TRIGGERnometry - Doctor： Why I Changed My Mind About Abortion

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00:00:30.280 You know, usually we talk about controversial issues, but we decided to take a week off that

00:00:34.780 and talk about something that won't piss anyone off. It's three guys talking about abortion.

00:00:44.660 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:49.060 I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:00:50.200 And this is the show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:55.960 Our brilliant guest today is a medical doctor and a researcher at the University of Oxford specialising in medical ethics.

00:01:02.620 Dr. Callum Miller, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:01:04.300 Thank you so much for having me here.

00:01:05.560 It's great to have you on the show. Before we get into it, I should say, you know,

00:01:09.620 usually we talk about controversial issues, but we decided to take a week off that

00:01:13.460 and talk about something that won't piss anyone off. It's three guys talking about abortion.

00:01:17.480 Right.

00:01:17.700 That's great.

00:01:18.220 Before we get into that, though, tell everybody a little bit about who are you,

00:01:21.920 how are you, where you are, what has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us?

00:01:26.780 Sure. Well, thank you so much.

00:01:27.860 And thank you to everyone who's listening for having the patience to hear three men talking about abortion,

00:01:32.560 which I can appreciate can be a little bit sort of incongruous.

00:01:36.000 So I'm really grateful for you for having me here.

00:01:39.920 I guess I was always surprised to be in this position.

00:01:43.060 I never thought I'd end up speaking most of my life about this topic.

00:01:46.380 I grew up in a fairly liberal family, never heard anything about this topic at home or at school.

00:01:52.260 And really, it was only at university that I even began to think about this topic.

00:01:56.460 I was never pro-life. I didn't kind of have any particularly strong opinions about the topic.

00:02:01.280 But as I went through medical school, it was the kind of thing, as a doctor, you have to have some sort of opinion on.

00:02:07.340 You have to think something about abortion because you might be asked to refer for one or to take part in one and so on.

00:02:14.120 And so it was something that I began to grapple with.

00:02:16.920 And as I did this, I was kind of surprised because I had always grown up as a fairly left-leaning person.

00:02:22.340 I was someone who went to medical school because I wanted to look out for the most marginalized in the world.

00:02:27.540 I went really to do global health work on HIV and AIDS because I thought those are the people who most need help in the world.

00:02:35.680 Or so I thought at the time.

00:02:36.820 And of course, they do need significant medical help and support in many poorer parts of the world.

00:02:43.720 But as I went through medical school, I began to find that there was this argument that people came to me with, usually from America.

00:02:50.760 And I admit to being somewhat influenced by Americans on this.

00:02:54.040 But they came with persuasive arguments that really made sense to me.

00:02:57.840 And so as I went through medical school, I began to think firstly about the reality of life in the womb.

00:03:02.960 And I began to understand the scientific facts about how human life develops in the womb.

00:03:07.660 I also began to look at the arguments, the ethical arguments, which you could look at from a reasonable or rational perspective.

00:03:14.920 And I began to find those compelling.

00:03:17.320 I also saw the reality of abortion and what it involves that I had never learned before.

00:03:21.040 And that was a surprise and a shock to me.

00:03:23.520 And then finally, I saw the impact of abortion on women.

00:03:26.360 I began to speak with women who'd had abortions or were considering abortions.

00:03:30.180 And I began to see that the narrative that I'd been told about it was not actually true.

00:03:35.520 And I think one of the most kind of shocking or illustrative things for me was in my obstetrics and gynecology placements, where we were doing a cesarean section on twin babies.

00:03:46.720 And it was a really surreal moment because, obviously, being a medical student, I wasn't the main surgeon doing this operation.

00:03:53.480 But I did get the privilege of pulling these babies out of their mummy's tummy.

00:03:58.860 And that was a really surreal thing to do.

00:04:01.080 But I kind of noticed, you know, I pulled one baby out of the tummy and it was outside and it was a living, breathing human being.

00:04:08.340 And, of course, there was one baby still inside.

00:04:10.640 And I saw that transition from inside of the mother to outside.

00:04:15.920 And at one point, there was one baby outside, one baby inside.

00:04:18.620 And I thought, what is the difference between these?

00:04:21.720 Why is it that we treat one of these as a member of the human community with full human rights and who deserves our utmost protection and support?

00:04:29.560 And we treat the other as having almost no legal rights at all.

00:04:33.140 And that really kind of grinded on me.

00:04:36.120 And I didn't really know what to think.

00:04:39.380 And so gradually, as I went through medical school, I began to realize that this was an issue I had to take seriously.

00:04:44.740 And I gradually came around to the position that actually abortion is something that is a societal failing that harms both the child and their mother.

00:04:53.940 And there should be a better way, a better narrative, a better conversation and a better approach where we can actually support both of those lives.

00:05:01.380 And as I say, I gradually became persuaded that supporting both of those lives rather than pitting them against each other was the best approach we can take as people who are concerned about the vulnerable and about human rights.

00:05:13.680 Well, we'll talk about all of that in a second.

00:05:16.620 But this is almost our first foray into this issue.

00:05:19.920 I think we talked to Ella Whelan maybe a couple of years ago.

00:05:22.340 Yeah, we did.

00:05:22.960 Just for a brief period of time.

00:05:24.540 And her position is the exact opposite of yours.

00:05:27.220 But actually, I should say, given that it's our first foray in, we'll almost certainly be talking to someone from the opposite side of what you're talking about.

00:05:35.200 But exploring your point of view now, my wife is 22 weeks pregnant today.

00:05:41.840 Congratulations.

00:05:42.520 Thank you.

00:05:43.000 And I haven't looked into this issue at all, really.

00:05:47.360 It's not been something I've ever thought about.

00:05:48.960 I have to say, I've just gone, look, it's not something that particularly is likely to affect me.

00:05:54.180 I didn't necessarily know we were going to be having children anyway.

00:05:57.460 But my wife is 22 weeks pregnant.

00:06:00.400 There is a baby inside of her that is kicking, that is moving, that has a heartbeat, all of that.

00:06:06.540 And for another two weeks, under the law of this country, my wife could just randomly go, you know what?

00:06:12.260 I'm not sure.

00:06:13.980 You know, that is the law.

00:06:17.080 And when I realized that, I have to be honest, I was quite horrified.

00:06:20.920 You know, I don't know whether this is reflective of other people or just my own ignorance and stupidity, but I sort of assumed that abortions happen like when it's a tiny fetus.

00:06:29.800 But actually, you can have an abortion all the way up to 24 weeks, which I know somebody who was born at 23 weeks and lived in 1985.

00:06:39.780 Yeah.

00:06:40.420 So what is the legal situation in this country?

00:06:44.420 Just give people, first of all, a summary of that.

00:06:46.660 Yeah, well, as you say, it's something that really surprises people and most people don't realize.

00:06:50.400 Now, it is fair to say that most abortions are much earlier in pregnancy, but it is true to say that there are a couple of thousand abortions after 20 weeks in the country.

00:06:59.760 And most of those, according to official data, are not because of extreme circumstances like the woman's life is at risk or the child has a really serious disability.

00:07:08.080 Most of those abortions after 20 weeks, even, are for the same sort of socioeconomic reasons that most abortions are for.

00:07:16.240 And as I say, most people don't realize this.

00:07:19.220 And viability is now about 21 weeks.

00:07:21.840 A baby was born last year who was born at 21 weeks and two days.

00:07:25.620 And yet, as you say, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks pretty much for any reason in the UK.

00:07:32.060 When people find this out, they're usually horrified.

00:07:34.560 And opinion polling actually shows most people in the UK think that should be lowered.

00:07:40.340 And actually, women have more restrictive views than men.

00:07:43.760 Women think it should be lowered by a much bigger kind of margin than men do.

00:07:48.680 So women actually have more pro-life opinions than men do in the UK, at least.

00:07:53.300 And so there are slight nuances to this law.

00:07:55.840 So if the child has any disability, that can be a very serious disability, or it can be a very minor one, like having a cleft lip.

00:08:02.780 It's legal to abort them at any point up until birth in the country.

00:08:06.680 For having a cleft lip?

00:08:08.040 Yeah.

00:08:08.360 So you can look at the official UK statistics and that will say these are the disabilities that abortions took place for.

00:08:14.360 And cleft lip or cleft palate is down as one.

00:08:17.580 But it's a relatively minor operation that lots of people have.

00:08:23.600 Right.

00:08:23.920 That's not a disability.

00:08:25.300 Well, it is completely surgically correctable.

00:08:27.740 But nevertheless, because the law says if there's a substantial risk of a serious handicap in the archaic terms of the Act,

00:08:36.020 it's legal to abort at any point up until birth.

00:08:38.280 And we know that, you know, most children diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth are aborted as a result of that.

00:08:44.680 And so it's had a huge impact on the disabled community.

00:08:48.340 So that being the case, was there a particular moment for you where you thought that completely changed your mind?

00:08:58.060 Was it the twins or was it a gradual process?

00:09:01.160 I think it was a gradual process.

00:09:02.940 And I think that, you know, it differs between different people.

00:09:05.840 I've had people who have just suddenly had a moment and say, I get it.

00:09:09.320 This is why I am pro-life.

00:09:11.440 For some people I know, some of my non-religious friends, it was reading secular philosophers who were pro-choice.

00:09:17.560 Because some of these philosophers say there is no difference between the baby before and after birth.

00:09:24.140 And so because abortion is okay, infanticide is okay as well.

