Ben Shapiro Takes Down Cheap Pro-Abortion Talking Points During Campus Presentation

You mean there was an instance of a conservative speaking on a college campus and people didn’t pull the fire alarm to shut him up? Nobody screeched like dying harpies and smearing fake blood all over the place? There was actual calm (if tense) debate over an opposing viewpoint?

Somebody check the temperature in Satan’s living room! I think we’ve got a legitimate situation here!

According to this, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro spoke at Salisbury University in Maryland and, by all accounts, it looks like the audience was respectful, even if they disagreed with what he was saying. It wasn’t until the Q&A portion of his presentation that there was a moment when a pro-abortion student asked him about his stance on abortion, which he then turned around and asked the woman when she thought life began. The whole exchange is fascinating –

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Here’s some of what was said – some of the audio’s difficult to hear in places –

“You don’t get to kill things just because it’s in your uterus,” Shapiro told the student during a back-and-forth.

“It’s my body. How about you stay out of it?” the student replied.

“I don’t care about your appendix,” Shapiro quipped, referencing the student’s earlier argument. “I don’t even care about your uterus. I care about what’s in it.”

“And I can take out my appendix if I don’t want it. So why can’t I take out other parts of my body?” the student asked.

“Because they are not independent living human beings,” Shapiro fired back.

The student continued to engage in a debate, arguing the fetus is merely a “bundle of cells.”

“At what point does that bundle of cells become a human being in your judgement?” Shapiro asked her.

“Um—,” the student said.

“No really,” Shapiro interjected.

“No, I just need to calm down for a second,” the student said.

After some silence, Shapiro argued “that is the relevant question.”

“If your argument is it’s a bundle of cells then the question becomes when it’s not a bundle of cells,” the conservative personality noted.

The student said that she didn’t believe in late-term abortion unless it was a threat to the mother’s health. Shapiro said he agreed in an exception if the mother’s life was in danger.

Another student chimed in.

“The concept of body autonomy means that I don’t have to give up any part of my body unless I say so,” she said.

“The baby is not part of your body,” Shapiro quipped.

Then again, I think it’s fascinating because this is a very real instance of two people who disagree on an issue actually talking about their disagreements, instead of shouting each other down and one using bullying tactics to shut the other one up. And – wonder of wonders – they were both heard and understood!

I doubt that Ben Shapiro changed this student’s mind about abortion and I’m sure that she didn’t change his mind. But the fact that they discussed it in a relatively calm manner (well, as calm as you can get when the subject is as touchy as abortion) is remarkable. And someone else might have learned something one way or the other. It sure beats the insane student protests of conservative guest speakers we’ve seen over the years.

See what happens when you allow the expression of opposing viewpoints on campus?