Maybe it’s because I’m barely 5’1” and look a lot younger than I am, but the number of times I’ve been asked some variation of “How do we reach the youth?” is…literally every time I do a Q&A with an audience over the age of 50. To a lot of adults, it feels like a big impossible mystery.

I just got home from speaking at the Michigan District of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church High School gathering. That audience was not over the age of 50—about 800 high school students descended upon Mackinac Island (a gorgeous place for a speaking trip, by the way!) for four days of talks, fellowship, prayer, and growing in their faith. I spent four days “reaching” the exact demographic I’m most frequently asked about, and I’m going to be honest with you: it’s actually not that mysterious. 

I am a firm believer that high school students want nothing more than to be treated like adults. There are definitely parts of being an adult they don’t want; they don’t want to deal with taxes or insurance companies any more than actual adults do.  But high school students want to be respected, in a way that adults often respect other adults—and often don’t respect them.

Adults are taken seriously. 

Adults have a say in how the world works. 

Adults get to have their own thoughts and opinions and run their own lives. 

Adults are valued for their knowledge and experience; nobody writes them off because they’re “too young and naive” to know anything about the real world.

I believe that when high school students are treated like they have valuable experience, like their thoughts matter, and like they can handle challenging concepts and controversial conversations, they rise to the occasion. 

I gave that exact invitation on stage to 800 high school students last Sunday night—to come talk about abortion with me in a real way. I invited them to dive headlong with me into the smartest pro-choice arguments and the smartest pro-life arguments that exist and assured them that we wouldn’t be avoiding the tough questions. I told them that I believe our society can have real, deep conversations about abortion without the sky falling and everyone hating each other, and that I would show them how. Because I believe they can do it—not just that society in general can, but that they personally can. 

Monday morning, my speech was standing room only. 

Tuesday morning, my speech was full too.

Tuesday night, my Q&A session lasted from 9:00pm to 11:00pm—a full hour and 15 minutes longer than it was supposed to—because so many students came with honest questions and an open mind. 

And this isn’t an anomaly. Every single time I’m in front of a room of high school students and I invite them to talk about something real and serious with me, they rise to the occasion. 

The pre-course survey for our high school curriculum, Equipped for Life Academy, has found the same thing. Most students haven’t had the chance to engage with the issue of abortion in any meaningful way, especially not with an adult there to guide the discussion. The media, adults, and organizations in their lives have told them what to believe, sure, but actually engaging with the topic? 41% of students say they’ve “never really engaged with the issue of abortion before” going through our curriculum in their school or church. For the rest of them, their “engagement” mostly involved “hearing about abortion in the news sometimes” and “discussing it with friends sometimes.”

And when they’re given the opportunity to actually engage head on, they love it. They packed my speech until it was standing room only. In that same Equipped for Life Academy pre-survey, 79% of students expressed they are “positive” or “fine with” learning about abortion in class. Only 5% are actively reluctant or opposed. 

I think a huge reason why teachers, pastors, and youth leaders are reluctant to invite students into deep conversations about controversial topics is because they’re afraid that that “actively reluctant or opposed” group is the majority—when it’s actually just 5%. They don’t realize that students are not only willing, but itching to talk about something real. 

Were you ever that high school student asking “when am I ever going to use calculus in real life?!” You didn’t necessarily hate school; you just craved the real world. Today’s high schoolers are the same, and there are few topics that feel more real-world relevant to them than abortion.

Take the Catholic Diocese of Lansing, Michigan.

The Diocese purchased our Equipped for Life Academy curriculum for two Catholic high schools thanks to a generous grant from a local right to life chapter—Plymouth County Right to Life. The plan was to teach the entire 15-lesson sequence over the course of four years, covering three or four lessons with each grade level. Originally, the schools planned to phase it in gradually: just freshmen the first year, freshmen and sophomores the second year, etc, until all four grade levels were learning their respective lessons four years from now. But when the teachers got their hands on the lesson plans, one school’s staff decided it was so important that they redid their curriculum planning for the whole year to make time for every single student to use Equipped for Life Academy. Letting the next three graduating classes go by without discussing abortion with them just wasn’t an acceptable option anymore—not once they’d seen the impact this could have. 

And their students were thrilled.

“I’m excited because I know I don’t know everything about [abortion], so if I can learn more I would feel a lot better in my opinion.” ~17 year old in Mr. I’s class

“I think it is a good thing for students to discuss controversial topics so that they can form their views of it in a controlled environment before they go into the real world.” ~ 18 year old in Mrs. L’s class

“I am glad that we get to learn in a space where my views are not judged or held against me. I am also glad we get to be educated in this matter that will help the world be a better place as we grow and mature into adults and leaders of society.” ~ 15 year old in Ms. M’s class

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to be able to go to a school that does this. It is very good to learn about [controversial] topics.” ~ 18 year old in Mr. I’s class

And that wasn’t just the sentiment from students who were already pro-life. When students begin using our curriculum, 39.1% do not identify as pro-life—including 24.4% who are unsure and 14.7% who identify as pro-choice. Let me say that again: 39.1% do not identify as pro-life, but only 5% are actively reluctant or opposed to learning about abortion in class.

So how do we reach the youth about abortion?

