswold v. Connecticut, which allowed for the sale of contraceptives to married couples, there’s not much substance to the case to justify it. Even they will admit the cases aren’t well founded.
Trent Horn:
But even if a case were overturned, if you overturn, say, Griswold v. Connecticut, that wouldn’t mean contraception would become illegal the next day. All it would mean is you could now restrict contraceptives. Unlike abortion, we live in a culture that is basically sold on contraceptives. While abortion might be 25% very pro, 25% very against, 50% mushy middle, it’s more like 98% very for, 2% very against, even among Catholics, when it comes to contraception.
Trent Horn:
It’s similar with so-called same-sex marriage. Even if these things were overturned, it wouldn’t follow that they would be outlawed the next day. It would just show that if a case was poorly decided, then we should not allow bad law or bad precedents to stand. People should be able to dialogue with one another and come up with a communal understanding of community norms.
Trent Horn:
That’s my principled thought on those things. From a practical standpoint… Now, I would like them to be overturned. I don’t think it would be a bad thing. I don’t think it would lead to the consequences the critics say would happen, even if I would want those consequences in some cases. But on a practical standpoint, I don’t see that happening.
Trent Horn:
For example, with so-called same-sex marriage, you have conservative justices, like Gorsuch, I think it was Gorsuch, who voted in favor of treating sexual orientation and gender identity as falling under the Civil Rights Act. So you have justices who might vote that Roe is badly decided, but they have different opinions about same-sex issues or about the establishment of the precedent behind contraception. In a practical matter, I don’t see them moving in that direction.
Cy Kellett:
And they need to have cases brought before they-
Trent Horn:
And the case has to be brought. That’s right. If there’s no plaintiff, there’s no one seriously suing, if there’s no state trying to pass a ban on same-sex marriage, or-
Cy Kellett:
Right. They’re not a legislature. They just can’t propose a new-
Trent Horn:
But people want to treat them like that, on both sides. That’s why I think the Supreme Court has become a very hostile environment that people fight over viciously. We used to have Supreme Court nominations that were 96-0, that were unanimous, or that were 80%, 90% of the Senate. Now it’s strict party line, razor thin, because the Court has been treated as another legislative body, to create law rather than to interpret it. I think the more decisions the Court can make where it allows the states and-
Cy Kellett:
Citizens.
Trent Horn:
… other politicians to have the ability to decide things, that will make for a better democracy overall.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah. It all went downhill for the Supreme Court when we gave them their own building. They used to meet in the basement of the Congress, and everything was better then.
Trent Horn:
They got too big for their britches.
Cy Kellett:
Why do they need their own building?
Trent Horn:
Yeah, they’re all a-
Cy Kellett:
Just put them back in the basement.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Right.
Cy Kellett:
Then we’ll get proportionate rulings from them.
Cy Kellett:
All right, last one that I have. You’re free to do any more that you want. This, I think, is… This is one that stings the heart of the pro-life person. “You care about the baby until it’s born, but really, are you going to vote for things that care for mothers and children after the baby is born? Are you going to take care of that baby? What about healthcare for children? Still are not available for some children in this country. Food, housing, all these things. Sure, you care about the baby until it’s born, but seriously, the rest of this, it’s not pro-life at all. You’re phony pro-life.”
Trent Horn:
What I would say is that those who say they are pro-woman, they do not care about women at all. They have no concern about women unless they support school voucher programs to give moms the ability to send their kids to any school that they want to; less gun restrictions, so that mothers can purchase any firearm they think is necessary to protect their children and to protect their family; reducing licensing requirements, so women can go out and start businesses without burdensome regulation. Cy, it’s these people… Here’s the basic thing I would say. The people who disagree with my politics hate women and children.
Cy Kellett:
Did you just do the old switcheroo right there?
Trent Horn:
I did.
Cy Kellett:
Is that what that was?
Trent Horn:
I did.
Cy Kellett:
I wasn’t sure what you were doing.
Trent Horn:
I did.
Cy Kellett:
All right.
Trent Horn:
That’s what I think is so disingenuous about this-
Cy Kellett:
I see what you’re saying.
Trent Horn:
… particular objection, that what is smuggled in is saying… If someone just put it that way, “Well, you’re not truly pro-life unless you agree with my politics,” people will say, “Well, I am pro-life, but I have different politics than you.”.
Trent Horn:
It would be one thing if people… It would be inconsistent if someone said, “Abortions should be illegal in the first, second, and third trimester, but legal from the fourth to the 30th trimester,” so it’s from newborn to age 10 or something. That would be genuinely hypocritical and inconsistent, and you could say, “You only care about the babies…”
Cy Kellett:
I see.
Trent Horn:
… “before they’re born, not after.” That’s the problem that they are confusing. The pro-life movement is about restoring the right to life to unborn children. Other issues, such as reducing human mortality or reducing human suffering, are not, strictly speaking, the job of the pro-life movement. They’re the job of human beings with a conscience, and so people in general are called to…
Trent Horn:
The problem is that people will disagree what are the best ways. We have gun violence. What are the best programs that will reduce mortality from gun violence, or mortality from breast cancer, or the best ways to reduce the negative effects from poverty? What are you going to do about poverty? The idea is, in this objection, you only care about the poor if you support a particular entitlement program of mine. That’s also assuming every government entitlement program is of equal worth. What if I say, “This program makes sense, but this one is very wasteful?” Am I not allowed to say that?
