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COURSE PODCAST CLIP: Listener Mail: Freakonomics

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Every other Wednesday we publish a new episode of the Equipped for Life Podcast, available to everyone who purchases our course, “Equipped for Life: A Fresh Approach to Conversations about Abortion.” Generally, these podcast episodes won’t be available to the general public, but we plan on releasing short clips from the episodes every Thursday, to give you a sense of what these podcasts are like.

In this episode of the Equipped for Life Course Podcast, Tim, Rachel, and I respond to questions on double-effect reasoning and how we would respond to someone who is pro-life for the wrong reasons. Afterwards, we talk about how to respond to the Freakonomics argument that abortion has resulted in a drop in crime rates, as well as a new technique I have been using when talking to utilitarians.

Download Audio MP3 | 00:07:52

In this clip, Tim talks about how pro-life advocates should respond if someone brings up the abortion section from the popular book Freakonomics.

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PODCAST: Two Bad Pro-Life Responses to Bodily Rights Arguments

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Download Audio MP3 | 00:05:11

Even before ERI officially began, Tim and I cared a lot about helping pro-life people to think well and take pro-choice arguments seriously. We don’t think every single pro-choice argument is a good argument (there are a lot of really bad arguments on both sides), but we won’t be persuasive unless we can recognize and take the stronger pro-choice arguments seriously. In this piece, I address two bad pro-life responses to some of the stronger pro-choice arguments.

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Stop Using “Trust Women” as an Abortion Trump Card

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trust women

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes.

Imagine you were talking to someone about child abuse, and they said, “You know, I understand that you’re personally against it, but I think we should trust parents to make the right decisions for their families.” Would you feel like their comment about trust was a meaningful contribution to the discussion or a bizarre red herring?

When abortion-choice advocates speak about abortion they often say we need to trust women to make their own decisions. They say that abortion is an especially personal choice that we should trust women to make for themselves because they are the experts of their own lives.

trust women

trust women

This rhetoric is an unfair representation of the pro-life position because it implies that pro-life people do not trust women. It insinuates that people oppose legal abortion because they think women are inadequate and unable to make choices about their lives. This is a common and false accusation of pro-life people.

Pro-life people are not opposed to abortion because they distrust women. Implying that misogyny is influencing their position on abortion is a misleading sidestep of the real issue. Pro-life people think that a woman should be able to make her own decisions about which doctor she wants, what clothing she wears, her career, her education and many other choices which men have as well. There are some choices, however, which are dangerous or violent in some way. These choices deserve careful examination by the public to determine if they should be against the law. Examples of these choices would be drinking and driving, vandalism, or assault. The choice to kill people should clearly be against the law. Pro-lifers argue that human embryos are people, so you can’t kill them.

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COURSE PODCAST CLIP: How Can the Pro-Life Movement Win Against Viral Pro-Choice Tweets?

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Every other Wednesday we publish a new episode of the Equipped for Life Podcast, available to everyone who purchases our course, “Equipped for Life: A Fresh Approach to Conversations about Abortion.” Generally, these podcast episodes won’t be available to the general public, but we plan on releasing short clips from the episodes every Thursday, to give you a sense of what these podcasts are like.

In this episode of the Equipped for Life Course Podcast, Tim, Rachel, and I respond to a bunch of listener-mail questions related to the thought experiment about a burning in vitro fertilization lab—particularly the concern that it is too easy for pro-choice people to get traction with strawmen tweets when pro-life people have to answer with longer, more thoughtful responses that fewer people will read.

Download Audio MP3 | 00:09:42

In this clip, the team begins to answer a question about how the pro-life movement is supposed to compete in the world of meme-driven, fast-paced internet culture.

Click here to subscribe to the ERI podcast in iTunes.

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PODCAST: Abuse of Academic Authority Regularly Inhibits Pro-Life Speech

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Download Audio MP3 | 00:12:32

Sometimes it is tough to be a pro-life college student. Most challenges students face are found on campus during a tabling event or with the administration, but sometimes they are inside the classroom. Far too often when pro-life students dare to speak up in defense of the unborn, professors attempt to humiliate and silence them.

This piece is about two real stories. One of them happened to me, and one of them happened to Ellen, a student we heard from firsthand on Twitter.

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  • Click here to learn about the Equal Rights Argument

Click here to share the original article.

Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes!

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