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Meet The Two Gen Z Pro-Life Men Who Debate Abortion On TikTok
Two pro-life Gen Z men are changing hearts and minds on abortion by going “live” on TikTok, where they reach hundreds of people every night.
James Weigel, a 22-year-old aerospace engineer based on Long Island, and Tyler Smith, a 25-year-old construction worker in Rhode Island each spend hours of their personal time in the evenings debating abortion one-on-one with people.
Both young men have separately built up considerable followings on TikTok — Weigel with nearly 12,000 followers and Smith with 5,300 followers — but they also reach hundreds more who come across their streams while scrolling.
Meet the two pro-life Gen Z men who debate abortion on TikTok Live@James__Weigel and @tsmittttyyyy have changed countless hearts and minds on abortion
Story coming… pic.twitter.com/XM0QoDFoNp
— Mairead Elordi (@JohnsonHildy) October 24, 2024
Weigel goes live almost nightly, asking those who come up to debate him, “How do you justify abortion?”
During Smith’s streams, the text on the screen reads, “Pro-choicers are on the wrong side of history.”
Most of the people who come up to debate them simply regurgitate common pro-abortion talking points, arguing “my body, my choice,” or saying the unborn baby is not a person with rights yet, or bringing up rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
Weigel and Smith are skillful at chipping away at their guests’ arguments, while hundreds of observers watch the popular abortion talking points they’ve heard all their lives fall apart.
When someone says the unborn baby isn’t conscious or can’t feel pain yet, Weigel asks them, “Why is that so crucial for whether or not we can kill somebody? Because we can have a situation where I couldn’t feel pain, but that doesn’t mean you can do evil to me.”
When someone tries to tell Smith the unborn baby “isn’t human,” he asks, “What species is it?”
“A lot of pro-choicers, they say follow the science, but then they don’t believe a new human organism begins at conception,” Smith said in a phone interview with The Daily Wire. “I am so tired of debating 9th grade biology.”
“You might not agree that’s when personhood begins, which is a totally made up word, when you get rights,” he said, but “that’s when you were created.”
If someone brings up rape, Smith says he is willing to talk about it, but the real question is, “Are there hundreds of thousands of children being killed every single year in the United States, or not?”
When someone brings up the tragic cases of women whose deaths were falsely blamed on pro-life state laws, Weigel explains the facts. This talking point has gained steam ahead of the election, he said.
“There is a greater level of arrogance that the pro-choicers seem to be carrying with them,” Weigel said in a phone interview with The Daily Wire. “They feel that now they really have some merit to their case.”
Weigel said he grew up non-denominational and “probably used to consider myself pro-choice,” but he had a “big transformation” in college at a time when he was feeling “lost and confused.”
He “despised” the Catholic Church but eventually converted to Catholicism after attending a candlelit Mass at the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois. Shortly afterward, he was invited to a small pro-life group by one of his good friends.
“That’s where I really got introduced to how evil abortion really is,” Weigel said.
Now, Weigel is well versed in Thomistic theology and Aristotelian philosophy, and those who listen to him are unwittingly exposed to both.
He is “very aware” of the risks of being so publicly pro-life.
“There’s going to be a lot of clips of me out there, and one day people will pull up different moments where I was frustrated, or maybe I was a little too aggressive with somebody,” Weigel said.
“I think at this point I’ve kind of gone past the point of no return, or at least I’m approaching it, so I’m committed,” he laughed.
Weigel is wary of people trying to get his stream taken down by coming up to debate and then deliberately violating TikTok’s terms of service, such as saying banned words like “rape” or “suicide.” However, TikTok is also a great tool for reaching a large number of people, he said.
“It’s really important to humanize the discussion and be willing to meet the person where they are,” Weigel said. “I take it very seriously. But it’s okay to be a bit funny, to exaggerate some things, to kind of show how ridiculous what someone is saying really is.”