00:09:28.040 And some of my non-religious friends have said, that makes sense, but I disagree with the conclusion.

00:09:33.840 Because there's no difference before and after birth, I think we have to go back and say, maybe we should value life before birth a bit more.

00:09:41.220 So for me, it was more gradual.

00:09:42.800 And that's because I think, you know, I want to be a thoughtful person.

00:09:46.280 It's not just a trivial matter to say, I think unborn babies should have legal protection.

00:09:52.000 Of course, it sounds straightforward when you put it that way.

00:09:55.300 But at the same time, that does lead to situations where a woman has to be incredibly brave and courageous to go through a pregnancy in a difficult situation.

00:10:04.340 And so in that sense, I don't think anyone can just take the pro-life position lightly.

00:10:08.360 But I think nevertheless, when you really think it through and you see the impact on women and you see what abortion involves,

00:10:14.260 I do think that it is the most reasonable position to take.

00:10:17.060 Well, let's talk about it brutally and honestly.

00:10:20.260 What does abortion actually involve?

00:10:22.100 Because we use that word, so-and-so has had, you know, an abortion or they're going to have an abortion.

00:10:27.140 From a medical perspective, what does that actually mean?

00:10:30.420 Yeah, so it's unfortunately a little bit complicated because there are two broad kinds of abortion.

00:10:34.560 There's medical abortion and surgical abortion.

00:10:37.260 In this country, most abortions are medical, but in the US, most are surgical and it differs between country to country.

00:10:42.740 Medical abortions generally involve two pills.

00:10:46.660 The first of the pills kind of breaks down the lining of the womb so that it can no longer provide nutrients and oxygen to the baby.

00:10:54.220 Sometimes this ends the baby's life in itself.

00:10:57.240 Sometimes it requires the second pill to be taken, which causes a miscarriage and expels the baby.

00:11:03.880 Sometimes the baby survives even for a little bit outside of the womb, but then passes away, especially before viability.

00:11:09.580 At a late stage, these abortions, because the baby can survive outside of the womb, require a procedure technically called foeticide, which you can guess what that means.

00:11:20.280 What this basically involves is injecting potassium chloride into the heart of the baby so that the baby doesn't come out alive.

00:11:28.660 And this has been, you know, studied in an academic perspective.

00:11:33.060 People who perform foeticide are often traumatized by it.

00:11:36.320 They've said that it involves stabbing the baby in the heart and they've said it's horrific and it made them sick.

00:11:43.540 But nevertheless, it is what has to be done in a late abortion to make sure the baby doesn't come out alive.

00:11:50.680 Surgical abortions are quite different.

00:11:52.360 So in the early stages, up to about 13 or 14 weeks, it's done by a vacuum.

00:11:56.700 So essentially the baby is destroyed by the force of the vacuum and is taken out of the womb that way.

00:12:02.200 And then later on, about 14 weeks onwards, a procedure called dilation and evacuation is needed, which is also known as dismemberment abortion, essentially because the baby is too big and too tough to be vacuumed and it needs to be dismembered in order to be taken out.

00:12:19.280 Sometimes if the skull is stuck on its way out, they will have to crush the skull in order to get it out.

00:12:26.000 So again, I don't say any of this lightly.

00:12:28.160 And I'm very sorry to have to say it on a show run by two comedians because it's actually quite a harrowing procedure.

00:12:36.280 But nevertheless, there are about 9,000 of those dismemberment abortions in the UK every year on a baby that probably can feel pain, that is probably sentient and so on.

00:12:45.140 And the truth, I think, unfortunately has to be said.

00:12:49.760 And I see that as part of my duty as a doctor and as a human being.

00:12:54.260 I think certainly realizing some of the things that are often involved in abortion changes a lot of people's minds.

00:13:02.400 I think a lot of people's opinions are based on ignorance like mine were and still are to some extent, I think.

00:13:08.160 Like, so, but there are a few big things and all of this discussion is just incredibly toxic because you refer to your position as pro-life and other people refer to their position as pro-choice.

00:13:20.640 And both of these things are, you know, they're propagandist terms, if you forgive me for saying it, right, that they just are.

00:13:27.340 But let's explore some of the real ethical and medical underpinning issues that determine all of this.

00:13:35.200 So, first of all, when does life begin, in your opinion?

00:13:39.040 So, this is something that I've, it's almost a frustrating question because, and meaning no discredit to you, it is seen as a matter of opinion.

00:13:47.660 And as I kind of said, you know, when I was studying medicine and I wasn't pro-life or I wasn't opposed to abortion, however you want to frame it, this was just a question in basic biology of the human being that life begins at fertilization.

00:14:01.840 That's what the embryology textbooks say.

00:14:03.880 It's not really debated.

00:14:06.060 You could, you know, there are countless textbooks and journal articles saying life begins at fertilization.

00:14:11.080 And what we mean by that is this is when an individual human organism begins to exist.

00:14:16.540 And it can help to clarify it in that way.

00:14:20.840 I think what I'd say is that there's a study that's been done a few years ago by a researcher at the University of Chicago.

00:14:27.520 And he thought, let's get this settled once and for all.

00:14:30.880 And so, he did a survey of the public and he said, who are the experts on this question?

00:14:34.780 And about 80% of them said biologists.

00:14:36.880 It's a biological question.

00:14:38.580 Life is a biological concept.

00:14:40.460 We are biological things.

00:14:41.880 This is a biology question.

00:14:43.860 So, he then said, okay, let's speak to biologists.

00:14:45.940 And he surveyed 5,500 biologists and said, is it true that a human organism, a new individual human organism is created at fertilization?

00:14:56.400 And he found that 95% of them said yes.

00:14:59.440 And the other 5%, we don't know exactly what they think.

00:15:02.440 But he got some replies saying, this is pro-life propaganda.

00:15:05.500 I'm going to ruin your survey.

00:15:06.920 So, we can imagine that some of that dissent was propagandistic or ideological.

00:15:11.600 But I see what you're saying, and that makes sense.

00:15:15.880 But I think the reason this conversation is being had, and I understand why you're frustrated by the question,

00:15:20.280 because biologically, yes, the egg and the sperm coming together in that way begins the process.

00:15:26.620 But I think most people would also accept that that fertilized egg, aborting that versus dismembering a two or three-month-old baby or whatever, they're very different things.

00:15:43.420 And I think, you know, certainly for me, I think if you're dealing with a recently fertilized egg, that's a very different conversation to a creature with a heartbeat, you know, and all of that.

00:15:57.260 Do you know what I mean?

00:15:58.160 I certainly do.

00:15:58.960 And so, one of the reasons I try and clarify what the biology says is to help clarify the debate.

00:16:05.860 Because what we're not actually debating is, is this a human being?

00:16:09.020 It clearly is a human being, even when it is a zygote.

00:16:12.660 But what we want to know is...

00:16:13.860 Hold on, hold on.

00:16:14.620 Well, that kind of depends on your definition of a human being, doesn't it?

00:16:18.540 Yeah.

00:16:18.900 So, you know, the standard human being is a member of our species, which, again, is a sort of biological concept, an individual organism.

00:16:24.400 I don't recognize a fertilized egg as a member of the human race.

00:16:28.640 Do you?

00:16:29.240 Well, so what I would want to say is that there's a sort of moral dimension which we want to get at.

00:16:34.720 And I try and say that human being is a biological concept, but we want to know, is it also a person?

00:16:41.760 Is it something that has full moral status?

00:16:44.360 Is it the kind of thing that we treat as a human being in the sense of one of us, a member of the moral community?

00:16:50.740 So I would say it is a human being in that biological sense, and human being is a biological concept, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a person.

00:16:57.840 And so what we're really debating is, is it a person?

00:17:01.580 Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

00:17:02.700 Like, if I saw a fertilized egg floating down the street, I wouldn't be like, oh, that's Gary.

00:17:07.900 Do you know what I mean?

00:17:09.020 Like, that is not instantly recognizable to me as a member of the human race.

00:17:13.880 And therefore, what happens to it, in my mind, and I'm working these arguments out and challenging you on it because that's what I'm trying to do,

00:17:22.120 what happens to a fertilized egg or to a tiny zygote is not necessarily, to me, to be treated in the same way morally as doing that very same thing to an older baby or an adult human being or somebody outside of that situation.

00:17:38.760 Absolutely. And I completely understand that intuition.

00:17:42.180 And I, for a long time, had the same intuition that, you know, this is a cell or two cells.

00:17:47.000 And it's so different from our understanding of a person or a character or a personality.

00:17:51.740 And what I think changed my mind on this was a couple of things.

00:17:56.100 The first is that we have to have a reasoned basis for attributing moral value.

00:18:00.960 And what we're essentially saying is that because this, you know, two-celled embryo doesn't have cognitive abilities or because it's a certain size or whatever the actual sort of intuition there is,

00:18:14.320 because it doesn't have those abilities, we're excluding it from the moral community.

00:18:18.500 And the problem that I began to see with this is that when you go down that line of thinking,

00:18:23.540 it begins to create problems for other human beings who might have lesser cognitive abilities.

00:18:28.920 What about someone who certainly is conscious, but only in a very minimal way?

00:18:34.040 You know, I have patients who are clearly human beings, clearly very valued and loved by their families,

00:18:39.960 who we give a name to and we treat as equal human beings.

00:18:43.300 But when you actually look at their cognitive abilities, they would have fewer cognitive abilities than a mouse or a rat.

