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March 1, 2019 - The Matt Walsh Show
47:05
Ep. 209 - When Will The Sane Majority Stand Up?

With biological men invading women’s sports across the country, why haven’t sane and rational people spoken up and put and end to the madness? Also, we’ll discuss the one big mistake both sides makes in their approach to Trump. Finally, an emailer asks me a very dangerous question. I will try to answer it. Date: 03-01-2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Today on the Matt Wall Show, with biological males dominating women's sports across the country, when are sane and rational people going to step up and put a stop to this madness?
Also, we will talk about the major error that I think both sides of the political aisle make in regards to Trump.
And finally, I'll answer some of your emails, including... Someone wrote me an email asking me a very dangerous question.
But I will try my best to answer it today on The Matt Wall Show.
Well, a woman's track and field star named CeCe Telfer is currently dominating, breaking records, and all of that.
Just a really remarkable and impressive athlete.
And I want to read you a little bit of what the Daily Wire article about this really remarkable individual.
Telfer is headed to the NCAA Championships on March 8th through 9th, reports a website for Franklin Pierce Athletics.
Telfer has qualified in a pair of events, as she will compete in the 200-meter dash and the 60-meter hurdles, reads the site, noting that Telfer has the fastest time of the year in the 200-meter dash, which is 24.08 seconds, which was set at the Northeast 10 Conference Championships earlier this month.
Her fastest time in the 60-meter hurdles is 8.33 seconds, which came in December at the UMass Boston Indoor Open.
She is ranked third in the country in the hurdles and seventh in the 200-meter dash.
The 21-year-old cleaned up last Sunday at Smith College, taking home three Northeast 10 Conference titles and scoring 31.5 of the school's 49.5 points.
Franklin Pierce University finished sixth, which was the highest championship finish in program history.
Telfer was, and then it just goes on, it's just listing all of these accomplishments.
Telfer was also named Women's Most Outstanding Track Performer.
Really impressive achievements.
But there's one problem, though.
It's a problem that you have probably already guessed, which is that CeCe is actually a dude named Craig.
This is a male, a guy who raced against other guys through his entire scholastic career of running, but then in his senior year decided that he was going to be a woman instead, so he switched Teams, literally, and became a woman, and now he's cleaning up every event that he competes in.
Now, this story comes to us only a few days after Terry Miller and Andrea Yearwood, both males, came first and second, respectively, at the Girls Indoor Track and Field Championship in Connecticut.
They won first and second in the 55-meter dash.
These fellows also came in first and second in the 100-meter dash last year.
And Terry Miller won the 300-meter as well this season.
So they're cleaning up there as well.
Just to give you an idea of how utterly and completely insane this is, OK?
As if you needed to be told.
But just to give you a better idea.
Terry Miller, again, this is a guy.
This is a dude.
He came in first place with a 38.9 in the girls 300-meter dash, alright?
That time, 38.9, was enough to beat the entire field.
I think second place in the women's competition was like a second behind him, I think.
A second in a 300-meter dash is a very long time.
But that time, 38.9, it would not have even placed him in the top 25 against the men, okay?
So he won the championship in the women's field.
He would not have even been in the top 25.
In fact, the top man got a 35.05 in the same event in Connecticut, but just on the men's side.
The top man got a 35.05.
Number 25 got a 36.75.
Remember, Terry Miller won with a 38.9.
Meaning, Miller was a full two seconds behind the 25th ranked guy.
Meaning, he probably... I don't have the entire ranking.
All I had was up to 25.
He probably wouldn't have even made it into the top 50.
He could maybe compete for a top 100, at most a top 75 spot.
And yet he dominates against women.
Why is that?
Because of biology.
It's just that this just shows you what kind of biological advantage men have.
And what does this mean?
It means that the girl who came in third In the event where Terry Miller and Yearwood both competed, the girl who came in third actually won.
She actually came in first place.
But she was cheated out of the gold medal by these two cheaters.
And the girl who came in fifth and got no medal should have come in third and gotten a bronze.
And the girl who came in 8th place in the event that the two dudes raced in should have come in 6th.
