No, Abortion Pills Aren’t Harming the Environment

MP3 Download | 1:13:13

Yes, abortion pills are harmful to women and unborn children. We’re pro-life. But when you take an honest look at the evidence, there is no evidence that abortion pills are poisoning our wastewater.

Content warning: If you have experienced pregnancy loss, this may not be the episode for you. There’s an inherent graphic nature to the kinds of claims we’re offering factual and philosophical arguments against. While we kept the conversation as tame as possible, we know this is a very difficult subject for people who have lost one or more children, so please take care and pay attention to your body if you choose to listen to this episode.

Secular Pro-Life’s Monica Snyder joins Josh, Emily, and Rebecca to discuss the relatively recent argument from certain pro-life organizations that abortion pills and/or embryonic remains are poisoning our wastewater. We consider and respond to the strongest arguments for this claim and address the real harm this can have on people who have experienced miscarriage.

Listener Mail: Can You Be a Professional Musician and Pro-life?

Professional Musician Thumbnail

MP3 Download | 0:57:13

Trent Horn forwarded us a great question, so Josh brought ERI Club Coach/Video Editor Joshua Head onto the show, as Joshua is also a professional musician. Joshua went above and beyond, creating a list of tips for musicians in college as well as post-college.

This is a pretty niche topic, and admittedly, it sometimes turned into two musicians nerding out with each other. But it was a great question, and we wanted to be able to point people somewhere to get tips on this. Enjoy the conversation.

Trent and Laura Horn’s announcement and a prayer seeking the intercession of Venerable Aloysius Schwartz for Laura’s healing:
https://youtu.be/Ilj3CDGGkQg

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How to Have Better Conversations About IVF

MP3 Download | 1:18:40

ERI’s Affiliate Groups have been busy working with their coaches on practical dialogue tips for talking about IVF, now that it’s in the news more often.

First, Emily and Rebecca present to Josh for the first time what our groups have been working on. Afterward, they had a more personal discussion comparing and contrasting their intuitions about IVF. It turned into a really cool discussion between two open-minded Protestants and one open-minded Catholic having an ego-free discussion about where their views seem to differ.

Genuine or Performed? Acting Skills in Honest Dialogue

MP3 Download | 1:29:48

The Equipped for Life Podcast is back! After a long hiatus due to the production of Equipped for Life Academy, we’ve begun recording new episodes. We also have some old episodes in the archives we’ll be publishing as well. We loved this episode as our first episode back though.

After introducing Rebecca Carlson and welcoming her to be a second co-host on the podcast, Josh and Emily discuss their common backgrounds in music and musical theater, and how that affects our dialogue.

This leads to a listener mail question on how Emily is able to come across as spontaneous as she does even when saying memorized responses.

This leads to a FASCINATING discussion on, in the situation that we’re talking to a pro-choice person, whether it’s inherently deceptive to add fake thinking pauses, among other things, that actors commonly do when performing.

Intellectual Honesty, Transparency, and the Pro-Life Movement (with Apologist Dr. Randal Rauser)

MP3 Download | 1:33:06

Josh’s favorite Christian apologist, Dr. Randal Rauser, joins the show. Randal describes himself as “progressively Evangelical and generously Orthodox.” Josh asks him about open-mindedness, his observations about the pro-life movement, when it’s appropriate to call leaders out publicly, and the difference between an “agitation apologetics model” and an “agreement apologetics model.”

While Josh doesn’t agree with everything Rauser believes, that’s not the point, and this isn’t a debate episode. Josh found this to be a good opportunity to listen to the views of a very careful thinker in spite of the fact that they don’t agree on everything within the abortion debate.