00:18:51.400 And so we have a sort of incongruity here that we don't think mice are people or, you know, equal to the rest of us.

00:19:01.900 But we do treat severely disabled people as equals.

00:19:05.420 And I think that's right.

00:19:06.700 And the only reason we can do that is because we share something in common with them, which is our humanity.

00:19:12.680 So once we go down the route of saying, if you don't have these abilities, you're no longer human and you're not a person or you're not a moral human being,

00:19:21.440 then I think it actually completely undermines our entire idea of human equality.

00:19:27.280 And I think that becomes really problematic.

00:19:28.700 So by this argument, the morning after pill, is that a type of abortion then?

00:19:35.180 It's kind of controversial exactly how that operates.

00:19:39.220 So how does it operate?

00:19:41.440 Well, it's kind of hard to say.

00:19:43.440 So some of what's called emergency contraception, like the copper coil, uncontroversially can act after fertilization.

00:19:50.740 So there's not really any serious debate that the copper coil does act after fertilization and therefore does end the life of a very early, immature, underdeveloped human being.

00:20:03.840 Other emergency contraception, whether it's desergestrel or something else, is kind of controversial.

00:20:09.620 And we don't really know exactly the main way that it operates.

00:20:13.560 So it's sort of difficult to say.

00:20:14.880 And I know that's a little bit underwhelming.

00:20:18.080 No, that's absolutely fine.

00:20:19.960 So, Callum, what is your position when it comes to abortion?

00:20:24.240 Do you think under absolutely no circumstances should it be allowed?

00:20:28.740 Should it only be allowed for women within a certain time frame, etc.?

00:20:34.900 Yeah, thank you for that question.

00:20:37.320 I think what I'd say is that if we really value human equality,

00:20:41.120 we have to value and protect human life regardless of how it came about

00:20:46.020 and regardless of its inconvenience to other people.

00:20:50.140 And sometimes that, you know, has serious implications.

00:20:52.980 It does mean that we have to protect human life, even when doing so can be very costly.

00:20:58.020 One of the ways we've seen that is through the COVID pandemic.

00:21:00.940 You know, so many people have been through so much sacrifice in order to protect vulnerable human life.

00:21:06.200 And while, of course, we all disagree about which restrictions and which, you know, rules should be in place and which of them are too much,

00:21:14.160 I think all of us would agree that we do have some duty to go to considerable lengths to protect vulnerable human lives.

00:21:20.760 I think all of us would want to say at least that basic principle.

00:21:23.420 So I would say that regardless of how a human being came about, regardless of whether it has a disability,

00:21:29.540 regardless of how old it is, regardless of how developed it is,

00:21:32.540 if we really think humans are equal, we have to treat them all as equal and give them all the same legal protection.

00:21:40.580 The exception to this, I think, is if a woman's life is at risk.

00:21:44.500 And, you know, we as adult human beings sometimes think it's okay to take human life even when that human is an adult.

00:21:52.420 We sometimes think it's okay to kill adults, but only in very exceptional circumstances,

00:21:57.520 if the adult is posing an immediate risk to someone's life, for example.

00:22:01.980 Or walking too slowly.

00:22:03.180 Yeah.

00:22:04.320 Well, exactly. Naturally, I thought that went without saying.

00:22:07.860 So what I'm saying is, in the case of a woman's life being at risk,

00:22:11.540 you're wanting to uphold life and you're wanting to save as much life as possible.

00:22:16.040 In most of these cases, the overwhelming majority,

00:22:19.340 actually, there's no way that you can save the baby either way.

00:22:22.580 Because if the woman dies, then the baby will die because the woman is supporting the baby.

00:22:27.680 So it's very rare that there's a case where you have to choose between the woman and the child.

00:22:32.600 But I would say in those cases, what you want to do is save the maximum amount of life.

00:22:36.500 And therefore, you can deliver the baby early in order to save the woman's life.

00:22:40.580 Can we come back to this point?

00:22:41.760 Because you haven't convinced me that a fertilized egg is a human being in the sense that it has the same moral value as a baby or an adult human or a born human.

00:22:55.360 Because as I said, it's not just that you talk about cognitive ability.

00:22:58.660 I don't think being human comprises solely of that.

00:23:02.980 I think being human is a combination of a few different things.

00:23:06.040 And it's are you mostly fully formed?

00:23:09.820 You know, human beings have a recognizable shape, right?

00:23:13.160 Now, I'm not saying that someone who has no legs isn't a human being.

00:23:16.600 But generally speaking, we kind of get what a human looks like, right?

00:23:20.000 If a bunch of aliens that look like fertilized egg descended from the sky, we would be like, those are aliens.

00:23:26.060 They're different to us.

00:23:27.540 Do you know what I mean?

00:23:28.520 So I do think that you're – and again, I'm only putting this out there as a devil's advocate argument.

00:23:34.760 It's not an issue I've thought about much, so I'm really keen to hear your thoughts.

00:23:38.260 But like that fertilized egg, it is the potential for human life.

00:23:44.680 And if given the right environment, it will develop into one.

00:23:47.460 But to suggest that doing something to that is exactly the same as killing me or you, I'm not convinced by that argument.

00:23:58.940 Convince me more.

00:24:00.360 So I think one of the things – there's a couple of things that we could say here.

00:24:03.240 The first is that we have a sort of sense that you have to be conscious or that consciousness is really important to being morally considerable.

00:24:11.380 I mean, if you thought of it this way, imagine that a two-celled embryo was completely conscious.

00:24:15.880 They were like a little Socrates.

00:24:18.020 They were completely, like, incredibly intelligent, could feel pain, could do all these sorts of things.

00:24:23.460 I think the form wouldn't matter so much to us.

00:24:25.720 I think we'd think, this is really weird.

00:24:28.640 But, you know, this is something we have to treat as a morally valuable entity.

00:24:34.180 I think that's true.

00:24:34.980 And so I think we can talk about form.

00:24:37.160 But ultimately, if something has almost no human form but thinks in a similar sort of way to us,

00:24:42.280 we'd think that is something that we should protect.

00:24:45.380 But you're not suggesting that a fertilized egg is conscious?

00:24:47.920 No, no, no.

00:24:48.320 I'm not saying it is, but just for the sake of imagination.

00:24:51.900 And likewise, you know, I have had patients in hospitals that are not really recognizable in the sense of, you know, the human form.

00:24:58.780 And, you know, in older times where people went to different countries and saw that people had different color skin,

00:25:04.980 people in older times thought, that is so different to what the human form looks like, they cannot be our species.

00:25:12.060 And so I think we are vulnerable to kind of a sort of bias about the shape that human beings are,

00:25:18.420 when really we know that that's not really what contributes to them having basic rights or the same value as the rest of us.

00:25:24.140 But come on, you talk about polling.

00:25:25.980 How many people do you think, if you poll the public, would say a two-celled organism is a human?

00:25:34.120 Not many.

00:25:34.700 Not many, right?

00:25:35.380 Yeah, exactly.

00:25:35.820 So that's what I'm getting at.

00:25:36.800 Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:38.000 And I'd be completely open that the kind of complete pro-life view I'm in a small minority on.

00:25:44.720 Another thing I'd say on that, though, is that this sort of conscious bias, I think, makes things a bit tricky,

00:25:54.360 because we think harming people is about harming someone who is conscious.

00:25:58.200 If someone's completely unconscious, how can you harm them?

00:26:00.660 How can you deprive them of rights and things?

00:26:03.200 But then I think there are instances where you can harm people and they never experience any sort of harm.

00:26:09.720 So, for example, say I'm not married, but imagine I were.

00:26:13.420 Suppose I go out and cheat on my wife and she never finds out and no one ever feels any sort of harm from it.

00:26:20.240 They never feel any physical pain.

00:26:21.860 They never feel any emotional pain.

00:26:23.660 They never have any sort of negative feeling from it.

00:26:26.620 I can tell you he's not married, mate.

00:26:28.260 Because that is not a viable situation.

00:26:30.800 Of course.

00:26:31.600 So I was just going to say, in Venezuela, that'd make you a real man.

00:26:34.520 But I've clearly harmed someone, even if they never found out, even if no one ever feels anything kind of negative from it.

00:26:43.360 I've nevertheless done something that is seriously wrong.

00:26:46.780 And so that's how I try and think about the early embryo who, at a very early stage, is not sentient, is not conscious.

00:26:54.320 I think, can it still be wrong even though they don't feel anything bad?

00:26:58.360 And my thoughts about those other situations make me think, actually, maybe it is possible that you can seriously harm something or someone, even though they never experience the negative effects of that harm.

00:27:11.560 And so I appreciate that, from a sort of intuitive perspective, it's completely counterintuitive.

00:27:16.220 And I get that.

00:27:16.900 And I'm not saying that you're crazy for having that reaction.

00:27:20.440 But the first thing I would say is, we know that we can harm people even if they never feel any negative consequences from it.

00:27:27.140 And secondly, when we do think really carefully about what is it that gives people value, the only way we can say that they have the same value is by something that they all share in common.

00:27:38.680 Now, we all have the human form to different degrees.

00:27:42.660 Some people have it to a sort of 90, they look 90% human.

00:27:46.560 I say I'm in that category because I'm a little bit fat and I don't look like the perfect human form.

00:27:50.740 Some people have maybe 50% of the human form because they've had amputations or they have a disfigurement to their face and so on.