And 6th is very important because it puts you in front of college coaches and scouts and it gives you a chance to compete in front of them, which obviously is very important in high school for the rest of your track and field career.
And by the way, that particular young lady, the one who came in 8th but really came in 6th, her name is Selena Sewell.
And she appeared on Laura Ingraham's show a couple of nights ago.
And I want to play for you a clip of this just to show you, just to show you kind of the real human impact of this gender madness that we've got going on.
So, so watch this.
I am very happy for these athletes and I fully support them for being true to themselves and having the courage to do what they believe in.
But in athletics, it's an entirely different situation.
It's scientifically proven that males are built to be physically stronger than females.
It's unfair to put someone who is biologically a male who has not undergone anything in terms of hormone therapy against cisgender girls.
How incredibly sad is that?
I mean, how sad is it, first of all?
Well, it's sad, first of all, that she was cheated out of that opportunity, that all of these girls are being cheated.
But also, if you watch that interview, you see how she feels the need to keep saying how she's happy for these two guys, and the whole team, they're happy for them.
But of course she's not really happy for the guy, nor should she be.
There's no way this girl, or any of these girls, are actually happy for the dudes who came and stole the medals from them.
You're not going to be happy for a cheater.
But she's forced to walk on eggshells, to dance around it.
And I don't blame her.
She's in an impossible and unfair situation.
These are just kids.
These are kids being put in this situation where it's just there's no way to win for them.
And so they can either be cheated and say nothing and lose that way, or they could speak up and potentially face all kinds of consequences if they do that.
Again, we all know that of course she's not happy for these cheaters.
She must be furious, as well she should be.
But she can't get up there and say, these two guys are cheating, and what they're doing is despicable.
She can't say that, even though we all know that she's thinking it, and we're all thinking it.
Because the SJW mob, the leftist maniacs who put her in this position, they have also made her feel afraid to say how she really feels.
Though she is, we should mention that she is very brave, I think, for saying as much as she does and for speaking out at all.
And I commend her for that because she's braver than a lot of adults.
And that's what I keep thinking when I hear about these stories, where are the parents?
Now, I'm sure that there are parents who are protesting and speaking up, but all of the other parents should be just Should be saying something should be protesting should be you can't just sit back and allow your daughters to be cheated like this Meanwhile Martina Navratilova
Navratilova, there we go.
A legend of women's tennis, openly gay, a gay rights activist for a long time, has been expelled from a gay rights advocacy group and is getting attacked by the left.
Because she wrote an article recently stating the obvious, that men should not be able to compete against women in tennis.
She says that, you know, she's got all the respect in the world for transgenders and she'll use the pronoun that they want and all that, but there is a certain biological reality to this.
And if you'll start letting men into women's tennis, it's going to be the end of women's tennis because women cannot compete with men in tennis or in really any athletic competition.
But she's being, and for saying that, she is being silenced.
She is being punished.
Now, here's the thing about all this.
Everybody knows that this stuff is crazy, right?
Everyone knows that it's crazy.
You right now watching this, whoever you are, I don't know who you are, whatever your politics are, whatever planet you live on, you know that it is absolutely crazy that we are letting biological males compete against women and take their championships and their trophies.
You know that.
We all know that.
I don't care how far left you are.
You still know that.
So just to sort of highlight this point, I did a poll on my Twitter account last night, and the poll question was very simple.
Do you think that biological males should be allowed to compete against women in women's sporting events?
Yes or no, right?
And last I checked, which was a couple hours ago, but last I checked, there had been 25,000 answers to this poll.
25,000 answers.
And of those 25,000, 97% were against allowing boys to compete against girls.
97% to 3%.
And actually, the 3% is even smaller than that, because I saw there were quite a few comments from people saying, oh, I hit yes, I meant to hit no.
So it's probably more like 98.2 or 99.1, but let's just say 97% for argument's sake.
Yes, it is a skewed poll.
This is not a scientific poll.
I wouldn't claim that it is.
My followers tend to be conservative.
So, you know, this is not the kind of result that I can send to a scientific journal or something like that.
