I’m very much looking forward to speaking for the Pregnancy Centers of Central Virginia for a second year in a row! I will be talking about the Equal Rights Argument and why I think pro-life advocates should become friends with pro-choice people.
| Date: | October 17, 2015 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 6:00 - 9:00 p.m. |
| Event: | Orange Fall Fundraising Barbecue |
| Topic: | The Most Undervalued Argument in the Pro-Life Movement |
| Sponsor: |
The Pregnancy Centers of Central Virginia (434) 960-8497 |
| Venue: | Orange County High School |
| Location: | 201 Selma Road Orange, VA 22960 |
| Registration: | Click here to register. |
Want me to speak to your group? Click here to check my availability!
I’m looking forward to giving a three-hour seminar on making a compelling case for the pro-life position and responding to common objections at Oregon Right to Life’s Camp Caleb event!
Other speakers include Terri Nordone on post-abortive healing, Dr. Check Bentz on palliative and end of life care, and Genevieve Plaster, a research assistant with the Charlotte Lozier Institute who has researched Obamacare and Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of fetal body parts.
Cost is $60 per person or $100 per married couple. Includes accommodations for the night plus all meals. Scholarships are available for those who may need one. Use the Application Questionnaire form for scholarships.
Click the links below for more information and online registration.
| Date: | November 13, 2015—November 14, 2015 |
|---|---|
| Event: | Camp Caleb |
| Topic: | Answering the Critics |
| Sponsor: |
Oregon Right to Life 503-463-8563 |
| Location: | Salem, OR |
| Public: | Public |
| Registration: | Click here to register. |
Want me to speak to your group? Click here to check my availability!
Our website just got a huge redesign! Beyond incorporating a more contemporary look, here are a few of the main changes you may notice:
We finally have a real logo! When we launched ERI I created a basic website and logo so that we could focus on more urgent tasks like developing our training materials. We knew they wouldn’t be permanent. Any good businessman knows the importance of clearly communicating who you are to your audience. Figuring out how to connect to current college students about abortion is one of our greatest strengths, so it’s important for us to communicate with our branding that we are forward-thinking.
Our new branding will also help us show that we’re a pro-life training organization worthy of speaking at a national level. It will establish trust with potential donors who want to see that we’re professionals who aren’t going anywhere, and who can accomplish our goals.
Our staff page not only features our office staff, but also our Board of Directors and our Board of Advisors now.
This is the story of one of the dialogues I had during our outreach at the University of Michigan.
I talked to a student I’ll call “Mark” at the University of Michigan who was pro-choice. He thought personhood began in the 2nd trimester, but he wasn’t sure why. I told him my concern was that I wanted an explanation of personhood that would make sense of the idea that all human adults should have an equal right to life. I’ve never seen someone understand where that logic leads so fast. He immediately said, “Oh, if we’re trying to give everyone an equal right to life than personhood would start here” and he pointed to the fertilization picture.
Learning to defend your deeply held beliefs is really important, but it’s easy to get into the wrong mindset. Sometimes we get so focused on supporting the arguments for our view and defeating the arguments for the other view that we get…well, weird. We can get into the kind of focus where we are so oblivious to the person in front of us, we might as well be arguing with a robot.
Apologetics is not an end in itself, it’s a means to an end. The end for which we use apologetics is loving people by seeking their best interest.[Tweet that!] Sometimes that means our dutifully studied arguments become unnecessary.
One of the traps that comes along with the territory of studying apologetics is getting into a “flow-chart mindset.” If she says A, you say X, if she says B, you say Y, and so on.
But the times I go on autopilot and I’m thinking too much about the argument, I lose track of the person, and often the point. This is why it’s important to respond to people, not merely their statements.
And this is why I’ve learned to let the conversation turn away from abortion.
Sometimes.