In the abortion debate, there are a number of different ways people refer to the entity in the womb, and they all come with different baggage. 

It probably won’t surprise you that there are disagreements between pro-choice and pro-life advocates as far as which terms to use, but it doesn’t stop there! For years, it’s even been a debate amongst pro-lifers. After all, language can matter an awful lot when it comes to perception and psychology. It’s only natural for us to push for terms that we believe are most effective in helping our society understand the value of the human in the womb.

At ERI, we often get questions about the words we choose to use and the scenarios we use them in. I’d like to take this opportunity to give you not just an approved word bank, but also a look into our thought process.

Photo by Lunarcaustic

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Language Has Limits

If you’ve been around ERI for long enough, it won’t surprise you to hear that we believe labels often have limited usefulness. For example, a person who identifies with the label “pro-choice” could hold a wide range of beliefs, and you have no idea what “pro-choice” means to that individual unless you ask them. Similarly, many pro-life advocates can’t even agree on the definition of abortion. (Secular Pro-Life has done some amazing work on this, if you’re interested in learning more.)

All this to say, the terminology we use for the human in the womb is only useful if it facilitates meaningful conversation. If you spend your entire dialogue trying to convince your pro-choice friend to use the word “baby” instead of “fetus,” you’ve not actually moved them on the core issue. Similarly, if pro-life jargon such as “preborn” confuses or distracts your dialogue partner, they’ll have a harder time hearing your arguments against abortion.

A Review of Different Terms

Let’s continue with a straightforward analysis of common terms found in the abortion debate. This list is just in alphabetical order, so please don’t take the order as a value judgement.

Baby – In many contexts, “baby” is a perfectly legitimate term for the in-utero human. It’s the term used most commonly by people celebrating a new addition to their family, and apps that help parents track development during pregnancy cheerfully list every fruit and vegetable that “Baby” compares to in size. It’s silly to pretend that this isn’t a widely agreed-upon word outside of the abortion debate.

Within the abortion debate, however, it may not be the best place to start. If you’re debating the philosophy of what precisely the entity killed in abortion is and whether it has value, then using the word “baby” could understandably be seen as begging the question—as using language that assumes that it’s shared background for the conversation that fetuses are people, when actually whether fetuses are people is exactly what’s being contested in the conversation. If you want to keep the focus on your argument and avoid accusations of cheating, this term can be a bit too loaded with connotations of personhood and value.

Clump of Cells – Even if we don’t generally encourage folks to get in the weeds arguing about terminology, there are some instances where it’s worth redirecting your dialogue partner. If the word “baby” tips the scales towards the pro-life side, then the phrase “clump of cells” slams a heavy stone on the pro-choice side with its derogatory implications.

You can redirect in a friendly, disarming way by confessing that you don’t exactly get the warm fuzzies looking at a three-day-old blastocyst or joking about how you’re just a really big clump of cells at the end of the day. Then, ask if you both could stick to neutral terms so that you can focus on the main disagreements.

Fetus (or ZEF) – Okay, I’m cheating a little here by placing multiple words together, but these all have pretty much the same use case. Scientific words like zygote, embryo, and fetus (commonly referred to as ZEF) simply note the stage of life a developing human progresses through. In that sense, they’re largely neutral. It’s like referring to a teenager as an “adolescent” or a newborn as an “infant.” 

Developmental terms like this can also provide some clarity about what stage you’re discussing. For example, a pro-choice person might have more reservations about abortions during the fetal stage than they do about abortions that kill very early embryos.

It’s possible that your dialogue partner might use these terms in an intentionally dehumanizing or derogatory way (as Josh once described it, maybe they’re “using the word ‘fetus’ with stank on it”), in which case you can gently point that out and remind them that it’s really just a neutral stage of development, like born humans have. But I believe in most cases, a pro-choice person is using these terms as part of a good-faith effort at scientific accuracy. There’s no need to die on the hill of opposing scientific terms in the vast majority of cases.

Preborn – I’ll start by saying that I have no ill will towards the many pro-life activists who have been pushing for the use of the word “preborn.” If you’re so invested in the rights of tiny humans that you’re coming up with or using whole new words to try to humanize them, then I have to appreciate that level of investment. It’s great to try creative new approaches for communicating our message or influencing the culture.

However, I have to be honest and say that the pro-life movement has failed to “make fetch happen” here. This is a word that only hardcore pro-life activists use on a regular basis, and it’s usually just off-putting and distracting to the people we’re trying to reach. It communicates to your average pro-choice person that you’re so deep into the opposing side that you’re adopting niche lingo, and it often grates against them like a terminally online teenager’s slang grates against their exhausted parents.

I truly wish the effort to use words like “preborn” to influence culture was a successful project. But given that it’s pushing away the people we’re trying to reach more than it’s pulling them in, we’d suggest avoiding this one.

Prenatal – The phrase “prenatal human” is one of our favorite alternatives to “preborn.” It gets at the same concept that “preborn” does—if pregnancy is allowed to continue, the human in the womb will naturally grow into their next stage of development. It’s not the most common term, but it’s also not completely unfamiliar or jarring to a pro-choice audience, who have probably heard phrases like “prenatal vitamins” used in everyday conversation.

It also has the strength of naturally allowing you to insert the word “human” into the term. If your dialogue partner objects to your use of the word “human,” you can easily explain that it’s appropriate, since prenatal humans are uncontroversially part of the species homo sapiens. 