It is skewed, but I mean, come on, you could not find this kind of consensus on any other issue.
I guarantee you that even with my conservative-skewing Twitter followers, if I put out a poll about abortion or gay marriage or gun rights or immigration or taxes or literally anything else, You are not going to find 97% of people who agree.
I mean, it's very difficult to find 25, to find a group of 25,000 people
where almost all of them agree on not just an issue,
but on a supposedly contentious, controversial issue, right?
This is, I mean, this is all anecdotal, of course,
but you could also go look at the comment section under any news story about these kinds of things,
about boys competing against girls.
And you look at the comments section, every comment, it doesn't matter where you are, whatever site you go to, almost every single comment is going to be opposed.
Not just opposed, but extremely, angrily opposed.
Or just go talk to people in the real world.
Next time you're sitting around a dinner table with 10 or 11 people, bring up this discussion.
Every single person is going to say, this is crazy.
We can't be doing this.
Again, I cannot think of any other issue where almost everyone you come across will agree.
Now, I was actually curious, so I googled to see if I could find an article written by someone who will actually defend the idea of having biological boys compete against girls.
And by the way, I don't want to get sidetracked here, but I just want to remark on the insanity of the fact that we even have to use the phrase biological boy or biological male.
It's like saying geometric circle, right?
It's totally redundant.
And the fact that we have to use that phrase at all just shows how confused everything is.
There's, yeah, biological mail.
There is no other kind of mail.
Of course it's biological.
But anyway, I wanted to find an article defending this whole thing.
You would think, considering we see this happening across the country with boys being allowed to compete against girls, I mean, there must be people who agree with it.
There must be some kind of argument in favor of it, considering the fact that it's happening everywhere.
And I was legitimately curious what a person could possibly say.
What kind of argument could you possibly string together to support this madness?
But as I was looking on Google, I had a really hard time finding a defense of it anywhere.
This isn't the kind of—although you have—although the left, generally speaking, seems to support this, rarely will you find any individual leftist who will speak up and actually offer a defense of it.
And I had trouble finding it.
I did eventually find something in a publication called The Nation, relatively well-known, and it's about the Naritalova thing, written by someone who thinks that she's a transphobe and she's wrong for wanting to exclude men from women's sports.
Here's the argument that this article makes.
I'm going to read from it.
It says, the reality I can't even keep a straight face.
It starts with the reality.
The reality is that there is no scientific data showing that trans women are more likely to be successful in women's sports.
There is no scientific data showing that men are more successful in sports.
There's also zero evidence that there's a push by trans women to take over the women's sports world.
The denial of their right to take part in sports only leads to further marginalization and oppression.
The fear that they are somehow encroaching on women athletes is actually a definition of transphobia.
So, you see how there's no argument here.
This person just immediately transitions to the emotional appeal of, well, it's oppression.
It makes transgender people feel bad about themselves.
It's transphobia.
Immediately pivots to emotions, labels, and all of that.
The most that they can do is very briefly deny reality by saying there's no scientific data.
That's the argument.
The argument is, it's not an argument at all.
It's just, the argument is to look at reality and say, no, that's not real.
The argument is looking at a solid wall, like I'm looking at that wall right there and saying, no, there's no wall there.
It's not there.
That's my argument.
I believe that there's no wall there.
I mean, no scientific data.
There is no scientific data that men have an advantage over women in sports.
They're not even trying.
They're not even trying to come up with an even halfway convincing argument.
They may as well say that there's no scientific data proving that a person in water is more likely to drown than a person on dry land.
It's a total non sequitur.
But if I really have to get into this, here's some scientific data.
A man's leg is 80% muscle.
A woman's leg is 60% muscle.
Men have larger, fast-twitch muscle fibers.
Men have less body fat.
Men have 20 times more testosterone.
Do you know what that is?
Natural steroids.
Men are on steroids, naturally.
They have 20 times more of that steroid in their body.
And I'm not done.
Men have larger hearts.
Men have larger lungs.
They have longer legs.
They have smaller hips.
They are literally, literally built to be faster and stronger.
They have dozens, dozens of biological advantages, if not more, if not hundreds of biological advantages.
Women literally have no chance, none, if they have to compete against men.
If, for instance, the floodgates were opened and women's, let's say the women's NCAA basketball league, were to be fully integrated, well, no woman would ever see the court ever again.
It's the end of women's sports.
Here's the real reality.
The worst man in the NBA, is going to be considerably better than the best woman in the WNBA.
Just a fact.
That is how vast is the chasm between men and women when it comes to athletics.
And again, this is biological.
That's all it is a biological reality.
I mean, there's nothing we could do about the fact that men literally their legs are made of more muscle.
And they have bigger hearts and bigger lungs and all of that longer legs.
I mean, it's just You could wish that wasn't the case.
You can be opposed to it all you want.
You could write it on a sign saying, no more men with more muscle in their legs.
I mean, you can do what you want, but it still is going to remain the reality.
And everyone knows this.
That's the thing.
That's the point here.
Everybody knows.
I honestly, I doubt that there is any Even halfway sane person in the country who actually thinks that it's fair and reasonable to have men competing against women.
There are some people who will pretend they think it's okay, but I don't even believe them.
Because just like what I just read, when you listen to their argument, they have no argument at all.
So there's simply no way they're convinced by what they're saying.
They think they have to have this opinion.
But why is it?
Why is the tiniest fringed minority, a group of people making an argument so insane, so baseless, so lacking in common sense, that it literally cannot be defended?
Why is this group allowed to impose itself on us?
If almost all of us agree that this is crazy, and if almost all of us can recognize the basic biological advantages that men have, first of all, the basic biological difference between men and women, and the advantages that those differences bestow on men in the field of athletics, if almost all of us can recognize that, then why is it that this stuff is happening?
Well, I asked that question kind of in passing a few days ago on the show.
I didn't really answer it.
So here's the answer.
The answer is that this very small fringe minority, and this is, when I talk about the fringe minority, I'm talking about mostly about people who pretend to think that this is okay.
Because as I said, I don't, I'm not sure that there's anyone who really thinks it's okay.
And that minority, even though they are a minority, They happen to control all of the major institutions.
They happen to control academia, the media, Hollywood, and they're in control of an entire political party.
One of the two major parties, the Democrat Party.
So that's how, that's how they've done it.
That's how this really fringe, radical, wacko idea has somehow invaded our culture and sort of set up camp.
But here's the really sad thing.
It's that even though you have these institutions that are pushing this idea, and those institutions are very powerful, and they're run by powerful people, The fact still remains that if all of us who disagree, if we were really vocal about it and really opposed, and we actually stood up and said no, well, this stuff wouldn't be happening.
Whenever, in any case, when you've got, you know, in any state or in any school district, when they start doing this, If all of the people who think it's crazy actually stood up and said, no, absolutely not.
This is crazy.
We will not tolerate it.
And if the parents started saying, if you do that, I'm pulling my, my, my daughter out of the sport.
You bring boys in, we're the sport's going to be over.
That's what's going to happen.
If everyone said that, if everyone did that, then this stuff wouldn't be happening.
So yes, it's a small minority in the major powerful institutions that are imposing this on us, but we are allowing it to be imposed on us.
We are just lying down and saying, okay, so I got, gee, I really think that this is kind of nuts guys, but all right, I don't want to, I don't want to be labeled a transphobe.
Look, you gotta get to a point where those kind of labels... The label transphobe means nothing to me.
I don't care about that label.
I am not offended by it.
I don't care.
It is the stupidest label.
It has no meaning whatsoever.
Yeah, I'm a transphobe because I think men are men and women are women.
Fine, go ahead.
I really don't care.
You gotta get to a point where that label just does not bother you.
At all.
It means nothing.
I don't care.
You can shout it and you can cry all you want, it does not matter to me.
And I think we all need to get to that point.
Where when people start shouting it, that's transphobia!
You know what you do?
You laugh at that.
You laugh at it.
Treat it with contempt.
And that's the other problem, is that I think there are people who think, well-meaning people, but they think that, you know, we, yeah, I'm opposed to it, but we gotta be delicate and careful and, you know, we gotta be diplomatic about it.
We don't wanna hurt people's feelings.
No, we're past that now.
We're past that.
The greater concern, look, the concern is the girl, that clip I played for you, the girl who's, these girls that are being cheated.
It's their feelings that we should be concerned about.
Those two dudes, I have no concern for their feelings at all.
None.
I don't care.
And I know you might say, well that's cruel, that's not right.
I don't care about their feelings.
They are cheaters.
And you know the other thing?
They know what they're doing.
Now, they might have mental problems that they think that they're girls when they're not, so maybe they do.
Maybe they don't, and they're just straight-up cheating.
They realize that they can't hack it against the boys, so they're doing this.
It's just total self-interest.
That could be the case.
Maybe they do have some real mental issues, but that doesn't let them off the hook morally.
They know what they're doing.
They know that as soon as they step on the track, they have removed any chance that any of these girls have to succeed.
And they know that.
And they are being totally selfish.
And so what?
I should care about their feelings as they act selfishly and they cheat?
I don't.
All right, let's see, moving on.
This was funny.
Usually I save my emails for the end of the show, but I wanted to share two emails with you right now.
These are both in reaction to my show yesterday.
So let me read the first one.
The first one says, Matt, what has happened to you?
You've become a shameless Trump booster.
I never thought you would sell your soul to the Trump cult, but that is what has happened.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
I've unfollowed you on all platforms.
I know you won't care, but I thought I'd tell you anyway.
Okay, that was the first email.
Second one.
Dear Matt, your never-Trump bull s is too much to stomach.
You can't seem to ever give the president a break.
He's trying to fix this country.
All you do is criticize him.
Sorry, but I'm done with you.
So that's just funny because that's in reaction to the same show.
It appears that I am a never-Trump, Trump-boosting, Trump-hating, Trump-loving, Trump-cultist with Trump derangement syndrome.
That's, it's a very complex condition that I have.
I'm used to these kinds of emails, of course.
I've been getting them for three years.
Usually, though, it fluctuates day to day or week to week, depending on what's in the news.
It was funny to get to get the two versions, the two competing versions in the same day.
And that was because yesterday on my show, I offered a defense of Trump in regards to the Cohen hearings.
And I said that the hearings only helped to vindicate Trump for many claims that he engaged in any kind of criminal behavior.
So I said that, but then I also, I criticized Trump for his performance in North Korea, especially when he lied for Kim Jong-un and provided cover for him when he, Trump, was asked about North Korea torturing an American citizen to death, and Trump claimed that Kim Jong-un didn't know that that was happening, and he was really upset about it, which is just untrue, of course, and it is a lie.
And it is a lie for the sake of a murderous dictator.
So I criticize Trump for that, as any rational person would and should.
I defended Trump on the Cohen hearings because it's clear to me that Cohen has nothing on Trump.
And moreover, I'm very disturbed by what the Democrats are doing here, the precedent they're setting by refusing to accept the results of a free and fair election, and instead doing everything they can, throwing anything they can against the wall to try to get rid of the president.
I find that to be a very dangerous precedent.
So I defended the president over that.
How is it that I could draw a Trump-favorable conclusion on one issue, but then a Trump-negative conclusion on the other?
Well, because for me, I don't judge things based on the fact of Trump being involved.
That, for me, is not what everything hinges on.
I assess what I think the actual truth of the matter is, and then I draw my conclusions from there.
If Trump is on the wrong side of that line, then I criticize him.
If he's on the right side of it, then I defend him.
You know, someone actually told me recently that this approach is a cop-out.
And this was a Trump fan saying this and he felt basically that my moral obligation is to bow at the altar of Trump and to support everything he does no matter what because Trump is Lord God and Savior.
I've also heard a similar thing in reverse from liberals saying that it's a cop out to support Trump.
When he does good things.
Because Trump is Beezlebub, Trump is Satan, Trump is Lucifer.
I find both of these attitudes not just wrong, but ridiculous.
And not just ridiculous, but embarrassing.
And not just embarrassing, but un-American.
And not just un-American, but morally and intellectually reprehensible.