00:27:58.500 The only thing we all have to the same degree is being a human.

00:28:02.680 And so what I'm saying is if we really think carefully about human equality and what it's based on, it has to be something that we all have to the same degree.

00:28:11.460 And the only thing that fits those criteria is being a human being in the biological sense.

00:28:17.560 And so what I'd say is I get that it's counterintuitive and I'm sure many people listening will say, I agree with Constantine.

00:28:25.400 This is completely crazy to think that this is a person.

00:28:28.760 But what I'd say is that morality often is counterintuitive.

00:28:32.860 Often when we think through it very carefully, we come to conclusions that seem counterintuitive.

00:28:37.360 But when we do do that hard work of thinking through them in real detail,

00:28:41.540 sometimes that counterintuitive thing is the only conclusion we're left with.

00:28:45.380 And that was the case for me on this issue.

00:28:47.680 Your full Great Outdoors Comedy Festival lineup is here on September 11th through 13th at Arendale Park.

00:28:54.380 Three nights, five shows, huge laughs.

00:28:57.560 September 11th through 13th.

00:28:59.220 Buy tickets now at greatoutdoorscomedyfestival.com.

00:29:04.060 Hey, Francis, do you like books?

00:29:06.560 I only like comics.

00:29:08.600 That's why my favorite publication is The Guardian.

00:29:12.120 It's true. No one does satire and parody like they do.

00:29:15.460 So did you have a brilliant satirical book for me?

00:29:18.800 Yes, it's a book by one of our fans, Scott Biceno, and it's called Identity Crisis.

00:29:24.220 It has been described as 1984 with jokes.

00:29:27.460 So it is like The Guardian.

00:29:29.080 No, no, no, mate. It's intentionally funny.

00:29:31.500 Set in present day northwest London, it tracks the personal journey of cocksure city boy Dave Dalston

00:29:37.140 through a period in which the government has decided to define everyone by their ego profile

00:29:42.280 by a document called the ID card.

00:29:44.780 It's a rollercoaster ride through cancellation, redemption, and spiritual enlightenment.

00:29:51.400 The author has been a fan of trigonometry from the very start,

00:29:55.560 and he has drawn a lot of inspiration from its conversations.

00:29:59.800 So if you're a fan of trigonometry, then you're going to love this book.

00:30:04.060 Anton, we are getting our 10%, aren't we?

00:30:05.980 Check it out on Amazon, guys. The link is in the description below.

00:30:11.140 So, Conor, what would you say to people, particularly women, who say,

00:30:15.500 well, it's my body, my choice.

00:30:17.560 I am the one who's carrying this, and I can make the decision in order to have an abortion.

00:30:24.200 And that is my choice, and it's my right.

00:30:26.900 I think it's a natural thing to say.

00:30:29.040 And I think there's certainly a grain, more than a grain of truth in it,

00:30:32.920 in the sense that women, you know, often in history and in many places around the world

00:30:37.020 and in many places in the UK don't have the right to basic bodily privacy.

00:30:42.280 You know, whether it's forced sterilizations across the world,

00:30:45.400 whether it's sexual assault or even rape within marriage,

00:30:49.360 whether it's, you know, all sorts of ways that abusers control women.

00:30:52.540 And with that context and so much widespread mistreatment of women by men,

00:30:58.680 particularly about decisions relating to their body,

00:31:01.600 you can easily see why there would be this defensiveness about a woman's body and her privacy and so on.

00:31:08.360 And I get that, and I don't want to demean that in any way.

00:31:12.960 What I'd say is that when we think about choice, we have to think about choice for everyone.

00:31:18.640 And we, you know, if the slogan is my body, my choice, we have to think about how many bodies are there.

00:31:25.340 Now, if we believe the science on this, then there are two bodies.

00:31:28.600 That's uncontroversial.

00:31:29.860 There are two human bodies in the situation.

00:31:34.160 And if that's the case, then what about the bodily autonomy?

00:31:37.280 What about the bodily integrity of the child whose life is ended through abortion

00:31:41.580 or in later abortions is even dismembered in the way that I've described?

00:31:45.760 I think that makes it much more challenging than to just say, this is my choice.

00:31:51.060 I think all of us realize that choices can be limited in order to protect the vulnerable.

00:31:56.940 That's why we've all been going around with masks on for the last two years.

00:32:00.480 Because we say, in some cases, when there's such a severe threat and when someone is so vulnerable,

00:32:06.860 we have to, you know, forego some of our choices in order to protect the vulnerable.

00:32:12.320 And I think the same is true here, that no one has a choice to end the life of another human being.

00:32:17.560 And this is why, you know, the pro-life, pro-choice terminology is so unhelpful.

00:32:21.440 I believe in choice.

00:32:22.600 I believe that people should be able to do what they want generally.

00:32:25.880 It's not as if I just think everyone should be controlled in every decision they make.

00:32:30.400 But obviously, all of us think that choices have limits in order to protect other people.

00:32:35.640 And so I'd say that the same is true here.

00:32:37.380 It's a pretty simple principle.

00:32:39.580 You should be allowed to do what you want, but that has limits when it comes to taking another human being's life.

00:32:46.220 And I think the same principle is just true in this case.

00:32:48.620 But isn't the problem that you're effectively asking the woman to carry this baby, to give birth to this baby when the baby is unwanted?

00:33:00.000 And as someone who used to teach and used to see unwanted children every day of their lives, it's the most heartbreaking thing.

00:33:09.460 Because you know most of those kids are never going to stand a chance.

00:33:13.200 They're just not.

00:33:13.820 So what I'd say, I guess, on this question of unwanted children is that I think it's helpful to recall that abortion was originally seen as a solution to that problem.

00:33:23.480 And yet more and more these days we have this so-called problem of so-called unwanted children.

00:33:29.720 Now, I don't think it's ever really accurate to call any child unwanted because I think every child actually has infinite human value in the same way that the woman does.

00:33:39.280 And every child will be wanted by someone, you know, if you look at the statistics on trying to adopt a newborn baby, in the UK it's pretty much impossible.

00:33:48.600 There are so few newborn babies available for adoption and so many parents who want a child that I think calling them unwanted is probably not very accurate.

00:33:57.680 He meant unwanted by the parents.

00:33:59.100 Right, of course, yeah.

00:33:59.860 What I'd say is that actually when you look at the outcomes of children from unwanted pregnancies, their outcomes are not very significantly different from children from wanted pregnancies.

00:34:10.320 When you look at the studies on this, they do slightly worse than the average child when it comes to certain educational outcomes.

00:34:18.080 But on the whole, most of them are pretty much the same.

00:34:21.380 They have pretty much the same mental health outcomes.

00:34:23.340 And the most important thing is, do they feel like their life was worth living?

00:34:28.980 Even if their life was significantly worse than the average child, most of them would still say, I'm glad to be alive.

00:34:35.960 And so I think what we really need to do if we're concerned about these unwanted children and their well-being is simply ask them.

00:34:43.280 Speak to people who have come from an unwanted pregnancy.

00:34:45.860 Speak to people who have been placed for adoption, perhaps.

00:34:49.080 And obviously, in some cases, they will say, I wish I wasn't alive.

00:34:53.620 But in the overwhelming majority of cases, they will say, I'm glad to be here.

00:34:57.820 And I'm glad that although it was very difficult to my mum, I'm so grateful to my mum that they went through that for me.

00:35:04.840 And I'm so glad that I'm here as a result.

00:35:06.820 And what about the women when they had these unwanted pregnancies and unwanted babies?

00:35:12.720 What was the effect on their lives?

00:35:14.560 Well, so this is something that, again, is extraordinarily counterintuitive.

00:35:17.580 You think, obviously, putting them through that is going to lead to, you know, massive suffering on their part.

00:35:23.420 And in the last few years, there's been a greater recognition, even from researchers who support abortion and use their research to support abortion rights and access.

00:35:32.360 There's been an increasing admission that actually, if you don't provide women that option of abortion, people, women who become pregnant, don't want the child.

00:35:41.440 Even women who try and get an abortion and are turned away, the overwhelming majority of them eventually have the baby.

00:35:49.440 They don't seek abortion elsewhere.

00:35:51.540 And the overwhelming majority of women who have the baby are glad that they had the baby.

00:35:56.440 And I think we can often get into a situation where we're thinking kind of in the immediate situation.

00:36:01.960 A woman's become pregnant, she doesn't want to be, and it's potentially a horrendous situation.

00:36:07.780 All of us can empathize with that situation and think, that must be a horrendous panic situation.

00:36:14.220 The woman at that point must feel absolutely horrendous.

00:36:17.380 And most likely she does in many of those cases.

00:36:20.100 And it's complete panic.

00:36:21.620 And abortion is therefore seen as a huge relief.

00:36:24.280 But when you give this situation time, what the researchers found from this study in the US is that most of those women who were denied an abortion kept the baby.

00:36:34.900 And of those who kept the baby, 96% of them at the child's fifth birthday say, I'm glad that I kept the baby, even though they didn't have a choice about it.

00:36:45.980 And so this is a statistic that I think is not very widely known, that when you actually give people the time and give them the support,

00:36:52.560 almost everyone comes around and says, I'm glad I had the baby in the end.

00:36:57.240 Whereas by contrast, in the case of abortion, there are significant rates of regret.

00:37:02.660 It's not that most women regret abortion, most of them don't, but a significant minority of women regret abortion.

