okay so we only have 15 minutes today
i i wanted to finish that so
apologies for going over a little longer
and
all right sure hi dr peterson
over the last couple weeks and further
back you talk a lot about consciousness
and the importance of it and i was
hoping to get your opinion on an issue
of consciousness that
has often seen christianity among other
groups and politics
kind of clash so i'm hoping to get your
views on the consciousness
or lack thereof of a human fetus and how
that's
impacted your views and abortion
whatever they are and any
legislation
thank you thank you
okay so the first question is do i have
an answer for that that's a good enough
answer to actually
reveal like
no i don't but i'll i can
flail about a little bit around it
abortion is clearly wrong
i don't think anybody debates that you
wouldn't recommend that someone that you
love have one
okay now having clarified that
that mere statement doesn't eliminate
the complexity of the situation
the first question is is should
everything wrong be illegal
that's a tough question everything
that's wrong isn't illegal
then there's the additional complication
of
the difference let's say in
gravity
regarding the problem in relationship to
men and women
and we don't know how to deal with that
having said that i would say that it's
actually the wrong question
there's something leonard cohen said
once he said that in a massacre there's
no decent place to stand
and what he meant by that was sometimes
you're aware there is no good decision
left
no matter what you do it's wrong
so then the question is how did you get
there well let's say you're in a
position where you
are inclined to seek an abortion the
question is
how did you get there now we have a lot
to straighten out about
the sexual relationships between men and
women in the modern world
they're bent and warped and demented out
of shape one of the things i see with
young people for example
is that they will engage in sexual acts
with one another that they would not
talk about with one another
i mean couples will do that for that
matter like married couples will do that
but
they're married that's that's a
different story it seems to me that if
you are willing to engage in a sexual
act with someone with whom you would not
discuss that act you probably put the
cart before the horse
so the discussion
regarding the legality of abortion is
nested inside
a larger discussion about the morality
of abortion and that's dis nested inside
a larger discussion about
the proper place of sexuality and human
behavior
and to me that's the level at which the
problem needs to be addressed
now i don't have the answer to that you
know
because the old answer was get married
that's a good answer
and it's an answer that people should
still listen to but
we'll put that aside momentarily
i had a client at one point who was i
don't know she was probably
i'm not i'm going to disguise her in a
variety of different ways
she was 27 20 thereabouts had come from
a relatively conservative
background quite a timid fearful person
and
also not very well not sophisticated in
relationship
to relationships and she'd never had sex
well there's a bunch of things she'd
never done well
the answer from me to her wasn't
continue to be timid about everything
because that wasn't working out for her
she needed to go have some adventures
now
sexual adventures like other adventures
are dangerous
and so you have to be very careful when
you encourage people to go out and have
adventures
but but but too much timidity and
and caution also constitutes a pathway
to perdition let's say
you can't just say to people in the
modern world well you
know sex till you're married unless
you're going to get married when you're
very young and perhaps you should i
don't know
about that but
i don't think that we're mature enough
as a culture
to have a serious discussion about
sexual propriety especially in the
aftermath of the birth control pill
and we seriously need to do that and we
haven't and so i think the
eternal debate about abortion horrible
as it is
is a it's the surface manifestation of a
much deeper problem
now i talked a little bit today about
the utility of marriage like the
spiritual utility of marriage
and that's something that i think
we're so immaturely cynical as a culture
like we don't we're not wise enough to
look at an institution like marriage and
to really think about what it
means and what it signifies it signifies
a place that people can tie the ropes of
their lives together so that they're
stronger it signifies a place where
people can tell the truth to one another
it signifies a place where sexuality can
properly be integrated into life
that's no easy that's no easy task it's
a place where children
at least in principle can be put first
and foremost as they should be once they
exist
and so there's a much broader
discussion that has to happen i think
before
any concentration on the legality of
abortion is liable to get anywhere at
all
that's what it looks like to me so
that's the best i can do with that
question
you