It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
And I don't understand Why so many people struggle with this?
You don't need to have one line about Donald Trump.
I think here's the point.
If you find that you always criticize Trump, no matter what he does, That's a good hint that you aren't using your brain.
And if you find that you always defend Trump, no matter what he does, that is also a good hint that you aren't using your brain.
And in conclusion, I would say, let's all use our brains instead.
How about that?
Let's just use our brains.
And look at any particular situation and assess it on the merits.
That's what we're supposed, especially as Americans, that's what we're supposed to do.
In that, as Americans, we are supposed to be always skeptical and critical of our leaders.
To be a fan, to be a fan of a politician, in my opinion, there is no place for that in America.
You should never, if you find yourself grabbing the pom-poms and becoming a cheerleader for a politician, that's a bad sign.
That is not what our founders had in mind.
That's what they do in dictatorships and monarchies and all of that.
We escaped that system.
And in our system, a politician is supposed to be a public servant.
They're supposed to be serving us.
And so we are in a position where we can look at them and say, no, I don't I don't agree with how you are serving us.
And I'm going to tell you.
But there's an equal and opposite approach, which is, as I said, to to look at a politician because they're in the wrong party or for whatever reason, and to see them as evil incarnate.
And to only be critical of them, and I think that also is a very silly way of going about it.
All right, let me get to some of your emails before we wrap up today.
MattWalshow at gmail.com.
MattWalshow at gmail.com is the email address.
This is from Ronald, he says, hi Matt, big fan of the show.
Do you think the government should be involved in protecting marriage?
Ben Shapiro says no because the government has done a bad job.
I personally do not buy that argument.
We rightly let the government protect life and private property despite the government's frequently poor record.
Marriage, like life and property, is foundational to society.
Shouldn't the government therefore protect marriage as well?
Well, Ronald, I wouldn't phrase it that way.
I think that this protect marriage thing is kind of a false premise.
The government Um, does not need to protect marriage.
The government rather should recognize, uh, marriage, recognize it for what it actually is by definition for what it necessarily must be, which is a union between a man and a woman.
And as you say, the foundation, uh, for, for, uh, for human civilization and the foundation for the family.
When I say recognize, I mean just that, recognize.
Recognize what marriage is, legally, and the government doesn't need to do much more than that.
That was my argument the whole time, before the Supreme Court decision, now it's sort of a moot point, but before that point, what I was saying is, first of all, we're not looking to make gay marriage illegal, that's not the point.
We're not looking to turn the government into some sort of theocratic Defender of biblical marriage.
This isn't about biblical marriage at all, in fact.
This is just about marriage.
Marriage is a certain thing.
It performs a certain function.
It has a certain purpose.
And if you get rid of that purpose and that function, then marriage is nothing.
It doesn't mean anything anymore.
There's no reason for it.
It serves no purpose.
So, if marriage is going to be anything, and if it's going to have any purpose whatsoever, then it must be a union between a man and a woman.
If you take that away, then marriage is what?
People say, it's people that love each other.
It's a union between people that love each other.
Well, you can get together with whoever you want and love them.
It's not an issue for public concern.
We don't need the government involved in that at all.
You don't need a label for that.
You don't need a ceremony.
You don't need anything.
If you want to love somebody, you don't need anything for that.
You just love them, right?
The whole idea of marriage, the reason why we have the documentation and the ceremony and all of the stuff surrounding it, is that it's not just about love.
In fact, I mean, sometimes in a marriage people will go through...
A tough period where, well, they still love each other because love is an active choice, but they may even go through periods where they have very little affection for each other.
Yet they're still married because marriage is more than that.
Marriage is about being the foundation for the family.
And so I think our argument as defenders of this was, or should have been, that we just want the government to recognize that.
This is what marriage is.
Alright, so it's kind of splitting hairs a little bit, but I think it's an important point.
This is from Jesse, says, Hi Matt, it's interesting to me that you talked about ectopic pregnancy today because just yesterday my wife and I had a conversation about that very subject.
We are both pro-life, but agree that in cases like ectopic pregnancy, abortion may be regrettably necessary.
