Ben Shapiro’s Answer To Student’s Abortion Question Is Epic

[mystery-ak]

Ben Shapiro’s Answer To Student’s Abortion Question Is Epic
Grace Carr
Reporter
1:29 PM 09/15/2017


A student asked conservative commentator Ben Shapiro a question about abortion at his Berkeley speech Thursday night, prompting Shapiro to engage in rapid-fire dialogue with the student.

“Any time you draw any line other than the inception of the child, you end up drawing a false line that can also be applied to adults,” Shapiro said. “So either human life has intrinsic value or it doesn’t.”

Shapiro asked the student if he could at least agree that adult life has intrinsic value, to which the student responded that he believes “sentience” — the ability to perceive or feel things — gives something moral value, rather than being a human alone.

“OK, so when you’re asleep, can I stab you?” Shapiro asked, to which the student responded in the negative.

“OK, if you are in a coma from which you may awake, can I stab you?” Shapiro then asked.

“Well then … uhhh, no,” the student replied. “But that’s still potential sentience!”

“Do you know what else has potential sentience? Being a fetus,” Shapiro said.

Alex 🇺🇸 @SoCal4Trump

Ben Shapiro answers a student on abortion during the Q&A portion and it ends with an epic takedown. 😆#BenAtBerkeley pic.twitter.com/J1iFFCp7TV
10:25 PM - Sep 14, 2017

The University of California, Berkeley spent roughly $600,000 to make sure no riots would erupt Thursday night, and his speech went without incident or interruption.

[Oceander]

Before birth and after birth is a pretty easy bright line to draw as well that doesn't end up allowing the killing of adults. 

[RoosGirl]

Before birth and after birth is a pretty easy bright line to draw as well that doesn't end up allowing the killing of adults.

So does before and after the 18th birthday.

[Oceander]

So does before and after the 18th birthday.

No, because that doesn't differentiate aborting a fetus from killing an adult.

And now I'm going to let the pointless sound and fury wash over because the simple fact of the matter is that abortion will never, ever, ever, ever (say it as many times as you have breath) be illegal again in this country and all you do by trying to ignore that reality is alienate people whose support on other issues you need.  It's a stupid, pointless exercise that achieves nothing other than giving more support, not less, to the liberals.  It drives off moderates and independents and splits the GOP to no good advantage. 

Now let the flaming commence. 

[mystery-ak]

No, because that doesn't differentiate aborting a fetus from killing an adult.

And now I'm going to let the pointless sound and fury wash over because the simple fact of the matter is that abortion will never, ever, ever, ever (say it as many times as you have breath) be illegal again in this country and all you do by trying to ignore that reality is alienate people whose support on other issues you need.  It's a stupid, pointless exercise that achieves nothing other than giving more support, not less, to the liberals.  It drives off moderates and independents and splits the GOP to no good advantage. 

Now let the flaming commence.

No flaming....I will never give up hoping/praying for an end to the murder of unborn babies...I believe in miracles. I also believe the majority of Americans think as I do...so there is hope that someday it will stop.

Several years ago I had a local Dem politician walking the neighborhood asking for votes...He knocked on my door and introduced himself....I said "I would never vote for a person who believes in abortion"..his answer was "I don't".....I laughed in his face and replied "but you do, that is on the Dems's platform that is what they support so being a Dem you support it too!"......the look on his face was priceless. I didn't change his party affiliation but I made my point.

[RoosGirl]

No, because that doesn't differentiate aborting a fetus from killing an adult.

And now I'm going to let the pointless sound and fury wash over because the simple fact of the matter is that abortion will never, ever, ever, ever (say it as many times as you have breath) be illegal again in this country and all you do by trying to ignore that reality is alienate people whose support on other issues you need.  It's a stupid, pointless exercise that achieves nothing other than giving more support, not less, to the liberals.  It drives off moderates and independents and splits the GOP to no good advantage. 

Now let the flaming commence.

I was responding directly to your comment.  Your only concern seemed to be not killing adults.   

I also will not give up hope, nor change my opinion to make anyone else comfortable, that abortion will no longer be legal.

[Oceander]

Suit yourselves.  Abortion will always be legal. 

[Mom MD]

Suit yourselves.  Abortion will always be legal.

Maybe so.  It will also be always be morally reprehensible, the taking of innocent life.  It will also bring grievous judgement on those who practice it.

[Bigun]

Maybe so.  It will also be always be morally reprehensible, the taking of innocent life.  It will also bring grievous judgement on those who practice it.

 

[Oceander]

Maybe so.  It will also be always be morally reprehensible, the taking of innocent life.  It will also bring grievous judgement on those who practice it.

Maybe so, maybe so.  There are worse things to worry about. 

[bigheadfred]

Hey @Oceander. For a community organizer as yourself, you don't have much.