Trent Horn:
What about other ways of dealing with poverty that aren’t, strictly speaking, an entitlement program? For example, it’s been well understood there is something called the success sequence. Your odds of being poor drop below 20% or below 10%, very low, if you get a high school diploma, get a job… What is it? Get a high school diploma and then don’t have children until you’re married. I think it’s two out of the three. Shoot, I’m not successful. I don’t remember the success sequence.
Trent Horn:
I know the big thing there is to get a high school diploma, probably to become gainfully employed. That’s the one I’m iffy on. But it’s definitely don’t drop out of high school and don’t get pregnant outside of marriage, or don’t father a child outside of marriage. Then if you can do at least those two things, don’t drop out of school, don’t have children, whether you’re a man or a woman-
Cy Kellett:
You’re unlikely to be poor.
Trent Horn:
… you’re very unlikely to end up in poverty. If you follow that sequence, encouraging people… They’ve done studies. It’s not just that non-poor people happen to follow the sequence. The sequence really does have effects for people when it is followed.
Trent Horn:
My point is that if someone literally said, “I don’t care about the poor. I hope they die,” then the objection would have force. But, once again, I’ve never met this mythical pro-lifer who wants to control women and kill poor people. That is a bogeyman created in the mind of someone who disagrees with me.
Trent Horn:
Rather, a pro-life advocate would say, “I think abortion should be illegal, and those who face an unintended pregnancy, there’s different ways we can address those issues, and we might have agreement and disagreement. But just because I don’t share your politics or this other person doesn’t share my politics, doesn’t mean either of us hate women and children. It means we disagree on things we can reasonably disagree about, like how to reduce poverty. But the question of what legal protections do the unborn deserve, we cannot reasonably disagree. Justice demands they be legally protected from being dismembered before they’re born.”
Trent Horn:
That’s where the inconsistency can come up. You could say, “Look, you don’t want poor born children to be mistreated, but you’re fine with poor unborn children being killed. Aren’t you really the inconsistent one here?”.
Cy Kellett:
Man, that old switcheroo. That’s your tactic. You got the old switcheroo down.
Trent Horn:
My kids are doing jiu-jitsu, and they’re showing me all their moves, so now I’m using the tactics.
Cy Kellett:
Use the enemy’s strength against him.
Trent Horn:
That’s right.
Cy Kellett:
That’s all I’ve got as far as straw men. You got any more straw men that you-
Trent Horn:
I think we’ve got a whole field of them. We have more than enough to scare away the ravens of misinformation.
Cy Kellett:
Well, let me ask you to make a prediction then, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But in your sense of things, having been in this struggle for a long time, do you think that the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and, God willing, it will come soon, will tear, in some irreparable way, the fabric of the society, or do you think it’s something that we can integrate and move on from and continue to function as a society?
Trent Horn:
I do not think that it will result in a societal breakdown. I don’t think it will result in something like a civil war, is at least one. I don’t think-
Cy Kellett:
Or a division of the republic?
Trent Horn:
I don’t think it will result in that. If Roe v. Wade were overturned, I think it’s going to be a big deal for quite some time, but I think that Americans are in a good habit of moving on to the next thing, for better or for worse. I think that most people are ambivalent towards abortion. The majority of people are ambivalent towards it. Hearing that it’s been more legally restricted, that will upset a very vocal group of people who live on the Internet, but they are a very small minority of the country.
Cy Kellett:
Really?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. If you talk to normal people and ask them what they think about abortion, they might say they’re pro-choice, but then when you get to brass tacks and ask them hard questions, you can tell they’re confused and ambivalent about it. Given that, I think that people will be able to move through their moral reasoning and come to equitable democratic solutions in the different states for how to address the issue, just like we do it for, in some states, some guns are legal, other guns aren’t. Assisted suicide, you have different regions. You had even with mask mandates, in different states, it’s different.
Trent Horn:
That’s one of the geniuses of the American experiment, is that we are a country of 300 million people, but we’re not just a country of 300 million people; we’re equally a nation of 50 states. Having that federalism is so important. Ultimately, though, so if it is overturned, you’ll have the fight will be more severe in other places, but it will still take a long time, just as it took a long time to eradicate other injustices, slavery, segregation. Even after major legal victories like the Civil Rights Act, major legal victory, the cause of ending racial injustice still continued for quite some time. I think we’ll see something similar with the pro-life movement.
Cy Kellett:
Yeah, but not surrender. As much as you say that the states will come to different conclusions, and in its own time and place, that’s a good thing, that’s an improvement, still we don’t lose sight of the goal, which is every human life respected-
Trent Horn:
But it’s more-
Cy Kellett:
… from conception to natural death.
Trent Horn:
But it’s more feasible when you’re capable of moving the majority of people to enact even incremental change. That’s something that’s feasible, when, before, you had a precedent by nine appointed people in black robes that prevented anything from happening.
Cy Kellett:
I think it was seven, actually.
Trent Horn:
Sorry, seven out of 10.
Cy Kellett:
I know Byron White didn’t go along with it.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. No.
Cy Kellett:
God bless him.
Trent Horn:
Did Rehnquist dissent?
Cy Kellett:
I don’t remember if Rehnquist was on that Court. I can’t remember.
Trent Horn:
I want to say… Or was that the Burger Court? It’s all jumbly. I have a rumbly in my tumbly from eating lunch, which is now a jumbly in my-
Cy Kellett:
In your brain.
Trent Horn:
… brain.
Cy Kellett:
Well, thanks for taking the time after lunch, even with the afternoon foggy brain, to have this conversation. I really appreciate it.
Trent Horn:
Of course, Cy.
Cy Kellett:
God bless you and all of your pro-life work, Trent.
Trent Horn:
Thank you.
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