But suppose they come up with a procedure where they can relocate an ectopic pregnancy to the uterus so the pregnancy can go to term healthily.
Should we require women to get that surgery rather than an abortion?
For the purpose of this thought experiment, let's say that the abortion is a simple drug and the procedure is an open surgery with the attendant risks that go along with that.
That's an interesting hypothetical.
First of all, just again, speaking of splitting hairs, as I won't get into the whole thing again, but as I explained yesterday, When a woman is taken care of in a topic pregnancy so that she doesn't have a fallopian tube burst and bleed to death, I wouldn't call that abortion.
That's sort of talking about the principle of double effect and everything.
I would say that that is not an abortion.
Although it has the same result, the intention is entirely different.
Whereas in an abortion, you are just directly killing a child because you don't want the child.
That's what an abortion is.
That's not the case with an ectopic pregnancy.
Although I know what you're saying.
As to your hypothetical, I would say that's an interesting hypothetical.
I would say that, yes, if that technology existed, then I suppose a couple that found themselves in a situation with an ectopic pregnancy, I think they would have a moral obligation to get that procedure.
The whole point with an ectopic pregnancy as it stands now is that there is no way to save the pregnancy.
There's nothing you can do.
And if you do nothing, then the woman could die.
So that's the whole reason why it becomes a relatively clear cut case.
But if you could save the pregnancy, then I think you would have the moral obligation to do that.
See, I got a lot of emails about the ectopic pregnancy discussion.
They were all very interesting.
But running out of time, so I can't read all of them.
Let's see, I'll read.
This is from Father Greg.
He says, I'm a longtime listener of your podcast.
And while I don't always agree with you, I can at least see the internal logic of your position when I disagree.
In your discussion of the principle of double effect, you missed one essential element.
The positive or desired effect cannot flow from the negative effect.
That is why you missed the moral distinction between the removal of the fallopian tube and the direct abortion.
In the case of the removal of the fallopian tube, you remove the tube and the child dies due to a lack of ability to sustain its life.
The positive effect, the mother's health outcome, flows from the tubal removal, and the secondary effect, the death of the child, remains morally distinct even though it is foreseen.
Whereas in the case of the direct abortion, the positive outcome directly flows from the death of the child.
The mother's health is maintained because the child is killed.
It is not the case that you do not intend to kill the child in this instance.
It may be the case that you only intend to kill the child because you do not see another reasonable option and therefore do it reluctantly.
However, the intended purpose of abortion remains the same.
The key principle of the effects remaining morally distinct is what distinguishes the principle of double effect for the simple logic of the ends justifying the means.
I understand the distinction of your arguments.
I would only counter that the reason why you say it's morally acceptable to remove the fallopian tube is the intention.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
What you're saying is the intention is to remove a block.
The intention, the act of the intention is let's remove this blocked fallopian tube, right?
The fact that it is blocked with a pregnancy is a very tragic but secondary fact.
Well, I would say that the point of the drug is the same.
The drug is only without the medically unnecessary surgery.
So the point of the drug is to clear out a blocked fallopian tube for the sake of protecting the mother's life and preventing a rupture that would kill her.
And it happens, tragically, that there is a life, that a life is part of what is blocking the fallopian tube.
But that is not the direct intention.
The direct intention, again, is to clear out this tube that if you don't, it will rupture.
So that I think you could argue that the sort of the ending of the pregnancy is a is a secondary fact.
So it seems to me that taking the drug is as much of a direct attack on life as removing the tube.
I could be wrong, but that's just how it seems to me.
Finally, this is from Jerry.
It says, Matt, I shouldn't even be answering this, but Matt, what is the most frustrating thing about women in your experience?
What's the most frustrating thing about women in your experience?
This is a trap.
I should, but I will fall for it.
I'll tell you, I'll tell you what is, I'll tell you what, in my wife's case, I'll tell you what the most frustrating thing about her is.
I don't know if this is true for every woman, but I suspect it probably is.
And here's the problem.
My wife has an amazing memory.
She remembers everything.
Everything.