00:37:08.700 And we know that objectively, they have poorer mental health outcomes.

00:37:12.060 So if you take women that have an unwanted pregnancy, and some of them have an abortion, some of them keep the baby.

00:37:18.780 The women who have an abortion have higher rates of suicide, of anxiety, of drug misuse, of alcohol misuse.

00:37:25.900 And they're more likely to die within the following year than women who keep the baby.

00:37:31.300 And so, again, it's an absolutely intuitive and understandable thought.

00:37:35.720 A woman who's in a crisis pregnancy situation, surely the best thing for her to do is for her to choose to have an abortion.

00:37:42.780 And that's the end of the situation.

00:37:44.260 But when you look at the empirical reality, when you speak to the women who have been in this situation,

00:37:48.800 and you collect all those stories and voices together,

00:37:52.040 you find that actually abortion is not the kind of liberating kind of solution that it is portrayed as.

00:37:57.980 Actually, it is often another trauma.

00:38:00.260 Whereas by contrast, having the baby, of course, is stressful.

00:38:03.940 And I'm sure you'll find this out in due course.

00:38:05.880 I wish you the best of luck.

00:38:08.900 But actually, when it comes to that fundamental question, am I glad this happened?

00:38:14.020 The overwhelming majority of women who keep the baby after seeking an abortion are glad that it happened.

00:38:21.360 And I think sometimes all it takes is time and support.

00:38:25.340 And thankfully, that support is usually available.

00:38:27.560 There's one more question I want to ask.

00:38:29.000 Which is this.

00:38:31.260 Right.

00:38:31.600 So let's say we take the approach of, you know, banning abortion, apart from in certain cases.

00:38:38.920 Isn't that just going to mean that there's going to be backstreet abortions?

00:38:42.400 That actually what we're going to do is create an unregulated service,

00:38:45.560 which is going to put these women and particularly vulnerable women's lives at risk and in danger?

00:38:50.800 Yeah, and that's obviously a common question and a very good one and a very reasonable one.

00:38:55.280 And that's why one of the main reasons we have abortion legalized in the UK.

00:38:59.120 It wasn't seen as a woman's right at the time.

00:39:01.980 It wasn't seen as something that we should have.

00:39:04.140 It was something that was seen as a bad thing.

00:39:06.380 But it was better for it to be safe and legal rather than be dangerous and lead to women dying as well.

00:39:12.460 And obviously, the women that do die of backstreet abortions is one of the most grievous ills of society that we can imagine.

00:39:20.240 What a horrible situation for her to be in.

00:39:22.760 What a horrible situation for her family.

00:39:26.940 When you look at the empirical data, as I've done over the last two years on this specific topic,

00:39:31.720 it really tells a different story.

00:39:33.680 So the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 1966, a year before abortion was legalized,

00:39:41.100 published a report on this question.

00:39:43.540 And they said, actually, of the women who come into hospital because they've had an abortion

00:39:47.840 and need medical treatment, sometimes even die, 20% of those at most have had an induced abortion.

00:39:56.760 The large majority were actually from natural miscarriages.

00:40:00.320 And tragically, as a result of those, had complications and sometimes passed away.

00:40:06.240 But only a tiny proportion of those were actually from backstreet abortions.

00:40:10.420 And then they noted, what about those women?

00:40:12.760 Because, of course, there are not many of those women who were dying from backstreet abortions.

00:40:16.940 There were 50 maximum in the UK each year.

00:40:20.620 Those women, of course, still matter.

00:40:22.340 Those 50 lives matter infinitely and they should be protected.

00:40:26.420 But they said, what happens if a country legalizes abortion?

00:40:29.620 Does it suddenly make it safe and prevent those women from dying?

00:40:33.300 And the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said,

00:40:36.540 when you look at the other countries, that's not the case.

00:40:40.020 When you look at the experience of Eastern Europe, which legalized abortion prior to that,

00:40:44.300 it didn't necessarily lead to fewer deaths.

00:40:46.400 In Sweden, it didn't lead to fewer deaths.

00:40:48.840 What you actually find in many countries is that because legalized abortion encourages abortion

00:40:54.040 and increases the numbers, what it can do is increase the number of women dying from backstreet abortions.

00:41:00.240 We've seen that in the Netherlands in the 60s, in Rwanda about 10 years ago,

00:41:04.200 in Ethiopia about 15 years ago.

00:41:06.340 In many cases, in fact, in most cases, the trend is that women die from abortions and this decreases over time.

00:41:15.860 But when abortion is legalized, the same trend carries on.

00:41:19.420 In some countries, when abortion is legalized, it goes back up.

00:41:24.020 And by contrasting countries that ban abortion, like Poland or Chile about 30 years ago,

00:41:29.500 that trend carried on going down.

00:41:31.440 So women were dying from abortion, but they were getting fewer in number all the time.

00:41:35.180 Then Poland and Chile banned abortion, and still the number kept on getting smaller and smaller.

00:41:41.660 And so what I found on this particular question is that women dying from abortion is, of course, a tragedy.

00:41:47.260 But it's not really resolved by any legal change on abortion.

00:41:52.000 It's resolved simply by better health care, better emergency care.

00:41:55.740 And so I published a paper on this recently, which people who want to know more can read about.

00:42:00.140 If you go on my website, it's a paper about illegal abortion in Malawi.

00:42:03.940 So more can be read there.

00:42:05.540 Well, it's really interesting because your position is not widely held by people in the public eye in the UK.

00:42:15.660 Of course.

00:42:16.060 I think that would be fair to say.

00:42:17.580 I think you'd acknowledge that.

00:42:19.900 And yet I'm sitting here listening to you, and we're supposed to believe that people who hold your views

00:42:24.460 are some kind of moral monsters who...

00:42:27.660 And I'm not seeing the moral monstrosity in your argument.

00:42:32.020 In many ways, I find it odd that, you know, the realization of, you know,

00:42:36.600 my baby's kicking inside my wife's womb and it has a heartbeat.

00:42:42.120 And by saying that maybe I don't think you should just be able to just kill that baby for your own convenience right this second,

00:42:51.140 which you're legally allowed to do.

00:42:52.600 I don't think saying that is a moral monstrosity.

00:42:55.940 In fact, I think saying that, not saying that, is a moral monstrosity.

00:43:00.920 Not saying you shouldn't be able to just kill a baby at that point.

00:43:04.380 So why is it that your view is so demonized and so difficult to express in the public domain without...

00:43:17.260 You know, I've seen your interviews in the mainstream media.

00:43:19.580 Let's just say they're not giving you as much of a fair hearing as we are.

00:43:22.620 Got a bit foisty on the old bean, didn't it, Kevin?

00:43:25.180 It did, it did.

00:43:26.140 I was a victim of BBC neutrality.

00:43:28.560 Yeah.

00:43:29.380 So why is your position so demonized and why is it that we think that...

00:43:33.920 Look, I understand why people want to ensure that women have the freedom to do with their body what they want to do.

00:43:38.960 That instinct is perfectly understandable to me as someone who really respects bodily autonomy

00:43:43.000 and thinks it's very important.

00:43:44.860 But I equally understand that also there is another life involved, right?

00:43:49.040 And there's a tension between the two and there's maybe a line to be found between those things

00:43:53.820 and your position might be a bit extreme for most people.

00:43:56.260 But you don't strike me as someone who's coming from a terrible, bad place.

00:44:00.860 And yet, if the PR for your position is to be believed,

00:44:05.180 then you are evil people who want to control women and oppress them and whatever.

00:44:09.600 Why is it that you're so demonized?

00:44:12.060 Yeah, good question.

00:44:13.980 I think it's probably for a few reasons.

00:44:15.640 One is that part of the general polarization in society, you know, you're demonized for some of your positions.

00:44:24.200 Quite rightly.

00:44:25.760 It's part of, you know, our society which is failing to talk to each other

00:44:30.420 and failing to just be charitable towards each other.

00:44:33.200 You know, I found when I've spoken to people who perform abortions,

00:44:37.040 you know, leading abortion advocates in this country,

00:44:39.520 I have a friend who is one of the leading abortion advocates in the country

00:44:43.160 and we get on absolutely fine.

00:44:44.540 We get on very well and it's because we trust that we have, you know, we're talking in good faith.

00:44:49.740 We can actually have a conversation and we'll be honest.

00:44:52.360 And people don't talk anymore.

00:44:53.900 They go on social media and they complain and they alienate each other.

00:44:57.960 And so I think part of it is just not meeting pro-lifers.

00:45:01.280 You know, if you walk around England, you're not going to bump into a pro-lifer very often.

00:45:05.780 You're not going to hear them out or listen to what they actually believe.

00:45:08.580 And so I think that's a part of it.

00:45:09.860 I think part of it is a sort of exported from America where, you know, we see pro-life Americans

00:45:16.220 as also being crazy capitalist and all in favour of guns and shooting people

00:45:22.140 and all sorts of other sort of, there's all sorts of ideological baggage.

00:45:25.700 You know, we see pictures of people outside abortion clinics shouting that women are murderers.

00:45:29.620 And I think part of it is that there's been a sort of exportation of that image of pro-lifers to the UK.

00:45:37.780 I don't even think that's accurate in America.

00:45:39.980 I mean, in America, there are 4,000 crisis pregnancy centres looking after women in crisis pregnancies.

00:45:46.400 They outnumber abortion providers by many, many to one.