"It's a stupid, pointless exercise"...


It never occurred to psychiatrist Robert Coles that a poor, black six-year-old girl might know more about coping effectively with stress than he did. When he watched Ruby Bridges on the television news, flanked by burly federal marshals, passing through a shouting mob on her way to and from elementary school, he assumed that she needed psychological help and that he could give it to her.

It was the fall of 1960. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that public schools must allow black and white students to attend classes together, instead of segregating them as they were doing. Six years later, a federal judge pressured schools in New Orleans to follow the new rules and allow black students to attend the formerly all-white schools. So six-year-old Ruby Bridges started classes at William T. Frantz School.

The neighborhood erupted in angry demonstrations. All the other parents boycotted the school, refusing to allow their children to attend.

Every day Ruby attended class all by herself. And every day a mob gathered outside the school, screaming curses, spitting at the little girl, shaking their fists, and threatening to kill her. The local police refused to protect her, so the federal government provided marshals to escort Ruby to and from class every day.

Robert Coles had studied stress in children who had polio at the Children’s Hospital in Boston. He had presented a paper with his conclusions to the American Psychiatric Association. When Coles saw Ruby’s daily ordeal, he wanted to study her response to stress, too. He thought he could write another paper and possibly do a good deed as well, helping her cope. So Coles contacted Ruby’s parents through the NAACP and started visiting her family twice a week, looking for symptoms of turmoil.

But Ruby seemed to be sleeping fine. Her appetite was normal. And she played well with friends in the neighborhood when she came home from school. Her first grade teacher said the little girl didn’t seem upset at school either. “I don’t understand this child,” she said. “Ruby seems so happy. She comes here so cheerfully.”

“Well, I’m a little puzzled myself,” Coles said, “but I think that sometimes people under tremendous stress gird themselves mightily , and it can take time to find out just how upset they are.”

His explanation seemed less and less convincing, though, when he watched the way Ruby and her parents carried on as the weeks and months passed.

“Here was a girl who was six years old,” Coles wrote later, “whose parents were extremely poor, were illiterate so that they did not even know how to sign their names. They were going through tremendous strain, day after day, and they did not seem to be complaining, parents or child.

“What a contrast with the well-to-do middle-class people I had seen in Boston whose children, for one reason or another – all of them white, by the way – were having all sorts of difficulties. Now, how do you explain that? I would ask myself. And I did not know how to explain that.”

Then one day Ruby’s first grade teacher told Coles that she had seen Ruby stop to talk to the people in the mob on her way to class. Later, Coles asked Ruby about it. “I wasn’t talking to them,” Ruby said. “I was just saying a prayer for them.”

“Why?” Coles asked, astonished.

“Because they need praying for, she said. “Because I should.”

Coles kept asking questions, but the only explanation Ruby gave was, “Because I should.”

Ruby’s parents overheard the conversation and explained that they told their daughter it was important for her to pray for the people in the mob. Ruby prayed for them every night as part of her bed time routine.

Later Coles learned that Ruby’s Sunday School teacher taught her the same thing, and that the pastor of her church prayed for the people in the mob every Sunday. Publicly. “I don’t understand why this girl should be praying for those people,” Coles told his wife. “She’s got enough to bear without that.”

“That’s you speaking,” his wife said. “Maybe she feels differently.”

Then his wife developed an imaginary scenario of Coles trying to go into the Harvard Faculty Club through a shouting mob. “What would you do?”

The two of them agreed that Coles would definitely not pray for the people. First, he would call the police. (Ruby couldn’t call the police. They sided with the mob.) Then he would get a lawyer. (Ruby had no means to get a lawyer.)

“The third thing I would do would be to turn immediately on this crowd with language and knowledge,” Coles said. “Who are these people, anyway? They are sick. They are marginal, sociologically, economically, psycho-socially, socio-culturally, and psycho-historically.” (Ruby had no big words like these to turn on the mob.)

After that discussion, Coles asked Ruby again why she should pray for the people who cursed her every day. “Well, especially it should be me,” she said, “because if you’re going through what they’re doing to you, you’re the one who should be praying for them.”

Then Ruby explained that her pastor had told her that when Jesus was beaten and crucified, he had prayed for the people mistreating him: “Forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.”

You have no conception of the inception of order.

I submit to you that ALL of your "values" are based on materialism. You are Godless and soulless. You have nothing in you that is conservative. A shadow of a man.

The ONLY thing that separates man from human you exemplify.

What you see as pointless IS exactly the point.

[Oceander]

Hey @Oceander. For a community organizer as yourself, you don't have much.

"It's a stupid, pointless exercise"...


