Category Archives: Practical Dialogue Tips

After going through the fire of 3,000+ conversations with pro-choice people, we’ve learned a lot of things that create an environment in the conversation where the other person is more likely to change their mind. These are some of those nitty-gritty dialogue tips.

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Can You Explain Why You’re Pro-Life in a 30-Second Sound Bite?

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30-second sound biteI’ve recently become friends with Tim Thiesen, the President of the Fresno County Republican Assembly. He attended a function that I spoke at and we exchanged ideas and then he had me on his TV show.

Last week he asked me to give him a 30-second sound bite that he can use and give to candidates that would explain the basic pro-life position. Below is what I sent him, a combination of Steve Wagner’s 10-second pro-life apologist and the Equal Rights Argument.

I am pro-life because we know the unborn are alive, because they’re growing. We know the unborn are human because they have human parents, and I think human beings like me and you are valuable.

In fact, I think all human beings have an equal right to live, because they all have something special in common: they’re human. That’s why racism and sexism are wrong. Racism is wrong because it focuses on a surface difference that doesn’t morally matter and ignores the thing we all have in common, which is the thing that does morally matter: that we’re human.

And because the unborn are clearly human, they should be given an equal right to life as well.

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Dialogue Tip: Responding to “You’re a Man, You Can’t Get Pregnant!”

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Estimated reading time: 7 minutes.
Dialogue Tip: Responding to "You're a Man, You Can’t Get Pregnant!"

This is what most pro-life men hear
when this argument is made.

I’ll admit, it’s not always easy to respond to this argument without coming across like a jerk. There are some strong pro-choice arguments that I find difficult to grapple with when articulated well, but “You’re just a man” has got to be one of the lamest pro-choice arguments I’ve heard. There’s a part of me that just wants to respond, “Seriously? Is that the best you’ve got? Can we try to raise the level of dialogue here and respond to each other’s arguments instead of attacking each other? Tell you what. There are lots of pro-life women who use the same arguments I do. Just pretend I’m one of them and respond to their argument.”

In a sense, I’d be justified in saying that, but I think most people would just huff and puff while storming off.

So I’m going to write an imaginary dialogue with an approach that I think would be more effective than simply accusing the person of committing the “ad hominem fallacy,” (attacking the person and not the argument,) making a dialogue mistake that I’ve written about before.

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“Ethan” is Now Pro-Life Because of the Equal Rights Argument

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I spoke at both days of the Central California Diocesan Congress last weekend, and had a booth between sessions. The best moment at the booth was when I met the guy in this picture:

Josh and Ethan - 640

“Ethan” recognized me and said, “Hey, I talked to you at Fresno State this year!” I recognized his face, smiled and shook his hand. Then Ethan told me that he was pro-choice until that day at Fresno State, but he became pro-life in the days following our conversation.

I asked him, “What was it that changed your mind?”

He responded, “It was because of what you said about all humans being equal.”

I had made the Equal Rights Argument, and upon reflection, Ethan became pro-life.

As I’ve said before, this is the most undervalued argument in the pro-life movement. I know philosophers, particularly J.P. Moreland and Christopher Kaczor, have been making it for years. I think we should be making it more often at the advocate level.

I have more posts to do in the future that respond to common objections. They’re in the works!