00:45:50.560 And when you add all the kind of pro-life work in the US up, it's the pro-life help which just practically helps women on the ground

00:45:59.780 that vastly outnumbers and outweighs any other pro-life activity that Americans do.

00:46:05.540 But those sorts of things are just not known.

00:46:08.200 And so I think, you know, there's a lot of bad PR and so on.

00:46:11.960 And then I think some of this is obviously, you know, deliberate.

00:46:14.760 There are people in powerful positions who have a narrative and want to portray pro-lifers as evil people

00:46:21.600 because they know that that's the easiest way to stop us having a real conversation.

00:46:26.940 And so I think, you know, you get plenty of that, whether it's the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists,

00:46:31.740 whether it's certain media outlets, you know, people have axes to grind.

00:46:36.280 And for some people, this image of us is convenient, even if it's not very accurate.

00:46:41.680 So speaking of having the conversation, what, if you were in charge of the world,

00:46:47.880 if you're king of the world for a few days, what legislative changes would you make?

00:46:52.500 Would you ban all abortion completely?

00:46:55.600 Or what measures would you introduce to regulate this particular issue?

00:47:00.760 I think it's, you know, there's a question of what would be practical.

00:47:04.200 If I was a dictator, things are very different.

00:47:07.420 Well, in an ideal world, what would you like to see?

00:47:10.020 Because once you get to the practical stuff, you start to compromise on value.

00:47:14.120 So if you believe that a zygote is a human life, well, you can't really compromise with that,

00:47:19.940 at least in our society, because we believe that human beings have a right to life, right?

00:47:24.740 So what I would say is that in an ideal world, I would want no woman to ever feel like she wanted or needed an abortion.

00:47:31.400 No, no, but what I said, sorry, when I said in an ideal world, what I mean is where you could enforce a law that you believed was correct.

00:47:40.960 I don't think you're going to get ever to a position where no woman wants to have an abortion.

00:47:45.000 That's right. But I do think, actually, you can put in place laws which help get to that position.

00:47:51.720 I think, yeah, obviously there will always be situations, desperate situations, where a woman feels like she wants and needs an abortion.

00:47:57.660 What I would say is that you can get to a point where that's very few women.

00:48:00.800 So I would say you have to think that the approach that we have here is that both lives matter in this situation.

00:48:08.640 I think it's inhumane to take away that option from when putting the burden of pregnancy on her,

00:48:14.880 while at the same time walking away from her and expecting her to shoulder that burden herself.

00:48:20.280 So I would say we have to have responsibility from society that they gather around women and support women who feel like they need an abortion.

00:48:28.500 So to give them the practical materials, the relationships, the support that she needs to go through that pregnancy.

00:48:36.300 There should also be support from the father.

00:48:38.980 And one of the things that we haven't spoken about is, in my view, the way that abortion has facilitated male irresponsibility.

00:48:45.880 There's actually a really, really interesting paper from a Nobel Prize winning economist, George Akerlof,

00:48:52.020 and his wife, who is actually President Biden's Treasury Secretary.

00:48:56.600 And this is from the 90s, where it was a bit less polarized, but not very much.

00:49:00.940 And what they said is that since abortion in the 1970s, what that has done is effectively,

00:49:06.180 it has said, it has allowed men to say to women, because this is now your issue,

00:49:11.720 because you are now the final arbiter of what happens to this baby,

00:49:15.400 if you choose to keep the baby, it's on you.

00:49:18.920 So I don't have any responsibility because it's your choice to keep the baby.

00:49:22.460 Previously, the man should, or at least usually would, feel a responsibility.

00:49:27.760 I've done this. I have a responsibility to the mother and to the child.

00:49:31.880 And that completely vanished in the 1970s.

00:49:34.700 And what they said is, before the 1970s, you had people being lifted out of poverty.

00:49:39.060 You had children being lifted out of poverty.

00:49:41.300 And you had high rates of families staying together.

00:49:44.120 Once you had widespread abortion, because of that mentality, men disappeared.

00:49:51.040 But that doesn't make it easy for women, because it's not as if a woman can just trivially say,

00:49:55.420 oh, well, that's fine, I'll just have an abortion.

00:49:57.200 Abortion is a hard thing for a woman to go through in most cases, almost every case.

00:50:02.360 And so when you had that situation, men were deserting women,

00:50:05.880 and you had women being forced to either go through a traumatic abortion by themselves,

00:50:10.220 or in many cases, most cases, raise the baby by themselves.

00:50:14.820 And what you found is that at that point, rather than women being liberated to achieve more in their careers,

00:50:21.280 which it allowed that for some women,

00:50:23.900 the women at the very bottom of society,

00:50:25.800 who didn't have those kind of illustrious careers to look forward to without a child,

00:50:30.220 they were the ones who were left with a child and without a partner to help them look after the child.

00:50:35.320 And so what you found is that the rate of women in poverty massively increased,

00:50:39.660 the rate of children in poverty massively increased.

00:50:42.480 This was far worse among the working class population,

00:50:45.760 and it was far worse among ethnic minority populations.

00:50:49.040 And that is what has caused the massive disparity in wealth and equality in the US and in many other Western countries.

00:50:57.320 So all of that to come back to your question, which I don't want to ignore,

00:50:59.980 but to say that in an ideal society,

00:51:03.140 part of what the government should be doing is not only making sure that society provides a safety net for these women,

00:51:09.940 also making sure that men step up and take their responsibility for this situation,

00:51:14.900 so that they look after not only the child,

00:51:17.320 but also make sure that the woman is looked after in her job,

00:51:20.800 in the time, and in all the things that she needs to do with her life.

00:51:24.540 And then, as I say, provide that legal protection for unborn children,

00:51:29.100 so that once you have all of this package together,

00:51:32.040 you say that both lives matter,

00:51:34.000 the government is protecting unborn children

00:51:36.100 and supporting and encouraging others to support the woman and the child.

00:51:40.680 All of that together will get to a place, I think,

00:51:43.640 where maybe there will be some women who feel they want and need an abortion,

00:51:47.920 but that number will be much, much smaller than it is at the moment.

00:51:50.900 And that's where I'd like to get us to.

00:51:52.540 So to summarise, then, you would put things in place for the child and the mother to support them after birth,

00:51:59.680 but in addition to that, you would ban abortion except in cases of threat to the mother.

00:52:09.000 What about serious disability?

00:52:12.660 Yeah, so in the case of serious disability,

00:52:14.900 what I'd say is that, again, when you look at the studies on this,

00:52:18.460 and again, it's counterintuitive, you ask people who have been through this situation.

00:52:22.520 There are many, many studies of women who have kept a child with Down syndrome

00:52:26.460 or something more serious, like Edwards syndrome or Patau syndrome,

00:52:30.860 and they overwhelmingly say, I'm glad I did this.

00:52:34.400 There's one study in particular which surveys women who have been through this situation,

00:52:39.360 specifically the situation where the child dies shortly after birth.

00:52:43.600 98% of those women said, I have no regrets, and I would do that, make the same decision again.

00:52:50.140 And although that time was incredibly short and incredibly grief-filled to go through that,

00:52:57.240 that was some of the most profound time I had in my life,

00:53:00.080 and I'm so glad I did it, and I would never make a different decision.

00:53:03.680 Whereas by contrast, when you look at women who have abortions,

00:53:06.460 in the case of these dreadful conditions where the child is bound to die shortly after birth,

00:53:12.060 a horrific situation that we hope no one we know would ever be in,

00:53:16.140 but sadly it does happen.

00:53:18.260 When women have those abortions in those situations,

00:53:21.240 they describe them as torture.

00:53:23.080 They say it was one of the worst things I've done in my life.

00:53:26.160 And so I think part of what goes on here is we think,

00:53:29.280 this is a terrible situation.

00:53:30.920 Abortion seems like a helpful solution to that, to limit some of the pain.

00:53:36.400 And that's a natural instinct.

00:53:38.380 Abortion is the sort of great reliever.

00:53:40.680 It relieves people of an immediate panic and an immediate difficult situation.

00:53:45.860 But when you look at these things in a more rounded way,

00:53:49.120 and when you speak to women and listen to their voices in these situations,

00:53:52.900 that's not the picture that builds up.

00:53:55.020 Instead, the picture is abortion isn't a solution.

00:53:58.100 The pain is still there.

00:53:59.620 Whereas by contrast, keeping the baby doesn't make everything rosy as well.

00:54:04.120 The baby still passes away shortly after birth, and it's tragic.

00:54:08.020 But nevertheless, those women don't say,

00:54:10.580 I consider this a tragedy that I should never have been put through

00:54:13.760 and I wish I'd had the abortion.

00:54:15.680 They say it was a tragedy, but it was such a meaningful tragedy

00:54:19.180 that I wouldn't have had it differently.

00:54:21.220 I would have made the same decision.

00:54:22.820 So that's, I think, what the evidence shows.

00:54:24.980 And I think that should be a factor in public policy.

00:54:27.480 Callum, you're making great points.

00:54:29.620 And it's genuinely fascinating.

00:54:32.780 And these are issues that I've never explored,

00:54:35.220 and these are arguments that I've never really thought about.

00:54:39.180 My question to you would be,

00:54:41.320 isn't it somewhat redundant?

00:54:45.080 We're never going to change our position on abortion.

00:54:48.260 We're just not.

00:54:49.400 That's not the way society has gone.

00:54:51.660 We're becoming ever more progressive.

