Klusendorf v. Strossen revisited

Last night, Life Training Institute President Scott Klusendorf debated ACLU President Nadine Strossen at California Polytechnic State University (also known as Cal Poly). The only reason I know is because a student who attended the debate must have been searching for some other responses to the debate or previous debates and came across my post regarding the Klusendorf-Strossen debate at Grand Valley State and decided to leave a comment:

I saw Scott and Nadine last night at my school. I found your entry interesting.

Why should this human right be exercised rarely? Because it's an invasive, costly, and avoidable procedure done on the human body. Which is why contraceptives should be promoted and used--I wonder what Scott would think of contraceptives.

I agree that Scott was very persuasive. But in one situation, a student asked if abortion was excusable in situations of rape or incest. As he said he could sympathize for the woman, he said a woman should not have to "commit homicide" to "make herself feel better." Way to demean a woman's feelings and emotional state! So it's people like him who think that a woman's right to reclaim power over her body is belittled to nothing more than an inexcusable action done to "make herself feel better."

I also found it interesting that Scott said that if the life of the mother and fetus were at stake, he would rather save the mother than lose two. Than lose two. In no way did he explain that he would rather save the mother's life if only the mother or fetus would survive.

This, I ask you, what is a human being? Is what genetically defines is makes us a human being? Or is it our intellect, our thought, our consciousness, our actions that makes us human beings? Would you still consider a brain-dead person a human being or a mass murderer a human being? Who defines these terms but ourselves.

As the definition of 'human being' is a personal one, so should the intimate decision women make when they consider abortion. In other words, you may practice your pro-life beliefs if you let me practice mine.

My guess is Selina (the commenter) is a very intelligent young woman yet I wonder if she has actually thought through the last part of her comment. If "human being" should really be defined on a personal level then how could you speak out against any number of killings in which the perpetrator's personal definition of human being didn't happen to include his victims?

The new defense attorney strategy du jour would be: "My client didn't think his victims were human beings."

And knowing how Scott typically begins a presentation, I'm fairly certain he provided a good deal of evidence to show the unborn are human beings. Instead of trying to prove him wrong, Selina feels she can simply wipe away his evidence by claiming that what makes something a human being is personal or completely non-objective.

UPDATE:Here's the school newspaper's write-up of the event.