meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Thomistic Institute

The Ethics of Abortion: Women's Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice I Prof. Christopher Kaczor

The Thomistic Institute

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8729 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Prof. Christopher Kaczor critically examines the ethics of abortion by exploring whether the unborn are alive and human, whether killing is justified, and whether bodily autonomy overrides other moral considerations.


This lecture was given on April 14th, 2025, at Duke University.


For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events.


About the Speaker:


Dr. Christopher Kaczor (rhymes with razor) graduated from the Honors Program of Boston College and earned a Ph.D. four years later from the University of Notre Dame. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Kaczor is a former Federal Chancellor Fellow at the University of Cologne and William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University and Honorary Professor in Bishop Barron's Word on Fire Institute. His seventeen books include The Gospel of Happiness, The Seven Big Myths about Marriage, A Defense of Dignity, The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, The Ethics of Abortion, O Rare Ralph McInerny: Stories and Reflections on a Legendary Notre Dame Professor, Thomas Aquinas on the Cardinal Virtues; Life Issues-Medical Choices; Thomas Aquinas on Faith, Hope, and Love; The Edge of Life, and Proportionalism and the Natural Law Tradition. Dr. Kaczor’s views have been in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, National Review, NPR, BBC, EWTN, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, MSNBC, TEDx, and The Today Show.


Keywords: Abortion Ethics, Bodily Autonomy, Don Marquis, Human Rights, Justice, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Moral Philosophy, Personhood, Science and Ethics, Women's Rights

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.

0:06.2

Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.

0:12.7

The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Temistic Institute chapters around the world.

0:19.0

To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.

0:25.2

So I'm in my dorm room as a senior in college, and I hear the phone ring.

0:30.1

So I walk across the dorm room to pick up the phone, answer the phone.

0:35.2

It's a woman's voice.

0:37.2

And there are only two words of this whole conversation

0:40.0

that really matter. And those two words were, I'm pregnant. I was completely stupefied and shocked.

0:49.2

And this was totally unexpected news. I wasn't, had no future plan set yet. I didn't have a job.

0:57.8

I think I had probably $50 in my bank account. And so I didn't know what to do, but one thing that

1:04.6

makes me feel better is running. So I put on my running shoes and went out into the cold Boston

1:09.8

night, and I screamed at the sky.

1:13.6

But you can't run away from your problems forever.

1:16.8

So once I calmed down a little bit, I entered stage two of my response.

1:21.9

And that was to pout.

1:24.5

So I pouted through the early, you know, Lamas classes and all that.

1:29.7

And then I got a summer job painting houses.

1:32.9

I was up on the, you know, ladder painting houses.

1:35.5

And I got an email from my college roommate and he said, you know, how's the summer going?

1:40.3

And I said, well, you know, last summer I was taking a class at the university, writing short stories.

1:46.8

And this summer, I'm painting.

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 5 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Thomistic Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Thomistic Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.