00:54:53.460 We're becoming ever more hyper-liberal.

00:54:55.400 Abortion is just a done issue, isn't it?

00:54:59.780 It can feel like that way if you're on my end of the debate.

00:55:04.960 So, yeah, I mean, I think it's easy to be defeatist.

00:55:08.540 But, you know, on the other hand,

00:55:10.120 there are so many issues where people would have felt defeatist.

00:55:12.540 I mean, every sort of infrastructural injustice throughout history

00:55:17.080 has felt monumental.

00:55:19.200 And I try to avoid, you know,

00:55:21.480 linking it to other structural injustices throughout history,

00:55:24.900 but we can all think of some.

00:55:27.140 And, you know, when you go back 500 years

00:55:29.400 to something that was just part of society then,

00:55:32.760 people would have said this is never going to be ended.

00:55:34.580 This is such an integral part of what our society is built on.

00:55:39.580 And it would have felt like,

00:55:42.380 how can you take that sort of foundation away from a building?

00:55:45.920 It would just collapse and no one would ever tolerate that.

00:55:49.300 I mean, for example, I know you don't want to go into the examples,

00:55:51.860 but I think it's a pertinent one here.

00:55:53.320 Slavery not only was a common practice throughout human history,

00:55:57.320 but actually it was a huge part of the economic arrangements

00:56:01.240 that made those societies function.

00:56:03.500 And yet here we are, more slaves than ever.

00:56:06.140 But we have eliminated at least the legal,

00:56:11.380 in the Western world, the legal situation.

00:56:14.860 So I actually agree with you on that.

00:56:18.340 You know, Francis is right that I think it's hard to see

00:56:21.560 how you get from where we are to where you'd like to be.

00:56:25.180 But it's also, we also know that it's possible,

00:56:27.940 historically speaking.

00:56:29.480 I think that's true.

00:56:30.020 I mean, I watched the film Amazing Grace the other day

00:56:32.000 about William Wilberforce,

00:56:33.040 the kind of foremost abolitionist in the UK.

00:56:35.400 And, you know, the sort of rhetoric

00:56:38.500 and the immense money that was in the slave trade,

00:56:42.220 it was seen as absolutely formidable.

00:56:44.880 It was, you know, it was such a basic part of society.

00:56:47.600 How could you possibly get rid?

00:56:49.300 It was almost like getting rid of electricity.

00:56:51.220 It's what society ran on.

00:56:53.160 But it was run on the back of slaves

00:56:55.340 who were human beings with dignity and honour

00:56:59.640 and, in my view, made in the image of God.

00:57:03.240 And so you have to persevere

00:57:06.020 because if this really is an injustice,

00:57:08.580 people do eventually come round.

00:57:10.000 And, you know, I think people do come round.

00:57:11.960 I meet people in my life,

00:57:13.420 whether sometimes they're Christians,

00:57:14.940 sometimes they're Muslims,

00:57:15.680 sometimes they're not religious at all.

00:57:17.700 And they look at the argument.

00:57:19.280 Many of them do come round and say,

00:57:20.720 actually, I do think this is an injustice

00:57:22.300 and this is a societal problem

00:57:23.920 that we should try and remedy.

00:57:25.580 And I think if you persevere,

00:57:27.740 you can get to that point.

00:57:29.540 One thing that I think is really, really interesting

00:57:31.600 in all of this is how kind of global factors

00:57:35.900 play into this.

00:57:37.180 Now, what we've seen in the last few years

00:57:38.580 is Russia make it official government policy

00:57:40.780 to try and limit abortions.

00:57:42.300 They haven't tried to ban it,

00:57:43.720 but they've said we should reduce the number

00:57:45.260 because our population is falling.

00:57:47.480 China is pretty much coming to do the same thing.

00:57:50.040 I don't read Chinese,

00:57:51.560 so I don't know exactly what the media are saying.

00:57:53.260 But it looks to me like they're trying to limit abortion

00:57:55.800 because of the population.

00:57:58.300 Now, what I'd say there is this is a helpful illustration

00:58:01.400 because it also shows why the pro-life attitude

00:58:04.280 is very different to the controlling women attitude.

00:58:08.920 You've had many societies in history

00:58:11.240 which have abolished abortion or banned abortion

00:58:13.700 because they thought the population was important

00:58:17.620 and they need to control women

00:58:19.380 in order to increase the population.

00:58:21.220 Ancient Rome did this.

00:58:22.120 Romania did this.

00:58:23.260 Russia and China may be going that way.

00:58:25.660 That's not the pro-life position.

00:58:27.420 The pro-life position is unborn children should be protected

00:58:30.680 not because it's convenient to society,

00:58:33.640 not because women can be controlled

00:58:35.500 for the good of society,

00:58:38.180 but because they have dignity and basic human rights.

00:58:41.500 And so in that sense,

00:58:43.520 those sorts of societal shifts

00:58:45.040 are in some ways encouraging

00:58:47.140 because they show that attitudes can change.

00:58:49.560 And they do change for factors way beyond our control in geopolitics.

00:58:55.560 But it's also something that I'd really want to separate the pro-life position from

00:59:00.240 and say, although some of the sort of conclusions they're reaching are encouraging,

00:59:05.560 the means and the attitude is completely wrong.

00:59:07.800 This shouldn't be about population, which is a problem.

00:59:10.520 This should be about protecting the most vulnerable people in society.

00:59:13.740 So, yeah, I think it's swings and roundabouts.

00:59:16.880 And would you still think what you think if you weren't Christian?

00:59:21.540 Absolutely.

00:59:22.500 And I have really no doubt about that.

00:59:25.080 The reason I say that is because my Christian convictions

00:59:28.500 were completely separate in terms of timing,

00:59:32.020 in terms of kind of the basis from my convictions on abortion.

00:59:35.780 So I had, you know, I believed in some of the basic truths of the Christian faith

00:59:40.560 long before I came to a pro-life position.

00:59:42.940 And I thought it was completely compatible to say that you can be a Christian

00:59:45.720 and be generally pro-choice.

00:59:48.380 It was really thinking through these arguments,

00:59:50.720 seeing the reality at university of fetal development and of abortion,

00:59:55.520 seeing the impact on women,

00:59:57.060 and thinking through these secular philosophical arguments.

01:00:00.500 I mentioned earlier, one of my really good friends

01:00:02.700 became convinced of the pro-life position.

01:00:04.780 He's an atheist, because he read Peter Singer.

01:00:08.060 We were doing a lot of this debate ourselves at university at the same time.

01:00:12.000 And we were reading these secular philosophers and ethicists to see what they said.

01:00:16.260 And he read Peter Singer.

01:00:17.800 And Peter Singer says,

01:00:19.360 unborn children and born children are not really morally different.

01:00:22.600 If you can end the life of one, you can end the life of the other.

01:00:25.180 And therefore, infanticide is okay.

01:00:28.060 And my atheist friend was like,

01:00:30.500 the logic is impeccable, but the conclusion is completely wrong.

01:00:34.020 And so he became pro-life.

01:00:35.780 And so we, you know, I was in this journey with other people.

01:00:39.380 And, but it was really a matter of looking at those arguments in detail

01:00:42.560 and coming to a sincere conviction that this is where they pointed.

01:00:46.300 So, yeah, I know there will always be people listening in who just don't believe me.

01:00:50.940 They just think, you're Christian.

01:00:52.680 That's fine.

01:00:53.380 Believe what you want.

01:00:54.180 But for me, really, it was a matter of looking at those arguments

01:00:56.900 and coming to that position.

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01:01:28.660 And I know this is an extreme question and one that you're asked all the time.

01:01:32.340 So what happens if a woman has been raped?

01:01:34.740 She's now carrying the rapist's child.

01:01:36.880 She doesn't want the rapist to have this child.

01:01:40.600 Understandably so.

01:01:41.360 What do you say to someone like that?

01:01:44.820 I think the first thing to say is nothing.

01:01:47.120 I think the first thing to do is listen and hear what the situation is

01:01:51.240 and listen to the voices of women who have been in that situation.

01:01:55.100 I think we're in a danger of speaking too quickly,

01:01:57.520 especially as someone who's a man.

01:01:59.320 I obviously think that men should be allowed to speak about this topic,

01:02:02.760 in part because they have responsibility for it.

01:02:06.060 But at the same time, I have to realise my limitations.

01:02:08.380 I will never be in the position of being raped and becoming pregnant as a result.

01:02:13.640 And so I have to come at this with a significant amount of humility

01:02:17.160 and really trying my very best to empathise about that situation.

01:02:22.940 The first thing I would say is that we have to listen to the voices of women

01:02:26.080 who have been in this situation

01:02:27.340 because I think we're in danger of making many assumptions about them.

01:02:31.040 It's a good point.

01:02:31.780 I'll interrupt you briefly there to say that we know someone who was raped

01:02:35.580 and who had the child and for her,

01:02:40.780 that was massively radicalising in favour of the pro-life position.

01:02:45.740 Interesting.

01:02:46.700 So she says it's not the baby's fault.

01:02:49.900 Whatever happened, happened and it was not good,

01:02:52.520 but it's not the baby's fault

01:02:53.960 and I've brought up my child to be the way that I've brought him up to be,

01:02:58.640 not to be his biological father.

01:03:02.280 Right.

01:03:02.460 So you're right that the assumption I think always is,

01:03:07.700 well, if a woman's been raped and then had the child,

01:03:09.960 then she's obviously not happy.

