Students for Life CSUSM hosted Abortion: Moral Right or Moral Wrong, where pro-life and pro-choice debaters discussed abortion on Oct. 20.

The debaters were pro-life Life Training Institute member Seth Gruber and pro-choice Professor of Women’s Studies Cecili Chadwick.

Markstein Room 102 filled to capacity and students were moved to Library room, 1111 to watch the event via a Facebook live stream..

The event started with both debaters standing at the podium to give their opening thoughts. Gruber began by showing a graphic video of the embryo and went on to say, “If killing is morally wrong and abortion does intentionally kill, it makes it morally wrong to have an abortion.”

After the pro-life opening argument, Professor Chadwick gave her stance as well, stating, “No one wants to have an unplanned pregnancy and even less, an abortion, but sometimes that’s the best choice that [women] have.”

Chadwick gave a suggestion as to how to keep abortions low, saying that some steps include “increased sexual education, easier access of contraceptives and to stop sexualizing young women. Along with more responsibilities on men that they too have a role in unplanned pregnancy.”

After Chadwick and Gruber spoke on their opinions, they both went to the podium to comment on each others stance. Gruber stated, “If the professor wants to probe abortions are morally right, then she must prove the science wrong that an embryo is not a human like the rest of us.”

Chadwick used some of the time to go after the Gruber’s stance that even though the embryo is attached to the body it is still it’s own person and has its own DNA.

“Despite what the pro-lifers say about the fetus not being part of the mother, it is the mother who is supporting the fetus and without the mother, the fetus would not do anything,” said Chadwick.

Gruber went on to tell the story of how his own mother had been sexually abused and how she could have possibly had a child. With that said, he went on to state that “It shouldn’t matter how you come into this world . . . What matter is that your rights remain intact as a human being.”

They proceeded to sit down next to each other and cross examine. Shortly after, they opened up the debate to let audience members share their thoughts and ask questions, along with the people watching from the Facebook page.

If students would like to watch the full debate, they can go to the Students for Life CSUSM Facebook page, where they still have the full video on their wall.