Dartmouth Debate: Christina Bennett debates Mikki Kendall on rights of preborn humans

Christina Bennett, a news correspondent for Live Action, recently traveled to Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, to debate Mikki Kendall, an author and political commentator who argued in favor of abortion.

Key Takeaways:

• Christina Bennett and Mikki Kendall debated abortion at Dartmouth College in June.

• Kendall consistently ignored the humanity of the preborn child, while Bennett consistently based her reasoning on the humanity of the child.

• The two debated whether the longtime existence of abortion therefore makes it acceptable.

The Details:

Throughout their wide-ranging debate, Bennett consistently advocated for the rights of the preborn child in the womb. Kendall repeatedly dismissed those rights, saying from the start, “I am a person who believes that life starts with breath, and if you cannot breathe and you are wholly dependent on something else in order to function, you are probably not capable of life.”

The argument that the preborn child is not a person deserving of rights was the cornerstone for most of Kendall’s pro-abortion talking points.

Is Abortion Empowerment or Injustice? | Christina Bennett vs Mikki Kendall at Dartmouth College

Maternal mortality and fetal personhood

As the two discussed maternal mortality rates, Kendall stated that abortion is simply a “therapeutic medical procedure,” arguing that only the “person with the uterus” should be the one to decide whether or not to keep a pregnancy. She also expressed the belief that advocating for the preborn child is “a form of bias.”

Bennett agreed that everyone who is pregnant should have the support they need, but dismissed Kendall’s claim that abortion should be readily available as a form of medical care, saying, “I don’t believe in pitting the mother against the child. The child is a human being … The pro-life position is that we want support for the mother, and we want equal rights for the child.”

Abortion exceptions and medical necessity

When talking about abortion exceptions, Mikki Kendall claimed:

• She supports “abortion on demand.”

• She disagrees with abortion restrictions and exceptions because she doesn’t like to “curtail someone else’s healthcare.”

• She believes abortion should be available because “giving birth is medically dangerous.”

• She agrees with aborting children who have life-limiting diagnoses.

Bennett countered this with the idea that the preborn child in the womb always deserves the right to life.

“I don’t believe it’s ever necessary to kill a child in the womb,” Bennett said. “I believe that a child is a person, and I don’t believe that it’s ever medically necessary to suction them out, to dismember them, or to destroy their life through an act of abortion.”

Public opinion and history of abortion

The moderator then asked the two to give their thoughts about a Pew Research study which states that 63% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

“Just because the majority believe that something is okay, doesn’t make it right,” Bennett explained, bringing up the history of atrocities like slavery and the treatment of Jewish people in Nazi Germany. She added:

We have to think about, why does the majority of people believe that it’s ok to dismember or kill a child in the womb? Well, we’ve had 50 years of legalized abortion, we’ve had 50 years of propaganda. We’ve had 50 years of eugenics…

The majority of people think that abortion is okay because that’s what we’ve been force-fed all of our lives.

In response, Kendall continued her theme of refusing to acknowledge the humanity of the preborn child, insisting that abortion is “medical care” with which some might be “uncomfortable,” but that’s “none of our business”:

If we are assuming that everyone is equal, then nobody gets to make a decision for anyone else about their body.

If we are assuming that women deserve equal rights to men, that people who are black, Jewish, indigenous, whatever, all deserve rights, then we have to be willing to accept that the things we are uncomfortable with that they are doing are none of our business.

Medical care is explicitly none of our business.

She also countered Bennett by saying that abortion has been happening for thousands of years of human history, and therefore should be accepted.

Bennett countered:

Thousands of years doesn’t mean that it’s right.

Humans have always killed each other, whether it’s a mother ending the life of the child in the womb, or whether it’s a brother killing another brother.

Yes, you’re going to be able to look throughout all of human history and you’ll be able to find people who have killed people, and you’ll be able to find mothers who have killed their children, but it doesn’t mean it’s right.

Go Deeper:

Watch the whole video to see the two continue their discussion, with topics including Margaret Sanger and the eugenics movement, Planned Parenthood, abortion coercion, and more.

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