01:03:12.040 Well, she's not going to be happy,

01:03:13.440 but we make the assumption that women in that position are all pro-abortion,

01:03:17.800 which is just not my experience.

01:03:19.920 Yeah, absolutely.

01:03:20.560 I mean, so the statistics we have show that about half of women

01:03:23.140 who have been raped and become pregnant keep the baby.

01:03:25.660 And there was a study done of those women

01:03:28.680 and not a single one said that they regret it.

01:03:31.620 And even of the women considering abortion,

01:03:34.460 when you take women who kept the baby and who had the abortion,

01:03:37.280 only a tiny proportion of them said,

01:03:39.620 the thing I'm most worried about is that it will remind me of the trauma.

01:03:44.300 It was a very small minority.

01:03:45.680 That's what we think.

01:03:46.320 We always think,

01:03:47.120 how can you encourage a woman to have a baby

01:03:49.200 that will remind her of the trauma?

01:03:50.920 Women who have been in that situation,

01:03:52.300 only a small minority of them say,

01:03:54.040 this is what worries me.

01:03:55.820 What worries them most is the stigma of having a child out of wedlock

01:03:59.020 or these other societal factors

01:04:01.820 that are nothing to do with the effect of the baby.

01:04:05.660 So what I would say is absolutely,

01:04:07.060 we have to listen to women, hear what they say,

01:04:09.500 hear women who have been through that situation and kept the baby.

01:04:12.740 None of them say that they regret it.

01:04:14.880 Hear women who have been through that situation and had an abortion,

01:04:18.220 many of whom do say they regret it.

01:04:20.060 But I think there are two kind of key things to think through here.

01:04:23.120 The first is the life of the child.

01:04:26.360 We all think that children should have their right to life protected

01:04:30.940 no matter how they were conceived.

01:04:33.100 So once a child has been born,

01:04:35.140 no one would ever think of saying,

01:04:37.020 if the woman feels that the child,

01:04:40.120 now that it's been born,

01:04:41.100 is a reminder of the trauma that she's been through,

01:04:43.920 she should be allowed to end the life of the child.

01:04:46.140 No one would say that that should be allowed.

01:04:48.000 So we all think that in theory,

01:04:50.640 if there is a human being with full moral status,

01:04:54.760 with human rights,

01:04:56.140 their life should be protected no matter how they were conceived.

01:04:59.520 And so the fundamental question is, in a sense,

01:05:01.740 is this a human being, a child with those human rights?

01:05:05.720 But the second question that I've really thought through as a doctor is,

01:05:09.280 will abortion help in the situation?

01:05:13.100 Will it help heal the trauma?

01:05:14.400 Again, it comes back to this point where I said,

01:05:17.400 abortion is seen as the great reliever.

01:05:19.940 It relieves a crisis situation.

01:05:21.900 And it seems to sort of just get rid of an urgent,

01:05:26.020 immediate problem, which a woman feels.

01:05:28.180 And that's completely understandable.

01:05:29.580 And that's why so many women feel relief after having an abortion.

01:05:34.440 But in the long run, does it actually help?

01:05:37.140 Will it get rid of that horrific,

01:05:39.020 horrendous trauma that she's been through?

01:05:41.400 I don't think there's any psychologist in the world who will say,

01:05:43.800 yes, it will get rid of that.

01:05:44.980 The trauma will still be there.

01:05:46.500 And she will be going through that,

01:05:47.960 regardless of whether she has an abortion or not.

01:05:51.060 On the other hand,

01:05:52.300 is there a potential that the baby could actually help?

01:05:54.800 Now, you say in the case of your friend,

01:05:57.400 that actually made her far more pro-life.

01:05:59.740 And some of the limited opinion polling we have

01:06:01.960 shows that women who have been the victim of unwanted sexual abuse

01:06:05.880 are more pro-life than women who are not.

01:06:08.740 When you read the testimonies,

01:06:10.840 and there's a great book on this,

01:06:11.820 it's called Victims and Victors.

01:06:13.440 It's just a whole kind of catalogue of testimonies

01:06:16.420 of women who have been in this situation,

01:06:18.320 giving them their own voice.

01:06:19.700 So you don't have to listen to a man talk about this.

01:06:22.900 What they say is,

01:06:24.720 this was the only thing that gave me meaning

01:06:26.980 and helped me to make sense of the trauma and suffering

01:06:30.460 that I had been through.

01:06:32.000 And that abortion would rob me of that.

01:06:34.880 This isn't just one woman who says this.

01:06:36.660 This is a recurring theme time and time again.

01:06:39.700 And what we know is that in trauma,

01:06:41.260 one of the most important things for healing

01:06:43.220 is finding meaning in that trauma.

01:06:46.060 And the evidence we have seems to suggest

01:06:48.220 that abortion is worse for a woman's mental health

01:06:51.040 and subjects her to further trauma.

01:06:53.020 Whereas having the baby,

01:06:54.820 and this isn't to trivialise it,

01:06:56.300 because I think it's far braver than anything I would ever do

01:07:00.120 or even be in a position to do.

01:07:01.820 I'm not trivialising it in any way.

01:07:04.260 But those women who do have that courage

01:07:05.940 and go through that,

01:07:07.420 what they eventually find is

01:07:09.100 that it is one of the most profound ways

01:07:11.480 they could have to try and find some meaning

01:07:13.900 in that trauma and to heal from that trauma.

01:07:16.700 So as I say,

01:07:17.740 there's so much that could be said about this,

01:07:19.960 especially from voices that are female

01:07:22.140 and that really have been in that situation.

01:07:24.640 So I don't want to pretend

01:07:25.840 that this is just a simple issue

01:07:27.260 that I've conclusively summed up.

01:07:29.780 But I do want to encourage people to read more about that,

01:07:32.860 go to my website where there's more information about that

01:07:35.440 and listen primarily to those women

01:07:38.260 who have been in that situation

01:07:39.300 because I think they have the most powerful voices.

01:07:41.740 Dr. Callum Miller, it has been an absolute pleasure.

01:07:45.380 It's been so, so interesting.

01:07:47.180 Before we go and before we do our questions for locals,

01:07:51.040 we always end our interviews with one final question,

01:07:53.820 which is what's the one thing we're not talking about,

01:07:56.240 but we really should be?

01:07:58.000 It's such a difficult question

01:07:59.520 because there's so many things.

01:08:01.020 One thing that we didn't really touch on in the interview

01:08:03.120 is money that's spent overseas on abortion.

01:08:06.480 So the UK government spends millions and millions of pounds

01:08:09.160 overseas trying to change other countries' laws,

01:08:12.920 which is pretty much the definition

01:08:14.320 of colonialism or imperialism.

01:08:16.920 Millions are spent on it,

01:08:18.340 often through organisations with links

01:08:20.240 to the one-child policy,

01:08:22.200 through organisations that have been banned

01:08:23.780 from countries for criminal activity and so on.

01:08:27.600 So I know this is sort of coming out of left field

01:08:30.420 to some extent,

01:08:31.180 but it's another element of the debate,

01:08:33.780 which I think really isn't spoken about much.

01:08:36.060 And we, you know,

01:08:36.780 as people paying taxes in this country

01:08:38.640 who want our tax to go to people who really need it,

01:08:42.100 to people who are at the margins of society,

01:08:44.400 I think it's really, really concerning

01:08:46.640 that it goes basically to abortion

01:08:48.640 and promoting abortion

01:08:49.700 in countries where the public don't agree with it.

01:08:53.180 And so I think that's something

01:08:54.720 that we really need more of a conversation on

01:08:56.800 in this country about in particular.

01:08:59.440 Well, thank you for coming on the show

01:09:00.760 and bringing all of those points to our attention.

01:09:03.500 We really appreciate it.

01:09:04.520 If people want to follow up on this

01:09:05.840 and read more of your work

01:09:07.000 and find out some of the detail

01:09:09.000 of what we've been talking about,

01:09:10.200 where's the best place to do that?

01:09:11.920 Well, thank you for that opportunity.

01:09:13.920 So I have a website called callumsblog.com.

01:09:16.580 It's very simple.

01:09:17.760 But one thing I just want to highlight on there

01:09:19.480 is that I've tried to put together

01:09:21.120 all the common questions on abortion

01:09:22.940 and say more than I have done today.

01:09:24.920 So if you're not convinced by something,

01:09:26.900 as I'm sure you're not,

01:09:28.460 please do go ahead to that website

01:09:30.060 and there will be more information available.

01:09:32.260 If you want to get in contact as well,

01:09:33.760 I'm more than happy to answer questions.

01:09:35.360 So thank you so much,

01:09:36.560 Constantine and Francis, for having me on.

01:09:38.140 It's been really a delight

01:09:39.040 and I'm so grateful.

01:09:40.000 No, thank you so much for coming on.

01:09:41.580 We're going to ask you a couple of questions

01:09:43.160 for our locals-only supporters.

01:09:45.300 But in the meantime, thanks for coming on

01:09:46.800 and thank you for watching and listening.

01:09:49.460 We will see you very soon

01:09:50.600 with another brilliant episode like this one

01:09:52.600 or our show.

01:09:53.900 All of them go out at 7pm UK time.

01:09:56.540 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go,

01:09:59.400 it's also available as a podcast.

01:10:01.580 Take care and see you soon, guys.

TRIGGERnometry - February 24, 2022

Doctor： Why I Changed My Mind About Abortion

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