Some of the world’s most influential authors, thinkers, and speakers come to speak at Google Talks, hosted at their headquarters in Mountain View, CA, or their campus in NY City. These hour-long talks recently played host to pro-life advocate, speaker, and author Stephanie Gray.
Gray began her talk with the question “Who inspires you?” She then follows that question with why? Gray said that although she gets a myriad of answers as to who inspires people, she finds that people are usually inspired because the person who inspires has suffered in some way. She said these people usually have three qualities in common:
1) They put others ahead of themselves.
2) They have perspective.
3) They do the right thing.
Gray went on to say that she was going to use these three qualities in her hour-long talk about abortion.
Gray, who has debated abortion with over 800 opponents, said the question one needs to ask themselves is, “If it is right to put the needs of others ahead of oneself, is it not also right to put the needs of the unborn child ahead of one’s own needs.”
Gray went on to say that some might say she was comparing apples to oranges here but that the real question is, “when does life begin? She said a fertility specialist attempting to fertilize eggs in a petri dish would not argue this point. The fertility specialist would say that life began at the moment of fertilization. She went on to question why the topic of when life began was never brought up among veterinarians? They know that life begins at the moment of fertilization, but the question of when life begins is only brought up when applied to humans. The next pro-choice argument she tackled was what defined a human being. She reasoned that if the parents were both humans then the resulting fetus or embryo would also be just as human as a growing teen thirteen years old is human. When a child turns thirteen she said we call them “impossible” but they are called teenagers. A teenager is just as human as a newly fertilized embryo, just at a different stage of life.
She addressed the question of what are the criteria for the application of human rights? She said that if it was a question of women’s rights the criteria would be that the person is a woman. In the case of human rights, the one in question would have to be human. She said the question of abortion is not so much a scientific question as it is a philosophical one.
Gray was also promoting her recently released book: Love Unleashed Life.
Google holds talks like this quite often and is known for its liberal and progressive views, yet should be commended for their openness to hear openness to discussions of this nature. Watch the full video:
