Debate w/ PA State Senator on 9/22 [Scott]

Just learned that I will debate PA State Senator Daylin Leach Friday the 22nd in front of 500+ high school students in Philly.

These events don't happen on accident. October is LTI's Fall fundraising campaign to help us reach more students. Please give!

As for the angle Sen. Leach will take, my early guess is that he's a gradualist--meaning he will confuse construction with development. I say more about this confusion elsewhere, but the big picture goes like this: Gradualists tell us that embryos are no more human beings in the early stages of their construction than metal plates are cars in the early stages of automobile assembly. But as Richard Stith points out, embryos are not constructed piece by piece from the outside. Rather, they do something that no constructed thing like a car has ever done; they develop themselves from within. That is, they direct their own internal growth and maturation, and this entails continuity of being. Unlike cars, developing embryos have no outside builder. They’re all there just as soon as growth begins. They define and form themselves.