It never occurred to psychiatrist Robert Coles that a poor, black six-year-old girl might know more about coping effectively with stress than he did. When he watched Ruby Bridges on the television news, flanked by burly federal marshals, passing through a shouting mob on her way to and from elementary school, he assumed that she needed psychological help and that he could give it to her.

It was the fall of 1960. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that public schools must allow black and white students to attend classes together, instead of segregating them as they were doing. Six years later, a federal judge pressured schools in New Orleans to follow the new rules and allow black students to attend the formerly all-white schools. So six-year-old Ruby Bridges started classes at William T. Frantz School.

The neighborhood erupted in angry demonstrations. All the other parents boycotted the school, refusing to allow their children to attend.

Every day Ruby attended class all by herself. And every day a mob gathered outside the school, screaming curses, spitting at the little girl, shaking their fists, and threatening to kill her. The local police refused to protect her, so the federal government provided marshals to escort Ruby to and from class every day.

Robert Coles had studied stress in children who had polio at the Children’s Hospital in Boston. He had presented a paper with his conclusions to the American Psychiatric Association. When Coles saw Ruby’s daily ordeal, he wanted to study her response to stress, too. He thought he could write another paper and possibly do a good deed as well, helping her cope. So Coles contacted Ruby’s parents through the NAACP and started visiting her family twice a week, looking for symptoms of turmoil.

But Ruby seemed to be sleeping fine. Her appetite was normal. And she played well with friends in the neighborhood when she came home from school. Her first grade teacher said the little girl didn’t seem upset at school either. “I don’t understand this child,” she said. “Ruby seems so happy. She comes here so cheerfully.”

“Well, I’m a little puzzled myself,” Coles said, “but I think that sometimes people under tremendous stress gird themselves mightily , and it can take time to find out just how upset they are.”

His explanation seemed less and less convincing, though, when he watched the way Ruby and her parents carried on as the weeks and months passed.

“Here was a girl who was six years old,” Coles wrote later, “whose parents were extremely poor, were illiterate so that they did not even know how to sign their names. They were going through tremendous strain, day after day, and they did not seem to be complaining, parents or child.

“What a contrast with the well-to-do middle-class people I had seen in Boston whose children, for one reason or another – all of them white, by the way – were having all sorts of difficulties. Now, how do you explain that? I would ask myself. And I did not know how to explain that.”

Then one day Ruby’s first grade teacher told Coles that she had seen Ruby stop to talk to the people in the mob on her way to class. Later, Coles asked Ruby about it. “I wasn’t talking to them,” Ruby said. “I was just saying a prayer for them.”

“Why?” Coles asked, astonished.

“Because they need praying for, she said. “Because I should.”

Coles kept asking questions, but the only explanation Ruby gave was, “Because I should.”

Ruby’s parents overheard the conversation and explained that they told their daughter it was important for her to pray for the people in the mob. Ruby prayed for them every night as part of her bed time routine.

Later Coles learned that Ruby’s Sunday School teacher taught her the same thing, and that the pastor of her church prayed for the people in the mob every Sunday. Publicly. “I don’t understand why this girl should be praying for those people,” Coles told his wife. “She’s got enough to bear without that.”

“That’s you speaking,” his wife said. “Maybe she feels differently.”

Then his wife developed an imaginary scenario of Coles trying to go into the Harvard Faculty Club through a shouting mob. “What would you do?”

The two of them agreed that Coles would definitely not pray for the people. First, he would call the police. (Ruby couldn’t call the police. They sided with the mob.) Then he would get a lawyer. (Ruby had no means to get a lawyer.)

“The third thing I would do would be to turn immediately on this crowd with language and knowledge,” Coles said. “Who are these people, anyway? They are sick. They are marginal, sociologically, economically, psycho-socially, socio-culturally, and psycho-historically.” (Ruby had no big words like these to turn on the mob.)

After that discussion, Coles asked Ruby again why she should pray for the people who cursed her every day. “Well, especially it should be me,” she said, “because if you’re going through what they’re doing to you, you’re the one who should be praying for them.”

Then Ruby explained that her pastor had told her that when Jesus was beaten and crucified, he had prayed for the people mistreating him: “Forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing.”

You have no conception of the inception of order.

I submit to you that ALL of your "values" are based on materialism. You are Godless and soulless. You have nothing in you that is conservative. A shadow of a man.

The ONLY thing that separates man from human you exemplify.

What you see as pointless IS exactly the point.

Flame on, my friend.  But don't fool yourself into thinking abortion will ever be illegal again.  And try to avoid facile, and thus false, comparisons to the civil rights era. 

[Ghost Bear]

Before birth and after birth is a pretty easy bright line to draw as well that doesn't end up allowing the killing of adults.

Define "birth".

Does delivering a baby's entire body except for the head qualify as birth, or not?

