More than 300 pack Bell Museum for abortion debate

Despite a nearly hour-long delay, University of Minnesota students joined a crowd that filled the Bell Museum auditorium to hear visiting philosophers debate the ethics of abortion Friday night.
The crowd, which included people from outside the University community, pushed the auditorium’s capacity limits, with people sitting in the aisles and listening from the doorways.
Nicholas Stommes, vice president of Students for Human Life, which sponsored the debate, estimated there were more than 300 people at the debate and several were turned away.
Stommes attributed the high attendance to the popularity of professor Peter Kreeft from Boston University, who presented the pro-life argument. Kreeft has written more than 60 books on philosophy and is a popular speaker.
Harry Geist, an attendee and longtime fan of Kreeft, called him “the Catholic C.S. Lewis.”
By a show of hands, the majority of people attending the debate were pro-life, but the crowd listened intently to the pro-choice argument presented by professor David Boonin from the University of Colorado.
Boonin, author of “A Defense of Abortion,” exposed the crowd to what he considers an “unorthodox” argument in the public abortion debate.
“The right to life is not the right to be kept alive by another person,” Boonin said.
To illustrate his point, Boonin used the analogy of a bone marrow transplant. Someone who needs a bone marrow transplant to survive would not be able to force another person into giving bone marrow.
Junior nursing major and president of Students for Human Life Leona Jovanovich said Boonin’s argument was the best pro-choice argument she had ever heard.
But Kreeft called his symbolic logic “bizarre” and invoked Emmanuel Kant’s “categorical imperative” philosophy to argue against abortion.
The categorical imperative is the same as the golden rule, he said: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Kreeft said if you don’t want others killing you, you don’t kill others. He also claimed that unborn children should be considered people.
He challenged pro-choice philosophers to provide an argument that did not also support infanticide.
Boonin claimed a woman who disconnects herself from providing life-support to a fetus is not killing and, therefore, certain types of abortion that involve removing the fetus are morally acceptable.
“If abortion isn’t wrong, there are very few things that can be classified as wrong,” said Kreeft.
‘A terribly important issue’
Jovanovich said she wanted the debate to encourage thought.
“We think that presenting two very strong but opposing voices will help people to really critically examine their own views,” Jovanovich said.
Scott Deeney, an officer of Medical Students for Human Life, said he hoped the debate would eliminate unfair characterizations.
“[Pro-choice supporters] are not monsters, and we’re not religious fanatics,” Deeney said.
Both Kreeft and Boonin, who have debated each other before, agreed the debate went well. Boonin said he was impressed by the questions his argument provoked.
“I like participating in these kind of events [because] I can expose some of my arguments to people who disagree with me,” Boonin said. “I want them to — at the very least — see that the argument against abortion is not as simple and straightforward as they think it is.”
Kreeft said he thought they needed to have more debates.
“It’s a terribly important issue, abortion,” he said. “Whoever is right here is very right and whoever is wrong is very wrong.”