Actually invite them in. Trust me, they’re craving it. Invite them to think in a real, deep way. Don’t tell them what to believe, and don’t shy away from the hardest questions and emotional moments. Give them space to share their honest opinions and process complex feelings alongside you. Walk together as you explore the smartest arguments on all sides and see how they stack up. If the pro-life position is true, and I’m awfully sure that it is, then that’s what students will come to see too.

That’s what our curriculum is designed to do, and I firmly believe that you can do it with your youth too. 

The post “How to Talk to Teens About Abortion” 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 post How to Talk to Teens about Abortion appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.

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.

ERI Blog: The Best Way to Expose Logical Fallacies: Don’t Call Them by Name

ERI Instagram: If Glinda and Elphaba were pro-life advocates

ERI Podcast Clip: Can a musical background improve your dialogues?

Dallas Morning News: Choosing Thomas — Inside a family’s decision to let their son live, if only for a brief time

The Place We Find Ourselves Podcast

Equal Rights Institute Website

Equipped for Life Academy

Equipped for Life Course

Sidewalk Counseling Masterclass

The post Genuine or Performed? Acting Skills in Honest Dialogue appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.

Download Audio MP3 | 00:43:20

Rachel Crawford interviews Jacob Nels from ERI’s Sidewalk Counseling Masterclass. Topics include: – Should sidewalk counselors talk about adoption with abortion-minded women? – How to accurately keep track of lives saved vs. “hopefuls”; – How there are no silver bullets or “perfect words” that work for everybody.

Subscribe to the Equipped for Life Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Subscribe to ERI’s other podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post Why Sidewalk Counselors Should Not Recommend Adoption appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.

Download Audio MP3 | 01:41:34

Josh, Tim, and Rachel sit down to discuss the James Franco/Liz Harman video about abortion that was mocked mercilessly by pro-life organizations and advocates recently. We agree with a few conservative philosophers who believe that while Harman’s pro-choice argument is wrong, it’s not as stupid as it sounds. We believe Harman did a bad job explaining her argument in the video. So in this episode, we work hard to understand Harman’s actual views and respond to them instead of strawmanning them.

This is certainly the most philosophical podcast episode we’ve recorded to date. If you’re not interested in getting deep into the weeds with us on Harman’s argument, we’d still like to encourage you to listen to the first and last sections of this episode, where we discuss the problems with the pro-life movement’s general response to this video. Those sections are 00:00 to 21:15, and 1:20:50 to the end.

If you haven’t watched the video of James Franco’s interview with Liz Harman, please watch it before you listen to this podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5SQnQjryzI&feature=youtu.be

Here is Harman’s definition of the Actual Future Principle: “An early fetus that will become a person has some moral status. An early fetus that will die while it is still an early fetus has no moral status.”

Here are the five intuitions that Harman agrees with and believes that her Actual Future Principle helps to explain:

1. That some early fetuses are the appropriate objects of caring attitudes;
2. That some early fetuses are the kinds of things we are prohibited from harming;
3. That it is understandable to be upset be an early miscarriage;
4. That the position of a woman genuinely unsure whether she will abort her pregnancy is unique;
5. That it is reasonable to regret an abortion when one does not regret the choice to abort.

Related Resources:

• Professor Liz Harman: Creation Ethics: The Moral Status of Early Fetuses and the Ethics of Abortion document: http://www.princeton.edu/~eharman/creationethics.pdf
• This is her paper on abortion that better explains her argument. Consider reading the paper before listening to our discussion of the paper and then follow along with us while listening to our discussion!
• Matt Anderson for The Federalist – Why That Princeton Prof’s Argument For Early Abortion Isn’t Entirely Stupid: https://thefederalist.com/2017/08/14/princeton-profs-argument-early-abortion-isnt-entirely-stupid/
• Sherif Girgis for Public Discourse – In Defense of Elizabeth Harman – Taking Pro-Choice Philosophers Seriously: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/08/19891/
• This is another conservative paper that was helpful to us in prep. If nothing else, read the section toward the beginning on how fairly Harman treated him when helping to grade his paper against premarital sex. It says a LOT about her character.
• Don Marquis – Why Abortion is Immoral:
• http://faculty.polytechnic.org/gfeldmeth/45.marquis.pdf
• Jon Ronson – So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed:
• https://www.amazon.com/So-Youve-Been-Publicly-Shamed/dp/B00SNM7KD2/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504622920&sr=1-1&keywords=so+you%27ve+been+publicly+shamed

Subscribe to the Equipped for Life Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Subscribe to ERI’s other podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post That James Franco Video appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.

Download Audio MP3 | 00:29:43

Josh interviews Sara Littlefield from Abortion Pill Reversal about the research they’ve done on saving babies whose mom has taken the first RU-486 pill and then changed her mind, as well as the resources they offer these women.

Josh also asks Sara to respond to the arguments that pro-choice groups have made about APR’s work.

Related Resources:

• Abortion Pill Reversal Hotline #: (877) 558-0333
• Abortion Pill Reversal website: https://abortionpillreversal.com
• Request printable APR brochures by emailing apreversal@gmail.com.

Subscribe to the Equipped for Life Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Subscribe to ERI’s other podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The post Abortion Pill Reversal appeared first on Equal Rights Institute Blog - Clear Pro-Life Thinking.