I don't think she's ever forgotten anything in her life.
She remembers every detail from the moment of her conception.
She remembers everything that's ever happened to her.
And on the other hand, I forget everything.
Now, if you were to ask her what is the most frustrating thing about me, she would have a really difficult time deciding.
But I think one of the things she would mention is that I forget everything.
I have a bad memory.
So I am citing this as more of a defense mechanism.
What I'm saying is, no, no, no.
The problem isn't that I forget everything.
The problem is that you remember.
You see, if we both just forgot everything all the time, then it would be like Memento.
And every single day is a new adventure.
It'd be like Groundhog's Day.
Every day is a new adventure.
You know, so it would solve a lot of problems.
The problem with her memory is twofold.
One, it's hard for me to win arguments because, you know, so just as an example, a few days ago my wife was having back problems and she kept mentioning this part of her back that was causing her problems, hurting her.
And she was telling me specifically, like, it's right here in this area.
And she was she was showing me.
Well, at night, she mentioned it again that her back was hurting.
And so I said, I said, Oh, where does it hurt you on your back?
And she said, Are you kidding?
I've been I've been telling you all day.
And then I said, Okay, but I mean, come on, you know, I have back problems all the time.
And it's not like you remember exactly where on my back it hurts.
And then she said, Yeah, it's right below your left shoulder blade.
And I said, Okay, you know, let's just forget that point.
Let's just move on from that because apparently you do remember.
So, and that kind of thing, that kind of thing happens all the time.
The other problem with her memory is that she's able to hear a very long and drawn out story from somebody and retain all of the information that they tell her.
And she has like this little magical elf in her brain that just transcribes everything anyone tells her and then files it away in a filing cabinet.
I don't have that elf, and it's not my fault.
I don't have the magical elf.
I don't know where she got it.
I don't know if she was born with it.
I don't have it, and that's not my fault.
So when she wants to relay information to me, she will... She forgets sometimes.
This is the one thing she does forget.
She forgets that I don't have the elf.
So she'll tell me information in the form of this long story, and she'll expect me to remember, at the very least, the important bits of it.
So if she has something important to tell me, she'll eventually get to the important part, but she has to set it up, set the stage, introduce all the major characters, the minor characters.
Sometimes she'll go back, she'll do a, you know, she'll kind of do a review of the last episode, you know, last time on, and she'll do that, and then she'll describe the setting and everything.
Sometimes she begins with this lengthy preamble.
Sometimes, Sometimes a story for her will begin like the beginning of 2001, A Space Odyssey, where it'll begin with like the Big Bang and the dinosaurs, and she'll slowly make her way, weaving everything together, and then she'll make her way to the incident she wants to describe to me.
And she's a brilliant storyteller, but by the time she gets to the important part, I'm a million miles away in my head.
It's been information overload, and I'm overwhelmed.
And then I get in trouble three hours later when I ask her something that she already covered in the story she told me, and she'll go, really?
I just told you that.
And then I'll say, yeah, but I got lost around the time when you were talking about the French Revolution.
I got lost somewhere around there.
I didn't make it to modern times.
So this is why I ask my wife, and all women, I think, could do this as well.
Any story that you tell a man, Begin with the major bullet points.
Begin like the reports you used to do in high school and grade school.
Begin like that, where it's like, in this report, I am going to tell you A, B, C. So you start with that, and then I can lock that away in my brain.
It's like, okay, I got that.
A, B, C, right, boom, got it.
It's in there.
And then you can get into the whole story and the whole long essay and the chapter book and all of that.
And I'll pick up bits and pieces of that, but I got the main parts here and I won't forget them.
But you gotta start.
So I literally have to tell my wife sometimes before she begins the story.
I have to say, okay, hold on a second.
Give me the bullet points first.
And then she'll give me the bullet points and then she'll tell the story.
And I found that that works.
So I think maybe that's something all women could think about doing.
There is my answer.
You thought I wouldn't answer that question, but I did.
All right.
And if my wife ever listens to this segment of the show, she will remember.
She'll remember it.
That I know.
I'll leave it there.
Hope you guys have a great weekend.
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