Unborn – This is another less scientific and precise corollary to terms like zygote, embryo, and fetus. It’s a good neutral word, and just about everybody knows what it means. 

“Unborn” has two advantages over “prenatal.” First, it’s arguably the most common word used to refer to the prenatal human. Secondly, it can be more naturally used as shorthand. If you say “the unborn,” most people understand that you’re referring to the category of humans at issue in the abortion debate, whereas the phrase “the prenatal” doesn’t have the same easy familiarity.  Of course, you’re always able to use phrases like “the unborn human” to lean into the humanity of the creature killed in abortion, but having an easy shorthand can help the flow of the conversation.

Let’s Talk About Pronouns

Don’t worry, we’re not taking a massive swerve into unrelated culture war topics. But just like the terms we use for prenatal humans, the pronouns we use for them can have subtle humanizing or dehumanizing effects, so it’s worth considering as part of this topic.

Something I’ve observed that is surprisingly common, even in life affirming circles, is the use of it/its pronouns for humans in the womb. I’ve even seen born babies be called “it” if they belong to a stranger and the gender is unknown. I can understand the use in some cases, namely in an abortion dialogue where the pro-life person is taking great pains to remove barriers to the conversation so that they have a better chance of convincing their pro-choice friend. However, on the whole, I’d really love for all of us to get out of the habit of using it/its pronouns for babies of all ages. They aren’t objects, after all.

This leaves you with a couple options: you can use “they/them” or “he or she.” Ultimately it’s none of my business which set you’re most comfortable using, and I don’t want to open an unrelated pandora’s box with this topic. I personally use they/them pronouns when referring to any person, born or unborn, whose gender is unknown or irrelevant. It feels less clunky than “he or she,” can refer to both individuals and groups, and has a minor fun bonus of sometimes surprising a liberal pro-choice person who probably expects that I shrivel away from singular “they/them” like a vampire in the sun. However, if “he or she” is more natural to you, I want you to go with what’s comfortable.

The Practical Application

Now that we’ve reviewed the terms, here’s how I’d suggest pro-life advocates practically utilize them in conversations about abortion.

Step One: Start Neutral

At the beginning of a conversation, the pro-choice person is probably still confused or mistaken about the humanity, personhood, or value of the unborn, so it’s best to start with neutral terms. Put yourself in their shoes, and avoid words that will be distracting. If they’re being transparently derogatory, kindly redirect them.

Step Two: Make Your Argument and Build Rapport

As the conversation progresses, you can probably (hopefully!) convince them that you’re a reasonable person who isn’t trying to trick them with word games. In some cases, you can even convince them on personhood and move to another topic, like bodily rights. Even if you can’t fully convince them of your argument, a good conversation can lead to them being less hung up on specific word choices.

Step Three: Transition Into Less Neutral Language

An important thing to emphasize is that this step is optional. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with sticking to neutral terms, and it might work better for you to stick with one set if you need to break a pro-life jargon habit or find the transition unnatural. 

That said, once you’ve built rapport or made a strong personhood argument, there may well be an opportunity for you to emphasize your pro-life position with non-neutral terminology. I have very good pro-choice friends whom I’ve earned the ability to switch terms with. I haven’t fully convinced them of my position, but we’ve done the work to bring down the barriers around terminology. I can emphasize that I think abortion violently kills babies, and they can truly hear me and consider the view seriously, without distractions and hangups. It just took time and trust to get there.

Arguments Are Stronger Than Vocabulary

As our former staff member Rachel Crawford once said, “if you’re trying to influence someone psychologically with [a term], you should just use an argument.” 

After all, dialogue isn’t about playing Jedi mind tricks on the person we’re talking to; it’s about seeking mutual understanding! One word alone cannot make your entire argument for you. At the same time, a single word isn’t likely to tank your entire interaction as long as you’re being thoughtful and intentional.

You may well disagree with me on some of the above assessments and recommendations, and that’s okay! What matters more to me is your posture when choosing your vocabulary. The way you treat your dialogue partner and respond to their concerns and discomfort is ultimately the most vital part of your conversation. Find the words that best help the person in front of you, and use them in love.

The post What Should We Call Them? originally appeared at the Equal Rights Institute blog. Subscribe to our email list with the form below and get a FREE gift. Click here to learn more about our pro-life apologetics course, “Equipped for Life: A Fresh Approach to Conversations About Abortion.” 

The preceding post is the property of Ellen Campbell (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public,) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of Equal Rights Institute unless the post was written by a co-blogger or guest, and the content is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author Ellen Campbell) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show only the first three paragraphs on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

The post What Should We Call Them? appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.

No, it has nothing to do with a super-extremist pro-choice position or some high-octane philosophical argument. It wasn’t even an “open mouth, insert foot” moment by another pro-life activist. Instead, it was a display of painful, low-level ignorance.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes

ERI’s staff was doing an outreach together with a club on a college campus (which will remain nameless to protect the guilty). Our poll table was a variation on the usual “should abortion remain legal” prompt: “Should Third-Trimester Abortions Be Legal?”

As it began to rain, we moved our table from the outdoors to our fallback space in the student union. And, I kid you not, I heard students conversing as we passed:

“How many trimesters are there in pregnancy, again?”

“Four, I think.”

So yes, some of the adults we were there to have dialogues about abortion with didn’t know the most elementary facts about pregnancy.

Obviously, broad ignorance about human reproduction and abortion is a generally bad thing, and especially in a time when multiple states are voting on abortion. But it should also specifically affect how we go into a conversation with a random person on the street, in which we don’t know anything about their knowledge or background.

