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LIVE SPEECH AUDIO: Keynotes and Panel Q&A with Josh Brahm & David Bereit

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Picture: Josh Brahm and David Bereit

In November of 2017 the Holy Family Respect Life Committee, in conjunction with Charles County Right to Life, invited Josh Brahm and David Bereit to speak at their annual pro-life conference in Southern Maryland.

After the keynote sessions, Josh and David did a panel discussion and Q&A, joined by Michele Hendrickson, Capital Area Regional Director for Students for Life of America and Heather Sells, CEO of the Catherine Foundation, a local Pregnancy Resource Center. The panel discussion was hosted by Ali Rak from the Southern Maryland Pro-Life Symposium.

Prefer listening on your phone? You can easily download the whole conference by subscribing to the ERI Podcast in the iTunes Podcast app on your phone.

Josh Brahm Keynote

Download Audio MP3 | 00:50:23

Josh shares seven practical dialogue tips (including two that he’s never taught before!) as well as explaining how to use the Equal Rights Argument to change minds about abortion.

David Bereit Keynote

Download Audio MP3 | 00:47:48

David shares the story of how he got involved in the pro-life movement in spite of being an unlikely activist and encourages the audience to become more active in the pro-life movement, including practical advice on how to find your pro-life lane and get plugged in.

Panel Discussion and Q&A Session

Download Audio MP3 | 01:33:34

Apologies for occasional audio issues in the panel discussion. They used tabletop panel discussion mics and when Heather would turn her head away from the mic sometimes her mic sort of cuts out. We’ve made some edits where possible, and you can always get the gist of what she’s saying.

  • 1:29: From your standpoint, what does the pro-life movement need to do to become more effective?
  • 16:00: What should pro-life advocates avoid and what hurts our cause the most?
  • 31:00: What is access to abortion like in Southern Maryland? Where does a woman who is abortion-minded go to terminate a pregnancy? How many of them tend to go to the local Pregnancy Resource Centers? Paint a picture of what it’s like to be in crisis in Southern Maryland.
  • 35:49: What does counseling an abortion-minded woman look like in your Pregnancy Resource Center as opposed to sidewalk counseling where you often only have a moment to start that conversation?
  • 43:39: How are college and high school students shaping the pro-life movement? How do we get more youth involved, and why should there be a Students for Life club at every school in the country?
  • 51:26: Josh, as a “connoisseur of good arguments and gracious conversation,” how can pro-lifers use Facebook and social media as a force for good?
  • 56:06: How do we build the pro-life community locally, one that is engaged and motivated toward action, rather than just being pro-life?
  • 1:04:53: Can we learn anything from the effectiveness of the gay marriage movement that we can apply to our movement?
  • 1:09:55: It seems like there is so much emphasis these days on individual rights, where for some people, even if they personally feel like abortion is wrong, they don’t feel like it’s their place to speak out against abortion because they don’t want to offend someone. How do you get beyond that?
  • 1:13:10: You said that you don’t approach this issue from a religious standpoint, and I’m struggling with the idea of stopping at the concept of equal rights because I think equal rights come from a religious standpoint. I’m assuming you talk to lots of college students who don’t believe in equal rights. How do you deal with that without getting into the religious aspect that we’re created in God’s image and not a product of evolution?
  • 1:19:32: Josh, you mentioned utilitarianism. Can you explain what that is and how it might come up in abortion conversations?
  • 1:21:33: I was really struck by a statistic that was shared about one in four women in church having had an abortion. How can we effectively express that graphic imagery and very strongly worded signs almost create a PTSD kind of moment for a lot of women who have made a very difficult decision in their lives, and would like to be involved in the pro-life movement, but can’t abide by being in that presence? How do we overcome that obstacle?

Related Links:

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Don’t Come Across Like You’ve Taken an Apologetics Course

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Picture: Students taking an apologetics course.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes.

Imagine there is an eager pro-life high school student named Jared. He has spent hours talking with his pro-choice friends on Facebook, but their conversations never seem to go anywhere. Although he sometimes thinks that his friends make good points, he doesn’t always know how to respond to them. In order to be the best pro-life advocate possible, Jared decides that he needs to gain a better understanding of people who disagree with him and learn how to defend his own beliefs more persuasively. He reads abortion philosophy books, attends pro-life conferences, and listens to podcasts. After all this studying, he feels eager to discuss abortion with his friends—except this time he decides to talk with them in person during lunch instead of online. Afraid of forgetting any of the important arguments he has learned, he decides to bring a notebook outlining his talking points. Although his intentions are well-meaning, his delivery is noticeably awkward. Every time his pro-choice friends ask a question or make a comment, he refers to his notes before responding. Not only do his friends feel a little uncomfortable, but they also begin to think that the conversation isn’t genuine.

When you talk with pro-choice people, you probably don’t commit faux pas as flagrant as Jared’s notebook, but you may be making similar mistakes. If we come across in conversations as though we have spent time studying how to persuade people, they may feel uncomfortable and misinterpret our intentions. We don’t want people to think that we are reading from a script or that we have been coached on what to say. If we are making people feel this way, then our preparation is working against us instead of improving our advocacy. We don’t want to be deceptive; if someone asked me if I’ve spent time preparing for abortion conversations, I’d say yes. But I’m trying to not make that fact obvious because, when it’s obvious, it’s usually off-putting. Here are some easily overlooked mistakes that could prevent your dialogues from feeling relaxed and natural:

ERI-Dialogue-Principle #12

“It’s easy to just denounce the other side as evil. It’s hard to listen to them. It’s hard to try to understand them. It’s risky to treat the other person like a decent human being because then you might have to take them seriously.”

 

For more of the context of this quotation, click here to read the full article, “Snidely Whiplash Is Not on Facebook.” https://blog.equalrightsinstitute.com/snidely-whiplash-is-not-on-facebook/