Both Weigel and Smith say their approach is working.
“I have convinced a lot of people, and I don’t mean to come across as boastful in that,” Weigel said. “There are a lot of people that reach out to me daily at this point and say, ‘you know what, I kind of didn’t like you when I first heard you on stream. But after listening and seeing what the pro-choicers say and seeing how you approach the discussion, I think you’re right. I think that there is no justification for killing your child in the womb,’ and that’s quite beautiful.”
Weigel has a more formal style than Smith, although his humor and kindness come through. Pro-abortion women who insult him on his stream might find themselves addressed as “Madam.”
Meanwhile, on Smith’s stream, women who accuse him of “mansplaining” might find themselves teasingly called “sweetheart.”
“I gotta stop that,” Smith laughed during an interview with The Daily Wire. “I only say those to people that I know are not open minded, but I know I need to stop that because I’m a Christian man.”
Even with his good-natured snark, Smith’s knack for disarming people who disagree with him bears fruit, especially when he gets them to message him privately later.
“Something that I find really productive and I wish more pro-lifers did is just say hey, DM me one-on-one,” Smith said. “I get so many messages after my lives sometimes.”
During his streams, Smith puts an invitation to message him privately on the screen. Over on his Instagram, where Smith has a bigger audience of 56,000 followers, he has messaged with countless people.
“That’s probably where I change the most minds is when it’s one on one, when I can kind of tell them, come on now. Like, let’s be real. You’re smarter than that. Cause they’ll bring up a really bad point, and I’ll call them out on it and they’ll be like, yeah I know,” he said. “Then they understand okay, he’s actually genuine about this [and] we can get a little bit of a friendly relationship going.”
“I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now, and I’ve changed plenty of people’s minds,” Smith said. “I have a message actually, and I love going back and looking at it, it’s recent, of this girl DMing me after on TikTok saying it’s so funny, I went in there thinking I was going to change your mind and yet you changed my mind. It made me feel so happy.”
He added that he makes an effort not to embarrass people.
“If they stumble their words or they just don’t know, I’m like ‘hey, it’s no problem.’ I want them to feel comfortable,” he said.
Smith said he became pro-life during his last year of college when he saw victim imagery of abortion, photos of aborted babies, and realized he was “totally against that.” Prior to that, he “would have probably sounded pro-choice for sure,” he said.
“I had a moment where I was pretty down in my life and started praying again,” he said. He grew up Catholic but now attends a Christian church with a great pastor.
“Now I have a relationship with Jesus, and I’m very happy. I see the light now,” he said, adding that he is also grateful for his “great friends.”
He advocates strongly for using abortion victim imagery to change people’s minds.
“That’s what’s going to change the most minds and there’s proof about that,” he said. “That’s probably where the pro-life community falls short the most is not showing enough victim imagery.”
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Smith has protested abortion in person across the country, and he is a veteran sidewalk counselor in front of Planned Parenthood, where he urges people not to keep their abortion appointments. He views this work as more important than his TikTok streams.
“TikTok, going live is fun, but what’s really important is going out there in front of these abortion clinics,” Smith said. “Just being in front of these Planned Parenthoods and helping these mothers in any way. That’s what shuts down these abortion clinics.”
He argues that abortion will end up in the trash bin of American history as slavery did 160 years ago.
“In middle school when we learn about slavery, we always think, what would we have done if we were born during that time. Would we be an abolitionist and do something to fight back and free the slaves? Or would we just let it happen? Or would we even be part of it and support the problem?” Smith said.
“Well here’s your opportunity, and you’re not doing anything about it,” he continued. “I want to be able to tell my kids one day or my grandkids, hey I stood up and I fought against it.”
Ultimately, the goal of both pro-life TikTokers is to save babies. Both Smith and Weigel say they don’t plan to stop anytime soon.
“I want to save children, and I really do mean that. That’s really what’s fueling the passion and the long hours,” Weigel said.
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