You Probably Know More than Most People about Abortion

Here’s the thing: if you have spent time studying the issue of abortion or training as a pro-life advocate, you probably do know more than most people about abortion. Sure, those college students should have known there are three trimesters in pregnancy. But generally, abortion isn’t the kind of thing people are taught about; they need to seek out information. And if people don’t take it upon themselves to seek out accurate information, they can end up thinking all sorts of things about abortion that simply aren’t true. People genuinely believe, for example, that babies whose mothers are denied abortion go into the foster system as a matter of course (read here, they don’t).

Generally, becoming educated about abortion is the result of an intentional choice to seek out relevant information. That means, if you’ve chosen to study the issue, you will often have an information advantage over your dialogue partner. This isn’t inherently a good or a bad thing, but recognizing an information imbalance changes how you should approach a dialogue. In some ways, it means you have more work to do, because there are things you “should” be able to take for granted that you can’t, like a basic working knowledge of human reproduction. But it also means you have the opportunity to give people more information to work with as they assess the morality of abortion—and I think it benefits the pro-life side when people get more information about abortion.

Don’t Assume They’re Idiots

This should go without saying, but it needs to be said anyway: just because some people are shockingly, magnificently unaware of important details around abortion (or other issues), that doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to infer that the person in front of you is ignorant, let alone that they’re stupid (after all, even extremely smart people are ignorant about most of human knowledge). Even if 80 percent of the population doesn’t know fact X (a wild overestimation to make a point), don’t go into your conversation prepared to pull out your chalkboard and start lecturing on X and how you need to understand it before you can form a reasonable position. On one hand, do you understand how ridiculous you’d look if you found one of the 20 percent who knows X as well as you do? On the other hand, even if your dialogue partner is in the 80 percent, no one likes to be talked down to, and starting with that will make your dialogue that much more difficult.

Instead, while you should be aware that people you talk to likely don’t know as much about abortion as you, this should just be background information tucked away in your mind. Use it to understand when you do need to take a step back and legitimately teach about something, but don’t try to turn your dialogues into classroom lectures.

The Difference Between Steering and Guiding a Conversation

I once had a seasoned pro-lifer remark to me that, because he had both an informational and an argumentative advantage, he could basically steer a dialogue in whatever direction he wanted. He wasn’t saying that as some kind of a boast, but as a point of frustration; he didn’t want dialogues to be academic exercises for the people involved, but a real opportunity for people to engage and change each other’s minds.

Have you ever seen something like this happen (perhaps while watching a debate on social media)? One person knows their stuff better, and they clearly “win.” Even the person they’re talking to admits they don’t have a response—but they’re not convinced. Maybe they think some trick has been played on them, or that if they were better prepared they’d have a good enough argument to win, or that their position is “obviously” right and as long as the right people confirm their view they don’t need to worry. Whatever it is, it didn’t matter that one side “won,” that the person with an information advantage could steer the debate wherever they wanted or walk all over their opponent; they still didn’t change the other person’s mind.

This is a hidden trap of having informational superiority: if you deploy it incorrectly, it will actually make it harder to convince someone. You can steer things wherever you want, but if your interlocutor is merely a passenger, they’ll probably walk away and revert to their starting opinion. The task of convincing someone through dialogue is to bring them with you; you need their cooperation, their buy-in.

You can use your rapport with your dialogue partner to gain opportunities to teach them facts they may not know, and, by teaching them in the right way, you’ll reinforce the rapport you have with them. If you’re talking with someone because they care enough to want to find the truth, even if they expect that the truth is pro-choice, they’ve bought into the process. By patiently providing the truth, you have an opportunity to guide the conversation without steering it.

What do I mean by “guiding” rather than “steering”? Here’s an example from one of my dialogues:

I was talking to a pro-choice college guy, and his responses leaned into bodily rights, so I let the conversation go that direction. I started asking him some of the “stock” questions about the sorts of things that must hold true if “my body, my choice” is taken seriously. Pretty quickly, at the first thalidomide thought experiment, he became uneasy with the implications of the pro-choice position. He refused to “bite the bullet,” but I had a feeling that he wasn’t convinced about the pro-life position, even though he didn’t like where the pro-choice position he held was leading.

So, I offered him a way out. I explained that there was another way that a lot of pro-choice people choose to ground their view that abortion is morally acceptable, and I offered to talk about personhood instead. He agreed, and he was visibly relieved. We got to continue the conversation for several more minutes before he needed to go to class, and we had the opportunity to talk about fetal development and the Equal Rights Argument. What’s more, he asked to take the ERI outreach brochure with him when he went!

I can’t say that I definitely changed his mind on abortion. But because I guided the conversation by trying to understand him as a person, utilizing the fact that I knew more about abortion to allow the conversation to go longer, I’m confident in saying I made a lot more progress than I would have if I let him walk away frustrated and unconvinced after I “won” on bodily rights. If I had taken the conversation where I wanted it to go without paying attention to the guy I was talking to, I could have steered it to grounds I was comfortable on and he wasn’t, but without accomplishing anything. The difference between steering and guiding is that I made the guy I was talking to an agent in the dialogue to the fullest extent possible—and I guided it as needed to make that happen.

Understanding People Helps You Understand How to Use Information

What’s the main takeaway? As always, we want you to treat the person you’re talking to, first and foremost, as a person. When talking with a person, you should be seeking to understand them. And when you understand the person you’re talking to, you can accurately assess how much they know, what else they need to know to form a more complete view, and how you can work together with them to guide that process of discovery.

The post Your Dialogue Partner Might Know Less than You Expect originally appeared at the Equal Rights Institute blog. Subscribe to our email list with the form below and get a FREE gift. Click here to learn more about our pro-life apologetics course, “Equipped for Life: A Fresh Approach to Conversations About Abortion.” 

The preceding post is the property of Andrew Kaake (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public,) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of Equal Rights Institute unless the post was written by a co-blogger or guest, and the content is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (Andrew Kaake) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show only the first three paragraphs on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

The post Your Dialogue Partner Might Know Less than You Expect appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.

Unfortunately, this scene is all too familiar to the pro-life advocates we train. In fact, one of the most common questions we receive from sidewalk counselors is how to handle “abolitionist” activists who act like this (or worse). It is often the case that no matter what the more gracious pro-lifer says;, the abolitionist will often get argumentative or just refuse to talk to the advocate at all, making progress nearly impossible.

Yet, after only one conversation with Sally, these two abortion abolitionists abandoned their bullhorns and walked away!

So, how did she do it?

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Tip #1: Lowered her voice (and their defenses)

Sally approached very calmly and began speaking in the quietest voice she could muster. It’s a de-escalation tactic she’d learned from her fiancé, who worked in a jail; if you keep your voice low and quiet, they have to stop screaming to hear what you’re saying. And it worked. He stopped screaming and turned to listen to her, as did the entire crowd. Sally had everyone’s undivided attention.

Tip #2: Emphasized that they were on the same team

If there’s one thing he wasn’t expecting, it was someone who wasn’t pro-choice to approach him.

“I think what you’re doing isn’t really reaching people with the pro-life message.”

Sally quietly explained that she shared his belief that abortion is wrong, but that she was concerned that his tactics were hurting the pro-life movement rather than helping. When he retorted that he’s not “pro-life”—he’s an “abolitionist” striving for the prohibition of all abortions—he was immediately taken aback by her response.

“I want that, too. And it’s exactly because I actually want to end abortion that I think we need to be effective in our methods.”

Expanding upon their shared desire to end abortion, she suggested that bloodied signs like his are pushing people away rather than reaching them, and that reaching them is possible. Compassion reaches people; it opens them to change their hearts and minds. For Sally, as well as the abolitionists (and you’ll see how much that matters in just a moment!), there was one extremely obvious example of compassion: Jesus. Jesus’ ministry and teachings serve as a model for many things, but a particularly important one is how to reach people and transform their lives. Surprisingly enough, Jesus didn’t primarily use visual shock tactics and yelling; He reached people through compassion.

There are effective ways to reach pro-choice people, to change hearts and minds, and to save babies. We want to end abortion, and we know abortion abolitionists do, too. In this case, the example of Jesus and what will actually reach people…they’re the same thing. It’s compassionate conversations.

Tip #3: Followed Jesus’ example

That’s the second thing they weren’t expecting: someone who was a Christian to approach them. Of course, Sally doesn’t usually bring up Christianity in conversations about abortion, but in this case, she took a (highly probable) gamble that religion was a foundational driver for their behavior, and she was right.

They were caught off guard that she was the first one to bring up God in their discussion, and it took them a second to regroup. After one of them referenced a few Old Testament Bible verses attempting to support his aggressive methods, Sally asked a simple question.

“What do you think our mission is as Christians?”

The man fumbled around for a few moments before ultimately settling on “serving justice for the Church of God.”

“I don’t agree with that,” Sally responded calmly. “Our mission is to imitate Christ. Christ was not harsh; he was compassionate. He didn’t scream at the sinners around Him to pronounce that they were going to hell; He met them where they were at, in the mess of their sin, and called them to a better way of living.”

He responded by citing the story of Jesus turning over the tables in the Temple. Sally argued that pointing to this story, and this story only, from the New Testament ignores the totality of his ministry, where he looked with compassion upon the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery, who are arguably far more similar to the women of today facing unexpected pregnancies than the Pharisees are.

“So you don’t care about the Old Testament?” he retorted.

“I do care about the Old Testament,” she replied quietly, “but what makes us Christians is precisely our belief in the New Testament. The New Testament fundamentally changed how humans are called to understand God, as the Old Testament was fulfilled in the life and teachings of Jesus. If our mission as Christians is to imitate Christ, then how Christ behaved when He walked this earth must be the example by which we model our lives.”

Then, as Sally brought the dialogue back to this common ground and their shared mission to end abortion, the two abolitionists packed up and left. 

The reason they gave?

“We really have to get going, we have to return these rocks.”

“Return these rocks?!” Someone from the crowd looked incredulously at the few rocks propping up the base of the tripod, which were pretty clearly not an urgent matter to “return.”

I can’t sit here and tell you exactly why they left. I can’t speculate as to whether they’ll be back on campus some future Tuesday, or whether what Sally said made them honestly reconsider their ways. But Sally’s respectful and loving pushback made them leave that day, and it opened the door for the pro-choice students listening to hear an effective pro-life message. 

“I’m surprised you’re so nice!” A student from the crowd walked up to Sally after the men began walking away. “You feel like someone I can actually talk to about this.” 

About a week later, Sally was attending a Walk for Life to benefit the local pregnancy center when, lo and behold, the same abolitionists appeared on the sidewalk. There were no bloody signs or screaming tactics this time; they were handing out cards to the pro-life walkers that said #notavictim, referring to the concept that post-abortive women are not victims.

Sally approached, handed the card back, and quietly told him that she didn’t think this tactic was effective either. Almost the same conversation ensued; he brought up the same points, she kept her voice low and calmly brought up the same common ground and rebuttals.

“Don’t you feel a sense of urgency about this?!” he pressed.

“Yes, I do, and that’s exactly why I behave the way I do towards pro-choice people and exactly why I’m here today supporting tangible help for women. I want to actually change minds. I believe that your methods are causing further division, making people less open to changing their minds.”

“But don’t you think we need to change the abortion laws?”

“Absolutely we do, which means we must change the minds of voters. That’s my goal.”

He had no reply to that.

As he started inching closer to his car, Sally said she’d love to continue their conversation another time, and they could discuss more theology next time, too. She’d studied up on the Old Testament verses he’d brought up at their last meeting and said she’d be happy to chat through those with him.

The point.

Abolitionists only have two options to justify their behavior; hypothetically, they can prove that God wants us to behave this way, or they can prove that this is the effective way to end abortion.

But if our mission as Christians is to imitate Christ, then our behavior must be modeled after Jesus, who neither shouted accusations nor offered assurances that sins were no big deal. He accepted our brokenness with compassion while calling us to “be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” And if effectiveness at changing hearts and minds—actually ending abortion and doing so urgently—is our goal, too, then the behaviors and tactics that actually reach pro-choice people are of the utmost importance. The psychology of persuasion matters.

Here’s the thing: Sally understood the people she was talking to. She knew the kind of arguments they would make, but also the kind of arguments they would respond to. She understood what they cared about, what sort of things made them hold the position they did, and how to connect her pro-life position to those things. It’s the same kind of thing we do with the Equal Rights Argument: we show people who care about equality why abortion is a huge violation of equal rights. But if you’re truly listening to and trying to understand the people with whom you dialogue, you’ll find more opportunities to show them why their worldview should actually lead them to your position on abortion.

Sally’s courage to begin an ongoing dialogue with the abolitionists in her town got them to leave not once, but twice, saving potentially hundreds of passersby from further misunderstanding and detesting the pro-life position. And she opened the hearts of the students on her campus who did see the abolitionists by exhibiting wisdom and compassion.

Don’t be afraid to dialogue with abortion abolitionists or other “difficult” people, pro-life or pro-choice. Your witness can change minds.

Please tweet this article!

• Tweet: Compassion works. Bullhorns don’t
• Tweet: Compassion reaches people; it opens them to change their hearts and minds.
• Tweet: If you’re truly listening to and trying to understand the people with whom you dialogue, you’ll find more opportunities to show them why their worldview should actually lead them to your position on abortion.

The post Compassion works. Bullhorns don’t. originally appeared at the Equal Rights Institute blog. Subscribe to our email list with the form below and get a FREE gift. Click here to learn more about our pro-life apologetics course, “Equipped for Life: A Fresh Approach to Conversations About Abortion.” 

The preceding post is the property of Emily Geiger. (apart from quotations, which are the property of their respective owners, and works of art as credited; images are often freely available to the public,) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author. All content on this site is the property of Equal Rights Institute unless the post was written by a co-blogger or guest, and the content is made available for individual and personal usage. If you cite from these documents, whether for personal or professional purposes, please give appropriate citation with both the name of the author (Emily Geiger) and a link to the original URL. If you’d like to repost a post, you may do so, provided you show only the first three paragraphs on your own site and link to the original post for the rest. You must also appropriately cite the post as noted above. This blog is protected by Creative Commons licensing. By viewing any part of this site, you are agreeing to this usage policy.

The post Compassion works. Bullhorns don’t. appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.

I just sat down for coffee with my pro-choice US congresswoman and had the best abortion dialogue of my life.

Read that again.

Having productive dialogues with your representatives about abortion is possible.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

When a friend of mine told me about an upcoming listening session with my US congresswoman, I’ll be honest; I was very skeptical. I didn’t think there was anyone who is more famously pro-choice, maybe even pro-abortion in Congress than my representative. She’s well known for her opposition to the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act and she frequently makes headlines for her statements supporting abortion. It seemed like nothing I could say would make any difference, if I was even lucky enough to get a chance to speak at all.

This listening session was taking place in a cafe, and the flier requested an RSVP, which I assumed was a headcount for fire code reasons. Her office gave me a time slot of 5:00 to 5:10, but made no guarantees. I assumed this was going to be like the other listening sessions I’ve participated in—a wall of people given ten minutes total to talk and me raising my hand, never getting called on.

But that’s not even close to what happened.

I walked into a nice, airy cafe to discover there was no crowd at all. Her office assistant told me that she was running a little late, and said I could take a seat over by the couch. A few minutes later, I heard a soft “hey.” It took a second to register that this smiling woman wearing a nice top and jeans was my US congresswoman! We shook hands, and I thanked her for her time meeting with me.

She sat down on the couch across from me, and I was in an easy chair. Then, we just talked! We have kids in the same age ranges; her young daughter joined her on the couch until she grew bored of the grown-up conversation. I explained that I had two teenagers who were also running late, and we shared a little laugh.

I told her that I was really grateful for her time and that abortion was a very important topic for me because it had profoundly affected a loved one and, therefore, my life as well. I had been an actress auditioning for a video in Oregon in support of partial-birth abortion until my friend revealed to me the deep sorrow and trauma she continues to experience after her abortion.

You see, I had a strong pro-choice view from the time I was 11 until age 28, but the more that I pressed what I perceived as the individual right to “choice,” my friend spoke to me of the women in her post-abortion support group who bore the physical and emotional scars of that choice. I had never heard this side before, and, to me, it was stunning. I was struck on a deep level with the realization that someone who I would have loved to have in my life—my friend’s child—was missing. While I cannot logically justify ending abortion just because some women will regret it, on that day her witness opened my ears to the other side. My friend changed my mind. In the years following, my husband and I struggled with my autoimmune illness, and our two pregnancies were high-risk. My babies are now teenagers.

I told my representative that I knew we had different views on abortion, but I thought that both sides needed to get better at talking to one another. She nodded enthusiastically.

I described how I care a lot about women and how I know abortion is not an easy issue to discuss. But I also couldn’t deny the humanity of the unborn baby. Using ERI’s Elevator Pitch, I told her that I thought abortion was a conflict of rights issue, and that there’s an inherent conflict between the woman’s right to bodily autonomy and the fetus’s right to life. She agreed that the unborn are living human beings, and she seemed genuinely fascinated by this framing of the issue.

To be intellectually honest, I told her that I just couldn’t step past or deny the humanity of the fetus and that I thought everyone has an equal right to be protected from violence and not be killed. The basis of our laws is the protection of all human life, and I think that the government needs to acknowledge and protect the lives of both mother and child.

Looking back, I regret that I did not first mention the one thing I know we would have agreed upon—abolishing the death penalty. If I had known more about the format ahead of time, I would have done this; I was a little caught off guard by the amazing opportunity to just chat with her! I did mention our common ground there in the follow-up email that I sent to her office.

I told her that up until the time I was asked to audition for the Oregon video in support of partial-birth abortion, I didn’t know what that procedure was, and was shocked to learn that abortions were even legal past 12 weeks gestation.

I’ve heard and read several ERI podcasts and Secular Pro-Life articles citing the mountain of scientific evidence that fetuses can feel pain before 24 weeks and possibly as early as 12 weeks, so I printed off and stapled the 2020 article Reconsidering Fetal Pain by pain experts Dr. Stuart Derbyshire and John Bockmann (ERI interviewed John Bockmann on the podcast here!) before going that day. I told her that it was now standard practice for fetuses in the 2nd and 3rd trimester to receive anesthesia directly in the womb before undergoing intrauterine surgery, such as for spina bifida. She opened her eyes in surprise and turned her head to the side.

“Really!?” 

I handed her the Reconsidering Fetal Pain article while explaining the incredible story of the pro-choice and pro-life co-authors and the findings of their research. She began to read it immediately and told me she would read the rest after the session.

As I stood up to leave, I told her that pro-life people don’t consider ectopic pregnancy treatment to be an elective abortion procedure, and I explained why we don’t want ectopic pregnancy treatment to be illegal.

I also told her that abortion procedures in the 3rd trimester don’t happen to save the physical life of the mother since those procedures are too traumatic and long. My youngest daughter was delivered in minutes via emergency C-section; that is by far the safest option for both mother and baby if her life is at risk later in pregnancy. I’ve seen abortion harm women and haunt them for a lifetime, and, after my friend’s experience, post-abortion trauma is something I want no woman to go through.

When she stood up to join me, she did something that gave me pause: She looked me in the eye, took my hand, and said that she could understand how they suffered because she had suffered pregnancy loss, too. It was very hard for her to think about the someone who could be there but was not. I was moved.

She was still thoughtful and slowly said, “You know, I appreciate that you took the time to make an appointment to talk with me about this. Thank you for giving me this article. And I agree with you that both sides of the debate need to stop demonizing each other.”

I’m not naive; I know that I likely did not change her mind. Nor was that my expectation. But just because I may not be successful today does not mean that I’m not still called to speak up and plant a few seeds along the way. I genuinely liked my congresswoman. She was nothing like the stereotype I had of her, and I genuinely believe she thinks differently about me now, too. We probably disagree on a vast number of things, but we discovered so much that we have in common.

I originally wrote my story in an email to the ERI and Secular Pro-Life staff to thank them for teaching me how to dialogue effectively about abortion; it was my friend Evie’s mentorship and ERI’s Equipped for Life Course that gave me the courage to start speaking with others about abortion in 2012. My biggest hope and intent in publishing my story is not to laud my chance to speak with a famous person, but rather to encourage other pro-lifers to speak regularly and in person with their legislators—especially if your representative has an opposing view.

In seeking advice before the listening session, many people questioned why I would even bother, telling me our congresswoman was evil. And I said, “well, she is probably thinking the same thing about us right now.” She’s still my representative, and if a change is going to happen, we must keep speaking. Someone cared enough to take the time to talk to me and change my heart and mind about abortion. I wasn’t evil, and she isn’t either. Our representatives are people too, and their minds and hearts can change.

But only if we have the courage to speak with them.

Please tweet this article!

• Tweet: I Got Coffee with My Pro-Choice U.S. Congresswoman

• Tweet: I’m not naive; I know that I likely did not change her mind. Nor was that my expectation. But just because I may not be successful today does not mean that I’m not still called to speak up and plant a few seeds along the way.

• Tweet: I genuinely liked my congresswoman. She was nothing like the stereotype I had of her, and I genuinely believe she thinks differently about me now, too.
• Tweet: Our representatives are people too, and their minds and hearts can change. But only if we have the courage to speak with them.

The post I Got Coffee with My Pro-Choice U.S. Congresswoman originally appeared at the Equal Rights Institute blog. Subscribe to our email list with the form below and get a FREE gift. Click here to learn more about our pro-life apologetics course, “Equipped for Life: A Fresh Approach to Conversations About Abortion.” 

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The post I Got Coffee with My Pro-Choice U.S. Congresswoman appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

The Car Crash Analogy

Pro-choice advocates sometimes leverage the preceding thoughts to argue as follows:

P1. You shouldn’t be legally required to donate your kidney in the car crash case.
P2. If you shouldn’t be legally required to donate your kidney in the car crash case, then a pregnant woman shouldn’t be legally required to donate the use of her uterus to the fetus.
C. So, a pregnant woman shouldn’t be legally required to donate the use of her uterus to the fetus.

Call this the Car Crash Argument. Premise P1 is intuitively plausible to many people. Premise P2 is a parity premise: it’s supposed to be plausible because the two types of actions that it mentions—your donation of a kidney and the pregnant woman’s donation of the use of her uterus—are quite similar. In particular, both are acts that save the life of a person (the other driver in one case, the fetus in the other) whose life is in danger because of the potential helper’s voluntary act (the act of driving in one case, sexual intercourse in the other).¹ This similarity is supposed to make it plausible that if one of these acts shouldn’t be legally required, then neither should the other.

The Car Crash Argument, like Judith Thomson’s famous Violinist Argument, is a bodily rights argument. So most of the strategies typically used to rebut Thomson’s argument can also be used against the Car Crash Argument. For example, it might be argued that there is a special duty to assist one’s own biological children. If there is such a special duty, then there’s a relevant difference between the car crash case and the case of pregnancy: only in the latter case is the needy person the potential helper’s own biological child. As another example, it might be argued that it is worse to kill a person than to merely let her die. If killing is worse than letting die, then there’s another relevant difference between the car crash case and the case of pregnancy: only in the latter case is it true that the only way to refrain from assisting the needy person is to kill that person. Both of these potential responses target premise P2 of the Car Crash Argument, as they attempt to direct attention to a difference between the two actions mentioned in this premise that breaks the parity between them.

My preferred response to bodily rights arguments is the “responsibility objection,” so in what follows I’ll offer a response to the Car Crash Argument that draws on some considerations that pertain to the pregnant woman’s responsibility for the fetus’ needy state.

A Response to the Car Crash Argument

I’ll start by noting that there’s an ambiguity in the car crash scenario as I described it above: it’s not clear whether the car accident is your fault. I left this ambiguous on purpose because different pro-choice people who appeal to the car crash analogy fill in the details differently. Some invite us to imagine a version in which the accident is your fault (for example, see page 42 of this piece by a pro-choice philosopher), and others describe a version in which the accident isn’t your fault (for example, see here). I think the difference between these two versions of the case matters, so I’ll give them labels to keep them distinct:

Fault
You’re driving home from work, and because you’re drunk, you run a red light. As a result, you get into a car accident, and the other person is severely injured. He’ll die unless you give him a kidney (you’re the only match).

No Fault
You’re driving home from work. Everyone is driving carefully, but the traffic light malfunctions, giving everybody a green light. As a result, you and another car run into each other. The other driver is severely injured. He’ll die unless you give him a kidney (you’re the only match).

There are two ways of interpreting the Car Crash Argument. On one interpretation, the argument is appealing to Fault. On the other, it’s appealing to No Fault. On both interpretations, the argument faces problems.

First, suppose that the Car Crash Argument is appealing to No Fault. In that case, I argue that premise P2 of the argument is doubtful because there are two relevant differences between No Fault and the case of pregnancy. First, in the case of pregnancy, it’s a foreseeable result of the woman’s voluntary sex act that the fetus will end up needing her uterus in order to survive.² This is because it’s generally known that it’s not that unusual for pregnancy to follow sexual intercourse. In contrast, it’s not a foreseeable result of your act of driving that someone will end up needing your kidney in order to survive, for it’s incredibly rare for such a situation to arise as a result of driving. I’ve never even heard of this actually happening outside of philosophical thought experiments.

When a needy person’s neediness was a foreseeable result of a voluntary action of yours, this makes you more responsible for her neediness than you otherwise would be. And the more responsible you are for a needy person’s neediness, the more fair it is to require you to assist her, all else equal. So, there’s some reason to doubt premise P2. There’s reason to find it more plausible that a pregnant woman should be legally required to donate the use of her uterus than that you should be legally required to donate your kidney.

Here’s the second relevant difference. In the case of pregnancy, the pregnant woman bears a lot more responsibility for the fetus’ needy state than does the fetus himself. After all, the fetus bears no responsibility at all for his own needy state, for he isn’t yet capable of choosing to do things. In contrast, you bear no more responsibility for the other driver’s needy state than the driver himself bears. This is because all of the reasons for thinking that you’re responsible for the driver’s needy state suggest equally-compelling reasons for thinking that the driver is responsible for his own needy state. For example, it may be true that you bear at least a bit of responsibility for the driver’s needy state since you performed a voluntary act (the act of driving) that causally contributed to the driver becoming needy. But if this is so, then it’s also the case that the driver bears some responsibility for his own needy state, for he too performed a voluntary act (again, the act of driving) that causally contributed to his becoming needy.

When person A bears a lot more responsibility for person B’s neediness than does person B, this makes it fairer to require person A to assist person B than it otherwise would be. So we again see that there are some grounds for thinking that it is fairer to require the pregnant woman to provide bodily assistance to her fetus than it is to require you to provide bodily assistance to the car crash victim in the case of No Fault.

I conclude that if we take the Car Crash Argument to be appealing to No Fault, it’s reasonable to doubt premise P2, for there are two relevant differences between the actions mentioned in this premise.

Now suppose that the Car Crash Argument is appealing to Fault. In that case, I think we should reject premise P1. If you’re drunk driving and run into someone, and if you thereby bring it about that she’ll die unless you donate a kidney to her, then you should be legally required to donate your kidney. It seems unfair for you to be allowed to just walk away and allow the victim of your drunk driving to die. To my knowledge, nowhere in the US does the law require you to donate your kidney in this sort of scenario, but it seems reasonable that the law should be changed.

It’s worth noting that even David Boonin, one of the best defenders of the pro-choice bodily rights argument, is inclined to agree that people like the drunk driver should be forced to provide bodily assistance to his victim. Boonin doesn’t consider the car crash case specifically, but he does consider a relevantly similar scenario. Paraphrasing Boonin, his scenario is as follows:

Poisoning
David Shimp knows that if he puts a certain toxin in Robert McFall’s drink, it might cause McFall to get aplastic anemia. Shimp also knows that if McFall gets aplastic anemia, he’ll die unless Shimp donates some of his bone marrow to him. Knowing all of this, Shimp puts the toxin in McFall’s drink anyway, just for the fun of it. Sure enough, McFall gets aplastic anemia.³

Boonin observes that it does seem right to say that Shimp owes McFall some bone marrow, and he suggests (correctly, in my view) that this is so because Shimp wrongfully harmed McFall. And this case is relevantly similar to the case of Fault, in which you’ve wrongfully harmed your victim. So it should also seem right that you owe your spare kidney to the victim of your drunk driving in Fault. And if this is so, there’s reason to think that you should be legally required to give your kidney to your victim.

Here’s a summary of my response to the Car Crash Argument. Either it appeals to Fault or it appeals to No Fault. If it appeals to No Fault, then there are good reasons to reject premise P2. And if it appeals to Fault, then premise P1 can be doubted. Either way, there are good grounds for finding the Car Crash Argument unconvincing.

How the Car Crash Analogy Can Help Pro-Lifers Refine Their Views

The car crash analogy comes up frequently on the Abortiondebate subreddit. Sometimes, the analogy is used to develop something along the lines of the Car Crash Argument. I’ve argued that this use of the analogy is unsuccessful. But there’s a another way that pro-choice advocates sometimes use the analogy that I think is much better. I’ve seen the following sort of discussion unfold many times:

Pro-life: The woman had sex knowing that she might become pregnant as a result. So, she consented to being pregnant. That’s why the fetus has a right to be in her uterus.

Pro-choice: Consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy. If you think otherwise, it’s because you’re assuming that it’s in general the case that if you consented to do something, then you’ve thereby consented to all of the possible consequences of doing that thing. And this general principle is false. We know this because it’s surely not true that someone who consents to driving has thereby consented to being in a car accident, and this general principle implies otherwise.⁴

I think the car crash analogy succeeds in showing that it’s not generally true that if you’ve consented to do something, then you’ve thereby consented to all of the possible consequences of doing that thing. So pro-lifers who want to defend the pro-life position by way of showing that the woman has consented to being pregnant should appeal to a general principle that’s different from the one that the pro-choice person attributes to the pro-lifer in the above exchange. Perhaps pro-choice advocates on social media like using the car crash analogy because a lot of pro-lifers have a hard time articulating a general principle that both (i) implies that consenting to sex is sufficient for consenting to pregnancy, and (ii) does not imply something implausible in the car crash case.

A good way to approach developing such a principle is to consider what potentially relevant differences there are between the case of pregnancy and the car crash case. In this article, I’ve directed attention to two such differences that have to do with the pregnant woman’s degree of responsibility for the fetus’ needy state. These differences suggest something like the following principle:

If you perform a voluntary action that has as a foreseeable result that someone will die unless you provide him with bodily assistance, and if you bear a lot more responsibility for his being in his needy state than he does, then your voluntary action counts as (tacit) consent to provide him with that assistance.

This general principle is much better than the one that pro-choice people often attribute to pro-lifers, for it is not easily refuted by either of the versions of the car crash analogy (Fault and No Fault). And this general principle does have the pro-life-friendly implication that the pregnant woman has tacitly consented to provide the fetus with the use of her uterus. For as I have observed, it’s true both that (i) the pregnant woman performed a voluntary act that had as a foreseeable result that the fetal person will die unless she provides him with this bodily assistance, and (ii) the woman bears a lot more responsibility for the fetal person’s being in his needy state than he does.

To sum up, the car crash analogy is used by pro-choice advocates for multiple purposes. One of the main ways this analogy is used is to press the Car Crash Argument, and I’ve explained why I don’t find this argument persuasive. A second way the car crash analogy is used is to challenge a common strategy for establishing that consent to sex is sufficient for consent to pregnancy. I’ve suggested that this use of the car crash analogy helps pro-life advocates to avoid relying on an overly simple principle about when consent to one thing amounts to consent to another.

Endnotes

The post A Response to the Car Crash Analogy appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.