"Conception" is a pretty easy, bright line to draw, yet you object to it. Why?

Maybe so, maybe so.  There are worse things to worry about. 

Something worse than the taking of an innocent life?  Like... what?

[RoosGirl]

Flame on, my friend.  But don't fool yourself into thinking abortion will ever be illegal again.  And try to avoid facile, and thus false, comparisons to the civil rights era.

I think you may be missing the point, but I will pray for you as well.

[bolobaby]

Maybe so, maybe so.  There are worse things to worry about. 

Worse things to worry about than infanticide?

Hrm. Clearly, you and I have different moral compasses.

[DB]

Maybe so, maybe so.  There are worse things to worry about.

To both of your comments, pretty much the same thing was said about slavery, they weren't full human after all...

I believe abortion will in time be viewed much the same way slavery was. And in the future when people look back they won't be able to understand why people of this time couldn't see how evil it was to kill the innocent unborn.

[bigheadfred]

Flame on, my friend.  But don't fool yourself into thinking abortion will ever be illegal again.  And try to avoid facile, and thus false, comparisons to the civil rights era.

It isn't flame. It is the truth. See? Your reality is subjectivized towards that type of thinking. The point is, abortion is WRONG. If, within yourself, you don't recognize that, all I said is the complete and absolute truth.

Don't fool yourself into thinking abortion won't be illegal. That is an extremely short view. Materialistic, narcissistic.

It is a civil rights issue. Tell me how it isn't a civil rights issue?

[Oceander]

Flame on folks, flame on.  Y'all make Don Quixote look practical and pragmatic by comparison. 

[Oceander]

It isn't flame. It is the truth. See? Your reality is subjectivized towards that type of thinking. The point is, abortion is WRONG. If, within yourself, you don't recognize that, all I said is the complete and absolute truth.

Don't fool yourself into thinking abortion won't be illegal. That is an extremely short view. Materialistic, narcissistic.

It is a civil rights issue. Tell me how it isn't a civil rights issue?

Flame on, on into continued irrelevance. 

[Oceander]

To both of your comments, pretty much the same thing was said about slavery, they weren't full human after all...

I believe abortion will in time be viewed much the same way slavery was. And in the future when people look back they won't be able to understand why people of this time couldn't see how evil it was to kill the innocent unborn.

Nope.  They'll wonder why fully effective birth control wasn't an entitlement. 

[Oceander]

If abortion is a sin, then that is a matter strictly between the mother, the doctor, and God.  There are none of the wider social dangers that are associated with murder and that make murder a fit subject for prohibition by Caesar (i.e., secular law).  Unless and until society has the technology and the will to take over the gestation and raising of the child, society has no business attempting to prohibit abortion and only the right to ensure that the doctor is medically qualified and the operating facilities up to snuff. 

[Mom MD]

Nope.  They'll wonder why fully effective birth control wasn't an entitlement.

Fully effective birth control is available free to anyone.  Its called keep your knees together if you aren't ready to have a child.  Mostly effective birth control is available at a small price to most but actually has to be used to be effective.

Irresponsibility on the part of an adult does not justify the murder of a child.

[Oceander]

And just because we're on a roll here, I find it less than awe-inspiring how, prior to birth it's so damned precious some would convict the mother and doctor of premeditated murder, but the second after birth these self-same proclaimed god-fearing folk don't give enough of a damn to even support universal child health care, let alone Medicaid, food, and shelter support for parents who can't afford it for the children you would force them to have. 

Sorry, but if you're committed to rigid anti-abortion, then you are committed to a robust welfare system (or else you're just irrational).

[Oceander]

Fully effective birth control is available free to anyone.  Its called keep your knees together if you aren't ready to have a child.  Mostly effective birth control is available at a small price to most but actually has to be used to be effective.

Irresponsibility on the part of an adult does not justify the murder of a child.

Do you support welfare?  Will you pay to support the children you will force these irresponsible people to have?

I didn't think so. 

[Mom MD]

And just because we're on a roll here, I find it less than awe-inspiring how, prior to birth it's so damned precious some would convict the mother and doctor of premeditated murder, but the second after birth these self-same proclaimed god-fearing folk don't give enough of a damn to even support universal child health care, let alone Medicaid, food, and shelter support for parents who can't afford it for the children you would force them to have. 

Sorry, but if you're committed to rigid anti-abortion, then you are committed to a robust welfare system (or else you're just irrational).

I have adopted 2 children in addition to my 2 biologic children so sing your song elsewhere, I have put my money time and heart into helping such children

No one forces anyone to have children, it is well known how pregnancy occurs and how to avoid it.  I am all for supplying the material needs of underprivileged children and regularly donate to charities that do just that. I am not for giving welfare queens cash for spitting out children that they spend on everything BUT the child it is intended for.